Authors: Liz Talley
Exposing her cleavage, damn it. Though he was absolutely one hundred percent certain she was unaware of that fact.
“Neither Maddie nor Grant can live alone. Neither one is completely self-sufficient. But they both have feelings. Normal ones.”
He didn't want to think about his brother getting turned on. It was... Uh-oh.
“Could you sit up please? That...” He motioned toward her V-necked cleavage. “It's distracting.”
Clearly appalled, judging by the horrified expression on her face, the rush of color, Lynn sat up. Lifted both of her arms, hands toward her chin, in front of her.
He swore. Like a sailor. But managed to keep it silent.
“I'm...having feelings, too,” he said, when the awful expression didn't leave her face.
She blushed again. And he smiled, a sheepish apology. She grinned. Nodded. And he wanted to take her to bed.
CHAPTER TWELVE
G
RANT
HAD
TO
FOCUS
.
He might be in an exam room with a beautiful woman with whom he shared a mutual attraction, but life wasn't about fantasy.
“I've been caring for my brother exclusively for seventeen years. The idea of him and a woman... It's never come up. It never dawned on me that it would.”
“His doctor never talked to you about the fact that Darin's sexual urges were intact?”
“Of course he did.” The doctor had been male. Close to sixty. And Grant had still been beside himself with grief. “He mentioned wet dreams as a way his body might have of dealing with the situation.”
There was a clock on the wall. Analog. High up. He stared at it.
“And I imagine he talked to you about the fact that Darin might exhibit sexually inappropriate behaviors such as masturbation in front of people.”
“Something like that.”
“Has it ever been a problem?”
Chin tight, Grant took a deep breath. Swallowed. And looked her straight in the eye. “No.”
“Often times TBIâsorry, traumatic brain injuryâ”
“I know what that one is.”
“Often it causes low libido. But it can also have the opposite effect and make someone more inclined to experience sexual arousal.”
“I know.”
“Which one is Darin?”
She was doing her job. And being a friend, too. They had a situation he had to face. And when he remembered that Maddie was also involved here, and Lynn obviously cared a great deal for the woman, he completely understood her concern.
“Neither. We've been lucky where Darin's sexuality is concerned,” he said, making eye contact and holding it. “He's pretty much normal in that area in his ability to experience it, but also in his awareness of social mores.”
“TBI patients often forget little things,” Lynn said. “Like the need for the use of protection.”
“Darin's not going to have sex.”
“You don't know that.”
“Yes. I do. He... We have...magazines...for him to...”
There were just some secrets a guy didn't tell.
She nodded, then looked away. And if she was wondering if he ever borrowed his brother's magazines... “The answer to your question is no.”
“No, what?”
“I don't use them.”
She blushed again. Nodded again. She seemed to be having a difficult time breathing.
“I think we'll be okay here, you know.” He was driven to comfort this woman. To make life better for her.
He had no resources to do so. Not time or money or mental focus, either. He could barely keep up with the business and Darin, let alone take on a woman.
No way could he handle a child.
“Darin and Maddie are never really alone. They see each other in therapy, and maybe to walk across campus once or twice a week. That's it. Maybe this friendship is a good thing.” Once he got going, he was on a roll. “The change in Darin these past weeks is stupendous, really. He's up before I am, doing all he can, pushing himself, eager. Hell, he's remembering our schedule better than I am somedays. I can't speak for Maddie, but I know that Darin would never hurt her. He's just not the type.”
“Sara believes that Maddie needs to get through this if she's ever going to recover from her past. So while I'm apprehensive and would very much like to see the whole thing disappear, I'm to understand that it's good for her.”
And really, other than making certain the two didn't ever have an opportunity to make a baby, what could a friendship hurt? It wasn't like either of them had the ability to take it any further than a walk or a talk.
“I have to ask, since you mention Maddie's recovery, mentioned her past, what happened to bring her here?”
“I can't talk about my patients. But I don't see Maddie professionally. Unless she gets sick. I came to you as someone who cares deeply for her as a friend, as someone who looks out for her andâ”
“Lynn.” He leaned forward, covering her hand with his. “It's okay. I know you'd never betray your professional ethics. But, as you said, we have a situation here and since I'm directly involved, as my brother's caregiver, I need to know what we're facing. For Maddie's sake as well as Darin's. He might have questions. I need to have answers.”
She turned her hand over. A very small movement. He slid his fingers softly between hers.
“Maddie was integrated into a regular school curriculum. From what she's said, and what I've been told, some of the kids teased her, were mean to her, but overall, it was a positive experience for her. Mostly because from grade school on there was one little boy who was her self-appointed bodyguard. From the first time he noticed her hovering at the back of the classroom, he was her instant friend and protector.
“She has a pretty good sense of humor when she's relaxed, and he appreciated her jokes. Laughed at them with honest humor. He was impressed by her good heart, is what her parents said he told them.
“He saw her through junior high and high school. She was actually on the cheer squad because of him. She didn't get all the cheers, but they had her join in for the easy ones. She was on student council with him, too.
“When, after graduation, he approached her parents and told them he wanted to marry her, they were skeptical at first. He was a perfectly normal, intelligent young man with his whole future ahead of him. He'd trained in high school to be an auto mechanic and had a decent job with benefits. He bought a house. Put money in savings. And approached them again. This time he asked Maddie first, though. And, of course, she was elated.”
“It must have been hard for her when her parents said no.”
“They didn't.”
“Maddie was married?”
He'd been expecting caregiver abuse. Or maybe parental.
“Yes.”
Dropping Lynn's hand, Grant sat back.
“Apparently, as he matured, and was ready to move up in the world, go to college and get a degree in business, he grew increasingly frustrated with her inability to keep up with him. Her parents did what they could to free up his time so he could focus on school and he ended up with a whole new set of friends. And was embarrassed by his noticeably slow wife.
“She'd make a stupid choice, and rather than patiently helping her see the right way, he'd hit her. He was smart, though. He kept the abuse to parts of her body that didn't show. And told her that his temper was her fault. He always held her afterward. Told her that he was sorry. He told her that he'd love and protect her forever. Remind her that he'd always been her bodyguard. And he'd tell her that if she told anyone what was going on, they'd take her away from him and she'd be put in a home because her parents were getting too old to care for her. Maddie's parents had no idea what was going on.”
He'd asked. He hadn't been prepared for the truth. “How long did it go on?”
“She was married fourteen years. The abuse went on for about twelve of them. When Maddie caught her husband in bed with another woman, she called her parents and told them everything. They called the police, got her out of there and brought her here. He's currently serving a ten-year sentence in the state penitentiary.”
“Darin would never hurt her.” It wasn't nearly enough, but all he could come up with. “He'll be a good friend to her.”
But Maddie had had one of those before.
“According to Sara, she needs to be able to trust herself to have a man for a friend if she's ever going to have a hope of recovering from the damage her ex-husband did. Sara thinks Maddie's reaching out to Darin like this is a small miracle.”
“So, it's good for Maddie, it's good for Darin. And now it's up to all of us to make sure that their friendship remains just that. A friendship.”
He was looking her in the eye again. She looked back. And they weren't just talking about Maddie and Darin.
“Agreed,” she said, her voice heavy with conviction.
“Good.”
And to seal their bargain, to give evidence to the fact that friendship was all they could ever have, to make certain they both understood the insurmountable walls between them, he said, “I didn't know you had a daughter.”
* * *
“T
HAT
DAY
I
told you that Darin was at the park, I said he was with Maddie and Kara.” She stood. Returned the chair she'd been using to the opposite wall where it belonged.
She straightened her top. Checked that there were no smudges on the tips of her tan-colored soft-soled hospital shoes.
Grant was so...there...where she'd been so lonely for so long.
“I thought she was Maddie's daughter. Every time I saw Kara she was with Maddie, and it seemed clear that Maddie was her caregiver.”
The thought that someone might mistake Maddie for Kara's mother had never occurred to her. Everyone at the Stand knew that Kara was hers. Maybe Darin wasn't the only one whose life had become too insular.
“I'm sorry,” she said, hating that she felt defensive, like her having a daughter made her less appealing.
It made her less available.
It was really quite frustrating that not being available didn't seem to shut down her really strong urge to have sex with him.
She wasn't like that.
Didn't have casual sex.
Or sex at work, either.
She'd never had sex with anyone but Brandon.
He grinned, her stomach flip-flopped and she knew she had to get him out of there.
“Kara adds a depth to my life I didn't know was possible,” she told him, holding on to reality for all she was worth. Fantasy might be fine for middle-of-the-night baths. But then you drained the tub and went on. “She's the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning. The last thing I think about before I go to sleep.” He might as well know.
And stop looking at her like he wanted to be there when she went to sleep.
“I hear her little voice and something in me settles. Every single time. You ever think about having children?” she asked, feeling incredibly tired all of a sudden.
Grant stood. “Nope. Didn't see how I could ask Darin to accept a woman he didn't know into his nightmare, to be that vulnerable. And I couldn't ask a woman to take him on for the rest of her life, either. Hell, what am I saying?” His gaze was direct. Purposeful. “I'm not going to leave Darin alone the amount of time it would take to have a steady woman in my life. Or to raise a kid. In a sense, I'm Darin's dad.”
She understood. In some ways it would have been easier for him if Darin's injury had been severe enough to render him completely senseless. Instead, he was damaged enough to not be whole, but not so damaged as to not know he wasn't whole.
That awareness was the hardest part.
And the best, too, because it meant Grant hadn't completely lost the brother he'd known.
“What about before Darin's accident? Did you have a woman in your life? Or think about having kids someday?” Why was she pushing this?
“I was in college. I had more woman than was right. And no, I hadn't even begun to think about whether or not I wanted children someday. Which turns out to be a good thing since it's not in my cards.”
He didn't sound sorry. Or regretful.
He didn't sound as if he would have loved to have children if things had been different.
And she'd wanted at least a couple more.
When she was married.
Which she wasn't going to be again. Ever. She wasn't giving up what control she had over her life.
There were many things Lynn didn't understand, but one thing was absolutely completely clear to her. Never again was she going to put her life, her happiness, in the hands of another person.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
G
RANT
MADE
SURE
Darin was never alone on Monday, even going so far as to accompany him to his morning therapy session, saying he wanted to see Darin's progress and get updates from Angelica on how much they could push things.
He was just as interested in what they weren't going to push. Namely, Maddie and Darin together.
He'd have stayed for the afternoon session, too, except that as she was leaving the morning session, Maddie had told Darin she couldn't see him at lunch or following his afternoon session because Lynn was taking her to the mall.
She wouldn't have been seeing him at lunch, anyway, Grant could have told her. He'd brought enough sandwiches for Darin to eat with him. And if he hadn't, he'd have taken his brother out for a hamburger. And got him back in time to put in his hour and a half in the kitchen afterward.
He took Darin straight home after work. Told his brother to shower, reminding Darin to cover his stitches, and put on some nice pants and a casual shirt. As soon as he heard the water go on in Darin's bathroom, he had his own shower, pulled on some black jeans and an off-white button-down shirt, rolled up the sleeves, slid into some soft-sided loafers, ran his fingers through his hair and was in the living room waiting for Darin when he appeared ten minutes later, freshly shaved and looking as if he'd just stepped off the pages of a classy magazine.
Grant approved.
“Let's go,” he said, picking up his keys.
Darin followed right behind him, his gait more lilted than it was earlier in the day. “Where are we going?”
“Out?”
“Out where?”
Pushing the button to raise their automatic garage door, he opened the door of his white F250 diesel truck, climbed inside and waited for his brother to get in and buckle himself up.
Darin reached the belt across with his right hand and then switched it to his left to buckle it. The belt sprang back into the door frame. Darin tried a second time.
And while Grant's hands itched to grab the belt and slide it into the receptacle, he started the truck instead.
Darin's belt sprang back a second time.
He backed down the drive.
The belt snapped a third time.
“You've always buckled your belt one-handed,” he commented casually. These random moments of confusion were difficult. For both of them. “With your right hand.”
He pulled out onto the street and couldn't go any farther until Darin was safely buckled in.
“I know.”
Easing the truck over to the curb, Grant watched as Darin tried a fourth time. His brother's face was lowered to his task, and Grant couldn't get a good read on his expression. But his tongue wasn't sticking out of his mouth the way it sometimes did when Darin was in a regressive state.
On the seventh try, the buckle snapped into place.
Grant put the truck in gear and drove away.
* * *
“W
HERE
ARE
WE
going, Grant?” Darin was looking out his window, seemingly entranced by the freshly painted Cape Codâstyle homes they were passing, all with professionally landscaped, though smaller, yards.
The seventy-five-home neighborhood had been built with landscaping included.
Grant knew. He'd won the bid for the landscaping.
And they both knew the homes well. They were still in their neighborhood.
“Where do you want to go?” Grant sidestepped his brother's question a second time.
He had a plan. Was taking control. Lynn had given them a problem and he'd deal with it. That was the way of his life.
But Darin wasn't going to know that.
“I want to go to the beach,” Darin said. “I want to see the boats come in.”
So they went. A couple of miles from their modest neighborhood was a public access area where they could sit and watch the fishing boats come into Santa Raquel's very small, noncommercial pier.
In the distance, an occasional cruise ship traveling up the coast from San Diego or L.A. might appear, riding out the ocean's waves. Some yachts. Or commercial fishing boats that were headed to other ports.
“I want to dive again.”
“No, you don't.”
“Yes, Grant, I do.”
He took a deep breath and pinched the skin on his nose, though he had no idea what that was supposed to do. It didn't relieve any tension.
“What about your arm?”
“It's getting better.”
“Then when it does, we'll talk about this again.”
“I don't want to talk about it again.” Darin's focus didn't leave the ocean. “I want to dive again.”
The words “What if your arm doesn't get better?” were on the tip of his tongue. They would probably end the conversation. And there was a chance Darin would never bring diving up again.
But Grant studied Darin and bit the words right off his tongue. He couldn't lock Darin up any further than the injury his brother had sustained attempting to save a life had already done.
“Until my arm is better, I'd have to stay shallow.”
Grant didn't know what to say.
And Darin turned to look at him. “I can't go alone, Grant. I'd need you to go with me.”
Darin was completely, one-hundred-percent serious.
And so Grant did the only thing he could do. He said, “Okay.” And promised to make the plans.
* * *
“H
EY
,
L
YNNIE
.”
She'd known it was Brandon before she'd picked up the call, but the sound of his voice, using his pet name for her, still shot sharply through her.
“Hi, what's up?” She didn't feel like his “Lynnie” anymore.
“I got a favor to ask.” He sounded hesitant. And her heart reached out to him. Because it always had.
And, she'd come to realize, it always would. She didn't stop loving someone just because he had a biological predilection that couldn't be helped.
“What favor?”
Walking by the door to Kara's bedroom, she peeked in at the exhausted little girl sleeping in her princess bedâa white wooden bed with a canopy on top that Brandon had spent a couple of hours putting together for her the previous summer, when they'd thrown a moving-into-a-big-bed ceremony.
Just the three of them.
As if they were a family again.
“It's a big favor.” Brandon wasn't getting right to the point, which didn't bode well.
She and Maddie had worn Kara out at the mall. Lynn had made macaroni and cheese with peas in it for dinner when they got home and Kara had fallen asleep at the table.
“You sound tired. What's going on?” she asked him.
It was only eight-thirty. The evening stretched ahead of her.
Without turning on any lights, she settled on the sectional in the great room, looking out the sliding glass door to the garden beyond.
It needed more landscape lighting.
And she knew someone who did that sort of thing....
“Douglas was in a car accident this morning. Some guy was drunk and ran a red light.”
She sat up. “Oh, my gosh, Bran, I'm so sorry!” And then, more slowly, “Is he okay?”
“He's going to be. He's got a couple of broken bones, some stitches and lots of bruising, but if he does well tonight, I'll be able to bring him home in the morning.”
“Good, so that means no internal injuries.”
“Surprisingly not. He wasn't going that fast and had his seat belt on. Also he was hit broadside on the passenger's side of the car.”
“Thank goodness for that. Is he fully conscious? Have you been able to talk to him?”
“Yeah, he just ate a good dinner. I'm staying here with him tonight.”
“You're at the hospital?”
“Yeah. He's resting and I needed to call you....”
She pictured the slim man her husband had moved in with after he and Lynn had divorced. This past year, when California's ban on gay marriage had been lifted again, they'd gotten married.
Douglas was sweet. Gentle. Well dressed, quiet spoken. And a successful stockbroker. He'd always been kind to her and respectful of her place in Brandon's life. Not just as the mother of his child, but as his best friend, too.
“What can I do?”
“I want to bring Kara here for the weekend.”
Her heart lurched. He had every legal right to do so. By law, Brandon had Kara every other weekend and one night during the week. Except that he'd moved upstate to San Francisco and the midweek arrangement hadn't worked after that.
He'd never missed one of his weekends with Kara. Every other Saturday he flew down, either with Douglas or alone, and spent the day with her.
Because that's how Lynn had wanted it. Brandon here in Santa Raquel, not Kara up in San Francisco.
She wanted to say no to his favor. To scream it at him.
But Brandon was Kara's father. And a great dad.
He was also still a loyal and true friend to her.
“I'll see what I can arrange here to be able to get away and fly with her.” Kara had never spent the night at her father's house.
Lynn had never spent the night without her little girl.
“I'll fly down to get her,” Brandon said. “I'm not going to put you out, Lynnie. Douglas's mom is going to stay with him Saturday morning and again Sunday afternoon while I get her back to you. She'd stay with him all weekend, if we needed her to, but I don't want to leave him. And he misses Kara. He didn't get to see her last time.”
“And it's time that you have her in your home some, too.”
“We've had a room ready for her since we bought this place,” he reminded her.
“I know.”
“I bought the same exact bed she has at home.”
“I remember.”
“It'll just be for one night.”
“I'll be fine, Bran. I'm not a piece of china, you know.”
“You're one of the strongest people I've ever known, Lynnie. You've got way more backbone than I do.”
“That's utter nonsense.”
“I just hate hurting you and it seems like that's all I do anymore. I miss the days when I was a blessing in your life.”
She wasn't going to cry. It was just allergies.
“You're still a blessing in my life,” she told him. And meant it. The world would be a darker place if Brandon wasn't out there.
“If I'd known I was gay, I'd never have asked you to marry me,” he told her, something he'd said many times before.
“I know.”
“I feel so responsible. So guilty and stupid for not recognizing...”
She didn't blame Brandon. Or herself, either. Logically, medically, she understood that he couldn't help being attracted to men. And in her heart of hearts, she still felt shocked and betrayed.
Not because Brandon was gay. But because she'd thought she'd known him so completely...had trusted that she knew him as well as she knew herself...because she'd trusted that he'd always be faithful to her. Always want her.
Because he'd been her husband and he'd left her.
“Tell Douglas I said hello,” she said, keeping her voice light in spite of the heaviness inside her. “And that I'm glad he's okay.”
“That will mean a lot to him.”
“I mean it.”
“I know you do.”
“Okay, well, call me as soon as you have your flights arranged.”
“I will. Good night, Lynnie.”
“'Night.”
She'd pulled the phone away from her ear, looking for the end call button in the darkness when she heard, “I love you.”
She pushed to end the call.
* * *
“A
RE
WE
GOING
home now?” Darin asked once the brothers were back in Grant's truck after sharing a steak dinner at their favorite place on the main strip in town by the beach. “You missed our turn,” the forty-four-year-old man-child continued, swiveling in his seat to look at the intersection they'd just passed.
He'd talked about diving during dinner. And burped so loudly that the people a few tables over had turned to look at them.
He'd flirted with their waitress, who'd flirted right back. Grant was pretty sure the girl had no idea there was anything wrong with his older brother. She'd been absent for the belch.
And he'd talked about Luke and Craig letting him help put pieces of plastic tubing together that day.
“We aren't going home,” Grant said now. He had no idea how this next part was going to go, but he was determined that it would.
Every problem had a solution.
“Where are we going?”
“It's a surprise.”
“It's not my birthday.”
“You like surprises.”
“Yep.”
Grinning, Darin crossed his arms and looked out the window.