Battle for the Soldier's Heart (12 page)

Within minutes, without even taking off his clothes, Rory’s cell phone in his hand with the hospital on speed dial, Tucker was fast asleep in between pure-silk sheets. Unwrapping a toothbrush in the guest bathroom to brush his teeth seemed to be all he could manage.

Grace gazed at him tenderly for a moment. He looked so small in the huge bed. She resisted the impulse to brush his hair back from his pale forehead and plant a kiss there, and backed out of the room with a whispered good-night.

She recognized her own exhaustion and how vulnerable it made her. When she came out of Tucker’s room and saw Rory silhouetted at his floor-to-ceiling living-room window, she wanted to go to him.

To cast the last of her caution to the wind.

But he sensed she was there and turned to her.

She wanted to say,
Come hold me, let’s go back to that moment before that truck ended up parked in my front yard.

Instead she said, “Poor kid was done. He could barely brush his teeth.”

She wanted to comment on the availability of toothbrushes, but suddenly it just seemed like a symbol of all that was different between them.

Who kept a dozen brand-new toothbrushes in the event of unexpected guests, after all?

Exactly the kind of man who lived in a space like this. The kind of man who had nurses touching his arm on the basis of a few seconds acquaintance.

“You must be done in, too.” There was something faintly cold in his voice when he said, “I’ll show you the other guest room.”

And she could understand that completely. She had just hijacked the man’s life. Those spare toothbrushes weren’t for stray little boys, after all.

She had just shown him he didn’t have to be alone with it all.

He needed some distance from that, and so did she.

“Thank you,” she murmured. And she didn’t just mean for the room. No, she meant for letting her look after Tucker.

For letting her have her opportunity to play auntie before all the evidence was in. Though in her heart, she felt she already knew the truth.

* * *

Rory listened to Grace’s bedroom door close and felt as if he had been holding his breath and now it was safe to breathe.

Grace in his space.

When he had seen her coming out of Tucker’s room, he had turned and looked at her, and known how easy it would be to take it a step further.

Known that she wanted to.

The hunger in her eyes had almost slain his strength.

But it was just wrong.

She was exhausted emotionally and physically. He couldn’t take advantage of that.

Plus, Gracie was not the kind of woman he had become accustomed to, not at all. Those women were sophisticated and fast, they had no use for attachments anymore than he did.

When you took things a step further with a woman like Grace?

You better think things all the way through, starting with this thing: she was a forever kind of girl.

The kind that you waited for at the end of an aisle prepared to vow your whole life for her. The kind who harbored dreams of white picket fences and cottages on the lake and children squealing with delight.

And if you weren’t prepared to provide a life like that you weren’t worthy of her.

And added to that? She was Graham’s kid sister. There would be a special place in hell for the man who took advantage of the look he’d seen on her face tonight.

Rory stood by the window until the last of the sounds had died, water running, bed creaking slightly as she got into it.

He let his mind stray. What was she wearing? Her clothes? Nothing at all? One of the old shirts he hung in that closet?

He made himself stop.

They had already waltzed way too close to the danger zone tonight. And he had something he had to do that would not make him Grace’s favorite person when she found out.

On stealthy feet, he moved to the guest wing, to the bathroom that Tucker had used, and that Gracie had just exited moments before.

He looked at two toothbrushes that lay on the counter, side by side, for a long time. It was perfect, really. Better than the soda can, because for the soda-can idea to have worked, he would still have needed something of Graham’s, or of a member of Graham’s family.

He doubted whether, if Grace knew his intentions, she would have volunteered anything in either of those two categories. She had already told him she wanted Serenity—and not science—to deliver the truth.

And would Grace accept whatever Serenity said as the truth? Without verifying it? Surely not. Surely no one was that naive. But then he remembered the cowboys showing up and her determination to believe in a miracle.

Rory wasn’t going to take a chance that she could be that trusting. He wasn’t going to do it her way. He wasn’t leaving it up to her. She would want to just let things unfold, he on the other hand liked to make things happen. He was going to protect her from herself.

Because opportunities like this did not come at every turn. Two toothbrushes. Both, presumably, would hold the genetic code that would prove or disprove if the two people who had used them were related.

He picked both toothbrushes up by their handles, careful not to touch the bristles, took them to the kitchen and bagged them in separate bags.

It was funny how he felt, a familiar feeling. A soldier who had been given an unsavory assignment, who had no choice but to do his duty.

Still, it felt sneaky, and he knew Grace would not approve of sneakiness in any form, even if it would speed up their arrival at the truth.

But from the shape Serenity had been in tonight, Rory knew something he had protected Grace—and Tucker—from.

It was possible they would need the truth sooner than later.

He looked for his cell phone, remembered he had given it to Tucker.

He went into his den, picked up the landline.

If Bridey had been sleeping, nothing in her tone indicated it.

“I need two things,” he said. “And I need them fast.
I need a DNA test, I have the samples here that I need tested. And I need a private detective. To find out everything there is to know about a woman named
Serenity Chambers.” He gave the birth date and the other information that he had gleaned from Tucker for the hospital admittance desk.

He hesitated and then added softly, “I’m particularly interested in the birth of a child, a boy, seven to eight years ago.”

“I’m on it.”

“It’s not about me,” he said.

“That was unnecessary, sir. I already knew it wasn’t about you.”

“Now how would you know that?”

“You just know things about people after you’ve been around them for a while. And you are not a man who shirks your responsibilities.”

“It could have been an accident,” he said, enjoying playing devil’s advocate to Bridey’s complete loyalty to him.

“Or the kind of man who has those kinds of accidents.”

“Thanks, Bridey.” But as he hung up the phone it seemed to him if Graham, the most decent of men, could have had that kind of accident, then anyone could. A lot of life was luck or lack of it.

Rory allowed himself to feel his own exhaustion. He went back into the guest bathroom and unwrapped two new toothbrushes and put them side by side on the counter. It seemed unnecessarily sly, but really confirmed he was not quite the man Bridey thought he was.

Or the man Gracie seemed determined to believe he was.

And then he went to his own bedroom and felt the unpleasantness of what he had just done.

But despite the fact he had left war zones behind him, despite the fact his bedroom was one designed for a king, Rory had never been more aware he was a soldier. He could be counted on to do what needed to be done.

He could be counted on when no one else had the stomach for it.

He thought of that moment when he had just held Grace tonight. After he had told her about his dreams, shared the burden of his tremendous guilt

When his armor had been down, when he had let go of his need to be strong.

And he cursed himself for the longing that pressed against his chest and felt like fifty tons of steel. He thought he wasn’t going to sleep at all, knowing Gracie was just down the hall. Knowing he had confessed his weaknesses to her. Knowing there was a little boy here that he had to figure out what to do with.

But in the morning, Rory awoke, refreshed and amazed.

No dreams.

Gracie was already in the kitchen and he tried to steel himself against how he felt about Grace in the morning: tousle-headed and makeup free, she had slept in a man’s shirt that she must have found in the guest-room closet.

She was gorgeous as she snooped through his fridge, making herself at home, making that weight on his chest even more impossible to ignore.

A smarter man would be on his way to Australia. But Tucker’s arrival in the kitchen served as a reminder. Rory was in this now, and he was determined to see it through to the finish.

So, he took them for breakfast at a place that kids liked, though Tucker showed nothing but surliness as he gobbled down enough food to feed a small army. And then they went to the hospital.

Serenity, to everyone’s relief was sitting up in bed, looking pale and wrung-out, but as though she would survive. She wanted out, but the doctor would not release her.

Tucker’s whole demeanor changed after they had seen his mom. He insisted they drive out to the ponies so he could check on them. Slim was there.

“You know, Tucker,” Slim said, “I have a whole pasture out at my place that needs eating down. Why don’t I take the ponies out to my place for a while? It would be doing me a favor.”

It was put in such a way that Tucker could give in without feeling as if he had absconded on the responsibility he took very seriously.

“I guess that would be good,” he said with dignity that was way too grave for a seven-year-old.

Grace must have noticed that, too. As they watched the ponies being hauled away in Serenity’s old trailer she looked around the camp with troubled eyes.

But she didn’t let on she was troubled to Tucker.

“Want to spend the day with us?” she asked him.

Us.

“I guess,” Tucker said, without any real enthusiasm.

“What would your perfect day be?” she asked him.

Tucker looked annoyed by the question. But then, reluctantly, he said, “Never having to go to school. That would be a perfect day.”

“Well, it’s summer so you already have that. If you could do anything you wanted, Tucker, what would
it be?”

His look of annoyance deepened, but then he sighed, and seemed to give in to the frivolous temptation to dream a little.

“My perfect day,” he said, “would be riding a horse up into the mountains. I’d set up a camp by a lake. I’d cook hot dogs and have as many as I wanted. Probably six or seven of them at least. And I’d have six sacks of potato chips all to myself. I’d drink a whole gallon of hot chocolate.”

He looked like he wanted to stop, maybe even tried to stop, but the dream had taken hold of him. “I’d go to sleep lying right under the stars and I’d feel really full, like I couldn’t eat another bite. Not even one more potato chip. I’d listen to the horses grazing, and the water moving and maybe a screech owl.

“I’d be with people who loved me more than anything else. I’d be away from problems. It would be a place where I never worried about anything, ever. And I’d feel safe, like nothing bad could ever happen.”

He shut up suddenly, eyed them defiantly, clearly believing he’d revealed way too much of himself.

Rory slid Grace a glance. He could see tears in her eyes.

And he could feel the lump in his own throat. What kind of seven-year-old boy had dreams like this?

Didn’t they dream of acquiring the newest toy? If they were offered a perfect day didn’t they want to go play with their friends at the swimming pool? Or spend a day at the amusement park? Or go to hockey camp? Meet a sports hero? Or a rock star?

What kind of seven-year-old boy’s best dream was being out in the middle of nowhere with a full tummy and feeling safe?

Rory Adams knew exactly what kind of seven-year-old boy dreamed those kind of dreams.

He met Gracie’s eyes over Tucker’s head. There was that look again, asking him—no, expecting him—to be some kind of hero. He had to walk away from this thing: from her and from this kid before what was left of his heart felt as if it had been ravaged by wolves.

But running away from what scared him most?

That had never been in his nature.

And running away was not even close to the vow he had made to see things through to the end.

He took a deep breath, recognized the irony of both surrendering and preparing for battle.

“Have you ever driven a Ferrari?” he asked Tucker.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I
T
WAS
called Automotion, and it was
a go-cart track Grace had driven by a thousand times without giving it a
thought.

Now, choosing her go-cart, she wondered what she had been
missing all her life. They had a huge selection of all the great
high-performance cars in miniature.

Grace watched as Tucker and Rory debated the features of each
car as if it were real before they decided which one to drive.

She wasn’t just falling for Rory anymore.

No, she had seen on his face the exact moment when he had
decided to give Tucker a normal little boy’s dream of a perfect day. She had
seen on his face the exact moment he had decided to give himself over to this: a
sense of being a family.

And she had gone from falling to the ugly part:
splat.

Splat.
As in Gracie Day loved Rory
Adams.
Splat.
As in she couldn’t stop herself.
Splat.
As in it could have all kinds of messy
consequences.
Splat.
As in there was every chance
this would not end well.
Splat.
As in Rory would no
more reciprocate these feelings than he had when she was fourteen.

Grace had always had a gift for exactly this: seeing all the
things that could go wrong, seeing the potential for disaster everywhere. It was
part of what made her such a good event planner. While her customers were doing
nothing but having fun she was anticipating every single thing that could go
wrong and putting out fires before they roared to life.

So she was astonished to find that after careful evaluation of
all the things that could and probably would go wrong as a result of her very
foolishly giving over her heart to Rory, she simply didn’t care.

She liked the way she felt right now, sliding behind the wheel
of her miniature Ferrari.

Alive.

Aware that if you let go of control a little bit, life had
crazy potential to go in directions you never expected, and that that wasn’t
necessarily a bad thing.

She was awake, and being awake made her realize that she had
the potential to feel and experience things that she never ever would if she was
too cautious.

So Grace vowed she wasn’t going to be cautious. She wasn’t
going to weigh every possibility and every option. She wasn’t going to squint
toward the future with fearful eyes.

No, she was going to be alive, aware and awake to her own
life.

No, she was going to accept with open arms and an open heart
the unexpected gift this day had given her. She was going to acknowledge the
unexpected gifts she had been given since the day those ponies had broken free
and ransacked Pondview.

Wasn’t that one of the strangest things about life? Sometimes
the greatest gifts were going to come as a result of an event that you had
originally judged as bad.

The Ferrari she chose was yellow and not red. Now she was at
the starting line. The track was packed, at least eight little cars were revving
beside her.

The pistol went off.

Rory and Tucker took off like they had been shot out of
cannons.

It took Grace a little longer to get the hang of it. It was
hard to lose that cautious habit, and this activity seemed decidedly dangerous
once she was actually moving. People were racing around the figure-eight-shaped
track with reckless abandon!

They had lapped her twice when she saw Rory glance back at her,
faintly mocking, faintly challenging.

She couldn’t have possibly heard him over the roar of the
engines. But she must have read his lips.

Let loose, Gracie.

And then, she did. She let go of her need for absolute control.
Hadn’t the universe been showing her for days that its plan for her was so much
better than anything she could plan for herself?

She let go. She pressed down on the accelerator and surged
forward. She loved the feeling of power. She pressed down a little harder.

After the final lap, she was still dead last, she couldn’t make
up for the lost time—and maybe that was another lesson in life. You could not
make up for the lost time.

But as she got out of that car, she felt tingly with
excitement.

“That was fun!” she said with amazement.

“Tucker and I are going to go again. How about you?”

She looked at the two guys watching her and felt her heart
swell. Just like some sort of surrender had happened to her, so had one happened
to Rory.

Right now he was the carefree boy he had never been. Even when
her brother had brought him home, he might have seemed careless and carefree,
but he hadn’t been, not totally. Something in him never quite letting go.
Something in him watchful and a bit wary even as he had teased her to
distraction. Of course, she hadn’t seen that at the time. She’d been fourteen!
All she had seen was how handsome he was.

And the truth was he was still handsome enough to rattle her
world.

She shifted her focus to Tucker. He was shining with
happiness.

“Are you coming again?” Rory asked, already heading over to
select his second car.

Despite having managed to overcome her cautious nature, she had
to acknowledge, secretly, she had been happy when it was over. Secretly, she had
felt overjoyed to have survived her own recklessness.

Which meant she hadn’t quite learned the lesson yet!

“Of course I’m coming again,” she said.

She chose the Ferrari again. Who could resist? And she relaxed
a little more this time. Let loose a little more. Came in third instead of dead
last.

But what she loved most was watching them, Tucker and Rory,
fiercely competitive, both giving themselves over, both learning to play.

Grace knew Rory had probably never had anything approaching a
childhood. Not as she thought of childhood.

And so, as with most gifts, as he gave this one to Tucker he
received it himself.

“I’m starving,” Rory said when they had finally exhausted
themselves. She had given up after the third race, but they both had tried every
car on the track.

“Me, too,” Tucker said approvingly.

“Wanna eat hot dogs till we puke?”

“Yes,” Tucker said with soft reverence. “But first we need to
go see my mom.”

“Absolutely,” Rory said, throwing his arm around the boy’s
scrawny shoulders. Tucker didn’t even flinch away.

Serenity was sitting up when they arrived, cursing out a nurse
and telling her she’d leave if she wanted to.

But she stopped as soon as they came into the room. Stopped and
stared, first at Tucker, then at Rory, then at Grace and then back at
Tucker.

And suddenly her fight was gone. There was something in her
face that was about the saddest thing Grace had ever seen. Serenity pulled the
blanket back over her skinny legs, and said to the nurse. “Okay, then, run your
damned tests. But I’m not paying for them.”

Tucker scooted up on the bed. “Mama, guess what I did?”

“What did you do, Yucky?”

“Drove a race car!”

She smiled, but Grace could see she was exhausted and that her
genuine happiness for Tucker’s happiness was mixed with something else. “Fun,
huh?”

“The most fun ever,” Tucker said.

“Well, they’re gonna keep your mama here for a while. I don’t
want you to worry. I’m tough as an old mama grizzly bear and harder to
kill.”

“You don’t have to worry, either. Slim is taking the ponies to
his pasture.”

“Slim, huh?” Again, there was some expression, deep in her
eyes, that Grace could not completely understand. “You go have fun. I’ll be back
to my rootin-tootin’ self in a couple of days. Enjoy your auntie.”

“My auntie?” Tucker said.

“Pretty sure that lady right there is your daddy’s sister.”

Tucker turned and eyed Grace; she saw that dislike again, naked
in his face. Or maybe it wasn’t dislike. Fear. Why would he be afraid of her?
Why would he be afraid that she was his auntie?

She glanced at Rory to see how he was taking the news. He
looked like thunder.

He obviously wanted to say something, skepticism was stamped on
his features. But he looked off for a moment, glanced at Tucker, marshaled
himself and then he turned on his heel and left the room.

“I gotta go with him, Mama. We’re gonna eat hot dogs till we
puke.” Tucker stopped and went very still. “Unless you want me to stay. I’ll
stay right here if you want me to.”

“Nope. I already told you. Go have fun with your kin.”

Guilt and desire warred on his face. “Can we bring you a hot
dog?”

Serenity made a face. “Maybe, later, if you think of it,
smuggle me in a little ice cream cone, the kind dipped in butterscotch.”

Grace could clearly see Serenity was not up to eating an ice
cream cone, she had given her son a little chore to do for her to relieve his
guilt. And it worked.

“Hey, Rory, wait up,” he called and darted from the room.

But Grace was not so quick to follow. She sat on the edge of
the bed.

“You do think he’s Graham’s,” she said softly.

Serenity closed her eyes. “Oh, yeah. I do.”

“But why now? Why tell me now?”

“Why not?” Serenity said, something angry in her tone. She
opened her eyes, challenging Grace.

“But why didn’t you tell Graham?”

“Do I look like the type of person your brother, Mr. Squeaky
Clean, would have been happy to know he had a kid with?”

Grace was silent.

“He probably would have tried to take him away from me if he
knew. I’m tired now. Just go away.”

The words seemed harsh, but there were tears shining behind
Serenity’s eyes.

When Grace didn’t move, she closed her eyes again. Softer, she
said, “Please?”

Grace got up and left the room without another word, aware that
even as she was troubled, something was blooming inside her.

Hope.

And love.

Tucker was Graham’s baby, and it was like the light flickered
back on in her world.

She skipped down the hall to find her nephew and Rory. Rory
took one look at her face and his look of displeasure deepened.

But she didn’t care.

“This is a moment to celebrate,” she told him.

“Don’t be so sure, Grace.”

“Don’t spoil this moment with your cynicism.”

He drew in a deep breath, as if she had slapped him across the
face. But then he smiled, the smile she had come to recognize as the one that
hid what he was really feeling.

“Gracie-Facie, that’s what I do. I put out the sunshine in
girls like you.”

“Well, I’m not a little girl and I don’t believe you have power
over light and darkness.”

He sighed, ran a hand through the thick silk of his hair.
“Don’t count on that,” he muttered.

“I’ve said before that you are unnecessarily cynical,” she
said. She was aware they were bickering. This was how badly she had fallen: she
loved
bickering with him.

“I told you there’s no such thing.”

“Are we going to eat hot dogs?” Tucker demanded.

“I guess we are,” Rory said. “I guess we are.”

And for some reason, he backed off on his cynicism. He looked
at her long and hard, and then at Tucker. “I happen to know where the world’s
best hot dogs are.”

She recognized it as a surrender, even if Rory didn’t.

“You do?” Tucker asked, reverent.

“Yeah, I do.”

* * *

Rory watched Tucker eating hot dogs. The little boy
claimed he would eat six, but he was petering out after three.

The kid obviously had not had a decent meal in a long time. And
then there was Grace. That little smile hadn’t left her face since Serenity had
announced she was Tucker’s aunt.

So everybody was happy.

Why did happiness make him so deeply suspicious? He had a
feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop.

And the thing was? He didn’t believe Serenity. Even after Grace
had taken him aside and told him Serenity’s
reasons for not telling Graham
that Tucker was his, Rory had serious reservations.

But he’d have an answer in a few days. He wouldn’t have to take
Serenity’s word for it and that filled him with relief.

It occurred to him, he’d had the perfect opportunity to tell
Grace about the DNA test. But he hadn’t. He had let that moment pass. Why?
Because she believed he would not bring darkness to her world, despite the fact
she had been properly warned.

And maybe he wouldn’t have to. Maybe that DNA test was going to
prove exactly what Serenity had said, and he could relax.

And until then, was there any way of preventing Grace from
getting completely attached to that kid?

He doubted it. He was already feeling kind of attached to the
spunky little fellow himself.

So, he couldn’t prevent her from getting attached, but maybe he
had to stay near. Watching. Waiting. Being there when that other shoe
dropped.

She had asked him not to spoil everything with his cynicism.
Okay, then. He’d do his best to hide how he really felt.

Maybe he’d even give himself permission to enjoy giving that
kid a few things that he’d never had before.

But unlike her, he would expect the worst, and he would prepare
for that. It was how he’d gone through his whole life. It was what had protected
him from the disappointment he could see Grace headed toward at breakneck speed,
as if she had her foot down hard on the gas pedal of that little yellow
Ferrari.

The truth was he had a million things to do today.

The truth was he was losing a bit of control here. Because he
wanted
to be with them.

“Do you want to go to the beach this afternoon?” he heard
himself asking.

“I don’t have swim stuff,” Tucker said, not enthused.

“We can go out to where you’re staying and pick it up,” Grace
said.