"I didn’t want his damned thanks!’’ Damon was prowling the length of the patio overlooking the pool where Lucia was sitting and watching while Alex paddled in the shallow water.
She’d seen Damon coming and had sent her own prayer of thanks winging heavenward.
She’d had visions of him dropping his father off at the hospital, then taking straight off for London, figuring he’d done more than enough, and washing his hands of the whole mess.
But he was here. Limping. Irritated. Irascible. Annoyed. But here. And Lucia breathed a sigh of relief.
"I know,’’ she said softly now. "But keep your voice down or Alex will hear.’’
Damon scowled, but he stopped fuming, and he stopped muttering. He stood, instead, just watching his brother play. There was a gentleness on his face, when he watched Alex, that Lucia never saw there any other time.
"He’s very like you,’’ she said.
"Damon grunted. ‘‘More than you know.”
She cocked her head to look at him, wanting him to continue, praying that he would.
"I've been where he is,’’ was all he said.
‘‘Damon?’’ Alex stopped jumping in the water and looked up at his brother. ‘‘Can you come swimming?”
Damon started to shake his head, to say no. Then he stopped. He glanced at his watch. ‘‘For a little while, I have a plane to catch.”
"A plane?’’ Lucia felt a sinking feeling in her stomach.
"Scotland, Brian, my work, Remember?’’ Damon reminded her.
"Yes, but—"
“I’m not going to stay here. They don’t need me!"
Lucia thought they did, but she didn’t think an argument would convince him. She just looked at him sadly.
Damon didn’t look at her at all. “How about going down to the ocean?’’ he said to Alex.
His little brother beamed. ‘‘Oh, yeah!’’ He started scrambling out of the pool.
Damon took Alex down to the ocean. Lucia didn’t go with them. Some things needed to be done here. And someone needed to stay around to take the calls if his father or the hospital rang. Or Brian, for that matter, she thought gloomily.
She glanced toward the beach. Damon and Alex were standing on the shore, side by side. Damon seemed to be talking, then Alex looked up and answered. Then they stood there again. Just as she was about to turn and go into the house, she saw Alex reach out and touch his brother’s hand. She saw Damon wrap his bigger hand around his brother’s small one.
The two of them stepped closer together.
It was odd the way he felt bonded with Alex. Or maybe it wasn’t odd. The two of them shared a common parent. A pretty unfortunate tie, as far as he was concerned.
But no one else shared it. And as much as he personally would have liked to have washed his hands off his father, he couldn’t quite do it yet.
Not until he’d told Alex what no one had ever told him.
It was easier somehow in the ocean. The ocean had always seemed to Damon, ever since his childhood, to be his home. It was easier to understand than the people he’d lived with. His loving, doting, supportive mother, who let herself be hurt by a man not worthy of her love; his hard, unyielding father, who demanded so much and gave so little. Damon loved the former, despised the latter, and understood neither.
It was easier to be by himself on the ocean. Sailing had been his salvation. Swimming had been his joy. Just sitting by the water had soothed him when the various sides of his world had seemed at odds with each other.
Until now he’d gone there alone. No—one at least he’d come close to bringing someone else. Lucia the day they’d gone for a drive.
He’d barely known her then, but somehow he’d sensed that she would love it the way he did. Watching her drive his car had taught him that.
It was the same feeling—being small and yet taking on something powerful, harnessing the power, and making it your own.
He’d done it with the sea. Lucia had done it with his Jaguar. Yesterday she’d taken Alex to sail, to share that love with him. Alex had told him about it while they’d walked down to the sea together.
“We sailed,’’ he’d told Damon.
"Fast!’’ His eyes were bright.
"Lucy, let me hold the rudder."
“Tiller,’’ Damon corrected gently.
“Yeah, that. We went sooo fast!’’ Alex had given a little hap. "I've never been so fast. We’re gonna do it again. We're gonna go to her aunts’ and go sailing again.
"Do you want to go?’’ He’d looked up at his brother, his eyes shining. “I wish you would go,"
And Damon had smiled. "Yeah, Alex. I’d like that.”
Alex’s trust made it easier to tell him—to say the words he needed to say, that Alex, even if he didn’t know it yet, needed to hear.
They were together, out in the ocean, far enough out so that Damon was holding Alex in his arms while they bobbed up and down as the swells pushed toward the shore. ‘‘Alex, if you ever...need, um... if you ever need... anyone—’’ he couldn’t say me.
‘‘—if you ever need anyone... for anything... You can always call me. Always.”
Alex, who had been bouncing against his chest, seemed to sense Damon's sudden seriousness. He stopped and looked. Their eyes, on a level this once, locked. It was like looking into a mirror, Damon thought.
For a long moment, Alex didn’t say anything, and Damon wondered if he understood, or if he was too young... if what he remembered—the desolation, the loneliness, the anguish—were his alone. A projection, nothing more.
And then Alex bumped his forehead against Damon's.
"Good.’’ And then he giggled and nipped Damon's nose.
Lucia met them coming up from the beach.
They were running, but Damon was lagging a little behind, letting Alex take the lead. They were laughing. They looked like father and son. At least, Lucia thought they were acting like brothers.
And a good thing, too.
She hurried on, needing to reach them, to tell them.
"Lucy!! I caught a wave!’’ Alex yelled. “Me an’ Damon rode a wave!’’ He lunged forward and threw his small wet arms around her legs.
Lucia caught him and hugged him close, but her eyes raised to meet Damon's.
‘‘What’s up?’’ He arrived just as wet and a whole lot more desirable than his little brother. His dark eyes searched her face.
She mustered a smile. "Do you want the good news or the bad news first? The good news is they’ve got the labor stopped and Julietta is resting comfortably. The bad news is... your father had a heart attack."
He looked at her then, and Lucia thought she finally understood what it meant to have your heart in your eyes. It was the way Damon was looking at her. He swallowed.
On Sunday, Julietta, worried but stable, came home.
Brian, worried, called almost hourly about Anderson, who to Brian's way of thinking was unstable, and his latest revisions of the boat they were building for him.
Mr. Walter, out of danger and stable for the moment, was still in the hospital where he was the doctor's problem. Damon was glad. Anyways, there was nothing he could do for the old man.
"You’ll be fine, Just fine,’’ he told Lucia firmly on a Sunday evening as they sat in the living room of the little cottage where they had brought Alex for the night so that Julietta could get some rest.
"Everything’s under control. And for you actually,’’ he went on cheerfully, ‘‘things couldn’t be better.”
Lucia looked at him doubtfully. ‘‘Oh, really?’’
"Sure,’’ he said, not looking at her. He couldn’t look at her, hadn’t been able to do more than glance at her since he’d thought he was home free only to be thrown back into her company again. It was too tempting. She was too tempting. And she needed somebody far better than him. ‘‘They need a nanny,’’ he told her now. ‘‘And you’re the best. You’ve proved it. You’ve saved their necks over the past few days."
"Not just me!” she exclaimed. “You—”
He cut her off. "You wondered what you were going to do when I left? Now you know. The old man will be eating out of your hand just for being here and taking over. He'll give you whatever you want.”
It was true. All of it. The only bad part was, if she was working for his father, sometime, somehow, he would probably see her again.
"So it’s perfect." He forged on. ‘‘And it’s fine for me, too. I was here when you… when you needed me. And now I'd be in the way if I stayed. Besides, I can do my work better there.’’
He still didn’t look at her, but he made the mistake of looking at Alex, playing cars on the floor, instead.
Alex looked up at him, dark eyes serious. ‘‘But I need you here, Damon," he said, pouting a little.
It felt like they were playing house.
Like Lucia was the mommy and Damon was the daddy and Alex was the little boy. There was, of course, this underlying strain in Damon that Lucy couldn’t pretend she didn’t see. But at least she didn’t think Alex saw it.
And Alex, of course, was the reason he stayed.
She knew it was for Alex, not for her. But she couldn’t help herself; she was glad he was there. At some point, she had quit lying to herself about it being an important passion. Certainly, passion was important.
But Damon was more important.
She loved him.
She wasn’t sure when she stopped lying to herself about that, too. She thought it might have been when he went to get his father at the airport, even though she knew it was hard.
She thought perhaps it was when she saw him with Alex on the shore, hand in hand. But she knew for sure when Alex looked up at him and said,
"I need you here, Damon." And he stayed.
She knew it was hard. She knew he was hurting, and she wanted to heal him.
She wasn’t sure how.
She thought he was avoiding her, but it didn’t seem like he was angry at her. More like she made him nervous.
She asked him why.
He looked at her like she’d grown antlers on her head.
"Why the hell do you think?’’ They were sitting on the beach, watching Alex build a sandcastle. Or rather Damon was watching Alex build a sandcastle. Lucia was watching Damon. She had been all day.
He’d looked at her once just after breakfast. And, catching her eye, he’d looked abruptly away. He had studiously avoided looking her way ever since. He’d tried to discourage her from coming with him and Alex to the beach.
" It will give you a break,’’ he’d said.
But Alex had wanted her to come. ‘‘She hasn’t seen me body surfing,’’ he’d told Damon.
"You’re not missing much,’’ Damon had said under his breath so only Lucia could hear.
But Alex had pleaded and Lucia had wanted to go anyway, so she’d come.
But Damon hadn’t looked at her. Still.
"You act like you’re mad at me. Like you don’t want me here. Don’t you?’’ she asked him bluntly.
He looked at her then, his dark eyes fathomless. ‘‘I want you in my bed.’’ His jaw bunched tightly. His fist curled over a handful of sand.
Lucia burned under the intensity of his gaze. And knew she wanted it, too. She swallowed. She ran her tongue over salty parched lips. ‘‘So do I,’’ she said.
His eyes widened. He gave a hard quick shake of his head. ‘‘Don’t say things like that.”
“It’s true.”
"Even if it is, don’t say things like that!’’ He shoved himself up and limped down the beach toward his brother.
He pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. She watched him drop down on the sand next to Alex. She saw their two dark heads bent over the castle. Alex looked her way, waved, and beckoned her. Damon said something to him, distracting his attention.
'Oh, Damon! I love you.' Lucia rested her head against her knees. 'I would show you, I would sleep with you.'
What a stupid thought.
But Damon wouldn’t sleep with her!
Did that mean he loved her, too?
He was a fool.
She’d virtually offered him her body. And he’d said no!
He needed to get out of here!
Regardless of what he’d promised Alex, he needed to leave. To get his own life back. At the very least, he needed to get out of here tonight. To stop playing games with her.
It would be fine if ‘playing house’ extended to the bedroom. But he couldn't let it extend to the bedroom!
So he needed some other woman’s bedroom. Some other woman's arms. Some other woman who could make him forget all about Lucia Stone's sweet face, her curvy body, her luscious mouth.
A man could be celibate for just so long.
Damon was way past that!
He waited until Julietta had retired to her room, and Alex had gone to bed until there was just Lucia and himself and then he grabbed his jacket and headed for the door.
"She looked up from where she was sitting in the den. She had her shoes off and her feet tucked up under her. Her hair was loose, framing her face, making him focus on it, on her lips.
"What?’’ he said harshly, still moving toward the door.
“Do you have work to do? Did Brian call? Do you want some help?’’
"No. I don’t need help. Or not that kind anyway! I need—’’ he glared at her ‘‘—-damn it all, you know what I need!’
And he stormed out.
He could find it in East Hampton. He could go into a bar and meet some lonely woman, someone who wanted just one night and nothing more. There were plenty of women like that, refugees from the city, who came out to the Hamptons for a little R&R.
It wouldn’t be a problem. No problem at all.
He’d have his pick, he was sure.
The trouble was, he discovered, after four bars and four times that many likely women, he found something wrong with all of them. This one was too forward, and that one was too tall. This one was a redhead. That one was blonde.
None of them had a sunny smile and an infectious giggle. None of them had lips begging to be kissed. At Least not by him.
They’d have been willing if he had.
He couldn’t do it.
Damn it to hell!
What was the matter with him?
Maybe he needed a celebrity. Maybe all his days as a globe-trotting playboy had spoiled him. Maybe he needed a photographer and notoriety to spark his monster.
But in the fifth bar, he found a model he’d dated once or twice, one he’d been photographed with on several occasions. Where Karla went, photographers went so if that was his problem, Karla could fix it.
And Karla was clearly willing.
But Damon said, ‘‘I can’t,’’ when she asked him back to the house she was renting for the week.
"Can’t?’’ Karla looked at him, astonished. He doubted very many men said no.
“I… have to get back,’’ he said. ‘‘My brother...’’ Oh, good, he berated himself, for dragging Alex up as an excuse. ‘‘I can’t,’’ he said again.
Karla’s brows lifted. “Brother?’’
Damon shook his head. He wasn’t going into that. "I'll...see you around."
“Of course, darling,’’ Karla said. She pursed her lips for a kiss.
Damon ducked in but turned his head at the last moment. His lips grazed her cheek.
She looked at him, eyes as big as soup bowls. But Damon couldn’t explain. He didn’t understand himself. He just knew he had to get out of there.
He got into the Jaguar and drove off.
He drove for hours, it seemed—along one back road ‘er another. From one side of the island to the other.
In the morning he found himself sitting in the car overlooking the dock by Lucia's house.
'Damn!' he thought. 'Oh, hell!'