Home for a Soldier (20 page)

“I can’t promise you that.” Tension
surged through his muscles, making the scars on his chest throb with pain.

“If you don’t leave me alone when I
beg you for a tiny measure of peace, I’ll have to conclude that you have no
affection for me at all.” Grace’s voice took on a businesslike tone.

Rory sensed her distress, knew it
would cause her more anxiety if he insisted. “All right, Grace. I’ll give you a
week. Then I’ll come and see you. Is that all right with you?”

“Yes.” Grace said. “I guess we need
to talk. About the divorce, and other practical things. But I need a month. A
week is simply not long enough for me to…get over things”

“Two weeks. Not a day more.”

“All right,” Grace agreed
reluctantly. “Two weeks.”

Before Rory found the words to
reassure her, to tell her that he could make everything all right between them
again, the line clicked silent in his ear, and he was left alone with his anger
and confusion.

He drew deep breaths and controlled
his inner turmoil with the same concentration a soldier uses to conquer fear on
the battlefield.

What he’d heard didn’t seem possible,
but Grace didn’t lie.

She had left him, and maybe that was
what he deserved.

He would give her space. Two weeks,
but not a second more. After that, whatever had happened between Grace and the
slim man with model looks would be consigned to history. She would come home and
give him another chance to make her happy, be worthy of her love.

Rory clung to his conviction, because
doubt would have crushed him. He’d buried his bitterness over the past and set
his sights on the future. He was going to wait for Grace, give her the breathing
space she required, and rebuild his life while he waited.

He twirled the wedding ring on his
finger.

Grace belonged to him. One way or
another, he would get her back.

Grace checked the summary on the
screen and clicked the mouse to send the analysis to the printer. Green Gables
Trust was the biggest client of Mayfield Investments. She ought to have finished
the quarterly reports last night, but her mind had become listless, unable to
cope with complex tasks. The commute from New Jersey, where she had found an
apartment after two days of sleeping on
Orlando
’s
couch, added to the strain of failed dreams and a broken heart.

She drifted out of her office to drop
the papers on Stuart Ashton’s desk.

“Where’s Stuart?” She attempted a
smile at Yvonne, his assistant who squatted on the floor, untangling wires
plugged into the back of a computer.

“He’s already with the client. You’re
late.”

“I’m sorry.” Grace said the words out
of politeness, although she knew they weren’t true. Right now, she didn’t care.

“Can you take the report to the
conference room?” Yvonne peered over the tabletop. “I’m trying to sort out why
my keyboard doesn’t work.”

“Sure.” Grace gathered the stack of
sheets and headed down the corridor, where she paused to rap on the door before
pushing it open.

“I have the quarterly performance
reports.” As she crossed the room to deliver the papers to Stuart, she walked
past the client in a dark suit. The pages slipped from her fingers and scattered
to the floor.

“Hello, Grace. How are you?” Rory
nodded at her, his gaze lingering on her in a hungry manner that made her heart
pound.

“I’m….” She sent a helpless glance at
her boss, who refused to meet her eyes.

“Stu, can you give us a moment?” Rory
asked.

“Of course.” Stuart bounced up from
the seat and hurried to the door.

Grace continued to stare at Rory,
speechless. He was sitting in a tall leather chair, framed by the view through
the window. Behind him, a blanket of dark clouds skimmed the peaked tops of
Manhattan skyscrapers, as ominous as the stormy emotions inside her.

“What are you doing here?” she asked
finally. “You promised me two weeks, and it’s only been eleven days.”

“I’m here on business. My family owns
the Green Gables Trust.” As Rory spoke, his eyes lingered on her, traveling from
her face down to her neck, sliding over her breasts, and drifting back up again,
as intense as a flame.

In her turn, Grace studied Rory. The
neatly trimmed hair and pristine white shirt presented the perfect image of a
successful Wall Street businessman. Not a trace remained of the disheveled and
drunken soldier who had greeted her at the airport in Las Vegas. He even sounded
different, his voice clipped and confident, the words more sophisticated.

Green Cables Trust
.
The account generated a large proportion of the revenue that paid her salary. Of
all the thoughts whirling in her head, Grace homed in on the practical. “Did you
ask Stuart to give me a job?”

Rory didn’t shrink back from her
scrutiny. “I recommended you. It was up to him to decide if you were suitable.”

“I would have preferred to get a job
on my own merits.” Grace looked down and saw her knuckles turning white from how
hard she clenched her hands. With a supreme effort, she forced her fingers to
relax.

“I didn’t want you to be lonely while
I was gone.” Rory’s voice softened and he regarded her with concern. “If it
makes you feel better, Stu tells me you’ve earned your position.”

That small sign that he cared at
least a little about her robbed Grace of the shield of resentment she had tried
to hide behind. A sudden urge to go and drop to her knees beside Rory and huddle
against his solid warmth overwhelmed her. The skin on her hands tingled at the
thought of touching him.

“I’m glad to see it has worked out
with your parents,” she said in a desperate attempt to hold on to her composure.
“I was worried that I had made things worse by interfering.”

“Interfering?”

“When I sent them the letter you left
behind when you went to Iraq. I know I wasn’t supposed to send it unless you
died. I sent it anyway. I put in a little covering note, asking them not to tell
you, but I expect that they did.”

“No.” Rory shook his head. “They
didn’t.”

“Well, I’m glad it worked out. I
hated breaking my promise, but it seemed the right thing to do.” Grace paused,
watching in startled silence as Rory bolted up in the chair, his shoulders rigid
and a fierce expression on his face.

“Grace,” he said in a tightly
controlled voice. “When you confessed you had broken your promise to me, what
promise exactly were you talking about?”

“The one about not sending the
letter, of course.” Her brows drew together. “What did you think?”

“You haven’t broken any other
promises?”

Baffled, Grace shook her head. “No.
Of course not.”

Rory stalked across the room to her,
a grin of relief lighting up his features. “Grace. I’m sorry. I should have
known better.”

“What are you talking about?” She
tried to back away from him but came flush with the edge of the conference
table.

Rory offered no response. Instead, he
raised one hand and traced her mouth with his fingertip, just as he had on that
first night in Las Vegas.

Longing unfurled inside her. Closing
her eyes, Grace gave herself over to the sensation. Just for a moment. A little
longer…

“Why did you leave?” Rory’s voice
reached her in a softly rustling murmur. “Why did you run off when I finally
stopped putting barriers between us?”

Grace battled to hold on to her pride
then let go. Keeping her eyes tightly closed, she told him the truth. “I
couldn’t bear the fact that you didn’t love me.”

“What makes you think I don’t love
you?” Rory whispered in a voice so gentle Grace could barely hear the words. “Is
it because I’ve never said it?”

“You listen to that record until I go
mad.
Tell Laura I Love Her
. And when they hauled you into the hospital in
Iraq, barely conscious, you asked for her, not for me. You don’t want to sleep
next to me, not even after we’ve made love, and you call out her name in your
dreams.”

Rory went so still Grace could have
sworn the blood had stopped pumping through his veins. She blinked her eyes open
and saw the grief etched on his face.

“Laura was my sister.” His voice was
flat, unemotional. “She died ten years ago, and I’m responsible. When I call out
her name in my sleep, they are nightmares.”

He pulled out a chair and sat
stiffly, as if holding himself together with great effort. “I had just finished
my law degree at Harvard, and we were celebrating. We have an estate in Newport.
Laura was home. She was in her first year at Colombia, living with our
grandparents. Our parents didn’t bother coming home from Europe for my
graduation. Laura and I had a few glasses of champagne, and decided to go out.
She sat on the back of my motorcycle. Neither of us wore a helmet. We skidded on
loose gravel and fell off. Laura grazed her knee and elbow, and had a bump on
her head. We thought nothing of it. She dusted herself off and we continued into
town. When we got home, Laura complained of a headache. During the night, she
died from a brain hemorrhage.”

Rory raised his gaze to her, his eyes
shadowed with pain. “I’d been drinking, only a few glasses of champagne, but
enough to cloud my judgment. If I had taken Laura to the hospital, she’d be
alive today. My parents flew home. They blamed me for killing her, and they were
right. A week later, I joined the Army and left my old life behind.”

“I’m sorry.” Grace reached out and
touched his sleeve.

“Laura and I were exceptionally
close,” Rory continued. “Our parents were…self absorbed. We were looked after by
maids and sent to boarding schools.”

Rory’s hands clenched into fists.
“When the man I was assigned to protect in Iraq died, it brought everything
back. The two deaths mix up in my nightmares. I’m riding on my motorcycle with
Laura, and there’s an explosion. Blood and flesh splatters over me, but it’s
from Laura, not from Dieter. That’s why I cry out her name in my sleep.”

He raised his eyes to Grace. “Losing
Laura crushed me, and I carry the guilt every moment of my life.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Her fingers
gripped Rory’s sleeve, not wanting to let go. “I’m glad I sent that letter to
your parents. They’ll make you see sense. It wasn’t your fault.”

“Perhaps they already have.” Rory
bounced to his feet, his mouth pursed in consideration. “And I agree. I should
have told you. There are lots of things we should have told each other.”

“What do you mean?” Grace asked,
alarmed by the purposeful gleam in Rory’s eyes.

“You’ll work it out,” he said, and
hurried to leave the room. As if he couldn’t wait to get away from her. “Three
more days,” he shouted from the doorway. “Then I’ll be back, and we’ll have a
proper talk.”

* * * *

Rory bounced down the stairs, not
bothering to wait for the elevator. He’d been crazy to think that Grace would
have tumbled into bed with another man. Thank heavens he hadn’t gone as far as
insulting her with his jealous ranting.

Grace loved him.

She had never said the words, but she
didn’t have to. Love filled her eyes when she looked at him. Every little thing
she’d done for him while he was convalescing spoke of devotion—the deep,
selfless kind of caring. And when they made love, every cell in her body
thrummed beneath his touch.

It had required enormous willpower
not to pull her into his arms in the middle of the empty conference room and
kiss her senseless.
No.
Rory felt a grin tug at the corner of his mouth
as he reached the exit and emerged into the July heat.

He wanted to give her more.

When he thought of the hundred ways
in which Grace had proved her love to him, shame at his own reticence during
their weeks of living together pressed at his conscience. He’d been sullen.
Curt. A grumpy monster full of bad temper and bitterness.

Grace deserved better. He would give
her a proper declaration of love, one she would remember for the rest of her
life. His mad grin settled into a determined smile. Other people proposed to get
brides. He’d have to propose to keep his wife from divorcing him.

* * * *

Grace stooped to gather the scattered
printout from the floor and slouched back to her office. She wondered if Rory’s
injuries could have somehow affected his mind. His behavior had been erratic, to
say the least.

For one instant, she had thought he’d
pull her into his arms and kiss her. Then he jumped to his feet, and like a
creature chased, he bolted out the door. She would have to explain to Stuart
that she had probably lost the firm their biggest client. Unless they fired her
to appease Rory, Mayfield Investments might go bust and they would all end up in
the unemployment line.

With a sigh, Grace settled behind her
desk. What about her own behavior? When they were teenagers, and she lamented
her lack of admirers, Debbie had always pointed out that she scared men away by
being too reserved, too aloof.