Destiny Bay Boxed Set Vol. 1 (Books 1 - 3)

by Helen Conrad

  He tried to say yes. Staring at her, he tried to get the word out. But it stuck in his throat, and finally he just turned and walked toward the comfort of the rocky shore.

  Of course, she stayed. And he didn’t say a word to express how glad he was that she was still there when he came back from his solitary walk on the beach, but she knew. They never mentioned Eleanor’s visit again, and slowly things eased back into a normal routine.

  One thing that continued to bother Carrie was how little Grant seemed to care about his family. She tried to talk to Mickey about it, but she wasn’t sure what the problem was either. While they were sitting in a booth, sipping coffee, suddenly there was a horrible pounding nearby.

  “What in the world is all that banging?” Carrie said.

  Mickey leaned forward with a smile. “It’s a surprise for Jennifer Thornton. Oops, I mean Jennifer Carrington. They’re due back from the honeymoon soon. Before they left, she rented the space next door from me. She’s going to open a branch of her gourmet shop, the Magnificent Munch that she has down in LA. We have her plans and so we’re going to surprise her by having the renovations almost done by the time she gets back.”

  “That’s a very nice surprise.”

  “Well, I owe her and Reid a lot. They helped me find a way to convince Kevin, my ex-husband, to leave Meggie alone and not insist on visitation rights. I would do just about anything for those two.”

  Now that is what family is all about, Carrie said to herself, feeling a warmth and a new sense of optimism just hearing about it. Next project—to get Grant to understand that. Somehow, she had to introduce him to his family again.

  There seemed to be so many things to worry about where Grant was concerned. Particularly with his intense view of the world around him. She wondered why he felt such a need to win all the time, and she waited for an opportunity to delve into his background to search for some answers.

  One sunny afternoon they went fishing with friends Carrie had known since high school. They took Mike Crandle’s cruiser a mile or so out into the channel, looking for big fish. For most of the party of three couples the trip was an excuse to sit in the sun, enjoy a drink, and talk over old times, but for Grant and Mike it became a contest of who could catch the most and the biggest.

  “He didn’t have a chance,” Grant said, chortling as they drove home with a trunkful of silver-scaled, smelly things. “That last half hour I hauled in two perch and a bonito, and he didn’t snag a thing.”

  Carrie rolled her eyes heavenward. “The fact that he didn’t even have a line in the water most of that time because his reel was all fouled up doesn’t count with you, does it?” she said tauntingly.

  He smirked, pulling the car to a stop. “Not a bit. It’s all part of the game.” He turned to her earnestly. “Listen, if my car has trouble on the track, nobody stops the other guys to wait for me.”

  Carrie sighed and got out of the car, meeting him around back to gaze at the mass of fish in a box in the trunk. “I’m beginning to wish you’d lost this one,” she told him. “Who’s going to clean these things?”

  He handed her the poles. “I’ll do it,” he promised. “Just think of the great dinner we’ll have.”

  Carrie was doubtful, but she followed him into the kitchen, feeling a glow of pleasure as she noticed how imperceptible his limp was becoming. He was healing. The pain was infrequent now. And she took a measure of pride in that.

  She watched him dump out his treasure in the sink, whistling cheerfully.

  “Winning really gives you a natural high, doesn’t it?” she observed.

  “Sure.” He began testing knives for sharpness.

  She perched on a stool near him, watching his handsome profile. “Why is winning so important to you?” she asked softly.

  “Winning,” he said with a flourish of the knife he’d chosen, “is life. Without it I’d die.”

  “Oh, brother,” she said, scoffing.

  “It’s true.” He turned to look at her. “Putting myself out there on the line and competing against someone else is how I define myself. Without it I don’t know who I am.”

  “Would that still be true if you didn’t win?” she asked.

  He turned back to the fish. “That’s what I don’t want to find out,” he admitted abruptly.

  She watched him scrape scales for a moment, tempted to let the subject drop, knowing that he didn’t like her probing. But this was her opening. If not now, when? So she pressed on.

  “I wonder if it’s in the genes. I wonder if everyone in your family is just as competitive as you are.” When he didn’t answer, she asked, “Are Reid and Matt like you?”

  He chopped off the head of the fish with a vicious slash that made her jump. Then he stopped and stared into space for a moment, thinking. Now that she’d made him delve into it, he began to see evidence he’d never looked at before.

  “You know, I think maybe the competitiveness does run in the family,” he mused. “Only in a different way.”

  “Such as?”

  He made a face. “Reid was always Mr. Perfect. He got straight As and made our parents proud. I realize now he didn’t do that just for the hell of it. He was competing, too.”

  “Sure.”

  “And Matt got into arguments with Dad all the time, some pretty bad ones. He was always trying to convince Dad to see things his way. Dad didn’t want to. Matt was so annoying about it, he finally got himself kicked out of the family. They cut off his funds when he still had a year to go in college. He had to make it on his own.”

  “Oh my gosh.”

  Grant grinned. “Don’t worry about Matt. He’s a big hotel guy now. He’s doing fine.” He shrugged. “See, even he had his own form of winning.”

  She nodded, hoping he was seeing the pattern and letting these perceptions sink in. His brothers were a lot like him. Maybe they were worth knowing? Could be.

  “And how did your parents like the way you turned out? Did they appreciate your style of winning?”

  He put down the knife carefully, as though afraid to keep holding it while emotions began to race through him and she began to wish she hadn’t asked.

  “They hated it.” He looked at her coolly. “They pretty much felt the same way about me, I think. I didn’t turn out the way I was supposed to.”

  That surprised her. You’d think the kind of championships he’d won would mean something to them. His voice sounded cold rather than sad, but she knew he was covering up his real pain. He had to be.

  “But… aren’t they proud of you and all you’ve accomplished?”

  “Are you kidding?” He winced, remembering, then turned to look at her again. “Okay, here’s the way it was.” He leaned against the counter. “I stopped going to school when I was sixteen. I started hanging around the track over at Bannon, doing odd jobs for the pit crews and learning everything I could. When my parents realized what I was doing, they tried to lock me in my room. I got out and I left.” He looked at her, his eyes dull. “And never went back.”

  That shocked her. He’d been so young! “But how did you live?”

  He shrugged. “I lived at the track, slept in garages. Got kicked around by the crews and drivers until I finally talked them into letting me try driving.”

  He pulled out a new fish to start on, rinsing it under the faucet first.

  “The bastards,” he said softly, remembering. “I wiped their noses in it. I won first time out, and they stopped treating me like dirt.”

  He sounded pleased with himself again. Even now she could see how his early triumph warmed him.

  He turned to grin at her. “Winners get respect, Carrie. Remember that.”

  She tried to smile back. “Winners also get money,” she noted. “And women.”

  His grin broadened. “That’s right. You win enough, you can have anything you want.” He picked up the knife again and waved it at her. “And I do mean anything. I’ve been there.”

  He turned back to the sink.
“But right now I’m interested in cleaning these guys. What do you think? Can we eat them all tonight?”

  Carrie shuddered, averting her gaze. She was deeply troubled by what he’d told her. She was beginning more and more to understand why he was so hard on himself, so hard on her.

  “I was thinking of sending out for pizza,” she said teasingly.

  “Not on your life. We’ll make a huge cioppino.” He whacked off another head and it went shooting across the kitchen. “Oh, get that, will you?”

  “You must be kidding!” she cried, half laughing.

  He looked at her skeptically. “I’m not going to have much success in getting you to saute the eyeballs, am I?”

  Before she could answer he scooped up a handful of minnows and reached for the neck of her jersey top. Squealing, she backed away, but hardly fast enough. By the time they were finished, they both smelled like a fish market, but it was worth it.

  To get rid of the smell they had to take a bath. Luckily the bathtub was big enough for two, and by the time they’d soaped one another down from top to bottom, made love twice, and dried each other off, they were exhausted.

  Grant carried her naked and exceptionally clean body in and lay her on the bed, slipping down beside her for another kiss.

  “I suppose we ought to go back down and finish making that fish stew,” she murmured, eyes drooping. Her damp hair was dark and clustered in strands around her face.

  “I don’t know,” he said, kissing behind her ear. “If we did that, we’d just get all smelly again.” He nibbled at her lobe.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “And then we’d have to go take a bath again.” He nuzzled into her neck, sending shock waves through her.

  “Again,” she agreed breathlessly.

  “And then,” he murmured, nipping at her lips, “we’d end up right back here again.”

  CHAPTER TEN:

  Winning

  “Listen, Mickey says Reid and Matt are back in town,” Carrie told Grant at breakfast two days later. “Why don’t we get together with them and… .”

  “What? I don’t need to see them.” Grant barely looked up from buttering his toast.

  “They’re your brothers.”

  “So what?”

  She gaped at him, hardly able to understand his attitude. “Come on. Let bygones be bygones. They’re family.” She frowned. “At least give Reid a call. You need to congratulate him on his marriage to Jennifer.”

  Putting down his knife, he stared at her. “Reid doesn’t want to hear from me. Not now. Not ever. Drop it.”

  But she couldn’t. It just seemed so unnatural. Later that morning, after the workout, she tried again. Instead of getting angry, he sat down beside her at the edge of the pool and began to talk.

  “You might as well face something, Carrie. I didn’t come back to Destiny Bay to hook up with my family again.”

  She frowned, curious. “Then why did you come back here? And why did you rent this old place?”

  His grin was half-hearted. “The old Ashton place? I know it’s kind of a wreck, but it symbolized something to me. When I was a kid, the Ashtons were still living here. Do you remember? Brent Ashton made all his money as a tennis champion, and he spent it as though the flow would never stop. The Carringtons, the Maxwells, and all the other swells kind of sneered at him, but he didn’t care. He flaunted his wealth and enjoyed it. I liked that.”

  She nodded. She could see why he might identify with that.

  “So I came back here despite my family. I don’t care about them. They’ve never cared about me. So give it up.”

  “Grant…” She reached for his hand and held it in hers. “That’s just so sad. I can’t stand it.”

  “You want sad?” His voice was rougher, but he didn’t pull his hand away. He hesitated for a moment, as though weighing whether he really wanted to tell her this. But then he steeled himself and went on.

  “When I got good at racing, when I got real good, I thought it would make a difference. When I was the youngest to win the National trophy, I thought they would be proud of me at last. It was huge. I came home. I brought it with me, carried it on the plane. And I went into the house and I set it down in front of my father. And I waited for him to finally…” His voice choked, but he got it out. “For him to finally … care. Respect me. Hell, maybe love me a little.”

  She waited, heart beating.

  He looked out toward the ocean and it was a moment before he could speak again. “And all he said was, “Let me know when you’re ready to grow up and stop playing kids games and get a real job. Until then, take this piece of trash with you and get out.”

  Carrie’s eyes filled with tears. She could see how that had ripped his heart out. For just a moment, she hated his father right along with him.

  “I got out. And I never came back. Three years ago when my father got into trouble—he was embezzling peoples’ money or something, I forget. And he was going to trial for it. Reid called me and told me I had to come back, we all had to rally around our father and support him.”

  He turned to look at her candidly. “I told Reid to go to hell. He told me I was dead to him.” He shrugged. “And as far as I’m concerned, that is that.”

  He pulled her to him and kissed her tears. “Don’t cry. They aren’t worth it. Just forget they exist. I have.”

  But she couldn’t stop. Sobs were ripping through her chest. Underneath it all, she was very much afraid that Grant was damaged beyond anything she could ever do to heal him. Hope was slipping away.

  But whatever else she was, Carrie was an eternal optimist, and she couldn’t stay depressed for long.

  “I have an idea,” she said two days later. “Let’s have a party.”

  “I don’t want a party.”

  Grant’s face was set stubbornly, and Carrie sighed, exasperated with him. It could be so much fun. She wanted to show him off and show off their relationship. Just what that relationship was she wasn’t too sure, but that hardly mattered. He made her happier than she’d ever been before in her life. She wanted all her friends to meet him and love him, too, and for him to learn to love Destiny Bay the way she did. But how could he if he refused to open up and be part of it all?

  “Why not?” she demanded. “It’s time you got out and met more of the people around here. You can’t hole away out on the cliff forever. Your leg is responding wonderfully. I want the world to see how great you look!”

  Great was hardly the word for it. She let her glance slip across his naked torso; the hard, rounded muscles tight and golden in the sunshine; the darker hair spreading in swirling patterns from his chest, down to where his leather belt held his worn jeans. The pants, themselves, fit tightly, accenting every male inch of him.

  His leg was doing wonderfully—so well, in fact, that when he’d walked across a room toward her that morning, he’d seemed almost normal. His quick recovery was due mostly to his determination, but she took some credit too. After all, she was the one who had found the methods, the special exercises, and had kept him going day after day after day.

  “I just don’t want a party.” He hated how truculent he sounded, but it was either that or tell her the whole truth—and he wasn’t ready to do that yet.

  His leg was much better. So good, in fact, that he knew he could race again. It was time for him to leave, to get on with his own life, and she was talking about getting to know Destiny Bay society. Why would he get to know people now, when he was about to leave?

  But he couldn’t say that to her directly. If she let herself think about it, she’d know. And actually, he dreaded the time when she realized it. He could picture how her big eyes would fill with anguish, and the thought always made him wince.

  He looked at her. They were sitting in chairs around the pool. A breeze was blowing in off the ocean, ruffling her hair around her pretty face. She was wearing shorts and a halter top, and her long brown legs were stretched out before her, glistening in the sunshine
. Sea gulls screamed in the distance, and the waves were pounding the shore, as always. He wished this time could go on forever, never stop.

  “Well, never mind,” she was saying with a toss of her head. “We’ll think of some other way to celebrate your miraculous recovery. A recovery due, I might add, to the marvelous work of that famous physical therapist”—she patted her own chest with mock pride—“Carrie Harlow.”

  He smiled at her happiness, tousling her hair. The big band sound of his ringtone came from the house where he’d left it.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said, jumping up and striding across the grass.

  Carrie sat back, watching him go, and suddenly she shivered. There was a hint of fall in the air, and a tiny dread building deep inside her. Something was changing in their relationship. She could sense it, though she couldn’t put her finger on exactly what it was. His leg was better now. Did he still need her?

  She pushed that thought away and contemplated her polished toenails. A party would be so much fun. Why did he have to be such a bear about it? He hadn’t come back, so it seemed that the phone call was for him. There’d been more and more calls lately—mostly his old racing buddies. Her eyes lit up. Maybe he would have a party if she invited a few of them. Maybe if she put it to him that way ...

  Rising from her chair, she walked into the house, her step bouncing with eagerness to try that tack right away. Plans were whirling through her head. They could have the party outdoors. It was still early enough in the autumn for that. Maybe a Hawaiian luau. Everyone would wear flowers in their hair and leis around their necks. The caterers could roast a pig on an outdoor spit. ...

  Grant was still on the telephone in the study. His back was to her, and he didn’t hear her arrive. She hesitated in the doorway, wondering if she should go and come back later or flop down into a chair and wait it out. She didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but his next words caught her attention. She stopped, breath held, and as she listened, her eyes got wider and wider.

  “I’ll need at least a week, maybe more, to get back into the action. Hell, I haven’t even been behind the wheel of a decent car in so long. Yeah, I’m in shape. There’s no problem there. I can hold my own, don’t worry. Have I ever failed you yet?”