by Shirley Jump
“Man, will you quit taking the blame for that?” Dan shook his head. “I smoked for twenty years, drank more than I should have, and burned the candle at both ends. Not because you made me work all those hours, Grady. Because I loved my job. I loved the thrill of not knowing what was coming around the corner. I loved watching you make decisions that I would have hemmed and hawed about for months.”
Grady scoffed. “I need to do more hemming and hawing.”
“No, you don’t. You focus on that one bad decision, but there were dozens of times I recommended that you hold back—times when you ignored me and ended up with terrific successes. Successes that made our business thrive. If you’d done everything I told you to from the start, we would have failed years ago. The world needs people like you, who show courage even in the worst of times.”
Grady spun back toward Dan. “How is losing everything I owned showing courage? Saddling the company with millions in debt. Laying off everyone. Stressing you out. That’s not courage. That’s idiocy.”
“I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree on that one.” Dan grinned. “When I was in the hospital, you told me that it wasn’t worth the adrenaline rush when there were such steep consequences. Grady, I’m telling you now that the adrenaline rush is what got me out of bed and back to work. If I wanted a boring job, I would have stayed at the financial services office you hired me away from.”
“But—”
“But nothing. You aren’t any more responsible for my heart attack than the grass is for a rain storm.” Dan shook his head. “It would have been easier to blame you, but the truth is, that’s all on me. Now, I’ve got to listen to my doctor’s advice and get some exercise, and quit having steak on Saturday nights.” Dan paused, sipped some water. A cloud passed over the sun, casting a wide shadow over the wedding for a moment. “There is one thing you could do for me, if you really wanted to make it up to me.”
“Anything.”
Dan spun in a slow half circle, and waved at the hill rolling down to the lake, the picture-perfect setting. “Buy a business in a place like this. It’s my idea of heaven. A place where life is slow, weather is sweet and there’s a little challenge to the days. You do that, and I’ll come back and work for you any day.”
“Wait...are you quitting?”
“Yep. And so should you.” Dan clapped him on the shoulder. “Quit feeling responsible for everyone else and quit looking at selling as failure. Look at it as closing one chapter and opening another.” Dan gave him a grin. “Anyway, I heard there’s some great lasagna over there. I’m going to try to sneak a bite before Cathy catches me. Oh, and look, here comes Mac. Right on time.”
Right on time? Grady was getting the distinct impression that he’d been set up. Dan’s grin widened as he left, having done his business matchmaking for the day.
“Congratulations.” Mac shook Grady’s hand. “I hear my wife had an offer on the house that she presented to you.”
“It was a fair bid, too. I was beginning to worry it wouldn’t sell.” Relief washed over Grady, but with a chaser of cold reality that this was it. He’d done what he’d come to do, so his time in Stone Gap was nearing an end. Which meant he needed to get back to New York, and leave this town behind. “Dan says you’re looking for a partner in your business.”
Grady might be a man who was looking to leave Stone Gap behind...but there was no harm in hearing Mac out, was there?
“Thinking about it,” he said. “It was my wife’s father’s company, and I don’t want to completely sell it, but I also want more time to spend with my family. I was thinking it would be a good fit for you.” Across the yard, Savannah waved at Mac, beckoning for him to join her. He held up one finger, then turned back to Grady. “I hear you’re smart as hell, and you’re a risk taker, like me. And now that you’re married to Beth, I assume you’ll be settling down in Stone Gap?”
Grady couldn’t say he was leaving for New York as soon as he could. There’d be questions if the groom ditched the bride too quickly, and the last thing he or Beth needed was those. It would get back to Reggie and all that they had done would be ruined. “We...we haven’t decided on that yet.”
“Well, stop on by the office on Monday and see what you think.” Mac shook hands with him again. “I think it would be a great partnership. I don’t know about you, but I’m always up for a new challenge.”
Mac said goodbye, then crossed the lawn to Savannah. Her face lit as her husband approached, then her joy spread as he leaned in and kissed her. He placed a gentle hand on her back, whispered something in her ear, and the couple exchanged a private smile that seemed to shut out the entire world.
A part of Grady felt indescribable envy. As Mac and Savannah headed up to their car, he took her hand. She smiled and leaned into his shoulder. They were going to go home together, relieve their babysitter, then sit out on the porch and enjoy the last bits of sunshine together.
As for Grady and Beth, the “newlyweds”? They were going to keep up the charade until Reggie went home to his own house, then slip off to their separate homes and separate lives. A marriage in name only that would be over in less time than it took to binge Game of Thrones.
Grady crossed to the table where Reggie was sitting. His father-in-law was watching the people on the makeshift dance floor, a happy smile on his face. “Can I get you anything, Mr. Cooper?”
“Call me Dad, Grady. We’re family now.” Reggie reached out and clasped his hand. “I couldn’t ask for a better man to be my son-in-law.”
Guilt weighed heavy in Grady’s gut. What would Reggie think about him if he knew the truth? If he found out the entire thing was an act, albeit one done out of good intentions? “Thank you, D-Dad.” The word stumbled on his tongue. But as soon as he said it, Grady realized Reggie was more of a father figure than his own father had ever been. In the week that Reggie had been living in Ida Mae’s house, Grady had enjoyed dozens of conversations with the retired boxer. Reggie had been all over the world, and had hundreds of great stories, but he also had a sort of practical wisdom that he shared without judgment or condescension.
“I’ve seen the way you look at my daughter,” Reggie said. “It’s so nice to see her with someone who adores her.”
Grady’s gaze flicked to Beth, who was talking to Cutler Shay. Or rather, Cutler was talking to her, pouring out some long story that had her laughing. Adored her?
Yeah, he did. He hadn’t been lying when he’d said he was falling in love with her. Beth Cooper—Beth Jackson now—was an incredible woman who intrigued him and challenged him and lingered at the edge of his every thought. A woman it was going to be hard as hell to forget. For a moment, he let himself fantasize that she’d change her mind about coming to New York with him. Then he glanced at her frail father, and knew that was a long shot.
“I do care deeply about her,” he said to Reggie. “But then again, she’s pretty easy to adore.”
Reggie patted the seat next to him and waited for Grady to sit. “Take some lessons from an old man who has screwed up his life,” he said, “and don’t take her for granted. Women like Beth—and her mother—don’t come along very often. I made the mistake of abandoning my wife within a month of our wedding. I had stars in my eyes, and I was looking at what was ahead of me, instead of valuing what was right by my side. I left her alone, and I...” He let out a long sigh. “I broke her heart. Worse, I broke her trust. She couldn’t depend on me to be there when I said I was going to, and every time a man does that to his wife, it puts a crack in the foundation of their marriage. A house like this one—” he waved toward the inn “—or one like your grandmother’s can withstand a single crack in the foundation. It’s strong, it’s been here a long time, weathered a lot of storms. Two cracks, maybe even three, and it would still be standing. But every one of them weakens the base, and if the number goes up, then eventually it will be one crack too many.”<
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“And the house will fall.”
Reggie nodded. “It’s the same with your marriage. All those little things—the trips away, the arguments over breakfast, the days where you forget to say ‘I love you’—form cracks in the foundation, and before you know it, you don’t have anything left to stand on. You wake up one morning and realize you are married to a stranger.”
Reggie had no idea how true that statement already was. “I’ll keep that advice in mind.”
“It’s too late for me to do it right for myself, but I’m not going to waste a chance to make my daughter’s life happier. So forgive an old man’s advice, and know it comes from having been there and screwed that up.”
“I appreciate it, Dad, I really do.” Grady folded and refolded the linen napkin on the table. “My own father has never been one to give me advice. He was too busy judging me and my brothers, and lecturing us about getting into Ivy League schools and becoming lawyers.”
“Not all of us are meant to be fathers. And some of us figure out how to be parents way too late.” Reggie sighed. “Anyway, I’m keeping you from your bride. Go take her for a spin on the dance floor. Bethie loves to dance.”
Yet another thing Grady didn’t know about his wife. But as he caught her eye across the crowd, he vowed to find out as much as he could in the little time they had together. When he went back to New York, he hoped that would be enough to get him through being there without Beth.
Chapter Ten
The last of the guests left the wedding in a flurry of hugs and good wishes. Jack Barlow offered to drive Beth’s father home, so that Grady and Beth could get to their wedding night sooner, Reggie said with a grin. He was clearly thrilled with the wedding, and had spent the entire day energized and overjoyed. Every moment had been a celebration. Everyone who wished them well believed the couple was head over heels in love, and anxious to begin their new life together.
Beth was anxious, all right, but that anxiety was about what was to happen after this. She and Grady were now alone at Ida Mae’s house, with an exhausted-by-staying-at-the-pet-sitter’s Monster sleeping in the corner of the kitchen. Beth turned on a streaming service, choosing some Michael Bublé songs to play on her phone speaker, then put on an apron over her wedding dress, started the water, and began to wash the few dishes left in the sink—breakfast dishes they’d been too rushed to take care of before heading to the inn.
Grady came in from taking the trash out and slipped into place beside her. He’d taken off his suit jacket and tie, and undone the top two buttons of his shirt. He flipped the cuffs up, and it was all Beth could do not to stare at the fine definition in his hands and the way his forearms flexed as he picked up the dishes and dried them.
“So, small talk seems pretty inappropriate now,” he said.
Beth laughed. “Yes, indeed. I don’t even know what one talks about when they’ve married someone in name only.”
“Probably not how you want your eggs in the morning.” He grinned.
She turned off the water and accepted the towel from him to dry her hands. For a second, she imagined herself waking up in his arms, with his smile the first thing she saw. “If this was real, I’d say scrambled with cheese and home fries.”
“Sunny-side up, medium, with wheat toast for me.”
“See? Not even close to the same breakfast.” Beth wagged the towel in his direction. “That’s exactly why we never would have worked out.”
She tried to pass the words off as a joke, but underneath, her heart was cracking. Tomorrow was Monday—the first day of her married life, and also the day when her husband would get on a plane to move hundreds of miles away. And she’d be alone in her little house.
“I’m not so sure about that,” Grady said as he placed the last dish in the cabinet. “You don’t think we could have worked?”
At some point, he’d moved closer to her and now stood only inches away. Her gaze dropped to his hands again, those incredible muscular hands, then back up to his face. His brown eyes held hers, and a breath filled the space between them, then another.
“We live different lives in different places,” she said.
“People do that all the time and still hold a relationship together.” He placed a hand on the counter, shifted his body toward hers. “We could try that.”
“New York and North Carolina are very far apart, Grady.”
“They are. But we aren’t right now.” He leaned in, close enough for his lips to touch hers. Heat curled between them, awakening the desire that lingered on the edge of every conversation she had with him. “Mrs. Jackson.”
The name sent a tangle of fear and joy through her. Mrs. Jackson. Grady’s wife. This man, only a millimeter away and making her pulse hum, was her husband, for better or worse.
“We are quite close together at this moment.” Her words were whispered against his mouth. Every breath inhaled the dark, woodsy scent of his cologne, the warmth of his nearness.
“We are. Quite—” he kissed her lightly, easily “—close.”
Desire simmered inside her. She reached out and danced her fingers up his bare wrist, then tangled her hand with his. Their foreheads met, and Grady put his other arm around her just as the radio shifted to a love song. They began to sway to the music. The move was so intimate, so romantic, that the last little bit of reservation Beth had about getting close to Grady began to melt. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to be swept into the moment, the fantasy of being Mrs. Grady Jackson.
They were married right now, after all. What was wrong with enjoying a single night with her “husband”? Was she really going to leave here, go back to her empty cottage and spend her wedding night alone?
As if he had read her mind, Grady kissed her then, not a friendship kiss, not a just-met kiss, but the kiss of a man who wanted to make love to her, a man who desired her. And no matter how much she had tried to resist it, deny the feelings, pretend she thought of him only platonically, the truth was Beth’s entire body craved Grady’s touch. Ever since that late night in the kitchen, she’d thought about him, fantasized about him, sought out ways to be near him or brush up against him.
He’d looked at her as he spoke his vows earlier today with a depth of feeling in his eyes that shook her. I’m falling in love with you, he’d said the other day, and the proof had been right there at their wedding, when he’d promised to love her until the day he died.
“Grady,” she said, and when his gaze met hers, she saw that nothing had changed. He still had that look in his eyes. She’d worry about the distance and the complications in the morning. “I... I don’t want to go home tonight.”
“Then don’t. Stay with me.” He rested his hands on her waist. “Let’s have just one night before we go back to scrambled eggs in North Carolina and sunny-side up in New York.”
She nodded, because she didn’t trust her voice, and he took the towel from her hands, laid it on the counter, then scooped her up. She let out a gasp of surprise, wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her cheek to the hollow of his throat, where she could catch the combined scents of his cologne and the fresh starch in his shirt, warmth and restraint in one. He carried her out of the kitchen, up the stairs, then into the room on the left. His bedroom.
A queen-size bed dominated the space. She barely noticed the striped comforter or the view of the side yard, before Grady lowered her to the bed and lay beside her. She’d expected him to just go straight from kissing to sex, but instead he propped himself up on one elbow and brushed a tendril of hair off her cheek. The tenderness in that simple gesture melted her heart a little more. “You are an incredible woman, Beth. I should have asked you out in high school.”
She laughed, but had to admit she was flattered, and wondered how things would have been different if Grady actually had asked her on a date years ago. “I probably would have said no then, too. My life was too b
usy for boys. It still is.”
“Yet you’ve managed to fit me in.”
“You kind of forced your way into my space.” She smiled up at him. “Like your dog did to you.”
“I want you to know that this isn’t a one-night stand for me.” He traced her face with a finger, and held her gaze. “I don’t know what will happen tomorrow when I go back to New York, or what I’ll do with Monster, or most of all, how we’ll make this work in the future, but I don’t want this to be it.”
The thought filled her with joy, tempered with a dose of reality, but Beth pushed both out of her mind. She had this moment in bed with her husband. And right now, that was all she wanted to think about. “Tonight, Grady, that’s all I want and need.”
Grady leaned over and kissed her again, soft at first, then harder, deeper, stoking the fire inside her until she couldn’t stand not touching him for another second. She fumbled between them to unbutton his shirt, then tug it over his shoulders and off. His broad back was warm under her hands, his muscular chest hard against hers. She could have stayed there forever, running her palms over his skin, but he rolled away, then tugged her into a standing position and moved behind her.
He lifted the hair from her neck and kissed the tender valley there while his hands roamed over her shoulders, skating along the V opening at the back of her dress, until he found the zipper. He hesitated for a second and she stood very, very still, her heart racing. “Grady,” she whispered, “please.”
The zipper made a soft snicking sound as it slid down her spine. Cool air rushed over her bare skin, as the satiny wedding dress parted and slid to the floor.
“You are beautiful, Beth,” Grady whispered against her back. He hooked a finger under each of her bra straps, then slid the lacy fabric down her shoulders, unhooking the bra as he did. She leaned forward, and it dropped to the floor. Grady kissed a trail down the ridge of her spine, while his hands slid deliciously lower along her back with each kiss. “Absolutely beautiful.”