Page 44 of Grissom
Chapter Twenty-One
Tuesday woke slowly, comfortably sore and astonishingly mellow after last night’s adventure with Grissom. This morning was the beginning of Christmas Eve. She’d originally planned to be gone, but then last night happened, and there she was. In Grissom’s house and not going anywhere. The bed beneath her was comfy and soft, and her entire body still thrilled at the seductive brush of what had to be expensive bedsheets over her Grissom-sensitized skin.
He wasn’t there snuggling with her, yet he was. She could smell him in the masculine, smoky, cedar scent caught between the sheets. In the tingles of pleasure still rippling over her bare skin. At her wicked thoughts of him. In the marks they’d stamped onto each other. In just thinking how his big hands had gripped her backside, when she’d come her very first time. The weight of his magnificent body pressing her into the mattress, anchoring her for another spine-tingling attack. The roughness of his chest hairs against her sensitized breasts and nipples. His confidence. His strength. But he’d never lost his underwear. That had to change.
Pulling to the side of the bed, Tuesday wiggled her toes into the plush silvery-gray bedroom carpet and let a few happy tears fall. That grumpy, brooding male with the tender heart loved her, and he’d spent most of the night proving it, well, not proving it per se. She wasn’t sure what the juvenile slang was for how far they’d gone. Second base? Third? Couldn’t be a home run. That was reserved for ‘doing it.’ ‘Going all the way.’ And a bunch of disgusting descriptors for what Grissom called a sacred thing between a man and a woman.
How had he become the honorable, caring, and insightful male he was today, especially after living through a mother like Vivian and a wife like Pam? Somewhere along the line, Grissom had to have been exposed to at least one honorable, honest male who’d made an impression on him. She knew from experience it only took one good person to reach out and save a lost child, to change that child’s entire world. To make a difference. Freddie had saved her. Who’d saved Grissom?
Alex surely fit the bill, but so did most men on The TEAM. Maybe Murphy? That made better sense. Mr. Finnegan had hired Grissom and introduced him to the tightly-knit band of former warriors, The TEAM family. The simple tag, The TEAM, made Tuesday smile. Instead of the lackluster, totally generic moniker, Alex should’ve called his business The FAMILY. Might’ve made it sound like part of the Mafia, but it’d be a better fit for what Alex had created. Tuesday saw the results in both Shane and Heston. In handsome Mark Houston. Even Alex. Theywerefamily, and their wives were the glue that made that family work.
But enough of that. Tuesday needed to get moving. She’d promised Grissom she’d stay one day and she had, but it’d soon be time to get back to reality.
Her clothes were somewhere in the room. She hadn’t cared where they landed last night, wasn’t sure she cared now. If not for Tanner and Luke, she’d be brave and march up to Grissom in her birthday suit, and she’d tempt that handsome Grizzly Bear back into her bed. As it was, she was afraid Tanner and Luke might’ve heard too much last night. She doubted Grissom had females sleep over. Darn, she should’ve been quiet. But honestly? She’d lost her mind once he’d taken over. Her, a virgin with no experience. Wiping her tears, Tuesday giggled. Freddie’d always urged her to tackle whatever scared her the most. But holy cow, she might’ve scared Grissom last night.
Oh, that man. That big, warm, hairy, wonderful man. She couldn’t believe the emotions being with him like that stirred in her brain and heart, and okay, her body and soul, too. They’d been frantic heathens last night, and she’d loved every minute of it. Okay, so maybe she might need to stay another night, you know, just to tempt the beast again. To make sure Grissom taught her everything. How many stayovers would it take to learn all there was to know about biology?
“He loves me,” she whispered, reaching behind, intending to wrap the Grissom-scented bedsheet around her. To pull the masculine-scented sheet to her nose and inhale every last scintillating male pheromone he’d left behind. As if there could ever be enough.
Instead, her fingers tangled with a lump of soft fur that purred. Must be Tanner’s cat. Tuesday had wondered last night where Pixie was. Now, she knew. The chubby black and white cat stopped purring and glared at her with half-shuttered amber eyes daring her to touch it again.
“Hello, Miss Pixie,” she said, letting Pixie sniff her fingertips. “Aren’t you a pretty girl?”
With a stretch of her fluffy neck, Pixie accepted the gesture, then closed her eyes, kicked her internal motorboat into high gear, and resumed purring. Like a pretentious queen on her throne. As if Tuesday were merely staff.
Stroking Pixie’s long, sleek fur was a good way to wake up. Not the best. That would’ve been petting Grissom, but these few minutes alone gave Tuesday time to take stock of her new surroundings.
The room was painted white. The carpet was a muted, silvery gray, same as the headboard, both nightstands, and the six-drawer dresser beside the door to the ensuite bathroom. Twisting around told her the neutral tones throughout the room would make the perfect backdrop to the family portraits sheintended to take today. Photos in rustic red, barn wood frames. The largest, a ginormous family shot of the McCoy family would cover the wall facing the foot of the bed. It’d be the perfect thing for anyone to wake up to each morning. Just not her. This wasn’t her home and a guest knew when to leave.
“Sorry, Pixie, but you’ll have to scoot over. I’m getting up,” she said, rolling the chubby cat to the other side of the bed. She got a hiss for that slight, but Madam Pixie stayed put once she was paws down again.
Tuesday spotted her luggage next to the bathroom door. Grissom must’ve found her keys and brought it in for her. Perfect. In no time, she was showered and dressed in fresh clothes that didn’t smell like horses. She’d barely packed her dirty clothes into her suitcase when a quiet knock sent her hurrying to answer. There stood shy Tanner in his stocking feet, clean jeans, a plain white t-shirt, and a timid smile.
“Dad says tell you breakfast is ready. Pixie!” He ran for the unmade bed and scrambled up beside his cat. “You been sleeping with Miss Tuesday all night?”
Tuesday stayed at the door, listening to Luke chattering with Grissom in the kitchen beyond, while she gazed at Tanner. “Do we have enough time to look at your amazing combat jet pictures before breakfast?” She hadn’t forgotten her promise, but suspected he might have with all the commotion last night.
“Sure!” he replied, easily scooping Pixie into his arms and sliding to the floor. “Come on, kitty cat. You come, too.”
Tuesday followed Tanner into the hall leading to the master bedroom at the opposite end. The guest bathroom and a linen closet were on her left. It helped knowing the guest room was far from the master bedroom. His boys might not have heard her after all.
The moment Tanner opened the master bedroom door, Tuesday knew she was finally seeing the real McCoy familyroom. It was a disaster. She chuckled at the clutter from the night, maybe the week, before. The king size bed didn’t look like it’d ever been made up, not with half its tangled blankets on the floor, the other half balled on the mattress.
Several device chargers decorated both nightstands, along with lamps with mismatched shades. The mirror over the long, twelve-drawer dresser was too foggy to make out her reflection, and dozens of video games and game covers still scattered the floor in front of the big screen over the dresser, where the boys had camped out with their company. Candy wrappers, an empty popcorn tub on its side, half-empty water bottles, and several pairs of boy’s tennis shoes were scattered, well, everywhere. The closed lid of the hamper beside the open bathroom door belied the truth—that no males had ever used them—as did the smelly pile of clothes next to the hamper. The entire place smelled of man and boy, Tuesday’s favorite scents. Yup, this was where the McCoys really lived, all three of them. This was their hole-in-the-wall hideout, and they truly were desperados, apparently on the run from picking up after themselves. What were those tidy but empty hampers in the laundry room for? Show?
Tanner dropped to his knees, opening the lowest center drawers of the dresser. He’d already set Pixie down, and she was peering into the drawer, her ears perked forward like everything Tanner did fascinated her. “This here’s my drawer,” he grunted as it tipped forward onto the carpet. “Just mine. Nobody else can take nothing out of it but me. Dad said.”
Tuesday expected a tablet, maybe a sketch pad. Anything but a professionally bound twelve-by-twelve scrapbook.
Settling to his butt, he flipped past the first few pictures, each preserved in a document protector. “This one’s the best one I ever did. Here, look.”
Dropping to her knees at his other side, Tuesday shifted until she was cross-legged, looking in wonder at a six-year-old’s artwork. It wasn’t what she expected. The eight-by-eleven photograph of a red, white, and blue F-16, one of the famous USAF Thunderbirds demonstration team gracing the left document protector, was good. But the colored-pencil sketch at its right was excellent. Six manly signatures, probably from those F-16 pilots, decorated the photo. Only one decorated the sketch.Tanner McCoyhad been carefully penciled lengthwise along the right margin.
“You’re quite the budding artist. How’d you copy it, with onion skin or tracing paper?”
“I don’t know what that stuff is, I just drawed it. With one of these.” Tipping forward, Tanner pulled out a plastic zip-lock bag of stubby, well-used colored pencils, a tiny plastic sharpener, and a white eraser from the drawer. An almost empty, hundred-sheet pack of drawing papers came next.
“You drew this freehand?”Unbelievable.
