When You Wish (Contemporary Romance)

by Handeland, Lori

  After thanking Dr. Moss, and agreeing to say hello to his father next time he spoke with him—sometime in the next millennium, maybe—Dan escaped the office, then the hospital.

  Once outside he took a deep breath of warm, fresh air. He’d forgotten how playing the game, walking the walk, talking the talk of the establishment made him feel. Lightly soiled. He might not be a free spirit, but he wasn’t one of them either.

  He was right back where he’d started: Grace needed the grant; he needed the grant. If he got it, her project was doomed. If she got it, years of very important research would be no better than toenail rot. What were they going to do?

  Dan looked at the binder he still clutched in his hand and got a very interesting idea. Grace’s research was good, but he could make it better.

  He looked up at the hospital with a considering glance. He might not be like them, or want to be, but he knew what made them what they were.

  Money talked, did it? So did prestige. Intelligence. Class.

  But Dan knew what talked even louder.

  Talk. Buzz. Gossip.

  The medical profession was no different from any other. If he improved upon Grace’s research, then let the cat out of the bag—accidentally on purpose—the resulting chatter would have hospitals lining up in droves, with or without the Cabilla Grant. The buzz would create opportunities for alternative funding. Dan could keep the Cabilla Grant. Grace’s project would move forward. He’d find the cure he’d been searching for and the kiddies would get their blankies.

  Grace arrived home to a coven of Jewels and one Norwegian masseur lounging in the quilt room. The four had their heads together, as they did every day, except Olaf’s and Em’s heads were attached—at the lips—which stopped Grace in mid-stride. Even though she’d overheard them last night, seeing them this morning still shocked her.

  She was thrilled for them, but they should really get a room, she thought. Glancing at Ruby and Garnet, she found rapturous gazes upon their faces. They were thrilled for Em, too. Looked like husband number six would take his place in the family Bible real soon—if there was any room left for his name.

  Ruby saw her in the doorway. “Grace, you’re home.”

  Everyone looked up. Grace smiled, her gaze on Em. For a moment, Em looked nonplussed, after all she didn’t know that Grace knew that . . . Well, whatever. Then Olaf stood and drew Em up to stand at his side.

  “Gracie, my angel, your Aunt Em has consented to be my wife. I have loved her from the moment my eyes fell upon her. How could I not?”

  Em punched his massive arm. “Maybe because I’m old enough to be your mother?”

  “You are not! I am ever so much older than I look. Stop trying to talk me out of this, Emerald. What Olaf wants, Olaf gets.”

  “Uh, how old are you anyway?” Grace found herself asking. She’d never dared before.

  “Old enough to know better than to tell, so do not ask me again. My life is complete and I will have no more arguments. Now, I have an appointment.” He waved his hand at them. “Plan the wedding. Em will move in with me tonight. Once we marry, to an apartment we will go.”

  “Apartment?” The thought of Em leaving the house panicked Grace for a moment. Husband number five had died six years ago. Grace was kind of used to having Em around to talk to whenever the need arose. “Isn’t this all kind of sudden?”

  Olaf stopped in the doorway. “It is not sudden for me. It has taken forever. We are not children to be uncertain of our minds. We will not waste a minute now that Em has come to her senses.” He strode off.

  Grace turned to Em, who patted her on the arm. “The town is small, honey. Wherever we move, it’ll be like we’re right next door.”

  Ruby and Garnet joined them, each patting Grace on a shoulder. “And we’ll still be right here with you,” Garnet assured her.

  “You know we’d never leave you,” Ruby added. “We’ll start packing your things, Em.”

  The two moved out of the room, leaving Grace and Em alone. The sound of their bickering drifted from the hall as they made their way up to the third floor.

  “I’ll wrap the glass.”

  “A map of the grass? If you want to dig, you need to call the diggers hotline.”

  “Not a map. Wrap! Wrap! Never mind.”

  “They’re going to drive you crazy, aren’t they?” Em stared at her with a concerned frown.

  “Why should today be any different than yesterday?”

  Em didn’t laugh; instead, she looked uncertain, which for Em was unheard of. “I guess they could live with us.”

  “I’m kidding,” Grace assured her. “I’ve lived with those two all my life. I just tune them out, like you do. But if they left I’d miss them. Just like I’ll miss you.”

  “We could all live in the house.” She tilted her head. “But Olaf said newlyweds need some space.”

  “Of course you do. I’m being silly. It’s just that everything is changing so fast.”

  “It is?” Em’s gaze went from uncertain to shrewd in an instant. “Besides me marrying Mr. Muscles and getting our own place, what’s changed?”

  Grace shrugged. Em continued to stare at her, waiting. She always did that until Grace folded and told her everything. “I don’t know.” Throwing up her hands, Grace walked to the windows. “I feel squirrelly all the time. As if I’m on the verge of something I can’t see but should be able to.”

  “Let me guess, this started right about the time Dr. Magnificent showed up?”

  Refusing to turn and meet her aunt’s eyes—sometimes Em saw too much—Grace stared down at the hustle and bustle of Lake Illusion at lunchtime. “So what if it did?”

  “You like him. He likes you. Why are you fighting this?”

  “He’s not for me, auntie. He’ll hurt me in the end.”

  “You’re clairvoyant now? When did that happen?”

  Grace turned to face her aunt. “It doesn’t take a clairvoyant to see what kind of guy he is. Olaf doesn’t like him either.”

  “Olaf doesn’t like anyone, except us, and you know it. That’s Olaf. He sees you as his daughter.” Em puffed up her chest and lowered her voice to imitate her brand-new fiancé. “And for a daughter of Olaf, no one is good enough.” She let the air out of her lungs on a giggle. “He’d dislike the Dalai Lama. No one who wears a bed sheet could go near his Gracie. The fact that he hasn’t tossed the good doctor into the lake ought to tell you something.”

  True enough. Still . . .

  “Spill it, Grace. What is it about Dan that’s got you all squirrelly?”

  Grace hesitated for another long moment, not wanting to say aloud what was in her mind and bring all the pain of the past back to life. But maybe if she did speak of it, the past would lose its power to hurt her.

  “He’s just like Jared,” she blurted.

  “How is he just like Jared? He’s got a wife stashed somewhere and a few kiddies to boot?”

  Grace winced at that memory. Her perfect little dream world had burst when Jared walked into her father’s funeral with the pristine wifey-wife, and the perfect son and daughter he had neglected to mention while whispering sweet nothings into Grace’s ear.

  Grief-stricken by her father’s death, the betrayal of the second man she’d ever loved had been nearly too much. Hearing him joke at the burial about the benefits of slumming with the natives had pushed her over the edge.

  The very next week, she’d moved, with her aunts and mother, to Minneapolis, and Jared had gone home to Washington where he’d belonged. She had not allowed a man close enough to touch since.

  She’d never told anyone what she’d overheard, and she never planned to. Hearing someone she’d trusted with all of herself speak of her as if she were dirt had been worse than the sneers in her hometown, the whispers at college, and the veiled insults from the stiffs at the hospital. For the first time in her life she’d been embarrassed about who she was.

  Over the grave of the father, who had spent a lifetime stri
ving to be someone different than who he was, Grace vowed to always be herself and never be embarrassed again.

  “Hey, earth to Grace?” Em waved her hand in front of Grace’s face, effectively snapping her out of a past she did not care to remember.

  “Uh, yes. I mean no. I don’t think he has a wife.” Grace sighed and her shoulders sagged. “But then I didn’t think Jared had one either.”

  “Jared was a scum-sucking leach.”

  “True.”

  “If your father had been alive, or Olaf had been around, Jared would have been a very sorry slime-bucket.”

  “Also true. But Jared is past. I learned my lesson. I won’t make the same mistake twice.”

  “I don’t understand why you think Dan is like Jared.” Em lifted one shoulder. “But you’re the one who feels things about people. Did you ever stop to think why you’re attracted to the same type of man?”

  “I’m not following you.”

  “You say Jared and Dan are alike. And Jared and your father were alike, too.”

  Grace frowned. She didn’t like where this was headed. “So?”

  “Maybe you need a man like that.”

  “To drive me crazy all of my days?”

  Em laughed. “You never know. Look at your mom and dad--they were two halves of one soul.”

  “And without Dad, Mom is half a person.”

  “I didn’t want to mention this, but Diamond was always a wuss.”

  “Excuse me?” Grace had never heard her aunt speak ill of her mother.

  “I lost five husbands, and I’m still functional. You gotta have some guts in life or get out.”

  “I’m probably more like Mom than you, Aunt Em. I just don’t want to go there.”

  “But, sweetie, there is the best place on earth. You’ll never be truly alive, truly happy, until you love with all your heart and give all of your soul.”

  “Loving Dan would be a big mistake.”

  “Mistakes?” Em shrugged. “I’ve made a few.”

  “Number four,” Grace muttered.

  “Number one wasn’t my best moment, either. So what do you feel about Dan?”

  “Green. He’s green. Steady and sure.”

  “What’s the matter with that?”

  “He’s also a stiff. Just like Jared. Just like the people at the hospital who won’t give me a chance. Dan thinks I’m a flake.”

  “Does he really?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think you’re doing to him what you think he’s doing to you.” Grace cast a quick glance at her aunt, wondering if lusting after Dan’s body showed plainly on her face. Em continued. “You’re judging him on the surface. What he is to most people— doctor, research scientist, stiff, as you say—might not be who he is. You of all people should know better.”

  Em let that sink in for a moment before she continued. “I’m not any better. I looked at Olaf and saw a young man, a flirt—”

  Grace choked. “Flirt? Olaf? Are you serious?” In her wildest imaginings, Grace could not imagine that.

  “You’ve been in your own little world for a long time now, Grace. Who Olaf is on the surface is not who Olaf is deep inside. Inside, with me anyway, he is a great big flirt. Cute as a button.”

  “Olaf. Big guy? Hisses a lot? Shouts in Norwegian?”

  Em nodded with an amused smile on her face. “Anyway, I couldn’t see past the age difference, but Olaf isn’t so narrow. He looked at me and saw ‘desirable woman who isn’t dead yet.’ He saw what was inside, the adorable man, and I’ll love him forever for that.”

  “I think what’s on the outside of Dan goes all the way through to the inside.”

  “And would that be so bad? You’re afraid he’ll die on you like your dad? Or that he’ll betray you like Jared?”

  “Maybe both.”

  “Take a chance. Live a little. Just because Dan’s different doesn’t mean he’s bad. Just different.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you? You’ve been trying so hard to be different from everyone else, to prove that different is okay, that different is somehow better, sometimes I wonder if you understand that being not so different is okay, too.”

  Hmm, Grace needed to think about that. Was she trying so hard to be different that she denied her true self? If that was true, then did she know her true self at all?

  “And as for Dan, perhaps you need to look a little deeper inside that boy.”

  “See what isn’t visible?”

  “Find the man waiting to get out. Discover the person he can be with you—the man he can become—and the woman you could become with him.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Two weeks of working with Grace in the morning and seeing Grace in his dreams all night—Dan was losing his mind. He was no nearer to finding his cure, and the zone escaped him, unless erotic daydreams counted as a type of zone.

  At night, when he couldn’t sleep because all he could think of was her, he cruised the Internet, faxed obscure research facilities like his own, and put together a much better binder for Grace’s research than she had ever dreamed of having. Then he made phone calls and faxed more faxes.

  If there was one thing Dan Chadwick knew, it was how to research something. He could prove any theory if given enough time. Except for his theory on paronychial infection. But he didn’t want to think about that right now.

  Because right now Grace was late—again.

  He stared out the window at the lane that led to his house. No car, no Grace, no nothing.

  She’d been acting kind of strange since that day at the hospital. Whenever he turned to stare at her, he’d catch her staring at him. Instead of yanking her gaze away, as most people would, she’d continue to stare at him as if off in a zone of her own.

  She kept her distance, too. No more accidental touches, no more passionate kisses. Grace behaved as if she were deep in thought all the time, trying to figure out the mysteries of the universe, or maybe just a mystery closer to home.

  She’d told him Em and Olaf were getting married, a bit of information that had floored Dan, as it seemed to have floored Grace. He could only hope that obtaining the woman of his dreams would make Olaf a bit less likely to kick Dan’s behind into the next century, though somehow Dan doubted that.

  He glanced at his watch again. Late, late, late. He was getting worried.

  Dan put his forehead against the cool glass. Actually, Grace was never really late, but she was never on time, either. Five minutes, ten minutes, today fifteen. Each day she had a different excuse—excuses he didn’t quite see as adequate, but she seemed to think they were.

  The first day she said, “Baby ducks waddled across the road right in front of my car.”

  The second, “The cornfield had tassels, and the wind made them dance.”

  The third and the most confusing of all: “There were a thousand blackbirds in a freshly cut field. When they flew off, the sound of their wings filled the air and their silhouettes nearly blanketed the sun.”

  He had no idea why these things explained her being late. He should no doubt lighten up, but punctuality was part of his life. If he left an experiment unattended for too long, even if the blackbirds were flying, he could ruin weeks of work. So Dan always made sure he set his bells and whistles, just in case he went into the zone and forgot the time. That hadn’t been a problem lately.

  The crunch of tires on gravel announced Grace’s arrival—sixteen minutes late. Dan stepped back from the window and waited for her to come in. The fact that he was actually looking forward to today’s excuse, as if waiting for the news flash of the decade, annoyed him. They had work to do, and, sadly, no time to smell the roses.

  “Morning.” Her smile lit up his life. Unfortunately, this morning, he wasn’t in the mood for lighting up. And anyway, Grace went right to the computer. Once in the lab she never dawdled. She worked—plain and simple. If she wasn’t time-challenged, as well as such an incredible distraction to his libido, she’d be the perfe
ct research assistant—intelligent, efficient, and quiet. Problem was, with Grace in the room his brain became mush.

  “You’re late,” he said, surprising himself.

  “I stopped to watch some kids going fishing.” She flicked on the computer. A soft, sweet smile of remembrance lit her face, bright enough to rival the artificial light from the screen. “They looked like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Two boys, brothers I bet, with cane poles and a jar of worms, walking down the road. I watched until they turned off on a lane leading to one of the ponds. They were the cutest things I’d seen in a long, long time.”

  “You like kids.”

  She shrugged. “What’s not to like? The aura of a child is the purest sensation on earth. White—with hints of every color in the spectrum.”

  Dan didn’t know what to say to that. He didn’t want to think about auras—children’s or otherwise—he wanted to think about work. But because of Grace, he’d begun to notice all the things he’d been missing, and that was starting to annoy him.

  “I wish you’d try to be punctual,” he said, and even to him his voice sounded stuffy. Very like his father’s. He hoped to God that invoking his father’s name, and his father’s style, while dealing with the hospital bigwigs had not caused an invasion of the body snatchers.

  “I always try.” Grace didn’t seem very concerned.

  “Can you try harder?”

  She didn’t even look at him, continuing to shuffle through papers. “What the heck? Sure. I can always try harder.”

  Dan sighed. “Grace, time that’s lost can never be replaced.”

  She fixed him with an unreadable look. “My point exactly.” Then she turned around and went to work without another word.

  She’d agreed with everything he’d said, yet Dan felt as if they’d been talking about two different things, and he’d come out losing the round. He had no doubt she’d still arrive five minutes late tomorrow, and if he bothered to mention the lapse, she’d agree with him, and they’d start all over again. His head spun as it so often did when he was around Grace, for so many different reasons.