Jane stood there, astonished and really, really mad on both Gladdy’s and Gram’s behalf.
“Oh, Jane, dear, will you ever learn to knock?” Gladdy asked, practically giggling.
Giggling?
Jane worked herself up into a good, steaming rage and pointed her finger at Leo, who didn’t look guilty in the least over what he’d done. “You,” she said, advancing on him. “Get your hands off my aunt! Right now! Now!”
She’d beat him off with her briefcase if she had to. Jane lifted it up and back, preparing to take a swing.
Leo Gray stood up, all too slowly for Jane’s current mood, smoothed out his shirt, brushed back the bit of hair on the sides of his head and looked for all the world like he was the insulted party here.
“Girly,” he said. “You’ve got to learn to have a little fun.”
Jane’s mouth fell open.
Girly?
He’d called her Girly!
“I’ll have you know that I am a twenty-eight-year-old adult woman! I am no girl,” she yelled after him, as he left Gladdy’s room. “I should have you arrested for this!”
“Arrested?” Gladdy said, taking her arm and pulling the briefcase out of her hand. “Jane, what are you doing?”
“I came to warn you about that awful man! Did he force himself on you? Tell me, because if he did, I’ll—”
“Leo Gray’s never had to force himself on a woman in his life,” Gladdy insisted. “I mean, have you looked at the man? I know you’re not seventy-five years old like me—”
“Gladdy, you’re eighty,” Jane reminded her.
“Shhhh. He doesn’t know that. A woman should never admit to her real age and never look her real age. There’s no reason to in these days. Speaking of which, Jane, darling, is it too much to ask for you to use that nice ageresistant face cream Kathleen and I bought you for Christmas? You have beautiful skin, dear, but you want to keep it that way. You’ll care about these things one day. At least, I pray that you will.”
“That I’ll worry about wrinkles one day? That’s what you pray for?”
“No, that you’ll learn how to enjoy a man and want to look your best for him.”
Jane sank down into the love seat Leo had just vacated, suddenly so tired and frustrated, she could have cried or screamed. That awful man!
“Are you sure you’re all right?” she asked Gladdy.
“Of course, I’m all right. I’m better than I’ve been in years, in fact. Nothing like a fabulous man to make a woman feel young again. I think I’m going to get my hair done and have a facial. What do you say, Jane? A facial? My treat?”
Jane felt like she might turn into a stark raving lunatic at any moment. “A facial? Gladdy?”
“Good skin care is nothing to scoff at, Jane.”
“What about Gram? You love Gram. You always have, and she thinks she’s in love with that man, that awful man—”
“He’s far from awful, and Kathleen has never been in love in her life,” Gladdy insisted. “You know that. You know what the women in our family are like.”
“Yes, but she told me that she loves him. I’ve never heard her sound this way, and if she knew what the two of you were doing behind her back. Not even behind her back,” Jane remembered. “The other night, at dinner?”
“We were holding hands. It’s hardly a crime, hardly anything at all. What a prude you can be sometimes, Jane. I just hate that for you. I want you to be happy in every way, including having a man in your life.”
“Prude?” Jane was so hurt, she could hardly speak.
Frustrated, infuriating tears filled her eyes. Prude? “I am not!”
“You’re objecting to hand-holding, my darling. If that isn’t prudish, I don’t know what is. I was holding hands with boys in first grade.”
Jane gasped, hurt. Prude? She opened her mouth to object again, and then realized if she didn’t get out of there right that minute, she was going to cry. And Jane Carlton never cried, especially in front of anyone!
“I…I…I have to go. I can’t talk to you about this right now,” she said, then got up and fled.
She was outside, hurrying down the walkway toward her car, not really watching as carefully as she should have been, when she literally ran right into Leo Gray.
“You,” she said, “Necking with my aunt? Behind my grandmother’s back! My grandmother who thinks she’s in love with you? You rat!”
He didn’t crumple or anything from the impact of their collision. The man was solid for his age. But then he grabbed her by the arms. She hated grabby men.
“Get your hands off me this instant!” she yelled.
“Calm down, girly,” he said, having the nerve to seem amused. “I’m just trying to make sure you don’t fall down.”
“I don’t need any help to keep from falling down. Let go of me this instant!”
She jerked herself away with everything she had, but he was stronger than he looked, and he didn’t let go. A haze of red came over Jane’s vision. She was so mad now, she couldn’t even see, couldn’t remember ever being this mad in her life.
It was all his fault!
Every bit of it!
Her grandmother would be brokenhearted. He’d been necking with Gladdy, Gladdy who’d called Jane a prude! And this awful man had the nerve to tell her she needed to relax?
Before she truly thought of what she was about to do, Jane pulled back the hand with her briefcase and got ready to whack him with it. She got the backswing in and was bringing her hand forward when, only then, her mind cleared just a bit so she could actually see what she was doing.
She was about to hit an old man.
A nearly ninety-year-old man!
“Oh, my God!” she cried, changing her mind right at the end of her backswing, as she started swinging her arm forward.
Could she stop it now? Was it too late?
And then she gasped as she was lifted off her feet—literally—and hauled around in the other direction.
Wyatt saw Jane and Leo having what looked like angry words, but he wasn’t really worried at first.
Then Leo put his hands on Jane, holding on to her.
Not the smartest thing to do, Wyatt was sure.
Then he saw Jane wind up to take a swing at Leo with her briefcase.
“Good God! Jane!” he yelled, barely getting to her in time.
He was in the wrong place to get between her and Leo. He was behind Jane. So he just put an armaround her waist, hauled her back against him and swung her around the other way.
Leo ducked and her briefcase went flying, landing harmlessly in the petunias in the flower bed to the right.
She screamed in pure outrage, like she was being mugged in a dark alley, kicking her feet in the air, her arms coming back to grab him. She hit him in the eye, then grabbed and thankfully got nothing but his hair. Afterward she took that handful of hair and yanked hard.
“Jane,” he hollered at first, because she wouldn’t have heard him over the racket she was making otherwise. “It’s Wyatt. Shhhh. I’m not going to hurt you. I would