Downpour: Chapter 2

I threaded the end of the rope through the loop and tightened it. My hand trembled. I bit the knot to loosen it so I could tie it again, all while ignoring the body on the other side of the room.

Unfortunately, the body was alive.

“I don’t know why everyone said you’re crabby,” she said as she cleaned up from lunch. “You’re just quiet. Nothing wrong with that, sweetheart. I don’t mind the quiet. There’s too much noise these days.”

A dull ache pulsed behind my eyes. “Stop talking.”

She huffed. “That grouchy act won’t work on me. I raised six boys—including my husband. I can handle your attitude.”

The rope fell as I unlocked my chair and rolled to the door. “Out.”

She propped her hands on her hips. “I just got here.”

“And now you’re leaving.” I opened the front door and wheeled away. “Don’t bother locking up.”

It was already time to change the locks again. Seemed like I spent more money on doorknobs than anything else.

Fortunately, the drill was still on the side table in the living room.

Maybe a number lock would be easier than dealing with keys and all that bullshit. I could just reprogram the code.

“Mr. Griffith, there’s no reason for you to speak to me that way.”

“There’s no reason for you to still be here.”

“But I⁠—”

“I believe he told you to leave.” Cassandra, my brother’s fiancé, appeared in the doorway. She hitched her thumb over her shoulder. “Beat it.”

The old lady glowered. “Who do you think you are, telling me to leave my job?”

Cassandra’s cold stare made it clear the old lady was fucked. “It doesn’t matter who I am. Ray told you to get out of his house. Now leave. You’re trespassing, and this is Texas.”

“I have a job to do.”

“I fired you,” I clipped.

Cassandra looked like she was about to claw the woman’s eyes out. “If you don’t leave, you have two choices. Either I can find someone to shoot you and bury you in the south pasture, or I can beat you to death with that kitchen towel in your hand. Take your pick.”

“This family is just as crazy as everyone said,” she yammered as she grabbed her oversized quilted purse and stormed out.

I lifted my wrist and managed a half-decent middle finger. She should have listened the first time.

Why didn’t people listen to me? They always thought I was joking or that I wasn’t the final say on who got to set foot in my house.

Cassandra waited until the woman stomped to her car before closing the door behind her. “I brought your mail down. Marty sent some documents for you to sign.”

“Get Christian to do it,” I grumbled. “He’s my power of attorney.”

“You really have to stop firing people,” she said without the slightest bit of emotion. “We’re getting a reputation.”

“Isn’t it your job to fix people’s reputations? This should be child’s play for you.”

Cassandra dropped the mail on the table and pushed the chairs in. She picked up the tea towel the loud-mouthed grandma had dropped so it wouldn’t get caught under my chair, and hung it over the dishwasher handle.

“I offered to bring you on as a client. You said no, remember? I don’t offer twice. If you want my help, you know where to find me.”

I rolled into the living room and parked myself in front of the sliding door. “I don’t need a publicist.”

“Marty says otherwise, and I agree with him.”

The thought of Marty and his new rider made my blood boil. They could both go to hell as far as I was concerned.

Cassandra tapped a manicured nail on the envelopes. “Sign them and let me know when they’re done. I’ll put them with the outgoing mail.”

“Chris can do it.”

“Fine,” she said, all too agreeably for my comfort. Cassandra was anything but agreeable.

Maybe that’s why we got along so well.

“But that means he’s going to come down here and lecture you. Do you really want him asking why you fired another CNA?”

I glared at her. “Leave a pen on the table.”

She smirked, knowing she had won. “Call if you need something.”

“I won’t.”

She shrugged like it was no big deal. “Suit yourself.”

The door closed behind her and I waited until the click of her high heels faded into the distance before I breathed again.

Finally alone.

I eased up to the kitchen table and made a reach for the first envelope. My physical therapist had chewed my ass out this morning for not working on my left hand, but I didn’t feel like failing today.

I knew what was stuffed in the envelopes. Contract terminations from two more sponsors.

Rule number one of almost dying: make sure someone knows your passwords. It’s hard to cancel your phone plan if you’re dead.

Rule number two of almost dying: make sure your house is clean before you walk up the steps to the pearly gates. It makes selling off your life easier.

I tried to rip the damn thing open, but I couldn’t pinch the envelope.

The rope was fine. It was half an inch thick. Paper was thin, and I didn’t have the dexterity to hold it and tear it open.

Unlike Christian, who would have opened the envelopes and laid out the pages, Cassandra left them sealed. Deliberately.

I managed to get my pocket knife open and sliced open the letter. The cool handle pressed against my palm as I slid the knife down and pressed my thumb behind the blade.

The sound of boots thudding against the wooden ramp outside startled me. The knife twisted in my hand and the sharp edge slid across the pad of my thumb.

“Shit,” I hissed and yanked my hand away. Crimson droplets spattered across the crisp white paper and onto my lap, staining my sweatpants.

Just fucking great. I quickly pressed my thumb to my shirt to stop the bleeding.

The doorknob clicked and the door creaked open.

Christian halted in his tracks at the sight of me before rushing over in a panic. “What the hell happened to you? Cass just left.”

“Accident,” I muttered. “Why’re you here?”

“Just checkin’ on you,” he said. He grabbed the knife, wiped it off, closed it, and turned toward my bedroom. “Sit tight. I’ll grab a change of clothes for you.”

“Don’t want ‘em.”

Christian paused with his hands braced on the bedroom door frame. “We’ve gotta talk about this.”

“Don’t you have a ranch to run?” I said as I gingerly slipped my hand between the folded piece of paper and opened it up to see what my former manager had sent over. Marty would just have to deal with the bloodstains. “What did you do all fucking day when I was in Colorado and riding the circuit?”

There were days where all I wanted was to saddle up and ride through the plains until I couldn’t see anything or anyone. I was jealous of CJ, the youngest of the four of us. He got to ride away from it all.

I had tried to do that. I tried to leave it all behind.

“I worry about people all day,” Christian said. “Bree, Gracie, Cass, and the ranch used to be at the top of that list. Now it’s you.”

I bristled at the mention of my nieces. At one point in time, they had been like my own daughters.

When Christian’s wife died and Nate was deployed, I’d stepped in to help Christian with his girls, Bree and Gracie. Those two girls were my world.

To them, I was Superman.

Invincible and indestructible.

I stared at the table so he couldn’t see the hurt boiling in my eyes. My hair hung over my face. I was long overdue for a trim.

The shaggy mane was making me resemble Christian more with each passing day.

He sighed. “I know this sucks for you.”

It sucks? Was he fucking kidding me?

A caustic laugh escaped me. “Really? I wasn’t aware. Thanks for letting me know.”

“Ray—”

“Fuck off,” I said as I reached for the pen. I fisted it and jammed the end against the table to open it up. Slowly, I managed to scribble something that vaguely resembled Ray Griffith.

The three letters of my first name were a sloppy, childlike scrawl—wonky, misshapen, and inconsistent in size and spacing, sprawling across the entire signature line.

Christian watched from the other side of the room. “Why’d you fire Maude?”

Maude? What kind of name was that?

“She talked too much.”

“That’s what you said about Brian. You know—the one you fired three days ago?”

“He talked too much, and he ate an egg salad sandwich in the car. It was ninety degrees out and he left the windows up.”

Christian pinched the bridge of his nose. “And what about Mary-Beth last week?”

“She read to me. Out loud. Like it was elementary school story time or some shit.”

He sighed. “We’ve gone through two agencies. You’ve cleared the roster for both.”

“Good. Maybe now you’ll stop sending people out here.”

Christian didn’t have a temper. Not like me, Nate, and CJ. Part of me wanted him to get pissed off just to see what would happen. If I could make him crack, it would be the most entertaining part of my day.

“I love you, man, but you’ve gotta stop firing people. Either you learn to get along with whoever we can find to come out here, or it’s gonna be me and momma checking on you every hour.”

“Or maybe you’ll finally listen to me and just fucking leave me be.” It was only ten in the morning, but I was done with this bullshit. I wanted to go back to bed.

Christian sighed. “We both know that’s not an option right now.”

As if I wasn’t fucking aware of it.

The x-rays were seared in my mind. The medical team showed them when I woke up, unable to move. Those images were the only thing that forced me to accept the reality of the accident.

My spine snapped when I was flung off that bull and hit the ground.

For nine months, I was at the mercy of whoever was around to keep me alive. Apparently, Cassandra had been the one to pull strings and get me into an SCI clinical trial. The epidural electrical stimulation for my spinal cord injury would have cost millions if they hadn’t been looking for human lab rats.

I had put away a decent amount of money from my winnings on the professional circuit, but millions every year over my lifetime—or what was left of it—wasn’t in the cards.

But it worked. Well, it worked better on the actual rats. But apparently beggars couldn’t be choosers.

But it did make me downgrade from quadriplegia to paraplegia.

Now, I had a rod in the back of my neck, electrodes in my spine, and storm clouds in my head.

Some days, the only reason I forced myself to go through physical therapy was to get my upper body mobility back enough to be left the hell alone.

Spite was a decent motivator.

I knew Christian meant well. All of them did. The doctors said I was lucky to have such a supportive family.

Maybe I was.

But that didn’t make it better.

“I can hire help. I can have someone cart me around and do my bidding like I’m a fucking princess. But that doesn’t give me my life back,” I snapped. “So, stop being delusional and acting like if someone’s here to put me on the goddamn toilet, that it’s all sunshine and fucking roses.”

Christian’s face was passive behind his beard, but a quiet sigh slipped. “Grief is hard. When Gretchen died, I⁠—”

“Just leave,” I growled, wheeling past him. He could let himself out.