Amazing Gracie

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 otherwise.”

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.