Good Gracie

by Ines Saint

  Before she could finish, Josh gathered her in his arms and bent his head until his mouth was inches away from hers. “It’s not treating you like a child. It’s treating you like someone I care about—like a woman I care about. Can’t you see how nuts I am about you? Can’t you understand how worried every little crazy thing that keeps happening makes me? Yes, I want you to be safe and happy. I want everyone I care about to be safe and happy. Sue me.” His eyes flashed, his mouth came down on hers, and he kissed her long and hard and deep, putting all the pent-up hunger and frustrations he’d been talking about behind every brush and every stroke.

  Breathless and nearly senseless, Gracie pulled away. “Good,” she panted. “That’s what I want you to do, open up and talk to me so we can figure things out together.”

  “Okay, I promise, but can we do it later?” he asked against her mouth.

  “Mmm,” she agreed, and he came down again for a deliciously slow and sensual kiss. She dug her fingers into his shoulders and pressed up against him, feeling the need to meet him stroke for stroke. His hands went under her sweater and roamed, and Gracie felt she’d melt under his hands. Never had she felt such pleasant sensations. But when her body became so sensitive and so hot she could no longer stand her own skin, she put her hands against his chest and pushed him away. They split apart, both breathing hard.

  After a while, when the tingles finally stopped skittering under her skin and she had calmed down, she sat down on the bottom step, looked up, and said, “I think we should talk.”

  Josh suppressed a groan. No, he wasn’t ready to talk. But he’d promised. “What would you like to talk about?” he asked, setting his clothes to rights.

  “First, I want to know everything you’ve told Jamar and Alex. If you’re truly worried about my safety, then I need to know what’s going on. I’ve been on my own and taking care of myself for years, Josh. I don’t like it when people treat me like I can’t take care of myself.”

  Josh sat down on the steps. “I know. I’ve known it all along and I was going to tell you anyway. I’m sorry if me acting crazy where you’re concerned comes off as me not trusting you to take care of yourself. It’s just me being crazy about you, okay?” He gave her a peck on the lips and quickly pulled away to tell her everything he’d learned that day, before the peck could turn into something else. Then the sound of a key at the door caught their attention. They looked up to see Alex, Paige, and Hope come in.

  The next hour was spent with Josh filling everyone in on Linda and her husband and Gracie, Hope, and Paige filling Josh and Alex in on Mrs. Wolf’s nonprofit. Josh understood then what Alex had been talking about when he’d said that Gracie was like a sister to him. The relationship between them all was easy and comfortable.

  Josh had never had that, but he’d never known he’d missed out until that moment.

  When he got up to leave, Paige stopped him. “Alex and I were wondering if you had plans for Thanksgiving. I know it’s late notice, but if you don’t have anything lined up, you’re welcome to join us.”

  “It’s kind of you to offer to include me, but I have plans,” he answered.

  “With your parents?” Hope asked, and Josh stifled a groan. Gracie was right. Her sisters were nosy. He wouldn’t lie, but the last thing he wanted to discuss was his parents.

  “Thanksgiving will be a late lunch at a friend’s house this year.”

  Gracie looked at him, concern lining her features. “You won’t be spending it with your parents, then?” she asked.

  Josh bit the inside of his lip. “Yes. I will. They’ll be at my friend’s house, too. Plans were made months ago.”

  “Sounds cozy,” Hope dimpled. “You, your friend, and your parents.”

  Josh shrugged and inched closer to the door. “I guess, well—”

  Before he could say good night, Paige asked, “Is your friend this Jamar I keep hearing about?”

  Gracie was right; it had been a long day. All he wanted to do was lay his head somewhere and sleep, unbothered by parents, nightmares, or other people’s sisters. “No. Thanks again for the offer, though. Good night.” He made it to the door and left.

  * * *

  The next morning Helen popped her head into Josh’s office. “Did you see the news?”

  “No.” Josh threw his pencil down and sighed; what followed was never good when Helen asked that question.

  “Mrs. Wolf sent out a press release about a nonprofit she’s starting with Gracie and her family.”

  Josh caught the urgent note in Helen’s voice and looked up from the case he was reading. “You sound worried.”

  Helen stepped in and closed the door. “I am. Although the two of them starting a nonprofit together is newsworthy in a feel-good, happy-ending sort of way, it probably only would’ve made it onto a short segment on one of the morning shows during a normal news cycle, but because of the video and the press conference on Monday, every station is doing a piece on it. They’ve been calling both of us to get our reaction and a statement, but Mona says you told her to hold all nonurgent phone calls.”

  Josh leaned back in his chair, his mind still on the murder-for-hire-over-a-custody-dispute before him. He had a meeting with the investigators soon. The courts would be closed on Thanksgiving and the Friday after, and because his kickoff was on Friday night, Josh’s Wednesday was busy enough, but he tried to wrap his mind around what Helen was saying. For Gracie and her family to be on board with the nonprofit, Mrs. Wolf must’ve come across as truly remorseful. She had dropped the charges against Sherry, Ruby, and Rosa, after all. “Are you troubled because you don’t trust Mrs. Wolf?”

  Helen looked at him as if he were an idiot. “No. I’m worried because it seems like they’ll be focusing on you and Gracie again, and making you two out to be these heroic figures. They’re going to get into how hard she fought to be heard nine years ago, how you left the promise of a cushy career to defend her, how fiercely she defended you, and how she’s now forgiving her old antagonist to partner up and educate others. It’s all like a nauseating movie-of-the-week really.” She rolled her eyes. “And great for your campaign, but—”

  Josh’s chair came down with a thud. “But it could be just the thing to set off the person who wanted Gracie to come back and ruin me, not help me win.”

  “Bingo.” She sat down in front of him, looking tired. “We’ve seen too much, haven’t we? Most people don’t see criminal minds in every corner. But when you deal with people like Max Parker, who set up his own teenage son to go down for murder—and you know he still might get off—and when you find out that even your friendly courthouse ghosts were murdered over a building and never got justice. . .”

  “Friendly courthouse ghosts?”

  “Jamar’s been filling me in on Clyde,” Helen admitted with a reluctant smile.

  Josh nodded and shifted to stare out the window. It was a cool, bright, sunny day, and he longed to be outside, chasing leads. But he was up to his ears in work, he was doing door-to-door campaigning that evening, and he’d be home late. As soon as Helen left, though, he’d make a few phone calls to make sure everyone involved knew about the news segments and of both his and Helen’s concerns. It was all he could do. Thankfully, Gracie was smart and tough, and she had an army of bodyguards, including her coworker George, who Josh had finally met.

  In between work, he looked into as many of Konitz’s past clients as possible, but it was impossible to find them all, and none of those he’d found raised a red flag. So far, he had only two leads. Friday, the day Alex would start tailing Lester, couldn’t come fast enough.

  “Do you have plans for Thanksgiving?” Helen asked on her way out the door. What was it with people asking him about Thanksgiving? Had he suddenly acquired the look of a lonely and abandoned mutt?

  “Dinner with old friends of my parents and their daughter. Don’t remind me,” he answered. He leaned back in his chair, feeling dread. Now it would just be awkward all around. He decided then and there
to give Kim a call to let her know he’d be leaving early. They’d always been honest with each other, after all.

  “Why?” Kim asked, after they’d chatted a few minutes and he told her he’d only be sticking around an hour or two after lunch.

  “My parents aren’t too happy with me right now, so it’ll probably be best,” he explained, not adding that he was even less happy with them.

  “Is it over everything that’s been on the news these past two days?” she asked.

  “It’s over a few things, but we’ll be fine. I just have a lot on my plate, what with the election and all.”

  “So I heard. You even bought a house!” she said. “Big step. When can I stop by for a tour?”

  “Whenever,” he said distractedly, his mind looking for a way to inject something else he needed to say into the conversation. “Don’t worry, though. I won’t leave you hanging. I’ll stay until the first guest leaves.” That sounded fair to him. He wouldn’t be the first to leave.

  “You’re not staying the night is what you’re trying to say.” She laughed. “You can just say so, Josh. It’s not like we planned anything. For all you know, I already have my own plans for the night anyway.”

  He hesitated. It was what he’d been trying to say, even though it was true they hadn’t made plans. It had sort of been assumed. “Well, I’ll see you tomorrow. Thanks for understanding.” It was lame, but there really wasn’t much else to say. She was basically telling him he didn’t owe her explanations, wasn’t she? And he didn’t. Only a heads-up that he wouldn’t be sticking around. They chatted a bit more and hung up.

  That evening, he went to see Gracie, to mention Helen’s concerns. He’d leave his own out of it. Though he was trying to stay away, circumstances had made it necessary to seek her out, so he was looking forward to a smile, a little banter, and a little chatter. That wouldn’t happen if he came off as overprotective and overbearing. Like an older brother. The door opened just as he was flinching at the thought.

  “What’s wrong?” Alex asked. “Did you find out anything new?”

  “Uh, no. Nothing. I just needed to talk to Gracie about Mrs. Wolf’s nonprofit,” he explained, feeling an inane need to justify his visit.

  “Oh. Well, Gracie’s not home.”

  He waited, but Alex didn’t offer anything else. In fact, Josh could almost swear the robotic FBI agent had a twinkle in his eyes. “I assume you feel safe about her whereabouts?” he ventured.

  Alex gave him a look. “Why don’t you just ask me where she is?”

  “Why can’t you just tell me?” Josh asked, barely resisting the urge to grit his teeth. Why did everyone have to make everything so difficult?

  Alex slapped his arm before jogging down the steps. “She’ll be across town at Paige’s, with Sherry and Hope. And I’ll be staying in the apartment above Paige’s garage.”

  Josh blew out a breath. “When you see her, tell her I was looking for her, okay?” Hopefully, she’d call.

  “Will do. Will you be here?”

  Josh looked back at the judge’s house. The rooms smelled musty, the heater was loud, and the mattress was uncomfortable. And there was no need to stay there tonight. “Yes,” he answered, because despite all of it, it was already his home.

  * * *

  “I can’t wait until Friday.” Hope pulled back Paige’s turquoise, red, and white paisley comforter, sat on the edge of the bed, and began spreading moisturizer over her arms. “I feel like I should be tailing this Lester creep myself.”

  “No!” Paige said from her vanity, where she was slathering on her night cream. “Because then I’ll feel like I have to tail you to make sure you’re okay, and then Gracie will feel like she has to tail me, and then Grandma Sherry will tail Gracie, and—”

  “We get the picture. And Ruby will tail Grandma and Rosa will tail Ruby and Lester will definitely catch on if they’re involved.” Hope giggled.

  Grandma Sherry padded out of the bathroom wearing a pink towel around her head. “He’d catch on because there would be a caravan behind him, not because we’d be involved. Just because we got caught at Mrs. Wolf’s doesn’t mean we can’t be crafty and discreet. Besides, Ruby and I will be volunteering at Josh’s kickoff on Friday.” There was a trace of defeat in her voice, as if they’d already considered—and reluctantly discarded—doing some tailing themselves.

  Crafty, yes. Discreet, no. But Gracie didn’t dare give voice to the thought. Her grandmother’s ego had taken quite the beating over being caught and she almost felt sorry for her. But talk about Lester the creep was getting old. “Can we please change the subject? I never would’ve suggested a sleepover if I’d known this is what we were going to talk about,” she said, plopping down next to Hope.

  Paige got up, puckered her lips so she wouldn’t get any night cream on Gracie, and gave her a kiss. “No, you suggested it because this is my first Thanksgiving without the kids and you knew I needed you.”

  Gracie gave Paige a quick squeeze but didn’t say a word because she didn’t want Paige dwelling on how much she missed the kids. Being without them was always hard on her, and it was hard on Gracie, too. Thanksgiving wouldn’t be the same without them.

  Apparently, Hope didn’t want to dwell on it either because she quickly changed the subject. “So . . . I see you’ve gotten quite a bit of your goof back,” she said to Gracie.

  Gracie narrowed her eyes at her sister, not quite sure what Hope meant by that. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that your individual sense of style is back. Not that it was ever goofy, but it was always fun, and it always made me smile and wish I was as colorful as you. Yesterday you were wearing a cute poncho and Aztec print boot cuffs over your booties. Today you were wearing a purple fedora and you totally pulled off both looks. I saw Josh smile at the fedora.”

  Gracie looked up. “Josh? When did you see Josh see me? I didn’t see him.”

  “You were walking to your car and he was at his door.”

  Grandma Sherry took the towel off her hair and began spiking up the short ends with her fingers. “I imagine the flirting practice has taken a backseat with everything else that’s happened,” she prodded, and Gracie had to bite back a smile. Discreet. Right. Gracie knew now what they were up to.

  The kiss had been Paige smothering her with warmth and affection. The observation about Josh had been Hope’s poke. Grandma Sherry’s prod had given them away. They’d switched things up on her, though.

  Paige hugged her. “As if Gracie’s thinking about flirting after everything that’s happened.”

  “When you’re hot for someone, it’s all you can think about, no matter what else is going on, right, Gracie?” came a very good poke from Hope.

  “Right,” she agreed.

  “Well.” Hope blinked. “That was easy.”

  Gracie laughed. For once she didn’t mind their prying. Being with her grandmother and sisters so constantly the past few months had reminded her of what it felt like to be home. They’d always been close, no matter the distance between then, but it was wonderful to be physically close to them again, too. She picked up a pillow and began tracing the swirly paisley pattern on its cover. “Remember how I thought that my attraction to him might be based on the past because I trusted him?” she began.

  They nodded.

  “And remember how Paige said that maybe if the past had never happened and I randomly met him, I might have been attracted to him anyway?”

  They nodded again.

  “Well, I think I might be falling for him because of everything I learned about him then and everything I’m learning about him now,” she said quietly. The emotion she felt inside her chest was so pure, it was painful. “But I’m not sure I even want to know if what I’m feeling is love.”

  Looking concerned, Grandma Sherry put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her back until Gracie was leaning against her. “Then let’s put our heads together and try to figure it out. Let’s start with what holds you ba
ck from even wanting to find out if it’s love.”

  Gracie sighed, lay back on her grandmother’s shoulder, and stared out the window. “I’ve never been around the block.” The bare trees illuminated outside the window stared back at her. “Forget the block. I’ve never even backed out of a driveway. I was hit by another car the very first time I tried, and I got whiplashed so badly, I haven’t been behind the wheel since. And now that I’m ready to drive again, I don’t want to risk getting into a fender bender with a friend because my fender would be the one to get smashed in, but he’d feel guilty about it, and that could kill the friendship, I think. And that wouldn’t be worth it.”

  Hope crawled closer. “Okay. Let me get this straight. The whole car thing is an analogy for relationships, right?”

  Gracie nodded.

  “And you’re afraid that if you attempt to figure out what you’re feeling, things might go wrong and you could affect your friendship?” Paige asked.

  Gracie nodded again. “Exactly.”

  Grandma Sherry got up and dislodged Gracie from her shoulder so she could twist around to face her. “Then let’s try to figure out what you’re feeling without involving him.”

  Paige giggled. “That’s impossible.”

  Hope grinned. “We know it’s been a while, Grandma, but if you don’t take the car for a ride, you won’t—”

  “Your grandfather is dead. Which means I haven’t been able to take a ride with him in years, and do you think I love him any less?”

  Hope and Paige lowered their heads looking dutifully chagrined, and Grandma Sherry turned to Gracie and winked. Gracie’s eyes widened. Definitely crafty. “Exactly,” their grandmother continued. “You don’t need to have a man standing in front of you to know how you feel about him. If you do need him in front of you, then I can tell you right now, it’s not love.” She clapped her hands once. “So here’s what we’re going to do. Gracie and I are going to play a little game called Josh Association. When I say something, you picture it and spit out whatever comes to mind. Josh’s hair. Go! Now!”