Falling for Grace (16 page)

She adored the child and she wanted to spend
more time with her.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

It was simple. Gracie Hart was a sucker for
the reckless charms of Isabella Price.

That’s why she’d told her she’d go to the
movies with them. Thing was, she really didn’t think about the
consequences of that decision until just a few moments ago.

“
Popcorn?”

Gracie shook her head, feeling extremely
awkward. It was almost like this was a date and she didn’t want it
to be a date. In fact, she hadn’t been out on a date in, oh, say
three years or more and that was with some guy Amie had fixed her
up with. Was that the shoe salesman or the jockey?

She couldn’t remember.

No, it wasn’t the jockey. Constance had
fixed her up with the jockey. Now, if that wasn’t a sight to
behold. He was all of five-foot-two compared with her five-foot-ten
inches in her stocking feet.

Of course, the guy seemed to love it. He
strutted around like a banty rooster all evening.

Gracie felt like shooting Constance that
night. And if memory served her correctly, that was the day she’d
sworn off dating altogether.

“
Soft drink?”

She shook her head again. It was enough that
he’d bought her ticket. This was all just very
uncomfortable....

“
Let’s go get the good
seats, Gracie.” Izzie grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the
guy who took their tickets. It was actually a relief to leave
Carson behind gathering drinks and popcorn and Junior Mints for
Izzie and himself.

But that relief was short-lived. Izzie found
seats all right, front and center. They’d all have crooks in their
necks in no time. Carson found them with no problem, though, and
took the seat next to her. At first, Izzie was between them, but
then she finagled her way to Carson’s left, saying that it was
easier for her to eat popcorn with her right hand. So, that left
Carson and Gracie sitting side-by-side.

It still felt like a date.

It still felt damned uncomfortable.

Thank goodness the previews were coming on.
At least she could just get engrossed in the movie and wouldn’t
have to communicate with him. At least they could just sit there.
She didn’t even have to eat his popcorn if she didn’t want to.

That was one good thing about movies and
dates.

But this wasn’t a date, she reminded
herself. Not in the least.

Even if it felt like it.

Chapter Ten

Carson took a deep breath and expelled it
slowly. Very slowly. He didn’t want Gracie to hear the frustration
in his sigh.

How in the hell did this happen?

This was supposed to
Izzie’s day. Well, he supposed it still was. He
had
allowed his daughter to invite
someone along. He just hadn’t expected that that someone would be
Gracie.

Not that he minded, actually, but it was
going to be damned hard concentrating on anything other than the
woman beside him all afternoon. Especially when he’d wanted to
devote the afternoon to his daughter.

Ever since last night, when he’d carried
Gracie’s lithe body upstairs, removed the shoes from her dainty
feet, and brushed the silky strands of hair away from her face,
he’d been more than captivated by his neighbor-slash-landlord. That
something that had caught in his gut last night had yet to let
go.

Of course, the pictures on her night stand
kept creeping back into his head, too. Especially the one with the
man. She obviously loved the guy. But where was he? He and Gracie
had been neighbors for several weeks now and he’d never seen the
guy hanging around.

Come to think of it, there hadn’t been any
men around.

Hell, if he was Gracie’s boyfriend, he’d
be...

Enough. Don’t go there, Price.

He stared at the screen.

Just as the dancing hot dogs and singing
soft drinks jigged across the screen, Carson sidled a careful
glance Gracie’s way. With her right elbow resting on the chair arm,
she was leaning into her hand, her fingers massaging her forehead
and temples.

Without thinking, he leaned to his right and
whispered, “Headache?”

Jerking upright, she dropped her hand and
looked at him. A small wince crossed her face. “Yes.”

“
Aspirin?”

She shook her head. “Already consumed the
limit,” she whispered back.

Last night and this morning, he thought and
inwardly chuckled. It wasn’t funny, but he had the notion that
Gracie Hart wasn’t a regular boozer, so this was likely very
uncharacteristic of her.

“
I see. Soft drink?
Caffeine can help a hangover.” He pushed his toward her.

Her eyes grew wide and she shook her head.
“No, thanks.”

“
I’ll go get you one
then.”

“
No, really. I don’t want
a soft drink.”

“
But—”

“
Please, no.” Her voice
rose and her hand went to his arm. All Carson could do was stare at
it. Her fingers and nails were just as graceful as the rest of her.
Finally, he looked up into her face. Her eyes were pleading with
him. Big, soft, doe-like eyes that twisted the wrench in his gut.
Just a reminder, he guessed.

As if he needed a reminder that he found the
woman extremely attractive.

But from her expression, he could tell that
Gracie didn’t want him to direct any more attention to the fact
that she was severely hung over.

So, he didn’t.

And as the hot dogs and soft drinks
pirouetted off the screen, the lights went down and he couldn’t see
her face any longer.

He sat still for a moment, looking into the
dark toward her. He discovered then that he didn’t like not looking
into her eyes.

* * * *

“
Dad, can we get ice
cream?”

Gracie blinked painfully as they exited the
theater, her eyes attempting to adjust to the unusually bright
afternoon. Of course, her eyes were extremely sensitive today, so
perhaps it was only her.

She glanced at Carson. He was squinting,
too. Good. Maybe she was getting somewhat back to normal.

Carson looked back at her, appearing to
assess something in her face. Then he turned his attention to
Izzie. “Honey, I’m tired. How about if we do that later this
evening?”

“
But Da-ad,” Izzie whined.
“We always get ice cream after a movie.

“
Not today, Iz.
Okay?”

“
But Gracie wants to.
Right, Gracie?”

“
Well, uh...” she
stammered.

He caught Gracie’s eye again. Actually, she
was tired herself, but should she let Carson handle this? She had
the distinct feeling that he really didn’t want to spend any more
of his afternoon with her.

He’d been very quiet throughout the movie
and once, when she’d accidentally crossed her legs and brushed her
foot up against his calf, he’d jumped like he was scared to death.
Another time, his elbow has slipped off the arm rest and his arm
had fallen into her lap, startling both of them. Not to mention how
he’d stared at her hand when she’d absentmindedly reached out and
touched his arm.

She’d just make it easy on him.

“
You two go,” she
interrupted. “I have some work to do back at the shop.”

Izzie moved in front of Gracie, grasped her
hand, and looked up at her with those huge Disney eyes. “Please,
Gracie? Please? Don’t go yet.”

Heaving out a deep sigh, she searched the
child’s eyes. Such an angelic little face. Reaching out, Gracie
smoothed back a few wayward curls that had escaped her ponytail and
smiled. Yet, she could be such a monkey. Starved for female
attention, she’d deduced lately, this child was beginning to get to
her. And bad.

Glancing up, Gracie searched Carson’s face.
But Izzie wasn’t the only one getting to her. She’d known it for a
while but had refused to acknowledge it. Carson was getting to her,
too. She couldn’t let that happen. Thing was, dad and kid were the
whole kit-and-kaboodle.

It was something she was just going to have
to learn to deal with.

Stalling, she wracked her brain for a
moment, wondering how she might manage to get an afternoon nap and
appease Izzie at the same time.

Again, she looked down into the child’s
eyes. She saw life dancing in them. She saw a child so different
from the one she’d been so many years ago. She saw spirit and spunk
and an innocence she, herself, has lost. She saw a child-like
passion for living that radiated up at her with a zest Gracie had
longed denied herself.

She saw exactly what she’d been missing for
years, had not allowed herself to feel.

Love.

It was simple as that.

“
How about this,” she
whispered, crouching down to look Izzie directly in the eyes. The
child smiled and continued to search her face. “I’m a little tired
and your Dad is too, I think. Why don’t we all go home for the rest
of the day today, then tomorrow, I’ll get my old-fashioned ice
cream freezer out and we’ll make homemade ice cream out on the back
deck. Deal?”

Izzie’s face screwed up a bit. “You can make
ice cream?”

“
Yep. You never had
homemade ice cream before?”

The monkey shook her head.

“
Well. I think it’s about
time, don’t you?”

Izzie smiled and nodded furiously. “But
can’t we do it today?”

Gracie shook her head. “I
have some work to do and your father has to open up
Geeks
tonight,
right?”

Looking up, Gracie finally allowed herself
to glance back at Carson, who was staring at her with an odd
expression on his face. Something abruptly clutched in her chest
and she felt like she’d done something very wrong.

“
I’m sorry,” she said
softly to him. “You may have had other plans for tomorrow. I should
have—”

He put up his hand to stop her, his eyes not
leaving hers. “No,” he said. “We have no other plans. I think...”
He paused and looked to his daughter and Gracie followed his gaze.
A long sigh exited his lips. Izzie, still clutching Gracie’s hand,
peered back at her dad with a most satisfied expression on her
face. “I think,” Carson continued, glancing back to Gracie now,
“that we both would like that very much.” Finally, a small,
hesitant grin meandered across his lips.

For just a few seconds, Gracie studied his
face. She found herself wanting to grin back. “Good,” she returned
softly, then finally allowed her lips to return the gesture.

Her heart suddenly felt full of something
she didn’t dare try to define, so she shoved it away. Far away.
Trying not to acknowledge that that fullness felt good.

Too good.

* * * *

The next afternoon, Gracie stared into her
bathroom mirror and groaned. Her eyes were no longer red but they
were still puffy as all get-out.

She’d hoped that after she’d showered and
gone to the grocery to gather ice cream supplies, and had drank
tons of water, the puffiness would have subsided.

No such luck. Small bags of puff still
existed underneath each eye like little carpet bags of fluid.

Drat.

Tea bags. That might do it. So after a few
minutes, Gracie was lying in her bed with brewed and chilled tea
bags on her eyes, when she started wondering why she was even
concerned about puffy eye-bags in the first place.

She wasn’t trying to catch
Carson Price’s eye. She didn’t need to look gorgeous for him. She
didn’t even
want
him to look at her in any way other than as her neighbor and
landlord.

So what difference did it make if she had
puffy eyes?

It didn’t matter.

Quickly, Gracie rose and tossed the tea bags
into the garbage in her bathroom. She splashed water on her face,
toweled off, and didn’t even look in the mirror before she left.
She also acknowledged to herself that she hadn’t put on a speck of
makeup all day long.

What the heck. She was just going to make
ice cream on her back deck with her neighbors. She didn’t need
makeup.

She didn’t need to impress anyone. Least of
all Carson Price. She just wanted to spend time with Izzie—and
Izzie didn’t care, or not, if she wore makeup.

She was in her kitchen some time later
mixing up the ice cream ingredients, when the knock came at her
door.

“
Door’s open,” she
shouted, still stirring milk and eggs and sugar and vanilla and a
few other ingredients in a large mixing bowl.

The door burst open and like a whirlwind,
Izzie raced across her living room toward her small kitchen.

“
Hey, Gracie!”

Gracie smiled. “Hey ya, monkey!”

“
Whatcha
doin’?”

“
Getting ready to cook the
ice cream.”

“
Cook it! But we gotta get
it cold, not hot!” the imp exclaimed.

Smiling, Gracie transferred the mixture to a
large saucepan. “Well, you have to cook this kind first, then we
put it into the freezer to get cold and hard. It’s going to take a
little while, so I hope you’re mouth’s not all set for ice cream
just yet.”

“
How long?” she
inquired.

“
A few hours. But it will
be worth the wait.”

“
Then just skip the
cooking part.” Izzie jumped up on a bar stool and peered across the
snack bar into the mixture on the stove.”

“
Can’t,” Gracie explained.
“This kind has eggs in it and you have to cook the eggs so we don’t
get salmonella.”

“
Simonhoola?”

Glancing up from her stirring, Gracie
laughed. “Salmonella. It’s a kind of food poisoning. In other
words, if you get it you throw up a lot.”