Giving It All

by Arianna Hart

  “I know. So when did you get his pants down? You’re killing me here.”

  “He came by tonight to bring a plate of food from his mom.”

  “It’s the least she could do after interrupting you yesterday.”

  Ellie gave him a pointed look. “Do you want to hear this or not?”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “After I ate everything but the pattern off the plate, he offered to give me a massage.”

  “Did you use that lotion I gave you for your birthday?”

  “No, he just used his hands.” Ellie couldn’t hold back the delicious shiver the thought of his hands brought forth.

  Peter took a big gulp of wine. “I know that look. That’s a nookie lookie if I ever saw one.”

  “Well, let’s just say he relaxed me, and I returned the favor.” Again, tingles electrified her body and she felt herself grow damp between her thighs.

  “And?”

  “And then Mrs. Anderson needed him to go to Canton because there was a problem at the store.”

  “Are you freaking kidding me? Again? We need to get Susan out of town or you’ll never get laid.”

  “Grant is here to help his mother, not to get me laid.”

  “I see no reason why he can’t do both.”

  “That’s where it’s headed, and that’s what has me so conflicted. Or maybe not conflicted enough.”

  “Ellie, darling, that makes absolutely no sense.”

  She got out of the chair to lean against the porch railing. “I know. Nothing makes sense to me right now. My libido is doing cartwheels, it’s so happy to finally be getting some action. My brain, when it engages after disappearing as soon as Grant touches me, scolds me that I’m being irresponsible and reckless. I know I should be more concerned about jumping headlong into this…thing with Grant, but I just don’t. Which is why I’m confused.”

  “Me too.”

  “That’s not helping.”

  “Oh, you want my help. I see. I thought you were having both sides of the conversation.”

  “Peter, please. I haven’t seen Grant in five years, and when I did see him on a regular basis, he never even knew I was alive. We have no common ground other than growing up on the same street. He’s seen the world and I’ve never been out of Georgia.”

  Peter sighed and joined her at the porch railing. “Sweetums, I think you’re overthinking this. As shocking as that is for you. You are two healthy adults who are in close proximity to each other. There’s nothing strange about feeling attracted to him and seeing as it’s reciprocated, acting on that attraction. You don’t have to make a spreadsheet and plot out every action, just see where it goes.”

  “I like spreadsheets.”

  “I know. I try to overlook that flaw in your character. Honey, what are you really afraid of? I know you like sex, even when it was with that boring CFO.”

  “Josh wasn’t boring in bed, just not particularly imaginative.”

  “That’s the same as boring. Come on, tell Uncle Pete what’s bothering you.”

  Ellie looked out over the night-shadowed yard. The moon was a huge, glowing orb in the sky. “He’s only been home a few days and hasn’t really seen everyone. I think he’s still getting used to being in Dale and is a little nervous, so he’s sticking close to me.”

  “Understandable. You’ve been helping his mom while he’s been gone, you know what’s going on, know the routine.”

  “Yes, but what’s gonna happen when he’s comfortable again?”

  “I’m not getting you.”

  “When he’s back to being the Viking and everyone is fawning over him. You saw what happened at the bake sale. That used to happen everywhere he went. It was like he was a celebrity, and now that he’s even more gorgeous and a war hero, he’ll be even more in demand.”

  “Still not getting you. What does this have to do with going to bed with him? Are you afraid he won’t have time for you once he gets back into the swing of things?”

  “I’m afraid he won’t want to have time for me. He told me at the bake sale I could protect him from the women. I thought he was joking, but then later we saw Pansy and he grabbed my hand.”

  “You think he’s only pretending to enjoy a blowjob so you’ll keep the other women at bay?”

  “It sounds ridiculous when you say it like that.”

  “Because it is ridiculous. Honey, SEALs are used to women throwing themselves at them. They even have a name for them. Frog Hogs, I think it is. If what you say is true, Grant has been having women fall at his feet since he was a teen. I don’t think now that he’s almost thirty he suddenly needs you to protect him from the adoring masses.”

  “Mary Ellen kind of suggested I should pretend to be his girlfriend so all the women would leave him alone. What if he’s thinking the same thing?”

  “He’s not. Trust me on this, a man would never think up something like that. Look, I get that it’s hard to lose the hero worship for your teenage crush, but what do you think of the man he is now? Not who he was, but what you’ve seen of him since he’s been back?”

  Ellie replayed the interactions she’d had with him since he’d been home, trying to filter out the lust and just focus on Grant as a person. “I like that he’s willing to drop everything to help his mom and dad. I’m impressed as hell at how well he’s adapted to losing his leg. Half the time I forget he has the prosthesis. He’s smart and funny, and I think even if he was butt ugly, I’d want to get to know him better. There are times when I see shadows lurking in his eyes. I want to know more about those too.”

  “Be careful what you wish for. It’s an ugly world out there, and I’ll bet he’s seen the worst of it.” Peter finished off his glass of wine. “If you want my advice, I wouldn’t worry about what’s going to happen when he’s the center of Dale’s social scene—if there is such a thing. If you like being with him and are attracted to him, and the last time I checked, you had a heartbeat, so I assume that’s a yes, then do what feels good.”

  “But what if—”

  “If ifs were gifts every day would be Christmas.”

  “You stole that from Charles Barkley.”

  “That doesn’t make it any less true. Don’t what if your life away. There’s nothing wrong in taking pleasure where you can find it. And if it doesn’t work out, you’ll have the memories and hopefully, they’ll be hot enough to last a lifetime.”

  “My libido agrees with you. My brain isn’t quite so sure.”

  “Tell your brain to focus on spreadsheets and let the libido run the show for a while. It’ll be good for you.”

  “That’s probably the worst advice anyone has ever given in the history of mankind.”

  “You obviously haven’t watched the Academy Awards recently. Whoever dressed Jared Leto should be shot.”

  “Well, that puts everything into perspective. Who’s Jared Leto?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Grant parked his mother’s car behind the police cruiser sitting in front of Anderson’s Automotive. Out of habit, he scanned the area, looking for anything out of place. There were few people around, a handful of onlookers were clustered together outside the bar down the street, but they seemed to be milling about more than avidly watching the officer.

  “Hi, I’m Grant Anderson. I’ll let you in,” Grant introduced himself to the officer and unlocked the door. He started to enter his father’s birthday into the blinking security system panel and then remembered it had been changed to Greg’s date of birth. Luckily, Ellie wasn’t the only one who memorized numbers easily.

  “Please stay back.” The officer stepped in front of Grant and shined his flashlight around the store. “Dispatch said they tried to contact the key holder, a Greg Anderson, but got no response.”

  “He’s my cousin. He works at the store and lives in Canton, so he’s th
e primary contact.” It took much more effort to step back and let the cop do his job than Grant thought it would. Everything inside him wanted to run the show. Already, his brain catalogued the open office door and the torn boxes on the floor. He stayed where the officer had directed, but it wasn’t easy.

  “Looks like someone jimmied the back door,” the cop called from the back room.

  Grant wasn’t surprised. He’d identified the back door as the weakest point of entry Saturday night too. He walked to the office, flipping the lights on as he went. Whoever did this was long gone, so there was no need to creep around in the dark.

  “See the marks here? He probably picked the lock and then got scared off when the alarm went off. Smart though, he shut the door behind him. I didn’t notice anything when I checked it out on my first pass through.”

  Grant suspected the cop probably thought it was a false alarm and didn’t bother getting out of the car, but he didn’t say anything. He was more concerned with cataloguing the changes to the office since his visit two nights ago. If the thieves had actually gotten inside the building before the alarm went off, they only had time to rifle through a few boxes of supplies that hadn’t been here Saturday night.

  The cop called in the robbery and Grant knew he’d be in for a long night of answering questions by the police. Unfortunately, he wasn’t sure how many of those questions he had answers to. He knew he should contact the insurance company too, but he didn’t even know who it was. Where the hell was Greg? He might be running the business into the ground, but he should know some of this.

  “If you ask me, I bet it was some kids looking to make a quick buck. Thought they’d come in, grab some parts and fence them. They weren’t expecting an alarm and ran off once they heard sirens. Can you tell if anything is missing?”

  “I don’t know. These boxes must be a recent shipment, and I don’t see an invoice, so I don’t know what was in them. My cousin should have that information though, he placed the orders.” Grant called the cell number his mother had given him for Greg, but it went straight to voicemail.

  “I can add it to the report later, after you’ve had a chance to look around more.”

  “Thanks.”

  Grant stepped out of the way as more police officers arrived on the scene. He really wished Ellie had come with him. Hell, she knew way more about the business than he did anyway. She would have been ten times more helpful. He had his phone in his hand and debated calling and asking her to come down but quickly decided against it.

  She’d been exhausted after her long day and the last thing she needed was to drive an hour to Canton and sit with the police until all hours of the night just because he asked her to help. The worst part was she’d probably do it too. The woman seemed incapable of saying no to anything.

  “What’s going on?” Greg stumbled into the office, looking around blankly at all the cops. “What are you doing here?” he asked Grant.

  “There was a break-in. The security company called you first, and when you didn’t respond, they called Mom. She sent me down. Where have you been? I tried your cell and it went straight to voicemail.”

  Greg took his phone out of his pocket and looked at it. “Damn it, it’s dead. I forgot to charge it last night.”

  “Can you tell if anything is missing? I can’t find an invoice for these boxes so I don’t know what was in them to start with.”

  “Shit. Hold on. I have it written down somewhere.”

  Grant watched Greg carefully as he shuffled the papers on the desk. His eyes skittered nervously to the police around the room. Greg’s hands shook as he grabbed a stack of papers and flipped through them. He seemed to shy away from the overhead lights and Grant noticed his pupils were dilated.

  What the fuck had he been doing while the store was being broken into?

  “Mr. Anderson? Is this yours?” Greg and Grant both went to where a cop held up a switch blade with a skull handle near a pile of torn cardboard.

  “It’s not mine,” Grant said.

  “Nope, never seen it before,” Greg answered, but his eyes flickered away.

  “I’ll bag it for evidence.”

  Grant stepped back and watched Greg go through the debris on the floor. Occasionally, he’d check one of the slips of paper in his hand. “It doesn’t look like anything’s missing,” Greg said finally.

  “What about in the storage container out back?” Grant asked.

  “That was broken into too?” Greg’s face went pasty white.

  “I don’t know, maybe we should check it out.”

  Greg pushed past the officer taking pictures of the marks on the lock on the back door. Grant followed him slowly. When Greg got to the storage container and saw the lock still in place, his body sagged with visible relief.

  “They didn’t bust in there?” Grant asked.

  “What? No, it’s still locked, see?” He lifted the padlock, showing it was still secure.

  “What’s in there?”

  “Just spare inventory. I don’t want to have to go to the warehouse for every little thing, so I have some parts delivered here and I keep them in this container.”

  “If the thieves were smarter, they’d have brought bolt cutters and popped that lock without any alarm going off. You might want to think about leaving the parts at the warehouse where they have security cameras and an alarm system.”

  “Don’t tell me how to run my business. We’ve never had any problems here before. This was probably just some kids. It won’t happen again.”

  “If you say so.”

  Grant knew just about every red-blooded male in the South carried a pocket knife, but very few carried switch blades in rural Georgia. Greg had recognized the switch blade, no matter what he said to the police. He knew more about what was going on with this break-in than he was letting on. Damn it, Greg was hiding something.

  And Grant aimed to find out what it was.

  It was seven o’clock in the morning before Grant got through at the store and back home. As he pulled into the driveway, he caught a glimpse of Ellie getting into her car behind the garage. She must have an early appointment today if she was up and about already. Too bad, he wanted to touch base with her about the break-in at the store. Maybe he could corner her tonight and fill her in. If she’d had time to look over the paperwork, she might have some ideas of her own about what was going on.

  Grant climbed out of the car, his left leg dragging somewhat. He hadn’t bothered to put in the spare battery for his BiOM, and this one had died sometime last night. It still functioned better than the old blade-like prosthesis he’d had before, but the loss of power was noticeable.

  “Come on, baby. You can do it,” Ellie’s voice carried on the soft morning breeze. “Just one more month and I’ll leave you alone.”

  What the hell? Grant followed her voice around behind the garage. Ellie sat in her car, cranking the ignition without success.

  “Having car troubles?” Grant asked, leaning in her open window.

  “Good Lord! Where did you come from?” Ellie jolted and slapped her hand against her chest.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “My car won’t start and I need to get to Canton for an eight-thirty appointment.”

  “Pop the hood. Let me get a look.”

  “I don’t want to keep you. You were up all night, you probably want to sleep.”

  “It’s fine. I don’t sleep much anyway. Come on, pop the hood.”

  Grant didn’t see anything obviously wrong, no loose belts or unattached wires. He made sure the battery connections were secure and relatively clear. It might be something wrong with her starter.

  “Put it in neutral and try to start it,” he directed.

  She did as he directed with no success.

  “Hold on, let me try one more thing.” He went into the garage and grabbed
a hammer. “Try it again.” As she turned the key, he wacked the starter with the hammer. The engine turned over with a sputter and then caught.

  “Thank you. I don’t even know what you did, but you saved my bacon. This is a new client and I don’t want to be late.”

  “You have to bring it into a garage. This was only a temporary fix. You’re going to need a new starter.”

  Her face fell. “That sounds expensive.”

  God, her eyes displayed every emotion she experienced. He felt like he’d just kicked a puppy. “I can get you a discount on the parts. I have some connections.”

  “I hate to take advantage, but I only need her to last one more month. I’m getting a new car, well, a new used car, at the end of April.”

  “Without a new starter, this car won’t last the week.”

  “Oh.” She heaved a sigh. “Well, I can’t go the rest of the month with no car, so I guess I’ll bring it into Dave at Professional Auto Care and see what he can do. Thanks for getting her going. You really did save my life.”

  “I’ll be in Canton later today. I have to check back in with the police after the break-in. I can give you a lift home if you’d like.”

  “That would be great, but I don’t want to inconvenience you. I can probably get a loaner from Dave.”

  “It’s no problem. Maybe we could even grab dinner while we’re there.”

  “Like a date?” Her cheeks flamed with color. “Never mind. I’ve got to go. Text me when you’re in town and if I’m ready to go too, I’ll let you know. If not, I’ll get a rental. Thanks again.” She waved and pulled out, tires crunching on the gravel drive.

  Grant watched her pull out onto House Street and waited until he was sure the car wouldn’t die at the stop sign before he headed into the house. Why would the idea of a real date fluster her so much?

  Maybe because you never asked her on one. You just stuck your tongue down her throat whenever she stood still long enough, asshole.

  He winced at his conscience’s pointed jab. Since he’d been home, he’d spent a lot of time with Ellie, but he hadn’t done even the littlest bit to romance her. Sure, he’d seduced her and she’d been more than willing, but other than the bake sale and a cone at the Tasty Treat, they hadn’t been out in public together.