Castle in the Sand (2 page)

Claire jerked away from his touch, then
stalked past him toward the tiny living room. Her heart pounded so
hard in her chest she thought it was going to leap right out of her
skin. Her head spun. Chills ran up and down her spine, rapidly,
like the flutter of a butterfly's wings. She took in a breath, then
another, but couldn't seem to fill her lungs. She was going to
faint. What was wrong with her?

She shook her head furiously, like a dog
shaking off water, and bit her tongue. Sharp pain gave her focus.
Her knees still shook, a little, but she straightened them along
with her back.

"I didn't mean to upset you," Malcolm said
from behind her. "Claire, believe me, I didn't."

Her voice came out harsher than she meant it
to. "No. You never mean it, do you? Is that supposed to make it any
better?"

She glared at him over her shoulder. He
scrubbed at his face, then ran his hand through his hair. His
accent thickened, and Claire remembered how the way he'd pronounced
his words had once made her stomach tumble.

"Maybe...no. But it's all I can give
you."

Fury ignited in her. She'd spent years being
pleasant to this man, when the very sight of him had made her want
to scream. She'd taken pride in never allowing him to get under her
skin, in being the better person, in not succumbing to the waves of
anger and grief that could have ruined every summer. Now, with
nothing more than a few words, he'd broken her. She hated him for
that, and hated herself for allowing him to do it.

"It's not enough!" The words dropped from her
lips like toads, and she regretted them instantly for again having
given away too much of herself.

He shrugged, then held up his hands. Silent
in the face of her fury.

Claire shivered. Her feet and fingers were
numb, icy despite the anger that should have brought heat to her
cheeks. "It's been eight years. In all that time, I haven't ever
raised my voice to you. I've never made it hard for us all to get
together here--"

"You've never raised your voice because you
don't talk to me!" He moved toward her again, but this time, Claire
stood her ground. "I'd take your anger if it meant you spoke to me,
not around me! But you don't even look at me, Claire. You don't see
me, and you haven't in eight years!"

"It's easier that way!" Her throat threatened
to close on the words, but she forced them out. "Damn it, how do
you think it is for me to spend a week every summer in this house
with you? Sure, I could stomp and scream and gnash my teeth, but to
what purpose? There are six other people who come to this house.
Six other people I consider my very dearest friends. People I love,
and who love me--"

"And who love me, too," he put in
quietly.

"And who love you, too," Claire replied. "And
because they love you, and they love me, I never wanted to make it
hard for them. I never wanted to let what happened between us turn
everything sour. I didn't want to ruin Nonesuch for everyone just
because...just because it had been ruined for me."

Then, to her horror, tears slid in burning
lines down her cheeks. A sob tore from her throat. Claire's hands
flew to her mouth, startled, to hold back the cry, but only managed
to muffle it.

"Damn you!" she croaked. "Damn you to hell
and back again!"

"Believe me," Malcolm told her. "I swear I've
been there already."

Nausea swam up from her gut and she coughed.
She pushed past him to the kitchen, where she ran the water cold
and splashed her face, though she was already freezing. She felt
him watching her, but he wasn't speaking, thank God. She wiped her
hands, took a deep breath, and turned to face him. "I should just
go."

"No!" The vehemence in his words made her
lean back against the counter. He softened and held out his hands
as though to placate her. "No, please. Don't go. I've waited a long
time for this."

"For what?" Claire gave a derisive laugh. Her
damp hair tickled her cheeks, and she swept it away with a fierce
hand.

Malcolm sighed. "It's been eight years,
Claire. Do you no think...do you no ever think you could possibly
forgive me?"

She laughed again. For the first time in a
while, the hunger for a cigarette picked at her. She swung toward
the cupboard and pulled out a box of peanut brittle instead. She'd
stashed the box, still sealed in its plastic wrapper, in case of
just such a craving. Her fingers worked at the slippery plastic,
which denied and defeated her every effort at tearing it. She tried
again to wedge a fingernail beneath the corner, but failed.

"Here. Let me." Gently, he took the box from
her and slit open the plastic by running his nail along the box's
opening. He held out the box to her, and Claire took it. She put it
on the counter, suddenly having lost her appetite for the
candy.

"It's been eight years," she said at last.
"Why don't you just let it go?"

"Me?"

His face transformed when he laughed. How
could she have forgotten that? The way his mouth curled and his
eyes crinkled?

"Me let it go? I'd have let it go years ago,
Claire. You're the one who's been hanging on."

"Yes, you would've let it go, wouldn't you?
It was easy for you to do that." She sniffed and turned her head,
not willing to look again at his easy, charming smile.

"No. It wasn't easy for me to do it. It was
never easy."

She replied in a voice pitched deliberately
low, wanting to make him work to hear her. "Fine. You want me to
forgive you? Forget about it? Fine. I'm over it. I'm over you."

"I'm sorry!" His anguished cry made her look
up from her study of the worn linoleum. "If I could take it all
back, I would! I swear to God I would! I was just a stupid kid,
Claire! I didn't know--"

"Then take it all back!" Now she advanced on
him, her fists clenched at her sides. More chills ran over her. Her
teeth snapped together, and she had to force the words through
their clatter. "Make it all go away! Make it so you never kissed me
that first time. Take back the first time we made love. Take back
the way you told me you loved me! Take it all back!

"And while you're at it--" Now she spat the
words that had lain in her heart for so long, festering, spat them
like they tasted bad, because they did. They tasted like bile.
"Take back the night you came here, to our place, and fucked that
slut on the beach then lied to my face about it not even two hours
later. When I could still smell her on you, you lying, cheating
bastard."

She breathed deep, took in the scent of sea
and sand, and of him. The smells washed over her. Relentless.
Claire struggled for control of her tears...and lost. She closed
her eyes and they still slipped out. "But you can't! Don't you know
there's no such thing as a second chance? You can't take it
back."

"I wish I could."

Her eyes flew open. "So do I."

The house rocked as though a giant fist had
thumped it. Claire staggered. Malcolm's hands held her upright.
Kept her safe.

"What the hell?" he cried, just as another
thump came.

This one was louder and stronger. It rattled
the windows and the glasses in the cupboard. A third rumble rocked
the old house on its stilt foundation. The key holder fell off the
wall and split apart on the floor.

Claire realized she was in Malcolm's arms
after a moment of silence. "What was that?"

He bent and lifted the broken key holder.
"Look."

Six of the eight pictures had scattered in
the fall. Only two remained, face up, side by side, untouched.
Claire and Malcolm.

Malcolm picked up their photos and put them
on the table. His eyes, gray-green at the moment and open wide, met
hers. He reached for her hands and she let him take them. "Not an
earthquake."

Airth-quake.
Her stomach tumbled the
way it used to. "No."

"Something else."

She nodded then looked to the kitchen
ceiling, where the overhead light still swung to and fro.
"Something...odd."

He didn't seem as frightened by the strange
occurrence as she might have guessed he would. But then, strangely
enough, neither did she. The noise and the vibration had been
fierce and unexpected. Definitely out of the ordinary.

A sensation, not quite pain, throbbed in her
temple. Claire rubbed the spot. Something was different. Something
had changed.

She looked again at the man who had broken
her heart so long ago, and this time, the sight of him did not make
her want to scream. She'd kept her anger and grief close to her for
a long time, but now she felt it slipping away from her like a
handful of dry sand.

He pulled her close. His breath fluttered on
her cheeks. She turned her head, but could not find the desire to
push him away.

Oh, it had been too long. Too many years
without him. Why had she run away? Once, what had happened that day
had seemed so important. It had seemed like the end, a tragedy from
which there could be no return. And now, with his hands making her
warm at last, Claire discovered she could barely remember that day
at all.

"Maybe," Claire said slowly, "I do believe in
second chances after all."

* * * *

She took him by the hand and led him up the
narrow stairs to the room she'd always loved best. They didn't
bother with words, which would have only ruined the moment.
Instead, Claire let her actions speak for her.

Malcolm was only a few inches taller than her
five feet, six inches, but he ducked instinctively as he followed
her toward the double bed. Claire laughed, aware she felt
unreasonably giddy, but not caring. She rubbed at her temple again,
with the hand not holding tightly onto Malcolm's, but she didn't
think too hard about what had changed between them. It seemed she
couldn't, actually.

She was aware something had changed, but when
she tried to focus on it, the thoughts skittered away from her like
mice across a kitchen floor. For the first time in as long as she
could remember, Claire wasn't angry anymore.

When they reached the bed, she turned and
faced him. They stood nearly eye-to-eye until she kicked off her
thick-soled sandals. Then her nose came neatly to his chin. Face to
face, she met his gaze without hesitation. His eyes were blue now
in the shaft of light streaming in through the stripes she'd made
on the window's dusty glass. Liquid blue. She pushed up on her
toes, just a little, and kissed him.

Salt, like the taste of the sea, filled her
mouth and she closed her eyes as her lips parted. He opened beneath
her. She waited for the inquisitive touch of his tongue, and when
it didn't come soon enough, she gave him hers.

He gave a sigh that was nearly a moan and his
arms went around her. Suddenly, she was warm. Her body stopped its
mild but constant shivering. She sank into the warmth as she sank
into the kiss, and it was like being enfolded in a placid,
comforting sea.

She pulled him down with her onto the bed and
expected to smell dust as their bodies hit the cover. Only the
scent of salt and sand--Malcolm's scent--washed over her, and
Claire breathed deeply as though she hadn't breathed in an
eternity.

She had not forgotten the feeling of his
weight on her. She parted her legs to allow him to settle between
them. The bulge of his erection pressed against her clit, urging it
to swell with arousal.

Malcolm pulled away to look into her eyes
again. His hand came up to stroke away the tangled tendrils of her
hair from her forehead. He looked as though he was about to speak,
but Claire pressed a finger to his lips to keep him silent.

"Shh. It's better this way."

Always before, she'd been the one to talk. To
tell him what she felt, or thought, or dreamed. She'd been the one
to share her words of love while he avoided them. Malcolm had been
the taciturn one, easy with his laughter, but not forthcoming with
much else.

"Kiss me," she said, and he did.

He rolled to her side and left her mouth to
kiss along her cheek, the curve of her jaw, and down the line of
her neck to the hollow of her throat. There he paused, his lips
soft on her skin. "It's been forever since I tasted you."

She laughed, low and throaty, a sexy, sensual
sound that made her nipples and clit throb in time with her beating
heart. "Then what are you waiting for?"

He replied by capturing her mouth again. Hard
enough this time to make her gasp and press her hips upward. His
tongue swept the inside of her mouth for a moment before he once
again delved to her throat and nibbled her skin.

Claire pushed herself further up on the bed,
until her head rested on the pillows. "Make love to me."

The smile she loved so well spread across his
mouth and made her heart leap. Malcolm knelt beside her and reached
for the buttons on her sweater and the shirt beneath. One by one,
he slid them open and kissed the flesh he exposed. Her skin grew
warmer under the path of his lips.