Chapter 15
Sometime during the interminable night, Jody woke and began to cry. Outside, the wind howled frantically, a monster promising to devour everything in its path; inside, the bedroom was a velvet shroud smothering them both in the black terrors of the night. Murmuring encouragement, Julianna got up and found the candles she had taken as she had hurried from the living room, lighting one to penetrate the darkness. The flame wavered, a challenge to a draft that found its way through the sturdy walls, but the light comforted the little girl. She fell back asleep in minutes.
Julianna tucked the blanket more closely around Jody’s small body before she settled herself in an overstuffed chair near the table where the candle burned. The candle might comfort the little girl, but Julianna wasn’t comfortable letting it burn while they both slept.
Not that she’d been sleeping, anyway.
She had replayed her conversation with Gray until it was burned into her memory. Now she forced herself to think about Jody. The little girl would be gone soon, and the feel of a small warm body snuggled against her own would be nothing more than a memory.
In the last days Jody had taught her that she still wanted to be a mother. No matter how irrational or dangerous her longing, the longing for a child was still part of who she was.
Long ago she had learned not to reach for her heart’s desires, sure that the Fates would step in again and keep them just an arm’s length away. Even now she only rarely allowed herself to feel joy in her own accomplishments. She tried to feel nothing at all, cheating the Fates of their small victories.
But all along, from the moment she had packed a suitcase and escaped from the man she loved, who had she really cheated? The Fates, or herself?
What did she have to show for twenty-eight years?
And what did Gray have?
Who had been cheated?
She had been sure her defenses were as solid and sure as the house surrounding her, but now she knew that, like the house, her defenses were flawed. She only hoped the house was stronger than she was.
“Julianna?”
She opened her eyes at the whispered question, lifting her head to stare through the darkness at the wavering flame of a second candle protected by a man’s hand. “Gray?”
She watched as the flame moved closer to her chair. As he drew nearer, Gray came into focus.
“What’s wrong?” She stood, afraid they might wake Jody.
He spoke softly. “I’m afraid Eve’s made up her mind which island she wants. She’s heading right toward Oahu.”
She had suspected as much, but she was sorry to have it confirmed. “Where do they expect her to come ashore?”
“North of here, but I’m afraid we’re going to feel like she came just to see us.”
“I’ve felt that way since the first raindrop. Should we be getting ready?”
“We’ve done most of what we can. Now we just have to wait.”
“Why did you come to tell me, then?” She watched as the light moved lower. He set it on the table beside her own.
“I knew you wouldn’t be asleep. I wanted to be sure you were all right.”
“Jody was afraid of the dark.”
Gray nodded, touched by her devotion to the little girl. “And you know what that feels like, don’t you? Are you very frightened of the storm?”
She was surprised to realize she wasn’t, but not surprised that Gray would ask. “I was awake even before I got up to light the candle. But I’m okay.”
“Good.” Gray touched her shoulder. “Nothing’s going to happen to us. We’re up too high to flood, and as hurricanes go, this one’s small potatoes.”
“When is it due to hit?”
“Sometime between eight and nine. It’s four-thirty now. Do you want to stay here until Jody wakes up? Dillon thinks we should all wait out the worst of it in the den, and I’m inclined to agree.”
She thought of the cozy little room with few windows and nodded. They would feel safer together. “I’ll give her another hour or so, then I’ll get her up.”
Gray seemed reluctant to leave. “I feel like I’ve done this before.” He slid his hand down the length of her hair, lifting a thick lock and draping it over her shoulder. “Do you remember the night on Granger Inlet when we waited out the storm together?”
“Gray,” she warned, “we’re not alone.”
“Maybe not, but there’s more that has to be said.”
“Please, haven’t we said everything?”
“Not nearly everything.”
“Then we’ve said enough.”
“Not nearly enough. Not nearly the most important things.”
“This is no time—”
“Julianna, you can’t ignore what’s happening between us. Neither of us can.”
The room fell silent except for the fierce sound of the wind intensifying in a slow crescendo. Julianna didn’t even want to breathe.
“We can’t avoid this,” Gray said at last when it was clear she wasn’t going to answer him. “We can’t pretend we feel nothing.”
Once begun, her words conveyed her desperation. “As soon as you’re away from here you’ll feel differently.”
“If I go away and I still feel the same, what then?”
“What about Paige?”
He was silent. It was a question he had asked himself all through the long, sleepless night.
Julianna read his silence accurately. “There’s no room for you in my life,” she said, turning away.
“I am in your life. I’m your husband.”
She wanted to tell him a piece of paper meant nothing, but a voice from the other side of the room stopped her. “Julianna?”
She turned and saw that Jody was sitting up, rubbing her eyes.
“Julianna?”
“I’m right here, honey. Gray’s here, too. Did we wake you up?”
“I had a dream.” Jody sniffed, obviously upset. “A bad dream!”
Julianna and Gray exchanged worried, guilty glances.
“My mommy and daddy were fighting,” Jody went on. “I could hear them.”
Julianna went to her side and sat on the edge of the bed. She held out her arms, and Jody snuggled against her. “It was just a dream,” Julianna told her, wrapping her arms tightly around Jody’s back. “You heard us talking while you were asleep, and that made you dream about your mommy and daddy.”
Gray sat down on the other side of the bed and began to stroke Jody’s hair. He didn’t look at Julianna. This was how they would have sat with Ellie. This was what they had lost.
“My daddy got mad, and he started to hit my mommy,” Jody said, her voice breaking. “And I ran away.”
“You miss your mommy, and you’re worried about her. It was just a dream,” Julianna soothed her.
“No it wasn’t.”
Before Julianna could deny the little girl’s words, Gray cupped Jody’s chin in his hand and turned her head. “That happened a long time ago,” he told her. “Your daddy and mommy don’t live together anymore, Jody. He can’t hurt your mommy again.”
Jody sighed, as if Gray’s words calmed some deep fear inside her. “I wish my daddy was like you, Gray,” she said sleepily.
Julianna badly wanted to cry. She’d known little about the circumstances of Jody’s presence in Hawaii, but the little girl’s fears told more of the story. “We’re going to take care of you,” Julianna promised. “Gray and I will take care of you, and then your mommy will come.”
“Stay here,” Jody said, her eyelids drooping shut. “Don’t go.” She fell asleep again as soon as the last word was out of her mouth.
Julianna and Gray looked at each other in the flickering candlelight. “This is the way it would have been,” he said at last, voicing the sentiment for both of them.
“Don’t.”
“You and me and our child. A family.”
“How can you?” she whispered.
He bent and kissed the little girl’s cheek before sliding off the bed to
his feet. “I can say it,” he said, “because it could be that way someday again.”
“No.”
“Think about it, Julie Ann.”
“Julie Ann is gone, Gray.”
He loomed over her, as if gathering his patience, but when he spoke, his voice was calm. “I hope you like living with Julianna, then, sweetheart, because if you’re afraid to feel anything besides fear, she’s all the company you’re going to have in the years to come.”
He turned, leaving his candle burning beside hers on the table. When he closed the door, both flames flickered, then died in the resulting draft.
Julianna, left with Jody in the darkness, wondered if she had finally cheated the Fates, or if they had just won the ultimate victory.