Runaway Vegas Bride / Vegas Two-Step: Runaway Vegas Bride / Vegas Two-Step

“Someone like me?” She practically spit the words at him.

“A modern woman,” he said, trying desperately to save himself now. “An enlightened woman. A strong, successful, extremely capable woman.”

Who doesn’t think she needs a man for anything at all. He got it. He understood her perfectly, he believed. Oh, yes, he did, because his last words placated her a bit.

“Look, the man was born in a different era. He was raised to see women and relationships differently than we do today,” Wyatt tried, not about to explain that his father, twenty years Leo’s junior, thought of women the same way and that he’d been raised much in the woman-as-candy-in-a-store philosophy, too.

“That’s really no excuse for his behavior,” Jane said, not quite as militant-sounding as before.

“I know. Believe me, I do, and I’m sorry.” Wyatt dared to pull out the seat next to him and offer it to her. “Jane, please, sit down. Let’s talk about this. Let me get you a drink. God knows, I need one after dealing with Uncle Leo.”

She looked a bit miffed, like she’d been winding up for a really great fight or a rant on women’s rights, and he was depriving her of that opportunity by agreeing with her and apologizing. It was one of Wyatt’s greatest weapons—being able to soothe outraged females. He was a master at work right now, even if he did say so himself, much like Leo in that gigantic candy store of women.

Jane sat, still looking as if she didn’t trust him a bit, but not foaming at the mouth or anything. With Jane, he decided, that was progress.

He motioned for the waitress who’d been hovering a few feet away, figuring out if they were really going to start a fight at the bar and how she might handle it. She came to the table, looking a bit nervous but calming down as Jane stayed silent.

At his quiet question about her drink preference, Jane looked a bit sheepishly at the waitress and murmured, “White wine spritzer, please.”

Wyatt tried to contain a grimace at the idea of wanting to dilute good wine with anything, at the idea of such a sissy, girly drink. Jane didn’t seem girly at all. Maybe she didn’t approve of really drinking. She was prim and buttoned-up after all.

“You’re going to make fun of my drink?” she asked, apparently not going to let him get away with anything.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Wyatt insisted. Then asked for a bourbon, straight up.

Jeez, the woman was prickly.

The waitress nodded, promised to bring their drinks right away, and then escaped, looking quite happy to get far, far away from them.

Wyatt sat back in his chair, trying to look relaxed and in perfect control of the spitfire that was Jane. “So, as I said before, my uncle’s attitude toward women is inexcusable. Outdated, sexist, arrogant, immature. I realize that. I freely admit it and apologize sincerely for it.”

Jane gave him an odd look, hopefully discarding the next three insults she had planned to hurl at him over Leo’s behavior.

Good. They were getting somewhere.

“If there was anything I could do to change the way he behaves, believe me, I would have done it years ago. It’s caused him and me enormous amounts of trouble and grief. But I fear, at eighty-six—”

“Eighty-six? He told Gram he was only eighty-one.”

“Well, he’s not,” Wyatt went on. “Honestly, a woman can’t believe a word that man says, and unfortunately, I simply cannot change him. I’ve tried. So, at this point, all I can do is be completely up front about…how he is…and hope that saves women like your grandmother and great-aunt from being hurt by him.”

“That’s it? That’s your solution?”

Wyatt shrugged, trying to look both reasonable and helpless at the same time. “I don’t know what else to do. He’s a grown man. I have virtually no control over him. Any more than you can control your grandmother—”

“My grandmother’s not the one running around with two different people at the same time.”

Wyatt could only pray it was merely two women for Leo at the moment.

“I was just hoping,” he explained quietly, “that your grandmother might be more…reasonable…to deal with than my uncle. That once we explain to her…the way he is…”

“You want to tell her that he’s a complete cad and a liar?” Jane asked.

“Better than her finding out on her own. And, actually, I thought you might tell her. That the news might be easier coming from you. But if you think it should come from me, of course, I’ll do it.”

Jane’s mouth fell open, literally.

The waitress returned with their drinks. Jane didn’t touch hers. Wyatt downed his in one long gulp.

“Another, please?” he asked the waitress before she left.

Jane leaned toward him, whispering urgently, “My grandmother thinks she’s in love with him!”

Wyatt sighed, feeling a headache coming on. “He’s only been there a week.”

“I know. It’s ridiculous, I admit, but she does! What in the world does he do to these women?”

Wyatt could only shake his head in wonder. He refrained from saying that surely any woman who could believe she was in love in a week’s time was, perhaps, just asking to get hurt.

He wouldn’t dare say that to Jane.

She sat back in her chair, looking sad and worried. “You have to understand, my grandmother has never been in love before. She’s had men, of course. She’s a beautiful woman.

Been married a number of times, and been genuinely happy for a time with a man, but she’s never claimed to be in love. She doesn’t even believe in love, as far as I know.”

“So what the devil happened between the two of them?”

“I have no idea.”

Jane sat back in her chair, taking a sip of her wine spritzer. What could this man possibly find offensive about a white wine spritzer?

But on the topic of Leo, she had to concede to herself at least, that for a man, Wyatt Gray was being exceedingly reasonable, much as she hated admitting it.

He had acknowledged his uncle’s bad behavior and didn’t really try to make excuses, merely admitting he was incapable of controlling the man. Jane had tried for decades to change Gram and Gladdy’s attitudes toward life in general and men in particular without much success. Except for getting control of their finances. So she had to empathize with Wyatt’s own troubles where his uncle was concerned.

“What about Gladdy?” Wyatt asked finally. “She doesn’t think she’s in love with Leo, does she?”

“I have no idea. I couldn’t believe they were holding hands under the table. It’s like something twelve-year-olds would do.”

Jane felt awful remembering that soft, warm glow on Gladdy’s face. She’d looked delighted with their intimate dinner at first, and Jane had simply thought Gladdy was happy for Gram, silly as that would be, because Gladdy didn’t believe in love any more than Gram did.

“They’ve never fought over a man before,” Jane confided. “And they grew up together, moved into their first apartment together and have lived together off and on ever since. The thought of a man coming between them is unthinkable.”

And yet, Jane had seen with her very own eyes the way Gladdy looked at Leo and Leo looked at her. And Gram!

That little weasel of an eighty-six-year-old man!

“I suppose we could start by talking to Gladdy,” Wyatt offered. “Appeal to her sense of friendship and devotion to your grandmother, and at the same time, tell her the sad, hard truth about Leo. That might, at least, keep him from coming between the two women.”