Wedding Series Boxed Set (3 Books in 1) (The Wedding Series) (67 page)

The pang she felt should have been guilt; she’d known he was working grueling hours, yet she’d blithely accepted the time he’d devoted to her these past few weeks. But the feeling was softer than guilt, and more disturbing.

“Tired?” She couldn’t keep concern from her voice.

He turned to her, and she held her breath.

“I’ve never worked so hard at making a friend in my life.” He leveled a look at her and added evenly, “Or worked so hard at trying to charm a woman."

Honest words that deserved an honest answer.

“I’ve never been subjected to so much charm in my life.”

That was honest. Though perhaps not the whole answer.

She’d caught herself wondering now and then if he really had given up any thought of being more than friends. And had thoroughly chastised herself.

She’d said friends, and she meant it. That was all she could be to him. It would be too unfair to let him become more than that to her.

He studied her a long time. When he did speak it was slowly and seriously. “Maybe you haven’t let anybody try.”

There it was again, that disconcerting perceptiveness of his. That slanting look that seemed to slice to her soul, that seemed to say he saw things hidden even from her. It made her uneasy to be reminded so sharply how much he hid under the surface of his charm, looks and success.

She couldn’t pretend that she wasn’t sidestepping the implications of what he’d said, but she did it, anyhow.

She tried for wry humor with, “Think you’re going to show off your great powers of perception with me as the case study, huh, Roberts?” and got much more of a response than she’d expected.

“Perception? Me?” Grady laughed. “I think you’ve got the wrong guy in mind. Maybe you’re mixing me up with Michael Dickinson. Dark-haired guy, shorter than me, remember him? That must be who you’re thinking of.”

“No. I mean you.”

“I’m not perceptive, ask my friends. Nuances slide right by me. I don’t pick up on moods or signals. The only way I catch undercurrents is if they start to drown me.”

She looked at him, at his good-natured grin, at his loose-jointed posture, at his open blue eyes, and she realized he truly believed that about himself.

But she didn’t.

She’d seen too many examples of his snagging nuances, moods, signals and undercurrents. Not just with her, but with Michael and Tris and Paul and Bette. Even the first time they met seven months ago. Tris had roped Leslie into having dinner with her and Grady, to act as a buffer to keep the conversation from getting too close to her break with Michael. Tris had done an excellent job of hiding her unhappiness, but she hadn’t fooled Grady. That had been clear to Leslie, even as a stranger to him.

Now she knew him, but she had no idea why he might deny his ability to sense other people’s feelings.

Sometimes adults don’t want kids around who see too much.

His own words provided the clue.

“What about your parents?”

“What about them?”

If she’d had any doubt, it ended with those terse words. His insight to April came from firsthand experience.

“Are they perceptive people?”

“No.” He turned his head to look out the side window, so his next words were muffled. “But then we’re not close, so maybe I don’t know them well enough to say.”

She waited for him to explain, but when he shifted in the seat before facing her again, she knew it wouldn’t be that easy.

He grinned, his eyes veiled. “Besides, how would I know, since I’m not perceptive myself.”

“You say you’re not close, do you see them often?”

“Now? Hardly ever.”

It seemed incredible to her, but his words invited the question. “And when you were growing up?”

“Before I started school, they’d take me along most trips.”

She remembered snuggling in blankets in the back seat with her older brother while her parents drove through the night to family vacation destinations; she didn’t think Grady was talking about the same thing.

“What sort of places?”

“London, Paris, Rome, Hong Kong, Honolulu, the Riviera. The Riviera a lot. They liked it there.”

He hadn’t. “Do they travel for business or pleasure?”

“Both, I guess. My father’s an international business consultant. But I don’t know how seriously he takes it. He and my mother have always liked the travel and glitter. He doesn’t need to take it seriously. My great-grandfather made enough on the patent for a tool prototype they’re still using so none of us have to work.”

But he did work, and he did take it seriously. And she knew without a doubt it wasn’t the travel or the glitter that made him do both.

“What happened when you started school?” She kept her voice quiet, the questions not too interested, aware how close he was to answering no more.

He shrugged. “I stayed home.”

I, not we. “It must have been an adjustment.”

Another shrug. “Not really. Staying with a nanny in a hotel or staying with a nanny at the house—it wasn’t that different."

Leslie’s hands clenched at her side, in pain and anger. Pain for the little boy Grady had been. And anger for his parents. What was wrong with these people? They’d been given the greatest gift possible, a child to love and cherish. And they hadn’t seen beyond their own selfish pleasures. Not seeing, or not caring, that they were starving their child of love. Not seeing, or not caring, that behind the good looks, easy charm and business success, the man he’d become was lonely and vulnerable.

Carefully she stripped emotion from her voice. “So was that when you met Paul, when you started school?”

“Not right off. Let’s see.” He narrowed his eyes to look into the past, clearly more comfortable with these memories. "I remember Judi being born and Paul’s eleven years older, so we must have been right around eleven.”

“So you’ve known all the Monroes a long time.”

“Yeah. I spent most summers with them, and a lot of vacations.” She heard a lot of things he didn’t say—that his parents came and went in his life, but the Monroes stayed. That what he knew of family life and a family’s love came from the Monroes. His fond smile grew wry, and anger and pain surged through her again. “I used to hope my parents would be away for Christmas so I could be with the Monroes. At that age I preferred Mrs. M.’s cookies to any four-star restaurants at Kitzbühel or St. Moritz.”

She saw his discomfort with the conversation’s seriousness, heard it in his lighter tone.

“Lousy skier, huh?” she tried teasing.

“Damn good, actually—”

“Modest, too—”

"But they frown on night skiing, the parties weren’t for kids and old TV shows dubbed in German weren’t too entertaining.”

With no inclination to tease now, Leslie remembered from their first Smithsonian outing how Grady had spoken of old movies as if they were old friends. Perhaps his first friends. His reaction to her remark about April watching TV also made sense. Was it another area where he’d had special insight into the girl, because he, too, had escaped an unhappy situation as a youngster through that medium?

“About time.” Grady’s mutter pulled Leslie’s thoughts back. At the crest of the hill in the distance, the brake lights of the cars flickered off, on, then off again. “It’s finally opening up. Probably will be slow going, but I should have you home before too long.”

Grady’s discomfort was almost palpable. She’d seen the phenomenon before—people who’d confided more than they’d meant to want nothing more than to be away from their confidante. He was probably regretting that they’d arranged to spend Thursday afternoon together on a visit to Mount Vernon, just down the Potomac from Washington.

At first, seeing Grady, so confident and at ease in social situations, reacting this way seemed incongruous.

The incongruity disappeared when she considered his life.

Not only didn't he know how to be friends with a woman, he didn’t know a lot about being close with people, period. Because he hadn’t been taught by the people who should have been closest to him.

Most people he’d encountered had been so dazzled by his exterior, they never bothered to look inside. She’d seen that for herself—at the wedding, at the Smithsonian reception, at the boardwalk. So he’d come to believe that what he thought, felt—what he was—didn’t have value.

Grady needed more than a few lessons in being friends with the opposite sex. He needed to learn his tremendous value. More than anything, Leslie wanted to help Grady Roberts see the good in himself.

For the first time, Grady had been almost glad to drop off Leslie.

He’d talked too damn much.

Maybe he needed a break.

He let the car with the hotel valet and picked up his written messages from the front desk with an automatic smile for the young woman before taking the elevator to his room.

Maybe he’d just gotten stale. Working long hours every day, then seeing only Leslie. Not even Tris and Michael. Under the circumstances he hadn’t wanted to invite any lectures from Tris or questions from Michael.

But that didn’t mean he couldn’t see someone else.

He knew other women in Washington. A woman with the commercial real estate firm he’d hired to locate an office had made it clear she’d enjoy his company, no strings attached. Probably just what he needed. Time with someone new. He wouldn’t have a clue how she ate her cake and she wouldn’t get solemn over his childhood. She’d seemed perfectly content to take him at face value—making it clear she enjoyed both the face and the net asset value.

He’d know exactly where he was with her. No different approach required. No uneasy feeling, no uncomfortable questions.

He pulled out his appointment book, looking for the slip of paper she’d given him.

What was her name? Suzi Boyd, that was it.

Grady grimaced. Paul was always teasing him that all the women he dated had names that ended in
i
. The joke had gone flat lately.

A fluke, but his past of Randis, Melodis, Kerris, Tammis and Barbis symbolized dating women who had more in common than the way they spelled their names. No strings.

He looked at the name and number on the piece of paper, but he didn’t reach for the phone.

All right, maybe he wasn’t in the mood to see Suzi Boyd.

There were other women.

But he didn’t look through his book. He sat in the chair and stared out the window at the same flag of the same embassy he’d looked at while he left a message on Leslie’s machine that first weekend. He should find out what country that was.

He could ask Leslie. She’d love the tiny challenge. She’d probably march right over there, knock on the door and ask. And in under a minute she’d be invited in and made an honorary citizen.

When he realized he was smiling, he didn’t try to erase it with a frown, but accepted it.

Maybe he hadn’t talked too much. Maybe he’d just talked about the wrong things this afternoon. He didn’t usually talk about those things to women. To anybody. But as she’d pointed out, he was tired. And he’d spent so much time around her, it had been easy to let things slip.

He did need a break. He looked at his book next to the pile of messages, then away. He wasn’t in the mood to see other women right now. But there were other ways to get a break.

He could go to Chicago. His assistant said the Burroughs deal seemed to be coming to a boil. And he’d promised Jasper Burroughs he’d see the sale of the Burroughs candy company through its final stages in person.

He looked at his appointment book, thinking about calling for a plane reservation, without much enthusiasm, and the top message slip on his stack caught his eye. Carol Drew had called.

Before he could think about it—lately he’d been thinking too much, along with talking too much—he dialed the number. He was put through to Carol Drew’s car phone, got an update and made an appointment with her for Tuesday afternoon. He hung up grinning.

Perfect. He’d cancel the plans with Leslie, get the breathing space he needed and do some serious house hunting. And nobody could lump Carol Drew with his past women—she had a wallet full of grandchildren photos, a tendency to call him “dear” and to wonder if he’d eat right living alone, and no “
i”
in her name
.

He immediately dialed Leslie’s number.

“Something’s come up, Leslie. I won’t be able to take you to Mount Vernon Tuesday.”

"Okay."

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right, Grady, I understand.”

He wished he did. Why’d he feel as if he was depriving himself of what he wanted when he was just giving himself room?

“It’s just I know you got the afternoon off work and—”

“Grady, it’s all right. Really. I know how hard you’ve been working. And with everything you need to do in expanding your business I’m surprised you’ve had any time to chauffeur me around the countryside. I should be apologizing to you for taking advantage of your generosity—” He made an inarticulate sound of protest, but she kept going. “And don’t worry about my taking the afternoon off work. They’ve been after me to whittle down my vacation time.”

“Good, then you can take Wednesday afternoon off, and we’ll go to Mount Vernon then,” he heard himself say. “And don’t make any other plans for the weekend. I have something special planned.”

“The whole weekend? I don’t—”

“The whole weekend,” he repeated firmly. “And no, I won’t tell you more because it would ruin the surprise. You’ll just have to trust me.”

At the end he could tell she wasn’t entirely convinced, but she agreed. And he’d been so busy getting her that far that it wasn’t until after he’d hung up that he realized that for someone who’d wanted a break, he’d not only traded one afternoon together for the next afternoon, but had put a lot of effort into making sure they’d be together for the weekend.

He knew they both knew the trust he’d asked for involved more than having a fun weekend.

He talked too damn much.

Through her open office door, Leslie could see Grady leaning against the doorjamb of the waiting room. Considering it was nearly half an hour after the time she’d said she’d be ready to leave, he looked remarkably patient. Still she felt a sense of urgency as she finished reading over the draft of a program announcement the education director had brought in for her to review.