His Saving Grace Read online

  “See you, Mr. Pulaski.”

  Mr. Pulaski turned back to weeding his flower bed.

  Jack strode inside the back door. “Mom! It’s me, Jack.”

  His mom, dressed in faded jeans and a rumpled T-shirt, entered the kitchen with only a slight halt in her gait. “Jack, how nice. I didn’t expect to see you today.”

  Why was she dressed in her yard-work clothes? He shrugged. “Just stopped by to say hi and then I’m off to the office.”

  She hugged him tight once and then turned to the counter. “You’ve been busy and so have I. Did you see how far we’ve gotten out back?”

  He nodded and sat down at the table.

  His mother silently offered him a cup of morning coffee, and he tried to come up with a way to broach the subject: Uh, Mom, what is it with you and Mike Petrov? No. Mom, you seem to be spending a lot of time with Mike Petrov…

  Instead, he blurted out, “Did you know Dad’s engaged again?” He cringed inside. That was the last thing he’d wanted to say!

  “Yes,” his mom replied, pouring two cups of coffee, “I’ve met her.”

  “You’ve met her!” Jack stared at his mother. “Why?”

  “Cliff told me about her and they dropped by…oh, several months ago, on their way to some fund-raiser or something. She seemed very nice.”

  “What is she, a blonde with plenty of cleavage?” Jack couldn’t hold back the sarcasm.

  “Jack!” Sandy scolded. “I don’t like your tone.”

  He did a slow burn. Why did his mother always take his dad’s side? He dourly sipped his hot coffee.

  Sandy sat down across from him. She touched his hand. “Jack, what your father did when he left me for someone else was wrong. He made a mistake and he paid for it. Let it go.”

  You mean you paid for it! But Jack made no reply.

  “And for your information—” Sandy pulled her hand away and sat back in her chair “—Gloria is a widow about my age and has one grandchild.”

  Jack’s mouth dropped open. “You’re kidding.”

  Sandy shook her head.

  “He wants me to meet her.”

  “You should.”

  Jack didn’t like the grumpy feeling that was taking him over, but he didn’t seem to be able to control it. So go ahead and ask!

  “What’s with you and Mike?”

  His mother paused in the act of lifting her mug to her lips. She stared at him.

  His grumpiness increased and he felt his neck warm around his collar.

  “Mike,” his mom said in a slow, even tone, “is a very good friend. I enjoy his company and find him attractive. And the rest is none of your business. I never ask about whom you are seeing—”

  “Are you seeing him?” Jack knew he shouldn’t ask this, but he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. He’d done that for weeks already.

  “But,” his mom continued as though she hadn’t heard his question, “I think I should ask, when are you going to start looking for a wife?”

  “A wife?” What?

  “Yes, when are you going to break out of your preoccupation with computer viruses and look around for a wife? Am I going to have to wait until I’m in my sixties before I become a grandmother?” She challenged him over the rim of her cup.

  Why were women always trying to match everyone up? He wasn’t a match—period. Then he remembered kissing Gracie and realized that he’d been wanting to repeat that very interesting experiment. His neck became warmer.

  He took a bracing sip of coffee. “I don’t think about marriage.” He’d never said these words, but hadn’t he always felt that way? Uncertainty coiled its way through his midsection. “I don’t think I’d be a good husband, or father, for that matter.”

  “You’re great with the twins! You’d be an excellent father—”

  The back door opened. “Hi, Sandy, it’s me. Ready to start work?” Mike, also in work clothes, walked into the kitchen.

  Jack glared at his mother.

  In return, Sandy smiled at him and whispered, “I love you, but mind your own business.”

  On Wednesday morning, Gracie looked up from behind her desk as Jack walked—make that stalked—into their freshly redecorated storefront. What was up with Jack?

  She didn’t know, but she did know now that she would have to build up to her announcement, prepare him. She followed him to his desk at the rear. I just know he’s forgotten. Maybe I shouldn’t go. If things weren’t so different, so up in the air this year…

  Jack parked himself at his computer and tapped its keys hard enough to break the keyboard.

  From a few feet in front of him, Gracie stared at his bent head. The summer sun had begun highlighting the auburn in his hair. He needed a haircut and the hair at his nape was curling up, enticing her to smooth it down. She folded her hands together instead.

  “What’s up?”

  “Nothing.” He didn’t even glance her way.

  “Did the hacker break in again?”

  Now he looked up, his handsome faced twisted into a disgruntled frown. “No. Why would you ask that?”

  She walked forward and sat down in the chair by his desk—entering dangerous territory, dangerous since she might let her too-keen fascination with this maddening man show. “Well, something’s got your socks in a wad—what?”

  Moving his jaw as if chewing angry words, very tough gristly ones, he stared at her. “Nothing.” He forced out this single word at last. “Where’s Patience?” He motioned toward the desk nearest the front door. “Why isn’t she at her desk?”

  Gracie glanced around, proud again of what they’d done with the place. Two coats of white on the walls and the same of finish on the floor, and the place gleamed. “She’s at an Illinois teacher’s job fair downtown.”

  Undeterred by this ploy, Gracie eyed him. If the man spent half as much time trying to communicate with other humans as he did trying to avoid it… “Did something happen?”

  “Your father—” he began.

  The quaint little bell on the door, left over from the hardware store, jingled. Gracie glanced around and saw Troy’s grandmother, whom the twins called Staramama, barreling in. Gracie rose, uncertain moths fluttering in her stomach.

  “Good morning. What brings you here today?”

  Very plump, with white hair like spun sugar and dressed in a vintage 1957 Sears cotton housedress, Staramama drew herself up to her full height, five feet and no inches. She shook a gnarled finger with several rings on it in Gracie’s face. “You gotta talk to that sister of yours! She’s making Troy unhappy! And what about those twins, those sweet little boys?”

  Gracie tried not to take offense. “I’m sure Annie and Troy will work things—”

  “My grandson Troy works hard every day to provide a nice home for Annie and the boys. Did she ever have to work one day outside her own house? No, she did not! What’s wrong with her?”

  Gracie held back a retort. After all, Staramama was nearly ninety years old. She didn’t understand—

  “Now, you tell your sister that she better get home and tend to business—her business—or she’ll find herself in the middle of a mess she don’t count on. She made promises in a church to my grandson and she shouldn’t break them!”

  “Annie’s not breaking her vows.” Gracie held on to her temper. “She and Troy can work this out if everyone would just let them—”

  “That sister of yours should be happy with her life. What does she need a degree for? My Troy don’t need one.”

  Gracie gritted her teeth. “If Troy didn’t want Annie, the girl…the woman she is, he should have married someone else. Annie won scholarships and was the valedictorian of her class—”

  “That’s all in the past!”

  “Annie has a wonderful mind and she deserves to follow her dream and go to college!” Gracie insisted.

  Suddenly, Jack was beside her. “I don’t want to be rude, but maybe your grandson better decide on whether he wants Annie and his family back or
not. He was acting like a jerk the other night. Why don’t you tell him to grow up?”

  Pink with anger, Staramama responded sharply with something in Slovenian, her native tongue, and left, banging the door behind her.

  Silence.

  “Don’t let it upset you, Gracie.” Jack touched her shoulder.

  She couldn’t help herself, her hand covered his. And his sympathetic voice nearly caused her to let tears of frustration flow, but she forced them down. She stood so close to him, so near yet still unattainable. The kiss they’d shared flitted through her mind again. I have to get away! But I can’t break away. Why do things keep drawing us together, closer and closer?

  No answers came to her. Every occurrence in the past few weeks had conspired to push them together in spite of her plans.

  And now, they’d been interrupted by Staramama’s visit. Gracie drew in a deep, fortifying breath. She might as well broach the subject on her mind and get it over with. “I hate to bring this up, but my vacation starts Friday.”

  “Your vacation?” He stared at her; his hand slid from her shoulder.

  She turned to face him. Jack, I don’t want to leave you. But I have to. At least I’ll have a week away. Maybe something will intervene…

  “Yes—” she tried to soften the blow “—but I’m not going to take a full two weeks like I usually do.”

  “Two weeks?” He sounded like her vacation and its length were totally new concepts.

  Jack, you’ll drive me insane! Then, why did she want to lean closer and press her cheek against his and have him hold her? “Just one week. You know I go north to a cabin my family rents in Wisconsin every June.”

  “You do?” Jack sounded clueless. He studied her and then added, “That’s right. You do.”

  She couldn’t help sighing. She’d been right. Leave it to Jack to completely forget her annual vacation. And she couldn’t even blame it on all the uproar and changes they’d faced. Her need for a vacation from work and the idea that she took one yearly had always baffled him.

  But unfortunately, this year’s wasn’t the usual fun family time she always looked forward to, either. “Troy and Annie have refused to go this year,” she explained, her chin dipping low. “But my dad persuaded them that the twins shouldn’t do without their vacation just because their parents are at loggerheads.”

  “Loggerheads?”

  “Fighting,” Gracie explained, very aware of how close Jack stayed.

  “Oh.”

  Jack didn’t move or say another word. They stood just inches from one another. She sensed Jack hesitate. Then he moved closer to her and took her arms in his hands.

  “Gracie, I stopped to see my mom today and—”

  His phone rang. With a sound of disgust, he snatched it out of his pocket. “Jack here,” he snarled.

  “Jack,” his mother said, “I just wanted to let you know that I’m going to be off on vacation next week.”

  “You are?” Was the whole state of Illinois leaving on vacation? “Where are you going, Mom?”

  “To a cabin on a lake in Wisconsin—”

  “Gracie just told me—” he was not liking the suspicion that had just come to him “—that she would be gone next week at a place there.” I’m wrong, right? I always get what’s going on with people wrong. Why should I be right this time?

  “Well.” His mother drew in breath. “As a matter of fact, I’m accompanying Gracie and her dad. I’m going along to help out with the twins. I can’t run after them, but I can help with the cooking—”

  “What?” He glared at Gracie. He didn’t want to be right.

  “Now, Jack, don’t be…don’t be negative. I’m really looking forward to it.” His mom sounded cautious.

  But he doubted he could get her to change her mind. “If you’re going, I’m going, too,” he blurted out, resolve hardening in him.

  “Jack, don’t be silly,” his mom objected. “If you and Gracie are away at the same time, who will take care of LIT?”

  “The Hope job is done. I have a few smaller projects on board now, but I can still work via modem, while Gracie’s cousin and friend take care of the phones. If Troy and Annie are staying home, then you and I can take their places.” He hung up.

  Gracie studied him as though measuring him.

  Jack shoved his hands into his pockets. “I’m going on vacation, too.”

  “You are?” Gracie said, looking nonplussed. “Where?”

  “To that blasted cabin your father rents on a lake in Wisconsin.”

  “You can’t go.” Gracie closed the gap between them as if physically prepared to stop him.

  “Why not?”

  “You just can’t!” she wailed.

  “Well, I can and I will. My mom is not going along with your dad without me—”

  “My dad…your mom.” Gracie took a step backward. “What’s going on in that brain of yours? Dad said it would do your mom good to get out of the city. They’re just friends.”

  “Friends? I don’t think so. She says she finds him attractive. That’s not something a woman says about a friend.”

  “Well, that’s their business.” Gracie looked flushed. “Not ours.”

  “I don’t want my mother hurt again.” Jack bent his head forward and glared at her.

  “My father wouldn’t hurt anyone!” Gracie propped her hands on her hips and leaned forward almost nose to nose with him. “And they don’t need a chaperone. They’re just friends. Why shouldn’t your mom have a week at the lake? Jack, you’re being ridiculous. Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill.”

  Late Friday, near twilight, Gracie leaned back discontentedly with the map open in her lap in the front seat of Jack’s car. Andy sat in the back in his car seat. Somewhere ahead of them in the truck, Mike, with Sandy and Austin, preceded them en route to the cabin in northern Wisconsin. Traffic jammed the four-lane highway. Cars with boats and bikes attached swooshed by. Tents strapped on top of vans and RVs zoomed past.

  Gracie tried to release the tension in her neck and upper back muscles. How had she gotten so stressed? Easy answer—I didn’t need Jack on my vacation.

  Every time she tried to distance herself from Jack, something intervened and she found herself more closely enmeshed with him than ever before. What was going on? Why was breaking away so impossible lately? And what if Jack was right and her dad and his mom were interested in one another?

  She closed her eyes. Not that—please, Lord. If Dad and Sandy actually are growing closer, it will make Jack totally unavoidable. I’ll have him at work and in the family. Nooooo!

  “Aunt Gracie,” Andy whined for the seventh time in the past fifteen minutes. “Are we there yet?”

  “Not yet, honey.” Gracie took a deep breath. “Jack, there’s a rest area coming up. We need to stop before it gets dark. I think it’s on our right. Watch for it.”

  “Stop?” he protested, not taking his eyes from the road. “We can’t stop in this traffic. We don’t have time to stop. Your dad must be miles ahead of us.”

  Gracie groaned silently. This was like something in a script of a comedy about a couple on a family trip. “We’re traveling with a child, remember?” Gracie tried to keep her voice light. “I told you we’d have to make frequent pit stops.”

  “But we stopped two hours ago,” Jack said in a mystified tone. “At this rate, it will be midnight before we get there!”

  “Well,” she explained, giving in to feeling world-weary and just plain cranky, “that’s why I wanted to get away no later than two so we’d avoid the Friday-night weekend getaway traffic—”

  “You know I had to get that software problem fixed. GEC Services is one of our most profitable accounts—”

  “Let’s not go over this again.” She tightened her self-control. “Just—there! There’s the sign. One half mile on the right,” she read.

  “I can’t stop—”

  “Please, Jack!” Gracie cut him off. “Stop at the rest area!”

&nb
sp; With a swallowed oath, he flipped on his turn signal and turned into the shady parking area. He coasted into the spot under a maple tree and parked.

  “Lighten up, Jack,” she murmured. “The drive is part of the experience. The trip is not an endurance race.” For how many centuries have women been saying that? She envisioned herself in long dusty skirts tromping beside a covered wagon, and Jack saying, We have to cover two more miles today—we can’t stop now!

  Oblivious to the emotional currents in the car, Andy unlatched his special seat belt harness and climbed into the front. “Let’s go pump water, Mr. Lassater!”

  “What?” Jack looked dumbfounded.

  Andy clambered over him, unlatched Jack’s door and jumped outside. “Come on. It’s fun!”

  “Go on. I have to use the facilities,” Gracie said, motioning toward the small brick building on her right. “You go and help Andy pump us some water. Have him wash his hands and face, without getting completely soaked!”

  Jack didn’t reply. Andy was dragging him by the hand toward the covered open-air shelter where another family was washing their hands under the old-fashioned communal hand pump.

  Gracie grinned. “I said lighten up, Jack!”

  When she returned, she found that Jack and Andy had shed their shoes and socks and were pumping the water just for the fun of it. Liberally dotted with splash marks on his shirt and slacks, Jack was grinning at Andy, who was jumping up and down and yelping at the cold water. Why couldn’t Jack always take life like this?

  Unfortunately, it only made him more irresistible.

  “Having fun yet?” she asked, a smile curving her mouth.

  “Come on, Aunty. The water’s really good!” Andy invited.

  “Aren’t we in a hurry?” she asked in an arch tone, sitting down on a picnic bench under the shelter and slipping off her sandals.

  “Lighten up,” Jack said, grinning at her. “The drive is part of the experience—or something.”

  She chuckled, invigorated by his attention. “Not bad, Lassater.” She held her feet under the icy water as Jack pumped again. “Cold!” she shrieked.

  “Yeah! Isn’t it great?” Andy crowed. “I wish we had a pump in our backyard. Could Grampa make us one?” He leaped up and down in the spattering water. “Let me pump. Let me!”