Tanner
Cary Grisham is more petite than I’d have expected, considering how big her brother is.
She cuts an imposing figure, though, as we pull up on the bike. Arms crossed over her chest, she scowls as we roll up. She’s rather pixie-like, really, with a head of short dark hair that shines in the sunlight. Her sunglasses are dark and her skin is perfect and just slightly sun kissed.
Griz takes my hand as we hop off the bike. I smooth my dress and hair, nervous.
“That look is not about you,” he says quietly. “It’s for me. Out last conversation did not end well and she’s been giving me the silent treatment ever since.”
We head up to the front porch of the house, a modest little place that does not scream of the wealth that Griz has amassed. Cary takes off her sunglasses to reveal blue eyes identical to her brother’s, eyes that are currently narrowed on where our hands meet and hold.
“Cary, this is Tanner Williams,” Griz says.
I give an awkward, little wave. “Nice to meet you, Cary.”
Cary purses her lips and says, “David, can we have a talk inside for a minute? Alone?”
Griz squeezes my hand. “No, I think we can all sit out here on this nice porch and have an adult conversation together. What time is Shannon’s bus?”
Cary looks at her watch. Her whole body is tense, like she’s ready to spring off the desk to claw out Griz’s face.
“It’s in fifteen minutes,” she says sharply. “Plenty of time for me to kick your ass to Mexico and back for whatever bullshit you’re pulling lately. Where the fuck have you been for the past week? Your daughter asks for you like seven times a day.”
I feel my eyes go wide at the tirade, and my skin goes hot. I should not be witnessing this. She was right; they should’ve gone inside.
“Cary, calm down,” Griz says in his boss voice. “You’re the one not answering my texts and calls. I’ve tried like twice a day, every day. Pick up the phone if you want to talk to me.”
“Don’t tell me what to do, little brother,” she says. “You might be the boss of all those dudes, but you’re not the boss of me.”
Griz’s jaw ticks. He looks off into the distance, takes a steadying breath. “Cary,” she says again. “I know you’re angry. You deserve to be angry. But the past week and a half has been … rough.”
“Every day is rough for you lately. I told you to get the fuck out of that business,” she snaps.
“Spike is dead,” Griz says flatly. “For one.”
Cary’s sour expression turns softer. “Oh. How?”
“Well, I should start at the beginning, I think,” Griz says, leading me to a porch swing.
We sit, and he pulls me close. Cary takes a seat in a wicker chair, scooting it so she’s facing us. Griz starts telling the whole story—my kidnapping, Spike’s elevated drug use, his erratic behavior. He tells her about the defection of some of his guys, about trying to keep things together at the club, about Spike shooting a rival club member. He leaves out some of the worst parts—how Spike tried to rape me, for one—but gets to the final showdown and admits that he shot his vice president to keep him from hurting anyone else.
“Tanner was hurt very badly by him, several times,” Griz says. “He shot two other people as well. He wasn’t the same man I knew when we started. I blame myself.”
Cary rubs her face with her hands. She looks up and tears fall down her cheeks. “David, when are you going to leave all this behind?” she asks, her voice full of emotion. “Fuck. I mean …”
“I know,” he says. Then more forcefully, “I know. But there’s more. I love the club, the bikes, the guys. But you’re right; it’s gotten out of control. Draven Williams runs a good operation, usually pretty low drama. He’s offered to absorb my club. I’ll be his vice president. It’s like eating crow, kind of, because you know I’m an A-type motherfucker who doesn’t do the boot-licking thing. But it will save lives. It’s the right thing to do. And it’ll free up some time. He’s willing to give me more time with Shannon. More time to explore other interests.”
Cary’s face lightens. “Really? I mean, it doesn’t sound like you to let someone else take control … Are you sure you can handle it?”
“It wasn’t easy to say yes,” Griz admits. “Even under the threat of someone shooting up my club like some gangster movie.” He chuckles.
“That doesn’t sound like a hard choice to me,” she says.
“No, I suppose it doesn’t,” he answers. “But you’ve always been the sane one.”
Cary turns her attention to me, her eyes scrutinizing every inch of my face. “So you’re the missing girl. All holed up with my asshole brother all this time? Hope he was nice. He can be a real prick sometimes.”
“He was good,” I answer, feeling my cheeks go hot as I blush. “Yes. I’m the missing girl. Found again.”
“Are you okay?” she asks, gesturing to my multiple injuries.
“I’m healing,” I say. “Griz took good care of me.”
Griz makes a noise. “I was ready to tear the place apart because there was very little I could do to help.”
“Are you two … together, then?” she asks. “This isn’t like Stockholm Syndrome or some other weird shit, right?”
“No, no,” I say, putting up my hands and shaking my head. “No. Not like that at all.”
“We are together,” Griz says, so definitively that it makes my heart leap in my chest. “In spite of all the bullshit.”
Cary stands. “Well, I guess I’m happy for you, then.”
The bus pulls up, then, and Griz gets up to join his sister. As they wander down to the sidewalk, a tiny girl with long dark hair steps off the bus, her shoes bright red and her backpack bright blue. She is, quite possibly, the cutest kid I’ve ever seen. Not that I’m surprised, since her father is so damn handsome.
She squeals when she sees her dad, her little face splitting in half with a wide smile as she runs to him. He picks her up, showering her with kisses, pulling her into a long hug. This is a side of him I obviously haven’t seen. I have to fight back big ugly tears as I watch, because it’s dawning on me what he’s given up in order to keep his club running and keep her safe at the same time. I, at least, had my father in my life. He was a bossy sonofabitch who wouldn’t give me any freedom, but at least I had him.
They head to the house, Griz carrying the little girl as if she weighs nothing. It’s very modern inside, for as simple as it is on the outside. Small, maybe, with a formal living room that leads into a kitchen. The colors are bright and the furniture is simple and understated, but decidedly expensive looking.
I follow them inside, not sure what to do as Shannon chatters about her first few days of first grade. She talks about her teacher and the new pet their classroom is getting. It’s a moment before the little girl notices me. Her eyes go wide when she does.
“Hey, you’re the pretty lady I saw on the TV!” she exclaims. “I told Daddy to rescue you. Did he rescue you?”
“He did,” I say, giving her a tearful smile. “I’m Tanner.”
The little girl wiggles around until Griz puts her down. She runs over to me and holds out a hand for me to shake. “I’m Shannon.”
We shake hands and I drop to my knees so I can be at eye level with this little beauty.
“Did the bad guys do that to you?” she asks, touching the scrapes on my face, the fading bruises on my neck.
“They did,” I answer. “But they can’t hurt me anymore.”
“That’s good. You’re like a princess. My daddy is the prince who rides in and saves you from a dragon.” She makes a sour face. “Though I guess princesses can save themselves sometimes.”
I laugh, “Yes, sometimes they can, that’s for sure. And sometimes they save the prince, how about that?”
“Sometimes dumb-butt princes need someone to save them,” Cary agrees. She looks at me with a shrug, “As you can see, she’s becoming a bit of a feminist lately.”
Griz rolls his eyes and mutters, “Great, three of you now.”
“Hmm,” Shannon grunts, thinking on this idea. “Well, I’m hungry. What’s for snack?”
Cary laughs and says, “I think Dad can figure it out. I’ve got to run back to the hospital to cover another shift. I’ll call Marisol on the way and let her know she doesn’t need to come by today.”
We settle into the afternoon, as I get to know little Shannon. She’s not a fan of pink, apparently, because she feels it is too gender specific. She enjoys princess movies but only the ones with strong princesses, not weak ones. When I ask her which are which, she gives me a long lecture on how Mulan, Tiana, and Moana are much better than Cinderella and Snow White. Her logic is actually really good and I sort of forget I’m talking to a kid who’s barely going to be six years old.
“She might be a genius,” I whisper to Griz at one point in the day.
“Yeah,” he agrees, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “I’m really in for it, huh?”
Shannon accepts me so easily, like she’s just been waiting for her father to find someone. She mentions, more than once, that she’s never met any of her father’s friends. She asks if I’ll be coming back around more.
Griz clears his throat at this. “Well, how would you feel about that?” he asks.
“Good,” she says. “I mean, she can come over all the time. That would be fine.”
“Well, then, I think it’s time to tell you that Tanner and I are together, like a couple,” Griz says.
“Are you getting married?” she asks innocently.
I laugh. Griz frowns.
“We’ll talk about that later,” Griz says. “But for now, we need to talk about maybe us living here as a family together. How would you feel about that?”
Shannon squeals and jumps into her father’s embrace. He smiles. A real, wide, dazzling smile that stops my breath.
“I’ll take that to mean you’re okay with it?” he asks, laughing.
“Yes! Yes!” she squeals again. “Oh, my goodness, Daddy! I can’t wait to tell Aunt Cary!”
“Well, let me talk to her first, okay?” he says gently. “We have some adult things to figure out together. Okay?”
“Okay. And can we get a puppy? Or a kitten? “
“One step at a time,” he says.
She skips off, talking to herself about having a mom and a dad. I find myself watching her with my hand over my heart. When I come back to reality, I find Griz staring at me, a nervous expression on his face.
“What?” he asks.
“I’ve just never seen you like this,” I say. “And Shannon … she’s beautiful.”
“She is,” he says, his expression shuttering. “She looks so much like her mother.”
I wander over to him, folding into his embrace. “I’m not trying to replace someone you loved,” I say. “I want her to know who her mother was.”
Griz takes a long time to respond. “I can’t tell her that her mother was a prostitute, Tanner.”
“No,” I agree, “but you can tell her that her mother was beautiful and that she made you push to work harder, to be a leader. You can tell her that her mother was loved very much. It’s okay to talk about Giselle, Griz. She deserves to be remembered, if only because you loved her. Shannon needs to know that.”
“I’ve tried very hard not to think about her for a long time.”
“I know.”
He pulls away to look at me. “I don’t like lying, Tanner. I’m nothing if not honest, probably to a fault. And I don’t like lying to your father about this marriage that didn’t happen.”
I open my mouth. Shut it again. I know he understands that I did it to keep my father from marrying me off to Kit. But he’s also really irritated that we’ve had to keep up this lie.
He bites his bottom lip. “This is so crazy,” he says.
“Do you still want me to stay with you?” I ask, not sure what he’s trying to tell me. “I mean, I know this is fast. I can tell my dad the truth, go back to the Grave Robbers while you and I figure things out.”
“No,” he says.
“No?” I ask.
“No, I mean … I want you to stay. I wouldn’t have said anything to Shannon if I didn’t. And yes, it’s fast, but I want it. All of it. And I don’t want to be a liar, so I think, maybe, we should make this official.” He gives me a shy grin, another expression I’ve never seen on him before. “If you want?”
I feel myself smirking, giving him a bemused look. “I guess I’m not getting it?”
He falls to one knee, pulling out a ring from his pocket. “Tanner, will you marry me for real?”
I nod, tears starting instantly. My “yes” comes out more of a croak than anything. Griz puts the simple engagement ring on my finger, stands, and pulls me to him, his mouth on mine instantly.
We kiss and kiss, until an impatient little noise interrupts. Shannon stands in the doorway with a flabbergasted look on her little face. “What are you two doing? Makin’ babies?”
I laugh out loud and Griz just rolls his eyes. “That is not how babies are made,” he scolds. “We’re just kissing.”
“Well, it looks gross. And messy.” She sticks her tongue out and says, “Let’s get pizza for dinner and eat it on the couch and watch a movie, ’kay?”
He agrees and when she wanders into the living room to pick a movie, he says, “Full-time parenting, here we come. I think it will be worse than the club.”
“You’re used to being the boss,” I say. “This will be an adjustment.”
“I am the boss,” he growls.
“If you say so.”
I leave him grumbling about definitely still being the boss as he dials for pizza.
This is going to be fun.