Rising Tides
Page 68

"I need to trim the sails," he told her. "Do you want to take the wheel?"
"I'll trim them." She grinned at him as she ducked under his arm to move to port. "I haven't forgotten how to handle lines, Cap'n."
No, he thought, she hadn't forgotten. She was a good sailor, as at home on deck as she was in her own kitchen. She ran the rigging with the same skill that she showed when she served drinks to a crowd at the pub.
"There's not much you can't do, Grace."
"What?" She glanced up, then laughed. "It's not hard to know how to use the wind when you grow up with it."
"You're a natural sailor," he corrected. "A wonderful mother, a fine cook. You know how to make people easy around you."
Her pulse went from calm to frantic. Would he ask her now, after all, before she had the chance to ask him? "Those are all things I enjoy," she said, watching him watch her. "Making a home here in St. Chris contents me. You do the same, Ethan, because it contents you."
"I've got a need for this place," he said softly. "It's what saved me," he added, but he'd turned away and she didn't hear.
Grace waited another moment, willing him to speak, to tell her, to ask her. Then with a shake of her head, she crossed the deck again.
The sun was sinking, coming close, so close to that long nightly kiss of the shore. The water was calm, little wavelets waltzing against the hull. The sails were full and white. The moment, she thought with a leap of heart, was now.
"Ethan, I love you so much."
He lifted an arm to bring her against his side. "I love you, Grace."
"I've always loved you. I always will."
He looked down at her then, and she saw the emotion come into his eyes, deepening the blue. She lifted a hand to his cheek, held it there as she drew in the next breath.
"Will you marry me?" She saw the surprise, as she'd expected, but she didn't notice the way his body went stiff as she rushed on. "I want us to be a family. I want to live my life with you. To give you children. To make you happy. Haven't we waited long enough?"
And she waited now, but she didn't see the slow smile slip across his face, into his eyes. He only continued to stare at her, with something she thought might be horror. Bony wings of panic fluttered in her stomach.
"I know you might have planned to do this differently, Ethan, and me asking you is a surprise. But I want us to be together, really together."
Why didn't he say something? her mind screamed. Anything. Why did he just stare at her as if she'd slapped him?
"I don't need courting." Her voice hitched and she stopped to try to steady it. "Not that I don't love things like flowers and candlelight dinners, but all I really need is for you to be there. I want to be your wife."
Afraid he would shatter if he looked into those hurt and baffled eyes another instant, he turned away. His hands white-knuckled on the wheel. "We have to come about."
"What?" She jerked back, staring at his set face, at the muscle that worked in his jaw. Her heart was still pounding, but no longer in anticipation. Now it was with dread. "You have nothing to say to me except that we have to come about?"
"No, I've things to say to you, Grace." His voice was as controlled as his heart was wild. "We have to go back so I can."
She wanted to shout at him to say them now, right now. But she nodded. "All right, Ethan. Come about."
the sun was gonewhen they docked. Crickets and peepers sent up their nightly chorus, filling the air with shrill, too-bright music. Overhead a few stars blinked through the haze and a three-quarter moon shimmered.
The air had cooled quickly, but she knew that wasn't the reason she was cold. So cold. He secured the lines himself, silently. Just as he'd sailed home, silently. He stepped back into the boat, sat across from her. The moon was still low, just riding the tops of the trees, but the early stars sprinkled down enough light for her to see his face.
There was no joy in it.
"I can't marry you, Grace." He spoke the words carefully, knowing they would hurt. "I'm sorry. I can't give you what you want."
She gripped her hands together tightly. She didn't know whether they wanted to ball into fists and pound or hang limp and shaking like an old woman's. "Then you lied when you said you loved me?" It might be kinder to tell her so, he thought, then shook his head. No, it would only be cowardly. She deserved the truth. All of the truth. "I didn't lie. I do love you." There were degrees of love. She wasn't fool enough to think differently. "But not the way you need to love a woman you'd marry."
"I couldn't love any woman more than I love you. But I'm—" She held up a hand. Something had just occurred to her. If it was his reason for turning her away, she didn't think she could ever forgive him. "Is it because of Aubrey? Because I had a child with another man?"
He moved fast so rarely, it took her by surprise when he snatched her hand out of the air and squeezed it hard enough to rub bone against bone. "I love her, Grace. I'd be proud for her to think of me as her father. You have to know that."
"I don't have to know anything. You say you love me, and you love her, but you won't have us. You're hurting me, Ethan."
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry." He released her hand as if it had burned his palm. "I know I'm hurting you. I knew I would. I had no business letting things come to this."
"But you did," she said evenly. "You had to know I'd feel this way, that I'd expect you would feel the same."
"Yeah, I knew. I should have been honest with you. I've got no excuse for it."Except I needed you. I needed you, Grace . "Marriage isn't something I'm looking for."
"Oh, don't treat me like a fool, Ethan." She sighed now, too battered to be angry. "People like us don't have relationships, we don't have affairs. We get married and raise families. We're simple and basic, and as amusing as that might be to some, that's just who we are." He stared down at his hands. She was right, of course. Or would have been. But she didn't know he wasn't simple or basic. "It's not you, Grace."
"No?" Hurt and humiliation tangled inside her. She imagined Jack Casey would have said the same thing, if he'd taken the time to say anything before he left her. "If it's not me, who is it? I'm the only one here."