She bobbed her head from side to side. “Fifty-fifty. I’ve always been somewhat organized, but I did get better at it when I started modeling because I had to keep a very complicated schedule that often changed from day to day. Even hour to hour. Now I have a calendar on my phone and refer to it all the time. At least in my other life, I do. Beggar’s Bay is a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of place.”
“Do you think you’d like to live here?” He wasn’t sure why the question came out. He hadn’t intended to ask it. But there it hung between them, seeming to echo through the room.
She looked as surprised as he felt. “Um...yes. That’s my eventual plan. Finish out my contracts, then come back here to live so I can be near Jack and Corie—and all the other members of the family, of course.”
She was going to live here. His heartbeat accelerated.
“What about your dad?” he asked. “Doesn’t he live in Paris?”
“He told me he’s selling the business. Probably won’t happen right away, but two of his employees want to take it over.” She frowned thoughtfully. “I think he’s feeling a little old for all the traveling around.”
“Yeah. That must have been frightening.”
“It was.”
* * *
ALL RIGHT, SHE THOUGHT. I can ask bold questions, too. “What about you? Do you feel any need to get around a little? See New York? Visit Paris as an adult?”
His eyes leveled on hers. This was a dangerous game they played. What if he simply said no? What would she do then?
“I’m beginning to consider it,” he replied. “I could take a tour. Maybe backpack around.”
A little chill of excitement ran up her spine. “If I’m between shoots, you can visit me. I’ll take you to my favorite places. Buy you a macaron.” She felt like it took every breath she had to speak those words. Her voice sounded pinched.
It was a nice thought. Though, as strong as her feelings now were, just an occasional visit from him made the next few years stretch out emptily, despite all she had to do.
As the evening wore on, the music began to slow and became romantic, and a little sad. Sinatra at his moodiest. The violinist tucked the instrument under his arm, held the bow aside and sang into the mike. “‘You’re nobody...’” His voice was scratchy and low, the music seeming to come out of him as though filtered through his own loss.
Grady stood, caught her hand and led her onto the dance floor again. “It’d be a shame not to show off that beautiful dress.” This time, he danced with her as someone who had taken lessons, with steps and flourishes that hadn’t been learned from his mother or his friends.
Cassie felt his body in contact with hers from her cheek to her knees. They fit beautifully together. Like Fred and Ginger. On a far less professional level, perhaps, but in perfect harmony, feeling the music together, connected by more than their arms wrapped around each other.
Grady stopped suddenly in the middle of the floor, his eyes lazily perusing her face. “What if I did come and visit you in Paris?”
Her heart experienced that bongo beat again. She didn’t want to frighten him with excitement. “That would be nice. I think you’d like it more than you expect.”
“And you’re sure you’re coming back?”
“Positive.”
He put an arm around her shoulders and squeezed her to him as he walked her back to the table. “Want to see our office?”
“Yes.” She withdrew her credit card, placed it on the little salver and signaled the waiter.
“Do you have furniture yet?” Cassie asked Grady.
“Nothing. Except the blue thing my mother brought home from Reno.” He put both hands over his face. “I have to find an excuse to hide it there.”
“You don’t have to hide it. It’d be perfect for supplies.” When he looked doubtful, she added, “Records you won’t want to have out on your desk, and the drawers with the locks would be perfect for those things you should stash, like weapons or cameras.” She grinned. “Or the macarons you bring back with you from Paris.”
The waiter returned her credit card and the transmittal, which she signed and handed back to him. She snatched up her purse and coat, and Grady followed her to the corridor.
She stopped in front of the elevator doors, hesitated a minute, then sighed and pushed through the door that led to the stairs instead.
“I’d like to give the elevator another try. Especially when we’re only going down one flight. But I hate to ruin this beautiful evening with a screaming fit.”
“It wouldn’t be so alarming now that I know what to expect from you on an elevator. And in a utility closet.”
She dismissed that subtle dig with a look. “I didn’t scream in the utility closet. I’m very proud of that.”
“You should be. And you were pretty controlled the night the power went out.” He followed her downstairs. “You’re going to defeat this again.”
“Right or left?” she asked, opening the door onto the second floor.
“Right,” he replied. “Then right again at the corridor.” From there he led the way to the third door along the hall, and stopped at the oak door with a window in it trimmed in glass squares. He unlocked the door and held it aside for her.
“I love the colors,” she said, walking into the middle of the room and stopping to look around. “Instead of all those landlord-beige places, this is really pretty. Blue-gray carpet. Gray walls with white trim. Is this your office?”
“This was all Ben’s idea, so he should choose. Shouldn’t he have the front office?”
“Usually you have to go through secretaries and underlings to get to the boss.” Without heat, the offices were cold and Cassie shrugged on her jacket. “Though the front office is a little bigger. Whichever one he chooses, I’d place your desk facing the door and put your armoire at the wall behind you. It’ll look wonderful with these colors.” She wandered back to the front office. “And, you know that leather love seat you have under the window in my room?”
“Yeah?”
She pointed to the front wall. “Put it right there and you have a perfect place for clients to wait.”
“After the wedding, I’m going to check out secondhand places for furniture. Jack got us three desks and office chairs from the old community college building he’s restoring. And the Realtor wasn’t sure the fridge worked, so we’ll have to see about that.”
“What are you going to do for computers and office machines?”
“We’ll get by with our laptops and our phones for now, but I’m sure we’ll want something more sophisticated eventually.”
“When are you going to be officially open for business?”
“Probably February first. We’ll need January to get the office together, get the word out that we’re here. Ben has some personal things at home to take care of—setting up the kids’ rooms and enrolling them in school.”
“That’s a pretty big order for him. New family, new business.”
“Yeah. But he’s the most together guy I know. He’ll have it mastered in no time.” He turned the light off in the smaller office as they passed through to the front.
“Do you think anyone really masters family?” she asked, stepping out into the hall, waiting for him to flip the front office light off and close and lock the door. “Particularly children?”
“Maybe ‘mastered’ was the wrong word,” he agreed as they walked side by side to the stairway. “I guess I meant that he’ll learn to adjust. And become really good at being a father. He has a gift for doing whatever he’s determined to do.”
Cassie stopped in front of the elevators. She turned to Grady, drew in a breath and then expelled it. Everyone else she knew was able to do what they were determined to do. “I’m going to try it,” she said, staring at the elevator doors a
s though they had claws and fangs.
“Okay. I’ve got your back,” he said. “Would holding you make it worse?”
She couldn’t imagine having his arms around her would make any situation bad, but this was something over which she had little control, even though she tried hard to fight against it.
“No.” She pushed the button. “If you put your arms around me, I’ll put myself in Paris where I met a handsome gendarme in the bakery. It’ll be my happy place.”
“Let’s do it.”
The doors parted to reveal two elegantly dressed couples Cassie had seen in the restaurant. The couples moved back for them and Grady put an arm loosely around Cassie’s shoulders.
The doors closed.
Panic came and went as though unsure how to maintain a hold on her. The doors closing tightened everything inside her, but Grady’s hand on her shoulder moved gently, caressingly, and she relaxed. Still, the closed doors were right in her face, preventing her from leaving, and the space was so small, the sound of the elevator very loud.
She heard laughing conversation going on behind her and remembered that Grady said he might like to visit her in Paris. She imagined the bakery she loved so much just a few blocks from her apartment. She saw Grady in a gendarme’s uniform holding a plate of colorful macarons in front of her.
The bell dinged, the elevator bounced a little and stopped, and the doors parted. The couples behind them had to walk around her. She stood there, silently congratulating herself on the accomplishment.
Grady wore a wide smile and fist-bumped her. “All right!” he said. “Well done! But, you know, we should walk out. There are people wanting to get on.”
Basking in the glory of having ridden in the elevator without screaming, Cassie had failed to notice the three young women dressed for evening, clearly on a girls’ night out. They waited to go upstairs.
She apologized and exchanged smiles with them as they laughed and got into the elevator.
Then one of them gasped; a beautiful brunette with a short do and wide, dark eyes. “Cassidy Chapman?” she asked softly, blinking then leaning a little forward as she stared into her face. “The supermodel? In Beggar’s Bay? Oh, my God. Oh, my God!”
Other people in the lobby noticed the commotion or heard her name and came to cluster around her as she signed one woman’s shopping list, another’s address book and the third’s tissue.
“What happened in Ireland?” the small blonde of the group asked frankly.
Cassie related the story, leaving out the part about her claustrophobia. “I didn’t know she was deaf when I shouted at her. I was tired and anxious to get home to my family. It was bad behavior, but I apologized and she accepted.”
They nodded. “Of course,” the brunette said. “We knew there was more to it than SAN says. Preston was such a jerk to cheat on you.” She turned back to smile at Grady, her manner admiring and flirtatious. “Who’s this?”
“Grady Nelson,” she said. “One of Beggar’s Bay Police Department’s finest.”
“Oh.” The tall redhead with them looked him up and down. “I thought he was a model you’d brought with you from Paris.”
He shook her hand. “She prefers dark-haired men,” he said. “I’m her landlord. Please excuse us. You ladies have a wonderful evening.” He caught Cassie’s hand and pulled her with him across the lobby and out the door.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“I’M SORRY ABOUT THAT,” she said as they drove toward home, neon lights in the few blocks of downtown brightening the darkness. “Even small towns have fashionistas. And the redhead and the brunette seemed to like you.”
He sighed theatrically. “I know. It’s the fair hair. You really don’t know what you’re missing with your fascination with dark-haired men. And the bod, of course, thanks to the police department’s gym. All in all, my babe appeal gets to be a burden sometimes.”
She was laughing before he’d finished. He pretended hurt feelings and demanded, “What? You don’t think I’m cute?”
She stopped smiling to study him seriously, a light still in her eyes. “No,” she said as he turned up Black Bear Ridge Road. “‘Cute’ is not the word I’d use. And ‘handsome’ isn’t quite right because sometimes you have these sharp, dangerous moments when handsome just doesn’t cover it.”
“Dangerous?” He glanced quickly at her. “Me?”
“Emotionally dangerous,” she clarified. “Like a woman could get lost in you.” She paused as they drove into darkness, nothing lighting the road but the splay of his headlights. Then the almost-finished construction site of the senior retirement home appeared on the right and the school on the left. As they moved on, darkness descended again and she added quietly, “Or, maybe, find herself in you. Either way, the notion’s scary.”
Several heartbeats passed in the darkness. “Like I’m someone’s missing piece?” He caught her hand that rested between them on the seat and kissed it. His lips were warm and dry as he kissed it again then let it go.
“Exactly like that.” She spoke on a gusty breath and put her hand on his knee. “Oh, Grady.”
“Almost home,” he said, his voice low and tight. He turned into his driveway, screeched to an awkward halt and turned off the car.
Cassie flew sideways, wrapping her arms around his neck, finding his mouth in the shadowy confines of the truck and kissing him until she couldn’t breathe. He kissed her back with the same depth of emotion, the same out-of-control need to take in as much of her as he could.
She felt one hand under her short jacket, caressing her back through her dress, the other hooked around her knee, holding her to him.
* * *
GRADY WAS ABOUT to lose his mind. He wasn’t at all aware of coherent thought, ignoring the flashing Warning! Warning! lights in his head. He was more absorbed in the wonder of her body eagerly pressed against his, her lips wandering along his throat, to his ear, nibbling lightly on his earlobe. Her fingers caught in his hair and held as she stole every breath from his body.
She raised her head slightly, loosed her grip on his hair, and even while he tried to pull her back, she pushed against his shoulder and said in disbelief, “Oh, geez! What are they doing here?”
“Who?” he asked, not really caring, dropping kisses on her clavicle.
“My father,” she replied. “And your mother.”
“What?”
They knocked heads as she ducked to slide off his lap and he raised his head to look toward the house. He spotted his mother’s Mini Cooper, which he hadn’t noticed when he pulled in. And, on the other side of it was a simple coupe he also hadn’t noticed. He strained to see through the windshield.
Standing under the overhanging deck, in the path of the truck’s headlights that had yet to turn off, stood a tall, white-haired man in jeans and a dark gray stadium jacket. Standing next to him was Grady’s mother, but he had to look twice to recognize her. Her hair was straight instead of its usual curly, and kind of fluffed out and a little punky. He wondered absently how she’d done that. And she wore a long, dark blue coat he’d never seen before, held tightly around her against the cold evening.
“Dad!” Cassie cried. She jumped out and appeared in the path of the truck’s lights, running into the man’s arms. The pickup lights went out and only the spotlight above the side door shone.
Grady got out of the truck, lamenting the loss of the evening’s intimacy.
Cassie caught her father’s arm and led him inside the house while Grady followed with his mother. The moment reminded him of the night he’d brought Cassie home. Cassie and her father stopped in the foyer, and Grady, his mother at his side, looked into the questioning eyes of Donald Chapman.
Cassie made introductions. Grady offered his hand and Chapman took it in an impressive grip. “Thank you for helping Cassie,” he
said. “She told me about running from Texas, then you offering her the loft for the duration of her stay.”
“Mostly, it’s been my pleasure. I mean, in the first place, what man doesn’t dream of running off with a supermodel?” he said. Donald’s ice-blue gaze said no decision had been made on his worthiness yet. “And in the second, she’s an excellent cook. But then, I guess you know that.”
“I do,” Chapman said then questioned, “You said ‘mostly’ a pleasure?”
Grady smiled. “You must also be aware that she tends to...uh...take action, even when it involves someone else, without a lot of thought, and without consulting that someone else.”
Chapman seemed to understand. “That’s how I was hired to install a computer system for Le Sacré-Coeur School for Girls in a poor area of Paris. For free.”
Grady nodded understanding. “And how is it that you’re here with my mother?”
“She’s brought you an orange-cranberry bread,” Chapman replied. Diane dutifully held up a brick-shaped package, wrapped in foil. “I had arrived just before her with a wedding gift for Corie and Ben.”
“But she has...” Grady began, about to add “a key” when his mother’s eyes grew enormous and he suddenly understood the cautioning look. He thought quickly. “She has a very hospitable nature. Let me take your coats. Wine or coffee?”
She could have brought him inside, but had been reluctant to?
Donald laughed. “I’m afraid wine would put me to sleep.”
“I’ll put the coffee on,” Cassie said and then turned to his mother with a smile. “Orange-cranberry bread would go really well with that.” Diane handed it over.
Grady led Donald into the great room and detoured to the guest closet with his coat.
“Couch is comfortable,” he said when he turned to find the man standing in the middle of the room.
“How is she?” Donald asked, lowering his voice. “She told me she isn’t upset about the Ireland thing, but I’m sure she has to be.”
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