Harlequin Superromance February 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: His Forever Girl\Moonlight in Paris\Wife by Design (75 page)

“Tell me, Maddie. You know how I get more upset when you won't talk to me than I do about whatever happened.”

Maddie nodded.

And Lynn understood that whatever Maddie knew, her sense of self-preservation when it came to confessing her supposed mistakes was ingrained. It was a residual instinct due to all the punishment she'd taken over the years.

“I'll just sit here and wait,” Lynn said. “Take your time.”

The only way to undo the damage caused by Maddie's past was to replace the negative memory responses with positive ones.

“I let Grant read Kara her bedtime story!” Maddie blurted the words so loudly that if Kara hadn't been a heavy sleeper, she'd certainly have awakened.

Grant had been in Kara's room? And she wasn't there to share the moment?

Lynn couldn't breathe. She should've been there to be part of the experience. To see him tell her daughter good-night. He'd taken the time to read to Kara? A bedtime story?

It meant something.

Her stomach cramped, but her heart raced.

“Kara kept asking me all during her bath could Mister read her bedtime story, and he heard her and he said he would. When I said that only you or I read her bedtime stories unless Amy's here, he just told me you wouldn't mind.”

“He's right, Maddie. I don't mind.”

The other woman's chin came up. Frowning, she met Lynn's gaze. “But you said I always had to follow the list. Always. And that if anything happened and I couldn't follow the list I had to call right away. You or Tammy or Lila. And when I had my cell phone in my hand and I was calling you, Grant told me I didn't have to bother you at work because you were on an emergency, but I already knew that. Then Darin said I should do what Grant said, so I did.” Chew. Chew. Chew.

Lynn reached out and took Maddie's hand. “Maddie, I do want you to follow the list. Always. That is the right thing to do.” If they strayed from that, she couldn't let Maddie watch Kara anymore. Because Maddie would panic if she didn't have exact orders to follow.

“So I did the wrong thing.” The hand beneath hers was trembling and Maddie's eyes filled with tears. “I'm sorry, Lynn. You won't want me to watch Kara anymore.”

“You were in an unfamiliar situation, and you didn't know if you or Grant was in charge,” Lynn said, knowing from Sara that it was more important that she help Maddie understand rather than merely comfort her.

“I'm sorry.”

“I know. And your apology is accepted.”

Maddie looked over at her. “You aren't mad at me?”

“Of course not. You should be mad at me for putting you in that situation,” Lynn said.

It was the truth. Maddie relied on her. She'd agreed to watch over the other woman.

And by allowing Grant and Darin to come over for dinner even when she couldn't be there, she'd failed Maddie.

“I'm sorry, Maddie. I promise it won't happen again.”

“I'm sad about this,” Maddie said. “I'm sad that I can't be like you and decide what's best.”

“You are you, Maddie, and just right as you are. We are all meant to be different,” she reminded her friend. “Think how silly the world would be if we were all walking around exactly alike!”

Maddie nodded. Her chewing stopped.

“So, can we both be done feeling sorry and just not talk about this anymore?” Lynn asked.

It was late. They had to get to bed.

“Yes!” Maddie's voice was too loud again, but she was wearing a big grin. All was well with the world for that night.

Almost. As Lynn left to shower and get some sleep, she wished she could ask Maddie about story time. She wanted to know every detail. Did Grant sit on the side of the bed? Read fast or slow? Did he do the characters' voices? Show Kara the pictures?

Had her baby girl stayed awake for the whole book tonight?

Or fallen asleep with Grant Bishop's soothing voice in her ears?

She wanted to know, but couldn't ask. She and Maddie had just agreed not to talk about the incident anymore.

It didn't matter, anyway. Other than the sex she and Grant were going to have, she was going to have to keep the Bishop men out of her home.

Before there really was a catastrophe with Darin and Maddie. The woman hadn't strayed from what she knew to be right until Darin had said it was okay.

Maddie had followed Darin's dictates rather than her list.

And that could mean disaster.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

G
RANT
TOOK
A
bottle of beer to bed with him. It was his second-best chance to actually get some sleep, since the thing that would help the most—sex—wasn't going to happen for another five days.

He was counting.

And he knew that the past week could not be repeated.

Toasting the thought, he sat up in bed, in the dark, the sheet over his bottom half.

He was going to get up in the morning. Take his brother for the first of many diving excursions. And then go to a Bishop Landscaping job for the rest of the weekend. He'd keep Darin so busy he didn't have time to think about Maddie, let alone talk to her.

There had to be a way to maintain Darin's new zest for life without everything getting completely out of control.

He drank from the bottle.

Grant was up for the challenge. He could handle his brother, tend to him, all by himself.

Except for the therapy, of course. Darin had regained about a quarter of the use of his left hand and arm. They had a way to go before he could pull the plug on The Lemonade Stand completely.

Another second, another sip.

As for the landscaping, he'd committed to keeping up the place indefinitely. And he would. He'd just have to rein himself in on any extra projects, or hire a part-time kid to help him out.

He sipped. Yeah, that was a plan.

He'd hire a kid that the management of The Lemonade Stand approved of.

The thought was good enough to seal with another sip from his bottle.

Or not. Onetime sex with Lynn wasn't going to work. He already knew that.

The knock on his door almost made him miss his mouth as he lifted the bottle to it. Darin didn't wait for a response. Grant's door opened and his brother was silhouetted from the light down the hall.

“You're in the dark.” His brother, still dressed in the jeans and black pullover he'd put on after therapy, stood looking at him from the doorway.

“I know. It's nighttime. I'm going to sleep.”

“No, you're not. You're sitting up.”

Grant was tired. Exhausted, really. And wasn't sure if he was facing man or boy as his brother stood there.

“I'm on my way to sleep.”

“You can't sleep with a bottle in your hand.”

He wasn't putting it down yet. Not even to prove a point.

“I have to talk to you,” Darin said, not moving from his stance by the door.

“Can't it wait until morning?”

“No.”

The unequivocal answer got his attention. “Okay, what's up?”

“I would like you to turn on the light.”

With an inward grumble, he reached up to the bedside lamp and did as his brother requested, blinking against the brightness the low voltage bulb shot into the room.

He'd preferred the darkness, and the thoughts of having sex with Lynn while he poured beer down his throat.

But life wasn't about what he wanted. It was about maintaining control of what was.

“What's up?” he asked Darin, hearing another date request coming on. One he was planning to sidestep until after diving the next morning. At which time, if the fates smiled at him, the date request would be pushed to the back of Darin's mind. And then slide, unnoticed, into the ether that had taken over the better part of his brother's brain.

Walking farther into the room, Darin stopped at the bedside, standing over Grant. His expression was serious, alert, and Grant had to swallow. Hard. Had to fight a memory of Darin coming into his room to tell him that the court had placed him in Darin's custody. To let him know how much he was loved and wanted. And to ask Grant to treat his wife with the same respect with which he treated him.

He had. Always. A day didn't go by that he still didn't miss his sister-in-law.

“I want to get married.”

The bottle of beer slid down his hand to rest in his lap, his hand atop the mouthpiece. He picked it up again. Put it to his mouth. Emptied it.

“Drinking is not the answer, Grant.”

More words from the past—and he didn't have an answer. He'd give Darin the world if he could. Give him anything and everything he asked.

But he couldn't let his brother be a husband.

“It's a little early to be thinking about marriage,” he said, his tired mind scrambling and coming up empty. “You've only known her a few weeks.”

“We're together every day but one, which is Sunday, and that's enough time to know I want to marry her. Mom said she knew the night she met Dad that she was going to marry him.”

Reaching for his robe at the end of the bed, Grant slid from beneath the sheet and covered himself, then grabbed a pair of basketball shorts hanging on a hook on his bathroom door.

When he turned around, Darin was seated on the edge of Grant's unmade bed, toying with a loose thread on his pant leg.

Grant had no plan. He wasn't prepared for this. There was no literature written—not that he'd found at any rate and he'd been through pretty much everything out there—on how to tell your big brother that he was too damaged to have a wife.

“Can we talk about this in the morning, bro?”

When Darin looked up, Grant's heart sank. His eyes were filled with tears and determination. Passion and fear. “No, Grant, I want to talk about this now.”

Something else hit him. “Have you already asked her?”

“No. I'm not stupid, Grant. I know I can't just propose. Maddie and I can't live alone.”

Grant took a seat next to his brother. “But you've talked to her about it, haven't you?” He'd softened his voice, feeling his brother's pain more than his own frustration in that moment.

“We've talked about being together every day, making dinner and eating together like we do at Lynn's. And about sleeping in the same bed and talking that way instead of in different beds and being on the phone.”

He and Lynn had skipped the talking-in-bed part of the plan and gone straight to talking about sex.

But this wasn't about him and Lynn.

“She needs me, Grant.”

Or was it that Darin needed to be needed? And if so, there was nothing wrong with that.

“And you can be there for her, as a friend,” Grant said gently. “We don't lie to each other, right?”

“Right.”

“So as much as I want to tell you we'll find a way to work this out, I can't do that.”

“Can, too.” Darin's chin stiffened, jutting out as he said, “You aren't trying.”

“I'm not trying because I can't get past the fact that I cannot possibly take care of Maddie, not like I take care of you.”

“I'll take care of her.”

“What if she has female issues that she doesn't understand or needs help with?” He was pulling at straws and he knew it, but he had to help Darin see, to nip this in the bud now before it flowered into a hellish mess.

“I know all about them. I was married before, remember?”

“She can't stay alone all day. And she definitely can't come with us on job sites.”

He had all he could handle with one handicapped family member. He couldn't take on two. No matter how much he loved his brother.

Could he?

Was he actually considering this asinine idea?

No. He was not.

“We could take her to The Lemonade Stand in the morning and pick her up on our way home at night. I can give her half of my closet. My clothes don't fill it up, anyway. And she can borrow my computer and watch my television and use my soap.”

“Who would budget your money?”

Darin looked over at him, frowning. “You, of course.”

“Maddie lives by lists. Who'd make out her lists?”

“Nuh-uh, Grant. Maddie doesn't live by lists. Lynn does. Maddie just has to follow the list to watch Kara. At Maddie's house there aren't any lists.”

Darin had been to Maddie's house? After all their careful supervision?

“When were you in her house?”

“I don't know.” Darin shrugged. “One time.”

“Can you remember anything about the time?”

It was a question he regularly asked his brother because Darin had no sense of time beyond being able to count days on a calendar.

“No.”

“Did you have your stitches then?”

“I don't know. I don't think I looked at my leg.”

“What about your arm? Do you remember if you did anything with your left arm?”

Darin wrinkled his nose. His brow furrowed. And then his eyes opened wide. “Yes, I remember right now that I tried to hold the door open for her as we were leaving but my arm wouldn't move and the door hit her and I was afraid she was going to cry, but she laughed instead. And later she told me that she hoped that therapy worked because it made her sad that I couldn't use my arm. That's when I first really wanted her to be my friend. When she looked at me like that and said that.”

All of which put Darin in Maddie's home the first week they'd been at the Stand.

Before anyone was specifically keeping an eye on them.

“Have you been back since?”

“No.”

“You don't... You guys don't...”

“Don't what, Grant?”

“Have you kissed Maddie?”

“A man doesn't kiss and tell, Grant.”

“I'm your brother. It's okay to tell me.”

Darin studied him, as though weighing his options. “Yes, I did kiss her. And she tasted good and we both liked it. A lot. And we want to get married. And I farted, too, and she laughed. And then she farted and I laughed. I want to live with her forever. It would make me very happy, Grant.”

“You do realize this is a huge decision, right?”

“Yes. And you don't think I can make it, do you?” Darin's gaze was clear for a moment. And then it clouded over.

“What I think is that it's too big a decision for me to make tonight,” he told his brother.

“But you aren't saying no.”

“I'm not saying yes, either.”

“But you aren't saying no.”

He had to go to bed. Darin needed to go to bed, too. They were going diving in the morning.

“No, I'm not saying no.”

Darin jumped off the bed so fast he almost fell and had to catch himself on the nightstand, knocking over the empty beer bottle. “Gee, thanks, Grant. Okay, good night,” he said. And strode from the room.

Presumably to call his intended.

Reminding himself that intentions didn't mean anything without action, Grant picked up the empty beer bottle, set it back on the nightstand and went to bed.

* * *

O
H
, G
OD
, G
RANT
, where are you?

Walking outside on the grounds, and then on to the public sections of The Lemonade Stand, Lynn looked everywhere for Grant's truck Saturday morning. He was always there by eight on weekends. To get in a full day's work so he could be free to work on his paying design projects during the week. Grant was a workaholic. Dependable. A do-what-you-say-you're-going-to-do type of guy.

And she couldn't find his truck anywhere.

Let alone find him.

Darin's therapy was due to start in half an hour. Neither brother would let him skip it.

She just had to remain calm.

Kara was tied up for the morning in a specially designed developmental-play class that a child life specialist was giving to the toddlers in the private day care. There could be thirty or more living at the Stand at any given time. At the moment, there were only six.

Twice as many babies. And more than twenty five-and-overs living at The Lemonade Stand.

Still no Grant.

Five minutes before Darin's therapy was due to begin, their truck finally pulled into the back parking lot closest to the secure entrance to the complex, and Darin got out, slamming his door and, without saying goodbye to his brother or seeming to notice Lynn, stomped off in the direction of the therapy room.

“What's up with him?” she asked Grant. Just seeing him and looking into those brown eyes settled her nerves.

“He said he wanted to start diving again. I took him diving.”

“And it didn't go well? Because of his arm?”

“It went very well, in spite of his arm.”

He locked the truck, the epitome of hot in his tight jeans and black Bishop Landscaping polo shirt.

“He seemed upset.”

He didn't ask why she was there.

Or seem to notice that she'd put on makeup with her favorite pair of black scrubs. She'd thought about leaving her hair down, too, but it just wasn't practical.

“I just signed him up for a diving class he used to teach.”

“Does he know the teacher?”

“No. It's a kid who was probably in grade school the last time Darin did any real diving. He's mad because the class meets four nights a week. Right after therapy.”

Her confusion cleared.

And so did some more of her tension.

“I'm guessing he talked to you, then.”

Maddie had hit her with the news first thing that morning.

“Oh, he talked to me all right.” Clipping his keys onto his belt loop, Grant started toward the locked garage where the landscaping equipment was stored. She walked beside him.

And wanted him to want her. Even then.

“I told Maddie that they couldn't possibly marry,” she said, having to walk fast to keep up. “I told her that you'd have to sign paperwork giving Darin permission to marry and that you'd never do that.”

His silence was not encouraging. On any level.

They passed through open common ground and turned a corner before they reached the garage. Pulling his keys from his belt loop, Grant unlocked the door and strode inside. Lynn waited for him outside, wondering what she'd done to piss him off.

His hand shot out, grabbed her wrist, and she was inside the garage and in his arms before she'd had time for another thought.