Slow Ride Home (The Grady Legacy) (20 page)

“Why didn’t he tell me? Or Jake?” Maybe Ma’s grief wasn’t just for his father’s death but the death of the marriage she’d thought she had. He bit down hard.
Ma
. If Pop hadn’t told her, this would destroy her. Here he was making it all about him, and he should have been worrying about her. It was her husband after all. How could he have been so blind? “Does Ma know?”

“About the affair? I don’t know. She’s never said anything to me, and Ed never told me if they’d discussed it.”

Which meant telling her would fall to him and Jake. Jesus. Ben scrubbed his hand over his face at the thought of having to break his mother’s heart all over again. His whole world reeling around him, Ben pushed himself to a stand. “I gotta get out of here. I need air.”

* * *

Allie chased after Ben as he stormed out the back door and around the house, catching him as he climbed into his truck. “Ben, talk to me. You don’t have to deal with this alone.”

“Not right now. Just leave me alone.”

Her heart aching at the pain in his eyes, she stepped back as he jammed the truck into reverse and swung it around in a wide arc, then peeled out of the driveway. As she was debating whether to go after him or give him some space, Logan appeared at her side.

“If you’re thinking of going after him, don’t. He’ll need space.”

She knew he was right, but that didn’t make it any easier to not hop in her car too. “Did you know anything about Ed having a kid, Lo?”

“No. What makes you think I’d know?”

“Because you work for Charles Carter.”

Bitterness tinged his laugh. “Do you seriously think high-and-mighty my-shit-don’t-stink Charlie Carter is going to tell me diddly squat about his family secrets?”

“He hired you based on Agnes’s recommendation,” she said slowly. Maybe that’s why he’d shown up at today’s meeting. Maybe he was trying to save his job. Maybe he was afraid Randy would convince Ben to return to his father and grandfather’s original choice. “You’ve worked for him for five years and you brought him Ben as a client. He hadn’t been able to convince George or Ed to retain him in over 50 years.”

“Charlie hired me because his sister asked him to take pity on her grandson’s best friend, the son of a poor ranch hand. I was their pity pick.” He tossed the blade of grass he’d been toying with. “Despite the little show he put on for you the other day, Charlie hardly knows I’m alive. I’m just another fifth-year associate among a dozen others who are all willing to cut each other’s throats for the chance to hopefully be offered a partnership one day. Which is never going to happen for me. I’ll never make partner, not at Carter, Murphy & Scott.”

“You don’t know that.” But he was probably right, she thought sadly. She’d seen similar choices made not only at Lewis’s firm, but heard stories from some of her fellow graduates.

“Yeah. I do. I may have gone to UT and been on the law review, but I’m competing with guys from Harvard, Princeton and Yale. Guys who know which fork to use and can argue about what year’s wine goes best with Kobe steak. They’re the type Charlie and the other partners like to show off to the clients. Not me.”

He stalked back to the porch and sat on the top step. “What am I doing, Allie? I don’t fit in there because I’m not in one of their fancy clubs, and I don’t fit in here either.”

The irritation she’d felt for him earlier melted when his carefully crafted mask slipped and a hint of the nerdy outcast she’d once known peeked out. “You fit in pretty good at the restaurant the other day.”

He snorted. “Are you kidding? I hated it almost as much as Ben.”

“But you were the one who made the reservations at that place. Why not choose somewhere you liked better?” Not caring if she’d get her suit skirt dirty, Allie settled beside him.

“Charlie’s
assistant
made the reservations—if I’d not shown up, I would have heard about it. I’d have rather gone to Forth Worth with you guys.”

“To be honest, Lo, I’m glad you didn’t come with us.” Not the Logan who had sat in Randy Freeman’s office earlier. That Logan she didn’t like. Didn’t trust, though she couldn’t point to what made her distrust him. Maybe it was her experiences with Lewis, or maybe it was just being here, back on Bull’s Hollow surrounded by the shadows of George Grady’s manipulations coloring her judgment.

“You should have answered his emails, Al. Ben would have stuck up for you. There was nothing he could have done about your father being fired—but you could have stayed in touch, gotten together at spring breaks and stuff. We’ve both missed you.”

She cleared her throat against the ache gathering there. “I think it was for the best.” Did she really? Yes. She wouldn’t have been a lawyer now if she hadn’t been pushed. “I don’t know if we would have worked back then. What if I’d ended up like Cissy? Pregnant at eighteen, stuck here, having to deal with Agnes and George thinking I’m a gold digger. I’m not sure I would have come back like Cissy did. I wouldn’t have left my son with them,” she added, “but I don’t think either of us were ready to get married, despite what Ben thinks.”

“And now? What’s happening between you?”

“I wish I knew what was happening. All I can do is take things a day at a time.”

“If things don’t work out with him, let me know?” He gave her a sheepish grin. “I used to really like you. I even fantasized that you were my girlfriend.”

Part of her heart hurt that they’d never clicked back in high school, but law school had changed him so if she’d never met him before, she would have brushed him off. “I’ll keep it in mind, but honestly, Lo? You’re not my type. We can still be friends, though, right?”

“Charlie wants me to keep you away from Agnes.”

Interesting. Maybe she needed to pay ol’ Agnes another visit. “He’s afraid she’ll tell me about the kid. Or...” an idea formed, “or maybe she knows about the other will?”

“I don’t know anything about that.” He placed his hand on her knee. “Whatever happens, don’t let Agnes or anyone get to you. Ben loves you. He may not have said it, but he does. And maybe you haven’t realized yet either, but you’re falling for him again too, aren’t you?”

Her jaw dropped an inch and she made this weird sound in the back of her throat as she sought an answer. Was it so obvious?

“Well, you decide while you wait for him to come back.” He patted her knee twice more then stood. “I’m going head down to my parents’ old place. Call me if Ben needs to talk to someone when he gets back.”

“You’re a good friend.”

A strange look appeared in his eyes for a second then disappeared. “I’ve tried.”

When she returned, Randy sat at the table alone, staring at his hands laced on the table, or maybe he was staring at the half-full long-necked beer bottle that hadn’t been there before. “Did we just destroy a family?”

“They had to know,” she replied quietly.

“I’m not so sure. It might have been kinder to say there was someone claiming to be their father’s child, and you had to investigate further.”

“Now or later, they were going to have to deal with it.” But would Ben want her to around as he dealt with the fall out? Or would he push her away?

* * *

Ben arrived at the Monstrosity just as Jake roared around the side of the house on his ATV. His brother had lost his hat and his hair stuck out behind him like he’d been dragged behind a bull.

“Hey, slow down,” Jake called. “We need to talk before you go barging in on Ma.”

“I’m going to fucking sue them all. Randy, SSTG, everyone. We’ll hit ’em with charges of libel or slander or defamation of character.”

“We’re not going to sue them because if we do, then the proof that Pop had an affair will get entered as evidence in court. What do you think that would do to Ma? She doesn’t need that type of scandal right now. So we’re gonna discuss this like calm, rational adults, and you will keep a civil tongue in your mouth, you hear?”

“Why are not just as pissed off as I am, huh? Did you hear what Randy accused Pop of? Do you believe a word of it?”

Jake grabbed him in the foyer and slapped a hand on his brother’s chest and shoved him against the wall. “You calm yourself down before you upset Ma.”

“What on earth is all this ruckus about?” Cissy appeared on the balcony overlooking the living area. “Ben, I shouldn’t be having to tell you to use your inside voice at your age, and Jake, let your brother go. For heaven’s sakes, you’re both behaving like children.”

Plastering a fake everything’s great look on his face, Jake released Ben and called, “Hey, Ma, we need to talk. Can you come down for a minute?”

“Of course, honey.”

Even though she was approaching fifty and wearing a T-shirt and jeans, his mother was still pretty enough to turn heads. She descended the spiral staircase with the grace of the homecoming queen she’d once been. What the hell had gone wrong between them for his father to cheat on her?

“Please sit down, Momma.” Ben paced between the couch and the fireplace then back again, mentally formulating how to start.

Jake had no problems. “Randy told us about how Dad had an affair and has another kid out there.”

His mother’s eyes widened and her skin looked like it had never been out a day in the sun; she pressed her fingers over her mouth. “Oh, dear Lord.”

“Jake,” Ben snapped, “you could have eased into it.” He knelt in front of her. “Are you all right, Ma?”

Her voice wavered as her gaze flitted between Ben and Jake. “
Randy
told you?”

“Allie’s investigators discovered about...our brother and she met with Randy this morning to make sure that Pop hadn’t mention him in his will,” Jake explained. “I guess he thought it would be better if the news came from him.”

Wishing he could ease the pain she must be feeling, wishing there was some way to avoid all this, Ben covered his mother’s hand with his own. “They’re trying to find the guy to see if he’s the one who thinks he has the right to sell even an inch of Bull’s Hollow to Tank. Allie says it will possibly affect the outcome of our claim if the guy can prove that we had any prior knowledge.”

“You tell her that bastard isn’t entitled to anything on Bull’s Hollow. He’s not a Grady. He never will be.”

Ben blinked both at his mother’s uncharacteristic language and her rancor.

“I forgave your father for what he did. We were...having problems, I admit. But then I came home and discovered they’d done it in my bed.
My
bed. My house.” She spat the words out, bitterness twisting her expression. “On
my
sheets, with my baby only feet away in another room, listening to them.” She touched her fingers to Ben’s jaw. “Listening to your father making love to a woman who wasn’t your momma. Who would never love you like I did.”

“I don’t remember anything about it, if that makes you feel better.” Thoughts of his parents making out made Ben want to scrub his brain, but the idea of his father with another woman would require a half barrel of brain bleach.

“You were so young. And I know we have lots of good memories in that house, but I could never get over that image. That’s why I wasn’t in a hurry to move out of here when Gram moved to Dallas. As soulless as I find this place, I was the only woman Ed ever had in his bed here.”

Jake sat beside her and wrapped his arms around her, laying his head on her shoulder to whisper, “It’s okay, Momma. We understand.”

As much as Ben wanted to hug her just like Jake, to tell her everything was okay, that he understood, he couldn’t. Any more than he could stop resentment seeping into his thoughts.

She’d been gone four months, hadn’t seen him, hadn’t asked to see him—her own son, who’d loved her and needed her—and he was supposed to feel sorry for her now? No wonder his father had turned to someone else, someone who was there for him.

“I didn’t plan to stay away as long as I did, but it was so quiet at home.” Ben strained to hear her. “My stepfather was there to help out at night, and I had a chance to sit down and read, to talk on the phone to my friends. I got to be eighteen again. I got to pretend that I wasn’t a wife responsible for cooking dinner every night, doing piles of laundry every week, who at the end of the day had nothing to talk about other than how many pairs of underwear she’d washed or what a pretty picture Ben had drawn that day. I couldn’t think about going back to that life, so every time Ed called to ask when I was coming home, I’d just say soon and mention that Mom was scheduled to be on chemo for a while and she needed me.”

The picture he’d always held in his head of his family, of his perfect parents, his perfect family shattered, revealing a portrait of parents he didn’t recognize anymore.

His heart closing in on itself, he folded his arms over his chest. “What made you decide to come home?”

“Because Agnes phoned me and made some promises that she’d butt out of my life, that she’d send one of the ladies who helped clean her house over once a week until I got my feet under me. I don’t like to say ill of people, but your grandmother’s not been the most supportive person when it came to me marrying your father.”

“Allie figures—” He cleared his throat but the obstruction didn’t clear. “Gram took care of things, that she paid this other woman to give up the baby.”

“Yes, but she never told me anything about a baby. When I found out—” She shook her head and stared at her hands. “Do you know how hard it was to smile at him, to pretend nothing was wrong, day after day?”

“But you made it work. I mean, you and Pop got back together, you’ve been happy, right?” Jake’s voice was much more hopeful than Ben’s. But why shouldn’t he be fine? He wasn’t the cause of his parents’ near-divorce, the reason their father cheated on Ma.

She nodded. “Your father apologized and we went to counseling and figured out how to make our marriage work. It wasn’t easy, but we did it.” She clasped Jake’s hand. “That’s why you’re here, baby. One of the counselor’s suggestions was that we get away, just the two of us. Have the honeymoon we never got to take the first time around.” A soft smile lifted the grief from her face, and her eyes stared into the distance. “Your father took me to Hawaii. It was the first time we’d really gotten away from Bull’s Hollow, the first time either of us had been on a plane. It was wonderful. We fell in love all over again.” Her smile broadened. “Next thing either of us knew, you came along.”