Divine Grace (2 page)

“Oh, yeah. We’re very distant cousins. Our families were all neighbors out here growing up, and all three of us have known each other since we were little bitty. I grew up just down the road from here. That’s one of the reasons we bought this place. We love the area. We used to jump the back fence and swim and fish in the creek that runs through this property. Our Tarzan rope still hangs in one of the trees, I think.”

“I’ll bet y’all have some funny stories to tell.”

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“Yeah, maybe someday we’ll tell some of them to ya,” Ethan replied.

He said it like he planned on it, and though she didn’t understand why he would want that, she wished it could be so. She could just imagine the trouble and adventures three little boys could get themselves into roaming around the countryside. She looked up at Ethan to say good-bye and was mesmerized by the way the sunlight lit his angular features, and she thought he had the warmest sparkling blue eyes.

“Jack will be sorry he missed you, but I’m glad I finally got to meet you,” he said softly to her. She had the feeling that there was a lot more to what he was saying than the words he spoke, but it was really time for her to go.

“See y’all tomorrow,” she replied as she got into her car.

He closed the door for her, raised a hand to wave good-bye, and stepped away. She started the car and rolled the windows down a bit as the AC

kicked on, and a blast of hot air hit her in the face before it finally started to cool off. As she drove around the circle and back up the long driveway, she called herself every kind of name in the book for the guilty attraction she felt toward Ethan.

Owen was a no-account loser, and he was probably unfaithful to her, not that she really cared. He hadn’t laid a hand on her in months. She was surprised that thought didn’t bother her the way it should. What bothered her was the way she was acting and thinking about Jack and
now
Ethan. At least for her part, she was already in a committed relationship.

She shouldn’t be noticing other men, even adorable and gorgeous ones like Jack and Ethan, who were, truth be told,
way
out of her league. She could flirt and kid and lust all she wanted, but she was a realist, too. They were probably just being nice, making her feel good about herself by flirting with her.

She saw her reflection in the mirror every day. She wasn’t paper bag ugly, but her features were plain and unremarkable. She had nice, long blonde hair that she took good care of. And her eyes were a nice medium blue color, but the shape of her face was too round, and her complexion was on the ruddy side. She blushed
way
too easily, so she felt like her face was always too red. The Texas heat didn’t help with that at all. If she stayed in the sun too long, she turned as red as a lobster but never tanned. Whatever
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skin wasn’t red or pink stayed pasty white, and she’d given up tanning early on.

Owen preferred to always have the lights off when they did have sex, and he often told her it was because he didn’t want to see her body shape.

Maybe he imagined someone else in bed with him who was skinnier, and it was easier for him to fantasize with the lights off. She was a plus-size gal but not morbidly so. At least she didn’t think a size sixteen or eighteen was obese. She had a round, generous butt and big breasts, but at least her waist was small, which always made it difficult to find jeans that really fit right.

She’d always hated her thighs but most days felt like she’d come to grips with her attributes, except on the days when Owen would start in on her, usually at meal times.

Most men would be grateful to have a woman around who liked to cook and bake. Not Owen. He expected all those things, but when they sat down to eat, he felt it necessary to question whether she should eat this or that because it might make her fatter. Not fat. Fatter. Often, when he was drunk, he’d even called her Fatty. She did her best to consider the source of criticism. He was out of shape himself. He didn’t have a regular job. He worked odd jobs here and there but really didn’t contribute financially all that much. When she did ask for help with groceries or utilities, he acted as if she’d asked him to open a vein for her.

He’d been her boyfriend in high school, and after graduation they just sort of continued on with the status quo. When her mom passed away a few years before, it seemed to make sense to let him move in and help out with living expenses. She felt safer with someone else in the house.

Lately, whenever Jack came in the store, which had been frequently, he teased her, asking when she was going to dump her boyfriend and go out with him. She’d always assumed he was just kidding around. What if she weren’t encumbered with Owen? Would Jack seriously ask her out? Unless she made some changes, she’d never know.

She pulled in the driveway, and there Owen sat on the front porch, drinking beer with one of his buddies. Beer she’d paid for, not that she drank the stuff. He belched as she walked up. She cringed at the greeting she got, but his next words truly horrified her.

“AC ain’t workin’.”

Oh, no.

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There went her emergency fund. She had scrimped and saved everywhere she could to build that fund up so she wouldn’t have to use credit for emergency repairs. She hated to start over. What if she didn’t have enough? She walked in the house and started opening windows. He must have just gotten home from who knows where, otherwise he might have seen that dinner was on the stove. They undoubtedly would have scarfed it up themselves, leaving her little, if any. She even knew what he would say.

Something helpful and supportive like, “Have a salad,” or “There’s mealshake in the fridge.” Salad was an appetizer, and she hated mealshakes.

She hated him, too, sometimes.

She checked the breaker to see if it had been flipped. Maybe that was all that was wrong. No such luck. She turned the central AC unit off and turned on all the ceiling fans in the house. She fixed herself a bowl of stew, tore off a small chunk of the fresh bread and buttered it, and sat down to eat, pondering her next move. She had planned to go to Rose Marie Warner’s visitation tonight at the funeral home in town. Now she didn’t feel like she had the strength to get ready for it. She would pay her respects tomorrow.

Plus, she felt if she went tonight that it would seem too much like she was seeking Jack out.

She got out the phone book and looked in the yellow pages for an AC

repairman. She called a couple of them to see what their rates were and when they could come out. One repairman said he was booked ahead for three weeks. She couldn’t afford the rates of the other repairman but told him she might get back with him since he could fit her in the following weekend. A week, in summer, in Texas, with no AC. What could be worse?

Just then, Owen came in. Oh yeah. Owen definitely made it worse.

“Got any cash on you? I need to get some gas. Me and Dave are goin’

out.” He saw the pot on the stove but made no move toward it. He undoubtedly planned on eating out because he made no move to fix himself a bowl of stew. She felt like giving him the money just to make him go away. But as luck would have it, she’d cleaned out her wallet at the grocery store. She hadn’t stopped at the bank because she was anxious to get started cooking for Jack.

Jack. Right now she
really
wanted Jack. Even if all he did was sit there and flirt with her. She wanted him bad. There were decent men in the world.

He was living proof. She knew
he
would never ever ask her for money. He
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would never belch as a greeting. And if he intended to go out, he’d take her with him.

“Sorry, spent my cash on groceries today.”

“Didn’t you get paid yesterday?”

“Yes, electronic deposit.”

“Can I borrow your ATM card?”

“No.” A girl had to have limits, dammit.

“No?” he asked petulantly, putting his hands on his hips, where his boxer shorts rested several inches above the waist of his jeans. That was not a good look for anyone, in her opinion, but on him it was positively asinine.

“No.”

That’s when his buddy Dave piped up. “Come on, man, we’ll stop by my house.” He lived in his parent’s garage. They could go sponge off his family for a while. She felt exhausted.

“Thanks for nothin’, Grace.”

Back at ya, asshole, she thought but didn’t dare say. “Sorry.”
Yeah, for
ever having let you into my life.

The screen door slamming shut was the only response she got as he left.

He never even asked her how they were going to solve the AC problem. It was her house, her problem, as far as he was concerned. What an ass.

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Jack left Stigall’s that afternoon with the altered pants wrapped in plastic on a hanger. When he’d gone back to the store, he’d been looking forward to seeing Grace again. He was disappointed to find out her boss let her off early. He saw the note she had written on the work order and smiled to himself. It said, “Make sure pants are pressed and ready to be worn. Very special customer!” She was the special one.

He’d been making excuses to stop by Stigall’s on the weekends because he knew she worked in the menswear department. He’d also recently decided that all his work shirts needed to be personalized with the logo she had designed at Harper’s. He really just wanted to see her. He’d always teased her about breaking up with her boyfriend and going out with him. But somewhere along the way, he realized he wasn’t really kidding with her.

He’d love the chance to take her out and spend some time getting to know her better.

Her boyfriend had stopped by the store one day to ask her for money while she was waiting on Jack. What kind of self-respecting man asked his woman for money? Jack had taken an instant dislike to him when he’d patted her ass and made a show of kissing her good-bye, embarrassing her in the process. Jack recognized a man marking his territory like a cat pissing on a tire. If her boyfriend acted like that in public—at her job, for crying out loud—how did he act in private? It galled him to think of it. It made him feel protective of her.

She was over twenty-one and could make her own choices, but he knew she could do better, and he knew where she could start—with him. The idea of spending time with her was no longer a playful notion, something to tease a sweet sales girl about. He started really paying attention to her after that.

Earlier in the day, when the dressing room door had popped open, her cheeks had flamed adorably. He really couldn’t find it in his heart to be
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embarrassed, at least not too much. When he’d showered and gotten dressed that morning, he gave no thought to the fact he’d be trying on clothes and would need drawers on. Commando was cooler in this heat.

But she had given him a raging hard-on when she picked up that measuring tape and snapped it between her hands and smiled that mischievous smile at him. When she knelt in front of him, it conjured an image in his mind of her kneeling for an entirely different reason. Man, the way she affected him by just looking up at him with those innocent blue eyes of hers. She’d unconsciously licked her lips, and a ripple of heat had shot up his spine. He’d been afraid for a second he might explode on the spot. Then he would have had some explaining to do.

He had all kinds of mixed feelings today. He was supposed to be preparing for his mother’s funeral. The words of his wise and kind mother kept ringing in his head. She was the one who originally introduced him to Grace. Over the years, she always told him, “Seize the day, Jack, because you never know how long you have. Have no regrets in life. Take chances.”

And her most recent question? “When are you going to convince that darling girl to dump that chump and go out with a real man? Hmm?”

God love her, she was right. It was time to stop sitting on the bench where the lovely Miss Stuart was concerned.

He smiled, remembering how her warm, delicate hand had trembled when he helped her from her kneeling position. He wondered—no, he
hoped
—that she was as affected by him as he was by her. He hardened a little, remembering her faint womanly scent when it had risen to his nostrils as she stood with his help. He’d been reluctant to release her hand.

He parked his truck next to Ethan and Adam’s and went inside the ranch house. The house was clean, and there was a succulent aroma coming from the kitchen. They were already at the table eating, dressed, and ready to go with him to visitation tonight.

“Hey, you didn’t have to cook, Ethan. I would have sprung for supper tonight,” he said.

Ethan had a big shit-eating grin on his face as he shook his head. “I didn’t cook. A friend of yours brought supper over for you earlier. I tried to talk her into staying, but she said she had to get home.”

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He was stumped. “Did she mention a name?” he asked as he lifted the lid and looked into the pot. His mouth watered. Then he saw the fresh bread wrapped in a dish cloth and the cake sitting on the countertop.

“Uh-huh,” Ethan replied, filling his mouth with a big bite, enjoying himself, no doubt. He and Adam shared a quick glance with each other before going back to their meal.

“Who was it?” This food was homemade. Who would take the time to do this for him and then come all the way out here?

“Grace Stuart,” Ethan said.

“Grace did this?” He wasn’t all that surprised. This was the kind of thing she would do, and she had asked earlier.

“She said she could tell how distracted you were by taking care of arrangements for your mom’s funeral and that she knew how hard it was to do simple things like fix meals. She wanted to help out, not just pay lip service.”

“Did you meet her, Adam?”

In between bites, Adam said, “No, she was already gone by the time I got home. But I heard all about her from Ethan.”

Jack got a bowl and spoon and fixed himself a glass of tea. He brought the loaf of bread and the butter dish to the table. He served himself and then joined the other two men. After saying grace over the meal, he dug in.

Lord have mercy, that woman wasn’t only beautiful, she could
cook
, too. This wasn’t just a meal. This was someone caring about another person and wanting to help them through a rough patch in the road. Boyfriend be damned, he was going after this woman the first chance he got.

“What did you think of her?” he asked, curious as to how Ethan had reacted to her.

“Beautiful. Caring. Sort of innocent, in a way. Intriguing. She seemed to feel guilty for being here when she was about to leave, like she was doing something wrong. She said she had a boyfriend. Is that the one you told us about?”

“Yeah, total asshole, not near good enough for her. So you liked her?”

“Yes, she’s adorable, gorgeous. I can see why you’ve been going on about her. She said she’d be at the funeral tomorrow, so Adam can meet her then.”

“Did she seem to like you, Ethan?”

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“I think it surprised her, but yeah, seemed attracted. That could explain why she appeared to feel guilty. What do you plan to do if she takes a liking to Adam as well?”

“To take this
very
slow and see how she feels about it. What we want is pretty unorthodox. I don’t want to scare her off completely if the idea of being with the three of us is too much for her to handle. Let’s just take it slow and see how she does. First thing we need to do is focus on Mom’s funeral and taking care of Dad.” He paused and felt a hitch in his chest at the mention of her name. He let out a long, shaky breath, and Adam reached over and put a hand on his shoulder.

“I can tell you right now, knowing Rose as well as I did, that while she would appreciate the sentiment, she’d expect you to seize the next opportunity that presents itself to get closer to Grace. You know how much she liked Grace, and that if we really wanted someone who could love all three of us, she felt like Grace might be the one. Remember what she said about her?”

“A heart as big as Texas,” Ethan murmured.

Rose Marie had not necessarily understood their desire for a woman who wanted all three of them. However, she did admit to them in her candid, no nonsense way that the thought of being a woman whose every need was attended to by three handsome, charming men was enough to get even her aging heart pounding just a bit. They’d all laughed, a little red-faced, over that, but she’d given them her blessing, warning them to let Grace set the pace if the opportunity presented itself.

Adam continued, “So just pray for an opportunity.”

Ethan added, “And hope the boyfriend is soon out of the picture.”

“She saw me half nekkid today,” Jack mentioned nonchalantly as he took a bite of his bread.

Both Ethan and Adam dropped their spoons, and they clattered to the table.