“Helen’s a big girl. She’s looked radiant to me the last few days. Maybe she’s willing to risk being hurt. And the only way it’s going to turn ugly is if you and Max start brawling one of these nights.”
“Don’t tempt me. I repeat, I don’t like the way he looks at either one of you.”
Tired of all this talk of Max and Helen, she regarded Kevin speculatively. “Kevin, don’t you have something better to do than worry about your cousin?”
He finally turned his full attention on her then. A grin tugged at his lips. “You offering to distract me again, darlin’?”
She feigned a long-suffering sigh. “If that’s what it takes to give the two of them some privacy.”
He reached for her hand. “Get on over here then.”
Warning herself of the dangers, she slipped onto his lap a little too eagerly. She didn’t know what it was about this man that had allowed him to creep past her defenses, but the truth was, she had discovered recently that she enjoyed tempting fate.
Snuggling against his chest, her head tucked on his shoulder, she felt warm and safe and deliciously aroused. To keep her libido in check, though, she took the opportunity to make a renewed plea for more information on the Victorian.
“It’s not for sale,” Kevin repeated for the umpteenth time, though his heart didn’t seem to be in it. In fact, he was busy nibbling on her ear.
“Rent it to me, then,” she suggested, trying out a new angle. “I’ll make all the repairs in return for a break on the rent and a long-term lease.”
He pulled back. “Do you do all of your negotiating this way?”
“Of course not. This is a technique I reserve for special cases.” Actually, she’d only just now discovered how stimulating negotiating with Kevin could be.
“No wonder you had such good luck with the asparagus farmer. I’m quite sure Max couldn’t compete with this.”
“Very amusing. Will you rent it to me or not?”
“Not.”
She studied his face intently. “Kevin, what is it about that house that makes you so protective of it?”
“I’m not protective.”
“Could have fooled me. What would you call it?”
“I am just trying to do my legal duty as manager of the property.”
Gracie lost patience with the same old nonsense. “Then how come you don’t cut the damn grass?”
“Maybe I will.”
“When?”
“One of these days. School’s almost out.”
She tried to puzzle out the implication of that and finally gave up. “What does that have to do with anything?” she asked.
“Just an observation,” he said evasively, then studied her intently. “Now it’s my turn.”
“Your turn for what?”
“To ask probing questions.”
She eyed him suspiciously. “Such as.”
“You didn’t tell Max about your plan to open a bed-and-breakfast, did you? You haven’t even pointed out the house to him. I know because I’ve been waiting and waiting for him to say something or insist on a tour.”
She wasn’t sure she liked the new direction of the conversation. This was an area she’d already found troubling. She shook her head.
“How come?”
“It was none of his business.”
“Is that it or were you afraid he’d tell you exactly how crazy your idea was?”
“It is not a crazy idea, and Max’s opinion doesn’t matter to me one way or another.”
“If you say so.”
“I say so,” she said firmly, but she couldn’t help wondering if maybe that had been her concern. Was she afraid that Max, with all his years of hotel experience, would laugh at her plan or possibly denigrate the whole idea of exchanging a career with Worldwide for opening up a bed-and-breakfast in what he obviously considered to be the middle of nowhere?
She could say Max’s opinion didn’t matter, but the truth was she respected him, even if he was way too absorbed with the bottom line.
“Gracie?”
“What?”
“Maybe you should talk it over with him, get the perspective of an expert.”
“I’m an expert,” she responded testily. “I have the degrees and the résumé to prove it. Besides, this is my dream. I don’t want Max Devereaux anywhere near it.”
“And me?”
She gave him a rueful smile. “Like it or not, you’re smack dab in the middle of it.”
Kevin was worn out by the time Max Devereaux finally left town. This business of keeping an eye on Gracie was very tiring.
As for Helen, she’d made a blasted game out of eluding him to sneak off with Max. He couldn’t imagine what his cousin saw in the man, but to each his own. Despite his grumblings to Gracie, he did recognize that Helen was an adult. She’d been walking around in a daze ever since Henry’s death. If Max managed to distract her even a little, Kevin actually agreed with Gracie that there was no reason to get too worked up over it. It wasn’t as if it was the start of something lasting. In fact, the very thought of Max as a cousin-in-law made him shudder.
Not as much as the thought of Max with Gracie, however. He smiled, thinking of how cleverly Helen had managed to keep those two apart. It hadn’t been quite enough to allow him to relax his guard, but it had given him a few peaceful moments, when he’d been able to concentrate totally on Gracie and the fact that he’d suddenly become rather addicted to her kisses.
After several days of nonstop running around, he was finally back in his hammock, contemplating the meaning of life. Or, more specifically, the meaning of his reaction to Gracie. He couldn’t think of the last time he’d thought so much about sleeping with a woman without actually doing anything about it. For some reason, though, Gracie didn’t strike him as the kind of woman he should be fooling around with unless his intentions were totally honorable.
Which they weren’t, he concluded emphatically. No way in hell was he drawing her into the circus of his life. It was bad enough that Bobby Ray had tried to use her and that Helen
