by Nora Roberts
Ethan tucked a hand in his back pocket and looked toward the boat. This place, this business, had been his dream, not Cam’s, not Phillip’s. “I didn’t mean it that way. I guess I know what you put away to pull this off.”
“We needed it.”
“Yeah, but you’re the only one who’s given up anything to make it happen. I haven’t bothered to thank you for it, and I’m sorry for that.”
Every bit as uncomfortable as his brother, Cam stared at the boat. “I’m not exactly suffering here. The business is going to help us get permanent guardianship of Seth—and it’s satisfying on its own account. Of course, Phil’s bitching about our cash flow every time you turn around.”
“That’s his strength.”
“Bitching?”
Ethan grinned around the cigar clamped in his teeth. “Yeah, and cash flows. You and me, we could never pull this off without him nagging us about the details.”
“We may have more for him to nag about. That’s what I started to tell you. Bardette has a friend who’s interested in a custom catboat. He wants fast and he wants pretty, fitted out and sailing by March.”
Ethan frowned and worked timetables in his head. “It’s going to take us another seven or eight weeks to finish this one, and that puts us into end of August, beginning of September.”
Calculating, he leaned back against the workbench, his eyes narrowed against the smoke. “Then we got the sport’s fisher. I can’t see us finishing her off before January, and that’s pushing. That doesn’t give us enough time to deliver.”
“No, not the way things are. I can give it full-time and after crab season’s over, I imagine you’ll put in more hours here.”
“Oystering isn’t what it was, but—”
“You’ll have to decide if you can juggle more time off the water, Ethan, and in here.” He knew what he was asking. Ethan didn’t just live on the water, he lived for it. “Phil’s going to have to make some hard decisions before much longer, too. We’re not going to have the cash to hire on laborers for a while yet.” He blew out a breath. “Unless we count a couple of kids. This friend of Bardette’s isn’t ready to commit. He’s going to come down and take a look at the place, and us, and what we’ve got here. I figure we make sure Phillip’s around to sweet-talk him into a contract and a deposit.”
Ethan hadn’t expected it to happen so soon, to have one dream grow and steal from the other. He thought of the chill winter months spent dredging, the rise and fall of the skipjack over hard chop, the long, often frustrating search for oyster, for rockfish, for a living.
A nightmare for some, he supposed. But hope and glory for him.
He took the time to look around the building. The boat, nearly finished, waiting for willing and able hands under the hard overhead lights. Seth’s drawings were framed on the wall and spoke of dreams and sweat. Tools, still shiny under a coating of dust, stood silent, waiting.
Boats by Quinn, he mused. If you wanted to grab ahold of one thing, you had to let go of another.
“I’m not the only one who can captain the workboat or the skipjack.” He saw both the question and the understanding in Cam’s eyes and jerked a shoulder. “It’s just juggling time where it needs to be spent most.”
“Yeah.”
“I guess I could work up a design for a cat.”
“And have Seth do the drawing,” Cam added and laughed when Ethan grimaced. “We all have our strengths, pal. Art isn’t yours.”
“I’ll think about it,” Ethan decided. “And we’ll see what happens next.”
“Good enough. So . . .” Cam drained his cup. “How’d the recipe exchange go?”
Ethan ran his tongue around the inside of his cheek. “I’m going to have a talk with your wife about that.”
“Be my guest.” Smiling, Cam plucked the cigar from Ethan’s fingers and took a trio of careless puffs. “You sure look . . . relaxed today, Ethan.”
“I’m relaxed enough,” he said evenly. “And I’d think you might have seen fit to mention to me that Anna had some plot to improve my sex life for me.”
“I might have, if I’d known about it. Then again, since your sex life needed some improvement, I might not.” On impulse, Cam grabbed Ethan in a headlock. “Because I love you, man.” He only laughed when the elbow plowed into his stomach. “See? It even improved your reflexes.”
Ethan shifted, angled his weight, and reversed their positions. “You’re right,” he said and rubbed his knuckles hard on the top of Cam’s head for good measure.
Since it was his night to cook, Ethan added an egg to a bowl of ground beef. He didn’t mind cooking. It was just one of those things you did to get through. He’d harbored a small, selfish, and purely chauvinistic hope that Anna would take over the kitchen duties as woman of the house.
She’d squashed that hope like a bug.
Of course, having her around did spread out the chore. But the worst of it, as far as he was concerned, was figuring out the menu. It was different from cooking for himself. He’d learned quickly enough that when you cooked for a family, everybody was a critic.
“What is that?” Seth demanded when Ethan shook oatmeal into the mix.
“Meat loaf.”
“Looks like crap to me. Why can’t we have pizza?”
“Because we’re having meat loaf.”
Seth made a gagging sound as Ethan dumped some tomato soup into the mix. “Gross. I’d rather eat dirt.”
“There’s plenty of it outside.”
Seth shifted from foot to foot, rose up on his toes to get a closer look at the bowl. The rain was driving him crazy. There was nothing to do. He was starving to death, he had six million mosquito bites, and there was nothing but kid crud and news on TV.
When he listed this litany of complaints, Ethan merely shrugged. “Go bug Cam.”
Cam had told him to go bug Ethan. Seth knew from hard experience that it took much longer to bug Ethan than Cam.
“How come you put all that crap in there if it’s called meat loaf?”
“So it doesn’t taste like crap when you eat it.”
“I bet it does.”
For a kid who only months before hadn’t known where his next meal was coming from, Ethan thought darkly, Seth had gotten mighty particular. Instead of saying so, he aimed a single, sharp dart. “Cam’s cooking tomorrow.”
“Oh, man. Poison.” Seth rolled his eyes dramatically, grabbed his throat, and staggered around the room. Ethan might have been mildly amused if the dogs hadn’t gotten into the act by scrambling in and barking wildly.
By the time Anna walked in, Ethan had the meat loaf in the oven and was dumping aspirin into his palm.
“Hi. Miserable day. Traffic was filthy.” She raised an eyebrow as Ethan downed the pills. “Headache, huh? All-day rain can sure give you one.”
“This one’s named Seth.”
“Oh.” Concerned, she poured herself a glass of wine and prepared to listen. “There’s bound to be periods of stress and difficulties. He has a tremendous amount to overcome, and his belligerence is a defense.”
“Did nothing but complain for the last hour. My ears are still ringing. Doesn’t want meat loaf,” Ethan muttered and snagged a beer from the fridge. “ ‘Why can’t we have pizza?’ He ought to be grateful somebody’s putting food in his belly. Instead he’s saying it looks like crap and will likely taste worse. Then he gets the dogs all fired up so I can’t even work in peace for five damn minutes. And . . .”
He trailed off, steely-eyed, when he saw her grinning. “Easy for you to be amused by it.”
“I am, I’m sorry. But I’m even more pleased. Oh, Ethan, it’s so wonderfully normal. He’s behaving just like an annoying ten-year-old after a rainy day. A couple of months ago he’d have spent that time sulking in his room instead of giving you a headache. It’s such tremendous progress.”
“He’s progressing into being a pain in the ass.”
“Yes.” She felt tears of delight sting her eyes. �
��Isn’t it marvelous? He must have been really annoying if it was enough to try your unflappable patience. At this rate he’ll be a terror by Christmas.”
“And that’s a good thing?”
“Yes. Ethan, I’ve worked with children who haven’t faced nearly the miseries Seth has, and it can take them so much longer to adjust, even with counseling. You and Cam and Phillip have done wonders for Seth.”
Cooling off, Ethan sipped his beer. “You had a hand in it.”
“Yes, I did, which makes me as happy on a professional level as I am on a personal one. And to prove it, I’ll give you a hand with dinner.” So saying, she shrugged out of her jacket and began to roll up her sleeves. “What did you have in mind to go with the meat loaf?”
He’d planned on sticking some potatoes in the microwave because they didn’t require any fussing, and maybe digging some frozen peas out. But . . .
“I thought maybe some of those cheese noodles you make would go nice as a side dish.”
“The alfredo? Cholesterol city, added to meat loaf, but what the hell. I’ll fix them. Why don’t you sit down until the headache passes?”
It already had, but it seemed smarter not to mention it.
He sat, prepared to enjoy his beer—and fix his sister-in-law’s wagon. “Oh, Grace said I should thank you for the recipe. She’ll let you know how it turns out for her.”
“Oh?” Turning to hide her satisfied smile, Anna reached for an apron.
“Yeah, I got the fried chicken makings for you—stuck it in the cookbook.” He hid his own smile with his beer when her head swiveled.
“You . . . oh, well . . .”
“I’d have given it to you last night, but it was late when I got back, and you were in bed. I ran into Jim when I left Grace’s.”
“Jim?” Puzzled annoyance showed clearly on her face.
“Went on over to his place to help him tune up this outboard that’s been giving him trouble.”
“You were at Jim’s last night?”
“Stayed later than I meant to, but there was a ball game on. The O’s were playing out in California.”
She could have cheerfully smashed him over the head with his own beer bottle. “You spent last night working on an engine and watching a ball game?”
“Yeah.” He sent her an innocent look. “Like I said, I got in kinda late, but it was a hell of a game.”
She huffed out a breath, yanked open the refrigerator to get out cheese and milk. “Men,” she muttered. “All of them idiots.”
“What’s that?”
“Nothing. Well, I hope you had a fine time watching your baseball game.” While Grace was home alone, miserable.
“I can’t remember enjoying myself more. Went into extra innings.” He was grinning now, just couldn’t help it. She looked so flustered and furious and was trying desperately to hide it.
“Well, hot damn.” Fuming, she shifted to get the fettuccine out of the cupboard and saw his face. She turned slowly, holding the package of pasta. “You didn’t go over to Jim’s to watch a ball game last night.”
“Didn’t I?” He lifted a brow, glanced thoughtfully at his beer, then sipped. “You know, come to think of it, you’re right. That was some other time.”
“You were with Grace.”
“Was I?”
“Oh, Ethan.” With clenched teeth she slammed the package down. “You’re making me crazy! Where were you last night?”
“You know, I don’t believe anyone’s asked me that since my mother died.”
“I’m not trying to pry—”
“You’re not?”
“All right, all right, I am trying to pry and you make it impossible to be subtle about it.”
He leaned back in his chair, studying her. He’d liked her, almost from the first—even when she made him uneasy. Wasn’t it funny, he mused, to realize that sometime over the last few weeks, he had come to love her. Which meant that teasing her was, well, required.
“You’re not asking me if I spent the night in Grace’s bed, are you?”
“No. No, of course not.” She snatched up the pasta, then set it down again. “Not exactly.”
“Were the candles her idea, or yours?”
Anna decided it was a good time to get out a skillet. She just might need a weapon. “Did they work?”
“Yours, I imagine; probably the dress, too. Grace’s mind doesn’t work that way. She’s not what you’d call . . . sneaky.”
Anna hummed and prepared to make her cheese sauce.
“And it was sneaky, underhanded, meddling, to send me over there that way.”
“I know it. But I’d do it again.” More skillfully next time, she promised herself. “You can be annoyed with me all you want, Ethan, but I’ve never seen anyone more in need of some meddling.”
“You’re a pro at it. I mean, being a social worker, you make a living meddling in people’s lives.”
“I help people who need it,” she said, firing up the skillet. “God knows you did.” She yelped when his hand dropped on her shoulder. She half expected him to give her a quick shake, so when he kissed her cheek she could only blink at him.
“I appreciate it.”
“You do?”
“Not that I’d care to have you do it again, but this once, I appreciate it.”
“She makes you happy.” Everything inside Anna softened. “I can see it.”
“We’ll see how long I can make her happy.”
“Ethan—”
“Let it stand.” He kissed her again, as much in warning as affection. “We’ll take it a day at a time for a while.”
“All right.” But her smile bloomed. “Grace is working at the pub tonight, isn’t she?”
“Yeah. And just so you don’t have to bite your tongue in half to keep from asking, I’m thinking of going by for a while after dinner.”
“Good.” More than satisfied, Anna got to work. “Then we’ll eat soon.”
TWELVE
It was like walking wide awake into a dream, Grace thought, where you couldn’t be sure what was going to happen next, but you just knew it would be wonderful. It was living inside a familiar world that had been polished into a constant state of anticipation and excitement.
Days and nights were still filled with work, responsibilities, small joys and petty annoyances. But for now, with this full rush of love, the joys seemed huge, the annoyances minute.
Everything she’d ever read about love was true, she discovered. The sun shined brighter, the air smelled fresher. Flowers were more colorful, the songs of birds more musical. Every cliché became her reality.
There were stolen moments—an embrace outside the pub during her break that left her jittery and delighted and unable to sleep long after she went home. A slow, intense look filled with awareness if she managed to linger long enough at the Quinn house to see him. It seemed she was in a constant state of yearning, only more acute now that she knew what could be.
What would be.
She wanted to touch and be touched, to take that long, slow ride into pleasure and passion again. Side by side with the yearning was the endless frustration that life constantly intruded on dreams.
There was never enough time to be alone, to simply be.
She often wondered if Ethan felt the same edgy need dogging his heels throughout his day. She thought it must be something inside her, some long-hidden sexual greed—and she didn’t know whether to be delighted by it or mortified.
She only knew that she wanted him constantly, and that with every day that want passed into another night alone, that want increased. She wondered if he would be shocked, worried that he would be.
She needn’t have.
He only hoped he’d timed it right, and that his excuses to Jim for taking in the catch before checking all the pots weren’t as ridiculously transparent as they’d seemed. He wasn’t going to let guilt eat at him either, Ethan promised himself as he secured his boat at his home dock.
He would
work a couple extra hours that evening in the boatyard to make up for leaving Cam on his own that afternoon. If he didn’t have one hour alone with Grace, if he didn’t release some of this pressure that was building up, he’d go crazy. Then he’d be no good to anyone.
And if she’d already finished up at the house and left, well, he’d just have to hunt her down, that’s all. He had enough control left not to scare her, or shock her, but he just couldn’t get through another day without her.
His grin began to spread when he came through the back door and saw that the morning untidiness had yet to be cleared away. The washer was rumbling in the laundry room. She hadn’t finished. He started into the living room, looking for signs of her.
The cushions were all smoothed and plumped, the furniture dust-free and shining. And as the floor above his head gave a quiet creak, he glanced up.
At that moment, he thought Fate was the most beautiful woman he’d ever known. Grace was in his bedroom, and what could be more perfect? It would be much easier to lure her into a daytime bed without jolting her sensibilities if she was already close by one.
He started up the stairs, delighted when he heard her humming.
Then his system suffered a sizzling lightning bolt of lust when he saw she wasn’t just close by his bed, she was all but in it. She leaned over, smoothing and tucking fresh sheets, her long legs showcased in ragged cutoffs.
His blood raced, a roar of speed that left him breathless, that turned the low ache he’d learned to live with into a sharp and gnawing pain. He could see himself springing forward, dragging her onto the bed, pulling and tearing at her clothes until he could hammer himself inside her.
And because he could, because he wanted to, he made himself stand where he was until he was certain his control was firmly in place.
“Grace?”
She straightened, whirled, pressed a hand to her heart. “Oh. I . . . oh.” She couldn’t speak, could barely think coherently. What would he think, she wondered giddily, if he knew she’d been fantasizing about rolling naked and sweaty over those crisp clean sheets with him?
Her cheeks had gone pink, charming him. “Didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”
