I fell silent.

Gray deep breathed.

I waited.

Gray kept glaring at me and deep breathing.

Then he asked, "Anything frozen in the car?"

"Ice cream," I answered quietly.

"Right, toss me your key. Let's get this shit in."

I tossed him my keys; he nabbed them and bleeped the trunk open.

I headed to the kitchen. He brought in a load and I started putting it away. Then he brought in the second and last load, dumped it on the counter and I continued putting it away while he rested a hip to the counter, crossed his arms on his chest watched me and ordered, "Right, now, give it to me."

I kept putting food away while I told him, "She has a thing for you."

"No shit," Gray replied.

Right. Gray wasn't stupid.

Moving on.

"She doesn't have a happy marriage with Buddy."

"Again, no shit."

I finished with all the stuff that needed fridge or freezer and turned to Gray.

"She was with a girlfriend who wouldn't look at me. Cecily bore down on me just like the last time, without hesitation, wanting to get a dig at you and crush me. She's Buddy's wife, she was seeing him then and still, she went after both of us. The girlfriend knew, Gray, and being around me especially with Cecily made her uncomfortable. I alluded very vaguely to the fact she knew my pain at losing you and how she knew that and both of them reacted. She either knows what Buddy did, which, if he did it and now I feel certain he did, she would as his wife or she was involved. She wanted you then, she wants you now and she's one of those women who won't move on and if she feels pain. She lets it turn bitter, so much, she can't help herself from spreading that around."

"What'd this friend look like?" Gray asked immediately.

"What?" I asked back, confused.

"Cecily's friend. What'd she look like?"

"Uh, dark hair, a bit plump but it looked good on her. Shorter than me. She didn't give me her eyes so I can't say the color. Cecily's age, I'd guess."

Gray's face grew ominously darker when he stated, "Prisc."

"Sorry?"

"Prisc. Priscilla. Tight with Cecily. Tight for a long time. All the way back to school. Her, Courtney and Cecily, cheerleaders, the mean girls. That said, you got Prisc away from Courtney and Cecily, she could be sweet. Those other two, born pure bitch."

"And?" I prompted when he didn't explain why he was sharing this information.

"And, Prisc and Courtney were the ones who told everyone they saw you takin' off with Casey."

I closed my eyes and rested my hand in the counter.

"Like I said," Gray kept speaking and I opened my eyes, "remember everything about you including everything that happened after I lost you. Remember that shit. Remember giving time to chewin' on those two bein' the two who happened to see you stealin' away in the dead of night. It was a long time ago but when you took off with Casey, can you remember if you saw anyone?"

I shook my head. "It was a long time ago but I remember because he was freaked, saying he was being followed so I looked and I did it hard. I can feel eyes, see a tail. It had to be three, four in the morning. The square was deserted, the bar closed. No one saw us."

"So they made that shit up."

"Probably," I replied "Definitely," Gray returned. "You felt it, life taught you to read people, situations and, dollface, like everything, you're good at it. What I know is, from what you told me, Prisc is a decent person who found herself with shitty friends and she's weak. It's gone on so long, she'd rather stick with what she has than dip her toe in the pond. She couldn't look you in the eye, there was a reason and not just that she knows Buddy's a dick 'cause everyone knows Buddy's a dick. She couldn't look you in the eye because she was in on it."

"So she knows what they did," I whispered.

"Likely." Gray didn't whisper.

"So we should go talk to her." Now I wasn't whispering.

He shook his head.

"No?" I asked.

"No, darlin'. First, weak or not, that shit's whacked. That isn't about bein' a mean girl. She fucked with people's lives, their happiness. If she knew they were doin' that to us, she shouldn't have participated or sometime in the last seven years she shoulda opened her goddamned mouth and said something to me. I've known her since high school. She came clean, she knew I'd be pissed but, at least with her, I'd get over it. So, I talk to her, I might lose it and she's not worth the emotion. Second, you talk to her, you might lose it and ditto the emotion. Third, we'll find out what happened but that shit is not gonna get Buddy Sharp's ass hanging out there. Nobody likes him already. They know he did that to us, they'll just like him less and that's no skin off his nose. Trespassing, breaking and entering, destroying property and poisoning horses will get his ass hanging out there. I doubt any of that will carry a huge jail sentence but it's unlawful and that bank isn't gonna keep a VP with a rap sheet in a corner office. That's worth our energy, not Prisc."

He was back to rational and logical if not, from the burn in his eyes, easygoing.

"People suck" I declared, Gray stared at me a second then grinned.

There it was. The easygoing. Back quick as a flash.

So Gray.

"Yeah, they do," he agreed.

"Well, I didn't tell you the good news and that is that your hard as nails, ex-Vegas showgirl kicked her ass verbally."

His grin became a smile.

"Too bad I missed that."

"I was awesome," I bragged.

His smile became a chuckle through which he ordered, "Come here, Ivey."

I went there and he folded his arms around me as I curled mine around him.

Then he tipped his chin down and caught my eyes.

"Know somethin'?" he asked.

"I know a lot of things, Gray, though one of them is not what you're going to say."

Gray grinned again then his eyes got tender (he'd dispensed with the "near to" part of that about a week and a half ago, after I mourned for the loss of the Grandma Miriam I knew and now he just always went straight to tender).

Then he said softly, "My Dad was right."

"About what?"

"Good things come to those who wait."

My breath clean left me at the same time my nose started stinging.

"Gray," I whispered.

Gray wasn't in the mood to comfort a sobbing me and I knew this when he said, "Got work to do, baby, so say you love me."

I gave him that play.

"I love you."

He grinned again before he dipped his head, touched his mouth to mine, doing so without cracking me with the bill of his baseball cap then he lifted his head, gave me a squeeze, turned around and walked out the backdoor of the kitchen to go off to do macho man rancher cowboy things.

I sighed.

Then I moved through the kitchen to do rancher cowboy's stylish girlfriend things.

By the way, Gray had never had it but he loved bleu cheese crumbled on top of a broiled steak.

See? I totally had this rancher's girlfriend thing down.

Totally.

Chapter Thirty-One.

Seven.

Four days later...

"Come here," Gray growled.

I slid him out of my mouth but wrapped my hand around him and immediately started stroking as I turned my head, kissed the inside of his thigh before my eyes went to him and I whispered, "Not done, baby."

"You're done."

"Give me a little while longer."

"You get longer, Ivey, I'll come in your mouth. You know I come in you and by you I don't mean your mouth. Now come here."

This was true. And at his words I suddenly wanted him in me.

Therefore I started crawling up his body.

The room was dark. I had no idea what time it was. Gray had woken me with his hands then added his mouth then I added my hands and mouth. Except for me and my fans and sequined panties, we'd never done this. I'd adjusted to Gray's sleeping schedule just as easily as I adjusted to Mustang. A couple of days, I was there.

But if this was an indication that Gray had sleepless nights, I wasn't going to complain if this was how he worked through them.

I made it up his body, he shifted his legs so they were between mine and I was straddling him. One of his arms curved around my waist, moving me down, the other hand drove into my hair, his hips bucked up, my mouth hit his, my tongue slid inside and he slid inside me.

Oh yeah.

Then he rolled us, mouths and bodies connected, and his hips started moving, fast, hard, driving deep.

Oh yeah.

He was nearly there and intent to take me with him. I loved it when he got this way, driven, on the edge of losing control and what I loved about it was that I made him that way.

Then, from far off in the silence of the night I heard what sounded like a shotgun blast.

Gray's head shot up and he stilled a half a second then slid out, rolled and angled off the bed, clipping, "Fuck."

"What was that?" I whispered but I knew. Gray had told me about the shotgun rigged in the barn.

"Dial nine-one-one, Ivey," Gray ordered, tugging his jeans on.

"What?"

"Dial nine-one-one," Gray repeated, bent over and snatched up his shirt. I saw his head turn toward me in the dark and he went on, "Now."

I jerked out of my surprised stupor, rolled to his nightstand and grabbed the phone.

Gray tagged his boots and sprinted out the door.

"Shit, shit, fuck," I whispered as I dialed in the dark then I jumped off the bed and started looking for my nightie and panties.

"Nine-one-one, what's your emergency?"