Unexpected Love (White Oak-Mafia #2) (7 page)

Once Steel had left the room, Grams rose from her chair and joined Tess on the couch. “We need to talk.”

“I don’t know why Grumpy wouldn’t back down when I sprayed him with pepper spray. A full can should have stopped him.” She gripped Grams’ hand. “Do you think someone could have messed with my spray cans?”

“Possibly, but it no longer matters. Tomorrow, Grumpy will have a new home.”

Tess opened her mouth to object. If someone had switched out her pepper spray, she needed to put a new lock on the outdoor shed. Before she had a chance to object, Helen gripped her hand.

“Tess, I have liver cancer, and before it destroys my body, I plan to end my life on my own terms.”

Tess opened her mouth to give voice to her anguish and distress, but nothing came out. All she could do was shake her head.
This couldn’t be true. It couldn’t! God wouldn’t do this to her again.

“Now listen to me,” Grams ordered as she placed her old but strong hands on each side of Tess’s face. “I know you’re going to compare this to losing your mother, but it’s not the same. While my years with Eddie were pure hell, I’ve had a good sixty years of bliss living in these woods. So overall, I’ve had a better life than most can claim. And I want the ending to be a good one. Which means I don’t want to die in a hospital where all the family will come and smirk at my pain. I want to leave this life in my woods where I have always been happy.”

Tess buried her face into her Grams’ bosom.

“If it were possible to beat this, I would try for you. But there is no chance of recovering from this blow. My only choice is how I die.”

Tess stared up at her, breathing hard as if she’d run from Grumpy for a million years. “I don’t want you to suffer, but I don’t…” She fought for air and then continued. “I don’t know how I’ll survive this.”

Grams petted her the same way she had when Tess’s mother had allegedly killed herself. At that time, Grams had promised she would always be there for Tess, and she had…

Until now.

“Tess, this will be nothing like your mother’s death. I’m not escaping life…just a bad death. Since God has decided I’ll die, I’m deciding how I’ll go out. I want to die in my woods. No one else will understand, but you…I need to know you support my decision.”

Tess wanted to shake her head no, to stop her Grams from dying, but if that wasn’t an option, then she deserved a good death. Seeing the desperation in her sweet Grams’ eyes, she nodded. “I do. I don’t want you to suffer.”

Grams breathed out in relief and pulled Tess tight against her. Her grip was so strong. How could she be dying?

“Wait!” She pushed back. “Are you positive that Father hasn’t paid your doctor to lie to you?”

Grams nodded. “I suspected the same thing, so while you were in school, I went to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota and got a second and third opinion.”

“That’s when you started searching for someone to buy your woods.”

“Yes.”

Tess smiled through her tears. “At least that worked out.”

“Better than I’d ever hoped for, but had I known the danger I put Meg in, I wouldn’t have done it.”

Now it was Tess’s turn to plant her hands upon her grandmother’s cheeks and lock into her eyes. “You did what you thought was best, and it worked out beautifully. So don’t you dare regret anything.”

She turned and kissed Tess’s palm. “I should probably regret a thousand things I did or didn’t do, but I can’t. If I had aborted my sons before they were born, I could have ended the Campinelli line once and for all. Only that means you would have never existed. And you have been a precious angel from the day you were born. You’ve given me such joy. And finally I can leave, knowing both my woods and my beautiful granddaughter are in good hands.”

Her words confused Tess. She agreed the woods were safe, but didn’t Grams realize she was her rock and foundation? The only person in the world Tess loved and trusted?

“When I die” —Grams lifted Tess’s chin so their eyes met— “do not push away from Steel. He’s a good man and will be your new rock if you’ll let him.”

Tess shook her hand. “No. I screwed everything up today. He was going to refuse the job until Grumpy treed him.”

“Well, damn it, now I’ve got to be grateful to that four-legged menace.”

When Tess laughed, Grams joined her.

“Thank you, for understanding,” Grams said and closed her eyes.

“Are you in pain?”

“A bit.”

“Did the doctors give you painkillers?”

“They did, but I’m saving them for my gentle departure.”

Her words struck Tess hard. A part of her wanted to find the pills and hide them, but the rational part knew that would only deny Grams her choice of how she’d leave this world.

Grams gripped her hand. “Let’s get back to your misconception that Steel doesn’t have feelings for you.”

“He doesn’t. He might have been leaning in that direction, but I ruined it.” She then told Grams about her horrible betrayal and what happened afterward.

Grams sighed. “Well, I have to admit, most men would have run to the hills, but he’s a cut above most men. I could tell it right off. Nor do I think he and Grumpy had some man-to-bear talk about forgiveness. Your actions spoke louder than your words.”

“What do you mean?”

“You risked your life to save him…not once, but every time you left a tree and got that bear to come after you.”

“I would have done the same for anyone.”

“Would not.”

“I would have done it for you.”

She patted Tess’s head. “That’s true enough. But you had to trust him to do exactly as you said. And he had to trust you to know when to yell ‘tree’. Had you been off by five seconds, Steel would be dead now.”

“And I had to trust him to keep doing that dangerous run over and over.” She leaned her head on her Gram’s lap. “You really think he loves me?”

“No other reason he’s still here…and then there was the way he stared at you when you fell asleep against him.”

“How’d he stare at me?” Tess asked.

“With pure adoration and love.”

Tess relaxed a bit at her words. “Maybe we should keep Grumpy. He can help me fix matters when I screw stuff up.”

“Hell no. But I will try to stay around as long as I can to keep you on the right track.”

Tess smiled. “It could take years for me to truly trust Steel.”

Grams smacked her on her head. “It had better not. I don’t have more than a month left, so you need to push yourself and see beyond your fears. Quite frankly, even if I were around for a year, he’d give up and leave long before that.”

“Then he never really loved me.”

“Tess, sit up and look at me!”

Tess knew that voice all too well. She was about to be chided. But if Grams was right and they only had a month left, she didn’t want to remember one word of it being spoken in a scold.

She faced her grams. “Please don’t lecture me.”

Her Grams’ stern face faded. “I won’t if you promise not to be so judgmental. If Steel didn’t have some attraction to you, he wouldn’t have threatened to leave today. It’s very hard to enter a relationship of unrequited love, especially for a man who has probably been adored by every woman he’s met.”

“So you think he’s a runabout?”

“No, and don’t jump to the worst conclusion possible. That is your way of making sure you never trust anyone, but it is also a trait of your father…always expecting the worst out of people.”

Had her grams slapped her, it couldn’t have hurt more. “You think I’m like my father?” she asked softly.

“Good God, no. Not in your heart. You are an angel, and he is Satan. But until now, the only person you’ve trusted enough to share your angelic love with is me.”

She nodded in agreement.

“Tess, while you might not be ready to share yourself with the whole world, you have to open up to Steel, and once you escape the family for good, then open your heart to others. You were meant to love and be loved. That’s what angels do.”

“Maybe I’m not an angel then,” she muttered.

“You’re just scared. So start with Steel. I have a very good feeling about him.”

“Like you did with Meg?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

“And Tess. You don’t need to worry about the cost of college anymore or getting your father to co-sign your loans. When I die, you will have more money than you’ll ever need. I trust you to spend it wisely.”

“I promise,” she whispered and hugged Grams. “I would rather have you than the money.”

Grams patted her back. “I know. But I can’t change my death. I can only secure your future. Now, go on to bed.”

“Aren’t you going to bed, too?”

“No, I think I’ll sleep in my chair for now on. It hurts less if I’m sitting. And this way, I can wake to the sunrise.”

Tess helped her to her chair, then pulled the blanket from the couch and tucked her Grams in. “I love you so much.” Her voice quivered as she spoke.

“Stop crying. I want to enjoy my last month with you. No more tears, no more discussion of this matter. Let’s just enjoy life.”

“Okay,” Tess muttered and hurried from the room before she burst into tears again. She paused at Steel’s room. She needed to cry and to be held. She had no right to ask that of him, but she needed someone to hold her.

Tess knocked on Steel’s door, then lost her nerve and ran to her room. Once inside, she leaned against the door. Her heart pounded as if Grumpy had been on her heels again, then it turned wooden and hollow. It took her a moment to realize why. Someone was knocking on her door. She opened it, expecting Grams had thought of more advice to share.

Instead, Steel stood there, his eyes full of worry. Before she could say a word, he’d pulled her into his arms. “Talk to me.”

Grams was right. He did have feelings for her.

Her knees buckled as heartbreak overwhelmed her. He led her to the bed and sat beside her, holding her tight to his chest as she burst into tears.

When she finally found voice to her pain, he listened. Sorrow, yet strength, shown in his eyes.

When she calmed, he suggested she change out of her hiking clothes and dress in her pajamas. Once she came out of the bathroom in her PJs, he tucked her in bed.

When he rose to leave, she spoke. “Stay with me.” She almost told him he was all she would soon have, but feared that would scare him off. And Grams was right. She needed Steel’s strength.

He sat in her rocking chair and closed his eyes.

“You won’t get any sleep there.”

A faint smile touched his lips. “I’ll survive.”

“I’ll share my bed with you.”

His eyes popped opened. “What?”

He wasn’t going to make this easy. But after the way she’d been treating him, she couldn’t blame him.

“I want you to sleep beside me.”

He leaned forward. “Tess, are you sure? I don’t want you to wake in the morning and feel I’ve taken advantage of you.”

“I won’t.”

He covered his face with his hands and rubbed.

“I don’t blame you for not trusting me, but I promise, if you’ll come to bed, I won’t regress in the morning. I’ll be the nice Tess that you like.”

He sighed and leaned forward, staring at his hiking boots. “Perhaps I should return to my room and change first.”

She met his eyes. “Do you promise to return?”

“I do.”

“Okay, little promises build up trust, so don’t fail me.”

“Little trusts do matter,” he said and studied her. “I’ll be back.”

He didn’t say “just don’t backtrack in the morning” but she knew he was thinking it.

***

Steel took a quick shower and changed into his sleeping pants. Normally, he slept bare-chested but worried that might alarm Tess, so he tugged on a T-shirt and gathered his hair with a band at the nap of his neck.

He softly knocked and entered her room. He thought she might be asleep, but she wasn’t. In fact, she wasn’t in her bed.

Disappointment flooded his heart. Forget the morning, she already regretted her request. Probably ran off to sleep with Helen.

What the hell was he doing? Why had he agreed to share her bed? This relationship was doomed from the start. Tess had more baggage than all his past women in aggregate, and none of those relationships lasted more than a month.

Nor had he cared when they ended. But Tess was a whole ’nother story. She was his elusive white whale: the woman who suited him to a tee.

A woman who couldn’t love.

Damn it, he was smarter than this! He pushed himself off the bed and headed to the door.

“Steel?” Tess spoke from the bathroom door.

He turned and faced her, dark hair falling down her chest, wetting the thin fabric on her pajamas, allowing him to see too much beneath.

“I thought you’d changed your mind and left to sleep with your grams,” he explained.

“No. When I heard you jump in the shower, I got itchy. So I took one, too. I need to change the sheets. Will you help me? It’ll go faster.”

His heart lightened. Maybe she’d dropped some of her baggage while running from that bear. “Sure. Just tell me what to do.”

Her body tensed. “You’ve never put sheets on a bed?”

He grimaced. “No, but it doesn’t mean I’m not willing to learn.”

Her brow furrowed. “So your mother took care of that sort of stuff?”

He choked at the idea. “I can assure you my mother has no idea how to change a sheet either.”

Once the sheets were on and the summer blanket back in place, Tess climbed into her side. He joined her in the bed, but when he reached out to pull her back to his chest, she rolled over and faced him, her eyes filled with worry.

“Talk to me,” he said, refusing to believe she’d give him grief because he didn’t know how to make a damn bed.

“Why wouldn’t your mother know how to change sheets?”

He sighed. “This is something I never share, but you, I’ll tell. But this stays between us, and never talk about my family to anyone else. Promise?”

She nodded.

God, he hated talking about this. People always changed once they learned who he was. “My mother is a distant third cousin to the Queen.”

“The Queen of England?” she asked.

He nodded and waited for the change in her eyes.

“Oh, thank God! For a minute, I feared you were Mafia!”

“Mafia?”

“It would be just like Father to try and sneak some mafia rodent into my life now that I’m losing my grams.”

“So you thought I was a mafia rodent because I didn’t know how to make a bed?”

“I’m sorry.”

He rolled onto his back. “I thought you were beginning to trust me.”

“I am. But people who work in forestry usually come from middle-class families, and they send their kids to camps where they have to make their own beds, even the boys. But mafia boys won’t. It’s not manly. One of the staffers will make their beds. I know because the staffer for my brothers refused, and then he disappeared. The one that replaced him made their beds.”

“What do you mean disappeared?” he asked.

“His body was never found, but I’m sure my brothers or someone working for my father killed him.”

He pulled her to his chest and wrapped his arms around her. “Thank you for explaining why my lack of house skills upset you.”

Her arms tightened about him.

“So why don’t you like the Queen? Is she mean?” Tess asked.

He kissed the top of her head. “I’ve never met her personally, but I assume from what I’ve read in the papers and seen on the telly, she’s a kind, old lady, confused by the change of times and the media’s crucifixion of royalty.”

“Then why don’t you want anyone to know you’re related to her?”

“Because, for most people, it changes how they see me. The moment they realize I’m royalty, no matter how distantly, they assume I bought my degree and I don’t know a damn thing. So I lead people to believe that I don’t like my family, so when I refuse to bring them home, they’ll not push it.” In truth, he truly didn’t care for his parents and their constant disappointment in him, but if he admitted that, she might wish to hash through all their issues.

“When you say people, do you mean girlfriends?

“Sometimes, but I don’t invite my male friends home either. Which is why I prefer jobs in the States. That way no one can reasonably expect to have dinner with the parents.”

“You’re lucky you can do that. I don’t think it matters where I go. Everyone seems to soon discover who I am. I hadn’t been at the university two weeks when I started hearing ‘mafia princess’ when I made the top grade in the class.”

He snorted. “Tess, you know more about forestry than any professor I’ve ever met.”

“I did wonder if my father had told them to give me A’s, so I screwed up a test on purpose, and it came back a C. I was so happy!”

He turned her face so he could lock into her eyes. “Don’t ever do that again.”

“Grams already scolded me for that. Especially since the possibility that my father would want me to get A’s was laughable. He wants me to quit college and marry the monster of his choice.”

Her declaration worried him. “I thought you and your father never spoke.”

She sighed. “Well, I used to need him to co-sign for my loans, but Grams says I don’t have to worry about that now—” She burst into tears.

God, Helen must have told her when she died, she’d have enough money to pay for college.
“She’s just looking out for you,” he whispered and held her tight as Tess cried herself to sleep.

***

Tess woke, confused by the hardness of her pillow…and the pillow case didn’t feel like 3000 count quality linen. She opened her eyes and stared at Steel’s handsome face. At least now she understood why it felt so unyielding. Her hands caressed Steel’s chest and arms.

Her brothers had muscles, acquired by steroids and weightlifting. She had no doubt Steel’s were natural, earned by hard, honest work.

Her feelings for him frightened her. She’d thought it would take years to connect with someone other than Grams. Yet all it took was opening her heart to the possibility, and now her heart was his.

What if it wasn’t him, but simply her need to be loved by someone since she was losing her grams? Would any guy have been able to knock down her defenses so fast?

His strong hands moved up and caressed her back. “Good morning.”

His voice was low and gravely and so filled with kindness that it warmed her from head to toe. She smiled. “Did I wake you?”

His eyelids lowered a bit into a sultry stare. “Maybe, but you’ll get no complaints from me.”

“I woke to a very hard pillow. Just be glad I didn’t try to pound it into submission before I figured out what it was.”

A deep chuckled rumbled from his chest.

She stared down at the T-shirt, wishing it wasn’t there. “Do you always sleep with a T-shirt on?”

“In fact, I normally sleep bare-chested. I thought you’d be more comfortable if I wore one.”

“I wouldn’t have minded,” she said as she rolled to the side and pulled up the T-shirt to get a peek.

He took the edge of the shirt from her hand and pulled it over his head, causing his white-blond hair to come out of the ponytail.

She gulped. “You’re very beautiful.” Too beautiful for her…

He tilted her chin up so her gaze met his. “So are you.”

She shook her head until he stopped her by placing his hands on both of her cheeks.

“Clearly, you don’t think so, and that’s good. Being beautiful and knowing it is the worst situation for a teenager. At least it was for me. Girls loved me for my looks. They couldn’t care less what I wanted in life. I was related to the Queen and I was cute, so they all declared their undying love, which to them, meant giving me as much sex as I wanted.”

Tess really didn’t like where this story was going.

He stroked her arm as his eyes grew distant. “I was fully jaded by the time I turned fifteen. I believed declarations of love were only attempts to manipulate.”

Since Tess had believed the same before she’d met Steel, she decided to be quiet and just let him talk himself into a grave or into her arms.

“When I left England, things improved a bit. At least no one knew about the whole royalty shit, but I still had this face.” His tone left no doubt he thought it a curse rather than a gift.

“My father claims I chose two male-dominated majors just to avoid young women. That might have been true with Forest Management, but I loved archeology from the very first.”

Tess had seen his adoration the moment he’d found the Indian village.

“To get my field work funded from a legitimate source, I had to become a college professor. That resulted in a great deal of young women enrolling in my classes.”

“I can imagine,” she chuckled, but sobered at his pained eyes.

“Because I didn’t believe in love, I didn’t value their affections. I was going through my female students about one a month.”

Her heart tightened. “What do mean ‘going through’?”

“I’d let a young woman pursue me for a while, then drop whoever I was shagging—and to me that’s all it was—to start up with a new student. But at the first fight or argument, I’d drop her for the next in line.”

“That sounds horrible…for everyone.”

“Well, it almost cost me my career, and it did cost me my first job.” His eyes darkened with pain. “It probably caused two young women to lose their lives. So from my view, I had become a man who shamed and disgusted me.”

She wanted to comfort him, but she couldn’t until she knew more about the two women who died. “The two women…” She didn’t even know how to finish the question.

“They were grad students, probably in the picture you found on the Internet. Diane Compton and Ashley Stanton. I’d had affairs with both of them while they were undergrads. When they applied to go on my archeological dig, I turned them down. Only they took it to the dean, declaring I was discriminating against females. So the dean insisted I take them.”

He sighed as he covered his face with his hands and remained quiet for a long moment. Finally, he spoke. “I treated them with utmost professionalism, but they constantly challenged my orders and questioned my competency. The male grad students were convinced I was sleeping with them because why else would I put up with all their shit?”