“Okay, yes. The thought has crossed my mind,” he admitted reluctantly.
She shook her head, scowling at him with impatience. “Kevin Patrick Daniels, I am surprised at you. You are the most confident man I’ve ever known. Surely you’re not scared to compete with this Max person.”
“Of course not,” he snapped. “I just don’t know if I should.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not as if I have an alternative to offer her.”
“You could propose,” she suggested.
He stared at her incredulously. “Are you nuts? I’ve already got more people depending on me than I can cope with. How can I ask any woman to share that?”
“Maybe she wouldn’t view it as a burden at all. In fact, maybe having her in your life would lighten your load, give you more strength.”
“I am not going to ask Gracie MacDougal to marry me and put up with Bobby Ray and all the others, so you can just get that crazy idea right out of your head.”
“If you say so.” She hesitated, her expression thoughtful before she finally said, “You could sell her the house. That would keep her here.”
“I’m not selling her the damn house, either,” he retorted, walking away.
Delia watched him go, then smiled to herself. Everything was moving along quite nicely.
Gracie no more wanted Max Devereaux in Seagull Point, Virginia, than she wanted to dye her hair pink and take up skydiving. Unfortunately, his arrival seemed inevitable. He’d bought plane tickets three days earlier, rented a car and, if she knew Max, had enough maps to guide him through the most uncharted territory on earth. Max was a very methodical man. Like it or not, he’d be at her house before nightfall.
She might not have been half so worried about his upcoming visit if there hadn’t been this nagging little suspicion that Kevin was right and Max wanted more from her than instructions on dealing with French tradesmen. He’d been awfully persistent for a man who only wanted to know how to get the hotel toilets cleaned efficiently.
The knock on her door jolted her. It couldn’t possibly be Max already. His plane had barely touched down a half hour ago. She knew. She’d checked, hoping it had been diverted to Alaska. She doubted it was Kevin. He’d made himself scarcer than hen’s teeth ever since he’d kissed her silly and walked out a few nights before.
The doorbell chimed again, a trifle impatiently, it seemed to her. She opened the door and stared at the woman on the front porch. She was slender and made up as artfully as if she’d just come from the cosmetics counter in some very exclusive shop. Her hair, which had been streaked with blond highlights by an expert, shimmered in the morning sun. Its upswept style could not possibly have been created anywhere other than a very fancy salon. Gracie would have bet it was a two hundred dollar hairdo, minimum.
She might have moved on to stare at the clothes—definitely off a designer rack—if she hadn’t been caught off guard by the grin. It was a feminine version of the one she’d spotted all too often on Kevin’s face.
“Can I help you?” she asked instead.
“I’m Helen Monroe, Kevin’s cousin. Has he mentioned me?”
Gracie shook her head, which only broadened that smile.
“It figures. I’m the good cousin. I’ll bet you’ve heard all about Bobby Ray.”
Gracie couldn’t resist grinning back. “As a matter of fact, Bobby Ray’s name has come up a time or two. He and I have met.”
“Yes, well, Bobby Ray can be a trial. I can say that because he’s my baby brother. May I come in?”
“Yes, of course.” Gracie stepped aside, then followed Helen into the living room. She seemed to have an unerring sense of where to go. “Have you been here before?”
“In this house? Oh my, yes. My best friend used to live here during the summer. Of course, that was years ago. She married a plastic surgeon and moved to Los Angeles. Hasn’t been seen on this coast since.”
“Turned into a snob, did she?”
“Either that or she’s gotten fat and lazy and doesn’t want us to see. I prefer to think it’s the latter.”
Gracie chuckled. “Would you like something to drink?”
“I’ll bet you have lemonade, right?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. What made you think I would?”
“It’s Kevin’s favorite.”
Gracie went absolutely still. It sounded as if Helen Monroe had gotten some very bad information about her relationship with Kevin. “Mrs. Monroe, I don’t know what you’re thinking—”
“It’s Helen, and I’m thinking that it’s about time someone came along and turned Kevin’s life upside down, someone other than one of his relatives, that is.”
“I am not turning Kevin’s life upside down, not intentionally anyway.”
“That’s even better,” Helen said.
“Is that why you came by? To give me your blessing?”
“Curiosity, actually. I’ve been wondering about all the rumors.”
Gracie handed her the lemonade before her shaking hand managed to spill it all over the just scrubbed kitchen floor. “Rumors?”
“About you and Kevin.”
“Exactly what rumors are we talking about?” she asked, her tone flat and—if Helen had only been listening—deadly.
The woman waved off the question. “Nothing to worry about. It’s a small town. People talk. Maybe speculate a little.”
“Speculate about what?”
“How long it will take him to catch you or vice versa.” She grinned. “You have to understand, Kevin has been inspiring this sort of speculation for years. Something told me, though, that this time might be different.”
“Why is that?”
“Because he actually gave Bobby Ray some money for one of his outrageous schemes. That suggests he’s either very mellow or very distracted. Either way, there had to be a woman behind it. You’re the obvious candidate.”
“And you wanted to see what I was like?”
Helen shot her an unrepentant grin. “Like I said, curiosity.”
Gracie wanted to be furious. She had a feeling under other circumstances she might have been, but she couldn’t help liking Kevin’s cousin. There
