Great-Aunt Sophia's Lessons for Bombshells (21 page)

“Yeah, of course.”

“Ricketts was the inspiration for the Doc character. He and Steinbeck were friends.”

“It was a real guy?”

“He was a marine biologist. But in his papers he left a drawing of a cricket with unusual markings that he’d labeled
Gryllus steinbecki
: the Steinbeck cricket. No one ever found a real one, and no one knows if they truly existed, or if he created it and named it after Steinbeck as a joke.”

“Wouldn’t that be something if there were Steinbeck crickets in that field of Declan’s?” Grace said, laughing.

“If there are, they won’t last long.” He shook his bag of trash. “Looks like we’ve done our share, doesn’t it? Shall we call it a day?”

Grace’s lips parted. This was it? They were done? No sitting on the sand and talking, nudging up closer and closer to each other, taking advantage of the solitude and lovely surroundings, waiting for the sun to set? “Uh, sure, okay.”

He trudged off and she hurried to follow.

“Do you want to have lunch before we head back to the house?” she asked his back.

“Lunch?” He stopped long enough for her to catch up.

“If you don’t have anything on your schedule. Maybe you have an appointment or something.”

He glanced at his watch. “No, I have time. I guess I could eat.”

“I’d like that very much.” She blinked up at him. What was Sophia thinking, saying that she needed to be subtle with Andrew? He needed hitting over the head.

“I know a place that serves CRON-friendly food.”

Oh Lord. “Wonderful!”

Grace wrapped her hand around his arm again, taking possession. She might not get fed a decent meal today, but before they parted company she was going to squeeze a kiss out of him. If a girl couldn’t have bacon, at least she could have action.

CHAPTER

15

“I
f you got your hip replaced, you could join me down on the rocks and I would teach you how to fish,” Ernesto said to Sophia.

“I know how to fish. I choose not to.”

“Then you could sit and admire me while I fish. I could be happy with that.” Lali’s grandfather smiled warmly, the skin creasing around his dark eyes. With his shock of white hair there was something of Spencer Tracy to him, Declan thought; or perhaps it was the idea of
The Old Man and the Sea
that drew the parallel.

The three of them were sitting on the terrace, sipping iced tea and enjoying the gentle breezes.

Sophia said, “I’m too old and too wise to spend my day sitting on a cold, hard rock admiring an average man.”

“I know you are,
querida
. That is why you will sit and admire me, a man far above average.”

A vixenish smile curled on Sophia’s lips. “The sight of you, while splendid, is not so inspiring that it will hurry me to the operating table for a new hip. I need a greater inducement than to be allowed to watch you fish.”

“
Cielito
, there is so much more a new hip will allow.” The look he gave Sophia was so smolderingly intimate that Declan quietly excused himself and left them to their flirtation. A glance
over his shoulder as he went down the terrace stairs into the garden told him that they hadn’t noticed his departure.

He’d known there had been a flirtation between Ernesto and Sophia for many years, despite Ernesto being fifteen years Sophia’s junior. He also knew of at least half a dozen other ongoing flirtations Sophia had with men in the area. Collecting them seemed to be a hobby of hers, an afternoon in their adoring company better than any rejuvenating spa treatment. Of them all, Ernesto was the only one who could get under Sophia’s skin with his teasing. He didn’t have the awe of her that the others did, and Declan suspected Sophia liked him all the better for that.

Declan had spent the morning meeting with the head of the construction company that would be building the housing development, but as they pored over the blueprints, Declan’s mind had wandered again and again to Grace.

A small voice protested that he should stop this game they seemed to be playing with each other. There was no upside to pursuing a sexual relationship with her. It wasn’t worth the grief she was causing him, and the rift it could cause in his relationship with Sophia.

His competitive instincts had been roused, however, and after a brief battle with reason as he drove on Highway One last night, he had accepted that he wasn’t going to be able to let it go. And really, he owed her a good time after being such an asshole that first night.

He came around a curve in the garden path and saw Andrew and Grace sitting on a stone bench with a view out over the ocean, their backs to him.

As he watched, Grace put her hand on Andrew’s thigh and turned to face him. Without thinking, Declan stepped to the side to conceal himself behind a large bush. He peered through the leaves at the couple, a stab of dark emotion piercing him.

Grace leaned toward Andrew, her face upturned for a kiss. Andrew shied away.

Declan chortled. The goddamned weenie was scared.

Grace lifted her hands to Andrew’s face and framed it. Andrew’s body stiffened, and Declan grinned in anticipation of what Andrew might do next. Bolt? Push Grace away?

Declan didn’t believe that Grace and Andrew could engage in a major makeout session. It was against the laws of nature.

Grace slowly pulled Andrew’s face toward hers and gently kissed him on the lips. She kissed him a second time, then a third, caressingly, her lips brushing across his. Andrew relaxed, his arms coming around Grace’s waist.

Declan’s stomach dropped, and a furious feeling of wrongness overwhelmed him. He was on the verge of rushing forward to break them apart, when Andrew’s enthusiasm took a sudden lunge forward. He squeezed Grace, his mouth opening wide to cover her lips and half her chin. While Grace made muffled noises of protest he pressed her back on the bench, crushing the straw hat beside her and apparently crushing Grace as well.

“Ow, ow, ow!” she cried, pulling free of his slobbering mouth and pushing at his shoulder.

Andrew jumped off her like a dog scolded off a couch, and with as little care; his hand used her breast for leverage, earning a furious curse from Grace as she cradled the injured mound.

“Sorry! Sorry!” Andrew said, his long limbs full of fluttering anxiety. He reached up and smoothed his hair.

Grace sat up slowly, her own hair mussed. “It’s okay. Don’t worry.”

“I should go.” He clasped his hands together.

“No, it’s okay,” Grace said. “My fault.”

Declan snorted from behind his bush.

“I need to go anyway. So, er . . . it was a nice day. ’Bye!”
Andrew dashed down the path in the opposite direction from where Declan hid.

“See you on Thursday?” Grace called after him but received no reply. Her shoulders slumped and she leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. She picked up the hem of her dress and wiped her chin, then dropped it and hung her head.

Declan stepped back onto the path and went to her. She raised her head at the sound of his approach and looked back over her shoulder.

“Oh, it’s you.”

He was taken aback to see that she was on the verge of tears. He sat down next to her, noting the sheen of tears in her eyes and the redness of her nose. “Are you all right?” he asked softly.

“Dandy,” she said, sitting up straight and sniffling. “Were you spying?”

“Yes.”

She chuckled wetly. “No evasion, just
yes
?”

“Yes.” With a feather-light touch he brushed the hair back from her face. He was used to seeing her defiant, angry, self-righteous, indignant, surprised, annoyed, impassioned. Never like this, wounded and vulnerable. Unhappy. It distressed him.

“You must have thought that scene was pretty funny.”

“Not really.” He dropped his hand to her back, to the bare skin between her shoulder blades, and drew soothing circles with his fingertips. He needed to know what had doused the fire in his Grace. “I could tell it was a lousy kiss, but surely not worth crying over?”

She gurgled a sad laugh. “No. It’s not that.”

He flattened his palm on her back and rubbed. “Then what?”

Grace smiled sadly and shook her head. She couldn’t tell Declan that what depressed her was the sudden conviction that
however different she might look on the outside, she would never be anything but a geek, and geeks married geeks. Someday she’d find herself married to a man like Andrew: smart, conscientious, cute in his way, passionate when encouraged, but always awkward and shy, waiting for her to take the lead, needing guidance in how to please her physically.

It wasn’t necessarily bad; it did encourage her to be proactive where she might otherwise be passive, and she would unquestionably be married to a peer rather than to a man who thought he was her master. But . . .

But it suddenly seemed that life wasn’t going to be very exciting if she had to rely on herself for all the seduction and adventure. And she didn’t consider exploring the wonders of CRON at a meeting next Thursday to be an adventure. She could have that much fun alone for a week with a six-pack of Slim-Fast shakes, thank you very much.

If she had to be the one in charge in a relationship, then when would she get swept off her feet by passion? When would she be surprised? When would she feel taken care of? Equality was what she’d always wanted—and was
still
what she wanted—but she was starting to realize it wasn’t going to come without a price.

And the price was swept-off-her-feet passion.

She shook her head. She’d never been a sexually passionate person. Maybe it was time to give up the dream that someday she would be, if only she met the right man. She was sure that she and Andrew could eventually build a satisfactory sexual relationship, and that was really all anyone could ask for, wasn’t it? Everyone knew that passion faded. What mattered was friendship.

“You’re being awfully nice,” Grace said as Declan’s hand moved down her back. “I would have thought you’d be cackling with glee, poking fun at our bumbling.”

“Pretending to be thoughtful and caring is my way of lulling you into a false sense of security. My focus is entirely on getting you into bed.”

She laughed, even as goose bumps rose on her skin and a muscle deep inside her contracted. How could
he
have this effect on her? Life wasn’t fair. “I would have thought you’d had enough sex with Cyndee last night to hold you.”

“You would think that, wouldn’t you?”

“You
did
sleep with her, didn’t you?”

“I’m sorry to say there was a conflict of interest.” He nudged her to straddle the bench, facing away from him. She obeyed, and he put both hands to work on her shoulders, his touch neither too hard nor too soft.

“Whose conflict with which interest?” Grace asked as she relaxed into the massage, feeling strangely safe in his hands even as her body tingled. The fumbling with Andrew was quickly fading from her mind.

“Mine with hers. Or hers with mine. It doesn’t matter, does it?”

It did matter, but she wouldn’t let him know that. “Poor Declan. You’re not having any luck, are you?”

His hands moved down her bare arms and she felt him lean close, his breath warm beside her ear. A shiver went up her nape. “It’s all part of my plan, as is this innocent back rub. All the cheesy pickup manuals for men tell them to touch a woman to get past her defenses.”

Grace’s spine went rigid, reminded so suddenly of the exact same lesson that Sophia had taught her. She pulled away from him and stood. “You’re not going to get past
my
defenses.”

He crossed his ankle over his knee and held it there, the picture of nonchalance. “I’d prefer it if you didn’t feel the need for defenses with me at all.”

“And where would
that
leave me?”

He smile was slow and delicious. “In my bed, where I would make you very, very happy, I promise you.”

The offer went through Grace like a caress. She bristled against it, fearing its effect on her. “Does being this cocky usually work on women?”