Chapter 2
GRAYSON
Grayson Ward watched his ribeye sizzle on the grill insert of the brand-new six-burner stove and wondered why he felt so off-balance.
His dinner smelled amazing. Instrumental holiday music was playing on the built-in house speakers. And the big windows that stretched across the whole rear wall of the kitchen displayed a peaceful vista of the sun setting pink over the soft browns and grays of the fields and forest.
It was Thanksgiving. A beautiful Pennsylvania winter was on its way. And he had so much to be thankful for.
But somehow he still felt… off.
Maybe it was this big kitchen. His mom had always loved listing out all the amazing things she would have if she ever got her kitchen addition put on their old split level.
She never did, so Grayson had made all her dreams come true when he had his own home built.
There wasn’t much new construction in Trinity Falls, and this house had cost a pretty penny, especially when he told them not to bother with builder-grade anything and sent them his mother’s wish list.
But Grayson wasn’t worried about any of that. His investments while he was in the Army had paid off beyond his wildest dreams, and as they said, You can’t take it with you. In the big picture of his finances, this over-the-top kitchen hadn’t even made a dent.
The only disappointing part was that when he was making all the construction choices, he’d imagined his mom over here cooking with him and enjoying all this stuff he didn’t care about that much.
But she and Dad were down in Florida now and didn’t really want to travel anymore.
They had actually been surprised when he decided to settle down in his childhood hometown.
“Why are you moving back to Trinity Falls?” Mom had asked, sounding almost scandalized when he shared the news about the house. “You could come down here and hang out on the beach. It’s a fun scene for a single guy, lots going on.”
She had unknowingly landed on all the things he least wanted. The singles’ scene in some beach town sounded absolutely awful compared to the peace and tranquility of Trinity Falls.
Since leaving the service, Grayson had mostly kept to himself.
Except that one night that still made him cringe. What had he been thinking?
But he knew what he’d been thinking. He’d been trying to escape the panic he felt any time he thought about those terrible cries for help, and even worse, the empty feeling that always followed at the memory of those screams going silent.
Blowing air out of his lips, he flipped his steak before it was ready, needing something to busy his hands and mind before he let the darkness take over.
It’s Thanksgiving. I’m home. I have this amazing house. I’m eating my favorite thing for dinner because no one can tell me what to do anymore.
He did his best to ignore the little voice in the back of his head that kept trying to suggest that he was really avoiding turkey and mashed potatoes because honoring the family tradition would only highlight how alone he was.
I like being alone, he reminded himself.
He was just sliding the steak onto his plate beside a thick slice of garlic bread and a mountain of roasted broccoli when the doorbell rang.
He’d only heard it once or twice before when he was expecting deliveries, and the sound was too loud, echoing in the mostly empty living room.
Grayson put down the plate and strode for the door, looking forward to yelling at whatever salesman had the audacity to bang on a man’s door on a holiday.
But when he opened it he froze in place.
“Hey,” the girl said.
She was really bundled up against the cold weather, with a puffy jacket that made her almost shapeless and a hat crammed down on her head, hiding her yellow hair.
But she had that same look of guilty pleasure on her face that was there when she’d eyed him at the club.
Like she was already telling him she was ready to make bad decisions.
He’d thought one of those bad decisions might bring him some relief, but he’d only felt sadness and shame the next day, and he hadn’t repeated that particular mistake since.
“Brianna,” he said.
“You remember me,” she said, looking a little surprised.
Did she really think he acted like that all the time? Shame over his bad behavior began to tug at the other guilt that swirled in his chest, and he cleared his throat to cover his discomfort.
“Come in,” he heard himself growl, though he couldn’t imagine what she was doing here.
She saw my scars. She shouldn’t want anything else to do with me.
“Oh, no,” she said, shaking her head. “No, thanks. I uh, just wanted to drop him off.”
Him?
It was only then that he realized her shape was from more than just a puffy jacket. She held a big duffle bag in one hand, and she had a bundle strapped to her chest.
A bundle with a baby in it.
Grayson blinked, thinking maybe he was imagining things. But the baby was still there. He was very small, but he had chubby cheeks and blue-gray eyes.
Once Grayson started looking at him, he found it hard to look away.
“We, uh, got up to more than mischief that night,” Brianna joked weakly. “And I just… well… I don’t think I’m cut out to be a mama.”
The smile was gone from her face now.
Ice water ran through Grayson’s veins as he thought about that chubby, gray-eyed boy in the arms of someone who wasn’t ready to be a parent.
A million questions swirled in his head, the most pressing one revolving around how it was even possible for a baby like this to be his if he’d only spent that one wild night with her in late spring.
“What’s his name?” he heard himself ask instead.
“Leo,” she said softly, her eyes pleading. “He’s two months old, and he’s no trouble at all.”
Grayson highly doubted that was true. From what he knew, babies were loud, smelly, needy, and they kept you up all night.
“Ah,” Leo said suddenly, and smacked his lips.
“I know you’re doing pretty well for yourself,” Brianna murmured, not even glancing down at her son. “But if I get it together I can try and send some money for him.”
“No need,” Grayson said firmly.
“So… you’ll take him?” she asked, like she was afraid she’d gotten it wrong.
“Yes,” he said.
All his better angels clamored in the back of his mind, trying to tell him the baby wasn’t even his and he didn’t know the first thing about how to care for an infant.
But for the first time in a long time, he felt a sense of peace and calm in his heart. The guilt and the voices all slipped away as he watched Brianna hurriedly remove the fabric sling from her chest.
“Here we go,” she said in a singsongy voice. It was the first time since appearing that she had really interacted with the baby, and it was happening as she handed him off like a sack of potatoes.
Grayson’s hands were shaking as he took the vulnerable little bundle from her and instinctively pulled him close to his chest.
Something about that warm weight sent another surge of peace through his chest, making him feel almost like he had… before.
The baby blinked up at him, unafraid, and Grayson felt his lips tug up.
He glanced over at Brianna, suddenly afraid she was going to notice how bad it felt not to have the baby in her arms and demand him back.
But her face was soft with what looked like relief.
“Thank you,” she told him, her eyes brimming with tears. “I just can’t.”
“I understand,” he told her, meaning it. There were plenty of things he just couldn’t do himself these days. Thankfully, this didn’t seem to be one of them.
“Here’s his stuff,” she said, letting her duffel bag drop to the porch floor. It landed with a thump that sounded much too light to really have everything a baby could need inside.
She got an odd look on her face.
“You’re allowed to change your mind,” he told her, surprised to hear gentleness in his voice. “Any time you want.”
He was surprised when a deep, animal side of him snarled inwardly at the idea of surrendering the baby back to her, but he was glad that he was managing to be patient and compassionate anyway.
Maybe the baby really was empowering him somehow.
“I won’t,” she said lightly. “Don’t worry.”
“Can I have your number?” he thought to ask. “Just… you know, in case.”
“I won’t be taking him back,” she told him warningly.
“Not for that,” he said. “Just because...”
But he couldn’t really say why. Because it felt like the right thing to do? Because one day maybe Leo would want to ask his mother why she left?
She moved close to him and slid her hand into his pocket.
He barely resisted the impulse to flinch.
But she was only scooping out his cell phone.
“There,” she said after a moment of tapping in her info.
When she was done, she set the phone on top of the bag instead of returning it to his pocket.
“Thank you,” he told her. It was for more than her number. He felt better than he had in a long, long time.
“Sure,” she said, shrugging awkwardly. “Well, good luck.”
It hurt him like a punch in the gut when she turned without even looking at the baby and marched out to the beat-up car that was parked in his giant driveway.
“Okay,” Grayson said, as much to himself as to the baby. “Okay, let’s get settled.”
He nudged the bag inside the front door with his foot, and then followed it, pulling the door shut behind them.
It was only once they were ensconced in the warmth of the house that the baby seemed to realize he had been left behind.
His little face scrunched up.
“You’re okay,” Grayson told him.
But the baby began to wail, his whole body going stiff with fury.
“I know,” Grayson murmured, instinctively rocking the boy in his arms. “I know. Nobody wants us. But we’ve got each other now.”
Leo howled unabated, his angry wails echoing off the walls of the too-big foyer.
But for some reason the sound didn’t irritate Grayson the way everything else seemed to do lately.
“We’ll just walk until you feel better,” he told the boy, pulling him up on his chest and patting him gently between his tiny shoulder blades as he began to pace up and down the center hall.
And even though he knew his entire life had just been turned upside-down, Grayson somehow felt more grounded holding the baby than he’d felt since coming home.