by Maddie James
And when those same women just abandoned her, just left her there for him to take care of, he was at first flabbergasted, then furious, then nervous, and then finally extremely curious about the entire situation.
Of course, then it dawned on him.
The old biddies were matchmaking, pure and simple.
They wanted him to be Gracie’s man.
It was a good thing he had his head screwed on good and tight and he could see through their ploy. He just hoped Gracie did. He sure as hell would hate for her to slip into their matchmaking scheme, and fall in love with him, only for him to break her heart.
Because no matter what the Happy Hour Honeys were thinking, Carson Price was not the man for Gracie Hart.
Trying to dismiss all that from his head, Carson glanced down at Gracie snuggling into her pillow. She’d curled slightly onto her side after he’d laid her there, drawing her knees up and tucking her hands up next to her chin. Strands of her dark, silky hair had partially fallen from the clip which held it in its usually neat French roll at the back of her head. The clip looked to be a little askew and uncomfortable, forcing her head into a crooked position on the pillow.
Contemplating for a second, Carson placed one knee on the bed and reached for the clip. Carefully, he removed it, trying not to tangle and pull her hair. The remainder of her silky mane tumbled about her shoulders. For a second or two, he just stood over her, watching the light from her bedside table lamp dance over the shining highlights of her hair. She moaned and rolled over and Carson moved back. Twisting to the other side now, Gracie’s hair fell completely over her face.
Without thinking, he leaned forward again and brushed the locks away from her face, smoothing them back over the pillow. Her hair was soft and so was her cheek where his knuckles briefly touched her.
That was where he made his mistake. And he knew it immediately. That slight touch, that ever-so-gentle caress of his knuckles against her dewy skin and the feel of her silky tresses on the pads of his fingers, sent one mega-warning spiral into his gut.
A deep spiral that jack-knifed and plummeted into somewhere he’d never felt before.
He had to get out of here.
Abruptly, he pulled back, placed the clip on the bedside table, and reached for the switch on the lamp. But something stopped him and he glanced back once more.
Oh hell...
With a few jerky and swift movements, he moved to her feet and removed her sandals, careful not to linger over the feel of her foot in his hands, the delicate curve of her arch, or the blaze red toenails which always took him a bit by surprise. Then he covered her with an afghan lying at the foot of her bed.
There. At least she looked a bit more comfortable.
For the second time, he reached for the lamp, his hand slowing as he glanced at the pictures on her bedside table he hadn’t really noticed earlier. Two antique, Victorian-style frames were placed on either side of the lamp. Not sure why, he bent closer to look into one, and then the other.
The first picture was of a woman, a ballet dancer, her hair swept off her face and on top of her head in a tight knot. Her legs were long, her body graceful, her chin tilted high into the air striking an almost regal pose, her arms perfectly placed as she stood in some dancer’s position of which he had no clue of the name.
The ballerina, he was certain, was Gracie. A younger Gracie.
That would probably explain the satin ballet slippers placed strategically before the picture.
The other picture was of Gracie and a man. Which despite the statements he’d heard earlier this evening, required no explanation at all.
The look between them told all he needed to know. The two were obviously very much in love.
* * * *
Saturday morning breakfast consisted of a pot of strong coffee, three ibuprofen, and a diuretic. The first to unshrinkwrap her brain, the second to dull the thumping inside her skull, and the third to ward off the puffy blow-fish look she woke with from ingesting way too much sodium and alcohol the night before.
It was not a good day.
She was not in the mood for the Saturday morning coffee-klatch.
And she wanted like hell to keep the “closed” sign turned out on the door all day long.
But she wouldn’t. There had not been a day in ten years, since she first opened the shop, that she’d closed the shop for no reason at all. And the girls were expecting her.
Of course, today could always be a first.
Acting strictly on impulse, Gracie slowly walked to the back of the store and shut off the lights. She ignored the knock on the front door as she slowly made her way back up the stairs.
Gracie Hart certainly wasn’t a prude. She’d proven that last night. And she could certainly make her own decisions about whether she wanted to see her friends this morning, or not. Or open her shop this morning, or not.
Today, she chose, or not.
* * * *
“All right, so these are our choices. What’s it going to be, Munchkin?”
Carson glanced over the shelves at the DVD store searching for movies suitable for Izzie’s eyes and ears. Always careful about his movie selections, he knew the task before him was a difficult one. Izzie was not easily pleased when it came to movies.
What he liked, she didn’t. What she liked, or thought she liked, he would never allow.
“Still the same rules?” He glanced back down into her face.
“Yep,” she replied. Hands on hips, she cocked her head to one side and ticked them off. “No girlie stuff. No singing movies. No kissie junk. No dopey animals.”
Carson grinned. Those rules eliminated quite a bit. His rules were a little different, however. His main concerns were no sex, no foul language, and no violence.
It was damned hard for them to find a happy medium at times. Surely they could agree on something, though.
“All right, so how about 101 Dalmatians or Bambi?”
Izzie snarled her nose and shook her head. “Dopey animals,” she replied.
“Okay, well how about this one. Mary Poppins.”
She shook her head. “Old school… Seen it a hundred times, Dad. Besides, it’s a singing movie.”
He picked up another. “Here’s one.” He showed her the box.
“Girlie stuff,” she replied.
“This?”
She shook her head. “Kissie junk.”
Frustrated, Carson put the box back on the shelf. “Well, there is nothing else, Iz.”
“Yes, there is.” She raced about three feet to their left and grabbed a movie off the shelf. “What about Hockey Players from Hell?”
Carson snatched the box from her hand and studied the picture. A snarling hockey player with blood dripping from his stick stared back at him. What in the world?
“Where did that come from?”
“Let’s watch it Dad. It’s really bloody…”
“No!”
“But—?”
“Too much violence.”
“But I watched it at Joey Brockman’s house and—”
“You what?” Dumbfounded, Carson looked at his daughter. Wait until he saw Joey Brockman’s dad. “Well, you’re not going to watch it with me. Let’s look over here.” He shoved the box back onto the shelf and with a nudge, steered her in another direction. The nerve of some parents.
Thank God he’d gotten her out of the city.
“How about this one?” The cover looked safe enough. He glanced over the blurb on the back. A Cinderella story of the future, it said. He showed it to Izzie.
“Looks like lovie-dovie stuff.” She scrunched her nose again.
“I think it looks interesting.” Cinderella had to be safe, right?
“No, Dad. I don’t wanna.”
“It says it’s a kind of Cinderella story. You like Cinderella don’t you?”
Izzie made a rude noise.
Carson tucked it under his arm. “We’re getting this one.”
“But Dad...”
Izzie whined.
“No. This is it. Come on.” He began walking toward the counter.
“Um, you might want to think about that,” he heard a female voice behind him say. A very familiar female voice.
Turning, he heard Izzie call out her name before he realized fully who it was behind him.
“Gracie!”
His daughter practically leaped into the woman’s arms. “Izzie! Don’t jump on Ms. Hart like that!” He pulled on his daughter’s arm and gathered her next to his side.
Gracie Hart looked both startled and befuddled, if not a little fatigued. In fact, upon closer inspection, he wasn’t quite sure he would have recognized her if Izzie hadn’t called out her name.
For the first time since he’d known her, she wasn’t wearing a long skirt and sweater or blouse. She was wearing jeans and tennis shoes and a t-shirt. Her hair was pulled through a baseball cap, which in turn was pulled down low over her forehead. Underneath the bill of that cap, he could tell her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen.
“Shop closed today?” he queried. He knew Saturday was usually her biggest day of the week. He’d noticed that over the past few weeks.
She nodded slowly. “Feeling a bit under the weather,” she told him.
Carson tried like hell not to grin. “Oh.”
She glanced away. He decided embarrassed looked cute on her.
“Hope you’re feeling better soon.”
She nodded again. “I should.”
There was another hesitant pause and he said, “Well, we should be on our way.” He grasped Izzie’s hand and started to turn.
“Wait.”
He stopped and looked at Gracie.
Reaching out, she grasped the movie in his hand. “I think you might want to rethink this.” She pointed to the rating at the bottom of the movie, which clearly said the movie was rated R. “I don’t think you want this one.”
Carson studied the back blurb again. Ah...
Embarrassed himself, now, he looked back at Gracie. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Anytime.”
He placed the movie back on the shelf.
“Now we gotta look again?” This was from Izzie.
Exhausted now from their movie search, Carson shook his head. “No, I think we’ll just go home.”
“But Dad! You promised me a movie!”
He crouched down to look Izzie in the eyes. “I know I did but there doesn’t seem to be anything here that we agree on so let’s just go home and find something else to do. You could try out that new arcade game.”
“I don’t want to do that!” she wailed. “I’m tired of arcade games. I wanted to watch a movie. You promised! You said we’d do something together this Saturday. You said this was our day. You said—”
“Izzie. All right. All right. I did and we will see a movie. How about we go out and see one instead of renting one.” He glanced up at Gracie, still embarrassed. He didn’t know why Izzie was acting like this.
Gracie looked a mite uncomfortable.
“Well, I guess I’ll be seeing you,” she said, and waved her hand to Izzie as she started to leave.
“Yes! Dad, I want to go to a movie. Can I invite someone?”
Carson watched Gracie walk away. He hated to admit that he liked the way she looked in those jeans. Not that he didn’t like the way she looked in a skirt and silk blouse either, but she just looked very nice in the jeans.
“Dad?”
“What?”
“Can I invite someone to go with us to the movies?”
“May I.”
“I may?”
He shook his head. “Sure. Of course.”
“Great!”
“As soon as we get home you can—”
But she was off in a flash, running down the aisle toward Gracie. He watched her animated display, her excited little jig and her arms bouncing about as she spoke. He also took in the surprised look on Gracie’s face as she glanced back at him and then to Izzie.
She broke away then and started running back toward Carson, a huge grin on her face.
And then it dawned on him.
Oh, no.
“It’s okay,” Izzie told him out of breath. “She said she’d come.”
* * * *
Why in the world she agreed to this, she’d never know.
Well, she did know. She did it for Izzie. It had a lot to do with how excited the child seemed to want her to join them for the movies. It had everything to do with the sparkle in her eyes and the laughter in her voice. It most certainly had something to do with the way the child pulled at Gracie’s heartstrings every time she batted those sinfully long lashes lately.
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 c
ourse, 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.
