by Marie Force
He’d given her a lot to think about.
If not for the storm, Grant might’ve skipped the gathering at Mac’s house. Sitting alone in a dark house had given him far too much time to think, so he headed to the marina. Back in the day, he would’ve used the unexpected free time to work on the screenplay of the moment. But lately, the words just weren’t there. He kept expecting them to come back. They’d been so much a part of him for his entire life that the silence of their absence was overwhelming.
If he allowed himself to think too much about whether or not they’d ever come back, he’d lose what was left of his mind. The words had made him special. They’d given him something most other people didn’t have. Without them, he was nothing—a thought that filled him with irrational panic. It was definitely better not to think about it.
As he drove, he told himself he was going to refill the generator with gas, check on the boats and make sure the marina was withstanding the storm. But underneath it all, he wanted to check on Stephanie. Thinking of her alone in the dark at the deserted marina bothered him for some strange reason.
She was a pain in the ass, no doubt about it, but his mother had raised him right, and he’d rather not feel guilty about her being alone when she could be with his family and friends. Even though Mac had invited both of them earlier, Grant was quite certain Stephanie wouldn’t go to the party on her own.
He parked outside the main building and pulled the hood up over his head to take a quick walk down the main pier. The few remaining boats bobbed and rolled, but they all seemed securely tied, so Grant turned into the wind to hustle back the way he’d come. The rain was almost painful as it beat against his face. Using his key, he let himself into the main building and shook off the wetness in the vestibule.
Still dripping, he stepped into the restaurant and found Stephanie at one of the tables, poring over a pile of papers with a battery-powered light illuminating the vast space. Howling wind had the old wood building creaking and straining, and Grant was grateful that Mac had recently replaced the roof. At least it was dry.
Despite the howling and creaking, Stephanie was completely absorbed in whatever she was doing. Grant couldn’t help but notice how vulnerable she seemed as she was nearly dwarfed by the huge stack of papers. She had her head propped in the palm of her hand, and her lips moved as she read, which was oddly adorable. Her neck was long and graceful, which spurred yet another memory from the night before—of worshiping the soft skin on her neck with openmouthed kisses that had made her moan.
Before his body could react to the images that accompanied the memory, Grant cleared his throat and stepped into the room.
She looked up, startled and seeming slightly fearful. What was that all about?
“Hey.” Standing so fast her chair toppled over behind her, she got busy scooping up the papers. “What’re you doing here?”
“I thought you might like to go to the party at Mac’s.”
“Oh. Um.” Her gaze darted to the stack of papers. “I have stuff to do here.”
“What’s all that?”
She shifted ever so slightly, as if she were trying to put herself between him and the papers. “Nothing. Just some work.”
Grant closed the small distance between them and leaned over her shoulder, startled to settle his gaze on what looked to be a legal document of some sort. “Are you in trouble?”
“No! Of course not. It’s nothing.” With a hand to his chest, she fended him off. “It’s none of your business.”
Grant couldn’t help but laugh at that, even though he had never seen her so nervous. “Isn’t that rich coming from someone who’s planted herself knee-deep in my business since the day we met.”
“That’s because you needed my help. I don’t. Need yours, that is.”
Taking a chair and turning it around backward, Grant straddled it. “Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?”
“What’re you doing? You can’t just plunk yourself down…”
He arched a brow. “Like I own the place?” Part of him wanted to cringe as the words left his mouth, since it wasn’t like him to play that card, but he was too proud of the zinger to take it back. Let’s face it, he owed her a few from earlier.
All the starch seemed to leave her when he said that, and she sagged, which made him feel like an ass for poking at her when she clearly didn’t want him to. The Stephanie he knew didn’t sag.
“Please, Grant. Leave it alone. I’m asking you as a friend.”
“So we’re friends now?” He rubbed at the stubble on his chin. “Is that so?”
“It’s easier to think of you as a friend than to think of myself as a slut because of what happened last night.”
He hated to hear her use that word to describe herself. “So we had sex. Big whoop. People do it all the time.”
“I don’t.”
Something about the way she said the two little words conveyed a world of loneliness that touched him in places he didn’t want her touching him. Those places belonged to Abby, and he’d do well to remember that. “So what is all this?”
“I told you I don’t want to talk about it.”
“And I told you earlier I didn’t want to talk about Abby. Did you listen to me? Nope.”
“This is different.”
“Because we’re minding your business instead of mine?”
Glowering at him, she let out a deep sigh. “You are so aggravating.”
“Likewise.” He felt sort of bad for pushing her, but why should she be able to dig into his crap if he couldn’t dig into hers? Not that he cared about her crap, but it was fun to provoke her for some reason.
“If you must know, I’m doing some research.”
“What kind of research?”
“The kind you do when you want to know more about something.”
That’s when he realized she was humoring him and had no intention of actually leveling with him. Grant snatched one of the pages off the table. The top line said, “The People v. Charles Grandchamp.” The name was familiar to him, but he couldn’t say why.
“Give that to me!” She grabbed the paper from him and clutched it to her chest.
Grant glanced up at her and was shocked to find tears forming in her expressive eyes. “Stephanie…” He felt like a total creep for pushing the issue, even if he’d only been intending to give her a bit of her own medicine. “I’m sorry.”
With her jaw set in that mulish expression she did so well, she looked away from him.
“I was just fooling around. I didn’t mean to upset you.” Berating himself for going too far, he reached for her chin and forced her to meet his gaze. “I’m sorry, okay?”
She shrugged him off and returned the paper he’d taken to her stack.
“Tell me,” he said, not sure why it mattered so much.
Shaking her head, she said, “I can’t.” The helpless tone to her voice was so wildly removed from her usual sauciness that it further saddened him.
“Maybe I can help.”
That drew a bitter-sounding laugh from her that was so different from the laughter he’d experienced in the mud puddle that he would’ve thought it came from someone else if he hadn’t been watching her closely both times.
“No one can help.”
“Stephanie—”
“Fine!” The word seemed to have been torn from her very soul as she spun around, her eyes wild with rage and fear and pain unlike anything he’d ever seen in his life. “If you want to know so bad—here it is. Charles Grandchamp is my stepfather—the one person in my whole, entire, miserable life who was ever good to me, who ever loved me or gave a shit about me. And guess where he is?” Before Grant could begin to form a coherent statement, she answered her own question. “In prison, serving a life sentence with no chance of parole for kidnapping and assault of a minor.” Her chest heaved, and tears fell freely down her face.
Riveted by her outburst, Grant couldn’t seem to move as he absorbed what she’d s
aid. “Who did he kidnap and assault?”
“Me,” she said so softly he almost didn’t hear her over the howling and creaking.
Chapter 6
Grant dropped into the chair he’d recently abandoned. He had no idea what to say.
“Except it wasn’t a kidnapping,” she continued, “and he never laid a hand on me with anything other than love or affection. He saved my life by getting me away from my abusive, drug-addicted mother and has paid for that with fourteen years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.”
“If he didn’t kidnap or assault you, how’d he end up in jail?”
“Well, technically, he did kidnap me, but no one wanted to hear that a fourteen-year-old went willingly with him rather than spend another second waiting for her mother to get high and either beat the shit out of her or forget about her altogether. She’s the one who actually beat me. He paid for the bruises she left on me.”
“They didn’t let you testify?”
“They did, but the prosecution twisted every word I said to make him look bad, and the jury believed them. I’ve devoted my life to trying to get him a new trial. Every dime I have goes to lawyers.” She glanced at the stack of paper on the table. “I’ve probably learned enough to sail through law school.”
“Does this have something to do with your Fridays off?” She went to the mainland every Friday without fail, even though that was one of the busiest days at the marina in the summer. The first week they’d worked together, she’d told Grant she was off on Fridays and made it clear that was nonnegotiable.
She nodded. “Visiting day at the prison.”
“I’m so sorry, Stephanie. I had no idea. I was a jerk—”
“That’s all right. I’m getting used to it.”
Startled, he glanced at her and found a smile tugging at her full lips. Suddenly, he needed to touch her. All thoughts of Abby and his big plans to get her back fled from his mind in the midst of Stephanie’s overwhelming sadness. “Come here.”
She recoiled from his outstretched hand. “What?”
“Come here.”
“Why?”
Grant swallowed his exasperation. “Just do it.”
Rolling her eyes, she took a step toward him.
“Closer.”
Another small step.
Grant reached out, grabbed her hand and tugged, causing her to lose her balance—just as he’d intended. He caught her and settled her on his lap with his arms around her.
“What’re you doing?” Seeming horrified, she squirmed around on his lap, giving him a whole other problem.
“This,” he said, tightening his arms around her.
“Grant—”
“Do you ever stop talking?”
“Really. You don’t have to—”
He brushed his lips against her short hair, breathing in the musky, feminine scent of her. “Hush.”
It took a minute, but she finally settled and relaxed into his embrace, her head resting on his shoulder.
“There, was that so hard?”
“Yes.”
He couldn’t help but smile at that. “Have you been fighting this battle by yourself all this time?”
“There’s no one else.”
“You know,” he said tentatively, “as I writer, I’m pretty good at research.”
Raising her head from his shoulder, she tried to struggle out of his hold.
“Wait. Let me finish.” She didn’t relax, but she stopped trying to get free, which he took as a small victory. “All I’m saying is I might be able to help. You’ve been looking at it for a long time. Maybe I’ll see something you’ve missed.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“I know it’s not, but didn’t you say before that we’re friends? And don’t friends help their friends?”
“I appreciate the offer. Really, I do. But it’s not your problem.” This time when she pushed at him, he let her go. She got up and started sorting her papers into neat stacks.
Grant said nothing as he watched her, but inside he churned. How was he supposed to hear what she’d just told him and not want to help her in some way? She’d said she didn’t want his help, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t look into the case on his own, did it?
“You must want to get to your brother’s,” she said, obviously wanting him gone after the emotional firestorm he’d started.
“Only if you come with me.” No way would he leave her here alone after he’d forced her to talk about her painful past.
“I’m not in the mood for a party tonight.”
Grant put his feet up on one of the other chairs, settling in. “We can heat up some chowder or something here, then.”
Placing her hands on her hips, she stared at him, incredulous. “You’re missing a golden opportunity to talk to Abby without Cal around.”
He shrugged as he realized the idea of talking to Abby had lost its luster in the last half hour. “He’ll be gone awhile. There’ll be other opportunities.”
She threw her hands up in dismay. “This is why you need constant supervision. You have no idea what you’re doing!”
Relieved to see some of her earlier spunk returning, Grant took the insult without comment. Instead, he smirked at her, letting her think she’d won a round. Whatever it took to wipe that demolished, devastated expression from her arresting face.
Glowering at him, she said, “You just want me to go so you can use me to make her jealous.”
“Are you saying you’re not game? I thought you wanted to help me get her back?”
“You do need all the help you can get.”
“I guess you’d better come, then. God knows what kind of trouble I could get into on my own if left unsupervised.”
He knew he’d convinced her when she growled at him, gathered up the stack of paper and stomped into her quarters off the kitchen. When she returned with the flimsy windbreaker she’d worn earlier, Grant bit back a swear and stood to shrug off his own coat. “Put this on.”
“Why? That’s yours.”
“Actually, it’s Joe’s, and that thing you’re wearing wouldn’t keep a flea dry in this weather.”
“What will keep you dry?”
“I’ll grab one of my dad’s coats from the office.”
Tentatively, she took it from him. “I’m not used to this thoughtful side of you.”
“I can be quite charming when I put my mind to it,” he said, amused by her even though he really didn’t want to be. She had a way of putting him in his place. He was far more used to women who were solicitous toward him, hoping to catch his eye, but he’d been a one-woman man his entire adult life. Sparring with Stephanie was an entirely new—and not entirely unpleasant—experience.
“Good to know. You might want to show Abby a little more of that and a little less of the pathetic hound-dog thing, if you want my opinion.”
And just like that he went from being amused straight back to annoyed. “I don’t, but thanks just the same.” He brushed past her on his way to the stairs. In the second-floor office that used to be his father’s and was now shared by Mac and Luke, he fumbled around in the dark, feeling for the row of hooks that housed a variety of coats and jackets. His hand finally settled on a foul-weather coat that he took downstairs with him.
Stephanie had donned the yellow coat, which was huge on her, making her look even more waifish than usual.
“Ready?” Grant asked brusquely.
She cut the light on the table, plunging them into inky darkness. “Ready.” As she made her way toward him, she stumbled.
Grant reached out and somehow managed to catch her, stopping her fall.
Her fingers tightened on his biceps, which sent a charge of desire to his groin.
He choked back a groan. Why did he have to react to her every damned time she came near him?
“Thanks,” she muttered, moving past him.
Grant followed her out the door, locked it and nearly had himself back under control by the tim
e he slid into the cab next to her.
All the way to Mac’s, Stephanie berated herself. How could she have been so stupid as to tell Grant the whole ugly story? She never told anyone, so why pour it all out to a guy who infuriated her more than anything else? Maybe it was because sometimes the weight of her burden became too much to bear all by herself. For a brief moment, it had felt good to share it with someone else.
As the summer drew to a close, she was still a thousand dollars short of the ten thousand she had to pay Charlie’s lawyer to keep the appeal process moving forward, but she’d come up with it somehow.
Their only remaining hope was a new trial, and the lawyer they’d recently hired was confident they had a shot. Of course they’d heard that before and had learned not to get their hopes up. There were times, especially during the glorious summer on the island, when Stephanie wondered how she managed to find the wherewithal to press on in the midst of such a seemingly hopeless situation. But as long as Charlie was behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit, Stephanie would keep up the fight. What right did she have to beautiful sunsets or crisp, clear island days while he rotted in jail?
Prison had changed him from a sweet, gentle soul to a hardened, bitter man. She’d never rest as long as he continued to pay for trying to help free her from a nightmare.
“You’re awfully quiet over there,” Grant said, his deep voice puncturing the silent cocoon of the truck’s cab.
“Just thinking.”
“About?”
Even though it was inky dark, she glanced over at him, conjuring the image of his arresting profile. The strong jaw, the perfectly sized nose, the thick hair, those soft lips… “You won’t tell anyone about Charlie. Right?”
“Of course not.”
Releasing a deep breath, she said, “Good. Thanks.”
“Listen, Stephanie—”
“Please. I can’t talk about it anymore. I appreciate that you want to help, but there’s really nothing you can do.”
“All I was going to say is that I’m here if you need a friend.”
She was thankful that the overwhelming darkness hid the tears that immediately flooded her eyes. She’d been so alone with this for so long that he couldn’t know what his offer meant to her. But then she remembered he was in love with someone else, and his every thought was directed toward getting her back. Leaning on a man who wanted to be with someone else was a recipe for disaster, and she’d already had more than her share.
