by L. D. Davis
I shook my head and bit the inside of my lip to keep myself from smiling.
“You’re going to cut off a finger,” I admonished as I watched him try to dance and slice the apples at the same time.
He didn’t stop singing, but he put the knife down and danced his way around the peninsula and took my hand into his, singing his stupid heart out. I refused to come off of my stool, but Grant wasn’t having any of it. I let out a yelp of surprise when he suddenly swept me off of the stool as if I weighed nothing, and put me gently on my feet.
I tried to pull away from him, but he managed to spin me around instead. My body was stiff and unyielding at first. He held my hands, dancing and trying to coerce me to dance as well as he continued. I rolled my eyes and again attempted to pull away, but he put an arm around my waist and proceeded to lead me across the hardwood floor.
It was a mess. I stepped on his feet, he stepped on mine, and more than once we almost went down. There was a vibration rumbling through my chest and an unusual sound rolling out of my mouth. I was laughing, truly laughing. Genuine, happy laughter was a rare occurrence in my life.
When I realized it, I wanted to clamp a hand over my mouth and make it stop. I wanted to yank myself out of Grant’s embrace and scream at him not to touch me. I didn’t want him to see me like that, believing that my life was the kind of life where such laughter came easily. I wanted to hold on to my pain and resentment, but I couldn’t do it.
My hand trembled in his. I felt the weight of his other hand on my hip. My heart pounded so hard that it ached and I couldn’t meet his eyes. Me, the woman who could stare down Death itself, but I couldn’t look Grant Alexander in the eyes.
As his exuberance decreased, his hand on my hip pulled me closer. His singing voice grew soft until he was almost whispering the lyrics. Our dancing slowed, even though the upbeat tempo of the song hadn’t changed. I closed my eyes as we danced in place and Grant whispered for me not to worry about a thing close to my ear. He felt so familiar to me, yet oddly foreign.
When the song ended and another began, we stopped moving and he fell silent. We were so close that I could feel his chest rising and falling too quickly, like mine. I opened my eyes, and the spell broke. I blinked rapidly a few times and hastily took a few steps back, forcing his hands to drop away from me.
With great effort, I forced another smile and put a hand on my hip before meeting his eyes. I ignored the desire I saw there.
“I thought you were going to feed me.”
For a moment, he only continued to stare at me. Then he smiled and nodded once.
“Right. Have a seat.”
He turned around and went back to the kitchen. With his back briefly turned, I was able to let my smile slip for a few seconds and pull myself together before returning to my stool.
“You didn’t used to dance,” I found myself saying as he went back to his knife work.
“And you did used to dance.” He gave me a quick, curious glance before sliding the apple slices off the cutting board into a pan. “My kids changed me, I guess. Especially, Nat. She loves music and dancing and she loves when Daddy dances with her.”
We had never discussed children when we were together, but it felt very surreal to hear him refer to himself as “daddy.” I told myself that I didn’t want to know anything more about his kids because it really didn’t matter. We were just having lunch, and that was it. We had already gone too far with the stupid dancing. There would be no more. By the end of the meal, curiosity about me and my life would be sated.
Despite what I told myself, however, the question tumbled out of my mouth anyway.
“How old are they?”
Grant didn’t look away from what he was doing, but tension I didn’t even realize he had been carrying seemed to ease in his shoulders and neck as if he were relieved.
“Alex is almost eleven and Natalie is four. They’re good kids, most of the time.” His smile was proud and made warmth flood my chest. It was the same kind of smile my dad used to have for me when I was a little girl.
Brushing that thought away, I changed gears.
“Where do you work?”
Grant’s eyes met mine briefly, but he didn’t comment on my sudden change in topic.
“I have my own business.”
“Grant Alexander’s Stealthy Stalking Services?” I asked with a sardonic smile.
As he put pork chops in the pan with the apples, he smiled. “Almost. G.A. Recovery.”
“What exactly do you recover? Cars? Boats? Dignities?”
“People,” he said as he turned to get something from the fridge.
I looked at him blankly.
“People?”
“Fugitive recovery,” he clarified.
My eyes widened. “Seriously? Like that Dogg guy in Hawaii?”
Grant scowled. “Don’t ever compare me to that guy. Shows like that make the job seem fun.”
“Oh? It’s not fun?”
“It’s serious,” he said solemnly.
“Oh,” I responded with just as much solemnity. I took a long sip of my wine before speaking again. “The fun stuff must come in at the part when you use your professional resources to look up your ex.”
He gave me a sour look, but I just shrugged.
“Who watches your kids while you’re working?”
“My mother takes care of them if I have to work over the weekend, but I have a nanny come in during the week.”
He didn’t mention the children’s mother having any part in their care, and I had to wonder why. Did she still live in Texas? Or was she a deadbeat mother? Hell, maybe he fell in love with another hopeless woman and she was strung out on drugs somewhere.
I wasn’t going to ask about her. It wasn’t any of my business, but then again, Grant studied my habits in secret for three weeks. He probably knew what time I ate, when I ate, how long it took to digest, and when it made its exit. At least I would be asking him directly and not slinking around in the shadows like a creep.
“Are they with their mother right now?” I asked innocently.
Grant’s whole face changed, and it didn’t change. If I didn’t know every inch of his face by sight and touch, I might have never realized the change. He didn’t smile or frown or blink too quickly, but the muscles in his handsome face seemed to harden. He even moved a little stiffly as he put a pot of water on to boil.
His reply was quiet and he didn’t look at me. “No. She’s dead. Shyanne died two years ago.”
My heart twisted at that. Grant had already lost a sister to death and had almost lost me—not that I actually counted. I sincerely felt terrible for him, but I felt even worse for his kids.
I was much older when my dad died, and it was the worst emotional pain I had ever felt. I couldn’t even imagine how Alex felt to lose his mom at the age of eight. Nat probably had some memories of her mom, just enough to make her feel sad.
I felt like a douche puddle once again. Grant had tried to tell me about Shyanne and I kept blowing him off. It probably would have been easier for him to tell me in his own way instead of me forcing it out of him.
“We weren’t together when she passed,” Grant said when my mouth failed to make words. He retrieved a bottle of brandy from a cabinet. I thought he was going to start drinking it, but he left it unopened on the counter as he went back to work and continued with his tale.
“We divorced when Nat was only about eighteen months old, but we were better friends than spouses. There were no hard feelings between us. Once a month we met for lunch or dinner and caught up. Most of the time we just talked about Alex and Natalie, but sometimes we talked about other things. Shy was…she was a good woman, she just wasn’t the woman for me and I wasn’t the man for her.”
Grant looked up at me then, with a sad smile.
“This isn’t light conversation,” he said, opening the bottle of brandy.
I warily eyed the bottle in his hand.
“We haven’t had a light
conversation since you skipped back into my world. What are you about to do with that bottle of brandy?”
He looked at me like it should have been obvious. “Flambé.”
Ruefully, I asked, “Have you ever done it before?”
“Are you questioning my mad cooking skills?”
“You’re a fugitive recovery agent, not a chef.”
“Baby, I am a multi-talented man,” he said, his voice dipping low and suggestively.
“Yeah, and you’re a hot man, but that does not mean you have to be on fire. Not literally.”
Grant winked at me and gave me a big grin that made my toes curl just a little bit.
“Trust me, Baby Girl.”
He poured the brandy into the pan.
Chapter Nine
“It’s not that funny.” Grant’s deep voice sounded pouty and his eyes were narrowed at me, but I saw the beginning of a smile on his face.
Laughing hard, I was barely able to speak. “I haven’t laughed this much in years.”
Earlier, Grant had poured the brandy into the pan. After giving me another over-confident wink, he’d picked up a long lighter and clicked it on. Instantly, flames had shot up out of the pan. Not just some little flames fit for flambé, either. They were flames on a mission of destruction.
I had watched with horror as Grant, in his haste to contain the fire, spilled the bottle of brandy on the countertop. It only took one tiny spark from the pan to set the countertop on fire.
“Motherfucker!” he had shouted. When he saw that I was still sitting on my stool inches from the flames, he’d yelled, “Mayson, get the hell up!”
I didn’t. I’d pushed my stool away from the heat and flames, but I didn’t get up. I found the scene before me mesmerizing. Grant tried to put a lid on the fire in the pan, but the flames were too high and he’d only succeeded in singeing his arm hair. Looking slightly panicked, he’d spun around and raced for the pantry. He disappeared inside for a moment before rushing out with an industrial size bag of baking soda.
Dumbly, I had wondered why anyone would need that much baking soda.
He’d torn the bag open and had begun to frantically toss the baking soda at the fires. The white powdery substance flew in all directions—including on me, but after several seemingly long seconds the flames shrunk and sputtered out altogether.
He’d inhaled deeply on what would have been an epic sigh of relief but, belatedly, a fire sprinkler abruptly burst to life. He and the burnt peninsula were suddenly sprayed with water as a robotic voice announced that there was a fire.
He had been in such a state of shock that he stood frozen, and with his mouth gaping open like a fish. Water slid through his hair and down his face. His white T-shirt was plastered to his body—which was a total win from my point of view.
After at least a full minute, the sprinkler had shut off and the robotic voice went away as well. Grant had stood there, breathing like a rabid bear and seething with fury as his hands opened and closed into fists.
He’d taken two steps. I distinctly heard the squishing sound his feet made inside his shoes. That was when my stunned horror abruptly left town and I’d lost all my composure. I’d laughed so hard that I had slipped off the stool and ended up on my knees on a damp floor, bent over in hysterics.
“I’m so glad to have amused you,” he’d growled as he splashed around the kitchen.
After several minutes of laughter, I’d slowly stood up so I could go help him with the cleanup. I hadn’t thought to take my sandals off first, though. I’d taken only three steps into the kitchen when I began to slip on the tiled floor. Grant tried to catch me, but he’d slipped as well and crashed into me. I’d let out a shriek of shock and we both went down hard on the floor with a splash. I’d landed flat on my back and Grant had landed on his stomach partially on top of me.
I’d stared up at the high ceiling, stunned. An old Mariah Carey song was playing, and the drains built into the floor had gurgled loudly as water passed through the grates.
“Are you okay?” Grant had asked. His fingers had gently held my face with concern. “Mayson?”
My ass, my back, and the back of my head had throbbed from the impact, but instead of telling him any of that, I’d begun to laugh again. I’d laughed so hard that I had to take in wheezing gulps of air to breathe. Grant hadn’t been amused. He’d finally let out his epic sigh and dropped his head on my shoulder.
More than two hours after the Flambé Fail, I still occasionally and spontaneously snorted with amusement. I had helped him clean up the mess, but I’d giggled almost the entire time. I didn’t even care that all my clothes were wet and I had to borrow a shirt and a pair of lounge pants from Grant.
In the end, we made the most risk-free meal we could without the danger of fire: peanut butter sandwiches with glasses of milk. We carried the five-star meals to the couch in the family area and sat side by side.
“Trust me, Baby Girl! I’m a man!” I said in a mocking, deep timber and then snickered.
Grant rolled his eyes over to me.
“You know you could have helped me out. Instead, you just sat there on your throne like the only job you had was to be beautiful,” he said in an accusing tone.
“You mean that wasn’t my only job?” I blinked innocently at him.
“Well, if it was your only job, you did it well.”
I snorted. “Yeah, my old track marks are so beautiful.”
I held out my arms and looked at the scars that refused to fade away. I used to have many more, and most of them were barely visible, but there were some that just refused to let me forget.
Grant gently wrapped one big hand around one wrist. I, for once, ignored my initial reaction to pull away. I held very still as his fingers lightly explored the old track marks on my arm.
He spoke so softly if I hadn’t been sitting right beside him, I wouldn’t have heard him. “Battle scars. You should wear them proudly.”
I watched his fingers as they stroked my skin. My heartbeat was slow, but hard. Tiny tendrils of static danced up and down my spine.
I matched his soft tone. “I’ve only won a few battles. I’m still fighting the war.”
With those words, I admitted to him that I still struggled with my addiction. What would a man with children want with a woman who struggled with addiction? That was why he’d left me in the first place, and it would be why he would finally give up on me and exit my life again.
I gasped and my eyes snapped up to meet his when I felt his lips on one of my bigger scars.
“At least you are fighting.”
He released his hold on my wrist, but then carefully folded his hand over mine. With his other hand, he pushed a slightly damp spiraled curl of hair off my face. I should have known what was about to happen by the way he touched me and how close he sat to me, but I was still surprised when he cupped the back of my neck, leaned forward, and lightly kissed my lips.
I did not move. I couldn’t move. I was paralyzed as Grant’s full, soft lips pressed against mine. If he wanted to deepen the kiss and taste me with his tongue, I would have been helpless to stop him. He drew back a few inches and looked into my eyes. He appeared to be just as surprised as I was.
“I wasn’t expecting that,” he said as if I was the one that had kissed him.
“Me neither,” I whispered. “I was just expecting lunch…which I still haven’t had.”
Our sandwiches remained on the coffee table, untouched.
Grant smiled apologetically. “I promise you that I’m not trying to starve you.”
“I am having a difficult time believing it.”
His smile melted away and he gave me a stern look as if he were about to give me a lecture. “I’m going to kiss you once more. Then you can eat the elegant meal I’ve prepared for you.”
“Any meal that leaves me with a milk mustache and my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth is an elegant meal indeed. I’ve eaten at El Celler de Can Roca in Spain and Eleven Mad
ison Park in New York, two of the best restaurants in the world, but the lunch you’ve made for me beats all.”
He nodded. “I put my heart and soul into the making of each sandwich, and the pouring of each glass of milk.”
“I can’t wait to appreciate your hard work.”
My whole body trembled, and I could do nothing to stop it. I knew I should get up and out of his reach, but I couldn’t make my legs move more than a few twitches. I couldn’t raise my hand to his chest to push him away, and I couldn’t find the words to throw at him to dissuade him. I wanted him to back off and…I wanted him closer.
Grant used to be my comforter, the source of my smiles and laughter, and home for my heart. He had also been my lover, the man who had set my blood on fire with his touch and kiss, the man who had scorched me deep and always left me pleading for more.
He was also the man that had left me and started a new family with someone else. Introspectively speaking, I understood why he had gone, and it made sense that he found someone else to love. However, from an emotional and completely irrational standpoint, I hated him for it. He was the last person that I expected to give up on me, but he did. He had given up on me and dropped me hard. It had taken years before the sensation of freefalling eased.
I was still furious with Grant and felt a deep hatred for him. At the same time, I wanted to curl into him and tell him everything that had happened after he’d left. I wanted him to comfort me and to fight for me. I wanted that old sensation of his big hands on my bare back, my cheek on his chest, and the feeling of security I hadn’t had for thirteen long years.
As much as I wanted to believe that I’d changed enough for him not to know me at all, I knew he knew me better than anyone still. I was convinced of that by the way he was gazing at me. He knew I was conflicted, and while he probably couldn’t pinpoint every reason why, I had no doubt that he understood a lot.