No Knight Needed (27 page)

Clare stared up at the ceiling as she listened to him breathe. She could feel his chest expand with each breath, and his leg was thrown over hers, the heavy weight trapping her to the bed. One arm was wrapped around her upper body, tucking her against him as if he were cradling his truest love.

His whiskers were digging into her shoulder, and she was so warm and cozy against him. She never wanted to move, ever.

Her body was sore and felt thoroughly loved, and she smiled at the memory of their lovemaking. Nothing like getting back into the game in a hurry. How many orgasms had she had? It turned out, he could touch her pretty much any way he wanted, and she went over the edge.

It hadn’t been like that with Ed, that was for sure.

Griffin had attributed it to the fact he was, apparently, indeed the world’s greatest lover.

She had no idea what it was, or why she’d responded like that, but it had turned the night into something out of a dream. All it took was looking at his handsome face, at the passion in those dark brown eyes, and hearing the tone of his voice, and she would tumble off that cliff again.

But this morning...She wrapped her hands around his upper arm where it was across her breasts. This morning, this magnificent man was hers. This morning, for the first time in fifteen years, she wasn’t waking up alone.

And it felt so incredible, so amazing, so right, that she knew she was in trouble.

Emma had been so right.

Clare wasn’t an empty-sex kind of girl.

She loved her bed. She loved her independence. But after waking up with Griffin and having it feel so incredible to have him holding her, she was absolutely terrified of what it would be like when he left and she had to wake up alone again.

She rubbed her hand along his arm, feeling the softness of the hair. How could it feel so beautiful to have Griffin in her bed? Shouldn’t she be trying to push him out? Shouldn’t she feel a need to reclaim her space? Shouldn’t she feel highly satisfied and ready to declare herself available for Mr. Right, who was supposed to follow on the heels of the rebound man?

Because that’s what Griffin was, right? Sure, yeah, the rebound was a decade and a half later, but he was still the first guy she’d been with since Ed.

But she didn’t feel like he was a rebound man.

She didn’t feel ready to race into the sunset with another man now that Griffin had released her inner vixen.

She just felt ready to lie here, with Griffin, and never leave this spot. She’d had no idea that it would feel this amazing and right to be with him. To feel his body against hers, to have his breath mingle with hers, to have his scent tangled in her sheets.

Sighing, she wrapped her arms around him and rested her cheek against his head. For this moment, for this breath of time, he was hers and she would worry about the rest later, because it was, quite clearly, already too late to protect herself from falling under his spell—

“Mom?” Katie’s footsteps padded down the hall.

Oh, no! “Just a second,” she called back, trying unsuccessfully to get out from under Griffin. “Griffin! Let me up!” Clare shoved at him, but he didn’t move. She tugged at his hair. “Griffin,” she whispered.

He grunted and opened his eyes. A sleepy smile warmed his face. “Good morning, my darling.”

Oh, God, how she wanted to melt into that smile. “Katie’s outside the door.”

Griffin began to nibble on her neck. “I locked it.”

The doorknob rattled, and Clare tried to wiggle out from under him, but he hauled her back down.

“Mom!” Katie knocked on the door. “I want to talk to you.”

Griffin rolled on top of Clare and pinned her back onto the bed, his eyes sparkling with mischief. “Tell her to give you ten minutes.” He gave a low growl and kissed her.

Oh, come on! Not fair. Clare forced herself to stop kissing him and pushed at his shoulder. “I’m coming, Katie,” she called out. “Hang on a sec.”

The doorknob rattled again. “Why is the door locked?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t do it on purpose.” Clare banged her fist on Griffin’s back, and he chuckled and finally rolled off her. “Get in the bathroom,” she whispered.

“You have your own bathroom? How’d I get the bad room that has to use the one in the hall?” Still grinning and completely erect, he strode into the bathroom and flipped the door shut behind him.

“Mom?”

Clare grabbed her shorts from the floor and pulled on her camisole. She took a quick look in the mirror as she hurried to the door, and was startled by what she looked like. Her hair was a tousled mess, her makeup was long gone, but her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were glowing.

She looked beautiful.

Stunned, she stared at herself. Never, or at least since she could remember, had she ever looked in the mirror and considered herself beautiful. She always noticed the bags under her eyes, the wrinkles by her mouth, or the new freckle on her nose. But now...

“Mom!”

“Coming!” Clare turned away and unlocked the door. Her daughter was standing in the hall, already dressed for school with a backpack over her shoulder. Her hair was curled around her shoulders, and she was wearing mascara. “Did you use a curling iron this morning?”

“Yes, you like it?” Katie fluffed her brown hair.

“Well, yes, of course. What time did you get up?”

“I couldn’t sleep.” Katie flounced into the room and sat down on the edge of the bed. She was wearing her new In Your Face jeans that hugged her bottom just a trifle more snugly than Clare would have preferred, but her shirt was at least modest today. “So, I was talking to Griffin yesterday, and it got me thinking.”

Clare saw Griffin’s underwear on the sheets behind Katie, and nearly passed out. “What did you want to talk about?” She moved into the hallway. “Let’s go talk in the kitchen while I make coffee.”

But Katie leaned back on the bed and braced her weight on her hands, inches from Griffin’s underwear. “So, Griffin said that he went to the MIT program, and it was cool.”

“The MIT program?” This was about school? What about the boy trauma? Clare realized that she’d missed the crisis entirely. Katie had shared it with Griffin and moved on. Her daughter’s first boy-crisis and she’d missed it. “Are you sure that’s all that’s on your mind? Anything happen yesterday that you wanted to talk about?”

“No.” Katie crossed her legs, taking up permanent residence on the bed. “See, here’s the thing. Griffin thought MIT was cool, so I guess that it wouldn’t be that bad. I mean, if he liked it, right?”

There was a thud from the bathroom, and Katie turned. “What was that?”

“Water pipe.” Clare sat down beside Katie, and patted her daughter’s knee as she casually reached behind her and shoved the underwear under the covers. “So, you want to go to MIT now? That’s great. You’ll love it—”

“No.” Katie turned her attention back to her. “See, even when I heard Griffin thought it was cool, and I still didn’t want to go, I knew that it wasn’t just MIT that was the problem.”

“Um...what?” Where were the rest of Griffin’s clothes? He’d come in fully dressed.... Clare saw that his shoes were on the floor next to her nightstand. His sweats were in a pile on the floor beside the shoes. Oh, God. No, no, that was okay. She owned sweatpants, too, right? She could say they were hers.

“I want to stay here and be in the Shakespeare festival,” Katie announced. “Like Dad was.”

Clare forgot about the sweats and stared at her daughter as a cold chill settled down on her. “
What?
”

Katie took a deep breath. “I want to be in the Shakespeare Festival. I’ll be sixteen by July and that’s old enough.”

Clare stumbled to her feet. “Oh, no, Katie. You can’t give up MIT for that. I mean, it’s actors, it’s craziness, there’s no future—”

Katie lifted her chin. “Dad was an actor. Does that mean he wasn’t good enough? That he had no future? That he was so weird?”

“No, no, that’s not what I meant—”

Katie stood up and set her hands on her hips. “I’m tired of this whole town treating my dad like he was some freak just because he wasn’t from here. And I’m tired of defending your choice to marry him. I’m going to be in the festival, and I’m going to prove that an actor can be a normal person, just like anyone else!”

Oh, Lord in heaven, this was not good. She couldn’t have Katie follow the same path Clare had taken. Clare had been seventeen the summer she’d worked at the festival and met Ed, only one year older than Katie. “It’s not your responsibility to defend your dad—”

“He’s dead, and you won’t do it, so who else is there?” Katie strode to the door, her fist bunched tightly around the strap of her backpack. “I’m going to school. We can talk later, but I’m not backing down.”

“But—”

“And by the way, Mom,” Katie said as she opened the door. “I’m fifteen, and I’m not an idiot. You could have told me you were sleeping with Griffin.”

Clare gawked at her daughter. “We’re not—”

“See? You’re ashamed of him, just like you’re ashamed of dad. Well, I’m tired of being ashamed. I’m going to be in that festival, and I’m telling all my friends that you’re sleeping with Griffin—”

“Katie.” Griffin opened the bathroom door, wearing Clare’s pink robe. “I appreciate you looking out for me, but I think that’s not the best way to do it.”

Clare groaned and buried her face in her hands. “And there goes my chance to deny it.”

“Oh, come on, Mom! His underwear is in your bed!” Katie turned to Griffin, her eyes flashing. “I’m not ashamed of you, Griffin.”

“And your mom isn’t either,” Griffin said. “But what she does in her private life isn’t the business of this town.”

“Everything is the business of this town!” Katie said. “Everyone already thinks you guys are sleeping together, so at least this way we can be proud of it and not let people make us feel bad.”

“No.” Griffin folded his arms and leaned against the doorjamb. The robe barely came to mid-thigh, and his attempt to close the neck and hide his chest was slowly failing. “Do you want people to know Jeremy kissed you and then told you he didn’t want to date you?”

Katie’s cheeks flared red, and Clare glared at Griffin. “That’s enough—”

“No, it’s not,” Griffin said. “Katie needs to understand that speaking up against the crowds is not always about spilling your secrets.”

Katie glared at him. “Don’t you get it? For my whole life, I’ve had people make this little face of disapproval whenever my dad was mentioned. The actor. The outsider. The reckless driver. And now, my mom’s doing the same thing to you, not defending you. I’m tired of it!”

Clare’s heart tightened for the pain she saw in her daughter’s eyes. “Katie, I’m so sorry. Your dad was a good man—”

“Then why don’t you ever say that when people talk about him?” Katie stomped her foot in visible frustration “Why do you just sit there with your mouth shut?”

“I don’t—”

“You do! But I don’t have to be like you. I don’t have to be ashamed of who I am, or who my father was.” She took a deep breath and gave Clare a haughty look. “I’m going to be in the festival, and you can’t stop me.”

“If you don’t like people judging your father,” Griffin said quietly, “putting yourself in the festival just to stop judgment may have the opposite effect.” He folded his arms over his chest. “And trust me, it won’t be any better if you tell people about me and your mom, because they will judge her in ways you don’t even want to imagine.”

Katie’s face paled, then she screamed with frustration and ran out of the room.

“Don’t you dare leave this house!” Clare rushed after her, but by the time she got outside, Katie was already climbing into the cab of a truck with Sara and her older brother. “Katie!”

“I’m going to school,” Katie yelled out the window. “Leave me alone!” Then the truck’s engine revved, and it drove off with her daughter. They were driving toward school at least, so that was good.

Clare’s first instinct was to grab her car keys and go after her, but she knew that would serve no purpose. No good words could come when they were both upset. She had to give her space.

But this was not good. Really, really, not good. She had no idea how to handle this. How to fix it. How to make it right with her daughter, because everything Katie had accused her of was true. She never defended Ed when people criticized him. Not once. There was no way she could lie about him. She wouldn’t hurt Katie by revealing the truth about Ed, but God help her, there was no way she could bring herself to lie and say he was a great guy, either. But if she did nothing, was Katie going to plunge straight into the life Clare had and get knocked up by an actor just to prove that her dad was okay?

Her skin went ice-cold at the thought, and Clare stumbled back toward the house, her bare feet aching on the gravel driveway. Her daughter was gone, but her words hovered in the air, reverberating like the thick humidity of summer.

And Clare was out of answers.

It was just too hard.

Griffin had managed to get his sweats back on by the time Clare came back inside. Guilt coursed through him at the haunted expression on her face. She looked furious and devastated at the same time, and she slammed the door shut when she came in. “How could you come out of the bathroom in front of Katie?”

Shit. He realized he’d totally screwed up. He really thought he’d done the right thing at the time. Once he realized Katie knew he’d been with Clare, there was no way he could have stood back and let Katie spread gossip about Clare, even if her motivation was pure, from a somewhat twisted teenage point of view. “She knew I was here, Clare. Nothing was going to be served by my hiding.” Griffin found his shirt and picked it up. Yeah, too little, too late, but it still felt like the responsible thing to do to throw his clothes back on.

“She’s fifteen!”

Griffin frowned, trying to understand Clare’s outrage. “She’d figured it out, Clare. She wasn’t buying the lies.”

Clare threw up her arms in frustration. “You were
naked
!”

“I wasn’t naked.” He felt a little uncertain how to respond. Historically, he didn’t have a great track record with diffusing the outrage of a woman, and he’d learned to stop trying. But he really wanted to figure it out with Clare. He wanted to make it okay. He wanted to work it out with her. There had never been a chance to work out conflict with Hillary, but he sensed it could be different with Clare, if he could figure out how to handle it. “I was wearing your robe. I thought it would lighten the moment.”