Taboo (A Classic Romance) (15 page)

"Think maybe we're awake for the same reason?" he asked in a low, mesmerizing voice as he stroked the hair away from her face.

"That depends on the reason," she said, willing her own voice not to shake.

"I want you." His eyes darkened, his features tightened with restraint. "But I'm trying really hard to give you some time and to take it slow."

"I know." She smiled her appreciation for his efforts, when all she wanted to do was cry her frustration for his maddening discipline and her own inability to break the barriers that still held her captive. That prevented her from confessing them even now. "You've been the perfect gentleman," she said instead.

His jaw locked tight. "It's wearing thin, Cammie."

"Is it?" She wondered if he'd heard the edge of hope in her voice.

He looked at her hard, his eyes probing hers with all pretense of politeness stripped away.

"We've done a lot of talking, but not about the things that are keeping me from climbing between these sheets."

Could she tell him? Could she do it
now
? And could she do it knowing that the runaway emotions coursing between them would escalate and could never be pushed back?

Taking a deep breath, she rushed forward.

"I have a problem. And it's not just Mom and Dad."

She heard the deep exhalation of his breath just before he leaned down until his chest hovered over hers. His hands cupped her face, and she saw his relief, his understanding.

"I've been waiting for this. Tell me, Cammie. Tell me what keeps you from me."

"I don't understand it all myself, Grant."

"Then maybe we could understand it together."

With a sob, she reached for him, wrapping her arms tightly around his shoulders. "Hold me, Grant. Please, hold me. I've always needed you, everything you are to me. But I've never needed you so much as I do now."

"Cammie," he groaned. "Oh, Lord, Cammie. I'm here. I'll always be here. I love you too much to ever let go."

He swiped the sheet to the foot of the bed, then rolled with her onto their sides, cradling her head against his chest and clasping his arms tight around her. Their legs intertwined, and she burrowed into the haven of his strength.

"You always loved me more than anyone," she whispered around the knot of tears. "More than any of the men who gave me a ring, who I thought I could marry. But I couldn't, Grant. I could never go through with a commitment. I could never get past this thing that's inside me that won't go away."

"It will," he promised. "I'll help you make it go away. And you'll never know how thankful I am that none of the others could do that. Whatever this thing is, no matter how terrible, I'm glad it was there if it kept them from having you."

She nodded, her cheek sliding wetly against the wonderful abrasion of his chest hair, the warmth of his skin beneath. She sent heavenward a silent prayer of thanks for this man who loved her, even her weaknesses and flaws, knowing she was safe in telling him anything, everything.

"They said something was wrong with me," she whispered. "And I thought... I thought they were right. I even went for therapy trying to understand."

"You saw a shrink?" he asked. "You mean there was something that wrong, and you didn't tell me about it?"

"What was I going to do, Grant? Tell you I couldn't go through with a marriage because I couldn't bring myself to totally let go? That even if I was attached to someone and I said I loved them, I couldn't find it inside me to let go of the emotional distance that kept me safe? That's what the therapist said. My fiancé's felt that aloofness, and they wanted some honest depth from a wife. I know you all thought I broke the engagements, but twice it was them, not me."

Cammie could feel the return of shame, She'd lied about the breakups to her family, embarrassed to have been the one spurned, and unwilling to confess the reasons.

"Maybe you didn't really love them," Grant said quietly, without reproach. "Did you think of that? Maybe it was because you were waiting for the right person and you didn't realize he was waiting for you all along."

"Maybe. But that wasn't all." As he comfortingly stroked her back, she gathered herself, seeking the courage for the most horrible revelation of all.

"I was... frigid. I—I'm afraid I still am. And Grant, it terrifies me. I kept trying to act like a normal woman, and all I could do was freeze up. Here were these men, decent, good men who loved me but somehow I couldn't love back, and every time I tried to go through with—with a consummation, it was... it was—Grant, it was horrible. Painful. Humiliating."

"What?"
Grant strained to look at her, disbelief etched across his face.

The old humiliation surfaced anew. The cut of failure was still too incisive, and facing it when she'd worked so hard to ignore it was almost more than she could bear. Seeing his shocked expression made her want to shrink from it again, to do what she had learned to do so well—hide, pretend that what plagued her life and kept her unwhole didn't matter, when it really mattered so god-awful much.

She covered her face with her hands. Grant gripped her wrists and tried to wrest them away.

"Look at me, Cammie," he demanded. "I hate what you're doing to yourself. Look at me,
now."

"No, no," she whimpered. "I don't want you to look at me. I'm
so screwed up
."

"Quit hiding your face from me, dammit. You're not screwed up. The only thing that's screwed up is the way you're beating yourself for something you can't help."

She let him draw her hands away then, and even when he held her chin so she had to look at him, she found the courage inside herself to meet his caring, strong, and deeply moving gaze.

"Don't ever hide from me again, Cammie," he whispered sternly. "I won't let you do it. Not to me, and not to yourself. There's nothing we can't overcome together. Do you believe me?"

Looking into his eyes—compassionate, loving, too deep for words—she could believe anything was possible. Even the impossible.

"I believe you," she said in a choked voice.

He kissed away her tears. He kissed each eyelid, then pressed his lips against her forehead.

"Now I'm going to ask you some questions and I want you to be totally honest with me. Even if the answers are hard for you to say."

"All right, Grant. For myself, for you, I will." She sniffled, determined to see this through and put it behind her at long last.

"Were you ever molested?"

"No."

"When you did have sex, did you have a bad experience? Did someone hurt you or—"

"Grant, I never did. I tried... several times. Only the pain, I was too... dry. I couldn't—they couldn't—"

"Shhh, it's okay." He stroked his hand through her hair and murmured a sound of encouragement. "Did you see a doctor to find out if there was something physically wrong that could be corrected?"

"I saw a doctor. Physically I was fine. It was mental. Emotional. Like a wall I couldn't scale inside."

"Did you talk to your therapist about it?"

Cammie nodded. "She thought it was tied up with my inability to make a commitment... that I had a mental block against intimacy. Because—because I had to protect myself from loss."

"Loss? Of what?"

"Of the people I love—if I let myself love them completely."

"How could you lose the people you love, Cammie?"

"I did."

Without warning, the door she had peeked into gaped wide open. Before she could shrink back, she stared, as if some unseen force had shoved her face inside her very own personalized house of horrors.

The scratch she had heard from inside the tomb was really the agonized scream of her mother; it came from the blood-splattered face of her father.

And her brother. Oh, God, no. Not her brother. Not Justin. Lying beside her, his body distorted, crushed, next to hers, his eyes wide open and staring sightlessly into hers while an exclamation of surprise froze upon his lips. But a minute ago they had been fighting over him crossing their invisible line to grab her diary and her father had turned around to make them straighten up and just then a big truck blew his horn and Daddy was over the line but it wasn't an invisible line.

And it was dark, so dark she couldn't see, she could only hear. And what she heard was a sound so awful she thought she must have died because nothing could be this bad except a nightmare.

Only it wasn't a nightmare. She was wide awake and she was staring at the severed hand of her mother, the wedding band she had loved so much smeared in her blood. And the siren... it was so loud it drowned out her own agonized screams. Then someone was dragging her away.

"Mama!" Cammie suddenly shrieked. "Mama, don't leave me. Don't go away. Daddy! Daddy! Where are you? Don't let them take you away from me. I'm so sorry, Justin. You can cross the line, I don't care if you read my diary. I didn't mean to yell at you. I didn't mean to make you die. I love you, I love you, I—Oh, God, take me instead. It was my fault. I didn't mean to make you die—"

"Cammie!"

She struggled against the hands holding her flailing arms, gripping her against an iron wall that swayed back and forth instead of letting her follow her family into the darkness, across to the other side.

"I want to go too," she cried. "Take me too."

She was racked with choked, heaving sobs that rushed up from the pit of hysteria. The darkness gradually receded and from a distance she heard a beloved, familiar voice crooning, "It's all right, I've got you. You're safe. Just hold tight to me."

"I killed them. It was my fault. All my fault." She wept, but she wept dryly, no tears left.

"No, baby. It wasn't your fault. It was an accident. You're safe now. You'll be all right."

"Grant?" She looked at him as though he were her salvation, trying to focus on a face she hadn't expected to see.

"I'm here," he whispered, rocking her back and forth.

"I saw it," she gasped in horror. "I kept trying not to see it, but I saw. I yelled at Justin, my father turned around, and... and—"

"And it
wasn't... your
...
fault."

"If I hadn't been fighting, if I hadn't—"

"No." He shook her twice. His face came into better focus. "Kids fight, Cammie. Adults are responsible for controlling the car. No one blames you but yourself. Look again. Look past the nightmare. Tell me what you see."

"I—I'm alone. I'm... alive. But they're not."

"No, they're not. But you can't bury yourself with them. You
are
alive. You
have
to live. Nothing can bring them back."

Suddenly he ground his mouth against hers, and she could taste his flesh, her tears. He kissed her so deep and hard, it hurt. She welcomed the pain, the validation that she could
feel.

"This,"
he whispered sharply, "Cammie,
this
is
life."

He clasped her hand and pressed it firmly against his heavily pounding heart and repeated,
"This
is life."

Greedily she absorbed it—the thud of humanity, the wellspring of love and home.

Chapter 10

Cammie stared out the kitchen window. The calico curtains framed the small panes of glass—and the image of Grant chopping wood in the clearing about twenty feet away.

She watched as he embedded the ax into a broken limb, then shucked off his plaid flannel shirt. A healthy sheen of sweat glistened over his back and the honed muscles of his shoulders and arms as he hoisted the ax once more. It arched in the air, his biceps bunched as he struck with perfect precision.

A warm, familiar glow ignited and spread in a lazy, satisfied trickle through her veins as she watched. And remembered...

She remembered the miracle of their bonding, of her healing. The way he held her through the emotional aftermath, and she held him in return. For two nights now they had shared the same bed, had slept peacefully and innocently in each other's arms. They had shared deep, soulful kisses, and caresses that were salve to the old but rapidly mending wounds.