Rumor (A Renegades Novella) (17 page)

Theo’s worried gaze darted through the open door.

“Now, dude,” Josh demanded. “
Go
.”

When Theo turned and hustled toward the front of the club, Josh slipped off his watch and handed it to Jasmine. “In three minutes—
three
”—he tapped the watch face—“you create some kind of emergency to get Grace inside.”

Jasmine nodded. “Got it.”

Josh stepped outside, where Beck and Grace stood four feet apart, arguing. Dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, Beck looked almost the same as he had the last time Josh had seen him: tall, chiseled, dark, and sporting a few scrapes and bruises on his face and forearms.

Beck swept a hand up and down, gesturing to Grace’s body. “What is this? Who are you? What happened?”

“The same thing that always happens when you’re gone, Isaac. Life happens. I grow and change, and you come home the same judgmental asshole.”

“Maybe because those changes aren’t for the better.”

“Says you. But the funny thing is, it’s my life. Not yours, not ours,
mine
. Good or bad, they’re my changes to make.”

“I care about you,” Isaac implored in a way Josh knew was true. Beck wasn’t a bad guy; he was just dense and self-absorbed. “I want the best for you.”

“Then leave me to live my life. You coming here creating drama is
not
best for me.”

Beck rubbed his face with both hands, and his gaze landed on Josh. “I trusted you, you fucker.”

“I did exactly what you asked. And Grace is perfectly fine. I didn’t lie to you.”

“Don’t fuckin’ split hairs with me, asshole. And what the fuck are you still doing here?” He gestured to the tool belt around Josh’s waist. “What’s that about?”

Josh opened his mouth to answer, but Grace spoke first. “He’s helping me build a studio, Isaac. I told you, I’m teaching, not stripping. Josh believes in my abilities. He doesn’t try to stuff me into the box of a twenty-two-year-old and keep me there.”

Oh…shit…
Just as Josh had expected, Beck read between the lines. His body stilled. His gaze darted between Grace and Josh, disbelief and anger mounting in his expression. “Wait… Are you two…?” Reality hit. His expression turned murderous, and he straightened, hands balled into fists at his side. “Are you
fucking
my wife, asshole?”

Jasmine stepped outside. “Grace, we need you in here. Colleen fell. I think her ankle might be busted.”

A sound of shocked agony popped from Grace. Josh jerked his head toward the door. “Go. Beck and I have to work this out.”

Grace stiffened and pointed a stern finger at both of them. “I swear to God, if you two start brawling out here, I’m going to make sure you both end up in jail. In the
same cell
.”

After Grace disappeared inside, Jasmine closed the door. The snick of a dead bolt gave Josh one tiny sliver of relief—Grace was safe. He, on the other hand, was in a world of trouble.

As expected, Beck came at Josh full speed and rammed his shoulder into Josh’s chest, rocketing him back against the building. Before Josh had time to suck air, Beck flattened his hand against Josh’s chest and raised his fist.

“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t fuckin’ beat the shit out of you right now.”

Josh looked Beck directly in the eye. “I’ll give you two—one, Grace divorced you three goddamned years ago. She’s not your wife, she’s your
ex
-wife, and she has the right to see anyone she pleases, the way you’ve seen a dozen different women since then. And two, think about what happened the last time you tried to beat the shit out of me.”

Beck’s lips thinned. The memory of ending up stuck in the infirmary side by side for three days after they’d gotten in a stupid-ass brawl over an op gone bad flashed in Beck’s eyes. He growled and shoved Josh against the building again, but then backed off, pacing in the night.

Josh took a breath, then let all his anger toward the man pour out. “If you cared about Grace the way you just claimed to care, you wouldn’t have married her in the first place.” He pushed off the wall. “You wouldn’t have volunteered for all those extra assignments that kept you overseas.” He started a slow progression toward Beck as he spoke. “You would have come home when you could have and given Grace the family she’s always wanted. You would have fucking helped her with the expenses of keeping her mother in an Alzheimer’s facility when she told you her mother was sick.”

Beck stopped pacing, turned on Josh, and yelled, “She didn’t want help. I did offer. She kept turning me down.”

“That’s a fucking copout. That’s like saying bin Laden wouldn’t come out of hiding, so we just stop trying to find him. Grace was your wife. You know she’s stubborn and independent. They’re two of the things you loved most about her. And they’re the very reason you two stayed married as long as you did. A weaker woman would have bailed on your ass the first time you extended your tour instead of coming home—and she’d have been justified. If you really cared about Grace, you would have pushed through her resistance. You would have found a way to help.

“Because the truth is, she’s working at this strip club because
you
didn’t step up, shithead. She’s doing what she needs to do to pay the crazy bills, because this is her mother we’re talking about. A mother who has always treated you like her own son. A mother who’s treated you better than your own fucking mother—”

“Okay,” Beck yelled, throwing his arms out and pacing again. “Jesus, dude, the horse is fucking dead already.”

Josh shut up. Watching Beck pace as he absorbed everything he’d denied until now but had to accept. And in the silence, Josh had to find his own resolution to the realization that Grace had been right all along—love alone wasn’t enough. They also needed trust. And not only hadn’t she trusted Josh’s commitment to her, but she’d tried to keep Beck’s visit a secret.

Now, Josh had to accept the fact that Grace might not be 150 percent committed to their relationship. And without that, Josh couldn’t envision how they could make things work between them.

“Do you love her?” Beck’s question yanked Josh back from the painful realization. “I mean
really
love her.”

That was an ironic question coming from the self-centered Beck. Then Grace’s words came back to him.
“In his own way, he did his best.”
And despite the discrepancies between Grace’s and Beck’s reality, Josh believed that, in his own way, Beck had truly loved Grace.

“Yes,” he said for the second time in two days. “I
really
love her. But even if things don’t work out with us, you have to let go, dude. Let her find someone who can really give her what she wants and needs.”

All the confrontation drained from Beck’s muscles. With his gaze locked on the asphalt, he nodded. “Yeah…” he said, his voice dripping with resignation. “Man… This fuckin’ blows.”

That was a mild way to put it, but Josh was suddenly experiencing the same sense of loss.

“All right.” Beck straightened and pulled himself together the way Josh had seen him do hundreds of times in the field. “There’s only one thing left to do, I guess.”

Josh wished he knew what to do at this point. He was fucking lost and felt like he was bleeding out.

“Incoming.”

Beck’s strange warning drew Josh’s gaze from the ground a split second before Beck’s fist slammed into Josh’s face. His head jerked to the side, the pain following as he stumbled and hit a nearby Dumpster. Pain blasted through his head, burning across his skin and cutting into his eye. Josh braced himself for a second attack.

“You
motherfucker
,” he said, squinting toward Beck. When he found his former teammate doing nothing more than standing there, shaking out his hand, Josh relaxed. “That was a cheap shot, you fuckin’ ass wipe.”

“Believe me, you’ll appreciate it,” he said. “Grace freaks over every little scrape. You’ll get more attention than you know what to do with.”

He pulled his hand away and found it covered in blood. “You are such a prick.” Josh turned toward the building and knocked on the door. “Jasmine, it’s Josh.”

“God. Out of commission for a year, and you’re a grade-A pussy,” Beck muttered.

“I’ve been out of commission for a year and my priorities are a hundred and eighty degrees different. Grace has had enough drama for a lifetime,” Josh said as Jasmine opened the door. “I’ll be right back. Stay out here so you don’t freak the entire club.”

“Are you okay?” Jasmine asked, her eyes pulling down at the corners with her frown. “Do you want me to have Theo drive you to the ER?”

“No, no,” he said, turning toward the studio and the bathroom alongside. “I’ll be right out. He’s calmed down. Everything’s going to be fine.”

But when Josh braced his hands on the counter, watching blood drip, drip, drip into the white sink, he was having serious doubts about Grace’s true feelings toward him, and whether or not they could really make this work.

“Jingle bells, jingle bells…” Tammy sang from the table in the kitchen where she sat decorating cookies with Harriet, “Jingle all the way…”

“Oh, what fun it is to have a fresh rumor on a sleigh—” Carolyn cut in as she rolled out sugar cookie dough on a floured board atop the kitchen counter.

Grace laughed and turned the dough. “Somehow, that’s not the way I remember the song going.”

She’d spent the last few months preparing herself for a failed attempt at their holiday tradition. But, not only had the morning been a grand success, Grace had to admit this might just be the very best Christmas day ever.

“Remember the rule,” Tammy said. “No talk of rumors today, Carolyn. Here, Harriet,” she set another sugar cookie in front of the older woman, “dress up this reindeer, and let’s try…” She started singing, “Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer…”

A ping sounded through the house, signaling the front door had opened.

Josh’s “Just me” mixed with Tammy’s, Harriet’s, and Carolyn’s “Had a very shine-y nose…”

Grace’s heart swelled with love and gratitude. She still didn’t know how they were going to make a relationship work with the two-hour drive between LA and San Diego, but she’d promised Josh to let go of the worry today.

Josh came around the corner into the kitchen, came up behind Grace, and set the premixed icing on the counter. “I got two.” He pressed his body into Grace’s from behind, kissed her neck, and whispered, “Just in case.”

“Josh,” Carolyn said. “I heard a new rumor…”

“Carolyn,” Tammy scolded.

Grace turned her head and kissed Josh. “Good thinking.” They’d obliterated an entire can the night before in wickedly decadent ways that made her sex tingle with the thought. “Is that what took you so long? Deciding on one can or two?”

“No.” He slipped one arm around her waist and set a small box on the counter with his other hand. “This is what took me so long.”

“Oooo,” Carolyn said. “That’s my rumor. Josh is bringing Grace a special present.”

Grace’s shoulders went soft, and she smiled at him. “We agreed, no presents.”

He shrugged. “I had two of the three before we made that deal.”

“Carolyn,” Tammy said, standing from the table and taking Grace’s mother’s arm, “let’s go into the living room and open one of your own.”

With Harriet on one arm and Carolyn on the other, Tammy exited the kitchen, and silence filled the space.

Grace slipped her arms around his waist. “This is the best Christmas I’ve had in decades.”

“For me too.” He combed his fingers through her hair, something that had become a familiar, soothing gesture. “Ready to open?”

She exhaled, feeling guilty she hadn’t gotten him anything. But she hadn’t had any time. Still, as she picked up the box, small and square, a giddy excitement bubbled in her chest.

She tugged one end of the red bow and slid the ribbon off, then darted a look at his face before she lifted the top. He was smiling but tense. A little edgy.

She lifted the top and found three keys lying on a bed of cotton. Two looked like standard house keys, and one was a decorative, old-fashioned key that looked like a true antique, with a heart at the top of the finger hold.

She smiled up at him. “Okay…” She drew out the word. “Am I supposed to guess?”

“That might take a while, and…yeah,” he said, his nervous excitement growing. “I can’t wait that long. Pick a key, and I’ll tell you what it’s for.”

She set the box down, deliberated on the different keys, and finally picked up the simple silver key on the right, holding it up to him.

“Good start,” he said. “So, remember when I told you I made a deal with Dean to remodel the back room at the club?”

She lifted her brows. “Yes.”

He cleared his throat. “Well, I traded the cost of my labor for a year’s lease of the space. The studio is your very own, to use as you choose—for girls at the club, for other dancers to come take lessons, or having your cheerleaders come there. Hell, you can teach pole-dancing fitness to Alzheimer’s patients if you want.”

That visual made Grace bust out laughing.

“And…” he said, “the payment the girls at Allure make to Dean for your house-mom services now will come straight to you without any cut for a middleman starting January first.”