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Were they done, then? Was that it?
Darin stood back, waiting for Grant, and then followed him into the house. Grant had work to do. He waited to see if his brother would go calmly about his routine, take his shower, eat a snack.
Grant dropped his keys on the kitchen counter. Darin emptied his pockets beside them, something Grant had trained him to do early on after the accident. You could tell a lot about a guy and his day by what was in his pockets.
Grant also always made sure Darin had money in his pocket. Money that would most likely get lost if Darin didn’t turn it in every night.
Darin moved toward the archway that led from the kitchen to the living room.
“I want to go diving, too, Grant,” he said, and then turned slowly to face him again. “But I want to go on a date with Maddie first.”
“Darin…”
“Please, Grant. Don’t make me beg for this.” Darin’s brow was furrowed, and he looked as if he might cry.
“Okay, bro. If Maddie wants to go on a date with you, I’ll find a way to make it happen.”
Darin laughed then, and followed it up with a full-bodied, unrestrained whoop. A little-boy reaction to a big-boy request.
“And I don’t even have to cover my stitches,” he said, proceeding toward the bathroom.
Grant was left standing in the middle of the room with another problem on his hands. One he had no idea how to handle.
But there was one thing he did know. Maddie seemed to be good for his brother. He couldn’t remember the last time Darin had had so many “real” moments in one span. It was as though Maddie’s need for him—and his protectiveness of her—was bringing out some latent instincts that hadn’t been diminished by the injury to his brain.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
KARA’S BAG WAS packed, and the little girl was sound asleep in her princess bed, covers tucked up to her chin, hugging Sammy.
Maddie had long since gone home. On Friday nights she liked to stay up to watch old movies on some cable station with the younger girls. Gwen, the woman who stayed at Maddie’s place while her husband worked, was off for the night.
Lynn didn’t even hesitate before pouring herself a glass of wine and heading to her bathroom. The rose-scented candle was already there. As was the bottle of rose-scented bubble bath. Turning on her portable music player, she found her CD of Pachelbel’s Canon renditions, stripped down and stepped into the still-running water.
She could do all that was expected of her, do all that she expected of herself; she could contribute to society and be happy, too. She just had to make certain that she maintained control of her heart and, thus, her life.
The warm water sluiced around her ankles as she stood naked in the tub and bent to adjust the water temperature. A tepid bath wasn’t going to do it tonight.
She needed enough external heat to melt away the lava burning through her veins.
It wasn’t like her to be so emotional. But as hard as she tried not to allow herself to wallow, she was angry with Brandon for breaking his promises to her—for asking her to share his life with him and then changing her life so drastically.
She was illogically jealous of Douglas, who was able to attract her ex-husband when she couldn’t.
She was worried about letting Kara go off with her father to another city overnight.
And she was so turned on by Grant Bishop that the following morning loomed amid a mass of anticipation and fantasy….
At first she thought the ringing was coming from her music player. By the second ring, she’d jumped out of the tub and grabbed her phone off the bathroom counter.
Being on call 24/7 meant she could never have more than one glass of wine. And could never be far from her cell phone.
“This is Lynn,” she said, pushing the answer button without looking at the LED screen.
“Is this a bad time?”
Pleasant shivers suffusing her body as she slid back down into the water, Lynn said, “No, it’s fine. What’s up?”
Darin called Maddie at night because he liked her. Did Grant’s call mean that he liked Lynn, too?
The thought was followed quickly by another. He was calling to cancel their appointment in the morning….
She took a gulp of wine. Set the stem of the glass carefully on the edge of the tub.
