Rising Tides
Page 40

"Uh-uh. Why'd you con Ethan into going over to Grace's?" She shook back her hair, aimed a bland look dead into his eyes. "I'd think a shrewd, savvy, sharp guy like you ought to be able to figure that out."
His brows drew together. "You're trying to get something going between them."
"Somethingis going between them, but your brother is slower than a lame turtle."
"He's slower than a lame turtle with bifocals, but that's Ethan. Don't you think they should muddle through this on their own?"
"All they need is five minutes alone, and that's all I did—work it out so they'd have a few minutes alone. Besides"—she slipped her arms up and around his neck—"we deliriously happy women want everyone else to be deliriously happy, too."
He cocked a brow. "Do you think I'm going to fall for that?" She smiled, then leaned over to nip his bottom lip. "Yeah."
"You're right," he murmured and let her convince him.
Ethan sat in his truckfor a full five minutes. Recipes? That was the dumbest damn thing he'd ever heard of. He'd always thought Anna was a sensible woman, but here she was, sending him off to deliver recipes, for Christ's sake.
And he wasn't ready to see Grace just yet. Not that his mind wasn't made up about her, but… even a rational man had certain weaknesses.
Still, he didn't see how he was going to get out of it, as he was already here. He'd make it quick. She was probably putting the baby to bed, so he'd just get it done and get out of her way. Like a man condemned, he dragged himself out of the truck and to her front door. Through the screen he could see the flickering lights of candles. He shifted his feet and noticed that music was playing, something with weeping strings and soaring piano.
He'd never felt more ridiculous in his life than he did standing there on Grace's front porch holding a recipe for a pasta dish while music slid around the warm summer night. He knocked on the wood frame, not too loudly, as he worried about waking Aubrey. He gave serious thought to sticking the card in the door and hightailing it, but he knew that would be cowardice, plain and simple.
And Anna would want to know why he hadn't brought her the instructions for Grace's fried chicken. When he saw her he wished to God Almighty he'd taken the coward's way. . She walked out from the kitchen, at the back of the house. It was a tiny place, had always made Ethan think of a dollhouse, so she didn't have far to travel. To him it seemed he watched her walk through that music, that light for hours.
She wore pale, fragile pink that skimmed down to her ankles, with a row of tiny pearl buttons from the hollow of her throat to the hem that flowed around her bare feet. He had rarely seen her in a dress, but now he was too thunderstruck by the sight of her to question why she was wearing it. All he could think was she looked like a rose, long and slim and just ready to bloom. And his tongue tangled up in his mouth.
"Ethan." Her hand trembled lightly as she reached down, opened the screen. Maybe she hadn't needed a star to wish on after all. For here he was, standing close and watching her.
"I was…" Her scent, familiar as his own, seemed to wrap around his brain. "Anna sent you—she asked me to bring this by."
Mystified, Grace took the card he held out. At the sight of the recipe she had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. Her nerves backed off just enough that her eyes smiled when she lifted them to his. "That was nice of her."
"You got hers?"
"Her what?"
"The one she wants. The chicken thing."
"Oh, yes. Back in the kitchen. Come on in while I get it." What chicken thing? she wondered, nearly giddy from suppressed laughter that she knew would come out well on the hysterical side. "The, um, casserole, right?"
"No." She had such a tiny waist, he thought. Such narrow feet. "Fried."
"Oh, that's right. I'm so scatterbrained lately."
"It's going around," he mumbled. He decided it was safer to look anywhere but at her. He noted the pair of fat white candles burning on the counter. "You blow a fuse?"
"Excuse me?"
"What's wrong with your lights?"
"Nothing." She could feel the heat rise into her cheeks.
She didn't have a recipe for fried chicken written down anywhere. Why would she? You just did the same as you always did when it came time to make it. "I like candlelight sometimes. It goes with the music."
He only granted, wishing she would hurry up so he could get the hell away. "You already put Aubrey to bed?"
"She's spending the night with my mother."
His eyes, which had been steadfastly studying her ceiling, shot down and met hers. "She's not here?"
"No. It's her first overnight. I've already called over there twice." She smiled a little, and her fingers reached up to fiddle with the top button of her dress in a way that made Ethan's mouth water. "I know she's only a few miles away, and as safe as she'd be in her own crib, but I couldn't help it. The house feels so different without her here."
"Dangerous" was the word he'd have used. The pretty little dollhouse was suddenly as deadly as a minefield. There wasn't any little girl innocently sleeping in the next room. They were alone, with music sobbing and candles flickering.
And Grace was wearing a pale-pink dress that just begged to have those little white buttons undone, one by one by one.
The tips of his fingers began to itch.
"I'm glad you stopped by." Holding tight to her courage, she took a step forward and tried to remember that she had the power. "I was feeling a little blue."
He took a step back. More than his fingertips was itching now. "I said I'd be back directly."
"You could stay for… coffee or whatever?"
Coffee? If his system got any more wired than it was at that moment, it would have jumped right through his skin to dance the hornpipe. "I don't think…"
"Ethan, I can't steer clear of you the way you asked me. St. Chris is too small, and our lives are too tangled up together." She could feel the pulse in her throat pounding against her skin in hard, insistent little knocks. "And I don't want to. I don't want to steer clear of you, Ethan."