Merry nodded, her lashes sweeping down to hide her expression. “You win,” she said, her voice small and tired. “Figure out a way to save Windy Corner, and Baby and I won’t move to Sanctuary. But for the rest of the time we’re here, you don’t interfere in my relationship with Mom. We get to spend as much time together as I want, and you stay out of it. Deal?”
“Deal.”
Merry nodded and slipped out of the kitchen before Ella could do more than draw in another breath to tell her it would be okay.
And it would be. All she had to do was structure a business proposal with enough projected income to get a bank to extend Jo a loan. Of course, certain people on the island might object, but Ella couldn’t worry about that. Her first priority—her only priority—had to be Merry.
She tried not to think about the blank resignation tugging her sister’s mouth into an unhappy curve when she had said, “You win.”
Funny. Ella had never felt more defeated.
CHAPTER 15
The knock on his door startled Grady so much, he flailed hard enough to roll out of bed and land on the hardwood floor. He lay blinking up at the rafters for a long, breathless moment with the quilt tangled around his legs before the old shoulder injury pinched painfully. Groaning, he sat up and shook his head to clear away the fog of sleep. Had he dreamed that knock on the front door?
No. There it was again.
It was probably Ben, maybe with an update about the foal. The prospect was enough to have Grady dragging himself to his feet. He wrapped the quilt around his naked shoulders and made his way down the stairs to the front door.
“Awright, awright. Geez, what time is it?” he complained, swinging the door open on a jaw-cracking yawn.
“I’m sorry!” Ella exclaimed. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
Grady’s eyes popped wide, all vestiges of sleep clearing away under the shock of Ella Preston on his doorstep at oh-dark-hundred.
“Hey, no,” he said, hitching up the quilt awkwardly, hyper-aware of the stretch of scars over his shoulder and hoping like hell they were covered. “You didn’t. I mean. What are you doing here?”
Her cheeks had been paler than usual when he first opened the door. Grady noticed mostly because now they flushed a prettier pink than the sunrise lighting up the sky over the tops of the pine trees circling his cottage. “I should go, let you get back to bed…”
She trailed off as her gaze slipped down his nearly naked body, and when both her eyes and her flush brightened, Grady felt his mood lift. It turned out, one embarrassed ogle from Ella Preston was better than a hot cup of joe.
And in spite of the fact that he’d spent many hours the night before tossing and turning under the weight of the revelation he’d had after the foaling, now that it came to the point, it was surprisingly easy to step back and reach out a hand to hold open the door. “Don’t worry about it. Come on inside.”
Ducking her head, Ella brushed past him in a cloud of soapy, sweet-smelling warmth. She paused in the entryway, her curious stare taking in everything from the hand-carved wooden furniture to the multicolored rag rug covering the hearth.
“This is … beautiful,” she said, sounding surprised.
Now Grady was the one who was embarrassed. He shrugged off the compliment, not wanting to make a big deal out of how much the praise for his hideaway pleased him. “It’s home.”
“Was this your family’s summer cottage?”
Surprised she remembered what he’d told her about his history with the island, Grady was a beat too slow in replying. “Ah, no. When I was a kid, we’d come and stay with my aunt and uncle. We stopped coming when my aunt Carol got sick.”
“But you never forgot the island.”
There was something in her voice, something wistful and a little yearning as she took in the simple charcoal drawing over the mantel. In a few fluid lines, the artist had rendered the sense of movement and freedom of a band of wild horses sweeping across a meadow, tall grass rippling in the breeze like waves on the shore.
“This place tends to get into your blood,” he said quietly. “At least, that’s how it was for me. When I got out of the hospital, all I could think about was coming here.”
Drawing close enough to study the framed photograph on the mantelpiece, Ella said, “Is that you?”
Grady nodded, grinning a little as he remembered the day that picture was taken. “In my first boat. My uncle took up sailing and gave me his little powerboat. He even paid for a slip at the public dock for whenever I came to visit.”
“It’s so beautiful,” Ella said, eyes wide and interested. “And you couldn’t be more than … what, fifteen in the photo?”
“Sixteen.” Sixteen, gangly, towheaded, and grinning a mouthful of braces from ear to ear as he took his pride and joy out for the first time as her captain.
“Do you still have that boat?” Ella asked.
“Yep, tied up down at the dock. A ’98 Stingray 200LS. I work on her every now and then, keep her in good shape. She’s a bit of a collector’s item now.”
“Maybe we should plan a boat tour around the island sometime,” Ella suggested, her gaze lingering on the image of the happy boy.
Grady felt the grin drop off his face. “I don’t take her out anymore.”
Startled, Ella looked up at him. “What, never?”
“That’s right.” He clenched his jaw, uncomfortable and wishing she’d just drop it.
As if she’d heard his unspoken wish, Ella turned a bright smile on him. “So, I guess you’re wondering what I’m doing here!”
Something about the abrupt subject change grated on him, pinging his finely honed something’s-not-right instinct.
No one should be that perky this early in the morning.
“Honestly?” He relaxed enough to feel another yawn threatening. “I’m wondering what the odds are that I have time to put on a pot of coffee before we head out to check on the foal.”
Her eyes lit up. “Oh, can we?”
Grady hiked up the quilt again, taking the opportunity to make sure it was tucked securely under his more heavily scarred left arm, and headed for the eat-in kitchen. “Sure. I mean, I thought that’s why you were here.”
“Actually, I had a different request. But I’d really, really like to see the foal again. Please.”
He hid his grin by busying himself with his coffeemaker. “Shouldn’t be a problem.”
“I just…” She fidgeted in his peripheral vision, her hands making graceful circles as she groped for the right words. “I’ve never seen anything quite like that before.”
Grady laughed. “Who knew the miracle of life involved so many bodily fluids, huh?”
But that wasn’t what she meant, and he knew it.
“Don’t make fun of me.” Her voice was quiet, intense enough to stop Grady in the middle of scooping coffee grounds into the paper filter.
“I’m not,” he told her, focusing on what his hands were doing to avoid having to face her. “I’ve never been involved in anything like that before, either.”
Silence stretched between them for a long moment, broken only by the gurgling rush of coffee perking.
Grady managed not to tense up when Ella stepped closer and turned to lean against the counter beside him.
“And here I thought you were the original Horse Whisperer,” she said.
He shot her a look, but the half smile quirking her lips told him she was teasing. “Nah, not really. Your mom’s the one with the magic touch. I just … care about the horses, is all.”
He didn’t know how else to say it, how to explain the need he had to keep tabs on the wild horse herd. No one on Sanctuary acted like it was that big a deal, or weird, but saying it out loud to someone new, like Ella, made him uncomfortably aware that Protector of the Island wasn’t exactly an official title, with a salary and benefits and a career path.
He cleared his throat. “If you didn’t come over because you wanted to check on the foal, what did you have in mind?”
“Oh. I was hoping you’d be willing…” Ella trailed off, her gaze glancing off him and slipping away to the side.
Grady was having a hard time imagining something he wouldn’t be willing to do with Ella Preston. “What?”
“I made a promise to get to know Sanctuary,” Ella said, her gaze sliding off to the side. “Can I get the rest of that guided tour?”
Grady blinked down at her, blood rushing in his ears. He’d been right—she looked good in his kitchen. Her trim, slender form slipped into the corners of his life as if there’d been an Ella-shaped hole at his side, waiting for her.
I am in so much trouble.
But she wanted to see Sanctuary. That had to be a good sign. He breathed in and felt something sharp and clean pierce through the clutter in his brain.
It had been a long time since he’d felt anything like it, but Grady was pretty sure he remembered and recognized it, from before the accident.
Hope.
* * *
Ella was very careful not to fidget.
There was so much riding on Grady’s response—she needed his help to scout the island as a potential property for development. But she was pretty sure if she told him that, he’d refuse to listen to anything more.
She comforted herself with the knowledge that once he realized how much her ideas would help the island, in general—and his very good friend Jo Ellen Hollister, in particular—he’d understand.
In the meantime, she had to push through her worries and fears about Merry and the thorny prickle of guilt that she was using Grady’s knowledge of Sanctuary for a purpose he wouldn’t approve of. This was all business. It had to be.
But as she stood there, so close to him, every square inch of her skin began to tingle. Her lungs opened up, every breath filling her entire body with the rich scent of coffee beans and the sleep-warm spice of Grady’s skin.
A lot of skin, barely covered by that beautiful, hand-worked quilt, although he was clearly trying to conceal the rest of his scars.
Ella tried not to stare. The last thing she wanted was to make Grady feel awkward, on display in his own home.
“What do you want to see?” Grady’s deep voice startled Ella.
Resisting the urge to say “your naked torso,” she determinedly met his gaze and said, “Everything. The wild horses, the town square, the best restaurant in town … whatever you want to show me.”
The slow smile that spread over his face took her breath away. It changed his harsh, closed features, softened and illuminated them into something she wanted to keep looking at for a long, long time.
As she stared up at him now, it was hard to remember she’d only met him a few days ago. The hard line of his jaw, shadowed with the dark gold beginnings of a beard, was already familiar to her.
His cheeks burned red for a brief instant before he busied himself pouring coffee into his mug without spilling or dropping his grip on the blanket over his shoulders.
“I can do that. I did promise Jo I’d try to give you a sense of your heritage. Believe it or not, there’s more to the island than pregnant mares.”
“Maybe,” Ella conceded. “But I wouldn’t mind finding a few other things on the island that gave me the same feeling I got around those horses yesterday.”
Without taking his eyes off the coffee mug, Grady mumbled, “How did you feel?”
Ella paused. Feelings were slippery things, in her experience.
After years of therapy, she didn’t have any problem analyzing or talking about her feelings. But she’d also noticed that feelings weren’t concrete. They didn’t get set in stone. They were defined, in large part, by the ways people reacted to them. And the story a person told about the emotion later on was every bit as important and meaningful as the experience of that emotion in the moment.
So it was with a certain amount of deliberation and purpose that Ella said, “I felt at peace.”
“And that’s something you don’t get a lot of, in your life.”
It wasn’t phrased as a question, but Ella shrugged anyway. “Not a lot of time for meditation and yoga, in my line of work. I tried a couple of different religion courses in college. Modern dance and avant-garde theater exercises that involved lying on my back on the floor and visualizing numbers in my head.”
He took a sip of hot coffee, hiding his mouth, but his moss-green eyes over the rim of his mug were bright and curious.
“It was all interesting.” She laughed a little. “But honestly? The closest I came to true happiness was exam time. I know. I’m a nerd. But that feeling of studying hard—absorbing information, spilling it back out for the professors to give a high grade—that made me feel good.”
“I bet you were a straight-A student all through school.”
Her smile faded. “Oh, there were a few rocky years.”
The year her mom spiraled down into the depths of alcoholism, for instance. The year after, when her parents split up and her dad moved them across the city to that tiny apartment on the depressed, crime-ridden north side.
She shook her head to jog the bad memories loose and gave him a smile. “But mostly, yes. I was always working hard to fit in, to keep anyone from noticing there was something very wrong at home. It made me a bit of an overachiever.”
Grady frowned, and she held up her hands. “Hey, it turned out okay, because doing well in school meant I had my pick of colleges, and later, careers. Maybe I owe Jo Ellen a thank-you.”
Grady winced a little, and Ella bit her lip, regretting the sour twist of bitterness that lingered on her tongue.
“Sounds like you’ve given a lot of thought to how you got where you are,” he said quietly.
“That’s what thousands of dollars’ worth of therapy will get you,” she quipped. “No, seriously. It’s important to me to understand myself, what drives me. I never understood that about Jo, and part of me—” Ella stopped short, surprised at what she’d been about to reveal.
Grady didn’t pressure her, though. He simply watched her with those deep, soft eyes, his body a solid wall of strength keeping the real world at bay.
“Part of me is scared that if I don’t figure out what went wrong with Jo and our family … it could happen to me, too. And I don’t want to ever be like her.” She paused for breath, feeling as if a weight she’d been carrying around for a long time had just slid off her shoulders.