Sound of Secrets (23 page)

She wandered to the window, looking out at the night while she considered the validity of Karen as a suspect. The woman had been so unfriendly that she almost wished Karen had caused her troubles.

Of course, Karen couldn’t have been involved in Skippy’s death. She’d been only four when her brother died, much too young to plan a kidnapping. But maybe, Cara mused, she was wrong in thinking somebody didn’t want her to find out what had really happened to the little boy.

Maybe Karen, who’d made no secret that she wanted Gray to herself, simply didn’t want Cara to stay in town long enough to want him too.

As though she could stop now.

Cara pressed her forehead against the glass and noticed a movement in the courtyard that separated her house from the main one. She squinted and saw a man sitting on a bench, his shoulders hunched foreword and his hands dangling between his legs. A cigarette smoldered in his hand.

She knew immediately that it was Gray and that whatever troubled her paled in comparison to what he was feeling.

Without giving herself a chance to change her mind, she grabbed the gauzy white robe that went with her nightgown, pulled it on and ran lightly down the stairs and into the night.

Gray caught sight of Cara's flowing white nightclothes the moment she stepped out of the second-story door of the garage apartment, He wondered if that was because he’d been waiting for her.

Even as he thought of another woman, his eyes had drifted to her window again and again as he'd willed her to turn on the light. Once she had, her coming to him had been inevitable.

She looked like a vision as she drew nearer, as ethereal as the ghost she insisted she saw. Who was Gray, after all, to say what was fact and what was fiction when his marriage, and his guilt, had been based on a lie?

"I didn’t know you smoked." Her voice was almost musical, with soft, lilting syllables that held the flavor of the south. Gray dropped his cigarette and stubbed out the flame with the toe of his shoe. He moved over on the bench, making room for her.

"I don’t. I quit years ago."

She sat down beside him. She said nothing but he felt like she was lending her support, as though she would accept anything he told her without reservation.

"My wife Suzy died on a night like this," he began, and the night was so quiet his voice sounded unnaturally loud. "There weren’t any stars and you couldn’t see the moon. It was as though blackness had descended on the whole world.

"I was the last person she saw before she drifted away. She was holding my hand when she took her last breath. She loved me, you see. Without question, without reservation. And all that time, all these years, guilt kept chipping away at me because I didn’t love her back. I was fond of her, but I didn’t love her. It about killed me that she died knowing that."

When his pause grew into silence, Cara asked, "If you didn’t love her, why did you marry here?"
"I thought it was the right thing to do." He paused again. "Suzy and I grew up together, and I didn’t have any more interest in her than I did a dozen other girls. But she made it clear she wanted me, and one night I let myself want her too.

"A few months later, she told me she was pregnant. So I married her, and I was there for her when she lost the baby. It was only tonight that Karen told me Suzy didn’t have a miscarriage because she’d never been pregnant."

"And you believed her?"

"Karen has a lot of faults,” he said. “Lying isn’t one of them."

"Is that why you’re so angry? Because Suzy lied?"

"It’s more complicated than that. She asked something of me when she was dying, a promise that’s been harder and harder to keep. And now I wonder whether I owe her anything at all."

"You don’t wonder that, Gray. Not really." Cara laid a hand on his arm. "Let me ask you this. If you'd known she'd tricked you into marrying her, would you have refused to make her a promise?"

After the shortest of pauses, he shook his head. "How could I refuse a dying woman her last wish, no matter what she'd done?"

"Exactly," Cara said. "Don't you see, Gray? One thing doesn't have anything to do with the other."

"I don’t follow."

"She lied to you, there’s no escaping that,” she said softly. “That doesn’t mean you’re a liar. If you made her a promise, of course you’ll keep it. That’s the kind of man you are."

She was right. Gray knew it as he met her calm, steady gaze. She didn’t understand, though, that she lobbied for the very thing she should have argued against. She had a right to know he suspected Curtis Rhett was trying to scare, if not harm her. But he knew now he couldn’t break his promise to Suzy without being absolutely sure Curtis was the one endangering Cara.

"You’re probably thinking I’m a fine one to be talking about honesty when I’ve admitted I lied to you," Cara said after a moment. "I don’t know what your wife’s reasons were, and I’m not condemning her, but I want you to know I wouldn’t lie to you. Not about something like that."

The breeze caught her hair, lifting it off her neck, and carried her citrus-scented perfume his way. He no longer thought, however, that it was her perfume that affected him. It was the woman.

"Would you lie to me," he asked, needing to know, "about accepting Richard’s marriage proposal?"

She was silent for long, frustrating moments. "I’ve known Richard forever, Gray. He’s kind and decent and hard-working. And patient. He’s waited for an answer for a long time."

He cleared his suddenly dry throat, aware he clenched his gut, as though preparing to ward off a blow. "What’s the answer going to be?"

She sighed. "Until I came here, to Secret Sound, I’d almost decided to say yes."

"And now?" he whispered, staring hard at her. "What about now?"

"Now I’m seeing ghosts and defying people who want me to leave town." She shook her head, not breaking their gaze. "I don't know who I am anymore, Gray. Until I do, I can't make any decisions that would impact the rest of my life."

"I’ll tell you what you are. You’re amazing." He reached out and touched a strand of her hair. Rubbing it between his fingertips, he marveled at its softness, then tucked it behind her ear. "I've never met anyone as brave as you."

"Brave?" Cara laughed aloud. "There's no one less brave on the face of the earth. You name it, Gray, I’m afraid of it. Whatever gave you the idea I was brave?"

"Being afraid and being brave are often the same thing," Gray said. "Do you think a soldier who crosses enemy lines to drag a wounded friend to safety isn’t afraid? Don’t you think it makes the act more courageous if the soldier is scared out of his mind when he’s doing it?"

Cara bit her lip. "Yeah, well the soldier is only afraid during that window of time. And who could blame him for fearing the enemy, the very real enemy, will gun him down? It’s different with me, Gray. I’ve never been brave, but since I’ve come to Secret Sound, it’s gotten worse. I’m afraid of everything. Ghosts, dogs, mechanics, wife-beaters, journalists. You name it."

She dropped her eyes, and Gray considered the top of her bent head. He wondered how to make her understand a weaker person would have run from Secret Sound by now. Cara wouldn't let the town or anybody in it, real or imagined, drive her away.

"I don’t believe that," he said. "You’re not afraid of me."

She didn’t answer for so long that the truth slowly dawned on him. Had she thrust him away the night before not because of Richard but because of fear? He tipped her chin so she had to meet his eyes. Hers were troubled. With his free hand, he touched her cheek.

"I’d never hurt you, Cara," he whispered. "You don’t have to be afraid of me."

"I’m not afraid of you, exactly," she whispered back. He moved closer to her on the bench so they touched from hip to shoulder. She took his hand and placed it above her breastbone. Through the thin material of her nightgown, her heart pulsed against his fingers, rapid and insistent. "I’m afraid of that."

He picked up one of her hands and silently placed in against his own chest. His heart beat every bit as furiously as hers.

"That’s not fear, Cara. That’s wanting somebody so badly you ache with it." Gray traced her mouth with unsteady fingers. "My heart is beating as fast as yours. The only thing I fear is that you’ll tell me no again. Don’t tell me no again."

The emotions that flitted across her face were as clear to Gray as the feel of her heartbeat against his fingers. There was fear, yes, but there was also desire.

"I don’t want to say no," she confessed, releasing a shuddering breath, "but I’m afraid to say yes."

"That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, Cara. Bravery is going after what you want, what you
really
want, in the face of fear. Be brave, Cara. Say yes."

It probably only took her the space of a dozen heartbeats to answer. To Gray, it felt like an eternity. When her lips finally parted to speak, he was holding his breath.

"Yes."

"You’re trembling," Gray said. They stood facing each other just inside her bedroom door. Cara hardly knew how they had gotten there. She had only a vague recollection of walking across the courtyard and up the stairs to the apartment.

The lamp still glowed at bedside. Gray held her hands, and they shook as hard as the branches of a tree during a hurricane.

She lifted her chin and again a soothing familiarity tugged hard at her subconscious. She could no longer deny it, just as she could no longer deny she had known from the beginning this moment was inevitable.

It suddenly didn’t matter that he was holding something vital back from her or that she'd been on the verge of accepting another man’s marriage proposal. All that mattered was this moment and this man. A man looking at her as though he were afraid she had already changed her mind.

"Cara?" His features reflected the strain in his voice. "It’d kill me to walk out that door, but I’ll do it if you tell me to."

Cara anchored her hands in the soft, curly hair at his nape, raised on her tiptoes and kissed him flush on the mouth. His mouth softened with acceptance, but he let her take control of the kiss. He had incredibly soft lips for a man, and she made good use of them, tracing them with her tongue, tugging gently on them with her teeth. Kissing him felt so right that she knew her destiny was, and always had been, entangled with his. It was as though she’d been waiting her entire life for this man.

She dipped her tongue teasingly inside his mouth, withdrawing it just as quickly. He groaned.

"Sweetheart, I hope you’re ready for me," he growled, "because I can’t wait any longer for you."

He crushed her to him, plundering her mouth while he cupped her bottom and brought her fully against his arousal. Cara’s night clothes were so thin she could have been naked, and she waited for fear to grip her. The only emotion that flowed through her was a passion strong enough that her entire body tingled in anticipation. She rubbed against him, enjoying the hard feel of him against her, and felt dampness between her thighs.

How could this be happening, she thought hazily, when all he’d done was kiss her? Her feet came out from under her, and Cara thought she had collapsed from sheer pleasure. Then she realized he was carrying her to the bed. She dragged him down with her, unwilling to break contact with his sensuous, giving mouth.

He’d fallen half on top of her. Now he rolled onto his back and pulled her on top so they touched chest to thigh. One of his hands kneaded her bottom while the other caressed the side of her breast through her gown.

When her lower body connected with his arousal, Cara moved sensuously along that ridge of hard flesh. Sensation spiraled through her, like a tornado that couldn’t escape. She uttered wordless noises.

He drew back his mouth until it was inches from her lips, and his quick breaths caressed her heated lips. "I’m going too fast for you," he said.

"No." She shook her head to reinforce her words. "I’ve been waiting for you for a long time."

Ignored his momentary puzzlement, she cupped the back of his head and yanked his mouth back down to hers. Even the feel of his hair against her palm was sensuous.

"I think," she said when she finally broke from his mouth to take in air, "that our clothes are in the way."

He grinned at her then, a charming, boyish, eager grin that sent her pulse tripping even faster. He rolled her over so she was next to him on the bed and issued a challenge. "Race you."

He sat up and pulled his shirt over his head. Laughing, she sat up too and struggled out of the robe that went with her nightgown. By the time she had it off, he had discarded his jeans and socks and was working on his briefs.

She reached out, and Gray’s dark head raised, his penetrating eyes full of something terrifying and thrilling that she couldn’t name. Her hands slid over his and pushed them away.

"Let me," she demanded huskily.

"Cara," he moaned, his breath hitching, his head falling back as his eyes closed.

Cara trembled as she caressed the velvet of his skin. His head came forward, and his eyes opened, blazing with need. He covered her hands.

"You’re driving me crazy."

She knew he intended to strip himself, and she didn’t want to allow it. "No," she whispered, urgency making her voice husky. "Let me be brave, Gray."

He raised his hips and she slid the briefs off his long, muscled legs. Then she stopped, leaned back and stared, awed at the sheer magnificence of his body. Liberal chest hair sprinkled well-developed pectoral muscles and a flat belly, but the part of him that demanded her attention was his erection. She licked her lips in approval.

"You’re not getting undressed," he accused, grinning at the direction of her gaze.

"You're distracting me," she answered shakily, laughing a little.

"Then I’ll help you."

He reached for her and, within seconds, stripped her as naked as he was. Laughter quickly turned to passion. The sensation of her bare flesh against his was the most erotic thing she’d ever felt until his fingers dipped inside her. She moaned against his mouth, unable to tell him in words that she wanted him inside her now. Instead, she stroked him until he moaned, too. She protested when he left her, but he came back in an instant, ripping open a package and covering himself with a condom.