Giving It All (7 page)

“That’s a little harsh.”

“But true all the same. Chastity was her daddy’s princess. It didn’t make her evil, but it didn’t give her a lot of substance either. She never had to struggle. You need someone with a little more grit, someone who has her own interests and internal fortitude.”

“I see you’ve given this a lot of thought. I didn’t realize you felt so strongly about Chastity.”

“What else was I going to think about while I sat around in your hospital room for hours while she’d flit in for twenty minutes and then leave? She’d come in, throw herself across you, weep beautiful tears when the doctor came by, tears that didn’t smudge her makeup, I might add, then she’d up and go. It was
too hard
seeing you all wrapped up like a mummy with tubes sticking in every inch of you, she’d say. Like it wasn’t hard for me seeing my baby hurt?” Her voice cracked.

“It’s over now, Momma. I’m fine now.” It absolutely killed him to hear his mother cry over his injuries. He didn’t remember most of the time immediately after the explosion. It was all a haze of pain and blood and needles, but he remembered seeing his mother’s face every time he woke up.

“Yes, you are. That bionic foot of yours is a miracle. If I didn’t know better, I wouldn’t even know you had a prosthesis.”

“It’s made my life a lot easier, that’s for sure. I don’t trip every time I try to go down a ramp at least.” But he’d never have his job on the teams back. Everything he’d worked for was lost to him, and no bionics could bring that back. The familiar bitterness crept up his throat and threatened to choke him.

“That’s something then.” She looked at her watch and a frown flitted across her face. “I’m gonna check on your dad and Ellie. He should be napping now, but I want to make sure everything’s okay.”

Grant was snapped out of his pity spiral by his mother’s words. He might not be able to serve his country, but his family needed him. This was his new life, and it was time to take charge of it.

“When we get home, I want to talk to Ellie about the program she installed and get a look at whatever paperwork Dad has in his office. Can you ask her if she’s going to be around?”

“Yes, dear,” his mom answered, distracted. “She’s not answering her cell phone. I’m gonna try the house phone.”

“She probably has it on silent so she doesn’t wake up Dad and it isn’t on her. We’ll be home in twenty minutes, why don’t you just hold off?”

“What if something happened? What if she was trying to help him to the bathroom and he fell?”

“Then she wouldn’t be able to answer the house phone either. Look at this logically. We’re on the only road in or out of Dale. We haven’t seen an ambulance come tearing past us and no one has called your cell. If there was a problem, I’m sure someone would have dialed 9-1-1 and then called you.”

“But—” She clutched her cell phone in a white-knuckled grip.

“Will it make you feel better if you call?”

“I know it seems ridiculous, but, yes, it will. I’ll never forget walking into the house and seeing your father on the kitchen floor. I’d only run to Mary Ellen’s store for some milk. I wasn’t gone half an hour and my whole world changed. I swear, every time I leave him, the entire time I’m gone, I worry I’m gonna come home and find him dead.”

“Then go ahead and call.” Grant drove a little faster. It was the least he could do for making light of her fears. Just because she hadn’t faced enemy fire didn’t mean his mother didn’t have her own PTSD. It killed him to see her so worried when there was nothing he could do to help. Ellie better fucking answer the landline. If she worried his mother unnecessarily, he’d rip her a new one.

Stand down, man.

Okay, maybe his reaction was a little over the top. What did the shrink at the VA hospital call it? Transference? He was mad at himself for worrying his mom when he’d been injured, so he was taking it out on Ellie, who probably was just in the bathroom or something.

“Hello, dear, it’s Sue. I tried your cell and no one picked up. Oh, I see. You didn’t have to do that. No, no, it’s good for him. In fact, I was going to do that later today. I appreciate your help. Yes, we’ll be home in fifteen minutes or so. Do you need anything?”

“Everything okay?” he asked once his mom disconnected.

“Yes, of course. Ellie was doing some of his exercises, and her phone was on the kitchen table so she didn’t feel it vibrate. You were right, I was worried for nothing.”

“No, I was wrong to foist off your worry. I can’t imagine how hard it must be for you to leave him after everything that happened.”

“You can’t let the fear control you or you’d never leave the house. Isn’t that what you used to say?”

“I don’t know, was I that pompous? Don’t answer that. What exercises was Ellie doing with Dad?”

“She was stretching out his bad leg. Stroke patients often have trouble with muscle spasms and the stretches help. I usually do the exercises with him after his nap on days we don’t have PT.”

“That was nice of her. I’m glad she’s been around to help you out.”

“Me too. I remember when she was looking for a place to stay after her grandma died. I thought I was doing her a favor by renting her that tiny apartment over the garage. Little did I know I’d need her help so much I should be paying her to stay there.”

“You’re lucky she was still around.”

“Don’t I know it. It’s selfish of me, but I’m glad she and her boyfriend broke up. If they hadn’t, she might have gotten married and moved away by now.”

“She told me that guy wasn’t her boyfriend.”

“What guy? Oh, Peter? No, he isn’t her boyfriend. He’s gay.”

“What?” Grant almost missed the turn off because he wasn’t paying attention to the road.

“It’s not widely known around town, you know how
some
people are, but Ellie confided in me when I asked her if her boyfriend got jealous of her friendship with Peter.”

“And did he? Is that why they broke up?”

“I don’t think so. Ellie just said they weren’t meant for each other but she valued his friendship.”

“Ouch.” The friendship card was second only to pointing and laughing at a guy’s dick on the list of things to be avoided at all costs. “Who was he?”

“No one you’d know. I believe she met him in graduate school. His family was from way down near Savannah and he lived in Strasburg. I’d see him sometimes when he’d visit on the weekends. He was nice enough to look at and successful by the looks of the car he drove, but he was nothing to write home about.”

“That’s because you’re used to looking at me,” he teased.

“Huh, as if you’re God’s gift to womankind.”

“Maybe not, but I can guarantee you, when Chastity and I divorced, she as hell didn’t friend zone me.”

“That’s because you were never friends.”

“You could be right about that.”

As they pulled into the driveway, he wondered why that had never bothered him before.

Chapter Seven

Ellie sat on her tiny balcony and sipped a much-deserved glass of wine. She had Enya playing on the iPod speaker in her bedroom and the window open so she could hear it. Maybe if she sat like this and let the soothing music wash over her, she wouldn’t feel the need to write a scathing email that would lose her one of her biggest clients. Why was it that people assumed just because she was their accountant, she could change the tax laws? She gave what advice she could, but if they didn’t listen to her, there was nothing she could do come tax time.

The wind chime on the overhang of the porch clanged merrily, almost mocking her aggravation. Stupid thing, why did she have it anyway?

“You look fit to kill someone.”

Her glass of wine nearly went flying as Grant’s voice came from out of nowhere. “Good Lord! Are you trying to frighten me to death? Where did you come from?” she asked as he sat in the cheap plastic chair next to her.

“I walked up the steps like a normal person. When I heard the music, I came around the side. I didn’t even know this was here until I helped you up the stairs last night.”

Her face flamed in embarrassment as she remembered her actions. Great. “Your dad had it built after I moved in. He said the place was so tiny this would give me a little more room to breathe. I didn’t need it, but I have to admit, I enjoy sitting out here when it’s not too hot outside. I find it relaxing to watch the sun set behind the trees.”

“It can’t be that relaxing. You looked fit to be tied when I came up. Does it have anything to do with that phone call you got when we got back from Canton?”

Ellie grimaced. “Yes. With April fifteenth looming, I’m on call for my clients twenty-four-seven until Uncle Sam gets his last dime. Unfortunately, some people think I have a magic wand that I can wave to make their tax problems go away.”

“I see, what’s the phrase? Lack of planning on your part doesn’t create an emergency on my part? Or something like that?”

“Pretty much, but I can’t say that unless I want to lose clients. So instead, I sit out here and hope the view, the music and, last but not least, the wine will keep me from saying what I really want to say.”

“Funny you should mention losing clients. That’s just what I wanted to talk to you about. How much of Anderson’s Automotive’s financial information do you still have?”

“Everything up to when your dad had his stroke. After that, Greg stopped using the system. The last entry I have is January fifth. That was part of the reason I went into the shop to check on things. Greg has been working in the store for years. He knows how the system works. He should have been able to keep up with the paperwork if he just inputted the ordering and sales into the system like always. Instead, I found paper receipts from some company in Mexico and orders for parts scribbled on pieces of paper all over the desk. It looked to me like he’d ordered way more inventory than the sales projections your dad and I had figured out at year end.”

“You said he lost two major accounts?”

“Yes.”

“How did you find that out?”

“One of them is Professional Auto Care in Canton. I do their books, so I saw where they cancelled their order and went to another company in Strasburg.”

“Did you ask them why they made the change?”

“That really isn’t ethical.”

“But did you ask?”

“I may have mentioned I saw the entry change in their books. Dave, the manager, said something about reliability and assholes. I’ll let you fill in the blanks.”

He grunted in response. “What about the other account?”

“Anita told me about that one. She filled most of the online orders and mailed them out. There’s a lot of downtime at the store, so your dad put her in charge of the online catalogue to give her something to do. She doesn’t do bored well and he didn’t want to cut her hours. Anyway, she told me after Greg let her go she still had access to the customer-contact email for a few weeks, and one of the clients in Athens wrote a long letter of complaint about the poor quality of the parts and the terrible customer service he got when he called the store.”

“Yet Greg told me he was going to take the store places. Looks like the only place he’s taking it is down the shitter, pardon my language.”

“I’ve heard the word shitter before, honest. I may have even used it or a derivative of it myself.”

“Fine, just don’t tell my momma”

“My lips are sealed.” She mimed turning a key in a lock over her lips.

“I wanted to talk to you when we got back, but you got that phone call and tore out like—” He cut himself off.

“Like my ass was on fire? Grant, I’m not some sheltered Southern belle. I don’t get offended if you swear around me. You don’t have to censor your every word.”

“I’ll take that under consideration. I wanted to ask you to go over the accounts with me and help me get a feel for the business. I know car parts, but I don’t know anything about inventory or taxes or any of that. I tried to look at some of the papers my dad had in his office and I realized I was in way over my head.”

“I would think most of what he has at home would be copies of his applications and permits, everything else should be at the store. Your dad insisted on keeping a paper copy of everything even though I had it all on the computer.”

“Sounds like Dad. So if I were able to get you into the store, you’d be able to figure out what was important and gather the intel?”

“Absolutely.” Ellie didn’t know that anything she’d ever done in her life could be classified as gathering intel, but it sounded cool.

“Great. Can we take your car? I don’t want my mom knowing about this, and if her car goes missing in the middle of the night she might panic.”

She almost spewed the wine she’d just sipped. “Wait, what? Middle of the night? Where are we going in the middle of the night and why?”

“We’re going to the store and getting everything we can without Greg knowing about it so he can’t destroy evidence.”

“Evidence?”

“You were dead on in your estimation that Greg is up to something. He was not happy I was back in the picture.”

“I thought he was just being a lazy ass. I didn’t think he was up to anything illegal.”

“Maybe he’s not, but whatever he’s doing, it’s not on the up-and-up and I want to know what it is before it bites me in the ass.”

“I see.”

“Are you in or out? I can get in and download everything, but it’ll take me a lot longer without a partner, and I might not get the important stuff.”

Ellie had to think about this a second. Grant had gone from asking her to explain inventory management to breaking and entering in the same conversation. But was it really breaking and entering if he was an owner also? Didn’t he have every right to check out his business interests?

“Do you have keys to the store?”

“Yup, Mom gave them to me today and I never gave them back.”

“Okay, I’m in. When do you want to do this?”

“Meet me at your car at zero one hundred.”

“Great. I’m parked around back, under the balcony.”

“Wear dark clothes. Something like you had on this morning should do.”

“Oh, so I’ll blend in. I get it.”

“That and those pants you wore today were hot. See you tonight.” Grant flashed her a grin that shot her blood pressure so high she felt lightheaded. She’d been with her ex-boyfriend, Josh, for two years and he hadn’t ever made her feel that worked up, even when they were having sex.

Ellie drained her wine glass and took two deep breaths, hoping to calm her heart rate before it beat clear out of her chest. The grin Grant had just tossed her was the same one he’d give Chastity when they were in high school. The kind of smile that said he liked what he saw and wanted to see more of it.

Never in her wildest fantasies did she think he’d give her that look. And to say she looked hot in her yoga pants, well, hell.

Breathe, Elyana. He probably gives that look to every female he sees.

He didn’t mean anything by it. It was just habit. Grant had been a charmer his entire life. No female was immune to his attention. He flirted with the ladies of the Garden Club and the toddlers in Sunday school.

Dear Lord, if he was back in town for good, the ambulance service was going to be busy rushing the female population of Dale to the emergency room for possible heart attacks. Ellie snickered to herself as she got up from her chair. If she was going to meet Grant at one o’clock in the morning, she’d better get busy now. She had a ton of work to do and probably wouldn’t be in any shape to do it tomorrow.

Grant heard Ellie creep down the stairs. She was quiet, but not silent. If this were a real op, she’d have already blown their cover. Of course, if this were a real op, he wouldn’t be trusting his six to a civilian accountant.

Real or not, getting ready gave him a kick of adrenaline he hadn’t had in a long time.

“Grant?” Ellie whispered loud enough to be heard twenty feet away.

“Here.” He stepped out of the shadows. He checked her outfit and had to smile at what she considered appropriate for clandestine operations. She wore another pair of those tight, stretchy pants, a long-sleeved black shirt and black flats. Her outfit was more appropriate for a day in New York City than breaking and entering, but at least it was all black.

“Geez, I didn’t even see you. You about scared the life out of me.”

“You’re not supposed to see me. C’mon, I want to be back before Mom wakes up.”

“Yes, sir.” She headed to the driver’s side door.

“Don’t start it, just put it in neutral. I’ll push it out of the driveway and you can start it when we hit the street.”

“That’s like fifty yards away. How are you going to push a car that far on this driveway?”

“It’s a two-door Sentra. I could do this in my sleep. Go.” Or he used to be able to do it no problem. His team had pushed many a stolen vehicle much farther than fifty yards. “Turn off the interior light and don’t close the door all the way.”

Ellie shook her head but did as he directed. Good, he didn’t want her to see him struggle. The gravel driveway would work against him, offering poor footing and too much friction to keep the car rolling. He was stronger now than he’d ever been, but it was mostly upper-body strength, and for this he needed to use his legs.

As soon as he heard Ellie put the car in neutral, he began to push. For agonizing seconds, nothing happened. He would not panic, he could do this. Digging in with his good leg, he got the car rocking a bit and then it began to roll. The gravel crunched underfoot as he pushed forward, but it wasn’t stopping him.
Effort is the difference between victory and defeat.
In the back of his mind, he could hear his BUD/S instructor barking at him as he took every step.

Just keep going, put out or drop out.

He was surprised when the car hit the pavement and began rolling quickly and easily. Without wasting time congratulating himself, he ran for the passenger door and hopped in while the car was still moving.

Ellie’s eyes were enormous as she looked at him settle in next to her. “I can’t believe you just did that and barely broke a sweat.”

“I told you, no problem. Wait until we get to the corner and then start the engine.”

Damn, it felt good to be in control again.

“You used to do stuff like this all the time?” she asked as she followed his directions.

“When you’re in enemy territory, you don’t always have the luxury of reliable transportation, so sometimes you have to liberate it. If you’re going to steal a truck, it isn’t smart to start it in front of the owner.”

“But this was gravel.”

“Easier than sand. Pushing a truck through sand sucks. Snow and mud are just as bad.”

“I can’t even imagine.”

“No, you can’t.”

Ellie went quiet as she drove through the night. It was black as tar, clouds covering the stars and there wasn’t a streetlight for miles. This was Grant’s third trip into Canton today and he felt like he had every curve memorized. As they drove on, he went over the op in his head, running through different scenarios and possible outcomes. It should be an easy sneak and peek, but that didn’t mean he shouldn’t have a plan in place. It didn’t take much to go from easy to a soup sandwich.

“What exactly are we looking for?” she asked as they turned onto Canton’s main street.

“Anything that seems out of the ordinary. You know what’s ordinary, I don’t, which is why you’re so vital to the success of this op.”

“That sounds so cool. I’ve never heard of an accountant being part of an op.”

“There are whole divisions of accountants who dig out intel that’s vital to the safety of our country.”

“I know. I was recruited by the F.B.I. when I was in college, but I’d have had to move to at least Atlanta, or more likely Washington. With my grandma’s health, I couldn’t be that far away.”

“Nothing’s stopping you now.” Grant didn’t know why he was encouraging her, but a part of him hated that she’d given up a well-paying career to stay in Dale.

“Are you kidding me? Everything is stopping me now. I can’t leave your mom in the lurch after she helped me out when I needed it. I have clients who depend on me. It’s not easy to get an accountant from Canton to come out to Dale. A lot of my clients are elderly and don’t want to or can’t make the hour-long drive. I have responsibilities here. I can’t just abandon them to flit off because it sounds cool.”

“Are you saying that’s what I did?” He could feel his temper creep up again, something that had rarely happened before he was injured. Now it happened all the damn time.

“No, you followed your dream and worked darn hard for it. Your parents were young and in great health when you left. You had nothing holding you here.”

“How do you know how much effort I put in?”

“I had a part-time job at the gym after school and know how much time you clocked in the pool and weight room your senior year.”

“You worked at the gym? I don’t remember seeing you there. What did you do?”

“I stocked towels, cleaned the machines, checked the chemicals in the pool, stuff like that. Trust me, I was around. I had to wait for you to finish your laps so I could shock the pool.”