Grady's Wedding by Patricia McLinn

Author:Patricia McLinn [McLinn, Patricia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Contemporary Romance
Publisher: Belgrave House
Published: 1993-10-15T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

“It looks comfortable enough.” Leslie bounced the sofa cushions with her hand.

“Safe for you to say, it’s over six feet long.”

She grinned at his morose tone. This would work out fine. The room was long and narrow, with the single bed in one corner and the sofa at the opposite end, facing French doors that opened to a small deck and with its back to the bed. For being in the same room, they were as private and as far apart as possible.

On top of that, Grady had been casual almost to the point of offhandedness about the situation.

And best of all, they weren’t in Charlottesville.

“Have a seat,” he invited. “Unless you’re tired and want to go right to bed.”

She groaned. “If I went to bed after that huge meal, I think I’d sink through the mattress to the floor.”

They’d lingered over their coffee so long that they’d been the only ones left in the dining room. To make amends for keeping Karen and Marty so late, they’d insisted on helping with the dishes and ended up hearing all about the inn’s history. Two hours later the four of them had been sitting around the kitchen table, enjoying a nightcap poured by Marty and a “sliver” of cake insisted on by Karen.

For an instant after Karen used the word, Leslie met Grady’s eyes and allowed herself to recall that moment on the back steps of the beach house, the sensations of his strong hands holding hers, his teeth and lips, his touch.

Then Marty started an anecdote about the great-aunt who’d willed him the inn, and Leslie escaped the memory.

That had been the only lapse, and it had been hers, not his. So there could be no harm in talking for a little longer.

Besides, there were things she wanted to know.

“Unless you’re too tired,” she offered out of fairness. “You were the one doing all that driving.”

“Tired, yes. Sleepy. no.” He sat, slipping off his shoes, then stretching his long legs across the scarred coffee table. “So have a seat.” She complied. “It sounds like Marty’s aunt has a thing or two in common with your Grandma Beatrice.”

“They do sound like sisters beneath the skin, don’t they? Growing up, I thought every family was required to have at least one member like that. The grande dame requirement.” He said nothing, so she made it more direct. “Doesn’t your family have anyone like that?”

“Not really.”

Not direct enough, apparently. “What’s your family like?”

He shrugged. “I told you, we’re not real close.” She waited, and was rewarded when he finally added, “I don’t think they really wanted a kid. Maybe I was an experiment that convinced them they weren’t cut out to be parents. Maybe I was a mistake. Either way, they sure didn’t know what to do with me.”

“What do you mean?”

He frowned, quick, impatient. “Sometimes my mother would come into my room, at the house or some hotel, and look at me like a piece of modern sculpture she couldn’t quite fathom.

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