She hoped he was watching her.
“Sorry,” he said as he climbed with ease into the other side. “I always forget how high it is to someone who’s not me.”
“It’s okay. Maybe you should have a booster step or something.”
“I have running boards.”
“I’m not sure that makes up for the foot of height difference between us.”
He looked at her, curious, as if measuring her. “Is it that much? How tall are you?”
“Five-five.”
He chuckled. “Then it’s only ten inches of height difference, not twelve.”
“Oh, gee. So sorry.”
She laughed, and then he did too as he pulled out of his driveway. Up on the mountain, the roads were tight and narrow, and the trees closed in around them, brushing the windows and blocking out the moon and the stars. Kara had never been afraid on the mountain, despite the silence and dark and isolation. Rather, she’d welcomed the solitude. The quiet. The fact that she and she alone made every decision about her home, her land, her job, her life. Moving to Yawketuck had given her power after being without it for most of her life.
Grayson skated through the yield sign at the intersection and turned onto the main road that ran along the mountaintop. Kara grabbed for the door handle.
“Sorry,” he said. “I always take that turn too fast.”
She knew. She could hear his truck kicking up gravel from a half-mile away, and she always knew when he was coming or going. She shot him a glance and wondered if he was always that way, fast and reckless and ready to take on the world. Probably. He was a retired boxer, after all. A retired champion boxer. That meant he’d won his share of fights. From the grapevine, she knew he’d gotten himself into his share of trouble too.
She looked at him for a few long moments as he drove. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. All she’d felt, in those few blissful minutes pressed against him in her kitchen, were taut planes of muscle that went on forever.
He’s probably amazing in bed.
“You okay?” he asked.
She blinked and stared out the window, embarrassed at getting caught staring. Was she okay? She wasn’t sure, to be honest. Something inside her had gone shaky the moment she climbed inside his truck, and she wasn’t sure if it was the thrill of being with a man like Grayson or the uncertainty of giving up control and driving into the dark with him.
Maybe both.
“Sure,” she said. “Just thinking. Long day. Lots to chew on, especially for a Tuesday.”
“You can say that again.”
They emerged from the thickly packed woods, and as the trees became thinner, the moon above them became brighter. She rolled down her window to let in fresh air. “I love that smell.”
“Pine trees?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“It’s not bad,” he said. “I’ve gotten used to it. I’m kind of partial to the ocean myself. Saltwater and sea air.”
“Did you live by the ocean before here?”
He nodded. “Spent most of my life in California, up and down the coast.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Yup.” He slowed as a pair of deer wandered across the road. They stared into the headlights, wide-eyed, before leaping into the tall grass and flashing their white tails behind them. “Took me a while to get used to this place.”
“Why did you move here? Southern Virginia’s pretty far from California.”
“No kidding.” He smiled, and the whole side of his face brightened. She had a sudden urge to touch his cheek, to feel the day’s stubble on her fingers and her lips and other places. “My father knew a friend, and I got the house for a song. Couldn’t pass it up.” He paused as they reached the bottom of the mountain. “Plus I needed a change,” he added. “Figured I’d get that here.”
He turned onto Main Street. As usual, the town was quiet for ten o’clock on a weeknight. No one on the sidewalks. A single car passed them heading in the other direction. Lights were on inside the convenience store on the corner, but other than that, Kara saw few signs of life. Even the gas station and the Chinese restaurant were closed up tight.
“Do you have family?” She knew so little about him. Strange, maybe, since they’d lived next to each other for almost four years, but when it came to the mountains of the Yawketuck Valley, people kept to themselves. “Here or back in California?”
“My dad still lives out there.” The words were tight and even. “No siblings.”
He didn’t mention a mother, and Kara didn’t ask. “Friends?” she said instead. “Or is your hometown the kind of place people leave when they can?” Kind of like I did?
“The second one,” he answered. He didn’t look her way.
“You ever go back and visit?”
“Nope.”
She couldn’t read the word, the single syllable that sounded like it carried anger and hurt and indifference all rolled into one tight little ball. She decided to stop making small talk about his past. Clearly he didn’t want to revisit it.
“What about you?” he said. “How’d you end up in Yawketuck?”
She scanned the treetops that cut the sky into jagged pieces, and the darker strip of river that wound through the valley. They passed a wide field, lit up by moonlight, where a dozen deer grazed. How had she ended up here? The answer was both simple and complex. Maybe it was similar to Grayson’s own explanation. It was as different as I could get from where I was. No sirens or arguments outside her window all night long. No gunshots, no crashing fights from the other floors of the apartment building. No fear of what might await her when she walked in the front door. “I grew up in Richmond, but I never really liked the city. Too loud and busy and crowded. Figured I’d try a small town for a change.”
“Lotta small towns in Virginia. Why here?”
“I had a girlfriend from high school who moved to Yawketuck. She invited me for a weekend, and I liked it so much, I decided to stay.” Plus he couldn’t follow me here.
“How long ago?”
“Almost fifteen years. Harrison was seven.”
“You raised him here?”
She nodded. “He complained every day of his teenage life about how boring it was, but I didn’t care. Boring meant he couldn’t get into too much trouble, at least not without me hearing about it. He moved to Nashville soon as he graduated high school, though. I keep telling him and his wife they could get a house three times the size of the apartment they live in for less than what they’re paying in rent, but they like that life. Not the traffic or the crowds so much, I don’t think, but the music, the restaurants, things like that.”
Grayson nodded slowly, as if taking in all the facts and turning them over.
The road narrowed as they left Yawketuck and headed toward Greenway. The homes grew farther apart; the streetlights disappeared. In another mile or so they’d reach The Last Call, one of the only buildings on the lonely stretch of road between the two towns.
“Do you miss boxing?” Kara asked. Almost subconsciously, her fingers reached out to graze the door handle. Just to check her escape route. Just in case.
Grayson tilted his head as if considering the question. “Yes and no. It was a hell of a thrill, I’ll tell you that much. I’m too old for it now, but I loved it when I was doin’ it. I was good at it, so that helped.”
“Beating up on another guy?”
He glanced over. “That’s not what it’s about. It’s about the competition, the strategy, preparing for a fight. Researching your opponent. Knowing your body and pushing it beyond its limits. Being in the absolute best shape of your life.”
Grayson Hollister had been good at all that, from what she’d read. He’d been a champion at sixteen and traveled the country and then the world, winning fight after fight until his last one.
“You got pretty badly hurt in your last fight, right? Is that why you retired?”
“That, and the fact that boxing doesn’t exactly lend itself to a
long career. It’s not like golf or baseball. But I took a cheap shot to the head in that last fight against Ramirez, yeah, and it wasn’t the first concussion I’d had. Or the tenth, to be honest. Coach figured I’d better retire while I was ahead.” He paused. “Does it bother you? That I was a fighter?”
It scares me, she almost said, but she’d never admit that out loud. “I just never followed the sport.”
“Then you’re missing out. I’ll take you to a fight sometime.”
“No.” The word was out before she could call it back. “I’m sorry. Just... no, it’s not something I’m interested in seeing.”
He didn’t respond to that. After another minute, neon lights appeared in the distance, red and blue and a couple of white ones too, and it would’ve looked like a display of patriotism except for the sway in the roofline and the beer bottles scattered along the shoulder of the road. The Last Call didn’t have a sign other than a poorly lit “Bar” in the front window. But people knew where it was. On weekends, you couldn’t find a spot to park. Everyone who needed or wanted to know where it was didn’t need a sign, Kara supposed.
Grayson slowed a few hundred feet short of the parking lot and pulled onto the shoulder. The engine idled beneath them.
Kara looked around. “Problem?”
“I haven’t set foot in that place since I got sober. I haven’t even driven this road in months. I know we’re here for Jade, but it feels like I’m doin’ exactly the wrong thing by coming here.” His face was pale in the moonlight.
She reached across the seat and touched his hand. “It’s not the same circumstances.”
“I know, but tell that to my brain. Addiction’s a fucking animal with a life all its own.”
“Are you afraid you’ll want a drink?”
He let out a half laugh. “Kara, I always want a drink. It’s not that. Or it’s not just that.”
“I’ll be with you. I mean, I’m not making you walk in there alone. I’ll distract you from the taps, if you think that’ll help.”
He turned his palm upward and curled his fingers through hers. “Thanks. You distract me just sitting over there, so I can’t imagine what I’d do if you were actually trying. I appreciate this. All of it, everything you’re doing for me today. You sure as hell don’t have to.”
“There’re a lot of things people don’t have to do. We do them because it’s the right thing.” A ripple of attraction passed over her, and suddenly she wanted more than just the skin of their hands touching.
His chin jutted toward the bar. “I’m not sure what we’re gonna find in there.”
She wasn’t sure what he meant, whether a rough crowd or an unwelcome one or even the answer to the mystery of Jade’s mother, but one thing she did know—they couldn’t just sit on the side of a dark road imagining. “You can do this,” she said. “We can do this. And listen, we can leave after five minutes if you don’t think there’s anyone there with answers. Or if it just feels... wrong.” If you feel tempted.
Grayson blew out a breath, then gave a short nod, and a steel, emotionless competitor’s mask slipped into place. He stared at The Last Call as if sizing up his opponent, gave Kara’s hand a squeeze, and then pulled back onto the road and headed for the parking lot.
“Let’s get this over with.”
11:00 p.m.
Grayson scanned the parking lot, the entrance, the dumpsters off to one side. He didn’t recognize anyone or any vehicle, not like that meant a whole hell of a lot. He’d spent more time drunk than sober at The Last Call. He wouldn’t be surprised if the entire interior of the building looked like nothing more than a blur. A vile taste rose into the back of his throat, and he tried to swallow it away, but his mouth had gone completely dry and he gagged instead.
“You okay?”
He nodded, hating that Kara was seeing him like this, that they had to be there at all. He felt like he was shriveling into a shell of himself, turning back into a man he didn’t know and didn’t want to run across again. For a moment he almost left, just said Fuck this and drove back up the mountain. Then he thought of Jade’s blue eyes, her absolute dependency on him, the woman who’d left her behind and the million and one mistakes so far in his life, and he manned up and yanked open the front door. For a minute, only silence. Then...
“Well, look what the cat dragged in.” The raspy, sarcastic voice belonged to the man behind the bar, a middle-aged biker named Cronk. Grayson didn’t actually know if that was his first name or last name or a nickname. He’d never heard Cronk called anything else, but he’d tended bar there as long as Grayson could remember.
“Hey, Cronk.”
“Where ya been, Champ?” Cronk chewed on a toothpick and wiped a rag over the bar. Two other guys sat belly up to it, mugs half full and their mouths slack-jawed as they watched a ball game on TV. “Haven’t see ya in what, two months? Three?”
Ninety-six days and counting.
“You see anything that rings a bell?” Kara said in a low voice. “Or anyone?”
Grayson shook his head.
“Hey there, pretty lady,” Cronk went on. “Don’t think we’ve had the pleasure.” He leaned over the bar and held out his hand. “Name’s Cronk.”
“Kara,” she said as she returned his handshake. “Nice to meet you.” She pulled out a stool, stopped, and wiped her palm on her jeans. Grayson imagined either Cronk’s hand, or the stool—probably both, come to think of it—had a good five or six layers of filth on it. Fresh shame washed over him.
“Sorry,” he muttered. Sorry for bringing her here, sorry for the dirt on her hands, sorry that he’d made so many wrong choices that they had to come to a shitty dive bar to rule it out as a place he’d met Jade’s mother.
“Draft?” Cronk offered. He reached up to pull a tap, but they both shook their heads.
“Just water for me,” Grayson said.
“I’ll take a ginger ale,” Kara told him.
One of the men at the bar blinked over at them. Grayson didn’t recognize him. He could hear someone in the back, washing dishes or maybe banging pans on the grill. He couldn’t remember who cooked for The Last Call—not like you could really call it cooking. People didn’t come here to eat. If you ordered something from the menu that included everything from chicken to peppers to apple pie, all of it fried in the same oil, it was only to dry up the alcohol in your stomach so you could drink some more.
Cronk slid their glasses across the bar and resumed chewing on his toothpick. “I seen you on TV and shit. Looks like that gym of yours is doin’ pretty good.”
“It is.” Grayson drank the entire glass of water without stopping. It tasted like flat river water. Hell, it probably was. The Last Call wasn’t on the town’s water pipes, and he was pretty sure whoever owned the place hadn’t ever invested in a filtration system.
He wiped his mouth, pulled in a long breath, and looked around. Really looked. Tried to remember the last woman he’d met here, where they’d sat, what they’d had to drink, how she’d looked in the dim light. Had he taken her home? Tried to make something romantic out of it? Or just fucked her up against the bathroom wall or in the bed of his truck?
He couldn’t remember a thing. It was as if the last three months had wiped his memory clear. Nothing rang a bell, except the memory of those eyes. Only one other person from The Last Call might be Jade’s mother, but he didn’t see—
Then the door to the kitchen banged open, and Dorrie Slocum walked out wheeling a mop bucket. She was young, somewhere around twenty-five, but she looked like she could be forty. She’d worked at The Last Call for a couple of years, tending bar and cooking and cleaning and doing the books a little. By all accounts, she worked her tail off and kept Cronk out of the red, but life hadn’t been kind to her. Her bleached-blonde hair was piled on top of her head, and there was a bruise on her upper arm. She looked exhausted, like all the light had been wrung out of her.
She took one glance at Grayson, and her pale blue eyes went dark with fea
r.
Pale blue eyes.
“Shit.” He didn’t mean for the word to come out, but the minute it did, Dorrie dropped the mop and fled. She knocked over a chair and was out the front door before he realized what had happened.
“What the...?” Cronk exploded. “Hey! Dorrie! Where the fuck you going?” He pounded a fist on the bar and said to no one in particular, “Goddamn girls’re always running off when I need ’em. Pussy’s only good for one thing, and it sure as hell ain’t cooking and cleaning.”
“Is that her?” Kara asked. She jumped off her stool and ran to the door. “Hello? Wait! Please wait. We just want to talk to you.”
Grayson followed, but there wasn’t a single light in the parking lot.
“Is that her?” Kara repeated. “You think that’s Jade’s mother?”
He didn’t answer. He strained to hear footsteps, faint breathing, anything at all to indicate where Dorrie had gone, but it was as if she’d vanished into thin air. The Virginia night was filled with peepers, crickets, and farther off, the rush of cars on the interstate. Nothing human out here except his own heart pounding in his eardrums.
“Hello?” Kara called out, louder that time. Grayson grabbed her arm. He wanted to hush her, to tell her you didn’t yell to get the attention of people like Dorrie. You snuck up on them with careful footsteps and a low, gentle voice, because they were scared, beaten animals trying to stay out of the light as much as possible.
He saw a flash of movement to his right, then the sound of a car door opening and closing.
“There she is,” he said, but it was too late. The car engine roared to life. Dorrie didn’t bother to turn on the lights, just careened out of the parking lot as fast as she could.
“No!” Kara turned to him, dismay on her face. “Do you know where she lives?”
He nodded.
“Then let’s go. Let’s follow her.”
His chest went tight. I don’t want to.
Grayson and Dorrie hadn’t slept together just once. It had been a string of late nights lasting a couple of months while she was between boyfriends. Almost a year ago. No, over a year ago. He tried to do the math in his head, tried to line up nine months of her being pregnant with the four months old Jade was now, but he couldn’t. Dorrie had been nice to him from the start, refilling his glass for free and listening to him brag about boxing without telling him he was full of shit. When he finally got up the balls to ask if he could buy her a drink, she’d waited a full week before saying yes. He thought that meant she had some kind of class, some kind of good judgment that most women abandoned when they ran up against him. She hadn’t torn off her clothes the minute she met him—she’d made him wait, made him beg. It had made him like her even more.
Countdown: Grayson Page 9
