CALLIE (The Naughty Ones Book 1)

by Kristina Weaver

  “Can life get any more perfect than this?” I wondered aloud.

  “Not much,” Grant said, his hand moving slowly over my belly.

  “So what now? We go off into the sunset, partners in my father’s business, partners in marriage and in parenthood?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “And what if things go sour again? What if you get tired of me and decide to disappear again?”

  “Not going to happen,” he said, kissing my shoulder gently.

  “You never did tell me why you left.”

  He made a low, growling sound in the depth of his chest. “One crisis at a time, Addison. Can’t we just enjoy this now?”

  “So many secrets…”

  He pressed his hand low to my belly and kissed my shoulder again. I thought later it was the pressure of his hand that made it possible for me to understand what it was I was feeling. That little flutter right under his hand. A little kick from a tiny being.

  We’d made a life. Maybe that was all that mattered now.

  Chapter 30

  Guilt is one of those things that makes it impossible to really push a responsibility off for long. I called Agnes the next day and arranged to meet her at my dad’s house. We worked from late in the afternoon until early evening, marking furnishings and décor in the rooms of the house that were unoccupied at the end of my dad’s life. Agnes would arrange for an auction house to look at the things we wanted to sell and arrange for Goodwill to pick up the rest. That decided, there were only a few rooms that required close attention. My childhood bedroom. My dad’s bedroom. The kitchen. And his den.

  It seemed easier to begin with the den. That’s where he and Agnes spent so much of their time in his last months.

  And there were much fewer memories there.

  Agnes had everything well marked. I just had to decide what to do with my father’s papers. I walked in there after she left that afternoon and studied the labels on the boxes, thinking about the life these boxes represented. It was mostly paperwork associated with the business. I got a packet of sticky notes and left instructions for Agnes to have the ones that might be helpful sent to the office. The rest? I wasn’t sure what to do with them. I didn’t want to just toss them out, but I didn’t know what else to do with them. Most of them were only important to my dad.

  I opened one box that was marked bank statements. Sure enough, there were stacks and stacks of bank statements that dated back as far as 1972. I closed it back up and opened another that was marked investigations. The side of the box fell apart and papers flew everywhere.

  “Great,” I muttered under my breath.

  I started gathering the papers, trying to be careful not to bend corners or rip a delicate piece of paper. My father had a private investigator on the payroll for years so that he could run background checks on employees, check out potential clients, and chase after rivals who might or might not have been responsible for mishaps on project sites. This box held a bunch of those. I didn’t recognize most of the names. But there was one I did.

  Grant McGraw, one label said.

  My dad tried to give this to me once before, but I refused to open it then. I should have just put it away this time, too. And I was about to put it back in the box when a couple of papers slipped out, clipped together with a paperclip.

  It was Billy’s face in the photograph that tickled my curiosity.

  I picked it up, a photograph with a couple of pieces of paper clipped to it. I slipped the picture away, staring at Billy’s familiar but much younger face. And then there was a birth certificate.

  Grant William McGraw born at 6:15 a.m. to Jenna McGraw and William Bryan Tenneson.

  And behind that was a report from the private investigator.

  Subject was born eight months after his mother, Jenna McGraw, married John Thomas McGraw. Although subject was given his stepfather’s name at birth, his biological father was listed as the father at the request of the mother. A nurse recalled the mother being nervous when she made the request, but she was adamant that the biological father’s name be listed.

  Billy was Grant’s father?

  It didn’t seem logical. How was it even possible? I didn’t understand.

  Did Grant know?

  Only then did I open the full file, the complete report, and read through it. It was exactly as my dad had said it would be. Grant was arrested multiple times as a juvenile, never charged with anything more than a petty crime, and those charges were often dropped after his mother went to the police station and reasoned with whoever had arrested him. Otherwise, there wasn’t anything I didn’t already know in the file. Except for the report on Billy’s relationship to Grant.

  It said that it looked as though Billy knew about his son. There was evidence that he’d visited Jenna McGraw on multiple occasions over the years.

  I found myself wondering what that evidence might be, but the report didn’t say.

  My head was spinning. My father clearly knew about this. Had he told Grant when he went to see him that day that Grant and I were supposed to run away together? Did that have something to do with why Grant left me?

  Did Billy know who Grant was when he destroyed the construction site eleven years ago? Was that why he went to bat for him with my dad? Or did my dad tell him later?

  I sat there on the floor for a long time, my head spinning with all the questions that kept coming up. With each question came another and another until I couldn’t keep track of them all.

  My cell phone began to ring, scaring me before I realized what it was. I picked up and saw Grant’s smiling face.

  Should I tell him that I knew?

  That spurred me into action. I tossed all the files back into the box and placed a sticky note on it, instructing Agnes to rent a storage locker to place the rest of these boxes full of paperwork. That was the best solution I could come up with a dilemma that was suddenly not the most pressing anymore.

  ***

  Three days later I was still struggling with what to do about what I now knew. Grant was heating the grill on the balcony and I was chopping tomatoes for a salad. We’d invited both Kevin and Angela over for dinner, not telling one that the other would be there. Grant thought it was time for them to make up and I wholeheartedly agreed. But now…I was so distracted, I couldn’t hardly concentrate on what was right in front of me.

  I reached for another tomato, not paying attention to where I’d just laid the knife. I was thinking about Billy, about the way his face lit up each time he saw Grant climb out of the truck when we went to visit a project site he was working. Was that proof that he knew? Or was Grant just one of his favorite students?

  “Oh, hell!” I cried as I sliced my finger across the blade of the knife.

  “What?” Grant asked. He was just coming into the kitchen, ready to prepare the marinated meat now that the grill was getting hot.

  I didn’t have to answer. He could see the blood pouring into the sink as I continued to mumble under my breath.

  “Addison!”

  He said it like I was a child who’d just gotten caught doing something I’d been told dozens of times before not to do. But his touch was gentle when he came around me and gripped my wrist to take a look at the wound.

  “It’s deep,” he said.

  “No, it just looks that way,” I said, trying to reassure him even though it was my finger that was throbbing under the cold water.

  He grabbed a towel out of nearby drawer and wrapped it around my hand as he pulled it out of the water. Immediately the white towel turned crimson as blood continued to flow.

  “We should go to the hospital.”

  “We have people coming over.”

  “I’m sure they’ll understand.”

  He pulled me toward the front of the apartment, but the elevator opened practically at that moment and Kevin held up a bottle of wine.

  “Chardonnay,” he announced as his eyes fell to my wrapped hand and Grant’s grip on my wrist. “What
’s going on?”

  “She cut herself,” Grant said, pointing out the obvious.

  “It’s not that bad.”

  “I’m the doctor,” Kevin said, setting the wine down on a low table in the entryway and coming to check it out. He made a sort of tick-tick sound with his tongue. “You need stitches.”

  “Told you,” Grant said where he still stood practically pressed against my back.

  “It’s not that bad,” I insisted.

  “Bad enough,” Kevin said. “I have a kit down in my car. I’ll go see if there are sutures in it.”

  “What should I do?” Grant asked.

  “Have her keep it elevated.”

  “I am standing here,” I reminded them both. But, of course, they ignored me.

  As Kevin got on the elevator again, Grant tried to pull me into the living room, but the towel was no longer soaking up the blood and it was beginning to drip.

  “I don’t want to get the furniture bloody.”

  Grant rerouted himself, guiding me to the guest bathroom under the stairs. I sat on the toilet and sighed, watching the blood drip into the white sink.

  “Do you feel dizzy?” Grant asked. “Nauseous?”

  “No. I’m fine. I just feel stupid.”

  He knelt in front of me, his hands moving over my swollen belly. “Are you sure? Should I call an ambulance?”

  I looked at him and saw the concern etched into his face. I ran the thumb of my uninjured hand over his lips.

  “I’m okay, babe. Really.”

  “There’s so much blood.”

  “There’s going to be tons more in the delivery room. Are you going to be like this then?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. I might be.”

  I kissed him. “My big, strong man.”

  He groaned, but that concern was still etched on his face when he pulled away.

  Kevin came back a minute later, a very untraditional-looking medical bag under his arm. It was blue and green, and it didn’t have the big handles or a red cross on it. Instead, it looked like something a woman might use to pack her cosmetics in.

  “How disappointing,” I said.

  Kevin just shook his head, his attention drawn to my hand. He carefully unwrapped it again and squeezed some disinfectant over it.

  “What were you cutting?”

  “Tomatoes.”

  “At least it wasn’t jalapenos.”

  I laughed, but Grant stood and nudged his brother’s shoulder.

  “Not a good time for jokes.”

  “It’s a perfect time for jokes,” Kevin said. “You need to lighten up, brother.”

  “That’s my wife’s hand you’re about to put stitches in. I think you should be paying attention.”

  “I am.”

  “Not making jokes.”

  “Grant,” I said, “maybe you should go finish dinner.”

  “No. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “She’s right,” Kevin said, turning and pushing Grant toward the door. “This is only a two-person job and you aren’t one of those persons.”

  “But I want to—”

  Kevin shut the door and turned the thumb lock. I laughed even though I knew there was probably a vein ready to pop in Grant’s temple.

  “You’re very brave.”

  Kevin winked at me. “Been here before. He’ll calm down.”

  He studied my finger again. Grant slammed his hand against the door, but then he was gone, his footsteps vibrating through the apartment.

  “I don’t have any lidocaine,” Kevin said, “but it looks like you only need two or three stitches.”

  “No painkiller?”

  “Sorry. Would you rather go to the hospital?”

  I shook my head, even though everything inside of me was screaming that we should.

  “Just look away and keep your mind on something else.”

  I snorted. “Easier said than done.”

  I watched as he got all his tools out and prepared a bandage. Then he looked at me.

  “I’m going to start.”

  I nodded. And bit down hard on my bottom lip.

  “Have you guys decided on any names yet?” he asked as he ran the first stitch under my skin and punctured the flesh with his needle.

  I groaned. “No.”

  “Any possibilities?”

  I couldn’t think of any at the moment, even though there were several we’d been debating not fifteen minutes before I cut myself.

  “Stay with me,” Kevin said, glancing at me.

  “I have a question,” I said, watching as he ran the needle through the other side of the wound, tugging at it to bring the skin carefully together. It hurt like hell, but I needed to watch. I was just one of those people.

  “Anything.”

  “What do you know about your father?”

  He glanced at me, clearly surprised. “John McGraw? Not much. I was just a toddler when he left.”

  “Was it ever a happy marriage?”

  He made a shrugging motion, his eyes locked on my cut. “I don’t know. You’d be better off asking Grant.”

  “Has he ever talked to you about your father?”

  “Some. Not a lot.”

  He had one stitch completed. Now he was going in for the second.

  I gritted my teeth.

  “And John McGraw is his father, too?”

  Kevin’s eyebrows rose. “Has he not talked to you about this?”

  “You know your brother. He likes his secrets.”

  Kevin dug his needle into the cut again, sliding it through one side of the wound and quickly catching the other side, pulling it tight as my vision darkened for a second.

  Damn, it hurts!

  “You’re doing good,” he said softly. He tied the two ends into a knot and cut the excess. Then he focused on me before setting up for the third stitch. “Maybe you should ask him about this.”

  “I just…I found something in my father’s things. And I’m not sure what to do about it.”

  “Talk to Grant.”

  “But you knew he had a different father?”

  Kevin nodded as he again dug into my wound with his needle. “That’s something my mother made quite clear to us both. She wasn’t ashamed. And she didn’t think we should be, either.”

  “Why would you be?”

  Kevin shook his head again. “I think that stems back to my father. Maybe it had something to do with why he left.”

  That made sense. If I were a man whose wife gave birth to another man’s child eight months after our wedding, I think it might be an issue for me. Clearly it had been for John McGraw.

  Kevin finished the last stitch.

  “Well, if you can do that, I think childbirth will be a breeze.”

  “I certainly hope so.”

  He wrapped the finger in a piece of gauze then began to clean up. “The baby moving well?”

  I nodded. “For a couple of days now.”

  “Are you getting enough sleep? Enough to eat?”

  I gestured toward the door. “Do you think I could do otherwise with him around?”

  Kevin smiled. “He’s pretty intense, isn’t he?” Then he chuckled. “I can just see it now. If that kid’s a girl, he’ll be out buying guns before she’s three to fend off potential suiters.”

  I laughed, too. “I’m sure he will.”

  Grant knocked on the door again. “Everything alright in there?”

  “Fine, babe.” I stood and opened the door, holding up my bandaged finger. “All fixed.”

  He pulled me against his chest and kissed me. “Good.”

  Kevin just shook his head.

  We moved out to the balcony after Kevin had his mess cleaned up. Grant opened the wine and poured the two of them a glass, handing me the good old standby, apple juice. I watched them kid around with each other, wondering if we had more than one child, if they would get along as well as the two of them. I hoped so.

  The intercom sounded as we were sitting t
here, listening to the meat sizzle on the grill. Grant excused himself to see who was waiting for entrance from the doorman. Kevin glanced at me, concern etched into his face as it had been on his brother’s earlier.

  “Tread carefully, Addison,” he said. “Grant’s biological father is a sensitive subject for him.”

  Before I could answer, Grant returned with a little wink meant only for me.

  Angela was here.

  “Be back. Pregnancy bladder.”

  Kevin smiled, watching me go without question. Instead of the bathroom, however, I went to the elevator to head Angela off.

  “Don’t be mad,” I said as soon as the elevator doors opened.

  “What’d you do?”

  “Kevin’s here.”

  She shook her head, turning back to board the elevator. I snagged her sleeve and made her turn back around.

  “Just talk to him. Please.”

  “I don’t know what to say to him. He made himself clear before.”

  “But he loves you, Angela. And you love him.”

  “I can’t.” Tears filled her eyes. “We said things…”

  “Just, stay. Have dinner with us. You don’t have to say two words to him.”

  She looked at me. “I know what you’re doing, but you just…you weren’t there.”

  “But I was.”

  I turned and Grant sort of shrugged. He and Kevin were standing behind us. Kevin’s eyes were glued to Angela’s. It was like I wasn’t even there.

  I slipped around him and grabbed Grant’s hand, pulling him back out on the balcony. We could see them talking, could even hear a word every few sentences. But not enough to know what they were saying to each other. But when Kevin drew Angela into his arms, it was pretty obvious that they were working things out.

  “Looks like we might be eating alone,” I said.

  Grant settled down on the arm of my chair and shrugged. “I could think of worse things.”

  Chapter 31

  I waited. I debated. I argued with myself. It was getting to the point that Grant could tell there was something going on with me. He kept asking if taking care of my dad’s house was too much. And it was so much. But that wasn’t what kept me distracted and made me slip out of our bed in the middle of the night, my head too full for my body to get comfortable.