Amazing Gracie. Sherryl Woods

      “Afraid not.”

      “How come? Strict parents?”

      “No, they just wanted me to have more than they’d had. They stressed the importance of education and hard work.”

      “What about family vacations?”

      “Just one,” she recalled wistfully. “Right here, as a matter of fact.”

      “Is that why you came here when you quit your job?”

      Gracie nodded. “It was the last place I could remember being totally carefree.”

      “I guess you’ve gotten out of the habit since then.”

      “You could say that,” she said, thinking of the sixteen-hour days she put in at the hotel, three hundred sixty-five days a year. No wonder Max missed her. She’d been a blasted machine, operating on automatic for years now. She hadn’t just burned out. She’d incinerated.

      “Don’t worry. This problem isn’t life-threatening,” Kevin reassured her. “I can have it corrected in a few weeks, tops. I’ll give it my undivided attention.”

      Gracie was sorely tempted to give in. It might he nice to learn to play. It might be especially nice to be taught by an expert.

      It would also be dangerous. Kevin Patrick Daniels rattled her. In no time at all, she might forget all about the house she wanted to buy so she could start a new life.

      “Thanks anyway,” she said. “I’m content with my life just the way it is.”

      He shrugged. “Whatever you say, sweetheart, but that wistful expression on your face suggests otherwise.”

      The man was entirely too intuitive where she was concerned. It made her nervous. If only she could read him as well. She was beginning to get the uncomfortable feeling that she’d sold him short, that there were depths to Kevin Patrick Daniels she hadn’t even begun to see. Underestimating an adversary was very risky, indeed. She’d approached this whole project far too impulsively, just as Kevin had suggested earlier. She needed time to reassess, do a little of her own research.

      She was competitive and driven by nature. She had foolishly assumed that getting her hands on that old Victorian gem was going to be a snap. Now she knew otherwise. Her blood raced in anticipation of the all-out battle ahead.

      “Why the smile?” Kevin asked.

      “Nothing,” she assured him. She wondered how he’d react if he knew she’d been envisioning the day when she managed to steal that house right out from under him.

      6

      There were a lot of provocative things about Gracie that Kevin couldn’t forget during a long, restless night, but one particular thing lingered in the morning. He couldn’t imagine a life as singlemindedly focused on career as hers had apparently been. Not that all work and little play had made her dull, but he’d never known anyone more in need of shaking up.

      Fortunately, he’d grown very adept over the years at making the impulsive gesture, at doing the unexpected, at seizing the moment. Perhaps it was his way of compensating for the amount of responsibility that had been heaped on his shoulders. He’d been determined never to let it weigh him down. He’d learned to steal every minute he could for himself.