Falling for Grace (13 page)

Izzie pretended to think about that a
minute. She cocked her head to one side, laid a forefinger beside
her chin, and chewed on her lip. After a moment, she snapped her
finger and said, “I got it! I know why you’re mad at each
other!”

Gracie cleared her throat. “Now, Izzie. I
told you. I’m not mad at your father, it’s just a misunderstanding
between the two of us and—”

“
It has something to do
with the eye thing, doesn’t it?”

Now Gracie was puzzled. “The eye thing?”

“
Uh-huh. The eye
thing.”

“
I don’t think I
understand.”

Izzie thought another moment. “Well...it’s
something my dad does when—”

The bell over the front door tinkled and
both Gracie and Izzie turned toward the sound. In strode Carson.
Every long-legged, spit-shined and polished, inch of him. Gracie
gulped. Definitely a nice-looking specimen of male anatomy, she
told herself. She guessed he was getting ready to open for
so-called “dinner” at five.

Too bad that she was angry with the man.
Funny how she had to keep reminding herself of that fact.

She couldn’t help but
notice that
Geekmeister’s
Cyber
Café
had
sported a small crowd every evening this week thus far. Not that
she wished the man bad luck in his business, she was just hoping
that if business was bad, it might solve her dilemma.

And she could use an easy solution to a
dilemma for once in her lifetime.

In a couple of steps,
Carson was beside his daughter. “Izzie, I told you not to
bother
Ms. Hart
.”

Grace noticed he didn’t look her in the
eyes. She didn’t even flinch at the reference to Ms. Hart. That was
the way it had been all week. Their conversations were stiff and to
the point with little elaboration. Carson appeared sorely
uncomfortable around her and she...well, she just flat out wasn’t
sure she could trust him. So, she’d decided to stay out of his way
and entertain little conversation from the man until she decided
what could be done about the entire situation.

Which, according to Jim, would probably be
very little.

“
She’s not a
bother,
Mr. Price
. Really, she’s not.”

“
Well, she shouldn’t be
here. I asked her not to keep running in and out of your shop all
day long. Especially after the other day...”

He didn’t finish the sentence. Gracie shook
her head. “It’s not a problem. Slow day. Actually, she’s been a lot
of company.”

He grasped Izzie’s hand and started for the
door. Briefly, he made eye contact with Gracie. “Well, it’s time
for her to go. C’mon, Iz.”

“
But Dad,” the child
interrupted, “I was just starting to tell Gracie about—”

“
Oh, that’s right,” Gracie
interrupted. “There was something she was going to tell me. Could
you wait just a minute?” Gracie suddenly got the distinct
impression that Carson was in a terrible hurry to get out of
there.

Did she dare toss a kink in his
impatience?

He exhaled deeply, glanced from woman to
child and said restlessly, “All right. What is it?”

“
The eye thing, Dad. I was
going to tell her about the eye thing.”

Gracie watched as Carson flushed from neck
to the top of his head in about one-quarter of a second flat.
Suddenly, it was quite obvious that Carson didn’t want to talk
about the eye thing.

“
Yes, she was just about
to tell me about the eye thing,” Gracie goaded. “Curious thing, the
eye thing. Such a mystery, I understand.” Gracie didn’t know why,
but she sort of felt like putting Carson Price on the
spot.

Much like she felt put on the spot the other
night.

She tried to smother a giggle.

Carson threw back his shoulders, grasped
Izzie’s hand a little tighter, and took one backward step toward
the door. He glared at his child then turned to Gracie.

“
That silly eye thing?” he
laughed. “What a joker she is. It’s a little trick she uses
sometime. She’ll have to show you when there’s more time. Something
she learned from her grandpa. Right now, we have to be somewhere
and—”

“
But Dad, that’s
not—”

“
We have to go now, Iz.”
His words suddenly grew more stern. He turned to Gracie.

“
Sorry to bother you, Ms.
Hart. We’ll talk to you later.”

“
See! There, Dad. That’s
it! See Gracie? He’s doing it—”

Gracie immediately looked at Carson. His
eyes had closed about halfway, one brow was arched, and a little
come-hither twinkle flashed from beneath that arched brow.

Ah, that kind of eye thing, Gracie realized.
Wanting desperately to giggle, she didn’t, deciding instead just to
glance way.

Instantly, he whisked the child out of the
shop before Gracie her brain really had a chance to grasp the
entire truth about the eye thing. No matter, she thought. By the
look on Izzie’s face, and the little wink she’d tossed her as she
left, she was sure to spill it sooner or later.

Besides, Gracie had a pretty good idea just
exactly what the eye thing was all about. A girl just knew things
like that.

* * * *

The latest, hottest romance novel was up for
discussion at the book club on Friday night. Constance was tired of
discussing bestsellers, she’d told the group the month before.
Gracie was sure her friend was up to something that didn’t have
anything at all to do with books, but more with romance. She wished
she’d give it a break.

The once-a-month Friday
night group was different from the weekly Saturday morning group,
with the exception of Constance. She was pretty much a staple item
around
Romantically
Yours
.
Gracie
never minded, of course, until lately. All Constance seemed to want
to talk about was
Geekmeister’s
and the geek next door who owned the joint and
how he might fit in with Gracie’s romantic whims.

Or the lack of such a thing.

The thing was, Gracie knew
her life was missing something. She
knew
she’d be happier with a man in
her life. With a child in her life. With a family. That’s what that
ticking clock thing was all about. But it was just difficult for
her to put herself out there any more, and she really and truly
didn’t want Constance and Amie butting in to her love life any
longer.

She just didn’t have the heart to tell
them.

She was glad, however, for
one thing. It seemed
Geeks
had become the newest interest in their lives of
late. Thank goodness. Perhaps they’d let her be for a while. Even
though it stung a little bit.

Like Amie, Constance was
becoming a
Geeks
groupy. Were all her friends insane? They used to be
her
groupies!

Constance glanced at her watch. “I wish Bets
would get here,” she said for the third time. “I’d like to get this
discussion started and on its way.”

Three other ladies nodded in agreement.
Gracie not included. In no hurry, she sat back and watched Ellen
Harper, the Methodist church pianist, and Wanda Martin, the high
school Home Economics teacher, and Kelly Brooks, who just graduated
from cosmetology school, glance from one to the other and then back
to flip through the book-marked pages of their books.

Something was amiss. She wasn’t quite sure
what.

Gracie glanced at her watch. “You ladies
gonna turn into pumpkins or something at the stroke of seven?” she
asked.

Kelly glanced up. “Happy hour ends at
eight,” she stated, then returned to her book.

Gracie dipped her head in a slow nod.
Hm...

“
Drinks are half-price
until then,” Wanda added.

Ah-ha!

“
Thought we’d finish early
and take in a little Friday night activity at
Geeks
,” Constance concluded. “Of
course with Bets being late, we might have to make it another
time.”

Gracie smiled. They
were
her groupies after
all! The book club was important to them, she knew, and they
wouldn’t give it up for something as silly as—

“
Happy hour only comes
once a week, you know, so we wouldn’t want to miss it,” Ellen
Harper chimed in.

Gracie widened her eyes
and took in the expression on the woman’s face. This same woman,
who had to be pushing sixty, who taught her piano lessons when she
was a child, and who drilled Bible verses into her head in Sunday
school for years, was a
Geeks
groupie, too?

“
Ellen?” Gracie was
aghast.

Ellen cocked her head and stared back.
“Gracie! Don’t look at me like that! I’m a grown woman and can do
whatever I wish.”

Shaking herself, Gracie nodded in agreement.
“Well, yes, I didn’t mean anything by that. I just didn’t think
you—”

Outside the shop door, a woman’s shriek
interrupted her comment. All eyes turned toward the sound. Through
the glass of the shop window, Gracie could see Betsy Baker, the
twice-widowed town librarian, standing very still, her arms shoved
out from her body as if in surprise, her eyes wide, her face turned
skyward.

She appeared to be dripping. Water-soaked.
To the skin. Hair and clothing to boot.

Oh my.

Simultaneously, Gracie and the others jumped
up and raced toward Bets only to hear a splunsh! as the door
opened. Bets wailed again and looked upward. Gracie, reaching the
scene first, glanced up only to see the tip of a ponytail fly back
into the window of Carson’s apartment.

What in the world?

Gracie looked back at Bets, mouth still
agape, dripping huge droplets of water from the tip of her nose,
hair plastered against her skull, and then to the concrete
sidewalk.

Balloon bits.

Water balloon bits.

Everywhere.

“
Bets! Come in here!
Quickly!” Gracie ushered her friend inside and through the shop
where she planted her in a chair in her office. “I’ll run upstairs
and get some towels.”

That child! What had gotten into her?

No time to ponder that now, she thought.

Quickly, she snatched some towels from her
linen closet and headed back down the stairs. She was almost
certain she caught sight of Izzie peeking out through a crack in
Carson’s door. Later. For now she had to take care of Bets.

“
Here we go,” she said
breathlessly as she entered her office again.

Bets looked up at her, hair still stringing
down her face. “Now what am I going to do? I had my hair all fixed
and everything!” she whined.

Gracie knelt beside her and started daubing
a towel around her face. “I’m so sorry, Bets. I’m sure your hair
was beautiful. For the life of me I can’t imagine...”

But that was a lie. She could easily
imagine. She just didn’t know why.

Bets’ shoulders dropped. “I just had it done
this afternoon,” she whined some more. “It was a new cut, new
style. It was the new me. I couldn’t wait to show it to all of
you.”

The women all consoled her. Constance rubbed
her back, Kelly murmured comforting words. Ellen patted her
hand.

“
And I was so looking
forward to Happy Hour.”

Gracie stood, not
believing what she was hearing. Had they
all
gone mad?

“
Happy Hour?”

All five women looked up and nodded. Gracie
thought they were a pitiful sight.

“
What in the world is this
sudden captivation with Happy Hour?” she asked. “What about the
book club? What about our discussion of the hottest, sexiest
romance novel to come down the pike in quite some time?” She picked
the book up off her desk and turned to Constance. “Huh? What about
this? You couldn’t wait to discuss this last month and now the lot
of you can’t wait to get out of here and go get happy with some
geeks next door!”

All five women just stared at her, the
blankest looks on their faces Gracie thought she’d ever seen.

“
You just don’t
understand, do you Gracie?”

“
That’s right, I don’t.
We’ve been doing the Friday night book club for years. Now that
this...this
Geekmeister’s
thing is next door, you all have all but
forgotten about the book club and me.”

Constance cleared her throat and stepped
forward. “That’s not true, Gracie, we had every intention of
bringing you with us.”

That statement, which certainly intended to
make Gracie feel better, didn’t.

“
But I don’t want to go
to
Geekmeisters!
”

The women sat stunned before her. Gracie
hadn’t meant to shout, but she had. It took several seconds, then
Bets stood and turned to Kelly. “You think you could fix this hair
of mine?”

It was like Gracie was totally and absurdly,
dismissed.

Kelly nodded furiously and smiled. “Let me
try.”

“
All right.” She turned to
Grace. “Got a blow dryer around here?”

Dumbfounded, Gracie nodded and pointed
toward the bathroom. Kelly retrieved the thing and in a matter of
minutes, had coifed and dried and fluffed to Bets’
satisfaction.

“
There,” she
proclaimed.

Bets looked in the mirror from all
angles.

“
I love it,” declared
Constance.