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 . . .”
He’d spoken almost to himself at the end, gazing off to some future she didn’t see. Then his look sharpened as he faced her, and his words turned deliberate. “Yes, I would seriously consider moving to Washington permanently.”
“Grady! Leslie!” Tris called from the kitchen. “How’s the fire? Ready for cooking?”
“Ready,” Grady called back.
Leslie stood and started up the steps. “Table setting time.”
But Grady stopped her with a hand on her forearm.
“I am seriously considering a move,” he repeated. “So that shoots down your excuse.”
“It’s not an excuse—”
But her retort lost its impact since he’d already moved ahead of her and was taking the stairs two at a time.
Chapter Five
Having learned her lesson the night before, when they returned to the porch after dinner, Leslie chose a spot at right angles to Grady, so there wouldn’t be any “accidental” meeting of eyes.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
All that did was give him free rein to contemplate her profile. She could feel his look, feel it as clearly as she had felt the brush of his arm, the nudge of his knee, the warmth of his breath as they had set the table. Set the table and unsettled her, that’s what they’d done, as he had brushed and nudged and warmed.
Well, she vowed inwardly as she outwardly joined in the talking and joking, tomorrow she would avoid this sort of scrutiny if she had to sit in the damn attic by herself.
Then the following morning they’d all go home, and that would be the end of it. And she would not, absolutely not, entertain any shreds of regret.
* * * *
Sunday, Leslie clung to the group like a limpet.
A couple times he tried to maneuver her off by herself, but she foiled the efforts, so he accepted that the day would be spent en masse. From the lazy perusal of the Sunday paper, with much passing back and forth of sections and a joint effort at the crossword puzzle that left in doubt whether six heads were better than one, but definitely proved they produced more erasures. To the afternoon spent enjoying waves and sand that rapidly emptied of crowds trying to beat the traffic back to the city.
For dinner, they decided to drive up the coast to the next town, which boasted several choice restaurants and a compact boardwalk. The night before, both restaurants and boardwalk would have been packed. But Sunday night had a distinctly laid-back air they all enjoyed.
After a leisurely meal, they strolled the boardwalk often lashed by storms but still surviving. They discussed the merits and difficulties of various games of chance and skill in great detail.
When Leslie showed ability at the “shooting gallery”—at least in comparison to the rest of them—Paul had an explanation. “It’s because she’s from the landed Virginia gentry. Fox hunting, you know. Probably been doing it since she was just out of diapers.”
“Fox hunting is done with a horse, not a gun,” pointed out Michael while the rest of them laughed.
“Same difference.” Paul dismissed it with a wave.
Michael’s picks proved particularly unlucky when they all bet on tiny mechanical horses racing under tiny mechanical jockeys around a slotted metal course. Michael’s choice invariably came in last.
“Dickinson, this finally explains something to me,” Grady said. “I’ve always wondered why they said a horse was dead last—it’s because they look like they’re dead.”
When Michael withdrew from the ranks of the bettors because he was out of change, Paul chortled, “Wouldn’t the tabloids love that—‘Senate aide leaves racetrack without a quarter to his name.' "
“Now there’s a game I want to try.” Tris pointed to a sign advertising Whack-a-Mole.
“How does it work?”
Michael answered Bette while Tris handed over her money. “For a token fee, the player gets a rubber mallet. When the game starts, plastic moles pop up from those holes at random and the player tries to whack them before they disappear again. For each mole whacked you get a point.”
“I’m going to mash ’em all,” Tris declared.
“Your wife sounds damn bloodthirsty, Dickinson. I’d be careful not to leave any rubber mallets around the house if I were you,” advised Grady.
Michael shrugged. “As long as she sticks to moles.”
“But, Tris, you’re a softy, why do you hate moles?”
“Because they dig up my lawn, and my garden. And they won’t go away.”
“It’s a long-standing feud,” Leslie explained to Paul, Bette and Grady. “From the time she bought her row house and started trying to tame that jungle of a yard—”
“A postage stamp,” murmured Michael.
“Maybe a postage stamp, but when I started on it, two-thirds of the mole population of the Metropolitan Washington area was concentrated on that postage stamp!”
“Anyhow,” resumed Leslie, “every Monday at work we’d hear about her travails with the moles. The square footage they’d dug up, how much work they’d undone, the number of bulbs they’d devoured. So one guy went to the hardware store, got a trap and wrapped it as a present for her.”
“Dead moles in traps.” Tris shivered and got a sympathetic look from Bette and grins from Paul and Grady.
“And another guy brought in this article about how you could put fresh chewing gum down their holes and the moles would eat it and then they’d die.”
“They’d starve to death,” Tris elaborated. “I didn’t want to kill them, I just wanted them to go away. So then Leslie called an agriculture expert and found out that if you got rid of the grubs they eat, they’ll go away. So that’s what I’ve been doing. But it takes so darn long, and they tunneled through another corner of the garden this spring and it’s so annoying—”
“You’re up, lady,” called the game attendant.
Tris gave it her all, but she had more enthusiasm than technique and when the game ended the population of plastic moles was none the worse for wear.
“They’re crafty critters, aren’t they,” said Paul, pretending to console his cousin with a shake of his head. “Boy, I’m glad we don’t have moles in Illinois.” He stopped abruptly. “Do we? I better check with Charlie.”
“Oh, no.” Bette gave a mock groan. “Grady, do you know what a monster you’ve created with that gift of landscaping for the house? Any second now I expect Paul to turn into Mr. Greenjeans. He and Charlie get together and they start talking this lingo about friability and sun hours and pH levels and root systems.”
“You’ll love it when we’re done, Bette.”
“Yes, dear.”
Paul’s fake swipe at his wife’s bottom turned into a hug.
But Tris’s attention hadn’t strayed from the game. “Darn! I wanted to get more of those little devils.”
“How about you, Michael?” Leslie asked. “That’s your yard they’re digging up, too. You want to take a whack?”
“Not me. I’m the easygoing type.” Tris slanted him a look, and he grinned a little lopsidedly. “Besides, they’ve been there a long time. I like continuity. My wife says I’m not fond of change. Maybe she’s right.”
A look passed between Michael and Tris, and Leslie could almost imagine she saw the electrical charge that bridged the four feet between them. She swallowed, not sure if her throat had tightened at the power of their love or at the reminder of a chasm in her life.
Grady stepped forward and swept Tris a deep bow. “I would be honored, milady, if you would allow me to enter the fray and whack in your stead.”
Tris assumed a serious expression as she gripped the cuffs of her shorts for an answering curtsy. “I accept your brave offer, Knight Whacker.”
Under cover of more flourishes and encouragement from the rest, Grady leaned close to Leslie. “Thursday, Bette said I deserved a knighthood for rescuing her from Whicken. Now Tris. I seem to be everyone’s knight in shining armor except yours, Leslie.”
She didn’t have to answer because just then he was handed a mallet and swept up to the game.
From one side, she watched Tris, Michael, Paul and Bette crowd around Grady, the kidding fast, affectionate and good-humored. They truly were good friends. This was why she enjoyed their company so much. This was what she stood to lose if she were ever foolish enough to let errant thoughts about Grady Roberts lead to foolish actions.
The whoops and hollers of encouragement soon drew a crowd around them as he played a second game, then a third.
From her position, Leslie could see Grady, intent, yet grinning, as well as faces in the half circle behind him. She noticed many of the males first looked faintly contemptuous of Grady’s good looks, then gradually impressed by his performance—even jousting a mole with a rubber mallet displayed his strength and agility.
And she noticed the admiration of the females. It was there from the first moment they looked at Grady, and it only deepened. It should have been comforting to have her earlier thought confirmed that she’d reacted to him the way any woman would. It wasn’t.
She sighed when a college-age girl wormed her way into the front row by the simple method of pushing Leslie back. The attendant gave her a wary look at the intrusion of his territory, but with space at a premium—and crowds good for business—he didn’t object.
From this new vantage point, Leslie looked over the gathering, and something new struck her. Grady was the center of the group, but not really part of it.
He didn’t share jokes with the newcomers the way Paul did. He didn’t share assessments of his progress toward the grand prize the way Michael did. He seemed to detach himself from the people all around him, focusing solely on his objective. A performer vying for the applause of his audience, yet separate
from them.
She thought of her observations of how people reacted to him, and Bette’s question of how having people judge only on the outside would eventually affect someone inside.
Another impression struck her with enough force to tighten her throat and sting her eyes. Loneliness. Deep, soul-parching loneliness. A loneliness he hid from himself, as well as others.
The crowd erupted into a roar.
Leslie blinked, adjusting to Grady as he was now. His arms lifted in triumph, a slight sheen of concentration making his face even more appealing, and his eyes zeroed in on her. She shivered with the impact of that look.
“Grand prize,” acknowledged the attendant. “You can have the big ’un.” He jerked a thumb to a man-size rendering of a mole in shaggy brown plush that suggested the creature was molting. “Or five of your choice.”
Calls from the crowd divided equally between the options.
He looked the huge mole up and down, then solemnly told the attendant, “I cannot justify depriving you of such a useful marketing tool. I’ll take the five.”
He made the choices quickly, and just as quickly distributed each. Something that was either a plush football or a toy mole to Tris. A yellow stuffed rabbit with floppy ears to Bette. A smaller version of the same in green to a lady in the crowd in an even more advanced stage of pregnancy. A lumpy hand puppet of a bucktoothed beaver for a little girl in a stroller.
And finally, a teddy bear no bigger than the palm of his hand. This he slipped into the pocket of his shorts as he stepped back from the game, allowing a tide of others in to try their skill. Separated by the flow of the crowd, Grady looked over the tops of heads to her.
“Can you fight your way out?”
“Sure. I’ll meet you over there on the boardwalk.”
In two minutes and fifty “excuse me’s” she caught up with the rest of the group in animated discussion.
“We’re having celebration ice-cream cones, Leslie,” Michael said. “Tris and I are going to go get them, so tell us what flavor you want.”
“Anything with chocolate and nuts.”
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