She blinked those silvery eyes and he glanced away from the - what? Surprise? Hurt? Hell.
"It would be bad for me," he continued. "And a disaster for you, because I can't give you what you need...." Her helpless climax of the night before flared across his mind, but he dashed water on it, cooling the heat. "What you really need."
"Oh." Her voice was small. Or perhaps insulted. "Thank you for being clear about that. Now I don't need to apologize for leaving you...unsatisfied."
He swallowed his groan. "Jane - "
"Griff!" Tess called his name, and she held up his phone, waving it to indicate there was someone on the line.
"Can you take a message?" he called back. Then he put his hand on Jane's knee. "Look..."
She did, and their eyes caught again. It was like gazing across the water toward the horizon just as the sun left the sky. No obstacles ahead. A silvery slide to forever.
"Griff." The strange note in his sister's voice caused him to jerk. He looked up. She was coming across the porch, a tense expression on her face.
His heart jolted. "Gage?" He jumped to his feet. "Something's happened to Gage?"
"No, no." Tess put both hands out. "Not that. It's your friend. That young man you met yesterday."
"Huh? Brian?"
"That was his mother. She thought you'd want to know...."
Griffin froze. His tongue felt thick. "Just tell me," he ordered his sister. "Say it quick." Like ripping off a Band-Aid.
"He's going to be all right, but..."
"Say it quick."
"After landing yesterday, on the way home, he crashed. He crashed his car into a tree one block from his parents' house. It was raining," she added. "A big storm."
A one-car crash, one block from home. Yeah, it was raining. A big storm. Inside Brian too.
"His mom wanted to make sure that you knew and to thank you for talking with him," Tess added.
Griffin stared at her. "Why the hell would his mother say that?" What had the talking accomplished? Nothing. Not a thing. Dropping the hammer again, he ran down the steps, not wanting to discuss the subject - any subject - anymore.
Talking did nothing - as evidenced by that look on Jane's face and by Brian's latest disaster. Because the fact was, Griffin didn't have the right words to help, to heal, to explain any goddamn thing in the world to anyone, least of all himself.
* * *
IT WAS PAST DARK, and David had a simple plan to assuage the loneliness that assailed him every evening in the sprawling ranch house in Cheviot Hills. It was Friday night, and with the weekend ahead, he couldn't face the quiet workless days without a little fix of his family. He was going to watch over them, just until morning. No one had to know about it but him.
He trudged through the soft sand of Crescent Cove, once again in the wrong kind of shoes. Instead of flip-flops or those leather things in his closet that his daughter teased him were "mandals," he was in his running shoes. Grains poured into the sides until he felt as if he was wearing lifts. Sloppy lifts that made him stumble a little. He almost dropped the pop-up tent he'd borrowed from his neighbor. The sleeping bags he'd found in the boys' closet bobbled in his grasp.
It would serve him right to fall flat on his face.
Since it was exactly what he'd done with his life.
Between Beach Houses No. 8 and No. 9 was a clear swath of sand. He intended to set up camp there, close enough to his family to ease his spirit, far enough away that they wouldn't be aware of his presence. Though they all needed to become accustomed to Daddy keeping his distance.
It took three tries to set up his makeshift camp. Two times the tent popped up all right but then sprang out of his hold. On the third attempt, he tamed it into submission, but when he crawled inside he kneed over a sharp object that made him roll to his back and cradle his bruised skin. Upon scooting back out and clawing the sand beneath the tent floor, he uncovered a hard plastic shovel. It looked very much like the one that came with the set of sand tools they'd put in the boys' Easter baskets last spring.
"Thanks, Easter Bun," he muttered. Then he tossed it aside and dragged the sleeping bags in behind him.