Deacon (Unfinished Heroes #4)

by Kristen Ashley

  But I’d lucked out and got my mother’s eyes, unusual warm brown ones that weren’t dark brown or light, but something in between. They came to a dip on the inner corner and flared out large with long lashes that, if I used mascara on them, it would make my eyes look huge. I always thought they were exotic and beautiful and felt I could say that because they were my mom’s, not mine, just a gift she’d given me. I also thought that because all my boyfriends said my eyes were what made them notice me.

  That and my lips, which were very full to near puffy, and they were all mine, not my mom’s. My sister didn’t even have my lips, something she informed me sucked. She got Mom’s eyes too. But she didn’t get my lips (or I didn’t get hers, seeing as she was older than me).

  Last, I had a C-cup and it was my experience most men appreciated a C-cup.

  This man didn’t.

  No. Instead, he held my eyes and jerked his head once in a negative, turned, and walked out of the house.

  Grant closed the door after him.

  I looked to my boyfriend to share that I wasn’t entirely comfortable with all that had just transpired but I didn’t get the chance to say a word.

  He lifted his hand and jabbed his finger at me.

  “No fuckin’ microwaves, Cassidy. You buy that shit, you install it. Now I’m goin’ to town and gettin’ a fuckin’ drink.”

  That was when I stood on the faded, threadbare (but still pretty) circular rug in my foyer in my little house by a river in the Colorado Mountains and watched as my man did just that. He grabbed the keys to his truck and walked out the door.

  He grabbed his keys and walked out the door right in the middle of a discussion about our business, which was a huge part of our lives.

  He grabbed his keys and walked out the door right after a huge, terrifying man checked in to cabin eleven, leaving me alone on our property with said huge, terrifying man. A huge, terrifying man that even Grant couldn’t miss was huge and terrifying.

  He still left me.

  Alone.

  I stood staring at the door, my stomach sinking because I knew that I’d taken a massive risk, sinking my savings into these cabins. Cabins the owners were so desperate to get rid of, the price was right, as in cheap, as in scary-cheap. Cabins they were so desperate to leave, they left every stick of furniture, every rug, every picture on the wall, in the cabins and the house. Cabins I took on, moving to another state where I knew no one. Having to fix them up, knowing how to paint a room but not much else.

  But what I was realizing, too late, was the biggest risk I took, the risk that looked like it would fail, was the risk I took on Grant.

  * * * * *

  Late that night, I sat on my side porch with my feet up on the top railing, a beer in my hand, the sounds of the river rushing along the rocks to my left, the night air cool on my skin, my eyes trained through the thick trees to the dim light I could just barely see coming from cabin eleven.

  It was late and Grant wasn’t back.

  But scary guy was awake and doing something in cabin eleven.

  I just hoped he wasn’t building a bomb or planning to overthrow the government, whereupon he would (again hopefully) fail spectacularly but I would be dragged in front of the cameras as the hapless cabin owner who stupidly rented him his headquarters to plan and carry out his dastardly deeds.

  On that unhappy thought, one of a bazillion I’d had since Grant left, I took my feet from the railing and moved into the house. It was time for bed. Something I’d been getting into alone far more frequently the last couple of weeks.

  I walked through the quiet house. My quiet house. An old, narrow, but somehow spacious, two story, three-bedroom, two and a half bath Victorian farmhouse that was a couple shades above dilapidated, but fixed up would be sublime.

  I did this trying to think of all the ways I intended to fix it up (eventually). Something that I’d find exciting. A project I was raring to take on (after the cabins were done, of course). Something I preferred to think about rather than Grant being a jerk or the guy in cabin eleven scaring the crap out of me.

  It was dark. I was alone. And try as I might (and I tried), I couldn’t stop the pain nagging at my heart that indications were very strong that things weren’t going to work out with Grant. We’d been together over a year. I was sure about him. If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t have dragged him to Colorado. I wouldn’t even have asked. I would have gone it alone. Maybe not then, at twenty-four years old with no idea what I was doing, but eventually.

  He’d promised to help. He’d said he was all in.

  To make myself feel better (in other words, to give Grant excuses), I told myself all of this was new. It was a change. We’d only been there six weeks. We were both still getting accustomed to our new home, our new business, our new lives, and even ourselves, as we hadn’t lived together back home.

  Maybe Grant turned into a dick when he was in an unknown situation and as things settled he’d go back to being my sweet, affectionate, loving, awesome boyfriend Grant.

  I walked through the house, turning out lights, locking up, but when I went to the foyer to turn on the light to welcome Grant home (whenever he chose to come home) my eyes caught on the register.

  It was new. Mom had bought it for me and gave it to me five minutes before Grant and I got in our packed cars and hauled ourselves up to Colorado. Mom giving it to me had made me laugh and hug her, and only when I was in my car, following Grant in his truck, did I let myself cry.

  I saw from four feet away that we were still on the first page and there weren’t many names on the lines.

  I moved closer and looked at the name on the last line.

  In black, the writing slanted sharply to the right and spiky, I saw his name.

  John Priest.

  The name suited him in a Hollywood everyday-outrageously-handsome-guy-run-amok-with-vengeance character type of way.

  In the real world, it seemed fake.

  Which also didn’t bode well.

  But Grant had his two hundred dollars to drink on and be the big man with his new buddies in town. And hopefully John Priest wasn’t building a bomb or torturing an innocent in cabin eleven.

  Hopefully everything would be all right.

  Hopefully everything would settle down, the work would get done, the fights would stop, Grant would go back to being Grant, and he and I could start living the dream.

  I went to bed with these hopes in mind.

  I went to bed but it took me ages to get to sleep because my mind knew they were just that.

  Hopes.

  Just hopes.

  And even at my age, having grown up on a big ranch in Oklahoma with a great dad, a wonderful mom, an older sister who’d never been sneaky or jealous or mean but sweet and supportive and awesome, a younger brother who acted like an older one in the protective and loving departments—in other words, I’d lived a good life—I still knew hopes were that.

  Just hopes.

  Not reality.

  * * * * *

  “Toss pillows?”

  I looked from my desk to Grant, who was standing by the huge bags strewn around the study filled with comforters, sheets, and toss pillows. He was holding what I thought was a sweet toss pillow in his hand but he was glaring at me.

  I didn’t need this.

  Not again.

  I’d had eight months of it.

  I was done.

  “It’s time to decorate the units, Grant,” I told him something he would know if he was talking to me on a normal basis. Something he was not doing since he wasn’t around a lot to talk, mostly because he was hunting, fishing, drinking, and through the winter months had been off skiing.

  All on my dime. His money had run out two months ago.

  He had to ask for it. Luckily, I was smart enough in the nightmare that had become my life to start this venture with separate accounts.

  Asking for money was something that did not make him happy. It was something that made me less happy. And i
t was something that meant we fought and did it ugly. So ugly I shut him up by giving him money.

  So last, it was something I was getting really sick of doing.

  All of it.

  The money.

  And especially the fighting.

  “I’m getting the website together,” I went on. “We need photos of the cabins to put on there. Photos that look good. Photos that would make people want to stay here.”

  “Cassidy, for fuck’s sake, we can’t afford toss pillows, seein’ as you just replaced all the water heaters.”

  I turned fully to him but kept my seat, looking up at him and pulling up all the patience I had (which admittedly wasn’t much) to explain, “The heater went out in unit eight. When the inspection was done, the inspector said all the water heaters were old and working what he guessed was on a wing and a prayer. We don’t need to have folks in a unit and their water heaters break down. I know this because we had folks in a unit, their water heater broke down, and they didn’t like that much. I get that. I wouldn’t like it much either. In fact, I don’t like it much either. It doesn’t say good things. It doesn’t say referrals or repeat business. It says check out immediately, don’t look back, and tell your friends about your nightmare experience in the crappy cabins you found in the Colorado Mountains.”

  “That makes sense if we got the fuckin’ money to do it,” he returned.

  “We do,” I shot back, and we did. But just barely.

  “We don’t,” he bit out.

  “I keep the books, Grant, and we absolutely do,” I retorted.

  “I look at the books, Cassidy, and that’s bullshit.”

  “You’re right. It is,” I replied. “If one of us is in town drinking, at the slopes skiing, and out buying hunting and fishing licenses. If one of us would stop doing that, we’d have a lot more to do a lot more then maybe make a lot more.”

  He leaned back and his face twisted, but I had no reaction to it this time. I’d seen that look on his face a lot the last eight months.

  Suffice it to say, Grant was not settling into our life in the Rocky Mountains.

  Grant was still being Dick Grant in a way that I figured Dick Grant was all there was left to Grant.

  “Here she goes again with this shit,” he muttered.

  “Yeah, here I go again, because you’re never here,” I snapped. “You never help. I’ve had those light fixtures for five months, asked you so many times to put them in, I’m saying that crap in my sleep. And there they sit.” I swung an arm out to the corner of the study where boxes were piled four high and three deep. “So excuse me if I’m not big on listening to you complain about toss pillows when you’ve barely lifted a finger since we got here. This is my gig. I’m doing my gig and not listening to your crap. You want out, you’re out.”

  His expression deteriorated as he asked, “What does that mean?”

  That was when I stood. I was wearing jeans, a sweater, and had bare feet. But even with Grant only hitting five foot ten, he still mostly towered over me.

  “It means I’m sick of this,” I hissed. “I’m sick of fighting. I’m sick of doing everything by myself. I’m sick of working all day and being exhausted all night and hitting an empty bed. I’m sick of keeping the books…by myself. Cleaning the units…by myself. Washing the sheets…by myself. And somehow in all that by myself, I’m still managing to be sick of,” I stabbed a finger his way, “you.”

  He put his hands to his hips. “And I’m sick of you carin’ more about sandin’ a bunch of fuckin’ floors, gettin’ on my ass all the time about fuckin’ light fixtures.” It was his turn to swing an arm to the boxes. “Whinin’ all the time about how I don’t help, how I’m never here. Every wakin’ minute is about those cabins, Cassidy, and not one is about givin’ a single shit about your man.”

  “Tell me,” I leaned back and crossed my arms on my chest, “how exactly do you want me to give a shit about you, Grant?”

  He responded immediately.

  It just wasn’t a good response.

  “A blowjob once in a blue moon would be appreciated.”

  My eyes grew huge and my voice grew loud. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I didn’t come up here to bust my hump cuttin’ and layin’ countertops and patchin’ roofs and feelin’ my woman crackin’ the whip. I came up here to live a good life and, newsflash, babe, a good life for a man means he gets head on more than the rare occasion.”

  I uncrossed my arms so I could mimic his posture, putting my hands to my own hips.

  “Sorry, darlin’, when you stumble in at three in the morning and wake me up because you’re in a certain mood and I’m exhausted from having a hammer or a paintbrush or a wrench in my hand all day, up a ladder, on my back under a sink, in town bleeding money on water heaters when my man’s at the slopes bleeding money, living,” I leaned toward him and shouted, “the good life, I don’t have it in me to suck your cock!”

  “That’s what I’m sayin’,” he pointed out, his voice rising.

  “Oh, I’m hearing you,” I returned, my voice already loud. “And by the way,” I kept yelling. “To get the good life, you work for the good life. And you were not unaware that that was exactly what we’d both be doing when we made our way up here. It’s just that it’s only been me who’s been working for it and it’s only been you who’s been living it.”

  “You don’t ever take a fuckin’ break!” he shouted.

  “That’s because I can’t!” I shouted back. “Grant, we gotta get these cabins shaped up! We need to rent them for double what they brought in rundown so we can afford lift tickets and nights in town listening to live music and a decent mattress that isn’t lumpy.”

  “Yeah, babe, that’s another thing. Every unit has a better fuckin’ mattress than what we sleep on.”

  I threw up my hands in exasperation and screamed, “People are not gonna come back for lumpy mattresses!”

  Half a second after I finished screaming, we both heard a knock at the front door, and Grant, being Grant, walked away from his angry girlfriend in order to answer it.

  I stalked after him, the study right off the foyer, and stopped dead the instant I stepped foot into it.

  This was because John Priest was standing at the door.

  He didn’t look at me. His eyes were pinned to Grant. He hadn’t been back since his last stay but he hadn’t changed. Except to be scarier (if that could be believed, but there it was, right before me).

  I also knew he’d heard and I had a feeling he’d heard more than just me shouting about lumpy mattresses.

  “Cabin eleven?” he asked, his rumbling but hollow voice filling the foyer.

  Grant turned to me. “Seems this guy doesn’t give a shit about lumpy mattresses.”

  He had to be joking.

  In a fury, not thinking, not caring, so over it I could scream, I looked to our first-ever return customer and shared, “You’ll be delighted to know that not only will you have a brand new microwave in your cabin, it’s freshly painted, has a new water heater, and a high quality, firm mattress to provide excellent rest while offering superb lumbar support.”

  Not missing a beat, John Priest replied, “Can I take that to mean the cabins are no longer forty a night?”

  I jerked my head up and down once. “They’re sixty.”

  He looked to Grant. “Five nights. Cash.” Then he reached to his wallet.

  Grant moved to the locked cabinet.

  I glared at my boyfriend as he did so and moved toward the door, stating, “We will require you to sign in again, I’m afraid.”

  John Priest glanced at me and I stopped well short of the door to give him and the bulk of his big body room to get to the registration book.

  “And you can hand me the cash,” I finished.

  Priest’s head was bent to the book but it turned minutely so his eyes could slide to me. He did this but he said nothing. Just dipped his chin and went back to the book.

  “You’re a piece
of work,” Grant hissed and I looked to him.

  “Wrong. I’m the proprietress of what will soon be amazing, kickass cabins that will be full every night with a waiting list because people can’t wait to come back.”

  I looked to John Priest to see he’d straightened and was watching us bicker with a vacant expression on his face.

  I kept talking, or more like snapping (but, whatever).

  “I’d ask for feedback but even the pizza delivery places ask for feedback these days and it’s supremely annoying. But I do hope you enjoy your visit enough to return yet again, tell all your friends about us, and if you have anything of note to share, complimentary or otherwise, I’m open to hearing it.”

  He held my gaze while I blathered and the instant I was done speaking, he grunted, “Key.”

  Mr. Personality.

  I turned, snatched the key from Grant’s hand, and handed it to John Priest.

  In return he handed me several one-hundred-dollar bills that I would find later were four of them, saying, “We’re good,” meaning I got to keep the change.

  Excellent.

  “Have a lovely stay and remember!” I called after him as he moved to leave and I shoved the money in my pocket. “I’m always here should you need anything!”

  I got a look over his shoulder from his beautiful but fathomless eyes then he disappeared.

  I walked to the door, slammed it, and whirled on Grant.

  “You have two days,” I declared. “Two days to pack your stuff and get out.”

  His head jerked, his face paled, and his lips moved to clip, “You cannot be fuckin’ serious.”

  “Deadly,” I whispered, my heart pumping, my head hurting, part of my soul dying, but my mouth kept speaking. “I loved you. I trusted you. I believed in you. I believed you believed in me. You let me down. Then you did it again. And again. And again. I’m done. I’m cutting my losses and moving on.”