Love in the Rockies

by Thianna D

  “Except I said that I would chaperone,” Lainie put in. “I feel like I need to do what I agreed to do.” It wasn’t that she couldn’t see his point, she could, but she just wasn’t one to back out of things. If anything, she was typically the one that filled in when someone else backed out. The notion of putting someone else in that position was not one she was comfortable with.

  “You also agreed to abide by my decisions,” Grant pointed out.

  “That’s not fair, Grant. I’m trying. Can’t you see I’m caught between a rock and a hard place here,” she replied. That was exactly how she felt, torn between two conflicting commitments. Grant wasn’t helping. If anything, he was making matters worse. Their agreement was supposed to make things easier, not harder and more stressful.

  “Okay,” Grant said finally. “How about we compromise? You can chaperone the first hour of the dance but find someone to come in for you after that and come home.”

  That was a reasonable compromise, and Lainie knew she should agree, but part of her still resented the necessity for compromise in the first place. Why couldn’t he just leave her alone? They had never made a big deal about holidays before. She had to work. That had always been enough for her to accept what he needed to do. Why couldn’t that be enough for him?

  “Well,” Grant pressed, “what do you think? Will that work? Something is going to have to because you are not working at the dance for the entire time. You can go for part of the time or not at all.”

  That made Lainie bristle even more, but she knew that tone. It booked no arguments. He meant exactly what he said. Any further attempts to insist would likely get her banned from working the dance at all and lead to a highly embarrassing conversation with her boss. It had never gone that far before, but there wasn’t the slightest doubt in her mind that it would if she chose to push further.

  “Okay, fine,” she agreed reluctantly. Despite her agreement, she wasn’t able to keep a little of the anger and frustration from bleeding through in her voice.

  Grant raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

  Of course he would get all demanding about her answering properly now. If he only knew how much she was restraining herself already, he wouldn’t be so damned unreasonable about it. Refusing wasn’t likely to go down well, however.

  Sighing, she tried again, taking great care to keep her tone respectful and free of anything he could construe as attitude. “Yes, that will work. Thank you.”

  “Good girl,” Grant praised quietly.

  Lainie hovered somewhere between pleasure and abject embarrassment. Why had she ever let it slip that she liked it when he did that? She did, sort of, but that didn’t make it any less mortifying. In lieu of answering, she curled up against him again. She had gradually moved further and further away from him as they talked. Now that they’d settled that, she could resume her comfortable position.

  Grant snaked an arm around her, trailing fingers up and down her hip, rubbing gently. “You’ll get everything arranged with Beau or whoever tomorrow?”

  Why had she ever let him catch on to the idea of pinning her down to specifics? She was never drinking again. She got far too uninhibited when she did and gave away too many of her own secrets. “Yes,” Lainie said reluctantly.

  Grant tapped on her hip in warning. Lainie swore inwardly. Never again. She talked too damn much when she had alcohol in her system. Why the hell had she ever thought it was a good idea to let him in on these subtle habits? The next tap got slightly harder, closer to a mild swat. She hissed out of breath in exasperation, but gave in. “Yes, sir.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  On his way to work the following day, it dawned on Grant that he had been so distracted by the revelation that Lainie had planned to work on Valentine’s Day that he had never got around to talking to her about what she actually wanted to do. Thinking about it, though, he decided that maybe his oversight wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Maybe he could plan something special and surprise her.

  That would work, but just what would Lainie enjoy doing? His first thought was taking her out to dinner. Maybe you should get her out of Corbin’s Bend for a change and take her to Denver. That would mean making a second round trip to Denver on that day, however, and that wasn’t something he particularly wanted to do. Besides, while there was a much greater variety of restaurants in Denver, there were plenty of quality restaurants right there in Corbin’s Bend. Why should they drive so far out of their way when they could get the same thing if not better without ever leaving home?

  Okay, so maybe they should still go out but go to one of the restaurants at home instead? Amore would be a good choice. An Italian dinner was perfect for a romantic night out, wasn’t it? Except that the restaurants in Corbin’s Bend, while very good, weren’t necessarily built to accommodate huge crowds. They would likely be packed Valentine’s night. If they were able to get in at all, they would probably have a long wait. A long wait in a restaurant crammed chock full of people did not sound either appealing or romantic. Grant was more than willing to sacrifice if he was sure that was really what Lainie wanted, but asking her would ruin the surprise.

  Perhaps they could have a romantic dinner at home. That certainly sounded like a better idea in his opinion. For one, it meant that he did not have to deal with hordes of people. For another, his entire goal was to allow them to spend some private time together, and being alone at home was certainly more conducive to that than being in a crowded restaurant full of their neighbors and friends. He loved their community. He loved that everyone knew one another and talked like old friends, but he really wanted to focus on the two of them as a couple. That would be far harder to accomplish in public.

  A romantic dinner at home, he could work with that. There was only one fly in that ointment. He wasn’t much of a cook. He could cook enough not to let himself starve, but the idea of cooking a fancy romantic dinner for Lainie sounded like a recipe for disaster. Unlike his friend and mentor, Matt Renton, he was no chef.

  Matt, of course. The answer to his problems was staring him right in the face. He was no chef, but Matt was. He was the executive chef at Amore, the very restaurant that Grant had just been considering taking Lainie to. Surely Matt could help him out.

  Grant dug out his phone and dialed Matt’s number, putting the phone on speaker and leaving it lying in the seat beside him so he could drive.

  “Hey Grant, how’s it going?” Matt said when he answered the phone.

  “Doing good,” Grant replied, “but I’ve got a project I need your help with.”

  “Sure,” Matt said easily. “You know I’ll help if I can. What’s up?”

  Briefly, Grant laid out his plan for surprising Lainie.

  “Geez, man, go all out why don’t you,” Matt teased. “Make the rest of us look bad.”

  “You’re the chef,” Grant shot back. “Surely you could pull off a fancy dinner.”

  “I could,” Matt agreed. “In fact, I will, for dozens of people. I’m working. As I’m sure you can imagine, Valentine’s is a busy night for us.”

  “I thought as much,” Grant told him. “That’s why I want to have something at home as opposed to coming to the restaurant. The question is will you do take out?”

  “For you I can probably manage something,” Matt said. “What did you have in mind?”

  It took Grant a minute to answer. He hadn’t actually thought it through that far. Finally, he arranged to come by that evening and take a look at a menu so that they could decide what would work best. He thanked Matt profusely and ended the call. He spent the rest of his commute humming with excitement, satisfied his plan was shaping up quite well.

  * * * * *

  Lainie grudgingly made her way to Beau’s office. All her reluctant agreement the night before had disappeared in the morning light. The closer it got to actually having to discuss it with her colleagues, the less reasonable it seemed to her. How was she supposed to tell him that she couldn’t chaperone the dance after all? She ha
d agreed to it only yesterday. How was she supposed to explain the sudden change of heart? By the way, Mr. Davies, I’m sorry but I can’t chaperone the dance after all. My husband gave me a curfew, and he won’t let me stay out for the whole time. It was ridiculous. It made her sound like she was no older than her students. Moreover, it was completely unprofessional.

  Grant was being unreasonable. The very reason he was so intent on them spending Valentine’s together this year was because they had rarely been able to do so in the past thanks to his job. Now it was her who needed to work, but that suddenly wasn’t okay. Why was her job suddenly less important than his? Who was she kidding? She was just a teacher. Just a teacher. God, she hated that. It was bad enough that society on the whole dismissed her job like that, but for her own husband to just ignore her and overrule her. That was infinitely so much worse.

  If she were in a mood to be objective, which she most certainly was not, Lainie might have been able to concede that he had not completely ignored her. He had listened to her. He’d just decided his own opinion was more important. On another day, she might’ve also acknowledged that he sort of had a point about her being overcommitted. She was stretched pretty thin, but she could handle it. She’d been juggling these responsibilities and more for years. Heck, before now he had been just as harried and overworked as she was. He’d just never taken the time to notice it before. Now, suddenly, he had, and she was supposed to stop just because he said so. She didn’t think so. She was an adult and a professional, and she was perfectly capable of knowing her own limits and managing her own responsibilities. She didn’t need him interfering, especially not when it came to her job.

  Okay so maybe as her HOH he sometimes had the right to tell her what to do, but that was only if she was doing something detrimental to herself or their relationship. That had nothing to do with her job. Her job was off-limits. She could just imagine what his reaction would be like if she had ever told him he needed to tell his commanding officer he couldn’t work on a particular day. His response probably wouldn’t be repeatable in mixed company; yet, that was what he was expecting her to do. How hypocritical was that? Granted, the dance was not specifically part of her teaching duties, and she had technically volunteered, but someone had to. It wasn’t like Grant had never done something like that. She didn’t have fingers or toes enough to count the number of times that he had stayed late after a shift simply because something was going on and he needed to be there. Not to mention the times when he had gone in when there was an emergency or taught classes on his off days. He would have never considered leaving a fellow officer hanging who needed help, but he had no problem telling her to leave Beau hanging. Couldn’t he see how much of a double standard that was?

  Despite her utter conviction that Grant was wrong and this was unfair, whispers of his reasoning still echoed in her head. This is Corbin’s Bend, he had said. Beau is in a DD relationship himself. He will understand. Just explain it to him or if you’d rather, ask him to call me, and I’ll explain it myself.

  Not likely, Lainie thought bitterly. She might as well be a student telling him that her dad wanted to talk to him. Never in a million years. She’d never be able to be on equal terms as a professional again. She might not even be able to look him in the face again. DD might be normal around here. She had even heard rumors about some of the teachers who were HOH’s leaving school at lunch to go home and “discuss” things with their TIH’s, but this was different. It wasn’t like those people actually had to tell their supervisors what was going on. They just got permission to leave campus at lunch and that was all there was to it. You didn’t really have to explain yourself. Getting permission was just a formality so that the administrators knew whether you were on campus or not. It wasn’t like this. This was totally humiliating and unreasonable.

  That’s it. She wasn’t doing this. Grant couldn’t expect her to do this. It was completely unfair, and she wasn’t doing it. Her mind made up. Lainie turned and made her way back to her classroom.

  “Hey, Lainie,” Brenda, the six grade math teacher who was also on the planning committee, called out as Lainie passed her classroom, “you’re coming to do set up, right?”

  Lainie made a U-turn and paused inside Brenda’s doorway. “Yep, I’ll be there.”

  “And you’re staying to chaperone, too?” Brenda questioned.

  “I am,” Lainie confirmed. “I’ll be here for the duration.” Her husband would just have to get over it.

  * * * * *

  Grant was both surprised and pleased to find Lainie at home and cooking dinner when he came home that night. The table had been cleared, and there were no stacks of papers piled up waiting for her to grade. That alone was a minor miracle. He understood that the paperwork was a part of her job, just as reports and things were a part of his. He also understood that often she had to bring the paperwork home with her. That was simply part and parcel of the way things worked for a teacher. He understood that and had no real qualms with it. It was only when Lainie started working herself ragged that it began to bother him. Lately, she had been going flat out. That wasn’t terribly unusual with the start of a new term, but she desperately needed a break. He was very glad to see her taking what he said seriously and letting herself take one.

  When he had showered and changed, Grant went in search of Lainie, intent on telling her how proud he was that she seemed to be trying to slow down. He found her in the kitchen, elbow deep in some sort of meat mixture. He came up and hugged her from behind, peering over her shoulder into the bowl. “What are you making?” he asked.

  “Just meatloaf,” Lainie said, “nothing special.”

  “Hey, I like meatloaf,” Grant told her. “Besides, anything homemade is bound to be better than the cafeteria food I get at work or something from a box.”

  “Which is what you’ve been getting around here lately,” Lainie muttered.

  “I didn’t say that,” Grant countered. “I wasn’t complaining. I know you’ve been busy. I’m just glad to have you home today.” He snagged a clean cup from the dish drain by the sink and wandered over to the refrigerator to pour himself a drink. “How was your day?” he wondered aloud, leaning with his back against the counter and watching her cook.

  “It was fine, nothing out of the ordinary really. Most of my classes have book projects due at the end of the week so next week will be a heavy grading week. This week they’re mostly just hyped up about the Valentine’s Day dance,” Lainie replied.

  “Speaking of the dance,” Grant put in, “were you able to get everything squared away with Beau or whoever you needed to talk to?”

  “Uh huh,” Lainie murmured, never looking up from where she was shaping the meat mixture into a loaf pan.

  “That’s great,” Grant said. “They didn’t give you any trouble or anything?” Lainie shook her head. “See? I told you it would be fine.” He moved over to where she was washing her hands and turned her around to face him. “Thank you,” he said seriously. “I know that wasn’t easy for you to do, and I really appreciate you taking me seriously and doing what I asked you.”

  “It’s fine,” Lainie said, pulling away and going to put the meatloaf into the oven.

  Something about her tone was off and seemed a little distracted, but with the way that she had been working, it wasn’t surprising that she was tired. “I don’t see any towering piles of papers tonight,” Grant commented. “Do you have work to do?”

  “Just a little,” Lainie replied. “It’s in my bag.”

  Of course it was. Grant should’ve known she would have something. He could count the number of times on one hand that she had come home without something to do since school had started. Still, an amount small enough to fit in her bag was a vast improvement over the stacks of papers she normally carried. He should probably count that as a victory. After all, it was unreasonable to expect her to stop altogether. He had asked her to prioritize and cut back, and from the looks of things, she was trying to do tha
t. “How much more has to be done here?” Grant asked.

  “It’s pretty much down to just letting everything cook now,” Lainie told him. “The meatloaf has to cook and the potatoes need to boil.” She was adding a number of small red potatoes into a pot. As she spoke, she carried them over to the sink and filled the pot with water.

  “Is there anything special that needs to be done to the potatoes?” Grant wanted to know.

  “You mean besides not letting them burn or boil over?” Lainie teased, smiling at him. “Nope, that’s pretty much all there is to it.” She put the pot back on the stove and fiddled with the control until she got it to the desired temperature.

  “In that case, why don’t I watch this while you go ahead and go get your work done,” Grant offered. “I promise I won’t burn the kitchen down. After all, you’ll be within rescue distance if anything goes terribly wrong.” He was actually a fairly competent if simple cook himself. He wasn’t anywhere near as skilled in that area as Lainie was, but he was fairly sure he could keep potatoes from boiling over. “That way, after dinner, maybe you will be able to relax a little while. I’ll even watch one of those crappy sitcoms you like.”

  Lainie grinned at him. “They aren’t crappy. You just fail to appreciate the humor.”

  Grant rolled his eyes. “Whatever. You go on now. I can manage this.”

  * * * * *

  Lainie couldn’t get out of the kitchen fast enough. She felt like an emotional time bomb. While she still felt completely justified in doing what she had, she was going out of her mind with nerves trying to keep from just blurting it out to Grant. He wasn’t helping matters either. Or rather, he was helping, too much. It was hard for her to stay angry with him when he was all nice and helpful like this. Not to mention she felt incredibly guilty that he was so happy thinking that she had done what he asked when she had actually done nothing at all.