I shrugged. “I’ve lived in a brownstone in Long Island, visited my Gran’s mansion in Manhattan, lived in a boarding school in upstate New York, and now my condo in Palm Beach. I never thought I’d be a lover of a cabin in the woods on a mountain, but it’s peaceful here.”
“You haven’t seen it all yet.” He holds out a hand to me. “I want you to see something.”
Though his face held a smile, it wasn’t as bright as it had been, and I was nervous for what was to come next. Still I took his hand.
We stopped at the front door, where he helped me into the down coat I’d bought before our road trip and he slipped into his. Our boots crunched on snow that still covered the ground as we walked back around the house but didn’t stop there.
We walked a few hundred yards through trees until we came into a clearing. But it wasn’t exactly that. The view of a snow-covered valley below with fog rising as the sun dipped low off to the west created a cascade of colors from pink, burnt orange to dusty blue.
“This is amazing,” I said.
“It is. It’s part of the reason I bought the place.”
“I could see myself sitting here with a cup of coffee just watching the majesty of it all.”
“We could make that happen,” he said.
I stopped myself from saying anything else as my heart fluttered. I’d made that mistake before with a man and had read all the wrong signals. Grant was just a nice guy, doing something nice. It didn’t go further than that.
My breath clouded the air as my silence created awkwardness I didn’t welcome.
“I bet you come out here a lot,” I said.
“Sometimes. When I want to think.”
Then we watched the sun disappear in the horizon. The air cooled quickly and I shivered.
Once again, he took my hand and I let him. “Come on. Let’s get back inside.”
Our walk had felt like something akin to magical, the way we were walking in the woods hand in hand. So much so, I practically bolted away from him once we were nestled back in the cabin. I locked myself in the room, afraid I would turn and see that damn sexy smile of his waiting for me at my door.
As I made my way to the bathroom, not a really long walk, I almost wanted him to invite himself to shower with me. Especially as our eyes locked when I reached my destination. His room door next to where I stood was wide open, giving me a view of him pulling off his shirt.
Muscles bunched and stretched as I held still, frozen and mesmerized by his movements. I fumbled with the door handle and hastily stepped inside, closing the door behind me. Yet, I didn’t lock this one. My inner thoughts betrayed my good sense, hoping he’d follow me in.
After a few minutes of staying under the warm spray and he didn’t come, I got to work washing my hair and body. Because I didn’t want to use all the hot water, assuming he would take a solo shower after me, it was over far too soon.
Selfishly, I wrapped up in one towel and used the other to tie up my hair, hoping he had more than two. I had no idea if his solar panels could support me drying my hair, despite the fact a hair dryer sat on the counter. His hair wouldn’t take as long to dry as mine.
Instead, when I exited, Grant’s charming voice rang out. “You can dry your hair if you want.”
I shouldn’t have looked. I flushed, noticing him notice me in nothing but a towel.
“It’s okay. I thought I’d sit next to the fire a while,” I said, swiftly walking away.
Never having spent much time by a fire, I hadn’t a clue how my hair would take to the heat. When I heard the door to the bathroom close, I bypassed the guest room and went directly to the fire. I sat before it and unwound the towel from my hair, curious how it would feel after a few minutes. I’d planned to be back in my room before he came out, but my phone rang.
“Hello,” I said.
“Jo.”
“Mom.”
We hadn’t spoken outside of texts since I’d arrived back in the States.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“With a friend.”
I had no idea why I was being so cryptic.
“Where? In Florida?” she probed.
“No, in Maryland.”
“Are you safe?”
“Yes.” It was time to divert the conversation. “What about you? How are you holding up?”
“Fine. Though it looks like I’ll be working from home for a while. The governor’s talking about closing the state.”
Things were becoming more bizarre by the day.
“Really?”
“Yes. This virus, whatever they are calling it, is spreading like wildfire.”
“Are you going to be okay?”
My mother and I might not be all that close, but that didn’t mean I didn’t love her to death.
“I’m fine. Your father has offered to bring me anything I need. And you both know I’m prepared. I’ve done my monthly shopping. I’ll be fine for a few weeks.”
Mom was an introvert with social anxiety that may or not be brought on by a mild case of autism if her family was to be believed. She didn’t like shopping and had been ordering online for years. She tended to buy in bulk to reduce the need to interact with anyone, including delivery people.
That wasn’t what troubled me.
“You talked to Christian.”
The casual way she dropped his name was as if she talked to him more frequently than I’d expected. Sure, he would let her know about Gran because it affected me. But I was an adult. Their conversations should have been limited at best at this point.
“Yes, of course,” she said matter-of-factly, like it was an odd question for me to ask.
“Mom, is there something going on between you and him?”
“No. He’s married. We’re just friends.”
“Yeah, I know,” I rushed to say because Mom wasn’t a rule breaker. “It’s just I don’t want you to get hurt.”
As far as I knew, she hadn’t dated anyone else ever. Though she might have been a social introvert, Dad had broken down her barriers.
“Sometimes in life, you take what you can,” she said. “I have to go. Be safe.”
And she was gone. The line dead. I’d hit a no-fly zone. Worse, her words made me think about myself. Was that how I was? Accepting what I got and not pushing for more? It was true of my relationship with her. I understood after all of these years that she was incapable of giving more. But was she?
“A penny for your thoughts.”
I nearly jumped out of my skin. Grant sat on the floor opposite me, shirtless like we were on a beach and not sitting in front of a fire. I pushed at my damp hair as I wrestled my heart back in my chest.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said. “You were staring off in space.”
How long had I sat there after my conversation with Mom had ended?
“Just thinking,” I said.
“Care to share? I’m a good listener. Is it about your grandmother?”
Firelight flickered in his eyes and I couldn’t read him. Yet, I found myself spilling secrets I hadn’t been able to share with anyone because of the nature of my parentage.
“No. Not this time. It’s my mom. She’s sort of a loner. Though if you ask anyone in her family, they would diagnose her with high-functioning autism.”
“What do you think?” he asked with no judgment.
“I think she can be cold, doesn’t like simple touches like hugging, so I guess I could agree, but I’m not a doctor.”
“And this is what’s bothering you?”
“Not exactly. I’m more worried that she’s invested in a friendship with my father that can lead nowhere.”
“And that’s a problem why?”
Though his brow arched, I didn’t feel under scrutiny. More like he was just having a conversation with me.
“He’s married, for one. But I guess I should start at the beginning.” I’d never once been able to talk about my parents’ relationship because no one knew
who my father was and the circumstances of my birth. “No matter what you might have heard from Sophia—”
“She didn’t talk about her family.”
I nodded. “Well, her mom and our dad were separated. Her mom left, claiming my father wasn’t giving her enough of his time. His excuse was he was building a business for the future. He’d been apart from her for months before his path crossed with my mom.”
I took a breath, feeling myself unload on poor Grant.
“She was consulting with his firm and they met over numbers, something Mom loves. She’s an accountant, or rather a CPA. All that I got from her. This next part I don’t know for sure, but knowing her, it took her a while to see his interest. She’s quite clueless about that, even though she’s beautiful. He wore her down over time and, well, eventually word got back to Madeline. That’s Sophia’s Mom.”
This was part of the story I pieced together based on human nature and the chain of events.
“She decided she wanted him back. Told him she was pregnant, and he had a duty to his family to work things out with her.”
“He did,” he surmised.
“Yeah. He went back to her.” I paused for a second before continuing. “The way Mom tells it, she was fine. But my guess is the opposite. However, she is pragmatic. Being the realist she is, when she found out she was pregnant, she told him without demanding anything. If fact, she told him he owed her nothing.”
Grant’s forehead creased. “Sophia’s older than you?” I shook my head as the story got more complicated from here. “You have another sibling?”
“I have two older brothers, but they were born before Mom came into the picture.”
“So?” he questioned.
“This is a guess, but I think Madeline lied to get Christian back.”
“Christian?”
“Sorry, I don’t really call him Dad. Anyway, I think she lied, and when she found out Mom was pregnant, she worked on getting herself knocked up.”
“The truth would come out.”
“Exactly. But she’s smart. She told him she miscarried, but didn’t tell him out of fear because Mom was pregnant. Then suddenly she did get pregnant and he had to stay with her and the kids.”
“He did,” he said.
“He did,” I echoed. “I also think that his feelings for Mom and hers too haven’t exactly died. Mom would never cross any lines, but I worry she’s not been with anyone else because she loves him that much.”
“You did say she might be autistic.”
“True. Which is why it’s hard for her to get close to anyone.”
“Including you?”
I nodded because I could feel tears brimming in my eyes. “What about you? Where’s your mom?”
He shifted and I noticed for the first time the towel wrapped around his hips.
“Mom left when I was six or so.”
I remembered him telling me that before. Yet, I still asked the question. “Do you see her?”
“Nope. She left without looking back.”
My jaw dropped. I might not have had my father in my life, but he wasn’t exactly a ghost either.
“You haven’t seen her at all.”
“Not a word, a birthday card, Christmas present, nothing until recently.”
It was my turn to give him a questioning gaze.
“Recently? What happened?”
“She lives in New Jersey. After we drove to New York, I decided I’d go see her.”
I moved forward as if on the edge of my seat. To be a fly on the wall for that meeting would have been something. “How’d it go?”
“As you can expect, she was shocked to see me.”
“And?” I probed.
“And she wasn’t exactly happy about it. She has a new family and I wasn’t exactly a welcomed visitor.”
“Wow,” I said, sitting back. “That sucks.”
“It turned out all right. I met my brothers and I wasn’t exactly a stranger to them. Apparently, their father had told them about me, though very little. At least they weren’t shocked and were actually pretty excited.”
“How old are they?”
I guessed Grant to be in his mid to upper twenties, so when he responded, “Seventeen and twins,” I was the one with an open jaw.
“Funny enough, they were most curious that I was a pilot and wanted me to teach them.”
“How did your mom react?”
“She didn’t know, at least then. They caught me before I left and asked me to stay the night in their pool house. I have no idea if they told her or their dad about our overnight visit after I left. Still, I don’t regret it. I have little family outside of Dad. I have two brothers I can acknowledge.”
So different yet almost the same with my siblings. But there was a question that struck me.
“Your last name is King. Are you related to the Kings of King Enterprises?”
His head bobbed up and down, but his expression darkened. “Dad’s brother is the King of New York. He’s the reason my parents aren’t together. My uncle didn’t exactly keep in touch with Dad after he signed away his rights to the family fortune.”
There were so many questions I wanted to ask, but sensed he was closing up.
“Positive note, you have brothers now and you can teach them to fly.” I didn’t know what to say after that, so I said, “I guess I should get some sleep.”
My hair was almost dry, and I carefully got to my feet, trying my best not to flash him. He followed me into the room and stopped in front of the empty TV stand.
“This,” he said, pointing at it, “is an infrared heater.”
He bent to plug it in, and I found myself admiring his towel-covered ass. When he stood, I had to quickly look up to meet his gaze. His lips curled in a knowing smile.
“Since the power cells are fully charged, you can use this to keep the room warm.”
His gaze dropped to my mouth. “Or we could conserve energy and share body heat.”
Butterflies took flight in my belly and I had to swallow before speaking.
“I’m sure this will be fine.”
He saluted me with two fingers at his temple. “Your choice.” Then he turned and walked away with my eyes glued to him.
I had to reach out and close the door when he turned at his.
It was going to be a very long night indeed. The question was, if I had enough willpower to stay away from his tempting offer.
Twenty-Six
Grant
Jolene had walls up stronger than mine, but some of them had come down, making me smile. Even though she’d shut the door between us, I saw opportunity. I had fourteen days to win her over, and that’s just what I’d do.
Sometime in the middle of the night, I woke up as Jolene crawled into bed with me.
My first thought wasn’t an invitation but worry. “What’s wrong?” I asked as she curled herself around me. I was on my side and gathered her closer. She rested her head on my chest before answering.
“Nightmare.”
I stroked her hair before placing a chaste kiss on the crown of her head.
“Sleep,” I said, deciding it was for the best.
At some point, I’d earned her trust and I wouldn’t break it no matter how hard I got.
She smelled like sweet wildflowers, reminding me of being inside her, which only made it harder to tame my cock.
Soon though, her soft breathing and the warmth of her body pressed to mine lulled me into sleep. I woke up at dawn with Jolene still tucked against me. I wanted to stay, but something she’d said had me carefully getting out of bed.
Forming a plan, I left the room with her sleeping.
The sun was high when I returned. Before I made it to the door, a truck came rumbling up the drive. Before Liam walked over, I lifted a hand for him to stop. I walked over to the other side of the truck and leaned on the truck bed. He followed suit on the other side.
“What brings you around?” I asked.
My co
usin and best friend lifted the ball cap off his head and ran a hand through his unruly hair before settling the cap in place. I eyed him but said nothing as my questioning gaze should have been enough.
“I think I’m going to New York,” he blurted.
I whistled because it was long expected.
“Why now?” I asked.
At just twenty-two and recently honorably discharged from the Air Force, I’d thought he’d settled down.
“They say the old man is dying.”
According to Liam’s mother, Dad’s brother, the King of New York himself, was Liam’s father. I personally thought there was another possibility.
“What are you going to do? Ring his bell and declare you’re his long-lost son?” I asked.
“I’ve got to do something,” Liam spat. “They say in his will, he limits the time for heirs to produce themselves.”
“How did you find out about that?”
“Reporters. You know there are new stories about him all the time. Everything that’s happened with the scandal with his son, he’s more in the news than ever,” Liam said.
“So this is about money?” I asked.
“It’s about making things right for Mom.”
As the story went, when she’d confronted my uncle about paternity, he’d threatened to take her son if she was right. With no money to fight him legally, she gave up.
“And what about what he did to your dad?” Liam tossed out.
I’d only seen the man in person once in my life. Natalie, Liam’s mom, was my mom’s closest friend in town. When Dad’s brother showed up to get him to sign away his rights in the family business, he’d met Natalie.
“Dad made a choice. He didn’t have to sign.”
“How do you know?” Liam asked. “He could have blackmailed him the same way he did my mom.”
It was true, I hadn’t been there. Well, I had, but I hadn’t heard the conversations between my dad and uncle.
“That’s Dad’s battle to fight, but not mine,” I said.
“He owes me.” Liam held the lip of the truck with white knuckles as he clenched his jaw. “I need to know the truth.”
I worried he wouldn’t find the answers he wanted.
“What if you get stuck there? I heard they might close the state.”
Arrogant Savior: A Hero Club Novel Page 12
