Best Man for Hire (Entangled Lovestruck) (Front and Center) (14 page)

“You can, actually. You just choose not to. You’re willing to bare your body to me, but never your soul. Not what you’re thinking or feeling, not ever. Why is that?”

He shook his head, but didn’t speak, so Anna answered her own question.

“You’re scared to death to let anyone see the real you. The you that isn’t perfectly perfect all the time.”

He shook his head, but didn’t argue. Didn’t defend himself.

“Okay, then how about another question,” Anna tried. “If this is over between us, at least let me have the closure of some answers.” When he didn’t say anything, she licked her lips and continued. “Why don’t you want to get married? I don’t mean right now or to me. I mean ever. What’s your reason for feeling like that?”

“I told you—”

“Actually, no. You didn’t.”

He looked up, his eyes dark gray and stormy. “Sure I did. We’ve talked about this stuff.”

“No,
we
haven’t. I’ve done all the talking. I’ve told you about my parents’ divorce and my guilt over my sister’s failed marriage and my stupid near miss in Vegas, while you used your supersecret spy-hunter skills to keep me sharing story after story after story. I’m not saying it’s all your fault. I’m not exactly the kind of girl who keeps her thoughts to herself. But this whole time, you’ve hardly shared anything with me.”

Grant looked at her for a moment, then glanced away. He didn’t say anything, but Anna had a feeling she’d touched a nerve. She reached out and rested a hand on his arm. She hesitated a few beats, drawing out the silence the way he’d taught her in an interrogation.

Then she asked the one question she’d been wanting to ask all along.

“Who was she?”

She felt his whole body stiffen. When he looked back at her, his eyes were more troubled than she’d ever seen in her life.

He sighed and closed his eyes.

And then he began to talk.

Chapter Thirteen

Ten years ago

Grant walked into the bar, feeling the thrum of country music twanging through his veins. This wasn’t his usual scene, but he was on vacation.

Most of the other bars he’d poked his head in had been teeming with military folks. Fort Irwin was home to the National Training Center where units came to get ready for overseas deployment. He’d seen a few of Schwartz’s Army buddies at the last bar, and a couple of his fellow Marines down the street. Tonight though, Grant felt like trying something different.

“What can I getcha?” the bartender asked as Grant ambled over and straddled a stool.

“Whiskey and Coke,” he said, pulling out his wallet to flash his ID before the bartender even asked. He’d just turned twenty-three but hadn’t been able to lose the baby face. The bartender nodded, then thunked a smeared-looking glass down in front of him. He dropped in a couple ice cubes, then filled it halfway with cheap-looking whiskey.

The Coke seemed like an afterthought, but Grant thanked him anyway and shoved a twenty across the bar. The guy nodded and turned to the cash register.

“You stationed here?” the bartender asked.

Grant took a sip of the drink and tried not to choke. Schwartz always drank his whiskey straight, and so did Mac. How the fuck did they do it? Grant took another gulp and set the glass down. “Nah, I’m stationed over at Camp Twentynine Palms. I just drove over for the weekend to visit my brother. He’s a trainer at the NTC. Staff sergeant. Runs all kinds of tactical training exercises for units that come here to certify.” Grant realized he sounded boastful and also a little young, so he picked up his drink and took another sip. The bartender busied himself wiping down the bar with a damp rag, while Grant surveyed the room. It was oddly peaceful here. Two cowboys sat hunched together playing cards next to the jukebox, which was belting out a twangy tune about a dog and a truck.

In another corner, three women in cutoff shorts and halter tops sat giggling and sipping neon-colored drinks. One of them smiled at him, then leaned across the table to whisper to her friends. All of them turned to look at him, and for lack of anything better to do, Grant smiled.

“Your brother meeting you here?”

Grant turned back to the bartender. “Nah, my brother’s out of town. I drove out here to surprise him, but it turns out he’s in L.A. this weekend.”

“Birthday?”

“Nope, he just got engaged. I got the call from him two nights ago. I haven’t met her yet, so I thought I’d come out and offer my congratulations in person.”

“That’s mighty thoughtful of you.”

Grant nodded and turned at the sound of female giggles. One of the women from the corner—the one who’d pointed at him—was making her way toward him, a sexy sway in her hips. It didn’t take much to figure she’d put it there for him.

Grant waited, pretty sure she looked like trouble, but not having anything better to do at the moment.

“Hey, soldier,” she said, sliding onto the barstool next to his. “Buy me a drink?”

“I’m actually a Marine, not a soldier,” he said, then smiled to show he wasn’t a total asshole. He glanced back at her table and noticed she already had a drink, but it didn’t seem polite to point that out. She’d undone an extra button on her top, so it seemed rude not to show some appreciation.

“What do you want to drink?”

“Tequila sunrise. Extra cherry.”

Grant nodded at the bartender, who turned around and began making the drink. The woman leaned close and extended her hand. “Jenny,” she said. “You have the most beautiful gray eyes.”

“Thank you, Jenny. I’m Grant. Grant Patton. And you have the most beautiful—”

She shifted a little on her barstool then, making everything jiggle and distracting him for an instant. He suspected it wasn’t an accident. “Eyes,” he said at last. “You have beautiful eyes, too.”

She laughed like he’d said the funniest thing in the world. She reached for her drink as the bartender set it in front of her. “Grant Patton,” she said. “What’s a nice guy like you doing in a seedy bar like this?”

The bartender grunted a little at that, but said nothing. Grant sipped his drink again. Was it his imagination, or had Jenny just undone another button on her shirt?

“Just in town visiting for the weekend,” he said.

“Vacation?”

“Something like that.”

She smiled and leaned closer. He could feel the heat from her skin, smelled something soft and floral. It had been a couple months, and Grant felt his cock lunge at the sight of all that flesh on display.

Jenny sipped her drink again, looking at him over the straw. “Vacations are all about having a good time. Wouldn’t you say?”

Grant didn’t say much over the course of the next twenty minutes. Jenny did all the talking, including making the suggestion they head back to his hotel room. Grant raised no objections, though he did ask once if she was positive she hadn’t had too much tequila.

“Relax, sweetie,” she’d said with a laugh, grabbing his arm as he led her back to the hotel.

When it was all over, Jenny swung her bare legs over the edge of the bed and began rummaging around on the floor for her shirt. “I’ve gotta run, baby. Thanks for the good time.”

He watched her get dressed, feeling a little disoriented. He’d had casual flings before, but none quite this casual. He sat up with the sheets still tangled around his waist, wondering if he should offer to call a cab. No, that would be stupid. She’d told him she only lived three blocks away.

“Should I, uh, call you later?”

She rolled her eyes and stuffed her feet into her abandoned flip-flops. “Under the circumstances, that would be pretty stupid, don’t you think?”

Grant opened his mouth to answer, but Jenny cut him off.

“Don’t bother. This was fantasy fodder, nothing more. You and your brother are remarkably similar in bed, you know that? I’ll be thinking of that next spring as I’m walking down the aisle to marry him.”

And with that, she turned and flounced out of the room.

…

“Oh my God.”

The stricken look on Anna’s face felt like a sucker punch right in Grant’s solar plexus. It was like reliving that moment all over again, only this time, he had an audience.

She shook her head, looking too horrified for words. Grant swallowed and looked down at his hands.

“Schwartz found out, of course. I’m not sure how, but I suspect it was one of Jenny’s friends. Or hell, maybe the bartender. I never knew, exactly. Just got an email from Schwartz saying, ‘Jenny cheated, the engagement’s off.’”

“Did he—do you think—”

“Did he know it was me?” Grant balled his hands into fists. “I never knew. I don’t think so, but I can’t be sure. A week later, he volunteered to join a unit deploying to Anbar Provence. It was crazy. Schwartz was a tactical-operations trainer for the Army. He did predeployment training. He was a badass, sure, but he wasn’t supposed to head into the danger zone. Not then, anyway. Not when things were heating up down there.”

Anna was shaking her head. “You think he was so upset by what happened—”

“I don’t just think. I
know.
He talked to Mac the night before he left and said all this shit about needing to get away, to go where the action was.” Grant took another deep breath, bracing himself for the worst part of the story. “Nine months later, his Humvee was hit by a rocket. Everyone but Schwartz was killed, and he was pretty messed up. When he came back, nothing was the same. He wanted nothing to do with anyone—not the family, not the military, definitely not women. He wanted to be left alone. For good. That’s what he said.”

“And you obliged?”

There was a note of dismay in her voice, but Grant chose to ignore it. “I tried at first to stay in touch. I’m the only one he trusted with his contact info, and for a while I thought that meant something. But no matter how many ways I tried, he shut me out. He told me to leave him the hell alone, and so I did.”

He watched Anna’s throat move as she swallowed. When she reached out to touch his arm, her hand was warm and soft and filled with a tenderness he didn’t deserve.

“Grant, it wasn’t your fault.”

He shook his head, hating the sympathy in her voice almost as much as he hated the pity in her eyes.

Not nearly as much as he hated himself, though.

“Are you kidding me? Of course it was my fault. I slept with my brother’s fiancée, broke his goddamn heart, and sent him careening into a combat zone where he didn’t fucking belong. You want to tell me how that’s not my fault?”

She jerked back a little at the force of his words, but her hand didn’t leave his arm. She shook her head, tears clouding her eyes now as a look of determination crossed her face. “No. You couldn’t have known who she was, Grant.”

He shook his head slowly. He knew the instant the words left his mouth that nothing would be the same again. That she’d take her hand off his arm and everything would change between them.

But still, he had to say it.

“No,” he said, forcing himself to meet her eyes. Those beautiful, trusting eyes he’d give anything to gaze into for the rest of his life.

But that would never happen. “You don’t understand,” he said at last. “I knew exactly who she was.”

Chapter Fourteen

Anna blinked, wondering if she’d misunderstood. “I’m sorry?”

“You heard me right,” he said, pulling his arm back so her hand slipped off and bounced awkwardly off his knee. “I knew Jenny was Schwartz’s fiancée and I slept with her anyway.”

He stood up then, not meeting her eyes. “I’m sorry, Anna. I’m not the man you thought I was.”

She let those words hang there between them for a moment before she stood up, too. “When?”

“It happened ten years ago.”

“No, not that. You already said that. I mean when did you know she was his fiancée? At the bar? Before you even got down there?”

“Why does it matter?”

“I’m trying to understand.”

He sighed and raked his hands over his buzz cut. “Not until we were back at the hotel and—uh—already to third base. I made a crack about not being the sort of guy to sleep with someone if I didn’t even know her full name, and she just laughed.”

“She laughed?”

“Then she slid down on her knees and—” He closed his eyes, unable to finish the sentence.

So Anna gave it her best shot. “Told you with your cock in her mouth that she planned to marry your brother? Is that about it?”

Grant gave a tight nod, but said nothing.

Anna grabbed his arm and dug her nails in, forcing him to look at her. “Let me get this straight. You were a twenty-three-year-old kid with a raging case of hero worship for your brother, and you found yourself unable to resist when his fiancée—who obviously set the whole thing up—took off her clothes, took your dick in her mouth, and asked you to fuck her?”

“Please don’t.”

“The hell I won’t!” Anna snapped, leaping to her feet. “We all make mistakes, Grant. Even perfect Boy Scouts like you. You sure as hell insisted I stop blaming myself for mine. What makes you any less worthy of redemption?”

He shook his head, looking tired and beaten down and desperate to be anywhere but here. “It’s not that simple, Anna. My brother’s life was ruined because of me.”

“Even if that were true—which I don’t believe for an instant—you’re going to punish yourself forever by never allowing yourself to marry and be happy?”

Something flickered in his eyes. “Isn’t that exactly what you’ve been doing?”

Anna blinked, startled. “You’re right. It is. But you know what, Grant? I talk about my feelings. I share my regrets and fears and hang-ups, and thanks to you, I was even figuring out how to learn from my mistakes. You were the one who told me not to spend the rest of my life in purgatory. Why the hell can’t you do the same for yourself?”

He shook his head. “Three months. Schwartz was in a coma for
three fucking months
. He was hospitalized a lot longer than that. They had to completely rebuild his leg. Physical therapy, psychotherapy. Then there was the rest of my family. You should have seen what it did to my mother—” His voice broke there, and Anna felt her heart split in two. She wanted to put her arms around him and tell him everything would be okay, but Grant had already turned away from her. “Some people don’t deserve forgiveness, Anna.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Grant. So very, very wrong.”

“One of countless reasons I’d be a terrible husband to anyone.” He began moving toward the door, his steps stiff and halting. At the threshold, he hesitated and looked over his shoulder at her, his eyes so stormy they were nearly black. “I’m sorry, Anna.”

Anna folded her arms over her chest, torn between anger, heartache, and plain old frustration.

“Being a good partner isn’t about never being wrong, Grant. It’s about being able to admit when you are. It’s about learning from it and moving on. You are more than the worst thing you’ve done, Grant Patton.”

But he was already out the door, and out of Anna’s life for good.

…

Grant didn’t know how he ended up on the beach. He had no recollection of getting in his car and driving, though he must have driven quite a distance to have ended up here on Pakala.

“Cow Beach” his sister called it, naming it for the pack of bovines that occasionally wandered out of the jungle to sun themselves on the sand.

But there were no cows now, and no sun, for that matter. Inky clouds choked off the sky, and a fierce wind was whipping the palm trees into a frenzy.

Grant toed off his shoes under a piece of driftwood and began walking. When that pace proved inadequate to outrace his thoughts, he began to run. He ran until his legs burned, until he dripped with sweat and his legs were covered in a fine sheen of sand.

He might have run forever if his phone hadn’t rung. He pulled it out of his pocket, frowning at the sweat-fogged glass. This was why he normally ran with an armband. What the hell was it with his phone ringing every time he went for a run?

You run when you’re scared, and lately you’ve been running a helluva lot.

He brushed off the screen, but the readout just said “blocked.” He considered ignoring it, but Mac often called from secure lines. If there was a family emergency—

“Hello?”

“Grant.”

It came out more like a grunt than a name, but Grant would have recognized that grunt anywhere.

“Schwartz. What—did she call you?”

“She who?”

“Anna.”

“What the hell are you talking about? Who the fuck is Anna?”

He realized in an instant what a dumb thing he’d asked, but he’d been harboring the fantasy anyway. That somehow, Anna would know how to reach his brother. That she’d explain the whole goddamn mess, somehow making everything right between them.

But that was absurd. No one but him even knew how to reach Schwartz, and there was no reason for Anna to try anyway.

“Never mind,” he said, gripping the phone tighter. “You’re returning my call. About coming to Sheri’s wedding.”

“Right,” he grunted. “You know I don’t do weddings. Or birthdays. Or baby showers. Or—”

“Civilization in general,” Grant finished. “I know. I just thought maybe—I don’t know. That you’d make an exception. For Sheri.”

Schwartz was quiet on the other end of the line. For a moment, Grant wondered if he’d hung up.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he demanded.

Grant frowned. “What do you mean?”

“That probably came out wrong.” Schwartz fell quiet again. “I mean you sound upset, is everything okay?”

“Right.” Grant took a shaky breath. “Apparently I’m emotionally unavailable and closed-off.”

“They make pills for that shit, don’t they?”

Grant closed his eyes and took a deep breath. It was now or never, goddammit. “I need to tell you something, Schwartz.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s about Jenny.”

“Jenny who?”

Grant sighed, dragged his hand down his face. “Your former fiancée? The one whose betrayal made you volunteer for deployment to Anbar Provence and sent your whole life spiraling down a path of desperation and despair.”

“Have you been watching
Oprah
?”

“
Oprah’s
not on the air anymore.” Grant winced. “I’m ashamed that I know that. I was babysitting the twins for Sheri one afternoon and I saw the final show and—never mind, this is beside the point.”

“What the fuck is your point?”

“It was me.” The second the words were out of his mouth, Grant wanted to slam his head against the nearest palm tree. Instead, he kept going. “I was the one she cheated with, Schwartz. We met in a bar when I came out to surprise you, and one thing led to another and—”

“Why are you telling me this shit?”

“Because you deserve to know. Because I deserve whatever punishment you want to dole out.”

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line, and Grant realized how frantic he’d sounded just then. Christ, he wouldn’t blame Schwartz for hanging up on him. He deserved a helluva lot worse.

“You always did have a flair for the drama, little brother.”

Grant swallowed. “What?”

“I already knew all this shit, Grant. And that Joni—”

“Jenny.”

“Whatever the fuck her name was,” Schwartz growled, “was a scheming tramp I didn’t think twice about once she packed up her shit and left.”

Grant froze, digesting his brother’s words. “You’re lying.”

“Why the fuck would I lie about that?”

“How did you—Why did you—What the—”

“What’s the question, Grant?”

He honestly didn’t know. He sat down on a piece of driftwood as the rain started spattering into the sand around him. He barely noticed. “I don’t understand. I ruined your life.”

“You think my life is ruined?” He sounded bemused.

“No. I mean, yes. Having your whole team blown to bits right in front of you?”

There was an odd growl on the other end of the line. “Did you fire the fucking rocket that hit us?”

“No.”

“Did you start the goddamn war?”

“No, but—”

“Did you choose to raise me in a strict military family where we were pretty much expected to join up the minute we got big enough to lift an assault rifle?”

“What? Are you saying it’s Mom and Dad’s fault?”

“No, you idiot. I’m saying it’s no one’s fault. I wanted to see some action, so I went where the action was. I wanted to serve my goddamn country, so I did. I knew the risks, and I did it anyway because it’s what I wanted to do. None of it had anything to do with you or Mom or Dad or Jessie—”

“Jenny.”

“Whatever,” Schwartz said. “Is this conversation almost over?”

“Wait. So you don’t hate me?”

“Hate you? Of course not, you dumbshit. I love you.”

Tears pricked the back of Grant’s eyes, or maybe it was just the sting of windswept sand hitting his face. He wiped a smear of rain off his face and pressed the phone harder against his ear. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

“In that case, you seriously need to find a woman.”

“I did,” Grant muttered. “And then I fucked it up.”

“Well go unfuck it then.”

“How?”

“What am I, your fucking shrink? How the hell should I know? Buy her some beer or flowers or some shit like that.”

“How is it you’re still single?”

Schwartz made a sound that was almost a laugh, or as close to a laugh as the grumpy bastard could ever get.

“I really am sorry about what happened to you,” Grant said. “About Jenny and the accident and the fact that you live in the middle of nowhere with no one to keep you warm at night.”

“Jesus, dude. You’re seriously starting to depress me. Go get your woman and leave me the hell alone.”

“I love you, too, man.”

Schwartz grunted in reply, and before Grant could say anything else, he heard his brother’s line go dead. He stared at the phone for a minute, then put it back in his pocket.

“That was a beautiful Hallmark moment.”

Grant whirled around to see Mac standing behind him under a large palm tree. “Where the hell did you come from?”

“I followed you.”

Grant stood up, dusting the sand off his shorts. “You know, sometimes you’re downright creepy.”

“My wife says the same thing. I think she finds it charming.”

“Yeah, well, your brother finds it disturbing.”

“Speaking of brothers, it sounds like you’ve connected with ours.”

“What did you do, bug my phone?”

Mac didn’t answer, and Grant tried to decide how annoyed to be about that. He was saved from deciding when Mac folded his arms over his chest and stared him down.

“Do you remember what you said to me several months ago when I was behaving in a fashion that was not conducive to a positive romantic relationship?”

“I told you to pull your head out of your ass.”

“In a manner of speaking. And while I prefer to think I’m more refined than to offer that precise bit of advice, I’d like to invite you to do the same. Promptly, I should add.”

Grant sighed and dragged his hands down his face. “You talked to Anna?”

“No. I talked to our mother, who’d spoken with Sheri, who’d talked with Kelli during her dinner break. I would have gotten the news directly from my wife, but I prefer not to visit when she’s in the middle of neutering cats.”

“I can’t imagine why.”

“In any case, it sounds like you have problems.”

“And I suppose you plan to tell me how to solve them?”

Mac frowned. “Good God, no. I’m just here to tell you we have a tux fitting at 8:00 a.m.”

“You stalked me on an isolated beach to tell me that?”

Mac shook his head and pulled off his sunglasses, and Grant had a rare glimpse of his brother’s steely brown eyes. “Don’t fuck this up, Grant. I don’t know what all your demons are, but I know it gets a lot easier to fight them when you’re no longer doing battle alone.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning women have much bigger swords than you might imagine,” he said. “Now go make sure she doesn’t use hers on you.”