“He promised he was going to tell you last night. I told him if he didn’t, then I would.” Serena’s despair quickly turned to anger, and she slammed a fist on the wood with a thump. “And the prick slept with you on top of it? Did he think I was going to lie for him forever?”
Grace tried to keep up, but her brain was too busy grappling for the clues…the signs that should have led her to this, but she came up empty. Because every time she tried to make sense of it all, one thought bashed its way to the forefront of her mind.
He’d deceived her.
Not just at the party, but over and over again. Even when he’d had a dozen chances to come clean, even last night, he’d continued to lie to her. She could abide a lot of things, but after all she’d gone through with Victor, lying wasn’t one of them. How could he have done this? And why?
“Okay, let’s think about this, doll.” The ragey shouts had dissipated, and Serena’s voice was calm and pragmatic. “You gave me a shock there, but it doesn’t change anything. I know one thing for sure. The man is crazy about you. Tell me what happened last night.”
“I thought he loved me,” she whispered dully. But that wasn’t love. Lying to someone over and over again wasn’t how you treated someone you loved. She might not have a lot of personal experience with the emotion, but that much she knew.
“So why didn’t he tell you?” Serena demanded. “You know what, screw it.” She snatched the desk phone off the receiver. “I’ll ask him myself.” She began to dial, but Grace grabbed it back from her.
“No you won’t. Because it doesn’t matter why. He’s a liar, and I hate liars.” Tears choked her and tried to swallow them back. “And I hate him too.”
“Aw, honey, you don’t. Let’s get out of here and get a bottle of wine and talk, all right?” She sounded almost as baffled as Grace felt and leaned in closer. “Once we talk it out, you’ll see. He did a stupid thing, but he was telling the truth about the important part. He does care about you.”
Grace opened her mouth to respond, but she was so numb she couldn’t string the words together. Sure. In theory, Trick had proven in the past that he cared for her, but that didn’t mean he was incapable of hurting her. People hurt people they cared about every day. Who knew what his thought process was or why he’d made the choices he had? The thing was that choices came with consequences. Now he was going to have to live with those consequences.
And so was she.
How was she going to be okay without him in her life? How had she gone from having a best friend and a lover five minutes ago to losing it all? Her jaw ached from clenching it against her tears, and she willed herself to relax before she worked herself into a migraine.
Serena tried again, taking her hand. “He told me he wanted you to see him as someone you could be with, but you would never give him a chance. That you couldn’t get past the fact that he was a player when you first met, but that had nothing to do with who he is now.”
The ice that seemed to cover her whole heart started to thaw with the welcome spark of anger that came with her friend’s words. “So the best way to change my opinion of him was to seduce me at a party, lie to me, and pretend to be someone else so he could get me into bed?”
Serena winced at her quietly spoken words and shrugged. “Sure. Now when you say it like that, I can see how that would be ill-advised, but I don’t think that was how he saw it.”
“Most people who do something shitty to someone else don’t see it, Serena. Guys who cheat always blame it on the wives because they don’t get enough attention. Women who beat their kids say they do it because they push their buttons. It’s called rationalizing.”
Unfortunately for Grace, the thawing around her heart continued the more she talked, and now it hurt something fierce. She blinked back the tears clouding her vision, trying not to think about what a fool she felt like. The movie theater. The things he’d said. The things she’d done.
It had been Trick all along. Her face burned.
She shoved back her chair and leaped to her feet. “I’ve got to get out of here,” she muttered, a breath away from falling completely apart.
“You can’t drive all upset like this. Let me come with you.” Serena stood and grabbed her shoulder but Grace shook her off.
“I can’t be around you right now. I need…some time.”
She bee-lined for the office and scooped up her purse with Serena hot on her heels.
“Lock up. I won’t be back today.” She all but ran out the door, covering her mouth with her fist to keep from sobbing.
“Grace!” Serena called after her, but Grace was in flats and was in her car before Serena even made it out of the building.
How could Trick have deceived her that way? It was so humiliating, but that wasn’t even the worst of it. He’d betrayed her trust. The one man she was so sure had her back actually didn’t, and now she didn’t have anyone. She’d lost Catman, Trick, and Serena in the face of one enormous, ugly lie, and now she was all alone again.
Maybe that was the way she was meant to be.
Now it would just be her and Gandalf—the one friend who would never lie to her. The one friend she could rely on.
…
Trick stood on the porch with his cup of coffee watching Gandalf chase a squirrel in the rain, and he grinned. That damned dog was so slow, unless the squirrel lost use of both back legs in some sort of traffic accident, the dog stood zero chance of catching him.
He took a long pull from the steaming mug of coffee in his hands and glanced at his watch. Grace’s note had said that she had a meeting at work, but she’d only be a couple of hours. Still, time had been moving like evergreen sap since he’d heard the door shut earlier that morning. He’d had every intention of telling her the truth before they even touched last night. But then she’d come out looking so soft and pretty, and his brain had short-circuited. Then afterward, when she was lying in his arms, cheeks pink with happiness as they shared an omelet and belly-laughing at I Love Lucy reruns, he couldn’t bring himself to be the one to wipe that smile off her face. He made a pact with himself that he would hold her through the night and, in the morning, as soon as they woke up, he’d sit her down and explain. But she was gone.
Guilt pricked him hard, and he swiped a hand over his face. It was going to be bad. And he deserved that. But if he led with the truth…that he was fucking madly and completely in love with her, maybe she would find it in her huge heart to forgive him. And hopefully it would happen sooner than later.
“Come on, boy,” he called to the mastiff who whined at the bottom of a massive oak tree. He felt for the mutt. He knew exactly how it felt not to have the one thing you wanted more than anything else. The question was, had he gone too far to get it?
The dog gave one more mournful howl and lumbered to the door.
Both dogs had come back inside, and he’d topped off his coffee when a car pulled up. Grace. Time to face the music.
He set down his cup and sat at the kitchen table, racking his brain for how to start in a way that might get her to listen to the whole story before kicking him in the balls and sending him packing. He’d come up empty on what to say other than that he loved her, but she came barreling in like a hurricane, and his thoughts evaporated.
She laid right into him. “You fucking bastard. You’ve got a lot of nerve sitting here drinking my coffee, Catman,” she spat. Her face was flushed with fury, and her dark eyes glittered like icy chunks of granite. “Get the fuck out of my house.”
The hurt on her face made the coffee in his stomach curdle. Too late. It was too late. She already knew the truth, and he hadn’t even gotten to explain…to make her understand. For all she knew, it could’ve just been some cheap ploy to get his dick wet. He shook his head furiously, “Grace, listen—”
“No, I think I’ve listened to you both long enough.” Her voice went thick and her chin trembled. “Like when you told me how beautiful I was and fed me all those bullshit lines from behin
d your stupid mask about how much you wanted me. But even worse than those lies?”
Her face crumpled then, and if ever he’d wished a sinkhole would open up and swallow him, it was now.
“Was when you told me how you would always have my back. And pretended to be my f-friend. I thought you loved me, you know that? That was the reason I was afraid to look at you as more than that. Because what we had, before all,” she smirked with disgust and gestured between them, “of this? Was the best thing I’ve ever had. You were my best friend, and you broke my heart and humiliated me. Was that the plan? Or was it the thrill of the chase that kept you motivated enough to put a year and a half into screwing me?”
He stood on quaking legs and moved toward her, but her shout stopped him cold.
“Don’t! Don’t even think about touching me.”
Gandalf pushed himself to his feet and positioned his massive body between them. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as he gave Trick the hard eyes. Et tu, canine? But fuck if he didn’t deserve it. You know you messed things up if even the dog thinks you’re an asshole.
He held up a hand and backed away. “I’m not going to touch you. I just want you to hear me out.”
She shrugged and laughed. “Go ahead. There’s nothing you can say to fix it, though, Trick. You’ve proven to me that you’re a liar. Just like Victor. Anything you say means less than the piece of gum stuck to the bottom of my shoe. But go for it.”
Her grim smile chilled him to the bone as her words hammered into him like iron spikes. How had he been so stupid? How could he not have seen how much of a betrayal this would seem like to her? Screw that. He was still making excuses for himself. It didn’t seem like a betrayal. It was a betrayal. He was the guy he despised, and he’d hurt the woman he loved. Terribly and willfully. She stood with her chest heaving with fury, her face etched with pain, and all the excuses died on his lips. Without a word, he forced his legs to carry him to the door, heart aching like it had just been hit with a lead pipe.
Because suddenly it was as clear as day. The reason he never had a chance in hell of winding up with Gracie Love.
He didn’t fucking deserve her.
…
Grace stared at the bowl of rapidly disintegrating cereal and swallowed a sob. She had to get a grip. Gandalf had been moping for a week, and she wasn’t about to let Trick wreck her and give her dog a case of the doggie depression on top of it. She’d already allowed him in to do enough damage.
Mortification hit her again, swift and sure, like a kidney punch. It happened every ten minutes or so when something she’d said or something he’d done came to her mind out of nowhere. Trick, behind his mask, asking her what she drank, like he couldn’t recite her drink order at every restaurant in a ten mile radius if pressed. Her, head tossed back, begging him to bite her again. Telling him how free he was making her feel. Sitting at the movie theater waiting for him to come in so she could act like a total slut for him…her anonymous lover.
How could she have been so dumb? Even Serena had known it was him. And, in hindsight, the signs were all there. The tingles, the way he fit against her, the way he’d made her feel so comfortable and so edgy at the same time.
She squeezed her eyes closed tight and opened them again to stare at the television screen blankly, not really even seeing what was playing. It had been a long and exhausting seven days, and it didn’t seem like it was going to be getting better anytime soon.
An image of Trick standing in the middle of the Brewhouse, head thrown back, laughing at her poorly thrown dart flitted through her mind and with it came the pain, every bit as sharp as it had been the day she’d learned the truth. She was still so frigging mad, but the missing him was even worse. It was weird because when Vic betrayed her, she’d been hurt, no doubt. It had been the darkest time of her life, emotionally. But even through the self-recriminations and the sadness at having been so wrong and seeing her future crumble before her eyes, she’d never missed him once it was over. Not for a second. He wasn’t the person she thought he was, and the person he actually was? Disgusted her.
Another memory of Trick pushed itself to the forefront of her mind, and she groaned. Him stretched out on her bed, sheet loose around his hips, crooked grin on his face. Nothing about thoughts of Trick disgusted her. Pissed her off? Yes. Made her want to scream with humiliation and despair? Absolutely. Sent her heart bottoming out into her stomach? Definitely.
Disgust would have been better.
She couldn’t avoid him forever. She’d managed so far by leaving for work an hour earlier than usual so she didn’t see him on his morning run and making sure that she took Gandalf for a walk before Trick got home from work, but that wouldn’t last. They were neighbors, and their houses were only half an acre apart. They were bound to come face to face, and probably soon.
The thought made tears prick her eyelids again. Damn. She’d thought the tank was empty by now.
Gandalf groaned and settled more deeply against her calves, and she reached down to scratch his neck. “You’re a good dog, you sweet boy, you. I know you love it here, but we may have to think about looking around for a new house.”
Maybe she’d move closer to work, near where Serena lived. That would be nice. They’d had a few rough days, but Grace had eventually forgiven her for her part in this mess with Trick. Her friend was so upset and guilt-ridden about the way things had turned out, but how could Grace really blame her? Trick had fooled her, too. At least they were suckers together, and Serena had sworn on a pile of Manolo Blahniks never to lie to her again.
Moving was a drastic step, but maybe drastic was exactly what she needed right now. It was only a matter of time before the endless carousel of blondes started up again, the way it was with Trick when she’d first moved in. There was no way she could live through that. Even thinking about seeing a woman walk-of-shaming it down his driveway made her whole body tremble.
She leaned forward and grabbed her laptop off the coffee table. Time to look at some real estate. She grabbed the remote to turn off the background noise of the TV she could concentrate, but the bottom line scrolling and the special report sign blazoned over the anchor’s head made her pause. She turned up the volume and set her laptop aside.
“Breaking news this morning as a hostage situation may have turned deadly in the Salem suburbs,” the blonde woman said, a grave expression marring her mall-pretty face. “A bank robbery at the small family owned bank ended with the gunman surrounded and taking three people hostage. A female customer, a security guard, and a bank teller were inside for over an hour when the SWAT team was called in, along with a hostage negotiator. After thirty minutes of tense discussion and what appeared to be a warning shot from inside the bank, a sniper was called on to take a shot at the lone gunman inside the bank. After an apparent misfire, a firefight resulted, and one police officer and two members of the SWAT squad were injured.”
The hair on Grace’s arms rose even as a band of tension tightened around the back of her neck, and she strained closer to the TV.
“Their conditions are unknown at this time, and the gunman has ceased all contact with the outside, leaving police to wonder whether or not the hostages have been injured or worse.”
The newswoman turned to face a second camera. “Our own Les Saunders is on the scene reporting. Les?”
The screen flashed to a somber, dark-haired man who nodded. “Yes, Melody, you have it right. We’re on the scene at Henderson’s Loan and Trust, and as you can see behind me, it’s abuzz with police activity.”
The camera panned to the background and Grace scanned the screen frantically, trying to make out the people. She could see the police cars with flashing lights, uniformed officers and, closest to the bank front entrance, even the SWAT crew, but from that distance, there was no way to tell whether Trick was one of them or not. As the camera panned away again, her gaze caught on a dark splotch in the parking lot directly in front of the bank. Blood? Oil? Dear god, let it
be oil. She gripped the remote tighter in her sweaty palm and turned the volume even louder.
“We have no information on the hostages inside at this time and while there have been discussions about releasing their names, that hasn’t been cleared yet. We’re told that there will be a short press conference in about an hour to update the media.”
Grace’s stomach pitched as she tried to digest it all, to hold on to her calm. Odds were that Trick wasn’t one of the injured officers. There were a lot of guys on SWAT, and he was only on call three rotating days a week. If it was one of the other four days, he wouldn’t even be on the scene. She tried to remember the week before. He’d drunk wine at the Halloween party, so he wasn’t on call that night. But had he been the night before? Or was figuring his schedule a moot point, and had all available officers been called in?
She stood and ran toward the window, repeating the same mantra over and over in her head. He’s home sleeping and everything is fine. She covered her eyes as she approached the curtains, needing a second to get herself together. With a shaking hand, she pushed back the silky fabric and let her lids flutter open.
Gone.
She stifled a sob with her fist. His car was gone, and suddenly it didn’t matter that odds were he was okay, or that he might just be at the grocery store. She needed to see it with her own two eyes.
She flew across the room and grabbed her purse and keys. It was a ten minute drive to the bank, and her legs were quaking so badly, she didn’t even know if she’d be able to work the gas and brake pedals, but she was going and she was going now. Her cell phone chimed on her way down the front steps, but she ignored it until she got to the car. Maybe it was Trick, calling to let her know he was all right?
She slid behind the wheel and rifled through her purse to find her phone. Peering down, she blew out a frustrated sigh. Serena. She’d likely seen the news as well and wanted to see if she knew anything. Grace wasn’t about to take the time for a conversation, opting to ignore the call and scrolling through her contacts to find Trick’s number. She held her breath, pressing the call button, praying with every beat of her heart that he would answer. That he was okay. Because the only thing scarier than a life without Trick was the thought of him being hurt.
Or worse.
Chapter Thirteen
Trick sat on the curb, head in hand, still trying to process the cluster fuck that had just unfolded. How had things flown off the rails so damned fast? One minute, all was quiet, they were in position, and the sniper was set to make his shot. Not a kill shot, but a shot to disarm and give the SWAT team time to infiltrate the building, secure the perp, and get those hostages to safety. It had all been part of a carefully constructed plan.
Then their sniper had missed.
Trick lifted his head to see him being rolled by on a gurney. His face was a mask of agony, in spite of his superficial wound. Trick knew the look. One of failure and guilt and the knowledge that your mistake might have cost a life. It was a position they’d all spent their careers hoping they’d never be in. As regular members of the police department, SWAT was something that officers in good standing volunteered for, or, in Trick’s case, were recruited for. Once testing was done and the top candidates were selected, training was rigorous. A lot of guys dropped out when they realized exactly how draining the job could be mentally. Then even more followed when their wives or girlfriends had the same realization.
It wasn’t like the movies where kickass guys in riot gear bashed down doors, invincible in their vests, and victorious most times. There were many nights that they’d go home empty-handed after a raid gone bad, or breaking up a riot where heads were bashed in. It wasn’t glamorous. Most of the time it was just sad.
Today was shaping up to be one of those days.
“You good?”
His street partner and team member Jose Morales squatted down next to him and nudged his shoulder. “There wasn’t anything we could’ve done there, buddy. Once the shot went wide, if we’d gone in, the motherfucker would have lit up everyone in the room, including himself, and we would’ve been left holding our dicks.”
Trick nodded grimly. He knew that to be true, but it didn’t make the outcome any easier to take. Three people were injured, one critically, and the perp still had all three hostages in the bank. Whether they were alive or dead remained to be seen.
“Yep, I know. I wonder if we’d busted in right when the shot went off instead of waiting to confirm the hit if that would have been enough time…”
He trailed off, knowing the answer. It had been a second, maybe two, before they’d realized that their gunny had missed. Enough time to get through the door, but not enough time, even in the confusion, to avoid getting gunned down themselves or risking at least one of the hostages before they’d dispatched the gunman.
“Now what?” he asked, pushing himself to his feet.
The past thirty minutes had felt like a week as they waited for some sign that the hostages were still alive. The perp had moved them to another room that didn’t offer the sliver of sight that they’d managed to exploit between the crack of the blinds in the front room, so they had no idea what was happening in there except for the one, two second phone call where the gunman had shouted, “Back the fuck up or I kill them all!” before hanging up.
“We just sit here until the bastard calls again? There’s got to be a back-up plan.”
Jose stood and nodded. “They want to wait until he’s less panicked and lets his guard down a little, and then we’re going to try to contact him again. We’ve got to be patient. This one’s going to take a while, but I have a good feeling.” He tugged at the neck of his Kevlar vest and pulled out a gold cross, kissed it, and tucked it back to lie against his heart. “Something tells me those people are still alive, bro. Keep the faith.”
He walked away, heading toward the rest of the team.
“You can’t come in here, ma’am.” The tone was sharp and hard, like a whip-crack, and Trick turned to look at the small crowd forming outside the police barricade.
“I know. But please, I need to see if my—” She froze, her pale face falling in relief as her eyes locked with his. “Trick.” She mouthed his name and her chest heaved once, then again, before she nodded and turned away.
Grace. She had come. His head spun with a volatile mix of fear and relief. She must have heard the news. In spite of the crushing disappointment that they hadn’t extracted the hostages yet and the despair over his injured teammates, a piece of him he’d thought was good and dead came back to life when he saw her.
The past week had been the worst kind of torture. Waiting to get a glimpse of her for even a second. Hoping that she’d at least look at him for an instant and he’d see something in her eyes. Anything that showed she still cared even a little. He’d fucked things up beyond all recognition and didn’t deserve a second chance, but with every day that passed, he realized there was nothing he wouldn’t do to get one. By the week’s end, he’d known that he wasn’t ready to give up yet. But she needed time to get past the initial anger and shock, and he had to suck it up and give her that time, no matter how hard it was.
The thing was, as hurt and angry as she was at him, she’d come because she