Deacon (Unfinished Hero #4)(4)

He grabbed his keys and walked out the door right after a huge, terrifying man checked in to cabin eleven, leaving me alone on our property with said huge, terrifying man. A huge, terrifying man that even Grant couldn’t miss was huge and terrifying.

He still left me.

Alone.

I stood staring at the door, my stomach sinking because I knew that I’d taken a massive risk, sinking my savings into these cabins. Cabins the owners were so desperate to get rid of, the price was right, as in cheap, as in scary-cheap. Cabins they were so desperate to leave, they left every stick of furniture, every rug, every picture on the wall, in the cabins and the house. Cabins I took on, moving to another state where I knew no one. Having to fix them up, knowing how to paint a room but not much else.

But what I was realizing, too late, was the biggest risk I took, the risk that looked like it would fail, was the risk I took on Grant.

* * * * *

Late that night, I sat on my side porch with my feet up on the top railing, a beer in my hand, the sounds of the river rushing along the rocks to my left, the night air cool on my skin, my eyes trained through the thick trees to the dim light I could just barely see coming from cabin eleven.

It was late and Grant wasn’t back.

But scary guy was awake and doing something in cabin eleven.

I just hoped he wasn’t building a bomb or planning to overthrow the government, whereupon he would (again hopefully) fail spectacularly but I would be dragged in front of the cameras as the hapless cabin owner who stupidly rented him his headquarters to plan and carry out his dastardly deeds.

On that unhappy thought, one of a bazillion I’d had since Grant left, I took my feet from the railing and moved into the house. It was time for bed. Something I’d been getting into alone far more frequently the last couple of weeks.

I walked through the quiet house. My quiet house. An old, narrow, but somehow spacious, two story, three-bedroom, two and a half bath Victorian farmhouse that was a couple shades above dilapidated, but fixed up would be sublime.

I did this trying to think of all the ways I intended to fix it up (eventually). Something that I’d find exciting. A project I was raring to take on (after the cabins were done, of course). Something I preferred to think about rather than Grant being a jerk or the guy in cabin eleven scaring the crap out of me.

It was dark. I was alone. And try as I might (and I tried), I couldn’t stop the pain nagging at my heart that indications were very strong that things weren’t going to work out with Grant. We’d been together over a year. I was sure about him. If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t have dragged him to Colorado. I wouldn’t even have asked. I would have gone it alone. Maybe not then, at twenty-four years old with no idea what I was doing, but eventually.

He’d promised to help. He’d said he was all in.

To make myself feel better (in other words, to give Grant excuses), I told myself all of this was new. It was a change. We’d only been there six weeks. We were both still getting accustomed to our new home, our new business, our new lives, and even ourselves, as we hadn’t lived together back home.

Maybe Grant turned into a dick when he was in an unknown situation and as things settled he’d go back to being my sweet, affectionate, loving, awesome boyfriend Grant.

I walked through the house, turning out lights, locking up, but when I went to the foyer to turn on the light to welcome Grant home (whenever he chose to come home) my eyes caught on the register.

It was new. Mom had bought it for me and gave it to me five minutes before Grant and I got in our packed cars and hauled ourselves up to Colorado. Mom giving it to me had made me laugh and hug her, and only when I was in my car, following Grant in his truck, did I let myself cry.

I saw from four feet away that we were still on the first page and there weren’t many names on the lines.

I moved closer and looked at the name on the last line.

In black, the writing slanted sharply to the right and spiky, I saw his name.

John Priest.

The name suited him in a Hollywood everyday-outrageously-handsome-guy-run-amok-with-vengeance character type of way.

In the real world, it seemed fake.

Which also didn’t bode well.

But Grant had his two hundred dollars to drink on and be the big man with his new buddies in town. And hopefully John Priest wasn’t building a bomb or torturing an innocent in cabin eleven.

Hopefully everything would be all right.

Hopefully everything would settle down, the work would get done, the fights would stop, Grant would go back to being Grant, and he and I could start living the dream.

I went to bed with these hopes in mind.

I went to bed but it took me ages to get to sleep because my mind knew they were just that.

Hopes.

Just hopes.

And even at my age, having grown up on a big ranch in Oklahoma with a great dad, a wonderful mom, an older sister who’d never been sneaky or jealous or mean but sweet and supportive and awesome, a younger brother who acted like an older one in the protective and loving departments—in other words, I’d lived a good life—I still knew hopes were that.

Just hopes.

Not reality.

* * * * *

“Toss pillows?”

I looked from my desk to Grant, who was standing by the huge bags strewn around the study filled with comforters, sheets, and toss pillows. He was holding what I thought was a sweet toss pillow in his hand but he was glaring at me.