"How awful for all of you." She didn't have to imagine what his childhood had been like. Her caseload with Social Services had offered ample background material to draw from, to stir an ache for the confused little boy Gray must have been. The strong, stubborn man he was now. Understanding helped—and hurt as their problems rooted deeper. "He didn't ever get much help processing it all, did he?"
Gray peeked from under his arm. "That obvious, huh?"
"Some of the signs are still there." She paused, then dared to push him further, never having been one to back off a tough subject before she met Gray. "The signs are there in all of you when you're together."
"Putting that training to work I see."
"I should have seen it earlier."
He twirled a lock of her hair around his finger. "How could you? We never got close enough before."
"No, we didn't."
"We had other things on our mind."
His smile kicked in, and past experience told her he'd slipped away from her again, shielding himself with a smile.
"Things like making-up sex. Morning sex."
She gave him the smile he needed. "After-dinner sex."
"Welcome-home sex."
Their eyes met, and his last homecoming—the one that had prompted her to walk out on him—slid right between them like a slippery rogue ice cube. Gray's smile faded. He tunneled his hand deeper into her hair, looping it around his wrist until she couldn't look anywhere but into his eyes.
"Lori, I missed you so damned much during that England deployment." His grip tightened, almost painfully. "For years I'd razzed the guys who called home to their wives instead of going out. I was in England, for crying out loud, and the most sight-seeing I managed was from inside those red telephone booths. Then I found myself skipping out on a trip to a pub because I wanted to call you. Hell, I had to call you."
She caressed his bristly face. "Those calls meant a lot to me."
"I know."
He untwined her hair with slow, sensual deliberation, trailing the strands down his arm and through his lingers. "The minute the plane landed in Charleston, I blew off debrief with a lame excuse and met you at my place that night like we'd planned."
They'd been so hot for each other, only to discover Lori had forgotten her pill the morning before. Gray had insisted it wasn't worth the risk, and neither of them had back-up birth control. They'd sprinted for his car in a tangle of arms, legs and laughter ready to scout out an all night supermarket, and he'd found…
Gray winced against her. "You had planted flowers."
"Flowers?"
"Yeah. Don't you remember? While I was gone, you planted those yellow and purplish little flowers in pots in front of my apartment. I missed them when I ran inside in the dark. Other things on my mind at that moment. But when we stepped back out and the porch light zeroed right in on those homey flowers…"
Lori couldn't decide whether to cry or slug him. She'd attached so many hopes to those flowers, certain that if she worked hard enough, made his home life perfect enough he would stay. And she'd only sent him running. "Imagine that. The mighty warrior downed by a flat of pansies."
"Pitiful."
The rest unfolded with a clarity that had eluded her for a year. "So you asked me to move in with you, knowing full well I wanted a ring. You knew I would bolt." Lori had turned him down flat, and he'd stormed out. She'd called a cab and left before he returned. "Do you ever wonder what would have happened if you'd had an extra condom lying around and hadn't found those flowers until the next morning?"
The drifting wind carried his dark laugh over her. "More than once. One condom, and things might—"
A condom.
Lori jackknifed up and looked down into Gray's horrorstruck eyes. How could she have forgotten? The rumpled quilt mocked her with memories of their uninhibited lovemaking.
Unprotected lovemaking.
Icy whispers from a year ago teased over her. The lack of a single condom had once again launched her life into chaos. And this time she couldn't run away.
Chapter 15