Kit liked Grey here. She liked him in her life. She loved him. And the thought scared her to death.
They dressed together, glancing at each other, smiling often. Kit had just fastened her skirt when the doorbell rang. She said, "I'll let her in."
Combing her hair with her fingers, Kit called as she walked, "I'm coming."
When she opened the door, her sister saw Kit's flushed cheeks, her mussed hair, and a moment later Grey standing in the living room. "Am I interrupting something?"
Maggie's nose was red, her eyes overly bright. Kit put her arm around her. "No. Come on in."
"I was just leaving," Grey said as he moved tow N
"You don't have to go," Maggie said in a firm voice. "In fact, maybe you can explain the male psyche to me," she said waving her arm through the air. "I swear, you'd think Eric would know by now that something like this would upset me. I can't believe he did it."
"What happened?" Kit asked as she guided her sister to her new furniture which had finally arrived. Grey stood beside her inviting green and salmon-striped chair, not looking comfortable in the situation.
The words poured out of Maggie. "I told you Eric wants to move. He thinks we need a bigger house. I like our house. My office is perfect where it is, and my clients know where I am."
"You said you and Eric discussed it."
Maggie frowned. "We did. Without coming to a decision. I thought we'd stay where we are for another year, at least."
"So what happened?"
"Eric put a retainer on a house today!" her sister exploded. "Without me even seeing it. Without telling me first. Can you believe it?"
Kit knew Eric was a take-charge kind of guy. But he loved Maggie more than life and he would never do anything to purposefully hurt her. "What was his reasoning?"
"That's what I asked him and he got angry. He said he saw the perfect house for us so he did something about it. How does he know it's perfect when I didn't even see it! And why didn't he tell me he'd contacted a real estate agent?" She looked at Grey with confusion and hurt.
Running his hand over his chin, he looked even more uncomfortable than a few minutes before. "Maggie, I certainly can't tell you Eric's motives."
She looked annoyed. "I know that. But tell me what it is about men that they think their decisions are the right decisions. I would never even think of putting a down payment on something so big..." She covered her face with her hands. "Oh, darn."
Maggie had loosened up quite a bit since she'd married Eric. She'd been reserved all her life but Eric had released the vibrancy that had always bubbled below the surface. It was obvious that she was hurt by his unilateral decision. Kit saw a tear run down her sister's cheek and for once in her life, she wasn't sure what to say. She loved Maggie and she respected and had learned true affection for her brother-in-law.
Grey came closer and finally stopped at Maggie's chair. "I can't tell you what Eric was thinking, but anybody who looks at you two together can tell he thinks the sun rises and sets on you. He wouldn't do this to hurt you."
Maggie looked up, her eyes br
imming with hurt. "He had to,
I wouldn't like the idea. I don't want to move."
"Why?" Kit asked.
"I told you."
"But what's the real reason. If you're thinking about having a baby, if you're with Eric, what does it matter where you live?"
"But I decorated the house myself, and I've always been happy there. It's a symbol of...independence."
Kit patted her sister's arm. "Maybe that's the problem. Maybe it doesn't feel like home to Eric. Maybe it feels like yours, rather than a house that belongs to both of you."
"Then why did he pick one out on his own?" Maggie asked, her voice rising.
Grey said, "Maggie, men like to feel that they're taking care of the people they love. He probably didn't want somebody else to buy the house before you could see it. That can happen."
Kit suggested, "Maybe he thought this would give you a little nudge to at least get you looking. Let's face it, Sis, you can be somewhat inflexible at times."
Maggie didn't deny it. She looked at Grey. "So he might have done what he thought was best for me."
"Could be. Did he tell you anything about the house?"
"He said it was in a beautiful neighborhood with lots of trees. There's a nursery and a guest room, too. I think he said something about a winding staircase...I don't know. I guess I stopped listening because I was so upset he decided on his own."
The doorbell rang. Kit didn't need her sixth sense to know who was at her door. Giving Maggie her it-will-be-all-right look, she opened the front door.
Eric's face was drawn, his tie tugged down and hanging to one side. His gaze settled on his wife, and he didn't look away.
Kit moved to the side and said, "Come on in. I'll go get us something to drink." She glanced at Grey and disappeared into the kitchen.
Before Grey could move to the kitchen, Maggie stood and went to her husband. "I'm sorry if I overreacted."
He enfolded her in his arms. "I should never have done it like that. I should have come to get you and taken you with me. But the real estate agent called me with the new listing..."
"I didn't even know you'd contacted a real estate agent."
Eric's face showed his consternation. "I know. I should have told you. I'm sorry, sweetheart. If you don't want to move, we won't move. Your happiness means everything to me. I went about this all wrong
—
"
Maggie pressed her fingers to his lips. "I know you're right about needing more space. If you want me to consider this house, I will."
He held her face in his hands. "We don't have to take it. I want you to understand that. It has to be what we both want."
Maggie nodded and Eric kissed her.
Grey felt like a voyeur. Would he and Kit ever share this kind of love? Would they be able to compromise, recognizing each other's needs? Respecting them? All his feelings for Kit had ambushed Grey until he had to be sure he was making the right decisions.
Would Kit be able to accept Deedee unconditionally as she needed to be accepted? Kit made love to him as if nothing else in the world mattered. Yet, did she want the same future he did?
He needed more time with her. They needed more time with Deedee
—
together. Then they could discuss where they were going, and how they wanted to get there. Unobserved by Maggie and Eric, Grey went to the kitchen. He'd ask Kit if she'd like to go to a baseball game.
With him and Deedee.
***
The Orioles were Deedee's favorite baseball team. Her baseball cards with stats of each player were one of her prized possessions. When Grey had asked Kit if she'd like to go to the game, she'd looked surprised but had agreed, saying, "I haven't been to Inner Harbor in a long time and I've never been to Camden Yards. It will be fun."
He'd looked for signs of hesitancy, of a hint if she was going just to please him. But he couldn't tell.
They decided to go on a weekday. She and Grey had worked until lunchtime, then they'd picked up Deedee and driven to Baltimore's Inner Harbor. Deedee was delighted by the sights and smells. Grey rented a paddleboat and he and Deedee peddled around the harbor while Kit spoke to the women at the information booth about tours, places to stay, and restaurants. Afterward, the three of them walked through the distinctive shops, dined on crab cake sandwiches, listened to a street performer strum his guitar as a juggler played to the bystanders. Deedee insisted she could walk the four blocks to the stadium so they left Grey's car in the parking garage.
Camden Yards was built like an old-fashioned stadium rather than the newer domed ones. The natural turf and open air bleachers brought back memories of baseball's origins. Grey had purchased box seats along third base from a customer who had season tickets for his family, but rarely attended week night games. Deedee sat, engrossed with the program and score card, until the game began. Then she concentrated on the players on the field.
Grey took Kit's hand, placing it on his knee.
"I always enjoy myself with you and Deedee."
Grey took Kit's hand and lifted it to his lips, kissing her palm. Goose bumps broke out on her arms and she murmured weakly, "Grey."
"I like to hear you say my name with that little tremor that means I'm getting to you," he whispered in her ear.
"You'd better behave," she warned with a glance at Deedee, who was sitting beside her.
"Or what?" he taunted.
"Or...or...I'll let Gus draw the winning names out of the fishbowl at the promotional day on Saturday."
Grey laughed out loud, a deep rich rumble that Kit felt all the way to her toes. "Now, that's a threat if ever I heard one." He kept her hand imprisoned on his knee during the first inning, making small circles on the top of her hand, deliciously soothing the skin between her thumb and index finger until she wanted to kiss him right there on the spot. Between hot dogs, soft pretzels and soda, they watched the game, though Grey tenderly wiping mustard from her lip, brushing his shoulder against hers, and leaning across her to speak with Deedee, excited Kit much more than what was happening on the field.
The game heated up during the eighth inning. Both teams were tied at four runs. "Go, go, go," Deedee called as her favorite Oriole came up to bat.
He let the first one soar by. Strike.
The second one was a ball.
But the third... He hit it with a resounding thwack. Deedee yelled and cheered, standing and waving her hands in the air. She called the player's name over and over as he ran the bases, jumped up and down, and threw her fist into the air.
Her cap fell off her head into the lap of a woman sitting behind her. Unmindful of the loss, Deedee hugged both Kit and Grey joyously.
The woman behind them gingerly slid the cap onto Deedee's seat as she commented to the man beside her, "I can't see why a grown woman has to act that way. She should learn some decorum."
Judgmental people irked Kit. Especially when they had no knowledge of the situation or the people involved in it. Without hesitating, she faced the woman behind her who seemed to be in her fifties, put her hands on her hips, and lifted the bill of her baseball cap so she could have an unobstructed view. "A baseball game is a place to have fun, it's not high tea. If you want decorum, maybe you should find another past time."
Ignoring the woman's haughty "Well!" Kit put her arm around Deedee's shoulders and gave her a gentle squeeze.
Deedee looked at the woman behind them, then at Kit, and broke into a smile. "What's high tea? Is it like iced tea? Tanya doesn't let me put too much sugar in it."
Kit laughed and her gaze caught Grey's. "We'll have high tea some time and you can see for yourself."
Grey had no doubt that Kit's defense of Deedee was genuine. How much more time did he need to decide they could be a family?
None.
So there was only one thing left to do
—
ask Kit to marry him.
Saturday dawned clear and bright and balmy. Grey was amazed at the number of customers and onlookers standing in groups and milling about the parking lot of Corey's Hardware. Kit seemed to be ten places at once as she coordinated and supervised. Right now, she was standing at the radio station's mobile unit parked to the side of the store's front entrance. The sunlight glinted on her hair, transforming its shimmering golden strands. As she spoke to the announcer inside the van, the light caught her gold spiral earring.
Her fuchsia slacks and top enabled Grey to find her easily as she finished at the van and stopped for a moment at the group watching Zac Whittaker sculpt a beaver from a log. In the last few moments he'd finished with the chain saw and was now using a chisel. Kit stood in the interested circle a few minutes then strolled to the patio table and umbrella where Deedee poured punch.
Grey wanted to spend the rest of his life with Kit. He'd decided to ask her to marry him this evening, after their preoccupation with the promotional day was over, when they could concentrate on the two of them...for the rest of their lives.
The success of the ads and fliers bringing in a host of customers, the count of coupons from the website, the sales receipts buzzing out one after the other, were almost inconsequential at this point. As Kit beckoned to him to come to the raffle table outside the front entrance, he wanted to ask her to marry him, and nothing else seemed as important.
But when he reached the table, she said, "You should pull out the winning tickets. After all, you own the store."
"Hey, Corey," a man called from the back of the crowd. "I never seen so many people here. Maybe you should give out six trips instead of three!"
The crowd applauded.
Grey laughed. "Maybe we'll have to do this again in the spring. You folks keep coming in and I'll see what I can do."
He heard a woman comment, "They're so helpful here."
The man beside her said, "He actually delivered supplies to my place without charging me. You bet I'll be back."
Grey squeezed Kit's hand. "You've done a great job."
When she squeezed back, she said, "I had good material to work with."
With a grin and a flourish, Grey reached into the fishbowl to pull out the first winner. He read the name aloud and a couple to the side yelled, "That's us!"
Grey congratulated them, then pulled out another name.
A young man in jeans won the second weekend get-away and an older couple won the third. After giving the winners information and instructions for setting up dates for their weekends, Grey's phone vibrated on his belt. He pulled it off and checked it. It was Tanya. He could let it go, but what if it was important.
"Who is it?" Kit asked close to his ear.
"Tanya. I should take it."
"Go on into your office so you can hear. I'll keep everything going out here."
Although Grey was concerned about the phone call, he suddenly realized how well he and Kit worked together, how they managed to combine their ideas. He tenderly caressed cheek.
He answered the call and asked Tanya to give him a minute until he reached his office.
Threading his way through the store, he admired its new look. Once in his office, he said, "Okay. Now I can hear you. Do you need to talk to Dee?"
She quickly assured him, "No. But I need to meet with you. Are you free anytime today?"
He glanced at the customers outside and thought about the evening he'd planned. "Not really. Is it important?"
"I didn't want to tell you over the phone, but our government funding is being cut. I need to talk to you about how that will affect our clients. You might want to consider other options for Deedee."
"
Other options? Is it that bad?"
"That's why I need to see you."
Grey felt torn between his obligation to the store and his responsibility for Deedee. If Gus and Larry could handle the inside of the store for an hour, and Kit took care of the three ring circus out front...
"I'll be there in ten minutes."
After speaking with Gus, Grey found Kit again watching the artistry of Zac Whittaker. Taking her arm, he guided her to the side. "I have to run an errand, but I'll be back in an hour. Will you be okay here?"
"Everything's under control and going well. Is something wrong?"
He wasn't sure exactly what the outcome of the meeting would be. But there was no point borrowing trouble. "No." He patted her hand and kissed her, unmindful of anyone who might care to watch.
When he lifted his head, he glided his thumb along her chin. "I'll be back before you know it."