Falling for Grace

by Maddie James

  She didn’t really understand why, but she needed Carson Price. She needed him to rent the place next door and she needed him for—oh hell, some reason she really didn’t quite understand yet. But more than that, she had the distinct feeling that he needed her. Izzie, too.

  When and where she’d decided that, she wasn’t quite sure. Perhaps it had something to do with the way Izzie looked into her eyes a few minutes ago.

  Gracie rushed through the door and into her shop. Damn, damn, damn maternal instincts! she chided herself.

  What the hell do I know about maternal instincts? For all I know mine could be cracked off-kilter since the opportunity to be maternal has not yet once presented itself into my life.

  She entered her shop just behind Carson and raced to the back. Her eyes darted back and forth, scanning the room, trying to find Izzie. She didn’t see her.

  Carson stopped abruptly in front of her and she plowed into him from behind with an oof!

  “Sorry,” she said as she planted her feet and peered around him. Carson, unmoving, didn’t answer.

  She glanced at the table, the glass inset piece teetered off the edge.

  The place was a mess.

  Her tea pot was a goner.

  The cookies were smashed to smithereens.

  Her favorite cookie plate was now in three distinct pieces.

  And even worse, it seemed upon closer inspection, that Izzie had vamoosed.

  “Izzie!” Carson bellowed.

  Gracie backed up, the sound of his stern voice startling her. She studied him from the side. Etched into his face was worry and anger and frustration and a host of other things probably, that she couldn’t quite define. The tendons of his neck were taut and prominent and his jaw was firmly set.

  “Isabella!”

  Silence. Gracie slipped her gaze away from Carson’s face to pan the room again, more slowly this time. Izzie couldn’t have gone far, there wouldn’t have been time.

  Unless, of course, she’d slipped out the back door.

  “Isabella Price!”

  Carson was still unmoving, as though he’d played this game before with his daughter, and that the name of the game was: when he bellowed, she jumped. Well, so far, Izzie wasn’t jumping.

  She wondered when the middle name—

  “Isabella Marcia Price!”

  There. There it was. Gracie now wondered if the child would appear.

  More silence.

  Slipping away from Carson, Gracie edged toward the back of the shop. He bellowed out his daughter’s name once more and she had to wonder why he thought the girl would come out of hiding with subsequent bellowings, if she didn’t emerge after the first one.

  Perhaps paternal instincts were somewhat different from maternal ones.

  Mentally shrugging, Gracie traveled quietly toward the rear of the store, silently easing her way through the half-open door, and glanced to her right into the storage room.

  Her shop was the mirror image of the one next door. Carson’s had the storage area to the left, bathroom to the right. Hers was the opposite. They shared the back stairway that led to the apartments above each shop. The bathrooms were actually tucked beneath that stairway.

  Funny, she was already thinking of the shop and apartment as Carson’s. Hm. She shook off that notion and got back to the task at hand.

  Upon quick inspection of the storage area, Gracie realized that Izzie wasn’t there. She supposed she could have hidden behind some boxes or underneath her worktable, but she didn’t think so. She sensed, more than actually observed, that the child was not there.

  Gracie turned to her left.

  The stairwell was empty but something drew her to it. At that point Carson came bursting through the door beside her. He was about to bellow out again but Gracie put a finger to her lip and tossed him the most urgent look she could muster. He stopped dead in his tracks, a bit perplexed it seemed, and waited.

  It was then that she noticed the smear of blood on his forefinger. It looked as if he’d wiped it off of the floor or the table or something, it was laced with crumbs and sugar.

  “Wait here,” she said to him, pleading more with her eyes than with her words. Suddenly, she was frightened for Izzie and with the bellowing that man was doing earlier, she didn’t want him to frighten her any further.

  Silently, she crept up the stairs, carefully avoiding the steps that creaked, a trick she’d learned over time. Her last tenant of six years had complained incessantly about her climbing the stairs to her apartment late at night, after she’d finished her work day, waking him every time.

  She made the first landing then followed the stairway’s angle to the left. There she found the child, hunched near the wall, clutching one hand with the other, a small trickle of blood oozing out between her fingers.

  “Izzie, you’re hurt.” Gracie crouched down in front of her. “Let me see.”

  The child looked a bit lost and confused at first, not to mention a bit vulnerable, then her eyes caught sight of her father moving up the stairs behind Gracie.

  Izzie puffed up her chest, set her jaw, tilted her head, and stuck both hands behind her back.

  “Ain’t nothin’,” she remarked.

  Gone was the frightened little girl of a second ago. In her place was one tough little lady finger...er...cookie.

  Glancing over her shoulder, Gracie sensed the reason for that tough exterior. If he bellowed one more time, she told herself, she was going to rudely bellow right back at him.

  But he didn’t. Crouching down beside her, getting closer to his daughter, he reached out his hand. “Izzie, let me see, honey.”

  Gracie looked at Mr. Carson Price again. His face was ashen and beads of perspiration were popping out on his forehead. He was worried. And scared. He may just have redeemed himself in her eyes, Gracie thought.

  “Okay, baby? Let me see what you did,” he crooned softly to the child.

  “Ain’t nothin’, Dad. It will be okay.”

  “You’re bleeding.”

  The child shrugged. “No big deal.”

  “Yes, it’s a big deal. You’re hurt and I want to help you. Let’s take a look at it.”

  Isabella Marcia Price glanced from her father, to Gracie, and then back to her father again. After a moment, she slowly pushed her hand forward.

  The fleshy part of her palm, right below her thumb, sported a small cut. Gracie noticed that the child’s eyes never left her father’s.

  Gingerly, he took her impish hand in his large one and cradled it there.

  “This has gotta hurt a bit, Iz. I know it has to.”

  She nodded slightly.

  Gracie leaned forward. She thought she saw something glimmer in the child’s hand, a reflection of the overhead stairwell light.

  “I think there is a piece of glass in there,” she offered.

  Carson looked at Gracie and then back to study his daughter’s palm. “I think you’re right. Do you have a pair of tweezers around here anywhere?”

  Nodding, she replied, “Sure do. Let’s head upstairs to my apartment.”

  Gracie realized then, just as those words escaped her mouth, that this was the first time she’d invited a man into her apartment in, oh, about a thousand years. She wasn’t quite sure she was prepared for it, but there was definitely not time to mull over that situation at the moment.

  There were more pressing things at hand.

  Chapter Three

  “You don’t have to carry me, Dad. My legs ain’t hurt.”

  “Aren’t hurt.”

  “The glass is in my hand, not my leg. Put me down now.”

  “I’ll put you down in a minute. I don’t want to risk you tripping and breaking your fall with that hand.”

  “But—”

  Carson stopped at the stop of the stairs, narrowed his gaze, and looked into his daughter’s face. “But what, Iz?” he replied with a huff.

  Izzie smirked. “Nothing, Dad.”

  Carson wasn’t quite
sure what made him so scared—the fact that Izzie had momentarily disappeared, that the sight of her blood drops on the floor had rendered him nearly incapable of functioning, or the thought that Grace Hart would now never rent to him.

  Truth be known, it was a mixture of all three, with extreme emphasis on the blood issue. His heart leapt into his throat every time he thought about Izzie bleeding to death somewhere and him not being able to find her.

  He held her close and waited while Grace opened the door to her apartment then showed them into the kitchen.

  “The light in here is better,” she said. “Why don’t you sit her there on the counter and I’ll go get tweezers and some peroxide.”

  Carson nodded and followed her instructions.

  The small kitchen was bright and airy, cheerful and welcoming. In fact, the whole apartment appeared to be that way. It smelled nice, too. Kind of like lemons and cinnamon all at the same time. He didn’t know about the combination, but he sort of liked it. He’d noticed all that as soon as he’d stepped over the threshold—registering it secondarily though, his primary thoughts still on Izzie’s wound.

  “Let me see that, Bubblebuns.” He cradled Izzie’s small hand in his then looked into her eyes.

  “Don’t call me that.”

  Carson frowned at his daughter, whose face still held an unhappy expression, then tossed a teasing wink at her. Finally, after a moment of scrutinizing him, she winked back.

  “I’ll call you anything I darned well please,” he added with a hint of a grin. “You’re my Bubblebuns.”

  Izzie laughed, her smirk fading fully into a broad smile.

  “Dad,” she began. “It was an accident. The cookies, I mean.”

  “Later,” he told her, then turned his concentration on her wound. He’d settle up with Grace about the damages later. And he’d settle up with his daughter about the damages much later. Like, with a huge talk and some extra chores to earn out enough funds to pay him back for replacing the delicate china she’d shattered.

  He just hoped it wasn’t priceless or something.

  Grace re-appeared with a damp washcloth, bandages, cotton balls, tweezers, and hydrogen peroxide. “Here, I think this is all we need.”

  She set the items on the counter, fumbled the peroxide, then righted it again quickly, then simultaneously looked up into Carson’s eyes and bit her lower lip.

  “Thank you,” he replied.

  She was nervous. For the life of him he couldn’t figure out why, but she was. Her hands were shaking as she’d laid the items on the counter. Funny, a self-assured business woman like herself didn’t seem the type to be nervous about much, he thought. But for some reason, there was a slight change in her demeanor. Not able to quite put his finger on it, he glanced back to Izzie and stared once more at the child’s palm.

  “Would you like to do the honors, or shall I?” Grace offered.

  Carson realized then that he’d made no move to pick the glass out of Izzie’s hand, and that while he was studying his child’s wound, he was also wondering what the woman standing beside him was all about.

  Mind to task, Carson.

  “I’ll do it,” he returned. Never let it be said that Carson Price didn’t take care of his own.

  “Do what?” Izzie queried.

  His eyes met his daughters once more. “There is a little piece of glass in there, Iz. It has to come out. It won’t hurt, I promise. And then we’ll clean it up and bandage it and we can get on with our day, okay?” He reached for a cotton ball and the peroxide. “And if you’re real still and quiet and good, I’ll even treat you to lunch.”

  Turning to Grace, he said, “I’m sure there’s a McDonald’s around here somewhere, right Ms. Hart?”

  Grace looked at him—a rather odd little look, like he’d grown another head or his ears had suddenly sprouted points or something. She didn’t answer.

  “Ms. Hart?”

  “Gracie,” she answered.

  Gracie. The words flowed off her lips and landed feather-light on his brain. Gracie. He liked the sound of that.

  Suddenly she shook her head, as if she were shaking herself out of a trance, and said, “Grace, I mean.”

  Puzzled now, Carson stood a little straighter and peered into the eyes of the woman who stood before him. “So which is it? Grace or Gracie?” She looked rather puzzled herself, which was almost as amusing at it was endearing.

  Carson felt at a loss for words, a little light-headed, and surprisingly, a whole lot like smiling. Smiling like a fool. It was sort of like something had clicked deep down inside of him and had pleasantly turned this disaster of a morning into something more. Something—

  Something he didn’t want to think about.

  He looked at Iz. Task at hand, Price.

  “My name is really Grace, but everyone calls me Gracie. I mean...my friends call me Gracie.”

  Slowly, he turned back to look at her. “Oh,” was all he said. What else could he say? May I call you Gracie, too? Will we be friends? Even though my daughter just smashed your china teapot, crushed cookies into your polished hardwood floors, and obliterated one very expensive-looking cookie plate? Can I call you Gracie? Huh?

  For some reason, he did want to call her that. Yes. For some crazy, insane notion, he wanted to get to know Ms. Grace Hart well enough to call her Gracie.

  * * * *

  Idiot!

  Gracie wasn’t quite sure what was happening. Maybe she was getting sick. The flu had been going around. Her hands were shaking and her heart was pounding and she felt just a little bit faint. Thank goodness Carson Price had stopped looking at her and was now concentrating on getting that minute piece of glass out of his daughter’s hand.

  Get a grip, she told herself.

  This was all very unnerving and extremely unsettling.

  She knew what it was, although she hated to admit it. It wasn’t the flu or a bad fish sandwich or anything of that nature. No sirree. What she was feeling right now could only be attributed to one thing.

  There was a man in her kitchen.

  A real live, muscular, drop-dead-gorgeous, intelligent man with eyes like she’d never in her life seen.

  And his occupancy in her small galley kitchen seemed to suck the very air out of the room.

  He made a commanding presence. A bit overwhelming and more than a little overpowering. Larger than life. When she’d returned with the first aid supplies, she was so unexpectedly caught unaware by the sight of him that her entire body went into stupid mode and she’d temporarily lost all functioning of her lips and her hands. Which was why she’d said that dumb thing about her friends calling her Gracie.

  That Ms. Hart stuff was getting to her.

  Suddenly, she wracked her brain trying to recall the last man who had stood in exactly that spot. Right there. Occupying that narrow space between her counter and the refrigerator.

  Pathetic, she told herself. Gracie Hart you are pathetic.

  Truth be known, she was more than pathetic. She was thirty-five years old and couldn’t remember the last time she’d entertained a man in her apartment.

  Years. Ages. Eons.

  Pathetic.

  She might as well just dry up and blow away.

  “Ow!”

  “Got it!”

  “You did?” Gracie stepped forward just as Carson lifted the tweezers into the air. She studied the small piece of glass held between the tweezer points in his hand.

  “I’m bleeding, Dad.”

  Glancing back to Izzie’s hand, Grace caught sight of the thick bubble of blood oozing up out of the wound. She grabbed the damp wash cloth and covered the cut, applied some pressure, and cradled Izzie’s small hand with her own.

  Somehow, Carson’s hands simultaneously ended up around hers.

  Surprisingly, she felt his hands shaking.

  He jerked them away again quickly and said, “Oh! You have that? Okay...I’ll fix a bandage.” He then proceeded to busy himself with cutting a swatch of st
erile gauze. He dropped the roll of gauze once, then twice. Gracie tried to concentrate on Izzie, rather than on the fact that her father seemed to be having a heck of a time managing the bandage.

  “You like cheeseburgers, Ms. Hart?”

  She looked at Izzie. “What?”

  “Cheeseburgers? You like ‘em?”

  Studying the child’s impish face, Gracie’s heart suddenly turned warm and fuzzy. Isabella Price was a beautiful child with an animated face and big ol’ Disney character eyes. She was looking at her now, those huge blue eyes full of question.

  “Well, do you?”

  Gracie hadn’t eaten a cheeseburger since she was sixteen. “I love them,” she replied.

  “Me, too. Wanna come with us to McDonald’s?”

  Gracie felt her own eyes widen at the question. “Me?”

  “Yeah.”

  Her heart suddenly didn’t feel warm and fuzzy anymore, but lurched abruptly into panic mode. She glanced at Carson, who had finally managed to cut the bandage and was looking at her with an unreadable expression on his face, then back to Izzie. Sharing kitchen space was bad enough at the moment, she wasn’t up for a cozy lunch for three at the neighborhood kid hangout.

  “I...well, thank you, but perhaps another time.”

  “I’m sure Gracie has to stay with her shop, Iz.”

  My shop? Yes. I have to stay with the shop. Did he call me Gracie?

  Nodding profusely, she agreed. “Yes. That’s right. I need to stay with my shop.” The shop which, she suddenly realized, was standing wide open to the street with no one manning the cash register. “And, I really should be getting back down there.”

  Slowly, she removed the wash cloth and sort of pushed the child’s hand toward Carson. “Perhaps you should take over from here.” She felt like she was backing up at the same time. Well, actually, she was.

  “All right,” he replied. He glanced to his daughter. “Don’t you have something to say to Ms. Hart before she leaves, Iz?”

  Izzie screwed up her face and slowly turned to look at Gracie. “Sorry,” she finally whispered.

  “I know,” Gracie returned, then smiled back. “It’s okay. I’m just glad you weren’t badly hurt.” Then she turned quickly back to Carson. “I...um, really do need to get back down there. The shop is open.”