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“Excuse me?” she said. “You have no right to tell me what to do.” Grant had never spoken to her like this. Sure, he’d come for her and clearly cared and was protective, but the macho man telling the woman what she could and couldn’t do? “What is the matter with you? This is my job, and I can take care of myself.”
“Hannah, look at your fucking eye!”
She couldn’t. But she could feel it. It was throbbing and hot, and she’d bet she’d have a nice shiner in the morning.
“I wasn’t hit—it was part of the scuffle. I caught an elbow.”
“Oh, well, then that makes things much better. You still got hurt in a bar fight!”
“Stop yelling at me!” she said. That’s when she glanced around and noticed the entire bar watching them. Thank God it was loud, between the music and conversations, but Hannah and Grant were clearly the ones on display.
She took a step toward Grant and lowered her voice. “I get that you’re upset with what you saw,” she said, “but we’ll discuss this later. This is my job, Grant.”
“The discussion is over. I’ve been supportive of your job, but it’s not worth you getting physically hurt. That’s the line, Hannah. You can’t expect me to be okay with you going to work where you could get the shit beat out of you.”
She pursed her lips. “It’s a bar, Grant. What did you think would happen?”
“I thought it was a sleepy town. Not a place where people brawl. You can’t work here. It’s unsafe. You’re by yourself a lot and you have a damn bat. It’s not safe.”
Her eyes shot wide. She’d never heard anyone tell her what to do. “You have no right to demand a thing from me.”
He shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair. “Of course I don’t. Because I’m nothing to you.”
She frowned. Where the hell had that come from? Before she could address the look in Grant’s eyes, which resembled what she could only guess was fear, red and blue lights flickered outside the bar.
Looked like Gabe had shown up and was dealing with the drunk on the street. At least everyone was looking out the windows and crowding around the door now. This was a sleepy town, and serious brawls didn’t really happen. Tonight wasn’t that big of a deal. But she couldn’t explain that to Grant now.
Grant looked at her and let out a heavy breath. Hannah couldn’t shake the feeling that he was exhausted with her. Her stomach burned and bubbled with nerves.
“Come home with me,” he said.
She shook her head. “I have to close up. It’s last call, and I’ll be another half hour.”
“Fine,” he said and walked past her to sit at the bar. “Last call!” he yelled out to the crowd. It was clear he was going to park his ass right there until Hannah was done and closed and heading home.
With her own heavy exhale, she loosened her grip on the bat and walked behind the bar. She started to pour the last rounds for people and prepared to close. A dark pair of eyes watched her the entire time. How had tonight started with her worrying about Grant and his world and turned into Grant mad at Hannah for her world?
She had a feeling that their worlds were much farther apart than she’d ever thought.
Chapter Ten
Grant was running down the beach for the fourth time in two days. He needed some way to reset his mind. But with every thump of his feet in the sand, he only thought of Hannah more.
It was clear she was giving him the silent treatment lately. He’d felt it the past few days since the “scuffle at the bar,” as she’d called it.
He’d call it a brawl that got her hurt. And every time he looked at his beautiful wife and saw the light blue bruise lining her cheekbone near her eye, he wanted to kill that drunk. He didn’t give two flying asses that the man hadn’t technically hit her. She had gotten hurt. Put herself between two men in a fucking bar fight!
His mind was screaming at him, and Grant just ran faster. With the way he was feeling, he could be halfway to Washington by now. Staying along the beach and pounding sand until he got this rage out of him.
Faster still. Thinking of all the things he wanted to do to Hannah. He wanted to smack her ass and tell her that she was never to put herself in danger. He wanted to toss her over his shoulder and keep her in bed on the brink of orgasm for a week until she was begging and dying from the torture and agreed to any terms he had.
She was stubborn. And she was trying to buy that bar. But he had thought that after that fight, she’d not want a thing to do with the place. Grant had walked in to escort her home and had never been so terrified in his life. Seeing his petite wife get tossed around, then use a bat to defend herself, had made his heart stop.
He’d never seen a woman look so capable yet so fragile in his entire life.
He didn’t know what the hell to do. He needed her to come to New York with him now. But she was dead set on owning her bar. Maybe once she got that, she could hire a manager and check in on the place once a month. He’d happily fly here with her to do that. So long as it meant she stayed out of harm’s way. He needed to wrap this up, though, because he was done playing. He wanted his wife. Their two weeks had dwindled down to a couple of days and still . . . no sign that she would stay married to him.
He’d made headway, but in the end, he wasn’t sure it was enough to convince her to be with him.
