From Glowing Embers
Chapter 13
The glass door behind Julianna and Gray slid open, severing their fragile connection. They turned and his hand dropped to her shoulder. Paige stepped onto the lanai, her dark eyes betraying nothing. “I thought I heard voices,” she said as Julianna and Gray moved farther apart.
“The storm seems to be passing by.” Gray turned back to the horizon, where hazy rays of sunlight were breaking through the cloud cover. He resented Paige’s intrusion, but he realized it was probably for the best. Both he and Julianna needed time and space.
“I wouldn’t get my hopes up.” Paige didn’t move. “I just caught a bulletin. I think this may be the proverbial calm before the storm, the real storm, anyway. We’re not safe yet.”
“I’d better go check on Jody.” Julianna moved quickly past Paige, making no further excuses for her hurry to leave. Paige watched her go, her expression thoughtful.
Gray didn’t turn, but he felt Paige’s eyes on him. He could think of nothing to say.
They were both silent until finally she spoke.
“You told me many things about Julianna, Granger, but you never told me she was so beautiful.”
“As a girl, she was all arms and legs and eyes.”
“She’s certainly not a girl now.”
There was no question in the words, but he knew they required an answer anyway. He wondered how much Paige had seen. “Julianna’s not a threat.” Even to his own ears, he sounded unsure.
“No?” She joined him, looking down on the glistening leaves of the hibiscus and heliconia. “Then why do I feel threatened?”
Gray faced her, one hip against the railing. He had little energy for reassurances, but he tried anyway. “I’m not a free man, but when I am, you and I are going to talk about marriage.”
“To scare away your ghosts?”
“What do you mean?”
“Being married to me will be so easy. I could never hurt you the way she did.”
He frowned. “I know you won’t hurt me.”
“But you don’t know why.”
“Paige, what are you talking about?” He heard his own impatience and, worse, his ambivalence. He tried to modify it. “I don’t understand what you’re getting at.”
“It’s really quite simple. I think you have to love someone very, very much for them to hurt you as badly as Julianna did.”
“I love you.”
“You care for me. I think it’s different.”
Gray had no desire to explain his feelings. He was irritated with Paige for wringing him dry, even though he knew that was unfair. Before he could summon up the words to reassure her, she went on.
“I’m not trying to drag anything out of you, Granger. I’m just saying something that needs to be said. We’re good friends, best friends, and we have been for some time. If we marry, we’ll have a comfortable marriage because it will be built on friendship.” She held up her hand as he started to interrupt. “But it can only work if both of us realize the truth.”
“And what’s that?”
“That by marrying each other, we’re sacrificing the possibility of more.”
“Stop talking in riddles.” Gray stroked the satin sleeve of her robe, drawing his fingers down to her hand.
“If you marry me, you will never have what you had with Julianna, not ever. What we’ll have will be good, but different. Very different.”
He raised his eyes from her hand to her face. There was no expression there; as usual, her eyes gave nothing away. He resented it. “And by the same token, if you marry me, you have no chance for real passion? I’ll warm your bed but not your heart?”
“You’ll warm both, and quite well. But you won’t set fire to either, because that particular spark has never existed between us.”
“I haven’t heard any complaints before now.”
“Before now, I thought what I could offer you would be enough.”
He dropped her hand, leaning back against the railing with both arms spread along its length. His words belied his casual posture. “What changed your mind?”
“I saw you kiss Julianna.”
He was instantly ashamed. “It’s not what it looked like. We finally talked about Ellie’s death. We were comforting each other.”
“You don’t need to explain.”
“You don’t make any demands, do you? You never raise your voice. You rarely even raise an eyebrow. Do you care that I was kissing another woman?”
For just a moment something new was visible in her eyes, but she covered it so quickly he wasn’t sure it had even been there. “If I didn’t care about you, I wouldn’t talk about marrying you. But I don’t care enough to stand in your way if there’s something else... or someone else you want more than me.”
“Have I ever gotten past your defenses?” He straightened, clamping a hand on her arm. “Or did you say you’d marry me because you know I never will?”
She covered his hand with hers. “You’re hurting me.”
“I doubt that’s possible.” Gray’s arm dropped to his side.
“I love you,” Paige said, after they’d stared at each other for a long moment. “I love you too much to make you unhappy, and I love myself too much to live in another woman’s shadow. I don’t even want to discuss marriage, Granger, not unless I’m sure you’re over Julianna. And I’m a long way from believing that.”
He had come to Hawaii to put his past behind him. He had suffered Julianna’s anger and his own self-hatred. He had held her in his arms and comforted her as he had longed to do for a decade. But he hadn’t allowed himself to think of a future together. The feelings between them were too delicate, too fragile, to even admit to. And now Paige was clearing the way for them to grow.
“This is stressful for everyone,” he answered, measuring his words. “The storm, my reunion with Julianna, but don’t read things into what you saw that aren’t there.”
“I see what I see.”
“Maybe you see what you want to see. Maybe you don’t want to marry me after all.”
She smiled, but her eyes didn’t reflect any humor. “We both wanted peace, friendship. I don’t want that any less, but perhaps we both ought to expect more.”
“And find nothing?”
She rose on tiptoe and kissed him, smoothing his hair back from his forehead as she did. “Perhaps, Granger. Or perhaps we each need to find it all. With somebody else.”