Amazing Gracie (29 page)

“Manage what? I had no idea they were going to be here.”

“But you were behind their peace treaty,” Helen said. “You must have been. Nobody else has ever had any luck. I actually heard them laughing a while ago.”

“It’s true that Bobby Ray came by the house last night and we all talked,” Gracie conceded. “I wasn’t expecting this, though.”

“I was thinking, since it’s Saturday, maybe I should call Mom and ask her to come over and help,” Abby said. “Is that a good idea or not?”

Seeing the longing in the child’s eyes, Gracie squeezed her hand. “I think it’s a very good idea.”

“You do?” Helen and Delia said in unison. They both sounded skeptical and more than a little worried.

Gracie opted not to explain about Sara Lynn’s departure. That was Bobby Ray’s revelation to make. But she didn’t see any harm in throwing him and Marianne into close proximity.

“Call your mom,” she repeated to Abby.

“But for heaven’s sakes, don’t tell her your father’s here,” Delia warned. “She won’t get within twenty miles of the place.”

“I know that much,” Abby said. Ignoring the phone on the wall, she practically ran from the room to use the phone Gracie had had installed in the foyer.

Delia chuckled. “I guess she figures we’re better off not hearing what sneaky schemes she uses to lure her mother over here.”

“Well, I for one am glad she left the room,” Helen said. She turned to Gracie. “What on earth went on last night when Bobby Ray came by?”

“Don’t tell her, Gracie,” Bobby Ray said, coming down the back stairs into the kitchen. “She’s been snooping in my affairs since the day I was born.”

“Somebody had to keep an eye on you, for all the good it did,” Helen muttered. “I’m your big sister and I want to know what happened last night. At this very moment, your daughter is trying to lure her mother over here. What’s that all about?”

Bobby Ray looked sheepish. “I can’t speak for Abby’s motivation, but I’ll have to admit I’m glad she’s taking the initiative in this particular instance.”

“Why?” Helen asked suspiciously.

“Because I’m not sure how long it would have taken me to work up the courage to go over there or what Marianne would have done when I showed up.”

“Whapped you upside the head with a frying pan, if she had any sense,” Delia commented.

“Thank you, Aunt Delia. You never did have much patience with my shenanigans, did you?”

“Not since you got old enough to know better,” she agreed. “And that was many a year ago, young man.”

“Thanks to Gracie, I’m a reformed man,” he announced.

“We’ll see,” Delia retorted.

“Bobby Ray, stop gabbing with the women and get the hell back up here,” Kevin shouted just then from the top of the stairs. “I’m doing more than my fair share.”

“That’s the way it’s supposed to be,” Bobby Ray shouted back. “You’re the responsible one.” He winked at Gracie, grabbed a couple of sodas out of the refrigerator and bounded back up the stairs.

Gracie chuckled, then realized that Helen and Delia were staring at her as if she were some sort of miracle worker.

“Okay,” Helen said seriously. “I want to know exactly what went on last night.”

“From the beginning,” Delia chimed in.

Gracie thought of the beginning, in her bedroom, in her bed, and concluded that neither of them needed to know every detail about that. Nor about the way the evening had ended.

“Well, you see, Bobby Ray called…” she began, and told them the basics of the conversation she and Kevin had had with him the night before.

“Marianne won’t take him back on a bet,” Delia said when she was done. “Not if she has any sense.”

“Oh, come on, Delia, she adores him. She always has,” Helen said. “Despite everything he did to her, all of it lousy, she still loves him.”

“I’m sorry,” Delia said. “I’m afraid I’m with Kevin on this one. It’s going to be a disaster and Abby’s the one who’ll pay the price.”

Gracie was shaken by the older woman’s fierce declaration. Had she been wrong to try to get Bobby Ray and his ex-wife back together? Had she jumped feet-first into something she knew far too little about?

“Stop looking so glum, Gracie. Delia’s just worried about Abby,” Helen said. “The kid’s been to hell and back, thanks to her father’s foolishness. That hasn’t stopped her from loving him. I don’t think it’s stopped Marianne, either. And if the changes I’ve seen in my brother this morning are any indication, it could just work this time around.”

“I hope you’re right,” Gracie said.

For all their sakes.

21

A
bby came bounding back into the kitchen, beaming.

“Mom said she’d be here in an hour, as soon as she’s done with the laundry. I told her we needed her to stop and pick up lunch. She’s gonna do ham and cheese and tuna sandwiches from the coffee shop. I called ahead and ordered lots and lots. Is that okay?” She regarded them worriedly. “I know we usually go out, but I couldn’t think of anything else to get her over here.”

“You could have tried the truth, young lady,” Delia chided.

Abby looked shocked. “You mean told her Daddy was here?”

“That’s correct.”

“No way,” Abby said, shaking her head emphatically. “She wouldn’t have come. You said so yourself.”

“And now I think I was wrong. Sue me. It should have been her choice.”

“Come on, Aunt Delia,” Helen protested. “Leave Abby alone. We need to eat. What difference does it make if Marianne brings us lunch?”

“That’s right,” Gracie said. “It’ll give us more time to
decide whether to sand and polish the floors upstairs or to carpet them.”

“You don’t carpet over fine oak floors,” Delia protested, clearly horrified by the suggestion. “What on earth are you thinking?”

Helen grinned at Gracie. “Oh, I suspect I know exactly what she was thinking.”

“Hush,” Gracie warned. “It worked, didn’t it?”

“What worked?” Delia demanded. “Would the two of you stop talking in riddles?”

Helen stood up and tucked a hand under Delia’s elbow. “Come on. Let’s go see what kind of shape those floors are in, okay?”

“Can I help Daddy and Uncle Kevin paint?” Abby pleaded. “I’ll be careful. I’m bound to be neater than they are.”

Gracie nodded. “If your father says it’s okay.”

“All right! He never says no.”

“More’s the pity,” Delia grumbled.

Despite her complaints, though, Delia beat the rest of them up the stairs and led the survey of the wide-planked floors. “Nothing a little elbow grease and polish won’t fix right up,” she declared. “The last few years I was here, I couldn’t keep up with them the way I should have. And since then, well, no house fares well when it’s been untended. I suspect we can rent a buffer and fix these up in no time.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” Gracie agreed, which she had all along. There was no way she would have put carpet over the wood, but Delia never had to know that. Fussing over the floors had gotten her mind off Abby’s deception.

“Well, of course, I’m right,” Delia huffed. “I ought to know my own floors.” She sighed, a nostalgic expression
on her face. “Oh, my, how they used to gleam. There’s nothing quite like the look and scent of good wood, when it’s just been waxed.”

Just then Kevin stuck his head out of the bedroom door at the end of the hall. “Gracie, could I see you in here a minute?”

“Sure,” she said and went to meet him.

“Inside,” he insisted.

When she stepped into the room, he closed the door behind her, then backed her against it in a movement so swift it caught her totally off guard. His mouth slanted across hers in a hungry kiss. Several breathless minutes later, he stepped away and smiled.

“Morning, darlin’. Seems like I’ve been waiting for hours to get the day started right.”

Gracie’s senses slowly stopped spinning. When she could finally gather her wits, she murmured, “Good morning to you, too. You must be having a good day.” Apparently, he was also over his irritation with her.

“Good night, good day,” he said. “They’re all sort of rolling together lately.”

She glanced around. “Where have you stashed Bobby Ray? I thought he was in here with you painting. You haven’t locked him in the attic, have you?”

“No. I just sent him on to the next room, so you and I could have a little privacy.”

“And Abby?”

“She’s with him. Bonding, I hope.”

“I don’t think you need to worry any more about the two of them bonding, not if it’s left up to Abby. She has plans. Big plans.”

Kevin’s expression turned worried. “Oh?”

“Marianne’s on her way over.”

His good mood soured at once. “Gracie! I thought we discussed that. I thought we’d decided to stay out of it, now that the idea’s been planted in Bobby Ray’s head.”

“I don’t recall agreeing to any such thing. Besides, I didn’t have anything to do with it, I swear. It was Abby’s idea.”

“But obviously you didn’t try to stop her.”

“No,” she said with a touch of defiance.

“I’m amazed Marianne agreed to come.”

“Actually, she thinks she’s coming to bring lunch. I don’t think she’s aware that Bobby Ray is here, unless she happened to wonder at the number of sandwiches she’s picking up. Abby said she called ahead to the restaurant and ordered enough for an army.”

Kevin sighed. “I see.”

He didn’t sound convinced. “Marianne can leave right away if that’s what she wants to do,” Gracie pointed out, trying to sway him.

“I suppose.”

She stood on tiptoe and gave him another smoldering kiss. “Stop worrying.”

“I can’t. It’s what I do.”

“And you’re very good at it. Everyone appreciates the fact that you care so deeply about them.”

“You must not have been around all those times I was told to mind my own damn business.”

“True. I missed that.”

“Taking care of this crowd is not terribly rewarding.”

“You’re looking for the wrong sort of rewards then. Take Helen. Have you noticed the sparkle in her eyes?”

“No.”

“Well, I have. I suspect we can thank Max for that.”

“Is that supposed to thrill me?”

“It should if what you’re really interested in is her happiness. And then there’s Bobby Ray.”

“What about him?”

“Just look how he’s pitching in today. Last night was a turning point for him.”

“If it was, it’s because of you.”

She waved off the comment. “It doesn’t matter why. All that’s important is that he’s obviously trying to change. Then there’s Delia. She has a whole new lease on life. I’m thinking of asking if she wants to come over for a few hours every afternoon and have tea with the guests, shower them with a little of her southern charm.”

Kevin groaned. “Which means I’ll have to drive her over. I’ll never get in any good rest time in my hammock again.”

Gracie winked at him. “Oh, I think I can come up with an incentive for you to do that, something a whole lot more interesting than lounging around in that old hammock of yours.”

He looked fascinated. “Oh, really? I do love my hammock, you know.”

“Believe me, I’ve noticed. Not to worry, though,” she said. “Pretty soon there won’t be anyone left for you to worry about anyway. You won’t need to do all that mulling and pondering you do out there.”

“Obviously you haven’t heard about Bo and the others.”

“Actually, I have. You’ll get them straightened out one by one.”

“You mean that you will. You’re sneakier than I am. My guess is they won’t even know what hit them.”

She grinned at him. “Is that a bad thing?”

“Not necessarily,” he said, gathering her close once
again. “I certainly haven’t figured out what hit me, but you don’t hear me complaining.”

“What do you think? Is it working?” Helen whispered.

“I can’t see anything,” Delia protested. “Stop hogging the window.”

“Hey, they’re my mom and dad. I should get to look,” Abby grumbled from behind them. “Has he kissed her yet? I don’t want to miss that.”

Kevin stood back and watched the three of them jockeying for position at the attic window. It was the only one that had a decent view of the shady spot in the backyard where Bobby Ray and Marianne were engrossed in conversation.

“You all are pitiful,” he declared, drawing three guilty looks. “Why can’t you give them some privacy?”

“We are,” Aunt Delia insisted. “That’s why we’re up here instead of down there with them.”

“I thought you didn’t approve of this any more than I do?” he said.

“I didn’t.” She shrugged. “Could be I was wrong. Marianne seemed surprisingly pleased to find Bobby Ray here. Maybe the others are right and there is hope for the two of them.”

“I’m amazed Gracie isn’t up here with you since this is her pet project,” Kevin said.

Actually, Gracie was the reason he’d come up to the attic. He’d been relatively certain that she was the one scuffling around up here and he’d hoped to steal a few more minutes alone with her. Those kisses he’d managed before lunch hadn’t been nearly enough to tide him over until dinnertime. That neediness inside him was getting worse by the day.

“Over there,” Abby said, gesturing across the hall. “She’s going to make that her office. She’s in there measuring.”

Actually, she was in there daydreaming as near as Kevin could tell. She was seated by one of the floor-to-ceiling windows, staring out to sea.

He stood in the doorway and observed her for several minutes, undetected. The room was oddly shaped and small, but filled with glass on all three sides. It had a clear view of the river in any direction, which made it seem bigger than it was. The branches of a huge oak tree were close enough to touch. Gracie looked as serene as he’d ever seen her. He wondered how she’d feel if she knew this particular room’s history. It had been closed off for decades, though naturally he’d broken into it every chance he got as a child.

“Hiding out in your tree house?” he asked eventually.

She glanced up at him and smiled. “It does feel like that, doesn’t it?”

“I hear you’re going to turn this into your office. Won’t the climb to the third floor be a nuisance?”

“It’ll be worth it.”