The SEAL's Secret Heirs (6 page)

Of course she was right. When had he lost sight of that? This wasn't about whether she was interested or not; it was about his daughters. What had started out as a half-formed plan to distract her from work had actually distracted
him
far more effectively.

And he wanted to do it again. That was dangerous. She could take his girls away at the drop of a hat, and he couldn't afford to antagonize her. Hell, she'd even told him she had to treat the case as objectively as possible, and here he was, ignoring all of that.

Because she'd gotten to him. She'd dug under his skin without saying a word. Talk about dangerous. He couldn't let her know she had that much power over him, or she might use it to her advantage. How could he have forgotten how much better it was to keep his heart—and his mouth—shut? That's why he stuck to weekend hookups, like the one he'd had with Margaret. No one expected him to spill his guts, and then he was free to leave before anyone got a different idea about how things were going to go.

That was the best he could do. The best he
wanted
to do. But he couldn't ditch Royal this time around when things got too heated. He'd have to figure out how to get past one more tangle in the big fat knot in his chest that had Grace's name all over it.

She thought he was clueless? Just a big dumb guy who couldn't find his way around a woman without a map? Fine. It served his purpose to let her keep on thinking that, while he flipped this problem on its head.

“Sorry about that, then.” He held up his hands and let a slow grin spread across his face. “Hands off from now on.”

Or at least until he figured out which way the wind blew in Grace's mind about the custody issue. He couldn't afford to antagonize her, but neither could he afford to let her out of his sight. Once he had curried her good favor and secured his claim on his children, all bets were off.

And when she mumbled an excuse about having other dinner plans, he let her leave, already contemplating what kind of excuse he could find to get her into his arms again, but this time, without any of the emotional tangle she seemed to effortlessly cause.

Five

T
he kiss had been a mistake.

Grace knew that. She'd known
while
she was kissing Kyle. The whole time. Why, for the love of God, couldn't she stop thinking about it?

She'd kissed Kyle lots of times. None of those kisses was seared into her brain, ready to pop up in her consciousness like a jack-in-the-box gone really wrong. Of course, all her previous Kyle kisses had happened with the boy.

He was all man now.

Darker, harder, fiercer. And oh, how he had driven that fact home with nothing more than his mouth on hers. The feel of his lips had winnowed through her, sliding through her blood, waking it deliciously. Reminding her that she was all woman.

Telling her that she'd yet to fully explore what that meant.

Oh, sure, she'd kissed a few of the men she'd dated before she'd become a Professional Single Girl. But those chaste, dry pecks hadn't compared with being kissed by someone like Kyle.

She couldn't do it again. No matter how much she wanted to. No matter how little sleep she got that night and how little work she got done the next day because she couldn't erase the goose bumps from her skin that had sprung up the instant Kyle had touched her.

When Clare Connelly called with a dinner invitation, Grace jumped on it, nearly crying with relief at the thought of a distraction. Clare was a pediatric nurse who'd cared for the twin babies in the harrowing days after their premature birth, and she and Grace had become good friends.

Grace arrived at the Waters Café just off Royal's main street before Clare, so she took a seat at a four top and ordered a glass of wine while she waited. The café had been rebuilt as part of the revitalization of the downtown strip after the tornado had tried to wipe Royal off the map. The owners, Jim and Pam Waters, had nearly lost everything, but thanks to a good insurance policy and some neighborly folks, the café was going strong. Grace made it a point to eat there as often as possible, just to give good people her business.

Clare bustled through the door, her long blond hair still twisted up in her characteristic bun, likely because she'd just come from work at Royal Memorial. Grace waved, and then realized she wasn't alone—Clare had her arm looped through another woman's. Violet McCallum, who co-owned the Double M Ranch with her brother, Mac.

Wow, Grace hardly recognized her. Violet looked beautiful and was even wearing a dress instead of her usual boots and jeans. It had been a while since they'd seen each other. Not since they'd all met at Priceless, the antiques and craft store owned by Raina Patterson, to indulge in a girls' night of stained glass making, which had been so much fun that Grace had picked it up as a new hobby.

“I had to drag her out of the house,” Clare said by way of greeting, laughing and pointing at Violet. It was a bit of a joke among the three ladies as Violet and Grace had done something similar for Clare when she'd been going through man troubles. “I hope you don't mind.”

“Of course I don't. Hi, Violet!” Grace jumped up and embraced the auburn-haired woman. Violet gave her a one-armed hug in return and scuttled to a seat.

Grace and Clare settled into their own seats. Grace signaled the waitress, then leaned forward on her forearms to speak to Violet across the table. “What are you using on your skin? Because I'm investing in a truckload. You look positively luminous!”

Violet flinched and gave Grace a pained smile, which highlighted dark shadows in her friend's eyes. “Thanks. It's, um...my new apricot scrub. I'll text you the name of it when I get home.”

“Sure,” Grace said enthusiastically, but it felt a little forced. Something was off with Violet but she didn't want to pry. They'd been friends a long time. If Violet wanted to share what was up, she would. “Give me your hand, Clare. Dinner can't officially start until we ooh and aah over your ring!”

A smile split Clare's face, and she stuck her hand out, fingers spread in the classic pose of an engaged woman. “Stand back, ladies. This baby will blind you if you don't give it the proper distance.”

Clare had recently gotten engaged to Dr. Parker Reese, a brilliant neonatal specialist at Royal Memorial, where they both worked. Their romance had been touch and go, framed by the desperate search for Maddie's mother after the infant had been abandoned at a truck stop shortly after her birth. Margaret Garner had then gotten into her car and given birth to Maggie a little farther down the road, ultimately dying from the traumatic childbirth. So the twins had ended up separated. When Maggie ultimately went home with Liam and Hadley, they were unaware she had a sister. Thankfully, they'd eventually realized Maddie and Maggie were twins and thus both belonged with the Wades.

Of course, that had all been before Kyle had come home.

And that was a dumb thing to start thinking about. Grace pinched herself under the table, but it didn't do any good. The kiss popped right back into her mind, exactly the thing she was trying to avoid thinking about.

Kyle was a difficult man to forget. She should know. She'd spent ten years trying to forget him and had failed spectacularly.

“Tell us about the wedding,” Grace insisted brightly. Anything to take her attention off Kyle.

Clare gushed for a minute or two until the harried waitress finally made her way over to the three ladies. The ponytailed woman in her early twenties pulled a pen from behind her ear and held it expectantly over her order pad.

“Sorry for the wait, ladies,” she apologized. “We're short-staffed today.”

“No problem,” Grace tossed out with a smile. “This Chardonnay is fabulous. Can you bring two more glasses?”

“No!” Violet burst out, and then her eyes widened as all three of the other women stared at her. “I, uh, didn't bring my driver's license, and I know you have to see my identification, so no drinking for me. Water is fine anyway. Thanks.”

“It's okay, Ms. McCallum,” the waitress said cheerfully. “I know you're over twenty-one. You were two years ahead of my sister in high school and she's twenty-four. I'd be happy to make an exception.”

Violet turned absolutely green. “That's kind of you. But water is fine. Excuse me.”

All at once, Violet rushed from the table, snatching her purse from the back of the chair as she ran for the rear of the restaurant toward the bathrooms. In her haste, she knocked the straight-backed chair to the floor with a crash that reverberated in the half-full café. Conversations broke off instantly as the other customers swiveled to seek out the source of the noise.

Violet didn't pause until she'd disappeared from the room.
What in the world?

“I practically had to force her to come tonight,” Clare confessed, her voice lowered as she leaned close to Grace and waved off the beleaguered waitress, who promised to come back later. “I guess I shouldn't have. But she's been holed up for a few weeks now, and Mac called me, worried. He mentioned that she'd been under the weather, but he thought she was feeling better.”

That was just like Violet's brother, Mac McCallum. He was the kind of guy Grace had always wished she'd had for a big brother, one who looked out for his sister even into their adulthood. Back in high school, he'd busted Tommy Masterson in the mouth for saying something off-color about Violet, and the boys in Royal had learned fast that they didn't cross Mac when it came to Violet.

“We should go check on her,” Grace said firmly. Poor thing. She probably had a stomach flu or something like that, and they'd let her run off to the bathroom. Alone. “Friends hold each other's hair.”

When Grace and Clare got to the restroom, Violet was standing at the sink, both hands clamped on the porcelain as she stared in the mirror, hollow eyed, supporting her full weight on her palms as if she might collapse if the vanity wasn't there to hold her up.

“You didn't have to disrupt your dinner on my account.” Violet didn't glance at the other two women as she spoke into the mirror.

“Of course we did.” Grace put her arm around Violet and held her tight as she stood by her friend's side, offering the only kind of support she knew to give: physical contact. “Whatever it is, I'm sure you'll feel better soon. Sometimes it takes a while for the virus to work through your system. Do you want some crackers? Cold medicine? I'll run to the pharmacy if need be.”

A brief lift of Violet's lips passed as a smile. “You're so nice to offer, but I don't think what I've got can be fixed with cold medicine.”

She trembled under Grace's arm. This was no garden-variety stomach bug or spring cold, and Grace was just about to demand that Violet go see a doctor in the morning, or she'd drag her there herself, when Clare met Violet's eyes in the mirror as she came up on the other side of their friend.

“You're pregnant,” Clare said decisively with a knowing smile. “I knew it. That night at Priceless... I could see then that you had that glowy look about you.”

Oh. Now Grace felt like a dummy. Of course that explained Violet's strange behavior and refusal to drink the wine.

Shock flashed through Violet's expression but she banked it and then hesitated for only a moment. “No. That's impossible.”

“Impossible, like you're in denial? Or impossible, like you haven't slept with anyone who could have gotten you pregnant?”

“Like, impossible, period, end of story, and now you need to drop it.” Violet scowled at Clare in the mirror, who just stuck her tongue out. “It's just an upset stomach. Let's go back to the table.”

With a nod that said she was dropping it but didn't like it, Clare hustled Violet to the table and ordered her hot tea with lemon, then ensured that everyone selected something to eat in her best mother-hen style.

The atmosphere grew lighter and lighter until their food came. They were just three friends having dinner, as advertised. Until Clare zeroed in on Grace and asked point-blank, “What's going on with you and Kyle Wade?”

Grace nearly choked. “What? Nothing.”

Heat swept across her cheeks as she recalled in living color exactly how big a lie that was.

“Funny,” Clare remarked to Grace. “I'd swear I heard mention of a highly charged
encounter
with Kyle in the parking lot of the HEB the other night. Care to fill us in?”

Violet perked up. “What's this? You're picking up with Kyle again?”

“Over my dead body!” That might have come out a little more vehement than she'd intended. “I mean...”

“I haven't seen him yet,” Violet said to Clare as if Grace hadn't spoken. “But when I went to the bank yesterday, Cindy May said he's filled out and pretty much the stuff of centerfold fantasies. ‘Smoking hot' was the phrase she used. Liberally.”

Clare waggled her brows at Grace. “Spill the beans, dear.”

Heat climbed up her cheeks. “I don't have any beans to spill. His daughters are on my case docket, and we ran into each other at the grocery store. This is Royal. It would be weird if I
hadn't
run into him.”

“I haven't run into him.” Violet sipped her tea. “Clare?”

The traitor shook her head. “Nope.”

“Well, the Kyle train has left the station and I was not on board. I don't plan to be on board.” Grace drained her glass of wine and motioned for another one the moment the waitress glanced her way. Wow, was it hot in here, and she was so thirsty. “Kyle Wade is the strong, silent type, and I need a man who can open his mouth occasionally to tell me what I mean to him. If that's not happening, I'm not happening. But it doesn't matter because nothing is going on with us. He's trying to be a father and I'm working to figure out how to let him. That's it.”

All at once, she realized she'd already made up her mind about his fitness as a parent. Kyle was trying. She'd seen it over and over. What could she possibly object to in his bid for custody? Nothing. Any objections would be strictly due to hurt feelings over something that happened a decade ago. It was time to embrace the concept of bygones and move on.

“Men are nothing but trouble,” Violet muttered darkly.

“That's not true,” Clare corrected. “The right man is priceless.”

“Parker is one in a million and he's taken. Unless you're willing to share?” Grace teased, and tried really hard to shut down the uncomfortable squeeze of jealousy surrounding her heart.

Clare had met her Dr. McDreamy. Grace had nothing. A great big void where Kyle used to be, and nothing had come along in ten years that could fill it. Well, except for the one man whom she suspected would fill that hole perfectly. She just had no desire to let him try, no matter how much she wanted a husband and family of her own.

Eyebrows raised, Clare cocked her head at Grace. “So you're sticking by your single-girl status, huh?”

She didn't sound so convinced, as if maybe Grace had been kidding when she'd vowed to be a Professional Single Girl from now on.

“I've been telling you so for months,” Grace insisted. “There's nothing wrong with high standards and until I find someone who can spell
standards
, it's better to be on my own.”

Actually, her standards weren't all that high—a run-of-the-mill swept-off-her-feet romance would do just fine. If she was pregnant and in love with a man who desperately loved her in return, she'd consider her life complete.

“Hear, hear.” Violet raised her mug of hot tea to click it against Grace's wineglass. “I'll join your single girl club.”

“Everyone is welcome. Except Clare.” Grace grinned to cover the heaviness that had settled over her heart all at once. There wasn't anything on her horizon that looked like a fairy-tale romance. Just another meeting with a man who was driving her crazy.

* * *

Grace drove to Wade Ranch the next day without calling and without an appointment.