Unfinished Hero 04 Deacon (3 page)

“That makes sense if we got the fuckin’ money
to do it,” he returned.

“We do,” I shot back, and we did. But just
barely.

“We don’t,” he bit out.

“I keep the books, Grant, and we absolutely
do,” I retorted.

“I look at the books, Cassidy, and that’s
bullshit.”

“You’re right. It is,” I replied. “If one of
us is in town drinking, at the slopes skiing, and out buying
hunting and fishing licenses. If one of us would stop doing that,
we’d have a lot more to
do
a lot more then maybe
make
a lot more.”

He leaned back and his face twisted, but I
had no reaction to it this time. I’d seen that look on his face a
lot the last eight months.

Suffice it to say, Grant was not settling
into our life in the Rocky Mountains.

Grant was still being Dick Grant in a way
that I figured Dick Grant was all there was left to Grant.

“Here she goes again with this shit,” he
muttered.

“Yeah, here I go again, because you’re never
here
,” I snapped. “You never
help
. I’ve had those
light fixtures for five months, asked you so many times to put them
in, I’m saying that crap in my sleep. And there they sit.” I swung
an arm out to the corner of the study where boxes were piled four
high and three deep. “So excuse me if I’m not big on listening to
you complain about toss pillows when you’ve barely lifted a finger
since we got here. This is my gig. I’m doing my gig and not
listening to your crap. You want out, you’re out.”

His expression deteriorated as he asked,
“What does that mean?”

That was when I stood. I was wearing jeans, a
sweater, and had bare feet. But even with Grant only hitting five
foot ten, he still mostly towered over me.

“It means I’m sick of this,” I hissed. “I’m
sick of fighting. I’m sick of doing everything by myself. I’m sick
of working all day and being exhausted all night and hitting an
empty bed. I’m sick of keeping the books…by myself. Cleaning the
units…by myself. Washing the sheets…
by myself
. And somehow
in all that
by myself
, I’m still managing to be sick of,” I
stabbed a finger his way, “
you
.”

He put his hands to his hips. “And I’m sick
of you carin’ more about sandin’ a bunch of fuckin’ floors, gettin’
on my ass all the time about fuckin’ light fixtures.” It was his
turn to swing an arm to the boxes. “Whinin’ all the time about how
I don’t
help
, how I’m never
here
. Every wakin’ minute
is about those cabins, Cassidy, and not one is about givin’ a
single shit about your man.”

“Tell me,” I leaned back and crossed my arms
on my chest, “how exactly do you want me to give a shit about you,
Grant?”

He responded immediately.

It just wasn’t a good response.

“A blowjob once in a blue moon would be
appreciated.”

My eyes grew huge and my voice grew loud.
“You can’t be serious.”

“I didn’t come up here to bust my hump
cuttin’ and layin’ countertops and patchin’ roofs and feelin’ my
woman crackin’ the whip. I came up here to live a good life and,
newsflash, babe, a good life for a man means he gets head on more
than the rare occasion.”

I uncrossed my arms so I could mimic his
posture, putting my hands to my own hips.

“Sorry, darlin’, when you stumble in at three
in the morning and wake me up because you’re in a certain mood and
I’m exhausted from having a hammer or a paintbrush or a wrench in
my hand all day, up a ladder, on my back under a sink, in town
bleeding money on water heaters when my man’s at the slopes
bleeding money, living,” I leaned toward him and shouted, “
the
good life
, I don’t have it in me to suck your cock!”

“That’s what I’m sayin’,” he pointed out, his
voice rising.

“Oh, I’m hearing you,” I returned, my voice
already loud. “And by the way,” I kept yelling. “To get
the good
life
, you
work
for the good life. And you were not
unaware that that was exactly what we’d both be doing when we made
our way up here. It’s just that it’s only been
me
who’s been
working for it and it’s only been
you
who’s been living
it.”

“You don’t ever take a fuckin’ break!” he
shouted.

“That’s because I can’t!” I shouted back.
“Grant, we gotta get these cabins shaped up! We need to rent them
for double what they brought in rundown so we can afford lift
tickets and nights in town listening to live music and a decent
mattress that isn’t lumpy.”

“Yeah, babe, that’s another thing. Every unit
has a better fuckin’ mattress than what
we
sleep on.”

I threw up my hands in exasperation and
screamed, “
People are not gonna come back for lumpy
mattresses!
”

Half a second after I finished screaming, we
both heard a knock at the front door, and Grant, being Grant,
walked away from his angry girlfriend in order to answer it.

I stalked after him, the study right off the
foyer, and stopped dead the instant I stepped foot into it.

This was because John Priest was standing at
the door.

He didn’t look at me. His eyes were pinned to
Grant. He hadn’t been back since his last stay but he hadn’t
changed. Except to be scarier (if that could be believed, but there
it was, right before me).

I also knew he’d heard and I had a feeling
he’d heard more than just me shouting about lumpy mattresses.

“Cabin eleven?” he asked, his rumbling but
hollow voice filling the foyer.

Grant turned to me. “Seems this guy doesn’t
give a shit about lumpy mattresses.”

He had to be joking.

In a fury, not thinking, not caring, so over
it I could scream, I looked to our first-ever return customer and
shared, “You’ll be delighted to know that not only will you have a
brand new microwave in your cabin, it’s freshly painted, has a new
water heater,
and
a high quality, firm mattress to provide
excellent rest while offering superb lumbar support.”

Not missing a beat, John Priest replied, “Can
I take that to mean the cabins are no longer forty a night?”

I jerked my head up and down once. “They’re
sixty.”

He looked to Grant. “Five nights. Cash.” Then
he reached to his wallet.

Grant moved to the locked cabinet.

I glared at my boyfriend as he did so and
moved toward the door, stating, “We
will
require you to sign
in again, I’m afraid.”

John Priest glanced at me and I stopped well
short of the door to give him and the bulk of his big body room to
get to the registration book.

“And you can hand
me
the cash,” I
finished.

Priest’s head was bent to the book but it
turned minutely so his eyes could slide to me. He did this but he
said nothing. Just dipped his chin and went back to the book.

“You’re a piece of work,” Grant hissed and I
looked to him.

“Wrong. I’m the proprietress of what will
soon be amazing, kickass cabins that will be full every night with
a waiting list because people can’t wait to come back.”

I looked to John Priest to see he’d
straightened and was watching us bicker with a vacant expression on
his face.

I kept talking, or more like snapping (but,
whatever).

“I’d ask for feedback but even the pizza
delivery places ask for feedback these days and it’s supremely
annoying. But I do hope you enjoy your visit enough to return yet
again, tell all your friends about us, and if you have anything of
note to share, complimentary or otherwise, I’m open to hearing
it.”

He held my gaze while I blathered and the
instant I was done speaking, he grunted, “Key.”

Mr. Personality.

I turned, snatched the key from Grant’s hand,
and handed it to John Priest.

In return he handed me several
one-hundred-dollar bills that I would find later were four of them,
saying, “We’re good,” meaning I got to keep the change.

Excellent.

“Have a lovely stay and remember!” I called
after him as he moved to leave and I shoved the money in my pocket.
“I’m always here should you need anything!”

I got a look over his shoulder from his
beautiful but fathomless eyes then he disappeared.

I walked to the door, slammed it, and whirled
on Grant.

“You have two days,” I declared. “Two days to
pack your stuff and get out.”

His head jerked, his face paled, and his lips
moved to clip, “You cannot be fuckin’ serious.”

“Deadly,” I whispered, my heart pumping, my
head hurting, part of my soul dying, but my mouth kept speaking. “I
loved you. I trusted you. I believed in you. I believed you
believed in me. You let me down. Then you did it again. And again.
And again. I’m done. I’m cutting my losses and moving on.”

“I got two years in with you,” he stated like
it was doing time in prison, not spending it with the woman he
loved.

“And I’ve got nine not-very-good months with
you,” I returned.

“You’d pick a bunch of cabins over me?” he
ground out.

And with that, I knew. I knew the worst thing
a woman could know about her man.

He didn’t get it.

And that was when that part of my soul
died.

And that hurt so bad, I had no choice but to
inform him of that fact.

“You don’t get it, Grant,” I said, suddenly
quiet, my voice sad, beaten, and he heard it. He felt it. I knew it
when I saw his body get tight. “It isn’t about the cabins. It’s
about sharing with you what I wanted out of life, you agreeing, us
taking life on together, and you deserting me. You were around but
you deserted me practically the minute we got here.”

He came toward me but I took a step back.

He stopped approaching and his voice was
quiet too, and cajoling. “Babe, life isn’t about work. I thought
we’d come up here and take on these cabins but do it havin’ a good
time.”

“We could have but we couldn’t do it the way
you wanted to do it, Grant. We didn’t have the money. And I’ll
repeat what I’ve been trying to get through to you for months, I
thought us working side by side would
be
a good time. Not
having drinks and laughing and getting frisky, that kind of good
time. But the building a life together kind of good time that led
to the other stuff that wouldn’t be good. It would be
better
than good
because we
earned
it.”

“You talk like your father,” he said and it
wasn’t entirely accusatory. It also wasn’t entirely
not
.

Then again, Grant had grown up in the town
where Obadiah Swallow was well-known and well-respected, because he
worked the ranch he inherited, which was a ranch his father had
inherited, and his before him, and he loved his family.

The first was hard work. The second was easy
but there weren’t many men like Dad who found it easy to let it
show like he did.

There were men who respected men like that
and showed it.

There were men, like Grant had hidden in the
beginning, but it came out more and more, who dated Obadiah
Swallow’s daughters and found the specter of a supremely loving
father and esteemed man a shadow it wasn’t easy to escape.

And I was learning the hard way that Grant’s
problem was that he didn’t get he didn’t have to escape it. He just
had to do whatever it was he needed to do in his own way to create
his umbrella of protection over Obadiah’s girl, making her
his
girl.

Thus he didn’t mean what he said as a
compliment. But I took it as one.

“That’s because I’m his daughter.”

And I was Obadiah’s daughter. I could have
been Grant’s woman. I wanted to be. I claimed him as my man and he
was apparently down with that.

He just didn’t claim me back.

Grant took in a breath before he stated, “I’m
not ready to throw in the towel, Cassidy.”

“And I’m not prepared to live the way we’ve
been living. If you kick in, we can work on us. If you keep on like
you’ve been keeping, Grant, I’ll show you the door.”

“An ultimatum,” he muttered, staring at
me.

“Yes, but a necessary one,” I replied
softly.

We stood there, neither of us moving, both of
us holding the other’s gaze.

Grant broke the silence, and when he did, I
experienced a resurrection.

“I’ll install those lights tomorrow.”

I felt my shoulders slump, such was the
relief, and Grant caught that too. I knew it when his face got soft
and he moved to me.

This time, I didn’t move away so I was right
there when he got there.

And when he got there, he wrapped his arms
around me. “Not sure what I’d do, wakin’ up and not seein’ those
eyes first thing.”

I loved that. I
loved
it.

That was my old Grant.

I leaned in to him and slid my arms around
him. “Not sure what I’d do, waking up and not having your arms
around me.”

He touched his nose to mine and murmured,
“Not been good of late, cuddlin’ my girl.”

He hadn’t. And that, maybe more than all the
rest, hurt.

“Missed that, darlin’,” I whispered.

I watched the look in his eyes change and he
whispered back, “I’ve missed a lot of things about you,
Cassidy.”

I leaned deeper in to him, tipping my head
back.

Grant pressed me in to the door and accepted
my invitation.

When he did, hope again filled my heart.

But I would find out in a variety of ways,
all of them hard, that was me. Time and again, not one of them
smart, I let hope fill my heart. And my head. And my gut. So much
hope, it leaked out my pores.

Yeah.

I did that.

All the time.

I was a loser that way.

Pie

“Yo!” a male voice shouted from the other
room.