Grant

by Jennifer Ashley

  “I need to talk to Sam,” Christina said with heat. “And if all this is true, I need to kick his ass.”

  Grant regarded her quietly, his large strength too comforting. “So what if it is true? He still runs the place. He still cuts your checks. Karen says that if she buys it, she’ll cut him a deal and pay Sam to keep running it. Your uncle won’t have to worry about money anymore, and you’ll still have your job.”

  “If Karen buys it?” Christina’s eyes widened. “She wants to buy the bar?”

  “That’s what she said. To keep her ex from having it. But at least she wants to keep it going, not tear it down.”

  Christina’s body went cold, and she spun away, unable to keep still. “Oh, that’s just perfect,” she said to the sky. “There is no way I can work for that woman. I don’t care if she runs back to Houston and lets her company flatten the town. I am not running drinks for the bitch who was crawling all over my boyfriend.”

  Christina turned in her agitated pacing to find Grant right in front of her.

  “Your boyfriend?” he asked, voice soft, eyes dark.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “No, I don’t think I do. Are you saying we’re back together?”

  Yes. No. Christina waved her arms. “I don’t know what I’m saying.”

  Grant’s anger flashed in his face. “I’m saying you’re the one who sailed over to my house and hid in my bedroom. Was it just for playtime? Or to get my hopes up?”

  “I didn’t do that on purpose,” Christina said, exasperated. She remembered her panic, her embarrassment as she dove into the closet. “I went there to warn you about Karen, remember? I didn’t realize you’d be bringing her home with you so she could attack you on the kitchen counter.”

  Grant’s look was hard. “If you needed to talk to me so bad, why didn’t you go come find me at the ranch? Or leave a message with my mom or Carter?”

  Which Christina could have done. He was right—she’d gone to the trailer because she’d wanted to be alone with Grant. She’d even admitted that to herself when she’d been there.

  “I don’t know!” Christina’s face went hot. “None of that matters right now. I’m just saying I can’t work for a woman who is imagining going down on you in the back seat of her expensive car. What do I know? She might have done it already.”

  Grant glared. “I haven’t touched her. I told you. I don’t want her.”

  Christina wasn’t sure why she was getting so mad right now about … well, everything. The shock of her uncle losing the bar, Karen wanting it, and Grant trying to pin her down on what she felt, poked red-hot needles into her brain.

  Words welled up and blasted out before Christina could stop them. “Well, maybe you should leave a sticker on the ones you do want! So we’ll all know. What do you think it’s like for me seeing you with all these women? You had three of them the night before the wedding. You were kissing them, letting them fondle you, calling them sweetheart.”

  “Christina, you know those buckle bunnies are just part of the show.”

  The Campbell boys always said that. Tyler usually said it while he had his arms draped around two women’s shoulders, one twining a leg around his, the other’s hand moving to his ass. Cowboys were expected to have hot women in tight clothes all over them, especially show cowboys like Grant and his brothers.

  When they’d been dating, Grant had made sure the only woman people saw with him had been Christina. As soon as they’d split up, he’d joined in with the “part of the show” philosophy.

  Christina had told herself she was okay with it—it was Grant’s life, and they weren’t together anymore.

  But now every single instance rose up and twisted around in her heart.

  “They don’t know they’re part of the show,” Christina said heatedly. “You could have some pride, or at least some consideration. Everyone’s laughing their asses off at me. And you.”

  Grant’s fists balled, his face flushing. “What the hell am I supposed to do? Take a vow of celibacy in front of the whole town because the only woman I ever loved walked out on me?”

  The only woman I ever loved…

  While Christina’s mouth popped open in stunned surprise, Grant dragged in a breath and went on. “And how do you think I feel seeing you driving back from Ray Malory’s place at the crack of dawn, still in your bridesmaid’s gown? I didn’t get laid that night, but you sure did.”

  Christina slammed herself to him, where she could yell right into his face. “I drove Ray home, because he was plastered, and I didn’t want to leave him alone. I told you, I broke up with him!”

  “After you gave him one last horizontal tango, like you did with me?”

  “No, I didn’t. And why do you keep saying I left you? I moved out, yeah, but you’re the one who shoved me out the door!”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Grant roared. “You couldn’t run away fast enough!”

  Christina balled her hands. “I remember you saying, I can’t stand looking at you and being reminded of every damn thing wrong between us. Sometimes I wish you’d just get the hell out.” She stopped, the hurt of that striking her anew. “So, I got the hell out.”

  “And that is not what I meant!”

  “Then why did you say it? I’m supposed to have an interpreter follow me around and explain what you do mean every time you yell at me?”

  “Baby, you know I’m not good with words. I don’t say them right.”

  Christina touched her clenched fists to his chest. “Not good enough. You had plenty of time to explain to me what you wanted. You helped me pack. You drove my stuff to my apartment. It wasn’t like I was there one second and gone the next. It was days—weeks! And you never asked me to come back.”

  “Because I knew you needed time away from me. And I …” Grant let out his breath. “I needed time away from you.”

  “You see? You did want me to get the hell out.”

  Grant thrust his hands through his hair, swinging away from her. “Aw, damn you. It always has to be your interpretation that’s right, doesn’t it?”

  Christina darted around to face him again. “This is why I can’t answer whether we’re back together. Every time we’re near each other, we fight. About everything. All the time. We accuse each other and then try to see who can hurt each other the worst.”

  “I know.” Grant stilled, breathing hard. “I know, baby.”

  “I can’t stay here.” Christina ripped off the black bartender’s apron she wore and threw it to the ground. “I have to go.”

  Grant said nothing for a moment, then he reached for her. “Wait a sec. Don’t leave yet. Carter’s got me doing a dance, remember? You’re supposed to help me out.”

  Christina’s job tonight had been to steer Karen to some red-hot cowboys who’d make all her wishes come true. Make her so interested in them she’d leave Grant and the Campbell boys alone.

  Christina made a noise of exasperation. “I am not going back in there and sucking up to that woman. Tell Kyle, or someone, to introduce her around. In fact, I’m never going back in that bar again. I quit!”

  “You’re just going to walk away after all these years?” Grant snarled. “Oh, wait, that’s what you always do.”

  Christina’s rage boiled high. She was glad he’d chosen to be a shit about this—made it easier.

  “That’s it.” She pointed both forefingers at Grant—who looked heartbreakingly good, damn him. “I’m done with you, and this job, and this whole damn town!” She swung around and stomped away, off into the quietness of the night.

  She heard him say, “Christina, wait. I shouldn’t have …” and drift to silence.

  Christina knew if she turned around and looked at him, accepted his halfhearted apology, let him sweet-talk her again, she’d never go. She’d burst into tears, right in the middle of Second Street and stand there like a fool. She’d want everything she’d tried to have with Grant, everything that never worked before, and w
ould never work again.

  She kept walking.

  “Christina.” Grant’s voice was low, growly, but Christina went on.

  ***

  Christina heard nothing from Grant over the next couple weeks, which was fine with her.

  The fight—stupid, stupid, just like all their fights—had drained her energy. She was furious with him, with her uncle, with Karen, with Riverbend. And with herself.

  The best thing to do was lie low and think about her options.

  She heard about Grant, though. She heard that Karen had hooked up with a couple guys at the bar that night who’d driven back to Fredericksburg with her. What had happened there, people could only speculate. Grant hadn’t been with them.

  Grant and his brothers went out and worked on the commercial shoot. They showed Karen around, they took her out, they were polite to her.

  Word got around that Karen was trying to block her husband buying up Riverbend’s properties, and people softened toward her. Since Karen seemed to be pretty smart, she probably knew the Campbell boys were trying to work on her, and she was eating it up with a spoon.

  Christina didn’t go back to work. She’d been able to save up money over the years, and she was finished with slinging drinks, a job that was supposed to have been temporary once upon a time while she decided what she wanted to do with her life. When her uncle had begged her to stay longer, she’d done it, to help him out.

  She’d also stayed because of Grant. The job let her be close to him.

  If not for Grant, she’d have left Riverbend long ago, she realized. She’d have gone to San Antonio with her parents or to Houston with Lucy and tried to start a career. She’d stayed for Grant, then for Bailey.

  Now it was all gone. Sam had lied to her, Bailey had a new life, Grant and Christina had nothing left, and there was no reason for Christina to live here anymore.

  So Christina told herself, though tears swam in her eyes every time she thought about packing up and driving away.

  She went to see her Uncle Sam, a silver-haired man who stood as straight and tall now as he had when Christina had been little. It didn’t take Sam long to look at Christina in sorrow and confess everything.

  “Your aunt had just passed,” he said. The two of them sat on his front porch on a Sunday afternoon, sipping iced tea and watching the sunshine on the bluebonnets. “I got into debt taking care of her, got behind on the property taxes and fees on the bar, and I mortgaged the place to pay for everything. Then when I couldn’t pay on that, Carew came to see me. He had to take the bar, but let me keep running it for them, with an understanding I’d be buying it again when I could.”

  “But why didn’t you tell my dad?” Christina asked. “Why didn’t you tell me? We could have helped you.”

  “I know, angel. But I was grieving and ashamed. And don’t take this the wrong way, but your dad always likes to have the upper hand with me, you know what I mean? Always has. I didn’t want to go crawling to him and confess I lost the bar. Sometimes friends can help more than family. I’m sorry, sweetie.”

  Sam looked so dejected and forlorn that Christina reached over and squeezed his hand. “I understand,” she said.

  “Thanks, angel.”

  “I’m still not going back, though. I need a change—I’ve been putting it off for too long.”

  “And you don’t want to work for Karen.” Sam’s lips twitched. “Don’t blame you. I’ve met her.”

  “Can’t you talk to Mr. Carew and tell him not to sell to her—to anyone?”

  “Sure I can. But it’s big money. Who am I to tell him he can’t accept? He’s getting older, like me. He and his wife deserve to retire and live half the year in Hawaii if they want. A big sale will help him do that.”

  Christina deflated. “Yeah.”

  There were always more than two sides to everything, she’d learned. Life was more complicated than black and white, good and evil.

  She was still not happy with Sam for not telling her, but she understood. Choices were hard.

  Sam’s choices, on the other hand, had given Christina options. She talked to Lucy, who sounded excited that Christina was finally coming out to Houston. Lucy could introduce Christina around, and get her started in a job. A real job, with real hours. No more tending bar and babysitting drunks.

  Once she’d settled things with Lucy, Christina told Bailey what she planned, in a long, tearful phone call. Bailey and Adam had finished their honeymoon trip and were heading back to California to work on the movie Adam was stunt coordinator for. Bailey’s life was moving on.

  So was Christina’s. She was finally free to decide her fate—without obligations to Riverbend, without obligations to Grant. Amid the pain of deciding to let Grant go for good, Christina was eager to find out what road her life would take.

  She packed up her things at Bailey’s house—she and Bailey decided they’d keep the place as a refuge, renting it out when they could. No selling to developers.

  Christina was so engrossed in getting ready to go that she lost track of the rest of her life. Two days before she was to drive to Houston, she realized what the exact date was.

  Christina’s monthly cycle was so regular that she and Bailey joked they could set their calendars by it. Christina had figured she’d be done before she drove to Houston so she wouldn’t have to worry about it on the road, never fun.

  And then she’d forgotten all about it. Christina woke up in the bedroom of Bailey’s shotgun house early in the morning, blinking while it hit her that she was more than a week late.

  Well, shit.

  Chapter Twelve

  If Christina went to the corner drugstore and bought a pregnancy test, everyone in River County would be discussing it over their next meal.

  She asked a couple friends if they needed her to pick up anything for them in Austin and drove there, using the excuse that she was buying more supplies for her move to Houston.

  At a large chain grocery store in a road off Mopac, she bought what she needed. Christina ran the errands for her friends at Central Market, put a packed gallon of Amy’s Ice Cream in the cooler she’d brought with her, and headed back to Riverbend.

  That night Christina went into her bathroom, opened the test box, fingers shaking, and went through with it. The test showed positive for pregnancy.

  The emotions that battered Christina made her end up flat on her back in bed. First—euphoria. She’d thought for so long she couldn’t conceive. The colored stick in her bathroom told her otherwise.

  She was going to have a baby. Christina hugged that knowledge to herself, tears of joy leaking from her eyes.

  Then, vast confusion. From the timing, the child could be Grant’s … or it could be Ray’s. She’d been with Ray right before he’d gone to Lubbock for his bull riding. Two weeks later, she and Grant …

  Christina and Grant had tried to have a baby for the last couple years they’d been together. They’d stopped using condoms, pills, or other means; it had been bare body-to-body, nothing in the way.

  Nothing had happened. And they’d seriously tried. Day and night. When no baby came, it had created a hell of a lot of tension between them. They’d tried not to talk about it, but then keeping it bottled up had made it come out in nasty explosions. Finally it had been too much to take, and they’d splintered.

  Now this. Christina laid her hands on her abdomen, sure she felt the spark of life there. It was incredible.

  But if she and Grant hadn’t succeeded before, what was to say they suddenly could now? That meant, odds were, that the baby was Ray’s. Not good.

  These days, a pregnant woman could find out who’d fathered the child inside her before it was born. Though Christina was vague about how the tests worked, she knew she wouldn’t have to wonder very long.

  However, if the baby turned out to be Ray’s, that meant Christina got to tell Grant he was shooting blanks.

  You could always, a little voice inside her whispered, choose which one you want
and pretend he’s the father for sure.

  Christina knew instantly she couldn’t. She’d never lie to her own kid, or to the potential dads. As much as she wanted the baby to be Grant’s, she couldn’t do that to Ray. It wasn’t like Ray was an evil mass murderer or anything. And maybe somewhere down the road it would be important to be aware of the family medical history. Even more than that, child and father deserved to know about each other.

  No, Christina would tell the truth, no matter how painful it would be for all concerned.

  Next step, see a doctor, confirm the test. Decide what to do.

  Christina put her hands over her face. She felt so alone—missed Bailey so much. Bailey would listen in that clear-headed way of hers, and tell her what to do. Though Bailey was the younger sister, she had a lot of wisdom.

  Christina rolled over, found her cell phone, wiped her eyes, and called Bailey.

  ***

  Christina was avoiding Grant, he knew. That hurt like hell, but Grant didn’t push it. He’d heard about her plans for moving to Houston, and that hurt too, but she hadn’t gone yet. He’d planned to corner her and talk her out of it, but then her next-door neighbor, Mrs. Kaye, had told Grant Christina had stopped her frantic packing. Maybe she’d had a change of heart.

  He needed to make sure the change of heart stuck, and Christina stayed in Riverbend. He had a few ideas how to go about it.

  When he found Christina eating alone at Mrs. Ward’s one day after the lunch crowd had drifted away, Grant slid into a chair at her table without apology.

  “Hey, how you doing?” he asked.

  Christina finished up a plate of vegetables and started on a milkshake. Mrs. Ward made real milkshakes, thick and creamy, and flavored with things like salted caramel or malted milk balls.

  “Fine,” Christina said.

  “People ask me about you at the bar.” Grant dropped his hat to the empty chair next to him. “As though I know what’s up with you.”

  “I’m glad they’re concerned,” Christina said crisply. “You can tell them I’m fine. I talked to Sam, and understand what happened. It’s behind me.”