Hustler_A Second Chance Romance Read online

  “Any idea of where you might want to eat?” I asked.

  “The buffet’s always good,” Grace said.

  “I’m not taking you to belly up at a buffet looking like that, woman.”

  “Then—what about that sushi place? Do you like sushi?” she asked.

  “Guess I’m going to find out,” I said.

  We pulled into the parking lot and were whisked away to a booth in the back. I ordered a beer and Grace had a cocktail stuffed with fruit.

  Fuck she’s beautiful.

  Even in the dim light her features were vibrant. I couldn't get over how those dimples still called to my lips, and how her eyes still drew me in after all these years.

  I wanted to run my fingers through her hair and pull her lips to mine like I used to.

  “So, who’s watching your daughter tonight?” I asked.

  “My mom,” Grace said.

  “How’s she doing?” I asked, trying to keep my voice even. Grace’s mother had never liked me, and the feeling had been mutual.

  “She’s good. Perky as ever. Still a morning person, which I still don’t understand.”

  “You’ve never enjoyed the rising of the sun,” I said.

  “If you’ve seen it once, you’ve seen it all,” she said.

  “Not really. You ever see the sun rise over the ocean on the West Coast?”

  “Have you?” she asked.

  “I’ve been to a few places.”

  “Like where?” she asked.

  “California. Michigan. Kansas.”

  “I was supposed to travel,” she said. “But life had other plans for me.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  I watched her heave a heavy sigh before she took a sip of her drink.

  “Gotta be drunk for this story?” I asked.

  “Might as well be,” she said. “You know I went to Texas for college after high school.”

  “Yep. I remember,” I said.

  “Well, I met a man stationed at Dyess Air Force Base.”

  “Ah, landed yourself a military man.”

  “I did. We got pregnant with Harper and figured we might as well get married. I was able to get on his insurance so my pregnancy and delivery were covered and he was given extra bonuses to help when was deployed.”

  She sounded like she was trying to explain herself to me.

  “I’m not judging you, if that’s what you think,” I said. “You sound like a good mother.”

  “And he was a good father.”

  “Was?” I asked.

  She nodded, a pained look crossing her features. “He had one last deployment before he was eligible to get out of the service. By that time we had actually fallen in love and he couldn’t take being away from Harper and I. He had decided that when he came home from that deployment, he would be done for good.”

  “He didn’t come back, did he?” I asked.

  Grace shook her head and I felt my stomach sink for her.

  “Then the rest is history. I moved back to Tell City to raise her near family, got a job at the bank, blah blah blah.”

  “Don’t do that. No blah blah blah. That’s your life. It might not be glamorous, but when is it ever? You’re taking care of your kid and raising her around the only family she’s got. That tells me what kind of a mother you are,” I said.

  “I hate that Harper’s never gonna have memories of her father , though. She was only seven months old when he died.”

  “You’ll get to tell her that her dad was a hero. Every kid wants their dad to be a hero, Grace.”

  I sure as hell wanted mine to be one.

  “How is your dad, by the way?”

  “About as good as an inmate with a forty-year sentence can be,” I said.

  “Forty years?” she asked.

  “That’s what you get when you knock off eight banks,” I said.

  “I’m so sorry. That can’t be easy on you guys. How’s Jason?” she asked.

  “Smart as a fucking whip, Grace. He wants to be a Forensic Psychologist when he goes to college. You know he’s already placed out of regular science classes so he’s taking college-level Chemistry? At sixteen.”

  “You know you could’ve done something like that.”

  “Nah. I had Jason to raise. He was only eight when I graduated high school. I couldn't go off to college like you did.”

  “A lot of good it did me. I got pregnant, married, and didn’t graduate with any semblance of a degree until two years ago.”

  “But you did it, and that takes a lot of work. Especially with a career and raising a daughter. You’ve grown into a wonderful woman, Grace. Stop with the self-degradation.”

  “What did you do after high school?” she asked.

  Shit. Here come the bullshit lies.

  I was used to lying to everyone in my life, but Grace was another story. This wouldn’t be easy, but I knew what I was getting myself into by agreeing to take her out on a date.

  “Construction,” I said. “Pays decent and I started saving for Jason’s college.”

  “It must have been really tough for you guys after your dad went to jail. I mean, this isn’t exactly a metropolis. People had to have been talking. I wished for a long time that I could have stayed and helped you through it,” she said.

  I shook my head and smiled sadly. “No, you had a life to get to. We did alright. We moved away for a while to get away from the scrutiny. I didn’t want Jason hearing the things people were saying about our dad.”

  “Do you guys see him regularly?”

  “We try,” I said.

  Our sushi came to the table and Grace’s eyes lit up. The way she used her chopsticks to eat her food made me laugh. It kept falling apart on her and she’d stick her tongue out to try and catch it. It was funny and a complete turn on at the same time.

  I stuck with my fork while she struggled, and soon she gave it up altogether.

  “I don’t know how people can eat with those things,” she said.

  “I’m not sure why you kept trying,” I said.

  “I always told myself I’d learn to eat with them, so I keep trying, but I sure don’t know how people get full off those small little bites they pick up.”

  “Here,” I said. “Use this.”

  I picked up her fork and wiggled it in front of her face as a smile crossed her lips.

  “Give me that,” she said.

  I relaxed back into my seat and I settled my foot against hers. She didn’t make a move to pull back and I could see her cheeks flushing.

  What a beautiful color it was. Her creamy skin tinted with a blush that gave her thoughts away.

  But reality quickly set in.

  If this bank heist was going to go off without a hitch, I needed to make sure she was safe. I wasn’t going to let her get caught up in what we were about to do. That meant finding out her schedule, so we could plan around it.

  “Do you usually have Fridays off?” I asked.

  “Hmm?”

  “Fridays. Are they your usual day off?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes. Fridays and Saturdays. I’m the only one that takes the Sunday shift.”

  “You guys are open on Sundays?” I asked.

  “For truncated hours, yeah. But my boss takes Saturdays and Sundays off, so one of us has to be there for the six hours the bank is open for business. I take that day, and it’s a nice break from having to work around Lionel.”

  “Have you told anyone about him?” I asked.

  “I don’t really have anything to tell. He makes me uncomfortable, but he’s never made a move on me. Sexual harassment policies are like restraining orders. Something has to physically happen before it can be reported and dealt with accordingly.”

  “Total bullshit,” I said.

  “Welcome to being a woman in the workplace.”

  “A real man controls himself. I mean, I’m sitting here in front of you right now and I’m not trying to hop down your throat.”

  “You s
aying you wanna lose control with me?” she asked.

  “You’re the only woman I’ve ever lost control with, Grace.”

  I watched a small smile twitch her cheek as those sweet dimples started to indent in her skin.

  “Guess I must look pretty good in this dress.” she asked.

  “It would look better on the floorboard of my car,” I said, with a grin.

  “Brings back high school memories.”

  “But the oldies are always the goodies.”

  We finished up our dinner and I drove her on home. I wanted to ride around with her all night, with the windows down and the wind whipping through her hair, like the good old days when shit wasn’t so complicated.

  But she had a daughter to get back to and a life to keep living and I had to make sure Kenneth and I planned this damn robbery with zero loose strings.

  “I had a great time tonight,” Grace said.

  “I did, too,” I said.

  The moonlight against her skin beckoned to my fingertips. I lifted my hand to cup her cheek, allowing my thumb to trace her dimple. Her eyes dipped to my mouth and I closed the gap between us, guiding her rosy red lips to mine.

  Before I knew it, my arms were wrapped around her as our teeth clattered together.

  She moaned into me, arching her luxurious body into my muscles. I gripped her ass, allowing her dress to drift up the backs of her legs. She tasted like sweetened alcohol and memories of the past. Our noses pressed together so tightly I couldn't breathe. I inhaled her, our tongues battling for dominance as I pressed her into the railing of her porch.

  Her legs spread for me, allowing me to sink closer to her as our lips parted.

  I wanted more, and I knew she did too. She was grinding against my thickening cock and her hands were tangled in my hair. Her nose nuzzled against mine as my hands fell to her thighs.

  But I couldn't have her.

  I couldn’t take it any farther than this.

  “Goodnight, Grace,” I said, with a whisper.

  Then I stepped away and strode for my car before I changed my fucking mind.

  CHAPTER 4

  GRACE

  I can’t put my finger on it.

  Ryan was the same man, but he was distracted.

  Maybe it was the surreal reality of us running into each other after so many years. As I laid there in bed waiting for Harper to wake up, my mind drifted back to last night. Some things with Ryan felt as if they had never changed.

  It was just as easy to talk to him last night as it had been all those years ago. The way I opened up to him about Grant—the way I had wanted to.

  It was astounding.

  I hadn’t talked that freely about what happened to him in a long time.

  And how easy it had been for Ryan to fill me on things with his father. That had always been a touchy subject, especially during our senior year. Ryan’s father had been arrested just before Thanksgiving and it lead to a rough patch in our relationship. He pulled away and was angry as hell. Instead of dealing with his feelings, he distracted himself by getting involved with the wrong crowd.

  He was clearly hurting.

  He didn’t talk to me for weeks. I knew that he didn’t want to get me involved, but it still hurt that he shut me out.

  It was like pulling teeth to get him to tell me what was going on in his head and eventually lead to our break-up.

  But last night, he opened up to me as easily as I had him.

  I always wanted to make things work with him even after our breakup. I’d loved him, in that first love sort of way. I tried to keep in touch throughout my freshman year, but he was always distancing himself. Keeping in touch became harder and harder. And soon, the phone calls and conversations ceased altogether.

  Last night, however, felt like we had never skipped a beat. It was easy to be around him and it was easy to feel happy with him, to be comforted by his presence like I had been in high school. And he still wore a leather jacket well.

  “Mommy?”

  “Mmm, yes Harper?”

  “Can we cuddle?”

  “Of course we can, sweetheart. Get on up here,” I said.

  I heard the pitter patter of my daughter’s feet before she climbed up onto the bed. She giggled as she crawled up to me, then she burrowed beneath the covers. She pressed her body into mine and stuck her cold feet beneath my thigh. I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her into me, showering her face and head with kisses.

  “How’d you sleep?” I asked.

  “Good. How’d you sleep?”

  “I slept very well, thank you for asking. What did you and Grandma do last night?”

  “She cooked breakfast for dinner!”

  “Oh, I am so jealous. Do you know what I had for dinner?”

  “What?” she asked.

  “Raw fish.”

  “Eeww, and you kissed me!”

  “And I’m about to do it again!”

  I rolled over and covered my daughter’s face in kisses. She giggled and squirmed, then started pressing kisses back. I held her tightly in my arms and rolled us back over, then watched as she straddled my stomach. She was bouncing on me and I was making fake dying noises, causing full-bellied laughter to fall from her lips.

  I loved that she had my dimples.

  “What are we gonna do today?” Harper asked.

  “What do you want to do today?”

  “Can we go get lunch?” she asked.

  “Let me guess. Pizza.”

  “Yeah! Pizza! And we can go shopping!”

  “And where are we getting this money, Miss Moneybags?”

  “From me.”

  I rolled myself out of bed and saw Amy standing in the doorway. She ran and jumped into bed as Harper threw her arms around her. Amy was my best friend. I’d known her since second grade and the two of us had been inseparable ever since. She was my defender on the playground and my attack dog in high school. She was the one that read Ryan the ‘riot act’ before he asked me out on our first date. She was there after my first heart break and my terrible first year at college and was there when I cried over being pregnant. She was there for my wedding and the birth of my little girl.

  She was the one who picked me up off the floor when Grant died. She was the one that flew out when I called and couldn’t talk when I was crying so hard. She was the one that took care of Harper so I could have space to plan his funeral and grieve.

  She was my lifeline.

  My support system.

  And she had somehow gotten into my house.

  “You really need to teach your daughter not to open the door by herself,” Amy said.

  “Harper, why did you open that door without Mommy’s permission?” I asked.

  “Auntie Amy said it was her. She said she had a popsicle!”

  “And what if it had been a burglar trying to get you to open the door?”

  “A burger that sounds like Auntie Amy?” she asked.

  I rolled my eyes and groaned as Amy started to laugh.

  “We let you lie here and daydream as long as we could, but it’s time to get up and get going. It’s almost eleven o’clock and that pizza isn’t going to order itself,” she said.

  “Pizza!” Harper said.

  “How long have you been here?” I asked.

  “Since nine. Got the booger up and fed her and kept her away from you. I figured you would need it after your hot date last night,” she said.

  “What's a date, Mommy?”

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “Grandma said you were out with a friend,” Harper said.

  “And that’s exactly what it was,” I said.

  “Then why did Auntie Amy say date?”

  “Because Auntie Amy has a big fat mouth,” I said.

  “Get up and get going. I wanna hear all about what happened with this mysterious man,” Amy said.

  “How do you know about this in the first place?” I asked.

  “Your mother called me once you left. Sai
d she didn’t get a good look at the guy, but that he had a thick head of hair.”

  “My mom and that thing with hair,” I said. “I’ll never understand it.”

  “Can we go to the library, too?” Harper asked.

  “Oh, so you want to get pizza, shop, and go get a book?” I asked.

  “Pwease?”

  “Don’t do the baby please. You’re getting to be a big girl,” I said.

  “Come on, Mommy.”

  “That sounds more like it,” Amy said with a grin.

  “Yes. We can go to the library after food and shopping.”

  “Yeah!”

  “Now let Mommy have some privacy so she can get dressed,” I said.

  “Wanna go play, Auntie Amy?” Harper asked.

  “Why don’t you go change into your favorite outfit? By the time you’re done, we’ll be done,” she said.

  “Okay. But hurry up,” Harper said.

  “Yep. You got it Mom,” Amy said with a smile.

  Harper ran off to her room and my best friend turned to me with a grin. I slid from the bed and started off to the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth.

  “Am I going to have to drag this out of you?” she asked.

  “Drag what out of me?” I asked.

  “This is the first date you’ve been on since Grant. I wanna know how it went.”

  “This isn’t the first one.”

  “Meeting a guy for coffee you pay for isn’t a date. But him picking you up and you wearing that yellow and white skimpy little sundress is!”

  “My mother really did call you, didn’t she?” I asked.

  “Spill. Who was the guy?” she asked.

  I looked at her in the mirror as a smile crossed my cheeks.

  “Ryan,” I said.

  “Wait—what?” Amy asked.

  “Ryan Park. From high school.”

  “Holy shit, he’s back in town? Wait, you went on a date with him?”

  “Yeah. He came into the bank yesterday wanting to open up a savings account.”

  “So he’s really back in town,” she said. “Did he kiss you?”

  I sighed as my eyes fluttered closed.

  “Oh, I know that look. Tell me all about it. Where did he kiss you? How long? I know you didn’t sleep with him. I know you’re not that crazy.”

  “No, but the connection was still there. The kiss was fiery, and passionate. It started out sweet, with his thumb tracing my cheek like he used to.”