Sun-Kissed (17 page)

Jaime’s face screwed up. “She’s a replacement for
us
?”

Dom’s strong black eyebrows rose. “I thought you said they’d been best friends for most of your life.”

Jaime nodded.

“Then she’s not a replacement for anyone at all. She’s herself.”

Jaime rested a hand on his chest and smiled up at him. “How did you get so smart?”

Dom pulled her in closer to him and bent his head to her. “I read a lot of poetry,” he said wryly.

Anne moved away, before she could eavesdrop herself into feeling even rawer.

Or…more solid?

She was herself.

That was incontrovertibly true.

She still even
felt
like herself. Just…warmed all through.

Not lonely.

And Mack—she looked across the garden at him, where he had gotten distracted by Sylvain again, because apparently Sylvain had had the nerve to flip one of the burgers while Mack’s back was turned. Her shoulders relaxed just at the sight of him. The thought of him being able to reach casually out to her and wrap her up against him made her feel so
secure.

As if she could do the same to him.

Until at some point, he stood with his hands in his pockets, talking to Summer, nodding seriously. He always did that, with Summer—tamed his hands a bit. Was careful not to impose himself on her, careful to show her respect and seriousness. Anne overheard the word
satellite
, and Mack nodded again, so determined to be a surrogate dad to Summer he’d probably buy her one—but only if she made a reasoned, convincing argument first.
I really love that man
, she thought, and it washed over her, the first time she had ever let her brain think it out loud.

But she’d loved him when he stood grim-faced in the courtroom, his fists clenched, barely able to restrain himself from leaping at her prosecution.

She’d loved him when he ripped chunks of the beach up and threw them into the waves, wracked with grief and rage for his daughter.

She’d loved him even when Julie died. This careful love she kept to herself, not this thing that kept her awake at night wishing for him or anything, just this secret, tender awe at the man handling that grief, struggling to be a good dad to his daughters.

She hadn’t wanted to think about it. She hadn’t wanted to say it in her head. But now that she thought about it, she realized it had always been true.

She slipped her own hands in her pockets and drifted up to him, not too different, really, from falling into step with him on the beach. His face lit—just lit, that radical change that had occurred in his happiness beaming out of him—and he wrapped an arm around her shoulders immediately. Anchoring her to his side. Affirming his claim.

Mine. She’s mine. I, Mack Corey, own the world.

But she was Anne Winters. And she wasn’t about to be
owned
. So she slipped one of her hands out of her pocket and slid it into the back pocket of his jeans.
Mine.
And she squeezed his ass, just a little.

He grinned as if she’d just put the Eiffel Tower on his birthday cake and lit it for him to blow out.

Mack Corey.

She shook her head a little bit, and when he glanced down at her, she smiled up at him.

“I’ll do it,” Mack told Summer. “You should have asked me in the first place. Shit, Summer.” Even as he spoke, his attention completely on Summer, his thumb rubbed over the curve of Anne’s shoulder, savoring it.

Summer shrugged in that sliding silk way she had and looked away, with that vague smile.

“You should have,” Mack repeated more firmly. “Damn it, Summer. Julie must have told you a hundred times you could come to us whenever you needed.”

Summer blinked. Anne saw her swallow hard, and those beautiful, ever-photographed blue eyes of hers shimmered suddenly with tears. Anne never let others see her tears, but she knew
exactly
where Summer’s came from: just to have that strong, firm offer of human caring, of help. Of someone willing to be there when you needed him.

Over by Sylvain and Dom, Luc turned his head suddenly and his black gaze zeroed in on them, intent enough to cut. “I…she die—she d—she wasn’t there anymore,” Summer said softly.

Mack gave Anne a helpless look. “I’m sorry. We were such a mess after that, that I—that you—I’m sorry. But you still—” Then he conquered the helplessness—this man
always
conquered his helplessness—and spoke firmly. “I mean, I know Sam’s your dad, Summer, and I can’t do anything about that. But come to me if you need something. Don’t go to him.”

Summer blinked rapidly, and Anne bit the inside of her lip. That was a raw thing, to know your own dad was crappier than your cousins’. It was raw like having this hole in you that would never be filled with a baby, while some luminous, gorgeous blonde stood in front of you with a hand possessively caressing her rounded belly. Neither Anne nor her daughter-in-law were likely to have more kids, any more than Summer was going to have her childhood transformed into one with loving parents. Sometimes you just had to deal with the cards life dealt you. Sam Corey, Summer’s father, might be one of the wealthiest investors in the world, but he’d made a raw mess of his daughter.

Anne turned her head suddenly to find Kurt. Had she? Made a mess of her son? But Kurt and Kai were standing with the macaron chef, Philippe, and his wife Magalie. Kai was laughing, looking like her old self, and Kurt had a deep relaxation in his body. This profound ease of a man who had learned to wallow in every moment of happiness his life could hold. Anne didn’t know if she could take any credit for it, but Kurt was happy.

Luc appeared by Summer’s side, slipped his hand into her hair to rub it, and then let his hand slide down to her shoulder, massaging it almost exactly the way Mack was rubbing Anne’s.

Summer took a long, slow breath and nodded once deliberately, that threat of tears fading. Her whole being strengthened, with that hand on her neck, infused with this quiet, intense happiness. “Thank you,” she told Mack.

“Any time,” Mack answered firmly, looking her in the eye.

Another little shimmer in Summer’s eyes, that look of someone touched straight to the heart by kindness. She nodded and gave Mack a smile that was a little shy, as she turned to Luc. Luc, just before he drew her away, reached out and shook Mack’s hand. Just this one firm clasp before he returned that hand to its pocket and headed off with her.

“He calls me
Monsieur
,” Mack said finally to Anne, after the other couple had gone toward the boardwalk across the dunes. “Do you think I’ll ever break him of that habit?”

“It’s a high compliment,” a sandy, sun-warmed voice mentioned from the other side of Mack. That blond surfer chef, Patrick, the only one with whom she had managed to get along, when they had invaded her kitchens the day before the wedding. He had a suppleness to him that was entirely deceptive. He winked at a woman, and it was about half an hour later before she realized that she had, indeed, gotten exactly what she wanted but that was only because her wants had somehow transformed into his. Patrick’s fiancée was with him, tucked under his arm. Anne had liked her, too. Quiet and intense and perfectionist. And capable of letting Anne decide what happened in her own kitchens. “I mean, we’re talking about a man who thinks
he’s
God, you know. And he respects you.”

“Then what the hell is wrong with my sons-in-law?” Mack demanded, rather than have to show how that touched him. “
They
don’t respect me.”

“Sure they do.” Patrick gave him that lazy, charming grin. “That’s why they fight it so hard.”

Mack said nothing. But his lips curved just a little, in this repressed, intense satisfaction.

Patrick winked, tugged a lock of Sarah’s black hair, and strolled off with her toward a hammock set up between the pool and the dunes.

“He’s right about that,” Anne said. “They can kind of cut their teeth on you, you know. Two strong-willed men who aren’t used to an older man who has even more experience at strength than they do. They like it. Well, Dom might still feel a bit threatened. But that’s not bad for him, you know, to get used to a strong older man who’s never going to misuse his power. It might even help him learn how to be a man like that himself—and he might even know that and be hungry for it, deep down. You give them both someone to strengthen themselves against.”

Mack turned toward her, realization softening his gaze and lighting it. He lifted his hand to touch the feathered edge of her hair. “Like you do for me.”

O—

Oh.

Oh, the
power
of that. The way it spread out from her middle in this shock wave of sweetness.

It almost made her eyes want to shimmer like Summer’s.

“It’s, ah—it’s mutual.” She rested her hand on his chest. She did want this intimacy, she did. It was just so scary, so unfamiliar. But the feel of his warm body under her hand made her draw a breath of pleasure.
He
drew one, too, the light brightening in his eyes.

“You’re a big man,” she said quietly, looking up at him.

His eyes crinkled a little, in confused pleasure. “Both my sons-in-law are taller than I am.”

“No, I mean—you. You’re a big man.”

His expression got all funny. He looked almost
flustered.
Mack Corey. Was that
color
on his cheekbones?

“This isn’t the first time I’ve ever told you something like this,” she mentioned curiously. On those beach walks, it wasn’t as if they didn’t talk about things that were meaningful.

“It…goes deeper.” His hand slid to cover hers on his chest. “When you’ve got your hand right here.” He pressed it more firmly, until she could feel the thump of his heart.

“Yes,” she agreed low. “Everything’s a lot more vulnerable that way.”

He let his other hand drop down to her shoulder to tug her toward him. “I like it. But it’s hard, as you said.” His strong fingers rubbed her shoulder. “Maybe harder on you?”

She raised her eyebrows, denying she could be weaker in any way.

“Because the people who got deep inside here,” he pressed her hand harder to his heart, “and left me did it because they grew up, because they were supposed to do that and I was supposed to give them wings to do it. Or they did it because they couldn’t help it.” Julie, of course. “But that person who got deep inside you and let you down—he just failed you. No excuses.”

“I might have been the excuse,” Anne managed, half-wryly. She touched her belly, a gesture she had thought abandoned so long ago. “There were these other little people, deep inside me, that
I
let down, maybe, only it felt more complicated than that. Like maybe they abandoned me despite everything I could do. And I reacted to it so badly that…you can’t really blame Clark.”

Although she had, and still did. And watching her son with Kai, she blamed Clark again.
You could have been my strength. The only time in my life I ever needed someone besides myself to be strong.

Unless you counted that slow, steady, constant support of those walks on the beach. Unless you counted a man fighting vicious and enraged, with every dirty trick he had in the book, against the judicial system, and then gripping your hands when everything failed you, willing you your own strength, feeding it:
You can survive this. You’re Anne Winters. You can do anything.

“To be honest, Anne, I think I could walk on Clark and never even notice. I don’t know if you call that blame exactly, but he sure as hell didn’t deserve
you.
”

“That’s what I decided, too,” Anne allowed.

Mack smiled a little, and his hand curved around her nape, rubbing it. “But that doesn’t mean
no
man is capable of deserving you.” He angled his head and considered. “Or maybe no man is, but I’m grabbing you, just the same.”

She couldn’t stop herself from smiling, almost shiveringly flattered, like a young girl trying to handle a compliment.

A young girl. Her. She felt like one, though. Vulnerable. New.

I’m scared of this much happiness.
It swelled all around her, vast, reaching out to every horizon. She had never known happiness could be so big.

Or if she had, it had been so long ago, in that innocent, buoyant optimism with which she had fallen in love with Clark, gotten married, started her business.

She’d been happy then, and later had just assumed that happiness was like some kind of balloon, based on innocence, lightness, and helium, and that the first encounter with reality popped it. She hadn’t known that happiness, when it had a lot of experience at life behind it and still managed to grow, could be
bigger.

Stronger.

Something
sturdy.

She closed her eyes, against the sun of him, letting him glow against her eyelids, warming her face. Tension melted out of her. So strange. She hadn’t known she was tense.

Did she not even know how her body felt relaxed?

He tugged her around the corner of the house, until they were out of sight of the others, and then just tugged her again, into his arms, snuggling her in. God, he was good at that. The snuggle. Did it come from having two girls to raise? If she’d had a daughter, would she have been good at it? Was it her fault Kurt had lost the taste for cuddles by the time he was seven?

“Shh,” he murmured, as if she’d argued, when she hadn’t said a word. His hand rubbed her nape, dissolving her body more into him. More resistance melted out of her that she hadn’t even known her muscles were making, her body hot and cherished.

She kept her eyes closed.
I think I’ll just melt here.
It sounded like such a good way to go.

He leaned back against the wall of the house so that he could angle more of her weight onto him. Mmm. Maybe she would just go to sleep.

“I’m surprised I found a private spot free.” Mack’s grumble was deep but barely spoken aloud, as if he was just providing a little brown noise for her. “I can barely turn a corner without coming across someone making out.”

It was true that happiness packed this house and its grounds right now. Anne’s face softened into a smile. That was what she’d always wanted the spaces she designed to hold.