When You Wish (Contemporary Romance) (19 page)

“Yes, sir. But I came here to discuss another project with you. Project Hope.”

Moss’s face still held a pleasant smile but his eyes went blank. He had no idea what Dan was talking about. And here Grace was hoping against hope that if she had got funding this man would let her do some good.

“Grace Lighthorse spoke to you recently. Security blankets for seriously ill children?”

“Ah, the Indian girl.”

Dan’s eye started to twitch. “I have her research here.” Dan held up the binder. “It’s quite good.”

“You think so?” Dr. Moss made no move to take the binder, and Dan’s hand fell. “Tell me again what it is you research, Daniel?”

Here we go,
Dan thought.
Off come the gloves.
Moss might have met with him because of his father, but because Moss was like his father, he would also think that Dan was little short of a moron, despite his intelligence, to be doing what he was doing. That was why Dan preferred to do just about everything alone. Time to start talking the language of his father.

“My research is apart from the research of Miss Lighthorse. One has nothing to do with the other.”

Moss ignored him. “Wasn’t it toes?”

“Paronychial infection.”

“Ah, yes. I’m supposed to take the word of a man who spends years trying to cure toenail rot?”

“Not rot exactly.”

Moss shrugged. He could care less about anything but his own little world. As Dan had told Grace, men like Moss loved to say no. And Dan heard a great big no coming. Why had he thought he could outtalk a master like Moss? Just because Dan had been raised to be a stiff, and was one still according to Grace, didn’t mean he was accepted by them. Or that he ever had been.

“Never mind
.” Dan tucked Grace’s binder beneath his arm and prepared to go.

Unfortunately, Moss felt the need to get a few licks in for the enemy first. “You’re an embarrassment to your parents. I don’t plan to let you embarrass me with another of your hare-brained ideas.”

“It’s not my idea, it’s Grace’s. And it’s a good one.”

“Grace, huh? Well, that explains it. Don’t get yourself in trouble, son. Or rather, get her in trouble.”

Dan’s eye was twitching so hard tears gathered at one corner and threatened to run down his face. He blinked rapidly, which only made the twitching worse.

“You okay?”

“Fine,” he ground out. How did Grace keep going forward when all these stiffs were so backward? “What would it take for you to give Miss Lighthorse’s project a chance?”

“I can’t think of a single thing.”

“What if she got the Cabilla Grant?”

The barely contained amusement on Moss’s face fled. “She’s up for t
he Cabilla Grant? That’s different. Mrs. Cabilla is well respected.”

“Or at least her money is.”

“Money makes the world go around. If the Indian girl’s project gets funding like that, I’ll give her research a look-see. But not before.”

Dan sighed. Grace had been right. She needed the Cabilla Grant to gain respect in a world that should be above such things but sadly wasn’t.

After thanking Dr. Moss, and agreeing to say hello to his father next time he spoke with him—sometime in the next millennium, maybe—Dan escaped the office, then the hospital.

Once outside he took a deep breath of warm, fresh air. He’d forgotten how playing the game, walking the walk
, talking the talk of the establishment made him feel. Lightly soiled. He might not be a free spirit, but he wasn’t one of
them
either.

He was right back where he’d started: Grace needed the grant; he needed the grant. If he got it, her project was doomed. If she got it, years of very important research would be no better than toenail rot. What were they going to do?

Dan looked at the binder he still clutched in his hand and got a very interesting idea. Grace’s research was good, but he could make it better.

He looked up at the hospital with a considering glance. He might not be like them, or want to be, but he knew what made them what they were.

Money talked, did it? So did prestige. Intelligence. Class.

But Dan knew what talked even louder.

Talk. Buzz. Gossip.

The medical profession was no different from any other. If he improved upon Grace’s research, then let the cat out of the bag—accidentally on
purpose—the resulting chatter would have hospitals lining up in droves, with or without the Cabilla Grant. The buzz would create opportunities for alternative funding. Dan could keep the Cabilla Grant. Grace’s project would move forward. He’d find the cure he’d been searching for and the kiddies would get their blankies.

Grace arrived home to a coven of Jewels and one Norwegian masseur lounging in the quilt room. The four had their heads together, as they did every day, except Olaf’s and Em’s heads were attached—at the lips—which stopped Grace in mid-stride. Even though she’d overheard them last night, seeing them this morning still shocked her.

She was thrilled for them, but they should really get a room, she thought. Glancing at Ruby and Garnet, she found rapturous gazes upon their faces. They were thrilled for Em, too. Looked like husband number six would take his place in the family Bible real soon—if there was any room left for his name.

Ruby saw her in the doorway. “Grace, you’re home.”

Everyone looked up. Grace smiled, her gaze on Em. For a moment, Em looked nonplussed, after all she didn’t know that Grace knew that . . . Well, whatever. Then Olaf stood and drew Em up to stand at his side.

“Gracie, my angel, your Aunt Em has consented to be my wife. I have loved her from the moment my eyes fell upon her. How could I not?”

Em punched his massive arm. “Maybe because I’m old enough to be your mother?”

“You are not! I am ever so much older than I look. Stop trying to talk me out of this, Emerald. What Olaf wants, Olaf gets.”

“Uh, how old are you anyway?” Grace found herself asking. She’d never dared before.

“Old enough to know better than to tell, so do not ask me again. My life is complete and I will have no more arguments. Now, I have an appointment.” He waved his hand at them. “Plan the wedding. Em will move in with me tonight. Once we marry, to an apartment we will go.”

“Apartment?” The thought of Em leaving the house panicked Grace for a moment. Husband number five had died six years ago. Grace was kind of used to having Em around to talk to whenever the need arose. “Isn’t this all kind of sudden?”

Olaf stopped in the doorway. “It is not sudden for me. It has taken forever. We are not children to be uncertain of our
minds. We will not waste a minute now that Em has come to her senses.” He strode off.

Grace turned to Em, who patted her on the arm. “The town is small, honey. Wherever we move, it’ll be like we’re right next door.”

Ruby and Garnet joined them, each patting Grace on a shoulder. “And we’ll still be right here with you,” Garnet assured her.

“You know we’d never leave you,” Ruby added. “We’ll start packing your things, Em.”

The two moved out of the room, leaving Grace and Em alone. The sound of their bickering drifted from the hall as they made their way up to the third floor.

“I’ll wrap the glass.”

“A map of the grass? If you want to dig, you need to call the diggers hotline.”

“Not a map. Wrap! Wrap! Never mind.”

“They’re going to drive you crazy, aren’t they?” Em stared at her with a concerned frown.

“Why should tod
ay be any different than yesterday?”

Em didn’t laugh; instead, she looked uncertain, which for Em was unheard of. “I guess they could live with us.”

“I’m kidding,” Grace assured her. “I’ve lived with those two all my life. I just tune them out, like you do. But if they left I’d miss them. Just like I’ll miss you.”

“We could all live in the house.” She tilted her head. “But Olaf said newlyweds need some space.”

“Of course you do. I’m being silly. It’s just that everything is changing so fast.”

“It is?” Em’s gaze went from uncertain to shrewd in an instant. “Besides me marrying Mr. Muscles and getting our own place, what’s changed?”

Grace shrugged. Em continued to stare at her, waiting. She always did that until Grace folded and told her everything. “I don’t know.” Throwing up her hands, Grace walked to the windows. “I feel squirrelly all the time. As if I’m on the verge of something I can’t see but should be able to.”

“Let me guess, this started right about the time Dr. Magnificent showed up?”

Refusing to turn and meet her aunt’s eyes—sometimes Em saw too much—Grace stared down at the hustle and bustle of Lake Illusion at lunchtime. “So what if it did?”

“You like him. He likes you. Why are you fighting this?”

“He’s not for me, auntie. He’ll hurt me in the end.”

“You’re clairvoyant now? When did that happen?”

Grace turned to face her aunt. “It doesn’t take a clairvoyant to see what kind of guy he is. Olaf doesn’t like him either.”

“Olaf doesn’t like anyone, except us, and you know it. That’s Olaf. He sees you as his daughter.” Em puffed up her chest and lowered her voice to imitate her brand-new fiancé. “And for a daughter of Olaf, no one is good enough.” She let the air out of her lungs on a giggle. “He’d dislike the Dalai Lama. No one who wears a bed sheet could go near his Gracie. The fact that he hasn’t tossed the good doctor into the lake ought to tell you something.”

True enough. Still . . .

“Spill it, Grace. What is it about Dan that’s got you all squirrelly?”

Grace hesitated for another long moment, not wanting to say aloud what was in her mind and bring all the pain of the past back to life. But maybe if she did speak of it, the past would lose its power to hurt her.

“He’s just like Jared,” she blurted.

“
How
is he just like Jared? He’s got a wife stashed somewhere and a few kiddies to boot?”

Grace winced at that memory. Her perfect little dream world had burst when Jared walked into her father’s funeral with the pristine wifey-wife, and the perfect son and daughter he had negle
cted to mention while whispering sweet nothings into Grace’s ear.

Grief-stricken by her father’s death, the betrayal of the second man she’d ever loved had been nearly too much. Hearing him joke at the burial about the benefits of slumming with the natives had pushed her over the edge.

The very next week, she’d moved, with her aunts and mother, to Minneapolis, and Jared had gone home to Washington where he’d belonged. She had not allowed a man close enough to touch since.

She’d never told anyone what she’d overheard, and she never planned to. Hearing someone she’d trusted with all of herself speak of her as if she were dirt had been wo
rse than the sneers in her hometown, the whispers at college, and the veiled insults from the stiffs at the hospital. For the first time in her life she’d been embarrassed about who she was.

Over the grave of t
he father, who had spent a lifetime striving to be someone different than who he was, Grace vowed to always be herself and never be embarrassed again.

“Hey, earth to Grace?” Em waved her hand in front of Grace’s face, effectively snapping her out of a past she did not care to remember.

“Uh, yes. I mean no. I don’t think he has a wife.” Grace sighed and her shoulders sagged. “But then I didn’t think Jared had one either.”

“Jared was a scum-sucking leach.”

“True.”

“If your father had been alive, or Olaf had been around, Jared would have been a very sorry slime-bucket.”

“Also true. But Jared is past. I learned my lesson. I won’t make the same mistake twice.”

“I don’t understand why you think Dan is like Jared.” Em lifted one shoulder. “But you’re the one who feels things about people. Did you ever stop to think why you’re attracted to the same type of man?”

“I’m not following you.”

“You say Jared and Dan are alike. And Jared and your father were alike, too.”

Grace frowned. She didn’t like where this was headed. “So?”

“Maybe you need a man like that.”

“To drive me crazy all of my days?”

Em laughed. “You never know. Look at your mom and dad--they were two halves of one soul.”

“And without Dad, Mom is half a person.”

“I didn’t want to mention this, but Diamond was always a wuss.”

“Excuse me?” Grace had never heard her aunt speak ill of her mother.

“I lost five husbands, and I’m still functional. You gotta have some guts in life or get out.”

“I’m probably more like Mom than you, Aunt Em. I just don’t want to go there.”

“But, sweetie, there is the best place on earth. You’ll never be truly alive, truly happy, until you love with all your heart and give all of your soul.”

“Loving Dan would be a big mistake.”