Beside a Dreamswept Sea (23 page)

“Now, all three of you apologize for the distress you’ve caused Mrs. Wiggins.” Cally waited until they were done paying homage to the battleaxe. “And now to your dad.” She looked at his swollen knee, his elbow, and his bruised jaw. At least the beard would hide most of it. “Say you’re sorry he was hurt.”

“We’re sorry, Daddy.” Suzie blinked hard and fast. “Honest.”

“Yeah.” Jeremy said.

“It’s okay.” The upset drained right out of Bryce and his eyes turned tender. “You didn’t mean to hurt me. But no more underhanded stunts like hiding the sign. And I mean it.”

Cally touched his wet sleeve, dropped her voice. “They promised, Bryce.”

He met her gaze and, to keep him from working himself into a lather again, she gave him her brightest smile.

Staring at her lips, he swallowed hard. His expression softened, and he smiled back. “So they did.”

“Mr. Richards,” Mrs. Wiggins said. “I would be remiss in my duties if I didn’t object. Mrs. Richards—God rest her soul—was very explicit in her orders regarding disciplining the children, and I don’t believe that she—”

Bryce held up a staying hand. “She’s content, Mrs. Wiggins, and she’d have no objection whatsoever. The matter is closed.” He looked at Suzie and Jeremy. “You two go clean up the mess in the bathroom. Jeremy, first you put on some dry clothes.”

The matter was closed.
Cally’s smile grew by a hundred watts. “Hmm, I think we should maybe put some ice on that jaw.”

“Is it swelling, too?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Damn.”

Cally pressed a fingertip over his lips. “Animal crackers, darling.”

“Darling?” His eyes danced, and the most enchanting silver flecks set his irises to twinkling.

“Slip of tongue.” She wanted to look away, but didn’t.

“Right.” He crooked his arm, tucked hers through it, and they walked out of the parlor, leaving Mrs. Wiggins grumbling in the wing chair and Lyssie muttering, “Damn.”

Miss Hattie passed the Ziploc bag
filled with ice to Cally, then glanced over her shoulder to the kitchen chair where Bryce sat slumped. “I think he needs that arm in a sling, too, Cally.”

“I think you’re right.” Cally double-checked, then flinched. “It’s swollen the size of my kneecap already.” She took the bag of ice and gently pressed it against Bryce’s jaw.

“Ouch.”

She hissed in a breath. “Sorry.”

“I wish you two would quit fussing over me, and talking about me like I’m not even in the room.”

“He’s testy, Miss Hattie.” Cally grunted. “Men are the worst patients, aren’t they?”

“Absolutely.” Miss Hattie fingered through a wooden medicine chest propped open on the white countertop. “I know there’s a sling in here somewhere. Hatch—Did I mention that he runs the lighthouse? Well, he lives there. He ran it though, back when it was a lighthouse. Before the Coast Guard took over the ones operating. Anyway, I know we had an arm sling from back in ’seventy-two. Or maybe it was ’seventy-three. Wicked winter, whenever it was. Ice everywhere until June. April’s usually our mud month—from the melting snow, you know—but not that year. Poor Hatch slipped on ice out on the rocks. Hurt his pride more than his arm, but I insisted he wear the sling to keep it immobile. The crusty cuss gave me the dickens for it, too, as I recall.”

Cally tapped Bryce’s shoulder. “Don’t get any ideas, Atlas. I don’t take the dickens from any man.”

“I have to be nice. I remember.” He gave her a lopsided grin. “Atlas?”

She adjusted the bag and avoided his eyes. “Carrying the world on your shoulders.”

“Sounds better than ‘counselor.’ ”

“I prefer ‘counselor.’ Thoughts of you carrying around so much weight brings pain to mind. Cricks in your neck. Muscle strain. Backaches. Naw, I don’t think so.” His shoulders were far too nice to have to sag under all that tonnage. “Besides, you love being a lawyer.”

“Yeah, I do. But sometimes I like just being a man.” He let his gaze drift down her. “Of course, sometimes when you call me counselor, and your voice is as smooth as a shot of good whiskey, I feel very, er, manly.”

Heat rushed to her belly and little flutters filled her stomach. Fighting them, she couldn’t think of a snappy comeback. “Hmm, I’ll remember that.”

“There it is.” Miss Hattie pulled out the sling, then passed it to Cally. “Have a care not to bump his knee, dear.”

“I will.” Cally took the sling, wondering why some enterprising soul hadn’t created one for a broken heart.

“I’m going to spend a little time in my greenhouse.” Miss Hattie slid her apron off, over her head, then patted her green flowered dress over her tummy. “Tell Jeremy and Suzie they’re welcome to join me, hmm?”

“Thanks, Miss Hattie.” Bryce shifted on the chair.

“My pleasure, dear. I do so enjoy your children. They’re lovely, just lovely. Don’t you agree, Cally?”

More matchmaking. The kids and now Miss Hattie. At least Cally could answer honestly. “Positively adorable. All of them.” She put the bag of ice on the table, knocking the cracking cubes together, then picked up the sling.

Miss Hattie paused at the mud room door. “I suggest you get out of that wet shirt, Bryce, before putting that sling on. We’re having a warm spell, but you could catch cold. Especially once you’re away from the fire.” Then she went out and softly closed the door.

“Need some help with your buttons?” Cally’s eyes twinkled mischievously. “Or are you going to go macho on me and insist on struggling with them yourself?”

“I’m too weary to struggle.” He looked from the fire blazing gold and blue in the grate up at her, his eyes serious.

“Ouch. You’re fighting the I’m-a-rotten-parent demon again.” The fire popped, crackled, and hissed. Moisture seeping from the logs. “Ease up on you, Counselor.” Cally reached for his shirt placket, her heart in her throat. Her hands were shaking. Why were her damn hands shaking? It wasn’t as if she’d never touched a man before.

But she’d never touched or undressed
this
man. She forced a little strength into her voice, feeling as weak as water. “The kids are fine. You got a little banged up, but everything worked out okay. And the battleaxe didn’t resign again.”

“There is that.”

“Right.” Cally chided herself. She wasn’t undressing him, just helping him out of his shirt. Big difference. The first button worked loose from the hole and the front of his shirt gaped at his throat, revealing a strip of dark, springy hair that looked too enticing to touch for her comfort. Now, not only were her hands shaking, she was shaking all over. And her blasted legs were about as stable as wilting flower stems.

“Thanks for helping me out with the kids, and for taking care of me.” He sat back, giving her easier access to his buttons. “I’m about maxed out, Cally, and I’m sick of screwing up with them.”

“I know. But you do more right than wrong, Bryce. Really.” She opened the second button, then the third. Heaven help her, his chest was even more gorgeous than she’d thought. “Um, can you stand up?”

“What?”

Their gazes locked. The breath flew out of her. “I, um, can’t pull the tail of your shirt free from your slacks with you sitting down.” God, but the man smelled good. And looked good, even with a hint of a bruise peeking out from the top of his beard.

He rose to his feet, his chest brushing against her breasts, then stared down at her. No way could she look into his eyes. Not now. Not when she was feeling so attracted to him and so overwhelmed by him. She looked down at his chest, found that expanse of hair-sprinkled skin only marginally less enticing than his eyes, tugged his shirt free of his slacks, then finished undoing his buttons. By the time she was done, her heart felt ready to burst right out of her chest. Being this close to this much man had her hormones on full alert, and every instinct in her woman’s soul wanting to caress and hold.

Clinical,
she warned herself.
Think clinical.
She eased the shirt off his left shoulder, then his right. And failed getting even close to a clinical thought. The hormone alert grew to a riot. She skimmed the fabric down his arms. Her hands grazing over his warm skin tingled and, breathless, she brushed along his hard muscles, past his elbows, to his corded forearms, dusted with a sprinkling of fine, soft hair. The fabric bunched at his wrists, refused to slide over his hands and off his fingertips. “It’s, um, stuck.”

“The cuffs,” he whispered thickly.

She glanced up, into his eyes.

Desire glazed them. “You’ve got to unbutton the cuffs.”

“Oh.” She couldn’t look away. She wanted to, tried to, but stood transfixed, mesmerized. Could the desire burning so deeply in them be real? For her?

His lowered his lids, turned his hot gaze to her lips. His own parted, and he let out a little puff of breath that smelled of mint and warmed her face. “Cally?”

She couldn’t talk past the knot in her throat. She moved her. hands furiously, but they only became tangled in the folds of his shirt.

“Cally.”

She ceased moving, again heard Suzie’s haunting words ramble through her mind. Words about courage and believing and miracles. Digging deep, so very deep inside her, she willed her gaze to lift and meet his, damning herself as forty kinds of fool for letting herself get into this position. For wanting to be in this position.

He touched his fingertips to her cheek, rubbed soft circles under her chin with the pad of his thumb. “Look at me, honey,” he whispered. “Please.”

Oh, God. Her mouth desert-dry, she swallowed hard, let her gaze drift past the bunch of wadded shirt between them, up his middle, following the dark vee of hair on his chest between his male nipples to his throat. His pulse there throbbed against his skin, beating as fiercely as her own. With the aid of sheer grit, she managed to look higher, to his beard, up the slope of his patrician nose, then finally—dear God, finally—to his eyes.

They were solemn, serious, and intent. The thick air between them grew solid, dense. As thick as that morning’s fog, blocking out sights and sounds and smells of everything except the two of them. Fabric rustled, then his shirt fell onto the floor, atop their feet. Neither of them looked down, nor reached to move it. He eased a hand to her shoulder, let it glide over her clavicle, down to her shoulder blade to circle her back, then lured her closer. Nose to nose, he whispered on a soft sigh. “Kiss me, Cally.”

“That’s not a good idea.”

“Don’t think about it. Don’t weigh the right or wrong, or the good or bad in it. Forget that one-kiss rule—”

“We’ve already broken it.”

“I broke it. I kissed you. But I’m asking you to break it now, Cally. I’m asking you to kiss me, because you want to kiss me. Because you ache to kiss me as much as I ache to kiss you. Please.”

Lonely. Cally understood all he was feeling because she felt it, too. The togetherness with the kids, the intimacy of her icing his sore jaw. Their teaming up to stifle the battleaxe. Talking softly through the nights on the hallway floor. All of those things they’d faced together vividly reminded him of the many times he’d faced similar situations alone. And those memories had him realizing just how lonely he’d become. How much he missed having a partner. Cally’s heartstrings suffered a mighty tug. Her beautiful Atlas was cracking under the weight of his world.

She tiptoed, tilted her face, then touched her lips to his, prepared for the avalanche of lust and desire and yearning to make love with him that would rip through her on contact.

The feelings didn’t come. This kiss was unlike their others. This kiss was gentle and tender, less lusty and more loving. A gentle fusing of mouths and sweet caresses that rocked through to her core in ways the others only hinted at and promised. Where the others planted the seeds of desire and tilled it, this one was the harvest. It gathered the physical longing and the emotional yearning and churned them together, concocting a unique, vintage bliss she’d never before known. A whimper rushed out from the back of her throat. She untangled her sleeve from his belt buckle, lifted her hand and let her fingers search, then splay across his bare skin; slide up his forearm, his biceps, to his shoulder, his skin arousing images in her mind of sun-warmed satin over granite. God help her, he felt as wonderful as he looked. Even more wonderful than he smelled, and tenfold more wonderful than she’d imagined him.