Amazing Gracie

“Bossy old lady.”

She chuckled. “You’ll call.”

“Will not.”

But he did. He told himself he didn’t do it because he wanted to. He swore to himself he did it only to satisfy his aunt. He was more relieved than he could say when he got an answering machine. The sound of Gracie’s voice, all prim and prissy, did astonishing things to his pulse, which just proved beyond a shadow of a doubt why he needed to conduct this negotiation—if there was to be one—very, very carefully. Otherwise, he, not Aunt Delia, would be the one giving the house away.

In the end, he didn’t leave a message and he didn’t call again. Might have been stubbornness. Aunt Delia certainly would have called it that. More likely, it was just plain good sense kicking in in the nick of time.

Aunt Delia looked around the Riverboat with its banks of TV screens with absolute delight.

“Get me a Racing Form,” she ordered Kevin. “And hurry up. I don’t want to miss the first race.”

Aunt Delia had been spry as a young chicken ever since she’d hatched this plot to get him and Gracie MacDougal together, Kevin noticed. She was bossier than usual, too.

The truth was, though, he enjoyed matching wits with her. Nobody had ever put anything over on his aunt. She’d remained unmarried by choice, claiming that there wasn’t a man around who could tolerate the fact that she was smarter than he was. Kevin had the distinct impression, though, that that hadn’t stopped her from having a few serious male friends over the years. She was too darned savvy about relationships not to have been through a few herself. Not that she’d ever admit it. She’d go to her grave implying that she was as innocent as a newborn babe. But the twinkle in her eyes when Kevin suggested otherwise proved his point.

“Five races, that’s it,” he said, as he handed her the Racing Form. “I’m not letting you wager your life savings today.”

“What if I win? Do we stay longer?”

“We’ll discuss that when—no, if—it happens.”

“Then keep quiet and let me do my handicapping in peace,” she said, snapping open the paper to the day’s races in New York.

Kevin sat back and sipped his beer. For a weekday, the Riverboat had a modest crowd, including a few locals and quite a few unfamiliar faces in town just for the chance to bet on races at tracks across the country. Some of them would be here until the last race ran in California hours from now.

He wondered how Gracie would react to this simple place out over the water with its basic menu, plain tables, and noisy patrons. He’d lay odds if she’d ever placed a wager it had been in some elegant casino in Europe. She’d probably been wearing diamonds and satin at the time, looking all slinky and sophisticated. An image of Grace Kelly in Philadelphia Story came to mind.

“Is it hot in here?” he asked suddenly.

“I hadn’t noticed,” Aunt Delia mumbled.

She barely glanced up from her papers. A little furrow of concentration lined her brow. Her reading glasses had slipped to the tip of her nose. Kevin observed her with tolerant amusement, laughing out loud when he noticed that she’d worn her fancy white sneakers with the rhinestones on them in honor of their outing. She was such a joy. It truly was a shame no man had seen that and dared to take her on for a lifetime.

“It’s four minutes till post time,” Kevin reminded her. “Have you made up your mind?”

She nabbed a little slip of paper from the pile beside her and jotted down some numbers. “A trifecta,” she announced. “In this order. Don’t mess it up. I’ve put a lot of thought into getting it right.”

“I won’t mess it up.”

“What about you? You planning to bet?”

“I thought I’d put a little down on that number eight.”

Aunt Delia hurriedly glanced at her notes, scribbled all over the past performance listings. “Eight? That horse will go off at fifty-to-one. Why that one?”

“The name reminds me of someone,” he said, and walked away.

“Scottish Lass,” she murmured.

The sound of her laughter followed him over to the betting window.

“I just don’t understand it,” Aunt Delia complained after Kevin finally managed to drag her away after the eighth race. “That three horse was sired by a distance runner. His mama had speed. He should have blasted past every other horse on the track.”

“Maybe he was a little too taken with that mare swishing her tail in his face in the homestretch. Hormones will distract a male.”

“So I’ve noticed,” his aunt retorted. “Are you planning to swing by the house?”

“I wasn’t. Why?”

“There’s something I left in that old bureau upstairs. I’d like to get it, as long as we’re already in the vicinity.”

“I thought you cleaned out every bureau and closet before you moved in with me.”

“Well, I forgot this. Sue me.”

“Okay, okay. We’ll go by the house.”

“Thank you,” she said with a bite of sarcasm.

“You’re welcome,” he replied with the same edge.

Kevin knew there was something more going on with his aunt than some forgotten personal item she couldn’t do without. He had walked through every inch of that house with her a dozen times to be sure nothing of real or sentimental value had been left behind. No, she was up to something, but for the life of him he couldn’t figure out what.

He began to get a worrisome idea when he noticed that the wrought-iron gate was unlatched. But how had Aunt Delia guessed that there might be a trespasser on the property, particularly the trespasser Kevin’s gut told him was at this very moment trampling down weeds?

“Looks like someone’s here, doesn’t it?” his aunt said, not sounding especially surprised or worried by that fact.

“Probably kids,” Kevin retorted, though he didn’t believe any such thing. More than likely it was Ms. Gracie MacDougal, up to no good. Kids were scared to death of the place. He’d planted several hints that the old house was crawling with ghosts. Kids hadn’t been near it since, according to the neighbors who kept an eye on it for him. They huddled outside the gate, occasionally slipped inside and went as far as the front step on a dare. But at the first creak of the old, rotting wood, they dashed for safety.

No, the only person with the curiosity and the pure gall to be sneaking around was Gracie.

“Go visit Mrs. Johnson,” he instructed his aunt.

“Why on earth would I want to do that? You know she hates people dropping by unexpectedly.”

“Not as much as I hate the prospect of both of us getting clobbered over the head with something if we’re wrong about what’s going on here. Please, just apologize and stay with her until I come for you.”

“You think it’s that MacDougal girl, don’t you? And you don’t want me to meet her.”

“Okay, yes. I think it’s probably Gracie. And I don’t want you to meet her. What puzzles me is how the heck you knew she’d be sneaking around here.”

“Me?” she protested. “I’ve been with you all day. How could I know anything? I resent you thinking I would do something sneaky and lowdown like luring you over here just so you could bump into her again.”

Which, of course, was a little too emphatic and detailed a denial not to be the exact opposite of the truth.

“We’ll discuss your scheming later,” he said. “Just go see Mrs. Johnson and stay there.”