Chapter 24

Grant

Have you ever fucked up your life so bad that you’re not even sure you’ll be able to go on living? I don’t mean like losing a big bet on a table at Vegas, or getting fired from your job. I mean something really important, like convincing the one person you love more than anything else in the world that you don’t even care about her?

Because that’s what I did.

Don’t even ask me how. I don’t know how it happened, or why I let it. Maybe it was pride. Maybe it was fear. But somehow, I just let Lacey believe I wasn’t interested, and I let that creep Rob win her away from me.

Little by little, day by day, she drifted further out of my reach, and further into the arms of Rob. I didn’t even just watch her drift away, I pushed her away. I stopped talking to her. I avoided her at the mansion. I didn’t fight with her, I didn’t show her any emotion, and I didn’t give her anything to hold onto. I just pretended, day after day, that I didn’t give a rat’s ass what she did with Rob.

What was I afraid of?

Why was I intent on pretending I wasn’t interested in her?

Why was I hiding from the truth?

That’s not an easy question for me to answer. I guess the truth lies in a lot of places. For one thing, I’d grown up so close to Lacey that it was difficult to admit to myself that I was romantically in love with her.

For another thing, I was proud, and I’d told her I wasn’t interested in a serious relationship with any woman. I didn’t want to go back on my word.

Finally, I was afraid of screwing it up. What if we started a relationship, and then she realized I wasn’t the guy for her? What if she decided I wasn’t good enough? How would I ever be able to live with that?

I know it sounds stupid, or petty, but this was my life, and it was one hundred percent critical to me. Put yourself in my shoes. Has there ever been anyone in your life you were so in love with, that it literally terrified you? I was so terrified of losing her love that I had to pretend it wasn’t even a possibility.

Doesn’t make sense, does it? Well that’s life. There’s a lot of things men do that don’t make sense. Just look at football. The whole game doesn’t make sense, and yet we watch game after game of the strongest athletes in the country crashing into each other at full speed.

We like disaster and chaos just as much as we like order and peace. Don’t ever forget that. There’s something very comforting for men in chaos. In chaos, everything goes to shit. And if everything goes to shit, then there’s no one to blame. It wasn’t your fault.

That’s the mode I was in with Lacey. If I drove her away, if I forced myself not to give her any warmth, then disaster would follow. She’d be with Rob. That was the worst thing that could happen. And if the worst thing happens, nothing worse can happen. And there’s a comfort in that. It may be a hollow, worthless comfort, but it’s a comfort all the same, and I know women won’t understand it. But it’s the truth.

It eats at you. It sure ate at me. I knew it wasn’t right. I couldn’t get her out of my mind. I’d lie down at night on my bed, and the last thing on my mind was Lacey. I’d wake up in the morning, and she was my first thought.

I’d watch her around the mansion. It was like the old days when she was in high school. I’ll even admit that I went back up to the loft in the barn and I took down the envelope of her pictures, and I jerked off, fantasizing about the sex we’d had up there.

What I wouldn’t do to have that back.

But the more I wanted her, the more I obsessed, the further I drove her away. Just two weeks had passed since the night of the dinner party with Rob, and she was closer to him than ever. They were virtually inseparable.

One evening, I was in the barn, checking on the horses. Often, Lacey or Jackson would feed them, but I still liked to check on them most nights when I had the time. After I’d done my rounds I decided to go up to the loft and look at my old photos of Lacey. It was hopeless, but I couldn’t stop looking at them.

I climbed the ladder and breathed in deeply the scent of dust and dry hay. The sun was setting in the west and the light flooded through the window. I grabbed my envelope and the hip flask and took a swig of the whiskey.

Then I sat on the hay and flicked through the few photos. Such a beautiful girl, and she’d grown into an even more beautiful woman. She was one of those people who grew more and more beautiful as she aged. She was like a work of art, always in progress, always reaching closer and closer toward perfection. That’s why it baffled me that Rob wanted her to go through all those ridiculous cosmetic procedures. He didn’t know what he had.

But could I blame him? I’d had her too, or I’d almost had her, and I didn’t appreciate it either.

As I looked at those old photos, their corners worn from my fingers touching them, I decided that I would do something about it. I didn’t have to watch that guy steal her away from me. She didn’t know it yet, hell, I didn’t even know it, but she was my woman. She’d always been my woman. I just had to tell her.

There was already an old letter in the envelope and for the first time in years I read the words. It was silly. I’d written it during my first week at the mansion, seventeen years ago, when I was just a kid. I’d have been in prison if it wasn’t for Lacey’s father, so don’t judge the style of the letter. It’s who I was back then.

This is what it said.

Lacey,

You barely know me, but please listen to me. I know this sounds crazy, and that there’s no way I could possibly know this yet, but I’m the man for you. God made one man for you, and I’m him. I’m your one and only. It’s the truth. Don’t ask how I know it. I just do. The first night I got here, I saw you coming down the stairs, and it was like I was looking at an angel coming down from heaven. I always knew I’d meet an angel some day. The priest said, when my parents died, that an angel watched over us all. I didn’t believe him at the time, but when I saw you his words finally made sense to me. You’re my angel Lacey, and I’m going to make you mine. I swear it. I’m going to take you, like a swooping eagle takes a fish from a mountain lake. There’s nothing you can do about it. You’ve always been mine, and you always will be, no matter what.

Forever yours,

Grant Lucas

I felt strangely emotional as I read the words. I was a different person back then, just a kid, a criminal, and everything about me has changed in the years since. Except for this one thing. I was still in love with Lacey. She was still my girl, my angel. I knew it then, and I knew it now. I hadn’t given her the letter back then, when she was just seventeen, but I should have.

I didn’t have to make the same mistake now. I loved her. I loved her with a raging, burning fire that no amount of time would quench. If I didn’t tell her now, I’d lose her forever.

There were some blank pages and the old pencil I’d used years ago, and I started writing. I laughed. My handwriting hadn’t changed a bit. The letter I was writing now was almost identical in every way to the letter I’d written then. Even the words were similar. The love was the same too.

Lacey,

I should have said these words to you years ago. I’ve been a fool. I know it. Please forgive me. I’ve always loved you. It wasn’t just a crush back then when we were kids. It was the real thing, and it’s still the real thing.

The night we were together at Faith and Jackson’s wedding was the best night of my life. I can’t even describe what I feel about it. It felt so right, like our destiny. I know we’re meant to be together, and I’m not going to let anything get in the way anymore.

Be mine, Lacey. Forget everything else, forget all the mistakes I’ve made, forget what an idiot I’ve been, and give yourself, body and soul, to me. I promise I’ll take care of you and honor you.

Let me make you my wife. Let me make you the mother of my children. I beg you. I want everything you have to offer, Lacey. All the joy and love in your heart, I want it to be mine and no one else’s.

Be my bride and I’ll never be so stupid as to let you out of my grasp again.

Forever yours

Grant Lucas