“Just, uh, cut a little off the bottom...” Johnny’s voice trailed off at her baleful stare.
Grace spun Gracie to face the mirror. “How would you like your hair cut, Gracie?”
Gracie stared at her pink tennis shoes. Johnny shifted, and this time Grace warned him clearly with her gaze to keep quiet.
“Like yours,” Gracie finally said.
“Excellent choice.” Grace smiled, her heart turning over. No one had ever wanted to look like her before.
She set to work, tying a pink plastic apron beneath Gracie’s chin. Aware of Johnny’s close regard, she wondered if he noticed that her once long brown hair now swung neatly at her shoulders, that she wore a touch of makeup and a fashionable denim jumper over her crisp white T-shirt. She thought of the ill-fitting clothes and unstyled hair she’d had in high school. She hadn’t exactly been prom material.
But then, in his own way, neither had Johnny.
She parted Gracie’s silky hair while Johnny circled the room, skirting hair care displays and the potted plants she’d been watering. His straight nose wrinkled over the lingering scents of solutions and shampoos. He eyed the photos on the wall of models with elaborate hairdos, coming to a halt before the cash register. Behind it, she’d hung a picture of Elvis sporting a ducktail, in deference to the retro look.
“I remember that picture,” he said.
Of course he remembered. Her parents had been Elvis fans, in their thirties during Elvis’s heyday of movies and songs, when they’d fallen in love. The front hall of the old farmhouse where Grace had lived since her parents’ deaths had been decorated with photos of Elvis when she and Janelle and Johnny were teens. The one time she’d danced with Johnny had been in the living room to a slow Elvis tune.
“Can’t Help Falling In Love.”
Grace shook off the wistful feeling that came over her and gazed at Johnny with a critical eye. He was handsome with his hair cut in that crisp wedge, falling sexily over his forehead. With a ducktail he would look like a devastatingly young Elvis.
He turned then and caught her staring. Hiding her attraction, the way she’d always done, she said haughtily, “A shampoo and trim would do wonders for you.”
Johnny’s gaze glinted right back at her. “I have a barber in the city. And he doesn’t give shampoos.”
Grace turned away to hide her grin. She’d missed the exhilarating rush that came with sparring with Johnny. She’d missed Johnny. Before she could stop the thought, Grace imagined, as she had long ago, what it would be like if he really wanted to marry her.
But he’d come back for Gracie’s sake.
They needed to talk and so she hurried little Gracie’s trim along. Grace was aware from the way Johnny jingled his keys in his pocket that his patience was running out.
Johnny managed not to reach up and push his hand through his hair. He was due for a trip to the barber but he’d be damned if he’d sit in that chair with a pink bib tied around his neck.
Gracie seemed to enjoy getting her hair cut, though. And her smile cut right through to Johnny’s heart. He knew the pain that lurked beneath the surface, knew how Gracie cried in the night, how she clung to him if he had to leave her for a short while, afraid that, like her parents, he wouldn’t come back.
Johnny didn’t leave Gracie anymore. He ran his business by phone. He’d stopped partying, stopped everything for Gracie. He’d turned his world upside down to make her happy. He wasn’t going to lose her now to his parents.
Which meant, according to his lawyer, that he had to clean up his act. Provide a loving home life to rival that of his respectable, wealthy parents. What a joke.
Gracie wasn’t going to grow up in the same cold environment he and Janelle had. Not if he could help it. Not if Grace would marry him.
Frowning, Johnny contemplated Grace. She and Janelle had exchanged occasional letters. Through Janelle he’d learned that Grace was hanging on to that farm by a thread, and that there was no special man in her life. Maybe his proposal was a little sudden, but he could see that she wanted to help Gracie. He couldn’t understand what held her back.
But then, Grace had always been independent. Though she’d never let him down, she’d never been as easily swayed as Janelle to help him in and out of mischief.
He trailed his gaze the length of Grace’s body, over the soft curves that rounded the angles she’d had as a teen. Grace had almost seemed like a sister to him back then, but now...
Snipping little Gracie’s bangs expertly with scissors, Grace caught his gaze. “What?”
“I’d pictured you married by now,” he lied, a little shocked to think he’d imagined that slip of a dress falling to her ankles.
“I pictured you married by now to a bleached blonde wearing spandex.” Grace pursed her lips against a smile. “Spandex over silicone.”
He laughed. A spark of fun had always lurked within Grace even though her life, which had revolved around her mother’s Alzheimer’s disease and resulting financial struggles, had forced her to be responsible and serious. It occurred to Johnny that she didn’t deserve to wind up married to someone like him, even for a little while. She deserved a happily-ever-after kind of guy, one who believed in the game of hearts and flowers and rings. One who believed in love.
But she was just the kind of girl he needed to marry, with her wholesome country upbringing. And he knew she would be good for Gracie, the way she’d been good for shy Janelle.
Grace leaned to snip Gracie’s bangs, her dress hugging her curves—a woman’s curves. Johnny narrowed his gaze. Grace might have acquired a boyfriend in the past month. She might already be engaged to some other guy. He scanned her busy fingers for a ring, but she was moving this way and that, clipping Gracie’s hair, and he couldn’t see. He shifted impatiently.
Gracie, meanwhile, sat like a queen, her little chin lifted in clear imitation of Grace. He was counting on Grace to draw Gracie out of her shell, the way she had Janelle. But he hadn’t expected the effect of Grace’s personality to rub off so quickly. He was more certain than ever that Grace would be good for Gracie, and that he’d done the right thing in coming here.
Grace sensed Johnny’s scrutiny, his impatience. She gave little Gracie’s hair a final combing, then smiled. “In the drawer by the cash register, there’s a box of ribbons and barrettes. You can go pick out some if you’d like.”
Gracie gave a quick nod and climbed from the chair, hurrying over to open the drawer. Grace watched her, while a keen awareness of Johnny’s slow approach radiated through her.
“We need to talk,” he said, echoing her earlier thought in a low voice. He stood close, and she caught the scent of him, still with that hint of motor oil. His belly was flat as it had been when he left town at eighteen, and he looked solid and strong in his white T-shirt. His gaze was unwavering, and it was hard to believe Johnny needed her for anything.
Then the light in his eyes changed, and her heartbeat changed with it. That dark promise she read in Johnny’s gaze was not the kind of promise a brother made to a sister.
But before she could be sure of it, before she could take it to heart, Gracie ran over to them, diverting Johnny. Holding a pink ribbon in each hand, she told him, “I’m hungry.”
Johnny gave Grace a beguiling smile and, as if they were already married, asked, “What’s for lunch?”
With a brief glare for Johnny, Grace smoothed little Gracie’s hair. “How would you like to have lunch on a farm, Gracie?”
“Is there a cow?”
She couldn’t help but laugh. “No cow. But there are kittens you