Betting the Bad Boy (19 page)

“But I want to be the one to take care of you,” she countered.

“I don’t need taking care of,” he said softly.

“I know. You’re a total badass who went to prison for attempted murder and you came out just fine. A freaking millionaire who buys our thirteen-year-old a car and pays off mortgages in a single day.”

“Don’t forget I had a building put up and am transforming your house into something livable. I think that’s pretty damn impressive.”

“I think it’s pretty damn annoying. And to think I spent all those years worrying and pining for you. I always loved you a little more than you loved me. It’s a little lowering.”

“That’s not true.” He didn’t know what it was to love until he had loved her. And he knew even before she came back into his life that he would never feel for anyone else the way he felt for her.

“You broke my heart.”

He knew how much he had hurt her the night he broke up with her. He would never forget that look in her eyes, the pain there. He had been nasty that night, trying to push her away so she wouldn’t want to marry him anymore and lead a less-than-perfect life.

“I did it for you. You turned down Dartmouth to stay with me. To stay in Destiny with a high school dropout with a criminal record who was going nowhere fast. I couldn’t live with you giving up your chance for better to be with me. And I sure as hell didn’t want you looking at me ten years into our marriage regretting the life you gave up. I broke up with you because I wanted you to have the life you were born to have.”

“What kind of life was I born to have? Being married to some wealthy boring man? Going to lunch with my friends? My worthiness tied to my husband? I didn’t want that life, and even if I did it would be my decision to live that way. Not my father’s. Not yours. Neither one of you got what you wanted.”

“You’re stubborn.”

“I know.” She stood up to him. She disagreed with him. She fought him passionately.

“Things may have not always gone the way I wanted, but I lived the life I’ve always wanted to live. So what are we going to do now?”

It was a damn good question. What were they doing? Where was this going? They had made that bet, but he didn’t know who was winning. He wasn’t sure where they stood, or if they could ever get past all the painful shit that had gone down between them. “Stay with me tonight.”

She looked unsure but she nodded. “Who is she?” She touched his back where his favorite tattoo lay.

“My mother.”

“Oh.” She seemed relieved and stroked her hand over it. “She’s very beautiful.”

“Did you think it was someone else?”

“A lover.” She nodded. “I had thoughts of taking a cheese grater to your back.”

He laughed. “You can’t be jealous, Grace.”

“You can’t tell me what I can be.”

“Okay.” He kissed her again. “Don’t go back upstairs.”

“Only if you promise to keep kissing me like that.”

*   *   *

Duke woke up a few hours later feeling that the bed was empty and cold. He cursed. She had gone upstairs, back to her world. Putting distance between them, but he wasn’t having that tonight. He stomped up the stairs and into her bedroom.

She startled awake as soon as she felt him standing over her.
Good.
He wanted her to know he was there. “What’s the matter, Duke?”

“You left.” He crawled into bed beside her and pulled her into his arms.

“I wanted to be up here just in case Ryder needed me.” She rested her head on his chest.

“What if I need you?”

“You don’t need me,” she said almost sounding sad. “You never needed me.”

“You don’t get to tell me what I need.”

“Duke,” she sighed. “What are we doing?”

“I don’t know.”

“What are we going to tell Ryder if he finds out?”

“We’ll figure that out when the time comes.”

*   *   *

Grace stared out her front window watching the construction crew as they continued to transform her shabby little house. The metal garage/shed was being painted the same color of the house. The trim around the windows was being painted white, and landscapers had come to plant some things that would do well in their dusty soil. It looked good. She no longer had the ugliest house in town. She was no longer in debt and her bank account had more money in it than she had made in ten years. Duke had swept in and solved all her problems. Well … almost all of them. He couldn’t solve her biggest problem and that was what to do about him. She hadn’t wanted to be rescued. She didn’t ask him to save her. And now instead of feeling like his equal, she felt beholden to him. Like she was another one of his responsibilities instead of his partner.

Maybe
partner
was the wrong word for what they were. There was no name for it. They weren’t a couple. Weren’t strictly co-parents. But they shared their nights and it was more than just sex. There was something deeper there.

She saw his flame-painted car pull into the driveway with Ryder in the passenger seat. He had slipped into the role of father rather easily. He transported Ryder to and from summer school. He made sure he went to bed on time and got up in the morning. He even made sure he ate all his vegetables at night. She had only asked him for thirty days, and the end was coming soon. They had to talk about what was going to come next for them, talk about what would be best for Ryder. She’d foolishly told him that she would give into what he wanted if he made it a month, but she hadn’t expected things to go so well.

She’d said she would move to Vegas if he wanted and she was a woman of her word, but she didn’t want to give up her job as a school nurse. She didn’t want to leave the only place she felt connected with her mother. Because despite how rough things got with her father, her mother’s spirit was always there.

And then there was the promise that she made to her when she was dying.

Take care of your father. You’re the only one he has left.

How could she leave him? But how could she stay here when she knew what was best for her son was to be with his father?

Duke and Ryder stepped out of the car and with a few words from Duke the crew stopped working and started to disperse. He had amazing command over them, over everyone. He was a born leader. She knew he was probably missing his team and his shop.

“Hey, Mom.” Ryder walked in first, seeming much happier than she had seen him in a long time.

“Hey, honey.”

“Go up and get your stuff, boy,” Duke told him. “Mrs. Atkins will be here in twenty minutes.”

Ryder nodded and hurried up the stairs and that left Grace looking at Duke, an unasked question floating in the air.

“Ryder made friends with a boy named Mike. He’s a good boy. I checked him out. His father works in the factory. His mother—”

“Is the secretary at the high school.”

Duke nodded. “She asked me if Ryder could go to the movies and then sleep over at her house. I said yes. I should have asked you and I can tell him no if you want, but I didn’t think you would mind.”

“It’s okay. I’m still not used to parenting with someone else.”

“No. I’m not used to parenting at all.” He stepped forward and without saying a word took her mouth in a long, hot kiss. It was totally unexpected and after her shock melted away, she melted into him.

“Duke…” She forced herself away from him, before Ryder could come down the stairs and catch them. “We should talk.”

“I don’t want to talk.” He grabbed her hand and stroked his rough thumb over her palm in a way that always heated up her core.

“Why are you fixing up my house?” If he was planning to move them to Vegas, then there was no point. Maybe he had other plans for them.

“It needs fixing.” He linked his fingers with hers. “Let me show you what we’re doing here.”

He took her outside and around to the side where the huge garage/shed was. “This thing is so big, Duke.”

“I know, but we need the space for all the tools to restore the car. It won’t look so out of place when we finish putting the addition on the house.”

“Addition?” She looked over at him.

“Ryder said he always wanted a pool. So I was thinking we could do a nice screened-in patio with an in-ground pool and outdoor kitchen. You’ve got the land, so I figured we could build out. Make you a nice master bedroom suite. Give you one of those deep tubs I know you like. And instead of having all those little rooms upstairs we can knock out the walls and give Ryder a bigger room. He’s a big kid. He’s going to need the space. You can go crazy with the decorating, Grace. Whatever you want we can do.”

We.

She wasn’t sure what he meant by that.

“Are you planning to stay in Destiny?” she asked him, feeling anxious in that moment.

“No,” he said quickly. “My shop is in Vegas. My life is in Vegas.”

“My work is here. My life is in Destiny.”

His expression hardened for a moment. “Don’t forget our bet. You said thirty days—and I’m here, and I’m being his father. I’m not going to go back to a life without him.”

“I’m not asking you to. I just don’t understand why you would do all of this if you were going to pick us up and move us.”

“Lolly’s here,” he said after a moment. “And your father is here and this where Ryder will spend his summers and holidays. I have business here now. It makes sense to have a place to stay when we’re here.”

“Are you going to move us in with you, Duke?”

“I’ve lived in the same place for the past seven years. It’s just one bedroom. We’ll get a new place.”

“And be a family?”

“We are a family.”

“But what about us? Are we a couple? Have you forgiven me? Because sometimes I feel like you hate me.”

“What if sometimes I do?”

His question knocked the air out of her. She knew that she should have made sure Duke knew about Ryder before writing him off. But she had been hurt and scared, her ego too bruised to risk being rejected. It was something she could probably never forgive herself for just because Ryder had gone so long without that extra love in his life. So maybe he did hate her, but he should understand where she was coming from, too. And if he didn’t then she wasn’t sure this was ever going to work.

A gray sedan pulled up just as she was opening her mouth to respond. She expected to see Mrs. Atkins, but instead a man she recognized all too well got out of the car. A man she avoided when she saw him in the supermarket and whose eyes she refused to meet when they passed each other on the street.

She stepped in front of Duke. She didn’t know if she was trying to shield him from the man’s presence or protect Patrick Andersen from Duke’s wrath.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Duke’s front brushed against her back as he stepped forward. Grace dug her feet into the ground in a vain attempt to kept Duke from getting closer.

“I don’t want any trouble.” Patrick put his hands up in surrender.

“Then you’ll take your cowardly ass and remove it from my sight.”

“I just want to talk to you.”

He definitely wasn’t the same boy she had known all those years ago. Gone was that cocky air that floated around him. He no longer walked with swagger, and even though he was the same age as her—early thirties—he carried himself like a man years older. Patrick Andersen had grown up, and it appeared that he had changed.

“What could you possibly say to me that I would give a shit about? That you shouldn’t have slapped a nineteen-year-old girl when she didn’t want you pawing her? That you shouldn’t have let your father send me away to prison on trumped-up charges? Or that you’re sorry that my kid doesn’t know who I am because of what you did?” He took another step forward, forcing Grace’s feet to slide across the ground as she moved with him. “Maybe you’re here to beg for your job? You should be begging. I own this town. I own your ass and the bank that owns your mortgage and the store you buy your food from. My brothers and I own so much of this place that you can’t spit without running into something with our name on it. Or maybe I should just put you out of your misery and kill you right now. The Kings are more than those shitty pieces of trash that you treated us like. I could kill you and they would throw me a fucking parade. I’ve done hard time before. I ain’t scared of shit anymore.”

“Dad!” Ryder came out of nowhere and grabbed Duke’s hand. “Dad, come inside the house.” Ryder tugged him, seeming a little bit panicked. “Now. Come inside the house now.”

She had felt Duke’s rage, the heat and power of the anger he must have been holding on to for thirteen years. There was no doubt in her mind that if Duke wanted to kill the man who’d slapped her, there was nothing that she could do to stop it.

But Ryder could, because when Duke looked into Ryder’s eyes she felt something come over him, as if a jolt of awareness and then calmness overtook him.

Duke grabbed Ryder and pulled him into a rough hug. “Don’t worry, boy.” He kissed his hair. “I won’t do anything.”

“Come in the house,” Ryder said, his voice sounding wobbly. “Come in the house with me.”

“Okay, son. Okay.”

He walked back inside with Ryder, not giving Patrick another glance.

“I came here to apologize to both of you,” Patrick said to Grace.

“Really? I think you’re about thirteen years too late.” She went back inside to join her family, once again realizing how quickly her life could have changed again in an instant.

Chapter 15

Duke felt like shit. There had been a few times in his life when he’d felt as bad as this. When his mother died. When he found out Grace had moved away, and when the county told him that they were going to put him and his brothers into separate foster care. Even his father’s drunken rages didn’t affect him as much as knowing that he had scared his son. Worried him enough that he refused to go to his friend’s house.

The guilt that rolled around him after that was powerful enough to constrict his airways. He didn’t just have himself to think about anymore. He didn’t have even just his company and siblings to think about anymore. He had a son, and even though he knew that Grace and Ryder would be taken care of financially if he went away, it was more than that. He wouldn’t be there to take care of them personally and that mattered to him. It mattered to Grace, too.