„Does she say why she chose to leave?“
Grace shook her head. „She gave little explanation, except to say that she’d met a man who had been her soul mate. When my father learned of it he told her she would never see her daughter again. In one letter she claims to have obtained court-mandated visitation rights, but by then we’d left the state, and for years her efforts to find us were thwarted.“
When she looked over at him, Josh could read in her eyes the shock that was beginning to set in. „It’s going to take some time for you to process all this information, Grace. You shouldn’t try to digest it all in one big gulp.“
She looked down. „I feel as if I’ve been.in some horrible train wreck that took the lives of both my parents. And somehow, I was the cause of it.“
„That’s not fair. You didn’t cause this, Grace. You were just a kid. Your parents were two consenting adults. Whatever they did to one another, it was their choice, not yours.“
„I know. But there’s more. I didn’t just spend my life missing my mother. I was all too happy to mirror my father’s hatred of her. I nurtured it. Embraced it. And now that I’ve learned the truth, it’s too late. In her last letter to me, my mother writes of her impending death. Now there’s no way to make things right between us. All because of my father’s bitterness, and my willingness, in fact my eagerness, to share it. That’s what makes this all so crushing. Not just knowing that my mother spent a lifetime trying to reconnect with me, but the fact that I swallowed my father’s story without question.“
„Don’t do this to yourself, Grace. Don’t let this new information make you angry and bitter.“
„I have a right to be bitter.“ Her tone was harsh, brittle. „Looking back, it seems I spent my entire childhood trying to be the kind of person I thought my mother incapable of being, in order to placate a father who reveled in his darkness. And he’d been playing with my emotions.“ Her voice was a cry of pain. „I’ve been regretting the choices I made that caused our separation, believing that he was the only one capable of loving me. And now I find I’ve been grieving the loss of an unforgiving man who did everything he could to make me into his own image. And for that unforgiving man, I conteYnplated taking my own life.“
Josh was staring at her with a puzzled look. „What do you mean by that?“
For a moment she fell silent. The only sound in the cabin was the hiss and snap of the logs on the fireplace.
Now that the words had been spoken, there was no way of taking them back.
Grace took a deep breath. „Just before your plane crashed, I was sitting on the end of the dock wondering what it would feel like to just slip into the water and let the lake take me.“
Her words sent Shockwaves through him. He treasured life so deeply. Lived his life every day to the fullest. Though many would accuse him of taking foolish, dangerous risks, he harbored no death wish, but only the desire to live in the moment.
He latched on to the only thing he could. „You didn’t follow through on your impulse.“
„I didn’t.“ For the longest time she sat quietly, staring at the clutter of letters and photos. „But who knows what I might have done if your plane hadn’t crashed at that very moment?“
„Then I’m grateful for my accident.“
She glanced over. „Do you believe it was an accident?“
He shrugged. „Do you have a better explanation?“
„I don’t know. I’m thinking about the legend, and the fact that the warrior woman’s story mirrors my mother’s so closely. Is it all a coincidence? Or is there something more here? How did Wyatt know I was here? What was he to my mother?“ She sighed and rubbed at her temples. „Oh, Josh. I’m so tired of thinking.“
He reached a hand to her shoulder and could feel the knots of tension. „Here. Let me help.“
Turning her slightly away, he brought both hands to the back of her neck and began kneading. With a sigh of contentment she leaned her head to one side, then the other, while he continued working the tightly-coiled muscles of her neck and shoulders.
She gave a deep sigh of pleasure. „Oh, that feels heavenly.“
„I’ve been told I have very talented hands.“
Beneath the warmth of humor in his tone was something darker, deeper. She experienced a quick rush of heat and decided to throw caution to the wind. She’d been alone too long. And what better way to forget, at least for a little while, the sudden, wrenching pain that had been thrust on her?
Her voice grew sultry. „Maybe you’d like to show me just how talented those hands are.“
For the space of a heartbeat he stilled his movements. She could feel the warmth of his breath on the back of her neck. Could sense the way he was watching her while weighing her words.
When he finally spoke his words were clipped. „That’s a very tempting invitation, and one that’s hard to resist. But you’re exhausted. And you’ve just suffered a shock to the mind and soul. What you really need is sleep.“
She turned toward him. „I don’t sleep well alone. Maybe if I had company…“
„Lie here and I’ll cover you.“ He lifted the army blanket from the back of the sofa and unfolded it.
His rejection was more shocking than a slap. „You want me to sleep alone?“
He winked. „Doctor’s orders.“
With a sigh of annoyance she turned away, but not before he saw the look of pain in her eyes.
Very deliberately he drew the cover over her, allowing his hands to linger a fraction. Then he stood and crossed to the fireplace, where he set another log in place.
Wiping his hands on his pants, Josh stared into the fire and watched as flames began to lick along the bark until it erupted into a blaze.
He turned to glance at the figure on the sofa. Grace’s eyes were already closed; her breathing slow and easy.
It hadn’t been easy to refuse what she was offering. But it had been necessary. He’d recognized her need and would have been only too happy to pleasure her and himself. But he’d also sensed her vulnerability. Right now she was too devastated to think clearly. Quick, mindless sex might be enough to hold the pain at bay through the night, but in the morning, her heart would still be broken, her soul still shattered.
The heart and soul of Grace Marin didn’t need a bandage. What they needed was a miracle. And though he was beginning to care deeply about this haunted, lonely woman, he was fresh out of miracles.
Eight
Josh stood at the end of the dock, staring at the sky. It seemed almost colorless, neither blue nor gray, a total absence of clouds, as though an artist had stopped painting before the picture could be completed. Though the sun wouldn’t set for hours, the horizon was already beginning to pale and blur into the surrounding forest.
He studied the lake for any sign of a dancing light, but all he could see under the leaden sky was dark water.
What secrets did it hide?
In some small corner of his mind, the question nagged. What was happening here? Had he really seen a ghost, or had he allowed his imagination to make a fool of him? And what about Marty and the crew in the second plane? What could possibly take them this long to bring help? What of his mysterious passenger? Why had she chosen his plane? Why was there no sign of her remains? And now Wyatt Eagle and those letters from Grace’s mother. There were too many events to be considered mere coincidence. There was something eerie going on here, and he couldn’t seem to unravel the mystery. Still, he had to admit that he didn’t feel threatened in any way. In fact, he’d never felt so peaceful. In this place, in this simple, almost primitive cabin, he had the strangest sense that he’d come home.
Hearing a sound behind him he turned to see the big yellow dog trotting along the dock. Josh looked beyond him, but there was no trace of Wyatt.
He knelt down and scratched behind the dog’s ears. „Hello, Barnaby. Where’s your master?“
The dog’s tail thumped against the wooden dock.