by Joya Ryan
She pursed her lips and tried to think of what she could do for him . . . get him . . .
Her day was looking up. That was, until her least favorite customer came in—her father.
“You know I won’t serve you,” she said to him.
He ignored her and sat at the bar anyway. “I came to see my little girl,” he said.
Hannah looked him over. Wasn’t the worst she’d ever seen him, but not the best. His jeans were dirty, and his white T-shirt was wrinkled and stained with either a few drops of blood or barbecue sauce. It was then she noticed he was missing one of his upper teeth.
Guess it was blood.
And she didn’t want to know any more. It was equally likely that her father had gotten in a fight, fallen, or ripped his own tooth out on a wager. In all cases, she’d rather not know.
He scratched his knuckles along his cheek, the gray stubble making a sandpaper noise as he did. He looked tired. Dark circles around his eyes and splotchy, leathery skin. He was fifty-five and looked closer to seventy. There were more sunspots on the top of his balding head, and Hannah wondered if she should take him to the doctor to get those checked out.
“What do you need?” she asked.
“Just came to see my girl,” he said. She wasn’t sure why he returned to small talk. Maybe he was drunk already? Maybe he was gearing up to ask for something other than money? A flare of hope pierced her ribs.
“What is it, Silas?”
He smiled, then frowned, then sighed. A ping of worry raced up her spine like an eel on speed.
That eel instantly died when it hit the back of her neck.
“Rent is due,” he spit out. So it really was just about money. Stupid she’d think otherwise, even for a moment. Why was she surprised? The fact that she kept giving it to him said, if anything, how stupid she was. Granted, she tried not to look at it that way. If her father didn’t pay rent, he’d be homeless. Because no way in hell would she take him in, and there was literally nowhere else for him to go. So keeping him in a roof and walls was good for Hannah, her father, and society in general.
She’d been a pawn in her dad’s game long enough to know her way around the con.
“Rent is three fifty a month,” she said. For a trailer out in the middle of nowhere, you got what you pay for.
He nodded. “I’m short two hundred.”
“Okay,” she said with a solid breath and placed her hands on the bar top. “I’ll pay the two hundred to your landlord.”
He laughed. The raspy, sleepy laugh of a man who was used to having an esophagus full of whiskey.
“Just give it to me, and I’ll run it over right now.”
Now Hannah laughed. “Never.”
He raised a brow. “Fine. Don’t trust your dad. That says more about your character than mine.”
“Don’t start with me about character,” she said, realizing how low her tone had gotten on those last words.
“I can say whatever I want,” he spat. “You’re the daughter who runs a bar with an alcoholic father. Like you want to kill me while laughing.”
“At least you admit that you’re an alcoholic,” she said.
He slammed his hand down. “You always were ungrateful.”
“Time for you to go,” she said. Because her father was the only person in the world who scared her. He was frail, likely drunk, and still, the hatred in his voice hit a chord deep in her soul. That same chord that gave her a healthy dose of realization that people couldn’t be counted on and they ended up hurting you.
“Out,” she said, hating that her voice was a whisper.
He shook his head, looking genuinely disappointed in her. An invisible knife twisted through Hannah’s heart. She shouldn’t care. But the way her father just stared at her—like he really was embarrassed, annoyed, and put out—made her heart sink.
She watched him stumble away. He was looking sickly. So old and frail, and she didn’t want to know how bad off his body was. And yet she knew her father wouldn’t live to see sixty-five. Which gave her just a few years. There was no proof of any of this, but there was proof she was an idiot, because deep down, she cared. And she was worried she always would.
Chapter Eight
Hannah sat quietly across a white linen–covered table from Grant. She looked lovely but said almost nothing. Like her mind was racing. And Grant would give just about anything to know what the woman thought of. What troubled her. What she loved.
He’d spent more time with Jake. Between taking calls and working remotely by e-mail, he found Jake becoming a good friend, and grabbing a beer to shoot the shit before Hannah got home was nice. Grant had never had a real friend before.
Jake talked about his life, his wife, the future. Every topic garnered a wide smile while he discussed the woman he loved and the future they had. Made Grant think about Hannah. Well, he always thought about Hannah, but being around another man he respected who was married and in love made Grant think in different ways.
He’d gone into this ruse with the sole intent of getting Hannah to agree to stay married to him and come to New York. But there was more to his grand plan. Items he’d tackle as they came along, but those items were now at the forefront of his mind, led by one single word:
Future.
There was a lot of life ahead of Grant and Hannah, and he wanted to provide the best for her, and for the family they could have one day. Between the business and their locations, he hadn’t thought about the next step beyond simply keeping Hannah. He wanted to talk to her about all this. Wanted to know what she thought about and what she wanted, other than her bar.
“This place is great,” Grant said, taking a bite of his pasta. The small Italian restaurant was on the south side of town, in an old seaside house from the early 1900s that had been converted into a restaurant. Cozy and intimate. If only he could get his wife to open up to him.
“Yeah, this is one of my favorite places,” Hannah said with a forced smile. She pushed her chicken around on her plate. Grant wanted to come out and ask her to tell him what was on her mind. But he was worried if he pushed too hard, she’d shut down. So he’d try to get her talking without being obvious.
“So you come here a lot?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No, I don’t go out often.”
“Well, working at Goonies probably gets exhausting. You put in a lot of long hours, baby. You’re a hard worker.”
She glanced up at him, and a small smile tugged her lips. “Thank you,” she said.
He was getting somewhere.
“What was your favorite place to go when you were growing up around here?” he asked.
She frowned at her plate then smiled. “Candy shop.”
He laughed and nodded. “I can see why. The whole block smells like taffy.”
“Banana is my favorite,” she said, taking a bite of her food. Her shoulders squared just a little to show Grant she was coming out of whatever was weighing them down. He wanted to keep going. To make her happy. To watch her perk up in his presence.
“You and Laura go there?” he asked.
Hannah raised a brow at him. “Yes.”
He shrugged. “I like thinking about you before we met. You and Laura have been friends for a while. Jake told me the gist.”
“Glad to see you’re checking up on me.”
“Just wanting to know my wife,” he said.
Her eyes shot to his. Wasn’t a glare, so that was good.
“So you heard about my appointment, then?” she grumbled and followed up with some remark about small-town gossip and how it figured Laura told Jake and Jake told Grant. But Grant had no idea what the hell she was talking about. Before he could ask, Hannah cut him off.
“Well, I want to know you, too. Like, for example, you have a birthday tomorrow.”
That surprised Grant. “How could you possibly know that?”
Hannah smiled and took a bite of her food. “I have my ways.”
He huffed, his plan
backfiring. He wanted to know her, not field questions about his birthday or wonder how his wife was gaining her intel.
“What? You don’t like your birthday? Is it because you’re old?” she teased.
“I’m not old,” he said.
“Older than me,” she countered, that sassy, flirty attitude hitting full gear. He loved her when she played with him. “Come on, tell me how old you are.”
He glanced at his plate. He knew his wife was twenty-nine, and while he wasn’t old, he just didn’t do birthdays or celebrating anything that had to do with himself. She was in a better mood, though, so he’d take that as a win.
“Come on,” she pressed. “Don’t you think it’s weird a wife doesn’t know how old her husband is?”
“I’m thirty-seven tomorrow.”
A small grin split her face.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing.” Her smile got bigger. “Just that I bagged myself a silver fox.”
“I don’t have gray hair,” he said seriously. Because he checked. Every morning.
She laughed. “Well, I’m excited to celebrate your birthday tomorrow.”
“No,” he said. “Absolutely not.”
“Too bad. It’s happening.”
Grant took a calming breath, because the woman was irritating him again. But in a good way. Still more irritating than good, because he hated celebrating his birthday. It was always stupid parties full of fake people and a thousand dollars a plate. No, he didn’t a need a celebration. Then he had an idea . . .
“You want to celebrate my birthday?” he asked.
“Yes,” Hannah said, happily chewing her food.
“Then talk to me.”
“Ah, I am,” she said.
“I mean, really talk to me. Starting with answering a few questions.”
“Like my favorite color?”
No, not like your favorite color at all. He wanted real answers to real questions and for her to stop avoiding him and certain topics.
“Just a few honest questions to obtain honest answers,” he said.
She pushed food around her plate, not meeting his eyes, and said, “Okay.”
Grant swallowed hard. He finally had his wife willing to talk to him. He wanted to dive in and rattle off everything, but he had to go slow. Hope she would stick with him and trust him with what he was seeking. Which was her.
“That man the other night at the grocery store . . . ,” he started.
Hannah’s shoulders slumped slightly. “That was my father.”
“He lives around here?” Grant asked.
“Yep, but he only comes around when he needs something. He’s a drunk. Probably sick. His body can’t keep up with the crap he’s doing.”
He nodded. This was clearly painful for her. His strong wife stiffened to stone whenever sadness or fear crept in. He’d seen it before and wished he could take her in his arms and make everything better. He also knew pieces of her life from the hints she’d given in the past and from Jake and Gabe filling in some of the blanks. Grant had been lucky enough to have a wonderful father and couldn’t imagine what Hannah had gone through growing up.
“Is that the appointment you had today? Did you take him somewhere because he’s sick?”
“No,” she said, her voice soft. “I have tried taking him to the doctor in the past, but he refuses. The appointment was mine. I thought you knew through the Laura–Jake grapevine.”
Grant shook his head. “No, I didn’t know.” He wished he did. Wished he was a part of her every day and knew every moment. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, it’s just a semiannual thing I’ve had to go to since I was in high school. No big deal.”
“If it’s no big deal, then what is it?”
She took another bite and shrugged off her own words before she even spoke them. “They just check my ovaries, making sure they’re okay and these spots on them continue to be okay.”
Blood drained from Grant’s face, and his heart sputtered.
“Grant.” She reached across the table and grabbed his hand. “I’m really okay. This is why I get checked.”
He nodded but felt like someone had just punched him in the gut. “You swear to me you’re okay?”
“I swear.” She looked over his face, and he wanted to know more. Needed her to be okay. He’d never thought for a second she wasn’t or wouldn’t always be.
She leaned back and returned to her food, something clearly going through her mind.
“What?” he asked.
She met his stare again. “Do you think about having kids?”
Her question physically pushed Grant back in his chair. That was out of the blue, yet, he could see how it’d be relevant, since Grant had recently been thinking similar things. The future, family, kids . . . he could understand, and honestly, he wanted to get her thoughts on this as well. It was a good sign she was asking and thinking about the future.
“Yes,” he said honestly. “I think about the future and having kids.”
“So you want them?”
“Yes. I never thought about it much before, but I know it’s something I’ve always wanted. Having a son to pass down—” He cut himself off from saying anything about his father’s business—now his business. “I want to pass down the kind of man my father was to my son.” That was honest, and Grant really did want to pass that, and even more, down to his children.
“A son, huh? What, girls aren’t good enough?”
“I didn’t mean that. I’d want a girl. I’d love a girl, especially if she’s like you.” Again, the most honest thing he felt. Hannah’s gaze met his, and there was a sadness behind those eyes. “I’m an only child and was raised mostly by my dad, so my brain goes straight to ‘son,’ but I wouldn’t care if we had a dozen little girls, because with you as their mom, they’d be strong and proud and gorgeous.”
Her lips parted, her brows knitting together like she’d been slapped. What had he said to make her look like that? Like he’d caused her pain.
“Do you not want kids?” he asked.
She glanced away. “No, I don’t.”
Grant was confused, and for a moment, he thought he’d misheard her. “Are you kidding?” he asked.
“No. Why would I joke about that?”
“I don’t know, I just figured . . .”
“Grant, our marriage isn’t exactly stable.”
“It’s romantic, though,” he countered. A flare of red-hot anger flashed in his gut. “We’ve made progress, and I’ve been a good sport on letting you keep your pride and pretend our relationship is a joke. But you love me. Stop acting like you don’t. And stop acting like our marriage is going to fail.”
She set her palms on the table and leaned forward. “I’m not pretending anything. This relationship is tearing me up, and for God’s sake, look around you. You’re in Yachats, Oregon. You want to give a speech about pretending? Stop acting like this is an easy situation. Stop thinking there’s a quick fix to this, because our lives are different. What we want is different.”
“Like kids,” he snapped back. How could he love this woman and feel like he was losing her at the same time?
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I’d be a shitty mom,” she said, then covered her mouth. The raw cut in her words seemed to shock even her, and Grant’s skin heated while his lungs fogged up, searching for a clean breath.
“Baby, you can’t honestly think that.”
“Grant, I can’t even get married correctly. I got lost on an island, for Christ’s sake. I can’t even find my shoes half the time, and my job mostly consists of cursing out drunk fishermen. I’m not mother material.”
“You’re the best kind of mother material.” Any baby would be lucky to have Hannah’s strength and ambition. She worked hard for everything. Loved even harder. But Hannah was seeing what Grant saw in her, only backward.
“My father is a drunk, and my mother is gone. There’s not one shred
of DNA in me I’d burden a baby with, and I sure as hell won’t pass down whatever mutated awfulness I have running through my blood.”
Grant stood up, his chair loudly pushing backward along the floor, and he didn’t give a shit who noticed. He walked around the table to Hannah. She spun her chair to face him, and he hit his knees and cupped her face in his hands.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Telling you that I love you and you are the best woman in the world and I don’t care what it takes—one day, you’ll see yourself the way I see you.”
He kissed her hard. Her thick eyelashes fluttered over his cheek, like she was blinking fiercely.
“It’s my birthday,” Grant whispered against her mouth. “Does that mean I get a present?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Okay, I want my wife.”
She leaned back an inch to meet his gaze. “What does that mean?”
“Exactly what I said. I want my wife. Interpret how you will.” He gave her a wink and rose. Walking back to his seat, he finished his meal with his wife, determined to never let her go.
He said he wanted his wife, Hannah thought as she washed a pan in the sink. Last night at dinner, Grant had actually made her feel better. Any time her father was in the equation, it left her with a bad taste in her mouth.
Then dinner had taken her back. She’d been spinning the notion of kids and the future around in her brain since Laura had mentioned it at her appointment. And Grant apparently thought about those things, too.
Her nerves were still frazzled from the conversation and the realization of how much she doubted herself in the mothering department. It was how Grant looked at her, how he held her, that made her chest crack. Like her heart was trying to break free through her ribs. She didn’t know if his faith in her made her feel a little better, or a little sick.
“A little of both,” she mumbled to herself.
But Grant had been kind. Seemed genuinely interested in her. Almost willing to take some of the burden of what was going through her mind. Dare she hope? Having someone be your—what was that word?—oh! Partner. That was an odd concept. Hannah had always taken care of everything herself. Even her own parent. She didn’t remember a time she felt like someone else was ready and willing to take on life with her.