Rising Tides Read online

  Chapter Six

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  ethan didn't mind putting in long hours on the boat at night. Especially when he could work alone. It hadn't taken much persuasion for him to agree to let Seth camp out with the other boys in their backyard. It gave Ethan an evening alone—a rarity now—and time to work without having to tune in to questions and comments.

  Not that the boy wasn't entertaining, Ethan mused. The fact was, he was firmly attached to Seth. Accepting Seth into his life had been natural because Ray had asked it of him. But the affection, the appreciation, and the loyalty had grown and solidified until it simply was.

  But that didn't mean the kid couldn't wear down his energies.

  Ethan kept it to handwork tonight. Even if you felt awake and alert at midnight, the odds were you'd be a bit sluggish, and he didn't want to risk losing a finger to the power tools. In any case, it was soothing to work in the quiet, to hand-sand edges and planes until you felt them go smooth.

  They would be ready to seal the hull before the week was out, and he could start Seth on sanding the rubrails. If Cam dived right in on dealing with belowdecks, and if Seth didn't bitch too much about working with putty and caulk and varnish over the next week or two, they'd do well enough.

  He checked his watch, saw that time was getting away from him, and began to put away his tools. He swept up, since Seth wasn't there to wield the broom.

  By quarter after one, he was parked outside of the pub. He didn't intend to go inside anymore than he intended to let Grace walk the mile and a half home when she clocked out. So he settled back, switched on his dome light, and passed the time reading his dog-eared copy of Cannery Row.

  inside, it was last call. The only thing that would have made Grace happier would have been if Dave had told her that all she needed to get her car up and running was some used chewing gum and a rubber band.

  Instead he'd told her it would cost the equivalent of three years' worth of both, and then she'd be lucky if the old bucket ran another five thousand miles.

  It was something she would have to worry about later; at the moment, she had her hands full dealing with an overly insistent customer who was stopping off in St. Chris on his way down to Savannah and was sure Grace would like to be his form of entertainment for the night.

  "I got me a hotel room." He winked at her when she stooped to serve his final drink of the night. "And it's got a big bed and twenty-four-hour room service. We could have us a hell of a party, honey pie."

  "I don't do a lot of partying, but thanks."

  He grabbed her hand, pulled it just enough to throw off her balance so she had to grip his shoulder or tumble into his lap. "Then now's your chance." He had dark eyes, and he aimed them leeringly at her breasts. "I got a real fondness for long-legged blondes. Always treat them special."

  He was tiresome, Grace thought as he breathed one more beer into her face. But she had handled worse. "I appreciate that, but I'm going to finish up my shift and go home."

  "Your place is fine with me."

  "Mister—"

  "Bob. You just call me Bob, baby."

  She had to yank to get free. "Mister, I'm just not interested."

  Of course she was, he thought, sending her a smile he knew was dazzling. He'd paid two grand to get his teeth bonded, hadn't he? "The hard-to-get routine always turns me on."

  Grace decided he wasn't worth even a single disgusted sigh. "We're closing in fifteen; you're going to need to settle your tab."

  "Okay, okay, don't get bitchy." He smiled widely and pulled out a money clip thick with bills. He always salted it with a couple of twenties on the outside, then filled it with singles. "You figure what I owe, then we'll… negotiate your tip."

  Sometimes, Grace decided, it was best to keep your mouth firmly shut. What wanted to come out was vicious enough to get her fired. So she walked away and took her empties to the bar.

  "He giving you trouble, Grace?"

  She smiled weakly at Steve. It was just the two of them working now. The other waitress had clocked out at midnight, claiming a migraine. Since she'd been pale as a ghost, Grace had shooed her out and agreed to cover.

  "He's just another of those gifts to womankind. Nothing to worry about."

  "If he's not gone by closing, I'll wait until you're locked in your car and headed home."

  She made a noncommittal humming noise. She hadn't mentioned her lack of transportation because she knew Steve would insist on driving her home. He lived twenty minutes away, in the opposite direction. And had a pregnant wife waiting for him.

  She cashed out tables, cleared them, and noted with relief that her problem customer finally rose to leave. He paid his $18.83 bar bill with cash, leaving $20 on the table. Though he'd managed to monopolize most of her time and attention for the past three hours, Grace was too tired to be annoyed at the pitiful tip.

  It didn't take long for the pub to empty. The crowd had been mostly college students, out for a couple of beers and conversation on a weekday night. By her calculations they'd turned about ten tables no more than twice since her shift had started at seven. Her tips for the evening weren't going to make much of a dent in the new car she would have to buy.

  It was so quiet, they both jumped like rabbits when the phone rang. Even while Grace laughed at their reaction, the blood drained out of Steve's face. "Mollie," was all he said as he leaped on the phone. He answered it with a stuttering, "Is it time?"

  Grace stepped forward, wondering if she was strong enough to catch him if he keeled over. When he began nodding rapidly, she felt her smile spread wide.

  "Okay. You—you call the doctor, right? Everything's ready to go. How far apart… Oh, God, oh, God, I'm on my way. Don't move. Don't do anything. Don't worry."

  He dropped the phone off the hook, then froze. "She's—Mollie—my wife—"

  "Yes, I know who Mollie is—we went to school together from kindergarten on." Grace laughed. Then because he looked so dear, and so terrified, she cupped his face in her hands and kissed him. "Go. But you drive careful. Babies take their time coming. They'll wait for you."

  "We're having a baby," he said slowly, as if testing each word. "Me and Mollie."

  "I know. And it's just wonderful. You tell her I'm going to come see her, and the baby. Of course, if you just stand there like somebody glued your feet to the floor, 1 guess she'll have to drive herself to the hospital."

  "God! I have to go." He knocked over a chair on his way to the door. "Keys, where are the keys?"

  "Your car keys are in your pocket. Bar keys are behind the bar. I'll lock up, Daddy."

  He stopped, tossed one huge, electrifying grin over his shoulder. "Wow!" And was gone.

  Grace was still chuckling as she picked up the chair and replaced it upside down on the table.

  She thought of the night when she had gone into labor with Aubrey. Oh, she'd been so afraid, so excited. She had indeed driven herself to the hospital. There'd been no husband there to panic with her. There'd been no one to sit with her, to tell her to breathe, to hold her hand.

  When the pain and aloneness had been at its worst, she weakened and let the nurse call her mother. Of course her mother came, and stayed with her, and saw Aubrey into the world. They cried together, and laughed together, and it had made it all right again.

  Her father hadn't come. Not then, not later. Her mother had made excuses, tried to smooth it over, but Grace had understood she was not to be forgiven. Others had come, Julie and her parents, friends and neighbors.

  Ethan and Professor Quinn.

  They'd brought her flowers, pink and white daisies and rosebuds. She had pressed one of each in Aubrey's baby book.

  It made her smile to remember, so when the door behind her opened, she turned with a chuckle. "Steve, if you don't get going, she'll…" Grace trailed off, experiencing more annoyance than fear when she saw the man step inside. "We're closed," she said firmly.

  "I know, honey pie. I figured you'd find a way to
hang back and wait for me."

  "I'm not waiting for you." Why the hell hadn't she locked the door behind Steve? "I said we're closed. You'll have to leave."

  "You want to play it that way, fine." He sauntered over, leaned on the bar. He'd been working out regularly for months now and knew the stance showed off his well-toned muscles. "Why don't you fix us both a drink? And we'll talk about that tip."

  Her patience dried up. "You already gave me a tip, now I'll give you one. If you're not out that door in ten seconds, I'm calling the cops. Instead of spending the night on your big hotel bed, you'll spend it in a cell."

  "I got something else in mind." He grabbed her, shoved her back against the bar, and ground himself against her. "See? You had it in mind, too. I saw the way you've been eyeing me. I've been waiting all night for some action."

  She couldn't get her knee up to ram it against what he was so proudly pushing against her. She couldn't get her hands free to shove or scratch. Panic started as a tickle in her throat, then spread like a hot flood when he shot a hand under her skirt.

  She was preparing to bite, scream, and spit when he was suddenly airborne. All she could do was stay pressed against the bar and stare at Ethan.

  "You all right?"

  He said it so quietly that her head bobbed up and down in automatic response. But his eyes weren't quiet. There was rage in them, so primal and primitive that she shuddered.

  "Go on out and wait in the truck."

  "I—he—" Then she squealed. It would embarrass her to remember it later, but it was the only sound that came out of her tight throat when the man rushed at Ethan like a battering ram, head lowered, fists clenched.

  She watched, staggered as Ethan simply pivoted, jabbed once, twice, and flicked the man off like a fly. Then he bent, grabbed the man by the shirtfront, and hauled him up on his rubbery legs.

  "You don't want to be here." His voice was steel with dangerously sharp edges. "Because if I see you here after the next two minutes, I'm going to kill you. And unless you got family or close personal friends, nobody's going to give a damn."

  He tossed him away, with what seemed to Grace no more than a twist of the wrist, and the man crashed into a table. Then Ethan turned his back as if the guy didn't exist. But none of the stony fury had faded from his face when he looked at Grace.

  "I told you to go wait in the truck."

  "I have to—I need to—" She pressed a hand between her breasts and pushed up as if to shove the words clear. Neither of them looked as the man scrambled up and stumbled out the door. "I have to lock up. Shiney—"

  "Shiney can go to hell." Since it didn't appear that she was going to move, Ethan grabbed her hand and hauled her to the door. "He ought to be horsewhipped for letting a lone woman lock up this place at night."

  "Steve—he—"

  "I saw that sonofabitch go flying out of here like a bomb was ticking." Ethan intended to have a nice long talk with Steve as well. Soon, he promised himself grimly as he pushed Grace into the truck.

  "Mollie—she called. She's in labor. I told him to go."

  "You would. Damn idiot woman."

  The statement, delivered with such bubbling fury, stopped the trembling that had just begun, cut off the babbling gratitude she'd been about to express. He'd saved her, was all she'd been able to think, like a knight in a fairy tale. But the thin, romantic mist that had been shimmering over her still-reeling brain evaporated.

  "I'm certainly not an idiot."

  "You sure as hell are." He whipped the truck out of the lot, spitting gravel and knocking Grace back against her seat. His rare but formidable temper was in full swing, and there was no stopping it until it had blown itself out.

  "That man was the idiot," she shot back. "I was just doing my job."

  "Doing your job damn near got you raped. The son of a bitch had his hand under your skirt."

  She could still feel it, the way it had groped at her. Nausea bubbled up to her throat and was ruthlessly swallowed down. "I'm aware of that. Things like that don't happen at Shiney's."

  "It just did happen at Shiney's."

  "It doesn't draw that kind of clientele usually. He wasn't local. He was—"

  "He was there." Ethan swung into her drive, hit the brakes, then shut the engine off with a hard flick of the wrist. "And so were you. Mopping up some bar in the middle of the goddamn night, by yourself. And what were you going to do when you were done? Walk almost two damn miles?"

  "I could have gotten a ride, except—"

  "Except you're too stiff-necked to ask for one," he finished. "You'd rather limp home in those mile-high heels than ask a favor."

  She had sneakers in her bag, but decided it wouldn't help to mention it. Her bag, she remembered, which was back at the unlocked pub. Now she would have to go back first thing in the morning, get her things, and lock up before the boss checked.

  "Well, thank you very much for your opinion of my failings, and the lecture. And the damn ride home." She shoved at the door, only to have Ethan grab her arm and yank her back.

  "Where the hell do you think you're going?"

  "I'm going home. I'm going to soak my stiff-neck and my idiot-brain and go to bed."

  "I haven't finished."

  "I've finished." She jerked free and jumped out. If it hadn't been for the blasted heels, she might have made it. But he was out the opposite door and blocking her way before she'd taken three strides. "I have nothing more to say." Her voice was cold and dismissive. Her chin was high.

  "Good. You can just listen. If you won't quit at the pub—which is just what you should do—you're going to take some basic precautions. Reliable transportation comes first."

  "Don't you tell me what I have to do."

  "Shut up."

  She did, but only because she was stunned speechless. She'd never, in all the years she'd known him, seen Ethan like this. In the moonlight she could see that the fury in his eyes hadn't dimmed a bit. His face was like stone, the shadows flittering over it making it seem harsh, even dangerous.

  "We'll see that you get a car you can trust," he continued, in that same edgy tone. "And you won't be closing on your own again. When you finish your shift, I want somebody walking you out to your car and waiting until you lock it and drive off."

  "That's just ridiculous."

  He stepped forward. Though he didn't touch her, didn't lift a hand, she backed up a pace. Her heart began to pound too fast and too loud in her head.

  "What's ridiculous is you thinking you can handle every damn thing by yourself. And I'm tired of it."

  She sputtered, hating herself. "You're tired of it?"

  "Yeah, and it's going to stop. I can't do much about your working yourself half to death, but I can do something about the rest. You don't make arrangements at the pub to see you're safe, I will. You're going to stop asking for trouble."

  "Asking for it?" Outrage gushed through her in such a boiling wave, she was surprised that the top of her head didn't simply blow off. "I wasn't asking for anything. That bastard wouldn't take no for an answer, no matter how many times I said it."

  "That's just what I'm talking about."

  "You don't know what you're talking about," she said in a furious whisper. "I handled him, and I would have kept handling him if—"

  "How?" There was red around the edges of his vision. He could still see the way she'd been pressed up against the bar, her eyes wide and frightened. Her face had been ghost-pale, her eyes huge and sheened like glass. If he hadn't come in…

  And because the thought of what could have been scraped raw at the center of his brain, his already slippery control shattered.

  "Just how?" he demanded, in one quick move yanking her hard against him. "Go ahead, show me."

  She twisted, shoved. And her pulse began to race. "Stop it."

  "You think telling him to stop once he's got your scent's going to make a difference?" Lemons and fear. "Once he feels the way you fit?" Subtle curves and long lines. "He knew there
was no one to stop him, that he could do anything he wanted."

  Everything inside her was in a mindless rush—her heart, her blood, her head. "I wouldn't—I would have stopped him."

  "Stop me."

  He meant it. A part of him wanted desperately for her to stop him, to do or say something that would hold the wildness in check. But his mouth was on hers, rough and needy, swallowing her gasps, inciting more and reveling in her fast, hard trembles.

  When she moaned, when her lips yielded, parted, answered his, he lost his mind.

  He dragged her onto the grass, rolled with her, atop her. The thick bolt he'd kept locked on his desires exploded open, and what poured out was reckless greed and primal lust. He ravaged her mouth with the single-minded hunger of a starving wolf.

  Swamped with needs so long buried, she arched against him, straining center to center, core to core. Her system stuttered with shocked pleasure, then roared into full raging life. Pumping heat, strangled moans, quivering delights.

  This was not the Ethan she knew, or the one she'd dreamed would finally touch her. There was no gentleness, no care, but she gave herself to him, thrilled at the sensation of being swept away.

  She wrapped long limbs around him to bind him closer, let her fingers dive into his hair, grip there. And shivered with the dark delight of knowing he was stronger.

  He feasted on her mouth, her throat, while he tugged at the low, snug bodice. He was desperate for flesh, the feel of it, the taste of it. Her flesh, her flavor.

  Her breast was small and firm, the skin smooth as satin against his wide, hard palm. Her heart jackhammered under it.

  She whimpered, stunned at the sensation of that rough hand cupping her, kneading her, churning an echoing tug between her legs, where muscles had gone liquid and lax.

  And sighed his name.

  She might have shot him. The sound of her voice, the hitch of her breath, the shivers on her skin, slapped him back cold and hard.

  He rolled away, onto his back, and struggled to find his breath, his sanity. His decency. They were in her front yard, for God's sake. Her baby was sleeping inside the house. He'd nearly, very nearly done worse than the man in the pub. He'd very nearly betrayed trust, friendship, and vulnerability.

  This beast inside of him was precisely the reason he'd sworn never to touch her. Now by loosing it, he'd broken his vow and ruined everything.

  "I'm sorry." A pitiful phrase, he thought, but he didn't have any other words. "God, Grace, I'm sorry."

  Her blood was still flowing hot, and that wonderful, terrifying need aroused to screaming. She shifted, reached out to touch his face. "Ethan—"

  "There's no excuse," he said quickly, sitting up so she wasn't touching him—tempting him. "I lost my temper and I stopped thinking straight."

  "Lost your temper." She stayed where she was, sprawled on the grass that now seemed too cold, her face lifted to the moon that now shone too bright. "So you were just mad," she said dully.

  "I was mad, but that's no excuse for hurting you."

  "You didn't hurt me." She could still feel his hands on her, the rough, insistent press of them. But the sensation then, the sensation now, wasn't one of pain.

  He thought he could handle it now—looking at her, touching her. She would need it, he imagined. He couldn't have lived with himself if she was afraid of him. "The last thing I want to do is hurt you." As gentle as a doting parent, he tidied her clothes. When she didn't cringe, he stroked a hand over her tousled hair. "I only want what's best for you."

  She didn't cringe, but she did, suddenly and sharply, slap his hand aside. "Don't treat me like a child. A few minutes ago you were treating me like a woman easy enough."

  There'd been nothing easy about it, he thought grimly. "And I was wrong."