“And you tried to contact me?”
“Yes, I texted and tried calling—left messages. You didn’t answer.” Linx turned her face away from the concern, years too late, written on Grady’s face.
“When was this?”
“December, around Christmas when Salem said you were back in San Francisco.”
Grady blinked, jolting and stiffening at the same time. “I didn’t come home that Christmas. I was in Australia. Why would Salem know where I was?”
“She said she kept in touch with you. She gave me your phone number, and I called, but you never answered. I texted and texted, left you messages.”
“I never heard from you until March.” Grady’s voice was tight. “Why so late.”
Blood drained from her head as horror flooded her heart. “I never called or texted you in March. I gave up by then.”
“No, I definitely got text messages from you, accusing me of knocking you up and threatening me with a lawsuit. You were texting me so much, I had to change my phone number. You even blackmailed me, said if I didn’t pay for your pregnancy costs, you’d accuse me of sexual harassment. I even called you and told you to back off.”
“It wasn’t me you called.” Linx clawed at Grady and pounded on his chest. “I would never blackmail you. Never. All I wanted was you to let me know what to do with the baby. You have to believe me.”
His stare was hard and steady, and a vein twitched on his forehead. “No wonder you didn’t say anything when I yelled at you.”
Linx held his gaze, unflinching. Her pulse quaked as she shuddered with anger. “Believe me, if I heard from you before Jessie was born, I would have screamed at you to come back. Instead, I got a text message telling me you denied everything and to get rid of the baby.”
“I would never say something like that.” He snarled as if he were falsely accused.
“Yes, you would. Right before Jessie was born, you sent me a nasty letter. You accused me of lying. You said the baby wasn’t yours and you never, ever wanted to hear from me again. So … I … gave her … away … to give her a better life.”
“My lawyer told me to send you written notice. I was going to countersue you for defamation.” Grady slapped his palms onto the futon, startling Cedar who jumped and squared off against him. “It’s because the dates were all wrong.”
“I didn’t know the baby was coming in July,” Linx wailed. “I was hiding in the mountains—in your cabin. I couldn’t let my family know. If Salem hadn’t come to bring my groceries that day, both Jessie and I would have died. My water broke and then I was in an ambulance, and everything happened so fast. Please don’t hate me.”
“I don’t hate you.” Grady wrapped her into his arms and cradled her. “I’m pissed at myself. I should have come to check it out. I shouldn’t have stayed away. I’ve a feeling the text messages you sent went to Salem, and then she texted me the blackmail threats. She must have sent the text telling you to get rid of it. God knows, I would never ask you to do that. No wonder she was so smug the entire time she was on the fire crew, like she knew something.”
“I thought she was my friend. I saved her life that day when she got hurt. I thought she cared about me.” Linx wasn’t sure why she was babbling, except she was numb and aching at the same time. “I blew it. I really blew it.”
“No, I did. I should have come home when I got those messages. I should have called you.”
“You did, once, after Jessie was born, and you sounded so suspicious and pissed. At that point, I didn’t care anymore, so I told you nothing happened. I thought I’d never see you again, that it wouldn’t matter.”
“Because I’d been such an ass.” Grady knocked his forehead against hers. Tears sprinkled on his eyelashes as he gazed into her eyes. “Now what? Can we get her back?”
“I don’t know. You’ve met her. Isn’t she wonderful? Isn’t she precious?”
“She’s adorable, and I’m so glad she got Betsy back. She’s such a determined kid, so much like you.” Grady wiped his eyes and smiled at the same time. “What do we do now? Will her mother let us talk to her?”
“Her mother doesn’t know you’re the father,” Linx said.
“But she’s mine, you’re sure?” He lifted an eyebrow and swallowed. “I’ve always been so careful with birth control.”
“We got blasted drunk after that last fire …” Linx’s voice was little more than a whisper. “The one where the fire rolled over us and we had to hide under the fire shelter.”
“I wasn’t sure you made it.” Grady’s voice softened and that old familiar look, the one that melted her heart, reflected on his rugged face.
“I thought I’d die if you didn’t make it.” Linx moved closer, her eyes locked to his, then closed them when he pressed his lips over hers.
He kissed her, softly and slowly, his hands and fingers stroking her, comforting her, and she let her tears mingle with his. All she’d ever wanted was him to acknowledge her, to believe her, and most of all, to trust her.
He tasted different, sweeter, and more tender—like he was baring his soul with the whisper of a kiss. And she didn’t want it to end, this peaceful, soothing, blissful state of receiving comfort.
She came up for air and gazed into his eyes. “I’m so sorry. So sorry I didn’t tell you.”
“I’m the one who’s sorry.” He feathered his rough fingers down the side of her cheek. “I should have believed you.”
“If you had believed me, would things have been different? Would you have come back?”
“Yes. I would never have left you alone and pregnant. I should have known those weren’t your texts. I’m still kicking myself. I don’t know if I can live with this. I hate myself so much.” Grady’s face scrunched, and he sat up with his elbows over his knees. He pinched the bridge of his nose and drew in a shuddering breath. “I don’t know if I can go on, knowing how I screwed up.”
“We both screwed up.” Linx wrapped her arms around him, resting her head on his shoulder. The man was broken about this. It was too much to take in all at once. Ironically, this was exactly what she’d wanted—him to hurt as much as she had been hurting.
But all of this hadn’t been his fault. It had all come down to Salem intercepting their messages and twisting them around for her own enjoyment.
And now, Salem was dead, and there were rumors she was pregnant with Grady’s baby.
“One more question,” Linx said, knowing it would bug her if she didn’t ask. “Was Salem pregnant by you when she died?”
Grady rose to his feet and paced around her tiny loft, then knocked his head against the wall.
Linx waited. A pit grew in her belly as the silence dragged on. Did it really matter? Salem was dead now and so was the baby she was carrying.
Grady cursed under his breath. “You deserve to know everything about me. I owe that to you, and if you choose to have nothing to do with me, it’s what I deserve.”
“The baby was yours?”
“It could have been.” Grady’s voice was a deadpan. “She sort of went through the crew.”
“What did you whisper to her before her last jump?” Linx put a hand on Grady’s back and leaned against him, wanting to comfort him.
“That Paul had gotten her a ring, and that she’d better be sure whose baby she was carrying. I wanted her to stop lying. She picked Paul because he’s loaded, but he’s my buddy, and I didn’t want him to be hurt.”
“You had sex with your buddy’s girlfriend?”
“No, it happened before she hooked up with Paul. Then I tried to stay away, but she kept throwing herself at me. Hounding me, wanting to make me fight for her. You know how it is in the fire camp. It’s no excuse, and I shouldn’t have gotten involved with her.”
“I’m sorry.” Linx hung her head. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Me either. We both effed up, and I’m going to fix it.” He ran his fingers through his thick hair and left.
“What are you g
oing to do?” Linx trailed after him as he jogged down the stairs.
“What do you think?”
“What do you usually do when you eff up?” Linx answered his question with a question.
He ran. Or he hid and withdrew.
But that cowardly behavior was what had brought on this disaster in the first place.
“I fix it,” Grady declared, hoping his voice was firm enough. “I undo the damage, which means I want Jessie back.”
“I don’t think you should do anything about it.” Linx stepped back and studied him as if he were a sick puppy. “Jessie has a home, a very happy one. Her father teaches high school and is the town pastor. Her mother’s a homemaker and the church pianist. They love her to pieces.”
Grady’s jaw tightened and a whirlwind stirred inside him. The more he thought about it, the more he wanted to explode. “I never gave consent for the adoption.”
“You weren’t in the picture.”
“Because you didn’t try hard enough to contact me and you lied to me.” He turned away from her. “Isn’t this more important than your hurt feelings?”
“You wanted nothing to do with me.” Her eyes blazed and she clenched her fists. “You told me to leave you alone.”
“You didn’t have to take it literally. If it’s this important, you should have sent me proof. Or told me before the adoption was final. They have a grace period when you can change your mind.” His head throbbed as his pulse thundered behind his ears. “I’m sorry for being a jerk, but I can’t just stand here and let those two strangers, no matter how good they are, raise my kid.”
“You’re the stranger as far as Jessie is concerned.”
“Thanks to you.” He strode toward the door. He had to put some distance between them or he’d say something hurtful. Seemed like she’d already taken the Pattersons’ side. No loyalty or concern for him—as usual.
“Where are you going?” Linx followed him “You can’t just go barging into Jessie’s life.”
He whirled around and glared at her. “I screwed up, but that doesn’t mean I have to accept this. All these years, you got to see Jessie grow up, got to be her friend, and I got nothing. Why did you wait so long to fess up?”
“I wanted to tell you, but I was afraid you’d break up with me.”
“What’s there to break up?” He rolled his eyes and shook his head with frustration. “Last night, when I trusted you, you could have come clean and said something. Instead, you acted like the worst thing you ever did was steal my dog.”
“I didn’t want to ruin the mood.” Linx stopped in front of him, horning into his personal space. “But now I see you were playing a game with me. You’re right. We don’t have anything worth breaking up. Certainly not the “I hate you” sex. It’s sick. All of it. Go ahead and walk away. Now you know everything.”
He winced at the “I hate you” sex part. But then, he’d been determined to hurt her, too, for what he’d believed were her lies and blackmail threats.
“Right, now I know.” He sneered at her. “Are there any other surprises you have for me?”
“No. It’s all out now.”
“How about when you stayed at my cabin—without my permission, I might add.”
“You’d given me a key, and you were away.” She tilted her head and curled her lip. “I needed a place to stay, and I was carrying your baby. I felt I was justified.”
“Maybe.” He ground his teeth as the knot in his stomach grew. “Did you also feel justified in burning my cabin down?”
“You think I burned it down?” Linx’s eyebrows shot up and she jabbed a finger at him. “See what I mean? You always think the worst of me. You think I’m evil, don’t you?”
“I’m asking you a question. Just like you asked me about Salem and her baby.” Grady’s head throbbed with a splitting headache, but he couldn’t let her denials derail him. “Answer it without all the hysterics. Did you burn down my cabin?”
“No. I would never burn it down or hurt Cedar.”
Despite his rage, relief swarmed over him. Of course, he didn’t believe she would have done such a heinous thing as to hurt a dog.
“Right, I believe you,” he finally admitted.
“Then why did you accuse me?” She threw up her hands and made an exasperated noise.
“Just clearing the decks. Anything else before I leave?”
“You’re leaving?” Her voice stuttered, but she quickly regained control. “Nothing else. We’re even. I effed with you and you effed with me. We’re both psychopaths and we don’t even deserve each other.”
“Right, so this is goodbye.” He gave her a mock salute.
“Pretty much.” Linx pursed her lips so tight, her jaw wrinkled. “Thanks for leaving Cedar with me.”
The dog, who had been slinking around during their altercation, perked up and wagged her tail, looking at Grady with an unsure expression.
“You’re a good girl.” He patted her, soothing the worry off her face. “The best.”
He opened the door, and Linx didn’t stop him.
His feet felt like they were mired in wet concrete, and his heart was crushed under a steamroller.
He was the lonely man, a rolling stone, stripped bare and clean—no moss and no entanglements.
Except he had a daughter, and he was going to fight for her with all he had.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Grady needed a drink. He wasn’t the type to hang out at bars or drown his sorrow with Johnny Walker, but what happened today beat the crap out of him.
He was a damn dad. That was the biggee.
He’d never wanted to be a dad. Hated being tied down. Didn’t need to make his mark on the world or have someone carry on his genes or legacy.
He had a huge family, willing and eager to do the breeding—fill the world with Harts.
But now that he was a dad. Hot damn! He rather liked the feeling.
Especially with a little girl.
The sweetest, cutest, little spitfire—Jessie. She’d insisted her dog would come back to her, and she wasn’t taking no for an answer.
When she was reunited with Betsy, the happiness and relief glowing on that little face had Grady’s heart humming in harmony.
He and Linx sure made a perfect child.
Except she belonged to someone else. She had adoptive parents, a family, and a home that didn’t include him.
A boulder of pain crushed him as he strode through the swinging wooden slat doors of the Sixty Miners Saloon.
“Look what the dust storm blew in.” Paul leaned on his elbows over the counter. “What are you having?”
“Whiskey on the rocks.”
“That bad, huh?” Paul jiggled a ball of ice into a rocks glass and poured some no-name bourbon over it. “Heard you put out a fire at your place.”
“Kind of hard not to when I was the first one on the scene.” Grady knocked the amber liquid back, burning his throat as the heat spread down his gullet. “Makes me miss smokejumping.”
“Like I said, don’t let me hold you.” Paul’s eyebrows lowered into a dark scowl.
Grady glanced at the bleak surroundings around the mostly empty bar. “This place isn’t hopping. Why are you hiding here?”
“You know why.” Paul’s eyebrows lowered. “This was the last place Salem called home. She rented a room right up there.”
He pointed to the ceiling. Like a lot of old-fashioned buildings, living quarters sat above the business.
“So you bought all of it, and you feel at peace? Like her spirit’s resting here?”
“Sort of.”
“She’s gone. You know that.”
“Thanks to you.” Paul’s voice roughened. “You jumped and you made it. Why didn’t she?”
“Freak change in the wind,” Grady said. “The fire makes its own weather.”
“Whatever you said to her got her confused.” Paul slammed a fist on the counter. “Why won’t you tell me?”
“It do
esn’t matter anymore,” Grady said.
“Matters to me. You know, closure and all that. Were you sleeping with her? I mean, like you say, it doesn’t matter now, does it?”
“I never touched her after she hooked up with you.” Grady took a deep swallow of the whiskey, emptying it. He slapped the rocks glass on the counter. “Another one.”
“She was pregnant.” Paul whipped up another rocks glass and filled it. “Was it yours?”
“Unlikely.”
“That’s what she said you’d say.” Paul’s left eye twitched as he glared at him.
“She told you?”
“No, she didn’t. She said you would deny it, just like you denied every other woman you knocked up.”
“You should check her dates. When was the baby due? Or when did she say it was due?”
“She couldn’t tell without an ultrasound,” Paul said. “She died before she could get one.”
“How do we know she was pregnant?”
“Why would she lie? Especially with all the guys who could have been the father.” Paul scratched his few days’ growth of beard.
“Drama? Stirring up trouble in the team?” Grady shrugged. “Salem struck me as being an attention hog.”
“I was going to marry her no matter whose baby she had.” Paul pursed his lips and drummed the counter with his fingers. “But my parents froze all my assets. They wanted to wait for a positive paternity test.”
“Might have been wise to know. You know, for health reasons.” Grady finished the whiskey. “I’m going up to Redstone tomorrow to check out those suspicious fires. Some psychopath is running around burning down firefighters’ houses.”
“Thought all the causes were natural,” Paul said. “Dry lightning strikes, stuff like that. Media thinks there’s a curse.”
“Right, but whoever started the fire at my parents’ cabin did it on purpose. Investigators found evidence of an accelerant, and since I was on it shortly after it started, it didn’t burn everything down.” Grady kept his eyes focused on Paul, detecting a slight flinch, before he pulled his face into an impassive mask.
Summer Love Puppy: The Hart Family (Have A Hart Book 6) Page 15