No Ordinary Home

“What?”

A strong breeze rushed through the open windows, but it wasn’t enough to stem the rush of bile into her throat.

“Stop the car,” she shouted.

Austin jerked the steering wheel and slammed on the brakes. The car fishtailed on the gravel shoulder.

Gracie just managed to scramble out and make it to the ditch before losing her lunch.

She retched until there was nothing left, and she wanted to cry. All of that food wasted when her body needed it so badly.

She heard footsteps on the road behind her, calm and measured. Had to be Austin.

She felt a hand on her shoulder.

“Here.” A hand held a tissue in front of her face.

Embarrassing. It wasn’t bad enough the man had to see her as a homeless person, now he had to witness this indignity?

“Sorry,” she said.

He rested his hand on her back while she retched one more time, his touch reassuring. She wiped her mouth.

“You have any gum or mints?” she asked.

“Yeah.” He removed his hand. She missed the warmth. She heard him walk to the car. He returned a minute later with a pack of gum.

“Thanks.” She took two sticks because her mouth tasted like crap and the gum was sweet and minty. The chewing and her saliva helped to settle her stomach.

She wiped her damp forehead and brushed sweat from her upper lip. When her legs stopped shaking, she returned to the vehicle with Austin keeping step beside her.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah. Just sorry I had to lose that food.”

He climbed into the driver’s seat while she got into the back. She had to give him credit. Not a single I told you so. There was something to be said for the strong, silent type.

Trouble started, though, once they reached the small town midway to Denver when Austin parked on the street near a small hotel and Gracie walked into a back alley to sleep for the night.

“What?” Austin gaped. “No way am I letting you sleep in an alleyway.”

“Letting me?” Gracie asked, voice dangerously quiet. “You bought me lunch. You gave me a drive. I appreciate it. That doesn’t give you rights, or any say in what I do or where I go.” She set her knapsack on the ground on the far side of a Dumpster, where she could hide from the prying eyes of anyone walking past.

Austin followed her. “You can’t sleep here.”

“I can and will. It’s a warm night.” Although the sky had darkened on the drive and thunder rumbled in the distance. Gracie walked to the back door of a store that fronted onto the street they’d parked on, where bales of compacted cardboard had been put out for recycling.

Taking a folding knife from her back pocket, she slit the baling wire and dragged a couple of large boxes to set up a bed for herself.

“You’re going to sleep out in the rain when I’m offering you a place to stay, free of charge?”

“That’s right. I’ll cut your hair in the morning. That’s for lunch. I can’t afford to pay you back for a hotel room.”

He stood arms akimbo and brow as thunderous as the approaching storm. “I’m not asking for payment.”

“I know, but I wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t give you something in return.”

“You don’t like taking.” His quiet tone said he understood too much.

“No,” she answered. “I don’t like owing anyone anything. Not one dime. I like my independence.”

Fat drops of rain fell, settling the dust and the stench of garbage. She ignored the rain. What Gracie couldn’t ignore, though, was the cramping in her gut. At that moment, it returned with a vengeance. It wasn’t going to be vomit this time. She could vomit in an alley, but the runs were another thing altogether.

Crap. Double crap.

When another sharp pain hit, she suppressed a groan. More than shelter from the rain—she had spent many nights exposed to the elements—she needed a washroom. She wasn’t going to have a choice. The cramps in her stomach became fierce. She would have to take a hotel room and figure out later how to pay Austin back.

“Okay, thanks. I’ll take the room.” She picked up her knapsack and quick-stepped out of the alley.

He didn’t question her change of heart. Maybe he thought it was his manly powers of persuasion. “Wait in the car,” he said. “I just have to pick up a few items.” He stepped into a pharmacy just down the street.

Gracie climbed into the backseat. Hurry, she thought, squeezing her knees together.

Tension sizzled between her and Finn.

“You don’t like me, do you?” she asked.

“I don’t like what you represent.”

“Which is?”

“People looking for a handout.”

“I told Austin I would cut his hair for the food he bought me for lunch. It wasn’t my idea to get a hotel room. I tried to sleep in the alley tonight, but I’m learning he’s persistent when he’s got his mind made up.”

Finn snorted. “Yeah, he’s stubborn.”

He turned around in his seat to pin her with a glare. “I’m giving you fair warning—you hurt my buddy and there won’t be a truck stop in the States where you’ll be safe from me.”

Finn might look easygoing, but he had a sharp edge. She didn’t blame him. If she had friends, she would be just as fierce in her defense of them.

“Warning duly noted.” Not that she needed it. She had no intention of hurting Austin because they would be parting ways tomorrow morning.

An itchy silence reigned until Austin returned and dumped a plastic bag onto the backseat.

They stepped into the foyer of a small hotel and the heavens opened up behind them, rain drumming hard on the sidewalk, Gracie secretly glad she’d agreed to stay in the hotel. She would have been drenched sleeping outdoors.

Austin and Finn went to the desk to sign in. Gracie shifted from foot to foot. Her stomach hurt. She couldn’t wait for a room.

“Excuse me?” she asked the clerk, who checked out her old clothes, her dirty backpack. Yeah, yeah, she knew how bad she looked. “Is there a washroom on this floor?”

He pointed down a hallway. “Past the elevators.”

She managed to make it to a toilet before her stomach voided.

* * *

AUSTIN STOOD AT the front desk and watched Gracie run for the washroom. She couldn’t even wait until he rented her a room.

He tried not to shoot her an I-told-you-so look as she ran off. Putting all of that food into a severely empty stomach had been a bad idea.

It took him a moment to catch what the desk clerk was saying.

“What do you mean you don’t have rooms with singles?”

“There’s a ranchers’ conference in the area this week. Rooms are booked for miles around. We have only two small rooms left, both with only a double bed.”

“Okay,” Austin said to Finn. “I’ll get one for us and one for Grace.”

At the thought, a shiver ran through Austin. He could imagine the two of them sleeping like a pair of two-by-fours clinging to the edges of the mattress. There weren’t many limits to their friendship, but this was one of them.

They were both big men and a double bed wouldn’t hold them. Austin had a double all to himself at home and spent most of his nights sprawled across the thing.

He shivered again. He couldn’t sleep with Finn.

Apparently, it weirded out Finn, too, because he stared openmouthed. “Are you nuts? I love you, man, but there’s no way I’m sharing a bed with you.”

“Is there any way you can set up a cot in one of those rooms?” Austin asked the clerk, thinking that Gracie could sleep in a bed and he could take the cot. Or vice versa.

“We’re all out. You’re lucky to get these rooms because of a cancellation we received ten minutes ago. This is a small hotel. We don’t usually see this volume of traffic.”

The clerk waited for his decision.

“There are two rooms,” Finn said. “One for you. One for me. Leave that woman to find her own accommodations.”

Aware of the clerk listening in, and probably speculating, Austin pulled Finn aside. “I can’t leave her to sleep outside. Listen to that rain.”

“So what? She smells like she’s been doing exactly that for a while. Maybe the rain will clean her up.”

“And give her pneumonia.”

“She’s not your responsibility.”

“She’s in the washroom right now probably puking up her guts. She’ll be weakened and unable to defend herself if she needs to. She could get robbed or raped.”

“Seems capable of taking care of herself.”

Austin’s anger flared. Finn didn’t have a clue. “You’ve never gone hungry. You’ve always had a good home. You’ve never slept in dirty sheets let alone outside with nothing over your head. You’ve never even camped without a tent. Am I right?”

Finn had the grace to look sheepish. “I know. I get how fortunate I am. I really do.” He pointed at Austin, nearly jabbing him in the chest. “But you’re getting sucked in again.”

“No. I’m not.”

Finn held up his index finger. “Your mom. You’ve spent thirty-one years taking care of her.”

“Technically, only twenty-five. She didn’t fall apart until my dad died when I was six.”

“Your dad?” The sarcasm in Finn’s voice rankled.

Austin didn’t talk about his dad. Ever. “Don’t go there,” he warned. “Besides, Mom wasn’t much use on her own. I couldn’t have left her to live alone until now. You know that.”

Finn shrugged because they’d debated that point to death. Austin knew his buddy thought he should have walked away years ago.

He held up another finger. “How about the kids?”

The kids were a group of teens in Ordinary with whom Austin spent time shooting hoops and making sure they stayed out of trouble. He planned to help by giving them jobs on his ranch when it was up and running, by teaching them skills they would need when they got out into the world. They had nothing, reminding him too much of himself at that age.

“That’s good work that keeps them off the streets. Besides, if it’s so bad, why are you going to help teach them about animals once I get the ranch?”

“Because I like animals and kids, not because I’m neurotic about helping every sad-eyed waif who comes along.”

Finn had hit the nail on the head. Despite Gracie’s tough shell, a sad-eyed waif lingered inside. Finn wasn’t as oblivious and unaffected as he pretended to be. There was more depth there than met the eye. Just as there was with Gracie.

Finn held up a third finger. “Roger.”

Ordinary, Montana, was small but had a couple of poor old drunks whom Austin threw into jail periodically just so they could sleep indoors. He’d organized a system of sorts to find them beds every night during the winter—in the back room of Chester’s restaurant, in C.J.’s barn for a few nights, wherever Austin could get them a spot. One of those homeless men was old Roger, who’d fallen apart after his wife of forty-two years had died. He had no one on this earth on whom he could depend but folks in his hometown. What was so wrong with Austin taking care of him?

Guys like Roger had mental health issues. Who knew what Grace’s problem was?

“Gracie needs help, Finn. She was desperate enough to rob me. She said she’d never done that before and I believe her.”

“You’re a sucker. You’re supposed to be on vacation, taking a holiday from helping people.” Finn paced in the foyer to offset his nervous energy. “Don’t do this to yourself.”

“Do what? I’m giving her a bed for the night and breakfast tomorrow. That’s it. Nothing more. Then we’ll go our separate ways.”

“That woman is trouble. She even has us fighting.”

“Fine,” Austin said, testy. “Let’s stop fighting. You take one room and I’ll take the other with Gracie. Okay?” He didn’t like the idea, but it had to be done. He’d already told her he would get her a room for the night and he wasn’t a man to go back on his word. If he had to, he would sleep on the floor, even if that thought held as much appeal as a bad case of fleas.

Finn didn’t respond, just nodded, but it looked like he was maybe biting the inside of his cheek so he wouldn’t argue more. Or so he wouldn’t laugh.

Austin punched him on the arm.

“Ow. What was that for?” But Finn laughed openly at Austin’s discomfort.

Austin sighed. How had the night come to this?

Grace came out of the washroom down the hall, pale and sweating.

Damn. Great start to their vacation, the two of them bickering over a woman Austin didn’t even know, and that woman looking sick as a dog.

* * *

GRACIE COULD HAVE CRIED, her gastric distress a waste of calories she desperately needed. She didn’t know how long she’d stayed in the washroom before she was done, but was finally able to emerge with her hands washed and her face rinsed with cold water.

In the lobby, she found the men waiting, Finn’s expression an odd mix of triumph and dismay, while Austin looked tense and unable to meet her eyes. What was going on?

Once they got to their rooms and Gracie saw the double bed in the hotel room—and Austin dumping his hockey bag onto that bed—she ran for the door, shooting at him over her shoulder as she left, “I told you I wouldn’t pay for lunch with sex.”

Austin followed and slammed the door closed before she could leave. “For God’s sake, be quiet before someone calls security.”

He looked genuinely offended. “I don’t want sex,” he shouted. “This is all that’s available.” He slammed his hand against the wall. “I’m not asking you to sleep with me. How many times do I have to say it? Who’d want to go to bed with someone as skinny as you, anyway?”

His remark hurt. She might be homeless, but she was still a woman. He explained about the hotel having no more rooms left with single beds or with two doubles. Not even a spare cot. Nothing. This was it. Or the alley, but that wouldn’t work. She suspected she wasn’t through yet with stomach problems.

She heard Austin’s frustration and saw it in the way he scrubbed his hands over his face.

“Okay. Fine.” She moved away from the door.

She didn’t know why he wanted her to stay, except for this strange feeling that he couldn’t let her go off on her own. Foolish man. She’d been doing it for years.

He sweetened the deal with two words. “Hot shower.”

Getting clean won out over all of her objections. Oh, to not have to use heavy-duty cleaning solvents in gas stations.

“Here.” He handed her the bag of stuff he’d bought.

She peeked inside then stared at him, tried to glare, but couldn’t pull it off because she wanted what she held in her hands too badly to turn it down. He’d bought her pieces of heaven. She laid them out in a row on the bed. A brand-new toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste. Dental floss. Body wash. She snapped up the lid and inhaled. Strawberries. Matching body lotion. Hand cream. Skin cleanser. Facial moisturizer! Shampoo and conditioner that smelled like coconut and pineapple.

Oh. Oh. It had been so long since she’d had any of this stuff.

“Okay,” she said, but her voice cracked. She cleared her throat and said, “Okay,” again, because she’d become too emotional too quickly, his thoughtfulness so sweet, so unexpected, it left her speechless. She shouldn’t take any of this, but as far as she could tell, it was freely given. In six years, the only times men had offered her anything had been with the understanding that she pay for it in ways she wouldn’t.

Austin hooked his thumbs into his back pockets and stared at the carpet. “I hope it’s all okay. It’s not the most expensive stuff out there.”

“It’s perfect.” And it was. In her former life, she’d bought only the best. Until doing without, she hadn’t realized how truly fortunate she’d been. This, though, was an unparalleled gift. Who was this guy? Why would he care so much for a stranger?

He’d set the bait securely. Of course she would stay. They would make the sleeping arrangement work somehow because there was no way she wasn’t having a long hot shower tonight. “I’ll sleep on the floor. You can have the bed.”

The weird hum Austin made sounded noncommittal.

“If it reassures you at all, I’m not any happier about this than you are.” Austin gestured toward the double bed. He rummaged in his bag and pulled out a fresh shirt. “You want to shower before dinner or after?”

“I guess you’d prefer before?”

“Yeah. We’ll be going to a nicer restaurant than a truck-stop diner. You’re pretty ripe.”

She gathered the things he’d bought her, but hesitated just outside the bathroom.

“I won’t come in and attack you. You’re safe with me.” She registered his hurt tone at being silently questioned; she’d already seen that he was a decent man.

Gracie entered the small bathroom and closed the door behind her. She locked it. Wrong. That only added insult to injury. In an act so foreign to her that it required a leap of faith she hadn’t taken since she’d run away six years ago, she unlocked the door. Right.

* * *

AUSTIN HEARD THE lock click and disappointment hit him. Then Gracie unlocked it and he smiled. Progress. He listened to the shower turn on and stay on for a long time; Gracie must be making full use of the hot water. Good. She needed it and it would give him a chance to call his mom. He picked up his cell, but didn’t dial right away, just stared at the wall, steeling himself.

Tension that hadn’t been there five minutes ago tightened his neck. He rolled his shoulders, but it didn’t ease.

He should have checked in earlier. Should. Too much of his relationship with his mom was clouded with too many shoulds.

Well, you didn’t call earlier, so quit with the guilt trip and do it now.

No phone call had ever been tougher to make. A moment later, she answered.

“Hey, Mom. It’s me.”

Silence. What else had he expected? People didn’t change overnight just because others wanted them to.

“How are you? Did Deputy Turner stop by today?”

A long hesitation followed, but he wouldn’t break it. The ball was in her court.

Finally, he heard, “He came by,” in the small voice he knew too well. He could hear the subtext as clearly as a bell: I’m helpless. I need you.

It tugged at him, but he hardened himself.

“Good. I’m glad he visited.”

“He didn’t bring me anything.”

“No reason he should. The milk would still be good. You’ll have enough fresh fruit and vegetables for the next few days.”

“He said you shouldn’t have gone and left me alone.”

Austin doubted that. Turner had been one of the ones urging him to get away. Mom must have misinterpreted something the deputy said. Deliberately, no doubt.

“Mother.” Austin kept his tone firm. “You’re not an invalid. You’re only fifty. You can take care of yourself. You have no diseases, no dementia.”

She made a sound that was hard to characterize. It might have been a humph. He’d called her on her so-called helplessness in the past, and yet he still took care of her.

Breathe deeply. Hold. Exhale the guilt.

“Listen, I have to go,” he said. “I’m meeting Finn for dinner.”

“Go. Have fun.” Her clipped words came out loaded with resentment.

Holding his anger in check, Austin decided he’d better cut the call short. “I’ll call again tomorrow. Good night, Mom.”

He tossed the phone onto the bed. Better than throwing it at the wall.

For years, he’d been trying to rehabilitate his mother, to prop her up, and he was exhausted from taking care of her. It had to end soon. He was sick of it. She—

A sound of distress from the bathroom caught his attention.

Gracie! In her weakened state, had she fallen? He barged in.

CHAPTER THREE

GRACIE STOOD BENT over the toilet with a towel wrapped around her, shivering and retching.

As far as Austin could tell, nothing was coming up.

“You must be pretty well cleaned out by now.” He rubbed her back, all of the knobs and bones and sharp edges along her spine. Too bad she’d lost her lunch. She sure needed the calories.

Austin grasped her shoulders and held her steady while she retched some more. “Don’t think you’re going to lose anything else. I think you’re done.”

She nodded. “Why are you in here?”

“Heard you retching.”

“Crap on a broomstick,” she said like it was some kind of badass imprecation. Austin grinned until she burst into tears.

Aw, goddamn, he hated to see a woman cry. He held her and patted her back awkwardly, because this wasn’t how he usually held a woman. He never hugged strangers. At least she was clean now and smelled like flowers and coconut.

She hiccupped and cursed again. “I don’t do this,” she said and he could tell she wanted to sound fierce. Hard to do when her teeth chattered like a pair of maracas.

“Don’t do what?” He led her into the bedroom.

“I don’t cry. Ever. I haven’t in...” He wasn’t sure but he thought she was doing calculations in her head. “Six years. I haven’t cried in six years. This is so dumb.”

He rummaged in his bag and pulled out a hoodie and a T-shirt. “Put these on.”

He turned his back while she dressed.

She hissed, “Don’t go thinking I’m weak just because I cried.” He heard the zipper rasp on his hoodie.

When he turned back to her, her cheeks were bright red, hot against her pale skin. Nothing worse than having a woman cry and then having her get angry ’cause you saw her doing it.

“I don’t think you’re weak.” He watched her dig through her bag until she came out with a comb. “You’re one of the strongest women I’ve met.”

From the way she looked at him, she didn’t know what to do with his compliment. She entered the bathroom and he followed. She dropped the comb into the sink and poured a few drops of body wash on it.

Good. He’d hate to see her using something dirty to comb her clean hair.

“What was the crying about?”

She studied him in the mirror, pale eyes challenging, embarrassed but tough. “That food wasted. I needed it, really need the nutrition. It’s been a rough couple of days.”

More than a couple, he guessed.

Her face went hard-edged, as though she had to be superstrong now that he’d seen her vulnerable.

Note to self, Austin. Do not, I repeat, do not show pity.

Man, she was tough. A couple of the women he’d dated in Ordinary would have played the pity card for all it was worth. Not this woman.

“I need to brush my teeth.” Her stomach made gurgling noises. “I’d better not go out to dinner.”

Despite the sadness lurking in her eyes, the clear regret at missing another meal, Austin kept his tone neutral, saying only, “I don’t think you should, either. Stay here.”

He left the bathroom and heard her brush her teeth. While she finished cleaning up, he called room service. She might not be able to go out for supper, but she should eat something, or she would be starving by morning.

* * *

GRACIE LEFT THE BATHROOM, wishing she could hide in there all night.

How humiliating to have cried in front of Austin. She hadn’t cried since she’d learned of Jay’s infidelity. Once she’d gotten that out of her system, she hadn’t planned to ever cry again for the rest of her life.

So why today? And why in front of a stranger?

Because I’ve almost reached the end of my road—and my rope—and I’m exhausted.

Hunger had left her depleted. No other explanation for it.

She stopped and stared. Austin had lined the middle of the bed with the spare pillows in the room and had put an extra folded blanket on top of her side of the bed. He’d even turned down the covers.

Such thoughtfulness. Oh. Waterworks threatened again. Stop it. What’s wrong with you?

Nothing! I’m not going to cry, okay? I’m just really, really moved.

Maybe this would work. Maybe they could sleep in the same bed tonight without it being too awkward.