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He felt like an idiot all of the sudden. A spastic, ex?posed idiot.
He was not used to talking about emotions, wasn't big into the whole sharing thing. Hell, he was the last man on the planet likely to be confused with a sensitive, New Age guy.
But here he was, babbling. On his knees, for God's sake.
He glanced up at Joy, feeling uneasy. Her legs were still spread wide open, her hands resting on her thighs. For some crazy reason, he wanted to go back to the warmth she offered so generously.
“Come here,” she said softly, holding her arms up to him.
She didn't have to ask twice.
“Am I freaking you out?” he asked as he gathered her against him and dropped his head onto her shoulder.
“No. Why would you?”
He shrugged. “Not exactly pulling off the strong, manly thing right now, am I?”
“Do you have to be strong all the time?”
“In my world, the weak get eaten.”
“Well, you're with me right now. And I like this. A lot.” She buried her fingers into the hair at his nape. “I'm glad you came to me. And I'm sorry about your friends.”
For a long while, they stayed close, the crackling fire the only thing making any sound in the room.
“Gray?”
“Hmm?”
“What happened with your parents?”
His first instinct was to keep quiet. The dark secrets of his family's dysfunction were buried good and deep and he liked them that way. Pulling out the mess was going to hurt and stuffing the crap back in wasn't going to feel any better.
But damn it, he found himself talking.
“My mother is a...” Somehow, the word slut, although accurate, seemed too crude in front of Joy. “She and my father wanted very different things out of marriage. They had a rough time being together.”
“Is that why you've never married?”
“I don't know.” Now that was a lie. “Uh, yeah.. .prob?ably. I was in the middle of it a lot and I decided I would never, ever, be like them. Live like that. Put a child through that.”
Gray shifted back and looked into her eyes. In a crys?tal-clear vision, he saw her as his wife. As the woman he woke up next to every morning. As the one individual on the face of the planet he could trust. As the person he went to for comfort and to whom he offered comfort in return.
“There are moments when I'm with you,” he whis?pered, “that I forget everything I know is true. That I want to rely on things I know aren't safe.”
Her lips parted in surprise.
Seeing her in the firelight, measuring the warmth in her eyes, he could sense something about to come out of his mouth. Something that petrified him.
Three little words.
A spear of panic went through his chest and triggered an acid burn that rose up from his belly into his throat.
Don't say it, he thought. Don't you dare say it. You're confused. Overwrought for no good reason. Suffering from weeks of sleep deprivation.
God, he needed to pull himself together before he made another cruel mistake. He wasn't in love with her. He couldn't be. He just wasn't that kind of a man.
Kissing her once on the lips, he got to his feet and went back to the fire.
“But enough of me,” he said sharply as he palmed his glass. “What have you been up to?”
He watched her close up, her legs coming together, her arms linking around her waist. Her eyes were wide and a little worried when they met his, but she accepted the change of subject.
“IÑuh, I've been working on the sketches....”
As she spoke, Gray rattled around in his own skin.
He shouldn't have come, he thought as he sipped some bourbon. Now they were both upset over nothing. And she deserved more than being whiplashed around by a man who didn't know his ass from third base when it came to his feelings.
He never should have come.
Gray's expression was too impassive for Joy to read and his quick mood change was equally unfathomable. While she filled the silence with meaningless details of daily life, she kept hoping he'd stop her rambling and take them back to where they'd just been.
“So how long are you up here for?” she asked.
“I have to leave tomorrow morning.”
“Oh.”
“And I should probably go to my house now. It's late, isn't?” He checked his watch.
“Only nine. You could stay for dinner.” She pushed her hair back. “Although I was just warming up some stew before you came. Nothing fancy.”
“That's okay. I'm not hungry.”
She crossed her legs and fell silent, not really surprised.
Dimly, she heard a rhythmic tapping sound and real?ized she was the one making it. Her foot was striking the leg of the table next to her like a metronome.
His eyes tracked the movement and then slowly slid up her calf, her knee, her thigh. His gaze settled on her br**sts and his lids lowered, as if he wanted to hide what he was feeling from her.
“I think I'll go,” he said quickly. As he turned to get his coat, she saw his body in profile against the fire. The evidence of his arousal was almost, but not completely, hidden in the folds of his fine slacks.
The urge to yell at him was nearly irresistible.
The man flies hundreds of miles out of his way to come and see her. He gives her a lovely, thoughtful gift. Tells her intimate, private things. And then waltzes out as though none of it was particularly significant.
“I hope you have a good week,” he said casually as he slipped into his jacket. “I'll call you when I get back to the city. Maybe in the afternoon, more likely later in the evening.”
As if she were just going to wait around to hear from him and he liked it that way.
Yeah, whatever.
She was suddenly damn tired of the go-away-come-closer game he was playing.
“I'll be out tomorrow night,” she muttered.
His eyes flashed at her, his brows tightening. “And where are you going?”
She shrugged, getting to her feet with a burst of an?noyance. “Nowhere important.”
When she started to move past him, he took her arm.
“If it doesn't matter, then tell me.”
As she measured his dark intensity, she wished she hadn't blurted out her plans. She had nothing to hide, but he wasn't going to like who she was having dinner with.
“Actually, I'm going out with Tom.”
Gray dropped his hand.
“It's no big deal. His sister is coming to townÑ”
“I hope you enjoy yourself.” He started to leave the room.
“GrayÑGray!” She grabbed his hand and was grate?ful when he stopped of his own accord. “Please, let's not end tonight like this.”
He looked over his shoulder. His eyes were flat, life?less. And harder to meet than when they'd been glacial.
“Don't worry about it. You and I never agreed on mo?nogamy, did we? And just because I was your first, doesn't mean I'll be the last. In fact, that's one thing I can count on.”
She gasped, stepping back. “I can't believe you just said that.”
“Why? It's the truth.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “You're young, beautiful, incredibly compassion?ate. And even though it kills me, I'm realistic enough to know that sooner or later you're going to find the right man for you.”
“Gray, I haven't been with anyone else but you. I don't want to be with anyone else except you.”
“You'll get over that,” he said bitterly. “In fact, I want you to go out with Tom. It'll speed up the process. Put us both out of our misery.”
Pain ripped through her.
As if the warmth she'd just given him was such a ter?rible burden?
Damn him.
“How dare you! How...” She couldn't think of any?thing else that covered what she was feeling. “How dare you! You think you're so experienced and sophisticated, but you know what? You're just jaded and cynical.”
“All the more reason for you to move along.”
She fell silent, just staring at him.
“You're right.” She pushed her hair back with a slash of her hand. “I do need to end this because God knows you're pushing me right to the edge. After this little interlude with you, I'm dying to be with a man who makes some sense.”
Gray closed his eyes and cursed. “This whole thing between us was wrong from the beginning and it's only gotten...more wrong. Look, you were absolutely right about that Tiffany's charade. I don't want to get married. I'm never going to get married. I had no business drag?ging you there and throwing rings at you, and I had no business coming after you tonight, either. I don't know what I'm doing here, I really don't. In fact, when I'm around you, I don't know what I'm doing at all.”
“So maybe you should stop seeing me,” she snapped. “Stop calling me. Leave me the hell alone. Because I don't need this kind of...relationship.” She rolled her eyes. “God, I don't even know if that word fits us.”
“I'm sorry. I never meant to hurtÑ”
“Shut up!” God, she felt like slapping him. She re?ally did. “I don't want to hear another apology coming out of yourÑ”
Joy fell silent.
A strange odor had suddenly permeated the room.
Gray must have noticed it, too, because he glanced over his shoulder, toward the dining room.
And then there was a loud whoomp! followed by a mighty shaking as an explosion rocked the mansion.
Chapter Thirteen
Joy shot out of the study, heading for the rear of the house where the noise had come from. The moment she entered the dining room, she stopped dead. In the kitchen, flames were alive and climbing the walls. Smoke poured out of the open double doors, bouncing along the ceil?ing. She felt the rush of heat on her face like a hot wind.
Gray hauled her back, shouting over the roaring sound, “We have to get out of the house!”
“My grandmother's upstairs!”
Gray pressed a cell phone into her palm and shoved her toward a door that opened to the outside.
“Call 9-1-1. I'll bring her down. Which bedroom?” he yelled.
Before she could answer, she realized with horror there was a shape moving among the flames. Her grand?mother was in the kitchen.
“Grand-Em!” she screamed, lunging forward. “No!”
Gray caught her. “I'll get her! Use that phone!”
Joy was momentarily paralyzed by the sight of him dis?appearing into the fire. What snapped her mind into gear was the thought that he and Grand-Em might need to be treated for smoke inhalation. Or maybe something worse.
With her eyes watering from the stench and the heat, she dialed quickly, giving her address and what she knew, which wasn't much. By now, the flames were licking out into the dining room, consuming the moldings along the ceiling, scorching the plaster. She backed up, but she couldn't leave. Not without Gray and Grand-Em.
Searching the flames and smoke, she heard a hissing sound, like steam or gas being released. And then a sec?ond explosion sent her flying back against the wall.
“Gray!”
She scrambled outside, tripping and flailing around before finding her footing and running toward the kitchen door. She skidded to a halt as she took in the spreading devastation. Violent orange tongues licked through the popped glass panes of the alcove's windows. Smoke bil?lowed up into the cold night air in great, oily swells. The heat was so intense, it banished the night's chill.
He must be dead.
They both had to be dead.
Joy fell to her knees on the grass, taken down by a pain like nothing she'd ever felt before. Not even the loss of both her parents came close.
Through her sobs, she heard distant sirens and thought, You 're too late. You 're too damned late. What was worth saving has already been lost.
