“I love you too, sweetie.”
I hung up and gathered my nerves before making my way back home. When I got home my plan was to go straight up to my bedroom before anyone saw me, but Grant was in the hallway.
“Lacey, are you all right?”
“I’m fine, Grant.”
“You’ve been crying. Did Rob do something? I’ll kick his stupid ass.”
“Grant, calm down. Rob didn’t do anything,” I said, but then I realized I’d need an excuse for the tears that had obviously been on my face. “It’s just, I’m really sad that he’s not showing more interest in this wedding. It’s his wedding too.”
Grant smiled at me warmly. “You look like you could use a bite to eat,” he said.
I wasn’t hungry. I didn’t want anything, least of all company, but before I knew it I found myself nodding. “All right,” I said.
“Good. I’m going to cook for you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“It would be my pleasure, Lacey.”
Grant sat me at the counter and opened a bottle of wine.
“Just water for me,” I said, thinking of the baby.
“My pleasure, Lacey,” he said, as he took a bottle of water from the refrigerator and opened it.
“Why are you being so nice to me lately?” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“Flower shopping. Looking at the ring. Cooking me dinner.”
He shrugged as he put some water on the stove to boil. Then he started cutting an onion.
“Is pasta okay?”
“It’s perfect,” I said.
I watched as he prepared the meal. He’d never looked sexier to me than he did right then. Slowly, as I watched, it began to dawn on me that I wasn’t just watching Grant, the best friend I’d ever had. I was watching Grant, the future father of my child. The thought gave me goosebumps.
“Lacey, are you all right?”
I nodded, taking a sip of water.
“Let me just tell you something about men,” he said.
“Okay.”
“It’s not always their words that tell you what they’re thinking, or what they want. Sometimes, it’s their actions.”
I smiled. “Are you telling me that Rob’s going to get more into this wedding, even if he doesn’t want to talk about it with me?”
Grant shook his head. “No. All I’m saying is that actions speak louder than words. Especially with men. We don’t always know how to say what we feel, but if we’re smart, we know how to show it.”
Chapter 35
Grant
I COULDN’T SLEEP THAT NIGHT. I lay in bed thinking about Lacey, and all the things guys had put her through. The worst part was that I was one of them. And it was time I changed that. Enough was enough. Sooner or later, some man had to step up and protect Lacey, and that man was me.
Rob wouldn’t use her for money, and Lacey would never even know he’d tried. I’d make certain of that. I drove into San Francisco on my motorcycle, the cool night air clearing my head. First thing I had to do was pull off the job I’d been planning. I had everything I needed in my backpack. Timers, charges, circuit breakers, a gun, plastic explosives. I also had false plates on the bike and a fake California driver’s license. I was dressed in a tight-clad, black leather suit and my helmet had a black visor.
I pulled up outside the loan company at exactly ten minutes after midnight. I waited in the alley and watched the building. Five minutes later, right on time, the two security guards came out of the building and walked to a donut store six minutes away. It was an unauthorized abandonment of their posts, but they both went, together, every single night. I had twenty minutes before they’d be back.
I walked like a cat along a side alley until I reached an access door to the loan company. I tried the door. It was locked. I knew it would be. I knew also that it wasn’t attached to the alarm system. I looked at the lock. It would take too long to pick. Instead, I attached a small amount of plastic explosive to the keyhole, stuck a fuse and timer into it, set it for thirty seconds, and stepped back behind some dumpsters.
The lock popped with a small explosion, about as loud as a firecracker, and the alarm didn’t trip. The guards would have heard it, but the guards were at the donut shop.