Grant

by Jennifer Ashley

  Karen gave a brief laugh. “Thanks, boys, but I’m a big girl. Good at taking care of myself. I wouldn’t mind, though, if you walked me to my car, Mr. Campbell,” she said, sending Grant a suggestive look. “It’s dark, and I’m a bit turned around, so if you could point the way out of town …”

  Grant did not want to escort this woman anywhere—why the hell couldn’t Carter? Grant was far more interested in finding Christina, talking to her … All right, kissing the hell out of her again. But his mama had raised him to be polite.

  Grant held out his arm, trying not to sound resigned. “Sure,” he said. “Come on.”

  Chapter Five

  Karen held on to Grant’s arm as they walked away from Carter, but only to steady herself through the wet and clumpy grass. No clutching or crushing her body into his, as the groupies did. Simply walking along as though they were old friends.

  The guests’ cars had been parked in the circular drive in front of the house, excess vehicles spilling into the field beyond. No one was out here right now—everyone was still dancing and partying in the tent. In the driveway and field, all was darkness and silence.

  “I did interrupt you, didn’t I?” Karen asked, glancing up at Grant. “Sorry about that.”

  “Nah, it was …” Grant cleared his throat. “It wasn’t going anywhere.”

  “Too bad.” She sounded genuinely sympathetic. “Weddings can be hell. You get bored, so you hook up, and both of you are too drunk to realize it’s a bad idea. Then it’s awkward when you see each other again.”

  “Sounds like you go to a lot of weddings.”

  “No, honey, I was talking about one of mine.” Karen cackled with laughter. “My first one. That groomsman was too hot to pass up. But hey, my husband was running after my maid of honor, so what the hell? Both of us knew in our hearts the marriage wouldn’t last.”

  “Then why did you go through with it?” Grant asked, mystified. Seemed like a lot of trouble for nothing.

  Karen moved her hand in an indifferent gesture. “I was seriously young, and I sort of believed in happily ever after. I thought the magic ring on my finger would make it real. He probably did too. After my third husband—the vile, cheating bastard—I finally realized that there’s no such thing as happily ever after. There’s only happy for now.” She stopped. “Oh, no offense. I mean, your brother and his new wife might be one of the lucky ones, who knows? They do make a cute couple.” Karen rubbed Grant’s arm, her interest in cowboys coming through the caress. “Where do you stand on happily ever after, Mr. Campbell?”

  Grant shrugged, though his heart was beating thickly. “I don’t know. I guess it happens, but not to everyone.”

  “Ah, you’re wise for one so young.”

  Grant would be twenty-eight this year. Christina was thirty now, and this woman couldn’t be much older than her.

  “Where you from?” Grant asked with genuine curiosity.

  “I live in Houston for the moment, but originally from Los Angeles. Got into filming young, and realized that it’s cheaper to shoot in places other than California. Lots of studios in Canada these days, for instance, and New Mexico.”

  “Yeah, we do some work in New Mexico. Arizona too.” Grant’s mouth kept up the conversation, while his mind was back under the trees with Christina. “You can still find the Wild West out there.”

  Karen stopped him next to a four-door BMW. “You ever do any acting outside of stunt work?” she asked. “You look good. I’ve seen some of your performances—the camera obviously loves you.”

  People asked him this all the time. Grant had long ago come to terms with what he was good at, and what he wasn’t. “Trouble is, I can’t act. Give me lines, and I get all uptight. I blow every take. If I stick to riding, not talking, I’m fine.”

  “I don’t know about that.” Karen didn’t touch him, but she looked him up and down. “With the right coaching, you could do something. Let me think about it.” Karen took keys from her pocket and clicked a remote. Her car chirped, and lights blinked. “Looking forward to working with you, Mr. Campbell.”

  She opened the car door then turned and stuck out her hand. Grant still didn’t want to touch anyone, but people got offended when you didn’t shake hands with them. He grabbed her by the shoulder instead and dropped a quick kiss to her cheek.

  “It’s Grant,” he said. “Mr. Campbell was my dad.”

  Her smile shone out. “All right, then, Grant. Good night.”

  “Good night. Drive careful, now.”

  Karen slid gracefully into her sleek sedan. “I will. Sweet dreams.” She closed the door, started the car, gave him a last wave through the window, and pulled away.

  She’d indicated before that she needed directions, but she didn’t seem to need them now. Karen maneuvered her car slowly around the other vehicles, then headed down the long drive and turned right at the end, which was the way to go for the highway to Fredericksburg. Asking for directions had been a pretense to get Grant to walk her to her car.

  Oh, well. Grant got propositioned by women all the time. He wasn’t egotistical enough to think it was because he was the greatest guy ever. The buckle bunnies wanted to sleep with the stunt-riding cowboy, and didn’t really care what Grant was like as a person. He’d come to terms with that long ago too.

  Grant hiked back toward the house. He was only glad Karen hadn’t propositioned him to do it right there in the back of her car. He’d have had to refuse, she might have canceled the deal, and Carter would have been pissed off.

  But Grant only wanted to find Christina. So he could … what? Continue where they left off?

  Or apologize for the make-out session—hell, why should he? He wasn’t sorry. And it wasn’t like Christina hadn’t been climbing all over him. That had been a mutual, desperate groping.

  Halfway down to the tent, he met Carter coming up the path, heading for the house, a sleeping Faith in his arms.

  “Karen gone?” Carter asked him in a low voice.

  Grant nodded. “Yeah, she’s fine.” He too kept his voice down so they wouldn’t wake Faith. “You seen Christina around?”

  Carter gave him a once-over, taking in the mess that was Grant. “No, I haven’t.”

  His gaze went to Grant’s coat over his arm, which Grant realized had mud all over it. He couldn’t put it back on—anyone seeing him would have a pretty good idea how he’d mucked it up.

  “Take mine,” Carter said. “I’ve already said good-bye to Adam. I’m not going back.”

  He held out Faith, who was sound asleep. In her satin flower girl’s dress, a miniature of Christina’s, tulle bow and all, she looked adorable.

  Before Grant could reach for her, another flutter of satin pushed past him. Grace Malory, who’d been hurrying up the path, held out her arms for Faith.

  “I’ll take her, Carter,” she said. “Poor little thing is worn out.”

  “Thanks.” Carter passed off his daughter to Grace. Faith remained limp, completely trusting. “If she wakes up, tell her I’ll be right there.”

  “Will do.” Grace flashed Carter a warm smile before carefully carrying Faith up the path and into the house.

  Carter stripped off his coat and handed it to Grant.

  Grant took it absently. What he’d seen in Grace’s glance explained the weird request by Kyle that Grant ask his sister out. Kyle must have noticed the way Grace looked at Carter, and decided that if Grace had to throw herself away on one of the Campbell family, better it was Grant than Carter.

  The realization pissed Grant off. Carter should have earned some trust and respect by now.

  But Carter was still an outsider, never mind he’d lived in Riverbend since he was thirteen, never mind Olivia Campbell had adopted him. Carter had gotten himself into bad trouble throughout high school, and no one could forget that either. Carter hadn’t got his head figured out until Faith came along when he’d been eighteen. He’d cleaned up real quick after that.

  Grant remembered walking
in on Carter in the nursery they’d set up for Faith. Carter, scared shitless that he had this little baby to take care of, had been looking into the crib in silent wonder. His hand had lowered to touch Faith’s downy hair, his big fingers shaking.

  He’d pulled back when Grant came in, then Carter’s terrified look had gone defiant. “I’m gonna take care of her,” he’d said, balling one fist. “I don’t care what everyone says. I’m gonna take care of her, and I’m not gonna let anyone hurt her. Not ever.”

  Grant had believed him. From then on, Carter had looked after Faith with fierce intensity.

  Even so, it had taken a long time for folks in Riverbend to accept Carter as one of their own, and some were still wary. We don’t know anything about his people, was the common explanation.

  While Kyle had always seemed cool with Carter, Grant guessed that the easygoing acceptance stopped when it came to Carter dating Kyle’s sister.

  Screw that. If Grace Malory had the hots for Carter, it was none of Kyle’s business. If she could draw Carter out of himself and make him happy, so much the better.

  Grant would have to see what he could do about that.

  “Thanks, Carter,” Grant said. He slid on the coat, which hung the tiniest bit loose—Carter was slightly broader in the chest. “Kiss Faith good night for me, all right?”

  His mood better, he made for the tent, determined to talk to Christina.

  His good mood evaporated, though, when he saw Christina leaving out the other side of the tent with Ray Malory, their arms around each other.

  ***

  Ray was very drunk, barely able to walk as they stumbled up the hill to the vehicles outside the house. Christina had already taken away his keys, and now she shoved him into the passenger side of her pickup, shut the door, and came around the driver’s side.

  “You don’t have to take me home.” Ray slurred the words out as she got in. “Kyle can do it.”

  “Kyle wants to stay and have fun. So do your sisters. I’m done. No reason I can’t run you back to town.”

  Christina said her good-byes to Bailey as soon as she’d thrown her bouquet—which Lucy Malory caught—and Christina had been looking for an excuse to leave. She didn’t like that Grant had disappeared in the darkness with the woman Carter had brought to meet him, but she wasn’t certain she wanted to face Grant again either.

  Ray scowled, dark brows drawing down over bloodshot green eyes. “If you’re doing this to make Grant jealous …”

  “Grant has nothing to do with it.” Christina shoved her key into the ignition and cranked the truck to life. “He has nothing to do with my life anymore, all right?”

  Ray growled something but subsided. Christina knew the lie for what it was—she was leaving to avoid Grant—but the second part of her statement was true. She and Grant were finished, didn’t matter that they’d thrown themselves at each other tonight under the trees.

  Thrown themselves together, then grabbed hold, kissing, touching, needing. Christina shivered at the remembered sensation of Grant’s hand hard between her legs, his fingers coaxing pleasure from her.

  Christina hadn’t been touched like that in a long time. She’d been to bed with Ray more than a few times, but it was different. Ray was not a bad lover, by any means, but what she’d had with Grant …

  Had been unsettling. So potent she wasn’t sure she could handle it again.

  Not that she was likely to get the chance. She and Grant had found themselves in an unusual situation, both of them hyped up from the wedding. Christina couldn’t blame what she’d done on drink—she had been sipping ginger ale instead of champagne. She couldn’t speak for Grant.

  No, their bodies had simply reacted to being close to each other’s, and they’d not stopped themselves.

  It was what it was, Christina told herself. Move on.

  Ray was very quiet as she drove the five miles into town. He nodded off against the window, his hands relaxed on his thighs. A relief, because Christina didn’t want to talk.

  The ranch where Ray lived with Kyle and Grace was on the road that led out the north side of town, which entailed driving around the town square. The county courthouse sat in the middle of the square amid a green lawn. The sheriff’s department, where Ross worked, was here too.

  Shops lined the streets around the square, from souvenir places for the Hill Country tourists, to an old bookstore, to a hardware store, to lawyers’ offices, to the feed store at the end. The corner on the northwest side held Mrs. Ward’s restaurant and the gas station.

  The hardware store had once been a drugstore, complete with an old-fashioned soda fountain. Christina’s grandmother had shopped there as a kid, meeting her grandfather for a malted at the soda counter. Christina liked to picture them there, even though the sign over the store said Hal’s Hardware now.

  Ray drawled next to her, “Too bad it’s all going to go.”

  Christina jumped. She hadn’t realized he’d woken up. “Go? What’s going to go?”

  “This.” Ray waved an unsteady hand at the slowly passing buildings. “Some developer is trying to buy up the whole town. To make it one big suburb with rows of identical houses and a shopping center.”

  “Seriously?” Christina ground to a halt at the stop sign next to the feed store, even though no one else was around. “Where’d you hear that?”

  “Mrs. Ward told me.” Ray settled his head back on the seat. “Yesterday, I think. They made her an offer on her restaurant. She said no, and they were seriously p.o.’d. She said they acted like she was a dumb hick for turning it down. Dickheads.”

  Christina stared at him for a moment or two before she pulled away from the stop sign and drove on toward the highway. She hadn’t heard anything about offers for Mrs. Ward’s store, but she’d been focused on the wedding, and on avoiding Grant.

  Interesting. She’d have to ask her uncle, Sam Farrell, who owned the bar. Sam knew everything going on in town that was worth knowing.

  The Malory ranch was on a fairly flat piece of land north of town. The house had been there for about a hundred years, the Malory family about fifty.

  A barn lay beyond the house, surrounded by huge fenced pastures. While Kyle and Ray were most known for their bull-riding skills, they also trained cutting horses for both the rodeo circuit and for cattle work on the big ranches.

  The house was dark with Kyle, Grace, and Lucy still at the reception. Ray had gone back to sleep by the time Christina parked in the driveway, and she had to dig into Ray’s pants’ pocket for his keys.

  She took him in through the back—only company used the front door. Ray was hanging on her, half awake and stumbling as Christina got him up the stairs of the two-story house.

  Christina knew which one was Ray’s bedroom, and she took him there now, arranging him on one side of his big bed.

  He was out. Christina put her hands on her hips, studying him.

  Ray was a big man, strong, but right now he was completely limp, one arm hanging over the side of the bed. He hadn’t been part of the wedding party, so he was in a regular suit, the coat bunched up his back.

  Christina sighed. She wouldn’t feel right leaving him alone like this. She still cared about Ray—they’d always been friends. She’d stay to make sure he was okay, at least until Kyle or the girls got home.

  She pulled off Ray’s boots, loosened and slid off his tie, and eased his coat from him, then his pants. She pulled a blanket over his bare legs, folded the clothes neatly on the dresser, and looked at him again.

  Ray snored softly, his mouth slack, dark hair rumpled. He really was handsome, even sound asleep.

  Standing in the darkened room, Christina made the decision to let him go. It gave her pain to do it, because she’d never know if she and Ray could have had something together.

  But it wasn’t fair to Ray that Christina’s breath left her every time Grant walked into a room, that she was aware of every move Grant made even when she didn’t look at him, that she felt sad when
ever he walked out again.

  Ray deserved to be with a woman who was entirely into him. He deserved to fall madly in love, get married, and have half a dozen kids. The kids would love horses like he did, and maybe grow up to be champion bull riders.

  Christina would tell him tomorrow, once he got over his hangover, that their current coolness wasn’t a temporary fight. They could never be together, not while Grant was there in her heart.

  She sighed again. She was tired, she needed to rest, and there was no chair in Ray’s bedroom. Plenty of room on the bed, though. Two days ago, she would have climbed up without a second thought. Now, though … She’d step across the hall to Grace’s room, and then go home when Kyle or the sisters turned up.

  Ray moaned in his sleep. He was drunker than usual, and she wondered if he’d imbibed more because of his anger at her. Another moan, then the poor guy started to get sick.

  Christina hurried into the bathroom, grabbed a towel, and managed to get his head over the edge of the bed, the towel to his mouth. He retched up some spit, then settled down again. Christina folded the towel over and put it into the laundry chute in the hall, then went back to the bedroom.

  She worried about leaving him alone in here, even as close as Grace’s room was. If he choked…

  She could at least take care of him one last night.

  Christina wouldn’t be able to lie down comfortably in the gown. She reached around to unzip it, then slipped it off, stepping out of her high heels. Christina wrapped a blanket around her body and lay down in her underwear on the empty side of the bed. She’d lie there until someone came home, then hand off Ray’s care to them.

  As soon as Christina closed her eyes, though, she drifted off. She went to a place of dreams where Grant Campbell smiled at her, his tux coat and shirt sliding from his body as he plied her with his wicked touch.

  ***

  Christina swam awake to find a large arm pinning her to an equally large body. Ray nuzzled her neck.

  “Morning, sweetheart,” he said in his slow drawl. “If I have to wake up feeling like this, at least I have something beautiful to look at.”