Rising Tides (21 page)

Eyes that were dazzled by love saw some things with perfect clarity. ‘‘How long have you been in love with him?’’

‘‘Seems like all my life,’’ Grace murmured, then caught herself. ‘‘I didn’t mean to say that.’’

‘‘Too late. You haven’t told him?’’

‘‘No.’’ At even the thought of it, Grace’s heart clutched in panic. ‘‘I shouldn’t be talking about this. He’d hate it. It’d embarrass him.’’

‘‘Well, he’s not here, is he?’’ Amused and delighted, Anna beamed. ‘‘I think it’s terrific.’’

‘‘It’s not. It’s awful. It’s just awful.’’ Horrified, she pressed a hand to her mouth to hold back a sudden and unexpected rush of tears. ‘‘I ruined it. Ruined everything, and now he doesn’t even want to be around me.’’

‘‘Oh, Grace.’’ Flooded with sympathy, Anna abandoned her chopping to wrap her arms tight around Grace’s stiff form, then nudged her toward a chair. ‘‘I can’t believe that.’’

‘‘It’s true. He told me to stay away.’’ Her voice hitched, mortifying her. ‘‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s got into me. I never cry.’’

‘‘Then it’s time you broke tradition.’’ Anna tore off a
couple of sheets of paper towels and offered them. ‘‘Go ahead, you’ll feel better.’’

‘‘I feel so stupid.’’ With the dam broken, Grace sobbed into the paper towels.

‘‘There’s nothing to feel stupid about.’’

‘‘There is, there is. I made it so we can’t even be friends anymore.’’

‘‘How did you do that?’’ Anna asked gently.

‘‘I was pushing myself at him. I guess I thought—after the night he kissed me . . .’’

‘‘He kissed you?’’ Anna repeated, and immediately began to feel better.

‘‘He was mad.’’ Grace pressed her face into the towel, breathing deep until she could regain some control. ‘‘It was after what happened at the pub. I’ve never seen him like that. I’ve known him most of my life and never knew he could be like that. I’d have been scared if I hadn’t known him—the way he tossed that man aside like he was a bag of feathers. And he had this look in his eyes that made them hard and different, and . . .’’ She sighed and admitted the worst. ‘‘Exciting. Oh, it’s horrible to think that.’’

‘‘Are you kidding?’’ Anna reached over and squeezed her hand. ‘‘I wasn’t even there and I’m excited.’’

With a watery laugh, Grace mopped at her face. ‘‘I don’t know what came over me, but he was yelling at me. It got my back up, and we had a fight when he took me home. He was saying that I should quit my job and talking to me like I’d lost every working brain cell in my head.’’

‘‘Typical male reaction.’’

‘‘That’s right.’’ Abruptly angry all over again, Grace nodded. ‘‘It was just typical, and I never would have expected that from him. Then we were rolling around on the grass.’’

‘‘You were?’’ Absolutely delighted, Anna grinned.

‘‘He was kissing me, and I was kissing him back, and
it was wonderful. All my life I’d wondered how it would be, and then there it was and it was better than anything I’d ever imagined. Then he stopped and said he was sorry.’’

Anna closed her eyes. ‘‘Oh, Ethan, you idiot.’’

‘‘He told me to go inside, but just before I did he said he thought about me. That he didn’t want to, but he did. So I hoped that things would start to change.’’

‘‘I’d say they’d changed already.’’

‘‘Yes, but not the way I’d hoped. The day you and Cam came back, I was here when he got home. And it seemed like, maybe . . . but he took me back to my house. He told me he’d thought it through and he wasn’t going to touch me again and I was to steer clear of him for a while.’’ She let out a long breath. ‘‘So I am.’’

Anna waited a moment, then shook her head. ‘‘Oh, Grace, you idiot.’’ When Grace frowned, Anna leaned across the table. ‘‘Obviously the man wants you and it scares the hell out of him. You have the power here. Why aren’t you using it?’’

‘‘The power? What power?’’

‘‘The power to get what you want if what you want is Ethan Quinn. You just need to get him alone and seduce him.’’

Grace snorted. ‘‘Seduce him? Me seduce Ethan? I couldn’t do that.’’

‘‘Why couldn’t you?’’

‘‘Because I . . .’’ There had to be a simple and logical reason. ‘‘I don’t know. I don’t think I’d be good at it.’’

‘‘I bet you’d be great at it. And I’m going to help you.’’

‘‘You are?’’

‘‘Absolutely.’’ Anna rose to fuss with her sauce and to think. ‘‘When’s your next night off?’’

‘‘Tomorrow.’’

‘‘Good, that’s just enough time. I’d keep Aubrey for you overnight, but that might make it too obvious, and
we’d better be subtle. Is there someone you’d trust with her?’’

‘‘My mother’s been wanting to take her overnight, but I couldn’t—’’

‘‘Perfect. You might feel inhibited with the baby in the house. I’ll figure out how to get him over there.’’

She turned around, studied Grace. Cool, classic looks, she mused. Big, sad eyes. The man was already a goner. ‘‘You’ll want to wear something simple but feminine.’’ Considering, she tapped a fingertip against her teeth. ‘‘
Pastel would be best, a fragile color, soft green or pink.’’

Because her head was starting to spin, Grace put a hand to it. ‘‘You’re going too fast.’’

‘‘Well, someone has to. At this rate, you and Ethan will still be circling each other when you’re sixty. No jewelry,’’ she added. ‘‘Just the bare minimum of makeup. Wear your usual scent, too. He’s used to it, it’ll say something to him.’’

‘‘Anna, it doesn’t matter what I wear if he doesn’t want to be there.’’

‘‘Of course it matters.’’ As a woman who had a longterm love affair with clothes, she was very nearly shocked at the suggestion. ‘‘Men don’t think they notice what a woman wears—unless it’s next to nothing. But they do, subconsciously. And it helps click the mood or the image.’’

Lips pursed, she added fresh basil to the sauce and got out a skillet for sauteéing onions and garlic. ‘‘I’m going to try to get him over there close to sunset. You should light some candles, put on music. The Quinns like their music.’’

‘‘What would I say to him?’’

‘‘I can only take you so far here, Grace,’’ Anna said dryly. ‘‘And I’m betting you’ll figure it out when the time comes.’’

She was far from convinced of that. While new scents began to romance the air, Grace worried her lip. ‘‘It feels like I’d be tricking him.’’

‘‘And your point would be?’’

Grace chuckled. And gave up. ‘‘I have a pink dress. I bought it for Steve’s wedding a couple years ago.’’

Anna glanced over her shoulder. ‘‘How does it look on you?’’

‘‘Well . . .’’ Grace’s lips curved slowly. ‘‘Steve’s best man hit on me before they cut the cake.’’

‘‘Sounds like a deal.’’

‘‘I still don’t—’’ Grace stopped as her mother’s ear caught the tinkling music from the living room. ‘‘That’s the end of Aubrey’s show. I have to finish up in there.’’

She rose quickly, panicked at the thought of Ethan coming home before she was gone. Surely everything she felt must show on her face. ‘‘Anna, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I just don’t think it’s going to work. Ethan knows his own mind.’’

‘‘Then it won’t hurt him to come around to your house and see you in a pink dress, will it?’’

Grace blew out a breath. ‘‘Does Cam ever win an argument with you?’’

‘‘On the rare occasion, but never when I’m at my best.’’

Grace edged toward the door, knowing that Aubrey’s sit-and-behave time was nearly up. ‘‘I’m glad you came home early today.’’

Anna tapped her wooden spoon on the lip of her pot. ‘‘Me, too.’’

T
HE FOLLOWING DAY AS
sunset approached, Grace wasn’t certain she was glad at all. Her nerves were stretched so tight she could feel them straining and bubbling under her skin. Her stomach continually jumped in quick little rabbit hops. And her head was beginning to throb in a sharp, insistent rhythm.

It would be just perfect, she thought in disgust, if Anna managed to get Ethan over, and she simply pitched forward, ill and babbling, at his feet.

That would be seductive.

She should never have agreed to this foolishness, she told herself as she paced through her little house yet again. Anna had thought so quickly, made up her mind so fast and put everything in motion so smoothly, that she’d been swept along before she could calculate the pitfalls.

What in the world would she
say
to him if he came? Which he probably wouldn’t, she thought, caught between relief and despair. He probably wouldn’t even come and
then she’d have sent her baby away for the night for nothing.

It was too quiet. There was nothing but the early-evening breeze rustling through the trees for company. If Aubrey had been there—where she belonged—they’d have been reading her bedtime story now. She would have been all scrubbed and powdered and curled up under Grace’s arm in the rocker. Snuggly and sleepy.

When she heard her own sigh, Grace pressed her lips tightly together and marched to the small stereo system on the yellow pine shelves in the living room. She selected CDs from her collection—an indulgence that she refused to feel guilty over—and let the house fill with the weeping and romantic notes of Mozart.

She walked to the window to watch the sun drop lower in the sky. The light was going soft, slipping away shade by shade. In the ornamental plum that graced the Cutters’ front yard a lone whippoorwill began to sing to the twilight. She wished she could laugh at herself, silly Grace Monroe standing by the window in her pink dress waiting for a star to wish on.

But she lowered her forehead to the glass, closed her eyes, and reminded herself that she was too old for wishes.

A
NNA THOUGHT SHE
would have done very well in the espionage game. She had kept her plans locked tight behind closed lips—no matter how desperately she’d wanted to spill out everything to Cam.

She had to remind herself that he was, after all, a man. And he was Ethan’s brother, which was another strike against him. This was a woman thing. She thought she was very subtle about keeping her eye on Ethan as well. He wasn’t going to escape somewhere directly after dinner,
as was his habit, nor would he have a clue that his sister-in-law was keeping him on a short rein.

The ice cream idea had been a brainstorm. She’d picked up a gallon on the way home and now had all three of her men, as she liked to think of them, settled on the back porch downing bowls of Rocky Road.

Timing and execution, she told herself, and rubbed her hands together before she stepped out on the porch. ‘‘It’s going to be a warm night. It’s hard to believe it’s nearly July already.’’

She wandered to the porch rail to lean over and scan her flower beds. Coming right along, she thought with a sense of righteous satisfaction. ‘‘I thought we could have a backyard picnic on the Fourth.’’

‘‘They have fireworks on the waterfront,’’ Ethan put in. ‘‘Every year, half hour after sunset. You can see them from right here on the porch.’’

‘‘Really? That would be perfect. Wouldn’t it be fun, Seth? You could have your friends over and we’d cook burgers and dogs.’’

‘‘That’d be cool.’’ He was already down to scraping his bowl and calculating how to finesse seconds.

‘‘Have to dig out the horseshoes,’’ Cam decided. ‘‘Do we still have them, Ethan?’’

‘‘Yeah, they’re around.’’

‘‘And music.’’ Anna shifted just enough to rub her husband’s knee. ‘‘The three of you could play. You don’t play together nearly often enough to suit me. I’ll have to make a list. You’ll have to tell me who we should invite—and the food. Food.’’ She thought she feigned flustered irritation very well as she pushed away from the porch rail. ‘‘How could I have forgotten? I promised Grace to trade her my recipe for tortellini for hers for fried chicken.’’

She dashed inside to retrieve the index card that she’d neatly written the recipe on—something she’d never done before in her life—then dashed back out again. All apologetic smiles.

‘‘Ethan, would you run this over to her?’’

He stared at the little white card. If he hadn’t been sitting down, his hands would have jumped into his pockets. ‘‘What?’’