“No. I’m fine. I just have a million little details on my mind.”
“A million details and one man,” Delia countered, busying herself at the stove. “I came in to make some tea. Sit down and have some with me.”
“I really should get back upstairs.”
“And interrupt Max and Helen?”
Gracie managed a smile. “You saw him arrive?”
“Arrive and dash up the steps two at a time. Unless I miss my guess, he’s asked her to marry him by now.”
“He has,” Gracie confirmed. “I was a witness.”
“Perfect. That just leaves you and Kevin.”
“Please, don’t start.”
“You know I love you both. I just want to see you happy. Maybe if you told me what’s worrying you, I could help.” She gestured toward the table again. “Please. I’ll pour the tea.”
She brought two cups to the table, taking Gracie’s acquiescence for granted. Gracie noted she chose the bright ones with the daring red and sunny yellow design. Maybe that was an omen.
“Talk to me, Gracie,” Delia encouraged, her voice soft and coaxing.
It took her a while to gather her thoughts and work up her courage, but she finally forced herself to begin.
“I don’t know what I was thinking,” Gracie told Delia. “I saw this house. The idea of a bed-and-breakfast just came to me and, wham, I was all caught up in it. I never meant to stay here, not when I came. I just needed some time to think.”
“Maybe what you really needed were some roots, a real home,” Delia responded. “Traveling all over the world’s bound to be exciting for a time, but settling down has its rewards. Obviously some part of you knew that.”
Maybe so, but Gracie couldn’t think of any rewards. Both of her parents had had a bad case of wanderlust and no money to act on it. She’d spent her whole life listening to them complain about being stuck in a one-horse town, though neither of them had had the ambition to leave. She’d vowed not to get caught in that trap. She’d had ambition and drive to spare.
“Name one reward,” she said. It would have to be a dandy one, too, if it was going to counter a childhood of terrible memories of an economically depressed town where no one, least of all her own parents, had seemed happy.
“I can list three off the top of my head. A good man, children, growing old together,” Delia said, her expression suddenly far away. “That was always what I wanted. Never seemed to find a man that suited me, though. Not after Kevin’s grandfather abandoned me. Probably my own fault. I never quite trusted another man’s feelings. I suppose I turned cynical.”
She regarded Gracie intently. “Don’t you do that. Don’t turn your back on love and family when a man like Kevin is just waiting for you to say yes. He’ll be a good husband and a wonderful father. You’ve seen for yourself how deep his kind of caring can run. He loves you, too. That can be more exciting than traveling the whole danged world, if you ask me.”
Gracie wasn’t so sure. In her experience—which was not so dissimilar to Delia’s except for the pregnancy—men took off when the excitement of the chase wore off. They married someone else. She had the track record to prove it. It hadn’t made her bitter, but it had made her cautious.
Besides, she hadn’t left France looking for love. She hadn’t come back to the States seeking permanence. She had come…well, just because being away no longer satisfied her the way it once had.
To her astonishment she had found challenges right in her own backyard, so to speak. She had found a man who turned her knees to jelly and her insides to mush. So what if he lacked drive and she lacked the ability to sit still for more than two consecutive minutes. There was a lot to be said for unhurried, lingering caresses, just as there was for explosive, passionate, right-here, right-now climaxes. In fact, sometimes the two came together spectacularly well.
Suddenly she could see a little girl with Kevin’s sun-streaked hair lounging in a hammock with a book. She could see a little boy with her eyes bounding up the stairs and onto the roof in the blink of an eye. Keeping them safe, encouraging them to grow up with their father’s sense of family and commitment would be challenge enough for any woman. And Kevin had promised to take her anywhere, anytime, if wanderlust set in again.
“Where’s Kevin?” she asked abruptly.
“Repairing the widow’s walk last time I saw him. He was scared to death you were going to be tempted out there and wind up going straight through those rotting railings.”
Sure of herself at last, Gracie bolted to the top of the house. Inside her office, she paused for a moment, long enough to observe a shirtless Kevin leaning against the just repaired railing of the widow’s walk, sipping an icy glass of lemonade. He had the portable radio turned to an oldies station at top volume. He was at ease with himself and life, as near as she could tell, two traits she wouldn’t mind learning.
“Kevin?”
At the sound of her voice, she saw him go still. He lowered the sound on the radio. Blinded by the brilliant sun, his gaze sought her in the room’s shadows. “Yo, darlin’. What’s up?”
“Maybe you ought to come inside for this,” she suggested.
“Am I likely to be so shocked I’ll jump?”
“I don’t think I’m capable of stunning you that badly.”
“Don’t be so sure. Now if you were to stroll out here buck naked, for example, I might lose my concentration.”
She laughed. “Don’t hold your breath.”
He heaved an exaggerated sigh. “Too bad. I was kinda looking forward to that.”
“I’ll bet you were.”
“Well, since just about anything else you could do pales in comparison, I think it’s safe enough for you to come on out.”
Gracie stepped out onto the narrow widow’s walk which was barely
