Grady looked a little shell-shocked, like he couldn’t believe someone other than he had a memory of Amy tucked away inside them. He
frowned thoughtfully. “I remember her telling me about that.”
“That’s right,” B.J. said, her shoulders slumping because her story wasn’t as original as it could’ve been. “I forgot. You were seeing her back then too, weren’t you?”
“Yeah,” he returned. “I was.”
The way he said “was” about broke her heart.
She wasn’t typically such a softy, but she didn’t understand why people had to suffer. If an animal was in pain, you put it out of its misery.
Once she’d gone with Pop to the vet when they’d had their old, cancer-ridden dog, Charlie Horse, put to sleep. She remembered feeling relieved Charlie wasn’t going to hurt anymore. But B.J. didn’t know how to deal with humans in pain. Couldn’t exactly put them to sleep when they hurt too much.
It bothered her more than she could describe to watch someone’s feelings bleed out. Since Grady Rawlings’ wound was over two years old, it was even more disheartening.
B.J. didn’t do sympathy well, so she shut her trap for the rest of the ride.
****
15
Linda Kage
into each of his temples, Grady didn’t think his skull could ache any more than it throbbed now. But flying always did that to him, messing with his equilibrium until his head felt like it was going to internally combust.
By the time his meeting let out, all he wanted to do was crawl back to his hotel, find a bed, and overdose on some Tylenol so he could fall into a coma-like state for a week or so.
As his buyer pushed to his feet, he did the same, ignoring the persistent pulse behind his eyes. They both moved out of the way of the table and toward the exit.
“Always good doing business with you, Grady,”
Hammond Weatherly said as he thrust out his hand for a hearty shake.
“You as well,” he murmured, accepting the
Texas-sized grip Weatherly strapped onto his palm.
“Been a while since you came around here,
though. I’d been dealing with your dad so much lately, I kinda figured you’d stepped out of the family business.”
“No,” Grady said. He probably would’ve tacked on a few more comments if his head weren’t so sore.
Then again, he really didn’t want to get into any of the reasons
why
he’d been off the grid in the past few years. “I’ve been around,” he finally supplied with a lame attempt not to sound rude.
“Well, I don’t know how long it’s been since I last saw you,” Weatherly mused more to himself,
scratching his chin and frowning a second before his face cleared. Then he snapped his fingers and pointed at Grady. “Now I remember. Your wife was expecting her first last time we met up.” He grinned.
“Was it a boy or girl?”
For a second, Grady couldn’t talk… couldn’t
breathe. Agony clogged his chest, and he forgot about the hammering in his temples. His vision 16
The Trouble with Tomboys
blurred, going foggy and slanted. He concentrated on sucking oxygen back into his lungs and blinking until the world veered back into focus.
Weatherly didn’t know. About Amy, or the baby, or any of it.
Grady cleared his throat, lowered his eyes to the floor and mumbled, “It was a boy.” Which wasn’t a lie. It
had
been a boy. A dead boy, but Grady didn’t particularly want to divulge that detail and make the both of them uncomfortable.
Weatherly chuckled and slugged Grady
companionably on the shoulder. “Guess I owe you a belated congratulations, old son. Had any more since the first?”
Unable to speak, Grady shook his head. He
lifted his face and managed a tight smile. “I need to go.” His voice sounded like shredded gravel, but at least he’d managed to utter understandable words.
“Oh, sure, sure,” Weatherly said, taking a step back to let Grady pass. “You got a long drive ahead of you.”
Grady didn’t mention he’d chartered a plane for the trip. Instead he nodded and said over his shoulder as he moved toward the exit, “I’ll make sure our secretary gets back to you on that tax issue.”
“Thanks, Grady. See you around.”
In the outer office, Grady nodded toward the receptionist and strode straight for the exit, looking neither left nor right. He held his briefcase stiffly down at his side as he pushed his way out the door.
The transportation service he’d made arrangements with before coming to Houston already had a car waiting at the curb. The driver held the back door open for him, and without a word, he slid into his seat. The ride back to his hotel was a silent misery.
He stared out the side window, waiting until he 17
Linda Kage
could close himself alone in his suite. If he could keep it together until he got to his room, he knew he’d be okay. But traffic was a bitch. They had to take two detours before reaching their destination.
Nearly an hour passed before his chauffer pulled to a stop. Grady managed a brief thank you and exited before the man could come around and open his door. He walked through the overly long lobby, feeling as if everyone was staring at him, thinking he must look miserable, like some kind of defeated widower. An urge rose inside him to stop under the jeweled chandelier in the center of the vestibule and shout at the top of his lungs for everyone to look somewhere else. He was fine. But he knew he was merely being paranoid. No one stared. No one here pitied him. And no one paid him any attention as he pressed the elevator button to wait for the doors to open.
Thankfully, no one entered with him, and the mirrored cubicle remained empty as he stepped inside. The doors slid shut, and finally he was alone.
Grady’s shoulders sagged a fraction of an inch, letting out some of their starch. He closed his eyes and leaned to the side to rest his cheek against the cool surface of the elevator walls.
Peace.
Well, mostly peace. After Weatherly’s mention of Amy and the baby, the visions swimming around his brain were filled with blood and death, tears and heartbreak. But at least no one else was around to aggravate the agony any further. By himself, he could deal with the memories. Around others, he always had to be so damn strong and unaffected. He much preferred the private pain.
Images swirled through him until suddenly he could see Amy as a teenager, standing in the Gilmore family kitchen where he often visited when 18
The Trouble with Tomboys
she was babysitting. Her light blonde hair was pulled up into one of her impossibly neat ponytails.
She looked so young, it made his chest hurt. When she grinned, a dimple dipped the right side of her cheek.
“I tried to bake Jeb a cake yesterday,” she told him before throwing back her head and laughing.
Grady sucked in a breath; his eyes snapped open only to find himself alone in the elevator. He could remember her telling him about burning Leroy Gilmore’s porn as if it’d only happened yesterday.
She’d laughed so hard as she recounted the story, he’d barely understood a word she said.
She’d been young and happy then.
Grady closed his eyes again and tried to
recapture the image. It’d been over two years since he’d envisioned her smile. But in his desperate attempt to grasp a happy memory, the only scene imprinting itself on the inside of his eyelids was of her panting and crying as yet another deadly labor pain struck.
Sweat trickled down the side of his face. He opened his eyes and wiped the perspiration away with the back of his hand as the elevator doors opened. Grady took a step forward but jerked to a stop when he spotted the woman standing in front of his room door.
He didn’t recognize her at first with her back to him. In cowboy boots, lean form-fitting jeans, and a pale yellow short-sleeved blouse, she could’ve been anyone. A dark mass of brown hair hung most of the way down her back, held together in a high, sloppy ponytail. She had a nice, feminine figure full of healthy curves in all the right places. Grady narrowed his eyes, wondering who the hell she was and why the hell she was standing in front of
his
door, staring at it as if she’d just knocked and was waiting for an answer.
19
Linda Kage
Obviously growing impatient with her wait, she cocked her hip to the side and rested her hand on the generous curve, letting out a loud sigh. Finally, recognition set in. Putting that attitude in her stance, she told him exactly who she was.
The Gilmore woman. B.J.
Grady winced and glanced around, hoping he
could spot some kind of deliverance to save him from having to gag through another encounter with her today. They weren’t scheduled to see each other again until eight the next morning when they were to meet at the airplane to return home, and he wanted it to stay that way.
Not that he minded B.J. Gilmore. He’d never
much cared for her family as a whole, but he’d never had any problem with her alone. Maybe that was because Amy used to babysit her, and he couldn’t despise anyone who’d been partially raised by the love of his life. Though, admittedly, her younger brother, Rudy, had been one of Amy’s wards too, and Grady didn’t have much use for that lazy drunk. The two elder Gilmore boys were equally worthless, one a total dumbass and the other so mean and wild he was scarily unstable.
The one thing Grady remembered about the only female sister was her mouth and how much she liked to use it. She could talk a person into the ground. Since talking was the last thing he cared to do, avoiding her seemed like the best plan. But slipping past her without being spotted and escaping into the blessed silence of his room would to be the real trick.
Suddenly wishing he hadn’t booked their two
rooms adjacent to each other, he decided to stay put and pray she wasn’t hanging around his next pass.
But the stupid elevator let out a blaring ding before the doors began to close. B.J. lifted her head and turned his way. Caught, Grady gritted his teeth and 20
The Trouble with Tomboys
stepped between the closing doors and into the hall.
He lowered his face, thinking she might not
recognize him if he kept walking by.
“There you are,” she called.
Damn.
He glanced up and fell to a pause. She’d moved closer to him, was only about five feet away. A pair of big brown eyes hit him full in the chest. She blinked as if startled to see him dressed in his business gear. Her gaze ran down his suit, missing nothing as it slid over his jacket and slacks. The blatant female appreciation in her stare made his throat constrict. He itched to tug at his tie and breathe again, but refused to show her any sign of weakness.
She licked her lips before meeting his eyes. A strange sensation rushed up the back of his spine and neck as he watched the dart of her tongue. The feeling tickled the base of his skull, but he wasn’t sure what it was. Could’ve been his own awareness of her, he guessed, but it’d been so long since he’d felt anything—toward anyone—he dismissed the idea as soon as it came.
Grateful she’d moved away from his door, he
nodded his hello and pulled a key card from his pocket as he stepped around her and approached his room. Hopefully, she’d realize he wanted to be left alone.
No such luck.
She turned as he passed her, falling into step with him. “I was fixing to head downstairs and find myself some vittles. You hungry?”
“I’ve already eaten.” He unlocked his room to emphasize how much he wanted to be alone.
She set her hands on her hips. “Well, you look like you could do with an extra meal here and there.
Why don’t you come along? Keep me company.”
He shook his head. “I’m not hungry.”
21
Linda Kage
Sighing, B.J. tugged his briefcase out of his hand and tossed it into the opened door of his room.
He frowned but didn’t react. If his head didn’t hurt so bad, if he hadn’t been thrown off track by the incident at the end of the meeting with Weatherly, if he could only see Amy smile again when he closed his eyes, he probably could’ve come up with a suitable comment to scare her off. Something scathing and dry. But his head went blank, so all he could do was gape at her for her daring.
To further confound him, she hooked her arm
through his and started walking them toward the elevators. He could’ve been rude and pulled away.
But for some reason, he followed.
“Don’t matter none if you’re not hungry,” she said. “You just sit there. I’ll eat enough for the both of us. I hate going to those fancy, shmancy hotel restaurants by myself.” She grinned at him. “I won’t even make you talk if you don’t want. Hell, I’ve been known to carry on a whole conversation by myself.
So you don’t have to worry about a thing. Just having a presence like you around will do me well enough.”
“It’s been a long day,” he said as she stopped to press the elevator button. A last attempt for escape.
“I’d like some rest.” He unhooked her arm from his.
She grinned up at him, her brown eyes hopeful and encouraging. “You can sleep the whole way home tomorrow if you like,” she told him. Then her grin faltered, and the gleam in her eyes died. She gave him a serious, probing look. “Just don’t make me eat alone tonight, Rawlings.”
Grady froze as a sensation similar to pity
slammed through his windpipe. He knew exactly what it was like to eat alone every night. He preferred it that way, sure, but it didn’t stop the wistful hope to sit across from Amy again, sharing just one more meal with her.
22
The Trouble with Tomboys
Realizing B.J. could probably see the empathy in his gaze, he glanced away. “Why don’t you just order room service?”
“Thought of it,” she said before shrugging. “But I had to get out of there for a while.” Pausing, she patted his arm. “Don’t take that to mean I don’t appreciate such sweet lodging, Slim. I already snarfed down the chocolates on my pillow and dumped the free goodies from the bathroom into my duffle bag. But I can only take so much of being penned in one place before I start going stir crazy.