She gardened with abandon, too. She got on her hands and knees and poked around between the flowers Kevin had planted, looking for those clever little weeds that had dared to spring up overnight. She plucked them out and tossed them aside with startling ferocity. It felt good to have control over something. Goodness knew, the rest of her life was out of her hands.
At the moment, Kevin Patrick Daniels controlled her destiny and she didn’t like it. She didn’t like it one bit. If she’d run across another available house that was half as interesting as that old Victorian, she would have snatched it up in a heartbeat and avoided all future dealings with him.
Except, maybe, for an occasional kiss. She really hadn’t minded that kiss at all. It had been an explosive experiment. In fact, she’d thought of little else for the past twelve hours. She’d even dreamed about it and awakened as hot and bothered as if it had just happened.
Let that be a warning, she told herself. Dealing with Kevin from now on was going to be very tricky. The man apparently had enough time on his hands to plan all sorts of sneaky strategies for distracting her from her goals.
Even this garden was a distraction, she thought, wiping perspiration from her brow and leaving behind what she imagined was a streak of dirt. She ought to be inside plotting strategy of her own. She ought to be dressing up and slipping down to the county courthouse to pore over property records. Something was bound to give away the information she needed about the real owner of that house.
In fact, the more she thought about it, the more convinced she became that if she was ever to get her hands on that property, she was going to have to do some down and dirty investigative work.
She yanked one last weed out of the garden, then wiped her hands on her shirttail, grimacing at the mess. She would kill to be able to ship her clothes off to the hotel laundry about now, instead of having to do them all herself.
“Get used to it,” she muttered as she headed inside to shower. If she opened that bed-and-breakfast, she was going to be doing more laundry than she’d ever dreamed of…personally.
An hour later she was all dressed up in a pair of linen slacks, a silk blouse, and leather flats. Casual but businesslike, she concluded, surveying herself in the mirror. She added her favorite Cartier gold earrings and a matching bracelet, a set she’d splurged on one Christmas. Now she just had to practice her charm to see which little birdie in the courthouse she could coax into singing.
The drive to the county seat in Montross along Route 3—Historyland Highway, as it was dubbed—took her past the entrance to George Washington’s birthplace, then past the turnoff to Stratford, birthplace of Robert E. Lee. She was in Montross with its oak-shaded square in less than a half hour.
She studiously avoided the temptations presented by a couple of antique shops and a display of bedding plants. She found the new courthouse complex a quarter-mile or so behind the impressive old courthouse with its faded brick facade and white pillars. The modern structure was far less interesting, far more institutionalized. Still, there was the promise of computerized information inside, and that was all that mattered. Maybe later she’d take the time to poke around in the local museum for some historical perspective on the property she wanted to buy.
A Mrs. Wilkes, according to the nameplate on her desk, offered to help her in the tax assessor’s office.
“Do you have the location? A plot number?”
“No, just an address,” Gracie said.
“Okay, let’s see if we can work from that.”
Her eyes seemed to widen ever so slightly when Gracie gave her the address. “Yes, of course. One moment, please.”
Rather than going to the computer, Mrs. Wilkes disappeared behind a closed door. When she returned, empty-handed, she smiled brilliantly at Gracie. “It won’t be long now.”
“Aren’t you going to check it on the computer?”
“I have someone checking in back,” she assured her. “Why don’t you have a seat?”
Since she couldn’t think of any alternative, Gracie sat. She tapped her foot, glancing repeatedly at her watch and the clock on the wall. Ten minutes passed. Twenty.
Twenty-two minutes later precisely, the main door opened and in strolled Kevin. He winked at Mrs. Wilkes. “Thanks, Etta Mae.”
He slipped onto the seat next to Gracie. “Hey, darlin’.”
Gracie shot a wicked look at the woman she’d previously thought to be so kind. “I suppose she called you,” she said sourly to Kevin.
“Of course she did.”
“Why?”
“I figured you’d be turning up here sooner or later. I asked her to call.”
“And naturally, like all women, she couldn’t wait to do you a favor.”
“Etta Mae and I go way back, don’t we, Etta Mae?”
“Way back,” she agreed, beaming at him. She stood up. “Think I’ll go to lunch now.”
“Good to see you,” Kevin called after her.
“You, too. Anything else I can do, you let me know.”
“I surely will.”
“Is there anybody in this entire county who doesn’t owe you a favor?” Gracie grumbled.
“None I can think of,” he conceded. “How about some lunch? There’s a place that serves the best North Carolina barbeque you’ve ever put in your mouth not too far from here.”
“I don’t want to have lunch with you.”
He relaxed in the chair next to her, crossed his legs at the ankles, and seemed pretty much settled in. “Suit yourself.”
“I’m going to get that house, Kevin. Get used to it.”
He grinned. “If you say so.”
“I never back away from a challenge.”
“Me, either.”
She slanted a sideways look at him. “North Carolina barbeque, huh?”
“The best.”
“You lead. I’ll follow in my car.”
“I don’t think so, darlin’. It’s just down the road
