Up to Me (Shore Secrets) (25 page)

“Does it make you sad to remember?”

She stared at the stone pillars flanking the steps where her family had posed for pictures. All of them holding wine glasses etched with the number twenty-one in flowing script. Suddenly Ella wanted to go back to her parent’s house, dig through the cupboards and unearth those glasses.

“No. It was a great night. I’m looking forward to making another magical memory here with you, tonight.”

Gray goggled at her as he opened the big glass door. “You want me to compete with the awesomeness of a twenty-first birthday party?”

She gave him a sidelong glance as she whisked inside. “I think you’re a man who’ll rise to the occasion.”

“Damn straight. Besides, what could be more romantic than sipping wine and ignoring the sunset over the lake because I’m staring at you?”

Oh my. Just like that, the fizziness was back. Her heels clattered against the terra-cotta tiles as Gray led her straight through the large tasting room, threading through racks of wine bottles and past bistro tables crowded with swish-and-sippers, to the wide terrace. It overlooked a strip of the vineyard, and then looked west across Seneca Lake. The perfect sunset vantage point.

He pulled out a black, wrought iron chair full of fanciful curlicues and seated her. Then she noticed their table was the only one with flowers. A dozen roses with white petals tipped in the same hot pink as her outfit speared out of a vase with a satin bow around its neck. And a single long-stemmed rose lay on the table. Gray picked it up and brushed it along her cheek.

“The whole point of dating is getting to know each other. We may have been coming at it every which way but straight on—but the truth is that we’ve been dating since that first night on your stairs. Doesn’t matter what the town thinks. You know it and I know it.”

“You’re right.”

“Sneaking around is its own fun.” His dark eyebrows drew together into a frown. “Still, I know I’ve let you down.”

Ella reached up to grab the hand holding the rose. “Gray, no. I’ve loved spending time with you.”

“Right back at you, beautiful.” He dropped a kiss on the back of her hand, then twisted out of her grip. “But let me go on, okay? Men aren’t exactly known for admitting when they’re wrong. So you’d better savor this moment.”

“Alright.” She gave a slow, princess half wave at him. “Continue to list the ways in which you’ve wronged me.”

“Joke all you want. I’m dead serious. I’ve done nothing special for you so far.”

Men could be so literal. So he hadn’t sent her flowers or given her chocolate. Gray had given her far, far greater gifts in their time together. Ella puffed out her cheeks with a slow sigh. “You’re right. You’ve only reignited my spirit and my independence. What a thoughtless slacker of a non-date you’ve been.”

He softly batted the tip of her nose with the rose. “Pay attention. I’m semi-groveling here. We’ve spent all this time together, but I haven’t taken the time to treat you with the care you deserve. To make you
feel
special. Tonight, everything changes.”

“Everything? You mean I should’ve worn the good underwear?”

“Sweetheart, I’d prefer
no
underwear where you’re concerned.”

It was a sexy thought. One that made her knees part just a little. Even though she’d just paid a ridiculous amount of money to overnight an order from Victoria’s Secret after their tryst beneath the waterfall.

“But if you recall,” he continued, “tonight is our first date. I know you’re not the kind of woman who goes all the way on date number one.”

True. At least, it had been true in the past. Didn’t mean it still held true. She’d already proven herself to be somewhat of a rule breaker when it came to Gray. “I’d make an exception for you.”

His gaze heated up, as though she’d just put a match to his inner pilot light. Then he stroked the rose ever so slowly along the edge of her lower lip. “Good. Because I’m making one hell of an exception for you.”

Before she could ask him what that cryptic statement referred to, a waiter appeared. There was a few minutes bustle of setting up a silver wine bucket by their table, the ritual of uncorking with a flourish the bottle with the pale green label and their signature logo of a tree blowing in the wind. Gray accepted the tasting pour. Swirled and sniffed it with an ease and confidence that proclaimed him no novice to wine tasting. At his nod, the waiter filled their glasses and left with promises to return soon to top them off.

“This is a Pinot Gris. Something light to kick off the evening. Delicate in style, but with a flavor that’s lush with a hint of wildness. In other words, this wine is you, Ella.” Gray picked up his glass. Tilted it to catch the sun in the pale yellow liquid, so pale it matched not the rind, but the pith of a lemon. “I could toast to the start of something new. Or to our first official date. I could even be a cocksure son of a bitch, wink, and toast to our second official date.”

Ella raised her glass. “How about we say all of the above?”

“No. Those are all about us. Tonight’s all about you.” He raised his glass. “To an exceptional, and exceptionally beautiful, woman.” They clinked glasses, the sound round and full and clear, seeming to echo straight out over the lake.

She took a quick sip, then another. The cool melon and peach flavors slipped down as smoothly as Gray’s compliments. A girl could get used to being treated so well. And then, in a flash, Ella remembered that she couldn’t get used to it at all. That her time with Gray came with a ticking clock, due to expire in all-too-few days. Casey and Piper had been right. She wasn’t in the market for a fling. Even now, the thought of him leaving clenched her stomach into a knot.

Although...who’s to say they couldn’t keep seeing each other after his vacation ended? Or would that turn her into a horrible, clingy woman? The kind who were sure that their unique brand of caring could change their man. Reform his roaming ways. Or his sports addiction. Worse yet, those pathetic women who swore that given time, they could turn a newly gay man back to playing for the opposite team. Ella and her friends always had mocked those desperate, grabbing women. Pitied the men they’d set their sights on. Horror of horrors, was she turning into one of them?

Could it really hurt, though, to find out a little more about Gray? That was the point of a first date. Sharing all the basic information they’d so blithely ignored over the past seven days. Maybe she’d discover he led a life conducive to long-distance romance. Or maybe they’d just share some wine and some laughs and check this damn date off the list so they could rip each other’s clothes off. Either way was a win in her book. At least, that’s what she had to keep telling herself.

“I read a few other things in the journal tonight,” Ella said in a leading tone.

Gray leaned back, kicked his long legs out in front and crossed them at the ankles. The picture of relaxation, aside from the downward slant to his eyebrows as he scowled at her. “Don’t start. I saw them, too. Suggestions on what we should do on our date. Everything from hiking the falls to bingo night at the lodge to a séance to get your parent’s blessing from the great beyond.”

Right. If Ella thought the séance had a prayer of working, she’d hold one to ask how to save the Manor from this mystery buyer. She could handle Gray without anyone else’s help, dead or alive. “The séance gets extra points for the most original idea.”

“No. Nobody gets
points
.” He spat out the word. “I’ve romanced women on the pink sand beaches of Oahu.” Gray thrust out his arm in what she assumed to be the direction of Hawaii. Then he crossed his body and pointed the opposite direction. “Danced with them in the Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Center. I don’t need an entire town trying to micromanage this date. It’s intrusive.” Now he ticked off his points on one hand. “It’s insulting. And it’s damn annoying.”

The man was utterly adorable when he ranted against the journal. And gesturing so much she worried he’d knock over his wine. “Didn’t you ask Ward for a recommendation on where to take me?”

“Yes.” Gray stretched out the word, clearly wary of her talking him out of his tirade.

“Just consider these unsolicited recommendations. No different at all. They want us to have a good time. They know you’re unfamiliar with the area.”

“If they know so much, they should know that I don’t want any help from the damn journal!” A couple at the closest table looked over, eyes wide at his raised voice.

“Is that so?” Ella eased her foot out of one stiletto and ran it up and down Gray’s leg. Underneath his pants. Not necessarily to calm him down. Just to satisfy her own desire to touch him. To feel the crisp hairs of his calf against her arch. “What about the question you wrote in it? The one about your job? I didn’t tell you what to write. You pulled that out of the dark and snarly recesses of your subconscious all by yourself.”

“You caught me in a weak moment. It was the first thing that came to mind.”

“It leapt to mind because it’s bothering you.” The question he penned that day had struck her in its sadness. Here was a man who appeared successful. Who had enough money to blow on two weeks in the Marshgrass Suite. So why the career angst?

“I’m also worried about global warming,” he tossed back flippantly. “I don’t expect the journal to magically solve my problem, or those of the rapidly vanishing ozone layer.”

Wow. The man sure could dodge and weave when Ella tried to shift focus onto him. “Gray, I’m serious. God knows I’ve bared my soul to you, repeatedly. If the point of tonight is to get to know each other better, then this is what I want to know.”

“Are you positive? This is the topic you want to use to kick-start our date? Because we’ve got a relaxed, sexy vibe going here.” Gray leaned forward. Stroked his fingers through her loose waves. “I could spend the evening telling you that you’re beautiful. That I wake up every morning eager to rush downstairs and see you at breakfast. How you fill my heart every time you laugh. That I fall asleep every night thinking about what it’ll feel like when I finally drive inside you.”

As her chest slowly tightened, Ella realized she’d forgotten to breathe. “I see right through you. Did you really think you could distract me with all those pretty words?” Words that she’d already memorized. Words that made her wish she still kept a diary, so she could have the joy of tracing them out, letter by letter.

“A man can hope.” Then his hand cupped her jaw. Heavy-lidded eyes locked onto hers, their navy so dark it blended with his pupils in the growing dusk. “But I need you to know I meant every single one. Those weren’t empty compliments, Ella. I’m crazy about you.”

She’d savor the moment later. For now, she had to use his admission as an emotional crowbar to get at Gray’s vulnerable core. “Prove it. Answer my question. Do you really feel as if your job is crushing your soul?”

He opened his mouth. Closed it. Picked up his glass and took a long, slow swallow. Licked those kissable lips of his and said simply, “Yes.”

“So why stay?” Ella pressed.

“It pays well.”

His glibness often amused her. Not this time, though. “There are many jobs that fit that bill. I hear there’s lots of money to be made in plumbing. But I don’t see you crawling on your belly snaking out pipes.”

Another slow sip of his wine. “I’m not a big fan of the complex aroma of raw sewage. But thanks for the career counseling.”

With every answer he fought her, like a marlin straining at the end of a taut fishing line. “I’m serious. If you’re miserable, why not leave? You’re young enough to start over doing something completely different, if it interests you.”

“I am. My mom’s not.” He shifted, pulling in his legs and catching her hand to rub his thumb across the top of it. “Remember I told you how she slaved in the diner after the legal bills left us flat broke?”

Now they were getting somewhere. “Yes.”

“It was killing her. She picked up extra shifts, worked doubles all the time. Got sick almost every other month. She had no friends left, thanks to Dad’s actions. Mom worked herself to the bone to take care of us.”

A heron caught her eye, rising out of the lake with a tremendous flap of its wide wings. “That’s awful. Your mother must have a backbone of steel.”

“Takes one to know one,” Gray said with a chuckle. “Once I graduated, as soon as I got my feet under me, I started sending her checks. At first she put up a fight. Insisted on not taking anything from me. So I insisted it was the only way I could live with the guilt over everything she’d done for me. I wore her down, eventually.”

“With a newly minted degree, you couldn’t have been rolling in dough yourself.”

Gray snorted. “Not hardly. There were more rats than furniture in my first apartment. But I’d worked all through school, managed to save a little. Got a good promotion or two. It took a while, but I finally convinced her we had enough of a cushion so that she could finally leave that town.”

Ella wanted to tackle him. Smother him in kisses while simultaneously telling him that he was the best man she’d ever met. Most twenty-something kids wouldn’t put their own comfort second to their mother’s. Wouldn’t indenture themselves to a job they hated and not reap any of the rewards themselves. Blinking against the wetness in her eyes, she said, “Gray, you’re amazing. You bought your mom’s freedom.”

Shifting in his seat, he looked like she was poking him with a cactus instead of lauding him. “Don’t make it sound all noble. I barely scratched the surface of what I owe that woman. All I did was take a weekend, help her move into a little condo in middle-of-nowhere central Pennsylvania. Rent’s cheap, the people are decent, and she works in a flower shop.”

“Is it her dream job?” There. With the focus off him and back on his mother, Gray stopped the restless movement of his leg.

“Mom loves it. She loves not being run ragged. Not finishing a shift smelling of grease and smoke. She starts every day by poking her head into the cooler where they keep all the blooms and inhaling that perfumed air for a few minutes. Even on the days when it’s filled with nothing but carnations and baby’s breath.”