Amazing Gracie

“Kevin Patrick Daniels, don’t you dare walk away and leave me up here.”

“Later, darlin’.”

“Kevin, dammit! Come back here.”

He waited around the corner of the house until he heard the rustle of leaves and the creak of branches in the oak tree. When he heard her thud to the ground with a muttered curse, he grinned, then hightailed it between the hedges and into Mrs. Johnson’s yard.

Safely hidden by the high boxwoods, he was still chuckling to himself when Gracie stormed off down the sidewalk as if someone had lit a fire under her. Since he knew perfectly well that his aunt and Mrs. Johnson had watched the entire drama unfold, he could hardly wait to hear how the local gossips would manage to twist the story.

5

“Of all of the lousy, rotten, lowdown things to do,” Gracie muttered as she charged down the street toward her own house. “I could have broken my stupid neck getting down from there, but did he care? Oh, no. And whoever heard of putting deadbolts on all the doors? That’s the first thing that’ll go when the house is mine. I can’t have a houseful of guests all trapped inside. Didn’t he ever stop to think what could happen in a fire?”

Of course not, she thought, answering her own question. He obviously wasn’t the kind of man to put a lot of thought into anything. Otherwise he’d never have left her up on that roof, where she could slip, break her neck, and then sue the pants off him.

She ignored the fact that she was the one who’d climbed up on that roof to sneak into the house in the first place. He hadn’t lured her up there. Even so, a gentleman would have helped her get down. Kevin Patrick Daniels was the lowest form of pond scum, an insensitive, inconsiderate jerk. She wouldn’t have supper with the man if he promised to fly it in from Paris.

Not that she wouldn’t enjoy a little pâté de fois gras about now. Maybe some escargots or the local seafood, for that matter. She was tiring of fast food hamburgers and scrambled eggs. She might have managed some of the finest kitchens in all of Europe, but her own culinary skills were sadly lacking. Why cook when she could eat gourmet cuisine every night free?

Actually, that was the one sticking point in this bed-and-breakfast idea. If her guests ate food she’d prepared, they’d probably die within hours. They’d certainly never come back again.

Well, if there was one thing she was good at it, it was hiring the best chefs available. She wondered exactly what caliber of chef she could get on a shoestring budget. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to see if the bookshop in town had a few decent cookbooks, just in case. How difficult could it be to master a few breakfast selections?

Not until she’d slammed into her house and poured herself a very large glass of iced tea did she stop to consider the pure coincidence of Kevin Patrick Daniels showing up at that house at the same time she had. Now that she thought about it, it didn’t make a lick of sense. It was obvious from that overgrown tangle of weeds she’d traipsed through that he never came near the place, so why today?

She thought back to the call she’d had earlier, from a Mrs. Johnson. In a quavery voice, the woman had said she feared there was someone inside the Daniels house next door to her. Supposedly she’d checked with other neighbors and no one had been home to investigate. Would Gracie mind coming over?

Naive jerk that she was, she hadn’t recognized a setup. In fact, she’d jumped at the chance to have a legitimate reason for poking around on the property. Now, belatedly, she realized there was no logical reason on earth for Mrs. Johnson to have called on her. They didn’t even know each other, though she supposed by now everyone in town at least had some idea of her name and where she lived. Still, if Mrs. Johnson had been truly worried about an intruder, it would have made far more sense to call the police than to call a woman she’d never even met.

Which suggested to Gracie that Mrs. Johnson had been motivated by something other than concern for her neighbor’s property. Gracie’s guess, with the twenty-twenty vision of hindsight, was that Mrs. Johnson had wanted her to be caught by Kevin. But why? Had she been in cahoots with someone? The answer to that eluded her.

Maybe the woman was just old and housebound and bored. Maybe she was just plain sneaky and conniving. Or maybe Gracie’s imagination was running away with her and Kevin’s arrival was a coincidence, after all.

Gracie didn’t much believe in coincidences.

She did believe that Kevin Patrick Daniels was not above using an old lady to do his dirty work. Maybe he was the one who’d suggested Mrs. Johnson lure her there with that cockamamie story of an intruder.

But why? She was back to that again. That was the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. He hadn’t looked especially pleased to find her there. He hadn’t even looked triumphant, as if he’d caught her in an act he could hold over her head. He’d looked…amused, as if she’d fulfilled his expectations in some way. He’d dangled that patch of yellow silk in front of her as if it were surprise evidence in a trial.

While she was still trying to puzzle it out, the phone rang. It was Max again. It had to be. Since she’d interceded with the florist, he’d called twice more to get her to smooth over the pastry chef’s ruffled features and to ask which plumber in town to call to fix a clogged drain. He probably figured she’d see sooner or later that she was desperately needed and come back to France without him having to beg.

Actually, the prospect of supercilious Max Devereaux begging cheered Gracie considerably. The prospect of caving in and going back to Worldwide Hotels did not. She let the answering machine pick up, then smiled with satisfaction when she heard Max’s muttered oath, then the irritated crash of the phone. She could practically see his exasperated expression as he realized he was going to have to deal with whatever crisis it was this time without her assistance.

Okay, so it was only a tiny step toward distancing herself from Max and Worldwide, but it was a step. If she intended to take a giant leap toward a new life, it meant dealing with Kevin Patrick Daniels, she concluded with a sigh of resignation. Telling her no had been tantamount to throwing down the gauntlet. She wouldn’t let up now until that house was hers. She’d worry about the details of running a bed-and-breakfast later.

Perhaps supper wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Perhaps if they managed to get through it without skewering each other with the silverware, she could discover his greatest weakness and use it to get that neglected old Victorian away from him.

Reluctantly, she dialed his number. The phone rang and rang before he grabbed it up.

“Hey, Gracie,” he said, as if he’d been as sure of her call as she’d been of Max’s.

“How’d you know…Never mind. Caller I.D., I presume.”

He chuckled. “Nope, lucky guesswork. Maybe a little wishful thinking.”

She ignored that. “About dinner?”

“What time shall I pick you up?”

“Did I say yes?”

“You wouldn’t be calling if you weren’t going to say yes,” he said reasonably. “Seven o’clock. How does that sound?”

“You mean you don’t already know?”

“Darlin’, sarcasm doesn’t suit you. Settle down or you’ll ruin your digestion.”

“You let me worry about my digestion,” she said grimly, already regretting her decision to call. “Seven will be fine.”

“Dress casual. We’re going for crabs and it’s going to be messy.”

“What if I don’t eat crabs?”

“Then it must mean you’ve never had ’em here. See you soon.”

He hung up, which was just as well since she didn’t have a smart retort to his confident comment.

She dressed in the most casual outfit she owned, linen pants and an expensive, starched cotton blouse. Kevin shook his head when he saw her.

“What’s wrong?”

“Don’t you own a T-shirt and some jeans?”

“No.”

“We’ll stop at the bargain store.”

“Kevin, I’m not buying a cheap T-shirt to go to dinner. I’m not a messy eater.”

“Whatever you say. I suppose it’ll give the dry cleaner in town some business.”

Gracie scowled. She set out to hate the crabs. She really did. But the next thing she knew she was up to her elbows in shells and butter and sweet, rich crabmeat. Kevin was right. She’d never had anything quite like them before.

He was also right about the T-shirt. There was no tidy way to eat the crabs. Picking them was messy and slow, but the reward was wonderful. There was also a certain amount of stress reduction in wielding that mallet she’d been given. Kevin, to his credit, didn’t give her a single reason to want to use it on his head. Of course, the conversation had been mostly limited to his patient explanation of the best way to go about getting all the crabmeat out of the shells.

When there was a mound of red shells in front of her and she’d emptied two bottles of the locally produced ginger ale, Gracie sat back with a sigh of pure contentment.

“Enjoy yourself?” Kevin asked.