“It’s the best idea.” Going up on tiptoe, she kissed his cheek. “You’re family, Grif,” she whispered against his jaw. “You always have been; you always will be. For better or worse.” She kissed him again. “He’s asking for you,” she repeated softly.
Grif was halfway down the hall to ICU before he realized he was still gripping Kate’s hand tightly and that she was practically running at his side to keep up with his long-legged stride.
He slowed his steps and tried to let go of her hand.
She held tight.
She gave him a small but genuine smile, and he realized it was him holding on to her.
They entered his father’s hospital room. Donald opened his eyes and managed a charming smile for Kate, who bent over him and kissed his cheek. “Gave us a scare,” she said lightly.
“Ah, you should know better,” Donald murmured, voice raspy. “I’m far too handsome to die.”
“You mean ornery, don’t you?” she teased.
He winked at her. “You know it.” He squeezed her fingers. “Darlin’, would you mind giving me and the boy a minute?”
“Not at all.” Kate hugged him then hugged Grif as well.
Grif almost didn’t let go. When she was gone, he walked to the side of the bed. The last words he and Donald had spoken to each other bounced around in his head uncomfortably. At the time he’d thought if he never had to speak another word to this stubborn old coot again, it would be too soon. Now there was too much to say, and he didn’t know where to start.
A nurse popped her head in. “Only a few minutes,” she said sternly. “He needs rest.”
Grif nodded.
“Keep him calm. No riling him up.”
Grif nodded again, but he’d have better luck walking to the moon. If he so much as breathed, he riled the man up. Bracing himself, he sat in the chair by the bed. “You in any pain?”
“Yes. But not in the way you think.” Donald shifted around and swore.
Grif stood again, leaning over him to hold him still. “Don’t move. You’re not supposed to move.”
“Dad,” Donald snapped. “Would it kill you to still call me dad?”
Grif stilled.
“And sit for crissake. If you’re going to hover over me like a grandma, then just get the hell out now.”
Grif lowered himself back to the chair. “I see all that go-go juice is making you sweet and affable,” he said, nodding to the multiple IVs.
Donald actually smiled at that. “There you are. My cynical, sarcastic son. Was worried you’d already left.”
Grif bent forward, planted his elbows on his knees, and rubbed his temples.
“Headache?” Donald asked.
“If I say yes, will you lie back and relax before your nurse guts me?”
“In a minute,” Donald said, and his voice changed, going very serious, “Nurse Ratchet’s going to come back and drug me again so listen carefully because I’m not going to be able to repeat myself.” He drew in a deep breath and paused.
Grif braced himself, having no idea what he expected to hear. Get the hell out of Dodge, maybe?
“When I met your mom,” Donald said, “she was just pregnant.”
“You told me that already.”
“She put my name on your birth certificate.”
“Yes, I’ve seen it.”
“Jesus, I said listen, not talk.” Donald sighed. “I loved her. I loved her more than anything or anyone since.”
“You two fought all the time.”
“She hated Idaho,” Donald admitted. “She went back to New York, and after that we got along again.”
“From two thousand miles away.”
“It worked for us,” Donald said. “I kept her secret. And I’d do it again in a heartbeat.” He paused. “Or for as long as this heart will beat,” he added dryly, meeting Grif’s gaze. “I did it for her, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t love you as my own. I did. Even when you were a punk-ass. And I should get extra credit for that, by the way. Because you were a punk-ass. You really were one hard fucker to love.”
Grif dropped his head between his shoulder blades and let out a low laugh. It was true. He was a hard fucker to love.
“Anyway,” Donald went on. “If all you want to remember is me not telling you a secret I’d promised to hold, then the hell with you. I didn’t tell you because it didn’t matter; it didn’t change anything. We are father and son.” His eyes were sharp and penetrating. “You get me?”
Grif nodded. “I get you.”
Donald held his gaze for a long beat and then gave one short nod. “There’s more.”
Grif braced himself.
“Whoever you’re biological dad was, he knocked your mom up and left her. That’s on him, not you. And you’re not just his. You’re a product of environment, which means you have the mountains in your blood. The ranch in your blood. And me. Goddammit, you have me.”
Grif couldn’t have spoken to save his life, he was that shocked. And moved.
And when Donald reached out, Grif grasped his father’s hand tightly.
“You were never my dirty secret,” Donald said in that same voice that had flayed Grif alive more times than he could count. “And if you felt like you were, well, that’s on me. I thought of you as mine. And that’s the biggest reason I kept the secret. The angry, pissed-off teenage Grif couldn’t have handled the truth. He’d have left and never come back.”
Grif absolutely knew that to be true. He squeezed his dad’s fingers and then leaned over him again, this time for a hug.
* * *
The last week of school flew by so much faster than Kate could have imagined. It was a blur of packing, end-of-year celebrations, and family time.
No Griffin time though.
He hadn’t left ASAP as planned, instead staying until his dad was out of the hospital and well on his way to a full recovery. She hadn’t actively avoided him, but their paths hadn’t crossed. And she couldn’t help but notice he hadn’t actively sought her out either.
Clearly there was nothing to say.
She’d made the big decision to go to UCSD immediately. She’d gotten an off-campus studio apartment and was going to take a full summer course load to get a jump start on her curriculum. She was starting next week.
Once she’d made the decision to go, she was ready. No looking back. Looking back made her heart hurt. She’d miss her family and friends, but she’d see them. They’d come to visit, and she would do the same. It was going to be good for all of them, and she’d be back. That wasn’t what hurt.
No, what hurt was knowing that she’d gambled on Griffin.
And lost.
* * *
Grif and Adam sat on their respective ATVs at the top of the ridge, staring down at the valley below. It was just past the ass crack of dawn and steam was rising from the rocky land as the sun slanted over the peaks.
“Going to miss any of it?” Adam asked.
Like a limb. “Maybe.”
Adam gave a small smile. “Liar.”
Grif shrugged. “It’s the way it is.”
“It didn’t have to go this way.”
“Got to have work,” Grif said.
“Could have found work less than two thousand miles away.”
This wasn’t anything Grif hadn’t said to himself a million times over the past week. “I’m not going to be all that far.”
“Would you be going if Kate wasn’t?”
Grif hesitated. “I don’t know.”
“Yeah, you do,” Adam said.
Yeah, he did.
“Look,” Adam said. “I’m the guy no one expected to find happiness with a woman. But I did.”
“So what are you saying?”
“That if I can, anyone can,” Adam said.
Grif slid him a look. “You needed a woman to be happy?”
“Don’t piss me off,” Adam said mildly. “You know what I’m talking about.”
Yeah, he did. From the moment he
’d first seen Kate again the weekend of Adam and Holly’s wedding, he’d been on a crazy ride. At first he’d actually been cocky enough to think Kate couldn’t possibly give him anything other than a good time.
But she’d given him a hell of a lot more than that. For whatever reason, she’d seen something in him that she’d wanted, and she’d gone for it. She’d believed in him. She’d given him so damn much. She’d given him all of herself, every corner of her heart and soul.
He’d taken both, without giving a thing in return. And then, when the going had gotten tough, he’d tossed it all aside. He’d change that if he could, but he had no right to her now. None. “I’m not going to be the guy to hold her back.”
“So don’t.”
Grif thought about that and realized Adam was right. When Grif had come for the wedding, it had been with wariness and no expectations. Things had been black and white. He’d been hurt. He’d just gotten out of the military for the first time in his adult life. Neither of those things had been by choice.
But coming back here had been a choice. His first in a string of good choices, he knew now. His second good choice had been Kate.
Ah, who the hell was he kidding? He hadn’t been smart enough to pick her. She’d picked him. He’d gotten lucky is all. She’d picked him, and then she’d added color to the black and white that was his world. She’d added dimension. She’d added . . . life.
And now that life didn’t work without her in it.
“I screwed things up,” he admitted.
Adam shrugged. “Fix ’em.”
“It’s not that easy.”
Adam slid him a glance. “No shit.”
It took him another few days, but Grif figured out what he had to do.
Grovel.
He knocked on Kate’s door armed with what he hoped was an irresistible bribe. Ice cream. He’d added a card to the bag and hoped for the best.
Kate opened the door looking a little harried in faded jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt that he was pretty sure was his, and bare feet. She stared at him.
“Hey,” he said, and thrust out the bag.
She looked into it.
“It’s double fudge,” he said.
She pulled out the card. It had a heart on the front but was blank on the inside because he’d forgotten to sign it. She looked up at him.
He grimaced. “I meant to write on that.”
This sparked some interest. “What were you going to write?” she asked.
Good question. He tried to see past her, but she was blocking his way in. “Maybe we can do this inside.”
“Do what?”
“Talk.”
She gave him a bad moment when she hesitated, but she did eventually step aside and gesture him in. “How’s your dad?” she asked.
“Fine.” He nodded. Christ, he was an idiot. “He’s going to be okay.”
“And you and your dad together?”
He blew out a breath. “We’re going to be okay, too.” He paused, hesitated really, which he rarely did, but he was feeling way out of his league. “I’m sorry for pushing you away, Kate. Everything I said about how I feel about you is true,” he said.
She nodded, and then . . . turned and walked off.
After a beat of hesitation, he followed her to her room. She was sitting on her bed looking down at her tightly clasped hands. “Even the pain-in-the-ass part?” she asked.
He let out a small smile. “Maybe especially that part.” He crouched in front of her and put his hands on her thighs. “Kate.”
She looked at him.
“I love you, Kate.”
Her eyes filled, but no tears fell.
“And I didn’t just get carried away in the moment,” he said. “I was with you because I wanted to be. I was wrong and—” He paused as she pushed him away and continued on with her packing as if he hadn’t spoken. Packing everything including her snow boots. Huh. He stared at her suitcase. “Does it snow in San Diego?”
She parlayed this with a question of her own. “You still taking that job in DC?”
“Yes.”
She fell quiet. He was so used to her chattering, the silence seemed wrong.
She zipped the huge suitcase and nodded. “You’ll be happier there.”
“Kate—”
“I don’t think there’s anything left to say. We were a thing, a hot one, but it burned out.”
He actually looked down at himself to see if he was bleeding.
“It’s over,” she said quietly.
“It’ll never be over,” he said. “A part of us will always care no matter where we are or what we’re doing.”
She turned away at that, neither denying nor confirming his words. “Good-bye, Griffin,” she said instead, politely moving back to her front door and holding it open for him.
Grif drove home. He wasn’t sure how long he sat in his truck like a shell-shocked idiot, thinking so hard his windows fogged.
He knew he’d let Kate down, but damn. It couldn’t be too late. He could still become the man she thought him, no matter whose blood flowed through his veins. Pulling out his phone, he punched in a number. When Joe answered, Grif didn’t hesitate. “About the job.”
* * *
One week later, Kate entered her tiny studio flat after her first day of school, dropped her books, kicked off her shoes, and then went perfectly still.
There was a man sitting on the small love seat.
Griffin.
He rose and immediately dwarfed the living room. He pulled her heavy bag from her shoulder and let it fall. Then he tugged off her sunglasses. He didn’t smile at her gaping shock. He just looked at her, very serious.
“What are you doing here?” she whispered.
“Looking at you. You’re a sight for sore eyes, Kate.”
Her heart was pounding so loudly she barely heard herself say, “How long are you going to look at me?”
He smiled then, as if she were being funny. “Long as you’ll let me,” he said.
“And then?”
“And then I’m hoping you’ll let me put my hands on you.”
Oh God, it was too much, and she turned from him to take a badly needed moment. But now she was facing the small mirror over her desk, and she couldn’t handle looking at her reflection, seeing Griffin behind her. Gripping the desk for desperately needed balance, she bowed her head.
He came up behind her. Circling an arm around her waist, he