Nobody's Fool (24 page)

“He says I'm not the woman he married.” Grace turned back to Holly. “And he's right. I'm not. The part I can't figure out is who that woman was and who she is now.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Holly wasn't waiting up for Josh.

She wasn't.

She was such a liar.

It was after one in the morning and she was out of reasons to explain her sitting in the kitchen and watching the door like the family dog. She'd gone to bed at the same time as Grace and spent the next half hour drifting fitfully in and out of sleep.

After her initial outburst, Grace had grown silent again. Holly was secretly relieved. They'd all had more than enough for one evening.

At some point she'd given up pretending to sleep and come downstairs. She shouldn't be here. She should stay upstairs and keep a distance from Josh. In the morning she was going to the consulate to get her passport, and then there would be no more reasons to stay in Willow Park.

She remained in the kitchen and made a cup of tea, which she didn't drink.

The throaty rumble of the XK-E made her look up. A door slammed.

He opened the door, his gorgeous face tired and drawn. Dressed much like the first night she'd seen him in that bar on the Gold Coast, he wore beautifully tailored pants and a dress shirt.

He caught sight of her. “Holly?” He took a tentative step toward her and stopped, like a wolf scenting trouble. He dropped his car keys onto the counter. “Is everything all right?”

“No.” She shook her head and leaned her elbows on the table. “I couldn't sleep.”

He tilted his head. “Any particular reason?”

“Grace is getting a divorce.”

“Wow.”

“Wow indeed. And she won't tell me why. She and Emma are about ready to kill each other.”

“That didn't take long.”

“It never does.” Why were they having this totally inane conversation? Oh, yeah, because she was too much of a coward to risk anything more. Holly huffed and fiddled with her mug. “Oh, by the way, Emma has been laying crystal grids across the house. Just in case you notice bits of rock lying around.”

“Sounds painful.”

“Only if you step on them.” Holly forced a smile. “Or ask her how it works.”

“And Portia?”

“Well.” Holly laughed weakly. “We all know about Portia.”

He nodded and shoved his hands deep into his pockets.

“How is your mother?” She should say good night and go to bed, but now he was here, things didn't seem as hopeless.

He shrugged. “Better than she was.”

“Good.” Holly clasped her hands around her mug. The tea had gone cold. “That's good.”
Stay with me. Do something manly, like grabbing me and kissing me until I can't think anymore.

“Holly?” He stepped closer to the table. “Why are you sitting here at this time of the night?”

“I have no idea.” She was such a liar.

“Okay.” He walked to the door. “Then, I'll—”

“That's a lie.” Holly couldn't let him go.

He stopped.

“I do know why I'm sitting here.” She had a hard time getting this out. What if he laughed at her? Or worse, had changed his mind.

He tilted his head, a small smile playing across his lips. “Care to share?”

“I'm working up to that.” Her pulse thumped. She pushed the cup farther away. With nothing to do with her hands, she tugged it back again.

“No time like the present,” he said as she kept her eyes trained on her tea.

“I was waiting for you,” she said before she chickened out. “I was waiting to see when you came home, if you came home, were you alone. That sort of thing.”

“Ah, Holly.” He moaned her name softly, as if it came from the deepest place inside him. “Do you care?” His hands bunched in his pockets as he rocked his weight from the balls of his feet to his toes. “Tell me, because right now I really, really need to know.”

“It seems I must.” Her voice strangled in her throat. “Because despite my attempts to send myself to bed, I am still sitting here.”

“I'm trying, Holly.” His head dropped forward. “I want to do the right thing, but you've got me twisting like a pretzel. You want me and then you don't. Sometimes you seem to need me, and the next you slam the door. I don't know what you want from me.”

“Neither do I.” She got slowly to her feet. The warning voice in her head went silent. This was what all of Holly needed. “I only know you have something I seem to need. I don't want to, but I do. There you have it.”

A shudder ran through his body as if he felt her words physically. His eyes bored into hers, burning in their intensity. “Why?”

“I don't know that either.” Her heart pounded and she pressed her forehead to his shirtfront. “I don't know.” The heat from his body warmed her. “I only know that I do. I need you.”

“And you have me.” The words were dragged out of him. His arms came around her slowly, as if he was resisting all the way. He took her hand and pressed his lips to her palm. “Right here in your capable little hand. You have me.”

“Show me.” Her blood buzzed in her ears.

His eyes darkened and his hands tightened against her arm.

She wasn't too proud to beg. “Show me.”

He kissed her like a starving man.

The taste of him went straight to her knees; beer and mints, but mostly Josh; the heady, husky flavor unique to this man. There were reasons, so many reasons, why she shouldn't do this, but they skulked away into the shadows of her mind. She wanted him too much.

Holly strained onto her tiptoes as she tugged his head down. She couldn't get close enough. Like a flame to kerosene, she caught alight, writhing and grinding against him. Impatient, needy sounds vibrated from her throat, crooning to him to hurry, urging him closer and faster. Her hands burrowed under his shirt to find hot, silky skin beneath. She spread her palms over his flesh, reveling in the feel of him against her palms.

Impatiently, she tugged at his pants until she could delve inside. He was heavy and strained in her hand as she stroked his length.

“Holly.” He ripped his mouth away from hers, panting. “I need . . . want . . .” He pressed his forehead against hers, flushed and sweating.

“Yes.” Holly moaned as she claimed his mouth again. “Yes.” She didn't want to wait, didn't need polite or considerate. Him, inside her, now, was all she wanted.

He lifted her thighs and parted them around his hips.

Her back hit the wall. Her body vibrated its approval. There was a distant thud and shatter as something fell. She didn't care.

He tugged her panties aside. His fingers slid over her.

Yes. She was ready for him, wet and hot against his hand, and he growled into her mouth. “Condom.”

He barely took long enough to sheath himself before he was buried deep inside her.

Holly gasped as he thrust into her, taking him as deep inside her body as she could. She clung to him with arms and thighs as he moved, pulling almost completely out to plunge deeper and make her cry out, muffling the sounds against his neck.

Her orgasm hit her fast and hard. She bit down on his shoulder to keep herself from screaming. With one more thrust he joined her, his entire body clenched as he spilled himself inside her.

They stayed absolutely still. Their harsh breathing set up a counterrhythm to the distant tick of Donna's rooster clock on the kitchen wall.

“Shit, Holly,” he said, still buried inside her. “Do you have any idea what you do to me?” He raised his head and kissed her gently on the forehead. He rested his brow against hers and sighed. “Let's take this upstairs.”

“What?” Holly lay quiescent against him as her heart rate returned to normal. Some part of her mind registered a problem.

“I want you in my bed, Holly.” He feathered soft kisses against her cheek and jaw. “I want to make love to you again and again. I want to wake up with you beside me.”

“No.” Reality washed over Holly in an icy wave. She wriggled against his hold as the last vestiges of intimacy evaporated.

He released her legs, one at a time. “Holly?” He tensed. His pants were pooled around his ankles and he bent and pulled them up.

“I can't.” Shit, it ripped her apart to say it. She wanted to be in his bed so badly she ached with it. Wanted to have him hold her and take away all of this crap for a few hours. Holly dropped her head back against the wall. “I can't.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Holly's eyes burned with unshed tears

“Say again?” An explosive stillness shimmered around Josh.

“I can't.” Holly shivered as the haze of the afterglow burned away under the harsh misery of regret. “I can't go upstairs with you.”

He stepped back and fastened his zipper. The sound seemed unnaturally loud in the kitchen as his eyes bored into hers.

“I'll sleep with Grace.” She couldn't deal with this right now. She needed to retreat and get her head together. Holly slipped from between Josh and the wall.

“Why?” He caught her wrist.

Holly tugged at her wrist.
Oh, God
, he was going to make this difficult. “I have to.”

He tightened his clasp, forcing her to stay where she was.

“I can't sleep with you. I can't be seen sleeping with you.” He had to get it. Portia was right upstairs. You didn't have to be a genius to figure out what would happen if Portia found them in bed together.
Shit
. She shouldn't have given in to her need for him. “You know how things are.”

He made a soft noise of disbelief in the back of his throat. “You're kidding, right?”

He was upset with her. There was nothing she could do about that. She'd made a big mistake. This was a terrible misjudgment on her part. Guilty color crept up her face. She couldn't compound the error now. “No.”

She tried to free her wrist again.

He held tight.

What the hell?
Holly stared at his hand on her wrist. “They can't see us together. Can you imagine what would happen if Portia saw us together?”

She couldn't believe she had to explain this to him.

He stepped closer and got right into her space. “We'll make sure she doesn't see us together.”

“I can't take that chance.” Holly had to tip her head back to maintain eye contact.

“I don't know much about this disease of Portia's, but how is keeping her twisted myth of me as her baby daddy alive helping her?”

Shit, she'd hurt him. She could see it clear as day in his eyes. He was mad, yes, but lurking underneath was a sort of vulnerability that twisted her inside. “There's a difference between keeping Portia grounded in reality and shoving it in her face. Emma already knows what happened and she couldn't wait to tell me all about it the next morning.”

“You're thirty years old, Holly. Way past the age where you have to ask permission for a sleepover.”

“I know that.” His body warmth reached out to her. His chest was so broad and strong. She had to get away before she gave in to temptation and tucked herself against him. “You know it's not that. Portia would lose it if she knew you and I were . . . we were . . .”

“What?” His jaw clenched. “Fucking?”

Holly flinched. He made it sound so dirty.

“Don't you like that word?” She'd never seen him this mad. “I don't like it either because I didn't think that was what we were doing here. I thought it meant more than that.”

“It was a mistake.” His words twisted her inside. She wanted to crawl away and hide.

“What happened to ‘I need you, Josh'?” His voice mocked her. “Did you get what you needed and now it's time to cut and run?” He crowded her back against the wall. “Is that what you needed, Holly, a quick bang against the kitchen wall? Why wait for me to get home? Anyone could have done that for you.”

His mockery ripped straight through her. This was high-school Josh—abrasive, cutting, and cruel. Anger surged through her. He was being a bully. She shoved at his chest. “Don't be crude.”

He didn't budge. “I'm good enough for fucking, but nothing more. You won't tell your family we're together.”

“I can't.” Holly thumped her hand against the immovable bulk of his chest. Her fist throbbed. “You know I can't.”

“No.” He didn't yell, but the anger vibrated through his voice. “I don't know. I know the situation is ugly as hell, but if you give me half a fucking chance I can work through it with you. But you won't, Holly. You keep pushing me away.”

“That is . . . so unfair.” His anger battered against her. Holly struggled to find the words; they snagged painfully in her chest. “That isn't true.”

“Really?” His lip curled up. “You want me and then you don't want me. You let me in and then get scared and push me back.”

“This isn't about me.” But it kind of was, and her protest lacked conviction.

“Yes, it is.” He cupped her face between his palms, firm but not rough. “You have to ask yourself if you're going to go the rest of your life giving up what you want for your family.”

God, he was being so unfair. She pulled her face away from his warm hands. “I shouldn't have waited up tonight. I'm sorry if I gave you the wrong impression, but that doesn't give you the right to be nasty.”

“No?” His eyebrow went up sardonically. “I want to be with you, Holly. This thing between us is special, and you're the one making it cheap and tawdry.”

“I didn't . . .” Didn't what? Because she had.

He'd been honest with her from the start.

She was the one who couldn't stick to a game plan. It made her resent his anger even more.

“Decide, Holly; decide what you want. Do you want a life of your own? Or do you want to carry on paying some kind of screwed-up penance for your parents?”

It was like she'd been sucker punched. “That's not fair.”

“Yeah?” His mouth curled down. “Well, I'm not feeling fair right now. I'm mad at you, Holly, and getting tired of having my chain jerked. You want me but you don't want to. You pull me close and you shove me away. How fair are you being?”

“I'm not doing it on purpose.” She tried to explain, but she couldn't even make sense of it in her mind. “It just happens.”

“Great, Holly, just great.” He growled in frustration. “And such a cop-out. You know what I think?”

He was going to tell her anyway, and Holly was sure she didn't want to hear it.

“I think you want me as much as I want you and it scares the crap out of you. Here you are, apparently grown up and doing the same thing now you did all those years ago.”

“You don't know what you're talking about.” Holly stamped on the little voice that whispered he had her nailed down.

“You're protecting yourself,” he said, his face implacable. “Now you dress it up with different faces, but the truth remains. You're hiding in case you might have to actually risk. You don't know how to trust yourself, and because you can't do that, you can't trust anyone else.”

His words cut deep and close to the bone. Cold anger rescued her. Holly shoved as hard as she could against him and he stepped back. “Thanks for the pop psychology lesson.”

She took the gap at a run.

“Running, Holly?” His voice taunted her as her foot hit the first step. “How novel.”

“You don't understand anything,” Holly rounded back on him. God, she was such a mess, and he was being a total prick.

“I understand perfectly. Go on, Holly. Run away. Off you go, because you're going to anyway. You're going to take your sisters and go back to London. You can hide in Canada and carry on with your dead-end job and convince yourself you aren't using your sisters as a human shield.”

“Screw you.” Holly's anger lashed and boiled beneath her skin.

“You already did.”

“It's easy for you to criticize.” The self-righteous, smug asshole. Holly closed the distance between them in two long strides. “You spoiled, pampered shit. I've been taking care of other people while you've been doing exactly what you please.” Her voice grew stronger as her sense of injustice bloomed inside her. “I didn't have any choice. I was all the girls had. Our mother was dead and our father couldn't give a toss what happened to us as long as it didn't require anything from him. I had two teenagers to take care of.”

“I know it hasn't been easy for you, Holly.” As her voice got louder, his got softer.

Hasn't been easy?
Oh, man, that was a good one. “‘Hasn't been easy'? You don't know the half of it, you with your gifted existence. I would have loved to go to university, get a degree, and do something bigger. The option wasn't open to me.”

“It is now.” His tone got less jarring, but his jaw was set like granite below his hard-as-gems eyes. “And you're bullshitting yourself if you say you didn't have choices. You're hiding, Holly; in plain sight, but you're hiding.”

He hit her right where she was most raw.

He raked his fingers through his hair. “In the years since your sisters have grown up, you had plenty of chances to pick up your education. You're bright, Holly. Hell! You beat the pants off me at school. You could have gone back, studied at night, made a deal with them. No, Holly, you chose to keep your life the way it is, and you're choosing now to walk away from this.” He gestured between them. “You're choosing to walk away from us.”

“You don't understand.” It came out as the hiss of a wounded animal. She backed away. Inside, she bled, but she would die before she'd let him know the power he had to hurt her.

“Yes, I do.” Josh took a step forward and loomed over her. “I may not have your life story, Holly. And I'll admit you carry a burden heavier than most, but you've made a martyr of yourself. You won't let anyone help you. You take a sort of perverse pride in making this as hard for yourself as possible. Right now, you could send Grace to take Portia home and stay here with me and see where this thing leads. You could tell Emma where to get off.”

He dropped his head forward as if he were suddenly weary. “All of us have stories, Holly. All of us have good reasons for being the way we are. It's what we do with them that defines our future.”

Never in her life had anyone dared say such things to her. Not even Grace would go so far. “Who the hell are you to be handing out the truth?”

“I'm invested in this, in you.”

“How novel.” Her laughter jangled harsh and ugly. “For the first time since Laura, you've stepped out behind your self-imposed martyrdom and taken a risk.”

He flinched as if she'd struck him, but Holly was way beyond caring. His words had cut deep and she wanted to carve a piece of him back. “Your father died being angry with you. Well, boo-fucking-hoo, Josh. My father left me to raise his children. My father let my mother die because he couldn't be bothered dirtying his hands trying to save her. I will die before I let that happen to my sister. Do you hear me?”

He went dead pale and his jaw muscle worked. “Holly—”

“You had your turn.” She shoved him again. “You had your turn telling me what was wrong with me. You have your mother and your brothers and a whole host of other people who give a shit what happens to you. Portia doesn't. She has me. I'm it for her. I'm all she fucking has. Do you get that? Do you?”

For a long moment Holly stood frozen, and then she spun on her heel, taking the stairs two at a time. His words kept jangling on in her brain.

“Holly.” The anguish in his voice almost made her turn around.

Screw him anyway.

Holly made it to the room she shared with Grace. Her hands shook and slipped against the handle as she closed the door behind her. Her ragged breathing split the dark quiet of the room. It felt as if there was a gash in the middle of her chest.

Footsteps went past and a door shut. The sound of running water followed.

She also wanted a shower. She wanted to scrub him off her skin. It was a pity no amount of water would wash away what he'd said.

Grace lay still, an unmoving lump in the bed.

Part of her wanted to wake Grace up and share. Except Grace would probably agree with Josh, and Holly couldn't stand that right now.

Screw all of them.

His words swirled around the darkness surrounding her. He was a judgmental, self-righteous prick who'd had everything handed to him on a silver platter. How dare he look at her life and pick it apart as if it were worth nothing?

Yes, her job was boring. She worked in the dean's office as a glorified file clerk, but it was a job. It had put food on their table and put the girls through school.

Somebody had to take care of the twins. They had their shop, which sold crystals and charms and New Age paraphernalia. It didn't do so well, and someone needed to keep them afloat. As the oldest, it was up to her to step in and make things work. Just like it had been up to her to run the house while her mother collapsed and her father worked.

It was all very well for him to talk about choices. He had no idea what it had been like for her. Not a bloody clue.

 

 

Josh let the water drum over his head. It didn't drown out the echo of his harsh words.
Smooth, Josh. So fucking smooth you amaze me.

Her face haunted him. Holly would be horrified to know how stricken she'd looked. Her eyes had almost overwhelmed her face as she stared at him through his tirade.

Talk about repeating bad behavior
. Jesus
. He should take the log out of his eye, or however that went. Things had always come easy for him, especially money and relationships. He'd come from a great family, with two loving parents who supported him. He hadn't had to deal with the stuff Holly had taken on her plate.

Tonight he'd gone and indulged in what amounted to nothing more than a tantrum because he'd had his new favorite toy ripped away from him. Damn. He snapped off the faucet and grabbed a towel. And he'd lashed out. He hurt, and he wanted to share it around until the pain eased.