Donald made a derisive noise that instantly made Grif feel fifteen and stupid all over again. “How? You’ve barely been home except to bury your mother.”
That wasn’t quite true. Grif tried to make it home whenever he could—but admittedly that hadn’t been very often since the two of them tended to circle each other like annoyed bears. And without his mom as a go-between, it had only gotten worse. Grif rose and absently rubbed the scar running along his temple. The long nap had taken care of the headache for now, but it would be back. He was getting used to living with one, along with the ringing ears, light sensitivity, and fatigue. He was lucky these were his only problems, and he knew it. “I’m here now,” he said.
His dad looked at him and then nodded curtly. “Holly will be glad for it.”
“And you?” Grif asked.
Donald strode to the bar to pour himself two fingers of whiskey.
Thing One and Thing Two leaped to their feet and happily panted along in his wake, hoping he was going for food. Donald smiled and pulled a dog biscuit from his pocket for each, receiving doggie kisses for the effort.
He’d always been a better doggy dad than a real dad. Grif rubbed his temple again, and Donald looked over at him. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit.”
What the hell, Grif thought. “I screwed up and got too close to an IED.”
Donald went utterly still for a very long beat. Then he knocked back his drink and slowly set the glass on the bar. And then just as slowly exhaled audibly. “So you nearly bought the farm.”
“Turns out, I’m hard to kill.”
Donald didn’t relax or smile. “You didn’t think to call?”
“Did you call me when you had a heart attack?”
“Not the same thing,” Donald said tightly.
“No? Why’s that, dad?”
“I didn’t call you because I didn’t want to distract you overseas. You didn’t call me because you’re stubborn as hell.”
Grif smiled thinly. “No idea where I got that . . .”
From inside his dad’s pocket came the refrain “I’m A Slave 4 U . . .” He pulled out his phone, and a ridiculous smile crossed his face. “Deanna says to tell you hello.”
Deanna was his girlfriend. She was half Donald’s age, silly, and highly dramatic. She also loved the old guy just as he was, and had stuck with him longer than anyone else since Grif’s mom. Go figure.
His dad thumbed a reply text with surprising dexterity, shoved the phone away, and then got back to business. “What now?” he asked Grif.
“I don’t know.” Grif shrugged. “I’ve got some job options to consider.”
“Where?”
“DC. Texas. Quantico.” Grif might be done with active duty, but he still had skills and knowledge, and any number of alphabet agencies were interested in him.
“So you’re in flux,” Donald said.
“I’m in flux.”
“Which is why you’re here. You had a close call, and you had some sort of epiphany. What is it, you need to make peace with your past?”
Grif met his dad’s gaze evenly, giving nothing away. “Maybe I’m interested in Idaho.”
Donald laughed harshly and set down his drink again. “There was a day when you couldn’t wait to get out of here. Hell, the door couldn’t have hit you on the ass if it’d tried, you ran that fast. You went far and wide and on your own damn terms.”
True story.
“Things would’ve been easier all around if you’d stuck here in Sunshine,” Donald went on, “but you couldn’t be bothered to do that, not then. What makes you think you could do it now?”
“I’m not seventeen anymore, dad. And this time I am interested.”
“In the ranch?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
Donald laughed harshly. “You think it’s easy to run a ranch? That you can just drop back in after all these years and give it a shot on your own?”
Grif bit back the retort on his tongue, that his dad didn’t do it by himself. He ran a huge operation, and he’d always had help. That had never been the issue. Grif tossed back his drink. More than two fingers, which was in direct opposition to what his migraine pills allowed, but there were days when life exceeded allowances, and this was one of them. “You’re reading too much into this. I’m back to see my sister get married.”
“Wrong. You came back for you,” Donald said. And with that possibly very true statement, he left Grif alone in the den.
Four
Needing a moment, Kate moved away from the group at the bar. Treading water . . .
Is that what she was doing? Really?
She dodged through the crowd. She had no idea what she’d hoped to feel tonight. A spark of . . . something. But instead, her happy—already a little tenuous—was slipping.
She’d had two guys come on to her, which in theory should have been a little thrilling, but neither Charlie, a local fifteen years her senior and four times divorced, or Trevan, the father of one of the boys in her class, had interested her.
She was a little worried that nothing could interest her.
And then she’d caught Griffin Reid staring at her, and she’d felt that surge she’d been looking for. Interest? Oh yes. And lust. And excitement.
And more lust.
But it had been short-lived because when he’d realized it was her, he’d stopped short so fast she’d actually looked down at herself to see if she was trailing toilet paper from her boot or if she’d spilled something on herself.
She hadn’t. She was wearing big-girl clothes tonight, without so much as a paint stain on her anywhere. And she looked good, too; Charles had said so—six times. Of course he’d said so directly to her breasts, but that might be her fault. They were a little bit on display tonight in her lacy top—something she didn’t ever get to wear teaching second graders. After Ryan had thrown her off her game a little bit about her scholarship, she’d needed to mix things up tonight.
Instead she’d actually scared away Grif Reid. That took talent.
With a sigh, she dug into the chips and dip like it was her job. She was pretty certain that the calories in the dip added up to an entire week’s worth of points, but she didn’t care. Turning off a crush so thoroughly as to have him actually run away trumped point counting. In fact, it made the dip point free.
She’d just stuffed in a big bite when Miranda Brown came up to her side. Miranda was Holly’s cousin and one of the bridesmaids. She was taller than Kate, prettier than Kate, and was currently engaged to her college sweetheart, who’d just finished up his residency. She gave Kate a smile. “Someone just suggested we all play some couples games, but Holly vetoed. I think she was worried about you feeling left out.”
“I wouldn’t have felt left out,” Kate said.
Miranda smiled kindly and possibly a little patronizingly. “She said you’d say that, but . . .”
“But what?”
“Nothing.” Miranda sipped daintily from her wineglass, her diamond ring nearly blinding Kate when it caught the light. “So when are you going to find your special someone, Kate?”
Yeah, definitely patronizingly. “I have someone on order, actually. He’s going to arrive any second.”
Miranda blinked. “Is that a joke?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.” Miranda laughed. “Right. You’re . . . funny. Must be all the science degrees. Biology and chem, right?”
And education. And a chance at a master’s . . .
“No Mrs. degree yet,” Miranda said, and laughed. “Have you tried Match.com?”
More times than Kate wanted to admit out loud.
“Or maybe you’re happy being the spinster teacher . . .”
Spinster teacher . . . seriously? Is that how people saw her? She wasn’t even thirty yet. “I’m okay with being in between relationships,” Kate said. And she’d been “between” relationships for a long time. Men didn’t grow on trees in Sunshine, and she’d never been all that good at the serial-dating thing.
“So you don’t have a date for the wedding?” Miranda asked.
“I didn’t say that.” Kate tossed back her second wine and felt her head get a little fuzzy. She was a lightweight, but tonight fuzzy was perfect. She’d be a cheap date.
If she had a date . . . “I have one.”
“Who?” Miranda asked. “Anyone I know?”
Good question. Kate searched the room, her gaze landing on Ryan.
With his sixth sense for all things ridiculous, Ryan turned and looked at them. He took in her undoubtedly half-crocked slash panicked expression and, pulling his phone from his pocket, he worked his thumbs for a minute on the screen.
Three seconds later, Kate’s phone vibrated. She held up a finger to Miranda—not the finger she wanted to hold up either—and grabbed her phone from her purse.
Hell no am I going to be your date for the wedding.
Dammit, Kate thought.
And stop drinking.
Double dammit.
Miranda’s eyes fell on Ryan as well, who was back to flirting with one of the bridesmaids. “Ryan was a good catch for you,” she said. “What happened? Did he get a little tired of the whole . . .” She gestured vaguely at Kate. “Sweet act?”
“Sweet act?”
Miranda smiled. “You know what I mean. You’re always taking care of everyone and everything.” She patted Kate’s arm. “I’m sure one of these days you’ll figure out how to take care of you and get what you want. In the meantime, at least you have your family. I think you deserve a medal for taking care of your father through his rehab and for how you watch out for your special siblings.”
Kate set down her wineglass because she had an urge to accidentally-on-purpose toss the contents in Miranda’s smug face.
“And eventually I’m sure you’ll find a man who won’t dump you.”
“Ryan didn’t dump me.” Kate glanced at Ryan again, who was now giving her the slashing finger across the throat gesture. As in ‘don’t you dare commit me as your date or I’ll kill you.’
Someone on the other side of Kate gasped and whispered, “Is that our principal, making . . . death threats?”
Kate sighed and turned her back on the rat fink bastard. “Ryan didn’t dump me,” she repeated, but Miranda had moved off.
“And I know what I want,” Kate said to no one.
Didn’t she? Okay, so yes, maybe eventually she wanted a sparkly diamond. Sue her. But she didn’t want it right this minute. Right this minute she wanted to see her dear friend get married. She wanted to see Ashley off to college. She wanted to get all of her second graders through the last three weeks of school. She wanted to bask in having the honor of the pretty white envelope in her purse.
And okay, maybe she also wanted something to assuage this odd . . . ache deep inside. She looked around. Ryan was busy with Meg from the convenience store. Holly had her arms looped around Adam’s neck. Her other dear friends Jade and Lilah were dancing with their husbands. In fact, just about everyone was paired off, and for the first time while surrounded by people she’d known forever, Kate felt . . . lonely.
It was natural, she assured herself. With Holly getting married things were changing. Kate was happy for her, so very happy, but apparently she’d let Miranda get into her head a little bit.
Because she didn’t feel like a spinster teacher. She felt vibrant and loved and good at her job. And yeah, she took care of people, her people, but she liked doing it. She was good at it. Really good.
And maybe it was true that she hadn’t been able to leave town since . . . well, she couldn’t remember exactly. Oh, wait! She’d gone to that teaching conference in Coeur d’Alene last year, and it had been good, right up until she’d gotten food poisoning on her second night.
Damn. She was in a rut. But it was a very high-functioning rut, thank you very much. And at least she knew what she wanted for her future. But as for right now? Well, the truth was, her right now was a little bit consumed with others.
Maybe she did need to shake things up.
Ahead of her, way down the hallway, she caught sight of a tall, broad-shouldered guy in a baseball cap vanish into a room.
Griffin.
Before tonight she’d have said that he could shake her up. In fact, he could do whatever he wanted, and she was pretty sure she’d love it. Maybe she’d been wrong about his reaction before. Maybe he’d just been in a hurry. Yeah, surely that was it. Or that’s what she wanted to believe, because here was the perfect chance to do something completely for herself, something out of character, something entirely just for her, with no chance of anyone getting hurt.
Griffin himself.
The thought made her heart start to race, like it did when she had a few episodes of Arrow to watch in a row. Not quite sure she was equipped to make this decision all on her own, she looked around for someone to check in with, someone who might suggest that this was a bad idea. But one best friend was wearing a big tiara, and the other was moving it like Jagger on the dance floor. Huh. Look at that, no one to talk her out of the insanity. That left only one person to convince.
Griffin himself.
Suddenly and completely determined, she grabbed a bottle of wine and two wineglasses and stepped into the den behind him.
At her entry, he turned, his expression dialed in to big, bad, edgy alpha. He wore a soft-washed henley shirt the exact same color of his gray eyes, and it clung to his broad shoulders and chest. Her heart, already knocking hard against her ribcage, gave a treacherous leap. And that wasn’t the only physical reaction either. With a smile, she hoisted the bottle. “Thought I’d do my part to clean up,” she said. “Join me?”