since you were so busy batting your lashes at him and cooing like some
empty-headed twit."
"Twit?"
"Which you're not," he continued, slowly backing her up until she was
trapped against the porch rail. "At all. Shrewd, savvy, sharp." He laid
his hands on either side of her hips to cage her. "That's what you are."
It was, she supposed, a fine compliment. "Thank you, Cameron. Now I
really should get to that report."
"Uh-uh. Why'd you con Ethan into going over to Grace's?"
She shook back her hair, aimed a bland look dead into his eyes. "I'd
think a shrewd, savvy, sharp guy like you ought to be able to figure
that out."
His brows drew together. "You're trying to get something going between
them."
"Something is going between them, but your brother is slower than a lame
turtle."
"He's slower than a lame turtle with bifocals, but that's Ethan. Don't
you think they should muddle through this on their own?"
"All they need is five minutes alone, and that's all I did--work it out
so they'd have a few minutes alone. Besides"--she slipped her arms up
and around his neck--"we deliriously happy women want everyone else to
be deliriously happy, too."
He cocked a brow. "Do you think I'm going to fall for that?"
She smiled, then leaned over to nip his bottom lip. "Yeah."
"You're right," he murmured and let her convince him.
ethan sat in his truck for a full five minutes. Recipes? That was the
dumbest damn thing he'd ever heard of. He'd always thought Anna was a
sensible woman, but here she was, sending him off to deliver recipes,
for Christ's sake.
And he wasn't ready to see Grace just yet. Not that his mind wasn't made
up about her, buta even a rational man had certain weaknesses.
Still, he didn't see how he was going to get out of it, as he was
already here. He'd make it quick. She was probably putting the baby to
bed, so he'd just get it done and get out of her way.
Like a man condemned, he dragged himself out of the truck and to her
front door. Through the screen he could see the flickering lights of
candles. He shifted his feet and noticed that music was playing,
something with weeping strings and soaring piano.
He'd never felt more ridiculous in his life than he did standing there
on Grace's front porch holding a recipe for a pasta dish while music
slid around the warm summer night.
He knocked on the wood frame, not too loudly, as he worried about waking
Aubrey. He gave serious thought to sticking the card in the door and
hightailing it, but he knew that would be cowardice, plain and simple.
And Anna would want to know why he hadn't brought her the instructions
for Grace's fried chicken.
When he saw her he wished to God Almighty he'd taken the coward's way. .
She walked out from the kitchen, at the back of the house. It was a tiny
place, had always made Ethan think of a dollhouse, so she didn't have
far to travel. To him it seemed he watched her walk through that music,