Countdown: Grayson

by Boniface, Allie

  He ran one hand down her back. “Want me to go?”

  “No.”

  He smiled, but instead of kissing her—or, which would’ve been her preference, tearing off her clothes—he took his phone from his pocket. He scrolled down a list, tapped, scrolled some more, and then walked into the living room and set the phone on the coffee table. A moment later, slow country music started to play. He held out one hand and beckoned her.

  “I’m trying to be better at taking it slow these days. Let’s dance.”

  Dance? Are you kidding me? Horizontal dancing you mean, right? Boogie-woogie in the bedroom, and I’ll be there with bells on and nothing else.

  But he stood there looking completely serious, so she said nothing.

  Fine. If dancing was her only option, she’d take it. She walked to the living room, stepped into his arms, and laced her hands around the back of his neck. God, everything pulsed with muscle and power in this man. Her breath hitched. Her stomach went tight, then trembly, then simply warm and heavy. She didn’t know the song, though she recognized the voice. You didn’t spend your life in southern Virginia and not know country music.

  They didn’t move much, just swayed back and forth. Grayson’s hands were restless at her waist, stroking her shirt, the skin beneath it, and then roaming upward, finding the sensitive spots along her ribs while his mouth found hers again.

  Kiss me like this forever.

  It was silly to think that way. They had little in common. In the morning they’d probably hand Jade over to the authorities and go their separate ways. But for right now, in the shadowy living room at the end of a forever-long day, all she wanted was to prolong the feeling of being wanted, and wanting, and letting herself rest in the embrace of a man who knew how to hold her.

  “I didn’t exactly think the day would end this way when it started,” he said. The song ended and another began. Still slow. Still twangy, with lyrics that involved a broken heart and too much whiskey.

  “No? Neither did I. Life’s pretty predictable up here on the mountain.”

  “Mm-hmm.” He traced the curve of her chin. “That’s what I like about it.”

  “Me too.”

  “Does that mean we’re ruining things?” he asked with a half-smile. “Somehow I think we’re crossing the neighbor line here.”

  She didn’t know what to say to that. A baby and a dance and a few kisses didn’t mean the world was going to shift for either of them. They were both adults, both firmly entrenched in their own careers and daily routines and long past the emotional roller coaster of adolescence. Dancing was nice, and kissing was even nicer, but what would happen in the morning?

  “We make good neighbors,” she finally said.

  “Yeah, we do.” He didn’t kiss her again, just pulled her to his chest and ran one hand over her hair until she closed her eyes and let herself sink into the sensation of his touch.

  She couldn’t let him stay, couldn’t let her guard down. She knew what men were capable of, she knew what they wanted, and she knew she was better off without one.

  Men aren’t all bad. Grayson isn’t.

  But did she know that for sure? He had a child with someone he barely recalled. That didn’t make him violent, but it did make him careless. And there was the way he’d spent most of his twenties, beating people up for money and entertainment. She didn’t think he’d ever taken that violence outside the ring, but....

  For God’s sake, stop thinking about it. She wanted to shut off her brain and just dance. And maybe kiss some more. The kissing with this man was really exquisite.

  “Can I ask you a question?” he said after a while.

  “Sure, I guess.” Talking wasn’t as good as kissing or dancing, but she supposed she couldn’t avoid it altogether. She loosened her arms around his neck and leaned back.

  “You didn’t ever marry your son’s father?”

  “God, no. I was a kid. Sixteen. He was seventeen. We weren’t even out of high school. We only stayed together until Harrison was six months old.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. Harrison and I did fine together, just the two of us.” She felt her forehead crease with the lie and hoped he wouldn’t notice.

  “Did you ever meet anyone else you got serious with?”

  “You have lots of questions for one o’clock in the morning.”

  “Sorry. I just keep wondering why a woman like you didn’t get scooped up by some lucky guy years ago.”

  Her cheeks warmed.

  “You shouldn’t be alone.”

  Alarms went off inside her head. “Meaning what?” You want to protect me? Take care of me? Another ugly memory reared its head before she could cut it off in its tracks.

  “You need me, bitch. Don’t forget it. You’re nothing without me. You try and leave, go it alone, you’ll get nowhere.”

  “Kara?”

  She shook her head.

  “What’s wrong? What did I say?”

  Tears rose suddenly, and she turned from him. “I’m sorry.” She scrubbed at her face. “Late night, that’s all, and some stupid memories of a shitty time.”

  He let her go, let her walk back into the kitchen and check on Jade and get a drink of water. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t leave, either. After a minute or two, he joined her.

  “Did he hit you?”

  She looked at her feet. “Which one?”

  “Jesus, Kara. There was more than one?”

  Shame flooded her then, shame and guilt as the old wounds cracked open. She’d made such terrible choices in the past, putting not only herself but her son in danger. She’d thought she was doing the right thing, making sacrifices that would turn out for the best in the end. Instead they’d almost destroyed her.

  “I haven’t had the best judgment when it comes to men,” she whispered. “Let’s just leave it at that.”

  “Fuck, it doesn’t matter what kind of judgment you have. Men who hit women deserve to be strung up by their balls in public. They make that choice, they should burn in Hell for it.”

  She looked up at the ferocity in his voice. For a long moment, he said nothing else. Then realization spread over his face. “Oh, my God. You’re afraid of me. Or at the very least, you don’t think you can trust me. Because of what I did. Because of the boxing. You think maybe I would do that to you?”

  “No.” But she looked over his shoulder as she answered.

  “Kara, I would never, ever, in a million years, on my mother’s grave, hurt you. Or any woman.” He put one finger under her chin. “Believe me. Please. That is not me. Never was, never will be. I’d die first.”

  She could get lost in his confession. She could listen to his words, to the sweet sound of his voice, to the sultry music still playing in the living room, and almost believe it was true.

  Except her walls were still too high. They’d been built brick upon stone upon scars upon blood years and years ago, and now she wasn’t sure anyone could penetrate them, not even a white knight who owned a martial arts studio and would probably slay every dragon in his path to defend her.

  She opened her mouth to try and explain, but the song on his phone squawked off. Two beeps, a short silence, then two more beeps. Then the music started again.

  Grayson walked into the living room. “It’s Cronk. Dorrie’s come back to the bar.”

  Kara waited a long moment before asking. She almost didn’t have to; she knew the answer. “Are you going back to see her?”

  The pause before he answered seemed to last a lifetime. “I have to, don’t I? No matter how late it is, I have to know.”

  2:00 a.m.

  Grayson didn’t want to go. Well, he did and he didn’t. He wanted to talk to Dorrie. He wanted to dance with Kara. He wanted answers. He wanted to lose himself in the smell and taste and feel of a woman until answers didn’t matter. He stood for a long moment in the kitchen, looking at Jade and at Kara and then back at Jade again. It would be so easy to ignore this aw
ay, to pretend he hadn’t gotten the text from Cronk, didn’t have a connection with Dorrie, wasn’t the father of the child sleeping a few feet away.

  Six months ago, he’d have done just that, ignored the situation by having a drink or two. Or ten. He’d have found an open bar with a willing bartender and a willing woman and pretended he was twenty-two again, fresh off a fight, tough and virile and high as a kite on victory. He’d drink until nothing else mattered and the world and all its problems went away.

  Damn, he wished he still could.

  “Do you want me to go with you?” Kara asked.

  “No. Someone has to stay with Jade. And I should probably do this myself.”

  She nodded and took a step back. Just a small one, but the meaning was clear. He hated that haunted look in her eyes. He hated that someone had hurt her in the past.

  Tell me his name. I don’t care if it’s one guy or ten. I’ll find them all and make them regret the day they laid a hand on you.

  He said none of it. He only scrubbed a hand over his face, his beard grown well past any presentable state by that point. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “You don’t have to rush.”

  “I’ll come back. I promise.”

  She nodded again, but he couldn’t tell from her expression whether she believed him or not.

  IT TOOK HIM LESS THAN ten minutes to reach The Last Call, and this late at night, he didn’t pass a single car on the way there. A state police vehicle sat in the turnaround at the bottom of the mountain, but Grayson doubted there was anyone inside. The local cops got off at midnight, so the state guys filled in until seven in the morning. Most of the time, though, the cars were empty, parked there as a deterrent while the guys themselves were at the barracks on the other side of the mountain.

  When he got to the parking lot, he cut his lights and rolled quietly into a spot far from the door. He saw Cronk’s pickup and a red two-door that had to be Dorrie’s. Red. Same color as the car that had hightailed it down his road after leaving Jade on his porch. It looked older and more beat-up than the car she’d been driving last year, and he wondered what happened to that one. Accident? Repo’d? Traded in for something with more rust and worse mileage?

  Stop stalling. Get your ass in there and find out the truth.

  He took a deep breath and slid from behind the wheel, then squared his shoulders and walked inside The Last Call.

  Cronk was wiping down the bar with a yawn. At first Grayson didn’t see Dorrie, but then the bartender gave a little nod to the back of the room. There she was, curled up in a booth, her head resting on her arms and her eyes closed.

  He cracked his knuckles and walked over. For a second he stared down at her, taking in the pale lashes and greasy hair, the chipped polish on her nails and the bruise under one eye. In sleep she looked younger, more innocent, less worn down by life. She looked even more like Jade.

  “Hey.” He reached down and touched her arm. She didn’t respond, so he wiggled her elbow. “Dorrie.”

  Her eyes blinked open, and she snapped upright. She looked terrified, her eyes darted from side to side, and he thought she might actually climb over the table and bolt from him again, but there was nowhere for her to go.

  “Don’t run.”

  She didn’t answer, but she didn’t move either. The panicked light in her eyes receded after a few seconds, and she lifted her chin. “What’re you doing here?”

  “Looking for you.”

  “Why?”

  He didn’t answer, figuring it was pretty obvious.

  She tossed her head and loosened her hair from its top knot. It fell over her face. “Whatever. So you found me. Big deal. What do you want?”

  He took a chance and slid into the other side of the booth. “First off, I want to apologize. I’m sorry I just disappeared on you last year.”

  Her eyes shined. “Me too. I thought we....” She splayed her fingers wide, taking in the space and the history between them.

  “We did. We were. I was a shit.”

  “Where’d you go? I thought you left the valley, but then I saw your ads on TV, so I knew you were still around. Just not around here.”

  “I’m trying to get sober. I couldn’t keep spending every night at a bar.”

  “But why didn’t you tell me?” The hurt on her face was obvious. “We were a thing, Gray. Weren’t we? For a little while, anyway. You could’ve told me.”

  “I know. Like I said, I was a shit. I didn’t tell anyone. I was so damn sick of myself. Ashamed of myself too.” He’d never said that aloud, but it was true, every word. He reached over and pushed the hair from her face so he could see her eyes. “I thought you were with some other guy, anyway. The last time I was in here, you were hanging on him like he had the moon on a string.”

  Not Travis, he almost said, but he didn’t want to give away the fact that he’d driven up to the ridge looking for her and run into that asshole, brandishing a gun. Grayson wondered how often she spent the night here at the bar rather than going home. Something ached inside him.

  “You mean Johnny?”

  “Tall guy who wore suits. Never got his name.”

  She nodded. “He’s a lawyer. Good guy. Until he told me his wife didn’t want him traveling so much anymore, and that was kind of the end of that.” She shrugged, as if adding Johnny the unfaithful lawyer to her list of exes was par for the course.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  Her gaze went back to the table.

  “Dorrie. Please look at me.”

  From behind the bar, Cronk coughed a few times and disappeared into the kitchen.

  “Did you—” He didn’t know how to ask. “Did we—” He stopped again. “Did you get pregnant? When we were together?”

  Her expression never changed. He could’ve asked her about the weather or the nightly specials or the latest store in town. She blinked and then, finally, shook her head. “Nope. We did a lot of things, you and me, but we didn’t make a baby.”

  He didn’t speak. A roaring sound filled his ears, and he wasn’t sure whether to feel relieved or disappointed. He’d been sure, so sure, that Jade was his. And hers. To hear Dorrie say otherwise came as such a profound shock, he didn’t know how to respond. He sat there in stunned silence, his hands folded on the table.

  “Listen, if that’s what you came here to ask me, sorry to disappoint you, but the answer’s no.” She slid from the booth. “I’m working at the Waffle House in a few hours. I gotta go.”

  “Hang on. Why did you run? When I came in here before?” If she hadn’t left Jade on his doorstep, then why had she fled the minute she saw him?

  She shook her head, and that time, emotion betrayed her. Her eyes filled with tears and something else. Guilt? Regret? Was Jade hers after all? Grayson wasn’t much good at reading women, but he knew Dorrie wasn’t telling the complete truth. She was scared or confused or twisting the facts to save face. Maybe all three.

  “I really liked you,” she said quietly. “You were a good guy, Gray. You probably still are a good guy, but you broke my heart. Not a lot, not all the way, but a little.” She wiped her eyes, and her chin quivered. “I gotta go.”

  “Hang on. Let me—”

  But she hurried across the room without letting him finish. He followed, reaching for her shirt and just missing. The fabric slipped through his fingers, and she was almost to the door when it opened from the outside, shoved so hard he was surprised it didn’t pop off its hinges.

  Dorrie let out a squawk, stumbled, and caught her foot on a table leg. Grayson caught her before she hit the floor. Her elbow landed square in his gut and took his breath away. His ankle turned too, and it was all he could do to stay on his feet as she struggled to hers.

  And pushed him away.

  And screamed.

  A wild-eyed Travis stood on the threshold of The Last Call, gun in hand. He smelled like whiskey and weed and pissed-off intolerance. His pupils were dilated, his hair shaggy and loose on
his shoulders. He ran his tongue over his bottom lip. His shirt was torn and there was blood on his cheek. Grayson wondered what the hell he’d been doing for the last hour.

  Travis took one look at Dorrie and Grayson and spat on the floor. His lower lip was cut open, and blood bubbled out as he cocked his gun and held it up.

  “Well, what the fuck do we have here?”

  3:00 a.m.

  Kara settled herself into a corner of the sofa with Jade in her arms. Beyond exhausted, her eyelids drifted shut. I should wait up for him came the brief thought, but she couldn’t. She normally went to bed before ten; she hadn’t seen this side of midnight in decades.

  The baby squirmed, sighed, and then curled into her chest, and on her way to dreamland, Kara felt herself smiling. She couldn’t wait to see Harrison and her granddaughter again. Children grew so fast, changing from tiny, helpless creatures to toddlers to teens in the blink of an eye. They were babies for such a short time, perfect creations with unlimited potential, a miraculous combination of mother and father, untouched by the world and the ugliness and unpredictability of life. But that changed almost overnight, the minute they started taking steps, first across the room and then out of the house and into adult lives of their own.

  I’ll plan a visit soon. Next month.

  Dreams came almost at once, fitful splashes of her past. First a dark room and Harrison as a child, whispering to Kara late at night. Even at two he’d learned to stay quiet.

  The room faded, and Kara stood alone at the edge of a lake. She couldn’t see the other side, and the water was dark and choppy. A sharp wind blew the hair across her face, and when she looked down, a hand was rising out of the water. Not a baby’s hand, or even a child’s hand, but one that belonged to an adult. To a man.

  She screamed, and the scene changed again. This time that man’s hand was holding hers, and she was looking down at it and smiling.