“What is that?” his father asked in a tone that was anything but forgiving.
I reached across Grayson and snatched them, putting them in my lap. “I’m sorry, I must have left those in Grace’s room today.”
“Right, because you fly helicopters.” Parker laughed.
“Helicopters?” Grayson’s dad shouted. “Gray?”
Grayson stared straight ahead, unfocused, so I looked to Mia, who looked devastated. “Gray?” his mom prodded.
Silence stretched. Not even silverware hit the plate. “Tell me this isn’t true, Grayson. We forbade it. You agreed.”
“I never agreed,” Grayson said softly, finally looking up at his father. “You assumed and never asked what branch I chose after I graduated. You simply assumed it was the engineer corps because it’s what you wanted.”
Answering questions about my collegiate career would be less awkward at the moment, and I slept with my teacher.
“You will quit immediately. This isn’t up for discussion.” His father slammed the side of his fist on the table, bouncing the flatware.
“This isn’t something you quit. I’m under a contract with the government.” Grayson’s voice was even, but it scared me more than his outburst had this morning.
“You will find a way!”
“No.”
His mother gasped.
“You got your degree in maritime engineering. Masters & Son, remember? You doing a few years in the Army Corps of Engineers while we waited here at home. That was the agreement. You come home, and I agree to let you and Joey both manage the shop. You getting yourself killed playing pilot wasn’t in the deal.”
Wait. Was he using Joey to leverage Grayson? Joey all but slammed her glass on the table. Yep.
“And that hasn’t changed. But I’ve always wanted to fly, to serve my country. I’m doing just that.” If his grip hadn’t intensified on my hand, I would have thought he really wasn’t affected.
“What is going to happen when you crash, Gray?”
“Well, I’m banking on that not happening, Dad.”
It was like watching a macabre tennis match, everyone’s eyes darting between the two of them.
“And when it does? When you screw something up, read a gauge wrong? What are we going to do when you get yourself killed?”
“Then I guess you can cremate me and put me up on the mantle, where you can control everything I do. Or better yet, put me in the shop with you.”
Why wasn’t someone stopping this? Everyone from his mom through his sisters looked shocked, but no one did anything.
“Don’t upset your mother.”
“Then have a little faith in me, Dad. I’m not asking for a lot.”
Mr. Masters’ jaw flexed, like Grayson’s did when he was ready to lose it. “How did you even get into flight school? Who the hell would let you in?”
“I’m a good pilot.” Grayson’s voice dropped while his father’s raised.
“It was a nightmare teaching you to drive a car, and now you think you’ll be capable of flying a helicopter? Respect your goddamned limits, Grayson. How good could you possibly be?”
“Language,” his mother whispered, like the swearing had been the most offensive thing said.
I’d had enough. My mouth opened before my brain caught up. “He’s good enough that he finished Primary at the top of his class as the best pilot. Good enough to select the Apache, and good enough to be selected for class leader.”
Grayson’s grip tightened almost painfully. “Sam, don’t.”
“Someone has to,” I hissed at him.
“So you’re not moving home? I thought you’d be gone for three years after you graduated,” Tess asked, her tone accusing.
“I’m contracted for six years after I graduate flight school. I’m trying to get stationed at Fort Bragg, which is only four hours away. I will still be close enough to come home on weekends”—he looked at Joey—“and I will keep my promise.”
“Why not Virginia Beach?” Ian prodded. Of course Grace’s dad would want him closer.
“They only have Blackhawks stationed there, and I fly Apaches. I have to go to a post that supports them.”
Five months. That was all I had with him.
“Then why didn’t you fly Blackhawks?” Tess’s voice rose in pitch and volume.
“Because I want to fly Apaches. I worked my ass off for this.”
“Language,” his mom whispered.
“Mom, maybe now isn’t the time,” Constance said quietly.
Christmas would come, and he’d be gone, moving to North Carolina, closer to the woman he loved. While I…what? Lived in Jagger’s empty house and went to community college after all my friends had moved on?
I was going to be left behind. Again.
“What about the shop?” Mr. Masters bellowed. “Everything I have done there, every boat has been for you—for our future.”
Joey sucked in her breath, and Grayson’s eyes snapped toward her. “I think Joey has done a great job, and she’s more than capable. We hold the same degree, and she has way more experience than I do.”
“I don’t need you to stand up for me, Gray,” she spat.
Apparently stubbornness was a family trait.
“Who is in the mood for dessert?” Mrs. Masters asked, only to be run over by Tess.
“So you’re not moving back to Nags Head.”
I scoped out her wineglass to see if she was drunk. Hadn’t he clarified that?
“No,” Grayson answered.
“You mean not yet.” Mr. Masters’ glare could have cut Grayson in two.
“I mean not any time in the near future, if ever. I haven’t decided.” My heartbeat rushing in my ears was the only sound in the silence that followed.
Every eye at the table was locked on Grayson, who nonchalantly took a bite of his potatoes. “These are really good, Mom.”
Take the peace offering.
“But, but…” Parker stuttered, and I braced for impact. “But you can’t not live here. What about Grace?”
Boom. There was not enough wine in the world to deal with this dinner.
“I think I deserve a life, too. A future.” Grayson spoke each word slowly, with a kindness I couldn’t have shown in the same situation. A small sliver of hope embedded in my heart, just strong enough to hold my deepest fears momentarily at bay. A future.
“And what did my Grace deserve?” Tess fired.
“What about your copilots, Gray?” Mr. Masters came in for the kill. “Don’t you think they deserve to live? You have no right to be in the cockpit. You’ll get someone killed…just like before.”
My mouth dropped. His father still blamed him. It was no wonder Grayson kept his life neatly compartmentalized. He was perpetually under attack at home. His muscles coiled beneath my hand.
“That’s enough!” Mrs. Masters stood, her chair falling to the ground behind her. “Gray, this is your life. We might not like your choices, but you’re a grown man. Honey, get over it. Joey’s been running the shop with you for years and has more than earned her place, agreement or none. Tess, Ian—I love you as family, but if you ever insinuate that Grayson was responsible for Grace’s…condition, you will no longer be welcome in my home.”
Grayson pushed back from the table. I followed him, since he still held my hand. In my other, I clutched the study guide that had brought this all on. “Mama,” he whispered as he kissed his mother’s cheek. Then he turned to the table, where everyone sat as if they’d been frozen. “We’ll be leaving now.”
With a hand at my lower back, he led me into the house while the table remained eerily silent behind us.
I buckled into his Mustang as he threw the car into drive and tore out of his parents’ driveway. Grayson’s face was a mask of harsh angles and unforgiving lines. When I reached for his hand, he moved it away.
I didn’t try again.
We pulled into the rental, but he didn’t kill the engine, or even look my way. His ga
ze was fixed ahead of us, on his past, no doubt on Grace, on everything that had been thrown in his face tonight. He was as close as my next breath and as unreachable as yesterday. I had to find a way to get through to him. “Stay with me tonight.”
His hands tightened on the steering wheel, and I waited.
“Okay. I have to get my stuff from my parents’ house and deal with…all that.”
I cupped his stubble-rough cheek in my hand. “I’ll wait. And Grayson. You’re amazing and deserve to fly. If they can’t see that, I’m sorry. But you do. I’ll pin your wings on myself if they don’t come around.”
“Promise?”
“On my life.” He deserved so much better. Yes, he was leaving in five months, and yes, under that insanely jumpable exterior lurked the hottest mess of a man I’d ever seen. But maybe, if I could put my own emotional baggage to the side for a minute, I could help him the same way he’d been helping me since I got to Alabama.
He never looked me in the eye, but he pressed a kiss to my palm in way of good-bye and drove away once I had the front door to the house open.
He was at war with the two sides of himself. I could see it as clearly as if there were literally two of him. I just didn’t know which one would be coming back to me.
I was also too far gone to care. Maybe I could save both sides.
Chapter Nineteen
Sam
“Come on,” Morgan begged as she leaned back into the passenger side of the Yukon. “You know you want to come dancing. Grayson is as moody as they come, and this is vacation.”
“It sounds like a ton of fun”—and right up my usual alley—“but I just can’t.”
“You’re leaving me with him?” She tilted her head toward where Will waited, his arms crossed.
“Something tells me you’ll be just fine.” I smiled. Like I hadn’t seen the sparks between those two. They were more metal-on-metal than kindling-a-fire sparks, but they were there.
Jagger took her place in the open door frame as Morgan looped arms with Paisley to head inside the bar. “Look at you, all grown up and not coming out drinking.”
“Yeah, well, I’d hate for Grayson to have to pull me off another bar.” If he bothered to come looking.
“You sure this is what you want to do?”
The dashboard clock said eleven o’clock. It had been over four hours since Grayson left me. “Yes,” I answered.
“That guy has walls thicker than China.”
“I don’t think anyone’s ever really tried to break through them. He deserves someone who will show up with a bulldozer.” And maybe two hundred pounds of C-4, or hell, even a nuke.
Jagger sighed. “Last year, Grayson told me, ‘sometimes voicing something gives it power over you.’ I used to think it was because he was incredibly wise…”
“But now?” I asked.
“After seeing him this weekend, I think he’s incredibly quiet because he has so many demons dying to gain that voice. The guy is in constant survival mode, Sam. He’s wired for fight or flight. Always has been, and you’re a threat to whatever peace he’s attained by keeping those walls.”
“He’s worth the bulldozer, Jagger.” With every word, my conviction grew. So did my will to fight for him.
“Yeah, he is, and you are, too. Just…be careful.”
I nodded, and he shut the door.
His words stayed with me as I drove to the directions of the GPS location Mia had given me when Grayson hadn’t shown. I crossed the bridge to Roanoke Island and turned into Manteo. A few turns later, and I was parked along the waterfront. The sign hung on the large warehouse read Masters & Son.
I killed the lights and my indecision, and then stepped out of the car. I knocked first, and when no answer came, I turned the unlocked handle, walking into a small, lit office. “Grayson?”
Another door later, I walked into a giant work area, where a huge boat rested on a trailer. The only light came from the boat itself, casting eerie shadows along the floor and walls. The beginnings of other boats took up various locations, but the one in the middle was obviously the showpiece, and her back read The Alibi.
“Grayson?” I called out again.
Movement came from high above me on the boat. “Sam?” Grayson sat on the edge, leaning on the railing as his feet dangled over the side. “How did you…”
“Mia,” I admitted. “Is it okay that I’m here?”
He studied me for a moment, and I braced. “Yeah. There’s a ladder at stern, the back of the boat.”
I kicked off my wedges as he came toward me, then climbed the ladder, using the handholds on the last rungs until I stood inside. “It’s beautiful,” I whispered, taking it in. The lines were smooth, every detail exquisitely attended to. This wasn’t an ordinary sailboat, or one I could dream of affording. The polished decks gleamed in the lights, the luxury seats were the softest leather, everything was buffed, polished, and standing in the middle of it was Grayson. Beautiful, ripped, kind, and complicated Grayson.
I’ll take one yacht and the deckhand, please.
“Your family built this?”
“She’s Dad’s pride and joy. We started the design a couple years ago, but only started building her this year. I helped out on the design, and whenever I was home. Well, when I wasn’t—”
“With Grace,” I finished for him, running my hand along the wheel. “You can say her name. You can talk about her, Grayson. I’m okay with it.”
His hand covered mine, the contact stopping my movement and my breath. “I don’t want to talk about her.”
Even the dim lights couldn’t soften his features. His jaw was tense, unyielding, his mouth set in a firm line. “Who are you?” I asked softly, resting my hand on his chest. “Are you the dutiful son? The one who moves home and takes over his family business? Designs sailboats?”
“Yes.” His hand rested on my hip.
My heart lurched. “Are you the army pilot at the top of your class, ready to be assigned somewhere? Deployed overseas?”
“Yes.”
I drew my gaze up from his chest to look in his eyes. “Are you the guy who kissed me covered in brownie batter? Or the guy who threw his ex-best friend against the wall?”
“Yes.” He pulled my hips against his, and a rush of desire slammed through me.
My hand tightened on the steering wheel. “Grayson, you can’t be both. You’re a whole different person here. At home, you’re a little hard, but here…you’re angry, and dangerous, and more than a little tortured.”
His other hand released mine on the wheel so he framed my hips.
“I get it. I see how they treat you, and what they all expect. I can’t fathom the guilt you feel over what happened to Grace, but I know it fuels what happens here…who you are here.”
“Sam—”
“No, let me get this out.” I steadied my nerves with a huge breath and stepped backward, out of his arms. “You were nothing I had planned. Not that I ever have a plan, right? But you happened. And I know you’re graduating flight school in five months, and then you’ll be gone. I get it. We’re not permanent. But you happened to me. And I have no claim on you, no right to you, and I’m falling for you. That’s…that’s dangerous to me.” His eyes, his mouth, his very being softened. “And coming here, seeing you like this—it hurts my heart. I would give anything for you to have your miracle, to have Grace back, but I can’t.”
“I’m not asking you to,” he said softly, stepping toward me.
I retreated. “Stop. I can’t think when you touch me.”
A corner of his mouth lifted. “Okay.” He took another step.
“It’s just that when you’re home at Rucker, you’re mine. Maybe not…mine, mine. But…I know we have something. And I come here…” Why is this so hard to get out? “Here, you’re hers. And I don’t mean romantically, though I totally get that, too. Here, you’re still paying penance for something you carry no blame for. I feel like the only person who has a chance of breakin
g past your walls is lying in a coma. Here, you’re hers, not mine, and I’m falling, Grayson.”
I put my hands out to block him, but he simply reached under them and lifted me by my hips until I was eye level with him. He was strong enough to carry me with just his arms; I didn’t even need to brace my weight on his shoulders. So damn hot. “Grayson.”
“Shh. My turn.” He placed me on the captain’s chair, keeping our faces a breath apart. His hands were warm as they cupped my face. “You’re right, and I am all those things. Here, I’m what they need me to be. I’m my parents’ son, and my sisters’ brother. I serve as a link to Grace for her parents, and I take a little of their burden for caring for her. I’ll shoulder their blame, even as subconscious as it may be, because I deserve it.” His thumb pressed over my lips when I tried to speak. “No, it’s true. I’ll never forgive myself for letting Owen drive. For not taking his keys. That’s going to haunt me for the rest of my life, and Grace is a living reminder of it. When I’m here, I’m still her best friend. I still pray for a miracle, because if anyone deserves a happy, full life, it’s Grace.”
My stomach dropped. Believing he was always going to be hers and hearing it from his lips were two different things. His thumbs stroked my cheekbones, and I fought against leaning into him, for taking any moment he was willing to give, even if I was selfishly stealing it from her.
“But, Samantha, it doesn’t matter if I’m at our house at Rucker, or walking the beach here. I’m still yours. Sitting next to Grace? Yours. Studying for my next flight? Yours. Arguing with my sisters, my parents, the Bowdens…I’m still yours. I might not say it, but if I happened to you, well, you sure-as-hell more than happened to me. You challenge me, transform me every day. It doesn’t matter what everyone sees, or what role I have to play, you’re under my skin, and when I come here, you’re along for the ride. This is not a temporary thing between us. There is no deadline. I. Am. Always. Yours.”
He kissed me softly, his tongue tracing my lower lip. “So go ahead and fall. I’ve gotten really good at catching you.”
My fingers dug into the back of his shirt at the same moment my lips molded to his. Hands on my hips, he pulled me flush against him, and that fire we’d kept carefully banked raged to life. God, I was ready to burn.
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