Worth Every Cent Read online

  “You look like you could use all the nourishment you can get,” she said as her eyes fell to my arms.

  She slid herself from the booth and put in my order. And it came back at almost lightning speed. She set it in front of me and passed me a fork, then slid back into the booth and started jabbering away at me. I wasn’t interested in the girl who dumped me back in high school. Especially one that hadn’t aged gracefully at all. She probably still smoked like she did back then. I knew her kind. The kind that regretted what she’d given up. And I had no doubt in my mind that it had to do with my success once I got the hell out of this place as a teenager.

  “That’s a tough break with the NFL,” Cecily said. “Are you feeling any better?”

  “Can’t take any head or neck shots, but otherwise I’m fine,” I said.

  “Well that’s good. So what has your attention nowadays?”

  “Just some things here and there,” I said.

  I stabbed at my food and drank my coffee while she continued to pull my life out from between my lips.

  Scanning the restaurant as her voice fell into the background like a drone of white noise that was used to lull an infant to sleep, I couldn’t eat my food fast enough. Shoving down my food, I just wanted to get out of there. But the second the kitchen doors slammed open, I caught sight of that dark head of red hair again.

  “Cecily?”

  “Yeah, um what’s up, Grayson?” she asked.

  “Does Michelle work here?” I asked.

  My eyes followed her as she sat four plates of food down at a table.

  Her silence caught my attention and I whipped my gaze back over to her. The frown on her face was evident, but I didn’t give a shit. It hadn’t occurred to me the other night to ask where Michelle actually worked, and the fact that I’d stumbled across her on accident twice in the span of two days was more than a simple coincidence.

  “She does,” Cecily said flatly. “Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes. I wanted to apologize for what happened between us back in—”

  “Forget it,” I said. “It’s in the past. Hold on.”

  I watched Michelle buzzing around the room, filling coffee cups with that beautiful smile on her face. I pulled out my wallet and slid a fifty dollar bill from it, then placed it on the table and got up.

  “Grayson? Where are you going?” Cecily asked. “Aren’t you going to finish your food?”

  “Keep the change,” I said, mindlessly.

  Then I walked away from my half-eaten food to approach Michelle. The woman my life wouldn’t stop putting in my path.

  Chapter 8

  Michelle

  As I wiped down the counter and cashed out a few customers, I drew in a deep breath. I was exhausted. I’d spent half the night regaling Cecily on what had happened at the bar, then spent the other half of the night tossing and turning with Gray on my mind. My body had been soaring with sexual longing. Every time I closed my eyes I saw his throbbing muscles and the way the humidity forced his shirt to cling to the divots of his strength. I woke up that Saturday morning missing the way Gray made me feel. I rolled off Cecily’s couch and remembered how wonderful it felt to wake up next to him. To feel him bring me close to his naked body instead of me rolling off a damn couch and onto a disgusting floor that never got vacuumed.

  Running into him last night had thrown me for a loop.

  But little did I know my life was about to take another turn.

  “Good morning, Michelle.”

  My eyes whipped up from the bar I was cleaning as my eyes found his.

  There he was, smiling at me again in that way he had about him. The way he knew made my insides hum and melt for him. He slid his legs along the swiveling bar stool and propped his forearms up to the bar as I stood there, studying his face and looking into his deep ocean eyes.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “Sometimes it’s nice when someone else cooks breakfast,” he said, gesturing to the booth in the back.

  “How was it then?”

  “Probably should’ve cooked it myself.”

  I giggled, even though I tried to bury it. I smiled, even though I tried to hide it. A broad smile trickled across Gray’s cheeks, accenting his devastatingly handsome face. It made me forget for a second that getting close to him again was a bad idea.

  “When do you get off today?” he asked.

  “I’m off at two.”

  “Want me to pick you up?”

  “What for?”

  “I don’t know. We could go for a drive. You looked very nice with the wind blowing through your hair last night.”

  I blushed at his compliment as I tossed the damp rag over my shoulder.

  “You don’t have to,” I said. “I was just going to walk home.”

  “I want to,” Gray said. “So I’ll see you then.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but he did the only thing he knew how to do in that moment. He slid from the barstool and strode away before I could protest.

  Great.

  Gray was picking me up at two. Which meant I didn’t have a way to hide to him that I was staying in an even more rundown motel almost two miles away from my work. Yet another thing he could pity me over.

  Damn it.

  “What’s your deal with Grayson?”

  I looked over at Cecily after I finished watching him walk out the double doors of the diner.

  “Nothing,” I said with a shrug. “We just bonded over Anton’s death.”

  “An odd thing to have in common,” she said, as her eyes raked up and down my body.

  “We were kind to one another during the bulk of our grieving. Nothing more, nothing less.”

  “Uh huh. Are you going to take back up with him again?”

  I didn’t like the tone of the voice she was using to address me. It made me uneasy and unwilling to answer her questions. I knew Gray was leaving soon. After Anton’s house was sold, in fact. So it wasn’t like it would be smart to start anything serious with him.

  “Be careful with that one. He isn’t what he seems,” Cecily said.

  Then she walked away from me and left me to my thoughts.

  For the rest of my shift, she ignored me. Stuck me with the shittiest patrons alive and made my shift a living nightmare. What the hell was her problem? What in the world was behind her accusatory statements? I sighed with relief when Brad yelled out for me to go home. I picked up my tips and cashed them out, then checked out my remaining customers before I took off my half-apron. I saw Cecily eye me from the corner of the diner as I walked out, and in my swirling state of trying to figure out why my friend was being such a bitch, I’d forgotten about Gray’s promise.

  I found him leaning against his convertible with his leg cocked back and his arms crossed over his chest.

  He looked phenomenal in his tight black shirt and his fitted jeans.

  “Your ride is here,” he said, as I approached the car. “Where do you want to have lunch?”

  I giggled at him and shook my head as he opened my car door for me.

  “I thought you were only offering me a ride home?” I asked, as I slipped in.

  “Think of it as a slight detour. Just for an hour. I know a great spot just outside of town that’ll really make your day.”

  I wanted to protest, but my lips wouldn’t move. I looked back at the diner to see if anyone was staring, and I didn’t see anyone in particular looking at us. He backed out of the parking space and rode us through town with the Illinois wind fluttering my hair behind my body. We took the only road out of Stillsville and traveled down the highway a little bit, then he turned onto a dusty road and drove back into some trees.

  This place really was off the beaten path.

  Soon, the thick forest gave way to a tree-lined meadow that sat next to a gurgling creek. The car came to a halt on the edge of the meadow and my gaze panned over to him. He reached back behind me, his body leaning closer to me as our eyes connected. His eyes fell to my lips and
I licked them mindlessly, then chastised myself for the motion.

  His arm came back into view with a blanket in his grasp, and it wasn’t until he stood up that I saw a basket hanging from his arm.

  “Come on,” he said. “Lunch is served.”

  I shook my head as I stepped out of the car. He laid out the blanket in a shaded part of the field, then set the basket down right in the middle.

  “You don’t strike me as the kind of man to own a picnic basket.”

  “It belonged to Anton. I dug it out of the attic,” Gray said. “Come on. Have a seat. I cooked us up something nice.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  His eyes turned up to me as I stood at the edge of the blanket.

  “Because I want to spend time with you,” Gray said.

  And his words were enough to sink me to my knees.

  He laid everything out and it all smelled phenomenal. The beautiful wooded area that surrounded us and the wild flowers that grew in the meadow blanketed us in a scented perfume I couldn’t explain. There was an amazing turkey sandwich and vegetables with ranch dressing for us to eat. He pulled out grapes and cheeses and small chunks of meat. Nuts for us to munch on and dried fruits for nibbling.

  The effort and the romance of it all was astounding to me, but I still forced my hopes to stay down.

  Until he pulled out a bottle of wine from his own vineyard.

  “This is my vineyard’s newest vintage,” Gray said, as he brought out a corkscrew. “I think it needed a little more tweaking, but it’ll be good for a nice fall blend come the turn into August.”

  I watched him pop it open effortlessly as I picked at the nuts and dried fruits. He pulled out two delicate glasses from a separate compartment in the picnic basket and poured me a glass. And I had to admit, my mouth was salivating for it.

  “Thank you,” I said, as he handed me a glass.

  Then he rose his to mine and we clinked glasses.

  “So how do you like where you’re staying now?” Gray asked.

  “It is what it is. The place you took me to last night was actually Cecily’s place. She lets me crash on her couch whenever I have a late shift.”

  “Then where do you stay when you don’t have a late shift? Like today?” he asked.

  I felt like a loser. Like a completely incompetent adult. How was I supposed to tell him that I was living out of an extended-stay motel two miles up the damn road from my workplace? Sitting next to the successful and put-together Grayson MacDonald made me painfully aware of how different we were.

  “There’s a motel up the road cutting me a really good monthly deal if I follow some rules,” I said.

  I expected Gray to comment on it. But instead, he turned his sights back to something else.

  “Did you meet Cecily through work?” he asked.

  “That and she was my neighbor at one point,” I said.

  I didn’t want to say Andy’s name. It set him off before and I didn’t want to ruin the beautiful moment we had going for us.

  “Gotcha. Did she help you get the job at the diner?” Gray asked.

  “She did. Both times. I worked at the diner for a few weeks before I met Anton. When he offered me the job to keep up his property, I put in my notice at the diner.”

  “Well, I’m glad you found a place to work.”

  But I knew the compliment was as empty as the voice he’d said it with. What I didn’t understand was why. I sipped the incredible wine in my glass and picked up half of my sandwich, then settled onto my butt and turned out towards the picture in front of me. Wild animals were bounding in the field. Rabbits and a doe with two little fawns. Birds flew overhead and the sun cast a beautiful light over the expanse of the wilderness around us, and I tried to commit the place to memory.

  Maybe I could come back sometime.

  After Gray had gone back home.

  I had to keep reminding myself of that. No matter how romantic things became, Gray was eventually leaving. Going home. Never coming back. One Anton’s house was sold off, it would be the last piece of his estate to be settled. Then, Gray would never have a reason to come back to a place like Stillsville. I didn’t want to ruin the mood with Andy’s name, nor did I want to ruin the romance with my thoughts.

  But I had to keep myself rooted into reality. Grounded into the fact that Gray wasn’t here permanently.

  No matter how picturesque and worry-free it all seemed.

  Chapter 9

  Grayson

  Relief washed over me the second she addressed it. Granted, I didn’t like the fact that she was staying in some fucked-up, run-down motel. But it was better than living next door to her damn ex. I wanted to talk more about Andy, and to figure out the nature of their relationship to ease my curiosity. But I wanted to look towards the future instead of always dwelling in the damn past even more. Plus, the time I had with Michelle was limited. I was only in Stillsville to sell Anton’s house and fix up the car, then I’d probably sell that thing, too, before leaving. I wanted to enjoy the time I had with Michelle. I wanted her to know how sorry I was for leaving things the way I had between us.

  I looked over at her, watching as she watched the animals in the field. She looked so delectable, with her thighs splayed out and her breasts bouncing as she breathed. I was surprised I could string sentences together in her presence. The two of us ate our fill in silence while we polished off the bottle of wine I’d brought. But when she turned that gorgeous smile towards me, I knew it was time to enact the second part of our afternoon.

  “Where are you going?” she asked, as I stood up.

  “Come with me and find out.”

  I held out my hand for her and she looked at it wearily. But she still slipped her delicate hand into mine. I helped her to her feet before I laced our fingers together, and not once did she fight the feeling. I led her across the meadow and into the woods, heading for the babbling brook that ran through this part of Stillsville. It was running high today. The water rushed clear over the silt and rocks that had settled to the bottom. I released Michelle’s hand while she gawked at the expanse of the beauty around her.

  And I watched her while she watched the world.

  “I know exactly what to do right now,” she said.

  “Oh really?” I asked. “And what’s that?”

  She shot me the cutest little grin before she kicked off her shoes.

  Before I knew it, she had hopped into the stream. Water ran over her legs as she climbed up onto the rock, splashing her hands and feet into the cool water. She smiled broadly and giggled with all her might as she frolicked in the water without a care in the fucking world. Just enough sunlight crept through the canopy of trees, surrounding her in the slightest golden halo as she jumped back into the stream.

  “Come on, Gray. It doesn’t feel as cold as it looks.”

  She held out her hand for me, but I shook my head.

  “You look like you’re having enough fun as it is. If I get in, you might simply explode from the joyous occasion.”

  “And people don’t think you’re humble,” she said with a grin.

  Had people been talking about me to her?

  “Come on. You really should get in,” she said. “It feels great.”

  “No really. I’m good. I’ve got the perfect view from where I’m standing.”

  “You know what I think?”

  “What?”

  “I think you think you’re too well-heeled to sink your feet in the mud.”

  She grinned at me as her eyes shone with delight. Too well-heeled? Oh, hell no. Hardly. The reason I knew this place to exist was because I came here all the time as a kid. Except I walked from town, unless I’d hotwired and stole my dad’s truck. I kicked off my shoes and pulled off my socks, then rolled up my very expensive jeans.

  I stepped straight into the water, watching as her entire face lit up.

  “Too well-heeled?” I asked as I walked towards her.

  “Don’t come any closer,” s
he said.

  She sank her hands into the water and aimed them at me as I postured myself to run.

  “Don’t you dare splash me,” I said. “I didn’t bring a change of clothes.”

  “That never stopped people before,” Michelle said.

  “I’m serious. Don’t splash me.”

  “Or what?” she asked.

  “Or you might not like the punishment that comes along with it.”

  She moved her hands around in the water, her eyes holding mine fervently. The water felt good running over my legs. Warmer than I figured it would be. Michelle made a move to splash me and I ducked, causing her to roar out in laughter. She kept faking me out and I kept flinching, taking stock of the beauty in the happiness in her eyes. The play made me feel young again. This place brought a happiness to my life that should’ve existed in my childhood. If I wasn’t walking to this riverbed alone to sit and think, I was here with my cousins catching crayfish to eat for dinner.

  Crayfish was always better than roadkill.

  “You know, I used to catch crayfish here with some friends of mine when I was younger,” I said.

  “Wait, really? There are crayfish in here?”

  “If you know where to look, yes. Come here. I’ll show you.”

  I held out my hand for her and she quickly abandoned her fake-out session.

  “Move slowly. Don’t kick up the sediment. But come here,” I said.

  She slipped her hand into mine and I led her over to the place where I knew the crayfish enjoyed hanging out. We moved slowly, keeping our feet on the rocks so we wouldn’t kick up the dirt. She clung to me tightly. Steadied herself against me. Trusted me with the whole of her weight as I helped her walk along the rocks. Just that smallest piece of her against my skin sent my mind into overdrive.

  I almost missed the nestled cave thinking of her skin against mine.

  “Right here. Look,” I said.

  “Oh my gosh. There has to be at least thirty of them,” Michelle said.

  “We always used to catch and cook them. We’d bring some things to start a fire and a pot with us along with a net. We’d catch them, get some water from the river, and boil them right over a fire on the bank of the river.”