Wedding Series Boxed Set (3 Books in 1) (The Wedding Series) (65 page)

Michael turned into the hotel’s driveway. But before Grady could put his hand on the door handle or marshal words of cheerful farewell, Tris slued around to face him.

“Grady, stop trying to seduce Leslie.”

Her distrust was like a slap; the unfairness only added to the sting. He could have tried to seduce Leslie—and probably succeeded—but he had released her. And later, when some sense they didn’t have a number for had told him her resistance was weakening, he had warned her to run back to her room.

He said none of this. He stared at the woman who’d been his friend, who’d once idolized him, and said nothing.

“How can you do this, Grady? Another piece of the Grady Roberts legend? You don’t need more notches. What are you trying to accomplish? When I introduced you two last fall, I was so happy that two people I love seemed to get along. But now...This isn’t right, Grady.”

“It’s none of your business, Tris.”

“Yes, it is my business because Leslie’s my friend. And if it weren’t for me, you never would have met her. You never would have made her a target for one of your all-out campaigns. The flowers and candy and wine—No, she didn’t tell me. She probably thinks I don’t know. But I do. And even if I didn’t I saw you at the reception and this weekend. Remember, Grady, I’ve been around you a long time. I know the signs. And I won’t stand by and watch you treat her the way you always treat the women you date.”

He said nothing, afraid of what he would say if he started.

“Why can’t you just leave her alone?”

He shifted but still said nothing.

“Grady, you’ve always been careful to try to pick women who won’t be hurt when you leave, but Leslie’s not like that.”

“I know that.”

“Then how can you do this to her? How can you go after her like any other woman?”

“It’s different.”

“Different? How? It looks like a standard Grady operation to me, except Leslie’s holding out.”

“I don’t know, Tris,” Michael interposed quietly. “I don’t remember Grady seeing a woman for as long as he’s been seeing Leslie.”

As much as Tris had hurt him, Grady was nearly as disconcerted by Michael’s thoughtful eyes.

“That’s because he’s never had a woman resist the way Leslie’s resisting. He’s not ‘seeing’ her, he’s pursuing her. And only because she hasn’t fallen into his lap.”

“Tris—” He bit off the words, but couldn’t purge the anger from his muscles as he shoved open the car door, or from his tone. “Just back off, Tris.”

She leveled a stare at him. “That’s exactly what I’m asking you to do. Back off.”

He slammed the door behind him and waited impatiently for Michael, moving in his unhurried way, to come around to open the trunk.

When he had his bag, he issued a curt, “Thanks,” and started around Michael.

“Grady—” He might have kept going, but a hand on his arm stopped him.

He glared into Michael’s unperturbed eyes. “You, too, Dickinson? You want to take a shot, too?”

“Not particularly. But I do want to say something.”

“Doesn’t everybody?”

Michael ignored that. “We haven’t been as close as you and Paul, but I’ve known you a long time, Grady, so in a lot of ways I think I know you very well. And there’s something you said just now that I think you should think about carefully.”

“Yeah, what’s that?”

“You said it’s different.”

Grady looked at him without saying anything, not understanding immediately, then not sure he wanted to understand.

“Tris asked how you could go after Leslie like other women you’ve gone after, and you said, ‘It’s different.’ ”

“So?”

“So that could mean you have different feelings about Leslie than you’ve had about the other women. Or it could mean Leslie’s different from those other women. Or it could mean both.”

Under Michael’s intense look, Grady remained silent.

“I’ve seen a good number of the women you’ve dated over the years and I’ve gotten to know Leslie the past few months, so I can say she is definitely different from your usual choice. About your feelings, well, only you know that, if anybody does. That’s what I want you to think about. That’s all I had to say. See you later, Grady.”

Grady was standing in the driveway when they pulled away.

Over the next hectic few days in Chicago, as Grady finalized plans so that operations would roll smoothly while he devoted himself to establishing a D.C. branch, he thought about what Michael had said. He could think about that without the lump in his gut that formed if he let memories of what Paul or Tris had said creep into his consciousness.

At least, he thought about Leslie being different from other women he’d dated. The stuff about his own feelings he decided wasn’t worth thinking about. If he was acting different—and God knows Michael was the only one who thought he might be doing that; Paul, Tris and Leslie had told him often enough he was acting right in character—it was simply because Leslie was a different type of woman.

And since she was different, what he needed was a different approach.

Stripped of the standby gifts of flowers, candy, wine, perfume or jewelry, Grady felt naked. But far from defeated.

After all, Leslie might have given him the key herself. What had she told him about finding the right gift for Bette and Paul’s housewarming? Think about their lives, think about their likes. Then think about what he could give them that would make them feel good.

So he thought hard about Leslie Craig’s life and likes, and when memories of her laughter and her lips intruded, he resolutely pushed them back.

At 2:45 Friday afternoon it hit him. He got his personal assistant started gathering the information he’d need—by fax or express delivery or any other means before he returned to Washington on the next Thursday.

And then he dove back into the work he needed to complete before he could leave, and start a new kind of campaign. To get to know Leslie Craig. Really know her.

The toughest part was getting Leslie in his car.

He’d felt like a maniac lurking around her apartment building Saturday morning, but talking to her phone answering machine wouldn’t do. This had to be done face-to-face. So he lurked. And, finally, he was rewarded.

Leslie came around the corner carrying a bag of groceries in one arm and dry cleaning in the other.

In jeans and sneakers, her hair pulling free of the clip at her nape, she looked more like a waif than anyone seeing her professional image would believe. This was the woman from the beach, the one he’d held and desired. He might have preferred a layer of her professional polish between them right now. He felt a lurch in his chest that had to be nerves.

He moved quickly to intercept her, relieving her of the groceries during her moment of frozen surprise.

“Grady. What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to make amends.”

“Oh?” The syllable vibrated with wariness and curiosity.

“I told you when I first called that I wanted to get to know you. And then when you gave me the opportunity, I tried to push you into something, uh, different.” This was tougher than he’d expected. “So to make amends, I figured since you don’t have a car, I could take you places you wouldn’t ordinarily get to visit.”

“Grady, I don’t—”

He pushed on before her “no” solidified. “Starting today. It’s a beautiful day. I thought we’d go to Manassas Battlefield. Unless you’d rather see Mount Vernon.”

“Manassas?”

“Sure, you know, site of two Civil War battles. Being a Southerner, you probably call them the Battles of Bull Run. It should be a great day to see it. There’s a slide show, and park rangers give talks, then we can wander around on our own, really get a feel for the place. But, as I said, we could make it Mount Vernon. Or Gunston Hall or—”

“How do you know about Gunston Hall?”

“Gunston Hall, home of George Mason, Virginia patriot and principal architect of the Bill of Rights. Called by Thomas Jefferson the wisest of his generation. Built Gunston Hall in 1755, down the Potomac River from Mount Vernon,” he recited. A grin, partly relief, escaped. “I’ve been doing my homework.”

An answering smile started, but she clamped down on it.

"It’s a generous offer, Grady, but I have plans this evening, so—”

“So I’ll get you back in good time. That probably would make Manassas best. It’ll be closer than Gunston Hall and less crowded than Mount Vernon.”

“Grady, I really think—”

“Please.”

They looked at each other for what felt like three-quarters of an hour, but what he supposed couldn’t have been even a minute. But it was enough time to read a flurry of emotions in her hazel eyes, then a growing determination.

He made another try, “It’s my way of saying I’m sorry and—”

“That’s not necessary, Grady.” She reached for her groceries, but he held on.

“I want to say I’m sorry, and that I’d like a second chance—”

“But—”

“On your terms.”

That stopped her. “My terms?”

“Yes. Friends.”

“Friends?”

He nodded. “Friends. Strictly hands-off friends.” He raised his free hand palm out and met her eyes directly. “I mean it, Leslie. I’ll try my damnedest.”

The multiple colors in her eyes shifted and started to take on a new hue. But before he could read the secrets she hid, she turned her head. His hand started reaching, prepared to cup her chin, to turn her back to him so he could see her eyes.

He let it drop to his side. Hands-off, he’d promised. Strictly hands-off. So if she wanted to contemplate the line of begonias that flanked the apartment building’s door, so be it. But he hadn’t promised he wouldn’t talk.

“You were right that being friends is new to me. I’ll need your help to pull it off. But I usually do pull off the things I put my mind to.” He said it flatly; fact wasn’t bragging. “Give me a chance to show you, Les.”

Slowly she brought her eyes back to his face, and he didn’t have a clue what would come next.

“I have to be home by four-thirty. And nobody calls me Les."

He bit back the inclination to reply that he’d be happy to call her more. It wouldn’t have been an auspicious beginning to his new attitude.

He returned her to the front door of her apartment at 4:34, but she didn’t seem to hold it against him.

By then they both sported sunburns around pale raccoon eyes left by sunglasses, and sweaty legs from tramping over the countryside that witnessed the turning tides of a country and the ebbing lifeblood of thousands of men.

They watched a slide show and map program, then listened to the talk Grady’s research had promised. He soon realized the background was for his benefit, not hers.

They took the fruit and bottled water he’d brought to a vantage point and he tried to translate the images he’d just absorbed onto the landscape spread out before him.

Leslie spoke of the first battle—the first full battle of the war—as if she’d been there. July 21, 1861—when Washingtonians, led by some of the day’s highest and mightiest, drove buggies out to observe a bit of history, though mostly from five miles or so. When Union troops, panicked by Confederate shelling and rumors of atrocities, reached the onlookers in late afternoon, there was a wholesale flight back to the capital. Some kept going, thinking the Confederates would march on the city. If Stonewall Jackson had had his way, they might have tried. But the Confederates were too exhausted and disorganized to pursue the fleeing Union soldiers, much less engage a large reserve force and cross the Potomac.

War returned to the same farmland thirteen months later—three days in late August 1862 that cost more than forty thousand lives.

“It was more a battle,” Leslie said, “but it’s not as well known. It gets lost in a series of battles, even though Lee, Jackson and Longstreet were here for the South.”

“You must have been here a hundred times to know it so well,” he said, not sure how he felt about being indulged by her when he’d meant to indulge her with this trip.

“I’ve never been here before,” she said, her face so intent as she looked out at the view that he knew his surprise had succeeded even beyond his greatest hopes. And he experienced the most incredible pleasure.

“But you know all about it.”

“I’ve been reading about it since I could read, and hearing about it even before that. It’s family lore, how Grandma Beatrice’s grandfather lost an arm at the second battle. And whatever I didn’t know before, I’ve learned in the past few years.”

He looked the question.

“The battlefield’s been under pressure from developers who’ve wanted to put shopping centers here. The foundation’s involved in fighting them off, plus I volunteered on my own. We thought it was safe once, but there are rumblings a new group is set for another round.”

He looked at the peaceful, undulating land that had carved a spot in history. “Shopping centers!”

She grinned. “My sentiments exactly. C’mon, let’s walk it before the fast food and video stores move in.”

And walk they did. Following the battles, lingering at spots of human drama they’d learned from the guidebook or ranger. Those were the times it was hardest to resist the temptation to touch her, to push back a strand of hair, to put his arm around her, to hold her hand.

But he pushed temptation aside, and listened instead.

So when they returned to her apartment, he felt both noble for his restraint, and at least partially compensated because she seemed visibly more relaxed around him. Plus, he knew Leslie Craig better than he had when the day started.

“Thank you, Grady, this was a wonderful day.”

“Don’t thank me yet, this is just the beginning."

“What do you mean?”

“This trip was the first in a continuing series. I told you before—Gunston Hall, Mount Vernon, Leesburg, Fredericksburg, Harpers Ferry—you tell me where you want to go, and we’ll go there.”

“I didn’t know you were such a history fan.”

“I’m not. At least, I haven’t been before, but today was really interesting.” His surprise must have seeped through because Leslie gave him a wry grin. He hadn’t expected to enjoy that aspect of the day. “Besides, I figure I should take advantage of the area’s history, and you’re a great guide,” he added honestly. “So it benefits both of us. Isn’t that what friendship's supposed to do?”