Heart of the Hunter (71 page)

I didn’t have to make the same mistake now. I loved her. I loved her with a raging, burning fire that no amount of time would quench. If I didn’t tell her now, I’d lose her forever.

There were some blank pages and the old pencil I’d used years ago, and I started writing. I laughed. My handwriting hadn’t changed a bit. The letter I was writing now was almost identical in every way to the letter I’d written then. Even the words were similar. The love was the same too.

Lacey,

I should have said these words to you years ago. I’ve been a fool. I know it. Please forgive me. I’ve always loved you. It wasn’t just a crush back then when we were kids. It was the real thing, and it’s still the real thing. The night we were together at Faith and Jackson’s wedding, was the best night of my life. I can’t even describe what I feel about it. It felt so right, like our destiny. I know we’re meant to be together, and I’m not going to let anything get in the way anymore.

Be mine, Lacey. Forget everything else, forget all the mistakes I’ve made, forget what an idiot I’ve been, and give yourself, body and soul, to me. I promise I’ll take care of you and honor you.

Let me make you my wife. Let me make you the mother of my children. I beg you. I want everything you have to offer, Lacey. All the joy and love in your heart, I want it to be mine and no one else’s.

Be my bride, and the mother of my children, and I’ll never be so stupid as to let you out of my grasp again.

Forever yours.

Grant Lucas

Chapter 25

Grant

I
WAS ABOUT TO CLIMB
down the ladder. I was going to give Lacey the letter and let her make up her own mind. If she wasn’t interested, that would be her choice. At least I’d have told her how I felt. I folded the letter neatly and put it in my back pocket. Then I put the pencil and envelope back on the beam above me and reached for the ladder.

I hesitated a moment at the top of the ladder. It was a perfect evening. The air was still, the evening sky a deep crimson. It was a momentous night. The night I would finally tell Lacey that I loved her.

And then I heard someone at the doors of the barn. I was about to call out, I figured it was Jackson coming to check on the horses, but it wasn’t. It was Lacey, and she was with Rob.

What was she doing, bringing him there, to
my
place? To
our
place? The place we’d been intimate together?

I know I should have called out, I should have said something, but I was too taken by surprise.

“Lacey,” Rob said, “there’s something I need to say to you.”

Immediately, I knew it was going to be something important. The tone in his voice, the mood in the barn, he was going to say something that I didn’t want to overhear. But there was nothing I could do. I took my hand off the ladder and stepped back into the loft.

“What is it, Rob?”

“I want to ask you something very important.”

“You can ask me anything,” Lacey said.

I was shaking my head. I thought about climbing out the window but it was more likely they’d hear me if I moved. The only thing to do was wait it out.

“What are your feelings on marriage?” Rob said.

My breath caught in my throat. What was I about to overhear?

“I love marriage,” Lacey said. “You know that.”

“Well, we haven’t talked about it much.”

“Because we’ve only been going out for a few weeks,” Lacey said. “From what I’ve seen, marriage is the last thing guys want to talk about.”

“Not me,” Rob said.

“You mean, you like talking about marriage?”

“It’s something I’ve been meaning to take care of.”

“Take care of?”

“Well,” Rob said, “my business is doing well. I’m becoming a more important person in certain social circles in the city. I can’t be a bachelor forever.”

“I see,” Lacey said.

“There comes a point,” Rob continued, “where I realize that being married would probably be more of an advantage to my career than being single.”

“An advantage to your career?”

“You know how it is. My clients are married women. The men who send them to me would probably prefer it if I was tied down. It would make my business seem more stable.”

Lacey said nothing. I was standing at the far end of the loft, where I couldn’t be seen. For some reason, beads of sweat were dripping from my forehead. I felt as if I was witnessing a crime. Not only was Rob proposing to the woman I loved with all my heart, the woman I was about to give a letter to confessing my love, but he was also doing it in the least romantic way possible. I mean, I’m no expert, I’d let Lacey down and I knew it, but Rob wasn’t even telling her he loved her. He wasn’t giving her anything near to the proposal she deserved. He was making it sound like a business proposition, like it was something that would be useful for his public image. I felt like punching him out, just for messing up his proposal.

It made me realize just how badly I’d screwed up by not committing to Lacey when I had the chance. I was mad at Rob for letting her down, but when I thought about it, I’d let her down just as badly. She’d been ready to start a relationship with me. I knew it. But I’d been too concerned about my own shit to do what I should have done.

“Rob,” Lacey said, “are you saying that you want to marry me?”

Rob cleared his throat. “Well, I mean, I’m just saying, it would be a good career move for me right now.”

Lacey’s voice sounded uncertain. “So, this is a proposal?”

“If that’s what you want to call it,” Rob said.

There was something strange in Lacey’s voice. I don’t know if she was happy or sad, but there was definitely a lot of emotion in her voice, and she was struggling to contain it. I could always tell when she was emotional, I just couldn’t always tell what it meant.

“Then, I guess I accept, Rob.”

“Really?”

“You know it’s my dream to settle down with a good man, a man who loves me. I want to create a real, meaningful life. A life full of love and laughter, and hopefully, a life full of happy little children too.”

“Well, let’s not get carried away just yet. I don’t want to make a big deal over it.”

“But it is a big deal.”

“Not for me, it isn’t,” Rob said. “It’s just my next move.”

Lacey’s voice caught in her throat. “It’s a big deal for me, Rob.”

“Come on,” Rob said. “Let’s go back into the house. I’m not in the mood for a big emotional display.”

They left the barn. I didn’t know what to think. I reached behind my back and took the letter I’d written from my pocket. Just one more letter I’d written for Lacey that would never be delivered. I moved mechanically, pulling the envelope down from the beam and slipping the new letter into it. Then I put it back up on the beam, grabbed the whiskey, and drained the bottle.

Chapter 26

Lacey

S
OMETIMES, THINGS DON’T TURN OUT
the way you always planned. That’s life. That’s part of what being an adult is all about. You have these silly dreams when you’re a little girl, you believe in unicorns and princes and dreams coming true. Then, when you grow older, you realize that the world isn’t really like that. You don’t get everything you always dreamt of. You don’t get fantasies and fairy tales. You get reality. And while reality doesn’t always measure up to the ideas you have in your imagination, it does have one advantage. It’s practical. And that’s something you can depend on.

I didn’t want to spend my life alone. I didn’t want to waste it, waiting for someone else to take the steps that they clearly didn’t want to take. That would be a mistake. I had strong feelings for Grant, I knew that, but Grant was my family. It was normal to have strong feelings for someone you’d practically grown up with. It didn’t mean I had to spend my whole life hoping he’d propose to me. Grant had made it very clear that he didn’t believe in marriage. He especially made it clear that he didn’t believe in marrying
me
. Maybe one day he’d find some lucky woman who’d make him feel differently, but I didn’t want to be still hanging around, waiting for him, when that day came.

If I married Rob, if I created a good life and a beautiful, loving family with Rob, then when Grant finally decided to get married, I’d be able to feel happiness for him. Because my life wouldn’t be empty and lonely. If I gave up this opportunity to be with Rob, and then Grant ended up marrying someone else, it would be unbearable.

I couldn’t afford to be a fool. I couldn’t afford to live my life in a fantasy. Grant didn’t want me. Rob did.

Was I in love with Rob? That’s the question I kept asking myself.

But how could I answer it? I know I didn’t feel for him the way I felt for Grant. Grant was ingrained into the very core of my being. He lived in my heart. The first thing I thought about when I woke up in the morning was Grant. The last thing I thought about when I lay down in bed was Grant. Grant was my family, my foundation, without him in my life I didn’t even know how I’d be able to continue living.

My relationship with Rob was different. It was very different. Rob didn’t make me feel safe the way Grant did. He didn’t make my heart pound. He didn’t even make me feel beautiful. He still pressured me and dropped hints about the things I could do to improve my appearance.

He was often in a bad mood. I tried to be understanding of that. He worked long hours, in a highly competitive industry, and the stresses on him were immense. I’d remind myself of those things when Rob was irritable, or when he snapped at me, or when he was dismissive. It didn’t help when he came home late from work, or said he didn’t have the time to see me, but wouldn’t tell me where he was going or who he was with. Things were far from perfect with Rob. Part of it was his high-stress job, but then I’d think about Grant’s job. Still, always comparing everything to Grant. Grant stole millions of dollars from huge corporations with world-class security installations. There was a constant threat of violence and injury at Grant’s job. But he was nothing but pleasant and polite and considerate, ninety-nine percent of the time. I mean, I’d had my fights with Grant, but they were never because he was just in a shitty mood. They were about real things. Grant was calm and steady, I could count on him. Rob just got pissy sometimes.

I’ll also admit I had fears about Rob’s fidelity. As stupid as I might seem for accepting his proposal, I’m not a total idiot. I knew he was surrounded by beautiful women at work. I knew he’d slept with most of them. I also knew he was capable of lies and deception. On more than one occasion I’d caught him in a lie. He wasn’t lying to me, he was lying to other people, but I was smart enough to realize that if he could lie to others, he could lie to me too.

And there was also the constant, niggling fear in the back of my mind that Rob didn’t really love me. It was just something that I couldn’t make go away. The way he wanted me to have surgery, the way he point-blank refused to ever tell me I was beautiful or make me feel good about myself, the way he virtually never expressed any kind of sexual or physical interest in my body.

Was I fooling myself? Was I making a big mistake? Was I setting myself up for disaster?

Maybe, but let me put it this way, woman to woman. If you were in my position, and a handsome, successful surgeon proposed to you, and you had no other offers, and you were lonely and afraid of getting old alone, would you have said no? Maybe you would have. That would make you a much stronger woman than I was.

There are a lot of women in the world stronger than me, and they’d have stood up for themselves and what they felt they deserved from life. They’d have demanded more passion, more love, more tenderness, from the man who wanted to call himself their husband. They’d refuse to let the fear of being alone completely cloud their judgement.

But what can I say? My last boyfriend cheated on me. In fact, my last three boyfriends cheated on me. Have you ever been cheated on? It makes you doubt yourself. It makes you scared that you’re not good enough to have a guy who’s willing to commit to you one-hundred-percent.

I know this is going to sound twisted, but I almost blamed myself for being cheated on. I mean, when the first guy cheated on me, I blamed him. By the time Matt cheated on me though, I was starting to wonder if it was something I was doing wrong. I know that’s crazy, but those are the fears that ran through my mind every single day.

So I accepted Rob’s proposal, or should I say, his non-proposal. I mean, he didn’t even really out and out ask me to marry him. He just talked about how it would be a good career move for him. But I accepted. And now I have to live with my decision.

Chapter 27

Lacey

T
HE NEXT MORNING WHEN I
woke I felt terrible. I lay in my bed and stared at the ceiling. Who could I call?

Rob? I took my phone from my bedside table and scrolled down to his name. My thumb hovered over the green calling icon, but I couldn’t bring myself to press it. My new fiancé, and I couldn’t call him. I didn’t want to call him. I wanted to call Grant.

My stomach heaved. I leapt from the bed and got to my bathroom just in time to throw up.

And before you say anything, I know what you’re thinking. Morning sickness, right? I’ll be honest. That’s what I thought too. My night of passion with Grant? That one night that was supposed to be our secret, that no one was ever going to find out about, that was never going to lead to any consequences. That night we’d decided not to use a condom because Grant thought it would be sexier. That night that he’d spilled his semen into me and I hadn’t even had the good sense to use the morning after pill. That night he’d told me to call him husband.

Yup. That night.

Maybe I’d been hoping for this all along. I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything any more. My life was falling to pieces all around me, and I’d just accepted a proposal from a man I wasn’t in love with. As I cleaned myself up and left the bathroom, I made a note to call my doctor. I needed a pregnancy test. Not exactly the ideal thing to be taking care of the day after being proposed to by another man, but I didn’t have a choice.