In a fury, not thinking, not caring, so over it I could scream, I looked to our first-ever return customer and shared, “You’ll be delighted to know that not only will you have a brand new microwave in your cabin, it’s freshly painted, has a new water heater, and a high quality, firm mattress to provide excellent rest while offering superb lumbar support.”
Not missing a beat, John Priest replied, “Can I take that to mean the cabins are no longer forty a night?”
I jerked my head up and down once. “They’re sixty.”
He looked to Grant. “Five nights. Cash.” Then he reached to his wallet.
Grant moved to the locked cabinet.
I glared at my boyfriend as he did so and moved toward the door, stating, “We will require you to sign in again, I’m afraid.”
John Priest glanced at me and I stopped well short of the door to give him and the bulk of his big body room to get to the registration book.
“And you can hand me the cash,” I finished.
Priest’s head was bent to the book but it turned minutely so his eyes could slide to me. He did this but he said nothing. Just dipped his chin and went back to the book.
“You’re a piece of work,” Grant hissed and I looked to him.
“Wrong. I’m the proprietress of what will soon be amazing, kickass cabins that will be full every night with a waiting list because people can’t wait to come back.”
I looked to John Priest to see he’d straightened and was watching us bicker with a vacant expression on his face.
I kept talking, or more like snapping (but, whatever).
“I’d ask for feedback but even the pizza delivery places ask for feedback these days and it’s supremely annoying. But I do hope you enjoy your visit enough to return yet again, tell all your friends about us, and if you have anything of note to share, complimentary or otherwise, I’m open to hearing it.”
He held my gaze while I blathered and the instant I was done speaking, he grunted, “Key.”
Mr. Personality.
I turned, snatched the key from Grant’s hand, and handed it to John Priest.
In return he handed me several one-hundred-dollar bills that I would find later were four of them, saying, “We’re good,” meaning I got to keep the change.
Excellent.
“Have a lovely stay and remember!” I called after him as he moved to leave and I shoved the money in my pocket. “I’m always here should you need anything!”
I got a look over his shoulder from his beautiful but fathomless eyes then he disappeared.
I walked to the door, slammed it, and whirled on Grant.
“You have two days,” I declared. “Two days to pack your stuff and get out.”
His head jerked, his face paled, and his lips moved to clip, “You cannot be fuckin’ serious.”
“Deadly,” I whispered, my heart pumping, my head hurting, part of my soul dying, but my mouth kept speaking. “I loved you. I trusted you. I believed in you. I believed you believed in me. You let me down. Then you did it again. And again. And again. I’m done. I’m cutting my losses and moving on.”
“I got two years in with you,” he stated like it was doing time in prison, not spending it with the woman he loved.
“And I’ve got nine not-very-good months with you,” I returned.
“You’d pick a bunch of cabins over me?” he ground out.
And with that, I knew. I knew the worst thing a woman could know about her man.
He didn’t get it.
And that was when that part of my soul died.
And that hurt so bad, I had no choice but to inform him of that fact.
“You don’t get it, Grant,” I said, suddenly quiet, my voice sad, beaten, and he heard it. He felt it. I knew it when I saw his body get tight. “It isn’t about the cabins. It’s about sharing with you what I wanted out of life, you agreeing, us taking life on together, and you deserting me. You were around but you deserted me practically the minute we got here.”
He came toward me but I took a step back.
He stopped approaching and his voice was quiet too, and cajoling. “Babe, life isn’t about work. I thought we’d come up here and take on these cabins but do it havin’ a good time.”
“We could have but we couldn’t do it the way you wanted to do it, Grant. We didn’t have the money. And I’ll repeat what I’ve been trying to get through to you for months, I thought us working side by side would be a good time. Not having drinks and laughing and getting frisky, that kind of good time. But the building a life together kind of good time that led to the other stuff that wouldn’t be good. It would be better than good because we earned it.”
“You talk like your father,” he said and it wasn’t entirely accusatory. It also wasn’t entirely not.
Then again, Grant had grown up in the town where Obadiah Swallow was well-known and well-respected, because he worked the ranch he inherited, which was a ranch his father had inherited, and his before him, and he loved his family.
The first was hard work. The second was easy but there weren’t many men like Dad who found it easy to let it show like he did.
There were men who respected men like that and showed it.