Forever Grace (11 page)

A heartbeat’s worth of utter silence followed her question before Sean roared with laughter. Grace’s cheeks reached scorching. Oh, for the love of—

Crossing her arms, she leveled a baleful glare at Sean and waited for him to recover.

“You know perfectly well what I meant,” she informed him when he had.

He chuckled some more. “Yes, but you have to admit, your phrasing just then was awfully well timed.”

She refrained—just—from telling him where to go. He made another effort to straighten his face.

“Sorry,” he said. She didn’t believe him for a nanosecond. “And to answer your question, I have two plates and I forget how many screws holding part of my thighbone together, plus several feet of wire.”

Grace regarded him for a moment, wrestling with her curiosity. She’d come to check on him, not learn his life history. Or share hers. And now that she’d accomplished what she’d set out to do…

She retrieved Sean’s crutches from near the door and handed them to him. “I need to get back to the kids. Do you want a hand getting up?”

“Thanks, but if I’m going to be on my own out here, I should probably figure out how to get myself back on my feet.”

She stood back to watch, grimacing at his struggle. More than once, her hand twitched with the impulse to go to his aid, but she held back, knowing he was right about learning to do it alone. At last he stood upright, flushed with exertion and victory.

“Ha!” he said with deep satisfaction.

Grace couldn’t help but smile. “Congratulations. Do I dare ask how much pain you’re in after that?”

He sank onto the edge of the bed, his chest heaving and sweat gleaming along his shoulders and arms. “More than I would like to be.”

She passed him the bottle of painkillers from the nightstand. He took it from her, but didn’t open it right away, instead eying her with curiosity.

“You still haven’t told me where you learned to drop a man to the ground like that.”

“I hold black belts in jujitsu and tae kwon do. I travel a lot for work, sometimes to countries that aren’t overly friendly to women. I like to be able to look after myself.”

She jutted her chin at the bottle in his hand. “Do you need water?”

“I’m good, thanks.” He dumped two tablets into his palm.

She cleared her throat. He looked up.

“Might I suggest just one this time around?” she asked. “Apparently I quadruple in presence when you take more than that.”

Sean’s brows drew together. “Hell. That was real?”

She fought back a smile. “It certainly seemed so for you.”

“Then the rest of it…” Trailing off, he replaced one of the tablets, then re-capped the bottle and handed it back to her.

“How much do you remember?”

“Apart from Wonder Boy and Romeo, you mean? Too much,” he muttered. “Enough to know I owe you an apology. Hell, Grace, I am
so
sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”

“You didn’t. I knew it was the drugs talking, and believe me, I’ve had to deal with far worse.”

“And you’re very capable of looking after yourself. As we’ve just seen.”

Setting the pills back on the nightstand, she glanced out the window. It was full-on dark now. The kids would be wondering where she was. “Do you need anything else before I go? Food? Water?”

“I think I can manage.” He patted his cast. “It’s easing up already.”

“Probably because you’re not bashing into things with it.”

“Probably.”

Grace hesitated. Well then. This was it. Time to say goodbye, with no further need for communication between them, even though they lived just a few hundred feet apart. The small silence between them threatened to grow into something uncomfortable.

Definitely time to leave.

She turned toward the door. She paused in the opening.

“Before I forget, I brought your shotgun back. It’s on the kitchen counter. The shells are with it.”

“Keep it. I wasn’t kidding about finding bear scat beside my driveway. Now that this place is occupied again, chances are good a bruin will give both our cottages a wide berth, but with all those kids you have over there, you should play it safe.”

“I’d rather not have a gun in the house.”

“And I’d rather you did. It’s not like I can run over and do the shooting for you if the occasion arises.” He pulled himself up and tucked a crutch under each arm. “You know how to use it, right?”

She hesitated. As long as she kept it well out of the kids’ reach, maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea. She had to admit there was a certain appeal to having a weapon handy just in case Barry—

“Well?” Sean prodded.

“My uncle taught me when I was twelve,” she said. “But I’m not licensed.”

“You don’t need a license, and even if you did, I’m not about to rat you out for illegal possession of a firearm. You don’t have to carry it around with you, just keep it handy. For the kids’ sakes.”

For the kids’ sakes.

He had no idea.

“What about you?” she asked. “As you pointed out, you can’t even run.”

“Which is why I’m not likely to be wandering more than a couple of feet from a door anytime soon. Take the gun, Grace.”

He made a valid point. Several, actually, and so she capitulated with a single nod.

Sean swung past her on his crutches and led the way through the living room, pausing along the way to turn on two table lamps and then the overhead light in the kitchen. Grace picked up the shotgun and shells she’d left on the counter, and then Sean followed her to the door.

“You have a flashlight?”

She patted her jacket pocket in reply.

“Well, then,” he said, holding out a hand. “It’s been an adventure.”

Snorting at the droll summary of the past two days, Grace accepted the handshake.

“That’s one way to describe it,” she said. “Though I’m sure you’ll be glad to get down to the peace and quiet you had in mind when you came out here. Not to mention giving your poor leg a chance to heal.”

Sean glanced down at the offending—and offended—limb. “Healing would be nice,” he agreed, raising his gaze to hers again. “But I’m glad to have met you. And your brood.”

Grace realized he still held her hand, his fingers strong and warm around hers. And that he remained shirtless. She pulled from his grasp.

“It’s been nice meeting you, too.” She cleared a foreign huskiness from her throat. “And if you do need anything, I usually keep the kitchen window open during the day. If you yell loudly enough, I should be able to hear you from our place. Unless it’s raining, of course. Or if it gets any colder and starts to snow. Though I could still…”

She let her babble trail off.
Leave, Grace. Just leave.

“I’ll remember that.” Sean reached past her to flick on the porch light. Heat radiated from his bare arm, doing nothing to relieve the frisson of awareness running along her veins. His gaze lingered on hers one last time. “Safe walk home.”

Grace made it across the deck to the top of the stairs before Sean’s voice stopped her.

“Um, Grace?”

She turned to find the amusement dancing in his eyes again. He nodded at the weapon she carried.

“Those things tend to work better if they’re loaded.”

He closed the door, leaving her to fumble three of the shells from her pocket into the shotgun’s loading port, certain she could still feel his gaze on her.

SEAN FOUGHT HIS WAY OUT
from under a tangle of covers and grabbed for the shrieking cell phone on the bedside table. He squinted at the too-bright display. Scowled. Jabbed the icon to answer the call.

“This had better be damned good, Connor. It’s still bloody dark outside.”

Momentary silence. Then his cousin’s voice, with its signature dryness, said, “It’s ten o’clock at night. Just what color did you expect the sky to be?”

Sean did a double take. “It can’t be ten. I went to bed at…” he trailed off. “Shit. I slept twenty-three hours?”

“As I’m not there to either confirm or deny, you’ll have to go with your gut on that one. Everything okay?”

Sean pushed upright to lean against the headboard. He scrubbed his free hand over his face, pausing to scratch at the three days of growth along his jawline. Man, he needed a shave. It was a wonder he hadn’t sent Grace and her brood screaming yesterday morning, the way he must have looked. Especially after a night of not sleeping on that damned couch.

“I said, is everything okay?” Gareth’s voice pulled him back to the present.

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s all good. I had a couple of rough days, but I’m settled in now.” He sensed the gathering concern at the other end of the connection and went for a diversion tactic. “So, how’s married life treating you?”

“About the same as ten months of living together did. And before you ask, Gwyn is fine, the kids are fine, and I’m not letting you change the subject that easily. How rough?”

“The drive took a little more out of me than I’d anticipated.” It wasn’t an outright lie, Sean told himself. Just more of an omission, because if he filled Gareth in on the rest of his adventures here, there’d be no stopping the man from sending a small army of nurses to look after him. “I needed a couple of days to recuperate.”

“By sleeping twenty-three hours straight?”

“That just shows how much more relaxed I am out here than I was at the apartment.” Okay, that might have been an actual lie. Sean sighed. “Seriously, Gareth, you’re like a freaking mother hen. Stop worrying so much. I’m fine.”

“Right. Because getting shot in the leg and requiring two separate surgeries has barely affected you.”

Sean tried to shift his casted leg into a more comfortable position, but none existed. “Exactly.”

“And you’re as sharp as ever.”

Sean paused. “Is that a note of sarcasm I hear?”

Gareth met his question with another. “Tell me something. How much battery do you have left on your phone?”

“I don’t know…fifty percent, maybe? I haven’t check—” Sean broke off. “Hell. I forgot my charger, didn’t I?”

“I’m standing in your living room with it in hand as we speak,” Gareth said. “Pam left some things here, so I stopped by to let her in. I found the charger on the kitchen counter.”

“Crap.” Sean took the cell phone away from his ear and glanced at the red low battery icon that had popped up on its face.
Crap, crap, crap.
He returned the phone to speaking position. “Yeah, so I may not be calling you much after all. Turns out I’m at ten percent.”

Gareth snorted. “This cottage idea of yours just keeps getting better and better, doesn’t it? All right. Keep the battery for emergencies. I’ll settle for a text from you on Thursday just to let me know you’re still alive, and I’ll take a run up to bring you the charger on the weekend. Probably Sunday.”

“You know I’d like nothing better than to tell you not to bother.”

Especially since he knew damned well Gareth would hold this over him for years.

“I’ll settle for a
you were right, Gareth, and thanks so much.
” Amusement threaded his cousin’s voice.

“How about a
piss off
instead?” Sean grumbled.

Gareth chuckled outright. “See you Sunday,” he said. “I’ll bring lunch.”

The connection went dead. Sean switched off the cell phone and dropped it onto the bed beside him, plunging the room back into complete dark. He tipped back his head to rest against the headboard. Great. Gareth would undoubtedly take one look at his limited mobility on Sunday, and the argument for Sean returning to Ottawa would be on. Now there was something to look forward to.

That, and now that he’d been woken from a twenty-three hour sleep, the probability he’d be up all night, too.

His stomach grumbled. Sighing, he reached to switch on the bedside lamp. Gareth would be looking for signs of self-sufficiency when he arrived. Now was as good a time as any to start practicing.

He made his way out to the kitchen, switching on lights as he traveled so he wouldn’t kill himself tripping over furniture. Once there, he opened the refrigerator door and surveyed the contents. He’d kept the groceries simple: eggs, enough fresh vegetables and fruit to get him through to the weekend when he’d planned a shopping trip to Perth, a roast that would feed him for several meals if he ever managed to get it into the oven, and a couple of packages of boneless, fast-cooking chicken thighs. He reached for those now, along with some sweet potatoes and a head of broccoli. Within minutes, even operating one handed as he balanced on crutches, he had the oven preheating and liberally seasoned chicken thighs in a roasting pan. The sweet potatoes went into another pan, scrubbed, unpeeled, and unadorned.

The oven signaled its readiness, and the chicken and potatoes went in. He turned his attention to washing the broccoli and cutting it into uniform florets, then drizzled it with olive oil, tossed it with salt and pepper, and slid the pan onto the oven’s top rack. He set the timer for ten minutes, and then smiled with satisfaction.

It felt good to be back on his feet in a halfway independent fashion again. He hadn’t cooked since before the shooting—before Gwyn and Gareth’s wedding—when he’d shuttled Gwyn out of her own kitchen and made dinner for everyone while she and Gareth caught their breath. He shook his head. Damn, that had been an interesting run-up to marriage they’d had. One more reason he had no interest in that kind of commitment. It looked like
way
too much work.

He turned to retrieve the dishcloth from the sink, and a jolt of pain shot through his thigh. His breath left him in a whoosh. Halfway independent he might be, but he wasn’t quite there yet. He shuffled into the bedroom for his painkillers. A smile pulled at his mouth as he dumped a pill—just one—into his hand, remembering Grace’s suggestion the night before. She’d been such a good sport about the whole four-Graces thing. Hell, she’d been a good sport about everything that had happened since he’d first scared the bejeezus out of her nephew.

And she smelled like strawberries.

And she’d kicked his butt.

Strong, beautiful, sarcastic, warm, capable…if he ever did change his mind about settling down, he’d want to do so with someone like—