Chapter Seven
LATER THAT EVENING Grayson pulled into Parker’s driveway and cut the engine. “Why don’t we let Christmas out and sit outside for a while? Unless you’re too tired and would rather I went home?”
“Stay. That sounds great.” She wasn’t ready for the evening to end either. After they’d danced—and shared more magical kisses—they’d spent time with Grayson’s family and friends. Parker was delighted when, as Grayson had anticipated, the girls wanted to exchange numbers. She was starting to think Grayson had some type of weird cosmic connection to her. How did he know they’d want to bring her into their circle?
Christmas smothered them with kisses before running off into the yard. Parker grabbed a blanket from the house, and they went out back and spread it over the grass by the edge of the bluff. Grayson put his arm around her and tucked her against his side.
“I heard Sky say we make a cute couple,” he said casually. They hadn’t been a couple when they’d arrived, but somehow, in the space of a few short hours, they’d become one. “Are you okay with that?”
She wondered how she could be sending vibes that told him she might not be okay with any part of this. “Are you okay with it?”
“What do you think?” He lifted her chin and pressed his lips to hers. “But you’re pretty image conscious, and I don’t want to mess anything up for you.”
“Grayson, it’s not that I’m image conscious. I’m conscious of my public image because I have to be. It’s my career.”
“So I’m learning. But that doesn’t negate the fact that I don’t want to screw things up for you.”
“Well, that’s really nice of you, but dating you can’t mess things up for me, unless you have a torrid past you’re not telling me about.”
“No torrid past. I’ve never been a saint, but I wasn’t a scoundrel.”
“Then what’s not to be okay with?”
He shrugged. “Just making sure. How about you? Anything in your past that might tarnish my reputation?”
“No. Embarrassingly, I’ve always been a good girl.”
“I bet you have.” He kissed her again, a little longer this time. “I’ll never make fun of your goodness, but I might bring out your naughty side.”
“How do you know I have a naughty side?” Do I have a naughty side?
“Just a sense I get, that there’s a lot more to you than you let on.”
There he went again, seeing her more clearly than anyone else ever had. Could he also see that she was nervous about what was happening between them?
“I haven’t been in a relationship for so long,” she admitted. “I don’t know if I remember how.” The sea air swept up the bluff, serenaded by the sounds of the bay. She soaked up the peacefulness of the evening and the pulse-quickening waves of anticipation for what was yet to come.
“I guess that makes two of us. We’ll figure it out.” He laced their fingers together and gazed out at the water. “Tell me about your relationship with Polly.”
“Polly?” She couldn’t hide the surprise in her voice.
“You mentioned her last night. You said, ‘Parker can’t do things like cry, or curse, or eat an entire jumbo bag of M&M’s and watch horror movies until her eyes nearly bleed without being judged. Only Polly can do that.’ I thought she might be your sister, but you said you had no family.”
“I…She’s…” She looked up at the starry sky, wanting not only to share her past with him, but also to climb out from under the weight of it. Before she could talk herself out of it, she said, “I’m Polly.”
“Oh. Is Parker your stage name? Is that what they call it?”
She was shocked and relieved by his unfazed reaction to what felt to her like a huge reveal. “Yes. My real name is Polly Collins. My agent said Polly was too ‘Pollyanna.’ ‘Being Polly’ means being a normal person without worries about paparazzi or bad press, being able to go out with friends like we did tonight, without constantly looking over my shoulder. Which, by the way, you were right about that place. It was dark, loud, crowded, and I totally blended in with everyone. But it’s not like that where I live. Paparazzi come out of the woodwork back home, in the grocery store, restaurants, beaches. They’re everywhere. I want to be Polly so badly sometimes I can’t see straight.”
She pressed her hand to her chest, breathing deeply. “Wow, it feels so good to say that out loud. I’ve spent my entire adult life pretending to be Parker and, for much of that time, wishing I could be Polly in public, even for a day.”
“I really like this side of you, whoever you are right now. Polly, Parker, Parky. Yeah, maybe that’s a better name for you.”
“Do not call me Parky.” They both laughed at that.
“Thanks for trusting me enough to tell me. I won’t out you to the press.”
She playfully nudged him with her shoulder. “You joke, but you have no idea what this feels like. Do you know how many people I’ve kept that from? Directors, producers, actors.”
“And a lowly steelworker got it out of you,” he teased.
“Lowly nothing. You’re more talented at what you do than half the actors I know are at acting.”
He shrugged, a humble smile curving his lips.
“I’m telling you the truth. I created that two-year contract because you and Hunter are so talented. Your work is striking. When I saw the model of your gazebo, I wanted to climb inside it with a good book, a comfy blanket, and some chocolate and hunker down for a month.”
“Then I’ll have to build you one for the yard so you can do just that. And I’m pretty sure Christmas would be upset if you didn’t hunker down with him.” He put his cheek beside hers and said in a low whisper, “I might want to do some hunkering myself.”
Yes, please. “Build me a gazebo and I might let you. Did you always know you wanted to work with metal?”
“I never wanted to do anything else, so I guess you could say that. My father owns a hardware store, and he didn’t have much free time when we were growing up, but he made time to help us find hobbies we enjoyed. Probably to keep the chaos level down. I’m sure we were a handful. He built Sky a small shed that they made into an art studio. Bought Matt every book under the sun and taught Pete to refinish boats. It’s a little embarrassing to admit, and if you ever tell this to Hunter I’ll deny it, but I always thought Hunter was so cool, you know? He’s always been a bit surly, rougher around the edges than Pete and Matt. He wanted to forge metal, and I pushed my way into the lessons.”
“You’re so confident. I can’t imagine you thinking anyone is cooler than you. You were probably competitive and wanted to do it better than him.”
He laughed under his breath. “That’s probably what I should have said, but it wouldn’t be true. He’s my older brother. I looked up to him. Wanna know a secret?”
“Who doesn’t love a juicy secret?” She loved these intimate glimpses into his youth.
“I still think he’s pretty cool.”
Hearing such a virile man admit something like that, she found him even more attractive. “And I had you nailed as such a tough guy.”
Christmas ambled over and stretched out on the blanket by their feet. Grayson slipped off his shoes and rubbed his foot along the pup’s fur. “I am tough.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” she teased.
“What? How can you resist him?” He leaned forward and petted Christmas’s head.
“I can’t.” Just like I can’t resist you.
GRAYSON DIDN’T KNOW what it was about Parker that made him feel like he wanted to tell her all his secrets, but the caring look in her eyes drew the truth right out of him.
“I’ve always played my cards pretty close to my chest, but that’s impossible when I’m with you. With you, I’m more like my mother was. She couldn’t hide her emotions if her life depended on it, and you bring that out in me. No one has ever done that before.”
“I think your mom would be happy that you’re taking after her,” she said sweetly. “You must miss her.”
“I do. I miss a lot of things about her, like the way she’d hum when she was hiding something. She was terrible at keeping secrets, even about birthday presents. She’d nearly burst, wanting to tell us what they were.” He smiled with the memory. “And her homemade steak pie, which sounds really bad, was delicious. But what I miss most is that feeling of walking in the door and seeing her face light up, even when I was a teenager and a pain in the rear. Or when I’d call her on the phone and hear a smile in her voice, you know? Like she could push aside the annoying things we did and see the good in us all the time.”
Parker dropped her gaze. “I don’t really know those feelings.”
His chest tightened. “Were you very young when you lost your parents?”
“I never knew my father, and my mom was killed when I was a year old.” She drew in a shaky breath. “We were driving across the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge when that big earthquake hit. I don’t remember it, of course, although I wish I could remember something about her. Anything, really.”
“Oh, baby. I’m so sorry.” He gathered her in his arms, the soothing sounds of the bay playing in the distance, conflicting with the rampant beating of her heart. “Was Bert a relative? Did he raise you?”
She shook her head and sat back, finally meeting his gaze. “They weren’t able to track down any relatives, so I grew up in the foster care system. When I was sixteen I started working part-time as a bus girl in a diner, and that’s where I met Bert. He came in every Sunday. When I graduated from high school, I went full-time. We had become pretty friendly by then, and I knew he was a photographer, and when he asked if he could take a few pictures of me, I agreed.”
“You know how dangerous that was, right?”
She smiled, nodded. “Yeah. But Bert was in his seventies, and he was gay, so I was pretty sure he wasn’t interested in getting me naked. We met at a park one afternoon, and he took some pictures. After that we talked more often, and a few weeks later he asked if I’d ever considered modeling, which was a world away from anything I’d ever thought about. I was thankful to have a job that paid enough to rent a room. Anyway, a few weeks after that he told me he’d shown the pictures he’d taken to his friend who was a modeling agent and asked if I’d meet him. I agreed, and a month later I was earning three times what I’d been making at the diner, but I hated modeling. I wasn’t used to that kind of attention. It made me uncomfortable, being the sole object of the camera and having people touch me, position my body. I don’t know…It just wasn’t my thing.”
Grayson tried to imagine her at eighteen, putting all her trust in Bert and jumping into an industry that carried rumors of trading sex for jobs. “You’re really lucky Bert was an honest guy. I hope he took your discomfort to heart.”
“I’m lucky he was honest and caring. He was a good man, and he treated me like a daughter. When I told him I didn’t like modeling, he arranged for me to meet Phillipa Grace, another agent, and when I decided to give acting a shot, he paid for private acting lessons. He went with me to auditions, helped me run lines, and watched out for me. Phillipa is still my agent, and she’s always been very good to me.”
Grayson was beginning to understand her need to do for Bert what he never could. He’d been there for her in the most important ways a person could be. “Do you like acting?”
“The work? Yes. I grew up living with one foot out the door at all times, even though the families I stayed with treated me well. Stability was the unattainable dream. The brass ring. I was with my first family for three years, and for whatever reason, I went back into the system. A year later they found me another home, but that lasted less than a year, and the one after that wasn’t much longer. You get the picture.”
“I can’t imagine what that was like.” He pulled her closer again, needing the contact.
“When it’s your life and it’s all you know, you figure out coping mechanisms without even realizing you’re doing it. Like not getting too attached. But that’s what’s so great about acting. I get to slip into a life and pretend to be a cherished daughter, sister, or mother. It’s like living out a fantasy. But I don’t like all the stuff that comes with acting. There’s no privacy back home, and despite the tequila I drank the other night, I’m not a party girl and I don’t really fit into that world.”
“Which is why Polly’s the fantasy for you.” He saw her so much clearer now. “And for most people, you’re living their fantasy.”
She nodded, and her eyes went serious. “Please don’t think I’m not grateful for everything I have and every opportunity I’ve been given, because I am. I know how fortunate I am. My career allowed me to create the children’s foundation and to give other kids whose lives feel unstable a chance to have something to hang on to, to look forward to amid the chaos of moving, of trying to fit in and make new friends.”
Her voice rose with excitement and purpose. “I know it’s not much in the grand scheme of things,” she said. “But when you grow up in foster care, your next move is determined for you. You’re moved away from kids you’ve gotten close to, who you care about. It’s not a choice; it’s a given. Through CCF we’re giving those kids a chance to come back together with the kids they’ve spent time with, they’ve lived with, they’ve bonded with. Coming back to the same place with the same kids each year allows those early bonds to become stronger. It’s a way to maintain the relationship with the scared girl who slept in the bed next to you for a year, or a month, or whatever. It’s keeping those friendships alive instead of trying to forget them because some other kid will be in that bed tomorrow. And, of course, it takes all sorts of approvals, red tape, and money, and—”
“Parker.” He was momentarily speechless, in awe of her strength and courage with all she’d gone through. And shocked that she was still able to trust so easily after such a rocky start to her life. She was not only unveiling her past, but she was revealing her generous heart, her hopes, and her dreams, trying to give others what she never had. He’d undervalued the foundation’s mission, and he realized, not for the first time that day, how much he took for granted in his own life. She was giving him renewed appreciation for his loving family, and she increased his desire to help her find the stability she craved, and all the things she wished for others, for herself.
“Sorry. I’m rambling again,” she said shyly.
“No, sweetheart.” He held her gaze, scrounging for the right words. “You’re passionate and inspiring and so incredibly strong you make me look weak. How on earth do you survive in Hollywood? How has some guy not fallen head over heels in love with you and swept you off your feet yet?”
He didn’t wait for her answer, couldn’t wait. He had too many things he wanted to say. “I wish…I wish for so much it’s hard to put into words. I wish you hadn’t lost your mom and that you’d known your father. I wish Bert were still here for you, and for me, so I could thank him. I was pretty mad at him for leaving you the letters that led you to Abe, but he really was your everything. How can I be anything but thankful for a man like that?”
“He was the kindest man I’d ever met, until you. You’re right up there with him.”
He slid his hand beneath her hair, to the nape of her neck. “Knowing what Bert meant to you, that’s the highest compliment I could ever hope for. I didn’t understand CCF’s mission before, but it all makes sense now. I get it, and I am so proud to be part of it.”
“You don’t have to say that just for me.”
“Not for you. Because of you. You’ve opened my eyes. I want to be involved, Parker. With the foundation, and with you.”
Heat pulsed in the space between them.
“Grayson…?” She reached for him as he leaned forward. Her eyes held the same wonder about what was happening between them as he felt.
“I feel it, too, sweetheart. I don’t have the answers.” This was new territory, combining want and need with a heart that never wanted to let her go. “But I don’t want to fight what we feel.”
Her breath whispered over his skin as he pressed a soft kiss to the swell of her upper lip, then the lower. Her eyes fluttered closed on a sigh of surrender, and he sucked her plump lower lip into his mouth. She tasted so sweet he went back for more, kissing her tenderly, again and again. Slow, slow, slow, he told himself, fighting the urge to take it deeper, to make her his in every way and wanting to savor every anticipatory breath, every touch, every breathy plea as it fell from her mouth.
Slow, slow, slow.
Tracing her lips with his tongue, riding the sweet curves to the corner, he kissed her there.
“Grayson,” she whispered in a shaky breath.
The desire in her voice slithered under his skin and blazed straight to his core. He gathered her hair over one shoulder and dragged his tongue along her sensitive skin, pausing to press a series of kisses to the curve of her neck. She was breathing hard, her nails digging into his chest, as he placed openmouthed kisses along the base of her neck. He continued the tantalizing assault, savoring the rampant beat of her pulse against his tongue. She tasted of summer and sweet goodness he never knew existed. In one swift move, he swept her body beneath him, cradling her head as he came down over her, reveling in the passion in her eyes, the feel of her soft curves beneath him for the very first time. She rocked against him. Torture didn’t begin to describe the torment of holding back, but it was exquisite torture. Slow, slow, slow.
“We’re going to be so good together,” he promised. “When we’re ready.”
A whimper escaped her, and he pressed his mouth to hers, holding back from deepening the kiss, because if he did, slow would turn fierce. He wanted fierce, but first…
“Tonight I’m going to kiss you until you can’t feel your lips.” His lips brushed over hers. “Until your body is weak with wanting and your mind is so full of us that you taste us tomorrow.” He kissed her cheek, her neck, her jaw, and the air left Parker’s lungs in another dreamy sigh. “Until kissing me is the only thing you can think about.” He sealed his lips over her neck and sucked, earning a wanton moan. She arched against him, fisting her hands in his hair, testing his control.
“And then I’m going to kiss you some more.” He slanted his mouth over hers and made good on that promise.