by Noelle Fox
Azure grinned and gestured with a long arm, causing a landslide of bracelets down to her wrist. “Why don’t you ask him yourself?”
Chapter 4
Connor stopped dead at the sight of Grace in front of Nellie’s bakery counter. One thing earlier that day to stroll down to the waterfront when he was expecting to see her. Derek had sent out an all-staff memo warning that his best friend’s daughter, a professional chef, would be arriving and that she should be charged for nothing. Another to be broadsided like this so soon after their first encounter went so badly.
Grace Cooper had been a big deal to him. Stupid to think she’d return even a fraction of those feelings. He’d been grinning like a fool at the coincidence of her showing up here, thrilled at the unexpected chance to see her again, maybe to let her know something of what she’d meant to him. Obviously to her he was just a guy with whom she’d spent a summer shoveling chicken crap.
He tried not to smile so wide this time, but it was hard. Grace had done something for him toward the end of her stay at Rocky Hill Farm that had changed his life—and she had no freaking idea. “Hi, again.”
“Yeah, hi.”
Had he done some damage by coming on too strong earlier? He’d thought about her so many times over the years—how many had passed? Six? Seven?—that he might have imagined them into being better friends than they were.
He didn’t think so. He couldn’t have imagined those evenings sitting around a fire, gazing up at the stars and the mountains, talking about anything and everything. He’d been in a spectacularly bad place that summer, and her simple honesty had meant a lot, even before the night when she’d changed the self-destructive course of his life.
“Do you want to go next door and grab a drink together?”
Her face froze. “Oh. No, I don’t think—”
“Yeah, I know. But I’d like to talk to you. A few things I’d like to say.”
One eyebrow lifted. She tilted her head. The gesture was oddly familiar, though not one he necessarily associated with her. “Really.”
“Uh. Yes?” He tried not to look as bewildered as he was feeling. Where was the smart, funny, enthusiastic girl he remembered? “Is that a problem?”
Grace turned to glance at Nellie and Azure who were watching curiously, then jerked her head back around. “Nope. No problem. Sure, let’s go.”
“Yeah…okay.” Totally baffled now, he followed her out of the bakery. If she wanted to have a drink, why hadn’t she just said so when he asked the first time?
Outside on the sidewalk, she whirled on him so fast he took a startled step back.
“Look, Connor. We worked on a farm together about a hundred years ago. I don’t think that’s really a reason to hang out now.”
Whah? Was she confusing him with someone else? Was she still all there? He remembered she had a mother who was pretty impressively unstable.
Connor forced himself to keep looking friendly. “If having been friends isn’t a good reason to hang out, what would be a good reason?”
She opened her mouth, then closed it. In those few seconds, her anger seemed to dissolve into unhappiness and vulnerability. “I don’t know.”
“Listen, maybe if we—” A tourist couple strolled by on the narrow sidewalk. Connor moved closer to Grace and waited until they were out of earshot. Up this close, he was aware of her shallow breathing and appealing fruit-flower scent. “I don’t know what’s going on, and maybe that makes me a typically clueless guy, but I have really good memories of you and that summer. What am I missing?”
She looked down at the pavement, breeze blowing hair across her cheeks. “It’s complicated.”
“Want to give talking about it a shot? I’m buying.”
Grace looked to the right. Then the left. Then up. Anywhere but at him. “I don’t—”
“One drink. You don’t even have to finish it. I also promise not to handcuff you to the chair. You’ll be free to leave anytime.”
Finally she met his eyes, grudgingly, briefly, but there it was. She’d only gotten prettier since he’d known her. Her cheekbones and the curves of her figure were more defined than they had been. “All right. It’s probably a good idea to get it out in the open.”
“Agreed.” Get what out in the open? He had less than no idea what they’d left unfinished between them, especially something that had obviously pissed her off for so long.
Other than the times they worked together in the fields or buildings, or hung out with the other kids during meals and free times, his only unusual recollection of Grace was the night that had changed everything for him.
He’d been drinking, as usual, trying to dull the pain and rage, and had also been doing who knew what other substances, as well as selling to other workers on the farm.
Cowardly escape.
Grace had come into his room—unusual to score a private one, but he’d been to the farm before and had seniority. He’d been wasted, unshowered, probably reeking of booze. The lights had been low, his mess everywhere.
She’d been wearing her usual shorts and T-shirt, nothing particularly seductive, though her hair had been loose instead of drawn back. But something in her eyes had affected him deeply. Even aside from the reflection of the light in the room, they’d shone with innocence, trust and shy longing. In his altered state, for an instant he’d imagined he was being visited by an angel.
Then she’d given him a slow smile and shaken back her hair and he’d noticed she wasn’t wearing a bra. That was when he knew she couldn’t be an angel, because it would be sacrilege to consider an angel volcanically hot.
As he’d stood there, gaping, stinking and half out of his mind, he’d suddenly seen himself as if from a distance. He did not like the view.
A total waste of a brain and a capable body.
A loser, who would die young and contribute nothing to the planet or to humanity.
A kid who was in serious need of professional help.
The shock had stunned him.
While he’d stood there in the throes of his epiphany, Grace had mumbled something about wanting to hang out and party with him…
Immediately, almost violently, he’d realized that it was up to him to protect her at all costs from who he was right then, and what he was into, and what he could do to her if he let her take part in any of it.
So he’d sent her away. She’d avoided him for the next couple of days. He figured he’d disgusted her, and didn’t blame her for staying clear. Not to mention he was consumed by the chasm he’d glimpsed between the person he was and the person he deep down wanted to be. By the time Connor went looking for Grace, it was too late. She’d gone home. He hadn’t seen or heard from her again until today.
But back then, with the memory of that night and her vision-like appearance haunting him, he’d quit the street drugs cold turkey, both using and dealing. Dialed back severely on the drinking, saw a therapist, did a lot of reading on grief and recovery and put what he learned into practice.
The urge to self-destruct had lessened, then the anger, then the pain. His health had improved. His energy doubled. Grace Cooper had quite possibly saved his life.
The least he could do was buy her a drink.
He led them next door into the Orion Bar and Grill, the last business on Aurora’s little main street, waiting for her reaction to the giant and nearly anatomically correct statue of the hunter Orion, wearing what Connor figured was some ancient Mt. Olympus form of a g-string. The figure stood at the end of the bar, club in one hand, shield in the other.
“Whoa.” Grace’s eyes bugged out. “That is certainly…”
“Large?” He was glad to see her smile. “It’s sort of a landmark around here. Franco got it custom-made for the bar.”
“Franco?”
“The owner. Franco—”
“Eh, Ciao, Con-nor-eh.” Franco came into view, a handsome guy, balding, with gray hair, big brown eyes that radiated warmth and humor, and a fabulous thick gray mu
stache. When he saw Grace, he clasped his hands to his chest and staggered back. “What d’you do, you bring-a dis beautiful lady in an’ you don’ introduce-ah me, eh?”
Connor rolled his eyes, grinning at Franco’s familiar shtick. “This is Grace Cooper. Grace, Franco Bellini, who is from Canada.”
“No, no, no, la bella Italia.” He offered Grace his large hand and a big smile. “He’s right. I’m from Vancouver. But someday I’ll get to Italy. Glad to meet you, Grace.”
“Same here.” She looked delighted, her gaze and answering smile as warm toward the restaurant owner as they’d been cold delivered to him. Connor would be jealous except Franco was not only gay, but married to the quiet, sweet Ches Kazinsky at the Falling Star Craft Shop, a classic match-up of opposites.
“You two want to sit at the bar or take a booth?”
“Booth please.” He wanted to be as alone with Grace as possible in a half-full public place.
“I gotta da best one inna house.” He led them to seats just vacated next to the windows, with a fabulous view of the harbor.
“Thanks.” Connor slid in opposite Grace, noticing her face closing down again. He hoped this talk would be all it took to clear the air between them. It would be fun to hang out with her over the next two weeks. Get to know her again. Maybe—
Hold that thought, cowboy. Not unless he meant it. She wasn’t like that. At least not in his admittedly idealized version of her as his personal savior.
“What’s so funny?”
Connor hadn’t realized he’d been grinning. “Just feeling good. What would you like? Beer? Glass of wine? Something more serious?”
“Beer.” She craned her neck toward the bar, trying to see the taps. “Maybe an amber ale? Something Alaskan? Medium weight, not too hoppy.”
Connor nodded appreciatively. He liked a woman who knew her beer. “Alaskan Brewing Company, Imperial Red.”
“Sounds good.”
“Hey, Connor.” Nancy Shepard arrived at their booth, ready to take their order. She’d grown up on the island, gone a little wild on the mainland for a few years, then came back pregnant and determined to live more responsibly. Her mother worked as an accountant for the resort. “And hello, Grace. Welcome to Polaris.”
Grace lifted an eyebrow, staring in fascination at Nancy’s assortment of tattoos and piercings. “I guess I should get used to everyone knowing who I am.”
“You’re famous here.” She wiped down the table with a damp rag. “What can I get you guys?”
“Two Imperial Reds.” Connor gestured toward Grace. “Need anything to eat?”
“Uh…” She looked slightly panicked. “Maybe something small.”
He suppressed a sigh. She meant something quick, in case she needed to bail. He was apparently that horrifying. “They have a tasty bruschetta assortment here. That sound good?”
“Sure.”
“Okay.” Nancy gave the table one last swipe. “I’ll have those drinks right out.”
Connor waited until Grace was able to tear her eyes away from Nancy’s retreat and the grinning skull tattooed on the back of her neck. He was also frantically trying to figure out how to start the conversation they needed to have.
By the time Grace had finished gawking and turned back to him—somewhat reluctantly—he’d decided just to dive in.
“All right, Ms. Cooper. Tell me what’s going on. I remember only that we were friends in Colorado. You must have a different story.”
“We were friends. But…” She frowned down at the table.
Connor waited.
And waited.
“Just say whatever it is, Grace, exactly as it comes out. No bullshit, no being careful, just spit it out.”
“Okay.” She took a deep breath. Held it.
He was ridiculously tense.
“Here you go.” Nancy’s interruption made them both start. She put down their beers, rich amber with a perfect half-inch head. “Food will be right out.”
“Thanks.” He lifted the beer toward Grace. “How about a sip first? Might make this easier on you.”
She nodded gratefully, downed a good swallow, then another, and put the glass firmly back on the table. “You might remember back in Colorado… I came to your room one night.”
“I remember.”
“Well.” Another deep breath, but this one got to come back out right away. “I wanted to…party. You said no.”
“Yes.”
They stared at each other for about ten seconds until it hit Connor that she wasn’t going to say anything else. Bewildered, he rewound the conversation. He’d said no. Yes, he had.
So…
“Sorry, Grace I’m not getting it.”
“You turned me down. You said a girl like me shouldn’t make that kind of offer.”
“Okay.” Damn it. He was still confused. “And…?”
She looked up at ceiling, shaking her head, laughing without humor. “I was totally humiliated.”
They were talking. They were understanding each other’s individual words. But the message wasn’t getting through. “You were humiliated because I wouldn’t give you any drugs?”
Her turn to look bewildered. “Drugs?”
Was she remembering some other life? “You said you wanted to party.”
She blinked. Blinked again. “I didn’t want to party. I wanted to sleep with you.”
Half a second before her last sentence, that weird crowd thing happened, when everyone got to the end of his or her story at the same time and there was momentary quiet.
Into that silence came Grace’s admission, loud enough for pretty much anyone to hear.
Her eyes shot wide with horror. “Oh, God.”
Connor didn’t hesitate, pitching his voice loud enough for it to carry. “He said that to you, just like that? ‘I wanted to sleep with you?’ What a jerk!”
Conversation resumed around them. Grace grabbed her beer and had another good swallow. Then another. She shook her head again, but this time a smile curved her lips and she giggled. “Thank you. That could have been really horrible.”
“You’re welcome.” He was grinning, too, giddy in fact, not only because he’d rescued the maiden in distress just then, but also because what she said was bubbling through him faster than the beer.
She’d wanted to sleep with him.
If he’d known that…
No, no. At that nightmare of a moment, his answer would have been the same. He’d felt that strongly about her, that protective-big-brother about her.
Well, maybe not brother.
Definitely not brother.
Wait. Something was wrong here.
“Let me get this straight. You’ve been angry at me for seven years because I wouldn’t sleep with you?”
She looked slightly surprised. “Well, yes.”
“Isn’t that backwards?”
“You slept with pretty much every other girl there.” She rolled her eyes. “I couldn’t imagine what was so horrible about me that you’d refuse to—”
He waved both his hands, stop. “Whoa, whoa, back up. You thought I slept with every other girl there?”
“Well, yes.” She was clearly shocked he’d even begin to question her. “I mean there was a different girl headed to your room about every weekend. Sometimes more than one. I’d hear them earlier in the evening talking about whose turn it was and giggling the next morning about how good it had been.”
“Aw, man.” He slumped in the booth, wishing he could go back and do that encounter over. No, wishing he could go back and not be who he was, so that he wouldn’t have to admit everything to her now and risk lowering her opinion of him even further. But one of the steps of his recovery was honesty, no matter how ugly. “I wasn’t sleeping with them, Grace. I was Party Central. Pot, booze, coke, ’shrooms, pills. I was buying, selling, pushing, sharing, you name it. It was a total crap time in my life. A dark reaction to a lot of pain.”
Grace blinked. Blinked again. She was really
adorable when she did that. All off-balance and confused. He liked it almost as much as when she was angry and strong.
“Huh.”
The syllable hit him like a punch. She didn’t believe him. At least she wasn’t sure if she did. He supposed he couldn’t blame her. She had no reason to trust him, not back then, and therefore not now.
Wait. Something was still wrong here.
“If you thought I was sleeping with practically every girl in the camp why would you want to get in that line?”
She lifted her chin proudly, even as a blush stained her cheeks. “I wasn’t looking for romance. I’d decided it was time to…start.”
He didn’t understand. “Start?”
She blushed harder. “Start being…active. You were an obvious candidate. I liked you, and frankly, I didn’t think ‘no’ was in your vocabulary until you said it to me.”
Aw, man. Aw, man. The vision of her coming into his room, the urgent, no-arguments way he’d sent her out… He was beginning to get why Grace had taken this so hard. She’d offered her virginity and he’d turned her down flat, having no idea what she’d really been asking.
“Here you go.” Nancy put the plate of bruschettas on the table. “I had them each cut in half so you could share. Anything else right now?”
He checked in with Grace, who shook her head, still looking a little shell-shocked. “All set. Thanks, Nancy.”
Grace waited for Nancy’s departure. “So you thought I wanted to do drugs.”
“You said you wanted to party.”
“You’re right, I did.” She went into a reverie for half a minute, then lifted her gaze abruptly. “How do you remember this so well?”
He shrugged, not wanting to admit her effect on him. “Steel trap mind. Want a bruschetta?”
“Sure.” She eyed them speculatively. He could almost imagine her chef’s brain tasting them without putting a thing in her mouth.
“The food here is great.” He pushed the plate toward her. “Better than at the lodge.”
“Really?” She helped herself to half a white bean, basil and sundried tomato. “That’s too bad. I mean not that the food here is good, but that it isn’t the best at the lodge.”
