Until the Tequila (The Killers #3.5)(19)

I shake my head. “What if it isn’t good?”

He frowns. “Why do you assume it will be bad?”

My eyes widen and I roll them. “It’s basically the theme of my life.”

He pulls me to him and I’m forced to grab on to his wide shoulders when he puts his lips to my jaw. “Not anymore. I swear it.”

I close my eyes and sink into him. “You seem really sure about everything.”

He pushes me away far enough to look me in the eyes. “I am. And now that I’ve got you, I’m not letting anything come between us. Now, are you ready to go? I’ll take you to dinner. We can stay at my place.”

I look at Mr. Presumptuous but I can’t make myself give him shit about anything. Not anymore. Instead, I admit what I’ve wanted to do now for longer than I can remember as I reach up and finger the longish hair on top of his head. “I want to cut your hair.”

He tips his head. “Short?”

“No way. I’ll trim it but, really, I’ve been itching to play with it.”

A sexy smile takes over his face. “I knew you were into me.”

I don’t tell him how right he is. He knows. Instead, I lean in and kiss Evan Charles Hargrove III, my all-American man who I never in a million years dreamed I’d fit with, yet, here I am.

Happy.





12





Implode





Evan





“Grandparents?”

Mary is sitting cross-legged next to me in my bed that’s a mess from both last night and this morning’s activities. She doesn’t have clients until later today and, after I told Addy what was going on with Mary, she said she’d cover for me in the tasting room until we figured out this thing with Mary’s dad. She did this while smiling big and told me the more time I spent with Mary, the better, and to consider it paid time off. When I asked her how much time she was spending with her new neighbor, Crew Vega, her smile turned into a glare and she told me to go home.

I told Mary to call the persistent attorney. She tried to distract me by crawling up my body, but I told her we needed to get it done and then she could use and abuse me any way she wanted.

But when she utters the word grandparents, her eyes go glassy and I sit up and take her Diet Coke out of her hand so she doesn’t spill it.

“I didn’t know I had grandparents.” She chokes on her words, her voice hoarse as she speaks into the phone. “I mean, obviously, I knew I had to have grandparents. I just figured they’d be as worthless as my mother or long dead.”

I slide my hand up the outside of her bare thigh and give her a squeeze. It kills me when she looks up and a tear falls down her pale cheek.

She swallows hard and asks, “If they didn’t know I existed, how did you find out about me?”

Nodding, she never takes her eyes off mine as she learns about the family she didn’t know she had. After all she’s told me in the last few days about her childhood, I can’t imagine how she’s feeling.

She rattles off her address and email, explaining that she’ll get back with him, says goodbye, and drops the phone to her lap.

“You have grandparents?” I ask, hoping she’s happy about the fact she has family she didn’t know about.

But Mary surprises me and shakes her head. “No.”

I frown and my grip on her leg tightens. “No? But I thought you said—”

She shakes her head and another tear streaks her face. “They’re dead.”

“Dead? Mary, tell me. What did he say?”

She swallows hard and fists my T-shirt she’s wearing that’s covering nothing but her bare, beautiful body. “He said they were estranged from their daughter—my mother. That she had drug problems since she was a teen and did everything they could to help her get clean, but she disappeared from their lives when she was just nineteen. They didn’t know about me, at least that’s what the attorney said. He had to dig to find their closest living relative and that’s when he found my birth certificate. He said it wasn’t easy, but he traced me from there.”

“But, they’re dead?”

She tries to control her emotions and shrugs. “I guess my mom’s mom died years ago and the man who was my grandfather died of cancer a few weeks ago. They lived in a small town outside of Lexington.”

I set my coffee down next to her Diet so I can pull her into my arms. “Baby, I’m sorry.”

Her words don’t match her tone—choked and shallow. “It doesn’t matter. I didn’t know them.”

I turn my face into the side of her hair. “It does matter.”

She wraps herself around me tighter. “No, it doesn’t.”

My neck turns wet from her tears, proof it matters a whole fucking lot.

It cuts me deep. And now I realize, feeling her cry in my arms, that from here on out, I’ll do everything I can to protect her from heartache. “Tell me what else he said.”

She hiccups her words. “He said he has paperwork I need to fill out. He’s settling their estate and I’m their closest living relative. Because the last time they updated their wills, everything was to go to my mom and since she’s dead, I guess it’s mine.”