Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Vaughn
After over twenty-four hours of travel, I arrived at Hartsfield International, physically exhausted from flying halfway around the world. The payoff? Having a petite knockout bowl me over.
The drive south from the airport revealed how much had changed in the years since I’d set foot on Georgia clay. Explosive growth and expansion of the interstate make the landscape so different than the way I remember it.
When I finally reached the exit and pulled into the small town that raised me, the vise that’s gripped my chest since receiving that email relaxed ever so slightly.
Main Street still had that hometown vibe, even if it looked different from what I remember.
The buildings all sported a fresh coat of paint and had new, more upscale storefronts.
The mom-and-pop discount stores had all been replaced by fancy boutiques.
At some point in the last two decades, the sidewalks had been updated and widened.
I’d only been back once in all that time, even still the bones of the place still felt the same.
Spotting a coffee shop, I pulled in immediately, needing some sustenance before my next chore.
And then the redhead made the chore feel a little lighter.
What a gorgeous handful of woman. With fiery red hair and kissable pink lips, she stole my breath the moment I laid eyes on her. Well-defined arms under my palms when I steadied her, and an ass that had me biting my lip as she walked away.
But it was the way her pint-size body fit perfectly against mine that sealed the deal. I’m smiling as I get back into my truck. I’ll definitely be back here tomorrow. If she’s the only good thing that comes from this trip, then getting bowled over by her will hopefully be worth it.
My Seabee buddies would warn me about checking her level of crazy. But they’d understand once they saw her.
What can I say? I’m a shallow guy sometimes.
Besides, it’s not like the real reason I’m here will be anything but painful. Might as well find something good about this trip.
I back my rental out of the spot and head toward the farm, trying to let the anticipation of the redhead override the unsettled dread of what’s waiting for me.
I’m not at all looking forward to what I might find when I get there.
Will he run me off again? Was Gran right that it was time for us to make amends?
In this part of town, new subdivisions replace farmland. But once I turn down the lane headed for my destination, a barrage of memories floods me.
Everything from wobbling my first two-wheel bike over the far hill and hooking my shirt instead of the worm in that rusted, overturned boat on the edge of the pond, to learning how to saddle and ride a horse in the pen by the dilapidated barn.
It was shiny and new when I stole my first kiss from Ellie May Spruce when I was twelve and she was eleven.
It was still shiny and not quite as new when we lost our virginity in the haystacks years later.
Wonder if the coffeeshop redhead would go for a tussle in the bales? The thought has me smirking as I park and face the house I swore I’d never set foot in again.
Guess Gus hasn’t been in any state to do repairs. I’m clocking the exterior deterioration as I take the worn-out steps. The whole second stair sags, and there’s a busted railing and sagging shutters.
The front door swings wide, and the telltale chambering of a shell in a shotgun stops me in my tracks.
The barrel of a sawed-off stares me down. I’ll probably have a new scar if I so much as breathe wrong.
“What in the hell are you doin’ here?”
It may not be as robust as it used to be, but I’d recognize Gus’s voice anywhere.
The clatter of running feet breaks the silence.
“Jesus Christ, Gus. What are you doing? You can’t just pull a gun on people!” a familiar voice says, and then a flaming mass of red hair appears from behind Augustus Adams, and the rug is well and truly swept from under my feet.
In a heartbeat, I flash from intrigued to angry, and it seems she passes through the same round of emotions as her expression changes from worried to embarrassed to… nervous?
“Uh, hi. Sorry about Gus and, you know, the whole gun thing.” With cheeks flushed bright red, she steps in front of my grandfather like he isn’t holding a deadly weapon and starts down those rickety stairs.
“He’s a little feral, but I promise he’s house-trained.
” She extends a hand as Gus sputters. “I’m Kate. ”
I reach to take her hand, not at all sure who this woman is, but more pissed than I care to admit that she’s obviously living with my grandfather.
Gus doesn’t look at all the way the attorney had made it sound.
During the long flights, I had plenty of opportunity to run through scenarios and imagine how my grandfather might appear, how this initial meeting might go.
The lines in his face are deeper, his hair is whiter, and he’s a good two inches shorter and more stooped than I imagined.
Hell, the shotgun isn’t all that surprising, but seeing him up and about is.
“Vaughn.” I take her hand, not bothering to soften the brusqueness in my tone. “You the nurse Smith mentioned?”
“What in the hell is he doin’ here, Kate,” Gus growls. It doesn’t sound nearly as threatening as I remember.
When I was a kid, that low voice was enough to scare me stupid.
Admittedly, it was usually when I’d been caught doing something stupid.
Now it’s a weak rasp in comparison. His face is also beet red, and his breathing is decidedly labored.
Is the shock of seeing me going to make him keel over and die right here on the porch?
“You need to go back to whatever rock you crawled out from,” he grouses in my direction, but at least he’s not pointing the shotgun at me anymore.
“Why don’t we go inside and sit down and have a chat,” Kate says, still standing between the two of us like she’ll stop either one of us from going at the other. She might be able to take Gus, but this pint-size pixie couldn’t stop me from doing any damn thing I wanted to do.
“He ain’t setting foot in my house,” Gus declares, still sputtering despite his apparent need to find a chair and calm the fuck down. I’m not surprised that he still hates me. “Told you twenty years ago to never come back. You ain’t welcome here.”
I’m well the fuck aware how much my grandfather despises me. After all, I’m the reason he lost everything all those years ago.
Guilt and grief and a lifetime of regret slam into me, and it takes everything I have not to flinch under the vitriol in his voice. I don’t want him to see how much his hatred still affects me, but this was a fucking colossal mistake. I spin on a heel and head back to my rental.
“Wait,” Kate cries, and my stupid god damn body does exactly as she commands.
I pull up short at the hood of the small hatchback.
“Gus, go in the house. Vaughn, wait.”
I don’t move, and from the sound of it, my grandfather doesn’t either.
“Please.”
Ah, fuck. The broken plea nearly does me in.
I’ve been to war. Been in a hundred situations, facing life and death, and have seen more in my lifetime than I ever needed to.
But something about her begging both exhilarates me and sets my blood boiling for reasons I don’t want to examine.
I spin and lean my ass against the car, crossing my arms over my chest to wait him out.
There’s no healthy grass in the front yard. I don’t remember it being this sparse. As a kid, I had a lush carpet to run barefoot on.
The screen door creaks, the porch groans, and the shuffling gait grows quieter. All of it a backdrop to that sweet voice murmuring low but demanding.
In short order, the vixen returns. “Can we start over, please?” she asks as she draws near.
No. I’m getting into this fucking rental, and I’m going back to my life in Bali.
But I bite my tongue and stay frozen in place.
“Look,” she says once it’s obvious I’m not leading this conversation. “I don’t know what’s going on between you and Gus. But I know he needs you, and if you are who I’m thinking you are, he’s missed you.” She glances back at the house. “Even if he’s got an odd way of showing it.”
I want to believe her, but I can’t.
“What’s your place here? You some kind of gold digger looking for a sugar daddy? You think because he’s got a nice big piece of land that he’s got a shit ton of money to go with it?”
It’s a dick thing to say, but I can’t pull back on the reins of my temper.
Immediately, her whole countenance changes, and she morphs into a pissed-off fireball.
“That’s a dick thing to say,” she fires back, shocking me into silence with the curse and also surprising me by saying exactly what I’m thinking. Miss Goody Two-shoes is quite the jaw-dropper. I don’t hate it.
“I was asked to be here,” she continues, “because Gus needs someone to look after him. Something you’d know if you’d have bothered to check in on him.”
To hell with her and her damned high horse.
“Look, Vixen. Not that it’s any of your fucking business, but that old man forced me to leave.
Sent me away and told me to never come back,” I growl through a clenched jaw.
If she were a man, I’d tell her exactly where she could shove her accusations.
“Now it’s clear to me that you’ve got him on some kind of pedestal, some kind of misplaced grandpa worship or some shit going on.
But Gus is as stubborn as the day is long.
If you’d bothered to ask, he would’ve told you that I am the last person he wants here. ”
The truth is still a knife to the gut, even after all these years, and I hate how much it hurts. I thought coming here would be some kind of closure or something. Not make me feel like a fucking scolded kid again.
Kate’s fingers dive into her hair as she puffs out a breath. She gazes over the land around us, like she’s trying to gather her thoughts. I wait her out.
“Look. Just… don’t go anywhere. Despite what Gus thinks, I can’t handle this place alone. And he’s so stubborn, he was about to lose this place to tax liens and have it sold out from under him at auction.”
Her description of Gus is ironic, but I school my expression and focus on the news she’s delivering. He’s not selling, but he thinks he’s close to losing it altogether. And this little firecracker is putting up quite the fight on his behalf. They have no idea that I have the rights to this place.
“If the diabetes and heart issues weren’t enough already, losing this place will kill him.
” Dammit. This woman and her sob story interrupting my train of thought.
After all I’ve been through and all I’ve lost, Gus is the last person I should want to help.
But I owe it to my gran to at least do right by him, even if it kills me to be here.
She’d probably haunt me forever if I let this farm get away from the family.
A long sigh escapes me as I give in. “God knows I don’t want to, but I’ll stay long enough to help you get him secured enough that he doesn’t lose the farm. I’ll start looking into things tomorrow. Right now, I’m fucking exhausted.”
I straighten and open the door, wondering how in the hell this little pixie of a woman just handled both me and my grandfather and ended up getting exactly what she wanted.
“Where are you going?” She takes a step forward, twisting her fingers.
“I’m headed back to town to find a hotel.” Something I should’ve done before driving all the way out. I should’ve known he wouldn’t let me set foot in his house. I scrub a hand over my face. Fuck. If only I could rewind time and handle the last forty-eight hours differently.
She glances back at the house and has the grace to wince. “That’s probably a good idea. At least for tonight. I’ll try to reason with Gus and maybe find a solution where he doesn’t pull a gun on you.”
The glare I shoot her has frozen many a sailor, but not her. She’s oblivious to the fact that I am not in the mood for any more of her jokes.
I forcibly keep my eyes away from the rearview as I drive away. Too bad she ended up being a meddlesome pain in my ass. Somehow, I think I would’ve enjoyed meeting up with her at the coffee shop tomorrow. But now, next to Gus, she’s the last person I want to spend time with.