Rumor (A Renegades Novella) (13 page)

“I agree,” he said. “And, yes, Carolyn, I
really
love her.”

Grace pulled up to Safe Haven, and her headlights shone on the trunk of Josh’s white Lexus sedan. She sat there, car running, frown deepening, unable to wrap her mind around his presence here. Her thoughts immediately darted to the negative—that there must have been a problem with her mother and Tammy hadn’t been able to get hold of her, so they’d called Josh.

She was out of the car and halfway to the door before common sense returned, and she realized that didn’t make any sense.

On the way up the walk, she glanced into the great room, the lights inside creating a fish bowl effect in the dark night. She saw Josh’s blond head first, then pushed up on her tiptoes and found her mother sitting at a table with him. And she was smiling.

Smiling.

Grace hadn’t seen her mother smile in months.

With her heart tripping over itself, she hurried to the door, gave a cursory knock, and walked in. Tammy met her in the foyer.

“Is everything okay?” Grace asked.

“It’s great. I’m so glad you could come. She’s having a wonderful day. Just like her old self. And she’s really enjoying Josh’s company.”

Grace’s gaze snapped back to Tammy from the direction of the great room. “She knows him?”

“Recognized him the minute he walked in,” Tammy said, beaming.

Grace pulled in a sharp breath and tented her fingers over her nose and mouth. Hope and happiness over the small change made her chest feel full and tight.

“He’s a positive trigger,” Tammy said. “Maybe that’s what she needed to get out of the funk she went through after Betty died.”

Josh had been a positive trigger in Grace’s life too.

“How long has he been here?” she asked.

Tammy glanced at her watch. “About an hour.”

“And she’s been lucid this whole time?”

“The whole time. They’ve been chattering like little girls,” she teased. “But I can tell she’s getting tired. Don’t be surprised if she slips a little.”

Grace nodded, squeezed Tammy’s arm in gratitude, and walked into the great room, her chest fizzing with anticipation. Josh sat with his back toward the doorway, but her mother looked over as she came in. Grace stopped in her tracks, shoulders tight, breath suspended.

Recognition sparked in her mother’s eyes, and her face brightened into a smile. “Gracie, you made it.”

Gracie.
She hadn’t heard her mother say her name for so long, the word felt like a sweet stroke of her hand. Loss and love mixed, wrapping around Grace’s heart and freezing her in place.

“Oh, my, don’t you look beautiful?” Carolyn said. “What a pretty little dress. Come help with this project Josh brought. Look.”

She’d changed from her seductive, revealing work dress into one of her everyday simple knee-length flowy sheaths for the visit, but her mother’s mind was back on her project, lifting the black outline of a butterfly, its body and wings striped in colored tissue paper.

Josh stood and started toward her but paused a few feet away, his expression concerned. “Are you…okay? You look… Shit, are you mad?”

“Mad?” She didn’t understand the question.

“That I came to see her without telling you?” He took another step closer. “You were so busy, and I’ve gone as far as I can with the studio until the flooring comes in. I didn’t think you’d have time to get over to see your mom, so…”

A rough laugh bubbled from her chest. “So
you
came? And you brought
butterflies
?”

His brows pulled. His expression shifted from worried to defensive as he shoved his hands into his pockets. “She likes butterflies.”

“I know.” She laughed the words, but they sounded as mystified as she felt. “I guess I’m just…I don’t know…shocked. You come to visit her with time you don’t have, while here doing a favor for a friend, who also happens to be her own ex-son-in-law. An ex-son-in-law who has never so much as called her since she’s been here. Would never even consider visiting her here. And who sure as hell
never
had any clue she likes butterflies.”

Josh angled his head. “So…I still can’t tell if you’re angry with me or not, but…are you telling me that Beck knows your mother’s living here? He knows that she has…this problem?”

The change of topic drained Grace’s sense of wonder. “He knows,” she said, forcing her anger toward Isaac away so she could appreciate what she had right now—a mother who recognized her and a man who truly cared about them both. “He knows everything. And I’m not angry—not at you.”

She slid her hand down Josh’s arm and tugged one of his hands from his pocket, then threaded their fingers together. “She hasn’t called me Gracie for months.” She smiled up at him, not caring that her eyes had to be watery with tears. “Thank you.”

He exhaled, and his shoulders relaxed. But his gaze went hot and intense. “I want to kiss you so badly right now.”

She scraped her lower lip between her teeth. “I could probably find a way to satisfy that craving.”

“Soon, I hope.”

“Maybe.”

The doubt cleared from his eyes, and he grinned. “Such a tease.”

“You love it.”

“
Hell
yes.”

“Oooooh, look.” Her mother’s excited coo drew both their gazes, and she held up another suncatcher, this one with tracing paper in shades of blue and green. “This will match Henrietta’s new bedspread.”

Grace turned, her hand still in Josh’s, and they walked to the table. “Are you two making them for the whole house?”

“Three done, three to…” Her gaze caught on their joined hands, and her words trailed off with a look of confusion. Grace’s chest burned with that guilty-teenager sensation, and she drew her hand from Josh’s and took a seat next to her mom, hoping that hadn’t tipped her mother off balance.

“So you’ve had a good day?” Grace said. “You look so pretty tonight. Did Tammy do your hair this morning?”

Her mother nodded, setting the butterfly aside with a familiar distance in her eyes. Then she slanted an odd grin at Grace and sang, “I heard a rumor…”

Ah damn.
Trepidation bloomed in the pit of her stomach. Carolyn always brought up rumors when her mind started slipping away. “Yeah?” she asked, keeping her voice upbeat. “Was it that I’m going to come bake sugar cookies with you Christmas morning?”

Her mother gasped and grinned. Grace’s heart lightened, and she took the moment for what it was—fleeting.

“With sprinkles?” Carolyn asked.

“Every color,” Grace confirmed.

“And icing?”

“Vanilla, your favorite.”

“Oh, fun.” Her mother clapped her hands like an excited little girl. “I can’t wait. I can’t wait to tell you the newest rumor…”Carolyn’s mind slid from one topic right into another without realizing the shift. “Not the cookies, huh?” Grace propped her chin in her hand. “Is it…” Grace thought about the other patients in the house and lowered her voice, “that Henrietta and Bob are still getting busy in the shower?”

“Pffft,” she said with a frown and a wave of her hand, “that’s old news.”

“
What?
” Josh asked, clearly scandalized over the suggestion that two of the housemates were often found having sex when left unattended.

Grace shook her head. “Evidently, people in their eighties get quite a bit of action.” To her mother, she asked, “What’s this rumor that’s got you so giddy?”

Carolyn darted a glance toward Josh, then leaned in to Grace and whispered, “I heard…Josh is in love with my Gracie.”

Grace’s smile froze. Tingles spread outward from her chest and made her almost as giddy as her mother. Though, this was old news as well. She’d known Josh loved her when she’d asked him to come live with her. She’d known he loved her when he’d moved away. And she sure as hell saw the truth of the rumor in his reddening face as he slumped in his chair, wiped a hand down his face, and muttered something that sounded like “Jesus fucking Christ, Carolyn.”

Grace bit her lip against the urge to laugh at his distress. And she couldn’t resist the urge to make it just a little worse. “That’s a great one, Mom. I’ve got another one for you.”

And she leaned forward and whispered in her ear.

Carolyn’s face lit up like the Christmas tree in the corner. “Oooooh, that’s so…
delicious
.”

“Okay,” Josh said, resting his head in his hand. “I’ll bite. What’s the new rumor, Carolyn?”

Carolyn leaned toward Josh this time. His gaze held on Grace, clearly dubious, but he leaned forward when Carolyn gestured him toward her. He was looking at the tabletop when her mother whispered, “I heard…my Gracie loves Josh more.”

Pleased with herself, Carolyn giggled. But Josh had frozen in place. And even when she sat straight and started working on another butterfly, Josh remained still, staring at the table. If brains generated steam, it would have been coming out his ears.

For a moment, Grace wondered if he could really be in such deep denial that the quasi declaration had scared him stiff.

Carolyn picked up a butterfly outline and looked at it as if she’d never seen one before. “What’s this?” Then she glanced around the table, becoming visibly jittery. “What’s all this? Why is the table such a mess?”

Josh looked up then, confusion in his gaze. He calmly put his hand over hers and pulled the butterfly from her hand. “Just one of my crazy projects, Carolyn. I’ll clean it up. I promise.”

Tammy stepped up to the table and patted Carolyn’s shoulder. ““I’ll take her, Josh. I think someone’s getting tired. She helped Carolyn to her feet with a “Don’t worry about the table, you two. I’ll get it. Go on and get some time together now.”

Grace pushed to her feet and walked to her mother’s side. She hugged her and kissed her cheek, and brushed her hair back. “Love you, Mom. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Love you too, sweetheart.” Her smile shook, but Grace could tell by the look in her mother’s eyes that she was lucid again. “He’s a good man, Gracie. The man you should have been with from the beginning.”

Grace nodded. In hindsight, that was probably true. But that was the past. And even if they did love each other now, that didn’t solve the problems standing between them. Love wouldn’t vanquish Josh’s sense of duty to Isaac. Love couldn’t bridge the one-hundred-and-twenty-mile gap between LA and San Diego. And love would certainly never cure Alzheimer’s.

She watched Tammy walk her mother toward her bedroom down the hall, thinking about her mother, Isaac, Josh…

“Grace.” Josh’s voice pulled her gaze. He stood by the front door, hands in his pockets. “Can I talk to you outside?”

She turned toward him, not sure what to make of that serious expression or the stern tone. “That sounds…ominous.”

He didn’t smile. Just held the front door open for her as she gathered her purse and passed onto the porch.

“I hope you’re not going to rake me over the coals for—”

Josh whipped her around and pulled her into his arms, then stepped her back until her spine pressed one wall of the porch.

“Is it true?” he asked, gazing down into her face.

“What?”

“That you love me?”

Her brow pulled. “You’re not serious.”

“So…what?” he asked, suddenly defensive. “You were playing your mother? Playing me?”

“Why are you being an idiot? We’ve loved each other for years.”

“No,
I’ve
loved
you
for years. I didn’t think—”

“You’re going to stand here and tell me you didn’t think I loved you when I asked you to move in with me after your surgery? Don’t even. You ran because you
knew
I loved you.”

“No.” He gripped her face, softened his voice. “I ran because
I
loved
you
. And I knew I couldn’t live in the same house with you and not…mess everything up.”

“Mess everything up between you and Isaac.”

He heaved a long exhale. “I knew your relationship with Beck was going to be rough. SEAL relationships always are. And I knew you deserved someone better. Someone who could give you a real marriage. But I didn’t know what a fuckup of a husband he was.”

“He did the best he could. I put that behind me a long time ago.” She poked his chest. “You’re the one who hasn’t been able to get over it.”

He searched her eyes with thoughts tumbling over each other in his head. Then his thumbs slid across her cheekbones with a tenderness that knotted her belly with want. His lips touched hers, once, twice, three times, before he pulled back and met her eyes again.

“I’m over it, Grace,” he said, firm and sure. “Come home with me.”

Her belly fluttered with the promise of his words. But she locked that dreamy little girl in her cage. In Grace’s world, believing meant losing. And she wasn’t ready to go through losing him again. Not now, when she lost her mother on a daily basis.

All she could do was take what he could give in the moment.

She slid her arms around his waist, loving the feel of his muscles beneath her hands. Aching to get him into a bed so she could feel all that hard muscle and smooth, warm skin against hers.

She lifted to her toes, kissed him again, and said, “I’d go home with you even if you weren’t over it.”

“Oh, I am,” he assured her, taking her hand and leading her off the porch to her car. “My place or yours?”