Beach House No. 9 (28 page)

“That’s number one
New York Times
bestselling hack to you,” Stone said in his snobby voice.

“This isn’t about what you write, okay? This is about Jane.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “Is this because your father gave him some sort of endorsement?”

She waved that away with a sour look on her face.

Griffin’s stomach was sour. Sour with the idea of Jane working with this man. He’d once thought she was still in love with Ian Stone, but of course Jane wouldn’t love someone who had the looks of a bowl of oatmeal and the kind of mind that imagined every great love affair meant someone had to end up weeping on the last page. Who would think up shit like that?

He pointed at the other man, the churning burn in his stomach turning to fire in his blood. “He’s a pessimist, you know that, don’t you, Jane? How can you think of working with someone who is…who is…”

“Kind of like you?”

That hurt. He pulled over a chair and slammed into it, turning his back on Ian Stone to focus exclusively on the librarian who was looking at him as if she wished she had a ruler or, better, one of her lethal pencils. “I’m not a pessimist, Jane.”

“I’m not one either,” That Asshole Author put in.

Griffin ignored him. “Jane…”

Her gray eyes were calm, and when she crossed one leg over the other, he couldn’t help but notice the funky shoes, so Jane with their cork wedge and leather-and-rope straps. Over the toes was a matching bow. Ian Stone probably didn’t even realize she had a most unique and arousing taste in footwear.

“He didn’t appreciate you before. He won’t appreciate you now,” Griffin said.

“I have to work. And personal history aside, there’s merit to the idea. Another success with him will recoup my reputation.”

The one that Griffin had failed to improve. He put the heels of his hands to his suddenly throbbing temples. “I still say this is about your father. You’re thinking if you do this, Daddy’ll be happy. His seal of approval on the job makes you think you’ll have his approval for yourself.”

“Stop,” she said. “Stop talking.”

He wouldn’t. She’d flapped her mouth at him plenty of times, hadn’t she? “But your father’s opinion is not worth the hot air it rides on, Jane. He should know how special, how special and lovable you are. Success is not a necessity to make that happen. And neither is working with Dumb-ass.” His thumb jerked toward Stone.

The other man’s chair scraped back. “Who are you calling Dumb-ass?” he asked, leaping to his feet.

“You.” Griffin flicked him a careless glance. “Christ, man, you have to know that already. You’re the one who stepped out on Jane. You’re the one who lost her and then went out of your way to hurt her in the aftermath. Just another idiot who doesn’t know a real treasure when he has one.”

He must have touched a nerve, because The Asshole Author Ian Stone wrapped his fingers around the back of Griffin’s collar and tried to yank him from his seat. Of course, he was too short and Griffin too solid to budge. Still, it added another layer of pissed-offness to what was turning into a really shitty day. Grabbing the other man’s wrist, he jerked his hand free of his shirt.

The old fabric ripped. “I love this shirt,” he said from between his teeth. Then he shoved out of his seat.

“Griffin,” Jane said. “Calm down.”

“As soon as I beat the crap out of this guy.” It suddenly seemed like a great idea. A real problem-solver. He turned to confront the man and gave the classic gimme gesture.

Face going red, the author charged him like a bull.

Griffin shoved him aside, then went after him with his right. Ian Stone got a good crack at his jaw before getting punched in the face. The pretty boy stumbled back, falling into a chair.

Someone whooped, “Bar fight!” and his Party Central buddies gathered round. All that free booze he’d offered up in the past bought him a lot of goodwill. They started up a chant: “Griffin! Griffin! Griffin!”

The Asshole Author Ian Stone shook his head. Then he placed his palms on the arms of the chair, getting ready for another go. When he stood, Griffin allowed him to start a second charge. Then he swept his leg, sending the clown flat on his ass. He’d learned the move from a twenty-year-old native of Kansas City on a freezing day when practicing fight moves seemed a finer way to keep warm than huddling by the diesel-powered heaters.

The kid had later lost an eye to a Taliban bullet.

And remembering, Griffin wanted to hit someone all over again. “Get up,” he said to Ian Stone, feeling his temper redoubling, shooting fire into his blood and hardening his fists into blocks of cement. “Get the hell up.”

A hand touched his elbow, and he spun toward the new threat, his right arm lifting, ready to swing. At Jane. He froze, his arm cocked to attack.

The world went still. Sound and light and everything dropped away but his fist, set to strike her face. Jane’s beautiful face. He couldn’t breathe.

How could this happen? He’d almost hurt her, his Jane, with the soft hair and tender mouth and clear-as-mirrors eyes.

In them he saw the bastard that was himself.

Lurching back, he bounced off a table. The rebound brought him near to her again, and she flinched. At the sight, he thought he might throw up. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice hoarse and ugly. “I would never hurt you.”

But of course he had.

The crowd around them was silent now, and two bikini girls scuttled out of his way when he made to leave. Leaping off the top step, he landed in the sand and wished he could get a hundred miles away a hundred times faster. He wished he wouldn’t be taking himself when he got to wherever he was going.

Jane caught up with him before he’d made it back to the beach house. She must have run, because she was breathless and her cheeks were red. “Griffin, stop. Wait.”

Shoving his hands into his pockets, he halted without looking at her. He couldn’t look at her. “What is it?”

“It’s what I wanted to talk about before Ian showed up.”

His stomach roiled again. “I don’t want to hear it, Jane.”

“Well, too damn bad. Not ten minutes ago you were telling me how lovable I am. I just wanted to return the favor.”

“Ha.” It was a bitter laugh. “I almost punched you.”

“Almost.”

“And last night…” Oh, shit. Just where he didn’t want this conversation to go. He pressed his temples between his palms and sent her a glance. “You give too much.”

“I might never see you again. You’re going someplace dangerous, and who knows what might happen there?” Tears clogged her voice. “So I think I have to tell you—”

“Don’t be silly and emotional, Jane,” he said, desperate to stop her.

Her hurt expression made clear the verbal punch had done its work.

He started walking again.

Still, she kept talking. “I won’t apologize for falling in love with you.”

Griffin jerked at the words. She’d said them, damn her, and they seemed to strip away a layer of his skin. How could she do this to him? He’d never set out to hurt her, and now there was no way to escape it.

“I won’t be sorry for being silly and emotional because now I realize the alternative,” Jane continued, pitching her voice louder. “And that’s being cold and alone like my father.”

Another beat went by; he distanced himself a few more feet. But then she spoke again. “Cold and alone like you.”

He kept moving.

“It’s no strings attached, Griffin, I just wanted you to know. I get that you don’t love me—”

“You don’t get it at all!” He whirled to face her. “I don’t
want
to love you. I don’t want to ever love anybody.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

G
RIFFIN
DIDN
’
T
KNOW
what to do with himself, so he drove to visit Rex during the hospital’s evening visiting hours. Anything to occupy himself since he couldn’t find his iPod, and nothing on television—not even 24/7 news—was working as a tranquilizer. He ran into his sister near the bank of elevators on her way to see the old man too. “David took the kids out for pizza to give me a break,” Tess said.

Even in the shittiest mood of all time, he could attempt some social niceties. “How are the minions?”

“Great. Happy to be home with a happy mom and dad.”

“Listen, you gotta do something about Duncan and Oliver.” He might not get another chance to tell her before he left the States. “That Cheeto thing just creeps me out.”

“David’s working on it,” Tess said. “Why don’t you come home with me after our visit and give him some opinions on how to best do that? I made a cake for dessert.”

Griffin stepped back. “No.” He’d just gotten the tribe of them out of his life. “I don’t feel much like cake.”

“That’s the thousandth time you’ve refused to do a family thing with us since you returned from Afghanistan. If I hadn’t come to the cove, would we have seen you at all this summer?”

He ignored the question. “A thousand is an overstatement. And I just don’t have a big interest in cake.”

Unexpected tears glittered in his sister’s eyes. He groaned. “What is it now, Tessie? What’s wrong?”

She held the back of her hand to her nose. “I heard what you said in Rebecca’s class. That the civilian world is dull after coming back from war.”

He shrugged, not following her thought.

“You think
we’re
dull. Is that why you won’t come over for dessert? Is that why Gage never visits? The two of you are too busy on your never-ending quest for the next adrenaline high?”

Why hadn’t he stayed home and pushed pins beneath his fingernails? His sister looked ready to bawl.

“I can’t speak for Gage,” he said. “It’s just…I’m sorry.” He shrugged again.

Tess stepped forward. He held out his arms, exhorting himself to give her a comforting hug. Instead she whacked him on the shoulder with her purse. “Ow!” he said. She carried one of those bags big enough to hold a circus. Including the elephant. She lifted it again, and he put up his hands. “What’s gotten into you?”

“You’re so dumb, that’s what!” She put her fists on her hips. “How do you think you find meaning in our mundane world? You come to your family—you find your purpose with them.”

“What purpose is that?” he asked, half bemused and half bewildered by her diatribe.

She made a wild gesture that had her purse swinging. “Teach your nephews how to catch a ball—David’s got the bicycle down, but he hates baseball. Get to work glaring at your niece’s first dates. Tickle Baby Russ’s belly.”

“Tess—”

“And then find a woman who you can value and love every day.”

“Tess—”

“Which bring me to Jane,” his sister said.

His expression must have made some sort of statement.

His sister groaned. “Griffin. Tell me you haven’t ruined what you had with her.”

“We didn’t have anything.” Just the greatest sex, the best laughs, the kind of connection he’d never found with another woman. The elevator arrived with a ping. “Get off my back, Tess.”

They stepped into the empty metal box. “I thought there was some magic at the cove,” Tess said. “Seeing you and Jane, I had high hopes, and with Gage exchanging letters with Skye, for a moment I even thought…”

He stared at his sister. “Gage and
Skye?
”

Tess waved a hand. “Forget it. Now I wouldn’t wish you and your twin on any woman.”

Magic at the cove,
Griffin mused, as the elevator chugged upward. What a crock. And to think he’d sold Colonel Parker on the idea. Colonel Parker, who wouldn’t be bringing his darling daughter to No. 9 after all. He thought of Vance Smith, the combat medic who always kept his cool. Could that last during the month at the cove he’d promised to a fatherless girl? Still recuperating from his own wounds, he’d be at the beach house in mere days.

Which got him thinking about the email he’d received that very morning. Vance himself, touching base. Griffin was still confused by it. The man seemed to be operating under the impression that the colonel’s daughter, Layla, was a child, when Griffin knew for a fact she was in her mid-twenties—all grown up.
Must be me who misunderstood Vance,
he decided. Still, he sent the other man a silent message.
Good luck, buddy.

When Griffin and his sister found the coot’s room, Tess was still muttering about her twin brothers’ lack of intelligence, common sense and general good manners. “That’s rich, coming from you,” he told her. “We never ate food with our feet.”

She ignored him to greet the elderly reporter with a kiss on the cheek, and Griffin could tell she was trying to be cheerful for the invalid’s sake. Rex looked pretty damn lively for someone ancient enough to be a first cousin to God, and Griffin told him so.

“They’re letting me go home tomorrow,” the elderly man said. “After fourteen tests and being prodded and poked more than a rodeo clown, they say it was likely dehydration.”

“Well, drink some more water, you irascible antique!” But the news solidified a hazy idea Griffin had. “Listen, Rex…I’m going overseas and could use somebody to look after Private. Are you up to it?”

“Me? And that flea-bitten, mannerless, mangy canine that either pees on my bushes or tries to dig them up?”

Griffin lifted a shoulder. “If you’re not interested—”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t interested. Someone has to take charge of that dog. I’ll bet I can teach him a little courtesy.”

“You manage that, you should tackle Duncan and Oliver next.”

He realized his sister was giving him a dirty look. “Hey,” he said, defending himself, “the curmudgeon scared the shit out of me when I was their age. It could work.”

“It’s not about my boys,” she said. “It’s about this new plan of yours to go overseas. This is about Gage’s offer, I presume? You’re taking him up on it after all, and that’s why you had the falling-out with Jane.”

“We haven’t had a falling-out.” There’d almost been a knockout, and the thought of it still sickened him—and only confirmed how necessary it was for him to get away from her.

Suddenly that memory was front and center. Even the chatter between Tess and Monroe couldn’t prevent what was recurring in blazing Technicolor in his head. In one quick breath, it stopped being something he recalled and became something he was reliving.

He’s on the deck at Captain Crow’s. Rage is a ball of fire in his belly. Ian Stone is a smug prick who thinks he’s going to get Jane back into his life and back into his bed. Griffin doesn’t want to allow him to have another chance to chip away at her confidence. Jane might seem to stand ten feet tall, but a lot of that is wedge heel and ribbon bows. She should be with a man who cherishes her, who will nurture her can-do attitude and spoil her on the days when she’s feeling blue.

Ian Stone is not that man. And as Griffin waits for the jerk to get back up and come at him, his fists clench tighter.

Then there’s that quick touch. He spins, his arm cocking back.

Jane’s sweet face. Her little jerk of fear. The thudding crash his heart makes when it falls to the pit of his belly.

He came back to the present and realized that Tess was gone and he was alone in the hospital room with his neighbor. Surprised, he looked around him. “I…”

“She had to get back home to her husband and family. You answered when she said goodbye, but I didn’t think you were all here.” Rex waited a beat, then asked a casual question. “Flashback?”

Griffin stared at the old man.

“You think PTSD is new? We called it something different, but…”

“I don’t have that.” Griffin paced to look out the window. It was nearing dark. “I wasn’t at war. I was reporting on war.”

“In my time, I talked to a lot of soldiers and I talked to a lot of other combat journalists. Believe me, Griffin, we’re all affected by the things we’ve seen. I’ve told you before, you need to describe how that changed you.”

“I put it away. It’s better to keep it distant.” And he’d managed that fairly well until Jane insisted he look at the photos and write the words.

He’s on the deck at Captain Crow’s, and then he isn’t. Instead he’s in the Humvee, his ears ringing and Jackal’s leg…he can feel it right now in his hands, the weight of it, the bloody warmth….

“Sit down, son,” Rex said, his voice sharp. “Griffin, sit down.”

The vinyl cushion wasn’t soft, but at least the chair supported his weight. He rested his elbows on his knees and put his head in his hands. “I’ll leave in a minute,” he mumbled. “I have packing to do.”

“There’s no place far enough away,” the old man said. “No place you can go that those memories won’t find you.”

“I feel like I’m going crazy,” he heard himself mutter.

“Finish the memoir,” Rex urged. “Stay stateside and finish before thinking of traveling again.”

“I don’t care about the book.”

The coot sighed. “Do I have to remind you that a life unexamined is a life not worth living?”

“What?” Griffin said. “Did you read that on the bottom of a bubble-gum wrapper?”

“Socrates, which I’m sure you know.” The old man was silent a moment, then his voice turned softer, kinder. “Son, you need to deal with your experience. When you put down the ugly memories on the page, you defuse them of their power.”

“Rex—”

“Put them down like you would put Private down if he was sick and he was hurting. Out of kindness, Griffin. Out of love.”

Before he could spit out some pithy and clever retort like “Fuck you,” which was the first that came to mind, a nurse arrived and shooed Griffin away. A doctor was coming in for late rounds. Griffin was damn glad to walk away from the crabby codger and his amateur psychoanalysis.

The fact that the guy was ninety-four years old didn’t mean he knew squat about anything.

Truth was, it wasn’t the memories that were sick and hurting. It was Griffin himself.

On the way down in the elevator, he had company. A couple were talking in low tones to each other. The man of the pair had a little girl’s hand in his. Maybe…three, four years old? She had dirty-blond hair in pigtails tied with red ribbons. Her white dress was dotted with red cherries, and the poofy skirt belled around her knees as she swung her body back and forth. On her feet were white socks and little red patent leather shoes that were tied on with more ribbon.

Jane would have loved the outfit.

Jane would have looked just like this when she was a kid.

This kid noticed Griffin staring at her, compelling him to make a stab at conversation. “Uh, you have very pretty shoes,” he said, feeling awkward.

She responded to the compliment by lifting the hand not clutching her dad’s. Four tiny fingers waved in his direction. “I’m this many.”

He nodded, acknowledging the unsolicited intel. Then the elevator stopped, the door opening with a ping. With a gesture, he indicated the family should precede him. As the little kid crossed into the lobby, she glanced over her shoulder at Griffin. “It’s my birfday.”

The three words shot through him like an arrow. It froze him for a moment, thinking of Jane’s recent birthday, of all the birthdays he’d miss of hers. Another sharp-edged ache. The elevator doors started to close, and it galvanized him to move, but there was still the hurt.

And an idea. He wasn’t any good for Jane, true, but he couldn’t leave without first letting her know she’d meant something to him. That he wouldn’t forget her, even though he couldn’t love her as she deserved.

* * *

M
OONLIGHT
POURED
OVER
the cove, and at her place on the cliff just south of Beach House No. 9, Jane watched a series of incoming waves ripple forward, as if someone on the horizon had snapped an immense gray sheet. The night was warm, the breeze mild, and she let the calming sound of the water wash over her. With the seabirds asleep, there were no raucous high notes to nature tonight, just the constant wet wash that, while not unchanging, was unceasing. A reminder to take the next breath. To put your next foot forward.

To toughen up and get on with your life.

She’d been doing that ever since the final confrontation with Griffin on the beach that afternoon. Even with his “I don’t want to ever love anybody” still echoing in her ears, she’d marched back to Captain Crow’s and given Ian Stone the big heave-ho in no uncertain terms.

“For the record,” she told him, standing beside his table, her arms folded over her chest, “I’m not now and not ever going to work with you again.”

He’d blinked at her, looking bewildered behind the blossoming facial bruises. “But…but it sounded like you were considering my offer.”

She’d been goading Griffin was what she’d been doing. And maybe giving Ian some momentary false hope in the process, because she was a little mean that way. “I don’t work with cheaters. And I don’t work with people who try to blame their failures on someone else.”

“What am I supposed to do now?” he asked, like a kid who finally had to do his own homework. “I haven’t written a word since we’ve been apart!”

“Not my problem, Norm,” she’d said, then strolled away.

His career could stay flatlined, for all she cared. As for her…she’d find another author to work with, or a new line of work if it came to that. She had great confidence in her ability to overcome—even with her heart broken, she was still breathing, wasn’t she?

And though a certain blue-eyed reporter might be out of her life, he’d left her with something. When he’d taunted her about trying to please her father, it had been the boot she needed to get her butt to Corbett Pearson’s place again. Once there, she’d ticked off three points on her fingers. One, never give her personal information to anyone; two, never get involved in her professional life again; and three, she loved him despite what she considered to be
his
faults and she expected him to do the same when it came to her. No more interfering and disapproval or no more daughter Jane!