by D. L. Roan
“You won’t believe it,” Matt said as Grey backed his truck out of the angled parking slot and pulled onto Main Street. “Damn heifer was cut up worse than a butchered catfish.” Matt’s fists tightened and he struck out at the truck’s dashboard. “Damn that bastard!”
“Who? Grunion? Was he there?” Mason knew they had been picked up at Grunion’s ranch after checking out the downed heifer at Logan’s Bluff, but he had no idea why they’d gone there in the first place.
Grey shook his head in disgust. “No one was there but the dead heifer.” Sending a sideways glance at Matt he said, “I tried to stop his crazy ass from riding over to the Grunion’s, but he was gone before I could mount up and catch him.”
“Again,” Mason growled. “What the fuck happened up there?”
“We spotted the downed line of fence before we spotted the heifer,” Grey snarled, still focused on the road ahead of them as they made their way through town. “When we saw the cuts on her we thought, at first, she’d gotten tangled up in the razor wire. When we got close enough to dismount, I almost lost my lunch. She was mutilated, Mace!” Grey pounded his fists on the steering wheel. “Her throat was cut and she’d bled out, but not before they carved up her flanks. Some bastard carved the word ‘mine’ into her hide like some sick message.”
“What the—? Grunion carved her up? How do you know it was him?” Mason pushed at Matt’s shoulder for an answer. “Did you see him, or any of his men there?”
Matt shook his head. “Didn’t need to see em’. It was Grunion, or his crooked cowhands. You can bet the farm he ordered it done. He wanted that stallion. He wants Falcon Ridge, too. Always has. I know he cut Bernie up, too.”
“He’s bitter,” Grey said, “but he wouldn’t do this. This was sick. You saw the look of surprise in his eyes when you flew off your horse and decked him. Speaking of which, have you completely lost your fucking mind? Pull that shit again and you won’t have to bet the farm. With his greedy lawyers, he’ll own Falcon Ridge for sure if you keep that shit up.”
“Sheriff says Dirk’s going to file trespassing charges.” Mason didn’t like old man Grunion. He’d never been one to latch onto an emotion as destructive as hatred, but he hated Tom Grunion’s son, Dirk. They were a bigoted and a cold-hearted bunch, but surely they wouldn’t resort to butchering their cattle and slaying their pets.
“He, or any of his fuckin’ family or cowhands show their coward-ass faces on our land again, I’ll show em’ trespassin’ charges. Dead men can’t file charges.” Matt made to punch at the truck’s dash again but pulled the punch at the last minute.
“Goddammit, Matt!” Grey growled. “This isn’t the wild west. You can’t go around threatening to kill people.”
“Who’s threatenin’?” Matt scoffed.
“The Sheriff will have a team up there at first light to take a look. Let the law handle this.” Grey had other things on his mind besides keeping his hot-tempered brother from getting his hands on a Grunion, even if they did deserve it.
“Where we goin’?” Matt asked as Grey turned onto one of the dark side streets before they reached the end of Main Street.
“We’re going to get Claira,” Grey said as he turned onto one street after another, weaving his way through the older community until he pulled onto the small lane where Claira lived.
“It’s after midnight!” Mason said, pulling himself to the edge of the back seat to peer out the windshield. “She has to work tomorrow, Grey. You can’t just show up at her door in the middle of the night and drag her out of her house like a freaking cave man. You’ll push her too far!”
The truck slowed to a quiet stop when they came to Claira’s little house.
“Grey?” Matt questioned when he threw the gearshift into park and opened his door.
“Come pick me up in the morning when you bring the boys to school,” Grey said as he left the keys in the ignition and loped through the dew-covered grass of Claira’s front lawn and disappeared into the darkness as he headed around back.
“What do you think he’s doin’?” Matt asked as he slid into the driver’s seat and stared after Grey.
Mason watched his big brother disappear, his heart swelling to life with what he felt and saw happening to Grey. With a weary smile on his face, he swung his legs over the center console and plopped down into the passenger seat, clicking his seat belt into place. “He’s protecting our woman,” he nodded as Matt slowly pulled away. “Let’s go get our boys and go home.”
“I have to meet up with the Sheriff first thing, and we have a lot of fence to fix. Can you take the boys in tomorrow and pick up Grey?” Matt asked.
“You bet. I’ll take any excuse to see Claira again.” Mason was already feeling her absence, even if it had only been a few hours. In a way, Grey was right. She belonged at Falcon Ridge, with all of them. She just didn’t know it yet.
~*~*~*~*~
Raising his head, Grant Kendal cautiously peered through the windshield. He ducked again before the red glow of the truck’s brake lights illuminated the inside of his non-descript sedan. When the crimson glow dispersed, he straightened slowly and watched as the McLendon’s truck disappeared around the corner.
He’d been a little surprised when they pulled up and stopped right in front of him. There were a few other cars parked on the otherwise quiet street, but it would have been more than suspicious if they’d seen him sitting there in the middle of the night, only a few yards from Miss Robbins’s house.
From his hidden position inside the car, he watched as the older of the McLendon brothers exited the vehicle and crept into the darkness toward her house. He was confident they hadn’t seen him, nor had they been suspicious of his car. He shook his head in disgust. People could be so ignorant of their surroundings. He wasn’t complaining. It only made his job easier.
Two subtle movements on either side of the street caught Grant’s attention. Within a millisecond, he dismissed the prowling tabby and zeroed in on the dark form that approached the front steps of his mark’s home. Motionless, he watched as Grey McLendon took a seat in one of the two rockers on the front porch, the glow from the overhead light falling across his rugged features.
“Looks like Miss Robbins has her own private security detail,” he mumbled to himself as he settled back into his reclined seat and watched Grey McLendon do the same in the rocker.
Unable to start the car and pull away without attracting unwanted attention, he resigned to get comfortable for the next few hours, glad that he’d just taken a piss when the McLendon brothers pulled up.
He wondered again why he’d taken this job in the first place. Goddamn his mentor for calling in that last chit. Grant owed him one, so he’d damn sure pay up, but he sure as hell didn’t have to like it.
He cringed at the word owe; hated the meaning of it even more. Thank fuck this was the last favor he owed anyone. He’d sworn off private contracts a long time ago. Hell, he was tired of the legit ones, too, truth be known. He was tired, period.
He had enough money to buy his own private island and retire in comfortable silence, not a soul around he’d have to talk to and placate with fairy tales of what they thought real life was.
In his line of work, he’d found that most people cocooned themselves in white picket fences and golden retrievers. They lived in total denial of what a shithole the world around them had become. None of them knew how the world really worked, nor did they care as long as people like him didn’t knock on their door.
His fists tightened and relaxed repeatedly. He needed a break. That was exactly what he intended to do when this clusterfuck was over. He’d pick one of his many aliases, start over one final time, away from all the gore and bullshit. He wasn’t sure there was much humanity left inside him, but if there was, he needed to find it quick before the darkness swallowed him whole.
Chapter Nineteen
Claira’s heart jumped out of her chest when she stepped out into the pre-dawn air and saw a dark figu
re out of the corner of her eye. As she turned to run, she caught the familiar profile, a startled squeak her first reaction. “Mr. McLendon? What...what are you doing here?”
Grey pried his numb and aching body from the miniature torture rack he’d all but slept in for the last five hours and met Clara’s startled gaze. “We need to talk. And call me Grey.”
“How long have you been out here?” Claira glanced out at her driveway, her brow furrowing in confusion when she didn’t see any of the McLendon’s trucks parked in her driveway. “How did you get here?”
Grey pulled off his Stetson and turned it in his hands a few times before he scrubbed a hand over his stubble-covered jaw and motioned to the door she still held half ajar. “Got any coffee?”
She tried to ignore the butterflies that had replaced the nauseating panic knotting her stomach. He was so ruggedly handsome, even when he was half asleep on his feet. His dark hair was mussed, his green eyes languid and unfocused, his movements slow and a little stiff. He was adorable, like a big, grumpy teddy bear.
If she could only find out why he was here, she might feel a little sorry for him. In his disheveled state he wasn’t near as intimidating. She almost felt comfortable enough to tease him. Almost.
“No, I’m sorry.” She shook her head and closed the door behind her. “The coffee maker is broken. I haven’t had time to get a new one since...” She paused, her cheeks reddening with the thought of what she’d put them through the past weekend. What she’d done with his brothers. What is he doing here?
“Do you always leave this early for work?” Grey asked, his hat still clutched in his hand.
“No. I...It was late when Mason dropped me off. I haven’t done any lesson plans for the week so I’m going in early to catch up.”
“Look, Claira,” Grey’s voice came out a little scratchy after sitting in the night air for the past few hours. He cleared his throat, stalling a little longer. Now that he’d had time to calm down, asking Claira to come home with him was a little more difficult than he’d expected.
He was still adamant about her not staying there alone, but common sense had won out over anger sometime during the night. He knew he couldn’t force her to go. God, how did he talk to her? It had been a long time since he’d been interested in a woman, much less asked one out for coffee. He’d never had those awkward dating moments with Sarah.
He watched as she turned the key, locking the two deadbolts, and then cleared his throat again. “Can we go get some coffee?”
Claira studied him for a moment, long enough to make him feel like an ass. “Grey? Why are you here?”
“As I said, we need to talk.” Grey shoved a hand through his mass of unruly hair. When he caught her staring, he shoved his hat back onto his head. “It’s about what happened Saturday and I’d like for us to be coherent and sitting down when we talk about it.”
He watched as her blush raced from her cheeks to cover her neck. He couldn’t help but wonder how much more of her was turning the same shade of tempting pink. It was too early to get a hard-on that he had no hope of remedying any time soon.
“It was a misunderstanding, Mr. McLen—”
“Grey,” he reminded her.
“Grey,” she stammered. “I’m sorry I intruded on your family, with your brothers. I...It won’t happen again. I was just...I shouldn’t have gotten involved with my students’ parents and I—”
“Miss Robbins. Claira. Will you just shut up and listen for a minute?”
Whatever she was about to say was derailed by his testy rebuke. Grey grumbled a curse as he took a stride toward her. When she tensed and flinched he paused. “I’m sorry. I’ve normally had half a dozen cups of coffee before now. I’m a little grouchy and beat up from the long ride out to the ridge yesterday. My ass is numb from sitting in that torture rack you call a rocking chair and I’ve got one hell of a headache. I didn’t mean to startle or upset you.”
“A little grouchy?” Claira arched a brow and watched as he struggled to rein in his obvious inner grump.
“Please, can we go grab a fresh cup at the diner on Main? I’ll pay and promise not to growl at you again if you’ll just get me there.”
Claira giggled and, before she could come up with a reason not to, she’d nodded her agreement. Grey grabbed her keys from her hand and hastily urged her down the front steps to her car. “I’ll drive.” He said as he opened her door and waited for her to get in.
“But—”
He ignored her protest and nudged her into the passenger seat.
“Impatient, much?” She asked, pulling her legs inside.
“Always.” Grey closed the passenger door and ran around to the driver’s side.
It took three tries before he finally gave up and squatted between the open door and the driver’s seat. He hung his head in defeat, blowing out a frustrated breath with a muted curse. “Claira, baby, where is the lever to move the seat back?”
Claira couldn’t hold back her snort. Seeing a man the size of a small horse trying to squeeze himself into her tiny car was by far the funniest thing she’d ever seen. “It’s broken,” she snorted again, covering her smile with her hand.
Grey was at his breaking point. Lack of sleep, lack of coffee and the innate need to protect Claira from some unknown lunatic while battling his own inner turmoil over his sudden feelings for her had all begun to take their toll. Oh, and let’s not forget the incessant prick in his jeans. If it weren’t for that constant reminder, he’d think she was turning him into a fucking girl!
Pressing his lips together to keep the curses from flying, he stood and marched to the passenger side as she exited and took the driver’s seat. Reaching down, Grey slid the passenger seat back as far as it would go—which wasn’t near far enough—and then folded himself into the still overly cramped space.
When he pulled the door closed, his knees were crammed against the dash, his thighs pressing against his chest. His shoulders were bunched together between Claira’s seat and the passenger door. It was official. He was the main attraction in a clown car at a rodeo.
“Not one word,” he warned when he caught her watching him, still choking back a train of giggles. Claira snorted again as he tried to turn and grab his seatbelt. It was no use. “They’ll need the Jaws of Life to pry me out of this death trap you call a car, even if we don’t crash.”
Claira shook her head and started the car, trying her best not to laugh at him as she pulled onto the quiet, still dark street and headed toward Main Street. “Don’t pick on my little car,” she patted the dash as if it were a pet. “It’s a smart, little car.”
She’d completely lost her senses. “Baby, this is the stupidest car I have ever laid eyes on in my entire life. Papa Joe was wrong,” he said as he twisted, grunted and jerked in his seat, already losing feeling in his feet. “There isn’t enough room left in this thing for a goddamn hamster.”
~*~*~*~*~
Grant Kendal watched as the small car rolled away and disappeared around the corner. Stupid car. As he crept silently across her lawn and up the front steps, he noticed that Miss Robbins hadn’t engaged her extra efforts at securing her home, not that they mattered much to him. Before the first sliver of the sun’s rays arced across the sky, he was inside her home, alarm disengaged and the door bolted behind him. With her having finally hooked up with the McLendon’s, it was time to put the second phase of his plan into action.
~*~*~*~*~
Grey leaned over his cup and inhaled the fresh, life-saving aroma. His eyes opened and looked beyond the rim of his cup to notice Claira was doing the same. When her sleepy gaze met his he grinned, recognizing the same desperation for caffeine. Neither spoke a word until the second cup was delivered by an overly chipper waitress, earning herself a disgusted eye roll from Claira and a warning growl from Grey when she tried to take his empty cup.
“Just fill it up and leave it,” he ordered.
He watched as Claira slowly awakened and found it endearing
that she shared his same morning coffee habit. She took a deep breath. A small smile pulled at the corner of her lips.
“You look tired,” Grey said before he took another long sip of coffee.
Claira balked at his remark. “Is that what you dragged me here to say?”
Shit. Grey shook his head and cleared his throat. “No, that came out wrong. You look beautiful, but also weary. Who are you running from?”
Claira’s face paled at the sudden and unexpected change in subject. Her gaze dropped to her cup. What was she hiding? “Nothing, no one.”
She was a terrible liar. Her shy guilty expression gave her away as quick as her blushing cheeks.
“If that’s the way you want to play it,” Grey grumbled and sat back in his seat. He studied her for a few moments and then leaned his elbows on the edge of the table. “Tell me or don’t tell me, it’s your choice, but you’re not staying in that house alone. You can come to the ranch or I can move in until whatever is going on with you is over, but make no mistake, you don’t have any other choices.”
“I can’t stay at your house!” Claira screeched, drawing the attention and scowls of other nearby caffeine addicts. Her glance darted around the small café and then back to Grey as she steeled her posture and lowered her voice. “That’s ridiculous! I don’t need a babysitter. I’m perfectly fine.” When he didn’t relent, she tried another approach. “I can’t stay there while I’m teaching your children. It’s inappropriate and unprofessional!”
“Fine,” Grey nodded. “I’ll pack a bag and pick you up after school is released. What time do you leave?”
“No. I can’t...You don’t understand. There’s—”
“There’s no further argument to be had, Claira. School is out in a week and then the boys are going to stay at Sarah’s parents for a while. I’ll stay at your house until then. When school is out you’ll stay at the ranch.”
She appeared to be taken aback by his command. That was too bad. She could talk, or put up with an unwanted houseguest.
“You can’t stay with me. I’m not staying at your home, either. There’s no reason for it. You’re crazy for even suggesting such a thing.”