The noonday heat hit her full in the face and Grace braced herself with a hand on the door frame. She felt almost faint. And she thought she’d just heard Johnny say he needed her to marry him. It had to be this hot weather, causing some kind of hallucination....
Her heart caught as a small body leaned from behind Johnny’s back, a child clad in pink T-shirt and jeans and wearing a pink and black helmet that probably cost more than a year’s worth of spiral perms. Johnny lifted the helmet from the child’s head, revealing dark hair and blue eyes. She knew without a doubt that this pretty child of four was Johnny’s niece, and her namesake, little Gracie.
“Is now okay?”
Johnny’s innocent voice drifted over her, as the sun slanted down, casting a deceptive halo over his gleaming black hair. Grace drew a deep breath. Johnny had said Gracie needed a haircut. She had only imagined the rest. Though it was Monday and the salon was officially closed, she said automatically, “Now is fine.”
“We can talk about getting married afterward,” Johnny said.
That feeling of faintness assailed Grace again.
It hadn’t been a hallucination....
Johnny dismounted and lifted Gracie, carrying the child past her, making brief but potent contact as his arms and legs and hips touched hers, his breath whisking her bangs across her forehead. Grace thought how little her life had changed over the years. But as Johnny brushed by, she could sense a change in the air.
Grace shut the door. What was going on here? Why had Johnny, who had always seen her as a pesky second sister, said such a thing? Hearing the words she’d once dreamed of hearing as an awkward teen only made her angry with him now.
Gracie observed her from where Johnny settled the child on her feet, and Grace’s heart softened. Too solemn, Grace thought, and as the little girl glanced away, too shy. Johnny’s sister, Janelle, had been shy, and Grace felt the same protective instinct for Gracie that she’d felt for her best friend. The feeling was compounded by the accidental death of Gracie’s parents one month earlier, which she assumed had left the child under the guardianship of her maternal grandparents. Too distraught to make the three-hour drive to Chicago, Grace hadn’t attended the funeral. She tried, but failed, to imagine Gracie being raised by the highbrow Tremonts.
Conscious of Johnny’s watchful gaze, Grace stepped into the room, a wariness coming over her that she recognized from years ago whenever Johnny would try to draw her and Janelle into one of his pranks.
I need you to marry me.
Johnny had been smiling as he spoke and Grace realized he’d been teasing. He’d probably gotten a charge out of the shock value of his words. She’d fallen for his joke, of course, just the way she used to.
Most likely, Johnny had brought his niece from Chicago to the country to see where her mother once lived.
Johnny leaned down and whispered in Gracie’s ear. Then Gracie ran over to one of the styling stations and climbed into a chair. With her hand, she pushed off from the counter to set the chair twirling and creaking. Her hair, damp with sweat from the helmet, hung limply to her shoulders and clung to her head.
Grace planted her hands on her hips, frowning at Johnny. “That little girl has no business riding on a motorcycle.”
Though he’d taken a lazy stance, Johnny’s lean body seemed to simmer. His once shaggy hair was now cut in a stylish wedge, short on the sides, long on top. His T-shirt was plain white, devoid of snakes, chains or four-letter words. He wore jeans that looked soft, faded by design rather than as a show of rebellion, and a pair of pricey white high-top tennis shoes, which replaced the leather boots he used to favor. To the average eye, Johnny appeared to have changed.
But Grace had never seen Johnny in the same light as any average person, and with just a glance, she knew better. Johnny Tremont hadn’t changed.
“We only drove from the motel at the edge of town.” His nonchalant tone failed to reassure her. “A friend hauled us and the Harley down from Chicago last night.”
“So you could marry me.” Grace laced her voice with sarcasm, letting him know he hadn’t fooled her with his “proposal.” She was twenty-five, not fifteen. She didn’t have stars in her eyes anymore.
But her sarcasm bounced right off Johnny.
“That’s right.” There was purpose in his step as he drew closer, resolve in his voice as he lowered it to tell her, “In their will, Janelle and Grant named me Gracie’s legal guardian. Now Mother and Dad are suing for guardianship on the grounds that I’m unfit to raise her. I intend to keep Gracie, but to do that, I need a wife. I need you to marry me.”
Johnny’s words hadn’t lost any of their shock value with repetition. On an indrawn breath she whispered a sentiment once shared by all of Ashville, Illinois. “You’re crazy, Johnny.”
“I’ve never been more sane—or serious—in my life,” he responded without hesitation, his jaw set, his eyes more grave than she’d ever seen them.
Johnny, a father figure? The idea defied imagination. But apparently he’d served as one since Janelle and Grant’s deaths.
“Mother’s playing the part to impress her friends. Dad’s indulging her.” His voice grew bitter. “They don’t really want Gracie.”
Grace recalled how the wealthy Tremonts had originally bought the acreage outside of town, near the Green farm, with the hope that quiet country life would keep fifteen-year-old Johnny out of trouble and coax Janelle out of shyness. But their busy lives hadn’t allowed them time for Johnny and Janelle. They’d paid for Johnny’s pranks and had been relieved when Janelle found a friend to keep her amused.
She realized Johnny was right. The Tremonts had never seemed to want Johnny and Janelle. Why would they want Gracie?
“I want to raise Gracie here in Ashville,” Johnny went on. “But the court won’t allow it unless I can provide a better life for her than my parents.”
“That doesn’t necessarily mean you have to marry,” she insisted, her sense of self-preservation kicking in full tilt.
“According to my lawyer, it does.” Johnny’s reply was grim. Marriage had not likely been his first solution to his problem. But it was evident he meant to follow through on his lawyer’s advice, that he meant to marry her.
“I realize I’m asking a lot. But I intend to make this worth your while by paying off the mortgage on your farm, whatever the outcome in court.”
Heat burned Grace’s cheeks. He was paying her to marry him. Nothing could have made it more clear—he still saw her as something less than a desirable woman.
“Once I have guardianship of Gracie, and Mother gets back to her tea parties, we can divorce.”
Nothing except that.
Grace felt a flare of indignation. Worse, she felt all of fifteen again, desperate for Johnny to see her as a woman. A woman in love with him...
Her heart missed a panicked beat. She couldn’t do this.
She was about to tell Johnny so when his gaze cut to Gracie, and she saw a fierce protectiveness come into his eyes, tinged with a trace of desperation. She caught her lip. Johnny, who had never needed anything but his motorcycles and the successful dealership and repair shop he’d started in Chicago, needed her help with Gracie.
Suddenly aware of the quiet, she realized the chair had stopped creaking and Gracie sat watching them, her eyes revealing the sadness inside her.
A sense of fate rolled over Grace. But she only whispered to Johnny, “I don’t know. I need time to think.”
But she couldn’t think clearly standing so close to Johnny. She walked over to the styling station and summoned