“What business is it of yours?” Kate shot back. “I’m sure you were plowing through every brothel you came across while you were in the Marines.”
“No,” Grant said, “I wasn’t.” He had both hands gripping the wheel of the car.
“Pull over!” Kate shouted.
Grant wrenched the wheel of the car onto the shoulder of the road. Kate threw the door open, crying.
“You are a horrible person. I have the worst taste in men.”
“You are such a bully,” Kate’s grandmother said, hitting him over the head with her pocket book.
Grant ignored her, got out of the car, and went over to Kate.
“Just leave me here,” she said, crying.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Kate… it’s just… I…”
She sagged forward, and he reached for her, thinking she was going to faint. But she threw up all over the ground instead. As she hunched over, crying, he stroked her hair.
“Come on. Let’s go home.”
She kept crying, and Grant picked her up in his arms then carried her to the car. He placed her in the back seat and closed the door. He drove the rest of the way in silence with Kate leaning against her grandmother, her mascara smeared messily around her eyes.
They arrived back to New Cardiff, and Grant dropped Kate and her grandmother off at their house. He helped the maid walk the elderly woman into the house and up the stairs. He didn’t say goodbye to Kate, just slunk out the door and returned to his father’s house. Walter was there, eating dinner, when he got back.
“How was it?” he asked jovially.
“It was fine. I was a main attraction. Jack’s wife, Nancy, said we had to come to her dinner party.”
“I’ll probably be on a business trip, so you’ll have to represent.”
“She wants me to make you come too.”
Walter grimaced.
“Is that all you do?” Grant demanded. “Work?”
“That’s how you were so successful in the military,” Walter countered. “You understand what it takes to succeed.”
“Yes,” Grant said, “and I regret it. An institution doesn’t love you back. It doesn’t care about your sacrifice. It will take everything you can give and more, then it will cast you by the wayside.”
“I just can’t,” his father said. “It’s who I am. It’s how I built this business.”
“Fine,” Grant said.
He got up and left the table, ignoring his father’s words to come sit back down. He didn’t want to hear any more. These people were all the same—too much money, no values. He thought about Kate. He knew he shouldn’t judge her. He wanted her to be perfect. Shewasperfect. She was everything he didn’t know he wanted. He looked through the trees through his window, imagining he could see to her grandmother’s house.
He changed into dark clothes he could move around in and put on his boots and a jacket. Leaving his corgi asleep on his bed, he crept downstairs and headed off. As he reached the edge of the light thrown from the porch, he felt for his gun. Check. Knife, check. He didn’t want anyone surprising him. He still didn’t know what to think of the letter. It was strange to send someone in the middle of the night just to deliver a note. But then his father was single-minded and overbearing. Maybe his birth mother felt she had no choice.
He made his way silently through the woods. He paused every so often to see if anyone was out there, but he appeared to be alone. He got to a tall metal fence on the property. He took a running leap and caught his palms on the top then pulled himself up and over to land in a crouch on the other side. Grant didn’t think he’d tripped an alarm, so he kept going through the trees. They thinned out, then he was past the pool house and finally at the back of Kate’s house.
None of the rooms were lit up. He saw one that had a balcony on it. Maybe that was her room. He used the planters and the decorative ledges to scale up the wall, and he hoisted himself over the balcony and landed silently on the balls of his feet. Carefully, hoping he didn’t set off an alarm, he slowly used his knife to jimmy the French door open and slipped into the room. Jackpot.
He saw Kate sprawled asleep on the bed. She had pulled off her shirt and bra then was probably too tired from the sun and the alcohol to finish getting ready for bed and had lain down to rest her eyes then fallen asleep. Her hair was spread out around her. The sliver of moonlight was just enough for Grant to make out the curves of her breasts, the nipples perky in the slight chill of the room. He felt himself grow hard.
