The thought of staying with Grace, of being her support, brought Josh the same sense of joy and peace…among other emotions.
Yes. He’d definitely be back.
Grace stepped out onto Safe Haven’s front porch, feeling hollow, fragile, and bruised all at the same time. The memory of her mother coming unglued because she hadn’t been able to thread a goddamned Cheerio onto a freaking piece of yarn burst behind her eyelids again, and her knees buckled. She slid along the door until her butt hit the cement, covered her head with her arms, and burst into tears.
They didn’t last long. Maybe twenty seconds. Crying took energy, and after a sleepless night, she was physically drained and emotionally wiped out. The episode with her mother—mild in the scheme of things—had just pushed her over the edge.
Now, she had to go spend three hours at cheer practice pretending to be bubbly and enthusiastic for twenty-two seventeen-year-olds, followed by another eight hours of teaching women how to be enthusiastically sexy for men looking for a fantasy escape.
Days like this made her want to just give up. The only thing that kept dragging her back to her feet was the thought of how often her mother must have felt just like Grace did now while she’d been raising her alone, working two jobs. And she’d always been there to greet Grace with a smile, dry her tears with soft words of hope, and cheer Grace through life while struggling through her own.
She pushed to her feet and dried her face. She’d be okay. Her mom would be okay. Grace just needed to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Focus kept her moving forward, right up until she found Josh sitting on her hood, cross trainers propped on her bumper, elbows on knees.
Her stomach dropped. Her shoulders followed. But her heart was already shattered and numb. “I can’t do this, Josh. I really can’t.”
He pushed from the hood, his stance relaxed but his expression serious. “When did this happen?”
“Last year. Listen, I have to get to cheer practice—”
“When she came to see me in the hospital, she was perfectly fine.”
Grace sighed heavily. “No, she wasn’t. She hasn’t been fine for nearly five years, she’s just been hiding it because she didn’t want to burden me.” The thought of her mother being a burden after all she’d done for Grace was ludicrous and just pushed her anger higher and her sadness deeper. “She started taking medication two years ago, but it hasn’t helped. She was doing better before her roommate died…”
Emotion welled up in Grace’s throat, and she couldn’t go on.
“Will it get better?” he asked, his voice filled with the same distress Grace had lived with for the past year.
“No.” The word came out half rasp, half whisper. The will to keep all her emotions stuffed away made Grace tremble.
Josh approached her in slow, thoughtful steps. She wanted to back away, but the utter emotional defeat had robbed her of the will to move. And when he wrapped her in his arms, she squeezed her eyes closed, buried her face in his T-shirt…and broke. Just started bawling.
His arms tightened as he pressed kisses to her hair. Stroked her back. Rocked her gently from side to side. Her second jag in ten minutes dried up as quickly as the first.
“I want to help,” he murmured in that low rumbling voice.
Again, too little, too late.
She knew she should let go and step back, but, God, she needed someone to lean on so badly. “There’s nothing you can do. There’s nothing anyone can do. It just…is.”
His hands stroked across her shoulders, those big warm hands on her skin, sliding intimately over her Lycra tank, curving over the small of her back, and traveling up her spine to the back of her neck. She wanted to lift her face to his neck, to breath him in, to taste his skin, to lick his lips the way she had last night. Craved the pressure of him between her legs, the sizzle of skin on skin.
“Let me take over the expenses here,” he murmured, cupping her head and kissing her temple. “I have the money, and you can’t keep running these crazy hours. You come here, then you go to cheer practice, then you’re at the club until an ungodly hour. You’re going to make yourself sick, then where will you be?”
The heat glowing at the center of her body immediately cooled, and she pushed away. “You realize that when you tell me I can’t do something, it just makes me want to prove you wrong, don’t you?”
“I didn’t mean can’t as in can’t, I just—”
“Mom worked two jobs and raised me for over twenty years. I sure as hell can do it for as long as she needs me. And dammit, there’s more to the club than just money. Didn’t you hear what I told you last night?”