Beside a Dreamswept Sea (18 page)

“Ah, solutions.” She sat down beside him, flipped the pillow behind her back, then fingered closed the gap in her robe at her breasts. “I always did like solution-oriented men.”

“And you didn’t like liking them, right?”

“Right.” She grinned. “I brought us a snack.” She dug under the afghan for a bag of potato chips. “You guys are killing me with all this healthy food.”

“Your junk food low-level light is on, eh?”

“Yeah.” Her eyes twinkled. She crunched down on a chip.

His breath caught in his throat. “You’re so pretty.”

“Knock it off, Bryce.”

“Seriously.”

“Would you stop?” She munched down on another crunchy chip, then dipped her hand back into the bag. It crinkled. “You know I hate that.”

“Yes, but you love having things to hate, and I am trying to elevate my impression rating.”

“Stop that, too.” She twisted the bag, tied it closed with a twistee, then set it aside. “I’m serious.” Brushing her hands together, she flicked off clinging grains of salt.

Not this time. He tossed back the edge of the afghan, grabbed his cane, then hauled himself to his feet. He held out a hand to Cally. “Come with me.”

“Where?”

He held her gaze, his own unwavering. “To your room.”

“Bryce, I’m not going to make love with—”

“No, Cally.” He grasped her hand and urged her to her feet. “Just come on. Trust me.”

Trust me.

Gregory’s voice, his image, flooded her mind. On their wedding day, then later, long after he’d become a doctor and it had become Cally’s turn to have her dream. And in her mind, she was there, in their bedroom, standing naked before the mirrored closet door with Gregory behind her, his hand twisted in her hair, his face red and contorted by anger.

“Trust me,” he spat at her. “You’re not the woman I married anymore. Look at you. Damn you, look at yourself.” He jerked her hair, forced her to look into the mirror. “You’ve let yourself go, Caline. Just the sight of you repulses me.”

And she’d looked, seen herself through his eyes, and his damnation seeped into her pores as sterling truth. Ugly. Ugly. Ugly.

He shoved her against the mirror, his fist at her back. The glass felt cold against her face and her breath fogged it, obscuring the reflection of her fearful eyes, and she prayed so hard she’d slip through its slick surface and cease to exist. Cease to be condemned by Gregory. Cease to see herself as the pitiful shadow of a woman she’d become.

“Cally?” Bryce whispered.

Trust me.
Cally gulped in a deep breath. Two little words. Seven little letters. But boy, they inspired fear like no others. She’d given trust. And she’d seen it ripped to shreds. Violated. Discarded as worthless. All that done by a man who supposedly loved her. Why on earth would she risk trusting a man she knew damn well didn’t love her?

An image of Suzie threaded through Cally’s mind. Her tiny chin lifted, her trusting gaze lifted to her father’s. Her cupping her hand at his ear, whispering her secrets to him in the kitchen, knowing he was angry about chasing the frog and sliding in the oatmeal. And Jeremy. Jeremy not fearful, but remorseful, about the frog, about the bees. Knowing he’d done wrong, but not afraid of his father’s reaction. And even little Lyssie. Mimicking her dad’s “Damn” when she clearly knew it was wrong to curse. And Bryce’s bending low to face his daughter in that high chair, finger pointed and voice firm, telling her, “No. Animal crackers.”

His children trusted him. And though neither a child nor able to trust her own judgment, Cally could trust theirs. The kids had a far better track record than she did in the love and trust departments.

Her insides rattling like the marbles Jeremy stuffed in his pockets, Cally stared at Bryce for a long moment. Expectant, but not threatening. Patient, but eyes shining with hope. Caring, not carnal. Unable to resist, she prayed she wouldn’t regret this, gave her hands a final salt-ridding swipe, rose to her feet, then placed her hand in his.

Moonlight streamed
into the Great White Room through the turret windows. The disheveled bed looked inviting and, though Bryce had been without a woman for two years and was for the first time since Meriam’s death entertaining thoughts of making love with a woman again with only the tiniest twinges of guilt nipping at desire’s heels, he knew the woman had to be special—someone like Cally. And for Cally, this wasn’t the right time.

He walked past the bench at the end of the bed, over near the desk to the cheval mirror.

As soon as Cally realized his intent, she went floor-plank stiff, slowed her steps, then began dragging her feet. “Bryce, I don’t want to look into that mirror.”

“I know you don’t.” He urged her on. “But you need to, Cally. You came to Seascape to find the you Gregory Tate stole. Looking at who you are is the first step.”

“I’m not ready.” She squared her jaw.

God, but she was beautiful. All rumpled from her stint on the floor, she looked tangled and sleep-tossed, though he knew as well as she that she’d not slept a wink. “You won’t ever be ready. It’s too big a leap. You’ve got to just take one step at a time. Think of little victories.”

“More like big defeats.” She stood fast. Resolute.

“Beats standing still. Winning or losing, you’re living. Standing still, you’re just taking up space.”

“Are you recommending I check out, Counselor?”

“Not hardly, sweetheart. I’m recommending you check in.” He moved to stand directly in front of her, between her and the mirror, then clasped her arms and looked down into her eyes. “I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want you to hurt. I just want you to see all the good in you I see. There’s a beautiful woman inside here”—he touched a fingertip to her chest—“and she’s screaming to be let out. You hear her calling. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be here. But you have to answer her call. You have to choose.”

A tear rolled down Cally’s cheek. The glaring moonlight caught it and it sparkled. “I can’t.”

“You can.”

Her voice cracked. “I don’t have the courage. He was so . . . vicious. I—I can’t forget.”

Gregory.
Something inside Bryce shattered. He walked his fingers up her arms, circled her back, then pulled her to him. “Cally,” he breathed deeply into her hair. “What has he done to you? What have you let him do to you?”

“Let him? You don’t
let
someone take you apart, Bryce. They’re stronger and sharper—sneakier. They snip away at you, bit by bit, until one day you wake up and find out there’s nothing left. Everything good
in
you is just . . . gone.”

“You died.” Now, he understood what she’d meant.

“Yes.” A shudder quaked through her. “I died.”

Rage roared through Bryce. A rage like he’d suffered only twice before. On Meriam’s death. On Suzie’s first dream. In both he’d felt helpless, frustrated, out of control. But not this time. This time, he wasn’t powerless to do something. This time he could act.

He cupped Cally’s face in his big hands. She looked up at him, so much pain in her eyes he feared he’d fall down under the burden of it. The need to kiss her overwhelmed him. He didn’t stop to wonder why, or to remind himself of his stance on her one-kiss rule—that she be- the one to break it—just lowered his lips to hers and kissed her thoroughly, letting her feel the riot of emotions raging through him, showing her with lips and tongue and the grazing of teeth, with fingertips gone from gentle to rough to gentle again, kneading and needing, reaffirming that the flesh they touched was not that of a courageless corpse but that of a living, breathing woman with a lot to offer a man with the vision to see beneath her pain.

He tasted her surprise, felt her tense even more under his hands, and he felt her fury. Her own outrage at feeling all she felt, at suffering her own riot of emotions, and of her not knowing exactly what to do with those feelings now that they had been aroused and unleashed.

He separated their fused mouths, softened his touch. His hand trembled on her back. He let it glide over her robe, amazed at how rough the soft fabric now felt against his fingertips, followed the contour of her body from beneath her breasts to her sides, then down her ribs to the swell of her hips. “Cally, you’re beautiful,” he whispered against her mouth. “To me, you are so beautiful.”

“Don’t lie to me, Bryce. Please.”

“I’m not.” He touched their lips, exhaled, feeling their mingling breaths fan over his face. “I swear, I’m not.”

The fury in them faded, and the baser awareness of scents and sounds and textures, of man and woman and sensual instincts, surfaced. He wanted to hold her, to be held by her, to feel her against him, to be inside her. He wanted the demons robbing them both of peace to wither and die. For Cally to know she was very much alive. For her to know that, with her, he felt very much alive.

Not like a lonely widower.

Not like a father.

Like a man.

It’d been a long time since he’d thought of himself that way. And just now it seemed too long. “Cally, I—” His heart too full, he couldn’t find the words.

She didn’t need them. She eased up onto her toes and curled her arms around his neck. Her eyes wide and luminous, reflected in the moonlight all the fear he felt. “Being lonely royally sucks,” she whispered, then kissed his lips.

Loneliness had nothing to do with it. Desire, yes. But not loneliness. Yet maybe they both needed the lie. His mind reeling, the taste of her lingering on his lips, he let out a shuddery breath and fused their hips, silently cursing zipper and placket, her soft flowing robe that separated their skins, keeping distant those parts of them this awakening had yearning to join. He relinquished control of the kiss, let himself spiral down into the alluring web of the sensual, and gloried in her coming with him. And she had come with him. Her breathing had grown rapid, ragged, lifting her breasts against his chest. Her hands explored him, learning his feel and clearly liking it. And her lips had grown eager, inviting and eager.

When she parted their mouths, she met his gaze, her eyes as turbulent as his insides. And from somewhere soul-deep, the words he needed came. “You’re alive, Cally.”

“Yes,” she whispered gratingly. “God help me, I’m alive.”

He’d expected her to run from the truth. She hadn’t. He’d like to think that the reason she hadn’t run had something to do with her kissing him specifically, but it didn’t. It was the awakening. Maybe not just any man could have aroused the feminine spirit in Cally Tate, but Bryce wasn’t arrogant enough to believe he could be the only man to arouse it. For some reason, though, he’d been the chosen one. And that reason could be no more than proximity. Whatever it was, he was grateful for it. Because while he’d been the means through which Cally Tate had awakened—his gift to her—she’d also awakened and given a gift to him. She’d reminded him that he was more than a father. And if a twinge of guilt, of feeling he was betraying Meriam by holding and kissing and caring about Cally Tate, made fuzzy the edges of his own awakening, then he’d willingly suffer them, knowing Meriam was content. He’d gratefully suffer them. Because at that moment, Bryce Richards, father and man, realized that, while Cally Tate thought she lacked courage, in truth, she didn’t. In truth, he held in his arms the bravest woman he’d ever known.