by Annie Rains
Val loved the enthusiasm. That’s how she felt about books, too. They excited her, drove her to turn one adventure-filled page after another. As a teenager she used to put her mother’s old romance novels inside her Bible at church and read during her father’s sermons. That was one of the few things she’d ever gotten away with under his watch. She was proud of that, although God had seen her. He saw everything, right? That’s probably why she was a thirty-year-old spinster, spending her summer vacation in a nursing home instead of with some hot, ripped man on the back of a motorcycle.
Griffin came to mind and Val blinked, stuttering on the sentence she was reading. She read it again.
Alma leaned forward. “Who did it?” she asked.
Val smiled to herself, ignoring the question. They’d all find out soon enough. The plot was pretty see-through in Val’s opinion. She could already guess who the gun-toting villain was. She liked mysteries. Not as much as romance, but that was hardly something she wanted to read out loud to a group of senior citizens.
The door to the community room opened and a man walked in as she approached the tell-all scene. The scene that all of the women had been waiting for. Val glanced up just briefly to see that it was Griffin. His mother, Helen, was also in the book club.
He headed over and Val politely stopped reading.
“Awwhhhh,” the ladies whined. “Don’t stop now,” one insisted.
“I have to. We have a visitor.” Val pointed at Griffin and all the women looked up at him.
“Is he going to act out the last scene for us?” Alma wanted to know.
He shook his head. “Afraid not. I’m just here to see my mother, if you ladies don’t mind.”
Helen didn’t even look at him. Instead, she sat, patiently waiting for Val to continue.
“He’s here to see you, Helen,” Val said softly, leaning forward and placing a hand on Helen’s knee. “Your son is here.”
Helen’s eyes grew wide and she turned to look at Griffin. “No. That man is not my son. I don’t know that man.” Her volume started to climb. “I’m not going with him!…I’m not!”
Val patted Helen’s knee softly. “I can give you a private reading session later. Along with Ellie.”
“My mother doesn’t read fiction,” Griffin said, stepping closer. “She prefers nonfiction. Autobiographies mostly.”
Val met Griffin’s gaze. “Oh. Well, I can…”
“I want to finish this book now!” Helen said adamantly. Val had only known her a short while, but usually Helen was soft-spoken. She didn’t talk much. “He’s lying. He’s not my son, and I’m not going anywhere with him!”
“Mom.” Griffin crouched in front of Helen’s chair now and looked up into her frightened eyes. “Mom. It’s me. Griffin. I came to see you, and I brought you a treat.” He reached inside his pocket and pulled out a health food bar.
Helen’s face soured. “That woman already gave me a candy bar!” She pointed at Val, then turned back to Griffin. “Now leave me alone!”
—
Griffin looked around at all the women in the quote-unquote book club and blew out a breath. Rising to his feet, he glanced at Val. How did his mother prefer Val over her own son? That was more painful than the fact that his mother preferred Val’s candy bar over the five dollar protein bar he’d gone to two different stores to find. It was his mother’s favorite. Or it used to be.
“You’re not my son,” his mother said again, turning back to Val and laying her hands in her lap in a dignified way that reminded Griffin of how his mother used to sit during the long meetings he’d been forced to accompany her to as a child. He’d always carried a comic book with him to keep busy, which his mother hadn’t liked, but had agreed to in order to keep him quiet. “Please continue,” she told Val.
The rest of the women agreed.
Val offered a sympathetic look in Griffin’s direction, which rubbed him wrong. He didn’t need her sympathy. He needed her to stop treating his mother like all the rest of the women. His mother wasn’t like them. She wasn’t elderly; she was only fifty-five years old. Helen Black didn’t belong in a nursing home for the rest of her life.
Except she did now.
“You can sit and read with us if you like,” Val suggested. “Pull up a chair. We’re just getting to the good part.”
“We’re going to find out whodunit,” Alma said. Her cheeks blushed a little as she looked at him. He’d been smacked in the ass by her one of the last times he was here.
“No. I’m good.” He looked at his mother one more time, but she was done with him. Fine. So much for helping her remember her life tonight. He’d try again tomorrow, and hopefully—despite how much he enjoyed looking at the brunette—Val Hunt wouldn’t be here.
He walked back to his motorcycle in the parking lot and got on. A nice, long ride would relax him. Griffin reached into his pocket and pulled out the protein bar first. He’d missed lunch. Ripping the wrapper open, he took a bite. He stared down at the bar in his hands as he chewed. Yuck. Who would willingly eat these things? The MREs they provided on deployments were better than these. Griffin peeled off the rest of the wrapper, shoved it into his pocket for trashing later, and tossed the bar to the grassy area in front of him. Maybe the birds would like it, but he doubted it.
Placing his helmet on his head, he glanced in the rearview mirror, prepared to zip out of here and down all the back roads in the little town of Seaside. Instead, he watched Val walk toward him with those long, tempting legs.
Objects in mirror are closer than they appear. That was a warning he’d never fully realized until now.
“Hey,” Val said, stepping up beside him.
Her voice was muffled by his helmet. Removing it, he looked at her, noticing the varying shades of blue and gray in her eyes. She folded her arms under her chest.
“She didn’t mean it. All the ladies are just so excited about hearing the end of the book,” she said.
“So why are you out here with me instead of giving them what they want?”
Val shrugged. “I needed a break. And I wanted to make sure you were okay. Are you?”
Griffin sucked in a long breath, unsure of how to answer that question. What was okay? He wasn’t sure anymore. He was living, breathing, and had food to eat that tasted better than that protein bar he’d just tossed to the ground. “I’m okay,” he finally said. “I’ll see her later, when I’m not interfering with her social activities.” He had to laugh at that.
“Why are you laughing?” Val asked, her dark brows slanting.
“Because that’s one thing that hasn’t changed about my mom over the years. She’s always loved her social life.” Good to know he didn’t have to start from scratch in getting his mother back.
Val was watching him, her eyes softening as she continued to stand there with her arms folded across her chest as if she were cold. It was ninety fucking degrees outside. “I’m sorry if I intruded on your time with her,” she said.
“Don’t be.” He gestured back to the nursing home. “Better get back inside. They’re waiting for you in there.”
Val shifted back and forth on her feet. “Your mother is pretty receptive to the people who work here. Maybe, I don’t know, you could take a job—”
“I have a job,” he snapped.
“Not a paying job. But maybe you could do a few odd jobs here at the nursing home. Volunteer your time instead of just coming in and singling her out. Helen doesn’t know you.”
Griffin’s jaw tightened. “You don’t need to tell me about my mother. Just because you read her a book and slip her candy bars doesn’t mean you know her.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“My mother doesn’t like fiction. She doesn’t eat junk food. She likes stimulating conversation and fancy wine. She likes to watch the news and be up-to-date with current events, not watch The Golden Girls reruns on TV.” His chest was tightening as he spoke. He’d left his mother alone for too long, and now, as hard as he tried,
he couldn’t find her—not the woman he’d known, anyway.
“Maybe your mother has changed,” Val said quietly. She’d taken a tiny step backward as he’d talked. Scared of him? Because of how he was suddenly acting? Because of the way he looked? He encountered that sometimes, living in a small town. His mother had hated his tattoos. It was “senseless graffiti on the body,” she used to say. She’d hated his bike, too, so he’d gotten rid of his car and used the Harley as his sole transportation his first and only year of college, just to ruffle her feathers.
Now he ruffled her feathers just by walking in the room.
“Then I’ll just have to change her back,” he said, putting his helmet on again. End of story. There was nothing more to say. He reversed his bike slowly as Val took a few more steps off to the side, then he zipped away, glancing in the rearview as she grew smaller and smaller.
—
Val returned to the book club, surprised that everyone was still seated and waiting for her.
“We need to know whodunit already,” Alma said for the fifth time that day.
Val crossed her legs and smiled, opening the book back to where she’d left off. “Fine. I’ll continue.” Her mind wasn’t on whodunit anymore, though. It was on Griffin. She gave a sideward glance to Helen, who was as attentive as everyone else.
Val read, using inflection to make her voice more dramatic. Val’s own mother had enjoyed being read to before she’d died. Val had only been nine; she’d been limited in what books she could read, but her mother hadn’t minded. She’d lain in her bed and smiled as Val read slowly, sounding out the big words. During the weeks when her mother had received chemotherapy, her mother had closed her eyes and listened. Sometimes Val had even wondered if her mother was awake, if she was still alive. But then she’d struggle with sounding out a word and her mother would whisper it to her.
“Reading can take you anywhere, Valerie,” her mother used to say. “If you have imagination, you can do all the things you want to do. You can be all the things you want to be.”
Val remembered how her mother’s eyes filled with tears one day as she’d squeezed Val’s hand. “And we can always be together. Just close your eyes and imagine me there with you.”
Val’s throat tightened as she continued reading to the group. “Cristoff raised his gun, the very one that had shot Ann Marie.”
All of the women in the group sucked in an audible breath.
Really? They hadn’t figured that out already?
Val smiled and finished reading the scene. “The end,” she said with a sigh. There was no happily-ever-after in this book. Those were her favorites. If you were going to use your imagination to take you somewhere, you might as well go somewhere happy, she thought.
“What’s next?” one of the ladies asked, leaning forward.
“Next?” Val hadn’t thought that far ahead. “Well, I don’t know yet.” She closed the cozy mystery and opened her bag to drop it inside. As she did, another book fell out. It was one of her Sophie Evans books. She quickly bent to toss it back inside her tote.
“Whoa, there. What’s that one?” Alma asked.
“N-nothing. Just, you know…um…” Val felt her temperature rising. Sometimes she liked to read her older books, just to remind herself that she had done it before and could do it again.
“It’s a romance novel,” Marge said.
Val laughed nervously. “Yes. I read romance novels on my own. Nothing you ladies would be interested in.” She looked up, ready to change the subject. “So back to our next book club pick. What are you ladies in the mood for? Adventure? Another mystery? Nonfiction?” She glanced at Helen, who obviously had no interest in hearing an autobiography right now, regardless of what Griffin had suggested.
“I want to read that romance,” Alma said, looking around at the others. “I haven’t had romance in ages. That’s what I want to read.”
The other women nodded their agreement.
“Well…” Val laughed softly. “I don’t think the administration here would like me reading”—she lowered her voice—“sex scenes to you guys.”
Louise from the front desk stood behind her now. Where did she come from? “Oh, don’t worry, Val. We don’t care. We’d rather these ladies get their needs met by hearing it in a book. That beats some of the other ways they get their needs met.” Louise’s laugh bellowed as she walked away.
Ew!
“Well, okay then.” Val looked around the circle of women. “Are you sure? Maybe a different romance, though? I have a lot of books at home. I can bring a stack next time and we can choose.” And she’d keep her Sophie Evans books out of the running.
“That one.” Helen pointed. “That’s the one.”
Val frowned. “This one, huh? Really?”
“I like the guy on the cover,” someone else confirmed. “He looks like my dead husband.”
Yeah, Val had liked that guy, too. Too bad real guys didn’t look like that. Except for Griffin. “Okay,” she said, nodding and forcing a smile. What did it matter if they read the book she’d written? It didn’t. None of them knew she was the author.
As she got into her car ten minutes later, she looked at the bright side of things. Maybe seeing one of her books provide entertainment for someone would inspire her to write more. As if on cue, Val’s phone buzzed in the seat beside her. Her heart sunk as she glanced at the caller ID and read her literary agent’s name on the phone. She loved her agent. Dearly. But she hated to disappoint her.
“How’s it coming, Val?” Nikki asked, getting straight to the point. Val liked that about her. She was direct and pulled no punches.
Val cringed. “Oh, you know,” she said as she drove, looking for the bright side of this conversation, too.
“You’ve got nothing,” Nikki responded. “I can hear it in your voice. What’s wrong, sunshine?”
Val shook her head. She wished she knew. The words just weren’t coming anymore. Or they were, but they were all crap. She wasn’t feeling romantic.
“I know what you need,” Nikki continued. “You need inspiration.”
“I’ve watched all the romantic comedies on Netflix. My radio is set to Love Songs of the ’80s.”
“No, no, no.” Nikki laughed. “That’s all well and good, but it doesn’t beat the real thing. Or the fake real thing. You need a summer romance. Something to get you in the mood.”
Val was nodding as she listened. “Because those are so easy to find.”
“You could always do one of those dating services,” Nikki suggested.
Val shook her head, passing the spot where she’d run Griffin off the road the week before. He could be very inspiring if he wanted to be, she suspected. “I’ll do my best,” Val promised.
“No more extensions. A writing author means a happy publisher.” Nikki recapped the same advice she always gave, followed by her usual pep talk. Val didn’t need a pep talk, though. Apparently, what she needed was a man, and quick if she expected to have this book written by August.
Chapter 4
Griffin glanced at the clock on his office wall and blew out a breath. He had thirty minutes left on shift. He’d filled out the incident report for Jaws’s biting of the jerk-off with an Everest-sized attitude yesterday. And all day he’d been waiting for the kennel master to find him, wanting to talk about what happened. Charlie Myer hadn’t said a word, though.
Maybe it wasn’t as big a deal as Griffin thought. Jaws was still new on the unit. There had to be leeway for newbies.
A knock on his door shot those hopes down. Griffin hesitated, sucking in a breath, before turning to meet Charlie’s gaze.
“Hey.” Griffin leaned back in his chair and drew his clicker pen toward his shoulder. Click. Click. Click. “What’s up, Charlie?”
Charlie crossed his arms in the doorway. “I think you know. What happened? I’ve seen Jaws on the courses. Has he ever attacked without cause before?”
Click. Click. “I wouldn’t really say he atta
cked without cause, sir. The suspect was getting loud. He approached me.”
“Threatened you?” Charlie asked, his brow dipping as he tried to understand the situation.
Griffin shook his head and continued to click his pen. “Not exactly.”
“I see.”
Silence drifted between them. Griffin could only imagine what Charlie was thinking. Jaws was a loose cannon. A risk. And Marines eliminated risk.
“He’s a good dog. You’ve seen him. He just needs a little extra training,” Griffin said, forcing what he hoped was a convincing smile. He clicked his pen. Click. Click. “I can train him, sir. Jaws won’t be a problem.”
Charlie nodded, although he didn’t look convinced. “I’m just glad the suspect didn’t press charges. We can’t have a live wire in this setting. It won’t work.”
“He’s not a live wire.” Griffin held Charlie’s gaze. Man to man. “I promise this won’t happen again.”
Charlie laughed. “So you’re the fool who thinks you actually do control your dog, huh?” He pointed at the incident report in his hand. “This is what we get for taking a dog named Jaws…Okay, Officer Black. I don’t want to have this conversation again.”
“Yes, sir.” Griffin exhaled as Charlie’s heavy boots retreated down the hall. With one more click of his pen, Griffin put it down and grabbed his keys. His shift was over and a ride on his motorcycle would clear his head and put things in perspective. It always did.
An hour later, he pulled into his driveway as the sun began to sink below the tree line behind his townhome. He got Trooper and walked to the mailbox while Trooper pissed in the neighbor’s flowers. For some reason his dog loved to mark the flowers and, after all Trooper had sacrificed in his life, if he wanted to piss on flowers, Griffin wasn’t going to stop him.
Griffin thumbed through the various-sized envelopes in his box. There were the usual bills and an official-looking envelope that made him smile. Glancing down at Trooper, who was back at his side, he said, “Looks like you got a new honor today. You’re approved to be a therapy dog.”
