Taming McGruff(47)

Inspecting the desk, the sturdy wood seemed bigger and bulky from the front. Now, behind it, he mentally measured the drawers: the top row small, the others deeper. Something just didn’t seem right about it.

She nudged his arm. “Take a look at the computer screen.”

Looking up, Griff gazed at his beautiful wife’s smiling face. Her picture in the upper corner of the page welcomed customers to her designing blog for King’s. He could barely take a breath.

“Scroll down and see.”

Griff did and, after reading her jaunty introduction, he chuckled. “She wrote this.”

“Cute, isn’t it? Perfect tone.”

“Just like she’s talking to you,” he murmured, impressed.

“I had the webmaster load it earlier today. But, look at the comments. There’s dozens already. She’s a hit even before we reveal the first room in your house. They can’t wait to see what comes next.”

“Or what she says next.”

“She connected with them.”

“She’s easy to fall in love with,” he said softly, feeling another stone or half a dozen break and fall away from his cold heart.



***



Walking in the back door of his house, Griffin spotted Priscilla’s pink tote hanging from one of the bar stools. “She’s home,” he said, pleased to know she was there.

The house was quiet as he made his way to the hallway. A large tarp hanging from the ceiling cut off his access. But it was the white sign with big black letters taped to it that made him chuckle. Off-limits.

“Pixie,” he murmured, shaking his head at her use of his slogan.

Griff backtracked and went up the back stairs, shrugging off his suit jacket, and then tugging off his tie and last, unbuttoning his shirt. The bedroom light was on, but the room was empty. On the way to his closet, he noticed the open door and light spilling from it. He slowed his steps as his heart thudded.

She was there, sitting on the floor near an open drawer of the built-in drawers in the middle of the closet. Griff couldn’t breathe. In her hand, she held the cardboard box he’d stuffed there when he moved in months ago.

A hundred thoughts tumbled through his mind. But he bit down on the rush of angry words when he saw her swipe tears from her cheek. “It’s long over,” he said, breaking the quiet.

Startled, she jerked her head up. “Griff. I was unpacking my things. You said I could have the drawers on the other side. Some of your T-shirts were there, so I was just moving them here. I found this…”

Coming into the closet, he tossed his jacket and tie on the counter and then lowered himself to the floor so he leaned against the drawers. He propped his left forearm on his raised left knee. Closer to her now, he gazed into her teary green eyes. Her empathy nearly choked him.

“You never said anything.”

“It’s not a big deal.”

She opened up the case, pointing it toward him. “Really? A Purple Heart, Griff.” She put that one down and picked up the next medal and the next one. “These are a big deal.” She rustled through the box and pulled out some letters of recognition. “These are something to be proud of.”

“We were a team. We got out alive. That’s what’s important.”

“But not without the scars,” she said softly. Reaching out, she slipped her hand inside his open shirt and placed it over his wound. Her fingers trembled.

Closing his eyes, he let her warmth seep into him. Memories flashed: the rounds of fire, shoving his men back, the bomb going off, ripping his skin apart. White-hot, searing pain. “Mine just show more than others.”

She sucked in a sharp breath. “Is this when you became a McGruff?”

He tried to smile at her nickname for him. “That solidified it. But the roots of it began years before.”

Weeks in the hospital with nothing to think of but stopping the intense pain had Griff playing mind games, anything to shift the focus. He settled on the losses in his life, especially his father; that cut deeper and wider than all the others combined.

His attention soon turned to his father’s downfall and the one person in this world who caused it: Agnes King. From that moment on, he vowed revenge.

It had saved him from one living hell and threw him into another.

Slowly, he opened his eyes and gazed into Priscilla’s, seeing the outpouring of love she offered. The last of the boulders surrounding his heart broke away, crashing into smithereens. A raw ache took its place.

He knew deep down his time with her was limited. Griff also knew that once she discovered the truth about his recent and ongoing misdeeds against her family, that what he’d gone through already would never compare to the kind of hell he was about to face when she left him. No one he loved stayed.