“I’m sorry, Gracie,” he said.
Her gaze softened. “There’s really not much else you can say to someone when their loved one dies, is there? I’d rather hear a person’s heartfelt sympathy in that simple phrase than a monologue of how ‘at least they’re in a better place’ or ‘at least it was fast, and she wouldn’t have felt any pain.’”
Owen’s fingers tightened on his wine glass stem. Had it been over fast for Ali and Shaun? No. Ali would’ve fought with every part of her mother’s heart to survive for her kids. Fought until her throat went into spasms, and briny water filled her lungs…
He shoved the thoughts aside and made a conscious effort to release his grip on the glass stem before he snapped it in half. “People don’t know what to say, but they need to say something to feel as if they’re being supportive and caring. But when you’re there? Right in the middle of the shock and anger and guilt and grief? Nothing they say helps, because you’re completely and utterly alone inside your head.”
“You understand,” she said. “And thanks.”
“So after your mother died, you quit university?” Hoping he’d kept any trace of condemnation from his tone, Owen topped up Gracie’s glass.
Her gaze remained locked on the crimson wine for a moment longer. “I had something of a eureka moment after the first semester exams—this was before Mum died. I finally admitted to myself that I never really wanted a business degree. I planned to finish my second year and then apply to design school. I was working up the courage to tell my parents over the break before the second semester started, but then Mum died. After that, it just didn’t seem important to finish the year when I was slipping into bad habits again. My father…”
Her teeth grazed her lower lip, and she ducked her head. “He went from bad to worse after Mum’s funeral. My announcement that I wasn’t reenrolling for the second semester didn’t go down well. He refused to acknowledge that I was once again flirting with my evil wolf. It was Mum and Glen who’d fought to get me help when I was fourteen. I think Dad was embarrassed his only daughter had a mental health issue.” She gave a small, brittle laugh. “You know, I’m convinced he would’ve rather had a daughter with cancer than one with an eating disorder. Cancer is a much more respectable disease, and it’s hardly the kid’s fault. Bulimia on the other hand? In his opinion, it was totally my fault, and I’m sure Dad thought it was a desperate ploy for attention.”
“No offense,” said Owen, “but your dad sounds like an asshole.”
That startled a laugh out of her—a genuine laugh—and the wide smile remaining on her face did weird, fluttery things inside his chest.
“So did you go back into counseling?” he asked.
Gracie nodded. “Yeah. But not in Auckland. I packed my bags and moved to Wellington for three months to live with my aunt. I did a counseling crash course and got back on the straight and narrow after I didn’t have Dad breathing down my neck. Once I was confident I was as okay as I was gonna get, I booked a one-way ticket to Europe. Mum had always wanted to go to Paris and climb the Eiffel Tower—so that’s what I did first.”
“And you’re still okay?” On a personal level, the question made him cringe—way to endear yourself to a woman by doubting her sincerity—but on a professional level, a temporary guardianship level, he had to ask.
The small smile that had curved her mouth slid away, and her blue eyes frosted. “You mean do I still have bulimic tendencies that might negatively impact Morgan, Charlie, and William? The answer is no. I’ve learned what my triggers are, and I deal with them. I’m still fully on my wagon.”
“Ah, well, good. I’m glad to hear you’re healthy.” Now who sounded like an asshole? He dragged a hand through his hair and sighed. “I didn’t mean to imply you’d be a bad influence on Morgan.”
Gracie drained the last of her wine and set the glass down on the countertop with preternatural care. “I understand. You’re watching out for her, and I’ll be watching out for her, too. I know what to look for.” Her mouth twisted, and the tense line of her spine returned as she stood and slid the barstool under the counter. “Believe it or not, you don’t need a university degree to recognize when someone else is hurting.”
He stood, opening his mouth to say something, to apologize that she’d somehow gotten the wrong idea that he looked down on her for quitting school, when her gaze snapped upward. His mouth closed. She didn’t only mean the kids. It was there, clear as day, in her eyes.
He walked around the island counter to stand in front of her and shoved his hands into his jeans pockets so he wouldn’t be tempted to tuck the strand of hair slipping over her face behind her ear.
“Do you think I’m hurting, too?”
Gracie angled her chin, tilting her head so her long hair fell behind her shoulder. “I do.”
A whiff of bubblegum and fresh strawberries filled Owen’s nose—must’ve shorted out his brain—because he blurted, “Maybe a kiss would make me feel better?”
Her eyes widened, and her lush mouth parted to drag in a ragged inhale.
Someone call for the crash cart because, holy shit, his heart had just stopped at the sheer idiocy of his runaway tongue.
“I’m sorry, I…”
He didn’t get to complete the apology because Gracie swayed forward, balancing one hand on the kitchen counter as she rose on tiptoe. She touched her lips to his cheek in a light, lingering kiss. The soft puff of her breath on his skin sent a wildfire shivering through him, and his hands clenched into fists.
“Good night, Owen,” she said.
And she left him alone in his kitchen wondering what the hell he’d gotten himself into.
Chapter 9
Gracie had fallen into a routine during the past week and a half since she’d started working. Once the kids were up and fed, the day was theirs. So far, they’d gone on field trips to historic Waitangi in the nearby Bay of Islands, taken a ride on the Rawene Ferry and had explored an art gallery in the little town, played three rounds of mini golf, and had seen the latest G-rated movie when the weather packed in yesterday. History, Industry and Transport, Art, Physics, and Media Studies—boom!
A routine—if flying-by-the-seat-of-her-pants homeschooling was considered “a routine.”
And where did Owen fit in to her routine?
After their conversation about bulimia—and, eek, the kiss she couldn’t deny, even if it was just a peck on the cheek—Gracie had hardly spoken more than a dozen words to him. By the time she entered the main house each morning, he was in his suit pants, collared shirt, and tie, jiggling his keys and heading out the door. He’d mutter, “Good morning,” then disappear out the back door in a wash of sexy male cologne. His scent shot a fleeting ache through her lungs and down to settle in her core.
The previous four days, he hadn’t made it home until the two younger kids were in bed. And Gracie, sprouting more feathers than the native tui who sipped nectar from the flax bushes outside, chickened out and had fled to her room soon after his clipped, “Good evening.”
Nice one, Impulsive Gracie.
Once again, she’d figuratively dropped herself into the poo—and this time with her employer. She’d taken his teasing comment too seriously and embarrassed the hell out of them both. Great start to their professional relationship—and that’s all it could be, because Broke Gracie needed this damn job.
“Um. Hey?”
Gracie looked up from her sketch pad. Morgan stood in the living room doorway, dressed in the long, baggy black tee shirt and loose cotton pajama pants she wore to bed. Her arms were folded across her chest, but the index finger of her right hand continuously picked at her thumbnail, making a tick-tick-tick sound.
Gracie glanced at her watch. After ten. Owen had sent her a text earlier to say he’d been held up.
“Couldn’t sleep?” She put down the bridesmaid dress sketches she’d been working on and flexed her fingers.
The girl nodded, her gaze slanting sideways. With a sig
h, she stepped into the room and shut the door behind her. She padded over and sat cross-legged on the sofa opposite.
“I wanted to talk to you before Uncle Owen got home.”
“Okay. But he’s due any minute.” Gracie’s mind zipped through the day’s events that Morgan might want to talk to her about. The girl had been quieter than usual when Gracie and the two other kids had picked her up from Olivia’s house this evening.
“I need to talk to him, too, but I wanted to ask if you’d stay with me and be on my side,” Morgan said. “Otherwise, he’ll just say no.”
“What are we talking about? Watching a Netflix R-rated movie? Getting your belly button pierced?”
Gracie expected the belly button comment to earn her a smile and an eye roll, but Morgan’s dark eyes continued to burn steadily at her.
“I want to go to school next week—real school. Bounty Bay High School,” Morgan said.
“Oh.” Gracie jerked upright on the sofa. “Is that where Olivia goes?” she asked, stalling for time.
But time had run out because, outside, the automatic garage door rumbled to life. Owen was home.
“Yeah.” The pick-pick-picking nail attack started up again, and Morgan seemed to shrink into herself. “And Maddie and Jayne and Harmony, too. We all hung out last Saturday and today.” Her gaze darted toward the open-plan kitchen and the back door. “Will you stay? Please, Gracie?”
Crap. She could hardly say no. Not when Owen’s Bambi-eyed niece looked at her as if she were the only one in the world who understood how sucky it was to be a thirteen-year-old girl.
“Of course I will. Why don’t you microwave the leftover lasagna for him?”
Morgan hopped off the sofa. “Good idea. He’ll be in a better mood after eating dinner.”
Somehow, Gracie doubted it.
In the time Owen took to park the car and walk to the house, Morgan had the lasagna reheating and the table set with one place setting. The back door swung open, and Owen strolled into the kitchen, his gaze unerringly finding Gracie’s as she leaned against the island counter. Grooves etched into his forehead and the faint laugh lines around his eyes appeared deeper than normal. He dropped his leather satchel onto a dining table chair and leaned on the back of it, the ropy veins of his forearms standing out in stark relief as he gripped the wood.
“Shouldn’t you be in bed?” he asked as his niece carried the plate of steaming lasagna to the table.
“It’s only just after ten.”
“Right.”
There was enough gritty weariness in Owen’s tone to send a shiver down Gracie’s spine. She couldn’t catch Morgan’s gaze to silently implore her to leave the school discussion to the next day.
“I want to go to Bounty Bay High School next week, and I rang Nana, and she said I was old enough to make up my own mind”—Morgan whooped in a deep breath—“but I had to check with you first.”
Owen’s gaze stabbed accusation at Gracie from across the room as he pulled out another dining chair and sank onto it. He picked up the fork—white knuckled it in his grip—before lasering his attention to Morgan, frozen at the opposite end of the table.
“Your continuing education is not a spur-of-the-moment decision,” he said. “And changing it shouldn’t be based on spending a few afternoons with a girl you barely know.”
“Olivia isn’t the only reason I want to go to school.” Morgan’s jaw bunched, and she folded her arms tighter across her body. “There’s drama club and a debating team there—”
A twitch flickered in the corner of Owen’s mouth.
“—and I could play on a proper sports team, not just a bunch of different-aged kids tossing around a ball at the park.” She slid into the chair and leaned her elbows on the table. “Plus, academically, I have opportunities to study subjects that Nana just can’t teach me at home.”
“Sounds like you’ve practiced quite a convincing argument,” he said. “You realize you’re only in Bounty Bay for the first school term, and then you’ll go back to Whangarei?”
“I know that.” Morgan tucked a curl behind her ear with an epic eye roll. “Nana said that a term up here would be a good experience to see whether I like the school system. And if I did, she’d enroll me in Whangarei for the rest of the year.”
Owen pulled a is that right? fake frown, scooping up a forkful of lasagna. He slipped it between his lips, and his eyelids drooped shut for a moment. A sound rose from his throat—a soft moan that triggered a swarm of frantic butterflies deep in Gracie’s stomach.
“And what do you make of this, Gracie?”
Owen’s hazel gaze switched to her, and the butterflies went nuts, bursting out of her stomach and fluttering to her knees. With a slight wobble in her legs, Gracie walked to the table and sat. She met his stare, even though her pulse pounded jackhammer fast in her throat.
“I think dipping her toe into the school system for a term is a good idea—like her Nana says.” Gracie’s gaze skipped between Owen and Morgan. “There’s no doubt Morgan’ll be pushed harder academically at school, and, in my opinion, she needs more of a challenge than I can give her.”
“I hate those dumb worksheets,” Morgan said. “And I hate being homeschooled.” She shot a guilt-ridden but defiant glare at her uncle. “When you were my age, you convinced Nana to let you quit homeschooling and go to Bounty Bay High School—so why can’t I?”
Owen had shoved a bite of lasagna into his mouth, but his fork froze halfway from his mouth after Morgan’s outburst.
Wait—what? Gracie knew he’d lived in a house bus with his parents but—
“You were homeschooled?”
“Up until I was thirteen, yes.” With precise movements, Owen lowered his fork to his plate.
“Huh.” She leaned back into her chair. “It’s just revelation after revelation with you.”
He forked up another bite of lasagna, chewed it thoroughly, and kept his gaze locked on his plate. Such a fount of information.
She addressed Morgan. “Uncle Owen was homeschooled?”
“Yep. And Mum and Uncle Daniel,” Morgan said. “Mum loved it. She told me she never wanted to go into the public school system—unlike her brothers. Nana and Gramps weren’t very happy about it at first, but Uncle Owen begged and begged until they let him go. He said he wanted to be a doctor so he had to.”
An image flashed into Gracie’s mind of a thirteen-year-old Owen, his eyes shiny with conviction, passionately arguing with his parents. Fighting to get his own way. Even as a boy, she imagined his single-minded focus would’ve been hard to ignore.
“Well, I’d like to study law,” Morgan continued. “So I need to go to high school, too.”
“Morgan.” Owen kept his tone gentle, even though the lines around his eyes had deepened with strain. “Homeschooled kids can get into university. Your parents—especially your mum—wanted you to learn at home with your family.”
Morgan’s lower lip quivered. “But that was before they died. Now we don’t have a family. Not really.”
Gracie’s heart contracted into a leaden ball, painfully sinking in her chest. But she kept her lips pressed together so her foot wouldn’t slip into her mouth. This was Owen’s unfortunate job as the girl’s uncle. She had no business trying to sway his decision either way.
“You still have a family,” he said. “Not one your parents would’ve ever chosen for the three of you, but you have family. People who care about you and want the best for your life.”
Morgan stood, her chair screeching backward. “What about what I want? Doesn’t that matter at all?”
“It matters.” Owen pushed his plate away, three quarters of the lasagna left untouched. “And I’ll think about it and get back to you. Okay?”
The girl’s mouth puckered into a grimace, but instead of arguing, she nodded. “Okay. I know you’ll take everything into consideration. I’ll go to bed now—night!” She sent Gracie an eyebrow-lift-pointed-glance at her uncle and hustled from the room.<
br />
Owen laced his hands behind his head and tilted the chair back on two legs. “Pity help us if she does become a bloodsucking lawyer. No offense to your family.” His mouth twisted in a lopsided grin, which was more exhausted than filled with humor.
Do not be distracted by the carved outline of biceps bulging against his shirt, Gracie ordered herself. She picked up his plate, taking it to the trash can to scrape off the uneaten food.
“None taken.” She wished she could reach behind her and scrape off the unease coating her spine. Lawyers and their ilk. Hell, the whole suit-wearing brigade made her skin crawl. “Why do you think I took up dog walking?”
Gracie walked to the kitchen sink and rinsed the plate. A chair scraped behind her and a few seconds later Owen’s hand appeared in her line of sight. He slipped the plate from her hand.
“Let me do it. I don’t expect you to clean up for me.”
Taking a page from Morgan’s book, Gracie opted to retreat rather than protest. She slid to the side, sucking in her stomach and praying her butt wouldn’t bump against him. Because she could feel Owen behind her—oh yeah. Every hair on her body was a tiny radar detector, sensing the sexy vibes the man threw off and beeping with alarm.
Once she’d cleared the big male body behind her, she turned, leaning a hip against the counter. Her radar shrieked danger-danger-danger, but curiosity got the better of her.
“So you were homeschooled? I never would’ve guessed.”
Owen shot her a glance as hot water continued to stream over the plate. “Living in a house bus wasn’t a big enough clue we were an alternative family?” He chuckled, but beneath the sound cracked a hard edge of some other emotion. Resentment? Bitterness? Disdain?
Teach Your Heart: A New Zealand Opposites Attract Romance (Far North Series Book 3) Page 10
