Betting on Grace (14 page)

After all, Grace owed her one. Even if she didn’t know
it yet.

■□■□■□■□

“This is not the time or place to have this
conversation,” Grant told his father, his tone low. He could see Jerry moving
just over his father’s shoulder, and he hated that his boss’s morning had
started off like this.

Grant had figured for sure he’d have enough time to
get in front of Darrell’s outburst long before he descended on the ranch.
Obviously, he’d been wrong.

“Well, you ain’t talkin’ to me any other time, so I
figure this is the best damn place. Your boss here needs to know just what kind
of person you are, turnin’ your back on your father in his time of need.”

Oh, hell
.
Now Darrell was going to start with the woe-is-me segment of this morning’s
production.

Hoping that Jerry wasn’t going to buy into Darrell’s
bullshit, Grant purposely made eye contact with the man, offering a non-verbal
apology in his grimace. Jerry merely nodded slightly, just barely enough for
Grant to notice.

“Care to introduce us?” Jerry said, surprising Grant
as he moved closer to the two of them once again.

Grant sighed, hating that things had come to this.
“Jerry, this is my father, Darrell. Dad, this is my boss, Jerry Lambert.”

Jerry offered his hand to Darrell, but in true asshole
fashion, Grant’s father ignored it, pretending not to notice at all, as he
turned to look out of the screen door. That was one of the main reasons Grant
had never introduced the two men, even during that one occasion when the
opportunity had presented itself the last time his father had come to the
ranch.

“You own this place, huh?” Darrell asked.

“I do,” Jerry replied smoothly.

“Must be nice. Makin’ so much money.”

Shit.

Jerry didn’t dignify Darrell’s ignorant statement with
a response, thankfully. Grant simply stood there, watching his father, wishing
like hell he was going to wake up any minute now and this was all going to be a
bad dream.

“My son here might want to explain to you why I’m
here. I kindly asked him to loan me some money so that I don’t end up losin’ my
house, but he told me no.”

Darrell’s pathetic tone had Grant rolling his eyes.

This was ridiculous.

“You’re not gonna lose your house,” Grant said
sternly. “It’s paid for.”

“Well, the electricity is gonna be shut off,” Darrell
countered, turning to face Jerry more directly. “See, I recently lost my job at
the auto parts store.”

Funny how his father now said “lost” rather than “laid
off,” but whatever.

“How’d you lose your job?” Jerry asked, sounding
curious.

“They let me go.”

“That’s usually the way it works,” Jerry retorted. “I
asked you
how
you lost your job.”

Darrell glanced over at Grant as though he might save
him.

Not a chance, Dad, you’re on your own.

“I’ve been sick lately,” Darrell began, the words
spilling out of his mouth and sounding just like the lie that they were.

“You haven’t been
sick
,” Grant argued.

“You don’t know that!” Darrell exclaimed, showering
Grant with spit.

Grant wiped his face on the sleeve of his shirt and
took a step away from his father.

“And he ain’t talkin’ to you,” Darrell continued.
“Like I was sayin’,” Darrell began again, looking back at Jerry as he
continued, “I haven’t been feelin’ well. I didn’t make it in for a few days,
and they let me go.”

“Did you call in sick?” Jerry asked as he perched on
the edge of his desk, keeping his eyes focused on Darrell, his hands clasped
together, resting in his lap.

“Couldn’t.” That was all Darrell offered, and Grant
knew that if Jerry dug too far, he’d just set Darrell off again.

And that was the last damn thing either of them needed
today.

“I don’t think Jerry needs to hear all this,” Grant
added.

“I think he does,” Darrell barked. “I think he needs
to know that you ain’t man enough to help your father.”

Grant sent Jerry another look that told him he was
sorry. But this time he wasn’t apologizing for what his father was saying, or
for the fact that Darrell had come all this way just to start shit. No, Grant
was apologizing for what he was about to say.

But before he could get a single word out of his
mouth, Jerry placed his hand on Grant’s arm.

“Mr. Kingsley, would you mind if you and I spoke alone
for a few minutes?”

Grant’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head as he
stared back at Jerry, willing the man not to do that. God, he needed his job,
and he did not want his father talking shit about him to his boss, but it
wasn’t as if Grant could very well tell Jerry that he would prefer to send his
father on his way.

“I think that’s a good idea,” Darrell said, sounding
incredibly proud of himself.

Jerry, being the gentleman that he was, held his hand
out toward the door, urging Grant to move. When he did, Jerry remained behind
him. “You have nothin’ to worry about, kid.”

And with that, Grant was out in the heat of the
brilliant Texas morning, the door to Jerry’s office closing behind him with a
grating click.

Damn it.

This was not how his day was supposed to go.

“Hey!”

Grant looked up to see Cody coming toward him at a
fast clip.

Knowing that he’d shunned his responsibilities enough,
Grant stood up straight, situated his hat on his head, and turned his attention
to the mechanic just a few yards away.

He needed to focus on work, and later — much, much
later, he hoped — he’d deal with the repercussions of his father’s impromptu
visit to the ranch.

“I’m not sure how the hell I got roped into this,”
Lane disputed as Gracie and Mercy pushed him toward Hope’s cabin.

“It’s your fault you weren’t fast enough,” Mercy
teased.

Granted, she wasn’t teasing all that much because Lane
had
tried to escape as soon as he’d seen the two women and realized just
where they were headed. But Mercy was right; he hadn’t been quick enough
because she’d damn near tackled him in her attempt to rein him back in.

Damn cowgirls, never able to leave well enough alone.

“This is a girl meetin’,” he argued pointlessly. As
much as he wished he were anywhere but there, Lane knew better than to think
the women were going to let him off the hook. They’d roped him, and now they
were going to make his morning miserable, he was sure.

“Be nice,” Gracie whispered, her hand sliding against
his ever so subtly.

Okay, now he could do this. Be nice, that is.
Especially if he got the pleasure of being with Gracie for just a few minutes
first thing that morning. Or even better, watching Gracie walk away.

Or ahead of him, as was the case here.

She was making her way up onto Hope’s front porch, her
cute little ass making his mouth water. Christ, where did she buy those jeans?
He only wanted to know so he could go buy her a hundred more. Her ass looked…

“You’re droolin’,” Mercy muttered, drawing Lane’s
attention away from Gracie’s mighty fine ass. “Careful or they’ll all see the
lust written right across your big face.”

Unable to resist, Lane spared Gracie’s ass another
glance. He wasn’t disappointed. Those damn jeans were made for her. Again, Lane
pulled his eyes away from Gracie’s delectable rear end in order to shoot Mercy
another look. She was grinning from ear to ear.

“You be careful, or I’ll tell Cody just where you like
to hide out when he’s lookin’ for you.”

“Shut up,” Mercy snapped, her grin disappearing.

That only made Lane’s smile widen. He knew the woman
had a thing for Cody even though she tried her best to avoid the mechanic. But
then again, Lane probably wasn’t supposed to know. If he hadn’t been searching
for Cody one night because his damn truck had failed to start, he wouldn’t have
stumbled upon the two of them getting it on in the garage.

Not that he’d stuck around to watch.

Hell no. He’d run like the wind that night, spinning
right around on the heels of his boots and heading in the opposite direction.

Lane still found it amusing because, from the little
bit he had seen that night, he gathered that Mercy’s frustration when it came
to Cody didn’t have anything to do with
not
liking the man and probably
everything to do with the fact that she
did
.

“Earth to Lane,” Mercy said, snapping her fingers in
front of his face.

He was still grinning as he looked up to see that
Gracie had already gone inside Hope’s cabin, and he had no choice but to follow
because Mercy wasn’t going to let him get away.

Once inside, Lane realized he was immersed knee deep
in some major trouble. Being the only man in the room with five Lambert
sisters, he was tempted to put his hand protectively over his nuts. There was
no telling what they were up to or how he played a part in all of this. He
really only cared about the latter.

“I’ve got donuts and milk in the kitchen,” Hope
announced when they all gathered in Hope’s small living room.

Would you look at this place? Holy shit!
It was like a Pepto Bismol factory had exploded.

Lane knew there were roughly twenty-six small cabins
scattered throughout the thousands of acres of Dead Heat Ranch. He also knew
how each of them was used. Five were allocated to the sisters; the head
foreman, Grant, had one; another was reserved for the head wrangler, if the
head wrangler hadn’t been Hope. They had recently assigned one to Jennifer, the
new chef, and sixteen others were reserved for guests who wanted to come spend
some wild days and hot nights on the ranch. That left two additional ones that
stood uninhabited for whatever reason, probably until they hired someone they
considered worthy of one.

Every last one of them looked roughly the same on the
outside. The inside décor was the only thing that really set them apart.

As he stood in Hope’s living room, looking around and
getting dizzy from all of the girly crap everywhere, the biggest difference
Lane noticed between Hope’s and Grant’s was the fact that Hope’s was bigger.
Not by much, but still bigger.

Well, maybe that wasn’t the
biggest
difference
between Hope’s cabin and Grant’s.

Where Hope had knick-knacks and trinkets, flowers and
candles, pictures and sconces every-damn-where, Grant’s place was practically a
box with a door and a few pieces of furniture. Now that he thought about it, Gracie’s
was more feminine than Grant’s, but the woman didn’t have girly shit on every
available surface like Hope, thank God.

Everywhere Lane looked, there was some girly thing
sitting on another girly thing. It was too much. He wondered whether the woman
ever had a man over because, holy hell, it was like Barbie’s dream house, only
in a cabin version. And hold up a minute. What the hell was he thinking about
Barbie for? He didn’t have any experience with Barbie. At least no more than
was required to hang with his five-year-old cousin when Lane visited his
grandparents every now and then.

He would blame it on all of the estrogen shoved into
one small area.

But this place… It reeked of girly stuff. Pink
flowered throw pillows on the couch, lamps with pink-and-white shades, candles
of all shapes and sizes and, yes, some of them were pink. Hell, there were even
pink rugs on the floor.

Thankfully, the couch was beige because that single
piece of furniture was the only thing to break up the horrific use of the color
that reminded him of stomach medicine. He figured the only thing saving the
walls from being painted a horrid shade of pink was that they were made of
sealed wood beams, so they couldn’t very well be painted. He hoped.

“Here,” Gracie said, pulling his attention from the
overwhelming pinkness of the room. Lane looked down to see that Gracie was
holding a plate with two donuts on it.

“For me?” he asked.

The woman blushed, and he was tempted to fist pump the
air. She’d brought him donuts. In front of all of her sisters. For sure, this
had to be some sort of milestone for them.

Rather than look like a dumbass, Lane took the plate
and smiled down at her, willing her to meet his gaze. When she did, his smile
doubled in size.

God, he loved this woman.

“If you two don’t mind, we’d like to get started,”
Hope said by way of interruption.

Gracie jerked away from him, moving to the other side
of the room as though the house were on fire.

That was all right. Lane was okay with that because …
the woman had brought him donuts.

“Sit, would ya?” Mercy smirked at him.

Lane propped himself on the arm of — wouldn’t you know
it — a pink side chair, while the rest of the women all took their seats on the
couch or the kitchen chairs placed in a circle around the living room. Lane
plowed through the donuts in two minutes flat, still waiting for Hope to get
around to the reason they were all sitting in that room — which still freaked
him out, by the way.

“So, as you know, Dad’s birthday is in two weeks. I
want to throw him a party.”

Aww, hell.

Lane had been dragged into the estrogen factory to
help with a freaking birthday party?

“And we need to meet for this, why?” Mercy challenged.

Yes, exactly. Why?
Lane eyed the donuts sitting on the kitchen table as he waited for
someone to enlighten him.

“Because it needs to be huge.”

Not a good reason, if you asked him.
Could he make it across the room, grab two more donuts,
and not interrupt?

Doubtful. Damn it.

“Why?” Trinity asked.

“Because he’s gonna be fifty-five,” Hope said with an
edge.

Holy crap. Jerry was only fifty-four?

“Oh,” Trinity responded, seemingly satisfied with that
answer.

Lane didn’t say a word, his head bobbing around the
room as each sister weighed in on the reason for having a party. That
conversation quickly morphed into a bitch session about how hard it was to keep
a secret from their father.

“That’s where Lane comes in,” Mercy added.

The mention of his name had his head jerking toward
the mouth that had said it. “Why me?” he asked.

“Because he won’t expect anything from you,” Hope
added.

“Gee, thanks.”

“You know what I mean,” Hope explained.

“What am I supposed to do?”

“You’ll be the gofer. I’ll order everything, have it
shipped into town so Dad doesn’t see any of the deliveries, and you can go pick
the stuff up.”

Great. Just what he needed, another job added to his
already long list of things he had to do every day. At this rate, he wasn’t
going to see Gracie or Grant ever again.

“Fine,” he grumbled, unable to say no to these women.

“Great. Now we need to outline a plan,” Hope said, a
sparkle of crazy lighting up her turquoise eyes.

That was the moment Lane got really scared.

■□■□■□■□

Grace did her best to focus on the conversation her
sisters were having regarding a surprise birthday party for their father, but
her mind continued to drift back to her dad’s office and the confrontation
they’d just had with Grant’s father.

She desperately wished she’d been able to stick
around, wanting to be there for Grant when he came out. The only consolation
was that Lane was here with her, something she knew he wished wasn’t the case.

Initially, when she’d seen him walking toward the
barn, she had wanted to run after him and inform him of the scene taking place
in Jerry’s office. Obviously, Mercy had realized Grace’s intentions because she
had snagged Grace’s arms just as she’d started toward Lane.

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” Grace glared at her sister, then down to
the hand gripping her wrist.

“Don’t start shit. Right now, you don’t know why
Grant’s father is here. If you get Lane involved, it’ll only make it worse.”

It had been hard to argue with Mercy’s logic, so Grace
had changed her plans and informed Lane that he was needed for the meeting. He
was, after all, needed for the meeting.

And as she sat there, barely paying attention to what
everyone was chattering on and on about, she felt a pang of guilt for not
informing Lane of what was going on with Grant. He needed to know.

He would want to know.

After all, Lane had admitted that he loved them.

The man had said the words and hadn’t heard them in
return, yet based on his attitude, it really didn’t matter. Just as he had
said.

But Grace knew it did. How could it not? She wanted to
hear him say the words again. Probably more than anything right then, but she
couldn’t very well ask him to until she could overcome her fear of saying them
first.

There’d been so many instances when she’d wanted to
blurt out that she loved him, and Grant, too, but she’d held her tongue,
fearful of just what that would mean for the three of them. Things were a
little bizarre as it was, and that was before Grant’s father had gone all crazy
and stormed the ranch that morning.

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” Mercy mumbled as
she leaned in close to Grace, snapping her from her thoughts.

“Shut up. You sound like a two-year-old.”

Mercy’s smirk was wicked. “You keep staring at him
like that and everyone in this room is gonna know just how you feel about him.”

Grace found it hard to believe that they didn’t know
it already. If it weren’t for the fact that they were all working long days,
spending too much time working and not enough time having fun, she figured they
would have noticed by now.

And Mercy was right.

Until Grace figured out just how this was going to
play out, she really did need to keep a lid on what was going on with her and
Lane and Grant.

Crap.

Like anyone was ever going to accept that she was in
love with two men. And those two men were in love with her. And each other.

Holy smokes, it sounded convoluted even to her.

“Does that work for you, Gracie?”

Grace jerked her eyes up to meet Hope’s. “Uh … what?”

“Could you pay attention?” Hope bit out.

“I would if I weren’t so damned tired,” Grace
muttered.

Grace felt the heat of Lane’s gaze on her, but she
refused to look over at him. If she did, her sisters would likely realize just
what was going on there, and now was not the time to have them heckling her
about her relationships — real or perceived.