Chapter 6
Chapter Six
MACK
A ddy relays the physio routine to Grace. “He needs to do these exercises three times a day.”
With every word, my babysitter’s face falls. “Are you sure? Because that hasn’t been happening,” she says, worry lining her voice.
Like she fucking cares.
She’s too young to be bothered with me. Too much life to live to be saddled with this shit job. Man-baby sitter. Pay is shit. Patient is an ass. Nope, Grace should make better choices. In another time, another life, where I don’t end up an invalid, she’s damn near perfect. It’s getting harder and harder not to notice.
Those eyes.
Her smile, smell, hair.
Peaches and vanilla.
Long fuckin’ legs for days that get me hard every time I close my eyes. Thinking about those tits is downright improper. Sends me to the brink every time I get close to her. The small noises she makes when she’s concentrating. Like driving into town the other day.
Took everything I had. Every horrible thought I could muster to keep my cock from becoming a raging hard-on, sitting right next to her in her tiny tin can car. I tried to make nice, at the car before we ventured into town and again at the gift shop. But everything comes out shit. Everything I touch turns to shit. She should make tracks before she’s sucked into my black hole of existence.
“Mack, you haven’t been keeping up with your physio?” Addy’s hands are on her hips. Her face is pulled down with knitted brows, and those big brown eyes that stole my brother’s heart are full of concern.
“I do them enough.”
“Bullshit, Mackinlay, you barely do them.” Grace comes to a stop beside Adds.
Well fuck. Goddamn snitch.
Getting ganged up on by the girls. This is what my miserable existence has come to.
“They just make my body hurt, Adds.” I refuse to look at the little snitch.
“Well, what about something more gentle, like yoga?” the snitch says.
“Not happening.”
Still not lookin’ at her.
“We’ll see if your answer changes in twenty minutes.” Adds narrows her eyes at me.
“Why?” Now my brows sink. “What happens in twenty minutes?”
Addy full-on winks at me. I eye her with the narrowed suspicion she deserves, and she pecks a kiss to my cheek. “Stop being so damn stubborn, or I’ll have to send in reinforcements, Mack.”
Grace snaps her gaze from the two of us and returns to the kitchen as Addy leans in for a hug. A sarcastic laugh slips through my lips, and I shake my head at her. We all know who runs the ship in this family. Our family wouldn’t be the success it is without the matriarch we all love and cherish. So, I grunt and nod. There’s never been a day go by where Ma’s word hasn’t benefited us all.
Addy is Huddo’s captain and Ruby is Reed’s.
You would be hard pressed to find better people than those two girls. I’m grateful for all they have done for my brothers. That kind of happiness is special.
Something smashes to the floor.
I jerk where I sit on the sofa.
Fear snakes through my veins, heating up my skin and swallowing me whole. My breathing crashes and the last of the air in my lungs bottoms out. I grip the crutch with one hand. The other turns to a fist on the sofa beside me.
“Shit,” Grace mutters.
The tinkle of porcelain being swept up fills the space between the ringing in my ears as I sit, too rigid to move. A strangled groan fills my throat.
“Oh, god, Mackinlay.” Grace is in front of me a heartbeat later.
Quick footsteps rush toward the two of us.
“What happened?” Addy’s in my space, hands on my face. She lifts my gaze to hers. “Mack, breathe, buddy.”
Another groan escapes, and I choke on the small amount of air that follows. My body starts to shake. Ruby appears by Grace’s side.
Where the hell did she come from?
Recognition spreads over her pretty features and she’s in motion before I can tell her to stop. A tight hug braces me against whatever triggered the panic that’s rising in my body.
“Tell me what you can hear,” Ruby whispers, rubbing my back with her hand in circles.
“My breathing, ringing in my ears—” I choke on a breath. Dammit, I thought I was past all this trauma bullshit.
“What can you feel?” she continues.
“You wrapped around me, Rubes.”
She holds me at arm’s length and tilts her head, her lips pressed together. “Tell me three things you can see.”
“I’m okay, it worked.”
“Three things you can see, Mackinlay Rawlins.”
I sigh. “Adds pacin’.” I turn toward the kitchen. “A mess... and...” My gaze catches on Grace. She’s wringing her hands through the hem of her shirt, her breathing shallow, her face twisted with something like worry. She steps toward us, tentatively. “Grace, I see Grace.”
“Do you?” Adds mutters, glancing at me, her face pulled into a frown.
Okay . . .
Silence floods in, followed by white noise. Addy doesn’t say anything else. Rubes drops her gaze to the floor. Grace presses a hand over her mouth and turns back, heading for the kitchen. I push from the sofa. All of a sudden, it’s the last place I wanna be.
My body aches from minutes of rigidity, and I stretch my legs and hobble down the hallway on one crutch. I’m out the back door and in the middle of the yard in no time. Hip and leg aching, I lower myself to the log seat by the firepit that’s currently all cold ash and half-burnt logs.
Ruby walks from the back door and comes to stand in front of me. “You have five minutes to feel sorry for yourself, then we’re doing yoga.”
“Not likely, Rubes.”
“I wasn’t askin’, Mackinlay.” She even fucking winks at me.
Sweet Jesus.
I rub my hands over my face.
Fine. Whatever.
Five minutes.
I finally drag my sorry ass back inside. Four yoga mats are laid out on the floor of the living room. The girls have changed into fitted exercise clothes, and Grace appears from her room in something that is obviously Ruby’s. A pair of fitted dark grey activewear bike shorts and a sky-blue singlet flowing over a navy sports bra.
An arm drapes over my shoulders. Strawberries close in around me. Rubes.
“See, told you yoga is a good idea.” Rubes dots a kiss to my cheek. Grace stares at the two of us, and heat floods my cheeks. God dammit, Ruby. I bat her away and she chuckles, lowering herself onto a mat, patting the one beside her. Addy takes the one on the other side. The only one that’s left is one in front of where I now stand awkwardly.
Grace walks over and sits, cross-legged. She drags her hair to one side of her neck and runs her fingers through it as she works it into a plait. Is she leading the group or something?
“Okay, so the best positions for flexibility and gaining strength are the following.” Grace flexes, her gaze alternating between me and the girls. By the crimson flushing over her neck and chest, she is about as comfortable with this as I am. And when she tangles herself into a pretzel, legs crossed over each other and arm over her head, I shake my head.
“Did you want to try, Mackinlay?” she asks. “Just try this side stretch.” She stands and puts one foot in front of the other and bends down like a chicken pecking seed from the ground.
“Go on.” Ruby prods my side with a finger.
I roll my eyes at her and scramble onto all fours and push to my feet precariously. Adds offers up a hand and I take it on my right. Ruby’s hand appears to my left, and I slap mine over hers. I wobble on my feet as I push one forward and try to lean down. Fire rips through my hip. I hiss at the pain that follows.
“Only hold it for as long as you can.” Grace watches me. Her breaths have quickened. I drag my eyes from her to the ground, trying not to breathe her in. Not wanting to fuel the need that already sparked seeing her in those clothes. Those poses. This damn close.
“Great, that’s enough,” she says. Her hand rests on my shoulder as she shuffles closer on her knees. Her scent, the vanilla and peaches I have been trying to block out from the day she arrived here, swallows me whole. I lose my balance and slump to the ground.
“Fuck,” I grunt and settle myself on my seat, not daring to meet her gaze.
“That’s okay, you did great,” Grace says, offering me a shy smile.
“No, I fuckin’ didn’t. Don’t bother tryin’ to placate me. Lying doesn’t suit you.”
“Mack, you know I love you, right?” Ruby says. Her face is stone. “But you talk to her like that again, and I will add more hurt to your long list of injuries.”
Adds scoffs, hiding a smile.
“Fine,” I grunt.
Ruby raises an eyebrow, shifting into the pose I just did.
“Sorry, Grace,” I mutter.
“You say somethin’?” Adds leans in.
“Fuck off, Rawlins.”
“Back at ya.” She beams at me.
Of course she does. Little miss sunshine. Brown eyes, curly brown hair, and actual rays of goddamn sunlight for a personality. Huddo is one lucky motherfucker. I sigh and turn to Grace. “Show me the other ones.”
She shuffles on her seat before standing like a star. With one arm up, she leans to the side and slides her hand down her leg. Another hip stretch. She bends her leg at the knee and raises her hand to the ceiling and turns her face upward. I take in the fine lines of Grace Weston. Her elegant cheekbones, her pert nose, lush lips, the dip at her collarbone before her neck, the curves of her chest, hip and...
“You want to try this one?” Upside-down blue eyes meet my gaze.
Vanilla.
Peaches.
Blood floods to my cock. Surrounded by three beautiful women, who could blame a guy? But two of those are my sisters. And I love them the same way I love my brothers. Sibling love. It’s only the girl right in front of me who is affecting me like no one before. Ever.
She shouldn’t. Not at all.
I’m pissed off at her for it.
Shut it down, Mack.
“Yeah, I’m done, this isn’t for me.” I push up to my feet, swiping up the crutch on the way up.
“Mack!” Ruby snaps.
I wave a hand over my shoulder, dismissing her.
“I’m sorry, Grace.” Addy is consoling her. Way to get your priorities in order, Adds.
Fuck, I’m a mess. Terrified of loud noises. A nasty piece of shit who can’t be around other people without snapping some poor prick’s head off.
“We can continue without him,” Ruby says as I wander into my room and slam the door. Do it somewhere else, Rubes.
I don’t know whether to be embarrassed or flat-out annoyed at this point. Either way, it comes out as angry and inhospitable. Grace should move on. Find herself another job. Another loser to baby. I bend to sit on the edge of the bed and miscalculate. My ass hits the floor a second later. My breathing turns to shit, and the telltale burn behind my eyes floods in. I pinch the bridge of my nose.
I can’t stop the sobs wringing from my chest, clawing up my throat, and pushing past my lips. I send my hands through my hair, fisting the tufty mess. Groaning between sobs, I try to suck in air and fail. Clutching my arms, I rock on the floor.
I’m half a man.
I’m no good to anyone.
I’m a waste of space, and a liability to this family now.
How Harry hasn’t come and taken back the ranch, I don’t know.
Why the girls bother is beyond me. They shouldn’t.
Why Grace keeps trying every day . . .
I groan into my hands, letting the sobs steal the last of the useful air in my lungs.
Grace.
God dammit.
The thought that I will always be this way. Never whole again.
Fuck this bullshit six ways to Sunday.
Fuck everything.
Hours later, when I pry myself from the floor, the house is quiet and dark. The girls are long gone, and Grace is sound asleep in her room. Tonight, her door is open as if she’s listening out for me. I hesitate as I pass her door. The fume-filled tang of something like turpentine wafts around.
Ignoring the malodor, I wander to the kitchen on one crutch and grab a glass of water. Back in my room, I scramble in the dark for my AirPods, shoving them in my ears when I find them. The house is all shadows and darkness. I swear as I lift my arms over my head and sink into the mattress with a sigh. Something appears in my doorway before retreating.
I turn up the volume to drown out those rooftop sounds still haunting me. The last thing I see as I close my eyes is Grace. Her fingers in her hair sitting in front of me plaiting deftly, her soft blue eyes stuck on mine.
Sweet Jesus.
I roll over, hissing as the ache in my hip intensifies. Cock hard as a rock from the slightest thought of her, I rub the heels of my hands into my eye sockets. Stars burst into my blacked-out vision, and I try to push her from my mind.
Harry’s tax papers.
Ma’s disappointed face.
Nothing works . . .
Then Butters’s grin hits me like a ton of bricks and the buzz that Grace brought fades.
A stone wedges in my throat, and I try to remind myself—like I have a thousand times before—it wasn’t my fault.
Tell that to my broken heart.