Читать книгу Amazing Gracie - Sherryl Woods, Sherryl Woods - Страница 8

The discussion had gone on for an hour, about fifty-nine minutes longer than it needed to, Kevin thought. Most of it had covered the same ground over and over. It was time to put an end to it.

“Absolutely not,” he said with finality, leveling a look straight into his cousin’s eyes. “I will not finance another one of your ridiculous, get-rich-quick schemes, Bobby Ray. It’s time you grew up and got a job, like the rest of us.”

“When did you ever hold down an actual job?” his cousin retorted. “All you do is play around with your inheritance—and ours, I might add—like it’s Monopoly money.”

“That Monopoly money has kept you and Sara Lynn afloat for the past five years,” he reminded Bobby Ray. “That’s about four years longer than the marriage would have lasted without it.”

Bobby Ray didn’t even flinch at the shot. Kevin’s opinion of his marriage was clearly old news to him by now. Kevin had repeated it often enough. He’d seen Sara Lynn for the little gold-digger she was from the minute she took up with Bobby Ray. His cousin, reeling from his second divorce and unable to handle life as a bachelor, had jumped straight from the frying pan into the fire.

“If I’d had that money, I could have been a rich man by now instead of living off what you dole out,” Bobby Ray complained bitterly. “I feel like a damn beggar.”

They had been over this turf again and again. Kevin actually felt a certain amount of sympathy for the position his uncle had left Bobby Ray in, but Uncle Steven had known what he was doing. Bobby Ray might be the same age as Kevin, thirty-six, but he had the attention span of a five-year-old. He was on his third wife, even though it was Kevin’s opinion that his heart remained with the first one. Kevin had lost count of the number of jobs he’d had and the number of failed business ventures he’d tried, then lost interest in.

“Unfortunately, you gave your father proof-positive that you lack a certain financial savvy,” he said, wishing there were a kinder way to state the obvious. There wasn’t, so he hammered home his point…again. “Be grateful your father had the foresight to put your trust into my hands so you couldn’t blow all of it. Maybe if you’d shown the slightest evidence of responsibility, he wouldn’t have done that. Instead, you took thirty thousand dollars from him and sank it into a taco stand.”

“It was a fried chicken franchise,” Bobby Ray protested, his expression sullen.

“Oh, yes, that’s right. Next door to a Kentucky Fried Chicken,” Kevin reminded him.

“This chicken was better. It was Ella Mae’s recipe. Everybody in the Northern Neck of Virginia loves Ella Mae’s chicken.”

“Maybe so, especially when she cooked at your mama’s house and served it up free. But you don’t take on a national franchise with a thirty-thousand-dollar investment and an advertising budget of zilch. The only people who ever ate there were related to you, and as big as our clan is we couldn’t support an ice cream stand on the boardwalk in summer, much less an entire restaurant year round. This latest scheme of yours is every bit as ill conceived. Get a job, Bobby Ray. It’ll do you good.”

“Go to hell.”

“No doubt about it,” Kevin said. Bobby Ray Daniels wasn’t the first member of his family to wish him a speedy end and a fiery destination.

The Daniels family wealth, accumulated over generations, thanks to wise investments and savvy handling, had never once been endangered until the current crop of cousins had landed on earth. Thanks to some very unfortunate marriages, the genetic pool had spawned—with one or two notable exceptions—an entire generation of irresponsible males and throwback southern belle females, who wouldn’t deign to lift a finger if the house was burning down around them.

Entrusted with what was left of the family fortune, Kevin had his work cut out for him. He wasn’t sure which his cousins resented most, the fact that he held the purse strings or the fact that he didn’t give a damn about the money they craved. He’d have given them each their fair share and been done with it if he hadn’t known they’d be back on his doorstep within a year, desperate for more.

What every single one of them needed, far more than they needed cash, was self-respect. Kevin didn’t have a clue how to go about giving them that, except by forcing them to actually work for a living. He’d opened door after door, only to have them blow the chances. He was running out of friends who’d hire them. There was a chance that Dick Flint in Richmond would find something for Bobby Ray. Dick had half a dozen used car dealerships and a penchant for losing at poker. He owed Kevin bigtime.

“I’ll call Dick Flint, if you’d like,” he offered.

Bobby Ray stared at him as if he’d suggested he take up sky-diving. “You want me to be a used car salesman?” he asked, as he straightened the monogrammed cuffs on his two-hundred-dollar shirt.

“I want you to do something that would excite you, something at which you’ll succeed.” Something that would justify those expensive, imported shirts and pay for the fashionable lifestyle to which Bobby Ray and Sara Lynn aspired.

“Well, it sure as hell won’t be selling those broken-down heaps Dick Flint passes off on an unsuspecting public,” Bobby Ray snapped. “One of these days you’re going to push me too far, Kevin. Me or one of the others.”

Kevin was tiring of Bobby Ray’s idle threats. One of these days he was simply going to pummel some sense into the overgrown jerk, just as he’d tried to do on more than one occasion when they were kids. Come to think of it, it hadn’t worked then, either. Instead, he leveled a look straight into his cousin’s eyes.

“Meaning?” he asked, his tone icy.

Not even Bobby Ray was able to mistake the fact that he’d gone too far. “Forget it,” he grumbled. “Just forget I stopped by. Forget I exist.”

As if I could, Kevin thought as his cousin stormed out of the house. The wills of various and sundry uncles had made sure of that.

As it always did, talking to Bobby Ray had worked up a mighty big thirst. Kevin wandered into the kitchen of his ridiculously huge house and found a pitcher of lemonade in the refrigerator. Molly, the housekeeper as far back as he could remember, made sure they were never out, just as she’d always kept the cookie jar crammed with ginger snaps, once she’d discovered he was partial to them.

Kevin filled a tall glass with ice cubes, then poured the lemonade right to the brim. He took a sip and felt his lips pucker. Perfect. Just enough sugar to take the edge off but not enough to ruin the sour taste of lemons. There was nothing better on a hot summer day.

Not that it was summer yet, but it sure felt like it. The temperature had hit eighty by noon and was still climbing. The humidity was every bit as thick as it was in mid-August. It struck him that was a sure-fire indication that he ought to spend the afternoon doing just what he always did in the middle of a sultry summer heat wave…absolutely nothing.

Carrying his lemonade and a handful of cookies, he headed outside and settled into a hammock spread between two massive oaks. Why work up a sweat—mental or physical—when he didn’t have to. He’d dealt with just about as much family business as he could in one day without throwing up.

First, Cousin Carolanne had dropped by hoping for a handout to pay off her charge cards. Then Tommy had called from North Carolina needing money for a lawyer to get out of his latest jam. Bobby Ray had been the final straw. A nice nap seemed called for.

He was just drifting off when he heard the roar of a distant engine. Since Greystone was not exactly on a superhighway, the sound was enough to disturb his rest and cause speculation about who was coming calling unannounced. With any luck at all, it wouldn’t be another of his devilish cousins. Of course, he’d had enough practice saying no today to be getting really good at it. He supposed uttering it a few more times wouldn’t be a strain. He probably wouldn’t even have to sit up and glower at them fiercely to make his point.

He took a long, slow sip of lemonade and watched the lane leading up to the house until he spotted a flashy red convertible zipping along the cedar-lined drive. Since he hadn’t seen any bills from auto dealerships on his desk that morning, he had to assume it didn’t belong to anyone in the family. He relaxed again and closed his eyes.

He didn’t intend to budge one inch from his current comfortable position in order to greet the uninvited guest. Aunt Delia would probably accuse him of being deliberately rude if she was observing the scene from her suite just above him. He glanced up and grinned at the sight of the shadow behind her curtains. Yep, he’d get a lecture over supper, all right. Aunt Delia was very big on manners and she told him repeatedly that his were atrocious. He’d promised to change…sooner or later.

At the moment, though, it seemed to him that his uninvited guest had probably hightailed it here on some mission or another and it wouldn’t do at all to show so much as a hint of retreat. Normally he was as keen as the next man to do business across a desk or over a fine lunch, but certain circumstances required a different tactic. Pure instinct told him this was one of those times.

It was several minutes, during which he was aware of the car getting closer and the engine cutting off, before he sensed a presence and bothered opening his eyes again. The sight before him was enough to cause his pulse to skip a beat or two, but he tried real hard not to let his reaction show.

The woman was a knockout. Tall and curvy and classy, all at the same time. The demure outfit she wore did absolutely nothing to mute her sex appeal, and it was definitely at odds with that fire engine red convertible. Kevin had always been fascinated with contradictions and this woman radiated them. Amazing, absolutely amazing.

“Mr. Daniels?”

“Yo,” he said without moving.

“Kevin Patrick Daniels?”

He hid a grin as he heard the impatience in her tone. “Yep, that’s me. You a process server, darlin’?”

“No, though I have to wonder why that would be your first guess. Do you spend a lot of time in trouble, Mr. Daniels?”

“Not half as much as I’d like to.”

“Perhaps if you would haul yourself out of that hammock occasionally you’d have more success at it.”

He marveled at her tart tone. Ms. Whoever-she-was seemed to have taken an instant dislike to him. That was promising. Nothing got his adrenaline flowing better than a real challenge.

“Southern hospitality precludes me from pointing out that you’ve just arrived at my home uninvited and now you’re insulting me. Must be a Yankee.”

“I suppose, if you go strictly by geographical birthplace, that I am,” she conceded. “And I’m sorry if I appear rude, but I find it very difficult to do business with a man who’s half asleep.”

“Darlin’, let me assure you, I am wide awake. Have been ever since you walked up. I could prove it, if you’d like to snuggle down here next to me.”

He could practically hear her swallowing hard as she absorbed the implications of that. He’d lay odds that if he checked her complexion it would be one shade shy of the color of her car.

“Why don’t you tell me who you are and what you want?” he suggested.

“I’m Gracie MacDougal,” she said, and waited as if to see if the name meant anything to him.

“Ah,” he said. Suddenly he understood all the reports he’d heard about the city girl who’d just moved to town and started asking questions about Aunt Delia’s property on the Potomac. He’d figured she’d come calling sooner or later.

“Pretty as a picture,” several of his friends had told him.

Even with his eyes half closed, he could see that they hadn’t done her justice.

“One of them globetrotters come home again,” said an old-timer with the derision of one who couldn’t imagine any legitimate need to leave the South in general and Virginia in particular.

Kevin thought that one was probably mistaken. If Gracie MacDougal had ever lived in these parts, he would have remembered. She wasn’t coming home. In fact, from the determined jut of her cute little chin, he guessed she was invading new territory, sort of like the Yankees did a hundred and some years earlier.

“You talk to her, watch your privates,” another acquaintance had warned. “She’s the kind who’ll chop ’em off.”

That, of course, remained to be seen. No matter who was right, obviously it was going to be a fascinating encounter, he concluded, observing her surreptitiously from hooded eyes.

“What can I do for you, Gracie MacDougal?”

“Actually, I have a business matter to discuss, but I find that rather difficult when I can’t even sit down and look you in the eye.”

Kevin patted the edge of the hammock. “There’s plenty of room right here next to me.”

She sighed heavily, her exasperation plain. “Mr. Daniels…”

“Don’t worry, darlin’, I don’t bite. Not on the first date, anyway, unless you ask nicely.”

“Mr. Daniels!”

Kevin concluded from her tone that she wasn’t going to get on with her business or give up until he sat up and took notice. He doubted that directing her to a chair a few feet away was going to satisfy her. If she wanted formality, he’d give her hundred-year-old formality.

“Ms. MacDougal, you surely do know how to spoil a man’s relaxation,” he said, rising. “Let’s go on inside and get this over with.”

He led the way to his office and noted the surprise on her face when she saw the book-lined shelves with volume after volume of leather-bound classics, the state-of-the-art computer system on his desk, the fax machine, and all the other accoutrements of running a business on the cusp of the millennium. Her gaze returned to him, and this time she seemed to be assessing him a little more carefully. He gestured toward one of the leather chairs left over from his father’s reign over the family fortune, then seated himself behind the desk.

“Talk to me,” he said.

“I understand you manage a property on the riverfront.”

Actually, he owned half a dozen of them, but since he knew which one she was interested in, he saw no reason to belabor the point. “I do.”

“I was wondering if the owner might be interested in selling?”

“No,” he said, relieved that he’d had all day to practice saying the word. Otherwise, seeing Gracie MacDougal’s crestfallen expression might have had him waffling.

“Absolutely not,” he added for good measure.

“But…” Clearly taken aback, she peered at him intently. “Are you sure?”

“Very sure.”

“Couldn’t you at least ask?”

“No need to,” he insisted.

“Aren’t you doing the owner a disservice by not taking my offer to them? In fact, isn’t that illegal?”

He shrugged. “I don’t think so.”

“You don’t even know what I’m willing to pay.”

“Trust me, it won’t be enough.”

“The place is a shambles.”

That was true enough. Kevin had been meaning to get over there and make a few repairs, cut the grass, maybe even trim the hedge. Had he done so, though, Aunt Delia—actually, his great-aunt on his mother’s side—would have wanted to go along for a nostalgic visit to her home and the next thing he knew she’d be demanding that he let her move back there. He couldn’t allow it.

The sad truth was, Aunt Delia had no business being on her own anymore. She forgot to take her medication. She left the stove on. She wandered off and left the front door standing wide open. It was a wonder she hadn’t been robbed blind. Kevin had never known what to expect when he’d driven over to visit. Most of the time he hadn’t liked what he’d found.

Finally, eighteen months ago he’d insisted Aunt Delia move in with him. He’d actually managed to make it sound as if she were the one doing him a favor. By now, she’d probably figured out that he’d bamboozled her, but they’d both grown comfortable with the new arrangement. That didn’t mean she wouldn’t love to be back in that drafty old house again. Nope, he couldn’t risk going near the place and she wouldn’t allow him to hire a stranger to do the work, not without being there to supervise. It was a Catch-22 of the first magnitude.

“There’s nothing wrong with the place that a little spit and polish cleaning wouldn’t fix right up,” he insisted.

“Then why don’t you take care of it? It’s a crime to allow it to go to ruin. It’s probably riddled with termites and overrun with mice.”

He grinned at her unconscious shudder. “Then I’m surprised you’d want to buy it,”

“I would fix it up,” she said,

She made the declaration in that haughty little way that made him want to scoop her up and kiss her until she went weak in the knees. He settled for an indifferent shrug.

“Sorry, it’s not for sale.”

“I’ve been checking into real estate prices in the area and I’ve come up with a ballpark figure that I think is reasonable,” she went on as if she hadn’t heard him. She snatched a piece of paper off of his desk and scribbled a figure on it, then shoved it in front of him.

“Nice ballpark, if I were playing, which I’m not.”

Scowling at him, she scratched out the amount and wrote another. Kevin stared at the paper and managed to hide his admiration. She’d pretty much nailed down the current market value and tacked on an extra ten thousand. She’d been one very busy woman since hitting town. Most people undervalued the property around here because the town had been slow in grasping its own potential. This outsider had apparently seen it right off. Since she was playing fair with the money, he wondered if she’d be honest about a few other things.

“Tell me, Gracie MacDougal, why are you so hot to buy that particular house? Do you have a husband and half a dozen kids stashed away somewhere?”

“I don’t see how that’s relevant.”

“It would give me a clue about why you’re interested in such a huge old house. Doesn’t seem like the logical choice for a woman all alone.”

“Sometimes logic doesn’t have a thing to do with wanting a piece of property. Sometimes you just fall in love.”

He’d never met a woman less inclined toward indulging a whim. Hot as it was, she was dressed in a suit, hose, and high heels that would have knocked the socks off a New York businessman. For his own purely masculine reasons, he’d have preferred she come calling in a sundress. Be that as it may, Gracie struck him as an exceptionally practical, businesslike lady, which meant she had plans for that house. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what they might be.

“Or sometimes you decide you’d like to start a little bed-and-breakfast maybe,” he suggested quietly and watched the telltale color bloom in her cheeks.

He was glad he’d done a little checking when he’d first heard about Gracie MacDougal and her fascination with Aunt Delia’s house. He knew all about her career with Worldwide Hotels. It hadn’t required a huge leap to figure out what she had in mind for the old Victorian. Without saying a word, she’d just confirmed his guesswork.

“If you think I’ll raise my offer, you can think again,” she said.

“Wouldn’t matter if you did,” he said. “It’s not for sale.”

“Then I suppose I might as well be going,” she said, then met his gaze evenly. “For now.”

“Then you’ll be back?”

“Oh, you can count on it, Mr. Daniels.”

Kevin couldn’t explain the odd sense of relief that stirred in him. He’d intended to rid himself of her, once and for all. He’d been as adamant as he’d known how to be about Aunt Delia’s house. And still, some part of him had obviously relished the first skirmish in what now promised to be all-out warfare. He couldn’t help wondering what wiles Gracie MacDougal had up her sleeve.

Not that it mattered. His cousins were masters of every form of sneaky manipulation in the book. Not a one of them had put anything over on him yet. He doubted Gracie MacDougal would, either.

It would be downright entertaining, though, to have her try.

Gracie had negotiated for supplies and equipment for entire hotel chains with more success than she had in that first meeting with Kevin Patrick Daniels. The man obviously had no idea of the actual worth of that run-down property. Didn’t seem to care, either. Otherwise, he would have recognized her bid for the preemptive strike it was and snapped it up.

All in all, the meeting had been a frustrating waste of her time. She had left his house feeling disgruntled, off kilter, and thoroughly frustrated.

Of course, that might have had something to do with the fact that the man had been half nude, with his shirt undone and jeans so old they were practically threadbare in some very revealing places. She had tried not to look, she really had, but it had been impossible not to notice the curling, dark chest hair and the very impressive bulge beneath the zipper of his jeans. Unless she’d been very much mistaken, the man had been turned on by taunting her.

Whatever, she had left Greystone Manor more determined than ever to get her hands on that house…or around Mr. Daniels’s neck.

She had grown very tired of hearing him declare the property wasn’t for sale. Of course it was. Everything in the world was for sale for the right price. She just had to figure out what would be persuasive enough to get his attention.

No, check that. She’d had his attention, all right. There was hard evidence of that, so to speak. Plus, she had caught the speculative, masculine gleam in his eyes, once he’d bothered to open them all the way. She supposed there was a way to use that to her advantage if she were that sort of woman. But, alas, she wasn’t.

No, what she needed to do was to get him focused on business, caught up in the deal, challenged by the negotiations.

Unfortunately, she had a feeling one of those day-long motivational seminars couldn’t stir up Kevin Patrick Daniels. One thing she had to say for Mr. Daniels, he was no Max. Obviously, he had about as much ambition as a slug. Lying around in a hammock in the middle of a workday said a whole lot about the man, none of it good.

Of course, some would say that maybe she ought to take a few lessons in relaxation from him. She’d been on vacation less than a week and already she was caught up in a business deal when she should have been following his example and sipping lemonade and lolling around in a hammock. What was it about her that drove her to succeed? If she could figure that out, maybe she could bottle it and slip a little into Mr. Daniels’s lemonade.

A good shrink would probably tell her that she spent so much time on her career, because she was better at it than she was at relationships. In fact, she’d grown so leery of men in recent years that she’d worked very hard to attain the kind of independence that made a male protector unnecessary. She could count on her career in ways she’d never been able to count on another human being. At least she’d been able to until Max had come along and thrown a monkeywrench into that side of her life, too.

Maybe that was why she had seized on the notion of getting that Victorian and turning it into a bed-and-breakfast. It was just one more way to solidify her independence, to make sure that she alone was in control of her future.

Right now, though, Kevin Patrick Daniels stood between her and the control over her own life that she craved. That put him in a very dangerous position. A woman scorned in love was nothing compared to the ire of Gracie MacDougal when she’d been scorned in business.

Yes, indeed, win or lose, the next few months were going to be very interesting.