Gray Wolf Security: Wyoming

by Glenna Sinclair

  “You heard, didn’t you?” someone on the other side of the bar said to his companion. “They say Jim Bob gets out of the hospital tomorrow.”

  “Lucky bastard,” the companion said.

  “Yeah. Should be dead, but some fool saved his dumb ass.”

  “I heard he went to the motel that night to shoot Eve’s new husband.”

  “That’s the rumor I heard, too. Those people, Mountain Top, paid him twenty thousand bucks to do it. Me, I would have demanded twice that, but Jim Bob’s got that diabetic wife and him being out of work for the last couple of years can’t pay for her medications.”

  “That sucks, man. But I still would have demanded more.”

  I poured a shot, then another and another. The liquor burned going down, but it felt good. I’d had enough of this town, of this reality. I’d had enough of bullies trying to take down good people, of good people suffering from unfair diseases. I was tired of the realities of this world, of the pain people never tired of heaping on one another. Wasn’t it enough that we each had our own miseries to deal with? Did we really have to make the man next to us suffer more?

  I drank until that bottle was nearly gone, drank until the edges began to dull a little. Drank until the thought of Eve was only a sharp pain in the center of my chest. I drank until all my ghosts, my regrets, quieted down to a dull roar.

  And I had so many regrets.

  The biggest one was my family. It all goes back to family, doesn’t it? I would never forget the look on my mom’s face when she told me to leave.

  It’s your fault. If you hadn’t been driving that night, he would be okay and he wouldn’t act this way. We wouldn’t have to put him in this place and he would be home, with us, living a normal life. But he’ll never be normal again, and that’s your fault!

  Those words haunted me. As much as I told myself it didn’t matter, that I was better off away from that small-town farm, they haunted me. It was those words that sent me to the Navy and those words that sent me to Afghanistan. It was those words that pushed me to believe that I could change my life, that I could be happy with a woman like Misty. And it was those words that haunted me late at night, laughing at me as I tried to run away from them.

  But it was Eve that made them go away, that silenced the words in the dark of the night. It was Eve who made me see that turning away from who I was, was a mistake. And it was Eve who led me back to the man I was always meant to be. It didn’t matter anymore, those words. All that mattered now was who I was and what I had done. I had to own up to it and I had to find a way to live with it.

  I stood up, pushed my stool away. It was time for me to go make things right.

  I stumbled out the door, drunker than I realized, tugging my keys from my pants pockets. Probably shouldn’t drive. Probably shouldn’t even get in the damn truck, but I wasn’t about to freeze to death out here on the damn sidewalk!

  I was almost to the Bronco when two men stepped out of the shadows along the side of the building.

  “You Grainger North?” one asked.

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  “The guy who’s going to take you out!”

  The first punch came out of nowhere. I should have seen it, but I didn’t. And it hurt like a son of a bitch.

  “Hey, brother, I don’t want any trouble,” I said, holding up one hand while the other went to my mouth to check for blood. And there was more than I was comfortable with.

  “Then you shouldn’t have put your nose where it don’t belong.” The guy came over and grabbed me by the front of my shirt, pulling me up again his chest. “Should have stayed out of Mountain Top business. Should have stayed away from that little motel and its weak little owner. You bit off more than you can chew with that one.”

  He hit me again. I fell back against the brick building, feeling every scratch the sharp bricks tore into my skin.

  I held up both hands. “Let me get this straight: you’re here on behalf of Mountain Top Real Estate?”

  The two men glanced at each other, a little bemused.

  “Yeah, man,” the second guy said. “They sent us over to get you out of the picture. They’re going to buy the note on that motel, and they don’t want to have to buy you out.”

  “They think beating me up is going to solve their issues?”

  The first guy snickered. “No man. We’re here to put you in the morgue.”

  Chapter 22

  At the Ranch

  Sutherland walked into the boardroom without waiting for the secretary to announce her. Two lawyers on retainer from Cheyenne were at her side, both less intimidating than she, but the three of them together a force that made even the CEO of Mountain Top sit up a little straighter.

  “What the hell?” he demanded, his finger reaching for the panic button on the intercom.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” Sutherland said. “No one would come anyway.”

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “I’m the woman who’s just put a stop to your operations here in Midnight. And if you leave quietly, I won’t press charges against you on behalf of my employee.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Sutherland stepped back and gestured to one of the lawyers. He held up a digital recorder and pushed a button. Immediately, the sound of a conversation recorded outside a local bar the night before. Sutherland could see that the CEO knew exactly what the conversation was about, and what it would mean for him and his company. The man looked as though he was about to shit his pants.

  “There’s more,” she said, gesturing to the other lawyer. After a small glitch, the man set up a laptop computer that showed video outside of the Spraberry Motel, showing a man honking his horn at three in the morning, then the same man driving his car into the side of the same motel. There was even video of two of the executives there in that room offering Eve Spraberry a rotten deal to steal her property.

  “The harassment alone could negate any business deals you’ve made in this area. But I think the threat of murder caught on tape is the jewel. Don’t you?”

  The CEO adopted a defensive expression. “What do you want?”

  “I want you to pull out of Midnight. I want you to return the deeds of the properties you’ve already purchased, and go back to whatever hole you crawled out of.”

  “You realize that there are a dozen other companies chomping at the bit to take our place, right? The rich and famous have made this area an unadulterated jewel. You can’t stop them all.”

  “Maybe not, but I can stop you.”

  The four men sitting around the conference table stared at each other for all of three seconds before the CEO nodded.

  “Okay. We’re out.”

  ***

  “I can’t believe what you did!”

  Sutherland smiled. “That’s what you hired us for.”

  “I only wanted the harassment to stop. I didn’t think you would get rid of them altogether.”

  “And I spoke to the bank. They said that if you’ll go down there and sign the papers, they’ve rewritten your loan to give you a lower payment and more time to pay it off.”

  Eve shook her head, tears in her eyes. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “I don’t want your thanks. I want you to be happy.”

  A dark shadow crossed Eve’s face. Southerland touched her knee, squeezing it lightly.

  “He’s miserable, you know.”

  Her eyes came up, filled with hurt and fear and a million things Sutherland couldn’t begin to describe. She didn’t know for sure what had happened between Eve and Grainger, but she knew heartbreak when she saw it and she saw it clearly in both their eyes.

  “He took those two goons on himself. The whole thing was his idea and Kirkland tried to get him to allow Hank to back him up, but he insisted on doing it himself.”

  “He could have been killed.”

  “He did it for you.”

  Tears filled her eyes then. “He’d alread
y done enough. None of you should have done this.”

  “A simple thank you works.” Sutherland patted her knee again. “He’s staying up at the bunkhouse.”

  Eve didn’t say anything, but when she left the main house a few minutes later, she watched her bypass her car.

  She hoped they could work things out. Someone should find a little happiness around here.

  Chapter 23

  Eve

  He was sitting at the back of the room, studying something on a computer screen. I could see, even from this distance, the bruise forming on his jaw. Instinct made me want to rush to him, to touch it and make it better with my kiss. But that wasn’t my place anymore.

  I walked slowly, aware of other eyes on me, but he never looked up. It wasn’t until I was standing over him, my shadow darkening his brow, that he finally looked up.

  “Eve,” he said, whispering my name almost like it was a prayer. He stood, his hands coming up like he intended to touch me, but stopping before contact was made. “What are you doing here?”

  “Sutherland was just telling me what you’d done, and I thought I should say thank you.”

  He inclined his head slightly, his eyes darting around the room.

  “Do you mind if we take this outside?”

  I followed him out a sliding glass door to a long porch. It was cold, a chill in the air that suggest the first snowfall would come soon. He stood with his back to me, his hands stretched out over the wooden railing as though he was afraid of doing something he shouldn’t. I could see bruises on his knuckles. I found myself wondering what the other guys looked like.

  I probably didn’t want to know.

  “My lawyer drew up some papers,” I said, tugging the envelope out of my purse.

  He glanced at me, his eyes narrowing slightly at the sight of it. “Before we get into that, could I ask you a favor?”

  “Grainger, I think it would be better if we just get it over with. Rip it off like a Band-Aid.”

  He nodded. “The thing is, I’m going home to surprise my parents over Thanksgiving and I was hoping you’d come with me. I haven’t seen them since I left for the Navy and I... I just thought it would be better to have an excuse to barge in on them, you know?”

  “Why me?”

  “You’re my wife. Who better?”

  “But we’re about to annul our marriage. Wouldn’t it be confusing to introduce me to them now under those circumstances?”

  “I hate to pull this card, but I kind of fixed your problems. Don’t you think you owe me a little something?”

  He was right, as unfair as it seemed. None of it made sense to me, but I nodded. If it was what he wanted…

  He smiled. “Thank you.”

  ***

  We flew into the Springfield airport and drove north. I stared out the window most of the way, fascinated by the empty fields that would be green with corn and soybeans in the spring. He turned on the radio and I hummed along with a familiar song, nervous and excited all at the same time. This was where Grainger came from, where his roots were. I was about to meet his parents, his people. It was almost like a gift.

  But then I’d remember that woman standing in the motel lobby, remember the lies he told me by not telling me the truth. I remembered the hurt of realizing I would never be the kind of woman she was. And then it would hurt all over again.

  He slowed the car and turned off the two-lane highway. I sat up a little straighter, watching all these fancy, new homes whizz past the windows. And then he turned into a short driveway in front of a clapboard house set close to the road. A woman was kneeling near a flowerbed, pouring mulch around the base of a rose bush. She straightened up when she heard the sound of the car’s engine, shading her eyes from the bright winter sun. Grainger stopped the car and turned off the engine, but he didn’t move.

  “Is that your mother?”

  He nodded. “I’m not sure how happy she’s going to be to see that it’s me.”

  “I’m sure she’ll be thrilled.”

  He was so tense, his eyes not leaving her. I touched the back of his hand and he immediately gripped my hand. I’d never seen him rattled. It scared me a little.

  Then he took a deep breath.

  “Well, it’s now or never.”

  He climbed out of the car and I followed, watching this stranger with new interest. I don’t know what he was so worried about. The moment she recognized him, she cried out and ran to him, throwing her arms around him with all the relief and affection I would have expected from a mother who hadn’t seen her son in more than six years. It was actually kind of nice to watch.

  I got out of the car and stood back, trying not to intrude. I could see tears rolling down her cheeks and suspected there were a few on Grainger’s cheeks, as well. It was a long time before they finally separated.

  “Who’s this?” Grainger’s mother asked as she wiped away her tears and smiled apologetically in my direction.

  “Mom, this is my wife, Eve. Eve, this is my mother, Susan.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. North.”

  “Oh, please, call me Susan.” She turned to Grainger. “Your father will be so pleased to see you!”

  “Is he in the fields?”

  “He is, as always.”

  “Why don’t I go get him and then Eve and I will take the two of you out to dinner.”

  “That would be so lovely.”

  Grainger’s mother stared up at him, clearly so happy to be with him. There was so much love there, it was almost palpable. It made me miss my own mother, but it also made me glad that I’d had that sort of relationship with my mom before she was gone.

  We watched Grainger pull away, then Susan led the way into the house. There were pictures everywhere, so many of Grainger and a dark-haired boy who looked just like him that it almost felt like a museum. I found myself moving from picture to picture, amused to see the man I knew in such a juvenile and fun way.

  “How long have you and Grainger been married?” she asked as she poured us each a glass of tea.

  “Not long. A few weeks.”

  “Thank you,” she said softly.

  I looked over at her, wondering if I’d heard her wrong. She was crying again, but she smiled and wiped the tears away, almost as if she was embarrassed by them.

  “I thought he would never come home. I mean…” She sobbed softly. “I did tell him not to come home because of his brother and everything, but I was just hurt. I never thought he would really do it.” She stepped down into the living room and pointed to a picture of Grainger in his Naval uniform. “I only have that because a friend ran into him in Maryland and he gave it to him. Otherwise we never would have known.”

  “Why?”

  She picked up another picture, this one of Grainger and his brother when they were preteens. “There was an accident. Tommy... he became violent afterward and we had to put him in a facility. Grainger pushed the issue, wouldn’t drop it. I know now that it was only because he was worried for my safety, but at the time, all I could see was that everyone wanted to take my boy away from me. But it was probably the best thing we could have done for him.”

  I thought about the same dilemma I’d faced with my mom, of Grainger’s reaction when he realized my mom occasionally became violent. That must have been so close to home for him.

  My heart hurt a little for him.

  “The accident?”

  Susan glanced at me. “Grainger was driving. I think he blamed himself.”

  Why didn’t I know that? It explained so much about him and yet... why didn’t I know?

  ***

  Grainger and his father arrived back at the house almost an hour later. Susan and I talked a lot. I learned more about the man I’d married in that hour than I’d learned in talking to him, but it offered me such a view of him that I found myself beginning to see a side to him I hadn’t realized was there. And it softened the wall that had grown up around my heart when Misty walked into the motel.


  We had dinner together, the four of us, at a small restaurant in their small town. It was nice, really, getting to know these people who’d created Grainger. Watching them also added more to my bank of knowledge. By the end of the night, I was incredibly happy I’d come to this town with him and I found myself looking forward to meeting his brother the next day over the Thanksgiving celebrations.

  I was a little surprised—I’m not sure why, though—when we pulled up to the motel and Grainger said, “I got two rooms. They’re a floor apart, so you don’t have to worry about anything.”

  I didn’t know what he expected me to say, so I didn’t say anything.

  He walked me to my door and I took the key, turned to unlock the door. But then I had to ask.

  “Why did you bring me here?”

  His dark eyes moved slowly over my face. “I wanted you to see where I came from. I wanted you to know who I was.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the man you think I am, the one who would go back to that woman, isn’t me.”

  I blushed, unaware that he’d known about Misty.

  “Why not bring her here?”

  He laughed a humorless laugh. “Can you see her here? Can you see her with my parents? She would have been an absolute nightmare!”

  “But you loved her enough once to ask her to be your wife.”

  He tilted his head slightly, as though that was a thought he’d wrestled with, too. Then he nodded.

  “I did. At least, the guy I used to be did. But, you see, that guy wasn’t me. That was a guy trying to be something he wasn’t, a guy who thought he could be happy in the world people like Misty occupy. But then I walked into your motel, disgusted by everything around me, and it was like a spotlight was turned on, revealing all the things I’d pushed away, all the things I’d tried to forget. It highlighted the man my father taught me to be, highlighted the kind of people I was raised to be. It reminded me of where I’d come from and who I was supposed to be.” He stepped forward and touched my cheek gently. “Being with you, seeing you with your mom, seeing all the things you do for the people in your community, for the people who work for you, it reminded me of the person I once wanted to be. It showed me that looks and status don’t really matter at the end of the day. What matters is whether or not you can look yourself in the mirror and be proud of what you did that day. When I was with you, I could do that.”