Amazing Gracie Read online

  He didn’t intend to budge one inch from his current comfortable position in order to greet the uninvited guest. Aunt Delia would probably accuse him of being deliberately rude if she was observing the scene from her suite just above him. He glanced up and grinned at the sight of the shadow behind her curtains. Yep, he’d get a lecture over supper, all right. Aunt Delia was very big on manners and she told him repeatedly that his were atrocious. He’d promised to change…sooner or later.

  At the moment, though, it seemed to him that his uninvited guest had probably hightailed it here on some mission or another and it wouldn’t do at all to show so much as a hint of retreat. Normally he was as keen as the next man to do business across a desk or over a fine lunch, but certain circumstances required a different tactic. Pure instinct told him this was one of those times.

  It was several minutes, during which he was aware of the car getting closer and the engine cutting off, before he sensed a presence and bothered opening his eyes again. The sight before him was enough to cause his pulse to skip a beat or two, but he tried real hard not to let his reaction show.

  The woman was a knockout. Tall and curvy and classy, all at the same time. The demure outfit she wore did absolutely nothing to mute her sex appeal, and it was definitely at odds with that fire engine red convertible. Kevin had always been fascinated with contradictions and this woman radiated them. Amazing, absolutely amazing.

  “Mr. Daniels?”

  “Yo,” he said without moving.

  “Kevin Patrick Daniels?”

  He hid a grin as he heard the impatience in her tone. “Yep, that’s me. You a process server, darlin’?”

  “No, though I have to wonder why that would be your first guess. Do you spend a lot of time in trouble, Mr. Daniels?”

  “Not half as much as I’d like to.”

  “Perhaps if you would haul yourself out of that hammock occasionally you’d have more success at it.”

  He marveled at her tart tone. Ms. Whoever-she-was seemed to have taken an instant dislike to him. That was promising. Nothing got his adrenaline flowing better than a real challenge.

  “Southern hospitality precludes me from pointing out that you’ve just arrived at my home uninvited and now you’re insulting me. Must be a Yankee.”

  “I suppose, if you go strictly by geographical birthplace, that I am,” she conceded. “And I’m sorry if I appear rude, but I find it very difficult to do business with a man who’s half asleep.”

  “Darlin’, let me assure you, I am wide awake. Have been ever since you walked up. I could prove it, if you’d like to snuggle down here next to me.”

  He could practically hear her swallowing hard as she absorbed the implications of that. He’d lay odds that if he checked her complexion it would be one shade shy of the color of her car.

  “Why don’t you tell me who you are and what you want?” he suggested.

  “I’m Gracie MacDougal,” she said, and waited as if to see if the name meant anything to him.

  “Ah,” he said. Suddenly he understood all the reports he’d heard about the city girl who’d just moved to town and started asking questions about Aunt Delia’s property on the Potomac. He’d figured she’d come calling sooner or later.

  “Pretty as a picture,” several of his friends had told him.

  Even with his eyes half closed, he could see that they hadn’t done her justice.

  “One of them globetrotters come home again,” said an old-timer with the derision of one who couldn’t imagine any legitimate need to leave the South in general and Virginia in particular.

  Kevin thought that one was probably mistaken. If Gracie MacDougal had ever lived in these parts, he would have remembered. She wasn’t coming home. In fact, from the determined jut of her cute little chin, he guessed she was invading new territory, sort of like the Yankees did a hundred and some years earlier.

  “You talk to her, watch your privates,” another acquaintance had warned. “She’s the kind who’ll chop ’em off.”

  That, of course, remained to be seen. No matter who was right, obviously it was going to be a fascinating encounter, he concluded, observing her surreptitiously from hooded eyes.

  “What can I do for you, Gracie MacDougal?”

  “Actually, I have a business matter to discuss, but I find that rather difficult when I can’t even sit down and look you in the eye.”

  Kevin patted the edge of the hammock. “There’s plenty of room right here next to me.”

  She sighed heavily, her exasperation plain. “Mr. Daniels…”

  “Don’t worry, darlin’, I don’t bite. Not on the first date, anyway, unless you ask nicely.”

  “Mr. Daniels!”

  Kevin concluded from her tone that she wasn’t going to get on with her business or give up until he sat up and took notice. He doubted that directing her to a chair a few feet away was going to satisfy her. If she wanted formality, he’d give her hundred-year-old formality.

  “Ms. MacDougal, you surely do know how to spoil a man’s relaxation,” he said, rising. “Let’s go on inside and get this over with.”

  He led the way to his office and noted the surprise on her face when she saw the book-lined shelves with volume after volume of leather-bound classics, the state-of-the-art computer system on his desk, the fax machine, and all the other accoutrements of running a business on the cusp of the millennium. Her gaze returned to him, and this time she seemed to be assessing him a little more carefully. He gestured toward one of the leather chairs left over from his father’s reign over the family fortune, then seated himself behind the desk.

  “Talk to me,” he said.

  “I understand you manage a property on the riverfront.”

  Actually, he owned half a dozen of them, but since he knew which one she was interested in, he saw no reason to belabor the point. “I do.”

  “I was wondering if the owner might be interested in selling?”

  “No,” he said, relieved that he’d had all day to practice saying the word. Otherwise, seeing Gracie MacDougal’s crestfallen expression might have had him waffling.

  “Absolutely not,” he added for good measure.

  “But…” Clearly taken aback, she peered at him intently. “Are you sure?”

  “Very sure.”

  “Couldn’t you at least ask?”

  “No need to,” he insisted.

  “Aren’t you doing the owner a disservice by not taking my offer to them? In fact, isn’t that illegal?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t even know what I’m willing to pay.”

  “Trust me, it won’t be enough.”

  “The place is a shambles.”

  That was true enough. Kevin had been meaning to get over there and make a few repairs, cut the grass, maybe even trim the hedge. Had he done so, though, Aunt Delia—actually, his great-aunt on his mother’s side—would have wanted to go along for a nostalgic visit to her home and the next thing he knew she’d be demanding that he let her move back there. He couldn’t allow it.

  The sad truth was, Aunt Delia had no business being on her own anymore. She forgot to take her medication. She left the stove on. She wandered off and left the front door standing wide open. It was a wonder she hadn’t been robbed blind. Kevin had never known what to expect when he’d driven over to visit. Most of the time he hadn’t liked what he’d found.

  Finally, eighteen months ago he’d insisted Aunt Delia move in with him. He’d actually managed to make it sound as if she were the one doing him a favor. By now, she’d probably figured out that he’d bamboozled her, but they’d both grown comfortable with the new arrangement. That didn’t mean she wouldn’t love to be back in that drafty old house again. Nope, he couldn’t risk going near the place and she wouldn’t allow him to hire a stranger to do the work, not without being there to supervise. It was a Catch-22 of the first magnitude.

  “There’s nothing wrong with the place that a little spit an
d polish cleaning wouldn’t fix right up,” he insisted.

  “Then why don’t you take care of it? It’s a crime to allow it to go to ruin. It’s probably riddled with termites and overrun with mice.”

  He grinned at her unconscious shudder. “Then I’m surprised you’d want to buy it,”

  “I would fix it up,” she said,

  She made the declaration in that haughty little way that made him want to scoop her up and kiss her until she went weak in the knees. He settled for an indifferent shrug.

  “Sorry, it’s not for sale.”

  “I’ve been checking into real estate prices in the area and I’ve come up with a ballpark figure that I think is reasonable,” she went on as if she hadn’t heard him. She snatched a piece of paper off of his desk and scribbled a figure on it, then shoved it in front of him.

  “Nice ballpark, if I were playing, which I’m not.”

  Scowling at him, she scratched out the amount and wrote another. Kevin stared at the paper and managed to hide his admiration. She’d pretty much nailed down the current market value and tacked on an extra ten thousand. She’d been one very busy woman since hitting town. Most people undervalued the property around here because the town had been slow in grasping its own potential. This outsider had apparently seen it right off. Since she was playing fair with the money, he wondered if she’d be honest about a few other things.

  “Tell me, Gracie MacDougal, why are you so hot to buy that particular house? Do you have a husband and half a dozen kids stashed away somewhere?”

  “I don’t see how that’s relevant.”

  “It would give me a clue about why you’re interested in such a huge old house. Doesn’t seem like the logical choice for a woman all alone.”

  “Sometimes logic doesn’t have a thing to do with wanting a piece of property. Sometimes you just fall in love.”

  He’d never met a woman less inclined toward indulging a whim. Hot as it was, she was dressed in a suit, hose, and high heels that would have knocked the socks off a New York businessman. For his own purely masculine reasons, he’d have preferred she come calling in a sundress. Be that as it may, Gracie struck him as an exceptionally practical, businesslike lady, which meant she had plans for that house. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what they might be.

  “Or sometimes you decide you’d like to start a little bed-and-breakfast maybe,” he suggested quietly and watched the telltale color bloom in her cheeks.

  He was glad he’d done a little checking when he’d first heard about Gracie MacDougal and her fascination with Aunt Delia’s house. He knew all about her career with Worldwide Hotels. It hadn’t required a huge leap to figure out what she had in mind for the old Victorian. Without saying a word, she’d just confirmed his guesswork.

  “If you think I’ll raise my offer, you can think again,” she said.

  “Wouldn’t matter if you did,” he said. “It’s not for sale.”

  “Then I suppose I might as well be going,” she said, then met his gaze evenly. “For now.”

  “Then you’ll be back?”

  “Oh, you can count on it, Mr. Daniels.”

  Kevin couldn’t explain the odd sense of relief that stirred in him. He’d intended to rid himself of her, once and for all. He’d been as adamant as he’d known how to be about Aunt Delia’s house. And still, some part of him had obviously relished the first skirmish in what now promised to be all-out warfare. He couldn’t help wondering what wiles Gracie MacDougal had up her sleeve.

  Not that it mattered. His cousins were masters of every form of sneaky manipulation in the book. Not a one of them had put anything over on him yet. He doubted Gracie MacDougal would, either.

  It would be downright entertaining, though, to have her try.

  Gracie had negotiated for supplies and equipment for entire hotel chains with more success than she had in that first meeting with Kevin Patrick Daniels. The man obviously had no idea of the actual worth of that run-down property. Didn’t seem to care, either. Otherwise, he would have recognized her bid for the preemptive strike it was and snapped it up.

  All in all, the meeting had been a frustrating waste of her time. She had left his house feeling disgruntled, off kilter, and thoroughly frustrated.

  Of course, that might have had something to do with the fact that the man had been half nude, with his shirt undone and jeans so old they were practically threadbare in some very revealing places. She had tried not to look, she really had, but it had been impossible not to notice the curling, dark chest hair and the very impressive bulge beneath the zipper of his jeans. Unless she’d been very much mistaken, the man had been turned on by taunting her.

  Whatever, she had left Greystone Manor more determined than ever to get her hands on that house…or around Mr. Daniels’s neck.

  She had grown very tired of hearing him declare the property wasn’t for sale. Of course it was. Everything in the world was for sale for the right price. She just had to figure out what would be persuasive enough to get his attention.

  No, check that. She’d had his attention, all right. There was hard evidence of that, so to speak. Plus, she had caught the speculative, masculine gleam in his eyes, once he’d bothered to open them all the way. She supposed there was a way to use that to her advantage if she were that sort of woman. But, alas, she wasn’t.

  No, what she needed to do was to get him focused on business, caught up in the deal, challenged by the negotiations.

  Unfortunately, she had a feeling one of those day-long motivational seminars couldn’t stir up Kevin Patrick Daniels. One thing she had to say for Mr. Daniels, he was no Max. Obviously, he had about as much ambition as a slug. Lying around in a hammock in the middle of a workday said a whole lot about the man, none of it good.

  Of course, some would say that maybe she ought to take a few lessons in relaxation from him. She’d been on vacation less than a week and already she was caught up in a business deal when she should have been following his example and sipping lemonade and lolling around in a hammock. What was it about her that drove her to succeed? If she could figure that out, maybe she could bottle it and slip a little into Mr. Daniels’s lemonade.

  A good shrink would probably tell her that she spent so much time on her career, because she was better at it than she was at relationships. In fact, she’d grown so leery of men in recent years that she’d worked very hard to attain the kind of independence that made a male protector unnecessary. She could count on her career in ways she’d never been able to count on another human being. At least she’d been able to until Max had come along and thrown a monkeywrench into that side of her life, too.

  Maybe that was why she had seized on the notion of getting that Victorian and turning it into a bed-and-breakfast. It was just one more way to solidify her independence, to make sure that she alone was in control of her future.

  Right now, though, Kevin Patrick Daniels stood between her and the control over her own life that she craved. That put him in a very dangerous position. A woman scorned in love was nothing compared to the ire of Gracie MacDougal when she’d been scorned in business.

  Yes, indeed, win or lose, the next few months were going to be very interesting.

  4

  “Why on earth didn’t you sell it to her?” Aunt Delia demanded of Kevin, after Gracie MacDougal had stalked out of the house, her spine rigid and her cute little behind swaying provocatively despite her annoyance.

  “You been listening at keyholes again?” Kevin asked, regarding his eighty-seven-year-old aunt with amusement. She was wearing bright red sneakers, a purple skirt and a blouse with most of the colors of the rainbow in it. Compared to Gracie, she was a fashion nightmare.

  Aunt Delia also had the hearing and curiosity of a kid. Nothing much got past her, as he had learned to his everlasting chagrin when he’d tried to sneak Marge Taylor up to his room late one night right after his aunt had moved in. Even though their rooms were in opposite wings of the house, Aunt Delia had
apparently heard every creak of the stairs and enough of their whispered exchange to tell her they were up to no good.

  Aunt Delia’s disapproving frown over breakfast the next morning—when Marge was long gone—had had a chilling effect on his lovelife. Of course, that scowl might have had something to do with the fact that Aunt Delia regarded that particular branch of the Taylor line as little better than trailer trash. Nothing he could say about Marge’s superb wit, high IQ, and college degree was likely to change her opinion.

  “You keep snooping like that, you’ll get a crick in your back,” Kevin told her now.

  “Didn’t have to put my ear to the keyhole this time,” his aunt replied, clearly unfazed by the accusation. “You two had the volume up so loud it interrupted my favorite show. It was a lot better than listening to some cross-dressing weirdo on a talk show.”

  Kevin shuddered, appalled and thoroughly baffled by her addiction to tabloid TV. “Why do you watch that stuff anyway?”

  “A woman my age has to keep on top of what’s going on in the world.”

  “Then you must have a mighty peculiar view of the state of affairs,” Kevin said. “You need to get out more. See some normal folks.”

  “You took away my car keys,” she reminded him.

  “After you mowed down six mailboxes in a row.”

  She shrugged. “Accidents happen.”

  “A few too many times in your case. I’ll take you anyplace you want to go.”

  “So you say.”

  “I will.”

  She gave him a sly look. “Including that off-track betting parlor on the river?” she inquired a bit too eagerly.

  Kevin saw too late the trap he had set for himself and resigned himself to an afternoon of keno and horse racing. “Tomorrow,” he agreed.

  Aunt Delia seemed surprised by the easy capitulation. “Must mean you’re hoping to run across that woman again. What did you say her name was?”

  “I didn’t. It’s Gracie,” he said, rather liking the way it sounded. Old-fashioned. Prim and proper. Yep, that was Gracie, all right. Getting her to loosen up was going to improve his summer considerably.