Falling For Grace

“You shouldn’t have gone to this much trouble. Not for me,” he said, wondering why the hell his conscious had suddenly decided to show its face after all these years.

She handed him one of the glasses, then gestured to the tray. “There’s sugar and lemon, if you like. As for the trouble, I have a motive for keeping you here with a drink.”

Jack’s hand paused in midair as he reached for a lemon wedge. “Oh,” he said guardedly. “What is it?”

“Well, I hope you won’t be offended, but—”

This brought his head up and his gaze connected with hers. A sheepish little smile was on her lips and he feared he was about to learn the true side of Grace Holliday.

“But what?” he pressed.

She shrugged, then let out a sigh. “I guess I might as well not be bashful about it,” she said. “Especially now that I have you here.”

His brows lifted with curiosity, but otherwise he remained quiet. Inside his chest, his heart beat with sluggish dread as he waited for her to continue.

Eventually she spoke. “After you said what you did a while ago about not having family and being here alone, I thought maybe…well, that I might do a little work for you while you’re here.”

Her suggestion jerked him straight up in the chair. Work! Was she crazy?

“Look, Grace, I don’t know what sort of work you have in mind, but I came down here to Biloxi to get out of the office. I only brought one lengthy brief with me and I can manage to type up my own notes.”

She tilted her head back and laughed. Jack was too busy taking in the smooth slender line of her neck and the musical sound slipping past her lips to be insulted by her response.

“I don’t mean legal work! Good Lord, I don’t know a thing about the law. I was talking about cleaning your house. Or maybe doing your cooking or laundry. Any chore of that sort which you might not want to tend to yourself.”

House-cleaning, cooking and laundry, in her condition? It was obscene, as far as Jack was concerned. His feelings must have shown on his face because as she continued to look at him, disappointment fell over her soft features.

“Grace, you obviously have a job with your music pupils. Surely your parents don’t want you taking on more. Especially in your shape.”

Her brows pulled together as a look of total confusion filled her face. “‘My parents’?” she repeated blankly. “Jack, I don’t have any parents. I live here alone.”

Chapter Three

“Alone? You live here—alone?”

The incredulous tone of his voice put a wan smile on Grace’s face. “Yes. I do. I teach violin on Tuesday and Friday evenings. The rest of the week, I go to college. So I need all the work I can get.”

“But you…you’re—” He couldn’t say the word and he knew some of his old law cronies would howl with laughter if they could see him now. Stuttering as though he were as green as grass. Damn it, what was wrong with him? There wasn’t much he hadn’t seen or confronted in his lifetime. Nothing embarrassed him. Nothing really touched him. He was too hard-shell, too used up to let anything get to him.

“Pregnant,” she finished for him. “But that doesn’t make me an invalid. It only makes me need the money more.”

That she wanted money had been in Jack’s mind all along, he’d just never expected her to want to work for it. Even now, he still wasn’t sure he’d heard her right.

“Aren’t your parents helping support you?” he was prompted to ask.

A guarded expression stole over her face as she quickly glanced away from him. “I don’t have any parents,” she said flatly. “Not in the normal way you’re thinking.”

“Are they dead?”

His blunt question didn’t seem to bother her and it made him wonder if deep down, beneath the smiles and gentle words she’d shown her music pupils, she was just as hard as he was. Jack had learned a long time ago that the female gender was expert at deception.

“My father died from a hunting accident when I was very small. As for my mother—she isn’t around.”

“Because she doesn’t approve of your pregnancy?”

Her brows lifted at his question and then a pained little smile curled the corners of her lips. “She doesn’t know about my pregnancy.”

“Why not?” Jack persisted.

She frowned at him as he tilted the glass to his lips.

“Do you always ask personal questions of strangers?”

Jack supposed he had been coming on a bit strong. He told himself it was because of Trent and Jillian that he was so eager to learn about Grace Holliday’s life. Yet somewhere in the deeper part of him, he had to admit he simply wanted to know her, the woman.

“Sorry. It’s the lawyer in me, I suppose. Asking questions is akin to breathing to me.” Without looking at her, he swirled the amber liquid in his glass, making the ice tinkle against the sides. “I guess the question was a bit nosy.”

Grace didn’t know what was the matter with her. Normally she never minded personal questions. Even ones that had to do with her flighty mother. But Trent’s desertion had changed her. She no longer trusted men. She took every word, every look, very cautiously. And something about Jack Barrett put her on guard even more.

“Why my mother doesn’t know about my pregnancy is a long story. One I’m sure you’d find boring,” she found herself saying.

He lifted his gaze to her and quickly discovered she was looking at him. The feel of her somber green eyes gliding over his face jerked at something buried between his chest and his gut.

“Maybe. Maybe not,” he murmured.

She inhaled a deep breath, then glanced away from him as she let it out. “I can’t believe you thought I was living with my parents.” She turned her gaze back on him. “I’m twenty-three years old.”

She said it as if that was a great old age, as if she had plenty of wisdom to get along in this world alone. Any other time Jack would have snorted at her attitude, but something in her eyes stopped him. Behind her brave stare, there were dark, sad shadows that normally would have taken years to acquire.

He shrugged. “Because you’re single, I just assumed you still lived at home with your family. An honest mistake, don’t you think?”

She grimaced. “I suppose so.”

“Well, since I’ve already offended you I might as well go on and ask you how you manage to get by on your own like this. Is the baby’s father…helping you financially?”

She looked away from him. Jack couldn’t help but watch as she pressed the ice-cold glass against her throat and down the open collar of her blouse where it veed just above the valley between her breasts.

“No.”

As he digested the one word, he could only think that her baby couldn’t belong to Trent. Jillian hadn’t raised the boy to shirk his responsibilities.

“Doesn’t that make you angry?”

“Humph,” she softly snorted. “I don’t expect money from him. Having a man’s child isn’t about money.”

He watched her face keenly as he sipped from his glass. “Have you asked him for financial help?”

Her face suddenly turned stony. “No. And I don’t intend to. He—Trent doesn’t want me or the baby. And I don’t want handouts from him—or anyone else.”

Trent doesn’t want me or the baby. The volunteered information was so unexpected Jack was knocked sideways for a moment. Then doubt swiftly washed in behind the wave of surprise. Even if she did name Trent as the father of her baby, he wasn’t going to be so quick to believe her. She might have been involved with a number of young men, but Trent just happened to be the one with money.

“So this…er, Trent you were calling out for last night is the—father?”

Jack took the faint jerk of her head to be a nod.

Frowning he said, “Maybe the guy doesn’t have enough money to care for himself, much less a wife and baby,” he suggested.

She placed her glass on the table between them, then wearily rubbed her hands against the small of her back. “Trent has plenty of money,” she told him. “He spent more in the casinos than I make teaching violin all year.”

Jack didn’t doubt that. He could see she lived meagerly compared to the standards he and his nephew were accustomed to.

“Is that what drew you to him? His money?”

She scowled at him as she continued to push at her back. The movement thrust her breast forward and, although Jack told himself not to look, he couldn’t pull his eyes away from her lush, womanly body.

“What’s the matter with you, anyway?” she asked. “Do you have a fixation for money or something? You sure do mention it a lot.”

Her suggestion pulled him up short. Jack had never considered himself as having an obsession for money. He’d been born into wealth and as a grown man he’d acquired an even heftier sum of his own. It was something he’d never had to do without. Nor ever would. But Grace was right. He’d mentioned money several times to her in the past few minutes. Did he place too much importance on the stuff?

“No,” he answered out loud. “But I—I was just wondering what you’d seen in this guy in the first place. He sounds like a jerk to me. Are you…sure he’s the father of your baby?”

She stared at him and Jack knew he’d gone too far as he watched her jaw drop and hot color fill her cheeks.

“I’ve never met anyone so insulting in my life!” Rising to her feet, she picked up the tray. “Don’t bother to bring your glass to the door when you’ve finished. I’ll get it later.”

She turned and headed toward the house. Before Jack had time to consider his actions, he jumped from the chair and caught up to her on the shaded patio.

As she reached to open the door he caught her by the shoulder. “I’m sorry, Grace. I was out of line.”

The touch of his hand, more than his words, brought her head around and she glanced pointedly down at his long fingers.

“You’re not sorry. You were just being yourself. But that doesn’t mean I have to sit around and take it. I’m not one of your witnesses. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of work to do.”

He released his fingers as though she’d scorched him, then jammed both his hands into the pockets of his khaki trousers. “You’re mad at me,” he said, stunned that it should matter to him.

“No. Disappointed is more like it.”

Minute by minute this woman was turning out to be anything than what he’d first imagined her to be, and he didn’t know what to think or do next.

“I really wasn’t trying to be insulting, Grace. A man looks at these things more logically than a woman. And I was just thinking that maybe you’d be better off if the baby belonged to someone else. Because it appears you’re not getting any help from this Trent.”

Down through the years he’d sometimes been forced to use a bit of deceit to pull a player into his corner or to swing a case his way. It was just part of the job. But not being totally honest with Grace was beginning to trouble him in a way he wasn’t liking at all.

Jack could actually see Irene rolling her eyes in mock disbelief if he were to tell her his conscience had finally made a reappearance after all these years.

Grace sighed deeply, then shook her head. “Look Jack, I’ve only just now met you. How I manage to support myself is really none of your business. And as for my baby’s father, he’s out of the picture and I expect him to stay out.”

She’d said enough, he told himself. This was all he really needed to know. He ought to thank her for the drink, apologize again, then tell her a final goodbye. Yet, he couldn’t let the whole thing simply drop now.

There was still too much he wanted to know before the lawyer in him would be completely satisfied.

“If you’ll remember, Grace, you’re the one who brought this whole thing up. You’re the one who asked me for a job.”

Her lips compressed into a flat line. “Yes. And I’m sorry I did. I didn’t know you were going to take it as a go-ahead to interrogate me.”

Sarcasm twisted his features. “I normally interview people before they come to work for me. It’s the standard procedure.”

She straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. “By asking them who and how many they’ve slept with? I’m sorry, but that’s just getting a might bit personal for me.” Her gaze swept him up and down in a deliberately leering manner. “Maybe you should remember the old saying about those without sin throwing the first stone, because I very much doubt you’ve been living like a monk.”

Even though her words angered him, the hot blaze in her green eyes excited him as nothing he could ever remember. He wanted to jerk her into his arms, smother her lips with his. It was crazy. She was a stranger—and a pregnant one at that! Yet the feeling was there, anyway. And it felt glorious to a man who’d been emotionally dead for a long, long time.

“I wasn’t accusing you of anything, Grace. Just trying to…offer some advice from a different perspective.”

She glanced away from him and, though her profile remained rock-hard, he didn’t miss her painful swallow or the telltale blink of her long black lashes.

Suddenly Jack wondered if he could be wrong about this woman. Maybe she hadn’t purposely set out to snare a rich husband. Maybe she’d been led on, then left to suffer the consequences on her own. Damn it, he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—know unless he managed to get closer to her. And something told him that might be a very dangerous thing to do.

“I don’t need your so-called advice,” she said tightly.

“What about that job? Do you still need it?”

Slowly her head turned and her expression was incredulous as she met his gaze. “Are you serious?”

No, more like insane, Jack thought. But he’d already gone too far, he couldn’t turn back now. Moreover, he realized he didn’t want to.

“Yes. I could use a housekeeper. I wouldn’t have much work,” he warned. “But maybe enough to help you out.”

She appeared to suddenly wilt as a long breath rushed out of her. Wiping a hand across her damp brow, she said, “I’m sorry. I have to—sit down.”

She handed him the tray and crossed the few feet to where a couple of wicker chairs were shaded by a curtain of moonflower vine.

As she sank wearily into the chair, Jack moved toward her, his face wrinkled with concern. “Are you ill or something?” he asked.

She shook her head, then, leaning down, began to unbuckle her sandals. “No. Just very tired.”

Once the leather straps were loose around her ankles, she looked up to see him still standing inches away, holding the tray she’d given him. “Oh, I forgot. Just put that thing down anywhere. I’ll take it in later.”

“Maybe you should go in the house and lie down,” he suggested. She did look exhausted; he wondered if their slightly heated exchange had drained her. He didn’t want to think so. The last thing Jack wanted to do was to inadvertently harm her or her unborn child.

Her fingers continued to rub her ankles where the leather straps had fastened the sandals to her feet. “I will later,” she assured him. “After you tell me about the job.”

Jack placed the tray on a storage shelf by the back door, then took a seat in the wicker chair next to her. “There’s not much to tell.”

She looked at him, then, smiling wanly, she shook her head. “You and I really have a hard time communicating. I wonder why that is? I thought lawyers were expert at getting to the point.”

He couldn’t help but smile at that. “Quite the opposite, Grace. We’re professionals at drawing people’s thoughts off the real issue.”

Her brows peaked with sudden interest. “Is that what you’re trying to do with me?” she asked warily.

In a way that was exactly what he was doing, he thought a bit guiltily. But this time he had an even better reason than simply looking out for a client’s interest. Grace had already admitted Trent was the father of the baby. If true, that meant the child was connected to his family. He had a right to find out where her intentions were headed.

“I’m not trying to do anything to you, Grace,” he said, frustration roughing his voice. “Except offer you a little work if you want it.”

“I do.”

“Good. I don’t do house-cleaning. And I know very little about cooking.”

Grace couldn’t imagine preparing a meal for this man. Although she’d never had money in her life, she could always spot a person with plenty. And with Jack it was easy to see he was an affluent man by the cut of his hair, the casual, but classic clothes, the Italian leather loafers on his feet, the thin, expensive watch on his wrist.

No doubt Jack Barrett was accustomed to having the best cuisine money could buy. Not to mention anything else his heart desired. Yet as she’d already noticed, he appeared to be anything but happy. The notion made her suddenly remember something her grandfather had often told her.

People with big money are no different than you and me, Gracie. They have their problems, too. Only theirs are bigger.

She said, “I’d better warn you that some of my classes keep me late in the evenings. But on the days I teach violin I’m home earlier.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m not on a rigid working schedule.”

“Fine. Just let me know when you want me to start.”

Jack felt like a fool. He didn’t need a housekeeper or a cook. Though he never tended to those chores in his home back in Houston, he was adept at fending for himself whenever need be.

“You haven’t asked about the pay,” he pointed out.

She kicked off her sandals, then bent forward to place them to one side of the chair. A lock of glossy black hair fell loose from the messy blob of curls and tumbled over one eye. She slowly pushed it back as she looked up at him.

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