“It was a crazy night,” he said, “with your grandma out there struck dead and the kids screaming ... I guess it kicked my imagination into overdrive. Because it didn’t feel like any other accident I’ve been to, and I’ve been to a lot, small town or no.”
The seriousness of his last words left both Gracie and Reilly silent. Eddie Rodriguez was not the kind of man who was easily shaken, yet even now they could see that he still wasn’t completely recovered.
CHAPTER 8
After Eddie left, Reilly stood beside Gracie in the entryway, listening to the storm outside, feeling a different kind of storm rage at the heart of him. The kid was his—no doubt about it. He could see his family’s traits in the shape of her eyes, the line of her chin, the slant of her cheekbones. Straight on, she looked like Gracie. Beautiful, ethereal in some ways. But there was no escaping the Alexander blood that ran in her veins. Even her eyes were the same hazel, flecked with blue and green. They were his father’s eyes, his brother’s eyes and his eyes. Now, they were his daughter’s.
Holy fuck.
Gracie had given birth to his child and he’d never even known. He shoved his hands in his pockets, trying to decide if he was more pissed off at her or himself. Gracie’s horse-dog pricked its ears, watching him with a predatory look.
The animal stared at him with a look that teetered between expectation and dismissal. Evidently, he wasn’t the only one who couldn’t figure out what to feel.
“I’m too tired to think,” Gracie said at last. “This has been the longest day in history.”
He nodded. “You look tired. I mean, you look good. But tired.”
“You had it right the first time.”
“No, really. You look good.”
Tired, stressed out, and road worn, she looked better than most women did fresh and ready to paint the town. Her eyes darkened, as if she’d read his mind, and something flashed in them that hit him down low and hard. But before he could put a name to what he’d seen, it vanished and in its place he saw cold anger. And just like that, his indecisive pissed-off made up its mind.
“That’s what you want to say to me?” she said. “You just met your daughter for the first time, and that’s the conversation you’re going to strike?”
Okay, they could play it her way. “You look good. Why the fuck didn’t you tell me I had a daughter?”
Her eyes widened and she actually sputtered for a moment. “How was I going to do that, Reilly? You left. Without a word. No forwarding address, no phone call. No see ya later, Gracie. Changed my mind.”
It was his turn to be speechless. That’s how she remembered it?
“You’re a little confused.”
“I’m a lot confused. But for the record, I didn’t tell you because I didn’t know until after you’d left.”
“You could have found me.”
“I could have. But by then I realized you weren’t worth the effort.”
“So you told our kid she didn’t have a father?”
Her cold laugh pricked at him, and for the first time in a long time, he began to wonder if he had his facts right. She was indignant, so certain that she’d played no role in what had happened between them.
“I told Analise that I didn’t know who her father was. I told her the truth.”
That cut through his sheltering anger and struck blood. Gracie had been the only person in his entire life who’d ever really known him. She wouldn’t believe that, though, and he certainly didn’t want to share the knowledge.
“She looks like you,” he said softly.
Gracie said nothing.
“She’s beautiful. Is she a good kid?”
Grudgingly, Gracie nodded. “When she’s not running off with her no-good boyfriend.” She shrugged. “She’s smart. She likes music.”
Her voice hitched over the last words and Reilly felt something pull tight inside him. He wanted to howl at the unfairness of this situation. He wanted someone to give him the playbook on how to fix it.
He needed to extricate himself from the conversation and fast.
Instead, he asked, “Why aren’t you married?” Like the answer didn’t matter to him.
“That’s none of your business.”
“You couldn’t find a replacement?”
“I’m going to bed.”
She turned away and began switching off lights. The heat downstairs made the air feel thick, heavy from the storm. The rain had eased up, but distant thunder still rumbled and the clouds created a lid over the basin. Her shirt clung to her shoulder blades. The fine hairs at her nape curled from the humidity. A million years ago, he used to love to kiss that vulnerable place on her body. It would make her go boneless and lean back against his chest like he was Hercules, holding up the world.
The guard dog trailed close behind as she moved around the room. Every so often it would curl its lip at him, just in case he had any ideas of getting close to her. After checking the door, Gracie started up the stairs.
“I’m sorry about your grandmother. She was a tough old bird, but she had her moments.”
She shot him a dirty look over her shoulder. “I haven’t seen her or heard from her since she sent me away. I hardly know what to feel now.” She looked down at the staged saloon below. “Pity. I guess that’s what it is.”
Reilly heard how she ended the sentiment, but his thoughts had stuttered over the words that began it. Carolina had sent Gracie away? “I heard you left but I didn’t—”
“You heard?” she said, her voice sharp and disillusioned. “You heard I left and that never struck you as odd? My leaving home at sixteen? You never looked back, never wondered what happened to me?”
“No,” he said, and his voice gave him away. “I always wondered.” And God knew he was still looking back. “I was dealing with a lot of shit from Matt.”
“Good for you, Reilly. Glad you could be there for him.”
She reached the landing and turned left. In a matter of steps she’d be at her door, through it. He’d be off the hook. In the morning, he’d get up, spread Matt’s ashes out where their mom was buried, and hit the road. He could be back in Los Angeles by early afternoon.
“He’s dead now,” Reilly said.
Gracie turned, surprised. “Your brother’s dead? When?” Her soft voice managed to sound injured and impregnable at once.
He hadn’t meant to mention it—not any of it. His brother’s death was far too personal to share with anyone.
“Shot himself out at the springs a few months ago.”
The breath she let out was slow and full of a million things she didn’t say. He could feel them, though, all her conflicted sentiments about his brother. Now was the time to tell her where he’d been during the handful of days when she’d decided to bail on him, yet the words felt like another kind of betrayal when his brother’s ashes were still stashed in his bag.
“He’d only been back in town for a couple of weeks,” Reilly heard himself say. “He spent most of the past sixteen years in jail. No surprise there.”
“He always ran on self-destructive.”
A family trait. As did an obsession with a certain girl next door.
Reilly rubbed the back of his neck, looking anywhere but at her face. An awkward pause filled in the shadowed spaces between them. He figured the best thing he could do was leave it at that. He caught his lower lip between his teeth and glanced up at her from beneath his lashes, unable to make his feet move away. There was so much he wanted—needed—to say, but there were no words that could make up for the disillusionment and pain that stood between them.
He followed her all the way to a door at the end of the hall where she stopped. The horse-dog waited at her feet, watching him with a steady, menacing look.
“Gracie.” He reached out as he said her name, but the dog advanced with lightning speed and a low growl. Reilly took a hasty step back.
“Juliet,” Gracie reprimanded in a harsh whisper. “No. Friend. Friend.”
/> She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Reilly’s middle in a meaningless hug meant to convince the dog that the hostility it felt was false. The warmth of her body came through the light embrace and on their own, his arms went around her, pulling her closer. Her hair smelled of coconut, her skin of something sweet and seductive, the scent of Gracie. He’d chased that scent since the last time he’d held her.
The tension in her body seemed to travel like a current to his. He turned his face into the crook of her shoulder and held her tight for just a moment more, just as long as she would let him.
When she pulled back, a mixture of hurt, anger, and mystified hunger lurked in her pretty eyes. She stepped away and opened the door before he could see more. A blast of icy air rushed out at them. Not just cool, but subzero. It snapped him out of his daze.
“Jesus,” he said. “You’ll be frozen before the sun comes up. Maybe she had the air set so high downstairs because all the cold stops here.”
“Maybe,” she agreed, crossing into the room that must have been her grandmother’s like a stranger who’d taken a wrong turn. Slowly, she turned in place, her gaze brushing over the surface of a heavy wood dresser that looked older than the Diablo itself. An antique grooming set was laid out on dainty doily. Pretty little boxes lined the edge by the mirror, oddly shaped and metal. Gracie met her own eyes in her reflection and the desolation he saw would’ve broken his heart if he still had one. Her relationship with her grandmother had always been troubled.
The horse-dog grr’d as Reilly crossed the threshold, but didn’t try to eat him so he started looking along the floorboards for the vents—no easy feat when Gracie’s grandmother had the room packed with heavy furniture.
“This bedroom set belonged to her great-grandmother, I think.”
“It’s probably yours now,” he said softly.
Gracie swayed and reached for the bedpost. Slowly she sank to the edge of the bed, watching him as he continued his search for air vents. He could almost see his breath now.
“She never even met Analise,” Gracie said. “I sent her an announcement when she was born. I sent her Christmas cards, every year with pictures. She never responded.”
Crouched down by the roll top desk, Reilly paused and looked back. “Why?”
“Not a clue.”
They stared at one another from across the room, and he was pretty sure they were both thinking of the mysterious twists and turns of life. From her expression, she didn’t like thinking about it anymore than he did.
He couldn’t see behind the desk, so he stood and pulled it out from the wall.
“I saw her tonight,” Gracie said.
The tone of voice, the reluctance of her words made Reilly pause. He had no doubt who she meant. “At the springs?” he asked, thinking Gracie must have stopped there before coming to the house. Yet he remembered how she’d burst through the door, frantic to see her daughter. Their daughter.
“In my kitchen.” A quiet laugh. “The dogs were all freaked out, barking, and the telephone rang—Eddie, calling to tell me what had happened. Before I answered, Grandma Beck was just there, sitting in the kitchen, holding an old ledger.”
He turned and leaned against the desk. “Same thing happened with Matt. In my car,” he said. “I looked over and Matt was riding shotgun.”
He was breathing heavy, but the air felt thin, icy. Like they were atop a frozen mountain.
“How long was he there?” she asked.
“A couple seconds.”
Her gaze traveled up to his shorn head and lingered. Like she knew that he’d gone home after that and stared into the mirror until his reflection blurred, wondering if he’d finally cracked. He’d started with scissors, whacking off his brown hair like it was somehow to blame. When that hadn’t solved anything, he’d gone for the razor.
Feeling way too exposed, he turned and looked at the floor again.
“I don’t see the vent,” he said, his voice pitched low. Husky.
Despite the instinct urging him to walk away, he glanced up and met her eyes. Gracie lifted a shoulder, her gaze never leaving his.
“I can figure it out tomorrow.”
I not we. Because Gracie had been figuring things out on her own for a long time.
He came to stand in front of her. She had to tilt her head back to see his face. The position was intimate in itself—Gracie sitting on the bed, him standing before her. The urge to cup her face, to hold it while he bent and kissed her ... it was almost too much to resist.
“Why are you here, Reilly?” she asked. Now her voice was husky, too.
He hesitated, wanting to give her the answer she desired. He might have, too, if he’d been sure what that was.
“It was time,” he said finally.
She frowned and he knew she was looking for the hidden meaning. Even he wasn’t sure about that.
He couldn’t help himself. He brushed the pad of his thumb over the puckered skin between her brows and then, because he couldn’t help that, either, he smoothed a lock of hair behind her ear, his fingers softly skimming the silk of her cheek. Her eyes widened and for a moment, he was lost in the swirling grays and blues, knowing that if she looked hard enough, deep enough she’d see right to raw and wounded center of him. This was an impossible situation and if he didn’t do something quick, he’d be in too deep to ever get out.
She shook her head and pulled back. Disappointment and relief waged a war inside of him. Reluctantly, he dropped his hand.
“You should leave,” she said.
Reilly agreed one-hundred-and-one percent. Leave. Go. Get as far away as fast as he could.
“You sure?”
“You had your chance to be a stand-up guy with me, Reilly. You didn’t take it. I’ve moved on. I’ve built a good life for me and my daughter. We don’t need you.”
“Your daughter dragged you all the way back here, looking for her daddy, Gracie. You haven’t moved on quite far enough.”
She stared at him, wounded. If she’d been cruel, he’d been pitiless. But he was right. The past was over, but tonight their daughter had decided to bring history into the present, whether they liked it or not.
He’d had every reason to walk away all those years ago. Reasons that had ripped out his heart and made him the man he was now. He’d betrayed his brother—the one person who’d always been there for him—so he could come back to her, only to find she hadn’t waited.
He shouldn’t be asking for a chance to make things right. Gracie should.
He laughed, low and without humor. She scowled at him.
“Good night, Gracie.”
CHAPTER 9
Between the cold in her room, the turmoil of her thoughts and emotions, and the thunder outside, Gracie never really fell asleep. She kept going over everything that had happened. Eddie’s call, Grandma Beck, Analise.
Reilly.
Reilly and the mystifying yearning that his touch had dredged from her soul. She’d loved him since she was a girl. She’d hated him with every fiber of her being as a woman. For years she’d told herself she was over him and in a matter of hours, he’d turned her inside out. It infuriated her that with everything she had to deal with—all the trauma of coming home to the death of her grandmother and the realization that her trustworthy daughter wasn’t quite so trustworthy after all—Reilly seemed to have the front seat in her thoughts.
Silent and drawn, she dressed, uneasy in the freezing room. A dozen times she found herself spinning to look behind her, sensing something that was never there. She didn’t believe in ghosts, but it was hard to remember that when Grandma Beck had paid her a visit from the beyond on the night of her horrible, tragic death.
She didn’t become truly spooked, though, until Juliet lifted her head and growled at the corner where the desk was wedged against the wall. Slowly, Gracie let her gaze track the room as that fierce snarl revved. The watery daylight coming through the window did little more than cast shadows deep in the overst
uffed room. Thunder still rumbled outside, but the lightning had eased. A steady drizzle pattered on the roof and raindrops streaked the windows. But the room was still. Too still.
Juliet’s growl trailed off, but she remained alert, her attention fixed on the corner.
“What do you see, Jules?” Gracie teased, her heart pounding and her skin prickly. It was silly to be so alarmed. Though grim, the sun was up and fears of things that went bump in the night should feel silly in daylight.
Slowly, she circled the room, her footsteps soft on the rug. Nothing moved but the swaying shadow arms of the tree outside, yet something unseen brushed against her throat and made her jump. The hairs at the back of her neck stood on end, and she pivoted as Juliet’s snarl became a fierce bark.
The big dog lunged at the corner, teeth bared as she snapped her jaws at the empty space. A ridge of fur stood on her back and her shoulders bunched with aggression, confusion adding a viciousness to her bark. A split second later, she heard Analise scream.
Gracie raced for the door; but Juliet tried to get their first and bumped into her legs, knocking her off-balance. Gracie’s feet tangled in the braided rug and she slammed into the wall with a thud that echoed loudly.
Struggling to regain her balance, Gracie raced into Analise’s bedroom and found her daughter huddled on the bed, eyes wide and terrified. Both Tinkerbelle and Romeo stood at the foot of the bed barking crazily. Reilly burst into the room a half step behind Gracie. His shirt was off, the top button of his jeans was undone, and his feet were bare.
“What happened?” Gracie demanded, pulling her daughter into her arms at the same time that Reilly asked, “Are you okay?”
Analise couldn’t catch her breath, let alone answer and Gracie soothed her, rubbing her back and murmuring calming words. Juliet joined the other dogs on the bed and all three crowded around her, seeking solace, too. A strange, unsettling scent hung in the air and the warmth after her freezing room felt shocking and unnaturally ... dark.
Chloe and Bill Barnes stood at the doorway, looking in with curious eyes. Chloe’s turban was gone and her white hair stuck up in thin, frizzy tufts. Behind them, Jonathan tried to peer over their shoulders.
Bad Boys of the Night: Eight Sizzling Paranormal Romances: Paranormal Romance Boxed Set Page 173
