Falling For Grace

“Pregnant,” she finished for him. “But that doesn’t make me an invalid. It only makes me need the money more.”

That she wanted money had been in Jack’s mind all along, he’d just never expected her to want to work for it. Even now, he still wasn’t sure he’d heard her right.

“Aren’t your parents helping support you?” he was prompted to ask.

A guarded expression stole over her face as she quickly glanced away from him. “I don’t have any parents,” she said flatly. “Not in the normal way you’re thinking.”

“Are they dead?”

His blunt question didn’t seem to bother her and it made him wonder if deep down, beneath the smiles and gentle words she’d shown her music pupils, she was just as hard as he was. Jack had learned a long time ago that the female gender was expert at deception.

“My father died from a hunting accident when I was very small. As for my mother—she isn’t around.”

“Because she doesn’t approve of your pregnancy?”

Her brows lifted at his question and then a pained little smile curled the corners of her lips. “She doesn’t know about my pregnancy.”

“Why not?” Jack persisted.

She frowned at him as he tilted the glass to his lips.

“Do you always ask personal questions of strangers?”

Jack supposed he had been coming on a bit strong. He told himself it was because of Trent and Jillian that he was so eager to learn about Grace Holliday’s life. Yet somewhere in the deeper part of him, he had to admit he simply wanted to know her, the woman.

“Sorry. It’s the lawyer in me, I suppose. Asking questions is akin to breathing to me.” Without looking at her, he swirled the amber liquid in his glass, making the ice tinkle against the sides. “I guess the question was a bit nosy.”

Grace didn’t know what was the matter with her. Normally she never minded personal questions. Even ones that had to do with her flighty mother. But Trent’s desertion had changed her. She no longer trusted men. She took every word, every look, very cautiously. And something about Jack Barrett put her on guard even more.

“Why my mother doesn’t know about my pregnancy is a long story. One I’m sure you’d find boring,” she found herself saying.

He lifted his gaze to her and quickly discovered she was looking at him. The feel of her somber green eyes gliding over his face jerked at something buried between his chest and his gut.

“Maybe. Maybe not,” he murmured.

She inhaled a deep breath, then glanced away from him as she let it out. “I can’t believe you thought I was living with my parents.” She turned her gaze back on him. “I’m twenty-three years old.”

She said it as if that was a great old age, as if she had plenty of wisdom to get along in this world alone. Any other time Jack would have snorted at her attitude, but something in her eyes stopped him. Behind her brave stare, there were dark, sad shadows that normally would have taken years to acquire.

He shrugged. “Because you’re single, I just assumed you still lived at home with your family. An honest mistake, don’t you think?”

She grimaced. “I suppose so.”

“Well, since I’ve already offended you I might as well go on and ask you how you manage to get by on your own like this. Is the baby’s father…helping you financially?”

She looked away from him. Jack couldn’t help but watch as she pressed the ice-cold glass against her throat and down the open collar of her blouse where it veed just above the valley between her breasts.

“No.”

As he digested the one word, he could only think that her baby couldn’t belong to Trent. Jillian hadn’t raised the boy to shirk his responsibilities.

“Doesn’t that make you angry?”

“Humph,” she softly snorted. “I don’t expect money from him. Having a man’s child isn’t about money.”

He watched her face keenly as he sipped from his glass. “Have you asked him for financial help?”

Her face suddenly turned stony. “No. And I don’t intend to. He—Trent doesn’t want me or the baby. And I don’t want handouts from him—or anyone else.”

Trent doesn’t want me or the baby. The volunteered information was so unexpected Jack was knocked sideways for a moment. Then doubt swiftly washed in behind the wave of surprise. Even if she did name Trent as the father of her baby, he wasn’t going to be so quick to believe her. She might have been involved with a number of young men, but Trent just happened to be the one with money.

“So this…er, Trent you were calling out for last night is the—father?”

Jack took the faint jerk of her head to be a nod.

Frowning he said, “Maybe the guy doesn’t have enough money to care for himself, much less a wife and baby,” he suggested.

She placed her glass on the table between them, then wearily rubbed her hands against the small of her back. “Trent has plenty of money,” she told him. “He spent more in the casinos than I make teaching violin all year.”

Jack didn’t doubt that. He could see she lived meagerly compared to the standards he and his nephew were accustomed to.

“Is that what drew you to him? His money?”

She scowled at him as she continued to push at her back. The movement thrust her breast forward and, although Jack told himself not to look, he couldn’t pull his eyes away from her lush, womanly body.

“What’s the matter with you, anyway?” she asked. “Do you have a fixation for money or something? You sure do mention it a lot.”

Her suggestion pulled him up short. Jack had never considered himself as having an obsession for money. He’d been born into wealth and as a grown man he’d acquired an even heftier sum of his own. It was something he’d never had to do without. Nor ever would. But Grace was right. He’d mentioned money several times to her in the past few minutes. Did he place too much importance on the stuff?

“No,” he answered out loud. “But I—I was just wondering what you’d seen in this guy in the first place. He sounds like a jerk to me. Are you…sure he’s the father of your baby?”

She stared at him and Jack knew he’d gone too far as he watched her jaw drop and hot color fill her cheeks.

“I’ve never met anyone so insulting in my life!” Rising to her feet, she picked up the tray. “Don’t bother to bring your glass to the door when you’ve finished. I’ll get it later.”

She turned and headed toward the house. Before Jack had time to consider his actions, he jumped from the chair and caught up to her on the shaded patio.

As she reached to open the door he caught her by the shoulder. “I’m sorry, Grace. I was out of line.”

The touch of his hand, more than his words, brought her head around and she glanced pointedly down at his long fingers.

“You’re not sorry. You were just being yourself. But that doesn’t mean I have to sit around and take it. I’m not one of your witnesses. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of work to do.”

He released his fingers as though she’d scorched him, then jammed both his hands into the pockets of his khaki trousers. “You’re mad at me,” he said, stunned that it should matter to him.

“No. Disappointed is more like it.”

Minute by minute this woman was turning out to be anything than what he’d first imagined her to be, and he didn’t know what to think or do next.