Five Days Grace (42 page)

"More panties?" she asked, grinning.

When he'd found out she'd been lingerie shopping, he'd wanted in on that, and started sending her panties on a regular basis. Mostly white, lacy, good-girl panties, but every now and then, black lace, for days when she was feeling a little bit bad.

"No, not more panties," he said, looking at the pretty curve of her hips outlined in that ladylike, but somehow very sexy dress she had on. "But that reminds me..."

"Yes, I am," she said.

Oh, she did that so well. Looking like such a lady, while telling him the sexiest things. It made him crazy. Right now, she meant she was wearing a pair of panties he'd sent her, which he also found outrageously sexy, thinking about seeing them on her and when he'd get to take them off her.

"Six weeks?" he asked, remembering what seemed an impossible amount of time.

"Ask the doctor. Now stop thinking about my panties and open your present."

"Yes, ma'am."

He flipped the tube up on its end and popped the cap. Out came a thick, rolled up piece of paper, and when he opened it, he found a gorgeous watercolor of the lake. Their lake, with tiny figures of a man, a woman and a dog sitting on the end of the dock—him and Grace and Tink—surrounded by the water and all the beautiful colors of the fall.

It was the place and time they fell in love, captured forever for him by her.

"Baby, it's beautiful. So beautiful." He felt emotions roll through him about how damned lucky he felt, how his life had changed so much and so quickly, how much he loved her, all he wanted for their lives together, all the possibilities.

"I know you said you wouldn't need anything to remember it by—"

"You did this from the photos you took that day we all sat there on the end of the dock?"

She nodded.

"I'll always remember it, but I'm really glad to have this so I can see it, too. I have a feeling the pictures in my head aren't nearly as detailed and vivid as the ones in an artist's mind."

"Probably not."

He kissed her. "Thank you. The colors are amazing."

"I'll have it framed for you while I'm here, and then when you don't have me with you, you can have this, at least."

"It's perfect. Do you want to know what your present is? Because I think I'd like to see your face when you find out."

"Ooh. That good?"

"I hope so. Maeve sold me her cabin. Well, mostly the lot with a lot of debris. We can build a new one, really small, but nice. Maybe with a real heating system and a little bit more of a kitchen. I want us to always be able to go back to that place."

She looked shocked.

Because she thought he'd spent too much money? Or maybe spent it unwisely? Or impulsively? They hadn't talked about money at all, except for what he'd heard—implied mostly—about her marriage.

"Maeve wanted you to have the place. She's grateful Tink is so happy with you and that you make time to bring him to visit her. She's moving into an assisted living center, hopefully closer to you so you won't have so far to go to bring Tink to her."

"And she's okay with going into assisted living?"

"I think she's both sad and relieved that she won't have to do everything for herself anymore. She's eighty-five years old. She finally admitted it to me." She'd refused to tell them her age for the longest time. "So, what do you think?"

"I think... That's an awfully expensive present," she said.

"Grace, I told you I've been overseas a lot in the past twelve years. When I do that, there's practically nothing to spend money on. I'm not rich by any definition, but I've got money in the bank, even after paying her in cash for the property."

"Oh. Okay."

"I know a man isn't supposed to say anymore that he'll take care of a woman, financially, but I'm not Luc. I work for a living and like it. I'm not saying we'll have an extravagant lifestyle, but I don't think you're looking for that."

"No, I'm not. And I work for a living, too, and like it."

"I know. I'm glad. I want you to be happy, in every way."

They were sitting there grinning at each other when Tommy strolled into the room.

"Jesus, look at you," his brother said. "Laid out in a hospital bed, pathetic as can be, and you have a woman like her sitting by your side, taking care of you?"

"Yeah, I do," Aidan said, grinning like crazy.

"You know you look like shit, man. You have ever since you got hurt. Scrawny and pale and just... like shit. And you get her?" He motioned toward Grace. "How the hell does he do this? And here's something for you to think about. I make a lot more money than he does, and nobody ever tries to kill me."

"It's that pretty face of his," Grace said. "I couldn't resist."

"Well, I'm much better-looking than him, too," Tommy insisted.

"Sorry, you're too late," Aidan said. "She's mine."

Tommy shook his head. "I don't get it. You were only there for a few weeks, and you weren't even in her town. You were at the lake."

"Uh-hmm," Aidan said, holding out the painting so his brother could see it.

"Yeah, like I said, middle of nowhere. Pretty, though." He looked to Grace. "Did you do this?"

She nodded.

"Zach said you were good." He looked back at the painting. "So, somebody tell me the story. What the hell happened? You're at the lake, at the cabin. And?"

"She broke in," Aidan said.

"I had a key," Grace reminded him, then told Tommy, "and he pulled a gun on me."

"Oh, sure. I always pick up women that way. The gun does it every time. So, am I going to be an uncle?"

"Not yet. We're taking things slow," Aidan said.

"Slow? You were there for two and a half months."

"Like I said, we're taking things slow."

Chapter 22

His trip at the beginning of March seemed interminable, with a late plane, a missed connection. It took forever to get a shuttle from the airport. He'd been calling her, but didn't get her until he was ten minutes away.

"Hi," he said, feeling better just knowing she was on the other end of the phone.

"Hi," she said, and he could hear her big smile in her voice.

"What are you wearing?"

She laughed. "Oh, it's going to be one of those phone calls?"

"No, it's not. I have a surprise for you. I'll be there in ten minutes."

She gave a little squeal. "Really?"

"I will, and that's not the surprise. Be naked when I get there. I have plans for you."

"This is so much better than a naughty phone call," she said.

"I'm counting on it. See you in a minute."

And then there was nothing to do but try, one more time, to plan exactly what he wanted to do to her. He'd indulged himself on the plane by doing just that for a couple of hours, forced to just sit there and not move, and he'd closed his eyes and thought of Grace.

The shuttle driver, who must have overheard Aidan's conversation, gave him a broad grin as Aidan tipped him, grabbed his bag and took off, all thoughts of stealth abandoned on this trip. He did go to the back door, because he usually came in that way and she often left it unlocked if she was home and knew he was coming. Drove him crazy, but she did. Small-town living, she said. He knocked, and sure enough, it was open, so he walked right in.

"Grace?" he called out. Maybe she was waiting for him in her bed. He'd just rounded the corner of the kitchen and walked into the family room when he spotted her standing in the dining room. "There you are. Why are you still dressed? I told you to be naked when I got here."

The dog barked once, then came barreling toward Aidan.

Grace pressed a hand over her mouth, giving him an odd look, then removed the hand and said, "Uhh... My father's here."

"Oh, that is not funny, Grace." He took off toward her, the dog following him, practically dancing with excitement and wanting attention.

"No, really, it is," she insisted, laughing as she stood there.

"Not funny at all," he said, and then, right before he got his hands on her, a man stepped into the dining room to stand beside her.

Aidan guessed the man was in his fifties, and solid as could be. He looked like he could push through PT as easily as Aidan at the moment and was glaring like he might knock Aidan down in the next few seconds.

Grace was laughing so hard she had tears falling down her cheeks.

Holy Shit.

It was all Aidan could do to stand his ground, to not take a step back and then maybe another. He'd been dreading the moment her family found out about them, because he knew how protective they were of her, and he understood the urge. They wouldn't like the fact that he and Grace had kept their relationship a secret. Then they'd probably find out just how messed up Aidan had been for most of the past year, because Tommy knew a lot of it and Tommy knew Zach.

So it was a delicate situation, to be handled delicately. He knew they hadn't liked her first husband, and he planned on getting them to like him, because he wasn't going anywhere.

Now, he'd just barged in and asked this man's daughter why she'd been so slow to strip naked for him on command?

Holy Shit.

Aidan snapped to attention, as rigid as if the Commander in Chief himself were standing there. It was all he could do not to salute the man.

Grace had a hand on her father's forearm, maybe thinking she needed to restrain him, and she'd stopped laughing, mostly. "Daddy," she finally said. "This is Lieutenant Commander Aidan Shaw. Aidan, this is my father, Sam McRae."

"Sir," Aidan said, giving the slightest nod of his head in the man's direction.

Sam McRae did not extend his hand, did not show the slightest hint of welcome or even acknowledge the introduction, except to finally ask, "And how do you know my daughter?"

Hmm.
What to say? She broke into your cabin at the lake, which your son so kindly loaned me, then I pulled a gun on her and managed to convince her to spend the next five days and nights with me?

"We met last fall," he finally said.

"Last fall?" The man might have called him a liar right then, but he turned and looked at Grace first. Still smiling, she nodded, admitting it.

That obviously came as a surprise to the man, but he didn't glare at his little girl. He gave her a look like he couldn't quite believe she'd keep a secret like that from him, and maybe one that said something like,
My little girl lets men treat her like this? Waltzing in and demanding to know why she still has her clothes on?

And then they all just stood there, Aidan silently begging for it to be over or to find himself waking up still on the plane, on his way to her, not here yet. Her father looked like he was planning to tear Aidan limb from limb, and Grace just kept smiling, like she could wrap both of them around her little finger and knew it. Aidan feared she didn't understand just how much fathers hated the idea of their little girls with any man.

"Daddy, I'll bring him by the house another time to meet Mom, and you two can talk then, okay?"

She wrapped her arms around her father, gave him a big hug, then a kiss on the cheek, and her father didn't take his eyes off Aidan the whole time. But she finally got the man out the front door, and Aidan practically collapsed onto one of the dining room chairs, cussing like the sailor he was, with Tink concerned and crying by his side.

Grace came back in, laughing like this was the funniest thing in the world. "Oh, my God, if you could have seen your face!"

"My face? Did you see your father's? I thought he was going to take me out with one punch, and he looks like he could do it."

"He's in really good shape for a man of his age," she said.

"Shit. He reminds me of an Admiral I met once, except the Admiral only had a mild dislike for me. Your father is never going to forget this. Or forgive it. He hates me."

"He's just a tad over-protective of me, always has been. I think he looks at me and still sees me in one of my little angel costumes from when I was three."