His Saving Grace Page 12

  Jack lifted the boy so he could reach the dark-green pump handle. Then Andy, with his full forty pounds of weight on it, dragged the handle down.

  She shrilled again as the frigid water spurted over her bare feet and ankles. Shivers ran up her legs and the smile that had conquered Jack’s aggravated expression nearly overwhelmed her with delicious sensations she couldn’t afford to encourage. Oh, Jack, what am I going to do with you?

  After midnight, Jack peered at a faded wood sign lit only by his headlights, Groshky’s Cabins. They’d arrived. Gracie dozed beside him, her cheek against his arm, while Andy slept in his car seat. The vacation had officially begun. Jack couldn’t figure out if he was relieved or not. This summer had been full of unexpected changes and surprises. When would he get back to normal? He stared into the darkness, hearing the croaking of frogs and the hoot of an owl. What next? A bear?

  Dear Father, what did I get myself into?

  Chapter Ten

  “Good morning!”

  At the sound of excited young voices, Jack blinked open his eyes.

  Austin and Andy stood next to where he lay on the couch, staring into his face. “Good morning!” they repeated even louder.

  A moment of disorientation and then Jack pulled himself up to a sitting position.

  “We’re at the cabin!” Andy announced with a leap of excitement.

  “Aunt Sandy is gonna make us pancakes!” Austin performed a similar jig.

  “Do you like pancakes?” Andy asked in as serious a tone as if he’d just asked Jack if he were in favor of world peace.

  Jack managed to nod. It’s real. I’m here in this cabin. Then he heard his mother speak to Mike and it all came back to him. He was here to keep his mom from being hurt.

  “Hi there.” Gracie’s soft, feminine voice curled down the back of his neck.

  It was happening again. He looked up and Gracie was there at the foot of the couch. She wore a deep-blue tank top and cutoffs with ragged hems. Her wet hair was slicked back, but a few drops of water trickled down her neck and wisps of black hair curled around her hairline. She looked gorgeous.

  Gracie, what am I going to do? Why can’t I stop noticing you? Why can’t we just be the way we were a month ago?

  Looking away, he combed his hair with his fingers, feeling that he needed a haircut and, more critically, a shower. A cold one.

  “Hi.”

  “It’s your turn for the shower now.” Gracie sat down on the arm of the couch, her thigh bumping against his blanketed foot.

  Keeping his eyes downcast, he swung his feet to the floor.

  “Hurry up. Your mom’s in charge of breakfast and…” Gracie paused to sniff audibly. “It smells like bacon—”

  “And pancakes!” the boys chorused in high spirits.

  Aware of the mouth-watering scents of bacon and butter, he rose and heeded Gracie’s motion toward a door off the main room of the rustic cabin. It occurred to him as he picked up his duffel bag and entered the small bathroom that Gracie was often telling him what he should do. I should resent that.

  But he didn’t. Existence was so much easier with Gracie there to point the way. With Gracie, he didn’t have to think about all the daily minutiae of life. That was Gracie’s job, and it left him free to concentrate on what he really wanted to do. What would he do if he lost Gracie?

  Why am I thinking about things like this? Was it because of losing Tom or because of what Tom had said about Jack proposing to Gracie so she wouldn’t leave? Gracie would never leave him. Still, insecurity trickled through him. So much had changed in the past month.

  Pushing these disturbing thoughts aside, Jack surveyed the cramped bathroom—a rusty-looking toilet, sink and aged shower stall with a sad shower curtain—all with barely room to turn around between them. Okay, he knew he hadn’t been headed for the Hilton.

  “Hurry up, Jack!” his mother called from the kitchen, her cheerful voice a bit faint through the door.

  Why does she have to sound so happy? Jack stripped, and cranked on the shower. Standing under the unenthusiastic sprinkle, he let the water rinse the sleep from his eyes.

  Recollections of the camping trips he and his parents had taken when he was no older than the twins fluttered into his mind. Those had ended with his dad’s entrance into medical school. He’d been much too busy after that. Jack scrubbed his head, rubbing away the memories.

  “Come on, Jack! Pan–cakes!” one of the twins yelled, pounding on the bathroom door.

  Jack complied quickly, drying off and donning a wrinkled pair of shorts and a T-shirt. He dropped his duffel back at the end of the couch and walked to the round table at one end of the large central room. Mike sat there with the twins on his right side. Gracie was setting the table with chipped plates, mismatched tableware and bright yellow paper napkins. She smiled and motioned him toward the seat next to Andy. He sank into it, not looking toward Mike.

  “Morning, Jack,” Mike said. “Sounds like you got stuck in the middle of the weekend traffic last night.”

  Was that a dig or just conversation? Jack shrugged.

  His mother appeared at the table with a large platter of fragrant bacon in hand. Gracie came up behind with an even larger platter topped with a listing stack of griddle cakes.

  Beaming, Mike rose and took the platter from Sandy. Jack didn’t miss the smile she gave Mike or the way Mike managed to touch his mom’s hand in the transfer.

  Jack fumed silently. He would get Mike alone for a talk—soon. Maybe Mike didn’t realize that he was leading Jack’s mom on. Jack would give him the benefit of the doubt until then—but only till then.

  Sandy and Gracie sat down, completing the circle.

  “Let’s say grace,” Mike said. He reached for Sandy’s and Austin’s hands and bowed his head.

  Jack took the hand Andy offered him and accepted Gracie’s hand in his other. Her hand felt so small, so dainty in his. How could someone so slight and delicate outside be so strong within?

  “Dear Father, bless our time together here at the cabin. Give us safety and sunny days. Bless those who stayed at home—Annie, Troy, Patience and Connie. Now we thank you for this delicious food and the loving hands that prepared it. Amen.”

  “Amen!” the twins shouted. “Pancakes! Please!”

  Jack didn’t miss the special smiles that Mike and his mother exchanged. He simmered with irritation. The talk with Mike would be sooner rather than later.

  The breakfast passed quickly and then Jack was suddenly aware that he had no plan for the day. In his momentary disorientation, he dived for his black laptop case at the end of the couch as if it were a life preserver.

  “We’re going to go swimming, Mr. Lassater,” Andy informed him. “Wanta come?”

  Jack stared at them. “Swimming?”

  “Yes, Jack. You know—” his mom teased, “you get into water and wave your hands and kick your legs around to keep from sinking.”

  He held his laptop case in front of him. “I need to check in and see if any of my clients need me. Where’s the phone?” He looked around for it.

  “Jack, you’re on vacation—” Sandy started.

  “Don’t waste your breath,” Gracie said. “Jack, we don’t have a phone.”

  “What? No phone?” He couldn’t believe it. “What place doesn’t have a phone?”

  “Groshky’s Cabins are without phones,” Mike replied. “People come here to get away from phones.”

  Jack bristled. “People depend on me—”

  “Come on, Jack, we’ll wean you off your addiction slowly.” Gracie sounded amused with him. “There’s a phone at the main office. They’ll probably let you plug your modem into their phone jack long enough to download your e-mail.”

  “But,” he began, “what if—”

  “You’re on vacation. I’ll help you get your e-mail, but that’s it.” Gracie beckoned him to come with her. “We left work behind us.”

  After a short walk among pine trees, Jack trailed G
racie through an aged and scarred wooden screen door into a dilapidated log house near the resort entrance. He recognized it from the night before. Gracie greeted a large woman in her sixties with three chins and flyaway gray hair.

  “Hello, Mrs. Groshky.” He shook hands with her over a cluttered counter that displayed fishing lures.

  Gracie explained what Jack needed.

  Mrs. Groshky frowned. “I don’t know. We never had no computers here.”

  “You haven’t?” The idea boggled his mind. No computers?

  “He just needs it to download his e-mail and then he’ll plug your phone back in,” Gracie explained.

  “It won’t hurt the phone, will it?” Mrs. Groshky looked leery. “We only got the one line, you know. I like to keep that working in case we had an emergency or somethin’.”

  Hurt the phone? What planet am I on? Jack tried to keep a straight face.

  “It won’t hurt the line,” Gracie assured her. “And it will only take a few minutes.”

  “Okay, come behind the counter, then.” Mrs. Groshky grumbled and moved her bulky form away from the wall-mounted phone.

  Within seconds, Jack had his laptop plugged into the wall jack and was accessing the connection options. “You don’t have a local calling number for this area.” He looked to Mrs. Groshky. “I’ll have to pay you for the call, then. It will be a long-distance charge.”

  Mrs. Groshky frowned and shook her triple chins in disapproval.

  “Jack, you have to give in and admit that we are in the north woods, away from civilization as we know it.” Looking amused, Gracie leaned toward him and rested her folded hands on the counter.

  Trying not to look at the attractive picture she presented, Jack tapped the keys and listened to the buzzing and tones as the modem dialed the access number.

  “Gee, it makes funny sounds. You’re sure it don’t hurt the phone?” The proprietress watched him as though he were a snake charmer. “I’ve heard about this e-mail stuff, but I never seen anyone do it before.”

  “It’s not much to watch.” Gracie turned her head toward the woman.

  “It didn’t go through,” Jack complained.

  “Try again.” Gracie leaned farther forward till her head nearly touched Jack’s. “What’s wrong?”

  He shook his head.

  “Hey! Mrs. Groshky,” a kid yelled as he banged inside, “my dad needs bait.”

  The woman went over to an old-model refrigerator. “What’s he want—night crawlers or red oak worms?”

  Ignoring her, the kid stared at Jack.

  Night crawlers? Jack hunkered down over his laptop and waited for his ISP to finally make the connection with the outside world.

  Another customer, a harassed-looking man in a hat with fishing lures around the brim, arrived to get keys to the cabin they were renting for the week, and stared at him, too. Then a family came in wanting to buy a fishing license and stood gawking at him. Mrs. Groshky squeezed her abundant form around Jack twice and glared at him.

  “You almost done?”

  Jack felt the urge to toss the laptop out the window. Did everyone think he was on exhibit? Finally, his server made the connection and he watched the transmission percentage progress at a snail’s pace until it finally achieved one hundred percent. Success! He scanned the sender’s column at the left of his screen.

  “Hey, neat computer!” A teen with a buzz cut and a gold earring leaned against the counter. “Does it have any games on it? My dad wouldn’t even let me bring my PDA along. Groshky needs to put in some video games.”

  “Shoo!” Mrs. Groshky waved the teen out. “This is not a toy and this isn’t a place where you sit with your head in a computer game when the sun is shining outside.”

  The teen slunk out, slamming the door behind him.

  “I don’t know if I want computers here.” Mrs. Groshky confronted him, her hands propped on her bountiful hips. “This is a place for putting away computers. Don’t you know what a vacation is?”

  “I agree. Don’t worry, Mrs. Groshky.” Gracie hurried him outside. “We’ll try not to come during the daytime when you’re so busy.”

  Jack thanked the older woman through the screen door and followed Gracie. “I’ll probably check back later—”

  “No! You go swimming, fishing, have fun,” Mrs. Groshky called after them. “No more computers. This ain’t a computer place.”

  Trying to ignore Mrs. Groshky, Jack watched Gracie walking beside him. He again wondered at the change in Gracie. They’d worked side by side for five years. Why hadn’t he noticed the fluid way she walked, the way her perfect nose turned upward at its end?

  Gracie strolled beside him, evidently unaware of the effect she was having on him.

  “Did you hear anything from any of our clients?”

  “Just my dad saying he’s glad my project’s done and everything’s back to normal.” Jack silently hoped his dad was right.

  “I also think,” Jack continued, “I’ve got enough information to clear that nurse they suspected. But I still wish I could get a lead on who the hacker was.”

  “Maybe you scared whoever it was out of the hacking business.”

  “Let’s hope so.”

  On the walk back to the cabin, Gracie racked her brain to come up with a strategy for getting Jack to actually take a vacation.

  He strode beside her on the dirt path as if they were still on the streets of Chicago. If she didn’t stop him now, the vacation could be ruined for everyone. Mrs. Groshky’s expression had boded ill for any future attempts to connect to the Internet.

  Within sight of their cabin, Gracie decided she had to take action. She slowed. “Jack, we need to talk.”

  “About what?”

  “About whether you should stay or go.” Gracie halted and faced him.

  “Go? Why?”

  She gripped his arm and dragged him into the cover of a tall pine. The chirping birds in the tree flew out, flapping and scattering overhead. “Jack, one of the reasons my family comes here every year is that Groshky’s hasn’t changed since 1957 when they opened.” She released his arm and edged back. How could he look so good in wrinkled shorts and a rumpled T-shirt? “It isn’t a computer kind of place—”

  “What does that mean?”

  Oh, Jack. “It means this is a place you come to forget about work.” She pointed to the laptop under his arm. Crows overhead squawked on a lone phone line as though making rude comments at them. “I should not have let you bring that thing here.”

  “You sound like it’s covered with a fatal bacteria.” Jack eyed her and shifted restlessly.

  “As a matter of fact, it is infected…with anti-vacation bacteria. I’m afraid we are going to have to put it into quarantine.”

  Jack’s proximity ignited tension in Gracie. She tried to ignore how all her nerve endings felt like they had been hooked up to an electric fence.

  “And that means?”

  Jack sounded baffled and uneasy at the same time. Not a good combination. Undaunted, she inched forward and lifted her chin until their noses were nearly touching. Why can’t I just step back and protect myself? “That means we’re going to put it back in its case and leave it in the closet—”

  “Gracie! I’ve got to check my accounts every day.”

  She pressed both hands against him, forcing him back farther into the boughs of the pine. Sensations—Jack’s solid chest and the evergreen needles and scent—shook her concentration, but she went on. “Going on vacation means not working. That means not checking on accounts, period.”

  “What if something happens…what if there’s an emergency? People, companies depend on me.” Jack squawked like the crows.

  “I told Patience and Connie to call us here if there is an emergency. They will check the e-mail for us—”

  “No, I…” He clutched his laptop to him as if it were a babe in arms.

  She laid a hand on the warm skin just below his short sleeve. “You know I’m right.” She
knew she should break their contact, but couldn’t. “I blame myself. I should have prepared you for this, insisted you take a vacation every year for the past five. Then this wouldn’t be such a shock to your system.”

  She leaned closer, irresistibly drawn to him. “Now we’re going into the cabin,” she informed him gently, “and you’re going to put away your laptop.”

  He shook his head as if in disbelief. “Not my computer.”

  “Give it to me…please.” She held out her hand. “Come on. You know I’m right.”

  Jack held firm. “Gracie, I… Gracie…”

  She closed the final, thin space between them. Why couldn’t she keep her distance? His breath fanned the hair over her right ear, making it tickle. She shivered.

  “Jack,” she said in a soothing voice, “you know I’m right. You want to have fun. You wouldn’t have come with us if you hadn’t wanted to. You never do what you don’t want to do. You want to have fun, I know you do.”

  Jack appeared to be having trouble catching his breath.

  “Jack?”

  His mouth hovered over hers.

  “Jack,” she whispered, heat rolling through her body, warming her face.

  She heard the twins burst out of the cabin door, pound down the wooden steps and come running. No, don’t interrupt us now!

  “Mr. Lassater, come on! We waited for you to go swimming with us. Come on!”

  Jack gazed down at her.

  What flickered in his eyes? Disappointment? Was he feeling what she was? Seeing the twins from the corner of her eye, she reached for the laptop, but didn’t wrest it from his grasp. Then she realized the twins had done her a favor. That’s right! I’ll let the twins do the work of persuading him.

  “Jack, we can’t go swimming with the laptop,” she teased.

  “All right.” Slowly, he relinquished the laptop to her.

  She let out a gasp. “Great. Now we’re officially on vacation.” She stumbled backward from him—shocked suddenly by her insistence and her success.

  And most of all, by how close she’d come to kissing Jack, her boss—again!

  She was lucky to have two small boys along. If they couldn’t run the best interference between her and Jack, who could?