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Feeling like she should apologize or something, B.J. stalled a moment by checking all her gauges and making sure everything was still running smoothly. But just as suddenly, she felt like a big weenie. What the hell did she want to apologize for? This was her plane, and B.J. never watched her words. She had a right to talk about her old babysitter if she wanted to.
Lifting her chin in stubborn rebellion, she nodded her head in his direction and found a fresh piece of gum in her front shirt pocket to stuff inside her cheek. “You ain’t so meaty around the ribs anymore. I just figured you might be missing out on your three square meals.”
There. She’d shown him. She hadn’t backed down from the formidable Grady Rawlings. And she’d dared to mention his wife.
He was quiet a moment before he answered with a quiet, “I get by.”
Thinking back on Amy, B.J. let out a quick laugh. “I remember when she used to babysit Rudy and me. She never did cook much, but this one time it was Pop’s birthday. She wanted to bake him a cake and, man. . .”
She paused to shake her head at the fond memory. “She didn’t check the oven before she turned it on. Preheated it to three hundred fifty degrees. But not two minutes into whipping the batter, she stopped and sniffed the air. ‘You smell something burning, B.J.?’ she asked me. So, we ran to the oven and pulled it open, only to find a stack of magazines catching fire.
“I guess since no one ever used our oven, Leroy had been hiding his porn in there. I couldn’t tell who was more upset over the whole ordeal. Leroy because all his good smut was charred black, or Amy because she was afraid she’d ruined our stove.”
Grady looked a little shell-shoc
ked, like he couldn’t believe someone other than he had a memory of Amy tucked away inside them. He frowned thoughtfully. “I remember her telling me about that.”
“That’s right,” B.J. said, her shoulders slumping because her story wasn’t as original as it could’ve been. “I forgot. You were seeing her back then too, weren’t you?”
“Yeah,” he returned. “I was.”
The way he said “was” about broke her heart. She wasn’t typically such a softy, but she didn’t understand why people had to suffer. If an animal was in pain, you put it out of its misery.
Once she’d gone with Pop to the vet when they’d had their old, cancer-ridden dog, Charlie Horse, put to sleep. She remembered feeling relieved Charlie wasn’t going to hurt anymore. But B.J. didn’t know how to deal with humans in pain. Couldn’t exactly put them to sleep when they hurt too much.
It bothered her more than she could describe to watch someone’s feelings bleed out. Since Grady Rawlings’ wound was over two years old, it was even more disheartening.
B.J. didn’t do sympathy well, so she shut her trap for the rest of the ride.
****
If a pair of white-hot needles had been jammed into each of his temples, Grady didn’t think his skull could ache any more than it throbbed now. But flying always did that to him, messing with his equilibrium until his head felt like it was going to internally combust.
By the time his meeting let out, all he wanted to do was crawl back to his hotel, find a bed, and overdose on some Tylenol so he could fall into a coma-like state for a week or so.
As his buyer pushed to his feet, he did the same, ignoring the persistent pulse behind his eyes. They both moved out of the way of the table and toward the exit.
“Always good doing business with you, Grady,” Hammond Weatherly said as he thrust out his hand for a hearty shake.
“You as well,” he murmured, accepting the Texas-sized grip Weatherly strapped onto his palm.
“Been a while since you came around here, though. I’d been dealing with your dad so much lately, I kinda figured you’d stepped out of the family business.”
“No,” Grady said. He probably would’ve tacked on a few more comments if his head weren’t so sore. Then again, he really didn’t want to get into any of the reasons why he’d been off the grid in the past few years. “I’ve been around,” he finally supplied with a lame attempt not to sound rude.
“Well, I don’t know how long it’s been since I last saw you,” Weatherly mused more to himself, scratching his chin and frowning a second before his face cleared. Then he snapped his fingers and pointed at Grady. “Now I remember. Your wife was expecting her first last time we met up.” He grinned. “Was it a boy or girl?”
For a second, Grady couldn’t talk. . . couldn’t breathe. Agony clogged his chest, and he forgot about the hammering in his temples. His vision blurred, going foggy and slanted. He concentrated on sucking oxygen back into his lungs and blinking until the world veered back into focus.
Weatherly didn’t know. About Amy, or the baby, or any of it.
Grady cleared his throat, lowered his eyes to the floor and mumbled, “It was a boy.” Which wasn’t a lie. It had been a boy. A dead boy, but Grady didn’t particularly want to divulge that detail and make the both of them uncomfortable.
Weatherly chuckled and slugged Grady companionably on the shoulder. “Guess I owe you a belated congratulations, old son. Had any more since the first?”
Unable to speak, Grady shook his head. He lifted his face and managed a tight smile. “I need to go.” His voice sounded like shredded gravel, but at least he’d managed to utter understandable words.
“Oh, sure, sure,” Weatherly said, taking a step back to let Grady pass. “You got a long drive ahead of you.”
