Page 22 of Grumpy

“Well?” she prompted when he said nothing.

“I’m really starting to hate that word,” he practically growled through gritted teeth.

“Well,” she added because she could, “if you would just talk instead of making me pry the answers out of you, I wouldn’t have to say it.”

His eye narrowed on her. The other was slower to respond. “Well, it seems my mother needs to learn to keep her mouth shut. What I don’t understand is why she would tell you about that at all.”

Kelly paused, licking her lips. “Because of the girl.”

Grumpy frowned. “What girl?”

“The one who showed up to the hospital about a week or so after you were admitted. It was days before I left,” she clarified, “but it’s what prompted the conversation. Your mom didn’t just randomly walk up to me and tell me about her cheating son.”

Grumpy’s expression darkened at Kelly’s poor choice of words. “I’ve never cheated on a woman in my life. Never have, never will.”

Kelly squeezed his thigh. His feet weren’t over hers anymore, but she was able to reach them easily. “I know. I think a part of me always knew. It was why I kept talking to you, kept being your friend. But I also didn’t argue enough. I didn’t question her story enough.”

“There were accusations of cheating,” he clarified. “But I never did.”

“With both of them?”

Grumpy nodded sadly. “Nadine and I were young. Really young, but I loved her. We wanted to get married before I got my first orders so she could come with me. It wasn’t going to be anything big, just a quick courthouse outing. But the day before we were set to go, she called me and told me that it’s over. That she ‘knows what I did’. I tried to get a hold of her, tried to fight for her, but it was like she vanished off the earth. I never saw or spoke to her again.”

Kelly’s heart bled for him and what he’d gone through. “And with your ex-wife?”

“We were married about six years. I was stationed at Fort Hood at the time, down in Texas. Everything seemed good. Really good—and then one day, I came home and Tanya was in an uproar. She called me a cheater and a liar. Kept waving these pictures around in front of me, but at the time, she was too frantic to even let me see them. I tried to defend myself, tried to tell her that it wasn’t real. But she never believed me, didn’t trust me. She kicked me out and filed for divorce.”

“You didn’t live on base?” she inquired softly.

He shook his head. “We bought a house, wanting to make a forever home we could keep after I retired.” He snorted somberly. “Apparently she had a different definition of ‘forever’ than I did.”

Kelly could hear the pain in Grumpy’s gruff voice as he spoke. “I’m sorry.”

He grunted, as if to say that it didn’t matter now. But it did. He’d been hurt, not just by the accusations of these women but by their lack of faith in him.

“I shouldn’t have let what Margery said get to me,” Kelly told him. “I can say I didn’t believe her all I want, but clearly something got to me because I kept you at arm’s length all these months. Even if it was subconscious, I am sorry, Grumpy.”

“If you tell me you’re sorry one more time, I will take you over my knee. You’ll likely have to put yourself there, and I’ll have to find like a spatula or something to use on you, but I will spank your ass.”

Kelly laughed. “Not exactly a deterrent.”

Something dark and full of promise shifted in his dark gaze. “I wish I could make love to you.”

Kelly’s cheeks flushed as she asked, “Can you?”

He snorted. “My dick is one of the few things that still works properly, thank God. It’s the rest of me that’s still figuring out how to catch up.”

Kelly squeezed his ankle again. “We’ll figure it out. Like you said, sex and romance is the cherry on top. I like this. I like being here with you. I like…”

“What?” he prompted when she trailed off.

“Being yours,” she finished softly.

Pulling her leg, Grumpy slid her across the couch until she was between his muscular thighs. Her leg, now bent, was squished between the cushion and his side as he took her chin in his hand. “You’ve been mine.”

Kelly’s cheeks heated as she smiled at the declaration. “Why did this take us so long then? We’ve wasted so much time.”

“I wouldn’t have been good for you before now, Kells. As much as it feels like wasted time, it wasn’t. Tanya kicked me out weeks before my retirement and then I worked my way here. I was very bitter when I arrived, and as beautiful as I thought you were, I would have done you wrong if I followed through back then.”