Falling for Grace (4 page)

She wondered when the middle name—

“
Isabella Marcia
Price!”

There. There it was. Gracie now wondered if
the child would appear.

More silence.

Slipping away from Carson, Gracie edged
toward the back of the shop. He bellowed out his daughter’s name
once more and she had to wonder why he thought the girl would come
out of hiding with subsequent bellowings, if she didn’t emerge
after the first one.

Perhaps paternal instincts were somewhat
different from maternal ones.

Mentally shrugging, Gracie traveled quietly
toward the rear of the store, silently easing her way through the
half-open door, and glanced to her right into the storage room.

Her shop was the mirror image of the one
next door. Carson’s had the storage area to the left, bathroom to
the right. Hers was the opposite. They shared the back stairway
that led to the apartments above each shop. The bathrooms were
actually tucked beneath that stairway.

Funny, she was already thinking of the shop
and apartment as Carson’s. Hm. She shook off that notion and got
back to the task at hand.

Upon quick inspection of the storage area,
Gracie realized that Izzie wasn’t there. She supposed she could
have hidden behind some boxes or underneath her worktable, but she
didn’t think so. She sensed, more than actually observed, that the
child was not there.

Gracie turned to her left.

The stairwell was empty but something drew
her to it. At that point Carson came bursting through the door
beside her. He was about to bellow out again but Gracie put a
finger to her lip and tossed him the most urgent look she could
muster. He stopped dead in his tracks, a bit perplexed it seemed,
and waited.

It was then that she noticed the smear of
blood on his forefinger. It looked as if he’d wiped it off of the
floor or the table or something, it was laced with crumbs and
sugar.

“
Wait here,” she said to
him, pleading more with her eyes than with her words. Suddenly, she
was frightened for Izzie and with the bellowing that man was doing
earlier, she didn’t want him to frighten her any
further.

Silently, she crept up the stairs, carefully
avoiding the steps that creaked, a trick she’d learned over time.
Her last tenant of six years had complained incessantly about her
climbing the stairs to her apartment late at night, after she’d
finished her work day, waking him every time.

She made the first landing then followed the
stairway’s angle to the left. There she found the child, hunched
near the wall, clutching one hand with the other, a small trickle
of blood oozing out between her fingers.

“
Izzie, you’re hurt.”
Gracie crouched down in front of her. “Let me see.”

The child looked a bit lost and confused at
first, not to mention a bit vulnerable, then her eyes caught sight
of her father moving up the stairs behind Gracie.

Izzie puffed up her chest, set her jaw,
tilted her head, and stuck both hands behind her back.

“
Ain’t nothin’,” she
remarked.

Gone was the frightened little girl of a
second ago. In her place was one tough little lady
finger...er...cookie.

Glancing over her shoulder, Gracie sensed
the reason for that tough exterior. If he bellowed one more time,
she told herself, she was going to rudely bellow right back at
him.

But he didn’t. Crouching down beside her,
getting closer to his daughter, he reached out his hand. “Izzie,
let me see, honey.”

Gracie looked at Mr. Carson Price again. His
face was ashen and beads of perspiration were popping out on his
forehead. He was worried. And scared. He may just have redeemed
himself in her eyes, Gracie thought.

“
Okay, baby? Let me see
what you did,” he crooned softly to the child.

“
Ain’t nothin’, Dad. It
will be okay.”

“
You’re
bleeding.”

The child shrugged. “No big deal.”

“
Yes, it’s a big deal.
You’re hurt and I want to help you. Let’s take a look at
it.”

Isabella Marcia Price glanced from her
father, to Gracie, and then back to her father again. After a
moment, she slowly pushed her hand forward.

The fleshy part of her palm, right below her
thumb, sported a small cut. Gracie noticed that the child’s eyes
never left her father’s.

Gingerly, he took her impish hand in his
large one and cradled it there.

“
This has gotta hurt a
bit, Iz. I know it has to.”

She nodded slightly.

Gracie leaned forward. She thought she saw
something glimmer in the child’s hand, a reflection of the overhead
stairwell light.

“
I think there is a piece
of glass in there,” she offered.

Carson looked at Gracie and then back to
study his daughter’s palm. “I think you’re right. Do you have a
pair of tweezers around here anywhere?”

Nodding, she replied, “Sure do. Let’s head
upstairs to my apartment.”

Gracie realized then, just as those words
escaped her mouth, that this was the first time she’d invited a man
into her apartment in, oh, about a thousand years. She wasn’t quite
sure she was prepared for it, but there was definitely not time to
mull over that situation at the moment.

There were more pressing things at hand.

Chapter Three

“
You don’t have to carry
me, Dad. My legs ain’t hurt.”

“
Aren’t hurt.”

“
The glass is in my hand,
not my leg. Put me down now.”

“
I’ll put you down in a
minute. I don’t want to risk you tripping and breaking your fall
with that hand.”

“
But—”

Carson stopped at the stop of the stairs,
narrowed his gaze, and looked into his daughter’s face. “But what,
Iz?” he replied with a huff.

Izzie smirked. “Nothing, Dad.”

Carson wasn’t quite sure what made him so
scared—the fact that Izzie had momentarily disappeared, that the
sight of her blood drops on the floor had rendered him nearly
incapable of functioning, or the thought that Grace Hart would now
never rent to him.

Truth be known, it was a mixture of all
three, with extreme emphasis on the blood issue. His heart leapt
into his throat every time he thought about Izzie bleeding to death
somewhere and him not being able to find her.

He held her close and waited while Grace
opened the door to her apartment then showed them into the
kitchen.

“
The light in here is
better,” she said. “Why don’t you sit her there on the counter and
I’ll go get tweezers and some peroxide.”

Carson nodded and followed her
instructions.

The small kitchen was bright and airy,
cheerful and welcoming. In fact, the whole apartment appeared to be
that way. It smelled nice, too. Kind of like lemons and cinnamon
all at the same time. He didn’t know about the combination, but he
sort of liked it. He’d noticed all that as soon as he’d stepped
over the threshold—registering it secondarily though, his primary
thoughts still on Izzie’s wound.

“
Let me see that,
Bubblebuns.” He cradled Izzie’s small hand in his then looked into
her eyes.

“
Don’t call me
that.”

Carson frowned at his daughter, whose face
still held an unhappy expression, then tossed a teasing wink at
her. Finally, after a moment of scrutinizing him, she winked
back.

“
I’ll call you anything I
darned well please,” he added with a hint of a grin. “You’re my
Bubblebuns.”

Izzie laughed, her smirk fading fully into a
broad smile.

“
Dad,” she began. “It was
an accident. The cookies, I mean.”

“
Later,” he told her, then
turned his concentration on her wound. He’d settle up with Grace
about the damages later. And he’d settle up with his daughter about
the damages much later. Like, with a huge talk and some extra
chores to earn out enough funds to pay him back for replacing the
delicate china she’d shattered.

He just hoped it wasn’t priceless or
something.

Grace re-appeared with a damp washcloth,
bandages, cotton balls, tweezers, and hydrogen peroxide. “Here, I
think this is all we need.”

She set the items on the counter, fumbled
the peroxide, then righted it again quickly, then simultaneously
looked up into Carson’s eyes and bit her lower lip.

“
Thank you,” he
replied.

She was nervous. For the life of him he
couldn’t figure out why, but she was. Her hands were shaking as
she’d laid the items on the counter. Funny, a self-assured business
woman like herself didn’t seem the type to be nervous about much,
he thought. But for some reason, there was a slight change in her
demeanor. Not able to quite put his finger on it, he glanced back
to Izzie and stared once more at the child’s palm.

“
Would you like to do the
honors, or shall I?” Grace offered.

Carson realized then that he’d made no move
to pick the glass out of Izzie’s hand, and that while he was
studying his child’s wound, he was also wondering what the woman
standing beside him was all about.

Mind to task, Carson.

“
I’ll do it,” he returned.
Never let it be said that Carson Price didn’t take care of his
own.

“
Do what?” Izzie
queried.

His eyes met his daughters once more. “There
is a little piece of glass in there, Iz. It has to come out. It
won’t hurt, I promise. And then we’ll clean it up and bandage it
and we can get on with our day, okay?” He reached for a cotton ball
and the peroxide. “And if you’re real still and quiet and good,
I’ll even treat you to lunch.”

Turning to Grace, he said, “I’m sure there’s
a McDonald’s around here somewhere, right Ms. Hart?”

Grace looked at him—a rather odd little
look, like he’d grown another head or his ears had suddenly
sprouted points or something. She didn’t answer.

“
Ms. Hart?”

“
Gracie,” she
answered.

Gracie.
The words flowed off her lips and landed
feather-light on his brain. Gracie. He liked the sound of
that.

Suddenly she shook her head, as if she were
shaking herself out of a trance, and said, “Grace, I mean.”

Puzzled now, Carson stood a little
straighter and peered into the eyes of the woman who stood before
him. “So which is it? Grace or Gracie?” She looked rather puzzled
herself, which was almost as amusing at it was endearing.

Carson felt at a loss for words, a little
light-headed, and surprisingly, a whole lot like smiling. Smiling
like a fool. It was sort of like something had clicked deep down
inside of him and had pleasantly turned this disaster of a morning
into something more. Something—

Something he didn’t want to think about.

He looked at Iz.
Task at hand, Price.

“
My name is really Grace,
but everyone calls me Gracie. I mean...my friends call me
Gracie.”

Slowly, he turned back to look at her. “Oh,”
was all he said. What else could he say? May I call you Gracie,
too? Will we be friends? Even though my daughter just smashed your
china teapot, crushed cookies into your polished hardwood floors,
and obliterated one very expensive-looking cookie plate? Can I call
you Gracie? Huh?

For some reason, he did want to call her
that. Yes. For some crazy, insane notion, he wanted to get to know
Ms. Grace Hart well enough to call her Gracie.

* * * *

Idiot!

Gracie wasn’t quite sure
what was happening. Maybe she was getting sick. The flu
had
been going around.
Her hands were shaking and her heart was pounding and she felt just
a little bit faint. Thank goodness Carson Price had stopped looking
at her and was now concentrating on getting that minute piece of
glass out of his daughter’s hand.

Get a grip, she told herself.

This was all very unnerving and extremely
unsettling.

She knew what it was, although she hated to
admit it. It wasn’t the flu or a bad fish sandwich or anything of
that nature. No sirree. What she was feeling right now could only
be attributed to one thing.

There was a man in her kitchen.

A real live, muscular, drop-dead-gorgeous,
intelligent man with eyes like she’d never in her life seen.

And his occupancy in her small galley
kitchen seemed to suck the very air out of the room.

He made a commanding presence. A bit
overwhelming and more than a little overpowering. Larger than life.
When she’d returned with the first aid supplies, she was so
unexpectedly caught unaware by the sight of him that her entire
body went into stupid mode and she’d temporarily lost all
functioning of her lips and her hands. Which was why she’d said
that dumb thing about her friends calling her Gracie.

That Ms. Hart stuff was getting to her.

Suddenly, she wracked her brain trying to
recall the last man who had stood in exactly that spot. Right
there. Occupying that narrow space between her counter and the
refrigerator.

Pathetic, she told herself. Gracie Hart you
are pathetic.

Truth be known, she was more than pathetic.
She was thirty-five years old and couldn’t remember the last time
she’d entertained a man in her apartment.

Years. Ages. Eons.

Pathetic.

She might as well just dry up and blow
away.

“
Ow!”

“
Got it!”

“
You did?” Gracie stepped
forward just as Carson lifted the tweezers into the air. She
studied the small piece of glass held between the tweezer points in
his hand.