His hand spasmed. “Probably, but I never did. Do you want me to?”
“No.” The answer erupted from her. “No,” she repeated, quieter.
“I have to move forward. If I stay still and look back...” He dragged his free hand down his face.
“The nightmares can be brutal, even now,” Darcy interjected. “Justin, would you give me a moment with Grace? You can go let your sisters know that dinner’s on in five minutes and they should wash up.”
He silently rose and left the room.
The moment his heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs, Darcy faced her. “Be careful with him.” The plea was little more than a breath. “He was in such a bad place after he lost his father. Caught up in my own grief, I wasn’t enough for him. He suffered for it. I don’t want to see him suffer again.” She took a deep breath and looked up, eyes as blue as her son’s. “When he loves, he does it wholeheartedly. And that means he takes loss harder than most. I don’t want him to go through that kind of loss again.”
Grace answered honestly. “First, everyone processes grief differently. You never stopped loving Justin, and I’m sure he got that beyond a shadow of a doubt. He had to find his way out of his own grief. You were waiting for him when he did. That’s love and, I’d be willing to wager, that’s also where he learned about how to love.” Love. Justin hadn’t said anything about love. He cared for her, yes. But love? “Second, I’m not at all sure that he loves me, Darcy.”
The other woman smiled softly then, her face appearing an easy decade younger without the worry. “He’s my baby boy, my first child. I learned what love really was when I had him. Trust me when I tell you I can recognize it at ten paces on a moonless night.” She took Grace’s hands. “Are you in love, sweetie? How do you feel about him?”
Grace’s pulse sped up and her heart hammered when she thought of Justin, being in Justin’s arms, hearing Justin’s laugh, basking in his compassionate warmth, smelling his cologne, seeing those blue eyes lock on hers in moments of absolute passion. Goose bumps spread up her arms and she shivered.
“That says plenty,” Darcy murmured.
“A physical reaction is one thing, but...I’m not sure. It’s impossible to be sure that what I’m experiencing is that be-all and end-all that I want.” She dropped her gaze. “That sounds very childish, doesn’t it?”
Darcy hooked a work-worn finger under Grace’s chin and gently lifted her head until their eyes met. “That’s not childish at all, Grace. Those are the words of a woman who won’t settle for less than being the reason a man draws his every breath.”
Grace swallowed around the lump in her throat, searching Darcy’s face, taking comfort in the compassion and wisdom that rested there. The older woman was right. Grace wouldn’t settle for less. She’d witnessed firsthand years of casual sex and meaningless relationships erode her mother’s willingness to invest in another human being. Relationships of any type were too much work, and Cindy didn’t work.
No, she’d chosen to let Grace long for love as a child, abused her for wanting love as a young teen and berated her as a young adult for being foolish enough to hunger for it. Now? The final break had come because Cindy had tried to taint Grace’s conviction that she could find a man who made her believe love was possible. That was the real crux of the matter. Deep down, Grace wanted Justin to love her. She wanted to be the moon to his sun, the fuel to his flame...the reason he drew his every breath. She wanted him to prove she was lovable when all she’d ever heard was the opposite. That Cindy intended to steal that from her? No. That was the line in the sand no one crossed. It was time to drop her mother’s emotional baggage and move on, to make a clean break and be free from the nightmares altogether. She was done with Cindy. That meant she was free to go where she wanted to go and be who she wanted to be.