“Why not? The more the merrier.”
“Where are we going?”
“Leave all that to me. Give me an hour to make the arrangements. I’ll pick you up at your place. Bring an overnight bag.”
“Helen, I can barely shop for an hour without getting bored silly. I don’t need two days.”
“You will for this shopping spree. Stop arguing and go home and pack.”
“You’re a very bossy woman. Does Max know that?”
“Of course he does. He finds it stimulating trying to thwart me when I take charge.”
“And that’s a good thing?” Gracie inquired doubtfully.
“Trust me, that is a very good thing. We will never grow bored. Now, get moving. I have plans to make.”
Gracie paused at the back door. “I’m not going to regret this, am I?”
“Not if I can help it,” Helen vowed. “You’re going to remember this for years to come.”
23
Kevin had spent close to a week holed up in his apartment in Richmond, trying to accept what Delia had told him. In the end, he’d concluded that he’d made more of the deception than he should have. The lie had cost his mother far more than it had cost him.
The truth was, in everything but name, Delia had been a grandmother to him all these years. She’d been his most stalwart champion and, in many ways, his best friend. He doubted he could have loved her any more if he’d learned the facts years ago.
Unfortunately, by the time he got back to Seagull Point to explain all of that to her and put her mind at ease, she was gone, and Helen and Gracie were missing as well. He’d checked his house, where Molly, too, had been given a few days off and had run off to spend them with her family in Washington. He’d checked in town, only to find that Gracie’s house was locked up tight and all work on the Victorian had been halted.
A knot of dread formed in the pit of his stomach at the sight of the house sitting empty and silent and no more than half complete. With only a month to go before the scheduled opening, it should have been a beehive of activity.
What the devil was going on? Where had everyone gone and when? He was sitting on the front steps of the Victorian pondering the possibilities when Abby exited Bobby Ray’s car in front of him.
“Hi, Uncle Kevin. How come you’re here?”
“I thought I’d stop by and help, but no one’s around to tell me what to do.” He glanced up to see Bobby Ray regarding him with smug amusement. “Okay, what do you know that I don’t? Where’s Gracie?”
“Gone,” Abby said.
Kevin felt as if he’d been sucker-punched right in the gut. All the air seemed to whoosh right out of him. “Gone? Gone where?” He barely managed to get the panicked words out around the tightness in his throat.
“France,” Abby said as if it were no more than a trip to the supermarket.
“Gracie went to France?” he repeated. Back to Max? Back to Worldwide?
“Sorry, pal,” Bobby Ray said with more satisfaction than sympathy as he lowered himself to the step beside Kevin. “Guess you weren’t paying enough attention to her.”
“That’s absurd. I was only gone for a few days.”
His cousin chuckled at his immediate defensiveness. “You’re pitiful, you know that don’t you?”
“Oh, go to blazes,” Kevin muttered, aware that he’d given away way too much about his emotional state.
“That’s a switch, you telling me where to go.”
“Daddy, stop teasing him,” Abby protested. “Can’t you see he’s miserable?”
“Of course I can,” Bobby Ray said. “I thought I’d let him wallow in his misery for a few minutes.”
“But he thinks Gracie’s run off to be with Max.”
Bobby Ray’s eyes gleamed. “I know,” he said happily.
“Daddy!”
“Okay, okay,” his cousin said. “It’s not what you’re thinking.”
“Then what the hell is it?”
“It’s true that Gracie has gone to France, but Helen and Delia are with her,” Bobby Ray explained. “So’s Marianne.”
Kevin stared at him. “They’ve all gone? What the hell went on around here while I was out of town?”
“As near as I can tell—and don’t forget I’m a mere man, so the workings of the female mind often elude me—Delia was moping around for some reason and Gracie was stressing out about her and about your absence, so the next thing I knew Helen had gotten the notion to take them all shopping.”
“In France?” Kevin repeated, dazed.
“Paris, to be precise. As far as I know, they’ll be back tomorrow, unless, of course, there’s some sale they can’t resist in Rome or Milan or London. You know Helen once she gets her credit card in gear.”
“You’re sure about Paris being the destination, though. They weren’t taking a side trip to Cannes, were they?”
Bobby Ray chuckled again. “No need. Max was meeting them in them in Paris to show them around.”
Kevin groaned. “I don’t believe this.”
“Obviously, this is not a group of women you can turn your back on,” his cousin suggested.
“How the devil did Marianne get involved?”
“Helen called to fill her in on where they’d be,” he explained, then stopped.
“Tell him the rest, Daddy,” Abby insisted. “Tell him about you and Mom.”
To Kevin’s astonishment, a sheepish grin spread across Bobby Ray’s face. “Marianne and I, we’re thinking about getting married again. We’re looking at Labor Day weekend. The minute they found out about that, Helen invited her along to buy some fancy stuff for the honeymoon.”
Things were moving way too fast for the comfort of a man who liked to keep his life slow-paced and relaxed. Uncomplicated. Kevin regarded Bobby Ray intently. “May I point out that you’re still married to Sara Lynn, or is that just considered a minor inconvenience?”
“She’s agreed to a quickie divorce,” Bobby Ray explained. “Of course, it will cost me, but so what? It’s only money.”
“Which you don’t have,” Kevin reminded him.
“Well, actually, I was counting on you to come through for me again. I figured you might want me
