Whistling again, he stopped by his dad’s office to let the old man know where he’d be.
“Hey, Dad.” Knocking on Tucker Rawlings half-opened door, he poked his head inside to find the room empty, the screensaver on the computer flashing family photos across the monitor. Glancing out into the hallway, Grady didn’t spot his dad nearby, so he stepped inside and snagged a Post-it note to leave a quick message. He’d just reached for a pen when he spotted B.J.’s name on an official-looking piece of paper sitting among his father’s things.
Frowning, he changed direction and snagged the document. “What the hell?”
It didn’t take him long to realize he was holding a prenuptial agreement. Mouth falling open, he smoothed out the tri-fold, causing another set of papers to fall out the bottom, landing on the desk. He slowly picked up the deed to B.J.’s plane. A sickening feeling crept through his stomach.
Returning his attention to the prenup, he scanned every numbered line, feeling more nauseous with each addendum he read. “Oh, God.”
“Grady?”
Grady lifted his head and found his father paused in the doorway. With a half-eaten doughnut in one hand and a steaming cup of coffee in the other, Tucker Rawlings had a guilty expression smeared across his features.
“What—”
“Dad, what is all this?”
Tucker set his snack on the corner of his desk and lifted both his hands. “Grady, I can explain.”
“Oh, my God,” Grady breathed. “You paid her to marry me?”
“No. I. . .I. . .I just wanted you to be happy. I didn’t think—”
“And she just. . .she agreed to all this?”
Tucker stepped toward Grady, but Grady shifted backward. His father froze, his face an ashen gray. “I love you, son. I would’ve done anything to help you.”
“How. . .” When his voice broke, Grady shook his head, still reeling in disbelief. “How does this help me?”
He couldn’t believe it. He refused to believe it. B.J. wouldn’t marry him just because—
His throat burning, he blinked rapidly as he looked down at the documents in his hands.
“Grady! Hey, there you are.”
At the sound of her voice coming from the hall, he whirled and about passed out at the sight of his wife. She paused in the doorway, all five feet and ten lovely inches of her, grinning at him as she held up his briefcase. “I was walking out the door this morning when I caught sight of this sitting on the kitchen table. Thought you might need it for—” She broke off in mid-sentence, her smile slipping. After a quick look toward his dad, she turned back to Grady. “What’s wrong?”
Grady held up the deed. “You made a deal with my dad?”
When her gaze latched onto the document, her face drained of color. She lurched a step in reverse.
“Grady,” Tucker started, lifting both hands again like that pose could actually keep the peace.
“You stay out of this,” Grady warned with a look that had his dad freezing. “I already know your side. I want to hear hers.”
“But you really didn’t hear my side. I haven’t actually told you every—”
“Then B.J. can fill in the blanks,” Grady growled as he stormed toward her and snagged her elbow, drawing her back into the hall and toward his own office. After ushering her inside, he let go his hold and shut the door behind him.
She stood in the center of the room, clutching his briefcase to her side, and silently watched him as he wiped a hand over his mouth and paced. Finally, he stopped short and seared her with a look. “So my father bought the deed to your airplane in order to coax you into marrying me?”
She gave a short nod, which made him clench his teeth. He wanted her to say something to defend herself. He wanted a reason to start yelling. But the damn woman refused to oblige.
Seething, he nodded in return. “Was this before or after I gave you the ring?”
“Before,” she said in a low voice.
Pain shot straight up his windpipe. For a moment, he thought he was going to choke to death. When he realized he could still breathe, he huffed out a short breath. “So. . .that whole scene where you kept telling me no and I had to seduce you into saying yes, that was just, what. . .playing hard to get?”
Her jaw clenched. “No. That was me not wanting to give into your father’s agreement.”
“But you did anyway. You agreed to marry me. You signed your name right here next to this X, willing to give up the baby, our baby, for what? For a plane? My God, B.J. If you wanted the plane that much, I could’ve bought you the goddamn plane.”
“It’s not about the plane,” she said, her voice breaking as she spoke.
“Then what is it about?” he growled. “The baby? Do you not want the baby? Is that what this is about?”
“No. I—” When she faltered, looking lost, his patience gave out.
“What is this about?” he yelled.
“Will you just shut up and let me talk?” B.J. hollered back as she wound her arm around and let his briefcase fly.
He tried to duck, but her aim was so deadly accurate, the tote hit him square in the shoulder. He grunted through the pain and caught it against him with both hands. Stunned mute, he could only stare as B.J.’s face flamed a hot, fuming red.
Hands clenching into fists at her sides, she said, “You. . .you stupid idiot. I’m getting sick of your asinine assumptions about me. You obviously don’t know anything at all.”
His mouth dropped open. She was mad at him? Him? “Just what do you think I’m supposed to know?” he asked incredulously.
She growled, looked around her and caught sight of a small pocket dictionary lying on his desk. Snagging it, she chucked that next. He ducked behind his briefcase, holding it up as a shield. The book bounced off the case and crashed against the wall behind him.
“What the hell?” he exploded.
“First, first,” B.J. started through gritted teeth. “You accuse me of sleeping with you in Houston because you thought I felt sorry for you.” Snorting out a disbelieving sound, she threw a stapler at him.
“Damn it, B.J.!” He dodged her aim again and yet again when she heaved a calculator. “Cut it out.”
“No. I want you to tell me how it was sympathy sex when I wanted to be with you that night more than I’d ever wanted to be with anyone? When I’ve always wanted to be with you?”
Grady froze, having no answer. He stared mutely as she continued ranting.
“And now. Now you actually think I married you only because of some deal your dad wanted to make with me, as if I was some sissy-scared schoolgirl who could actually be intimidated by his bluffing threats. God!”
She glanced around her. When she caught sight of a container full of pens and snatched up the whole bundle, pulling them out of their holder, Grady braced himself.
“Don’t even think about it,” he warned.
Instead of throwing the pens, she squeezed them in her hand and quivered as she glared. “You’re such a sanctimonious hypocrite,” she charged. “How can you honestly be mad at me for thinking I married you for some other reason than love when you only married me because of this baby?”
The air rushed out of his lungs when he realized she was right. Dear Lord, she was so right. How could he expect her to have a pure purpose when he’d only been thinking about morality and obligations?
“I’ll tell you right now,” she said, breaking into his thoughts. “That deed to my plane, and everything else your father’s said to me, had no part in my reasons for marrying you. And you’re dead wrong if you think it did. The only thing I’m truly guilty of is falling in love with and marrying Amy Rawlings’s idiot husband.”
Grady dropped the briefcase. “What?”
“You heard me.” With that, B.J. turned and stomped out of the office, slamming the door behind her.
Grady feared his heart might beat through his chest. But. . .damn. She loved him? B.J. loved him? Giving his head a shake as if to clear
it, he blinked once and then hurried after her.
“Wait! B.J.” He dashed from the office and soon realized that when his wife wanted to move, she moved fast.
Charging for the exit, he heard her diesel roar to life just as he pushed his way outside.
“B.J.,” he yelled, sprinting toward her truck. But she put the motor into gear and peeled out. Changing directions, Grady ran for his own rig, muttering the entire time. “I swear to God, woman, if you get into a wreck and hurt yourself, I’m going to strangle you with my bare hands.”
He followed her, grateful she took dirt roads so he could trail the plumes of smoke she left in her wake. He would’ve lost her otherwise. Still. . .his heart beat hard against his chest, hoping she remained safe and didn’t hurt herself. He was sweating buckets and breathing hard by the time he spotted her truck parked and landed in one piece, sitting just outside the cemetery. If she’d gotten herself into a wreck before he’d caught her, he didn’t think he could have handled it. He didn’t think he could lose a second woman he loved in such an abrupt manner.
Parking behind her Dodge, Grady let the pent-up air out of his lungs as he killed the engine. Inside the limestone walls, B.J. sat on her knees in front of Amy’s grave and bent over double, holding her stomach as she wept.
“Damn it, B.J.,” he whispered and clenched his teeth. “You just have to make this as hard as you possibly can, don’t you?”
Refusing to think about it further, he pushed open his truck door and slid out. She didn’t even notice his approach as he entered the gate and started for her.
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed, crying so intensely she squeezed her eyes closed. “I’m so sorry, Amy.”
Though he’d been fearing what watching his second wife stand over his first wife’s grave would do to his emotions, it strangely didn’t affect him as he’d thought it would. Instead of feeling injustice and anger over Amy’s absence, all he wanted was to go to B.J. and gather her into his arm, to take her away and dry her tears with his kisses.
“I never meant to sleep with your husband,” she swore. “I never. . .I never meant for all this—”
“You know I’m not her husband anymore, don’t you?” He stepped closer as she gasped and whirled to face him. “I’m yours.”
Wiping furiously at her eyes as if she could hide the fact she was bawling, B.J. sounded defensive as she said, “What’re you doing here?”
He didn’t answer immediately. Taking a moment to rearrange his thoughts, he finally sighed and shoved his hands into his pockets, purposely keeping a few feet of distance between them because he knew he’d reach for her if he moved too close.
“A few months ago, I took a trip to Houston,” he said. “And when I was there, I went to dinner with a woman who forced me to take a look at my life. She even followed me back to my hotel room, she was so determined to help me stop running from my feelings.” With a small smile and self-conscious shrug, he finished, “I’m just here to repay the favor.”
She snorted. “Well, you’re dead wrong if you think I’m running away from my feelings, Slim. I said exactly what I wanted to say at the office.”
Grady gave a nod of agreement but added, “Yet you were too scared to stick around and wait for my response.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “Scared? Of your response? From what I saw, all you did was stand there and gape at me.”
“You’d just finished throwing half the office at me,” he defended. “It knocked me off track for a second. No one’s thrown anything at me since Jo Ellen was fourteen and I told her I didn’t like her haircut. She hurled a shoe at me and busted open my lip.” He paused to touch his long-healed mouth. “Why do girls always throw stuff when they’re mad?”
“I don’t—” B.J. broke off abruptly and paused with a thoughtful frown. “Do we really?”
He grinned, charmed by her shock. She might be a tomboy through and through, but she was still one hundred percent female.
He loved watching her realize that fact.
When their gazes met, his smile dropped, and emotions swamped him. “I love you too, you know.”
Her eyes went wide. Shaking her head, she took a step in reverse. “Don’t,” she begged, holding up a hand to block him. “Just stop.”
He stepped forward and grasped her fingers, kissing them. “As I recall, that’s exactly what I said to you in Houston. But you didn’t stop. So, I can’t either.”
She shook her head, and more tears gushed down her cheeks. “But I can’t. . .I don’t. . .what do you want from me?”
He smiled softly. “Only everything.”
She shook her head again. “No. I can’t. . .I’ll never be anything like Amy.”
Not catching her meaning, Grady frowned. “What does she have to do with any of this?”
B.J. lifted one shoulder. “Nothing. Everything.”
His shoulders slumped. “Listen to us,” he said softly. “Talking in riddles and too afraid to just come right out and say what we really feel. Well, I don’t want to hide anymore. You taught me that hiding my feelings doesn’t do anyone any good.”
Pulling her bodily against him, he ignored how she went stiff in his arms and held her close. “Yes, I pushed for this marriage because of the baby. But then. . .everything changed. I was so determined not to grow any feelings for you. I thought. . .I thought I could lose myself in your body and not lose myself in you. But you’re so. . .”
He shook his head, unable to describe it. “When I saw that deed on my father’s desk and thought you were only with me because of your airplane, it felt like someone had ripped my heart out of my chest. Here you’d just taught me it was okay to open myself up again, to risk love one more time, and you didn’t even feel the same way about me as I felt for you. It hurt.”
“I didn’t marry you because of what your dad—”
“Yeah, I realize that.” He grinned and kissed her temple. “If it wasn’t the flying briefcase that convinced me, it was the stapler and the calculator and the dictionary.”
Her muscles began to go lax against him. He let out a breath of relief. Smoothing her hair out of his way and kissing her cheek, he caught sight of the gravestone next to them. When he read the name Amy Rawlings and didn’t feel like everything inside him was going to burst, he tightened his grip on B.J. gratefully. She’d somehow taken the pain away and filled him with life.
“Now, about this issue you’re making with Amy,” he said. “Just. . .don’t. Okay? We both cared for her. Hell, I always will. She taught me how to love a woman. But she’s my past, B.J. You’re the rest of my life, and I love you with everything I have. Baby or no baby, deed to your plane or no deed, I love you. Now, I just want to be with you.”
“But. . .” She pulled back just enough to see his face.
Placing both of his hands on either side of her head, he cupped her cheeks and gave her a long, closed-mouth kiss. When he finally pulled back, his blue eyes were rimmed with tears.
“I can’t guarantee I’ll never think of her again. Because I will, especially when I’m with you. It doesn’t hurt so much to remember her when I’m with you. That’s a gift you’ve given me, and I’m grateful for it. But I can guarantee you I won’t automatically see her every time I look at you.”
Grinning, he touched B.J.’s face, tracing her hairline with the very tips of his fingers. “God, I can’t believe anyone would be able to see anyone else when you’re around. You’re so. . .alive. So wonderfully alive. Everything you do. . .it’s all just. . .full of vitality. You’re a survivor. You have a stronger spirit than Amy ever did. You fight! You’re. . .you’re B.J. And I adore everything about you.”
He cleared his throat. “The day she died, in the hospital. . .she took one look at the dead baby and gave up. She didn’t glance my way, didn’t say anything to me. She just stopped living because she knew she’d never be a mother.”
Closing his eyes, he nuzzled his face in B.J.’s hair, and she wrapped her arms around him, supporting
him. “She could’ve fought to stay with me. I know she could’ve. She was alive and talking, right up until the moment she saw Bennett. But she didn’t want to live. She didn’t want to be childless. So, she chose death over me.”
Blowing out a long, relieved breath as if cleansed by the truth, he lifted his face and gave B.J. a trembling smile. “You wouldn’t have done that to me,” he said with dead certainty.
“No,” she agreed. “You’re right. I wouldn’t have ever done that to you.” As tears flooded her face, she grinned through the downpour. “Damn it, Grady,” she said and then caught him off guard by launching herself tighter against him and hugging him hard. “I love you so much.”
He pulled her close and kissed her hair. “Yeah,” he murmured. “It’s nice to finally be on the same page with you.”
She snorted. “You’re telling me. I thought I was going to blow a gasket with all this angst and frustration. I kept worrying it’d screw with the baby, and he’d come out with three toes hanging from his chin or something.”
Grady laughed. Feeling free, as if he’d just been released from nearly three years of hell, he kissed her again. He knew the rest of his life would never be dull with B.J. at his side.
And he looked forward to it.
Epilogue
“I never want to go through that again,” Grady said, mopping his damp brow with the back of his palm as he plopped into a chair next to the hospital bed. When he noticed his hand was shaking, he dropped his fingers, trying to forget how utterly petrified he’d been less than an hour ago.
A pale-faced B.J. paused from tucking a starched sheet around her and snorted as she looked up at him, her brown eyes underlined with deep purple grooves of exhaustion. “What did you go through? As I recall, I’m the one who did all the pushing.”
“I had to watch,” he argued.