Rumor Has It (An Animal Magnetism Novel) (21 page)

“When you grow up, and yes.”

“I want to be a soldier and save people, just like Grif.”

Ah. It was starting to make sense now. “Tommy, did you invite Griffin here today as your career guide?”

Tommy beamed at her. “Yep.”

Yep. She straightened and met Griffin’s gaze. He looked at her right back, giving nothing away.

She, on the other hand, was pretty sure she was giving everything away. How could she not? The last time she’d seen him she’d been bouncing on him like he was a wild bronco ride at the fair.

She tried to ignore this as the first parent walked to the front of the class and talked about being a doctor. He’d brought a poster chart of hereditary features and was showing the kids how they got their eye color, blood type, and other traits. Unfortunately, he was also nervous, spoke in a monotone, and kept dropping the poster.

The kids were shifting around and whispering. Kate shushed a few of them and gave Griffin a quick glance. She couldn’t imagine how different this situation was from his usual world.

He was facing the front, listening politely to the doctor, but then, as if he felt her looking at him, his gaze slid to her.

Had she thought he kept everything hidden? Because everything he felt was right there, and it stole her breath.

The doctor finished, and the next parent moved to the front of the class. A banker. Kate bit back her sigh as the kids got even more restless.

And then it was Griffin’s turn. Unlike the others who’d stood at the dry erase board and given dry, boring speeches, he went to the reading corner and sat in a circle with the kids huddled close.

There he taught them how to build a camp with makeshift items he found in the classroom, such as jackets and coats and umbrellas.

“Where’re our guns?” Dustin wanted to know. “We need guns.”

“No guns,” Grif said.

“Why? Soldiers use guns.”

“They also use their brains.”

Profound silence met this. Then, from Mikey, “Well, that’s no fun.”

“Guns are no fun, kid,” Grif said. “Trust me.”

“You been shot at? Blown up?”

“Both,” Grif said.

“Wow,” the kids all said in unison.

“Cool.”

“Awesome.”

Grif shook his head. “Not cool. Not awesome.” He pulled off his baseball cap and shoved his hair from his forehead, showing them the long, jagged scar. “Another half an inch to the left and I’d have lost an eye,” he said matter-of-factly. “Half an inch to the right and I’ve had lost my head. Can’t live without a head.”

The kids were mesmerized.

Griffin then proceeded to get the students to help him create a maze with the desks, after which he had them all tie their shoelaces together so they were hooked in one long line. “Now you learn how to get through the maze together,” he said.

“Why together?” Dustin asked. “That’s stupid.”

“You’re on a baseball team,” Griffin said. “You should know the benefit of being able to work as a team. What would you do if you got lost?”

“Send the best guy ahead,” Dustin said.

Griffin shook his head. “The best guy protects the unit. You need to be able to count on each another.” His gaze met Kate’s across the room.

She knew he was thinking of when he’d been hurt, down with a migraine, and she’d taken him home, stayed with him.

She’d known what he gave her. He made her feel smart, sexy, worthy. But she hadn’t known what she gave him. Who would have thought she gave him anything? But she’d had his back, and at the thought she felt such a surge of pride that she beamed at him.

He didn’t quite return the smile, but the very corners of his mouth quirked.

He was actually getting into this a little, she thought, maybe even enjoying himself.

“What if you don’t like the person you’re tied to?” Nina asked, looking at Dustin at her side with distaste.

“You don’t have to like him,” Griffin said. “You do have to trust him.”

Nina gave Dustin a long look of extreme doubt.

“You don’t have to be best friends or even alike,” Griffin said, and paused to let that sink in. “In fact it’s better if your unit is made up of very different people. That way everyone brings a skill set to the table. Now get ready, we’re timing this.” He pulled out his phone and brought up a stopwatch. “Go,” he said.

Pandemonium.

He whistled, and when he had all of their attention again, he shook his head. “Epic fail. You can’t just run around like crazy ants; you have to work together. Try again.” He reset his watch, counted down, and said, “Go!”

He let them go wild for a minute longer than he had the first time before stopping them again. “Better,” he said. “Now pretend someone’s injured.” He pointed to one of the kids, Jessica, who was just about as fierce as they came.

She immediately pouted. “I don’t want to be injured. I want to be on the rescue unit.”

Griffin looked around him for another victim. The first person he laid eyes on was Meggie. Also fierce.

“Why does it have to be a girl?” she demanded, hands on hips. “And anyway, my mom says girls are better than boys at everything.”

“Well, you’ve got me there,” Grif murmured, and he pointed to the first boy.

Tommy.

Tommy grinned, and Kate’s heart squeezed as Grif put a protective hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Tommy has a broken ankle, and you can’t just shove him along with you,” he said.

“If the best guy went ahead,” Dustin said. “He could get help.”

Progress, Kate thought. He was actually starting to think of others.

“No man left behind,” Grif reminded him. “Ever.” He set his timer again. “Go.”

* * *

The recess bell rang, and the kids whooped and filed out of the classroom. Tommy stopped to give Grif a fist bump and a gap-toothed grin.

Grif hadn’t been sure he’d have a damn thing to offer when Tommy had first asked him to do this. But he couldn’t turn the kid down. So he’d made sure that Tommy had done well at the drills, and he had. The kid might be different but he was good different.

Grif hadn’t been at all like Tommy when he’d been young. Grif had always been at the top of the food chain, but something about Kate’s brother had grabbed at him from the first. Maybe because deep down he felt a little like Tommy now, trying to fit into an alien world.

Grif held back as the last of the parents left. He thought the morning had gone well, but what did he know? When he’d been a student here, a good day at school meant he had not been sent to the principal’s office.

Kate went to the back closet for her coat. “I’m not on recess duty today, but I like to be out there with the kids—”

He nudged her into the closet and out of view of anyone who happened to be walking by the classroom.

“What are you doing?” she gasped.

Pressing her against the coats, he looked down into her face. “You gave me a look earlier.”

“What look?”

“You know what look,” he said. “The one that said you wanted to eat me for lunch.”

“Oh, you mean this one?” And then she gave him a repeat of the look.

Pushing her farther into the closet, he shut the door behind him.

“Oh no,” she said on a laugh. “Don’t give me dirty thoughts right now. We can’t—”

He kissed her. God, he loved kissing her. And doing it in the dark on the fly was even better.

“Going to miss this,” she whispered, pressing close.

Still cupping her face, he pulled back slightly, but he couldn’t see her face now.

“When you leave,” she clarified.

He traced a thumb over her jawline. “I don’t think I’m the one going.”

He felt her go still. “What?”

“I’m getting comfortable here,” he said much more casually than he felt. He lifted a shoulder, happy now for the dark, not willing to show her, much less admit, how much her thoughts on this mattered to him. “I might stick around.”

“Wow,” she breathed. “I did not see that coming.”

This threw him because it was a nonreaction. He’d expected something else. Something more. “And . . . ?”

“And now I’m really having dirty thoughts,” she whispered, her voice holding an emotion that he couldn’t decipher without a translator. But some words didn’t need translating.

“I love your dirty thoughts,” he said, understanding she wasn’t ready to discuss his possibly staying in Sunshine. That was okay, neither was he. “Tell me.”

“It’s nothing we can discuss in school,” she said primly, even as she pressed her body close.

Okay, now they were talking.

“It involves some dirty words.”

“Ah, now you’re just teasing me,” he said, and bent to her. “Tell me one.”

“No.”

“Come on. Just one.”

“All right.” Going up on tiptoe, she pressed her body to his from chest to thigh and everything glorious in between, and put her mouth to his ear and whispered one word softly.

His favorite word of all. He tightened his grip on her. “Ms. Evans, I believe we need to discuss this in more detail.”

“We do,” she agreed.

“Tonight.”

Kate’s heart had skipped a beat. Hell, it had skipped a whole bunch of beats. He was thinking of staying? He was asking her out again? She was dizzy with it all. “Can’t,” she said. “It’s Friday.”

“What, no being down and dirty on Fridays?” he teased. “It’s what Fridays were meant for.”

“It’s the night I cook for my dad. I make up a bunch of casseroles for him to use during the week.”

“I’ll buy him cooking lessons,” Grif said without missing a beat, and slid his hands up her blouse.

He was thinking of staying . . . “He’s a terrible cook,” she murmured, locking her knees when the pads of his fingers slid over her nipples.

“Hence the lessons,” he said in his sex voice, making her go all trembly.

“I also have to help Ashley with college stuff,” she said. “We’re planning a road trip to tour some colleges in the fall.”

“You’ll be dissecting calves and frogs in the fall,” he reminded her. “You should make it a summer tour instead.”

For some reason, the thought brought panic, and she pulled back. “It’s not that simple.”

He went still for a beat and then backed from her. “Nope,” he agreed. “You just have to want it bad enough.”

“Want what?”

He opened the closet door and met her gaze. “You’re afraid to go.”

“What? That’s ridiculous.” She laughed, but it sounded hollow and fake even to her own ears. “I’m not afraid. I can’t just leave, Griffin, not without making sure everything’s going to be okay.”

“You’re afraid,” he repeated.

Yes. Okay, yes, she was afraid. Hell, she was terrified. She’d never even been out of Idaho for God’s sake, and here she was planning to go to California on her own for a year. But instead of admitting that, she crossed her arms and got defensive. “Says the guy who doesn’t even know me.”

He merely arched a brow. “Is that how you want to play this, Kate? That we’re still just a chemistry problem, nothing more?”

“We are just a chemistry problem.”

He shoved his fingers through his hair and then met her gaze. “You put on a good show, Kate, of making it about everyone else. Your family, your work . . . chemistry. But it is a show. Behind the curtains, it’s all you and your fears.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

But he was gone.

S
till shaken, Kate shuffled into her dad’s house, arms full. She had casseroles for the next week, a big, fat book of the best colleges in the country, and the Flash costume Tommy had ordered from her Amazon account.

Channing Tatum immediately wound himself around her ankles, and she stepped on his paw, nearly killing them both.

“You stole my damn chips again,” her dad said from where he was sitting on the couch with his laptop.

She’d found them in his mailbox. The postal carrier had a huge crush on him and was an enabler. “Sorry,” she said, not sorry at all.

He sighed. “Heard you had quite the lineup at career day.”

“Yes, we had a doctor and a banker.”

“And a real life warrior,” her dad said, getting up to help her. “Tommy stole Ashley’s makeup when he got home and used it for camouflage.”

“Not makeup, dad,” came Tommy’s muffled voice. “War paint.”

Kate turned around. What appeared to be every sheet and towel from the house had been used to make an impressive fort behind the couch.

“He’s working on setting up an army base,” her dad said.

“Outpost,” Tommy corrected, again muffled.

That’s when Kate realized she smelled something burning.

“You’re just in time,” her dad said. “I’ve got something in the oven.”

He looked pretty darn proud of himself, and Kate bit back her sigh. “Is it the something that’s burning?”

“What?” Her dad sniffed the air. “Shit.”

“Shit,” Tommy repeated from the depths of his fort.

“No swearing!” Kate said.

“Dad!” came Ashley’s shriek from upstairs. “You’re burning something! Again!”

Eddie and Kate were already rushing into the kitchen. Smoke was billowing out of the oven. Her dad ripped open the oven door and reached in.

“Dad! Oven mitts!” Kate yelled, then nudged him out of the way, grabbed the mitts, and pulled out . . . a ruined lasagna.

Her dad looked down at the charred mess and scratched the top of his head. “Huh. I have no idea why that keeps happening.”

“It’s called a timer,” Kate said, and set the dish on the stovetop, next to the pot with the morning’s oatmeal still stuck in the bottom like cement.

He shook his head. “Guess it’s takeout tonight. I’m getting good at that.” He flashed her a small smile and opened the junk drawer, stuffed to the gills with so much crap it took him a moment to get it open. Then he began to fish through the mess for the take-out menus. “I was watching a special on the travel channel,” he said. “Did you know San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the states? It’s the country’s premiere beach destination.” He glanced at her. “You send in your acceptance yet?”

He knew she hadn’t. “No.”

“How many days left?”

“Four.”

Her dad tossed a Chinese, an Italian, and a Mexican menu onto the counter. “Don’t you think you’ve wasted enough of your life raising me? Come on, Kate, it’s your turn to fly.”

“Dad, we both know I can’t go anywhere. Not until you can be the parent again.”

He turned off the oven and waved the oven mitts around to dissipate the smoke. “I am being the parent, Kate.”

“You just about set the house on fire. Again.”

“Don’t be silly,” he said. “The fire alarm didn’t even go off.”

That’s when the fire alarm went off.

This was followed by a solid twenty minutes of insanity. First Tommy came racing into the kitchen and straight out the back door, where he grabbed the garden hose, cranked it on, and then tried to reenter the kitchen to be the hero.

Then Ashley made a dramatic entry, coughing and waving a hand in front of her face. “I just washed my hair! Do you know how bad smoke sticks to freshly washed hair?” she shrieked over the fire alarm.

Kate climbed up onto the cabinets and waved a magazine at the fire alarm until it stopped.

Her father called the fire department to ward off the emergency run.

Much later, after they’d ordered Chinese, cleaned up the kitchen, gone through some of Ashley’s homework, and dealt with an algebra crisis, Kate sat next to her father on the couch.

He stroked a hand over her hair in silent apology for the night. With a sigh she set her head on his shoulder.

“I want you to go to UCSD,” he said quietly.

She was still reeling from her last conversation with Griffin. He’d accused her of being afraid to go for the master’s program.

And then there’d been his other bomb. The not leaving bomb . . .

But did that change anything? Her heart said oh hell yes. Her brain said absolutely not. His staying couldn’t, shouldn’t, change a thing. She’d gotten what she’d wanted from him. A good time. A great time. The end. Right? “I want me to go, too,” she told her dad. “But—”

“No buts,” he said. “I know you’re afraid we’ll fall apart, and who can blame you? But we’re going to be okay, Kate. You’ve spoiled us long enough.”

“What does that mean?”

He sighed. “You’ve been a steady rock for the family when I couldn’t be, always showing how important and valuable each of us is. But it’s okay to move on with your life. We’re ready to try things on our own for a bit.”

“But Ashley’s college and Tommy—”

“Honey, taking care of people isn’t doing everything for them. That’s enabling. We’ll manage. We’ll miss you,” he said, his voice a little thick now. “So much. But you have to go. For all of us.”

She swallowed hard. “You’re sure.”

“No.” He gave a low laugh. “You know we’ll call you too much. We’ll drive you crazy from afar. But you need to go.” He hugged her. “I’m proud of you. And I love you, Kate. So much.”

“Love you, too, Dad.”

Tommy came into the room as Superman complete with red cape and turned on the TV. Then Ashley stuck her head in the room. “Kate, where’s my cheerleading uniform?”

“Again?” Kate asked. “You lost it again?”

Her dad put his hand on Kate’s knee. “I’ve got this,” he said. “I did laundry this morning. It’s been washed and is all ready for practice tomorrow.”

“Impressive,” Kate murmured.

He smiled and pointed to his phone. “I downloaded a homemaker app. It gives me daily lists.”

Ashley rolled her eyes and vanished.

“In five seconds she’ll be yelling thank you,” her dad said. “Five, four, three, two—”

“Noooo!” came a bloodcurdling scream from the direction of the laundry room.

Tommy turned up the TV.

Ashley reappeared in the doorway with her cheerleading uniform—which had been shrunk to the size of a small child.

“Shit,” her dad said.

“Shit,” Tommy said.

* * *

Later that night, Kate stood at her kitchen counter eating ice cream, having a stare down contest with the scholarship letter lying on the tile.

Was she afraid? Hell yes. But anyone would be, she told herself.

Four more days . . .

The question was: Could she do it in spite of her fears? Could she really walk away? For a year?

Not walk away, she corrected. She’d still be a part of her family’s life, a part of Sunshine. She’d always have that.

Wouldn’t she?

The late-night knock surprised her. Moving through her townhouse, she pulled the front door open a crack and squeaked in surprise when Griffin pushed his way in.

“You didn’t look to see who it was,” he said, not sounding at all happy about that.

She shut the door behind him. “Well, hello to you, too.”

He turned to face her, hands on hips, brow arched, and she sighed. “Okay, so I assumed it’d be Ashley with another homework emergency,” she admitted. “Or my dad demanding to know where I’d hid his stash. Or—”

“Stash?” Grif’s frown deepened. “I thought he’s sober.”

“He is. I meant his potato chips.” She shook her head. “And not that I’m not happy to see you, but what brings you here?”

His gaze caught on the scholarship letter on the counter and nudged it. “You accept yet?”

She went back to her ice cream. “You’re starting to sound like my dad and Ryan.”

“You should do it, Kate.”

Yes, but I don’t know if I can walk away from you for a year. “I don’t want to talk about it.” She licked her spoon clean and then felt Griffin come close, so that their toes touched. Well, her toes, his work boots. Tipping her head up, she met his gaze.

“You should do it,” he said again, softly.

She took him in, from his hair—way longer than a military cut now—to the healing scar, to his firm-but-oh-so-giving mouth. Her heart sped up a little as she let her biggest fear escape. “I’ll be gone a year.”

“So what?”

She sucked in a breath at that. “So what?” she repeated. Ouch . . .

His hands gripped her arms. “I’m saying I don’t care how long it takes, Kate. I’m saying so what. It’s something you want, and I’m one hundred percent in favor of you doing anything you want.”

“But . . .” She held his gaze. “This. Are you saying you don’t want . . . this?”

“No. I’m saying this isn’t going to hold you back.”

“It’s a year, Griffin.”

He put his hands on her hips and lifted her to the counter, then stepped between her legs and cupped her face. “All my life,” he said, “people have been waiting on me. My sister. My dad. Any woman in my life.” He paused and let that sink in. “I think I can do the waiting for a change.”

She stared at him, her hands slack as he took the ice cream from them. “You okay?” he murmured.

“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “I really didn’t see you coming.”

“Back at you.” He slid one hand up her back and into her hair, the other arm wrapping low on her hips so that he could lift her up.

She wrapped her legs around him and cupped his face as he carried her into the bedroom. “You’re good for me,” she said. “I hope you know that.”

Closing his eyes, he pressed his forehead to hers. She clutched at him. “So good,” she whispered. And she spent the dark hours of the night showing him so, over and over . . .

* * *

The next day Griffin sat in the ranch office staring at the computer screen until the numbers blurred. Holly and Adam were spending the day looking at houses, and Grif was supposedly holding down the fort.

His mind wasn’t on the task. Instead it was on a certain strawberry blond second-grade teacher who’d blown his mind—and other parts—all night long. He’d extracted a promise from her at dawn as he’d left her boneless and sated in her bed—dinner tonight.

Another date.

It was crazy. And necessary. As necessary as air.

He accessed the payroll accounts to get that running—a pain in his ass—and was immediately stymied by the lack of a password. He searched and found a sticky note from Holly that his dad had the password in his desk.

Simple enough. He looked down. Thing One was sleeping on his left foot. Thing Two was on his right. They didn’t have a foot fetish; they had a Grif fetish. “We’re on the move guys.”

Neither dog so much as blinked.

Pushing away from Holly’s desk, Grif pulled his feet free and stood up. Both dogs leaped to their feet like they’d been shot, and scrambled to follow Grif to his dad’s office.

Empty.

Grif walked over to the pristine desk and pulled open the top drawer. No sticky note with a password, just a manila file labeled: Medical Shit.

The two words, reeking of cynicism and annoyance, had him opening the file because it would be just like the senior Reid to have had another heart attack and not told a damn soul including his own kids.

There was a stack of EOBs—explanation of benefits—at least an inch thick. Grif scanned the dates and relaxed marginally.

All from Donald’s last heart attack. Nothing new.

Grif set those aside and skimmed the rest, and then his gaze caught on what should have been an innocuous detail—his dad’s blood type. Grif’s mom was an O. The paper in front of him stated that Donald was an O as well, which was surprising because that meant their children would also be O.

But Grif was not. He was blood type A.

And as he knew from the doctor’s lecture at career day, when two people with blood type O mate, the result was always blood type O offspring.

Always.

Thing One nudged at him, adding a little let’s-go-out-and-play whine. Thing Two joined in.

But Grif just stared at the file.

He wasn’t Donald Reid’s biological child.