by Susan Stoker
“I don’t want to hear it,” Logan said resolutely, interrupting his friend. “It’s not my problem.”
Logan hated the disappointed look on his friend’s face, but he had his reasons for staying away from Grace Mason.
“Her folks—”
“I said no,” Logan repeated, deciding to cut his morning workout short. He had a ton of shit he had to get done, including escorting a man up in Denver to the home he’d shared with his wife so he could get his stuff out without being harassed.
In the two months since Ace Security had opened its doors, they’d had more business than they had expected. It turns out there were men and women everywhere who needed their services. Oh, they’d made it known that their target customer was male, but when push came to shove, none of them could deny that there were statistically more women than men who were getting the shit knocked out of them on a daily basis by a significant other. They could no sooner turn down a crying, scared woman who showed up on their doorstep begging for protection than they could turn a blind eye to a crime in progress, not if they could do something to stop it.
Seeing Cole frowning at him, Logan tried to backpedal. “I get it. She’s got issues. We all do. But she’s single, has a great job at her parents’ architectural firm, and she’s richer than I’d ever hope to be in my lifetime. She’s practically Castle Rock royalty. She doesn’t have anything to worry about. She can just go to Mommy and Daddy, and they’ll fix whatever is bothering her, just like they always have.”
Cole shook his head in disgust, turned on his heel, and walked away without another word.
Logan had expected some sort of comeback. Cole wasn’t the kind of man to not speak his mind, but Logan was thankful for the reprieve. Discussing Grace Mason with anyone wasn’t high on his list of things he wanted to do. Ever.
As if her name in his head conjured her up, Logan turned to watch her walk out of the coffee shop. She wasn’t smiling. In fact, the few times he’d seen her since he and his brothers had been back in town, she’d never smiled. Logan remembered back when they were in high school, he’d thought she had the prettiest smile. She didn’t have a toothy grin. It was a lot better than that. Whenever she saw him, her lips would curve up just enough and her face would light up. But that joy was missing now.
She turned toward the end of the street, where Mason Architectural Firm was, where she worked from eight to five every day, and walked away.
Grace forced herself to take a sip of the caramel macchiato she held in her hand as she walked down the sidewalk toward her parents’ architectural firm. She hated coffee. Loathed it. But she needed the caffeine to get her going in the morning. So she made sure to get the sweetest, weakest-tasting coffee as possible, just to make it palatable.
Aware that Logan Anderson was most likely in the gym near the coffee shop, she did her best not to look longingly at the large mirrored windows facing the street. She knew there was no chance in hell he was actually watching her. He’d made it abundantly clear, no matter what he’d said before he’d joined the Army, that he wanted nothing to do with her.
They’d met in the tenth grade when Grace had been asked to tutor Logan in history. They’d forged a bond over dead presidents and long-ago wars that she thought could never be broken. It wasn’t long before their tutoring sessions became more like two friends hanging out. Grace wasn’t popular, but she wasn’t unpopular either. She was quiet and reserved, as her parents expected her to be, and spending time with Logan was exciting.
He’d been rough around the edges back then. He and his brothers were constantly getting in trouble for petty offenses such as vandalism, smoking pot, and the occasional trespassing complaint. Grace remembered the conversation they’d had one night about why he did what he did. His response surprised her.
He’d said, “It’s what’s expected of me.”
She got it now.
Boy did she get it.
She’d been twenty-two and had graduated from college the year before with her office administration degree. Her parents had set her up to work at their company, and she’d decided she would start there, and once she’d learned the basics, would look for another position. After a year, Grace had tried to make it clear to her parents that she was an adult, they didn’t need her helping out anymore, and she was going to look for a job up in Denver and get her own place in the city.
Her mother, Margaret, had lost it. First she’d cried and said that they couldn’t get along without her, that they were getting older and she needed to be around to help take care of them. When that hadn’t changed her mind, Grace had been forced to sit at the dining room table and listen to both her parents tell her how incompetent she was, and how she wasn’t ready to live on her own. But when she didn’t budge in her decision, her parents’ tactics changed. Grace got up to walk out, and her father grabbed her arm, forced her to sit back down, and handcuffed her to the chair with her arms behind her.
They’d left her there all night. In the morning, she’d been allowed to use the restroom, but they’d cuffed her right back to the chair.
After seven days of verbal abuse, Grace had had enough. She gave in and agreed to stay in Castle Rock at Mason Architectural just to get her parents to shut up. But that had been the start of her internal rebellion. She could’ve taken their censure, she’d dealt with it her entire life, but that night something broke free inside her. Their escalation to physically restraining her had made her realize that she needed to get away from her parents for her own self-preservation.
She’d stayed in their home for another year, but after dropping enough hints that it looked odd for someone her age to still be at home, thus playing on their need to preserve their perfect image to the outside world, they’d allowed her to move into a small apartment between their home and the firm. It wasn’t exactly what Grace had wanted, but she was grateful for any small piece of freedom.
But she wasn’t completely free. Both her parents kept her on a short leash. They guilted her into helping with business parties at their home, and every time they had the sniffles, they acted like they were dying and persuaded her to spend the night and help around the house until they were feeling better.
Grace had tried to be strong in the face of their manipulation, but she caved every time. Every single time. Even though she had her own place, she spent almost as much time in her childhood home “assisting” her parents as she did in her own apartment.
So while she hadn’t really understood Logan’s answer about doing what was expected of him back then, she definitely did now.
It almost killed her to stay in town and do what her parents wanted. Margaret and Walter Mason owned her. They were her jailers even if she didn’t officially live under their roof, and no one knew it. No one could understand it.
Grace sighed and unlocked the door to the office, closing it behind her and latching it securely again. They didn’t open for another hour and a half, but she was always early. Always. The hour or so before anyone else got there was her time. She could be alone with her thoughts, and do what she wanted without fear of reprisal.
Grace didn’t kid herself. She had no true friends, except for Felicity. Every single person employed by her parents spied on her. If she talked back to a customer, she heard about it. If she stayed out five minutes longer on her lunch break, she was reprimanded.
So the hour before work started was hers. Hers alone.
Grace turned on the computer at her desk, making sure to log into her company account. Her parents would see that she’d arrived at her usual time and would assume she was working. After making sure she logged into both her email and the company software program, Grace sat back in her chair and pulled out a cell phone that her parents didn’t know she had.
Her paycheck was directly deposited into her account at the local bank . . . an account that was monitored carefully by her father. If she spent one dollar that he didn’t approve first, she was grilled unmercifully and made to feel guilty for purc
hasing something for herself rather than helping her “elderly” parents.
Grace had learned to be sneaky. She had to. She was nearing thirty years old. She hated having to answer to her parents for every cent she spent. She was given an “allowance” every week. Money that her parents thought she was spending on lunches and proper clothes to wear to work, among other things. And she did spend money on those things, but she also hoarded some by opening an account in a large corporate bank up in Denver. She’d built up a good nest egg over the last five years or so. Money Walter and Margaret had no idea existed.
One of the first things Grace had done with her extra money was buy a cell phone. One that wasn’t monitored or paid for by her parents. The bill went to Felicity’s house, just in case Margaret stopped by her apartment and grabbed the mail just to be “helpful.” She could talk freely, surf the Internet to her heart’s content, and pretend she wasn’t completely under the thumb of her controlling mother and father.
Lunch today?
Grace smiled at the short and sweet text. Felicity wasn’t one to mince words.
If it hadn’t been for her friend, Grace thought she would’ve probably killed herself by now. And that wasn’t an exaggeration. Felicity knew how manipulative Grace’s parents were, how stifled Grace’s life was, but amazingly, it didn’t seem to matter to the gregarious woman.
Grace and Felicity looked like complete opposites. While they were around the same height, Felicity looked like a bodybuilder. She had muscles upon muscles, skin that was covered in tattoos, and wore mostly gym clothes, seemingly unaware that anything called “fashion” even existed.
Grace, on the other hand, hadn’t worked out a day in her life, and while she wasn’t fat, she did carry extra pounds. Her skin was lily white, and she was always immaculate. Hair styled, fingernails polished, clothes ironed, high-heeled shoes on her feet at all times.
They’d met when Felicity and her business partner, Cole, had come into the firm to hire someone to draw up plans to make their vision for the run-down building down the street a reality. To this day, Felicity still bitched about giving Margaret and Walter a dime . . . even though the firm had done a beautiful job on the remodel.
Grace quickly typed out a response.
Yes. Same time, same place.
C U there.
Grace smiled, relieved she could talk to Felicity. As much as she hated being curious, she wanted to hear every bit of gossip that her friend had about the Anderson brothers. It had surprised the entire small town when they’d come back and started up their business after Ace Anderson had been killed by his wife. But they’d not only returned; their business seemed, so far, to be thriving.
She wanted to be jealous of the Anderson brothers breaking free of their tyrant of a mother, but she couldn’t. She was proud of them.
Logan had changed. She’d seen him a few times since he’d been back in town. He was harder. She didn’t see one ounce of the friendly boy she’d known when they were teenagers. The boy she’d foolishly thought would be her friend forever. The one who she’d secretly dreamed would come back after basic training and take her away from her life.
These days, he often wore a grim expression, he had tattoos peeking out the edges of his tank tops, he worked out every day at Felicity’s gym, and he never, not once, gave her the secret chin lift he used to when he saw her outside of their tutoring sessions.
That boy was gone, and in his place was a man she didn’t know.
Grace clicked on her Facebook page. The profile wasn’t under her own name, because someone would’ve told her parents, so Grace didn’t have many online friends, but it was nice to see what others outside her limited circle were doing. Ace Security’s Facebook page was gaining more and more likes every day, and she’d saved the picture that had been posted of Logan, Blake, and Nathan in front of their office space. All three were standing with their arms crossed and stern looks on their faces. And while each of the brothers was hot, Grace had eyes only for Logan. It had always been that way.
Too bad he hated her.
Chapter Two
“Have you heard back about your application yet?” Felicity asked discreetly while they were having lunch in Subway later.
The sandwich chain was cheap, and every dollar saved was a dollar Grace could squirrel away in her hidden bank account for whatever her future might hold.
“No, but they said it would take a few weeks.”
“And you’re sure you want to major in marketing?”
“Yeah.” Grace nodded her head. She caught the sad look on Felicity’s face and felt as if she needed to reassure her. “I know I’ll probably never get to do anything with a marketing degree, but for once, just once, I want to do something I want to do.”
“I know.”
Realizing she needed to change the subject before Felicity went off on how horrible Walter and Margaret were . . . again . . . Grace brought up a topic she knew her friend wouldn’t be able to resist. “So, was Logan there again this morning?”
“Of course. And Cole tried to talk to him but—”
“He didn’t say anything about . . . me . . . did he?”
Felicity shook her head. “No. But not for lack of trying. Logan refused to talk about you at all. Shut Cole down.”
When Logan came back to town, Felicity had caught Grace moping and wouldn’t let up until she’d spilled her guts. Grace had told Felicity all about her and Logan’s history. “I don’t know what I did, Leese. What could I have done that was so awful that he decided to never talk to me again? I don’t get it.”
“It’s not you,” Felicity soothed immediately, putting her hand on Grace’s arm. “Whatever it was, it’s on him, not you.”
Grace shrugged. She didn’t believe her friend. There was no way someone as honorable as Logan would just cut off a relationship—a friendship that had provided a refuge to them both—over nothing. Grace could remember the conversation they’d had before he’d gotten on the bus for the Army as if it were yesterday. She’d snuck out of her house to meet him at the bus station early one weekday morning.
They’d stood together, Logan holding both of her hands in his as they spoke.
“Don’t be upset, Grace. I’ll write as soon as I get to basic training. You’ll get sick of hearing from me soon enough.”
She shook her head. “No, I won’t. I can’t wait to hear all about it. You promise not to forget about me?”
“I’d never forget about you. Ever.”
“Was your mom pissed that you and your brothers are leaving town?” Grace asked.
Logan shrugged. “No more than usual. She ranted and raved to get us to stay, but nothing she said could make us change our minds.”
Grace reached up and brushed her thumb against the black eye that was forming on his face. “Ranted and raved, huh?”
Logan pulled his face away from her touch and leaned down, resting his forehead against hers. “It’s nothing. I’m getting out of this town, Grace. I’m not coming back. I know you’re going to college up in Denver. You going to live at home?”
“Yeah. My parents thought it’d be best.”
“Maybe, when I get to my first duty station, you might consider visiting? Seeing if maybe we might be more than friends?”
“You mean it?”
“Yes. I definitely mean it. I like you. I haven’t pushed because we both know a relationship between us wouldn’t really work here because of our folks and you being rich and me being poor. But I really like you. A lot.”
Grace blushed. “I like you too. And I’d like to come and see you after you’ve graduated and are a real soldier.”
Logan had smiled then. A bright smile that Grace hadn’t often seen. He didn’t have the kind of home life that was conducive to smiling. “I’d like to see you too.”
“I’ll miss you. Be safe, okay?”
“I will. You too. Wait for me, Grace Mason.”
All she could do was nod.
Logan had l
eaned down and kissed her briefly on the lips. The first time he’d ever touched her in more than a friendly way. With just his lips on hers, goose bumps had broken out over her arms and she felt a little breathless.
The last words she’d heard him speak to her were, “I’ll be in touch,” before he’d let go of her hands, grabbed his duffel bag from the ground, and climbed aboard the bus headed up to Denver.
But he hadn’t been in touch.
Not one letter.
Not one phone call.
Nothing.
So much for the whole “more than friends” thing.
“. . . this weekend. Cole invited a bunch of people to the gym for black-light dancing.”
“Sorry, what?” Grace questioned, having missed most of Felicity’s comment.
“Cole decided we needed to branch out and try some new things. So Saturday night we’re gonna have a black-light party at the gym. Everyone is being asked to wear white . . . it’s gonna be really cool. I want you to come.”
“I don’t know, Leese. Saturday night?”
“At least try,” Felicity urged.
“Bradford is coming over for dinner tonight,” Grace blurted.
Margaret had been trying to hook her up with Bradford Grant for a year and a half. Grace had nothing against Bradford, he was nice enough, good looking, and his family was rich as hell . . . but he wasn’t what she was looking for.
Her mother had started inviting him over more frequently, though, and Grace knew that wasn’t a good sign. Her mother didn’t take no for an answer, and if she wanted Bradford and her daughter to be together, then by God, they’d be together.
It was just one more thing for Grace to worry about.
Grace had no idea what she was going to do if she was manipulated into marrying Bradford. Yes, she wanted a husband and a family, but not someone her mother picked out for her. She’d never get out from under her thumb if that happened. Never.
“Oh shit. Bradford Grant? That stick-up-his-butt architect?” Felicity asked, eyes wide in disbelief.
