After he’d left his parents house he’d been so completely messed up. That was how it always was after he saw them. He felt like he was that helpless little five-year-old again, and Jax didn’t do helpless well. He didn’t do a lot of things well. And how things ended with Grace had been a disaster.
He hadn’t been lying when he said he didn’t know how to love. And being with her hadn’t made him forget the truth, hadn’t made him forget the fact that he wasn’t the one for her. He’d just been waiting for the day Grace was going to figure it out and end things. And that’s exactly what had happened. He’d been fooling himself starting a relationship that was doomed to end from the beginning.
But what else was he supposed to do? Being with her had been out of this world amazing. Nothing compared to waking up next to her in the morning. To pressing his face into her neck and breathing her in. To finally having someone to come home to. But he was just some guy in her life for a little while. It had always been just a matter of time, and the clock had finally caught up to him.
Jax had watched Grace walk away from him more times than he could count. But nothing had hurt as bad as this time. Nothing had hurt as much because this time Grace was walking out of his life, and that killed him.
* * *
Grace wasn’t sure how she got back to her apartment before she lost it. Maybe it was just her desperate need to get as far away from the cause of her pain as possible. Whatever she was holding on to didn’t last long. The second she walked in the door of her empty apartment she was done for.
She didn’t have the strength to go into her bedroom, not only because the twenty feet looked like miles, but also because he’d slept in her bed so many times, the night before being just one of them. Those sheets and pillows would still smell like him. She just couldn’t deal with that. She couldn’t deal with anything.
He’d thought he wasn’t enough for her. It was that belief that had kept him from being with her in the first place. But as it turned out, it was that she wasn’t enough for him. If she had been enough, he wouldn’t have been able to stop himself from loving her. And that obviously wasn’t the case.
Grace wasn’t sure how long she lay on the couch before she fell asleep, but she woke up sometime later when someone knocked on the door. There was light peeking in through the edges of the blinds and it hurt her eyes. She slowly sat up, wrapping the thin blanket that she’d slept under around her shoulders. Her back was sore from sleeping curled up on the couch, and her head was throbbing from the hours of crying.
She felt like a zombie. She wasn’t even human anymore, which wasn’t that surprising as she’d just had her heart ripped out of her chest. She was shocked she was still breathing. Surely without a heart she’d stop breathing. Maybe then the pain would end, and she desperately wanted the pain to end. But that just wasn’t going to happen.
She’d thought she’d been in for some pain when she found out who her father was. But that was nothing. No, having the one man she loved more than anything tell her that he didn’t love her had been a category five hurricane that decimated everything in its path. Grace was never going to recover. There was no rebuilding after that kind of devastation.
Grace looked out the peephole to see Brendan on the other side of the door, wearing a look that was the perfect mix of concerned and pissed off.
Of course.
She opened the door and groaned when the full force of the sun hit her eyes.
“Hey,” she croaked, stepping back so he could come in.
He stepped into her tiny apartment, shutting the door behind him. He pulled her into his arms and Grace lost it again, sobbing into her big brother’s chest.
“Oh, Gracie,” he said as he rubbed her back. “It’s going to be okay.”
“He doesn’t love me,” she hiccupped. “He never has.”
“He’s worthless, Grace. He always has been.”
“What?” Grace asked, pulling back from Brendan and looking up at him. She was pretty sure Brendan was mad at Jax, but not enough to say he’d always been worthless.
“Keith Reynolds isn’t good enough to love you. He’s a horrible man and your life has been better without him.”
“I wasn’t talking about him,” Grace said, shaking her head. “I thought…I thought you were here because of Jax.” Saying his name was like a punch in the stomach.
Brendan froze. “What happened with Jax?” he asked slowly, trying to mask the anger in his voice. He was unsuccessful.
Grace pulled back from him, shaking her head sadly as she tried to get her mouth to start working. She didn’t want to say it out loud. Didn’t want it to be true. But it was.
“We…we aren’t together anymore,” she whispered, choking on the words.
“What?” Brendan asked.
“He doesn’t love me,” Grace said, and looked away from Brendan’s face. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t deal with this right now. Who was she kidding? She was never going to be able to deal with this.
“He’s an idiot, Grace,” Brendan said, putting his fingers under her chin and forcing her gaze up. “If he’s too stupid to realize how amazing you are, he doesn’t deserve you.”
“Would you have been able to move on? If Paige had left or you’d lost her in the accident. Would you have been able to move on?”
“No,” Brendan said without hesitation. “She’s the love of my life.”
“He’s mine, Brendan. Jax is the only man I’ve ever been in love with, and he’ll always be. You say he doesn’t deserve me. But why don’t I deserve him? Why can’t I have him?” she asked, rubbing at the pain in her chest.
“I don’t know, Gracie.”
“Did you know about Keith Reynolds? Did you know he was my father?”
“No,” Brendan said, shaking his head. “I had no idea. Grams called and told me what happened.”
“She knew, you know. She knew the whole time.”
“She told me that, too,” he said sadly.
“Did Pops know?”
“No.”
“I feel like I’m drowning,” she said, swiping at her streaming eyes. “It’s everything, Brendan. Learning who my father is, finding out what Gram’s kept from me, what Mom kept from me, Jax…Jax not loving me. It’s too much. I can’t…I just can’t deal with this.”
Brendan didn’t say anything, he just pulled her into his chest again and let her cry her eyes out.
* * *
Jax was struggling. He’d probably gotten about two hours of sleep the night before. The cold, empty sheets next to him had made his chest ache, but that was nothing to the pain he felt when he’d woken up alone, without Grace. Since that first night they’d been together, he’d only missed out on sleeping next to her for a handful of nights. He was so used to the peace of falling asleep next to her and the pleasure of waking up pressed against her body.
But not today. Today he’d gotten nothing. That void was never going to be filled again, because Grace was the only one that could fill it, and she was gone.
He’d driven over to the house under construction before the sun had even come up. He was off from work for the day and he needed to do something to distract from the emptiness that was consuming him. The emptiness that was so deep it hurt.
He’d always planned on working on the house that day. Shep, Bennett, and Tripp showed up around nine to help out.
“What’s wrong with you?” Shep asked after he’d been there for about thirty minutes.
“Nothing,” Jax said as he carried a piece of the wood flooring over to the saw.
“Bullshit,” Shep said, folding his arms across his chest. He leaned back against one of the wooden pillars that supported Jax’s house. “Did something happen with you and Grace?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“What did you do?”
Jax didn’t answer; instead he turned around and turned on the saw, drowning out anything Shep was going to say to him. When Jax turned it off a couple of min
utes later, Shep was still leaning against the post, one of his eyebrows raised over his sunglasses, staring at him.
Jax continued to ignore him and walked over to the cooler to grab a bottle of water. But this time when he turned around he was greeted with much more than Shep’s inquisitive gaze. Brendan was standing in front of him, looking more pissed off than Jax had ever seen him. Jax didn’t have enough time to react before Brendan punched him in the jaw.
“What the hell?” Shep said as Brendan tackled Jax to the ground.
Brendan got in a few more hits as they wrestled around, but so did Jax. And it felt good. It felt good to let out some of his anger. It didn’t matter that the target didn’t deserve it. Nothing really mattered.
“You stupid son-of-a-bitch,” Brendan said as he got in another good hit.
Jax didn’t get a chance to retaliate, because a second later Brendan was pulled off him. Shep was holding Brendan back while Bennett and Tripp stood to the side, ready to jump in and hold Jax back if they needed to.
“What’s going on?” Shep asked.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done to Grace?” Brendan bellowed at Jax. “You broke her.”
Jax didn’t say anything, he just wiped at the blood that was flowing from his cut lip.
“What did you do to Grace?” Shep asked, his face mirroring a lot of the anger that was on Brendan’s.
“You’re a real piece of work to do that to her last night of all nights,” Brendan said, disgusted. “To tell her you don’t love her on the night she found out who her father was.”
“What?” Jax asked as his stomach dropped somewhere below his knees.
Shep’s hands stopped restraining Brendan, either because he was in shock or because he was all for Brendan beating the shit out of Jax.
“You didn’t know?” Brendan asked.
“She didn’t tell me.”
“You didn’t give her a chance before you dumped her?”
Technically, she’d been the one to end things, not that he’d given her any choice. But she’d been the one to say we’re done, two words that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
“Who is he?” Jax asked.
Brendan stared at him for a second, probably deciding whether he was going to answer or not. “Keith Reynolds.”
“Shit,” Jax said, shaking his head. Really it couldn’t have been a worse person.
“My sentiments exactly.”
“How did she find out?” Jax asked.
“Judson showed up at the dinner last night, drunk off his ass, and he announced it to everyone there.”
Well, Grace’s need when Jax walked in the door was starting to make sense.
“How did he know?” Shep asked.
“I don’t know,” Brendan said, shaking his head.
“So it might not be true?” Jax asked hopefully. Grace being related to the Reynolds family would be a massive blow. He sincerely hoped it was all a lie.
“No, it’s true,” Brendan said grimly. “Grams told me about it this morning. She knew the truth.”
Grace’s life had been ripped apart last night, and Jax had made it five thousand times worse. That sounded about right.
“I’m through with you, Jax,” Brendan said as he took a step back. “I don’t want anything to do with you.” He turned around and walked to his truck.
Well, Jax was just fucking things up left and right wasn’t he?
* * *
After Brendan left, Grace dragged herself to the shower and stayed there for an hour. The hot water made her feel somewhat human again, but that lasted only until she stepped back into her room and looked at her empty bed. She stripped it and promptly threw the sheets and blankets into the washer. Then she stuffed the pillow that Jax had always used to the back of her closet.
The clean sheets and blanket on her bed didn’t make her feel any better. If anything, they made her feel even emptier.
Grace was in the kitchen making a cup of tea and some toast when there was another knock on the door. She looked out the peephole to find her grandmother. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before she opened the door.
“Will you let me talk to you?” Lula Mae asked, looking so thoroughly heartbroken that Grace couldn’t say no. Relief flooded Lula Mae’s face as Grace stepped to the side and opened the door wider.
“I’m making peppermint tea, do you want some?” Grace asked as she closed the door and went back to the kitchen.
“Yes, please.” Lula Mae took a seat at Grace’s small dining room table.
Neither of them said anything as Grace fixed both mugs and set them on the table with the toast. She sat down and blew lightly on her tea as she waited for her grandmother to speak.
“Your mother wasn’t perfect,” Lula Mae finally said. “But she had a big heart, and she loved with all of it. You know, I liked Brendan’s father when she first brought him home to meet your grandfather and me. Crayton had seemed like a good guy. She was so far in love with him she wasn’t able to see straight. But then she found out she was pregnant, and he left her without a second thought. She was devastated.”
Grace had known all of this, well not the part where her grandparents had liked Crayton. That was a surprise.
“She never got over it, having the one man she loved walk out on her, especially when she was carrying his child.”
Grace could relate to that. She knew how her mother had felt, except for the whole pregnancy thing. Grace wasn’t sure how she would function if she were pregnant with Jax’s child. Probably not at all.
“She didn’t date after that. She didn’t have a lot of time while raising Brendan, but I think she just couldn’t do it. She couldn’t let herself be that vulnerable to get her heart broken again.
“A few years later Keith Reynolds came into town for a job interview. She’d gone out one night and met him. He was sweet and charming and exactly what she thought she wanted. Your mother wasn’t a one-night-stand kind of girl, but she’d had one too many drinks and she went back to his hotel room.
“She didn’t know he was married. He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring and he never alluded to it. He claimed he was in town on vacation. I don’t think he realized just how small Mirabelle was when he came down for the interview for principal. Apparently, he only came down to try to up the ante for another school he was trying to get hired at. He’d never planned on moving here.”
“How did Mom find that out?” Grace asked.
“Well, Keith left without a word. Your mother found out she was pregnant a month later. Two months after that, Keith Reynolds moved to town with a wife and a son who wasn’t even two years old. She told him, not because she wanted him to leave his wife, but because she wanted him to know she was going to have his child. He told her he wanted nothing to do with either of you,” Lula Mae said sadly.
Grace’s eyes burned and she looked down at the table as her tears fell and ran down her cheeks.
“She didn’t want you to ever doubt that you’d been wanted,” Lula Mae said, putting her hand over Grace’s. “She wanted you enough for two parents, and so did your grandfather and I. There was never a moment that you were looked at like a mistake. She felt that if you knew who your father was, you’d think that.”
“She was right,” Grace said thickly.
“Grace.” Lula Mae said her name softly. Grace looked up into her grandmother’s warm loving eyes.
“Your mother loved you from the second she found out about you. She never regretted having you. Not once. Not ever. You were a gift to her. She always looked at you that way. In the end, you and Brendan healed her broken heart. It was the two of you, and she never doubted her life with the two of you in it.
“She went through a lot of heartache, but for her, it was always worth it to have her children. And she never looked back on her decisions with regret. She loved you, and leaving the two of you when you were both so young was the hardest thing she ever had to do.”
Grace flipped her
hand so she could hold her grandmother’s. She squeezed lightly and her grandmother repeated the gesture.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, Gracie. But your mother asked me not to, so I followed her wishes. There were a lot of times I went back and forth on it. Especially when you asked me straight out, and I hated lying to you. But it was what your mother wanted.”
“I understand.” Grace nodded. “It still hurts, but I understand. Especially now.”
“Especially now what?”
“It hurts when you find out someone doesn’t want you, that someone doesn’t love you. A father is supposed to love his child, and when he doesn’t, it’s painful. Sometimes not knowing is better.”
“Grace?” Lula Mae asked.
“I thought that finding out about my dad was bad. It didn’t even break the ice.”
“Sweetie, what happened?”
“Jax doesn’t love me,” she said, and bit her bottom lip in an attempt to keep it from trembling.
“What are you talking about?”
“Last night…we…we broke up. It’s over. We’re over. I always thought when I finally got him I’d get to keep him. That he’d be mine. But he went into the relationship knowing there would be an end. I wish I never knew what it was like to be with Jax. I wish I didn’t know what it felt like to breathe with him beside me. But I know now, and there’s no going back.”
No going back ever, and it was going to torment Grace for the rest of her life.
* * *
The news that Keith Reynolds was Grace’s father spread around Mirabelle like wildfire. And as was typical of Bethelda Grimshaw, she poured fuel on the fire.
THE GRIM TRUTH
TROUBLE IN PARADISE
Undeniable (A Country Roads Novel) Page 25
