Betting the Bad Boy (22 page)

Grace gingerly examined her father’s foot, transforming from a concerned daughter to a medical professional.

She was supposed to have become a doctor. Ivy League college, medical school. She said she would have thrown it all away for him. She thought he resented her or would have if they ended up together, but he thought it might be the other way around. Looking at her now, he knew she would have been a good doctor. And he knew she could have never gotten there with him.

“I think it is just a sprain, but I’d feel better if it was x-rayed.”

“I’m going to the doctor tomorrow,” the old man said, but Duke knew he was lying smoothly. The bastard wasn’t planning on going anywhere.

“Well, you shouldn’t be up and walking on it. You know better. We’re going to ice and wrap it.” She stood up and went to his freezer, which was bare, except for an empty ice tray. “There’s nothing here.” She opened the refrigerator, which was nearly as bare. Some condiments and a few eggs. “Daddy … When is the last time you ate?”

“Last night. I’m not hungry today. I was planning on going to the store tomorrow.”

“You’re only going to the doctor tomorrow and that’s it.” She looked at Duke. “I have to go to the store for him.”

He nodded, knowing that she had to care for the old man. “Can you two please move the old television?”

“I don’t need help, damn it.”

“I will have no arguments from you.” She shot her father an angry look, but Duke could see the worry all over her face.

“We will.”

She stepped forward, close enough to speak into his ear. “There are some things around here that need some attending. Could you…”

She didn’t have to ask. He noticed. He saw all the things that could potentially harm an elderly person. “Don’t worry, baby. I’ll take care of it.” He took the keys out of his pocket and handed them to her. “Go to the store. We’ll be here when you get back.”

“Thank you.” She stood on her tiptoes and kissed his lips. It wasn’t a deliberate thing. She did it like it was natural. Like she had spent a lifetime kissing him good-bye like that. But she had done it in front of her father and son, and Duke knew they both were wondering what exactly was going on between them.

“Help your father, sweetheart.” She kissed Ryder’s cheek and was off, leaving them alone.

“I can believe she actually left me alone with you. She must really trust you,” the judge harrumphed.

“And you don’t?” Duke raised an eyebrow.

“I figured you might want to kill me.”

“Not in front of my boy.” He took the eggs out of the refrigerator and found half a loaf of bread on the counter. “Make your grandfather an egg sandwich.”

“Ha!” The judge laughed bitterly. “He’d probably be your damn alibi. He’s so much like you. He’ll probably put ground glass in it.”

“You keep ground glass in here?” Ryder asked.

“Ryder,” Duke chided, but the judge just laughed.

“Such a smart-ass.” He shook his head. “TV is on the floor in the den. You can put it in the garage. Can’t leave it out for the trash men to pick up. They won’t take it. And don’t steal anything while you’re back there, criminal. I know what I have.”

“Don’t call my dad a criminal,” Ryder said. “Or you can make your own damn food.”

“You’ve got to respect your elders, son,” Duke warned, but he kissed Ryder’s hair, feeling the need to parent even though he was secretly pleased his son was sticking up for him. “Even when you want to shove a sock down their throats you’ve got to respect them. Besides, I am an ex-con.”

“He sent you to jail, didn’t he?” Ryder nostrils flared again.

Duke was going to deny it, but the judge spoke up, “Look at him. Would you want your only daughter running off with a thief whose father was a drunk that permanently disfigured a man due to his foolishness?”

“My dad is not a thief.”

“No. I’m not, but I did steal. I took food from the supermarket after my dad skipped town because we didn’t have any money. It was the last time I ever took anything. But I can’t say I wouldn’t have done it again. My baby brother was eight. He needed to eat. But I’m rich now, Judge. I could probably buy
you
if I wanted to.”

“You just take care of your boy and never mind about me. He needs a man in his life, and it looks like you’re going to have to do.”

“Yeah. You never wanted anything to do with me,” Ryder said under his breath as he grabbed a pot from a cabinet and turned on the stove.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

“No. Not nothing. Who said I never wanted anything to do with you?”

“You didn’t have to say it. You hated my dad. We lived on the other side of the country and you never tried to see us. I didn’t even know you until Mom moved us back here when Grandma was sick. You just look at me like you don’t like me.”

“I look at you that way because you look like him and sometimes I wonder if I did the right thing with Grace. It’s not because I don’t like you. You don’t like me. That was clear from the day we met.”

“What didn’t you do right?” Ryder studied the old man.

“So many damn things. None of it matters now.”

“Maybe it does matter. Maybe I want to know.”

“Your father proved me wrong. I never thought he would be anything but a criminal, but he proved me wrong and now it seems he’s here to do right by you. But I still wonder if he would have tried so hard if I hadn’t tried to keep your mother away from him.”

Duke wondered the same thing himself. He didn’t know how he would have acted if things had been easy with Grace. He didn’t know if he would have fallen so hard if she were just like any other girl from Destiny.

“I’m not my father.”

“No,” the judge agreed. “Just make sure you are a better one than yours and a better one than I was. Now are you going to move the television? Or do I have to hire someone to do it?”

*   *   *

Grace returned about an hour later. She had tried to rush back, but she wanted to make sure her father had enough food to last him the week that wouldn’t take too long to prepare. It wasn’t until she had loaded the groceries in the car that she realized that for the first time in years she didn’t have to worry about money at all. She didn’t have to fret over the unexpected purchases blowing her monthly budget.

It was an odd feeling. One that she hadn’t had since she lived with her parents and the only problem she had was what she would wear to homecoming. She tried to shake it off as she drove up to her father’s house again. But then she remembered she had left Duke and her father alone.

She grabbed a few bags of groceries and tried not to rush into the house. She hadn’t thought twice about leaving them alone because she had been so concerned about her father, but then she remembered how her father was.

He could drive a saint to commit a felony.

“You rat bastard,” she heard Duke’s angry voice say. She dropped the bag of groceries she was carrying and rushed into the kitchen to see them sitting at the table, a deck of cards between them. Her father with a huge grin on his face.

“Is everything okay in here?” she asked, her voice unnaturally high.

“Your father is a shifty bastard,” Duke said, glaring at his hand.

“Not my fault the hooligan has a shitty poker face. Who knew the man couldn’t tell a lie? You really are a terrible criminal, aren’t you?”

“Meanwhile the man who was appointed to administer justice is the biggest liar of them all. Isn’t that some shit?” Duke’s lip curled up into a half smile.

“Oh.” Grace wasn’t sure what to make of this. “Ryder? Can you help me with the groceries?”

“Yeah.” He got up from his spot at the table. “Duke won’t let me play.”

“Too young,” Duke said absently as he dealt a new hand. “Help your mother.”

They walked out of the kitchen together, Ryder glancing down at the bags she had dropped. “I got worried,” she said by way of explanation. “I forgot that your father might want to kill him. Lord knows he deserves at least a couple of good punches.”

“It’s weird.” Ryder shook his head. “They’ve been calling each other names but I think Grandpa respects him. He kind of apologized.”

“Did he?” Grace couldn’t believe it.

“Kind of. He said he might have been wrong about Dad. And I think Dad forgave him. I don’t know how he did it. But they’re like cool with each other now.”

“I don’t know how he did it, either, but your father is a good man.” A good man she didn’t think she could go back to life without.

*   *   *

It was still early when they left the judge’s house, still before eleven
AM
, but in the couple of hours that they were there they got a lot done. Duke and Ryder had cleared away a bunch of the junk that cluttered the house, while Grace made her father a large pot of pasta and enough chicken salad to last a few days. It was funny how much time changed things. For so many years Duke had kept an image of the judge in his mind—one of him as a young, proud, arrogant man—but age was catching up with him and it seemed that the shoe was on the other foot now. Instead of him being concerned with Grace’s well-being, she was now the one who had to care for him.

“What do you want to do today?” he asked Grace, glancing at her as they drove through town.

They had dropped Ryder off at his friend’s house since he lived just a few blocks away from the judge. Duke was looking forward to spending the rest of the day alone with her. He pulled her car back into the driveway and touched her face. She was distracted, worry etched into her face.

“Do you think he’ll be okay?”

“Your father or Ryder?”

She looked over at him and smiled softly. “Take your pick.”

“I think he needs more than a cleaning lady to come once a week, but he’ll be fine once we get somebody in there.”

“I hated him for so long, but the thought of him dying scares me.” She looked over to him. “Have you ever heard from your father?”

“Not since he walked out.”

“So you don’t know if he’s dead or alive?”

“No, and I don’t care, either,” he said without pause. “I might knock him on his ass again if I see him.”

“You hate him that much?”

“Yeah.” Duke was mad at him for abandoning them, but he knew life would have been much worse if he stayed around.

“I was afraid to see you for the longest time because I thought you felt the same way about me.”

He leaned over, shutting his eyes as he pressed his lips to her face. He didn’t hate her. He knew that sometimes she thought that he did. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. He was just angry at all the time they had wasted. He could have had this seven years sooner. But he knew it would have been impossible to expect her to take a chance on a man who spent so long in maximum-security prison with no education and no prospects. It’s not what he would have wanted for his daughter.

“There’s something about you.” Because most of their relationship had been carried on at night and in secret, he’d worried that all he was feeling was the rush of sneaking around with the most beautiful girl in town. But they weren’t sneaking around anymore. They weren’t hiding it. It seemed impossible to, because whatever they had spilled over every time they were in the same room. And he liked doing mundane shit with her during the day just as much as he did being with her at night under the covers.

That meant something big, didn’t it? He needed to tell her that. That life before her and Ryder was kind of meaningless and empty.

He didn’t want to say that he would have traded it all—the money that King’s Customs brought him, the power that he had—because without it, he wouldn’t be able to take care of his family like he wanted to. He wanted to give them the world.

“Duke.” She looked at him with those big beautiful eyes of here. “I—”

A blast from a horn cut her off and Duke looked over to see Levi climbing out of his jeep and rushing over to them a tense look on his face.

Duke stepped out of the car. “What’s the matter?”

“This.” He handed him a pink piece of paper.

“A Bertie special?” Duke swore under his breath. “This is going to be bad.”

“What it is?” Grace was at his side.

“This flyer says that Colt’s doing hair down at my aunt’s salon.”

“What?” Grace laughed. “I don’t think so.”

“I don’t think so, either,” Levi said. “But these flyers are all over town and people are heading over to the shop in droves.”

“We’ve got to get over there.” Duke clenched his jaw, not knowing who was behind this, but knowing his brother well enough to know they had to be there to prevent bloodshed.

“Do you think Colt knows about this?” Grace asked.

“Hell no. If there’s one thing Colt hates, it’s being made a fool of.”

They pulled up in front of Lolly’s salon, the Head Shed, to see dozens of cars in the parking lot and a mass of bodies at the front door.

“Holy shit.” Duke shook his head. There had never been this many people at the beauty shop even in its heyday.

Grace reached for his hand, tucking her smaller fingers in between his. “Why does anyone think Colt can do hair?”

For a moment he didn’t process the question because he was too preoccupied with the way her hand felt in his. The whole town was there, and with her simple gesture she made a statement. They weren’t just co-parents. They were partners and she didn’t care who knew it.

“Colt
can
do hair. When we were kids, I worked at the body shop, but Colt and Levi worked here after school, sweeping up hair and doing whatever the old biddies asked. Lolly made him learn the basic stuff, because I think she wanted him to take over running the place for her one day. But when he acted up, she made him do roller sets. The summer he turned fifteen he had done so many of them that he got better than Lolly at them.”

“Oh.” She rested her head on his shoulder. “Do you know how to do them, too?”

“No, I was smarter than him. I learned to stay away from Lolly and do my dirt in secret.”

“I didn’t.” Levi walked up grinning. “That woman must have had spies on me.” His eyes went to the door where a line was forming. “I guess we better get in there.”

They made their way through the crowd and into the still-empty salon. Colt was coming out of the back, pulling Zanna to the front of the shop with him.