Page 45 of Giving Grace

“I’m serious, man,” he says, completely side-stepping my attempt at confrontation. “Grace is smart, funny, strong—not to mention gorgeous.” He lifts his glass to take a drink. “Trust me when I tell you that women like her don’t come along every day.”

“Yeah?” I say, stretching my legs out in front of me. It’s been a long day of standing and walking. My leg is screaming. Makes me glad I had the foresight to bring my cane. I knew it was going to be bad but taking Molly down to the beach and walking around in soft sand for an hour has made it just this side of unbearable. Doesn’t matter. I’d do it again in a heartbeat because watching her play tag with the waves what pretty much the highlight of my day.

I should think about leaving. Hobble over to where Patrick and Cari are talking to his parents and make my excuses. Drag my sorry ass home and fall face down into bed. Instead, I’m torturing myself by watching some other guy put the moves on the woman I’m in love with. “And your point is?”

Declan shakes his head like I’m too dumb to live. “My point is if you let her slip through your fingers, you’re going to regret it, every day of your miserable life.”

For some reason, his prediction sets a panic bomb off in my gut. “And you’re the voice of experience?”

“You’re goddamned right I am,” he gripes at me. “I wasted eight years of my fucking life, staying away from Tess because I’d convinced myself I didn’t deserve her. Shouldn’t get to have her.”

“And now you think you do? You should?” I say, not because I disagreed but because I’m trying to understand.

“Fuck no.” He laughs, shaking his head. “I could live to be a hundred and never come close to deserving a woman like Tess—but here’s the truth that every Gilroy man knows but none of us want to admit out loud—” He slouches back in his seat and lifts his glass, tilting it at the reception, people laughing and dancing. Talking and eating. “None of us deserve them. Patrick doesn’t deserve Cari. Con sure as fuck doesn’t deserve your sister—and we both know if I got what was coming, I’d be married to Jessica and miserable right now.” He lowers his glass without taking a drink and gives me a shrug. “We are woefully and hopelessly out of our league when it come to the women we’ve been lucky enough to land, so the best we can do is love the hell out of them and pray to God they never figure it out.” Across the lawn, he catches sight of Tess emerging from the house. She’s changed out of her bridesmaid dress and into her usual jeans and tank top. Scanning the party, her gaze finally lands on Declan and smiles.

Grinning back, Declan pushes himself out of his chair and sighs. “So, I’ll ask you again, man—what the fuck are you waiting for?” he says but before I can think of a legitimate answer, he walks away and heads straight for Tess, leaving me alone to wonder the same goddamned thing.

Twenty-nine

Grace

Tess what supposed to Cari’s maid of honor but when Con and Henley announced their engagement, she bowed out with a very gracious, fuck that, I’m not doing this shit twice, and handed the reins over to me.

For the last few weeks I’ve been frazzled. Running around, taking care of last-minute details, like the fact that the florist tried to substitute pink tulips in Cari’s bouquet for the orange she specifically requested and making sure that Patrick’s parents and ours were picked up from the airport and settled into their hotel. Last night, I was sure my head was going to explode from all the pressure.

Today, I’m so grateful for it I could cry because running around and making sure everything is going smoothly is the only thing that’s keeping from devolving into a gelatinous mess of anxiety and frustration.

Because the reception is almost over and Ryan has yet to collect on his demand for a dance. He kept his promise to Molly and took her down to the beach as soon as the photographer snapped a few poses of her in her dress.

“Where is he taking her?” my mother demanded to know, pointing at the two of them as they headed across the lawn, hand in hand, Molly’s flower girl basket swinging easily in Ryan’s grip.

“Down to the beach,” I inform her with a smile, still watching Ryan and Molly walk away. “To look for seashells.”

“She’ll ruin her dress,” she huffs, dropping her hand in preparation to push past me so she can follow them and drag Molly back. “I told her—”

“It doesn’t matter what you told her,” I say, turning to look at her while stepping in front of her to stall her progress. “I told her it was okay because she’s four years old and never seen the ocean before and because that dress is going to be trashed by the end of the day whether she goes down there to see it or not—and because I’m her mother and what she does or doesn’t do is my decision. Not yours.”

She crosses her arms over her chest and cocks her hip. “And you’re perfectly okay with her strolling off with a strange man who could do god knows what to her?”

“No.” I have to force my fingers to uncurl themselves when I feel them start to clench. That’s how angry I am at my mother right now. Angry enough to hit her. “I’m allowing her to go down to the beach with someone she loves and someone I trust.”

When she drops her arms away from her chest, I expect her to push me aside and storm after them, regardless of the fact that I’m the mother or what my wishes are but she doesn’t. “I hope neither of you come to regret it, Kathrine Grace,” she tells me. “Living with your own poor choices is one thing, but forcing them on a child is something else entirely.”

That was over four hours ago and she hasn’t said a word to me since. Normally, I’d be relieved but she’s been standing in a corner talking to my father for the past twenty minutes and for some reason, it’s making me nervous.

“What do you think they’re talking about?” I ask Patrick, tilting my head in my parents’ direction. When I felt his hand on my elbow a few minutes ago, the grip of it pulling me away from the gift table with a murmured, let’s dance, I nearly had a stroke because I thought it was Ryan, coming to collect. Instead, it was my newly-minted brother-in-law, brideless and looking for someone to push around the dance floor.

Patrick’s clear green gaze follows my head jog and the dimple dug into his cheek loosens up just enough to tell me that he has a pretty good idea of what’s going on. “Who knows,” he says, his shoulder shrugging under the weight of my hand. “I stopped trying to figure out you Faraday women a long time ago.” Despite the teasing, I have the distinct feeling that things are happening around me that I have no control over. Things that concern me. And he knows it.

“Patrick—”

Before I can demand he tell me what’s going on, a large. Looming shadow stretches over us and I look up to find Went grinning down at me. “Mind if I cut in?”

“I do.” Patrick gives me a wink before letting his hand drop away from the small of my back. “But I’ll let you do it anyway,” he says before handing me over to Went and making his escape.

Coward.

Went steps into his place in front of me and slides his tattooed arm around my waist, his hand coming to rest on my hip to pull me close and I automatically lift my hand to press it against his shoulder to keep space between us. Instead of being offended, Went laughs. “Geez, Faraday, the nuns at St. Anne’s would’ve loved you.”

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