“She’s very good,” Gracie said, staring after her admiringly.
“Good? She’s a blasted sneak,” Kevin grumbled. “I don’t like her being off alone with that man.”
“Max is harmless.”
“That’s not what you were saying last night.”
“I don’t recall half of what I said last night,” she admitted. “The point is, Helen can deal with Max. You don’t have a thing to worry about. Besides, there are a dozen other people on that tour. What could happen?”
“Pardon me for saying it, but your judgment where Max is concerned is not exactly top notch. And Helen is proving to be a very slippery woman. I am not reassured.”
“Come on, Kevin. It’s a beautiful June day. The flowers are blooming. The sky is blue. I’m sure you can think of something better to do than worry about your grown-up cousin and whatever passing fancy she’s taken up with Max.”
He’d been staring after Helen and Max, but he turned then and stared into her eyes. “Something more interesting to do, huh?” he said softly. “Only one thing I can think of that might distract me.”
Gracie’s breath caught in her throat. “What’s that?”
He reached out and skimmed a finger along her cheek, then dragged it oh-so-slowly across her lips until they parted in a gasp. She swallowed hard as his head descended and his mouth met hers.
Oh, yes, she thought as a sweet thrill reverberated through her. From her perspective, this was definitely better than worrying about Max and Helen. She opened her eyes and met Kevin’s gaze. He smiled.
“Feeling better?” she asked.
“Not just yet,” he said. “But I’m definitely getting there.”
15
Throwing Helen and Max together might have been a mistake, Gracie concluded when Max was still ensconced in her tiny guest room after a week. His presence in the house might have been awkward enough by itself, but with Kevin inevitably thrown into the mix, the tension was sometimes thick enough to cut with a knife.
Lately she’d found herself caught in the middle of a turf war declared by two very possessive men. Max apparently couldn’t help himself. Even though his interest in Helen was obvious, he couldn’t seem to resist making a daily pass or two at Gracie. Force of habit, she suspected. She had no idea what Kevin was up to.
For some reason, though, Max’s attempt to stake his claim annoyed her more than Kevin’s did. She planned on analyzing that more thoroughly once Max went back to France.
She also planned on trying to figure out why, after all the opportunities she’d had over the past few days and several long walks right past it, she still hadn’t shown Max the old Victorian house that was at the heart of her relationship with Kevin. She had a feeling she wasn’t going to like the answer to that one bit.
Add to that general emotional confusion Kevin’s casual touches, which were startlingly provocative no matter how innocently intended, and she was a nervous wreck. Kevin was the kind of man who stole every single legitimate opportunity to touch a woman. There was never anything overtly sexual about the quick brush of his fingers across her knuckles or the grasp of his hand on her elbow, but Gracie found the accidental contact astonishingly sensual. Her reaction to it was downright disconcerting. She had to keep reminding herself that Kevin was a totally unambitious, laid-back human being, not the sort of match for her own type-A personality at all. Obviously this was some sort of passing, hormonal quirk.
Even so, mix in a few bone-melting goodnight kisses and there was no telling where things would lead one of these nights when they were left alone to sit and wait for Max and Helen to finish whatever it was they were doing in Max’s steamed-up rental car.
“Do you know how ridiculous this is?” she inquired late one night, breaking into the companionable silence as she and Kevin rocked side by side on her porch, sipping lemonade.
“How ridiculous what is?” Kevin asked distractedly, his gaze locked on that car halfway down the block.
“The two of us sitting out here, waiting up for a couple who are in their thirties. Don’t you think Helen is beyond needing a chaperone?”
“Not if she’s out with him,” Kevin replied.
His grim tone startled her. “What exactly are you afraid of? That he’ll seduce her? That he’ll whisk her off to France? That they’ll fall in love and get married?”
“Bite your tongue.”
“Kevin, your cousin is old enough to decide whether she wants to go to bed—or to France—with a man.” Gracie was delighted to discover that she didn’t feel the slightest twinge of jealousy over either prospect. That confirmed what she’d been so sure of all along: she wasn’t the least bit interested in Max as a lover.
Kevin sighed. “Okay, maybe I am being overly protective. It’s just that she’s vulnerable. She has been ever since Henry died.”
“And despite your complaining about your family, you have a white knight complex where each of them are concerned. Remember something, though. You thought I was vulnerable, too. I managed to handle Max just fine, didn’t I?”
He scowled. “Sure, you introduced him to Helen, for which I may never forgive you.”
Gracie grinned. “Actually, I thought that was a rather ingenious strategy.”
“It was a lowdown, sneaky, rotten strategy. Now I have two of you to worry about around him. I’ve seen the way he looks at you. No matter what’s going on between him and my cousin, he hasn’t given up on you, Gracie.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I don’t trust him.”
“There’s nothing wrong with Max.”
“If you like the pompous, snooty sort.”
“Apparently Helen does.”
“Yeah, well, what does she know? She hasn’t met many men like Max before.”
“Kevin, I thought her husband was a successful CEO of a multinational conglomerate.”
“He was, but we’d known him all our lives.”
“Who’s being snooty now? Is Virginia blue blood the only blue blood good enough for a Daniels?”
He frowned at the accusation. “I am not a snob,” he insisted.
