When You Wish (Contemporary Romance) (13 page)

In large but extraordinarily neat handwriting, Dan had recorded every little thing. So Grace typed every little thing into a program Dan had created for just that purpose. She had no idea what any of it meant, but she didn’t need to. She just needed to type, like any good grunt. The data would be collated once she’d entered everything—or so he said.

Grace was pretty impressed—with the program and with Dan’s handwriting. Un-doctor man strikes again.

Coming to the end of a page, Grace glanced at her watch and then at Dan. He was bent over a beaker, mumbling like a madman. He’d been doing that for the past hour and a half—ever since she’d asked him what paronychial infection was, and he’d told her, in med-speak.

Her mind whirred; her eyes rolled back in her head. She had no idea what he was talking about, and when his voice had disintegrated into mumbles, she’d just walked away, leaving him in his own little universe. He’d never noticed she was gone.

No wonder he liked to work alone. He sounded like a Saturday afternoon matinee monster when he mumbled like that. She’d just have to look up paronychial infection later—if she could manage to read through the definition without falling asleep.

She pushed back her chair. Time to go home.

“Dan?”

Grunt.

“I have to go.”

Grunt.

“I’ll be back tomorrow morning.”

Nothing.

Grace picked up the keys to Olaf s car and went to the door. “The
conversation has been enlightening; the company charming.”

He held up one finger, as if asking her to wait one minute. Grace did. When his finger was still up in the air four minutes later, she shook her head and left. But she did so with a smile. Unfortunately, she found the absentminded professor thing kind of cute.

Five hours later, the smile had died along with her energy. Grace sat on her front porch and flapped a weak hand at her last customer of the day. She was beat. All she wanted to do was take a tepid shower, put on her jammies, and help the Jewels piece together a quilt in the workroom. Maybe play some music, have a fruit and yogurt smoothie for dinner.

Her eyes drifted closed, her head fell back, her legs stretched out in front of her. She imagined the thick, white yogurt blended with blueberries and ba
nanas, cooling her heated tongue, sliding down her parched throat, soothing her empty stomach.

A car door slammed and absently Grace dismissed the sound as her last customer belatedly leaving. She went back to the fruit smoothie fantasy with a lick of her lips. She could almost taste the froth that floated on the top of the drink; the bubbles would burst upon her tongue with a mere hint of flavor, then disappear. As
if in protest, her stomach rumbled, and she rubbed her palm over her belly in a circular motion until it calmed.

Summer heat hung on the air and with a sigh, Grace popped open the next three buttons on her jumpsuit, down to where the clasp would be on a front-clasp bra—if she wore a bra. She’d never seen the point of wasting her money in the training-bra section at Sears.

Dusk marked her second-favorite time of the day. Work was done and play about to begin. The night was hers and she could hardly wait.

A breeze drifted across Lake Illusion, cooling the beads of sweat upon her bare chest, then picking up a stray lock of hair that had escaped from her French braid. The strand tickled her nose and she giggled, then ran fingertips down her collarbone and spread the droplets into nothing.

Someone choked; glass shattered, and Grace leapt to her feet.

Dan Chadwick stood at the base of her porch steps, a broken bottle at his feet. Red wine soaked into the dirt and the cement, ran down his bare shins and beaded upon his canoe-sized tennis shoes.

He looked up, and in his eyes Grace saw a heat that had nothing to do with embarrassment. It was then that she understood the car door she’d heard had been his, and he’d been watching her all along. Watching her imagine an orgasmic meal, watching her open her shirt, watching her touch herself and sigh.

Grace swallowed a scalding lump at the base of her throat, but she could not break the pull of his gaze, even if she’d wanted to.

The breeze picked up again but could do little to dispel the heat that flushed over her. The scent of the wine, rich and red, rose on the steamy afternoon, wrapping about her, making her ache. She took a step toward him and he shook his head.

“The glass,” he murmured, then stepped over the mess and up the steps.

He stood too close, and she didn’t care. She wanted those big hands on her. She wanted them on her now.

She watched him raise his hand and her eyes drifted closed, her head drifted back, revealing the line of her throat, opening her blouse to the swell of her breasts—what swell there was.

Then he touched her, a single feather-light flick across her cheek as he pushed the stray lock of hair behind her ear. She waited for his kiss. His lips pressed to her brow. Her eyes opened, confused, as he stepped back and away from her, staring at the door.

Grace turned. Olaf scowled. “Button self, Gracie. Can I not leave yo
u for a moment and you are kissing very bad men?”

“Go away, O
laf You act like I’m a nymphomaniac.”

“Nymph? Perhaps. Maniac? That would be
him
.” Olaf sniffed at Dan, who just shrugged. “Why is he here anyway? Did you not see him enough while you were working?”

She’d seen him, but he had not really seen her. Still, why was he here? And with wine? Grace glanced at the mess
on the sidewalk. Make that without wine?

“Em invited me to dinner,” Dan said.

“What?” Grace squeaked—her jammie-and-smoothie fantasy evaporating on the night breeze.

Olaf cursed in Norwegian. Em sailed out the front door, dressed in her Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile costume. Dan looked back and forth between the two of them. Grace groaned and sat back in her chair.

It was going to be a very long night.

Dan swept the sidewalk clear of glass and used the hose hooked to the front of the house to spray the cement and his legs. What was it about Grace that turned him into a walking klutz?

That wasn’t fair—he’d been a klutz long before he met Grace. It just hurt more when she saw his failings. Grace was so . . . so . . . so Grace. Next to her he was an oaf, and he needed to remember that.

He had come out of the zone to find Grace gone. Long gone to be exact—it was nearly dinnertime before he came back to earth. His mother would say he was rude not to have said good-bye, shown Grace out, thanked her for her trouble, blah, blah, blah. Of course his mother probably wouldn’t have let Grace Lighthorse into her house. His mother was the queen of rude, which was why she felt it her duty to point out rudeness in others.

The screen door popped open and Olaf lumbered out. Dan also needed to remember that Olaf loved Grace to the corners of his huge heart, and if Dan screwed up, Olaf might just use his huge fists on Dan’s face.

Dan nodded. “Sorry about the mess.”

Olaf s lip curled into a snarl. So much for apologies.

Dan climbed the
porch steps only to find his entrance blocked. He was not going to get into a shoving match with Olaf. Not only would he lose, he’d most likely end up looking stupid again. Once a day was enough for him, thank you.

“Pardon me?” he tried.

“I will not pardon you. Touching Gracie is forbidden, bad man.”

“To you, too?” Dan couldn’t help it; it just slipped out. He watched Olaf’s face turn crimson, and waited to die.

“Only a man such as you would think such a thing. Gracie is like my baby—the baby I lost long ago in my land of light. I once watched her cry over another such as you, and I did nothing because Gracie asked me not to. This time I will break you . . .” Olaf raised his fists in front of Dan’s face and made a snapping motion to illustrate, even though Dan had already gotten the point. “Like this. I will tear off your head and spit in your neck.”

“Graphic image,” Dan murmured. Olaf had to be descended from Vikings—perhaps only a generation back.

“Even Gracie will not stop me. So watch what you do, bad man, because I will be watching you.”

He bumped his shoulder against Dan’s in what was becoming a familiar gesture between the two of them—almost as good as a handshake. Dan’s footing slipped but he managed to stay on his feet. The guy
was
going to kill him if he stepped out of line.

“Dan?” Grace stood in the doorway, a slight smile on her face.

She looked the same as when he’d watched her on the porch, except she’d buttoned her jumpsuit. Too late, because he’d already seen that there was just Grace beneath the neon light. Would his palms forever itch with the need to slip inside and discover the curve of her rib cage beneath the swell of her breast?

“Yep,” he said, to no one in particular.

“Dinner,” Grace said and opened the screen.

As her scent mixed with the remnants of wine, Dan admitted to himself that for Grace, death just might be worth a single night in her arms.

Chapter Nine

“Olaf won’t be joining us?” Dan followed Grace into the house. “He have a hot date?”

“Olaf?” Grace laughed. “No. He tells me he loves someone with all his heart, and he’ll have no one but her, but she won’t have him. I find that hard to believe. He’s such a sweet man.”

“Sweet? Olaf? We’re talking about your partner? The man who wants to kill me?”

“He doesn’t want to kill you.”

“Yes,” Dan said. “He does.”

Grace stopped at the foot of the stairs leading up to the second floor offices. She turned with her hand on the newel post. “I told him this morning that you and I were conducting business, and he should leave you alone. Did he threaten you again?”

Dan thought of the argument he’d overheard that morning—the shouts, the thumps, the breaking glass. He didn’t want to be responsible for making such a thing happen again, even to Olaf. “No, no threats. Everything’s peachy.”

Grace narrowed her eyes. “You are a terrible liar, Daniel Chadwick.”

“And that would be a bad thing?”

Her lips twitched with a smile she did not allow to bloom before she headed up another flight of stairs. Dan got to follow. He liked following Grace.

As they gained the landing, the sound of arguing Jewels brought an exasperated sigh from Grace. “We’d better hurry up before they start throwing the crockery.” She picked up her pace.

“Is that where you get it from?”

“Yes,” she said curtly.

They reached a small dining room off the kitchen, which had been added in a renovation. There seemed to be very few doors in the house; huge archways led from the halls into the rooms proper, which gave each floor an airy, open feeling that Dan liked.

Em placed serving bowls in the center of the table. He had to admit the Cleopatra getup became her. The gold sheath complimented her still-slim figure, and the exotic eye makeup, which must have taken hours, made her green eyes glow and her skin shine pale as cream.

The other two had not dressed up—as historical figures at any rate. Instead, they wore flowing, brightly colored dresses, possibly muumuus, with matching flowers tucked into their hair. The place had the air of a party, spoiled only by the cutlery joust taking place at the head of the table between Ruby and Garnet.

“Stop that!” Grace ordered. “You’ll put out an eye. Or at the very least get a puncture wound like last time.”

The two women ignored her, continuing to growl and mumble, fake and jab.

With another exas
perated sigh, Grace stepped forward and gingerly de-forked the pair, as if dealing with two very dangerous women. Em raised a perfectly painted eyebrow in Dan’s direction and went into the kitchen. Dan just stood in the doorway feeling out of place. Since he usually was, the feeling came as no surprise.

Amazing smells
wafted toward Dan, and his stomach growled, then contracted so painfully he got dizzy. He’d forgotten to eat again. That really had to stop.

“What are you two fighting about this time?” Grace sounded weary.

“
She
thought we needed to serve a dead thing for dinner,” Ruby accused. Dan’s stomach stopped growling.

“She wants to feed the nice young doctor rabbit food.”

“Well,
she’d
feed him the rabbit if I let her.”

“I do not make a habit of petting birds.” Garnet gave Grace a wounded look. “Grace made me stop, though I still don’t understand why. The birds loved me and I loved them.”

“That’s not what I said,” Ruby shouted. “She never hears anything right.”

“Never mind, Aunt Ruby.” Grace turned to her other aunt, who still looked confused. “Birds have germs, Aunt Garnet. You can’t bring wild ones into the house. It isn’t safe for us or fair to them.”

“She didn’t want to
pet
them; she wanted to
eat
them. Cannibal.”