“And me?”
She gave him a rueful smile. “Like it or not, you’re smack dab in the middle of it.”
Kevin was worn out by the time Max Devereaux finally left town. This business of keeping an eye on Gracie was very tiring.
As for Helen, she’d made a blasted game out of eluding him to sneak off with Max. He couldn’t imagine what his cousin saw in the man, but to each his own. Despite his grumblings to Gracie, he did recognize that Helen was an adult. She’d been walking around in a daze ever since Henry’s death. If Max managed to distract her even a little, Kevin actually agreed with Gracie that there was no reason to get too worked up over it. It wasn’t as if it was the start of something lasting. In fact, the very thought of Max as a cousin-in-law made him shudder.
Not as much as the thought of Max with Gracie, however. He smiled, thinking of how cleverly Helen had managed to keep those two apart. It hadn’t been quite enough to allow him to relax his guard, but it had given him a few peaceful moments, when he’d been able to concentrate totally on Gracie and the fact that he’d suddenly become rather addicted to her kisses.
After several days of nonstop running around, he was finally back in his hammock, contemplating the meaning of life. Or, more specifically, the meaning of his reaction to Gracie. He couldn’t think of the last time he’d thought so much about sleeping with a woman without actually doing anything about it. For some reason, though, Gracie didn’t strike him as the kind of woman he should be fooling around with unless his intentions were totally honorable.
Which they weren’t, he concluded emphatically. No way in hell was he drawing her into the circus of his life. It was bad enough that Bobby Ray had tried to use her and that Helen had poked her nose into their affairs. He
was sure the rest of them would find some way to use or abuse Gracie’s good nature if they knew she was important to him. Thankfully, most of the rest of them were out of town and, since it was summer, Uncle Bo was too busy fishing to get into much mischief.
As for Aunt Delia, he could only thank his lucky stars that she hadn’t gotten it into her head to make his relationship with Gracie her own personal project.
“I’m surprised to find you here,” the woman in question said, turning up just then and interrupting his peace and quiet. “Shouldn’t you be off somewhere with Gracie?”
“Gracie’s safe and sound at home, alone,” he told his aunt with evident relief. “I’m taking a break. What brings you outside? It’s hot out here.”
“Jane called from Richmond. She’s wondering if you have any intention of showing up at the office for the remainder of the century.”
“Were those her words or yours?”
“Her thoughts, my spin,” Aunt Delia conceded.
“Thanks to e-mail and the fax, I have no reason to go to Richmond in the middle of a heat wave.”
“Kevin, it’s eighty-five, not a hundred and ten. Besides, it’s demoralizing for your staff when you never actually put in an appearance.”
“I’ll show up when something comes up I can’t deal with on the phone,” he said. “Unfortunately, most of my clients are dead. I’m just left to deal with the beneficiaries, who have absolutely no desire to get together with me unless the checks are late. That’s the joy of estate law. Most of the time, I don’t even have to show up to submit the wills for probate. And thanks to dear old dad, the Daniels name will be on the letterhead for all eternity, no matter how much time I actually put in at the office.”
His aunt glowered at him. “Listening to that nonsense, if I didn’t know better, I’d conclude that you are the laziest man on the planet,” she said.
He lowered his sunglasses and winked at her. “Maybe I am.”
“No, you are not,” she retorted sharply. “I know exactly how many clients you have, how many of them are pro bono, and you handle every one of them with the kind of compassion and attention they deserve. So why do you insist on acting as if you could give a damn about work?”
“Balance, Aunt Delia. Balance. Do you have any idea how much concentration it requires to achieve it?”
“I suspect quite a bit less than you devote to it,” she said dryly. “Does Gracie have any idea what you actually do for a living or that you work at all, for that matter?”
“I certainly haven’t told her. She likes thinking I’m a disreputable bum. It enables her to believe she’s living on the edge just by associating with me.”
“Well, that’s certainly a dandy way to build a relationship,” his aunt grumbled. “Whatever happened to old-fashioned honesty?”
“I am honest. I just avoid getting into the details. Besides, who said anything about trying to build a relationship? We’ve covered that. Gracie’s just a friend.”
“A very special friend, judging from the way you scooted off to make sure she didn’t go back to France with that Max person.”
“Don’t read too much into that. I just didn’t want her to make a mistake she’d regret. She asked me to stick around and offer moral support.”
“Which you absolutely detested doing, right?”
Kevin slid his sunglasses back into place. “That’s enough meddling for one day. Go away.”
“You can get rid of me if you want, but it won’t stop you from thinking about her,” Aunt Delia said smugly. “If you want my advice—”
“Which I don’t.”
She ignored him and went right on. “I’d tell you to snatch her up before somebody else comes along. You’re not getting any younger, you know.”
“Thanks for the update on my age. Mind telling me why it’s relevant?”
“Babies, Kevin.”
He sat straight up and stared. “Excuse me?”
“Babies,” his aunt repeated emphatically, returning his startled gaze with a touch of defiance.
“What about them?” he asked cautiously.
“It’s time you had some, if you intend to. I have to say I wouldn’t mind seeing some toddlers scrambling around this dreary old mausoleum of yours. Molly feels the same way. We want some kids around before we’re too ancient to enjoy them.”
“Is this another way of reminding me that you’re bored and that I owe you a trip to Fredericksburg to see a movie?”
“No, it’s another way of reminding you that Molly and I aren’t the only ones who are going to be too old to keep up with a toddler if you don’t hurry up and get started.”
He lay back down. “Okay, okay. I’ll take it under advisement.”
“Which means you’ll forget about it, the minute you get me to shut up, I suppose.”
“You suppose right.”
His aunt sighed. “Then I guess it’s up to me, after all,” she murmured.
The enigmatic remark was more alarming than a
shrilling smoke detector. Kevin shot up so fast, he almost rolled himself right out of the hammock.
“What was that?” he demanded. “What do you mean it’s up to you? What’s up to you?”
She gave him a vague wave, but no response.
“Well, hell,” he muttered.
He had the sinking feeling he’d just made a very serious tactical blunder, but short of locking his aunt in her room or hiring a bodyguard to tail her and notify him if she came within a hundred yards of Gracie, he couldn’t think of a single way to keep her out of mischief. Something told him his dear aunt Delia could wind up being more trouble that Bobby Ray, Helen, and the rest of them all rolled into one.
16
“U
ncle Kevin, could you come and get me?” Abby asked, sounding more plaintive than frightened.
The phone call from his niece had prevented Kevin from sitting his aunt down for a nice, long, firm lecture about staying the hell out of his relationship with Gracie. Delia had drifted off toward the kitchen, no doubt to conspire with his housekeeper. He sighed and turned his attention to this latest crisis.
“Where are you, angel?”
“At Daddy’s, except he’s not home and Sara Lynn doesn’t like me being here when Daddy’s not here. I guess I cramp her style or something.” She sounded world-weary when she said it, as if she’d been hustled out of the way one too many times.
Kevin gritted his teeth. Part of his deal with Bobby Ray for that investment money had been that he’d pay more attention to his daughter. He should have known Bobby Ray’s promises weren’t worth a hill of beans.
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” he told Abby. “Tell Sara Lynn not to budge. I want to have a little chat with her when I get there.”
“Not because of me, Uncle Kevin, please.”
“It’s okay, Abby. We won’t argue.” In fact, he didn’t intend to let the woman get a word in. He’d be doing all the talking and she’d damn well better listen. “Bye, angel. I’m on my way. I’ll see you soon.”
Spurred on by his anger, he made the drive in ten minutes, a sheriff’s deputy on his tail the whole way. When he turned off Route 3, the deputy followed and Kevin pulled to the side of the road. Prematurely gray-haired Otis Fowler ambled up to his car, thankfully without his citation book.
“Where’s the fire, Kevin? Problems at Bobby Ray’s again?”
“Not yet,” Kevin told him grimly. He was all too aware that the sheriff’s department had responded fairly regularly to domestic disputes at the house. According to the neighbors, Bobby Ray and Sara Lynn settled their disagreements at a volume a rock band would have envied.
“Then slow down,” Otis warned. “You’re setting a bad example for the other citizens.”
“Sorry. Abby called and I was anxious to get over here and pick her up.”
“She there by herself again?”
Kevin stared at him, startled by the direction of his guesswork. “Next best thing. She’s with Sara Lynn. But how do you know she’s been there by herself?”
“My girl’s in her class at school. Abby’s mentioned it a time or two when she’s been over to the house. I’ve warned Bobby Ray that the girl has no business being left alone. I try to keep a lookout when I’m in the area, but I’m not always on this shift.”
He shook his head, his expression sorrowful. “This ain’t like the old days, when a kid was safe to play
outdoors without a parent watching over him,” he lamented. “Often as not in those days if one parent wasn’t home in the area, another one was and everyone looked out for everyone else’s kids. Now, just look at those kids killed up near Fredericksburg the last couple of years, all of ’em taken from their own front yards. We haven’t had problems like that, but Spotsylvania County’s not so far away that we can lose sight of the possibility. No sense tempting fate.”
“I’ll see to it that it doesn’t happen again,” Kevin assured him.
“Abby’s a cute kid. Smart, too. Why do you suppose Bobby Ray can’t appreciate that?”
“I wish I knew, Otis. I wish I knew.”
When he got to Bobby Ray’s, Abby was sitting on the porch, her nose stuck in a book. The child did love to read, probably because fictional worlds were a whole lot less complicated than the real-life world she lived in. He stopped by and ruffled her hair.
“Good book?”
“Uh-huh,” she said, barely sparing him a glance.
“Sara Lynn inside?”
“I guess.”
“Okay, let me talk to her and then we’ll get out of here and do something fun, okay?”
She nodded. Something about her response troubled him. She’d been pretty anxious for him to come and get her. Now it seemed his arrival didn’t matter one way or the other.
“Abby?”
“Hmm?”
“Look at me.”
She finally glanced up and he spotted the tears shim
mering in her eyes. A lump formed in his throat. Hunkering down in front of her, he took her hands.
“Okay, baby, what’s wrong?”
“I told you Sara Lynn was going to get mad if I told her you wanted to talk to her,” she said, swiping angrily at a tear.
“What did she do?” Kevin asked, his tone deadly.
“Nothing. I swear it, Uncle Kevin.”
“I know better. What did she say to you?”
Abby heaved a sigh. “She told me if I was going to be such a tattletale, she was going to see to it that Daddy never spent another second with me.” She regarded Kevin anxiously. “She can’t do that, can she, Uncle Kevin?”
“No,” he said tersely. “She can’t do that. You sit tight. I’ll be right back.”
He found Sara Lynn upstairs sitting in front of her dressing-table mirror applying makeup. Dressed—barely—in a silk-and-lace dressing gown, she looked as if she were getting ready for a night on the town. He’d never much liked her, but at this moment he was angry enough to start smashing all the pretty little crystal bottles in front of her. Losing her expensive French perfumes—paid for with Abby’s child support money, no doubt—might get her attention.
“How dare you threaten Abby?” he said, barely containing his fury. “She’s a kid, Sara Lynn. If you have a problem with me, you yell at me. If you have a problem with your marriage, you deal with Bobby Ray. You don’t take it out on Abby.”
She didn’t turn, just glanced up at his reflection in the mirror. “Nice to see you, too, Kevin.”
“Don’t waste your sarcasm on me. I know your kind, Sara Lynn.”
Her gaze narrowed. “And what kind would that be?”
“You’re trash. You’re a user. You married Bobby Ray because you thought he had money. It’s galled you ever since that I control how much he has to throw around.”
She turned around then and gave him a tight smile. “Well, well, well, I guess the gloves are finally off.”
“You bet they’re off. If I ever hear that you’ve threatened Abby again or that you’ve been anything other than kind to her, the money around here will dry up faster than you can blink. See how many lovers come sniffing around you then.”
She paled. “You can’t do that.”
“Watch me.”
Downstairs, he paused in the kitchen to let his temper cool before going back onto the porch to get Abby. Outside, he forced a smile. “Ready to go, angel?”
She regarded him seriously, but he noticed that there were no more tears.
“Is Sara Lynn still mad?”
“I suspect so,” he admitted. “But at me, sweetpea, not at you.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have called.”
“Yes, you should have. That’s our deal, remember. You can call me anytime.” He draped an arm around her shoulder and led her to the car and helped her in. “Now, then, what would you like to do?”
She hesitated, then flashed him a bright smile. “Can we go to the old house? We haven’t been there yet this summer.”