“Yes, but I recently joined an erotic romance book club with Daphne, and it’s given me a very active imagination.”
“You’ve just turned that chair into a goal.”
He lowered his lips to hers, and when she went to change her clothes, he finished cleaning up, feeling lighter than he had since he’d lost his leg. He had a feeling there was nothing he and Jules couldn’t get through together.
If only he could figure out his future.
He realized she’d been in the other room for a long time and went to check on her. “Jules, everything okay?” he asked from outside the bedroom door, which was ajar.
“Yeah, you can come in.” She turned as he walked in, her warm hazel eyes full of conflicting emotions. She was standing in front of the painting he’d made and hung up of himself standing alone on the island staring out at sea with a pixie sitting on his shoulder holding a lantern. “This is beautiful and heartbreaking. When did you paint it?”
“The other night.”
“Before or after you read my letter?”
“A couple of days before.” He slid his arm around her. “It’s kind of hard to say I don’t believe in signs after that one.”
“Yeah,” she said softly, her gaze returning to the painting. “It makes me sad.”
“Why?”
“Because it looks like you feel all alone on an island full of people who love you.”
“I’m not going to lie and say I didn’t feel that way. But I’m starting to realize that was my own doing. It was easier to stand behind that anger than to step away from it and try to visualize a future I didn’t want. I understand anger, but I don’t understand this blank slate of a life in front of me. I’m working on it, though, and I don’t feel alone anymore. I just have to figure out how to bridge the gaps I’ve created, and that’s because of you, Pix. But when I painted that picture, I’d hurt you and hadn’t seen you since I’d sent you away. I felt differently then.”
She was quiet for a moment. “I’m glad you don’t feel as alone anymore, but what did you feel when you were painting this? You’re staring out at sea. What were you thinking?”
A knot formed in his throat. He could say anything and she’d never know the difference, but he wanted her to know the truth. “That the life I knew, the man I had been, was a world away. That I’d hurt the only woman I’ve ever cared about the way I care about you, and for some reason I still felt like you were right there with me. I was thinking that you deserved a man who could jump out of bed to protect you from anything, rather than a guy who would fumble for crutches or a fake leg, and that I would never be that guy again, but I knew I would give my own life to save yours. I was thinking that I’d woken up looking forward to what the day would bring when we were spending time together, and then I’d ruined it. That I didn’t know little things about you that I’d never cared about with anyone else, like your pet peeves, your favorite activities, your secrets, and for some reason I desperately wanted to know them. And other things, like what you’d feel like in my arms at night and lying naked beneath me, and I wondered if you woke with that sweet smile or if that took effort.”
“Grant?” she said, jerking him from his thoughts.
Somewhere during his confession he’d zoned out, and the words had come straight from his heart. “That’s how I knew I had to go see you and try to make things right, because this thing between us is the first and only thing that has ever overshadowed the part of me that I need to come to terms with and move past.”
She didn’t say a word as she touched her lips to his and wrapped her arms around him, holding him so tight, the embrace spoke louder than words ever could. He got a little choked up and patted her butt before it dragged him under.
“Do you want to see the other painting I saved from the landfill?”
She nodded eagerly, and he realized she’d been just as affected as he had.
He took her hand and kissed the back of it. “You look gorgeous, by the way.” She’d changed into skinny jeans, a tight, scoop-necked white shirt, a long olive-green cardigan, and knee-high brown boots that laced up the front. “That sweater brings out your eyes.”
He led her into the other room, wondering when he began noticing things like that, but as they walked into his studio, those thoughts were pushed aside by an urge to pick up a paintbrush, a sense of purpose creeping in. He’d felt it the last few times he’d painted. It was the same sensation he’d felt when he’d woken up that morning ready to conquer his plans. It was a great feeling to want again—to want things to look forward to rather than hiding behind his losses, to want to spend time with Jules and fix things with his family, and to want to get the hell out of his head and live again.
“Wow, this is a great studio,” Jules exclaimed.
The large picture window was blocked by overgrown plants out back. His easel stood by it with a partially finished painting on it. Paints and supplies were neatly organized on a long table on the opposite side of the room. The wooden birdhouse Jules had left for him sat on a smaller table a few feet away, and the painting he’d retrieved from the trash was leaning against the wall beside it, along with several blank canvases.
Jules walked over to the painting leaning against the wall and crouched to study it. Her brow furrowed as she took in the images he’d painted of himself. The self-portrait on the left showed his long hair and scruffy face, muscles taut against the sleeves of his T-shirt, his splayed hands pressed against a mirror. He was painted in muted yellows, dusky greens, and grays, separated from the world around him by jagged lines of wire fencing. Behind him was the vibrant island with its peaks and valleys of colorful cottages, the tip of the monument at the center of the island, and the flag from the Steeles’ winery set against a blue sky in the distance. His reflection in the mirror was an angry vision of red, blacks, oranges, and golds, painted to look like a forest fire within his silhouette, the outline of his military-short hair a striking difference to the man he’d become.
Jules put her hand over her heart. “You’re fenced in. Do we make you feel that way? Me and everyone else here on the island?”
“No. I painted that the night I asked you to leave, and at the time I didn’t realize that I was living within my own self-imposed hell. But during the time we were apart, my anger at losing my career was obliterated by self-loathing for hurting you. For the first time since I lost my leg, I couldn’t blame what I was feeling on that damn IED. I was the one who had hurt you. I hurt both of us. Painting allows me to get that darkness out of my head, and at the same time, it forces me to think about what it all means. I kept that fence around me to keep people out, but also to keep them from seeing that guy that I saw in the mirror. The even angrier man who refused to step away.”
She went to him and touched his hand. “Where’s that guy now?”
“I wish I could say that I sent him packing, but he’ll always be part of me. When I painted that, I realized that I put myself in that angry state of mind, or denial, or whatever you want to call it, and I was the only one who could take myself out of it. But it took caring about you for me to see that. I’ve known you your whole life, Jules, and I have always felt protective of you in the same way I do of all of our friends. But that’s deepened and expanded. I don’t know if that change is new, or if it began when I was here before my last mission, when I was trying not to notice you as the incredible woman you’d become instead of as Bellamy’s friend. But somewhere along the way, I started wanting to protect you from all the bad in the world the way a man protects a woman rather than how a friend protects a friend. I couldn’t do that when I was so mired down in anger. They say a person needs to hit rock bottom before they can overcome whatever is holding them down. I thought I’d hit rock bottom months ago when my family came to see me in the hospital and the visit went to hell. But when I hurt you? That was my rock bottom, my wake-up call. I painted the picture that’s in the bedroom after a few days of seriously kicking my own ass so I could see beyond the smoke and mirrors I’d put up for everyone else.” He put his arms around her. “Are you ready to run in the opposite direction yet?”