Kevin pounded on Gracie’s door, then fought disappointment when there was no response. He’d gotten it into his head in the middle of the afternoon that he needed to see her. He’d battled the urge for an entire hour, told himself he was behaving like a lovesick adolescent, then finally stopped pretending it was a battle he could win.
He’d driven into town to see her without bothering to call. He enjoyed taking her by surprise. She struck him as the kind of woman who’d had far too few surprises in life. In some ways, that made them more alike than she probably knew. Most of the surprises in his life had been bad ones.
“So, where are you, Gracie?” he wondered after checking out the backyard to make sure she wasn’t sitting out there admiring her new garden. She was probably sneaking around trying to get information on the property she wanted.
He liked that about her, liked that she didn’t give up, that she was totally convinced she could eventually wear him down—or bypass him completely—and get what she wanted.
He tapped on the backdoor one last time, then turned the knob. She’d left the stupid thing unlocked. Okay, Seagull Point was a small town, but folks didn’t just go off and leave their doors unlocked even here. The locals might be fine people, but a person never could tell who might be passing through.
He stepped into the kitchen, which was the tidiest he’d seen it. Either she’d given up entirely on cooking or she just hadn’t experimented today. Thinking of the mess he’d seen, he hoped for the former, but laid odds on the latter.
Though he wanted to, he couldn’t quite bring himself to venture beyond the kitchen. Everybody deserved their privacy. He had no reason at all to go poking around the rest of her house, not even to see if he could discern what tricks she might have up her sleeve for snatching that house of Delia’s.
That didn’t mean he wasn’t filled with curiosity when the phone started to ring. Probably that guy from France, the one she was so adamant was nothing more than an ex-boss. He paused beside the answering machine and waited for it to pick up. He figured he could tell a lot just by hearing the man’s voice.
“Gracie, chérie, where are you? This is Max. What could there be in that little podunk place to keep you away from home so often?”
Kevin couldn’t help it. He found that supercilious tone very annoying. Without giving the matter any thought, he grabbed the phone. “Hey, Max, this is Kevin Daniels.”
“Who?”
“Gracie’s friend.”
“I was not aware that Gracie had any friends in Virginia,” he said stiffly.
“She does now,” Kevin replied. “What’s up? Another little crisis you need her to solve? I can give her a message.”
“Never mind. I will explain it to her when we speak. Let her know that I will call back later. Tell her, please, that it is very important that I speak with her today.”
“Sure thing,” Kevin agreed. “Who knows, though? Maybe between now and then you’ll figure out a solution all by yourself.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Daniels,” he said, his tone chilly.
“Au revoir, Max.”
He hung up feeling decidedly cheerful. He didn’t even bother erasing the partial message Max had begun before Kevin picked up. He figured Gracie wouldn’t be pleased with the derisive little comment about the podunk town she was about to adopt as her home, not if she was serious about staying.
As far as he’d been able to determine, Gracie wasn’t a snob, even if she had jumped rather quickly to the conclusion that he was little more than a lazy slacker. He hadn’t done much to disabuse her of that notion. He kind of enjoyed the fact that she was starting to like him despite her initial bad impression. Definitely not a snooty bone in her body, unlike old Max.
So where was she? Max was right about one thing. For a stranger, she did seem to get around. On foot, too, since her flashy red car was parked right out front.
It didn’t take a lot of imagination to guess she’d probably headed over to take another peek at Delia’s. Kevin walked the few blocks, fully expecting to find her up on the roof, sneaking in the window again. To his surprise there was no sign of her.
Then he heard her laugh. There was no mistaking that bright, pure sound. It was coming from Mrs. Johnson’s. As he drew closer, he realized it was also accompanied by the familiar scent of blueberry muffins.
Rather than knocking on the front door, he went around to the back, just as he had a hundred times as a kid. Mrs. Johnson spotted him before he could set foot on the back stoop. She was grinning when she opened the door.
“There you are, Kevin. I’ve been expecting you.”
He didn’t doubt Mrs. Johnson’s claim. He’d almost never missed a batch of her blueberry muffins. She baked on Wednesday mornings like clockwork and he always showed up. This was an off day and an odd time, but he just figured luck was with him.
Gracie, however, clearly hadn’t anticipated him turning up. She regarded him with suspicion, then turned her gaze on Mrs. Johnson. “You knew he was coming by?”
“Hasn’t been a time since he could walk that Kevin didn’t turn up here for my blueberry muffins. Always did have a sixth sense about when I was baking.”
“Is that right?” Gracie said, still scowling.
“Don’t look so suspicious, darlin’. It’s pure coincidence, me turning up.”
“I’ll bet,” she muttered, turning her back on him to open the oven door. “Oh, my.”
“You didn’t burn them, did you?” Kevin asked, unable to keep a plaintive note out of his voice.
“No, I didn’t burn them,” she retorted, sliding the pan out. “They’re perfect.”
“Look good,”
