Amazing Gracie

by Sherryl Woods

  Gracie sighed.

  “Relax, darlin’. This won’t be half as painful as you’re anticipating.”

  “It’s already way past painful. It’s excruciating.”

  “You must not have gone on many dates, Gracie.”

  “What makes you say that?” she asked, instantly defensive.

  “If you don’t mind my saying so, you’re not very good at small talk,” he observed.

  The accusation stung. She’d heard it before. She could see to the comfort of hundreds of hotel guests a month, but she couldn’t make small talk with a man sitting across the dinner table from her. How many times had she been told she was too serious, too focused, too uptight? More times than she could count. The only reason she and Max had gotten along halfway decently was that he’d had a singletrack mind as well.

  It was ironic that she was so good with the hotel staff, so deft at handling the vendors who supplied everything from soap to mushrooms. She made it a point to learn and remember little details about all of them, so she could ask about family members, favorite hobbies, whatever. Obviously she needed to apply the same skill to Kevin.

  “Okay, let’s start over,” she suggested. “Tell me about your family. Any brothers or sisters?”

  He took another sip of the same beer he’d been nursing all evening. “Nope.”

  “Parents alive?”

  “Nope.”

  “You rattle around in that big old house all by yourself?”

  “Nope.”

  Gracie fought her exasperation. His deliberate, single-word responses were not going to derail her attempts to get to know him. She was just going to have to become more clever at phrasing her questions.

  “Who lives there with you?” A horrifying thought struck her. “Your wife?”

  He grinned at that. “It’s a little late to be panicking that I might be married, don’t you think? We’re already well on our way to getting downright intimate.”

  Gracie choked on a sip of ginger ale. She stared at him. “Are you crazy?”

  “Nope.”

  “Would you stop that?”

  “What?”

  “Saying nope to everything I ask.”

  “If it’ll make you happy.”

  “It will make me deliriously happy.” She frowned at him. “Just don’t go getting any wild ideas about the two of us, okay?”

  “Sweetheart, I’ve been getting ideas about the two of us since you walked into my yard yesterday. I can’t help it. It’s just my nature.”

  “Well, put a lid on it.”

  “I’ll do my best, but it won’t be easy.”

  “Try.” She worked to keep a pleading note out of her voice. “Now can I assume that there is no wife in the picture?”

  “If it makes you happy.”

  “Kevin!”

  “Okay, no wife. Not now. Not ever.”

  Because he sounded so fierce about it, she couldn’t help taunting, “How come? Are you gay?”

  That got him. He sputtered indignantly for a full minute before laughing. “Okay, you got me. I’ll try to give you straight answers from now on.”

  “No pun intended?”

  “Be still my heart,” Kevin said with exaggerated astonishment. “The lady made a joke.”

  “You know, it’s a wonder someone hasn’t murdered you by now,” she muttered. “Do you take anything seriously?”

  “You’d be surprised at just how seriously I’m considering kissing you right now.”

  “Kevin!”

  He grinned. “What’s the matter? Hasn’t anyone ever wanted to kiss you before?”

  “I have been kissed plenty,” she retorted, then regretted allowing herself to be drawn into such a ridiculous discussion.

  “Care to do a little comparison test?” he inquired.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “How else will you know what you’re missing?”

  She drew herself up and declared primly, “In my experience, men who have to ask permission aren’t very good at it.”

  He chuckled at that. “I’ll remember that. Something tells me that catching you off guard might take a while, but it’ll be worth waiting for.”

  The warning—or promise?—made her tremble. No man had affected her like this in a very long time. Why this man? she wondered irritably. She didn’t even like him very much. He was annoying. He lacked ambition. He had absolutely no understanding of the rules of decorum. She might be overdressed, but the same surely couldn’t be said for him. His jeans were marginally less revealing than the first pair she’d seen him wear, but his T-shirt looked as if he’d grabbed it out of the dryer.

  All in all, she suspected that Kevin took his greatest pleasure in flouting rules of any kind.

  So why was her gaze locked on his mouth? Why was she already imagining the feel of his lips on hers? Why was she guessing that he kissed with a kind of no-holds-barred lack of restraint?

  Probably because that was exactly what he’d intended, she realized. He’d deliberately, sneakily, planted the notion in her head, then waited for her imagination to run with it. She wasn’t wild about the all-too-vivid, X-rated results.

  “Is it too warm in here?” Kevin asked mildly. “You look a little flushed.”

  “I’m fine,” Gracie declared, gritting her teeth. Or she would be, if she could just gulp down a couple of glasses of ice water. Her last sip of ginger ale had done nothing to soothe her suddenly parched throat.

  She was not going to let him see that he’d rattled her, though. She forced a brilliant smile. “It’s been an absolutely fascinating evening, Kevin. Thank you so much.”

  “In a hurry to get home all of a sudden?” he inquired in that lazy manner of his.

  “No, of course not. I just don’t want to take up too much of your time.”

  “Darlin’, I have all the time in the world. You need to loosen up a bit, learn to relax, slow down.”

  “And do what?” she asked with genuine curiosity, unaware until too late how revealing the question was.

  “Read a book. Stare at the sky and watch the clouds roll by. Go fishing. Pick daisies. Whatever comes to mind.”

  The last book Gracie had read was on hotel management. The only time she gazed at the sky was to check for rain. Her idea of fishing was a visit to the market to buy the day’s catch. Obviously she had a lot to learn.

  She sighed and caught the flash of amusement in Kevin’s eyes.

  “Don’t know how, huh?” he said sympathetically.

  “Afraid not.”

  “How come? Strict parents?”

  “No, they just wanted me to have more than they’d had. They stressed the importance of education and hard work.”

  “What about family vacations?”

  “Just one,” she recalled wistfully. “Right here, as a matter of fact.”

  “Is that why you came here when you quit your job?”

  Gracie nodded. “It was the last place I could remember being totally carefree.”

  “I guess you’ve gotten out of the habit since then.”

  “You could say that,” she said, thinking of the sixteen-hour days she put in at the hotel, three hundred sixty-five days a year. No wonder Max missed her. She’d been a blasted machine, operating on automatic for years now. She hadn’t just burned out. She’d incinerated.

  “Don’t worry. This problem isn’t life-threatening,” Kevin reassured her. “I can have it corrected in a few weeks, tops. I’ll give it my undivided attention.”

  Gracie was sorely tempted to give in. It might he nice to learn to play. It might be especially nice to be taught by an expert.

  It would also be dangerous. Kevin Patrick Daniels rattled her. In no time at all, she might forget all about the house she wanted to buy so she could start a new life.

  “Thanks anyway,” she said. “I’m content with my life just the way it is.”

  He shrugged. “Whatever you say, sweetheart, but that wistful expression on your face suggests other
wise.”

  The man was entirely too intuitive where she was concerned. It made her nervous. If only she could read him as well. She was beginning to get the uncomfortable feeling that she’d sold him short, that there were depths to Kevin Patrick Daniels she hadn’t even begun to see. Underestimating an adversary was very risky, indeed. She’d approached this whole project far too impulsively, just as Kevin had suggested earlier. She needed time to reassess, do a little of her own research.

  She was competitive and driven by nature. She had foolishly assumed that getting her hands on that old Victorian gem was going to be a snap. Now she knew otherwise. Her blood raced in anticipation of the all-out battle ahead.

  “Why the smile?” Kevin asked.

  “Nothing,” she assured him. She wondered how he’d react if he knew she’d been envisioning the day when she managed to steal that house right out from under him.

  6

  There were a lot of provocative things about Gracie that Kevin couldn’t forget during a long, restless night, but one particular thing lingered in the morning. He couldn’t imagine a life as singlemindedly focused on career as hers had apparently been. Not that all work and little play had made her dull, but he’d never known anyone more in need of shaking up.

  Fortunately, he’d grown very adept over the years at making the impulsive gesture, at doing the unexpected, at seizing the moment. Perhaps it was his way of compensating for the amount of responsibility that had been heaped on his shoulders. He’d been determined never to let it weigh him down. He’d learned to steal every minute he could for himself.

  Plus, he’d discovered that it gave him a certain advantage over his more uptight competitors, whether in business or for the affections of some woman. Business opponents often misinterpreted his devil-may-care attitude for a lack of attention. Women simply enjoyed the spontaneity he brought into their lives.

  After a rigorous workout in the gym he’d had installed off his bedroom, he showered and went down to the dining room to give the matter some more thought over his regular breakfast of scrambled eggs and country ham. He figured the workout just about balanced the cholesterol intake.

  “You’re on the go early,” his housekeeper noted as she set his plate in front of him. “You going to Richmond for business meetings?”

  “Not today, Molly.”

  “Couldn’t sleep, then?” She studied him worriedly. “Is something on your mind?”

  He grinned ruefully at the woman who’d been watching out for him since he was barely toddling around the house. She was plump from too much of her own country cooking and unrepentantly gray-haired with curls like corkscrews, thanks to the home perms with which she periodically stunk up the whole house. No one on earth, though, had a bigger heart.

  “Someone,” he conceded with some reluctance, knowing exactly where the admission would lead.

  Her expression brightened. “A woman?” she asked as she pulled out a chair and sat down opposite him. “Tell me.”

  “Not a chance. You’re a worse meddler than Aunt Delia.”

  “I’ll bet it’s that pretty little thing who was here day before yesterday,” she concluded without so much as a hint from him.

  “How on earth did you know about her? It was your day off. I know for a fact that you were visiting your son in Washington.”

  “People talk.”

  “Aunt Delia, I suppose.”

  “She seems to think this one might have staying power.”

  “Aunt Delia needs to learn to mind her own business.”

  “She says you went out with her again last night.”

  “We had dinner, not an orgy.”

  Her gaze narrowed. “Watch your tongue. I don’t want to hear about any orgies you might be having.”

  “I’m not having any,” he protested, then gave up. “Tell me something.”

  Her expression instantly turned serious. “If I can.”

  “If you wanted a woman to learn to take time out to smell the flowers, what would you do? Send her roses?”

  “Never,” she declared at once. “Too ordinary.” Her expression turned dreamy. “If I had the money, which you do, I’d plant a whole garden for her.”

  “You can’t be serious.” He studied her expression. “You are serious, aren’t you?”

  “Of course. If she has her own garden, she can’t help but take the time to smell the flowers. And every time she does, you’ll be on her mind.”

  Kevin chuckled at the logic. “Perfect. Molly, you are a treasure.”

  “Well, of course I am.” She stood up and started for the kitchen, then paused. “One other thing, though.”

  “What’s that?” Kevin asked distractedly, already making plans.

  “Do the planting yourself. Don’t go hiring somebody to do it.”

  “Molly, I don’t have time to plant a garden, to say nothing of the fact that I don’t have the first clue how to go about it. Besides, it sounds an awful lot like hot, sweaty work.”

  “A little sweat won’t kill you. As for the rest, talk to Mr. Sparks. He can tell you what to do. He’s been landscaping this place for fifty years. Keeps it looking like a showplace, if you ask me.”

  There was a note of defiant pride in her voice that caught his attention. “It sounds as if you admire Mr. Sparks.”

  She blushed furiously. “Well, of course I do. He does fine work.”

  “I was thinking of a more personal sort of admiration.”

  “Oh, get on with your foolishness. I’m too old for what you’re suggesting.”

  “Molly, you’ll always be young. That’s your nature. Raymond walked off and left you on your own with those two sons of yours thirty years ago. You did a fine job of raising them, better than anyone in my family’s done with their kids, that’s for sure. If you’re interested in Mr. Sparks, go for it. He’s been a widower for some time now. He’d probably appreciate an invitation to dinner every now and again.”

  “I couldn’t,” she protested.

  “Of course you could. Do you know a finer cook in all of Westmoreland County?”

  “No, but—”

  “Ask him, Molly. If you don’t, I’ll put a bug in his ear about you.”

  “If you do, Kevin Patrick Daniels, I’ll take a switch to the seat of your britches the way I used to. Given how threadbare they are, it’ll hurt worse now than it did back then.”

  “Don’t make threats you can’t follow up on,” he teased. “I’m quicker now than I used to be.” His expression sobered. “Ask him, Molly. I know he’s spending a lot more time here than he needs to. There must be a reason for that, and I’m guessing that you’re it.”

  “He does stop in for lemonade at the end of the day,” she confessed.

  “Well, then, next time he does, just ask him to stay on for supper.”

  She grinned. “Maybe I will. In the meantime, you ask him about planting that garden. He’ll tell you what to do. He probably has everything you need in his greenhouse.”

  Before he could get on with his plan, though, Kevin had paperwork to finish up and a not unexpected visit from his cousin Helen. She almost always turned up after one of his more contentious encounters with her younger brother. Bobby Ray was a whiner and Helen always listened.

  “Kevin, what on earth did you say to Bobby Ray the other day?” she demanded without so much as a greeting to preface it. “He’s on the warpath. He thinks we should all hire an attorney to sue you for our money and an accountant to do an audit.”

  Kevin sighed. They’d been through this so many times, he had his response memorized. “If you want to waste your money that way, go right ahead. You know the terms of your father’s will as well as I do. They’re iron-clad. I ought to know. I’ve been hunting for a loophole to get out of it myself for years.”

  “As for an audit,” he continued, “I provide you with one every year. You all pick the accountant, I don’t.”

  “I know all that,” she said dismissively. “So does Bobby Ray. Wha
t did you do to set him off?”

  “I’m amazed he didn’t tell you.”

  “Well, of course he did. I want to hear your version.”

  “I refused to give him the money for another one of his schemes.”

  Helen sighed. “I should have guessed he hadn’t just asked for a piddly little advance on his trust funds. What was it this time? A hamburger franchise next to McDonald’s?”

  “Not quite that bad. I believe this one was a jewelry designer he wanted to back on one of those cable shopping channels.”

  “Must be that designer Sara Lynn is sleeping with.”

  Kevin held up his hands to ward off a full-blown discussion of the tale. “I don’t want to know,” he said emphatically. His opinion of Sara Lynn was low enough without fresh gossip.

  “You’re right. You don’t. If Bobby Ray ever managed to marry the right woman, he might be able to get his life on track. He’s not a bad person,” she said in defense of her younger brother.

  “Nobody ever said he was. And he was married to the right person: Marianne. He has a terrific kid. None of that’s enough for him.”

  “He just needs a sense of direction, a goal.”

  “I agree. Maybe he could start by being a halfway decent father to Abby.”

  “You know he doesn’t know how. Look at the example he had. Can’t you help him, Kev? That’s why Father left you in charge, you know. He thought you could straighten all of us out the same way you’ve been handling Uncle Bo and his brood.”

  “I doubt Dr. Joyce Brothers and a team of her peers could straighten all of you out. Your father knew that. He just wanted to keep you financially stable.”

  He regarded his older cousin fondly. Of all of them, Helen did have a head on her shoulders. She was brassy and pushy and, like her sister, a little too free with her credit cards, but she was insightful about human nature. She’d made the one solid marriage of all of them, to a man who had indulged her every whim. Maybe that was why she was also the only one who wasn’t on Kevin’s case about money all the time. Her husband had provided all she required, then left her with a nice insurance settlement when he’d died in a tragic boating accident a few years back.