by Ruby Laska
Which was…what exactly? This wasn’t supposed to be any big thing, this relationship. It was two people under one roof with a crazy attraction for each other. It was wild loving and no promises.
And it was also a complicated problem that they had to figure out how to solve, one that could change their lives forever.
“Uh, I was just wondering. You know, you said you might know by today. At least somewhere around today. I know these things aren’t exact, but…”
He didn’t need to touch her this time to know she’d retreated into a web of tension and anxiety. It came off her in waves, and Griff reluctantly lay back on his side of the bed.
Wrong again. Damn. He’d never been with a woman who left him so unbalanced. He’d always been pretty good about reading women, knowing what they wanted when, and exactly how to give it—or a pretty good facsimile of it—to them.
Not this time.
Unless…
Griff squeezed his eyes shut and clenched and unclenched his fists a few times, but the nagging thought remained.
Pregnant, he thought. Junior was pregnant, and now there wasn’t really any reason left for him to wait around any more. She was getting ready to kick him out.
Maybe it was for the best. Lord knew she’d already managed to get far more under his skin than he’d ever planned on. If it was going to be over, it might as well be over long before he ever had a chance to look into those green eyes and tell her he was going to walk away from a baby he had created.
Next to him, he knew that Junior was doing her best to pretend she was asleep.
He couldn’t stay there another minute, pretending along with her. Not when every inch of him was screaming stay. Not just for tonight, but forever.
He slid out of the bed they shared. The night air was too cool on his skin.
She knew it was morning because she could feel the warmth of the sun streaming onto the pillow, but she didn’t open her eyes. Not yet.
It had been a long night. Just as she’d finally been close to drifting off, her heart aching after Griff left, the noise started up downstairs.
Griff and his damn project.
Well, it was her fault he was trying to put it all back together in the middle of the night. She was the one who’d read him the riot act last night.
Even if it was true, he’d acted irresponsibly, she hadn’t needed to come down on him so hard.
But it was exactly the way he’d been with Carlton, so easy, so natural, that had scared her so.
Because she’d seen a man who could have been a father.
But the baby he had fathered would never have a chance to find out.
“No,” she whispered fiercely to herself, as she felt the threat of tears. And it worked. She wouldn’t cry, at least not this morning.
She did own one proper nightgown, a gift from one of her sisters-in-law. She’d never worn it before, but somehow it made her feel a little better to slide into it before brushing her teeth and running a comb through her hair. She looked at herself in the mirror, noted the thin bands of lace around the high pink neckline, and forced a smile.
It looked more like a grimace.
She made her way down the stairs, following the sounds of tapping—had he been at it all night?—and the smell of fresh coffee. The man sure made decent coffee.
At the bottom of the stairs she stopped. Stared.
“What the hell have you done!” she yelled.
Griff rounded the corner, hammer in hand. He looked terrible. His eyes bore deep purple shadows, and his beard was coming in dark and uneven. His hair stuck up on one side.
He grinned weakly at her.
“Good morning,” he said. He hesitated, and Junior barely managed to stop gaping and close her mouth before he took two more steps and wrapped her in his arms.
“What the hell,” she repeated, but his arms were warm and welcoming around her and before she knew it she’d leaned into him and let him hold her. He ran his hands over her back and rocked her, and he smelled like sawdust and good, honest, hard work.
She didn’t even realize she was crying until she felt his shirt, wet against her cheek. And still he held her.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured against her hair. “I really was going to fix it. But then I got to that damn outlet and the thing was shredded, just shredded. I’m thinking mice maybe. So I was just going to take it back to where the damage ended, but the thing is, and I hate to tell you…”
He pulled gently back from her, and Junior quickly rubbed her nose with the back of her hand and tried to duck away from his scrutiny.
“Hey,” he said. “Hey, what’s this? Is this about what I did to your house?”
Junior disentangled herself and stepped back.
“No,” she said, hating the giveaway thickness of her voice. “I have to get a Kleenex,” she added, but Griff followed her as she looked around the mess for the box, finding it under a corner of one of her favorite old sheets.
“Because I’m really sorry, but I can get it put back together in a few days and then you won’t have to worry about the whole place going up in flames. Which really if we don’t take care of this, it’s going to.”
We. He said we, as if it was a problem whose outcome would affect both of them. As if he would be here tomorrow, next week, next year.
But she knew that wasn’t possible.
“I’ll call a guy I know,” she said. “A pro.”
Griff frowned, pushed his hands in the pockets of his jeans, glared at the floor.
Oh, now she’d done it, insulted his manliness, or whatever it was men equated to breaking things and fixing them.
“No offense,” she said. “But I can’t stay here with the place like this. With no electricity.”
“That’s temporary,” Griff cut in quickly. “A few days tops, and I can have it back on.”
“I’ll go stay at Teddy ‘s,” Junior went on. “Thank you anyway, but I know a guy who will do it cheap.”
“Cheap? Cheap! I can do it, damn it. And you’re not going to stay with Teddy.”
Junior was almost amused by the proprietary tone in his voice. Well, she’d let him use power tools on her house; no doubt he now felt he owned the place or something. So like a man.
Having her back up felt a lot better than feeling guilty about tearing into him, and way better than letting in those feelings of loss and heartache.
“I’ll stay where I want,” she countered. “You stay here, if you like it so much.”
“You’re not staying here, because we have plans.” Griff actually folded his arms across his chest and rocked back on his heels, like he was the Marlboro Man confronting a rabid bull or something.
“Plans!” Now it was her turn to gape at him.
“Yeah. We’re going to a wedding. You got anything halfway normal to wear?”
“What?!”
“You know, a decent dress that doesn’t make you look like a flower child or a space alien or something? It’s black tie,” he added calmly.
Junior stared at him intently. There was something wrong, deeply wrong, with this man. Maybe his brain was addled by lack of sleep or something.
“Listen here, I know everything about everyone in this town and I can tell you there isn’t a soul getting married today.”
“Wedding’s not here. It’s in Chicago.”
She could not think of one thing to say. Slowly, she lowered herself into one of the kitchen chairs.
“My cousin,” Griff added, “You’ll like her. She’ll like you. Etc, etc. Look, can we talk about this on the plane? We have a noon flight out of Sedalia so we kind of need to get a move on. Can you be ready in fifteen minutes?”
“Griff.” Junior spoke slowly, emphasizing each word. “We are not going to any wedding. Even if you were, I am not about to crash a wedding uninvited when—”
“You are invited,” Griff interrupted. I talked to my aunt last night. Betsy’s mom.”
“You called the bride’s mothe
r in the middle of the night before her daughter’s wedding?”
“Yeah. She didn’t mind.”
“Didn’t… mind? Griff Ross,” Junior breathed, incredulously. “I have two things to say to you. One, you don’t know the first thing about women. And two—two –
“Aw, hell,” she said. There was no two. At least Junior couldn’t think of it. And so she stalked out, and up the stairs.
Griff watched her go, beginning to shake only when he heard her feet on the stairs.
He was a fool, a damn fool with two days’ growth of beard, a hell of a mess under his feet, and an even bigger mess ahead of him.
For some reason even that thought couldn’t keep a smile from making its way onto his face.
She was coming with him.
CHAPTER NINE
The place made her feel small, and Junior was not accustomed to feeling small.
It wasn’t like she’d never been in a loft before, one of these overpriced overdone-up high-ceilinged city lofts carved out of old factories. She’d done her time, cocktail parties and first dates in places like these, back when she thought the city held the answers for her, back before she’d remembered where her home was.
But this place belonged to him.
Junior snuck a glance at Griff, but he was carrying their luggage to the bedroom, no expression at all on his face.
Just like on the drive to the airport. Just like on the plane, when she pretended to read a magazine next to him. Just like in the cab on the way here, as the highway from O’Hare gave way to the neighborhoods and then the city itself, the traffic and tall buildings and grey skies.
“Your place is great,” she said, trying to inject some enthusiasm into her voice. “You’ve got great taste.”
Griff turned and smiled back, and she could see that he was just as uncertain as she. He came across the room to her, and after hesitating just a little too long, wrapped her in his arms and squeezed gently.
“I don’t know about that. It suits me. But don’t go pretending to like it when you and I both know you hate it.”
“I don’t hate it,” Junior protested--
“It’s okay,” Griff said, and tucked her head under his chin. “Being with you has made me develop a thick skin. It’ll take a lot more than insulting my taste to get rid of me.”
He’d said more, and less, than he meant. It seemed to be happening to them more and more, and Junior felt him stiffen and pull away from her. Reluctantly, she let him go, and then she was left standing there awkwardly with nowhere to put her arms, feeling bereft.
“Look, we have a few hours before we need to go,” he said, not looking at her. “I’m going to crash, if you don’t mind. Get me up at five. I, uh, have cable, the clicker’s on the TV. If you need to, you know, get ready or whatever, why don’t you take the guest room. It has its own bathroom.”
Junior forced a smile. “You’ve been living in my house, Griff. You ought to know by now that I get ready quicker than you do.”
That, of all things, made him blush, and she relented.
“Okay, maybe I’ll do something a little special for tonight.”
He smiled at her, a tired smile, but edged with a hint of contentment.
For some reason, she couldn’t resist.
“I brought this one pair of stockings, it has a seam up the legs and some rhinestones at the ankle. Cost me a bundle, too, which is funny because the darn things don’t even have a crotch.”
Griff froze, except for his eyes, which got wider and wider. He looked like he was going to have a heart attack.
“Kidding!” Junior whooped. “Geez, lighten up. Go take your nap, like a good boy, and I promise I’ll deck myself out respectably, okay?”
Griff just shook his head dazedly, and then disappeared into the bedroom.
He left the door open, though, which Junior thought was a good sign, even as the apartment seemed to close in around her.
He’d been dreaming, a nice dream. Junior was wearing one of her long, flowing dresses, but it had been made of something utterly transparent, so he saw the gentle swirl it made as she spun and danced, and underneath, the pale perfection of her body.
Just as he’d been about to go to her in the dream, to reach for her hand and draw her closer, she smiled at him, and parted her lovely lips.
“It’s five o’clock,” she said. “Get your ass out of bed.”
He groaned, and pulled his pillow over his head.
“Go away,” he said. “Unless you want to come in here and finish off this dream in person.”
“Huh?”
“You were in my dream—never mind. Is it really five?”
“Yup.”
“Did you leave me any hot water?”
She giggled, and he heard something unfamiliar in her voice. Uncertainty. Nerves.
Curious, he rolled over and experimentally opened one eye, then the other.
Junior was perched on the side of his bed, wearing one of his oversized towels around her body, another on her head, turban-style. Her face was bare of makeup, and she smelled wonderful, her usual spicy-flowery smell mixed with soap. And she was biting her lip and smiling at the same time.
He liked it.
“C’mere,” he growled, reaching for her, but she was too quick and jumped out of the way.
“Uh-uh. The bride’s mother already probably thinks I’m—I’m—whatever. Because you called her in the middle of the night, like a jerk. We’re not about to be late on top of it.”
Griff rolled his eyes and lay back down, sighing. Women! He would never understand the subtle feinting and parrying that complicated their relationships. But it was clear who was the boss in this situation.
“Okay. I’ll get up. But you owe me one, y’hear? And I mean to collect.”
Junior wrinkled her nose at him, and smiled.
“You’re starting to sound like a real hick, you know that?” She backed out of the room, grinning triumphantly.
Damn, he thought, as he threw off the covers and stripped, letting his tee shirt and underwear fall to the floor. She was right. Funny how the little phrases and words and even that slow, syrupy hint of an accent could creep in if you weren’t careful.
He smiled as he brushed his teeth and splashed his face with cold water and went about getting dressed. It was sort of funny to think of his family, gathering even now on the steps of Saint Xavier downtown, pressing the flesh and baring their white teeth in smiles designed to be recorded for the society pages. How those smiles would falter if he showed up and started talking like the guy that ran the motel or the women from the café, any number of Poplar Bluff residents.
“We need rain,” he could say conversationally. “This dry weather’s hell on the soy beans.”
Of course, he wouldn’t say anything of the sort, because was that they wouldn’t ever get it. His mother would just look at him like she always did, her smile fixed on her face despite the disapproval clear in her eyes. Once again, she would telegraph loud and clear, you have let me down.
And at this wedding there would be lots of other people who’d turned out a lot more to her liking than he had.
Why can’t you be still, like Billy?
Why can’t you learn to hold a fork, like Margaret?
Why can’t you run a comb through your hair? This is the club, for heaven’s sake, not some roadhouse.
Why can’t you call your cousin Drake? I’m sure he could get you an interview at the bank.
Griff shook his head, willing his mother’s face out of his thoughts. She was not going to ruin this for him. He’d brought Junior all the way to Chicago, and he was going to make sure she had a good time.
He took the tuxedo, cleaned and pressed, from his closet, pausing a moment to look at the neat row of hangers. Black. A lot of black. Griff shook his head in chagrin as he realized he’d spent most of the last couple of weeks in borrowed tee-shirts and a couple of pairs of shorts that were work-worn beyond any resemblance of their former
selves.
Griff slipped into the well-made clothes, thinking how strange it was that their custom-tailored fit no longer felt as good as it once had. He gave the bow tie a good yank, grateful for the first time in his life that he’d had to suffer through cotillion in high school, if only so he’d learned how to put on a tux.
“You look nice.”
He spun around, following the low, throaty, vaguely amused sound of her door.
And nearly kept on spinning. Right into orbit, maybe, sent flying by the sight of her.
She did, as it turned out, own a proper dress.
It was navy, dark as a summer night, and fit her like a second skin. It wasn’t revealing—oh, no, her hips and her waist and her breasts were covered exquisitely by the inky, silky fabric, which draped at her collarbones in some sort of neckline that stopped short of her shoulders and made the long, creamy stretch of her neck seem even longer and more elegant.
“What…”
Griff’s voice cracked, like a teenager’s, and he cleared his throat as Junior grinned at him. She was enjoying herself, he could see, and that made her look about a hundred times more delicious. She shifted slightly on her feet, and Griff gulped and let his gaze travel down to where the dress skimmed the top of her knees. Her legs continued on for about a hundred curvy miles and then…
“You own a pair of ladies’ shoes, I see,” Griff managed to get out.
Hell, the truth was that these shoes didn’t belong on just any lady. They were heels, serious heels, the kind of heels that would probably make her taller than him and he didn’t even care. Shiny blue satin fabric twisted across her foot and wound elegantly around.
“Yup.”
Reluctantly, Griff tore his gaze away from those inviting shoes and back to the bauble that had caught his eye.
“And…what is that, exactly, around your neck?”
Junior fingered the strange choker, which appeared to be made of plastic beads, fake jewels, pipe-cleaners, and…what really looked like a feather. A bright pink feather.
“The twins made me this,” she said. “In kindergarten.”
