A Man of Honor

by Loree Lough

  Grace’s heart picked up pace, because she got the feeling that whatever it was that he wanted to discuss had something to do with the serious conversation between him and Mitch.

  He relieved her of the fork and tossed it into the garbage. “Walk with me,” he said, taking her hand. Then he led her out the side door and into the parking lot. He sat on the back bumper of his van, and patted the space beside him. “Plant your feet good and solid,” he said as she sat. “It’ll help with the balance. . . .”

  “Says you,” Grace shot back.

  “I keep forgetting what short legs you have,” he said, laughing. Then he slid open the side door and, without a word, placed a hand on either side of her waist and lifted her off her feet.

  For a moment, as he held her at arm’s length, eyes glittering in the moonlight like two bright blue diamonds, she thought he might kiss her. But all too soon, her rump made contact with the van’s carpeted floor.

  “There,” he said, sitting beside her, “better?”

  Well, she would have been . . . if he’d actually kissed her. “This is fine.”

  “You look nice tonight,” he said. “Yellow is your color.”

  She’d chosen the sundress because it was one of the few things in her closet that didn’t need ironing. The all-over print—white daisies with black centers—meant she could wear it with white shoes or black.

  “Never would have pegged you for a red toenail kinda gal,” he said, pointing at her strappy white sandals.

  It was all she could do to keep from wiggling her toes. “So you wanted to tell me something?”

  And there it was again . . . that adorable slanted half-grin. Now it took every bit of her remaining willpower to keep from putting her finger into the dimple it carved into his left cheek. Grace didn’t want to rush him, but hostess duties waited for her inside. And if he kept looking at her that way, she wouldn’t have to wait for him to kiss her. “And something to ask me?”

  Nodding, Dusty exhaled a rough breath. “I could be wrong, but I get the feeling that you like my boys. . . .”

  “Of course I like them.” She pictured them, heard their raspy trying-to-become-men’s voices. “What’s not to like?”

  “I think maybe I have an idea that would help you, and help me to help them.”

  “Sorry,” she said, “but you’re going to have to help me figure out that riddle.”

  Instead of the explanation she expected, Dusty said, “Did I tell you about the gang that’s trying to take over our neighborhood?”

  “Yes, yes you did. The night you told me about the dinner, where Mitch tried to talk the mayor into putting more patrol cars on your street.” Grace frowned. “Wait. You don’t mean to say that he decided not to help you out?”

  “According to Mitch, she fell back on the old ‘I would if I could, but I can’t so I won’t’ excuse.” He shrugged. “Budget cuts. Need I say more?”

  Well, yeah, he needed to say more, Grace thought. A whole lot more, since he seemed to think she was part of the solution to his problem.

  He took her hand again. “You shouldn’t have to work so hard.”

  Much as she was enjoying this time alone with him—and the compliments, and the protectiveness that her unattractive hands had inspired—Grace was the hostess of that party going on in the hall. She didn’t want to rush him, but what if Molly decided to drive home in her condition?

  “What if the boys did the chores?”

  “What if. . . . What?”

  “Hear me out,” he said, shushing her with a fingertip over her lips.” They aren’t safe at Last Chance. At least not now, with Gonzo and his goons running amok. But they’d be safe in Baltimore County. . . .

  “In Baltimore. . . . Wait. You mean in my house? At Angel Acres?”

  “You have what, four bedrooms?”

  “Five.”

  “That’s how many we have at Last Chance.”

  She held up a hand, hoping he’d read it as a signal to stop talking, to give her a chance to think. “Let me see if I understand this: You . . . you want to move the boys, all eleven of them, to my house.”

  “Just for the summer. As a test. Until I can figure out what to do about that stupid gang. They’re big, healthy kids. Think of all they could do to help you out around the farm. And all you could teach them about the value of hard work. You have my word: It wouldn’t cost you a dime. And if they caused any trouble, any trouble at all,” he added, jerking a thumb over his shoulder, “out they’d go.”

  It made sense, in a convoluted kind of way. But she needed time. To work out the logistics. To pray for guidance, because her decision would affect eleven vulnerable boys. And Mitch. And Dusty.

  Grace looked up in time to see Molly heading across the parking lot. “Oh, good grief,” she said, hopping down from the van. “I have to stop her. She’s in no condition to drive, half-lit like she is on . . . on only God knows what.”

  “Molly,” she called, jogging toward the hall’s entrance. “Molly, wait up!”

  Thankfully, the woman stopped, which gave Grace time to run back to Dusty. “Look,” she began, “I see the merits of your idea. Really, I do. But I need a little time to think about it, okay? How about if I call you, say, tomorrow . . . or the next day?” Or never, she tacked on silently.

  He closed the van’s side door. “Good idea,” he said, nodding. “Not just the thinking about it bit, but making sure she doesn’t get behind the wheel. I thought I smelled bourbon on her breath earlier.”

  “So I wasn’t imagining things. . . .”

  “Where does she live?”

  “Be right there,” she yelled to Molly. And to Dusty, “Ellicott City.”

  “What’s that . . . a thirty-, forty-minute drive?”

  “Each way.” Grace groaned. “Say a prayer she’ll hang around until everyone has left and I’ve written checks to the management.”

  “What time is it?”

  “I know what to get you for your birthday,” she teased, glancing at her wristwatch. “It’s a quarter after ten.”

  “I’ve got a great idea. . . .”

  “Uh-oh,” she said, laughing. “I don’t know if I can survive another one of your great ideas. At least, not so soon!”

  “Hmpf,” he said, sliding his wallet from his back pocket. “Good. I have enough cash to take a cab back here after I drive her home, if you’re okay with hanging around with the boys until I get back, that is.”

  “I’m almost afraid to admit it,” she said, elbowing his ribs, “but that really is a great idea.”

  “So maybe you can come up with an idea for a change . . . starting with how we’ll talk Mrs. Logan into handing over her keys. . . .”

  She pursed her lips. Frowned. Shook her head. “Sorry,” she said, shrugging, “I got nothin’.”

  He pulled her into a hug. “Aw, Gracie,” he growled, “that isn’t how I see it.”

  Grace stood there in the comforting circle of his arms, blinking and staring and feeling like a simpleton. “Molly’s gonna get in her car if I don’t—”

  “The way I see it,” he continued, “you’ve got everything.” Then he pressed a sweet, too-brief kiss to her lips and spun her around. “If you ram her good and hard,” he said, giving her a gentle nudge, “maybe you’ll dislodge that suitcase she calls a purse, and when it hits the ground, you can grab her keys.”

  “And I thought I had nothin’,” she said over her shoulder.

  “Better watch where you’re going. . . .”

  His warning came a tick too late: Grace crashed headlong into Molly, and sent them both sprawling onto the blacktop. While Molly laughed and Grace apologized, Dusty chuckled. “You two okay?” he asked, giving them each a hand up.

  And then he did the most amazing thing.

  While Grace gathered up the contents of the woman’s purse, he took her aside and, one arm around her waist, whispered, “I heard a little rumor that the cops have set up a couple dozen roadblocks between here and Ell
icott City.”

  “Roadblocks? You mean—”

  “Breathalyzer, walk the white line, touch your nose . . . the whole nine yards.”

  “Oh my. Oh no.”

  “Why don’t you give me your keys,” he said, “and I’ll drive you home.”

  “Just so happens I have them right here,” Grace said, handing Molly her purse.

  “You’re a lifesaver,” she said, dropping the key ring into Dusty’s upturned hand.

  He opened the passenger door, and once Mrs. Logan had settled into the front seat, he made a phone of his hand. “Call you later,” he mouthed.

  And then they were gone, leaving Grace to wonder how in the world she’d say no to the tattooed, ponytailed preacher who’d stolen her heart.

  14

  Molly Logan had fallen asleep during the short drive from the banquet hall to her house in Oella, then staggered up the walk to unlock her front door . . . and dropped the enormous purse again. This time, the metal flask she’d tucked in an interior pocket clattered to the brick sidewalk, and when Dusty retrieved it for her, he gave it a little shake.

  Empty.

  Well, he thought as she fumbled with the key, that explained why, after all that food and so many hours at the party, she hadn’t sobered up.

  “You okay here by yourself?” he asked once she stumbled into the foyer.

  “Yes, yes I’m fine.”

  But she wasn’t. And to prove it, she walked into the front hall closet and collapsed on the floor, where she sat giggling like a child. He couldn’t leave her this way. What if she took a header down the stairs? Who’d find her, living alone as she did?

  Eyes closed, he tilted his head back and took a deep breath. “Is your bedroom upstairs?” he asked, helping her up.

  “Yes, yes it is,” she said, clinging to his arm. “Are you going to get me into my ch-ch-chammies?” she slurred. “Tuck me in an’ read me a b—a bedtime story?”

  The boys and the van were still at the hall. And so was Grace. But he’d be here all night at this rate. So he scooped her up, and carried her up the steps. Huffing and puffing when he reached the landing, he stood her on her feet. He’d forgotten that drunks were dead weight. Even petite, middle-aged drunks. “Which room is yours?” he asked.

  She pointed, then wobbled through the first doorway and flopped face-first onto the bed. “I’ll be jush-h-h fine,” she said, voice muffled by the thick quilt. “You can go now.”

  Oh, he’d go, all right, as soon as he put her keys where she wouldn’t find them until she’d sobered up. She was snoring by the time Dusty covered her with the blanket she’d draped over the arm of a flowery chair beside the bed. One problem solved, he thought, flipping on the master bathroom light. Just as he’d expected . . . a cut-glass tumbler, sparkling on the vanity. Another catastrophe diverted, he thought, picking it up, because she couldn’t drop and break it if it was downstairs, in the kitchen.

  While pulling into her driveway, he’d called a cab. With any luck, the driver would be out there waiting when he locked her front door behind him.

  No such luck.

  Then he remembered why he’d come here, and the fuss and bother he’d gone to on Mrs. Logan’s behalf didn’t bother him half as much. He sat on the top step of her stoop as thunder rolled overhead. “Oh, if you could see me now, Gracie,” he said as a light rain began to fall.

  He was soaked to the skin by the time the taxi rolled up. And how perfect was it that his driver believed in cranking the air conditioner to the max? Halfway between Oella and the hall, he dialed Grace’s number, hoping her sweet voice would take his mind off his chattering teeth. Whether she hadn’t heard the ring, or had been too busy to answer, Dusty couldn’t say. But he felt like an idiot when disappointment swirled in his head. “You’ll see her in fifteen minutes,” he grumbled, snapping his phone shut.

  The driver craned his neck. “What’s that, sir?”

  “Nothing. Just thinking out loud.”

  The man’s grating laughter filled the cab. “It’s been my experience that talkin’ to yourself is a symptom of woman trouble. Also been my experience there ain’t no solution. Come to terms with that, you’ll be a far, far happier man. That’s my opinion, anyhoo.” He pulled up beside the curb and shifted into park, then turned off the meter and said, “That’ll be twenty-three dollars, sir.”

  As he paid the man, Dusty thought he might call Derek, tell him he could earn thirty bucks in twenty minutes, by sitting on his butt. Then he remembered stories of cabbies who’d been killed for the few bucks in their cash box, and thought maybe Derek was better off at the Double T, where the worst that could happen was some cheapskate, stiffing him on the tip.

  “’Bout time you got back,” Axel said when Dusty walked into the hall.

  “Yeah,” Dom agreed. “We’re the last ones here.”

  “Thought maybe we’d have to send a posse out to find you,” Jack teased.

  Posse—another way of saying “gang.” The word alone was enough to make him clench his jaw. “Where’s Mitch?”

  Montel pointed. “Helping Miss Grace pack up the leftovers.”

  She couldn’t possibly have heard her name from all the way over there. So what had made her look up just then? Man, but she was gorgeous, all flush-faced from her long night of seeing to others’ needs. She was footloose and fancy-free, to quote Grace, herself, while he had more responsibilities than a Dalmatian had spots. If he had any decency at all, he’d load the kids into the van and take them back to Last Chance, not Angel Acres, and not even bother to look in the rearview mirror. Then she smiled, wiggled the fingers of one hand, telling him without words that she was happy to see him . . . and drove every ‘decency’ thought right out of his head.

  “Look at him,” Dom whispered. “The dude’s got it bad for Miss Grace.”

  Was it so obvious, Dusty asked himself, that the boys could see it? And if it was, could Grace see it, too?

  “Times like these,” he said slowly, “I wish I was a cowboy.”

  “A cowboy,” Axel echoed. “Why?”

  “So I could saddle up the fastest horse and ride far, far from here, that’s why.”

  “Yeah,” Montel drawled, “and if you was a cowboy, you wouldn’t get too far before you got to missin’ your best girl.”

  He hated to admit it, but the boys were right. And before he knew what was happening, she was walking toward him, carrying bags stuffed with the zipper bags she’d filled with chicken and ham, potato salad and rolls.

  “Will there be room in your van for these,” she asked, “once all the boys are inside?”

  “We’ll make them fit,” he heard himself say.

  It never dawned on him to ask why she couldn’t load them into her SUV, until she said, “I’d take them, but my car’s filled to overflowing with paper products and condiments and decorations.”

  He relieved her of the bags, yet she walked beside him toward the van. “So how’s Mrs. Logan?”

  “She’ll be fine, once her headache wears off in the morning.”

  “The poor thing,” Grace said as he slid open the van’s side door. “She’s just so lost without Missy.”

  “I hate to be a killjoy, but she had problems before her husband and daughter died.” He slid the bags under the nearest bench seat. “You know that, right?”

  Her shoulders sagged and she nodded. “I suppose.” She sighed. “It’s just . . . I feel so helpless. If only there was something I could do for her.”

  “You’re already doing it.”

  She made a face that he took to mean, “If you say so.”

  The boys started climbing into the van. “You two gonna stand there all night makin’ googly eyes at each other,” Trevor teased, “or can we maybe get home before the sun comes up?”

  “Patience,” Grace said, her forefinger wagging like a metronome, “is a virtue.”

  “Yeah, and the early bird gets the worm,” said Billy, laughing.

  Dusty tossed Montel
the keys and told him to fire up the van. “Turn on the a/c,” he said, “but keep it in park, okay?” Then he closed the door and led Grace to the back of the van, the only place on the vehicle that didn’t have windows.

  “So you’ll think about my idea?” When she nodded, a curl fell over one eye, and he tucked it behind her ear.

  “Drive safely,” she said, and started to walk away.

  But he grabbed her elbow, and drew her into a hug. “It’s going to take some serious willpower,” he said, “to keep from calling you every ten minutes, to see what you’ve decided.”

  “It’s a big decision, but I promise not to keep you waiting too long.”

  Any other woman would see this as the perfect opportunity to take control of the situation, but Grace wasn’t any other woman. If she had been, would he feel like a knobby-kneed boy, lost in the throes of a teenage crush?

  “I hate to rush you,” she said, “but with the price of gas where it is these days, shouldn’t you hit the road?”

  Grace didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, she stood on tiptoe and pressed a light kiss to his cheek. “Drive safely,” she said, knocking on the van’s side door. “Precious cargo, y’know?” Then she turned on her heel and left him standing there, empty-armed and alone.

  Dusty slept like a baby that night—and not the kind that was up every two hours, demanding a feeding, either. He’d almost forgotten what a full eight hours felt like, and after breakfast and church services, he had energy to burn. He spent it repairing the leaky faucet in the kitchen, and replacing loose tiles in the front hall. Then he oiled the back screen door and mowed the lawn, and fell into bed that night too exhausted to worry about Gonzo or wonder when he’d hear from Grace.

  The phone woke him at eleven, and he remembered that the last time he got a call this late, it had been to inform him of the fire that killed Tucker and Keith. “Hello,” he barked into the receiver.

  “Dusty?”

  Grace. He cleared his throat. “Hey. Hi.”

  “I woke you, didn’t I.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Everything okay over there?”

  He heard the smile in her voice when she said, “I’m fine. Especially now that I’ve had some time to think. And pray. Do you have time to meet me for coffee in the morning?”