Here in My Heart: A Novella (Echoes of the Heart) (16 page)

She knew only one thing for certain.

“There’s nowhere else I want to be tonight,” she said. “I’m not a child. I realize this isn’t about forever. Trust
me
, Brad. I’m not expecting a fairy-tale ending this time. I want you here with me, in my bed. I want you, even if it’s only until morning.”

He hesitated—doubting her, worrying for her, something that she couldn’t read taking him away from her. She lifted the hem of his T-shirt over his belly and chest and shoulders, kissing new terrain. Relenting, he lifted his upper body, muscles rippling, and tossed the shirt to the floor. He shucked off his jeans and eased her back to the mattress, not gentle, not careful, needing her in a thrilling, hungry way.

“God, Dru,” he whispered. Rough hands cupped her breasts. His lips found her nipple. “I want you, too.”

Chapter Ten

“Brad?” Dru said, unable to move and in no rush to escape her predicament.

“Mmph?”

She nudged his ribs with her elbow.

He retaliated with a snuggle that turned into a squeeze that turned into her being hauled on top of him, discovering at least one part of him that was ready to greet the day. She wiggled in just the right way. A single eye popped open above his sexy morning stubble, accusing her of taking advantage.

“Witch,” he teased, tempting her back into the fragile closeness of their near sleepless night.

He nuzzled her neck, palming her bottom until she wiggled again. She nipped his earlobe, her teeth sinking in. He hummed, their bodies melting and coming alive.

She should be exhausted, they both should be, but she pecked butterfly kisses all around his mouth, her lips eventually landing on their target, dabbling and teasing. She dove beneath the covers, intent on driving them both crazy. Her hand found him.

“That was Mother’s,” he said, stalling her fingers where she’d been exploring just how awake he was. “Did you know that?”

“Um . . . ?” She let go.

He chuckled and snagged her, spooning her back against him.

“The quilt, Dru. Vivian told me it came from my mother’s hope chest. I was obsessed with it as a kid.”

“And then your grandmother gave it to me.”

Dru brushed the uneven stitching on the handmade spread. She held on tighter, overwhelmed by too much at once. Was it possible Vivian had foreseen this moment all these years, knowing how perfectly imperfect Dru and Brad could be together?

“The woman’s diabolical,” she said.

“She’s a smart lady.” A sliver of reality had crept into Brad’s voice. He pushed up to his elbow, his gaze tender. He tucked the quilt around Dru. “I want to—”

A cell phone chirped, the outside world refusing to stay outside. Brad’s arms came around her so naturally, she didn’t know how she’d let him go.

“It’s yours,” she said over the next ring.

“Whoever it is can wait. We need to talk about—”

“What if it’s Vivian?” Dru eased away. She could face only one impossible reality at a time. “She seemed so weak last night.”

The next ring had Brad reaching over the side of the bed for his jeans. He dug out his phone. He stared at the display as it rang again.

“It was Horace,” Brad finally said. “He rolled to voice mail.”

They stared at each other, wondering. Knowing.

Dru’s pulse was beating all over her body. The person in Chandlerville she was closest to besides Joe and Marsha was gone. The woman who’d raised Brad had said her good-byes last night. No tears, except for Dru’s, nothing drawn out or sad. Just one more challenge from her to them, to fight as tenaciously for what they wanted as Vivian always had.

Dru’s phone rang in her backpack. She shook her head, her eyes blurring. She pulled the quilt around her and walked to the chair she’d dropped her things onto when she’d come home from Harmony Grove. She pulled out her phone and swiped the call open.

“Horace?” she asked.

“Dru . . .” The lawyer’s voice was quiet, a man who commanded an entire courtroom’s attention when he litigated. “I tried to reach Brad first. I’m sorry, honey. I have some difficult news . . .”

When Brad had returned Horace’s call, the lawyer said half the town was already in the waiting room at the hospital.

Friends had been arriving a few at a time as the word spread that Vivian had been transported to Chandler Memorial at dawn, and pronounced dead shortly afterward. When Brad and Dru arrived just after seven, more people who’d known and respected and would fondly remember Vivian and Butler Douglas were heading inside from the parking lot.

After Dru had excused herself to the hall bathroom to dress—code for crying quietly, alone, as if she couldn’t have handled Brad comforting her—he’d called her foster parents. When Brad had pulled into the Chandler Memorial lot with Dru in the passenger seat of his Jeep, Marsha and Joe had turned in behind them.

Dru, who’d said she hadn’t wanted to bother her family so early in the morning, ran into her mother’s embrace. The two women walked inside arm in arm. Brad shook Joe’s hand and accepted a hug.

“Your grandmother meant a lot to a lot of people,” Joe said. They followed the women together. “Dru, especially. Vivian gave her—”

“The chance to have a real home here,” Brad finished.

A home Dru had never expected to be hers. She still didn’t. He’d seen it in her eyes when she’d taken Horace’s call. More than sadness and loss. There’d been panic, too. Loneliness.

The beautiful woman who’d been his with abandon all night had needed to be alone again this morning, to handle what they were about to face.
Alone
was what he’d been seeing in Dru’s eyes since they were kids. Raised by a remarkable foster family, loved by the town she’d come to mean so much to, a part of Dru had never really expected that the belonging she’d worked so hard for was already hers, just because, no matter what.

I realize this isn’t about forever . . . I want you, even if it’s only until morning.

“Dru was family to Vivian,” Brad said to her foster father.

And if Dru still couldn’t accept how much Vi had cared about her, would she ever be ready to trust him?

He thought back to his grandmother’s total reliance on Horace at the end. She’d let herself need Horace, to help deal with Brad and Dru and the will, to help ease them all into her passing. And Vi had never let herself need anyone, once her husband was gone.

Brad wanted to feel that necessary, he realized. He wanted to be what Dru couldn’t live without: lost in each other in the night; facing the morning together, no matter how difficult; fighting about work, and then working it out together. He wanted to be Dru’s Superman. Without Vivian keeping them from drifting apart, he wanted to be Dru’s home.

“Vi may have been difficult to deal with,” he said to Joe as they turned the corner toward the first-floor waiting room. “But she knew how to love, how to believe in people.” No matter the mistakes he’d made, his grandmother had always believed in him. “She saw how special your daughter was and took Dru in when she barely knew her.”

“Because you asked her to.” Joe clapped Brad on the back. “The both of you kept our girl close, so Dru could finish figuring out her life.”

Our girl.

Brad nodded, whatever he’d have said next logjammed in his throat. They joined Dru and Marsha in the waiting room, Joe’s hand falling on Brad’s shoulder like an understanding father’s.

Friends and neighbors were greeting the two women with smiles and tears, a tribute to Vivian’s lifelong impact on everyone. Dru was hugged and consoled. She even laughed a time or two at stories of Vivian’s more outlandish moments. Brad hung back and watched her struggle, encircled by support that seemed to make her feel more out of place by the moment.

She’d been a big part of his grandmother’s final years, while he’d needed to be somewhere else. It was a lock, Dru and this town. Why couldn’t she see that, even now?

He’d tried to talk about it with her earlier, while he’d still held her close. He’d wanted to tell her that he’d believe in her, in them, for as long as it took for her to believe, too. He’d wanted her to know that he was betting on them to make it, even if she couldn’t yet. He’d keep working to make sure she had what she needed, the same as he had for Vivian.

“Keep her close,” Joe said. “She’s going to want to be alone. She always does when she’s scared. Vi might have gotten you this far. Finishing this right, whatever that turns out to be, is on the two of you now.”

Horace finally noticed Brad, from the lawyer’s place in the center of the room beside Dru and Marsha. The lawyer walked over, his hand out to shake. He pulled Brad into a hug. Joe left to join his family. Others stepped to Brad’s side.

“She was thrilled to have you back,” Horace said.

“She’s been so proud of you all these years.” Walter Davis shook Brad’s hand next. “Your joining the force in Savannah was all she’d talk about for days after each of your visits. And the last few weeks, she’s crowed about how successful you and Dru have been, improving things at the Dream Whip.”

“Did you know she had a memory book?” Dan Beaumont asked. “All your Savannah PD citations and awards, articles about your radKIDS programs there. No one had ever seen it. She showed it off when people visited her at Harmony Grove, though. She wanted people to finally know you better.”

Sam Perry wiped at the corner of her eyes. She hugged Brad. She let her husband, Brian, tuck her protectively against his side. “When my Cade was having a hard time a few years back, she made a point of writing a letter to me, talking about how proud she was of you, even though you’d had rough patches growing up. She’d lost her husband and her daughter, she said, and she understood a little bit about my past and why Cade’s struggles were so hard for me. She reassured me that I had a fine boy on my hands, just like she did, and look how wonderful you had turned out . . .”

The stories went on, from more and more people Brad had gotten to know a little, because Vivian had asked him to. Thanks to her, her Chandlerville family was accepting him, missing Vivian with him, making sure he knew he wasn’t alone in his grief. And it would have been a perfect moment, despite his grandmother’s passing, if he hadn’t seen Dru slipping away from her parents and out of the waiting room, walking off by herself.