Page 55 of Giving Grace

“Wasn’t that hard—I’m an old dog,” he tells me with a shrug like it’s a real answer. “Old dogs run together, no matter the breed.”

“Bullshit.” Unable to accept his explanation, I bite the word in half and practically spit it at him. “I was—”

“Yeah, yeah—” He lifts his glass, chuckling into it before taking another drink. “you were a regular fuckin’ Rambo, before things went pear-shaped on you—I got the gist of it, even through the heavy redaction.” Despite his needling, there’s a slight shift in his tone. Something that sounds almost like respect. He jerks his chin at my leg. “You tell her how it happened?”

I shake my head. “I can’t tell her something I don’t remember.” It’s a lie. Five months of therapy have done a lot. Made a lot of changes and that’s one of them. I remember. I remember everything. “Besides, how doesn’t really matter does it? Doesn’t change what happened. What I am now.”

He gives me a long, appraising look, his fade blue eyes raking over me, the expression on his face unreadable. “You’re different,” he tells me, reminding me of the conversation I had with Grace on Friday.

“I suppose I am,” I concede with a shrug. “Is that why we’re here—so you can tell me that you read my service record and that I’m different?”

“No, Ranger—” He lifts his glass for the final time and drains it before setting down with a heavy clunk. “We’re here so I can look you in the eye when I ask you if you’re in love with my daughter.”

“Yes,” I answer him without hesitation. I don’t look away. “I’m in love with Grace.”

He makes a noise in the back of his throat—the tone of it caught somewhere between resignation and acceptance—and nods. “And Molly?”

For some dumb reason, when he says her name, I smile. Can’t help it. “I supposed I’m in love with her too.”

“I figured as much.” He levels his gaze at the untouched glass of club soda in front of me. “You a drunk?”

“No—but my father is.”

He looks past the bar, his gaze dipping toward my leg again. “Pills?”

“If I’ve had a rough day, I take 20mgs of oxytocin before I go to bed,” I tell him, thinking about the pill Kaitlyn practically had to force down my throat. “Mostly, I manage the pain with a fuck-ton of therapy.” Six months ago, that admission would’ve killed me. Would’ve made me feel like less. Like my father. Now, most days, I see it for what it is.

Necessary.

“Your dad ever hit your mom?” It’s a blunt, ugly question but I understand why he asks it. Why I need to answer it.

“They hit each other,” I tell him with a helpless shrug. “Almost every day, until she left him—left us both—and took my sister with her.” Because he read my jacket and undoubtedly knows anyway, I lay the rest of it out there. “When I was 17, I got mixed up in some bad shit—I stole cars. Got caught and was given the choice of either the military or jail—I took option A.” It’s not the whole truth—I don’t mention Troy Murphy or that fact that it was his brand-new son-in-law’s cousin that got me hooked into boosting cars in the first place—but it’s enough. It’s all he needs to know.

“You gonna marry my daughter?”

“If that’s what she wants,” I tell him. “To be perfectly honest, I’m willing to take Grace any way she’ll let me have her.” That’s how much I love her. How desperate I am to be in her life and in Molly’s. “I’m here for her—whatever she wants.”

“And if she wants to get married?” He pressed the question because he thinks I’m dodging it. Thinks I might not be a long-haul guy after all.

“Then I’m going to marry the shit out of her.”

His face cracks, the corners of his mouth lifting into something between a smile and smirk before giving me a single head nod, like he’s making up his mind. “How much you weigh?”

I’ve packed on about fifteen pounds of muscle in the past several months. Doing a quick calculation, I shrug. “Two twenty. Two twenty-five.”

He gives me another nod. “I’m gonna tell you the same thing I told Patrick when I had this talk with him—you hurt my girls, I don’t give a good goddamn what your jacket says—I’ll murder you, dismember you, stuff you in a trash bag and drive your parts up the coast. I got a buddy who runs a fishing boat—he pays for chum by the pound and when I tell him you hurt Grace, he won’t give a shit if you have opposable thumbs or not. Are we clear?”

“As a bell.”

“Good.” He slaps his palm against the bar top and stands. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go make a bad situation worse by telling my wife she’s got a plane to catch.”

Thirty-five

Grace

Ryan left.

Laying here, next to a softly snoring Molly, I try not to wonder where he went or if he’s coming back. Where he is. Who he’s with.

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