Amazing Gracie (5 page)

Carrying his lemonade and a handful of cookies, he headed outside and settled into a hammock spread between two massive oaks. Why work up a sweat—mental or physical—when he didn’t have to. He’d dealt with just about as much family business as he could in one day without throwing up.

First, Cousin Carolanne had dropped by hoping for a handout to pay off her charge cards. Then Tommy had called from North Carolina needing money for a lawyer to get out of his latest jam. Bobby Ray had been the final straw. A nice nap seemed called for.

He was just drifting off when he heard the roar of a distant engine. Since Greystone was not exactly on a superhighway, the sound was enough to disturb his rest and cause speculation about who was coming calling
unannounced. With any luck at all, it wouldn’t be another of his devilish cousins. Of course, he’d had enough practice saying no today to be getting really good at it. He supposed uttering it a few more times wouldn’t be a strain. He probably wouldn’t even have to sit up and glower at them fiercely to make his point.

He took a long, slow sip of lemonade and watched the lane leading up to the house until he spotted a flashy red convertible zipping along the cedar-lined drive. Since he hadn’t seen any bills from auto dealerships on his desk that morning, he had to assume it didn’t belong to anyone in the family. He relaxed again and closed his eyes.

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 and 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.