by Alyssa Kress
And she thought Griffith was just like him.
Griffith wanted to slam his fist into the table. He wanted to lift his head and howl. He'd admit he hadn't been the best person in the world, but he'd never been that bad. And right now he honestly wanted to help Kate.
Good God, he wanted to love her.
But she thought he was like Eric.
On the tabletop, Griffith's fingers curled into a fist. Frustration, fear, and longing twisted inside him. The situation was so much worse than he'd imagined. Nearly impossible. He had no idea what to do about it...except for one thing. Griffith breathed in.
He wasn't giving up.
~~~
"A little more — Oh, yes, sweetheart." Ricky's voice was dark molasses sliding hot and sweet through Deirdre as she lay beneath him in his double bed on Friday night. She slid her arms around his neck and opened her mouth against his next, deep kiss. She widened her thighs, as she knew he wanted her to, giving his fingers room to stroke her the way she liked.
It hadn't taken much consideration to end up in bed with Ricky tonight, on this so-called 'last' date. From the minute Deirdre had opened her door two hours ago and beheld Ricky standing there in a freshly pressed dress shirt, silk tie, and uncertain smile, she'd known it had been the right decision to accept this date. It had also been smart to put it off. Instead of jumping to Ricky's bidding, she'd found a reason to postpone the date, making him anticipate — and giving him time to reconsider.
What he really wanted wasn't a last date; it was another chance.
In taking his arm at her front door earlier, Deirdre had given that chance to him. Happiness, relief, and joy had flowed from him back to her as, smiling and chatting, they'd gone to their old hangout, a tiny Italian restaurant on Hillhurst. The looks Ricky had sent across the table had been alternately tender and lust-filled. Deirdre had felt her confidence stretch and bloom.
Oh, they were so good together.
So when, while pocketing his credit card after paying the check, Ricky had cautiously suggested bringing Deirdre to his place before driving her home, Deirdre had happily agreed.
He'd held her hand in the car, put his arm around her waist as he led her through the old courtyard to his cottage, and then kissed her with a devastating mixture of tenderness and passion once inside his door.
It had seemed perfectly right, perfectly safe, to let things progress from there.
"God, do that again," Ricky moaned, shifting his hips so Deirdre could reach his erection. "Yes," he murmured on a pleasured sigh. "Oh, yes."
Then he moved her hand away, spread her thighs with his knees, and entered her: slowly, attentively, purposefully. Together, he and Deirdre released a relieved sigh, followed by a laugh and a smile.
Together. Oh, they were so together.
Deirdre gave herself up to the whole thing; Ricky's athletic movements within her, her rising physical pleasure, the need and love she felt deep inside. She was sure that Ricky, in his own male way, was going through a similar process, a...further bonding.
They'd met an obstacle in their relationship and overcome it, becoming closer in the process.
Everything rose inside Deirdre, intensifying to a pitch so high and so sharp she had to cry out. Ricky growled his own climax a split-second after. She clung to him and he clung back. During that moment she felt closer to him than she'd ever felt toward another human being.
"Oh, Deirdre, Deirdre." She felt Ricky put his face next to hers, his nose in her hair. Clutching her, he shuddered.
Smiling, Deirdre embraced him back. Now, certainly, he would admit what they were to each other, how important, how...together.
Slowly, Ricky untangled from her, lifting his face first, unclutching his arms, and then moving his legs from between hers. Still smiling, Deirdre looked up at him. Then she froze.
His face was cold, dark, even hard. Deliberately so. His eyes cut to hers and he smiled, but he made it a cynical, twisted thing. "There's no denying you're a class act, Deed. That was quite a send-off."
She stared at him. Everything inside her, everything that had been so warm and open went still and cold — and then hot. Fury. It swept through her with a speed and force she couldn't control, nor wanted to. It was as if something inside her, long held back, had snapped.
Still. He was denying it still. After everything: the candle-lit dinner, the smiles and laughter, the lovemaking. None of that had been fake. But this was. He was set on denying his feelings, and didn't care how far he had to hurt her in the process. That was the part that broke the camel's back. He didn't care that his self-denial was hurting her.
But Deirdre cared. She wasn't going to let anyone hurt her any more.
Least of all Ricardo Ascensios.
Deirdre sat up straight; so straight and so fast, Ricky had to jump back to avoid getting hit in the nose. "You," she said crisply, "are done."
"Excuse me?" He had the good sense to look scared.
Deirdre swept off the bed, making Ricky scramble out of the way. Uncaring of her nudity, not letting even that weaken her, she scooped her dress off the floor. "You are done," she repeated, "and I am through. With you. You had your chance, Bud, more chances than you probably deserved, and you blew it."
"Excuse me?" He straightened from the crouch into which he'd dropped.
Deirdre shimmied into her dress. "You know what I'm talking about."
"No. No, I don't." He put back his shoulders and attempted to take a high road. "I'm sorry if that came out crude, but we both agreed this was goodbye."
With her head emerging from her dress, Deirdre snorted. "Goodbye. Good bullshit. You know what tonight was about." She pointed a rigid finger toward the bed. "You know what that was about, but you're too...immature to admit it. Yes, immature, childish, a baby. It would cost you more than you think you can afford to say you like me, that I'm good for you...that you're better off with me than without me."
Deirdre stabbed her feet into her high-heeled pumps. "Well, I'm the one saying sayonara now, baby, because I've had it. I'm done with men who can't afford me, emotionally. Yes, I'm done with small spenders. And you, Ricky, are an emotional cheapskate."
His jaw was hanging open. Obviously he hadn't thought she had it in her. Hadn't thought she had any balls, figuratively speaking.
Well, she did. Figuratively speaking.
And she was through letting him walk all over them.
"I'm leaving now." She grabbed her purse. "Don't follow me out. I'll call a cab on my cell from the courtyard. Oh, yes, and please don't let me hear from you again."
"Deirdre — "
"Not ever again." She loved him. She would have wanted to be together with him. But not like this. Not if he was going to be a child.
"Deirdre — " Ricky tried again, but she only heard half of it. She was out the door. He wanted her now?
Too late.
~~~
Kate was hurtling down the hill in her Toyota on her way to a dentist appointment in Taft when past the bottom of the hill and around the bend, on Mineral Road, she saw a trailer parked in a patch of dry and matted straw. Amid acres of scrub and sagebrush, rabbit holes and wind, the trailer was the only sign of human encroachment, besides the asphalt road itself.
Kate hit the brakes and slowed to a crawl as she went past, her suspicions flying free and fast. Sure enough, a sign was posted on the trailer announcing it was owned by Blaine Development.
Confirmation of her worst fears felt almost as sweet as it did bitter. She'd been right all along. Griffith was building the Wildwood housing project, after all. This was his company's construction trailer.
So much for his grand declaration at the courthouse. So much for his 'why won't you believe me?' Ha! She'd been correct to refuse his so-called help. He was a liar. And she hadn't hurt the camp.
On impulse, Kate pulled her car into the hard-packed dirt lot set to one side of the trailer. Only one vehicle was already parked there; a white pick-up truck with Blaine Development emblazoned on i
ts cab doors.
Kate drew up her parking brake and put her hand on the key in her ignition. A dim, logical part of her mind argued against turning off the motor. What would be gained by confronting whoever was inside the trailer? They were only doing their job, with no knowledge or responsibility regarding the underlying injustice.
But she needed to see with her own two eyes. She needed to know beyond a shadow of a doubt the depth of Griffith's cruelty.
She turned off the motor. Promising herself she wasn't going to make a fuss, Kate clicked open her car door. She only wanted to...see it all. What was the schedule? When would they come up the hill with their bulldozers? And just how wonderfully wonderful were these cheapo houses Griffith planned to build for people who wouldn't begin to appreciate the rough beauty of the California desert?
Kate strode across the dirt and up the steps of the rust red trailer. Another Blaine Development logo, an impossibly clever-looking fox smiling in the midst of a circle of boxy buildings, was affixed to the wall beside the door. She straightened her shoulders, took a deep breath, and knocked.
Griffith opened the door.
Kate's heart stopped beating. She dropped down one of the three steps from the door. "Uh...it's you," she said, stupidly.
"Who else?" Griffith's face had been neutral when he'd opened the door. Now a wide smile bloomed. He glanced to the side, along the wall of his trailer. "Kind of ostentatious for bait, but it worked."
"Bait?" He was there. He was...smiling. He was looking all healthy and dynamic and full of life.
Griffith looked back at her. "It got you here."
Kate felt a flush spread over her face. This man was building a big, ugly housing project on the untouched desert plain. He was going to take her water and close her camp. But she still reacted to him, to his vitality and charm.
He reached out a hand. "Come on in."
"What?" Kate twisted to avoid his touch, and then jumped down from the steps to the ground. "Not on your life."
"But — You knocked on the door, didn't you?"
Unable to deny it, Kate turned and, on shaky legs, started back to her car. Just how weak, she wondered, did he think she was? Bait? He'd wanted her to knock, to see him, to come inside? Did he think he could seduce her into going along with his camp-killing project? Her hands were shaking so badly she dropped her keys after she dug them out of her pocket.
"Kate." Griffith had followed her across the dirt lot. He now stooped to pick up her car keys lying in the straw beside her car.
Kate cocked one hip and, looking past Griffith's ear, held out her hand for the keys. She was trembling, and furious with herself for letting Griffith get to her in any way whatsoever.
"You knocked on the trailer door to find out what was going on." Griffith held the keys out but didn't put them into her hand. "So what if it happened to be me, your worst enemy, who opened the door? You can still come inside and find out what you wanted to know. I'd like you to see, in fact. I'd like...your input."
Kate had to look at him then. The nerve. The absolute gall. He wanted her input?
But Griffith's expression as he met her eyes wasn't the least bit guilty or embarrassed. He looked utterly sincere, even...righteous. "What can it hurt?" he asked, in a tone that said he was being oh, so reasonable. "Come inside, look at the plans I have on the table there."
Even though coming inside to see the housing plans was exactly why she'd stopped, it was the last thing Kate wanted to do now. "Can I have my keys back, please?"
Griffith's answer was to clutch Kate's keys tighter. "Tell me, exactly how does it threaten you to come inside and look?"
Her face went hot again, her chest tight. "You don't threaten me, Griffith."
"Don't I?" He cocked his head. "I think I scare you to death."
Kate laughed, but inside, in a secret place down deep, the laughter covered a spurt of fear. "Please. My keys, Griffith."
He dropped the keys into her outstretched hand. "You're afraid you're going to find out you're wrong about me."
She nearly dropped the keys again as her eyes flew upward. "What?"
Griffith nodded slowly. "You're terrified of finding out I may not be so evil. Or even worse, that I'm not evil at all. That would be a disaster of the first order, wouldn't it, Kate?"
She felt as if she'd turned to stone. "What?" she managed to whisper.
"You heard me." Griffith's gaze was not angry, but almost tender, which somehow made the chill that was growing inside Kate even colder. "If you found out I wasn't evil, not like Eric, that would change everything for you. Your whole life." He paused. "The guilt you've been carrying around like a security blanket. You'd have to get rid of it."
Kate had her keys, but she couldn't have moved then if her life had depended on it. She wanted to look away from Griffith, but she couldn't. "What?" she asked again, very softly.
Griffith took a step closer. His expression now was concerned. "It's frightening, isn't it? Yes, I can see by how hard you're working to hate me that it's really terrifying."
Kate made herself straighten her shoulders. "I hate you because you're thoroughly hatable, Griffith."
His solemn look cracked. "Am I? Am I, really? It took me awhile, Kate but, thanks in part to you, I don't think I am hatable any more."
"It was all a lie," Kate exclaimed. "You were never — It was all a trick."
"It was no trick, Kate. I loved you. I still do love you. Everything that happened, including my promise not to take your camp's water — It's all real."
"No," Kate breathed.
"Yes." He clasped his hands behind his back. "The only question is if you can let go of your guilt and your anger toward yourself long enough to see that, and accept it. Can you? Can you allow yourself to accept a man's love, and have a relationship? Or is your old guilt going to stop you?"
Kate could feel herself shaking again: with anger, and outrage and, yes, fear. She wasn't sure why the words he was telling her — utter nonsense — were making her feel afraid, but they were. She felt that if she didn't get away from him, right then, something terrible and dire would occur.
She opened her mouth, wanting to say — something. Something that would cut him down to appropriate size. But the fear was too big. She had to leave. So, without saying another word, and holding her car keys very tightly, she stuck them into the car, opened the door, and got in.
Her motor started with a roar and she backed up without even checking to see if Griffith was in the way. She rolled out of the dirt parking lot and onto Mineral Road, her hands clenching the wheel, her whole body shaking.
The nerve, the utter nerve of the man, trying to load this problem on her. When it was all his fault, the whole thing. He was the liar. He was the bad guy, a greedy opportunist.
She wasn't afraid of love. Come on. All she was afraid of was her own bad judgment. But she wasn't going to let bad judgment lead her astray now. Oh, no.
Kate drove at seventy miles per hour down the two-lane road toward Taft. What a — a concept, that she couldn't accept love. It was ridiculous, absurd, and outrageous.
Of course she could accept love...from a truly decent man. Of course she could.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
It was a good thing he'd talked to Arnie, or Griffith might have developed a serious inferiority complex on Friday morning following his conversation with Kate at the construction trailer. As it was, he had to jump onto a bale of straw in order to avoid getting plowed by her car as she backed out of the parking area. He perched there and watched the dust rise behind her as she peeled down the two-lane highway.
She seemed to hate him. But hatred shouldn't have stopped her from coming inside the trailer and seeing the plans. Hatred should have propelled her through the door, motivating her to point out Griffith's perfidy and discover whatever flaws in his blueprints she could use to thwart him.
Instead she'd run the other direction. She'd run, period.
Griffith set his hands on his hips
and heaved a deep sigh. Thanks to a long conversation with Arnie — who'd been unbelievably cooperative once Griffith had managed to track him down — Griffith now had a good idea of what was driving Kate. She blamed herself, entirely, for her brother's death. As far as Griffith could tell, based on Arnie's second-hand narration of the story, Kate's brother could take the blame for his own useless death. Not only had he involved himself in the embezzlement scheme of his own free will, but he'd been into drugs as well. It was while on something, no doubt, that he'd taken it into his fool head to try running from a sheriff.
With another sigh, Griffith climbed off the clump of straw and started back toward the trailer. Though the sun was shining, there was a chill sitting on the valley floor. It matched the chill sitting in his chest. What if he couldn't convince Kate to let go of her misplaced guilt? Not only would she be unable to accept Griffith in her life, but she might never be happy. Griffith wanted Kate to be happy.
He was halfway back to the trailer when he saw the graffiti sprayed in angry curls at the east end of the vehicle. "Oh, hell. Not again." The trailer had only been sitting here a week, but already he'd had to paint over graffiti three times, had had to have the power line reconnected, and — by far the worst — had had to clean up a dead rat that he'd found inside the mail slot.
It was possible the rat was the result of a natural, if freakish, accident, but the other acts of vandalism were not. As with the previous occasions, the graffiti exhorted Griffith to 'Go Home.'
With his lips pressed flat, Griffith went to get the can of red spray paint he'd bought. For two seconds he'd thought Kate might be behind the vandalism, but never very seriously. And now her reaction to the trailer made it clear it was the first time she'd seen the thing. By knocking on the door she'd shown that her style of battle was direct confrontation. Of course it was.
Griffith grabbed the can of spray paint, took it outside, and carefully sprayed over the sloppy curls of black. Either there were kids with not enough to do in Sagebrush Valley City, the town ten miles to the north, or there was somebody other than Kate who wasn't happy with the alleged plans of Blaine Development.