The Lonely Heart (15 page)

“Butt out.” The man turned around to snarl at the interruption and Isaiah let him have it. His fist connected with a solid, satisfying thunk.

“Isaiah, get out of here.”

“Shut up, Grady.”

Isaiah swung out and landed a good kick at the man he’d just slugged, immensely pleased when the man hit the ground. The other two stared at him for a minute, frozen in obvious shock that anyone would interfere.

Then the smallest of them—Isaiah thought the bastard’s name was Clinton Morris—

shook off his surprise.

“This is none of your business, fag,” he snapped. “We’re dealing with the idiot right now. We’ll get to you later.”

“You did
not
just say that.” Isaiah donned his best snarl and dived at the man. They slammed together and hit the ground, rolling. Behind and above them, Grady yelled something. Over the panting breath in his ear, Isaiah heard the sound of smacking flesh. He sure hoped it was Grady doing the hitting, because he was too occupied at the moment to help his boss out.

Isaiah blocked a knee that would have done significant damage to one of his best features and elbowed Morris in the gut. Hard. The smaller man gagged in his ear and Isaiah rolled aside just in time, as Morris vomited onto the cement.

Two down, one to go. Isaiah stood up, brushing himself off. Nope, none to go. While he’d been preoccupied, Grady had apparently pulled himself together long enough to slam the third man into the nearest wall. He now lay sprawled at Grady’s feet, mouth gaping as he lay unconscious in a pile of dirty snow.

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Isaiah leaned over and braced his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. Now that the danger was over and the adrenaline rush was beginning to dissipate, his jaw stung like a son of a bitch.

“Isaiah, what the fuck are you doing here?” Grady leaned against a wall, looking not much better than Isaiah felt.

“Looking for you, what else? Want to explain what the hell I just walked into?”

Grady shrugged. “Just the usual.”

Something about Grady’s words rang false. Or at least, false with the usual story he fed Isaiah. For one thing, Grady looked stone-cold sober. Getting jumped—because that was clearly what had happened—was generally enough to start the process. But Grady didn’t look like he’d been drinking much and when Isaiah leaned closer, all he could smell was blood and the faintest hint of beer.

Isaiah straightened and yanked his shirt out of his jeans, using the edge to wipe some of the sweat off his face. Didn’t matter how cold it was, fighting worked up a sweat.

“Come on,” he said evenly. “Let’s get out of here before they come around. I’ve got some rags in the truck. You can clean yourself up and we’ll get something to eat. You can tell me all about your little Friday night adventures over food.”

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Isaiah exited the small alley, slipping on a patch of ice. Grady grabbed him, but the man was none too steady himself and nearly took them both down.

“Do me a favour,” Isaiah said. “Don’t help.”

“Sorry.”

Isaiah couldn’t seem to find his anger anymore. Of course, nothing relieved stress quite like a good old-fashioned knock-down, drag-out fight. But beyond that, Grady looked so miserable. Isaiah had seen that same chastised look on Josh’s face a few days ago, when he’d been caught sneaking out to the barn at two in the morning. Isaiah thought sometimes they might as well just build the kid a bedroom in the stable and stop fighting upstream.

Streetlights were flickering on all down the street as they reached Isaiah’s truck. He unlocked it and rooted in the back, coming up with a couple of extremely stained towels.

They’d do the job. He chucked one at Grady. Grady didn’t duck fast enough and caught the towel right in the face. Isaiah had to snicker a bit at that.

Grady peeled the towel from his face and wiped at his nose.

“Here, let me do that,” Isaiah said. “You’re just smearing.”

Grady’s hand dropped to one side as Isaiah used a second towel to wipe away the worst of the blood streaking Grady’s sharp features.

“Well, it’s not broken,” Isaiah commented when he finally removed enough blood to examine Grady’s nose. “That’s something at least.”

“Sure feels broken,” Grady groused.

“Yeah, I’m sure it does. Your eyes are gonna be beautiful tomorrow.”

“Great.”

Something in Grady’s eyes made Isaiah suddenly uncomfortable. He finished cleaning up the most visible injuries, swiped at his knuckles, and tossed the towels back into the truck.

“Come on,” he ordered in a hoarse voice that really didn’t sound like his. “I was starving before that fight. Now I’m about ready to pass out.”

“So that’s where Josh gets it,” Grady commented.

“Gets what?”

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“That incredible appetite that belongs on someone about three times your size.”

“Oh. That.” Isaiah shrugged. “It’s been a long day and I didn’t get lunch.”

They climbed into the truck and Isaiah pointed his ancient baby in the direction of his favourite restaurant. They made the drive in a silence that was surprisingly not awkward.

Normally Isaiah would be wiggling in his seat with the need to get answers, but not this time. He figured it was probably because he halfway knew what sort of explanation he’d be getting. And he didn’t really want to hear it.

But he needed to.

Isaiah pulled up in front of the small steakhouse, pleased when he was able to find a spot that didn’t require parking three blocks away. The Lone Star was a popular place, but they were able to get right in. Once Isaiah had ordered a beer—and it didn’t escape his notice that Grady ordered iced tea—he plopped his menu on the table, folded his hands on top of it, and stared at Grady with probing eyes. Isaiah was extremely pleased with himself when the man actually squirmed a touch on the bench. Isaiah had been practicing his stern expression.

He figured it was the first parenting skill he should acquire.

“So,” he drawled evenly. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”

Grady drew small circles with the water that had dripped off his glass and onto the gleaming wood. “It’s nothing,” he hedged. “Just a couple of guys I don’t get along with.”

“It’s a bit more than that and we both know it. Rib eye, medium rare, slaw and onion rings,” he told the waiter. He didn’t need to look at the menu. Isaiah wasn’t ashamed to admit he was a creature of habit.

“Same,” Grady said, handing over his menu. Isaiah waited for the server to leave before he pounced again.

“What I want to know is why you let me assume that you were coming into town and picking fights. Why the hell didn’t you tell me you were getting jumped?”

“Are you so sure that’s what happened every time? Maybe that’s normally how it goes.”

“Grady, you’re testing my patience,” Isaiah declared.

Grady sighed and looked away. His finger had stopped circling but now his knee was jiggling. Isaiah could feel it brushing against his leg. He wanted to reach over and hold Grady still but settled for bumping the other side of the booth with his heel.

“Grady.”

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Grady sighed again.

“You’re gonna make me think you’re asthmatic.”

“You know, you’re in a pretty good mood for someone who just got in a fight,” Grady pointed out.

“I’m in a good mood
because
I just got in a fight,” Isaiah corrected. “I’ve been edgy all day. Slugging that jerk made it all go away. Like magic. Maybe I’ll have to join you in town more often.”

“You don’t want to do that.”

Isaiah raised his eyebrows and slid back in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest.

“We’ve got a good twenty minutes before the food gets here. Even then, I’m not moving until you start talking. So, start.”

“I’m… Did you know I never finished high school?”

Okay. Not what he’d been expecting to hear, but Isaiah could run with it. “Hate to tell you, big guy, but that’s not all that unusual around here.”

“I dropped out of school in sixth grade.”

But that
was
unusual. “They let you do that?”

Grady shrugged. “They were glad to be rid of me, to be honest. I was making them look bad.”

“I don’t see how. You were just a kid. What, did you make a habit of spray-painting bad words on the gym wall or something?”

“No,” Grady replied. “That would have been Morris.”

“Ah. The bastard I slugged earlier?”

“Yep.”

“Excellent. I always like it when I actually punch out someone unlikeable.”

“You are so strange sometimes.”

“But I got you to smile, didn’t I?”

Grady’s lips went from twitching to full-out tilting. Damn, but the man looked good when he smiled. His hazel eyes lightened and the lines around the corners deepened. This time it was Isaiah who squirmed, but it sure as hell wasn’t from nerves. No, sir. He was just trying to keep his suddenly constricting jeans from squashing something important.

“So, tell me about why you dropped out. And about Morris and his little buddies.”

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The smile slid away. Isaiah would have mourned its loss, but Grady didn’t give him time.

“Morris, Thomason, and Ellis hate me. Always have, ever since we went to school together. But I…” Grady stopped and bit his lip. “I don’t want you to change the way you look at me,” he confessed.

“And how do I look at you?” Isaiah asked with genuine interest.

“Like I’m somebody special.”

The words were whispered so quietly that Isaiah actually had to lean over the table a bit to hear them over the slight buzz of the crowded restaurant.

“Grady, you are someone special.” He should have felt like a dork saying that, but instead it felt…right. Grady was a far better man than he seemed to think and he held a very important place in Isaiah’s life. Maybe it was time Isaiah showed him.

“Why did you drop out of school so young?” Isaiah pressed. Somehow, this was at the heart of everything, he knew it. The distance Grady kept between himself and others, the low opinion he had of himself. And most especially the way he didn’t seem to think he was good enough for Isaiah.

“I can’t read,” Grady confessed.

“All right,” Isaiah said slowly. “So your reading level is a little underage. We can work on—”

“No, I
can’t
read,” Grady insisted. “I never could. When the other kids were all learning how to string letters together into words and sentences, I just looked at a page full of weird symbols that I could never decipher, no matter how desperately I tried.”

“You’re dyslexic.” Isaiah didn’t know why he was surprised, really. It made a heck of a lot of sense. The way Grady had been so desperate to find a new business manager that he’d hire a greenhorn right out of college. The way he always assisted Isaiah with the books—

mainly by tossing ideas around from opposite sides of the room. The way he signed his name, just two big scrawls where the only letters identifiable were the ‘D’ and the ‘G’.

“Grady, a learning disability isn’t anything to be ashamed of,” Isaiah said earnestly. “I don’t think less of you. Hell, I think I probably admire you even more. To be where you are, you must have fought damn hard.”

“You know why the books were such a mess when you took the job?” Grady’s jaw was clenched and he spat the words out.

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Isaiah gave a sigh of his own and sat back. For some reason, Grady seemed determined to make Isaiah think badly of him. It wasn’t going to happen, but Isaiah would let Grady vent for a bit before Isaiah told him that. “The books were pretty screwed up,” Isaiah said by way of encouragement.

“After my dad died, my sister Tracy took over handling the business side of the ranch.

She let the whole system go to hell because all she cared about was milking as much cash as she could out of the accounts. You know what she said the day she left? That it was easy because I was too much of an idiot to figure out what was going on.”

“Sorry to say this, but your sister sounds like a real bitch.”

“She is. But she was right.”

Isaiah had a flashback to the fight and the word Morris had sneered.
Idiot.

“You’re not an idiot,” Isaiah told Grady firmly. “In fact, I think you’re probably one of the smartest guys I’ve ever known. You can’t read, but you’ve done a pretty darn amazing job of coming up with creative ways to cope with that lack. A guy lacking in the intelligence department wouldn’t be able to do that.”

Grady clearly wasn’t buying it. All right, Isaiah wasn’t giving up, but he’d shelve the topic for now. He let Grady have a few moments reprieve while he finished his beer. Then their food came and Isaiah remembered how hungry he was. When about half his steak was gone and his stomach had stopped snarling, he decided Grady’s reprieve was over.

“Somehow I don’t see Morris beating you up on a semi-monthly basis just because you can’t read,” he proposed. “So are you going to tell me exactly what those fights have been about?”

“I already told you, they hate me.”

“Grady, you can’t lie worth a damn. Never play poker with Josh.”

Grady snorted, choking on his tea. “That’s a new one.”

“Yeah. The boys decided to educate him. I think they’re regretting it now.”

“They know about you.”

Isaiah put down his glass, taken by surprise when Grady blurted out the words so quickly that they tumbled practically on top of each other.

“Know what?” he asked.

“That you’re…you know, gay.” Grady whispered the last word like a little old lady confessing a shameful secret to her preacher.