Hank nearly dumped Grace on her butt as he shot to his feet, only remembering at the last second to haul her up with him. She sagged against the stall, her system in chaos from the suddenness of the kiss and its even more abrupt end, while Hank threw his arms around the woman in the doorway.
“Bing.” His face shone with such joy that Grace’s heart clutched. “What are you doing here?”
She laughed up at him, so much younger and prettier than Grace had expected, despite what Melanie had told her. “I was gonna ask you the same thing. It’s too late for style points, but you could try to show some manners.”
“Wha…oh!” Hank’s expression was almost comical when he realized that he’d practically shoved Grace aside in his haste. “Shit. Grace. I’m sorry.”
“Still keeping it classy, I see,” Gil Sanchez said from over Bing’s shoulder, but his eyes were fixed on Grace, his gaze drilling a hole straight through her.
With as much dignity as she could muster, she offered Bing a smile. “Hi. I’m Grace. Obviously not short for graceful.”
Bing laughed, a big, unfettered sound that loosened a few of the knots in Grace’s stomach. “I see why you like her.”
Hank’s face went a dusky red, and his gaze bounced from Grace to Bing to the horses that poked tentative noses into their stalls, too curious to stay outside. He finally settled on capturing Spider, who’d come bounding back and was winding her leash around Bing’s legs. The cat gave a hair-raising yowl from up in the hayloft, fangs bared and ears flat.
Grace brushed at the hay clinging to her jeans. “We should get out of here before she attacks again.”
“Oh, so we’re blaming it on the cat.” Gil’s tone was caustic.
Bing smacked his arm. He ignored her.
“What are you doing here?” Hank asked Bing as they filed into the yard.
“I told you I had vacation time to burn.” She hitched a shoulder. “After you told me you’d gone to work for your dad, I decided I’d better put it to good use. Turns out I’m just in time. He decided to come home today.”
Hank skidded to a stop and glared at Gil. “You said he was staying at Miz Iris’s for at least a week.”
“I was wrong.” There was nothing apologetic in his voice, but then he added, “But I said you could leave when he came home, so if you want out, I’ll schedule you a trip as soon as I can.”
Hank hesitated, looking to Bing for guidance.
“It’s up to you, but you’ve already been paid for the first week, and I’ll make sure he doesn’t give you any grief.” The set of her jaw suggested that she might enjoy dishing out some of her own.
After another moment, Hank shrugged. “I’ll stick it out, unless he tells me to leave.”
Grace paused just outside the barn door, fisting her hands inside the front pocket of her sweatshirt as she tried not to stare at Hank, his face hidden by the unexpectedly soft hair that had slid, cool and slick, through her fingers. Her mind struggled to absorb the insane reality of that kiss, even though she could still taste him and her body was still throbbing at every point where it had been pressed up against the hard angles of his. And Gil, damn him, could see right through her.
Under the security light, his midnight-blue Charger gleamed like a phantom menace. He circled the car and braced his forearms on the roof, his face carved into harsh lines as he waited for Hank to wrangle his dogs into the pickup.
She avoided his eyes and gave Bing another awkward smile. “It was, um, nice to meet you.”
“Do you want to have supper with us?” Bing asked. “We’re going to the roadhouse downtown.”
“Thanks, but I need to get caught up on my lesson plans.”
Bing gave Grace a blatantly speculative look before turning to the men. “Who am I riding with?”
“Me, if you don’t mind a little dog hair,” Hank said. “Or dog breath.”
“I’ll let you two catch up. I’ve got another stop to make.” Gil fixed Grace with one more of those dark, penetrating stares, then climbed in the Charger and slammed the door.
As he turned to Grace, Hank tucked his fingers in the front pockets of his jeans, shoulders hunched against night air that had cooled significantly since he’d arrived. “So, um…”
Ignoring the protests of her body, Grace drew herself up and set her mouth in a determined line. She had to stop this now, before Hank got it into his head that the friendship they’d agreed to had any possibility of benefits.
“I can be your friend.” Up to a point, and after tonight, she would have to seriously reconsider what that point would be. That slope she was teetering on had turned out to be a whole lot more slippery than she’d expected. She tilted her head toward the barn, a raw ache blooming in her chest. “I can’t be that.”
Hank’s face went stiff. “My mistake.”
“Mine too.” She reached for a breezy, no big deal tone. “I’ll try to stop falling on you.”
He didn’t smile, just gave her one more abrupt nod, got in the pickup, and drove away.
Grace blew out a long, gusty sigh and trudged around the barn to her temporary home in Tori’s trailer. The living quarters had a ten-foot slide-out on one side that held a dangerously comfortable leather couch, leaving plenty of floor space between it and the banquette table. A small bar curved around a kitchen area equipped with a gas cooktop, stove, and double sinks.
Home sweet rodeo home.
Grace kicked off her boots and started toward the bathroom at the rear, pulling her sweatshirt over her head as she went. She had both arms stuck up over her head when a fist banged on the door so hard she stumbled and plowed into the wall. Wrestling the sweatshirt off, she tossed it on the couch and smoothed down her hair with unsteady hands. She didn’t have to guess who’d come calling.
She’d barely touched the latch when the door was jerked out of her grasp and Gil snarled up at her, “What the hell are you trying to do to him, Grace?”
She hung her head, unable to hold his furious gaze. “That was an accident. We can’t seem to avoid each other, so I thought…I was hoping it would be better if we could be friends again.”
“Or you could make it worse if he starts counting on you.” He plowed a hand through his black hair, raising spikes that made him look even more like an angry demon. “There are already too many people who matter keeping secrets from him. It’s gonna be ugly enough when he realizes Melanie and Wyatt are in on it.”
“You too,” Grace whispered miserably.
He hissed a stream of air between clenched teeth. “Yeah. Me too.”
Of the handful of people who knew about Grace’s pregnancy, Gil Sanchez had been the first, purely by accident. The morning after that disastrous New Year’s Eve, he’d found Grace sobbing over the filing she did one Sunday a month at Sanchez Trucking to help their secretary keep up. He had made the mistake of asking what was wrong, and she’d blurted it out. And then he’d pawned her off on Wyatt because, Gil said caustically, he was a lot better candidate as white knights went.
But Gil had been totally unaware that Wyatt was in love with Hank’s sister. And now the three of them were stuck in this hellish limbo, forced to lie to Hank for Grace’s sake. And in the case of Maddie’s parents, forced to live with the worst kind of uncertainty. They had agreed because they understood exactly what she would lose when her family found out, but the longer she put off the inevitable, the more they all suffered. Grace could justify her selfishness when Hank was fifteen hundred miles away and mired in what Bing had told Melanie was best described as a major depressive episode.
But he was better now, or Bing wouldn’t have let him come back to the Panhandle…and Gil wouldn’t have brought him.
Grace shoved her hands into the pocket of her sweatshirt, where Gil couldn’t see the white of her knuckles as she knotted her fingers together and said what he wouldn’t. “It’s time to tell him.”
The breath he released was equal parts resignation and relief, leaking through a rare crack in his armor. “It would be best to do it while Bing’s here.”
“How long will that be?”
“Maybe until New Year’s.” Gil shrugged. “It depends on how long Hank sticks around.”
Something like dismay clutched at her heart. “He’s not staying?”
“Why would he?”
Not a single reason she could think of, and a dozen why he’d want to be anywhere but here.
Grace was about to make that a dozen and one.
“Let me know when you’re planning to talk to him,” Gil said. “At least I can be there to stop him from doing anything stupid.”
“He’s not going to be happy with you.”
Gil’s smile was a grim slash. “That’s okay. I’m used to it.”
After he left, Grace went to sit alone on the couch, grappling with the in-your-face reality of a moment that had, for so long, been a storm on a distant horizon. She had to tell Hank. Soon. Tonight’s kiss had proven that beyond a doubt.
But she also had to find some way to accept that this could be her last Thanksgiving at Mama’s table.