“Hello, Mason,” Claudia said, her eyes soft and warm as she looked at the baby. “Aren’t you a little cutie? Do you want to come inside and play with some of the toys that have been up in the attic for far too long?”
Right on cue, Mason gave one of his big, one-toothed smiles and reached for her. It was only the second time he’d ever gone to someone else—first to Dylan and now to his mother. What kind of spell did these Sullivans cast over everyone to draw them in so easily and so quickly?
Grace appreciated the way Claudia waited until she’d nodded that it was fine to take Mason into her arms. Maybe tonight wouldn’t be quite as nerve-racking as she’d expected. At least until Dylan put his hand on the small of her back as he guided her inside, following his mother into the kitchen.
Just that one small touch scorched through her entire body like a wildfire.
How was she going to make it through a private interview focused on sailing and boat-making, when all she could think about around him was sex?
“Your house is lovely, Claudia.”
Grace was surprised, in fact, by how much the Sullivans’ house reminded her of the one she’d grown up in. The pretty flowers in vases throughout, the family photos, and even the old dog sleeping on a pillow beneath the piano made it feel cozy. Well loved. Like
home.
Seeing several pots on the stove and a large array of fruit and vegetables laid out by the cutting board, she said, “I should have realized you’d still be cooking. You don’t have to watch Mason.” Sure, it would be more difficult to conduct the interview with her son crawling around at their feet wanting to play and be entertained, but she’d find a way to make it work. Plus, she already knew it would be better if she and Dylan weren’t alone for too many long stretches, considering it had been hard enough to think straight in the car on the drive over with him sitting so close, even with Mason in the backseat.
But Claudia smiled and said, “I once put on a seven-course dinner while all five kids were running riot through the backyard and the kitchen. I’ve got this.”
And as Grace watched Dylan’s mother get down on the floor with Mason to show him how to use the little toy xylophone to make music and he gleefully started banging at the instrument while Dylan’s mother laughed delightedly at his antics, she had no doubt whatsoever that Claudia had things covered.
“Can I get you a glass of wine or a beer?” Dylan asked her.
She would
kill
for a glass of wine right now to calm her nerves. But alcohol was the last thing she needed when it was going to take every ounce of self-control she had to keep her walls sturdy and high. “Water would be perfect.”
Taking two bottles of water out of the fridge, he said, “There’s a covered porch out back where we can talk.”
“If you need me for anything, Claudia—”
His mother waved them away. “Go do your interview. Mason and I are going to be just fine, aren’t we, cutie?”
His gummy grin was all the answer Grace needed. At least to the question of whether her son would be safe and sound for the next hour or two without her.
As for herself, however—the truth was that as Dylan led her outside toward two seats on the back porch that were set up more with lovers in mind than an interview between strangers, Grace felt anything but safe. Wary, yes. But also undeniably attracted.
And more intrigued by Dylan than she’d been about anyone in a very, very long time.
CHAPTER FOUR
Though it was cool out from the rain still coming down, as Grace got her recorder and notepad out of her bag, her skin was flushed a beautiful rose color that made it nearly impossible for Dylan to keep his hands to himself.
He had spent the past three days ferrying a new boat to a friend in Portland, Oregon, and all the while he’d thought about her. Mason, too. Seventy-two hours of looking at the situation from every angle and he was still in the same place he’d started.
He could easily see himself with both mother and child.
And Grace was still the prettiest woman he’d ever set eyes on.
Dylan had always loved women. The way they smelled. The way they moved. The sweet little sounds they made. But though he’d had as much female companionship as he’d wanted during the fifteen years since he’d hit puberty, he’d never wanted anyone the way he wanted Grace.
And he hadn’t even kissed her yet.
His mouth curved up into a grin just thinking about how hot
that
was going to be.
Today Grace would ask him her questions. But soon, he’d want answers from her. Where had she come from? What had her childhood been like? Why was she single instead of married to Mason’s father? And who the hell could have been stupid enough to walk away from her and her amazing kid?
If they had been out on his boat right now—the cockpit had always been a damned good confessional and he’d never met anyone who could hold back their true thoughts and feelings at sea—he could have had the answers out of her by the time they got back to the dock. But on land, he’d have to bide his time a little longer. Hopefully not too long, though, given that even the way she tucked her silky hair behind her ear—an ear he very much wanted to nibble on—was incredibly sexy.
She clicked the Record button on the small device on the table between them. “You’ve told me that sailing is all you ever wanted to do. Sailing and making boats.” He loved the sound of her voice, the slightly husky tone that, when combined with her obvious intelligence, made his synapses nearly short out. “I’d love to know why.”
He’d expected her to begin with the usual factual or technical questions that journalists had always tried to ask him before: At what age did you start sailing? What was the first boat you made? Why don’t you race professionally when you were a superstar at a very young age and could have been at the helm of your own World Cup contender by now?
Instead, she’d just cut straight to the heart of what made him who he was. And he could guess at the reason: This story wasn’t just about his heart…it was about hers, too.
“You’ve sailed before, haven’t you?” he asked.
“I’ve been out on a boat once, but there was hardly time to raise the sails.”
“Doesn’t matter if it’s got paddles or a motor or a jib. Did you like being out on the water?”
She smiled then, dazzling him with her answer before she’d even said it aloud. “I loved it.”
“What did you love about it?”
“Everything. The seagulls flying overhead right before we pulled away from the dock, as if they were excited that we were about to join them in their favorite playground. The dark water churning beneath the hull, flexible enough to let us through, yet strong enough to hold us up. The wind against my face, smelling like salt and fish and
life.
The fact that the way the waves rose was utterly unpredictable and yet somehow I felt safer than I ever had before.”
“Sometimes,” he told her, “when I’m out there hurtling before the wind, and the sky is full of stars, I swear I can hear the mermaids flirting with me.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised to find out they really were,” she said with another smile. One that confirmed that she, too, was tempted to flirt with him. “But what about when it’s not so smooth? I know from my research that you’ve crossed the Atlantic and have sailed thousands of miles in the Pacific, encountering gales and storms, even a couple of hurricanes. How do you keep loving sailing after you’ve been out there fighting for your boat…and even your life?”
“I like a perfect sail as much as the next person. But the truth is that when the wind whips itself up into a real fury, it can be one of the most beautiful things you’ll ever see.”
“I can see how a storm could be beautiful, but when you’re sailing through one, aren’t you scared?”
“Shitless,” he confirmed. “In fact, it’s usually right when you think you’ve got it all dialed in, when you’re sure that nothing can touch you and the world is your oyster—that’s when the wind and the waves decide it’s high time to show you just how vulnerable you really are. When you do finally come out on the other side, shaken as all hell, barely able to hold the wheel because every muscle in your body is on the verge of breaking apart, that’s when you really know you’re alive. And that’s also when you remember to appreciate every single moment of it.”
“Most people,” she said in a soft voice, “would probably think that if there’s the potential for that much danger, that much fear, they’d be better off not doing it.”
“I don’t have kids, obviously, but I imagine it’s not that different from the way a parent feels when she lets her baby’s hands go so that he can take his first step, or when she leaves him on the first day of kindergarten, or watches him drive away by himself behind the wheel of a car when he’s sixteen. Terrified and shaken, but amazed and thrilled at the same time. I wouldn’t decide not to have kids and give up all those beautiful moments just because I don’t want to have to face some scary ones, too.”
Before she could respond, they heard a loud crash followed by Mason’s voice rising to meet it. Grace was up out of her seat and running back toward the kitchen so fast that even though Dylan had been on the track team as a teenager, he had barely caught up with her by the time she flew inside the house.
Dylan’s mother gave them a slightly guilty look as she pointed to where Mason was sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor surrounded by a half-dozen big pots and pans. He was holding a plastic spatula in each hand and every time he banged them on the pots, he screamed with happiness.
“My kids always loved doing this,” his mother said in a voice barely loud enough to carry over the din, “but I forgot how loud it was until a few seconds ago.”
Grace still had her hand over her chest as she shook her head. “He’s obviously having a fabulous time,” she said into the pause between Mason’s drumbeats. “I just haven’t left him with very many people, so when I heard the loud noise—” She shook her head. “I shouldn’t have panicked like that, not when I knew he was in good hands.”
But he could see just how much his mother loved Grace’s commitment to her son. Just as much as Dylan did himself. He’d always been the most carefree Sullivan. No heavy responsibilities beyond getting a boat from one place to another or putting one together in time to make a customer happy. He’d had girlfriends, of course, but none who had ever had a chance of going beyond the just-having-fun stage. He was there for his family and close friends whenever they needed him for something, of course, but they were a pretty self-sufficient bunch. Dylan had always been able to sail away at a moment’s notice, whereas Grace was totally grounded by her responsibility to her son.
“You’re a mom,” Claudia said. “Panicking is what we’re best at.”
He was glad when Grace laughed and her expression smoothed out, away from the embarrassment that she’d clearly felt just moments ago.
“I’m happy to keep him entertained if you’d like to go back out and continue with your interview before the others get here. Of course, if you’d like to take him with you—”
“No,” Grace interrupted. “He’s having a great time with you.”
“It’s mutual,” his mother said with a big smile that spoke to just how much she meant it. “You’ve absolutely made my day by letting me play with him.”
Dylan caught his mother’s look as he and Grace headed back outside. One that said,
You’re going to make all of my dreams come true with these two, aren’t you?
His silent response was just as clear:
I’m sure as hell going to try
.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Well, aren’t you the cutest thing I’ve ever seen!” a female voice rang out from inside the house a while later. “Who do you belong to?”
Dylan grinned at Grace. “Sounds like my sister and her fiancé are here.” He stood and held out a hand for her. “Ready to meet the whole crew?”
Grace took a deep breath before putting her hand into his. “Sure.”
When she stood up, he was close. Closer than he’d been before now. For a few heady moments, she couldn’t pull her hand away, couldn’t stop her heart from beating way too fast.
“I shouldn’t leave my things out, just in case the rain blows in.”
His eyes moved from hers to her mouth, then back up again. “Good idea.”
How was it, she wondered as she tucked her notebook and recorder back inside her bag, that they could be saying nothing and yet so much at the same time?
I shouldn’t want you, shouldn’t want this,
was what she’d really meant. And she swore he’d answered her in the same way:
It will be good, Grace, if you’ll just let it happen. So damned good.
She was shocked to see that it had been an hour and a half since they’d left Mason banging on the pots and pans in Claudia’s kitchen. Yes, she’d loved being out on the water that one time, enough that she’d made a pitch for a story to a sailing magazine, but listening to Dylan talk about sailing, and what it meant to him and other sailors, had quickly filled her with a longing to do more than just write about it.
The same longing had struck her earlier in the week when she’d been looking at the sailboat he was completing in his boathouse. Maybe it was because, from what Dylan had already told her, building a boat wasn’t too different from the way she’d taught herself to write. First by taking apart the articles that spoke to her and studying their structure. Then starting to build them on her own, word by word, paragraph by paragraph, page by page.
In any case, the more she learned about what he actually did all day, the more she couldn’t blame him for not bothering to pick up his phone. If she were building amazing sailboats, and then sailing them on the open sea, she wouldn’t bother, either.
“It’s a real skill to ask questions that get straight to the heart of things,” Dylan said as they headed for the kitchen. “Where did you learn to do that?”
She was amazed yet again by how easily Dylan gave compliments. Her ex had rarely complimented her on anything but her figure. In fact, now that she thought more about it, she and Richard hadn’t had many conversations about anything that really mattered. The truth was that they’d never had a true connection.