an arm around her shoulders. "Let's walk in the sun for a while."
"All right."
"Maybe around the front of the house," he suggested, smiling a little as
Aubrey's breath fluttered against his skin, evening out into sleep.
"Where there aren't so many people."
With surprise and a low surge of pleasure, Carol Monroe watched Ethan
take her daughter and granddaughter walking. With a woman's eyes she saw
more than a neighbor and friend strolling with a neighbor and friend.
Impulsively, she tugged on her husband's arm, distracting him from his
absorption in the current round of horseshoes.
"Hold on, Carol. Junior and I are playing the winners of this round."
"Look, Pete. Look at that. Grace is with Ethan."
Vaguely annoyed, he flicked a glance around, shrugged. "So what?"
"With him, Pete, you knothead." It was said with exasperation and
affection. "Like a boyfriend."
"Boyfriend?" He snorted, started to dismiss it--Christ knew, Carol had
the screwiest ideas from time to time. Like when she was all het up to
take a cruise down to the Bahamas. As if he couldn't take a sail any
damn time of the day or night right in his own backyard. But then he
caught--something--in the way Ethan leaned his body toward Grace, the
way she tilted her head up.
It made Pete shift his feet, scowl, look away. "Boyfriend," he muttered,
and didn't know how the hell he was supposed to feel about that. He
didn't poke his nose in his daughter's life, he reminded himself. She'd
already gone her own way.
He scowled hard into the sun because he remembered what it had been like
to have his little girl rest her head on his shoulder the way Aubrey was
doing right then and there with Ethan Quinn.
When they were little like that, he thought, they trusted you and looked
up to you and believed what you told them even if you told them thunder
was just angels clapping.
When they got older they started to tug away. And to want things that
didn't make a damn bit of sense. Like money to live in New York City,
and your blessing to marry some sneaky bastard who wasn't half good
enough for them.
They stopped thinking you were the man with the answers, and they broke
your damn heart. So you had to put it back together as best you could,
with a lock on it so it couldn't happen again.
"Ethan's just what Grace needs," Carol was saying in a low voice--just
in case any of the fuddy-duddies, who thought tossing a horseshoe at an
iron peg was an exciting way to spend the day, had sharp ears. "That's a
steady man, and he's got gentleness in him. He's a man she could lean
on."
"Won't."
"What?"
"She won't lean on nobody. She's too proud for her own good, and always
has been."
Carol merely sighed. If it was true, Grace had gotten every stubborn
ounce of that pride from her father. "You've never even tried to meet
her halfway."