by Cara Colter
He wanted to ask her where the damned miracle had been for her brother. But he found, to his dismay, he was not quite hard-hearted enough to be the one to snuff out that light in her eyes.
And the light in her eyes was doing the strangest thing to him. He knew the arrival of the cowboys was no miracle, not of the garden variety or any other. It was the Bridey variety miracle, pure and simple.
But something was happening nonetheless. Unless he was mistaken, Gracie’s light was piercing the darkness in him, bringing brightness to a place that had not seen it for a long, long time.
He did not allow himself to marvel at it. He thrust the feeling of warmth away. His darkness could put out her light in a millisecond.
And he’d better remember that when he was thinking about how beautiful Graham’s kid sister had become.
CHAPTER THREE
GRACE watched with absolute delight as the angels who had arrived dressed as cowboys rounded up the ponies. How could Rory not believe in miracles?
In less than an hour the whole disaster was not just repaired, it was practically erased.
It also took less than an hour to become very evident to her that Rory Adams might not know a thing about ponies, but leadership came as naturally to him as breathing.
“How about if you just sit this one out?” Rory had suggested with a meaningful look at her damaged footwear.
She could have resented how he took over from her, but frankly she was sick to death of ponies, and though it was probably a crime in the career woman’s manual, she reluctantly admitted it was somewhat of a relief to have someone take over. But not out loud.
Rory set up an impromptu command center, and she found, in her softened frame of mind, with him unaware of her scrutiny, it was nice to watch him.
Rory Adams was a force unto himself, pure masculine energy practically sizzled in the air around him. He came up with a plan, quickly, delegated, and then he pitched in. He was afraid of nothing: not ponies racing straight at him, not being dragged on the other end of a rope by a tiny pony that was much stronger than seemed possible.
From a purely feminine point of view, watching Rory was enough to make her mouth go dry. He was agile, energetic and strong. It seemed every muscle he possessed was being tested to its rather magnificent limits. Every now and then his shout of command—or laughter—would ring out across the field.
When a pony charged in her direction, he threw himself at it, glancing off its shoulder, but managing to change its direction.
And then he rolled easily to his feet—as if he had not just risked life and limb to save her—and kept moving.
It occurred to her that he protected in the same way he led. It came to him as naturally as breathing.
And it felt like the most terrible of weaknesses that it made her insides turn to jelly.
Within an hour the last of the ponies was loaded into the ramshackle trailer. The poop was scooped. The birthday banner was fished out of the pool. Serenity was installed in the backseat of her crew-cab truck, and Tucker, looking at home for the first time since she had met him, was sandwiched in between two large cowboys on the front seat.
“Clayton and Sam will drive their truck to wherever they want to go,” Slim said, addressing Rory. “I’ll follow in my truck.”
There was something in the way he was addressing Rory, with a respectful kind of deference, that gave her pause. A suspicion whispered to life inside her, and Grace could feel the pink cloud she had been floating on since the timely arrival of the cowboys evaporating beneath her.
“Anything else you need done, Mr. Adams?”
Mr. Adams? Grace tried to think whether there had been an exchange of names in the flurry of activity that had begun since those cowboys first rolled up. Certainly, she had not given her name.
She felt as if she was on red alert now, watching Rory even more intently than she had been when he was commanding the field. Maybe she didn’t know him that well, and maybe many years had gone by since she had seen him, but he simply was not the kind of man who would introduce himself as Mr. Adams.
It was the kind of thing Harold might have done: trying to one-up himself over simple, working men, but Rory would never do that.
She told herself it was impossible to know that given the shortness and circumstances of their reacquaintance, but it didn’t matter. Her heart said it knew.
Still, instead of feeling a soft spot for him, she reminded herself something was up, there was more going on here than met the eye.
Rory, catching her sudden intense focus on him, clapped the cowboy on the shoulder and moved off into the distance, where she couldn’t hear what they said.
But she was pretty sure that was a wallet coming out of Rory’s back pocket!
By the time he came back, any admiration she had felt about his camaraderie with the working man was gone. So was her pink cloud.
In fact, Grace felt as if she had landed back on earth with a rather painful thump. She should have never let her barriers down by admiring him, not even discreetly! Now she had to build them back up. Why was that always harder than taking them down?
The trucks pulled out of the park, the horse trailer swaying along behind them, with great clinking and clanking and whinnying of ponies.
And then there was silence. And Rory standing beside her, surveying the park and looking way too pleased with himself.
“That wasn’t a miracle, was it?” she demanded.
“I don’t know. Eight ponies successfully captured in—” he glanced at his watch “—under eight minutes per pony. Might qualify. Did I mention I’m no expert on miracles?”
He was looking at her, his expression boyishly charming, though there was something in his eyes that was guarded.
“I meant the arrival of Slim and the gang.”
He was very silent. And now he looked away from her, off into the distance. He wouldn’t look at her.
“It wasn’t even the garden-variety kind, was it?”
Silence.
“Why didn’t you say something instead of letting me prattle on?” Instead of letting me believe.
“Aw, Gracie,” he said, finally looking back at her, “you’re too old to believe in stuff like that, anyway.”
She blinked. “I’m old?”
“Not old as in decrepit.” His look was intense, and then he said softly, “Not at all.”
Grace recognized how easy it would to be charmed by him. And she recognized he was a man who had been charming his way past the ruffled feathers of the female species since he’d been old enough to blink that dark tangle of lashes over those sinfully green eyes.
And that after he’d been the one to ruffle the feathers!
“I just meant the last time I saw you, you were a little girl. You probably still believed in Santa Claus.”
“I was fourteen! I certainly did not believe in Santa Claus.” Though she had been hopelessly in love with the man who stood before her, imagining endless scenarios where he finally saw her. And that was probably exactly the kind of magical thinking he thought she was too old for now.
And he was right.
Somehow the hurt of being invisible to him all those years ago, and this moment of his debunking her desire to believe in miracles were fusing together, and she could feel her temper rising.
“What did you have to do with those men arriving?” she demanded.
“I saw you were having trouble. I made a phone call.”
“What kind of man can make a phone call and have a truckload of cowboys delivered?”
“You needn’t say it as if it were a truckload of bootleg liquor during prohibition and you were leading the group of biddies waving a sign saying liquor is of the devil.”
“Old and prim,” she said dangerously.
“You do have a little pinched look around your mouth that reminds me of a schoolteacher who has found a frog in her drawers.”
She sputtered with outrage.
“Hey. Desk drawers!”
“Stop it! You’re trying to distract me.”
“Is it working?” he said silkily.
Yes. “No!”
“Because I have another way to take that pinched look off your lips. Not to mention distract you.”
Rory Adams was threatening her with a kiss!
And it was far too easy to imagine the hard line of those lips dropping over the softness of her own!
She stared at him, and then felt the traitorous blush moving up her neck. She didn’t blush anymore. Who blushed in this day and age? Oh God, she was acting exactly like the old biddy he’d accused her of being.
Then she realized he had no intention of really kissing her. He was teasing her the same way he had when she was a child. And she had the frustrating feeling he was still enjoying the result!
She drew in a deep breath, did her best to erase kisses from her mind. “Quit dodging the issue. What I want to know is how you happened to be here at the park as all this was unfolding?”
“Just as you found yourself in need of a white knight?” he asked.
He was baiting her. Wanting her to argue about his qualifications to be a white knight. Or maybe about hers to be a damsel in distress.
But she wasn’t fourteen anymore, and she was not going to allow him to suck her into his teasing. Or to look at his lips and wish, in a moment of madness, that he hadn’t been teasing about his ability to distract with that.
She folded her arms over her smudged chest and tapped her foot. She told herself she didn’t care if she looked like an old-biddy schoolmarm with a frog in her drawers.
“What were you doing here?”
“Your secretary told me where I could find you,” he admitted.
Grace felt a moment’s annoyance at her secretary, Beth, but it quickly dissipated. What woman would have a chance against Rory if he decided to turn on his charm? Including her. So she steeled herself against him, kept her arms folded and her foot tapping.
“And why did you want to find me?”
“We have some business to discuss.”
“I already told you we didn’t.”
“Well, now we do.”
“You’re right. Send me a bill and I’ll reimburse you for whatever you paid to have the ponies rounded up.”
He looked scornful. “That’s never going to happen.”
“Then we have no business. I’d like to say it was nice seeing you again, but the circumstances overshadow the delight, I’m afraid. Good-bye and—”
“My company wants to be one of the sponsors for your fundraising event for Warrior Down. We’re prepared to make a substantial contribution.”
Now he had truly caught her off guard. Her arms dropped and her foot stopped tapping.
A stronger woman would have refused him outright. But Warrior Down was her baby. Of all the events she would plan this year, only this one would be so close to her heart. Its success meant everything to her. Everything.
As much as she wanted to, she could not put her own
pride in front of her cause. How could she say no to a man who could pull cowboys out of thin air? She was pretty sure any contribution he wanted to make to Warrior Down was going to be amazing, because he was not a man who would ever be satisfied with the ordinary.
Including an ordinary girl like you, she thought, and then pushed that thought away like a pesky fly.
She wanted to know right now what he considered a substantial contribution, but she also had the horrible feeling of the balance of power shifting to him, and she’d had enough of him having the upper hand for one day.
She was not going to address this situation while standing here in the growing afternoon heat of the park in a broken shoe and a smudged dress. She was not in any kind of frame of mind to make good decisions, never mind maintain absolute control over her baby, Warrior Down.
She could barely defend herself against his teasing!
No, she needed time to repair herself. And prepare herself for whatever he had to propose.
She was going to meet him on her own ground.
After she’d had a chance to regain her composure. Not to mention have her hair done and her best outfit on. The next time she saw Rory Adams she would have her best foot forward! She would not be a woman flustered by the insinuation of a kiss!
She smiled with as much professionalism as she could muster. “I’d be delighted to discuss that with you. If you’ll call my secretary, Beth, she’ll make an appointment for you.”
He looked shocked that she was putting him off. He wasn’t used to not having his way, and that was just too damned bad.
She turned and limped away with as much dignity as she could muster.
“Hey, Gracie-Facie.”
She looked over her shoulder and glared at him.
“You could say thanks for the help.”
For a delicious moment, she thought she had gotten to him. That he had expected her to fall all over herself in gratitude for being rescued by him, that he was actually flustered by a woman who did not succumb to his charms.
But she saw, in that glance back, that he was not the least perturbed by her lack of gratitude.
That he was amused by it. And by her. The same way as he had been when she was that little girl he had tormented by calling her Gracie-Facie instead of falling madly in love with her.
Gracie-Facie, indeed!
Well, next time they were meeting on her turf, and everything was going to be under her control. She would be completely cool, calm, collected, professional. Completely.
But for a woman who wanted to be completely cool, calm, collected and professional, she actually had to bite down on her lip to keep from sticking her tongue out at him.
And his shout of laughter, as if he could see right through her, shivered along her spine.
Rory did not look as if he laughed like that very much anymore.
Grace recognized it as a dangerous weakness, that after all the fun he’d had at her expense, she was actually glad she had made him laugh, glad she could pull from him, even for a second, a shadow of the carefree young man he had once been.
* * *
Rory watched her go, the smile still tickling his lips.
Given that he considered himself a man generally unencumbered by touchy-feely sentiments like guilt, he was just a little amazed by how relieved he was to be turning the little white lie he’d told her secretary into a truth.
Offering to do something for Warrior Down was the carrot Grace Day could not resist.
The fact was, he already knew it was not going to be that smart to tangle their lives together. She was sensitive, sweet, feisty, smart—in other words, way more complicated than the kind of woman he was used to.
She also was way more innocent than anybody he was accustomed to dealing with. Her face had turned the color of a fire hydrant when he had said he knew just how to wipe that prissy look off her face!
His own reaction to the thought of kissing her had been anything but playful.
On the other hand, she was in way over her head with the whole Serenity thing, and he was not cutting her loose to deal with it herself. Warrior Down would be the perfect excuse to keep tabs on her.
And he hoped she would never find out what he had just asked that cowboy.
She probably would have no objection to the fact he had asked to be informed about where Serenity and Tucker and their eight ponies were living and how, but it was the other part that would probably put her nose seriously out of joint.
Buy the kid a can of soda pop on the way to where
ver they’re going. Keep the can.
Grace wanted to play it one way with Serenity and that was okay for her. But Rory needed to have a backup plan in case hers didn’t pan out, which he was fairly certain it wasn’t going to.
Serenity was going to play her hand close to her chest and milk it for all it was worth. If Tucker was Graham’s, wouldn’t Serenity have said so already? Why wouldn’t she have told Graham while he was alive? What would be the benefit to her of keeping the boy a secret?
Rory watched Grace toodle out of the parking lot in one of those big luxury cars you associated with an old person who was sending the message I’ve made it. She looked cautiously right and left, careful not to even glance in his direction.
Make an appointment with my secretary.
Grace thought it was all going to go her way next time, that she was inviting him into her uptight little world where she would have all the control.
The thing was, from everything Graham had told him about her, the last thing Gracie needed was more control.
Hey, he warned himself, getting way too involved here.
But what if Graham hadn’t meant just check on her? What if that was too literal? What if he had really meant, check on her and if there is a little tightness around her mouth and still shadows of sorrow in her eyes, and if she’s trying to control everything in the whole world, do something about it?
Rory sighed. He was the man least qualified to interpret a dying man’s last words.
But he was pretty sure Graham would approve of him shaking up Gracie’s world just a bit. And even if Graham didn’t, a little part of Rory was looking forward to it. And so it just wasn’t going to go her way.
And though she was unlikely to recognize it at first, that was going to be his gift to her, the kid sister of his deceased best friend. Maybe he didn’t actually have to burden her with the details of his part in Graham’s death. Maybe he just had to try to make up for it.
And, unreasonably pleased with himself, Rory was pretty sure he knew just how to shake up Gracie’s tidy little world.
He took his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed the office of Day of Our Lives. He made his appointment for the next day. And then he called Bridey. His personal assistant would be earning her money today.
