Beach House No. 9 Part 34

"I won't," Jane said. She'd depart on her own terms. Alone, just the way she'd arrived that day when she'd foolishly disregarded the skull and crossbones, scoffing at the idea of danger.

He sighed, apparently accepting her stubbornness. "Fine, then," he said, his tone disgruntled. Then he rummaged in the bag. "I was at the mercy of that convenience store a couple of miles away, you understand."

"If it's one of those icky beef sticks, I'm tossing it over the cliff," she warned.

"You just stay where you are," Griffin said. With a little flourish, he presented her with a slender plastic-and-cardboard package.

Jane stared down at the item in her hands. The bright moon was as good as a flashlight. "A toothbrush?"

"Are you aware you hum when you brush your teeth, honey-pie?"

"The *Happy Birthday' song. Twice. Dentists recommend brushing the length of time that takes for optimum cleaning."

He quickly averted his head, but it didn't hide the swift grin.

"Don't laugh at me!"

"It's either that or kiss you, Jane."

She took a half step away from him. "None of that, either."

Still smiling, he pointed to her gift. "This one's special. You can record any song you like, then listen to your favorite while keeping your dentist happy morning and night."

"Oh." Jane regarded it with more interest. "Clever."

His hand dipped back in the bag. "Here."

Out came a small square of cardboard threaded with a pair of earrings. Pink with purple polka dots, they were probably intended for a child, given the color combination.

"They're bows," Griffin said. "You always wear bows."

She looked up at him. His amazing eyes were focused on her, as if he was trying to read her thoughts. Her feet moved again, taking another step away from him and his piercing gaze. "Th-thank you," she said, her voice unsteady.

No man had ever seen so much about her.

He shrugged and then rummaged in the bag. "Last one." His hand stilled inside the paper, and he locked eyes with her. "No matter what happens, Jane, I want you to know..." And then the daredevil reporter seemed to run out of words. Instead of handing over the final gift, he pushed the bag into her hands.

Feeling both curious and oddly cautious, Jane tucked the toothbrush and the earrings into the pockets of her jeans, then reached inside the sack for the next present. Her fingers curled around something plastic and mostly round. Her breath caught in her throat as she drew it out.

A snow globe.

How had he known?

A cheap tourist trinket, it had probably been made thousands and thousands of miles from here but was stamped "Crescent Cove" on the base. Clutching the bag in one hand, Jane let the globe sit on the shelf of her other palm, ignoring how it trembled. Inside the bubble was a dab of blue ocean and a painted beach. On that sat a little gra.s.s shack beside two palm trees and strung between them was a tiny hammock, upon which reclined an even tinier woman in a yellow bikini.

Griffin gestured at the plastic capsule. "You have a suit just that color. So it's as if you'll always be here. Forever."

A p.r.i.c.kle ran across Jane's scalp. Always and forever unable to forget this place or the man she'd fallen in love with. Always and forever wishing for him, worrying about him, wondering if he ever thought of her with regret. Always and forever his, even if he didn't want her. That wasn't any kind of progress.

Panic clutched her throat and wrapped her ribs with heavy bands.

G.o.d knew what expression overtook her face, because Griffin suddenly started forward. "Sweetheart..."

But she couldn't be touched by him, she thought in hasty alarm. Not now. Not ever again. Her feet shuffled in retreat and she put out the hand holding the bag to keep him away.

A sudden gust of wind fluttered her hair and caught at the paper. It was torn from her grasp and instinct had her s.n.a.t.c.hing for it. Unsteadied by the sudden move, she took another step back to keep her balance.

Her foot found air. She felt herself going over the ledge.

IN COMBAT, TIME stretched like a child's imagination, allowing in every boogeyman, every monster-under-the-bed, even as one's vision sharpened and dexterity heightened. Griffin's heart knelled like slow thunder as he saw Jane wobble and her body arch over the edge. Fear tasted like ash on his tongue as he lunged for her. Image after image shuffled through his mind as he made the long reach.

Jane plummeting onto sharp rocks, Jane plunging into chilly water and never coming up, Jane falling toward her greatest fear as her body slipped through his hands. She'd go down thinking he'd failed her like every other man in her life.

Your kind always lets go.

But then-miracle!-he caught her upper arm. His fingers closed over her slender biceps, locking them together. Just as he prepared to yank her back to safety, though, he realized that her momentum was too much for him to battle.

In this, the librarian couldn't defy the laws of physics.

They both went over, the ocean a second or two away. But it took a very long time to fall when you'd really rather not.

Enough time for Griffin to realize that Jane wouldn't know to swim away from the rocks to keep from being bashed against them.

Enough time for that thought to plow with the power of an ice-breaking ship through his frozen heart.

Enough time for him to be certain he wouldn't survive one more loss. That he wouldn't survive without her in his life.

Dark, cold water closed over him like a thick shroud. It tried tearing Jane from his grasp, but knowing what was at stake, he hung on to her, kicking powerfully with his legs to take them both away from the dangerous crags. To his surprise, she was kicking too, doing her share, but the unexpected dousing, fully clothed, made it a heavy slog.

For every movement forward, the water washed them back. He'd lost his flip-flops, and he felt the bite of rock on his sole as he pushed off to propel Jane away from danger. "Let...go!" she gasped out, then coughed. "Let. Me. Go!"

Let go? He couldn't let go. He'd never let go.

But then she wrenched free of him, and without the hamper of a second body, she started stroking away. Heart pounding in his ears, he followed behind, matching his arm pulls to hers. It wasn't easy getting away from the surf breaking against the bluff. It still fought to wash them back, just as they fought to break from it. He was breathing hard, anxiety taking its toll, and his panic didn't lessen, even when he realized the sh.o.r.eline was a straight shot ahead.

People drowned in bathtubs. In puddles. In their own blood.

Those thoughts were still in his mind as their bellies. .h.i.t sand. They combat crawled and coughed their way onto the beach. Safe.

Lying on the sand beside her, he tried coping with the aftermath of horror and the sharp spike of survival euphoria. And the new sudden yet certain understanding that his life was about to take a drastic turn.

He glanced over when he finally caught his breath. "We have to talk."

Then he jerked upright and put his hand on her shoulder. "Jane!" She was sodden and cold as a corpse, her eyes open and staring straight at the sky. Jesus, was she dead? "Jane."

"I'm right here," she said, sounding slow and drunk. One hand flopped on the sand like a fish. "Right. Here."

"Oh, thank G.o.d." He pulled her into his lap, curled his chilled and wet body over her chilled and wet body. Pressing his cheek to hers, he rocked them a little. He couldn't lose her now.

His arms tightened. "I was terrified, d.a.m.n you," he said, his voice rough. "Beyond terrified. And if anything had happened to you, I would have killed you!"

She reached up to pat his dripping hair as she would Private. "Calm down."

"I am calm. I'm always calm!"

Her hand gave him another pat. "No, you're not. You throw things-plates, fists, fits. I'm not sure if you're aware, but those aren't really the actions of a ninety-nine-percent no-feelings guy." She allowed that a minute to sink in. "Just saying."

"Jane, I..." But a shiver racked her small frame, and new alarm rushed through him. "We have to get you warm." He picked them both up off the sand and half carried, half led her to Beach House No. 9. Private greeted them with a worried whine and stealthy licks at the salt water running off their bodies.

Griffin escorted her to the guest bath when she insisted on privacy, then hit his own shower. Standing under the spray, his restless mind replayed the event: his alarm upon seeing her on the cliff, his panic when she started to fall, that absolute certainty that he couldn't go on without her.

She'd come to mean so much. And yes, she was right again, d.a.m.n her. He wasn't a ninety-nine-percent no-feelings guy.

Even as anxiety beat its vulture wings in his belly at the idea, he could no longer hide from the truth. His heart was no longer untouchable. h.e.l.l, it was no longer his own. He hadn't wanted this, had never wanted this, but the battle was lost.

Dry and dressed again, he stood outside the bathroom where Jane was cleaning up, overwhelmed by the need to see her and touch her. Each moment that pa.s.sed ratcheted his tension higher. His hand rubbed a nervous path on the thigh of his jeans, and he had to keep telling himself to unclench his back teeth. Nothing had prepared him for this feeling.

Never had he felt so vulnerable.

And still Jane didn't emerge from the shower.

"It's taking too long," he muttered. Then he banged on the door with his knuckles. "You're wasting water!"

She came out long minutes later, wrapped in a towel and flushed with heat, a pink cast to her cheeks, her shoulders, her chest.

"Are you all right?" he demanded.

"It seems I am," she said, her expression bemused. "I saved myself from the giant eels and the whale snot."

Griffin wanted to claim that he had saved her, but of course it wasn't true. "You did," he acknowledged. "You did."

"I'm sort of an ocean stud now," she added, a satisfied gleam in her eyes.

G.o.d, the woman just slayed him. His mouth twitched with a smile. "You are."

"Well, then." She took a quick step. "I have clothes in my car-"

"You don't need clothes," he said brusquely.

Her downy brows came together. "What?"

"Just a minute, just a minute," he muttered, then stalked down the hall, stalked back.

"Griffin?"

"I'm a writer, okay? Give me a second to find the words."

Instead of being patient as he thought she should, she brushed past him and turned into the master bedroom. There she rummaged through his drawers, filching a pair of boxers and a T-shirt. She went behind another closed bathroom door to put them on.

He found himself rapping on that door too. How long did it take to get dressed? "Hurry up."

Her expression was a little forlorn when she finally emerged. "I lost my new toothbrush."

"I'll buy you another one."

"I don't mind about the earrings. They were designed for a five-year-old."

"Hey, it's the thought that counts," he said, nearly annoyed.

She swallowed, and the new expression overtaking her face was one he couldn't read. "I never want to see that snow globe again."

He frowned at her. "That kind of hurts my feelings."

"Are we back to that?" Now, for the first time since they'd washed up on the beach, she sounded weary. "I thought you were sure you didn't have any."

He hesitated one more moment, and then he saw a shiver work its way up her spine. "You're still cold." Jane should never be cold again.

He reached out, intent on sweeping her to his chest. The maddening librarian stepped back, forcing him to beg for her patience. Which she seemed to like. "Please, Jane. Please give me a moment of your time."

She allowed herself to be towed to the living room, where he wrapped her in a blanket and placed her on the couch. He sat on the coffee table opposite her, staring into her lovely face.

A tense silence developed as he tried to figure out what to tell her.

"I've already showed you the inside of my heart, Griffin," she said in a tight voice. "Can't you leave me alone now?"

"You don't understand," he answered. "I'm trying to see myself in your eyes. I keep thinking they're like mirrors."

She c.o.c.ked her head, cautious. "What is it you think you should see?"

Griffin took a breath. A life unexamined is not worth living. "That final explosion in the Humvee...the one that took Jackal's leg-it splintered me into pieces. One part objective reporter, one part combatant affected-no, injured-by war, one part human being grieving for friends lost and wounded. I've been avoiding putting those three back together."

"You don't say."

"Smart-a.s.s." He scrubbed his hands through his hair. "Separated like that, it seemed I could keep myself from feeling-" Breaking off, he forced himself to breathe.

"But you are feeling. You're hurting. That's why you're-"

"Throwing plates, fists and fits." He looked away, looked back. She deserved the truth. "I'm having flashbacks. More all the time."

"Oh, Griffin." Sitting straighter, she leaned toward him. "How frightening."

His mouth was dry. "I'm a mess." He'd been trying to deny it for so long. Refusing to acknowledge what everyone had been telling him.

"You can get help."

"Rex thinks the book will go a long way toward that," he said, then hesitated. "I'm not going to Gage. I'm done with war."