Chapter 17
Thandie laughed at how silly she was being with Grant. Their teasing had taken a sharp turn that evening onto a different road. Teasing had changed from friendly banter to a more suggestive, even sensual tit-for-tat that excited her and worried her at the same time. Since the wedding fiasco, she had been on a mission of self-discovery and healing, and not out hunting for another man who could ruin her life again.
She finished her thought as she finished chewing her bite of hotdog.
Although her blush was likely hidden in the light of the fire, she turned her face away from Grant. Had he really just said what he said? How could he feel such a strong emotion towards her? His words, Missing a piece of myself forever, rang in her mind.
His sentiment matched her own feelings. Which only begged the question: How was she feeling what she was feeling in the huge way she was feeling it? They were at ease with each other despite the tension that existed between them. There was nothing forced in the way they touched each other, looked at one another, or laughed together. The only thing that seemed forced was how they were both fighting it so much.
A current of excitement coursed through every nerve-ending in her body at the thought of seeing him or touching him in any way.
Now, having finished what remained of the hot dog, and with nothing standing in the way of her silence, she stood up from the log bench and stared into the fire. The flame’s white tips tickled the few stars still peeking through the fast-moving clouds, and a plume of embers scattered into the air as the burned logs crumbled under their own weight.
“What is it?” Grant asked and stood beside her.
She saw herself in the bonfire. She had been like the wood at the bottom, being crushed by the mass of burning anger that she felt towards Davis. The resentment that she had carried for longer than she should have had nearly destroyed her. “This is ridiculous!”
A simple but apt statement.
She knew from his hesitation to speak that he didn’t agree. If only he knew why she was so scared of getting hurt again. Never mind that her job, and the future of The Foundry was on the line if the week didn’t go well. Getting involved with a guest was off the table, no matter how much she wanted to.
His hand grazed against hers. She wanted to take his hand, to feel his warm, strong fingers intertwine with hers. She wanted to stay up all night and talk with him until the sun came up. She wanted to see what he looked like in the last moments of night and the first light of dawn. She wanted . . .
“Grant. I need to tell you something.”
“I know,” he said. “I’ve known from the first day after the disastrous hike.”
“You have? How?” she asked and rubbed her forehead.
“I overheard you talking to someone about it. And I want you to know that I understand completely.”
Had she said something by accident? Did he know about Davis and the wedding that never was? Or was he the investor and thought she knew he was the spy? Did he mistake the personalized attention for something else altogether?
“I suppose it’s better that you know now rather than later,” she said, but she was still unsure what exactly he thought he knew. Now it just felt awkward to keep talking about it. Either he would feel foolish, or she would, and she couldn’t bear another embarrassment.
“I’m glad we got that straight,” he said, though her mind was more warped than ever. “Now can we stop pretending that this isn’t happening between us and just have a nice time? Together?”
“I think that would be—” Thandie stopped and put her palms out in front of her. She caught the first few raindrops from the incoming shower. “Right on time.” She didn’t get to finish saying that she thought giving in to her attraction to him would be a terrible idea.
Above her, the sliver of moon disappeared behind the storm’s leading edge. The stars twinkled in the distance to the east until they were mixed in with the glimmer of the falling rain in the firelight and obscured.
“I need to clean all this up really quick. You should go.”
“Like I’m gonna leave you here by yourself,” Grant said.
“It’s my job. You’re a guest here and I don’t want you getting sick because of me,” she said as the last couple left the bonfire and darted back to their cabin.
She scrambled and picked up the blankets, throwing them into the wheelbarrow beside the hay bales. No sooner did she gather the bins for the food than the sprinkling rain turned to a downpour.
In her periphery, Grant slid his plaid shirt off his shoulders and caused her to stop and stare. His white undershirt was immediately spotted with water droplets and clung to his skin. Grant pulled his plaid shirt up over his head like a makeshift umbrella and rushed to her side. She was helpless to do anything but watch the water sizzle off his toned body.
“Leave it. Let’s get out of here,” he said and held the shirt on one side while she took hold of the other.
Spreading the fabric to its widest breadth over their heads, they sprinted straight to his cabin, bypassing the walkway. His place was decidedly closer than hers was from the old shoreline, where the fire hissed its last breath behind them. Extending out from the side of his cabin and closest to them, they took shelter underneath a slanted carport roof, shivering from the cool air hitting their wet skin.
Grant wrapped his arms around her, and she took in as much of his warmth as he had to spare. “You’re freezing, but I have an idea,” he said. “I’ll be right back.” He placed his wet flannel shirt over her shoulders and disappeared into the dark around the back side of the cabin.
“Where are you going? Grant?” She was too cold to move and stood there. “Grant? Where are you?” Had he gone inside and not invited her? It was no matter, she would wait for a break in the rain and make a run for her cabin, soaked through. She rubbed her hands up and down her arms and watched as lights turned on and off in the various other guest houses. “Grant?” she whisper-yelled into the night.
“Over here,” his voice called from behind the cabin.
She stepped around the corner toward his voice, curious at what she was walking into. She smiled and covered her mouth with the sleeve from his shirt as he came into view. “What are you doing?” She bit her lower lip but she was sure he could see the blush on her cheeks this time, despite the pale light.
He stood, waist deep and half-naked, in the round wooden hot tub. Steam rose like fog around him and seemed to melt away when it touched his toned skin, damp and glistening from the heat. His abs were impossibly chiseled, and he appeared dangerously tempting.
“Get in,” he said from under the protection of a small gazebo roof that was only slightly wider than the spa below. His command wasn’t an order, but an invitation. Though the way he spoke emphatically sent butterflies swarming to her chest.
No matter how enticing a dip in the spa sounded, she was certain joining him was against any professional rules. “I don’t think I should. I’m at work right now.”
“I thought we agreed to be done pretending,” he said.
Technically they hadn’t agreed to anything. She had never completed her thought out loud. But who was she kidding? Her reasons for not joining him were weakening by the millisecond. “I don’t have a bathing suit?” her words came out like a question and not the strong reason she had intended them to be.
“Neither do I.”
Her hands covered her face, and she shook her head as she contemplated what the heck she was about to do, and she knew she was about to do it from the way her feet were already moving towards him. “I think I should make a dash for it and go in for the night. The rain isn’t too bad.”
That excuse sounded worse than the other.
“Get in here.” He chuckled. “You can worry about the rest tomorrow.”
Thandie was lying to herself. The rain was bad. It was hard, stinging rain. The sort that is cold and sharp, like it may have been frozen rain when it was higher in the clouds and it had barely thawed out on its way to earth. Even so, joining him was crossing a line. Looking around at the otherwise quiet night, the guests had all turned in, the barn was dark, and the starry sky hid behind dark clouds. The coast was undeniably clear, and her resolve washed away with the rain.
She unbuttoned her jeans. Breathe. She slipped the zipper down so slowly, he likely thought she was teasing him when really she was second-guessing her ability to make good decisions.
Standing in the dim light, she knew he could see all of her. Heat pooled in her neck at the provocative scene she was partaking in. She crossed her arms at the hem of her shirt and peeled the wet tee from her torso and over her head. She hung it on one of a set of hooks fixed to the cabin’s exterior wall. Under her tee she wore a white sports bra, which honestly covered more than a bikini top, but was a bra nonetheless. She kicked her boots off and slid her jeans down around her hips, over her bottom, and down her legs, and pulled one foot out at a time. She hung them on another hook under the porch roof.
“I hope I don’t regret this,” she said under her breath. She knew her boldness, independent of her lack of clothing, would shock him, and it did.
He stumbled, catching himself on one of the gazebo’s supports. “Wow.” Grant gasped. “Can I say that?”
She felt bolder than ever, finding power in her decision not to overthink what was happening. Thandie tiptoed across the half dozen flat concrete stepping stones that led from the carport to the back patio. Wasting no time and dodging the fat raindrops, she climbed the riser and stepped into the hot tub. The whole scene seemed too good to be true, even for her. A spa heated by fire, the rain pattering against the wooden gazebo shingles, her, in only her white bra and panties, and the man who she had only known for three days holding his hand out for her to take.
She hesitated, remembering her promise to herself that she didn’t need a man. But for the first time in longer than she could recall, she felt that perhaps needing help and accepting help could be two different things. With Grant’s assistance, Thandie sunk down into the warm water and let it envelop her cold muscles like a hug.
“This feels good,” she said.
“See?” Grant lowered himself down into the water across from her. “I told you I had a good idea.”
She let her head fall back to the rim of the spa and relaxed her chest and shoulders. “It was a good idea.” A sigh whistled through her lips.
They sat in silence for several minutes, sharing glances and blushes that she was certain were on her cheeks. Her knees touched his in the small space, and she didn’t flinch to move away. His arms rested on the rim above the waterline, and he closed his eyes, relaxing into the curved back rest.
They didn’t even need to talk. The rain poured and splattered in the mud around them, which she knew meant that there was going to be a ton of clean up in the morning. The Foundry grounds would be swampy in areas already soaked from the previous rain. But right now, she was content to just sit in the spa and enjoy the serenity. She wouldn’t have admitted only a couple of days earlier that she needed this.
“Tell me, Thandie,” he said while his eyes remained shut. “Did you always want to be a camp counselor?”
The title wasn’t exactly right, and she thought to let it slide, but didn’t. “Activities director, and no. I sort of fell into this job.”
Grant opened one eye just long enough to catch hers and closed it again. “How long have you been in the business?”
“Four days.”
At this answer, his lids flew open, and he leaned forward, closing the distance between them. He searched her face. “Oh.” A giggle. “You’re serious.”
“As a dead horse. Is that bad to admit?”
Having leaned forward, his hands now rested on her knees under the water. His touch sent a shock up her neck to where it landed behind her ears. “I would never have known. You are very good at your job.” She must have shifted her legs slightly, and he became aware of the intimate way he was touching her. He sat back away from her, repositioning his hands above the water line again on the rim of the spa. “You may be too good at your job.”
Now she thought perhaps he was the spy after all, in which case she should definitely not be in the hot tub with him. However, there was no other evidence that he worked for the investor, and her money was still on the bubbly Daisy and her Mr. Brent. “How do you mean, I’m too good?”
“For starters, you show the guests way too much personalized attention. There’s no way you can keep up that level of care. You’ll burn out.”
Of course, he didn’t know that she and the rest of the staff were putting on the very best show they could for whoever the snoop was. “I appreciate the compliment, and the concern. But I assure you that I won’t get burned out from doing my job well. Believe it or not, I am having a fantastic time as camp counselor, as you call it.”
“Yes, but you’re in this job for a few days. What happens after a year, or even five years? Will you like it then?”
“That sounds like a question for you, not me.” Thandie sensed an exhaustion in him, but if she pushed him to tell her why he was really there, the game would be up. “You don’t need to talk about it?—”
“I want to,” he said and nodded. His grin melted any objections or deflections she had prepared. “I travel all the time for work.”
“And you like to travel?”
He shifted in the spa and pulled one leg up so that his ankle rested on the other knee, leaving half his leg sticking out of the water. His hands wrapped around the exposed skin, and he leaned forward. He looked serious, nervous, or cold, though it was likely not the latter, given their current whereabouts.
“I do. Like to travel, that is. But lately, the thought of going home, sleeping in the same bed, and having someone to talk to who really knows me has been creeping into my mind more and more.”
“You could get a cat?”
“And who would take care of said cat when I’m gone for weeks and months at a time?”
“If you hate it, then quit,” she joked, but the look on his face was not an amused one. She had hit a nerve.
“You know, sometimes you go down a path in life where there aren’t any exit ramps. The money is good. And I do love seeing the world and experiencing so many different people and cultures. It’s just—” he paused and looked out into the rain past her.
“It’s just you want to jump the curb and get off anywhere you can. I get that.” Thandie leaned in and placed her hands on top of his. “That’s how I ended up here. I jumped the curb a few months ago and have been off-roading ever since. Trying to find a new way.”
“And it’s going well?”
“Gosh no. I’ve been scared more times than I like to admit. I’m out of money and out of options. So, for the time being, this job is all I have.”
“What has you running so hard?” he asked with no judgment in his voice. His regard for her was like an embrace that she didn’t want to let go of.
“I wasted a lot of time being something for someone else instead of being anything for me.”
His eyes turned dark and pierced hers with an intensity of a lion. Her breath caught at his dramatic shift. “Who hurt you?”
“You don’t even know who or what I’m?—”
“It was that Davis person. The one you stacked stones for and kicked, rather impressively I’d like to point out, into the field. If I ever find him, I’ll beat his a?—”
“You will not.” Thandie took his hands from pantomiming a fistfight in the air in front of her and squeezed them in hers. “I don’t need anyone to fight my battles for me. Plus, I let all of that go today. I realized that I am not his mistakes. I can make plenty of my own. I shouldn’t need to carry his too.”
Grant pulled his hands away and took her by the waist. Her muscles flexed under his grasp as he pulled her closer. “Is this a mistake?” His voice was soft like a whisper, but with the rasp of a man that knew what he wanted.
“Probably,” she whispered back as their lips met.
Grant didn’t take more than she offered. Even in the way he held back his power, she recognized a tenderness, a caring, and a love inside of him.
Needing air, Thandie pulled away. “What are you running from, Grant Goldie, and why The Foundry?”
“You want the truth?”
She nodded.
“I lost someone whom I loved?—”
“I’m so sorry. You don’t have to tell me more if you don’t want to,” Thandie said. Even if Grant wanted to say more, she didn’t know if she had the capacity to show as much empathy as would be appropriate. She was tired, and very distracted by the fact that they were sitting together so intimately and exposed.
He paused, considering her words, but did not finish his story. He nodded ever so slightly, as though to say it was ok. That he was okay.
“I should go.” The rain had let up sometime during their conversation, and she needed to get away from him before real mistakes were made. She stepped out of the spa and grabbed her wet clothes. There was no point in putting them on her soaking body. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said as she disappeared into the safety of the dark night.