AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You’re not some scheming gold-digger. You’re not out to hurt or cheat anyone. You’re just a woman who’s in love with a man.”
She sucked in a surprised breath. Wow, it felt extremely uncomfortable to hear anyone actually say that aloud. She sent Grady’s dad a leery look. “You’re not going to tell him that, are you?”
Tucker sputtered out a surprised laugh. After a moment, though, he squeezed her fingers reassuringly. “I’ll leave that detail to you.”
Her shoulders deflated, and she nearly fainted once again.
“Oh! Before I forget. Here. This is for you.” Tucker yanked an all-too-familiar-looking document from his back pocket and tried to hand it to her.
B.J. backed away from the deed as if it had lice. Then she lifted her eyes. “I can’t take anything for marrying Grady.”
Lips parting in dawning realization, Tucker glanced down at his hand and then tried to shove it at her again. “Well, look at it as a wedding present then.”
She shook her head. “I can’t take it,” she whispered.
Tucker looked distinctly uncomfortable as he continued to hold out his hand. “B.J., honestly. I don’t want your plane.”
He glanced in horror at her Cessna, and B.J. finally grinned. “I’ll tell you what,” she relented. “How about I make the same payments to you I was making to the bank and buy it back?”
“That would work,” he said, his shoulders sagging as tension eased out of them. “That would work just fine.”
“And about the prenuptial agreement,” B.J. started. “I don’t mind letting Grady have everything that’s already his. But the baby—”
“I’ll have a new agreement worked up by the end of the week,” Tucker said.
This time it was B.J. who was relieved. “Thank you,” she said.
He nodded. Thinking that was all the business they had to discuss, B.J. shifted when Grady’s dad merely stared at her a moment longer.
“I, uh, came to give you something else too,” he finally said. She frowned just as he added, “This,” and enfolded her into a huge hug. Too bowled over to resist the fatherly embrace, she just stood there like an idiot with her arms hanging down limply at her sides.
“Thank you,” he said into her hair, “thank you so much for bringing my boy back.”
Confused, she pulled away and looked up at him.
He smiled, his eyes damp with emotion. “I never thought we’d see the old Grady again. He was so lost. But when he came into work this morning. . .”
For a second he looked too choked to speak. Then he broke int
o another brilliant grin. “He was smiling. You made him smile.”
Emotions engulfing her, B.J. covered her mouth with her hands and burst into tears.
Chapter Nineteen
B.J. didn’t want to blame it on Tucker’s visit, but after he left, something inside her shifted. After locking herself in the bathroom until she’d stopped bawling and the red blotchiness left her face, she emerged a different woman entirely, humming as she returned to her plane.
Leroy paused to send her a strange look.
“What?” she asked as she moved by.
“You okay?” he asked, wrinkling his face and sending her the strangest expression.
She frowned. “Sure. Why?”
He shrugged. “Don’t know. You’re just acting awfully. . .girly all of the sudden.”
B.J. rolled her eyes and turned away. “Well, thank God I’m a girl then.”
