The man’s words ended in a deep gulp as his wife’s eyes filled and spilled over. Grady waved away the need for any words. The man shifted his son’s weight to one arm and reached out the other to shake Grady’s hand.
“Thank you. You’ll never know— Thank you.” He swallowed. “C’mon, Brian, let’s get you dried out, okay?”
As the family group started off, they heard the older boy say, “He was right there. I only looked away for a minute, Mom, honest!”
The mother hesitated before she said very quietly, “We’ll talk about that later, Kevin.” But she put an arm around the slumped shoulders of her older son.
Grady stared after them, his face unreadable.
“Grady?”
He didn’t blink, he didn’t respond, he just watched the family’s progress across the wide expanse of sand.
Feeling as if she were prying, Leslie slipped away to where they’d left their towels and sunscreen lotions.
She dried herself, then spread the towel and sat down. A glance told her Grady was no longer where she’d left him. She scanned the beach in the direction the family had gone without any sight of him. In the water, she spotted Tris, Michael and Paul grouped together, but no sign of Grady’s golden head. She turned and saw him. Jogging steadily, head bent as if in contemplation of his next footfall, in the opposite direction.
She laid back and wondered what had been going on in Grady Roberts’s head when he’d stared after that family.
She wasn’t sure how long she’d been lying there, but she was aware of the increasing warmth of her skin. As she turned over, she caught sight of Grady walking back along the water’s edge. Beside him was a young woman whose fall of shining brown hair hid more of her model-thin body than her bathing suit did. The young woman had her hand on Grady’s arm, and he was looking down at her.
Tucking her own salt-stiffened hair behind her ear, Leslie turned away and rested her cheek on her arm.
“Hey, Leslie, you’re starting to get pink.”
She opened her eyes to see Tris toweling off and looking over her shoulder toward Grady and his companion.
“Are Paul and Michael still in the water?”
“Yeah, they’re swimming laps—as much as you can with the waves coming in. But I’ve about had it for this afternoon. I want to shower, wash my hair, then sip a tall drink on the porch. How about you?”
“I’ve about had it, too. Your itinerary sounds great. Let’s go.”
* * * *
“Sometimes I could shoot Grady.” Leslie heard Tris’s voice, and hesitated before turning the corner that would take her into the kitchen. “He’s never going to change.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.”
“You didn’t see him, Bette.”
“Actually, I did. I saw the whole thing from the porch, and it was the girl who approached him. And it didn’t take him long to head back to the rest of you. But by that time you and Leslie were nearly to the house.”
Leslie backed up a couple steps, then scuffed loudly along the hall, emerging into the kitchen with a bright, “Hi. What’s everyone up to?”
Tris gave her a wide smile. “Getting that drink we talked about and starting to talk about dinner. What do you think of shish kebab?”
“We were talking about Grady,” Bette contradicted. “Of course there’s one thing you’ve got to understand about Grady.”
Leslie could see Tris consider trying to override Bette, then decide to go full speed ahead. “Yeah,” Tris said dryly, “his emotional life’s like a firecracker. His relationships start off as if they’ve been shot out of a cannon, burst into their brief, shining moment, then fade out of sight, leaving only ashes.”
“Very nice image, Tris.” Leslie knew her light tone was perfect, though it cost her some. “If you’re that good I’m going to start having you write your own news releases.”
“Oh, no—”
Bette ignored the byplay and said, "I’m not talking about how he’s dated in the past. I’m talking about something more basic. Grady has had the disadvantage of being handsome, wealthy, smart and successful.”
Leslie fought the truth of that with dry humor. “We should all be so disadvantaged.”
But Bette wasn’t sidetracked. “What do you think happens when someone like Grady meets people?”
“They look at the package and not the person.”
Both Bette and Tris stared, and Leslie deeply regretted her impulsive words. She didn’t want them thinking . . . well, what they both looked as if they were thinking.
Bette recovered first. “Yes. That’s exactly what happens. People are so impressed with the outside, they don’t bother looking to the inside. I guess for some people that’s a blessing. But what happens when a person with a great outside also has an impressive inside? And day after day, year after year, nobody bothers to look for it.”
Tris’s eyes lost their focus. “That’s exactly what it was like in school. All the girls who were crazy about Grady, none of them talked about what a great guy he was, how funny he could be, how nice. They only saw the looks and the charm. God, even me.”
She blinked, and looked from Bette to Leslie. “Those years I had the crush on him, I wasn’t really looking at Grady. It wasn’t until the week we were all together before your wedding, Bette, that I saw him as a person, a friend. No wonder that’s when he started keeping in touch.”
“That’s right. So is it any wonder that he’s conducted his relationships the way he has?”
“Oh, now wait a minute, Bette. I think that’s going too far. Grady has a short attention span with women. He always has. I don’t mean the other might not contribute in a way, but I think it’s more an ego thing. That and the old male standby of fear of commitment.”
“I’ve been right before, haven’t I, Tris?”
Leslie knew a challenge when she heard it, though she didn’t understand this one.
“Yes, but that was different. That was—”
“That was Michael, whom you’d viewed in certain ways for too long to see clearly,” Bette interrupted firmly.
“What are you two talking about?” At first Leslie had been glad to drop out of the conversation, but curiosity could itch like crazy.
“Tell her, Tris.”
“Tell me what?”
“It’s not anything awful, Leslie. It’s just something I never told you about that week before Paul and Bette’s wedding, the week I realized how I feel about Michael.”
“There’s a lot you never told me about that week, Tris. When you came back you weren’t talking at all.”
Tris waved off that period of misery. Michael’s love had washed it away.
“Bette was the first one who opened my eyes about Michael, to see him the way he is instead of the way I’d gotten in the habit of thinking he was. But—” She spun around to face Bette. “That was Michael. And this is Grady.”
“Yes,” Bette agreed placidly. “But the question is, who is Grady?”
* * * *
They hadn’t come up with an answer to that one.
They hadn’t even had time to try before Grady, Michael and Paul returned, ready for their turns at the showers. Before long all six of them sat on the porch sipping wine coolers Michael had concocted, building up the energy to fix dinner.
“We could go out to eat, you know,” said Grady.
“Too crowded,” objected Michael. “Saturday night everywhere’s packed.”
“How about if we just eat cheese and crackers,” suggested Tris. “Then all we need is one volunteer to walk all the way back to the kitchen.”
In unison the three men moaned as if in the later stages of starvation.
“Okay, let’s divide and conquer this project. We need a fire in the grill so we can cook, we need the skewers threaded with all those goodies we’ve got in the fridge and we need a salad and rice. Then we need the table set and the wine poured. Sound about right?”
Everybody murmured agreement with Bette’s assessment, happy to let her organize.
“Okay, how about if we divide up into teams. One team gets the fire going, then sets the table and pours the wine. Another team threads the kebabs and cooks them. And the third team makes the salad and cooks the rice.”
“Sounds good,” said Grady over the general assent. “Leslie and I will be team one, with the fire and stuff.”
Even if Leslie wanted to object, which would have been making a big deal out of nothing, she didn’t have a chance.
“Okay,” said Michael. “Tris and I’ll do the kebabs.”
“Rice and salad, it is,” agreed Paul. “C’mon, Bette, let’s get to it.”
A few minutes later, Leslie watched Grady place charcoal briquettes in the bottom of a grill by the back door.
“Here are the matches.”
“Good.” He splashed on lighter fluid and lit a match. He didn’t pull his hand back from over the grill until long after she would have.
“Hey, be careful!”
“It’s all right. You have to start the fire at the bottom or it takes forever to get going.”
“I’m a firm believer in light the match and toss,” said Leslie, the vision of those flames so close to his arm uncomfortably vivid. “If the choice is burning your arm like a marshmallow, I’ll settle for a slower starting fire.”
He grinned at her. “Nice to know you care.”
“I just don’t want to delay dinner by having to take you to the emergency room,” she said tartly. “I’m hungry.”
“That’s why I went with the quick-starting method.”
She gave him a disapproving look before going to the wooden kitchen steps to sit down. As she sat, she slid her hands under her shorts to smooth them.
“Ow!” She instinctively put the side of her finger to her lips.
“You okay?” He sat next to her and drew her hand down from her mouth, turning it palm up and bringing the side of her index finger close to his face so he could inspect the damage. Stretching her skin between his thumbs he examined it. “You’ve got a splinter. It’s not deep. If I had fingernails, I could pull it out.”
“Oh. I better go in and get tweezers— What are you doing?” He’d bent his head over the finger he still held fast. His breath across her palm sent shivers up her arm. “What are you— Oh!”
He released one of his hands from hers, took something from between his teeth and threw it away, then smiled.
“You didn’t—?”
“Sure I did. No fingernails, but I do have teeth.”
She shook her head, unwilling to acknowledge that her reaction was anything other than amused disbelief.
“Better?”
“Yes, thank you,” she said solemnly. She tried to ease out of his light grip, but he didn’t release her hand.
“Good. You should be more careful with your hands.” Her eyebrows rose at his admonition. Was he kidding? “You have beautiful hands.” He took a hand in each of his and spread them over the warm, soft denim just above his knees. He wasn’t kidding. “I remember thinking that the day we went shopping for a housewarming gift for Paul and Bette—that your hands are remarkable. Delicate and capable.”
She wished he was kidding.
He rested his hands on hers, his palms warm against the backs of her hands. Then he lightly drew his fingertips from her wrists to her spread fingers, interweaving with them while his thumbs stroked the tender arch between her index finger and thumb.
Sensation centered in her hands, in the few inches from wrist to fingertip that Grady’s touches cherished. Every other part of her was left with only the memory—no, the imagination—of sensation. But imagination was plenty.
Unwelcomed and unstoppable came the question of what it would be like to be Grady Roberts’s lover, to have all this sensual concentration on areas beyond her hands. Equally unwelcomed and unstoppable came the flashes of images that answered the question.
He released her fingers to stroke the edges of her palms, rhythmically, slowly.
All those women who had enjoyed the full powers of Grady Roberts . . . for an instant she envied them.
But his stroking touched the sore spot on her finger, and pain brought a return of sanity.
She pulled her hand away.
“Now, Grady,” she started in a tone she wouldn’t have used to April because the thirteen-year-old would have been insulted to be addressed like a child. She didn’t bother to untangle whether it was him or her own feelings she wanted to put firmly in their place. “I know old habits die hard, but that’s not the way to treat a friend.”
Deep in his blue eyes she thought she read hurt and disappointment—in her. As if he felt she’d misjudged him and he’d been hoping—counting on?—a fairer hearing from her. Could she be that wrong about him, that wrong about his intentions? But if she was . . .
“I never said anything about friends,” he said flatly.
Then he blinked, and what she was coming to think of as the curtain of his charm slid back into place, and her doubts slid away.
He was a man used to getting what he wanted, but not accustomed to wanting anything for long. She would simply point out—in the most reasonable way—the impossibility of their being any more than friends, and eventually— soon—his interest would go on to the next woman.
“It’s really the only practical possibility.”
“Practical?” His tawny brows quirked.
“Practical.” She staunchly stood by the choice with firm repetition. “After all, you live in Chicago and I live in Washington—a thousand miles apart—and that doesn’t—”
“Two hours on an airplane. Less. Barely time to read a couple reports and make notes. I know.”
She had to take another breath, but she continued with the thought she’d started. “And that doesn’t seem likely to change. I certainly intend to keep working for the foundation, and that means living in Washington, so—”
“But I might not continue living in Chicago.”
“What?”
The syllable rose too close to a squeak for her dignity’s comfort. Grady looked mighty pleased. She brought her voice down to mild interest. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that I have definitely decided to open a branch of my business brokerage in Washington. And I’m going to do it as soon as possible, because the past few weeks have shown me there’s even more potential here than I’d thought when I started exploring the idea.
“And with a branch here, I’m going to buy a place because I’ve spent enough time in hotels to last my lifetime.” She heard an underlying bitterness in the last phrase stronger than she would have expected. “I want a home. And if I find the right one, and if the business goes the way I think it will, who knows, I might move my base of operations here. My assistant could keep the Chicago office running fine, because our reputation’s already built there. But here, where we’d be new . . .”