Chapter 33
Thirty-Three
Holden Griffin lives in a brick house with a tidy lawn in a nice subdivision on the outskirts of Fontain.
Since I couldn’t find any information on his social life—or anything about him at all—I’ve resorted to a stakeout.
Due to the conspicuous nature of Mom’s lime-green car, we’re in Gavin’s truck, parked on the street.
I eye him across the cab. I’m as far away from him as the space allows, but it’s not nearly far enough. I’m a magnet fighting the pull of a pole. All I want to do is be close to him.
Saturday ended the minute Remy barfed her marriage up, but today while I was working, Gavin stopped in.
I expected a hi, but he came directly behind the bar.
I thought he was going to kiss me—I would have let him—but instead, he hugged me.
A real, both arms holding me up kind of hug.
Not because I was convinced a tight space was homicidal or because something was wrong, it was a no-reason hug right in the middle of the room in broad daylight.
I hugged him back, burying my face in his chest hard enough that the charm of his necklace pressed into my cheek through his shirt. It felt like home.
“You’re getting better at this,” he said.
I got my mouth as close as I could to his ear. “Just learning to embrace my mistakes.”
He laughed then, so loud the guests looked. When he released me, I was smiling. He said, “I love knowing you’re in here.”
I spent the next thirty minutes half filled with butterflies asking every customer to repeat their question twice.
And that’s the second I knew I didn’t care that he was thirty and cut grass and never aspired for more than what he had. I knew it so much that breathing hurt and I felt ill.
Which is why, after we do this, I’m telling him everything about my job and the baby I want.
He dropped out of college and has a former dream of shed living; maybe me wanting to have a sperm donor baby because I’m a workaholic sent here on a forced sabbatical who lies about a social life isn’t a far-fetched scenario for him to accept.
Maybe he’ll think it’s funny. Maybe he’ll admire my commitment.
And maybe I’m delusional.
But if I’m not, maybe, just this once, I can try something that doesn’t have a calculated plan or clear exit strategy. With him. And Addie. And my baby.
But first, I need to figure out who Holden is.
I wipe my palms on my jeans. “I can’t believe you brought popcorn.”
Gavin shoves a handful in his mouth. A few pieces miss then fall to his lap.
Sadly, it does nothing to decrease his standing on the fuckability scale.
“You told me it was a stakeout.” He eyes the house. “Stakeout’s need snacks.” He offers the bag to me and I wave it off. “What’s the plan?”
There are two SUVs in the driveway. Maybe Holden’s married like Leland. Maybe he already has a baby and my baby would be a sibling. I might not like that. “We’re sitting here until something happens.”
The crinkling of the popcorn bag and the soft crunch of his chews fill the cab until he says, “Your firm must be happy.”
“The firm?”
“The vineyard?” His brows lift as he chews. “It was pretty busy again today.”
“Oh.” I force a laugh. “Right. Yes. Thrilled.” Pivot. “Regarding to—”
“Explain how all this works again,” he says.
“Works?”
“Yeah.” He chews, nonchalant. “You doing all this—” He gestures toward the house.
“Then buying a vineyard. Seems like a high concentration of investment for a small town in North Carolina.” He unscrews the lid of a water bottle, pausing it midway to his mouth.
“They did, what—four hundred million dollars last year?”
My throat goes dry. He’s been doing research. “Roughly.”
“Hm.” He takes a sip of water. “Where do a physical therapist, real estate agent—” He hooks a thumb over his shoulder toward Holden Griffin’s house. “A tech entrepreneur. What was the other guy?”
I am so thirsty.
“A doctor.”
“That’s right, a doctor.” His face says he already knew that.
“I know I’m just a guy who mows grass”—he grins—“but I guess I don’t know where all that—and the vineyard—fit into their portfolio.
Or lead to them sending one of their highest performing partners down to do it.
” When I think he’s done: “And I didn’t find anything on Apex Properties on the website. ”
Shit.
“It’s because I was going to be here for Mom,” I explain. “And the website is outdated.”
I can’t explain all this now—I’m not ready—especially for the vineyard. I need to see how he reacts to everything else and ensure my actions and decisions are based in logic and facts.
“We should get a closer look.” I push the door open, hop onto the curb, and slam the door shut. I’m already across the street on the sidewalk in front of the house when Gavin catches up to me. “We need to figure out how to get in there.”
“Get in there?” he asks, wide-eyed. “We can’t go in there. Did you forget we were trapped in a closet?”
A silhouette passes a window.
“That was different.” He follows me up the driveway as I assess the windows. “Damn,” I mutter. “All the curtains are closed.”
“Do you hear yourself, Reese?”
I blow out a sharp breath. “I’d hear myself a lot better if you’d shut up and let me think.”
“Why are you lying to me?”
It’s amazing how the right question can make time stop.
“I’m working.”
“A big firm in Chicago doesn’t give two shits about a tech entrepreneur who lives in a three-hundred-thousand-dollar house in Fontain.”
When he says it that way, I might not want this guy’s sperm either.
“They do,” I insist. “It’s called portfolio diversification.”
He gives me a look that says bullshit. “What aren’t you telling me?”
My appointment is only weeks away—I don’t have time not to do this tonight. I march toward the front of the house.
“Reese,” Gavin begs. “Tell me.”
There’s a small porch—I crane my neck—and the entire backyard is fenced.
Gavin shouts my name, making me jump. “What?”
“Tell me what we’re doing or I’m leaving.”
My pulse picks up. “We can’t leave.”
His normally open expression turns guarded and dark. “Then tell me.”
I grind my molars.
“Dammit, Reese.” He looks at the house. “What is going on here?”
The truth wraps around me like a web. Not because it’s ridiculous—though maybe one day I’ll look back and think it is—but because when I tell him, I see right now that Rue was right: Things will change.
And I don’t want them to. I want him to hug me for no reason and keep looking at me the way he looks at me.
Like he wants me. Admires me. Like at any minute might say, Baby, we like you.
A car comes and goes down the street, briefly painting Gavin’s angry face with its headlights.
“Fine.” I look him square in the eyes. “I will tell you everything as soon as we’re done here. But you have to do what I say first.”
“I don’t kno—”
“Yes or no, Gavin.” My voice is glacial. “I don’t have time.”
He jerks his hat off, rakes a hand through his hair, then slaps it back on his head. With a resigned sigh, he says, “Fine.”
“Thank you.” I roll my shoulders. “Now I need to meet this man. I want you to get on the ground and act like you’re hurt. I’ll go knock on the door and lie through my teeth until I get the information I need.”
Gavin’s mouth opens so far a family of bats could fly in it and hang. “Are you kidding me?”
“Do I look like I’m kidding?”
A dog barks in the distance.
“You look like you’re acting insane.”
And with that statement, our reality snaps into focus: This is going nowhere.
It can’t. He’s furious and he doesn’t even know the full truth.
At the end of the day, I want this baby, and even if I’ve spent the last days imagining a life with him—here—I can easily go back to Chicago and my job.
My very good job that makes enough money that my baby will never want for anything.
I was stupid to entertain hedging my happiness—my child’s happiness—on anything but that truth.
I take a mental wrecking ball to the land of make-believe I’ve been living in and see the clear path forward.
If this were a business transaction where I’d properly kept my feelings at bay, I’d have no problem cutting Gavin to ensure my focus stays fixed on what matters.
It’s what I’ve spent my whole career training for and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
I don’t half-ass anything in my life, including this. Especially this.
Before I can talk myself out of it or he can register what’s happening, I pull my arm back then snap it forward, punching him square in the nose. Not as hard as I can, but hard enough his hands fly to his face as he shouts, “What the fuck, Reese?”
I wince. “Sorry.” But only kind of. “You didn’t listen to me.”
“Didn’t listen to you?” he barks, wide-eyed.
I ignore him, dragging him by the elbow toward the house as he grunts and groans with his hands cupped around his nose.
At the front door, I pry his hands from his face to investigate. “You’re barely bleeding.”
Barely meaning his upper lip looks like he’s taken up vampirism.
He gapes at the blood covering his fingers. “You punched me.”
I knock on the door and a yappy dog barks instantly. Great.
“Are you crazy?” Gavin demands through gritted teeth.
“My sisters would say yes.” My knees bounce as muffled voices echo around the inside of the house. I do a double take at his angry eyes. “You wouldn’t do the ground thing and I was out of ideas. And I said I was sorry.”
The door swings open at the same time I wrap my arm around Gavin and paint a smile on my face.
A woman with a grey bob stands in a flannel nightgown and a worried look, eyes widening at Gavin’s bloody hands at his nose. “Can I help you?”
“We’re so sorry to disturb you. My”—I look at Gavin—“husband got a freak nosebleed on our walk.” The yappy dog—a godforsaken chihuahua of all things—is at her ankles, looking at me with its beady eyes and barking so loud I want to squash it with my foot.
“And I was wondering if we could have some tissues to stop it?”
“Oh, dear.” She’s genuinely concerned. “Are you okay?”