Paul seemed to relax, moving his hand from Bette’s shoulder to stroke her cheek.
“Is something wrong?”
“Are you okay, Bette?”
The questions from Tris and Leslie tripped over each other as they joined the group.
“I’m fine. Just a little tired. Grady rescued me.”
Grady felt the look Leslie flicked at him, but was too late to meet it. By the time he turned to her she was assessing the situation. She looked at Bette closely, then to Paul’s still-stubborn expression, then over her shoulder at the important people Paul had deserted.
“Well, she looks fine to me,” Leslie declared, then dipped deeper into her drawl. “And if there’s one thing a Southern woman knows, it’s the vapors.”
Bette gave her a grateful look, turning to her husband she said, “See? The words of an expert. Now will you please go back to the others?”
“I don’t think—”
“Bless her heart,” Leslie interrupted blithely, “Bette simply had the common reaction to being near talked to death by Will-He-Ever-Be-Quiet Whicken.”
Everyone chuckled except Paul, but even his face eased.
“Whicken is a notorious windbag,” added Tris. “Everybody who knows him stays away, so he picks on newcomers like Bette.”
“Especially slow-moving ones like me,” she said with a rueful look at her girth.
This time even Paul chuckled. In three minutes he’d been persuaded to return to his conversation, though it took both a promise that someone would stay with Bette, and Michael’s taking him by the arm and leading him away.
“Professor Whicken is the source of a good deal of conjecture in some circles in Washington,” Leslie informed the group that remained around Bette’s chair.
“What sort of conjecture?” Bette prompted.
“Well, nobody’s ever actually seen him stop talking long enough to breathe, so we wonder if he ever does.”
“He must.” Grady waited until all three pair of eyes were on him, especially the hazel pair. “He’s got to stop talking in order to eat, and we know he eats from the evidence on his jacket. In fact, the evidence showed he’d stopped talking long enough while he’s been here to eat.”
“Couldn’t be,” objected Tris. “Must be old stains.”
Grady shook his head. “Crackers, cheese, dip, pastry and strawberry from those little tarts—in other words, a good portion of the menu here.”
“I think Sherlock Roberts has you, Tris.” Leslie turned to Bette. “What do you think? You spent the most time with him.”
Bette looked from one face to the other. “I think it does not behoove someone who’s seven months pregnant to comment about someone spilling food down their front.”
As the laughter died down, Bette said, “Someone’s trying to get your attention, Tris. Or maybe Leslie’s?”
The sandy-haired man Grady had seen earlier with Leslie looked over at their group.
Tris smiled at him as she said to Leslie in a low tone, “Did you—?”
“Yes, indeed. Consider the way paved. Now go to it, kid.”
Tris hesitated. “Will you be okay, Bette?”
“Of course, as long as Leslie sticks around to tell me what this is all about.”
“It’s about being a foundation with not very much money trying to do work that costs a lot of money.” Tris sighed, but her smile didn’t falter as she headed off.
Grady gave in to the urge to grin as Leslie explained that the sandy-haired man had a bank account as fat as he was thin, and the historic preservation foundation she and Tris worked for was courting a large donation. Leslie had softened him up, now Tris would hit him with the facts and figures of how much they could accomplish with his check.
Business, that’s why Leslie had been so attentive to the man. He could understand that.
“A nonprofit foundation’s work is never done,” Leslie said, “especially when it comes to getting donations. But in this case, he’s really a very nice man.”
Grady turned away from where Tris and the man were in earnest conversation and looked at Leslie.
“Have you seen all of the exhibit?”
His abrupt question didn’t faze her. “Yes, I have.”
“Good, then you can show me. I haven’t had time to get all the way around.”
“Don’t forget to show him the section with those handmade chessboards from the backwoods,” instructed Bette.
“Some of them are amazing.”
Leslie flashed her a look Grady couldn’t see. Bette smiled blandly.
“You should probably go take a look around now, before it’s too late, Grady. But I’ll stay here. We promised Paul someone would stay with Bette.”
“There is no need for anyone to stay with me. I’m--”
“I’ll be happy to,” said Michael, rejoining them after depositing Paul amid a crowd of well-wishers. “We’ve hardly talked because of the opening. This is our chance.”
Leslie had been taught well. She gave in so graciously, Grady could almost pretend she had really wanted to go with him. That ingrained graciousness was one of the things he liked about her. As they studied the displays that drew the viewer along with an appreciation of humanity’s deep-seated desire for diversion and its ingenuity in meeting the desire, Grady detoured from the thought that there were a lot of things he liked about her.
Almost pretend she had really wanted to go with him
.
Almost, but not quite, because clearly she’d been reluctant.
Maybe pure stubbornness prompted him then to lead her away from the activity around Paul’s exhibit. A couple twists and turns later and they were in quiet, shadowy isolation with only unlit display cases for company.
“We must have taken a wrong turn somewhere,” Leslie said. “Maybe we can follow the bread crumbs back.”
“Wait a minute. I want to talk to you.”
Caution replaced cheerfulness. “Oh? About what?”
“About this weekend . . .” She looked away, but not before he’d caught a shadow of expression, almost hunted, on her face. He went on slowly, turning that over in his mind. “I’m planning to head to Denver to check something for a client. Then I’ve got things in Chicago that need attending, so I probably won’t be back until the end of next week.”
“Oh. Well, have a good time. Hope all your business goes well.”
The relief in her voice hit him low and hard. He’d considered accepting Paul’s invitation to the beach this weekend, then trying to wrangle it so Leslie came, too. But he’d decided a week apart might make her appreciate him more. And might give him a chance to figure out what she was playing at. He’d heard about hard to get, but he hadn’t seen it often, and it didn’t seem Leslie Craig’s style.
Now he had another answer—she didn’t want to be around him.
“Thanks.” He didn’t examine his curt tone or the raw sensation low in his stomach. “Guess we should get back.”
He took her arm, maybe with a little more force than necessary, and she pulled back automatically. But he already had his hold, so the momentum of her countermove simply pivoted her until she came up against him, one open hand on his chest.
She was in his arms, the way she had been in the rose garden not so long ago. She smelled as sweet. She felt as good. And her mouth . . . her mouth was right there . . .
It took no thought, just the following of a need. He bent his knees and ducked his head; he had to because she hadn’t looked up at him, but he caught her mouth.
He dropped his hand from her arm, holding her only with the kiss. She tasted of warmth. Sweet, sweet warmth that seeped into him and fired his blood. And she tasted of hesitation. But she didn’t pull away.
Wanting to crush her to him, he instead touched his fingertips lightly to her jaw. She raised her chin, and he deepened the kiss, sliding his tongue through her slightly parted lips as his hands tunneled into her hair to cup the delicate curve of her skull.
It took only the slightest pressure to urge her tighter against him. Her hands slid up to his shoulders. Better, but not enough. He didn’t want those elegantly capable hands on his damn suit coat, he wanted them on him. Then, as if in answer to his desire, she moved one hand to his neck, the tips of her fingers stroking the skin.
He swirled his tongue deeper into her mouth, exploring the warmth, barely holding back the fire.
Her tongue touched his—almost, it seemed, by accident—and started to retreat. But he caught it, drawing it into his mouth with an insistent need he was too absorbed in meeting to analyze. He felt more than heard the soft sound deep in her throat, the same way he experienced his own groan at her delicate touches. He wanted more . . . more . . . And he wanted so strongly he started to feel lightheaded with it.
He raised his head to gasp in the oxygen his lungs demanded, but he kept his gaze on her lips as if a look could sustain the physical link.
“Grady.”
Uncertainty clung to the word. It certainly wasn’t an invitation, so when he took possession of her mouth once more, it was all his own doing. For an instant she met him, a glimpse of what she held back from him, enough to make him know he wanted it all. Desperately.
And then she withdrew. Even before their lips parted.
“Grady, no.”
He felt the breath of her words on his lips, absorbed the impact of them in his tight muscles.
He raised his head, so the differences in their heights put distance between her lips and his. He watched the slumberous desire in her eyes give way to a haze he didn’t understand.
“Why?”
“Because I want us to be friends.”
“Friends?” The word didn’t register immediately, but when it did, he grinned a little at her, the blood still humming through him in a most unfriendly way. “It would be a hell of a waste of chemistry for us to be friends.”
Where had she gotten the notion they should be friends? A kaleidoscope of the past few weeks flickered through his mind. Wherever she’d gotten it, it certainly explained a number of things, and he sure preferred that explanation to the idea that she just didn’t want to be around him. Besides, now that he knew, he was certain it wouldn’t take him long to change her mind.
Not with this encounter as proof of the charge between them.
“That’s just . . . just hormones.” She waved away a millennium worth of powerful instinct with one hand. “It’s much more important that we be friends. I think we’ve made a good start these past few weeks. I’d hate to see it ruined by something so ill-advised.”
Ill-advised? No woman had ever called kissing him “ill-advised.” He frowned. “You’re serious about this.”
“Yes. Yes, I am. I most certainly am. I know you’re not accustomed to friendship with many women, but think of me like Bette and Tris.”
He stared at her. If he’d ever had a quarter—an eighth— of this reaction to Tris or Bette, Michael or Paul would have shot him.
What he felt for her had nothing to do with the easy, accepting warmth of his deep affection for Tris and Bette. How could it? He shifted his weight to one foot, brushing his right hip against Leslie.
There was no denying the desire he felt for Leslie Craig, so she must fall into that other, much more populated category of women in his life. He couldn’t get confused by the warmth he also felt. He’d spent more than half his life exploring the attraction between men and women, and he couldn’t mistake it. Relieved to have that settled, he leaned forward to demonstrate the matter to her. But before his lips did more than brush hers, she backed up, out of reach.
“You’re sort of stuck, aren’t you, Leslie?”
“What do you mean?”
“You can’t convince me we’re just friends if you’re afraid to kiss me. And you can’t kiss me because it proves there’s more between us than friendship.”
A stubborn expression settled over her features and he remembered her account of her couple-of-times-great-grandmother who had single-handedly held off first a Yankee patrol and then a band of renegade Rebels. He didn’t doubt it for an instant.
“Friends, Grady. That’s all we are. That’s all we ever should be. That’s all we ever will be.”
With the sensations still alive, he stared at her. “We’ll see.”
* * * *
Any given warm-weather weekend, beach-bound traffic stretched from Washington, D.C., to the Atlantic shores of Maryland and Delaware like an army of ants on the march. At least being toward the head of the column spared Leslie, Michael and Tris the sort of backup at the Chesapeake Bay bridge that overheated engines and tempers.
They reached, in decent time and good spirits, the house Paul had rented just over the Delaware border. The house, weathered but solid looking, had its back to the street so it could turn its face to the ocean. A porch edged with a railing wide enough to sit on encompassed the entire building. Unloading their bags, they followed the path around to the oceanside.
Turning the corner to the front, Leslie caught a glow of gold amid the shade of the porch’s overhang, on the far side of where the path met wide stairs leading up to the porch.
Grady. Her steps faltered at the sight of him sitting on the railing. He’d looked too good for comfort in his perfectly tailored suit, immaculate white shirt and discreetly expensive tie at the reception last night. So good she’d given in to the urge to kiss him back for those few, unthinking moments in the shadows.
He looked even better with his hair ruffled, his shirt faded from the open collar to the loose tails and his shorts frayed at the hem.
He smiled at her, and her heart sped up.
Well, of course it did. He was a very good-looking man, and she hadn’t lost the instinct that made her as aware of that as the next woman. Which also explained giving in to the urge to kiss him last night. It didn’t mean any more than that, though.
“Oh.” Tris, walking next to her, flashed her a look, then frowned at her husband and said almost under her breath, “I thought Grady wasn’t going to be here.”
Michael gave a slight shrug. “Last I heard he wasn’t coming. Guess he changed his mind.”
“Hey, you guys! Glad to see you could finally tear yourselves away from all that Washington power and glory.”
Paul’s shout ended any further discussion.
He and Bette stood at the top of the wide stairs, grinning and exchanging greetings and hugs as the three newcomers joined them on the porch. Grady took his eyes off Leslie only long enough to clap Michael on the back and give Tris a quick hug before he resumed his perch on the wide porch railing, elbow hooked around one upraised knee.