Taming McGruff (Book 3, Once Upon A Romance Series)

by leclair, laurie

  “Oh, my, this is so pretty,” Dolly said. “I like those flowers you picked, Prissy. Colorful.”

  She forced a smile. Ringing the doorbell felt foreign to her since over the last weeks she came and went as she pleased.

  When he opened the door, she began to doubt the saneness of this meeting. His gaze, hot and searing, made her tremble. An ache shot through her.

  He ushered them in without a word.

  Dolly and Charlie oohed and ahhed over the decor. “Prissy, this looks even better than the pictures,” Charlie said.

  The men shook hands, easing right back into that old familiar men talk.

  Dolly took charge of the coats, hanging them up on the nearby coat rack. Then she asked if she could do anything, make coffee or refreshments.

  “All done.” He nodded to the living room.

  When Priscilla stepped into the room, memories flooded back to her. The hard work of putting it all together took a back seat to the look on his face when he’d first seen it. Automatically, her gaze went to his. He held it. Her breath caught in her lungs. He could still make her feel things, want things.

  A few minutes later, Marcus and Francie arrived, with goodies from his pub and grill. He made himself at home and set it out beside the coffee and tea Griffin had already placed on the coffee table. Marcus and Dolly took over, handing out food and drinks.

  Griffin waved off any. He remained standing and waited for everyone to settle in. Priscilla clutched her mug of steaming tea. In the back of her mind, she recalled her yellow smiley mug stashed in the cupboard. A slice of pain stabbed her at the thought of never sitting across from him and using it again.

  “Thank you all for coming tonight.” He glanced at each one of them. “First, I owe you all an apology for what I did. Somehow that got lost in the meeting I had with the King daughters the other morning. I am sorry, truly sorry, for any pain I caused you.” His regret was palpable. His gaze landed on Priscilla. “Especially you, Pixie.”

  The use of her nickname tugged at her heart.

  “I had tunnel vision when it came to Agnes King, and I forgot, for a very long time, that other people would unknowingly suffer at my hands.” He went to a nearby table and picked up something. “I wanted vindication for my father. I realized I’d only cause more misery to innocent people. I couldn’t do what had been done to me.”

  His sincerity gripped Priscilla. Transfixed, she gulped as his humble apology sank in. It had cost him dearly, she realized, for him to give up his quest. How could he exonerate his father now? Why did she still care after all he’d done to her and her family?

  “Charlie,” he continued, “I hope you believe me when I say, I had no intention of going into your desk yesterday afternoon. I left blueprints and reports from the women’s department remodel—”

  “Yes, I got those this morning. They were on top of my desk,” she confirmed.

  “I looked for a sticky note. I tried your top drawer.”

  “That thing’s been stuck for years. I can’t get it all the way open.”

  “I did.”

  His words dropped into the room.

  “There’s a metal latch on each side in the very back, holding closed secret compartments. I found these there. I haven’t opened them. It’s not for me to do so. This one, the biggest and bulkiest, is addressed to you, Charlie. Francine, this is yours. And Priscilla, you have one, too.”

  Putting down her mug, Priscilla’s hands shook when he handed her the envelope.

  “It’s Daddy’s handwriting. I’d know it anywhere,” Charlie said, awe coloring her words.

  Priscilla turned it over in her hands. Light, yet an outline of something inside poked out the shape of it, she couldn’t imagine what her late stepfather left for only her. “Open yours first,” she told Charlie.

  “No, you and Francie first,” Edward chimed in.

  Jerking her head up, Priscilla witnessed a silent exchange between Edward and Griffin. A fusion of fear nagged her. She didn’t know what she’d uncover, but she took a deep breath and peeled away the seal. A yellowing slip of paper and a King’s jewelry box lay inside. She pulled out the paper first, unfolded it and found tears clouding her eyes as she saw her late stepfather’s handwriting sprawled across the page.

  “He knew he was dying,” she whispered. “He wanted me to know I was his daughter as much as Charlie was. No matter what happened to me in life, by leaving me this, he wanted me to know I was loved. I was a King. At the bottom he wrote, follow your dreams; it will always lead you to your heart.” Gingerly, she put aside his note, wiped her eyes with a napkin, and then pulled out the lavender box with King’s logo of a crown on it. She lifted the lid, gasping at the charm bracelet: a miniature crown—the King logo charm—lay beside a heart, with an emerald stone in the center of it, dangling from the chain. Picking it up, she turned it over and read the inscription. “For my baby girl. It’s beautiful.”

  Francie opened hers; the note said almost the same thing. Her jewelry box contained an identical bracelet with the King crown charm; the only difference was a sapphire stone sat in the center of her heart. She read her inscription. “For my blue-eyed girl. That’s what he always called me,” Francie said, laughing and crying at the same time.

  “I’m afraid to look,” Charlie admitted, hugging the envelope to her.

  “You don’t have to,” Griffin said.

  Priscilla gazed at him, wondering if he suspected something. But wouldn’t Charlie opening the envelope benefit his cause? There had been secrets hidden away, obviously from her mother. That could be the only answer. Why would Griff want to stop Charlie then? He returned her stare, his stormy gray eyes haunted. He hurt, deeply and painfully, by what he did.

  She gasped, stunned by the raw emotion he allowed her to see. Her heart tumbled. Everything he’d written on her blog this morning touched a place deep inside her by his show of vulnerability; however, seeing the scope and breadth of it in person shook her to her core.

  The sound of Charlie unsealing the envelope dragged Priscilla’s attention away from her husband and to her stepsister.

  “There’s a note, too,” Charlie said. She skimmed it, chuckling. “Princess, that’s what he called me. My little Princess. He hoped I knew how much he loved me, how much I reminded him of my mother and her gentle, loving ways. He’d hoped one day I would understand the difficult decisions he’d made by marrying another woman. He wanted me to have a family again.” She sucked in a breath, and then dug into the envelope, pulling out a square box. She flipped it open. “My mother’s rings.” The diamonds sparkled. “He kept them for me.”

  “That’s them,” Dolly said, leaning over to admire the set. “I always wondered what became of them. I just thought the Barracuda had them in the safe.”

  “There’s more,” Charlie said, handing the rings to Alex and diving back into the envelope. She pulled out a thick folded document.

  Again Priscilla noticed Edward catching Griffin’s stare. Their unspoken communication could only mean one thing. There was something there, maybe even incriminating. But for who?

  “I don’t understand,” Charlie said. “It’s his will…”

  “Let me see, honey.” Dolly got up, nudged Alex aside. “Trade seats with me, Mr. R.” He did as instructed. She plopped down beside Charlie. Dolly flipped through until she got to the last page. “I knew it! Signed on my birthday. I told you, Mr. G. —there was another will.”

  “Another will?” Priscilla asked, looking at Griff as memories flooded back. “That’s why you had that document drawn up stating you didn’t want any part of King’s or my possible future inheritance. You knew.”

  “My father knew. No one believed him.” His short, to the point answer said little, but Priscilla read between the lines.

  “The accusations.” It wasn’t a question. All this time, he’d pursued the truth and no one would listen. Not even her.

  “What does it say?” Alex asked. Charlie handed it to him, her hand
shaking. He skipped the opening standard language and got to the meat of the document. “He leaves King’s Department Store to Charlie…” He glanced up quickly to his wife.

  “No, he left it to Stepmother,” Charlie said.

  “In trust,” he continued, “until you reach the age of twenty-one. Also, a trust fund of millions.”

  “But Mother said, you didn’t have a trust fund,” Francie said in stunned wonder.

  “He leaves the house to both Francie and Prissy, so they always know they have a home. Both of you have trusts worth millions, too, to be distributed when you reach twenty-one.” Alex continued reading half out loud and half to himself. “Dolly receives a sizeable pension for all her devotion to the King family over the years.”

  “Why, I ain’t got squat from you-know-who. I knew he’d never forget me.” Dolly sniffed back tears.

  “His second wife, Agnes, shall receive the grand sum of two million dollars, to live out her life. She will no longer stay employed at King’s or have anything to do with the running or decision making of King’s from this time forward.”

  “What?” Priscilla asked. “He kicked Mother to the curb? Even back then? And he put her on a budget.” Dawning hit. She swung her gaze to Griffin. “Daddy wanted her out of the store. He suspected something.”

  “Maybe he realized she wasn’t such a people person,” Marcus chimed in, holding Francie’s hand.

  “He bequeaths his personal items here in detail. His heartfelt appreciation to King’s employees,” Alex murmured.

  Charlie sighed heavily, apparently drained.

  “There’s more. And—” Alex stopped short, glancing at Griffin, and then back at the document. “James Weatherford, my dearest friend and attorney, shall be the executor of my estate and the head of the trust fund for both King’s and my daughters’ trust funds. In my stead, I leave him the great task of watching over my precious daughters. Of course, he refuses any compensation for himself or his heirs for conducting this business and following my wishes for many years to come. His loyal friendship and devotion to the King family will be forever remembered with undying gratitude. Everyone should be as lucky as I am to have such a remarkable friend.”

  Priscilla watched Griffin’s face; it was stony and remote. But emotions, raw and churning, chased across his gray eyes. “Mother,” she gulped hard, “did destroy him because of this. Because she would be kicked out while he had all the control. Over the store. Over the money.” Griffin had been right all along. Her mother had ruined his father and his reputation. If she were Griff, Priscilla knew she’d carry hatred in her heart, too.

  She ached for him, but he turned away, shutting her out again.

  How could she help him when everything in her world, everything she’d been led to believe, had just been turned upside down?

  Chapter 24

  Griffin did what he thought once was impossible. Getting out of the Vette, he trailed her to the neighborhood park. The dog sensed him before she did. The white, fluffy mutt strained against the leash, trying to come to him.

  “Stop that,” Mrs. King scolded the dog, and then she reared back at the sight of Griffin. “You! Haven’t you caused enough trouble already?”

  He faced his longtime enemy. “Apparently so,” he agreed, knowing Charlie had called her from his house that night. She’d denied everything, but the girls knew different. To their credit, they agreed not to press charges or reverse what had already been done. Also, they wanted to find a way to honor his father for all he’d done for Charles King. Griff should have been satisfied with the contents of the will, his vindication, but, for his own sake, he had to play this out until the bitter end.

  Mrs. King tried to force the dog to walk. He refused.

  Drawing nearer, Griffin saw her in the cold light of day. The perfect updo, sprayed and held perfectly in place, didn’t change. He noted the lines feathering out of the corners of her eyes and above her upper lip, the brackets along her mouth, and her skin seemed pale. Her dark eyes, once shooting venom at him, now held a trace of fear. “What do you want? To gloat? I will never admit anything, do you understand? I should have known who you were. You look like him—big and broad, gray eyes. Who could have those same eyes but his son? What a fool I’ve been.”

  “Yes, you have.”

  “You are gloating.”

  “No. I came here to let you know I’m done.”

  “What did you say? Done? With what?”

  “You. With your hold over me all these years.” He smiled, the irony of it not lost on him. “You wanted control over everything. You had it, over me. I worked, ate, and slept revenge against you. I was filled with rage over how you treated my father. I wanted to get back at you, hit you where it hurt you the most, because you had hit me where it hurt the most.”

  “You have his tenacity and audacity, too.”

  “I take that as a compliment.”

  “Insufferable,” she muttered. “Just like him.”

  “He found you out. I remember the things he’d tell me. All because you couldn’t have control over Charles King’s heart. He loved his first wife, adored her. He never got over her. But for Charlie’s sake, he wanted her to have a mother to raise her, to care for her again. You came back to King’s, stormed into his life, and used your own daughters to your advantage, because that was his weakness. Family. He assumed, if you two married, you would be the mother to his motherless child and he would be the father to your fatherless daughters.”

  Tears shimmered in her eyes.

  “It could have been just like that, too,” he said softly. “But your fear got the best of you. You pushed and prodded, forced yourself into every part of his life, taking control where you had no business being. Until you pushed him away.”

  “How dare you,” she bit out, her lip trembling.

  “Do you know the strangest thing of all, Mrs. King?” he asked. “I was just like you. All these years I pushed, more like steam-rolled, my way to the top of the retail industry, refusing to settle for anything less than success. I craved control, too, control of my destiny, because once, long ago, it was snatched from me. I swore I would never suffer at the hands of you again. But I have. It was my own doing, too. You, and my revenge against you, controlled my every waking moment.”

  She seemed taken aback by his brutal honesty.

  “Until your daughter came into my life.”

  “Priscilla? Why, she’s just a slip of a girl.”

  “She showed me that there was something more to life than living with hate in my heart. In fact, she showed me I still had a heart worth saving.”

  “Apparently she doesn’t feel the same way since she’s left you.”

  “Touché, Mrs. King,” he said, knowing whatever she said didn’t affect him any longer. Only what Priscilla felt and said did. He bowed slightly, saying, “I hope you will find it in your heart to love her and her sisters like they deserve, like Charles King longed for—for all his daughters.”

  With that, Griffin turned his back on her and walked away. For the first time in ages, he took a deep, cleansing breath, his shoulders and heart much lighter now that he’d shaken off the demons that had tormented him for far too many years.

  Now only losing Priscilla haunted him. His battered heart ached for his wife. Griff had no one to blame but himself. Long, lonely years dragged ahead of him.

  ***

  “I think you’re onto something, sir,” Edward said, meeting Griff at the entrance to King’s.

  “How so? You coming up?” Griffin asked.

  “Waiting on Miss Charlie. Mr. Alex sent me to pick her up.”

  Griffin followed him a few steps away from the store entrance. Edward pulled a paper from the inside of his jacket. “My contact in the department did some research. Mind you, it’s just preliminary. The records are paper only, before computers came in. There was no evidence against your father. Speculation mostly, by the grieving widow. There’s newspaper articles, condemning your father. I don
’t have all the facts, but, I’m sure she paid them, slanted things her way. I’ll dig deeper.”

  Griffin let it all sink in, and then held up his hand, halting Edward. “I thank you for your help, but I think I’m going to leave the past just where it belongs from now on: in the past.”

  The driver looked at him closely, and then a slow smile spread across his face. “’Cause it could only hurt the ones you love more, right?”

  He patted Edward on the shoulder. “Smart man, my friend, smart man.”

  “I hear you. You ever need anything at all, you come see me, all right?”

  “Thanks, Edward.” Griff shook his hand. “Oh, I think it’s best if you burn that paper, too.”

  “Got it,” the man agreed.

  A few minutes later, Griffin entered the salon; the bell tinkled. The whisper-quiet glass doors closed behind him. He spotted her immediately. Priscilla and a makeup artist helped a customer with a selection. Looking up in the mirror, she stilled when she saw him in the reflection. She said something to both ladies, and then walked to him.

  Memories of their first meeting when she walked toward him in the salon took hold. They melded with this moment of her in a white silk blouse, skinny black leather pants, and high glittery pink heels. His middle clenched. She was even sexier now than that night, if that could be possible.

  Her cat-like green eyes held mystery. “Griffin,” she whispered, halting in front of him.

  “Priscilla,” he said softly.

  “Are you here for another date?”

  His heart tugged. “No. I’m sure you’d turn me down.”

  Her frown made him want to reach out and smooth her brow. He didn’t have the right any longer.

  “I thought you should be the first to know, I’m leaving King’s.”

  She sucked in a sharp breath. “But, you’re so good at running the store…”

  “I think it’s time I move on.” He didn’t want to, but it was the least he could do. “This is your store. Not mine. I don’t know how many times I can avoid you without losing my mind.”