Page 146 of Perfectly Matched: Harbor Falls Romance Collection

I don’t know what I want.

Rick heard the words, barely spoken, as they came from Gracie’s lips two nights earlier. She’d avoided him since then and he hadn’t pushed the issue. All he could think about, however, was Gracie’s lips and how much he had enjoyed kissing them.

She was confused, he thought, and if the truth be known, so was he. He knew why he was confused—he’d vowed not to get involved with anyone until Izzie was older and both their lives were back on track. Until he felt safe again and could trust himself in a relationship with another woman. Until he knew there was a woman in their lives who wouldn’t break either of their hearts—his and Izzie’s.

Since Marci, he had a difficult time with trust. He had no desire to experience again what he’d felt when Marci had left them both, ripping their lives apart. He never wanted to experience that hopelessness again.

He wished he knew what was going on in Gracie’s head. He wished he knew about her past, what happened with the man whose picture still sat on her bedside table. The one who had died.

Even more, he wanted to know how that man’s death affected her life now, for he had a distinct feeling that it did—whether she would own up to that, or not.

The winds picked up outside as rain thrashed against his window. A late-night summer storm had turned a bit brutal. Rick looked out over the street from his living room window and watched the rain come down in slanted sheets; debris tossed about on the sidewalks. Suddenly, he realized that this might be a bit more than a typical summer thunderstorm. When the emergency warning siren on top of the courthouse down the street went off seconds later, his suspicions were confirmed.

Without warning, a solid updraft of wind took the awning below—the one which had seconds ago spanned the space over both his and Gracie’s shop doors—tore completely off and was tossed like wadded-up tissue into the street.

Turning, he ran toward his apartment door. “Gracie!”

She met him on the landing outside of their apartments, wide-eyed and a sleepy-but-frightened look across her face. She froze, holding his gaze while thunder ripped and rumbled over the building and a flash of lightning split the night. The building moaned under the stress of the windstorm outside. Inside the lights flickered.

“The cellar!”

she shouted and grabbed his arm.

“Let’s go!”

He pulled her close, his arms around her, and they ran down the stairs towards the first-floor landing. Behind the stairwell, Gracie fiddled with another lock, finally opened it, and they descended into the dark cellar.

“I can’t see,”

Rick told her.

“Wait.”

She tugged on his arm.

He heard her fumbling against the wall and finally a bulb overhead lit the stairway.

“There’s a flashlight around here somewhere,”

he heard her say. “There.”

Rick looked where she was pointing, fished the flashlight out between the handrail and the wall, flipped it on and saw that the batteries were still working, and then grasped her hand to lead her further into the cellar.

“I haven’t been down here in ages,”

she told him.

With the next crack of lightning and thunder, the power went out.

Gracie gasped and clutched his forearm. Rick glanced about and then led her away from into the interior of the cellar. Wind thrashed against the window wells and the storm roared above their heads. Flashing the light into a darkened corner, he spotted several wooden boxes stacked against the wall, underneath the stairwell.

“Let’s get back in here,”

he told her.

“I don’t even want to know what’s back there,”

Gracie told him. He thought she might be hesitant to crawl back under the stairway, until a boom and a crash up above sent her into his arms, both toppling back against the boxes.

She shivered in his arms. Rick sat back against one of the wooden crates and pulled her closer, cradling her between his legs. She was practically sitting in his lap, her head against his chest, and her arms around him.

She was wearing that damn sleep shirt he liked so much.

“Are you okay?”

he whispered after a minute.

“No.”

He smiled to himself.

“You’re shaking.”

“I know.”

“I won’t let anything happen to you, Gracie.”

She nodded against his chest.

“I won’t let anything happen to you, either.”

He smiled again and planted a small kiss on the top of her head.

“God, I hate tornadoes,”

she told him a little later.

“Have you been in many?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“Never. But now I know I hate them.”

“Maybe it’s just a bad thunderstorm. It will be over soon,”

he promised.

“I’m holding you do that, Mister.”

Rick grinned and held her tighter. Even during a tornado, she felt good in his arms and he was very conscious of the fact that in his arms was exactly where he wanted her. The storm was just a convenient situation—although he felt a strong, manly need to protect and keep her safe.

Something collided against the back door above, sending a whoosh of wind and a shattering of tinkling glass into the back landing and down the stairwell above their heads. Gracie squealed a little and burrowed in closer to his chest. He didn’t mind that at all. They rode out the storm for thirty minutes or longer and when it finally died down enough that he felt they were safe to move, Rick said.

“I think it’s over.”

“Let’s wait a little longer,”

she told him.

He couldn’t argue that holding her was what he wanted to do but an urgent need to check out the storm damage niggled at him.

“The storm is over, Gracie. Let’s go see what it left behind.”

She looked up at him then, her eyes wide.

“Oh my, our shops!”

“Yeah,”

he answered.

“We should take a look.”

****

The storm roared through Harbor Falls and left an uncanny silence in the village. Gracie felt the chilling calm as they assessed the damages. The power was still out, and it was hours until daylight, but they tried to check out what they could by flashlight.

The interior of Gracie’s shop fared a little better than the storefront. The storm had pushed rainwater under the front door and puddled on the old plank wood floors and around the window—all that appeared ruined were some Oriental rugs. Gracie breathed a sigh of relief that the contents of the shop were intact.

Outside, though, the exterior awning was gone, entirely ripped away, leaving nothing but crumbling brick behind. Her flowerpots and window boxes were scattered down the street and beyond. A bench, which had at one time sat beside of the front door, now reduced to nothing more than potential toothpick material.

Rick’s side, however, didn’t fare so well.

When the storm took the awning from the building, a metal support pole penetrated the front shop window, shattering it. Glass was blown inward and peppered throughout the bar. Everything in the room was water-soaked. Chairs and tables were toppled and scattered. Everything behind the bar—liquor bottles and glasses—were in shards. Flat-screened television sets, once hung with precision on the walls, were in pieces on the floor.

“This was one helluva storm.”

Gracie eyed Rick as he glanced about the bar he’d worked to make exactly right and suddenly all her past concerns about his business faded. Her heart ached for him.

“I’m so sorry Rick.”

He turned toward her.

“Not your fault. I’ll just clean it up and start over. I have insurance.”

“Me too. But I feel so bad… All of your hard work.”

Studying her face, he smiled.

“I’m not afraid of hard work. I’ll get it back in shape.”

Smiling back, she admired his perseverance and his doggedness.

“I’m sure you will, Rick.”

Sighing, she added.

“We don’t get many storms like this in Harbor Falls. I imagine no one was prepared for this.”

“I imagine not.”

He nodded, then added.

“Well, I guess today was the day.”

Outside, a fire siren sounded from the station on the next street, and they started to hear movement and shouts as people assessed the damage. They glanced about, looking toward the street. After a moment, Rick turned to Gracie and said.

“I’m going to see if I can find some plywood somewhere to board up that window. I think that’s about all we can do tonight without power. Our work is cut out for us tomorrow.”

Gracie nodded and slowly panned the room.

“I’m just glad Izzie wasn’t here,”

she said quietly.

“Yes. I know.”

Something clutched at Gracie’s gut. “Rick,”

she began hesitantly.

“we’re often in the same storm path as Asheville…maybe you should call and check on Izzie?”

She watched the expression on his face freeze.

“Hell. You’re right.”

Within the next several minutes, Rick had called Kate and learned that the storm had skirted Asheville. Izzie slept through the entire thing—but Kate was relieved to know that things were good in Harbor Falls after hearing the news reports. While on the phone, Rick arranged with Kate for Izzie to stay another couple of days while they cleaned up the shops, then he set about to boarding up the front window while Gracie headed back upstairs to check out the condition of both apartments.

Later, Rick found her in her bedroom, curled onto her side in her bed, softly crying into her pillow.

****

Rick didn’t know anything else to do but to go to her. Lying down beside her, he pulled Gracie into his arms and she turned into him, wrapping her arms about his waist and snuggling close. Her tucked beneath his chin, his fingers gently stroked her hair away.

She sobbed softly for a few minutes and he just held her. He supposed all of this was just a lot to absorb.

“Sh,”

he cooed.

“Everything is all right now.”

She didn’t answer but just clung closer and sniffled.

Rick didn’t know when a woman had ever felt so good in his arms. The past two nights he’d dreamed of holding her and tenderly making love to her. It was something he’d decided, if given the chance, he had to risk—not making love with her but loving her. He’d decided that loving Gracie was worth the risk, even if it turned out to be painful for him in the end. Making love with her would simply be the icing on the cake.

“Why are you so upset, sweetheart?”

he whispered. The room was dark except for the dull glow of an emergency-powered street lamp outside her window. Rick wanted to see her face but kept his eyes closed and gently caressed her cheek, thinking of her beautiful face.

“It’s just,”

she whispered and then paused.

“it just hit me, we could have lost everything.”

“But we didn’t.”

“I’m glad Izzie wasn’t here,”

she said again.

“Me, too.”

She was silent for a moment, still sniffling occasionally. He held her closer.

“I lost everything in my life once,”

she said after another few minutes.

“I don’t want that to ever happen again.”

Rick thought about that for a moment.

“When Marci left, I thought my world had ended,”

he told her.

“But at least I still had Izzie and my job. I survived. I’m not sure what it would feel like to lose everything.”

Gracie took a deep breath and slowly exhaled.

“It’s hell,”

she whispered.

Rick decided to take a risk.

“Tell me about it, Gracie.”

For a while all he heard, all he felt, was her breathing. She took in long, even breaths and let them slowly out against his chest. After a few minutes, she pulled away and stared into his face. The both lay there, heads facing each other on the pillow.

“All I ever wanted was to dance,”

she began softly.

“It was all I ever did as a child and my parents helped me reach that dream by sending me to the finest dance instructors. When I graduated from high school, I went to New York. In no time, I was dancing with a very prestigious troupe and was making quite a name for myself. I was living my dream and every minute of my existence focused on that dream. I was consumed for years. And then I met Evan.”

She stopped and Rick said nothing. All he wanted to do was listen.

“Evan wasn’t a dancer and it was a fluke that we even met because all my time was spent on the road or practicing. We bumped into each other on the subway one afternoon and it was sort of a magical, love-at-first-sight kind of thing.”

Rick couldn’t tell, but he thought he saw a little glimmer in her eye as she talked about him. He wondered if that glimmer was a tear, or a twinkle from a fond memory.

“He was a stock broker, knew nothing about the dance world, but he loved me. And I loved him. We were planning to be married. The date was set. Then...”

She closed her eyes and Rick felt her tense. He stroked her cheek again and caught a tear that had escaped an eyelid. Tears. He was moved by her sadness and only wanted to protect, to ease her pain.

“You don’t have to go on if you don’t want,”

he whispered. He didn’t want her to endure this for his sake, but he had a feeling she needed to go on.

She shook her head.

“I want to,”

she murmured back.

He let her gather herself again, waiting for her to continue. After a couple of minutes, she continued.

“We each had a weekend off and decided to take a drive out of the city to get away from the rat race for a while. We had no plans, just out for a leisurely Saturday afternoon in the country. Our excursion didn’t last long. In fact, it came to an abrupt ending. There was barely time to think let along process it all.

It started raining and a large truck rounded a curve met us nearly head on. Evan braked and lost control of the car. We skidded into the guardrail and flipped over a hill.

“Evan died immediately. I was conscious and laid there until help arrived. It was horrible and seemed like hours. I knew he was dead. My right leg was badly broken, and I was in incredible pain. I passed out time and again with it all. I had a few other cuts and bruises, but at least I was alive.

“Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to dance again.”

“Why?”

“The leg took months to heal. It was a difficult break in two places. My life was in such a dark cloud, I didn’t care about doing physical therapy or even trying to dance again. I would have traded my dancing career for Evan’s life but that was not going to happen. So, I decided that dancing would never be a part of my life again and I didn’t do what I needed to do to get the leg back in shape. It wasn’t in me. I couldn’t.

“After a while, I came back to Harbor Falls. My father had died a year before the accident. My mother had died a couple of years prior to that. This building was my father’s, so it was now mine. It took me a while, but I eventually turned to something other than dancing. That’s when Romantically Yours was born. And ever since then, this is all I have. All I’ve wanted. Until...”

She didn’t finish her thought. Rick wanted badly to know where that thought was leading but he was sure she wasn’t going to say anything more. He wanted to draw her closer, to hold her next to his heart and keep her there but he was afraid she’d pull back, that this wasn’t the time. So, he simply watched her face.

“There’s been no one in your life since then? I mean, romantically. I’m sorry if that is prying but—”

Gracie shook her head and looked into his eyes. “No,”

she whispered.

“No. It’s just too damn scary.”

He searched her face. It was now or never, and he didn’t know if there would ever be another opportunity like this one. He had to tell her, in some subtle way, how he felt about her. That he loved her. But he didn’t want to frighten her away.

That’s what scared the hell out of him.

“What if there was someone else who was scared, too,”

he said softly, his fingertips stroking her chin and lips.

“What if that someone was willing to risk falling in love again, even though he was scared to death, too? What if, for him, it was worth the risk? Would you still be scared?”

The tears that fell down Gracie’s cheeks were fat and big and the sob that choked from her throat tore at Rick’s heart.

“I would still be scared,”

she said, barely louder than a breath, her gaze clinging to his.

“But not as much if I knew we could be scared together.”

It was as though his heart burst then, with all the love and tenderness he wanted to show to Gracie pouring forth. He kissed her, and her lips tasted like a fine wine. Within seconds, he was drunk with the thought of loving her for the rest of his life and he kissed her again.

****

Gracie knew nothing else but to finally let go.

The touch of Rick’s lips to hers allowed her the surrender she’d ached for. It was a huge release, an enormous burden lifted from her shoulders and off her mind, melting away with a whoosh as his hands drew tenderly over her face and his lips softly caressed hers. He whispered her name and Gracie never wanted him to stop touching her or kissing her.

She’d denied for so long that she possessed incredibly deep feelings for Rick. She’d refused to believe she could be in love with him. But this moment—this precise moment in time—was the one she’d remember for her lifetime as the one where she’d finally let it all go.

All of it. The past. Her ache for a future with a husband and a child. Her fear of falling in love again. Her fear of having that love snatched away. She could finally let it go. She could risk loving again. And she wanted to take that risk with Rick.

Now.

Rick’s hand slipped underneath Gracie’s nightshirt and she shivered as his fingers slid up her thigh and over her hip. Raw tingles of passion long denied snaked through her tummy as those same fingers gently teased their way up her waist to the tender area just beneath a breast. Rick gently cupped her flesh and Gracie moaned at the basic pleasure of him touching her. She arched her body into his hand while he caressed and thumbed her nipple.

His mouth still consumed hers, their tongues slowly mingling and parrying. Gracie let Rick take the lead, weary of being the strong independent woman she’d forced herself to be for the past ten years. All she wanted at this moment was to absorb his attention and his ministrations, and revel in the heat he was stoking inside of her.

For the first time in a long time, she just wanted to feel thoroughly and completely loved. Mind. Soul. Heart. Body.

Her nightshirt was gone within seconds. Rick hurriedly pulled it over her head and rolled her onto her back. He covered her body with his and gazed into her eyes while he made lazy circles with his fingertips at her temples. Gracie reached up and touched her tongue to his lips.

Once. Twice. Then again.

The fourth time she teased him with her tongue, Rick grasped her face with his hands and held her to him as he devoured her lips with his mouth, then rained kisses all over her face.

“Gracie,”

he breathed.

“I want you to be sure. I don’t want to do anything that you’re not ready to—”

“Love me, Rick,”

she breathed back between his kisses.

“Love me with your body right now, and later, with your words. Make love to me.”

He answered her desire with a groan and the quick removal of his clothing. Gracie knew that there was no turning back now, that once she’d succumbed to the passion building between then, she would have difficulty separating herself emotionally from him should there ever come a time that she would be forced to do that.

But she was willing to take the risk.

And she was no longer thinking about that.

Rick’s warm body, his skin, felt so wonderful as he covered her again, one of his legs nudging gently between her thighs. The next seconds, minutes, hours, it seemed, were simply kisses and touches as Rick explored her body from the tip of her nose to the valley between her breasts and traveling further to rain kisses on her belly and lower.

He lingered between her thighs, bringing sweet ecstasy to her there as his lips nibbled and played and his tongue leisurely pleasured her. And when Gracie could take no more of, she reached for him, wanting him inside her, urging his body up and over hers.

He kissed her then with unbridled passion and within seconds, Gracie felt him nudge her thighs further apart and slip inside her body.

His length filled her, and Gracie exhaled deeply at the sweet content and fulfillment she felt, and at the sudden serenity that overtook her soul. But she didn’t have long to revel in that completeness for passion overtook both in a frenzied whirl as the night consumed them and surrounded them—not unlike the whirlwind that had swept through Harbor Falls earlier—and with pleasures they’d both too long denied.

Sometime later, Gracie lay by Rick’s side, her heart and body and soul full of him, feeling totally and completely, in love.

And she wasn’t frightened. Not at all.

They slept, and when they woke early the next morning, they loved each other again.

*****

The next two days were complete bliss.

Rick and Gracie took turns working and cleaning up each other’s shops and sleeping in each other’s beds. They rested often, taking frequent naps throughout the day, justifying to each other that the after-storm cleanup was zapping their energy and that they needed frequent naps to keep up their strength.

The thing was, their naptimes nearly always turned into lovemaking time, with both more exhausted after their naps than before.

But they didn’t care. They were in love. And everything else paled in comparison.

By Saturday afternoon, they were ready to fetch Izzie from Asheville and Gracie went with Rick to get her. Izzie didn’t say anything for a long time but just kept looking strangely at the two of them while they had dinner in Asheville, when they stopped for ice cream in the way home, and then later as they watched a movie in Rick’s apartment.

“So, are you guys in love or something?”

she finally blurted out, turning to her father.

Rick was surprised at his daughter’s abrupt question, although he shouldn’t have been. Izzie thrived on surprises and blunt honesty. He and Gracie had decided that they weren’t going to say anything to Izzie yet, though, and let things naturally progress. They’d avoided too much contact, not holding hands and the like, thinking that she wouldn’t notice anything.

Obviously, Izzie was more in tune with the both than either expected.

He glanced to Gracie, who had blushed at Izzie’s question.

“You know Gracie and I are friends, Izzie.”

The child passed her gaze back and forth between the two. “Hm.”

she said. “Friends.”

She didn’t say anything else the remainder of the evening until Rick tucked her into bed a couple of hours later.

“You can’t trick me, Dad,”

she told her father.

“I know things.”

Rick smiled, pinched her cheek, and bid her goodnight without another word. A part of him wanted to share how he felt about Gracie. Another part, the protecting part, wanted to wait. That was the nagging part that told him to be cautious, to make sure, before involving Izzie too deeply.

But all in all, life was good, and after Izzie was fast asleep, he made love to Gracie in her bed before slipping back into his own in the wee hours.

Then on Sunday morning, he woke to a phone call that sent his world into an out-of-control downward spiral.