"Jesus, you're crazy." Her ex could barely scratch the words out. "You could have killed me."
"You haven't even seen crazy yet," Dylan said in an ominous tone, even as he smiled a joyless smile, one full of the promise of more pain than the guy could imagine even after nearly being crushed beneath Dylan's hands. "If I ever hear that you've come near Grace or her son again, if you ever try to sneak contact with them, if you ever threaten them in any way at all, my family will hit yours from all sides. We will leave no stone unturned. We will drag up every dirty, messy, ugly thing you and your ancestors have done, personal and business, for the past hundred years. And we will make damned sure the entire goddamned world hears about it all."
The guy had scooted back from him by then, still on the floor, with his back against the wall. "We don't want anything do with them anymore. It was a mistake. All of it was a mistake. Coming here. Ever being with her in the first place."
"You could have had everything." Dylan had seen stupid before, but never on this scale. Money and power often took everything good and bad about people and amplified it--but whatever good there might have been in Richard Bentley had long been buried by the cocky belief that he could get away with anything because no one could touch him. "One misstep and I'll make sure you're left with absolutely nothing. Do you understand?"
"I won't speak to her," Richard said, his voice a whine of pain. "Won't do anything to her or the kid. I'll make sure my parents don't, either. We won't bother her again. Never again."
Dylan didn't trust the snake's words, but he trusted the fear he saw in his eyes, which said more than any spoken promises would have. He forced himself to rein in the rage still burning through him. Any more violence, however satisfying, would only take him down to her ex's level.
Without giving the worthless heap another look, Dylan left the building and headed for the harbor. He needed a fast, wild sail tonight to clear his mind and burn through his frustration, and most important of all, to figure out a way to win Grace and Mason forever.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
"Grace, Mason, it's so wonderful to see you again!" Claudia Sullivan's smile was wide and genuinely happy as she opened her front door to let them inside on Sunday afternoon.
Dylan was so close to his mother that Grace figured Claudia would know what had happened yesterday. The whole horrible story, from thinking she was pregnant to Richard showing up, and then Grace pushing Dylan away. But Claudia's expression didn't show so much as a trace of anger.
"Thank you so much for watching Mason again," Grace said. "You've been so kind to help out while I've been working on the story about Dylan."
His name hitched in her throat, and she knew his mother must have heard it.
"I love spending time with Mason," Claudia said in a gentle voice. "But I also know how hard it can be to let go. And to trust someone else."
She could easily hear Claudia's message: I know you've been hurt. And I agree that you have every right to be wary and cautious before trusting again. There was no judgment, just understanding. And that's what made Grace feel even worse. Because even now, even after she'd pushed Dylan away, his family wasn't doing the same to her.
Again and again she'd told herself that only fairy tales worked like this--where the single mother of the baby meets the perfect guy with the perfect family and he falls head over heels for them both. She'd reminded herself just as many times that it had all happened too fast and had felt too good for the blaze of heat not to cool as quickly as it had ignited. But none of those painful truths meant she wanted to hurt Dylan or anyone in his family. Not when they'd all been so good to her and her son.
"Claudia, I need you to know..." She instinctively drew Mason closer, even though she knew he couldn't shield her heart and that she should never use her son for that purpose even if he could. "Dylan has been wonderful. He's been amazing with Mason. And if I could--"
Claudia stopped her impromptu and very painful speech by putting a warm hand over hers. "Go for your sail with my son. It will help make things more clear. I just know it will."
Repeatedly over the past two weeks, Dylan had said that sailing with him would give her the answers she needed to finally write a compelling magazine story about the heart of a sailor. But could it also give her the answers to her other questions about how to learn to trust--and love--again?
*
Dylan hadn't shaved and looked as though he hadn't slept, either. But he'd never looked more beautiful to Grace. Or more real and raw--as raw as she'd felt every second since she'd bolted her door behind him the day before.
She wanted to run to him, wanted to throw herself into his arms and never let go. Instead, she stood in the doorway of his boathouse and tried not to cry as she said, "Hi."
"Hi." Dylan studied her for a long moment. She could see that he was concerned about her--she hadn't been able to sleep last night, either--but all he said was, "I'm glad you're here."
She knew better than to try to say anything more than the two-letter word she'd barely managed without sobbing, so she simply nodded.
"I would have gotten the boat ready for us," he told her, "but I figured you'd want to be hands-on with as much as possible today."
Knowing she needed to pull herself together--and fast--she took a deep breath. "Yes, that would be great." The five extra words weren't much, but they were progress, at least.
Grace already knew most of the basic vocabulary of a sailboat from her research--starboard instead of right, bow instead of front of the boat--but within less than sixty seconds, she realized that learning about sailing from books or the Internet could never take the place of actual experience. And as Dylan talked her through performing a detailed visual check of the lines that raised and controlled the sails to make sure they weren't wrapped around each other; as he showed her how to make sure that they all had a figure-eight knot on the free end so they wouldn't pull through the pulleys or sheaves; as he taught her how to determine the direction of the wind by using the indicator at the top of the mast, she was glad to be able to sink into learning mode...rather than about-to-break-into-tears-at-any-moment mode.
Dylan talked her through maneuvering out of the harbor and into the Sound. There was a fresh breeze and a light chop, enough to make way at a fairly good clip. Grace didn't realize she was smiling until Dylan smiled back.
"It's good, isn't it?"
Her chest squeezed tight as she stared back at him--so tight that she actually couldn't breathe for a few seconds. "It's great."
You're great, was what she really wanted to tell him. I'm sorry I pushed you away, but I had to. I have to be smart this time, have to be prepared for everything, instead of just being swept away again.
But since she was here to learn to sail for her story, not to make things even worse between them, she said instead, "When you're on land all the time, even in a city with as much water around it as Seattle, you never realize just how amazing it is to actually be out on the water."
She loved the taste of the salt water on her lips. Loved seeing the billowing sails on the other boats around them on the Sound. There were powerboats and fishing vessels, too, but the sailboats were what caught her fancy and imagination.
As they scooted over the water and he showed her how to man the tiller, he said, "You're a natural. Just like I knew you'd be. How about we hoist the spinnaker so that you can see what this baby can do?"
Being out on the Sound with Dylan was already a rush, but just as she always wanted more when she was in his arms, now that she was in his sailboat, she wanted more speed, more spray flying over them, more of the rush that she could so easily become addicted to.
"Tell me what to do to get it up."
He smiled at her, a warm and appreciative smile that made her heart skip a beat or two. "We'll do it together."
The procedure to hoist the spinnaker didn't seem all that easy to Grace, but with Dylan patiently talking her through each step, they soon had the brightly colored third
sail up, and then they really started to fly. So fast that she couldn't contain her laughter or the joy that bubbled up out of her regardless of all that she'd tried so hard to suppress since yesterday.
No wonder she'd read that the spinnaker was often called a kite. For a few beautiful minutes, she felt she was flying with it, billowing and unrestrained in the wind. She felt his hand on hers a beat before he spun her to face him.
"You love it," he said over the sound of the water crashing beneath the boat. "You love the speed. You love the thrill. And you're meant to love it, Grace. I've seen it in you from the start--it's why Mason loves learning new things, loves being pushed so high on the swings and racing his toy cars so fast. It's in your blood." With one hand on the tiller, he put the other on her shoulder to make her stay to hear him out, even as he had to raise his voice to be heard over the rising wind. "I'm in your blood. Just like you're in mine."
His mouth was on hers then, hard and hot and even more exciting than their speed as they flew over the water. She didn't know how long they kissed, but when the deck tilted beneath their feet, she thought at first that it must be from the way Dylan's kisses made her head spin and how desperately she wanted to never have to stop kissing him back. But when he suddenly pulled away, then looked out over the water and cursed, she realized the boat was tilting because the weather had turned.
Somewhere during their passionate kiss, the light breeze had shifted around to the north and became an extremely stiff wind. "We're starting to roll hard to leeward," Dylan called out to her as he guided the bow directly under the center seam of the spinnaker. For a moment, they seemed to teeter back to balance, but then another blast of wind knocked them over again.
He was still busy at the tiller when the spinnaker started to dip into the ocean, tilting and dragging the boat hard. Over the crashing waves and howling wind, she could just barely hear him yell, "We need to release the sheet to dump the water out of the sail, then lower the halyard on my cue!"
Dylan had talked about a sailor's instinct several times during their interviews, and now Grace knew exactly what it felt like to have instinct take over. She'd only read about this situation before and barely had enough experience to know how to sail on easy waters, but somehow her hands knew exactly how to release the spinnaker.
The moment the water was out and the sail had gone limp, Dylan was up gathering it and pulling the wet sail back into the boat. He called for her to release the halyard, and he pulled the spinnaker down from the mast.
For the next fifteen minutes, they sailed fast back toward the harbor, trying to outrun the dangerous storm that had come from absolutely nowhere. In just the same way, Grace thought, that Dylan had come into her and Mason's lives from out of the blue--dangerously sexy and addictive...and exactly what they'd needed to shake them out of their safe little rut, too.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
"Jesus, Grace." They were still some way out of the harbor when the winds died down as suddenly as they'd come up. Floating easily again now, Dylan finally moved away from the tiller and put his hands on either side of her face. "I've never seen the wind whip up so fast on the Sound. I never would have taken you out into this kind of swell for your first sail if I had known. I planned to woo you today on my boat, to show you that I could be everything you needed me to be--but then I couldn't stop kissing you, couldn't keep from getting too lost in you even to notice the weather changing." With deep concern, his eyes moved over her face. "Are you okay?"
Maybe she should have been shaky. Maybe anyone else would have hated the ocean, and sailboats, after this. But Grace felt more alive than ever. And clearer, too, inside and out--as if the thick, hard waves of salt water crashing over the decks had washed her doubts, and her fears, away.
It was just as Dylan had said during one of their interviews: It was right when you were trying to hold everything tightly under control that the wind and waves decided it was high time to show you not only how vulnerable you really were, but also how precious every single moment was.
But it was more than just the ocean and its breathtaking power that had changed her. Grace and Dylan had been a perfect team when those winds had kicked up and tried to topple them over. And it hadn't mattered how long they'd known each other--or how long they hadn't--because when push came to shove, there was no one she would rather have had beside her to face the storm.
"I love you."
His hands stilled on her arms where he'd been running them over her to make sure that she wasn't hurt. "Grace?"
"I love you," she said again, already planning to say it to Dylan at least a million times over the next seventy years. "I love you so much, have loved you from the first moment you held Mason in your arms, but I was afraid to tell you. Afraid to even let myself feel that love, because I thought the only way to keep myself and Mason safe from potential danger was to be cautious. To keep my guard up. To think everything through from every possible angle. And to always stay in control." She slid her hands through his soaking wet hair, sending salt water flying. "But you were right that going sailing with you would make everything clear. So incredibly clear that I can finally see that I'll never be able to control everything. I'll never be able to stop nature from rearing up, I'll never be able to stop the waves from crashing on the shore, and I wouldn't ever want to. Wouldn't ever want to turn my back again on what truly matters just so that I can stay in a holding pattern that feels safer. And I don't ever want to try to stop what I feel for you again, or settle for anything less than the truest love because risking my heart seems too frightening. Can you forgive me for hurting you?"
"I would forgive you anything, Grace. But there's nothing to forgive. Yesterday all your biggest fears came crashing down on you at once. Anyone would have reacted the way you did. Anyone would have needed breathing room."
"I hadn't thought I'd let the Bentleys make me feel like I wasn't good enough. But now I'm realizing that the way they treated me when they learned I was pregnant spoke straight to all the fears I hadn't wanted to admit to over the years."
"Everyone has the same fear that we're not enough."
"You don't."
He smiled, one of his beautiful smiles that always made her stomach flip-flop. "I have three older brothers who pretty much rule the world between them. And what they can't do, my cousins can. Sometimes I think the real reason I picked up sailing was because it was all that was left. I should have built my family a boat before now, but I couldn't. Because it turns out that I needed thirty years to realize that I could share my love of sailing with all of them without giving up who I am and what makes me special."
Did he have any idea how much it moved her to hear him admit to being scared, too? And that he wasn't afraid to show her his flaws? The Bentleys were so utterly consumed with being and looking perfect that they were also utterly inauthentic. Whereas life--real life the way the Sullivans lived it--was beautiful and wondrous...and sometimes messy and raw.
"I don't know what the future holds," she said. "I don't know if I'm supposed to be this much in love with anyone, or give up this much control. I don't know if something will happen to you on a boat one day, if you'll sail away and another storm will take you away from me. But I'm not going to let that stop me from asking you to marry me. Be my husband. Be Mason's father. And let us give you all of our love. Forever."
She'd expected him to look at least as surprised by her marriage proposal as he had when she'd told him she loved him, but there wasn't room on his face for anything but pure joy.
"There's nothing I want more than to marry you and be Mason's dad." He drew her against him, and his mouth was nearly on hers when he amended that to, "Actually, there is one more thing I want."
But she already knew what it was, could read his mind now that the storm had passed just as well as she'd been able to read it when the waves had been crashing over them. "Let's start today, Dylan. Let's grow our family right here. Let's give Mason a brother or sister right now."
&nb
sp; As quickly as they could, they steered the boat into the lee of an island, tossed the anchor, then stripped each other's wet clothes off. Gently, he laid her down on the wooden decking, warm and drying now from the sunshine that had emerged as soon as the storm had blown away.
"You're so beautiful," he said as he stared down at her. "I've fantasized about making love with you on my boat a million times."
The air was cool, but Dylan's warm hands and lips against her skin heated her up all over. "Even making love with you a million times," she whispered against his lips as he came into her and she wrapped herself all around him, "wouldn't be enough for me."
"I'll never get enough of loving you, Grace."
And...oh my...did she ever love how he loved her.
*
The next afternoon, Grace was so immersed in her writing that she didn't realize Dylan had walked into her living room carrying Mason until they were right beside her.
"Hi!" She lifted her lips to Mason's for a smooch and was very pleased to end up with one from Dylan, too. "How was the park?"
"We had an awesome time." Dylan looked down at Mason. "Didn't we?"
Mason answered in the affirmative with a cute little high five, then squirmed to get down to play with his toy cars.
"Looks like you're on a roll with your writing." He moved behind her to massage her shoulders, and it felt amazing.
"I am," she confirmed. "Finally."
"Do you need me to take Mason back out so that you can have more quiet?"
"No." It was the last thing she wanted. "I want you to stay."
They smiled at each other, both of them knowing just how much the word stay really meant. His request for her to stay for Mia and Ford's wedding at his parents' house and then her request for him to stay that night with her for the first time a week later had been their first important steps toward forever.
All along, as she'd worked on this cover story, she'd thought she needed to hide her feelings for Dylan. She hadn't been ready for anyone to see how much she loved him, because she hadn't been ready to admit it to herself yet, either.