Grant (Riding Hard) - Jennifer Ashley Page 0,38

Campbell boys alone.

Christina made a noise of exasperation. “I am not going back in there and sucking up to that woman. Tell Kyle, or someone, to introduce her around. In fact, I’m never going back in that bar again. I quit!”

“You’re just going to walk away after all these years?” Grant snarled. “Oh, wait, that’s what you always do.”

Christina’s rage boiled high. She was glad he’d chosen to be a shit about this—made it easier.

“That’s it.” She pointed both forefingers at Grant—who looked heartbreakingly good, damn him. “I’m done with you, and this job, and this whole damn town!” She swung around and stomped away, off into the quietness of the night.

She heard him say, “Christina, wait. I shouldn’t have …” and drift to silence.

Christina knew if she turned around and looked at him, accepted his halfhearted apology, let him sweet-talk her again, she’d never go. She’d burst into tears, right in the middle of Second Street and stand there like a fool. She’d want everything she’d tried to have with Grant, everything that never worked before, and would never work again.

She kept walking.

“Christina.” Grant’s voice was low, growly, but Christina went on.

Christina heard nothing from Grant over the next couple weeks, which was fine with her.

The fight—stupid, stupid, just like all their fights—had drained her energy. She was furious with him, with her uncle, with Karen, with Riverbend. And with herself.

The best thing to do was lie low and think about her options.

She heard about Grant, though. She heard that Karen had hooked up with a couple guys at the bar that night who’d driven back to Fredericksburg with her. What had happened there, people could only speculate. Grant hadn’t been with them.

Grant and his brothers went out and worked on the commercial shoot. They showed Karen around, they took her out, they were polite to her.

Word got around that Karen was trying to block her husband buying up Riverbend’s properties, and people softened toward her. Since Karen seemed to be pretty smart, she probably knew the Campbell boys were trying to work on her, and she was eating it up with a spoon.

Christina didn’t go back to work. She’d been able to save up money over the years, and she was finished with slinging drinks, a job that was supposed to have been temporary once upon a time while she decided what she wanted to do with her life. When her uncle had begged her to stay longer, she’d done it, to help him out.

She’d also stayed because of Grant. The job let her be close to him.

If not for Grant, she’d have left Riverbend long ago, she realized. She’d have gone to San Antonio with her parents or to Houston with Lucy and tried to start a career. She’d stayed for Grant, then for Bailey.

Now it was all gone. Sam had lied to her, Bailey had a new life, Grant and Christina had nothing left, and there was no reason for Christina to live here anymore.

So Christina told herself, though tears swam in her eyes every time she thought about packing up and driving away.

She went to see her Uncle Sam, a silver-haired man who stood as straight and tall now as he had when Christina had been little. It didn’t take Sam long to look at Christina in sorrow and confess everything.

“Your aunt had just passed,” he said. The two of them sat on his front porch on a Sunday afternoon, sipping iced tea and watching the sunshine on the bluebonnets. “I got into debt taking care of her, got behind on the property taxes and fees on the bar, and I mortgaged the place to pay for everything. Then when I couldn’t pay on that, Carew came to see me. He had to take the bar, but let me keep running it for them, with an understanding I’d be buying it again when I could.”

“But why didn’t you tell my dad?” Christina asked. “Why didn’t you tell me? We could have helped you.”

“I know, angel. But I was grieving and ashamed. And don’t take this the wrong way, but your dad always likes to have the upper hand with me, you know what I mean? Always has. I didn’t want to go crawling to him and confess I lost the bar. Sometimes friends can help more than family. I’m sorry, sweetie.”

Sam looked so dejected and forlorn that Christina reached over and squeezed his hand. “I understand,” she said.

“Thanks, angel.”

“I’m still not going back, though. I