Undeniable (A Country Roads Novel) (2 page)

Jax didn’t say anything as he pulled his wallet out to pay for everything.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Grace said, shaking her head. “You are
not
paying.”

Before Jax could respond the side door in the kitchen opened and Lula Mae walked in.

To the casual observer, Grace and Brendan’s grandmother wouldn’t strike a person as someone to be feared. She had a kind face and bright blue eyes that, when paired with her ample stature and friendly disposition, inspired a feeling of warmth and openness. But Lula Mae was fiercely loyal, and those blue eyes could go as cold as ice when someone hurt anyone she loved. Lula Mae had declared Jax as one of hers over twenty-five years ago, and she’d marched down to his parents’ house more than once to give them a piece of her mind.

Jax had spent more nights sleeping at the Kings’ house than he could count. It was one of the few places he’d actually felt safe growing up. And even now whenever he saw her or her husband, Oliver, he had that overwhelming feeling of being protected.

“Jaxson Lance Anderson,” Lula Mae said, walking up to him, “what in the world is your wallet doing out? Your money is no good here.”

“That’s what I just told him.”

Jax turned back to Grace, who was wearing a self-satisfied smile.

“Your granddaughter just gave me over thirty dollars’ worth of food,” he said, indicating the stuffed bag on the counter before he turned back to Lula Mae.

“I don’t care,” she said, shaking her head. “Now give me some sugar before you go and keep the people of Mirabelle safe.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jax said, leaning down and giving Lula Mae a peck on the check.

“And next time I see that wallet of yours make an appearance in this establishment, you are going to get a smack upside that handsome head of yours. You understand me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jax repeated.

“Good boy.” She nodded, patting his cheek.

“Thanks again,” he said, reaching for the bag of food and his coffee. “I’ll see you two later.”

“Bye, sugar,” Lula Mae said as she rounded the counter.

“See you later,” Grace said, giving him another of her face-splitting grins.

Jax headed for the door, unable to stop his own smile from spreading across his face.

Grace stared at Jax’s retreating form as he walked out of the kitchen, and she appreciated every inch of it. He had a lean muscular body. His shoulders filled out the top of his forest green deputy’s shirt, and his strong back tapered down to his waist. His shirt was tucked into his green pants that hung low from his narrow hips and covered his long, toned legs.

And oh, dear God, did Jaxson Anderson have a nice ass.

Though her appreciation of said ass had only been going on for about ten years, the appreciation of Jaxson Anderson had been discovered a long time ago. He was the boy who saved her from bullies on the playground. The boy who gave her his ice cream cone when hers fell in the dirt. The boy who picked her up off the ground when she Rollerbladed into a tree. The boy who let her cry on his shoulder after her mom died.

Yes, Brendan and Shep had done all those things as well, but Jax was different. Jax was hers. She’d decided that eighteen years ago. She’d just been waiting for him to figure it out.

But the man was ridiculously slow on the uptake.

Grace had been in love with him since she was six years old. She loved his freckles and his reddish brown hair. His hair that was always long enough to where someone could run their fingers through it and rumple it just a little. Not that she’d ever rumpled Jax’s hair, but a girl always had her fantasies, and getting Jax all tousled was most definitely one of Grace’s.

Jax was always so in control and self-contained, and so damn serious. More often than not, that boy had a frown on his face, which was probably why every time Grace saw his dimpled smile it made her go all warm and giddy.

God she loved his smile. She just wanted to kiss it, to run her lips down from his mouth to his smooth, triangular jaw.

Grace sighed wistfully as the door shut behind him and turned to her grandmother.

“You get your young man all fed and caffeinated?” Lula Mae asked as she pulled containers out of the refrigerator.

“I don’t know about ‘my young man,’ but I did get Jax something to soak up that coffee he came in for.”

“Oh, sweetie,” Lula Mae said, looking at Grace and shaking her head pityingly, “that boy did not come in here for coffee.”

“Hmmm, well he sure didn’t ask for anything else,” Grace said as she walked over to the stove and started plating the rest of her muffins.

“Just give it time.”

“Time?” Grace spun around to look at her grandmother. “How much
time
does the man need? He’s had years.”

“Yes, well, he’ll figure things out. Sooner than later I think.”

“I don’t think so. To him, I’m just Brendan’s little sister.”

“There’s no
just
about it,” Lula Mae said, grabbing one last container before she closed the fridge and walked back to the counter where she’d piled everything else. “He doesn’t have brotherly feelings for you, Gracie. I’ve never seen anyone fluster that boy the way you do.”

“Oh, come on, Jaxson Anderson doesn’t get flustered,” Grace said, shaking her head.

“If you think that, then he isn’t the only one who’s blind.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You see, Gracie, you’ve never had the chance to observe him when you aren’t around.”

“And?” she prompted, gesturing with her hand for her grandmother to carry on.

“He changes when you’re around. Smiles more.”

“Really? Because he still frowns a whole lot around me.”

“Well, that’s usually when some other boy is trying to get your attention, and he’s jealous.”

“Jealous.” Grace scoffed. “Jax doesn’t get jealous.”

“Oh, yes, he does. Grace, you need to open your eyes; that boy has been fighting his feelings for you for years.”

And with that, Lula Mae went about fixing her menu for the day, leaving Grace even more frustrated than she had been the minute before.

“Holy hell, that girl can bake.”

Jax bit into his second muffin and chewed slowly. He hadn’t realized how hungry he’d been until he’d taken that first bite, and then he’d promptly inhaled the first muffin. This one he intended to savor. He let the warm richness of the bread rest on his tongue for a moment before he swallowed and took a swig of his steaming coffee.

It was amazing how much better he felt with food in his stomach, or maybe he just felt better because he’d seen Grace. He
always
felt better when he saw Grace. She made everything so much brighter, so much
more
. Like swallowing a warm liquid that settled in his stomach before it shot out to this fingers and toes and made him feel like he could take on anything.

The power of caffeine had nothing on Grace King.

She was loud and vibrant, and it was almost impossible to escape her enthusiasm. She’d always had the ability to draw whoever was around into her atmosphere and keep them there. She’d drawn Jax in when she was a baby, and he’d been hooked ever since.

Though how he was hooked had changed in recent years. It hadn’t been a slow gradual change, either. It had been about as subtle as Grace. Jax remembered the day vividly. She’d been eighteen years old; he’d been twenty-three.

He’d stopped by the Kings’ house for dinner one night and Grace was out in the yard, washing her vintage yellow Bug. She had the radio blasting music so she hadn’t heard him pull up on the street. She was wearing short cutoff blue jeans and a bright blue bikini top, the strings tied around the middle of her back and around her neck. Her light blond hair had been up in a ponytail, but a few strands had escaped and were sticking to the side of her neck. It was then, as Jax studied the slope of her neck, that he felt it. He’d wanted to come up behind her and put his mouth to that neck, taste her warm skin against his tongue.

He remembered stopping so suddenly at the thought that he’d almost tripped and landed on his face.

Grace was Brendan’s little sister. Jax had watched her grow up, been there when they’d brought her home from the hospital, heard her first laugh as a baby, watched as she’d taken her first steps, sang happy birthday to her as she blew out candles on every single birthday. This was Grace, the girl he’d always thought of as his little sister. But damn if every single one of those brotherly feelings was gone.

Every. Last. One. Of. Them.

And then he’d watched, paralyzed from the revelation, as she turned to dunk the sponge in her hand in a bucket of soapy water, and he got a glimpse of her side.

“What the hell is that?”

Somehow he’d found his tongue and his voice had carried over the beat of the music.

Grace looked up and turned to him, her usual grin spreading across her face. But he’d only had a moment to register her smile because his eyes darted back down to her side where a blue swallow about the size of his hand was tattooed on her upper ribs. It was diving down; one of its wings spanned her side, the other wrapped around to cup under her right breast.

Jax had never thought much of Grace’s breasts. They were small, not even a handful. But now? Now he wanted to know what those felt like, too. His fingers were itching to untie those straps.

What the hell was wrong with him?

“Why, Jaxson Anderson,” Grace drawled, “are you staring at my chest?”

Jax looked up, and he could feel the flush coming to his cheeks. But he was determined to play this off, because he would go to the grave before he admitted to wanting one of his best friends’ baby sister.

“No, I’m looking at that tattoo on your side,” he said, letting his anger boil over into his voice. “What the hell did you do? Does Brendan know about this?” he almost screamed at her.

Why the hell was he so pissed off?

Because that tattoo was sexy as hell and he didn’t want anyone looking at it. Or God, touching it. Touching her.

Her smile disappeared in an instant and her blue eyes turned icy. “He was there when I got it a month ago,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him.

“He let you?” Jax asked, incredulous.

“Brendan doesn’t
let me
do anything,” Grace said, crossing her arms under her chest. It made her small breasts more prominent.

How had he not noticed how amazing they were before that moment?

“In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not a child anymore, Jax.”

And that had been precisely the problem, because he
had
finally noticed. And it had tortured him every single day for the last six years.

Jax sighed before he took another bite of his muffin, because boy did Grace ever like to torture him.

Grace’s friendliness tended to come off as flirting, and nothing got under Jax’s skin more than when he saw Grace flirting with some little schmuck. He’d had to watch as guy after guy paraded through her life. Okay, so there hadn’t been that many guys who’d gotten past the flirting stage. But none of them had been good enough for her, not a single one.

Jax wasn’t good enough, either, so he’d resigned himself to doing what he
was
good enough for, watching out for her. And man was watching hard.

J
ax, Brendan, and Shep had all met on their first day of preschool almost twenty-five years ago. They’d been best friends ever since. Brendan was a mechanic and helped his grandfather run King’s Auto. Shep’s family owned a bar called the Sleepy Sheep out on the beach.

The Sleepy Sheep had been a landmark in Mirabelle for the last sixty-five years. The bar had a Scottish pub feel to it, and the locals and tourists loved it. Shep’s grandparents moved to the area after his grandfather had gotten out of the air force following WWII. Owen Shepherd bought the land and built the bar with his own two hands. It had survived a number of hurricanes and more bar fights than anyone could count. Not that it was a rowdy place or anything. As it went with most establishments that served alcohol, some people just couldn’t handle their liquor, and Jax had been called down a number of times to deal with the drunks.

But tonight Jax wasn’t on duty. Tonight he was going to drink a beer and watch the Yankees demolish the Red Sox. When he was in the second grade, he’d had to do a report on a famous person. He’d stumbled across a biography on Mickey Mantle and he’d been a Yankee ever since. This had also inspired Jax to start playing the game.

Baseball was good for Jax. He’d channeled his anger into his pitching and when that wasn’t enough, he used it for batting practice. Jax, Brendan, and Shep had all joined the county baseball league as children. Jax was always a pitcher, Brendan a catcher, and Shep played shortstop. The Kings and Shepherds had split all of the fees so Jax could play, and they drove him to all of the practices and games.

In high school, the three boys had been pretty unstoppable. All of them had made varsity their sophomore year. They’d gone to the playoffs all three years, and had even won state their senior year. They all continued to play on the adult league for the county, but that wouldn’t start up until July.

Jax parked his truck in the lot and walked up to the front of the building. On either side of the front door were two large pained windows that gave a clear view into the crowded bar. The sign above the door creaked in the cool April breeze that blew in off the Gulf. The sign read
THE SLEEPY SHEEP
in big green letters. Two sheep slept in the corner, Z’s trailing above their heads. Jax pushed open the door to the comforting sounds and smells of one of his favorite places.

While they were growing up, Jax, Brendan, and Shep weren’t allowed in the bar when alcohol was being served. But in those few hours before it opened, Shep’s parents gave them root beer in chilled mugs and let them play pool and darts to their hearts’ content.

The walls, floors, and ceilings of the inside of the bar had been built with the same dark wood as the outside. Over the years the walls had been covered with signed dollar bills and framed cartoon pictures of drunken sheep. The bar was located at the back of the room, running along the wall. Booths lined the walls to the left, and tables surrounded by chairs were scattered across the floor. The right side of the room housed two pool tables and a dartboard. There was a stage in the far corner where a live band sometimes played. The rest of the time music would blare from the jukebox. Tonight there was the added noise from the TVs hanging from the walls.

Jax made his way to the back of the bar and slid into an empty stool next to Bennett Hart. Bennett had been a year younger in high school and he played third baseman Jax’s junior and senior year. Bennett had joined the air force right out of high school. He still sported his short hair that eight years in the service had ingrained in him. During his last tour, he was on a mission when the helicopter he was in was shot down. Only one other man had survived.

Bennett had been back for almost two years now. He was doing better than he had been, but Jax recognized the signs of a man trying to battle his demons. Now, Bennett did construction work to make a living, not to mention a few side jobs restoring antique furniture and building some of his own creations. He’d also come out for the county league last year and now played for the Stingrays, along with Jax, Brendan, and Shep.

“Really?” Jax said, looking over at Bennett and shaking his head at Bennett’s bright red Boston Red Sox shirt.

“What?” Bennett took a sip of his beer as he turned his head to the side to look at Jax.

“You a Red Sox fan now?”

“Nah.” Bennett grinned. “But I’m not a Yankee, either. I’m Braves through and through. I figured I’d root for the Sox tonight so Grace wasn’t all alone.”

When Grace was six years old she decided she was going to be a Red Sox fan just to spite Jax, Brendan, and Shep. The only person that it continued to bother was Jax.

“Grace is here?” Jax asked, looking around.

“Not yet, Romeo.”

Jax turned back to the bar to see Shep grinning at him. At least Shep hadn’t fallen back on his loyalties. He was wearing a navy blue Yankee T-shirt.

“When are you going to get over yourself and just ask her out already?” Shep asked.

Jax frowned. He’d been dealing with these comments from Shep for the past couple of years. Brendan tended to join in, too, but he wasn’t nearly as bad as Shep.

“Mind your own damn business,” Jax said, drumming his fingers on the bar.

“Which means,” Bennett said, rubbing the condensation from his own mug, “shut up and get him a beer.”

“You’re hopeless,” Shep said, shaking his head at Jax before he turned. He grabbed a frosted mug and went to the tap, filling the mug with a rich amber liquid. “You know,” Shep said as he set the mug down in front of Jax, “if you don’t do something, and soon, you’re going to miss your opportunity.”

“Are you speaking as a wise bartender who knows all?” Jax asked, not hiding his sarcasm.

“No,” Shep said, shaking his head seriously. “I’m speaking as a man. I’m not blind to Grace. And neither are most of the men in this town, or this bar for that matter.” He indicated a spot behind him with his chin.

Jax turned, and as always, the instant his eyes landed on Grace, he felt the intensity of it everywhere, and did he mean
everywhere
. She was wearing a white T-shirt with a big red “B” on the front, skintight jeans, and red high-heeled shoes that made her at least four inches taller. She was pretty much completely covered, but every single article of clothing hugged her small curves in amazing ways. And her face and hair completed the entire picture. Her eyes were smoky; the black and gray stuff she’d used around her bright blue eyes made them look impossibly brighter. Grace’s hair fell just past her shoulder blades, but tonight she’d curled it. Thick, soft strands swirled around her face and the top of her shoulders.

He wanted to plunge his fingers through it.

Instead he tried not to swallow his tongue.

Grace walked into the Sleepy Sheep, and as always, her eyes zeroed in on the one man she always wanted to see. She’d known he was here. She’d seen his red truck in the parking lot. But something had to be said for the fact that she’d known exactly where he was when she’d walked into the bar. He turned around and his eyes met hers for a moment before they traveled the length of her body. She felt that slow, lingering gaze
everywhere
.

He swallowed hard and took a deep breath as his eyes settled on hers again, and the frown on his face deepened.

Interesting.

Grace had decided she was through playing fair. She had long ago figured out how to play to her strengths, so tonight she’d pulled out all of the big guns. She had a small chest, something she hadn’t inherited from her mother or her grandmother. But an ingenious push-up bra gave her A-cup breasts a little boost. Grace had a tiny waist, but below that, her hips flared out into a rather round butt that didn’t look half bad in a good pair of jeans. She was short; something she knew could only be fixed with heels. And the power of red high heels was not to be trifled with.

As she made her way toward the bar, she was aware of a surprising number of eyes that were on her. But she could care less about any of them except for one deep green pair, the same green pair that appeared to get more agitated the closer she got.

“You okay?” she asked, stopping in front of Jax. “You look tense.”

“And that’s different how?”

Grace looked behind the bar to find Nathanial Shepherd grinning at her. But no one called him Nathanial. Well, besides his mother, grandmother, and Lula Mae. Everyone called him Shep. Jax and Shep were on opposite sides of the spectrum in many ways; Brendan fell somewhere in the middle.

Out of the three of them, Shep was most definitely the bad boy of the group. Tattoos were scattered across both of his arms and forearms. He had perpetual scruff on his wide, chiseled jaw and above his lips, which were usually quirked up in a smile. He had the darkest blue eyes that Grace had ever seen on a man and thick wavy black hair that was always shaggy and rumpled.

There was no doubt about it, Shep was hot. But Grace had never had any romantic feelings for him. No, those were reserved for the scowling redhead in front of her.

Grace tilted her head to the side and studied Jax’s scowl, which reached all the way up to the corners of his eyes and wrinkled his forehead.

“More tense than usual,” Grace amended.

“Something that could be so easily remedied,” Shep said.

“Shep’s remedies for life,” someone said, sliding an arm around Grace, “most likely include sex.”

Grace looked up into the smiling face of Brendan. Claire King had passed on her light blue eyes to both of her children, but Brendan had inherited Claire’s wide smile. Whenever Grace saw it, she was intensely grateful she could still see small pieces of her mother were still alive.

“Hey, Gracie,” he said, kissing her temple.

“You would know all about my remedies for life.” Shep smirked. “Speaking of which, I wasn’t expecting you tonight. Where is your
very
pregnant wife?”

“Paige is spending some quality time with her mother.”

“How’s Denise doing?” Bennett asked.

“It’s still hard for her without Trevor. But working part-time at the health clinic is keeping her a little busy. I think the baby will be good for her. When Paige is done with her maternity leave, Denise is going to watch him a couple of days a week,” Brendan said, letting go of Grace and sliding onto the stool on the other side of Bennett.

Last September, Paige’s father had lost his battle with pancreatic cancer. Grace could relate to Paige’s loss; she knew what it was like to have a parent die. But she couldn’t relate to what Denise was going through. She couldn’t imagine losing the love of her life. And with that thought, Grace’s gaze flickered back to Jax, who was still frowning at her.

“Seriously, what’s up with you?” Grace whispered to Jax as she sat down on the stool next to him.

“Nothing,” he said, taking a drink of his beer.

“Long day?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Busy?”

“Yup.” He nodded.

“You working tomorrow?”

“Uh-huh.”

So he was in monosyllabic form tonight. Not that Jaxson Anderson could ever be considered talkative. But still, he really was the most frustrating human being. Ever.

“I need a tall drink, or a tall man.”

Grace turned to find Harper Laurence sliding onto the seat next to her.

Grace had been friends with Harper for twelve years. The Laurences had moved down to Mirabelle when Harper’s dad had inherited his uncle’s veterinary practice. Harper had been one of those girls who had taken a little time to grow into her body. She’d been slightly overweight when she’d started the sixth grade. Grace had known exactly what it was like to be bullied, and she, along with Melanie O’Bryan, had brought Harper into their circle.

Harper had grown into her body in high school. Her curves had come into full bloom, and those same guys who had bullied her started drooling over her. Along with those curves, she had thick black hair that flowed down to the middle of her back, and violet eyes. Add to that the fact that she was a massage therapist with magic hands, and any man was a goner.

“Oh, jeez, not another one.”

Grace turned back to Jax who was shaking his head at Harper’s bright red Boston Red Sox T-shirt.

“The numbers are even now. Three to three. Drink your beer and shut up,” Grace said before she turned back to Harper. “What’s wrong?”

“Guess who came in today,” Harper said, raising one of her perfectly plucked black eyebrows.

“Who?”

“Bethelda Grimshaw.”

“We’re going to need something stronger than a beer down here,” Grace called down to Shep, who was filling a mug up for Brendan. “Harper had to deal with the dragon today.”

Bethelda Grimshaw was Mirabelle’s resident bitch. She’d worked for the town newspaper fifteen years ago. Back then she had a tendency to report on things that were less than savory, her stories focusing on the people of Mirabelle. When her articles turned downright nasty people demanded that Bethelda be fired; Oliver King, Brendan and Grace’s grandfather, had been the loudest. Grace and Brendan’s parentage had been the subject of many articles.

Now Bethelda used her online blog to spread her trash. Her blog was one of those things that no one in Mirabelle would admit to reading, yet everyone knew what she wrote about.

Brendan leaned back in his chair to look at Harper. Grace recognized the look on his face. It was the one that meant he was barely holding in his anger. Brendan had a bit of a temper, and a surefire way to light it up was to mention Bethelda Grimshaw. Brendan and Paige had been the focus of quite a few of Bethelda’s articles over the last year and a half.

“She write an article about you?” he asked.

“Oh, I’m sure it’s just a matter of time, but no, not today. She’s one of my new clients, though. Do you think ‘horrible hag’ is contagious?” she asked, looking at Grace a bit pathetically. “I don’t want to grow scales on my hands.”

“I know just the cure for that,” Shep said, putting down two glasses filled with ice. “Tequila,” he said, pouring a generous amount of the golden liquid into a metal container that he pulled out from under the bar. He added many other brightly colored liquids from bottles behind the counter before he put a metal top on the container and shook it. He poured his concoction into the glasses; it was an orangish red that reminded Grace of a sunset. “Drink up,” he said, putting a straw in each glass and pushing them across the bar to Harper and Grace.