“Won’t a confrontation with you in a public place just make things worse?” Gracie asked. “Apparently he already thinks you humiliate him every chance you get.”
“Don’t worry, darlin’. I have no intention of making a scene in here. I’ll drag him outside before I beat him to a pulp.”
“That’ll be helpful,” she said dryly. “Maybe if you just tried to look at things from his perspective once in a while, you could get through to him.”
He stared at her, his expression incredulous. “You’re taking his side?”
“I’m not taking anybody’s side, especially that of a man who virtually abandoned his daughter,” she said. “But you’re not going to solve anything your way. You’ll just make matters worse.” She shrugged. “Of course, it’s none of my business.”
“No, it’s not.”
They sat glaring at each other for a full minute before Kevin sighed. “Okay, let’s hear it. How would you handle this?”
Gracie realized belatedly that she’d stumbled into a quagmire. The bad blood between these two men obviously went back a long way. Who was she to think she could waltz in and offer an easy solution? Obviously Max’s high praise for her tact and diplomacy the night before had gone to her head.
“Maybe I should stay out of this,” she said.
“Oh, no, darlin’. Don’t go all shy on me now. You have something to say, say it.”
“Okay, here goes.” She leaned forward and gave him a penetrating look. “Have you ever really sat down with him and listened to what he’s feeling? It sounds as if his father put you both in an untenable position. It doesn’t help that you throw that in his face every chance you get. How many times have you quoted the terms of that blasted will to him?”
Kevin squirmed, looking vaguely uncomfortable. It was answer enough.
“Too many, right?”
“I suppose,” he muttered.
“Maybe you should try sympathizing with his position once in a while. Try to figure out a way to make it work so that he has a little more control of his own destiny. Surely there are ways to bend the rules.”
“There are, and I’ve been tempted to bend them a few times, but each time he manages to prove once again why his daddy wanted the will drawn up that way. If Bobby Ray knew how to exercise any control over his own destiny, he wouldn’t be married to a woman who was cheating on him before the ink was dry on the wedding license.”
“Could be that love blinded him to her faults,” she suggested. “Have you ever been so crazy in love that you wouldn’t listen to anything anybody said?”
“No,” Kevin conceded, then regarded her intently. “Have you?”
“Well, no, but that’s beside the point. We’re not talking about me.”
“Let’s change the subject and talk about you,” he challenged. “You’ve mentioned this Max guy a couple of times. Tell me about him.”
“He was my boss. End of story.”
“And that’s all?”
“Absolutely.”
He appeared unconvinced. “Talked to him since you left France?”
“Yes,” she admitted.
“How many times?”
“I don’t know. A few, I guess. But it was always about business,” she added defensively.
“Such as?”
“Look, why are you interested in this?”
“Because everything about you fascinates me. Come on, tell me. Why does Max call?”
“Last night he called because the asparagus farmer refused to deliver.”
Kevin stared at her. “You’re kidding, right?”
“I am not kidding. If you knew how much asparagus we served, you wouldn’t think it was such an insignificant little problem.”
“So it was a really important crisis?” Kevin said, his expression skeptical.
“Yes.”
“Did you solve it?”
Now it was Gracie’s turn to squirm. “Not exactly.”
“You didn’t jump in and help him out of this terrible business jam?”
“No, but—”
“Tsk, tsk, Gracie. I’m surprised at you. Where’s your compassion? Your sense of duty?” He grinned. “I’ll bet you told him where he could stick those asparagus, didn’t you?”
“It wasn’t amusing to Max,” she said, smiling despite herself.
“No, I’m sure it wasn’t.” His expression sobered. “Gracie, does Max have a car?”
“Of course.”
“Then he could have driven to the farmer’s and picked up the asparagus, correct?”
The image of Max’s impeccable Mercedes filled with vegetables was so outrageous that Gracie chuckled. “You don’t know Max.”
“No, but my point is, he didn’t need to call you to handle this crisis. It was an excuse, Gracie. How many others has he dreamed up since you took off?”
She refused to answer. She’d been so pleased with the evidence of her indispensability that she’d never questioned whether Max might have ulterior motives for those calls.
“That many, huh? He must really have it bad.”
“Max is not interested in me,” she protested, “except as the manger of his hotel in Cannes.” Now who was bending the truth? she thought guiltily.
“We could make a bet on that, but it would be easy money,” Kevin said. “I’ll let it pass.”
“How noble of you.”
He glanced over at her half-eaten, congealing breakfast. “Are you finished?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Let’s go.”
“Where?”
He gave her a lazy once-over that left her head spinning.
“It’s a beautiful day,” he responded. “I feel like taking my boat out, maybe doing a little fishing.”
The prospect of being alone all day with Kevin rattled her. He was far more disconcerting than Max would ever be. She was way too susceptible to this man she’d just met. Maybe all his attention would be on fishing, maybe it wouldn’t. She concluded it wouldn’t be smart to take any chances.
“I don’t think so.”
“We can talk about the house,” he said, dangling the possibility before her.
The tactic was totally unfair. Downright sneaky, in fact. Naturally, she bit at once, throwing caution to the wind. “You have life preservers on board?”
“Of course.”
“An extra fishing pole?”
“Absolutely.”
“Let’s go.”
He kept his boat at the Colonial Beach Yacht Center. He picked up bait on the way. Gracie decided she didn’t want to know exactly what kind.
Within minutes he was guiding the surprisingly modest twenty-foot boat away from the dock, through the calm waters of Monroe Bay and into the Potomac. With the wind mussing his
