Dead Silence (18 page)

She immediately released him and started to tread water. “Of course not. I’m just looking for any angle to get my stepfather’s Bible back.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I think you’re afraid you might actually like me if you gave yourself half a chance.”

“I’ve always liked you,” she said. “Who hasn’t?”

He knew how she’d felt about him years ago. Was it possible those feelings hadn’t completely disappeared? “You have a strange way of showing it,” he said.

“And you have children to worry about. I’m the last person you should spend your time with. Take what you want from me, return the Bible, and that’ll be the end of it.”

“Oh, now I understand,” he said.

“What?”

“You’re willing to give me a quickie here in the lake so you can prove to yourself that’s all I was after, is that it? Then you can convince yourself I’m the bastard you always thought I was.”

“If that’s the case, you should be damn glad of it.” She sounded slightly panicked. “You’re the one who’d benefit.”

He resumed pulling her to shore. “No, thanks.”

“Listen to me.”

“No. You feel bad about something, and you’re trying to make yourself feel even worse. But I won’t allow you to use me to do it.”

“Why do you care how I feel? What I think?” When she couldn’t wrench her wrist away, she splashed water at him.

He turned his face in the other direction, but he wasn’t about to let her go. No way would he risk having her swim back into the middle of the lake.

“Come on, Kennedy, I’m
Grinding Gracie,
remember? What was it Joe said at the pizza parlor? For a smile, I’ll spread my legs? Well, this time I’m not asking for even that much.”

“Stop it,” he snapped. “What happened in high school makes me sick.” He kept pulling her along.

“You afraid I’ll tell someone about the two of us? That it’ll ruin your spotless reputation if other people find out you wanted to get down and dirty with me?”

“I’m not worried about that.”

“So what’s wrong? Why the hesitation?”

“Maybe I don’t like your terms.”

“You don’t want to give me the Bible?”

“It has nothing to do with the Bible.”

“Then what
terms?
” she repeated in disbelief. “I said no strings attached. For a guy like you, how does an offer get any better than that?”

He whirled to confront her. “For a guy like me? You don’t even know me! We’re not in high school anymore, Grace.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

“I think it’s hard for you to forget.” He flung the wet hair out of his eyes. “And I hate that I’m part of the reason.”

“If you don’t want me, go on about your business.” She could finally touch bottom. Using her newfound traction, she wriggled out of his grasp, but he turned around so fast her eyes widened.

Instinctively, she stepped back as his gaze wandered hungrily over her face, her mouth, her mostly bare shoulders.

“I want you all right.” He untied the fabric of her bikini top, which fell down to reveal what he’d seen in the window, and dreamed about ever since. Still, he didn’t touch her there. Lifting her chin with one finger, he brushed his lips over hers once again. “But it’s not
sex
I’m after,” he murmured. “I want to make love to you, Grace. In case you haven’t learned it yet, there’s a difference.”

She didn’t move, didn’t speak.

He raised his head. “Now, if you’re not back in your tent in five minutes, I’m taking that damn Bible to the police. Understood?”

Without waiting for an answer, he let her go. Then he left the water and marched off toward camp because he knew that if he stayed another second he’d take anything she was willing to give him, even if it wasn’t everything he wanted.

G
race sat on the shore and stared out at the lake, not quite sure what had happened a few minutes earlier. She’d left her tent in a torrent of pain and somehow wound up in the water with Kennedy Archer, experiencing the very desire she couldn’t summon for George. How could her life be so perverse?

Closing her eyes, she remembered the warm thrust of his tongue, the pressure of his erection as she tightened her legs around him. The memory alone caused goose bumps to rise on her arms. If only she could feel that for George, maybe she’d have a shot at happiness….

But
Kennedy?

“No,” she muttered and buried her face in her hands. She was shivering uncontrollably, but she embraced the cold, hoping its razor-like edge would remind her that she could never trust him, never believe that he might really care about her. She was so different from Raelynn, whom he’d idolized. And she was painfully aware of what she’d done with most of his friends. If she couldn’t forgive herself for those incidents, how could she expect him to forgive her? They shouldn’t even be seen together. His family would hate her. And she couldn’t be any more honest with him about the events of eighteen years ago than she could with
George. The truth, if it came out, could destroy him as well as her.

But it was his two sons who worried her most. What if they began to care about her?

Resting her forehead on her knees, she wrapped her arms tightly around her legs and tried to stop shaking long enough to figure out what to do. She was tempted to leave town immediately, head right back to the big city. But George needed her out of his life, and her family needed her in Stillwater.

“Grace, come back to camp,” Kennedy said from somewhere behind her, and she realized he hadn’t gone to bed as she’d assumed.

She shook her head in disbelief. He was so responsible. He’d definitely make a good mayor, she thought.

“I’m coming.” She stood, brushed the sand from her legs and met up with him halfway to their campsite. She’d tied her bathing suit on again, but when he looked at her, she still felt exposed, raw, hungry.

It’s not sex I’m after. I want to make love to you, Grace….

What would that be like? For once, she wanted to hold nothing back. With him, she sensed that would be possible.

But she’d never find out.

They walked in silence, without touching. Once she reached her tent, she murmured a good-night and started to go inside, but Kennedy caught her by the wrist.

“Grace?” His voice was a mere whisper.

She looked up to find him wearing an intense expression.

“Do you know what’s inside the reverend’s Bible?”

“Inside it?” she echoed in confusion.

“Did you ever have the chance to read what he wrote?”

“No. What did he write?”

“A lot of it was about you.”

She didn’t dare say anything.

“I read it, and it’s made me wonder…”

Apprehension gnawed at her, and her pulse raced. “What?” she said hesitantly.

“Did…did the reverend ever—”

Her stomach tensed. “I don’t want to talk about him,” she said.

Taking both her hands, he held them reassuringly. “Did he…you know, touch you when you were a girl? Touch you in the wrong places and in the wrong way?”

The breath seemed to freeze in Grace’s lungs, creating a crushing tightness. For a split second, she wanted to admit it. To divulge her pain and outrage at last. To cast off the heavy burden of her filthy secret, a secret she hadn’t even been willing to share with a therapist.

But she couldn’t get past the feeling that she was somehow to blame for what her stepfather had done. Like those encounters with Kennedy’s friends in high school, the shame of it burned her almost as deeply as the betrayal. Besides, she couldn’t give anyone an inkling that she and her family might’ve had such a powerful motive for murder. Especially Kennedy. He knew about the Bible. She was sure he’d turn on her at some point. All his friends and his family were against her. And when he did, the consequences of one weak moment could destroy her entire family.

“No.” She told herself to look him in the eye, but she couldn’t. She was afraid he’d see right through her, the way he had when they were in the water.

She tried to move away, but he hung on to her. “I think he did,” he said stubbornly.

He was pressing her, searching for the truth. She had to be more convincing. “Are you crazy?” She forced a scoffing tone into her voice. “There are people in this town who’d condemn even you for saying such a thing. The reverend was above reproach—wasn’t he?”

His expression didn’t change as he stared down at her. “I don’t know. You tell me.”

He seemed so aware of every nuance. She needed more space. “He—of course. I mean, everyone knows what a g-good man he was. He—” The words seemed to congeal in her throat. She knew she should continue to praise her stepfather, but she couldn’t do it. Not here. Not now. Not to Kennedy.

“
Was
he a good man?” Kennedy whispered.

She struggled to hold herself together, trying to catch her breath. Too much had happened tonight. Everything was running into a great kaleidoscope of emotion. Pain. Anger. Disappointment. Arousal. Hope. Kennedy seemed to provide the anchor she craved, but she knew that was an illusion. As soon as she grabbed on, she’d find out there was really nothing there. He was Mr. Stillwater and she was Grinding Gracie.

“Did he molest you, Grace?”

She wanted to cover her ears. “No. Stop it! I can’t—I…just shut up, please!” Finally, she managed to wrench free and dart into the protective cover of her tent. There, blinking back tears, she held her breath to see what Kennedy would do next. She prayed he’d accept what she’d told him and believe it. But she knew she hadn’t been nearly as persuasive
as she should’ve been. Especially when she heard him pacing outside.

“God,” she heard him say. “If he’s not dead already, I’ll kill him myself.”

Kennedy lay awake long after Grace had stopped stirring. He supposed she’d finally fallen asleep. He hoped so; she needed the rest. But for him sleep was impossible. He couldn’t shut down. In his mind, he kept seeing the moonlight on Grace’s ashen face when he’d asked if the reverend had abused her—seeing the truth in her eyes—and kept wondering how far the bastard had taken the molestation. Had he raped her? If so, how old had she been? And had he done it once? Twice? More?

The thought of the reverend forcing a small, defenseless Grace to lie beneath him evoked a white-hot anger.

Pressing his thumb and finger into his closed eyes, Kennedy attempted to blot out the vision. It was making him nauseous. Nothing could stop him from feeling Grace’s fear and helplessness as an innocent child, the guilt and self-loathing she seemed to feel as an adult. What he now believed explained so much, didn’t it?

He understood why Grace had acted out in a sexual manner during high school. He’d heard that was common with people who’d been molested as children. He also understood why she’d been so desperate for attention. With such serious problems at home, her emotional needs weren’t being met. Even though the reverend was gone by the time she reached high school, things certainly hadn’t improved, at least not a great deal. Her mother didn’t have much of an education and wasn’t well liked. The best job she could
get required her to work long hours for little pay. The Montgomerys were surrounded by suspicion, constantly the brunt of jokes or the subject of snide glances and unkind whispers, many of which ended with “white trash.”

The beautiful woman he’d just held in the water was anything but trash. Recalling the jibes and taunts his friends had lobbed Grace’s way and, worse, the adoration and hope he’d seen shining in her eyes whenever she looked at him, turned his guilt into a physical ache.

“Why?” he muttered. Why couldn’t he have stepped outside his perfect world long enough to show her some compassion? To help turn the tide of disapproval and dislike?

Obviously, he was as bad as Joe and the others. He’d done nothing. And yet she’d survived. She’d graduated from high school. She’d pulled herself together and gone to college, even law school. She’d become an assistant D.A. and never lost a case.

Impressive. Her accomplishments, once she left Stillwater, were
more
than impressive. And yet the scars remained. He knew that.

The day Clay appeared at school and bloodied Tim’s face came to mind. Clay was incredibly strong, and had been even in high school. As a junior, he could bench-press over three hundred pounds. A plaque still hung in the weight room with his name on it—the “Over 300 Club.” Kennedy hadn’t achieved that status until he was in college, and he’d never beat Clay’s record.

Had Clay or Irene discovered what the reverend was doing to Grace and killed him in an act of rage? Or had they acted more methodically to ensure that he
could never hurt her again? It was even possible that little Grace had finally done something about the abuse, and her family was covering for her.

Regardless, Kennedy was certain the story they’d long told wasn’t true. Before finding that Bible and seeing everything the reverend had written about Grace, he’d been willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes strange, inexplicable things happened. But he couldn’t accept that anymore. He suspected the Montgomerys were as guilty as everybody claimed.

But, knowing what he did, could he blame them?

The sun beat down on Grace’s tent. She rolled over, still sleepy but unable to tolerate the sweltering heat. It was fairly early in the morning—about eight-thirty, she guessed—but the boys and Kennedy were already up. She could hear them talking, smell the bacon frying.

“She knows you’re a nice guy now, right, Dad?” Teddy asked.

“We’ll talk about it later,” Kennedy replied, his voice low.

“She likes you. I can tell.”

Kennedy cleared his throat. “Teddy, that’s enough.”

“Okay. But you like her, too, don’t you? She’s pretty, huh, Dad?”

“She’s pretty,” he admitted.

Grace muffled a groan as she recalled the events of the previous night in brutal detail. She’d kissed Kennedy, offered to have sex with him. She should be embarrassed about that, except she knew she’d do it again if it would put what they were feeling behind them. She could sense trouble coming, trouble that
seemed particularly ominous when she thought about the recognition on Kennedy’s face as she lied so poorly at her tent door a few hours earlier.

Why hadn’t she been stronger?

Rolling onto her side, she spotted the cell phone. It wasn’t until that moment that she thought of George. She’d lost the man she was going to marry. Almost every facet of her life had changed last night.

“She’s
really
pretty,” Heath concurred.

“Grab those eggs and bring them to me,” Kennedy said.

Throwing off the cover of her sleeping bag, she told herself she might as well face Kennedy and get it over with. Maybe they could simply forget their encounter at the lake. Pretend it had never happened and go their separate ways.

But she didn’t really want to forget what she’d felt.

“I can never get it right,” she muttered.

“I think she’s waking up,” Teddy said with an eagerness that made Grace smile despite everything.

“Stay here, Teddy,” Kennedy admonished. “Give her a chance to get dressed.”

“I was just going to say hello,” he muttered.

After pulling on a tank top and a pair of shorts, Grace gathered her toiletries, and stepped out of the tent wearing flip-flops on her feet. She knew her hair probably looked a fright since she’d gone to bed with it wet, but Kennedy didn’t seem to notice. He turned at the sound of her approach and something invisible passed between them. It wasn’t the self-consciousness she’d expected to feel. It was more indefinable than that. She’d never experienced it before.

Fleetingly, she remembered clinging to him, rubbing against him in the lake. Thank goodness they’d been dressed or things might’ve ended much differently.

“Morning,” he said, handing her a piece of bacon.

She mumbled a response, focusing on the salty taste of the meat so she wouldn’t have to consider that he now knew more about her than almost anyone else in the world.

“Pancakes will be ready in a few minutes,” he said.

“Smells great.” She wished she could read the expression in his eyes. “Do I have time to grab a quick shower?”

“Sure.”

“I’ll walk you over,” Heath said.

Grace took the boy’s hand.

“I’ll come, too,” Teddy said and insisted on carrying her bag.

The sound of an engine caught Grace’s attention as they started off. She glanced back, expecting it to be another camper coming or going. But that wasn’t the case at all.

They had company.

“Oh, no,” she said, immediately recognizing the driver.

“What’s the matter?” Teddy asked.

As Joe Vincelli hopped out of his truck, Teddy stayed at her side, but Heath ran over to greet him.

“Hi, Joe! I didn’t know you were coming.”

Neither did Grace. “You invited him?” she muttered to Kennedy. The sight of Joe reminded her that Kennedy had always been an enemy. How long would it be before he told his friends about the Bible and what had happened last night?

“No,” Kennedy said, but there was no chance for him to explain.

“Here you are,” Joe said. “I knew I could find you.”

“What’s going on?” Kennedy asked.

Joe’s gaze cut to her. “When you mentioned you were going camping, you didn’t tell me you were bringing Gracie.”

“That’s Grace,” he said. “And you didn’t ask.”

“Grace. Right.” The smile that curved Joe’s lips indicated he found Kennedy’s correction amusing. “Well, no worries. I’m here to save the outing.”

“
Save
the outing?” Grace repeated.

“Don’t you know? Politicians are notoriously dull.”

“And you’re…?”

“Compared to Kennedy, I’m the life of the party. I don’t have a reputation to protect.” He winked at her. “You and I are alike in that way, eh?”

“We’re not alike at all,” she said.