Betting on Grace

by Nicole Edwards

  Mercy made her way down the steps and headed in the direction of Hope’s cabin. “What do you s’pose he wants?” she asked her sister when the silence began to eat away at her.

  It was either talk or think, and she didn’t have enough brain cells firing to think because she knew exactly what — or rather, who — she was going to think about.

  “I don’t know,” Grace said, but Mercy didn’t need a polygraph machine to tell her sister was lying.

  “Did Grant get in an argument with him?” Mercy inquired.

  “I said I didn’t know,” Gracie bit out.

  “Fine!” Mercy snapped. Shrugging her shoulders, she opted to give up.

  At least until they were done listening to Hope’s plans for the big shindig she was looking to put on. After that … all bets were off.

  After all, Grace owed her one. Even if she didn’t know it yet.

  ■□■□■□■□

  “This is not the time or place to have this conversation,” Grant told his father, his tone low. He could see Jerry moving just over his father’s shoulder, and he hated that his boss’s morning had started off like this.

  Grant had figured for sure he’d have enough time to get in front of Darrell’s outburst long before he descended on the ranch. Obviously, he’d been wrong.

  “Well, you ain’t talkin’ to me any other time, so I figure this is the best damn place. Your boss here needs to know just what kind of person you are, turnin’ your back on your father in his time of need.”

  Oh, hell. Now Darrell was going to start with the woe-is-me segment of this morning’s production.

  Hoping that Jerry wasn’t going to buy into Darrell’s bullshit, Grant purposely made eye contact with the man, offering a non-verbal apology in his grimace. Jerry merely nodded slightly, just barely enough for Grant to notice.

  “Care to introduce us?” Jerry said, surprising Grant as he moved closer to the two of them once again.

  Grant sighed, hating that things had come to this. “Jerry, this is my father, Darrell. Dad, this is my boss, Jerry Lambert.”

  Jerry offered his hand to Darrell, but in true asshole fashion, Grant’s father ignored it, pretending not to notice at all, as he turned to look out of the screen door. That was one of the main reasons Grant had never introduced the two men, even during that one occasion when the opportunity had presented itself the last time his father had come to the ranch.

  “You own this place, huh?” Darrell asked.

  “I do,” Jerry replied smoothly.

  “Must be nice. Makin’ so much money.”

  Shit.

  Jerry didn’t dignify Darrell’s ignorant statement with a response, thankfully. Grant simply stood there, watching his father, wishing like hell he was going to wake up any minute now and this was all going to be a bad dream.

  “My son here might want to explain to you why I’m here. I kindly asked him to loan me some money so that I don’t end up losin’ my house, but he told me no.”

  Darrell’s pathetic tone had Grant rolling his eyes.

  This was ridiculous.

  “You’re not gonna lose your house,” Grant said sternly. “It’s paid for.”

  “Well, the electricity is gonna be shut off,” Darrell countered, turning to face Jerry more directly. “See, I recently lost my job at the auto parts store.”

  Funny how his father now said “lost” rather than “laid off,” but whatever.

  “How’d you lose your job?” Jerry asked, sounding curious.

  “They let me go.”

  “That’s usually the way it works,” Jerry retorted. “I asked you how you lost your job.”

  Darrell glanced over at Grant as though he might save him.

  Not a chance, Dad, you’re on your own.

  “I’ve been sick lately,” Darrell began, the words spilling out of his mouth and sounding just like the lie that they were.

  “You haven’t been sick,” Grant argued.

  “You don’t know that!” Darrell exclaimed, showering Grant with spit.

  Grant wiped his face on the sleeve of his shirt and took a step away from his father.

  “And he ain’t talkin’ to you,” Darrell continued. “Like I was sayin’,” Darrell began again, looking back at Jerry as he continued, “I haven’t been feelin’ well. I didn’t make it in for a few days, and they let me go.”

  “Did you call in sick?” Jerry asked as he perched on the edge of his desk, keeping his eyes focused on Darrell, his hands clasped together, resting in his lap.

  “Couldn’t.” That was all Darrell offered, and Grant knew that if Jerry dug too far, he’d just set Darrell off again.

  And that was the last damn thing either of them needed today.

  “I don’t think Jerry needs to hear all this,” Grant added.

  “I think he does,” Darrell barked. “I think he needs to know that you ain’t man enough to help your father.”

  Grant sent Jerry another look that told him he was sorry. But this time he wasn’t apologizing for what his father was saying, or for the fact that Darrell had come all this way just to start shit. No, Grant was apologizing for what he was about to say.

  But before he could get a single word out of his mouth, Jerry placed his hand on Grant’s arm.

  “Mr. Kingsley, would you mind if you and I spoke alone for a few minutes?”

  Grant’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head as he stared back at Jerry, willing the man not to do that. God, he needed his job, and he did not want his father talking shit about him to his boss, but it wasn’t as if Grant could very well tell Jerry that he would prefer to send his father on his way.

  “I think that’s a good idea,” Darrell said, sounding incredibly proud of himself.

  Jerry, being the gentleman that he was, held his hand out toward the door, urging Grant to move. When he did, Jerry remained behind him. “You have nothin’ to worry about, kid.”

  And with that, Grant was out in the heat of the brilliant Texas morning, the door to Jerry’s office closing behind him with a grating click.

  Damn it.

  This was not how his day was supposed to go.

  “Hey!”

  Grant looked up to see Cody coming toward him at a fast clip.

  Knowing that he’d shunned his responsibilities enough, Grant stood up straight, situated his hat on his head, and turned his attention to the mechanic just a few yards away.

  He needed to focus on work, and later — much, much later, he hoped — he’d deal with the repercussions of his father’s impromptu visit to the ranch.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “I’m not sure how the hell I got roped into this,” Lane disputed as Gracie and Mercy pushed him toward Hope’s cabin.

  “It’s your fault you weren’t fast enough,” Mercy teased.

  Granted, she wasn’t teasing all that much because Lane had tried to escape as soon as he’d seen the two women and realized just where they were headed. But Mercy was right; he hadn’t been quick enough because she’d damn near tackled him in her attempt to rein him back in.

  Damn cowgirls, never able to leave well enough alone.

  “This is a girl meetin’,” he argued pointlessly. As much as he wished he were anywhere but there, Lane knew better than to think the women were going to let him off the hook. They’d roped him, and now they were going to make his morning miserable, he was sure.

  “Be nice,” Gracie whispered, her hand sliding against his ever so subtly.

  Okay, now he could do this. Be nice, that is. Especially if he got the pleasure of being with Gracie for just a few minutes first thing that morning. Or even better, watching Gracie walk away.

  Or ahead of him, as was the case here.

  She was making her way up onto Hope’s front porch, her cute little ass making his mouth water. Christ, where did she buy those jeans? He only wanted to know so he could go buy her a hundred more. Her ass looked…

  “You’re droolin’,” Mercy muttered, drawin
g Lane’s attention away from Gracie’s mighty fine ass. “Careful or they’ll all see the lust written right across your big face.”

  Unable to resist, Lane spared Gracie’s ass another glance. He wasn’t disappointed. Those damn jeans were made for her. Again, Lane pulled his eyes away from Gracie’s delectable rear end in order to shoot Mercy another look. She was grinning from ear to ear.

  “You be careful, or I’ll tell Cody just where you like to hide out when he’s lookin’ for you.”

  “Shut up,” Mercy snapped, her grin disappearing.

  That only made Lane’s smile widen. He knew the woman had a thing for Cody even though she tried her best to avoid the mechanic. But then again, Lane probably wasn’t supposed to know. If he hadn’t been searching for Cody one night because his damn truck had failed to start, he wouldn’t have stumbled upon the two of them getting it on in the garage.

  Not that he’d stuck around to watch.

  Hell no. He’d run like the wind that night, spinning right around on the heels of his boots and heading in the opposite direction.

  Lane still found it amusing because, from the little bit he had seen that night, he gathered that Mercy’s frustration when it came to Cody didn’t have anything to do with not liking the man and probably everything to do with the fact that she did.

  “Earth to Lane,” Mercy said, snapping her fingers in front of his face.

  He was still grinning as he looked up to see that Gracie had already gone inside Hope’s cabin, and he had no choice but to follow because Mercy wasn’t going to let him get away.

  Once inside, Lane realized he was immersed knee deep in some major trouble. Being the only man in the room with five Lambert sisters, he was tempted to put his hand protectively over his nuts. There was no telling what they were up to or how he played a part in all of this. He really only cared about the latter.

  “I’ve got donuts and milk in the kitchen,” Hope announced when they all gathered in Hope’s small living room.

  Would you look at this place? Holy shit! It was like a Pepto Bismol factory had exploded.

  Lane knew there were roughly twenty-six small cabins scattered throughout the thousands of acres of Dead Heat Ranch. He also knew how each of them was used. Five were allocated to the sisters; the head foreman, Grant, had one; another was reserved for the head wrangler, if the head wrangler hadn’t been Hope. They had recently assigned one to Jennifer, the new chef, and sixteen others were reserved for guests who wanted to come spend some wild days and hot nights on the ranch. That left two additional ones that stood uninhabited for whatever reason, probably until they hired someone they considered worthy of one.

  Every last one of them looked roughly the same on the outside. The inside décor was the only thing that really set them apart.

  As he stood in Hope’s living room, looking around and getting dizzy from all of the girly crap everywhere, the biggest difference Lane noticed between Hope’s and Grant’s was the fact that Hope’s was bigger. Not by much, but still bigger.

  Well, maybe that wasn’t the biggest difference between Hope’s cabin and Grant’s.

  Where Hope had knick-knacks and trinkets, flowers and candles, pictures and sconces every-damn-where, Grant’s place was practically a box with a door and a few pieces of furniture. Now that he thought about it, Gracie’s was more feminine than Grant’s, but the woman didn’t have girly shit on every available surface like Hope, thank God.

  Everywhere Lane looked, there was some girly thing sitting on another girly thing. It was too much. He wondered whether the woman ever had a man over because, holy hell, it was like Barbie’s dream house, only in a cabin version. And hold up a minute. What the hell was he thinking about Barbie for? He didn’t have any experience with Barbie. At least no more than was required to hang with his five-year-old cousin when Lane visited his grandparents every now and then.

  He would blame it on all of the estrogen shoved into one small area.

  But this place… It reeked of girly stuff. Pink flowered throw pillows on the couch, lamps with pink-and-white shades, candles of all shapes and sizes and, yes, some of them were pink. Hell, there were even pink rugs on the floor.

  Thankfully, the couch was beige because that single piece of furniture was the only thing to break up the horrific use of the color that reminded him of stomach medicine. He figured the only thing saving the walls from being painted a horrid shade of pink was that they were made of sealed wood beams, so they couldn’t very well be painted. He hoped.

  “Here,” Gracie said, pulling his attention from the overwhelming pinkness of the room. Lane looked down to see that Gracie was holding a plate with two donuts on it.

  “For me?” he asked.

  The woman blushed, and he was tempted to fist pump the air. She’d brought him donuts. In front of all of her sisters. For sure, this had to be some sort of milestone for them.

  Rather than look like a dumbass, Lane took the plate and smiled down at her, willing her to meet his gaze. When she did, his smile doubled in size.

  God, he loved this woman.

  “If you two don’t mind, we’d like to get started,” Hope said by way of interruption.

  Gracie jerked away from him, moving to the other side of the room as though the house were on fire.

  That was all right. Lane was okay with that because … the woman had brought him donuts.

  “Sit, would ya?” Mercy smirked at him.

  Lane propped himself on the arm of — wouldn’t you know it — a pink side chair, while the rest of the women all took their seats on the couch or the kitchen chairs placed in a circle around the living room. Lane plowed through the donuts in two minutes flat, still waiting for Hope to get around to the reason they were all sitting in that room — which still freaked him out, by the way.

  “So, as you know, Dad’s birthday is in two weeks. I want to throw him a party.”

  Aww, hell.

  Lane had been dragged into the estrogen factory to help with a freaking birthday party?

  “And we need to meet for this, why?” Mercy challenged.

  Yes, exactly. Why? Lane eyed the donuts sitting on the kitchen table as he waited for someone to enlighten him.

  “Because it needs to be huge.”

  Not a good reason, if you asked him. Could he make it across the room, grab two more donuts, and not interrupt?

  Doubtful. Damn it.

  “Why?” Trinity asked.

  “Because he’s gonna be fifty-five,” Hope said with an edge.

  Holy crap. Jerry was only fifty-four?

  “Oh,” Trinity responded, seemingly satisfied with that answer.

  Lane didn’t say a word, his head bobbing around the room as each sister weighed in on the reason for having a party. That conversation quickly morphed into a bitch session about how hard it was to keep a secret from their father.

  “That’s where Lane comes in,” Mercy added.

  The mention of his name had his head jerking toward the mouth that had said it. “Why me?” he asked.

  “Because he won’t expect anything from you,” Hope added.

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “You know what I mean,” Hope explained.

  “What am I supposed to do?”

  “You’ll be the gofer. I’ll order everything, have it shipped into town so Dad doesn’t see any of the deliveries, and you can go pick the stuff up.”

  Great. Just what he needed, another job added to his already long list of things he had to do every day. At this rate, he wasn’t going to see Gracie or Grant ever again.

  “Fine,” he grumbled, unable to say no to these women.

  “Great. Now we need to outline a plan,” Hope said, a sparkle of crazy lighting up her turquoise eyes.

  That was the moment Lane got really scared.

  ■□■□■□■□

  Grace did her best to focus on the conversation her sisters were having regarding a surprise birthday party for their father, but her mind contin
ued to drift back to her dad’s office and the confrontation they’d just had with Grant’s father.

  She desperately wished she’d been able to stick around, wanting to be there for Grant when he came out. The only consolation was that Lane was here with her, something she knew he wished wasn’t the case.

  Initially, when she’d seen him walking toward the barn, she had wanted to run after him and inform him of the scene taking place in Jerry’s office. Obviously, Mercy had realized Grace’s intentions because she had snagged Grace’s arms just as she’d started toward Lane.

  “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?” Grace glared at her sister, then down to the hand gripping her wrist.

  “Don’t start shit. Right now, you don’t know why Grant’s father is here. If you get Lane involved, it’ll only make it worse.”

  It had been hard to argue with Mercy’s logic, so Grace had changed her plans and informed Lane that he was needed for the meeting. He was, after all, needed for the meeting.

  And as she sat there, barely paying attention to what everyone was chattering on and on about, she felt a pang of guilt for not informing Lane of what was going on with Grant. He needed to know.

  He would want to know.

  After all, Lane had admitted that he loved them.

  The man had said the words and hadn’t heard them in return, yet based on his attitude, it really didn’t matter. Just as he had said.

  But Grace knew it did. How could it not? She wanted to hear him say the words again. Probably more than anything right then, but she couldn’t very well ask him to until she could overcome her fear of saying them first.

  There’d been so many instances when she’d wanted to blurt out that she loved him, and Grant, too, but she’d held her tongue, fearful of just what that would mean for the three of them. Things were a little bizarre as it was, and that was before Grant’s father had gone all crazy and stormed the ranch that morning.

  “Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” Mercy mumbled as she leaned in close to Grace, snapping her from her thoughts.