Rumor (Renegades #4)(32)
Author: Skye Jordan

Josh took a breath, then let all his anger toward the man pour out. “If you cared about Grace the way you just claimed to care, you wouldn’t have married her in the first place.” He pushed off the wall. “You wouldn’t have volunteered for all those extra assignments that kept you overseas.” He started a slow progression toward Beck as he spoke. “You would have come home when you could have and given Grace the family she’s always wanted. You would have fucking helped her with the expenses of keeping her mother in an Alzheimer’s facility when she told you her mother was sick.”

Beck stopped pacing, turned on Josh, and yelled, “She didn’t want help. I did offer. She kept turning me down.”

“That’s a fucking copout. That’s like saying bin Laden wouldn’t come out of hiding, so we just stop trying to find him. Grace was your wife. You know she’s stubborn and independent. They’re two of the things you loved most about her. And they’re the very reason you two stayed married as long as you did. A weaker woman would have bailed on your ass the first time you extended your tour instead of coming home—and she’d have been justified. If you really cared about Grace, you would have pushed through her resistance. You would have found a way to help.

“Because the truth is, she’s working at this strip club because you didn’t step up, shithead. She’s doing what she needs to do to pay the crazy bills, because this is her mother we’re talking about. A mother who has always treated you like her own son. A mother who’s treated you better than your own fucking mother—”

“Okay,” Beck yelled, throwing his arms out and pacing again. “Jesus, dude, the horse is fucking dead already.”

Josh shut up. Watching Beck pace as he absorbed everything he’d denied until now but had to accept. And in the silence, Josh had to find his own resolution to the realization that Grace had been right all along—love alone wasn’t enough. They also needed trust. And not only hadn’t she trusted Josh’s commitment to her, but she’d tried to keep Beck’s visit a secret.

Now, Josh had to accept the fact that Grace might not be 150 percent committed to their relationship. And without that, Josh couldn’t envision how they could make things work between them.

“Do you love her?” Beck’s question yanked Josh back from the painful realization. “I mean really love her.”

That was an ironic question coming from the self-centered Beck. Then Grace’s words came back to him. “In his own way, he did his best.” And despite the discrepancies between Grace’s and Beck’s reality, Josh believed that, in his own way, Beck had truly loved Grace.

“Yes,” he said for the second time in two days. “I really love her. But even if things don’t work out with us, you have to let go, dude. Let her find someone who can really give her what she wants and needs.”

All the confrontation drained from Beck’s muscles. With his gaze locked on the asphalt, he nodded. “Yeah…” he said, his voice dripping with resignation. “Man… This fuckin’ blows.”

That was a mild way to put it, but Josh was suddenly experiencing the same sense of loss.

“All right.” Beck straightened and pulled himself together the way Josh had seen him do hundreds of times in the field. “There’s only one thing left to do, I guess.”

Josh wished he knew what to do at this point. He was fucking lost and felt like he was bleeding out.

“Incoming.”

Beck’s strange warning drew Josh’s gaze from the ground a split second before Beck’s fist slammed into Josh’s face. His head jerked to the side, the pain following as he stumbled and hit a nearby Dumpster. Pain blasted through his head, burning across his skin and cutting into his eye. Josh braced himself for a second attack.

“You motherfucker,” he said, squinting toward Beck. When he found his former teammate doing nothing more than standing there, shaking out his hand, Josh relaxed. “That was a cheap shot, you fuckin’ ass wipe.”

“Believe me, you’ll appreciate it,” he said. “Grace freaks over every little scrape. You’ll get more attention than you know what to do with.”

He pulled his hand away and found it covered in blood. “You are such a prick.” Josh turned toward the building and knocked on the door. “Jasmine, it’s Josh.”

“God. Out of commission for a year, and you’re a grade-A pussy,” Beck muttered.

“I’ve been out of commission for a year and my priorities are a hundred and eighty degrees different. Grace has had enough drama for a lifetime,” Josh said as Jasmine opened the door. “I’ll be right back. Stay out here so you don’t freak the entire club.”

“Are you okay?” Jasmine asked, her eyes pulling down at the corners with her frown. “Do you want me to have Theo drive you to the ER?”

“No, no,” he said, turning toward the studio and the bathroom alongside. “I’ll be right out. He’s calmed down. Everything’s going to be fine.”

But when Josh braced his hands on the counter, watching blood drip, drip, drip into the white sink, he was having serious doubts about Grace’s true feelings toward him, and whether or not they could really make this work.

10

Grace put the last clip in Tiffany’s updo. “There you go. Just pull this one pin, and your hair will fall everywhere.”

“Perfect.” She stood and smoothed down the bodice of her corset. “Thanks, Grace.”

She glanced at the clock above the dressing table. Almost 6:00 p.m. And still no word from Isaac. Maybe he wasn’t going to show. Maybe he’d talked to Josh. Though Josh hadn’t said anything, and his only odd behavior today had been trying to figure out her odd behavior.

What a pair.

Grace slipped out a side door and walked around the front of the building to avoid Josh’s watchful eye from the studio. He was too perceptive. He noticed the slightest change in her mood, almost seemed to be able to read her thoughts. She’d always thought it would be great to have a man like that—until she was trying to hide something.

Walking in the front door, she caught a what-the-hell look from the bouncer, Theo. “Where’d you come from?”

“Around the side. No sign of him?”

“Nothing.”

She drummed her fingers on the podium up front. “The others know?”