Karen was busily texting someone, her thumbs moving, the phone clicking. Maybe that was why everyone in here was annoyed. They didn’t like people who couldn’t look up from their cell phones to pass the time of day.
Mrs. Ward herself came out of the kitchen and stopped next to the table. “Afternoon, Grant,” she said. “What can I get you and your friend?”
She was polite. Too polite. Whatever the hell was going on, the whole restaurant was in on it. “Chicken-fried steak,” Grant said. “Mashed potato with mine. What kind of potatoes you want, Ms. Marvin? The twice baked is damn good.”
“Whatever you’re having is fine with me.” Karen glanced up from her phone, gave Mrs. Ward a tight smile, and went back to texting. Click, click, click.
Grant sent Mrs. Ward an apologetic look. Mrs. Ward acknowledged this with a nod and marched away. He looked after her, puzzled. Something was seriously wrong when Mrs. Ward was rude.
Karen finally tucked the phone into her purse. “Remember when you told me to call you Grant? Well call me Karen. I’m not a venerable pillar of Riverbend … yet. Have a long way to go before that happens.”
“Yeah, okay,” Grant said sliding the menus back into their slots. “What about this script?” The only way he could shut out the others watching them was to be all business. Maybe the townsfolk would go back to minding their own.
As Karen pulled the script from her briefcase, two more customers walked in—Christina with Lucy Malory, who apparently hadn’t gone back to Houston yet.
Great.
Christina looked across the restaurant. Her eyes flickered when she saw Grant.
Just like that, Grant was transported to the darkness under the trees the night of Adam’s wedding, Christina’s breath on his lips, her touch firm on his cock. Her curves had been supple under his hands, and the heat between her legs had told him she was as greedy for him as he’d been for her.
Christina’s look cooled, and she turned away as she and Lucy sought a table. The only one open was behind Grant on the other side of the restaurant. He could see the two women in the mirror behind Karen, if he bent his head a little.
“ … And then after a hard day’s train robbing, shooting, and fighting,” Karen said, “you and your fellow bandits ride up to your ranch house and realize you have to do your laundry. Robbing a train is dirty work. The only thing that gets the stains out is our client’s detergent.”
Grant dragged his attention back to the pages Karen was showing him. “Yeah, that’s real funny,” he said.
“We’ll tweak it to whatever you recommend, as long as the message gets across. A seriously entertaining commercial gets people to remember a product.”
Grant couldn’t argue with that. His favorite commercials of all time were for a brand of beer he couldn’t stand.
The chicken-fried steak took a long time to come out—people were finishing lunch and leaving—but Karen didn’t seem to mind. Her full schedule must not worry her, or else she was willing to make people wait.
When the food finally arrived, plunked down by an unsmiling Mrs. Ward, Grant was afraid she’d have made the steaks tasteless to show her disapproval of Karen.
The first bite put his fears to rest. Mrs. Ward took a lot of pride in her cooking; she’d never make a bad meal.
“This is good,” Karen said, as though she’d expected otherwise. “Can’t be good for you, though. Everything on this plate is white.”
“People have been eating white food for centuries,” Grant said. “And we’re all still here.”
“True,” Karen conceded. She took another tiny bite. “You have a good way of putting things, Grant. I like that.”
Grant wasn’t certain he liked her liking it. He tried to enjoy his lunch, but it was tough with Christina’s eyes on the back of his head. He knew she was watching him, because whenever he looked into the mirror, her gaze was on him.
Christina was beautiful today, her short black hair curling every which way, a tank top with skinny straps showing off her hot body. Grant was going to get a kink in his neck staring at her.
Her coffee-dark eyes were fixed on Grant, which was about the only thing Grant remembered about that lunch with Karen Marvin. The chicken-fried steak, the script, Karen’s smooth voice, the cold stares of the townspeople … none of it mattered.
All that mattered was Christina looking at him, and the hunger in his heart.
***
Christina needed to warn him. She realized Grant had no idea what was wrong as he sat talking to the ice-queen from hell. His smiles had been too forthcoming, his laugh too easy.
He didn’t know the entire town was furious at Karen Marvin. The way he nodded at everyone as he rose from the booth and walked Karen out told her that. He was the usual charming Grant, everyone’s friend.
Christina watched him settle his black cowboy hat on his head as he ushered Karen from the restaurant. His hand hovered at the small of Karen’s back as he walked her into the street and opened the driver’s side door of her car for her. Grant then walked around the car to the passenger side and got in with her.
As soon as his door closed, the diner exploded in gossip, heavy with disapproval. Did you see that? Can you believe a Campbell would do such a thing? Why is Grant with her?
“He doesn’t know,” Christina said loudly, angry on his behalf. The sleek BMW started up and pulled smoothly away from the curb, a chance reflection flashing into the restaurant. “No one told him.”
“Oh, come on,” a guy from the feed store said. “Everyone knows.”
“He was being polite to her,” Mrs. Ward put in. “She was his guest, a business client, and he couldn’t make a scene. Just shows his good upbringing.” She glared pointedly at the man who’d spoken.
Christina knew Grant better than anyone, and one thing Grant Campbell was not was subtle. If Grant had an opinion on something, everyone on the planet knew. If he’d been angry at Karen, his politeness would have been tinged with chill, not friendliness.
Christina fished out money for her sandwich and drink, and squirmed out from the booth. “I’m going to go talk to him,” she told Lucy.
Lucy looked as though she hadn’t decided who to believe, but she nodded. “Do what you gotta. I have a lot of packing to finish.” Lucy was heading back to Houston tomorrow, her visit home over.
Christina squeezed her hand. “See you before you go.”
Lucy squeezed her hand in return, but she didn’t try to make Christina linger. She understood Christina’s hurry.
“Disgrace to his mama,” an older man muttered as Christina went by him. “I told Olivia he was no good after he drove his pickup right into my store.”
Grant had been fifteen. He’d worked all through high school to pay for the damage, Christina remembered. Grant and Adam had been wild boys, but they’d always righted their wrongs.
Christina left the diner, jumped into her truck, and drove away from the biggest gossips in Riverbend.
She was getting tired of living in a fishbowl. When she’d gone to stay with Lucy in Houston for a week this January, she’d been amazed at the anonymity of the city.
Lucy had told her that there were pockets of neighborhoods where people were close, but what Christina saw were folks so busy with their own lives they didn’t have time to worry about hers. Walking around shopping without the entire town knowing exactly what she’d bought, for whom, and why, had been refreshing.
Christina had never minded Riverbend’s propensity to talk about everyone and everything when she’d been younger. It hadn’t bothered her until she and Grant had broken up.
Then, suddenly, everyone in the county had to weigh in. Christina had made the right choice, some said. Others said Christina was a heartless bitch who should have stuck with Grant no matter what.
They speculated that she and Grant couldn’t have kids because Christina worked at a bar, and Grant drank too much. Others said that, in truth, they weren’t sleeping together all. Or, God was punish
ing them for living in sin. Didn’t matter that they were at church together almost every Sunday.
Some said that Christina and Grant had such kinky sex there was no way babies could come of it. Another opinion was that Christina had used too much birth control as a teenager, because she was a tramp, and now she was paying for it.
On and on, whether sympathetic or unkind, opinions on Christina’s personal life had sailed around her. Most had been wildly off the mark, but others were too close to what she feared, like using birth control pills for too long before she and Grant had tried to have a baby. Or maybe she’d waited too long, period. A woman’s fertility decreased as she got older.
Christina was sick and tired of it. Maybe this new situation in town would goad her to make the decision to leave, move to Houston and stay with Lucy. Lucy promised that Christina would have a job quickly, and a place of her own soon after that.
Clean slate, start over, with no memories to punch Christina in the face every time she turned a corner.
She arrived at Grant’s trailer, pulling her truck around the back so it wouldn’t be visible from the road. Hers was the only vehicle around, telling her that Grant and Karen had probably returned to the Campbell ranch for business. She tried to call him, but Grant didn’t answer his cell phone.
He rarely did. Grant wasn’t a cell phone kind of guy. He’d put the phone down somewhere and forget about it, or he’d keep it muted and not bother to check messages.
He didn’t text either, saying his thumbs were too big for it. Carter and Tyler did all the talking on the business phone while Grant kept things face-to-face and friendly.
Christina knew she could have gone to the ranch and waited to talk to him, but Grant’s family would be there. Olivia would want to be polite and sit with Christina, offering her iced tea and snacks, which would only add soreness to her heart. Plus, she couldn’t warn Grant about Karen if he was with Karen.
Christina knew deep down why she’d made these excuses to herself and driven to his house. She wanted to see him alone. Wanted to so much, she was willing to wait for him to finish for the afternoon and return home.
It was hot today, especially for March. Christina would soon bake in the truck, so she got out and climbed the step to Grant’s front door. It was unlocked—Grant never locked his doors.
Grant had bought the trailer after he and Christina had broken up, and she’d never seen its interior. She’d driven past it plenty of times, of course, and had been unable to stop herself glancing at it, swallowing hard if she saw his truck parked in front.
Seeing the leather reclining chair set in front of the television almost broke her heart. He’d bought it from a friend right after they’d moved in together, and she’d complained about how worn out it already was. But Grant had insisted it was perfect, and Christina admitted it was comfortable as hell.
She and Grant had made love in that chair.
She quickly turned away. A new sofa sat along the front wall, along with a new coffee table, but Christina’s gaze kept catching memories.
Pictures of Grant’s family. Photos of Grant on horseback, in costume, usually as a Wild West bandit. With Tyler, arms folded and looking mean in their black hats, fake handlebar mustaches, and black shirts. Another photo showed him and his four brothers in T-shirts and jeans, all laughing at the camera.
A photo sitting in the middle of the cluster made her stop, her heart squeezing. It was a picture of her and Grant, smiling and happy. She remembered when that picture had been taken—at a picnic out by the river. Tyler had snapped the photo of Grant with his arms around Christina from behind, his face next to hers, Grant looking at the camera as though daring the viewer to guess what they were going to do later.
She set down the picture, her heart heavy.
Christina knew Grant had hired a cleaning team to come in after the bachelor party, but already the trailer wasn’t pristine. Grant dropped clothes as he took them off, to lie there until laundry day. Dishes from breakfast rested in the sink and on the small counter.
Christina started to pick up his clothes. She tried to make herself stop—she didn’t live with him anymore—but she couldn’t help it. She smoothed the black T-shirt and worn jeans over her arm and carried them to the hamper in the bathroom. Then she went out and started rinsing off the dishes.
As she worked, every single thing she’d tried to shut out for the last year and more came back to her.
Grant leaning on the kitchen counter as she worked, a towel in his big hands, not too macho to help out with the dishes. Grant kissing her when the chores were done, smiling as he backed her to the chair. They’d settle on it, Christina on his lap as they watched TV, talked, or kissed. Then they’d go to the bedroom for spread-out, enthusiastic sex. Laughing and talking, or arguing and making up, until they fell asleep.
They’d wake in the morning, in the sunshine, wrapped in each other. Grant would rumble that he had to go to work and Christina would stay in bed, soaking in the warmth he left.
After they’d broken up, Christina had deliberately pushed every memory of him aside, knowing she couldn’t handle them.
As she stood now in the middle of Grant’s living room, the memories hurtled at her with the speed of a summer storm and she was defenseless.
Tears welled up and spilled from her eyes. When everything had gone wrong between them, it had hurt with gut-ripping pain. The only way to stop the pain had been to walk away.
The pain hadn’t stopped, though, Christina realized in dismay. She’d simply pretended it didn’t exist.
But all the old pain and sorrows were here, in this room. She could hear their wall-shaking arguments, the things they’d said that cut, and again their laughter, and their cries of passion as they relieved their unstoppable need for each other.
She shouldn’t have come. Christina took a breath and headed for the door. She’d explain the situation to Olivia, have her talk to Grant.
As she reached the door, she saw Karen Marvin’s BMW pull up in the drive and stop. The engine switched off. Grant emerged from the passenger side, strolled around, and opened the door for Karen.
The two of them headed for the house.
Christina panicked, ran for Grant’s bedroom, and hid in the closet.
Chapter Eight
“Well, this is cute,” Christina heard Karen say.
Grant’s laughter rumbled. “That’s one word for it. It’s a trailer in the middle of nowhere. Not much, but it’s home for now.”
“I like it,” Karen said.
The door clicked closed and the floor creaked. “Want coffee? Or iced tea? We should have gone to the ranch—all kinds of good stuff up there.”
“No, I wanted to speak to you alone.”
“About the script?” Grant’s voice held skepticism. For all his courtesy, Christina reflected, Grant wasn’t stupid.
“About the deal. I’d rather negotiate with you. Your brother Carter is a good businessman, but he’s a little unnerving.”
“He’s fine,” Grant said with a growl. Christina liked that Grant always jumped to Carter’s defense, had even when they’d been kids and Carter had just beaten the shit out of him. “He’s not good at talking, but he’s okay. Now, Tyler and me, we don’t know when to shut up.”
“Carter isn’t from Riverbend, is he?” Karen sounded interested. “He doesn’t act like the rest of you. He was adopted?”
“It’s no secret.” Grant clattered cups, ran water. “He was sent to our ranch as part of a rehab thing. My mom was in a program to help kids like him learn how to take care of horses and ride. My mom liked Carter and decided to adopt him.”
Christina knew that there had been much more to it than that, but Grant didn’t like to go into it with outsiders.
“How sweet,” Karen said. “Now, let’s you and I talk.”
There was a thump, a rattle, and then Grant said, “Whoa.”
The sounds became muffled, Karen laughing, Grant’s replies inaudible.
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Christina couldn’t stand it. Plastered against the wall of Grant’s closet, she could see nothing, no longer hear. She crept out, making no noise, until she peeked through the half-opened bedroom door.
She had a view of the kitchen, of Grant backed hard against the counter. Karen snatched her hands out of Grant’s grasp to start unbuttoning his shirt.
“Don’t worry, honey,” Karen said. “You’ve got this deal set in stone. What we do or don’t do today won’t change that. But you’re a big, hot cowboy, and I need me some of that.”
Grant caught her wrists again. “Not the time or place.”
“I disagree. This is exactly the time and place.” Karen was all smiles, a determined glint in her eyes.
She got her hands free once more and yanked open Grant’s shirt. Buttons pinged onto the floor and counter, and into the sink.
Karen’s hands with their long nails went to his bare skin. “I think we can make a side deal here. I scratch your chest—you scratch mine.”
She took her fingers from Grant long enough to pop open the first three buttons of her own blouse. A bra of hot pink lace came into view.
Christina’s heart pounded in sickening beats. She could not stay here if Grant and that woman were going to have sex on the kitchen counter.
But the only way out was past them. The windows in the bedroom were too small to crawl though. No way was she going try, maybe get stuck, maybe fall on her face to the ground. She was well and truly screwed.
Grant caught Karen’s hands one more time. “Sorry, sweetheart. I can’t.”
“Why? You married?”
“No …”
“Girlfriend? Is this her?” Karen swung away to snatch up the photo of Grant and Christina in better days. “I saw her watching you at the diner.”
“Yeah.” Grant grabbed the picture from her and put it carefully back on the shelf.
“You’re not together anymore, though, are you?” Karen asked. “I heard you broke up. If you were still together, she’d have been all up in your shit for being with another woman.”