Betting on Grace

by Nicole Edwards

  But for the last ten minutes, Lane’s attempts had changed from text messages to actual calls, and Grant was beginning to feel guilty for blowing him off.

  Just when he was reaching for his phone, ready to give in and call Lane back, the sound of a horn blaring behind him had Grant twisting in his seat.

  What the fuck?

  Damn it!

  Grant threw open the driver’s-side door hard enough to have the damn thing nearly closing on his leg before he jumped out of the truck and stormed over to the white Chevy with the ranch logo on the side that had pulled up behind his, ready to lay into the man for being such an idiot.

  Before he could do that, Lane leapt out and marched right up to Grant, meeting him halfway between the two vehicles.

  “Are you okay?” Lane asked.

  Grant’s breath hitched in his chest as he stared back at Lane. The man looked like he was crazy with worry, which sent another sharp slice of guilt ripping through Grant.

  Shit.

  “I’m fine,” Grant said softly, all of his frustration dissolving instantly.

  “Why the hell haven’t you been answering your phone? I’ve been fucking worried.”

  “I’m sorr— Wait. How did you know how to find me?” Grant asked, breaking off his apology.

  “I’ve got connections,” Lane blurted. “Seriously, Grant. You couldn’t just answer the damn phone?”

  Grant looked at the ground, unable to come up with a feasible excuse for why he’d been ignoring Lane.

  When Lane reached out and touched his arm, a soft nudge that had Grant’s heart leaping into his throat, he swallowed hard, meeting Lane’s dark eyes once more.

  “I didn’t want to drag you into this shit,” Grant offered roughly. “I came here to try to find my mother.”

  Lane glanced up at the trailer and then back. “Is she here?”

  “No. Neither is my father. So I’ve been waitin’.”

  “What? Are you just gonna sit in their driveway all damned day until they show up?”

  “I’d thought about it,” Grant argued. “What else can I do?”

  “Fuck if I know.” Lane broke their stare down, glancing around the area.

  Grant knew what Lane saw. The trailer park where Grant had grown up was the very reason people referred to folks like him as trailer trash. The yards were mostly dirt — any plant life had died a long, long time ago. There were cars on blocks, screens missing from half of the metal trailers, foil decorating some of the windows. This wasn’t one of those fancy mobile home parks people were living in these days. They didn’t have modular housing with elaborate decks and pretty little flower beds lining the front. No, this was a trailer park.

  “So what do we do now?” Lane implored, pinning Grant with his gaze once again.

  “We?”

  “Yeah. You heard me. I’m here for you. And since you can’t bother to answer the damn phone, I’m not goin’ anywhere. So, looks like you’re stuck with me until you’re ready to return to the ranch.”

  Grant looked around, trying to come up with a reason to continue sitting in his truck. He couldn’t think of any because, hell, there was no telling when his father might come back. If Grant had to guess, the man would head to the races. And Lord knew where that might be.

  “Fine. We can go back.”

  “Seriously?” Lane’s tone reflected his incredulity. “I drove all this way for you to tell me you’re ready to go back?”

  Grant felt more guilt. He should’ve just answered the damn phone and he could’ve avoided this whole mess. “Yes. I’m serious. You can follow me back if you don’t believe me.”

  “I will.”

  Grant nodded, but he didn’t turn away. It didn’t matter that the sun was blazing down on him and he was sweating like a whore in church. He couldn’t seem to break away from this man, couldn’t turn around and walk away.

  Lane had come after him because he was worried. When was the last time that had happened?

  Never.

  Not once in his entire life had someone worried so much that they’d tracked him down to make sure he was okay. And his heart felt as though it might just explode in his chest. He wanted to reach out and wrap his arms around Lane, pull him close, and never let him go. The feeling was so overwhelming Grant was tempted to profess his undying love to Lane right there in the middle of the run-down trailer park.

  “Come on,” Lane whispered, his arm lifting until his fingers grazed the back of Grant’s. “Let’s get back to the ranch. Then we can talk.”

  Grant nodded, his emotions churning in his chest, making it hard to swallow around the lump that had formed in his throat.

  “Does Gracie know?” Grant asked as he tried to convince his legs to move.

  “No. But we’re gonna tell her when we get back. This secretive shit has to stop, Grant. If you need help with somethin’, we want to help you. That’s part of the deal.”

  Grant’s eyebrow cocked in question. “The deal?”

  “Yeah. The relationship deal. You really are havin’ a hard time with that part, aren’t you? You can’t keep us in the dark.”

  Grant wasn’t just having a hard time with it, he didn’t know how this was supposed to work. Regardless of how strong his feelings were for the two of them, Grant just wasn’t used to this.

  But he knew he wasn’t the only one keeping secrets.

  That had Grant thinking about seeing Gracie riding Astro Boy in the arena. The fact that she’d been hiding that from everyone for who knew how many years made him realize that it ran both ways. He wanted to know why she’d stopped racing, but he hadn’t bothered to ask her because he didn’t want to force her to open up to him. And in return, he’d been keeping his secrets, too.

  As he looked into the penetrating brown eyes staring back at him, Grant understood just what Lane meant. Grant had spent his entire life keeping it all inside, never turning to anyone for help. Yet now he had two people who wanted to be there for him.

  “Okay,” Grant mumbled. “Let’s go home. So we can talk.”

  The small smile that formed on Lane’s lips sent a spark of something significantly more intense than just lust coursing through Grant.

  No, this wasn’t lust that he was feeling, although his body was reacting to Lane’s nearness. But this … this feeling in his chest… That was something else. Something that he was pretty sure was the closest thing to pure love he would ever feel.

  Oddly enough, it was the same feeling he got when he looked at Gracie.

  Man, oh, man. He was in big trouble.

  ■□■□■□■□

  Grace was pacing her living room floor when she heard the telltale clomp of boots on her front porch. She’d given up on keeping the front door open so that she could greet Lane and Grant when they arrived because the thick, humid August heat had become unbearable.

  But now that she heard them, she rushed to the door and yanked it open, staring directly up into Lane’s stony face.

  It hadn’t been an hour since she’d received a text from Lane letting her know that he’d left the ranch to go find Grant and that they were en route back. He had asked her to meet them at her house. The last part of that text — it’s time we sit down and talk — had been what startled her the most.

  Fear had been a tangible thing, making her hands sweat and her head hurt. So, instead of lingering at the main house for long, Grace had excused herself, purposely asking Hope if she could entertain Maddie and Ben for the afternoon. Not that she’d received an argument from Hope.

  Unable to help herself, Grace threw her arms around Lane’s neck and hugged him. She must’ve caught him off guard because he nearly stumbled as he caught her, his big hand cupping the back of her head while his arm banded around her waist.

  “I’m sorry for not telling you,” she whispered, referring to that morning when she hadn’t bothered to tell him about Grant’s father. She’d been dealing with the overwhelming guilt for most of the day, even as she tried to
tell herself that she didn’t have time to deal with her personal problems.

  No, Grace found that the more she tried not to think about Lane and Grant, the more she did.

  “It’s okay, doll,” Lane whispered back, the warmth of his breath against her ear reassuring her.

  Reluctantly releasing Lane, Grace took a step back and allowed both men to come inside. When Grant closed the door behind him and turned back to face her, their eyes met, held. And then Grace was running into his arms.

  What it was that made her want to grab hold of them and not let go, she had no idea. But being with them right then seemed like the most important thing in the world. And now that they were there, she knew they were going to have to sit down and talk. As much as she didn’t want to, it was inevitable. After all, they couldn’t let this thing they’d started blow up before it really got underway.

  Although they’d been together now for a few months, Grace would be the first to admit that they had used sex to bring them closer to one another. Unfortunately, sex wasn’t the most important aspect of a relationship — no matter how good it was.

  “Sit,” Grace said, releasing Grant and stepping away from him. “Can I get you a beer?”

  “Beer’s good,” Grant and Lane said at the exact same time.

  While she was grabbing three bottles from the refrigerator, Grace heard Lane ask, “Where do you think he went?”

  She could only assume he was talking about Grant’s father since the two of them had been at the man’s house according to what she had learned during her text conversation with Lane earlier.

  “No telling with him. If he’s back to hardcore gamblin’, he could be with his old friends, or he might’ve actually found a race to go to.”

  “When did he start gamblin’?” Lane asked as Grace made her way back to where the two men were sitting, one on each end of her sofa.

  Passing out the bottles and keeping one for herself, Grace kept her eyes on Grant, waiting for him to respond. She could see that he wasn’t thrilled with the topic, but he also didn’t appear to be trying to brush Lane off. That had her wondering what had happened when Lane found Grant earlier. Had he actually approached Grant about talking this out? Or was Grant just feeling guilty?

  That’s your own guilt talking.

  The little voice in her head was speaking up and had been for the last couple of hours. Ever since Lane had mentioned that they needed to talk, Grace had been thinking about the day they’d seen her racing Astro Boy in the arena. She’d blown them both off, refusing to talk about the subject although she knew they had questions. Why wouldn’t they? No one seemed to know about her racing.

  And that had been the plan.

  “The first incident that I recall was when I was in sixth grade, so when I was maybe ten or eleven, I guess. I don’t think they wanted me and Morgan to find out, but it was hard not to notice when my dad was so excited. I think he won a few thousand on a bet. He and my mom had just come back from a long weekend somewhere, and apparently, he’d found he had a fondness for horse races. After that, it was constant. Win or lose, my dad was obsessed.

  “My mother didn’t seem too worried in the beginning, but then, as the months passed, I started to notice we didn’t have much food in the house. Not that my mother was ever a gourmet cook, but she did cook. Eventually, it came down to TV dinners nuked in the microwave or soup. And yes, things started goin’ downhill from there. My parents started fightin’ more.”

  “More?” Grace asked, trying to picture what it had been like for Grant growing up.

  “They always fought. For as long as I can remember, things were physical around the house. My mother hit my father as much as he hit her.”

  “Did they hit you?” Lane asked.

  Grace could see the tension radiating from Lane. His broad shoulders were rigid, and she could see the corded muscles standing out in his neck.

  “Yeah,” Grant admitted softly.

  Grace couldn’t describe the fury etched on Lane’s face after hearing that response. She’d never seen him so upset, but he clearly didn’t like the fact that Grant had been hit as a kid. She couldn’t imagine what it had been like growing up in Grant’s house. Her family, although she fought with her sisters regularly, wasn’t into any sort of corporal punishment. If they had done something wrong, they got more chores to do. And they’d learned early on not to bitch about it, either, or her father would double them just to teach them a lesson.

  “What about your sister?” Lane asked.

  “Morgan fought back,” Grant said, his eyes darting back and forth between Grace and Lane. “But she moved out when I was fifteen. At that point, my father had gone to rehab, and things were better. Not great, but they were gettin’ better. When my grandmother died, my mom’s mom, my dad started actin’ funny again. I learned later that my mother had received some money in the will and my father wanted it. The smartest thing my mother ever did was use that money to pay off the trailer.”

  “What does your mom think about it now?” Grace asked.

  “I don’t know where my mother is,” Grant admitted, his eyes sliding down to the beer bottle in his hand. He had been absently picking at the label, and now he was studying it intently.

  “She’s still not answering her phone?” Lane asked.

  “Nope.”

  They were quiet for a few minutes, and Grace replayed the conversation over and over in her head. Remembering the confrontation they’d had with Grant’s father, the evil she had felt exuding from that man… Maybe she was sheltered, she wasn’t sure, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t fathom what it had been like for Grant as a kid. And although she’d lost her mother when she was young, Grace knew that things could’ve been significantly worse. At least her father hadn’t fallen apart. He wasn’t a gambler, he wasn’t an alcoholic… No, for as long as she could remember, Jerry Lambert had been the strongest, most admirable man she’d ever met.

  But now, as she sat in front of Grant, feeling his pain, she knew that this incredible man sitting just a few feet away from her was one of the strongest men she’d ever met, as well.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Lane was doing his best to keep his composure, but he really just wanted to throttle someone. Darrell Kingsley was the first person that came to mind.

  As he sat there in Gracie’s living room, trying to keep his rage locked down deep, he thought about what it must’ve been like growing up in Grant’s house.

  “Don’t you dare feel sorry for me,” Grant growled from his spot just a few feet away from Lane. “I don’t need your pity.”

  “Trust me, I’m not pitying you, but I’d like to teach your father a lesson,” Lane barked.

  “I think he’s learned a lesson. He’s battlin’ a gamblin’ addiction,” Grant argued. “No, I don’t feel sorry for him, either, but I can’t imagine what he goes through.”

  Lane nodded. He could sort of relate. Not that his father had a gambling addiction, but the man was intent on controlling everyone and everything in his life. “My father’s not a saint, either,” Lane offered. “He’s the most controlling man I’ve ever met. He’s got my mother under his thumb. Half the time, I have to wonder if she can even think for herself. My relationship with them is rocky, too.”

  “How so?” Gracie asked, drawing her legs up into the chair beneath her as she watched him intently.

  “Where I grew up, parents had money. I mean real money. I didn’t want for nothin’, and I think my dad thought that would make me moldable,” Lane explained. “We lived in a big house in a gated community, I went to a private school, my mom wore designer clothes, and she dressed up every day although she didn’t work. My dad threw his money around, and he was proud of it. He measured his worth by material possessions. I just happened to be one of those possessions.”

  He could still remember the conversations he’d have with his father. Always what he could do better, what he should’ve done differently. Didn’t matter if Lane
hit the winning run of the game, there was something Lane could’ve done better.

  “He wanted me to be a doctor or a lawyer. And I’m not talking, ‘doctors and lawyers make good money, son, you’re smart enough, that’s what you should do,’ either. No, my father insisted that I be one or the other because those were prestigious careers and he’d be able to show me off even more.

  “Imagine his surprise when I decided to defy him and do odd jobs here and there. I hadn’t held a long-term job before coming to DHR.” Lane wasn’t looking at Gracie or Grant as he spoke, fearful of what he’d see in their eyes. Sure, maybe it sounded pathetic for him to bitch and moan about his father wanting him to actually do something with his life, but it wasn’t the path he had wanted to take.

  “Maybe if he hadn’t pushed so hard, you would’ve wanted to be one,” Gracie said. “I know the feelin’. When I was little, I wanted to race like my mom. She taught me everything she knew, starting when I was five.”

  “You’re really good, you know,” Grant offered.

  Now Lane was looking at Gracie, trying his best to hide the startled look on his face. He hadn’t expected either of them to open up so easily, and sitting there watching Gracie talk about her mother made his heart ache for her.

  “That’s why I don’t want anyone to know about it,” she admitted. “I don’t want anyone pushing me to do something I don’t want to do.”

  “If you don’t want to do it, why do you? It takes practice to be as good as you are, Gracie,” Grant stated.

  “I don’t want to go pro,” Gracie explained. “I love riding Astro Boy. It’s the only time I feel completely free, but I…” Gracie paused for a moment, and Lane saw her throat working. She appeared to be swallowing her emotions, and he was tempted to reach out and grab her, pull her into his lap so he could hold her close.