Great-Aunt Sophia's Lessons for Bombshells (34 page)

Andrew was too stunned to respond at first, but as she deepened the kiss, something broke free inside him, as it had that day
in the garden. His arms came around her, one hand to the back of her head, and he returned her kiss full bore.

An image broke into Grace’s head of Declan finding them and lifting her skirt, taking her from behind as Andrew kissed her. Her moan was captured in Andrew’s mouth. Some primitive part of him responded, and she felt the rod of his erection grinding against her belly.

“Dr. Andrew,” Declan drawled from the end of the hall, “for shame. Is this how you treat a lady in public?”

Andrew shoved her away, startled mortification on his face.

Grace turned to face Declan, and then slowly, deliberately, licked her lips.

Declan’s face darkened, and he swore.

“Andrew, why don’t you show Declan where Sophia is sitting?” Grace said. “Now if you boys will excuse me, I must powder my nose.”

Without waiting for an answer, she slipped into the ladies’ room, locked the door, then sank onto the chaise and wept.

CHAPTER

23

A
ndrew drove Grace and Sophia home just before race officials closed off 17-Mile Drive. The race would start in half an hour, and about fifteen minutes after that she could expect to see Declan and the other racers come by Sophia’s driveway.

As Andrew turned the Subaru down the drive to Sophia’s house, crews were setting bales of hay in place as protective barriers in the tightest turns. Grace turned in her seat to stare at the place where Sophia’s Archie had died so many years ago, and felt a stab of guilt and fear that she might have upset Declan enough to lead him to the same fate.

She tried to shake off the irrational thought. He’d been fine the last she’d seen him.

After she’d gone back to Sophia’s table, she’d found Andrew in an almost bubbly mood. Declan had met her gaze looking more amused than upset.

Or had he just been good at hiding his feelings? Grace couldn’t forget the dark look on his face when he found her with Andrew. For a moment, she’d thought she’d hurt him.

Grace shook off the thought. No. He didn’t care about her in any important way. It was only the greedy jealousy of possession that she’d seen in his eyes.

“You have visitors,” Andrew said as the car rolled into the courtyard of Sophia’s house.

From the backseat, Grace leaned between Andrew and Sophia’s heads to see. Two late-model sedans sat parked in the sun, and beyond them was a well-aged, familiar Volvo.

“Cat!” Grace cried.

“You knew she was coming?” Sophia asked sharply.

“No, no clue.” Grace frowned.

Andrew parked the Subaru, and when Grace got out she took a second look at the sedans, and saw the small rental sticker on each bumper. Whoever the people were, they had probably flown in.

Grace expected Cat to come flying out of the house, but no one responded to the sound of their arrival. All was silence.

Once they were indoors, Andrew surprised Grace by taking her elbow and leading her toward the living room.

“Andrew,” Sophia barked. “What is going on?”

“I’m sorry, Sophia, but this had to be done. Grace has been under some bad influences, and we’ve all come together to help her save herself before it’s too late.”

“What—?” Grace started, but then she was in the living room and she saw them: Cat. Professor Joansdatter. And Grace’s mother, Alyson. They sat, solemn and homespun, amid the pastel luxury of Sophia’s French living room.

“Mom!” Grace said, hurrying toward her. Her mother stood and embraced her, and Grace breathed in the scent of sandalwood and herbs that was as familiar as home. Her mom’s loose, crumpled natural-fiber clothes felt rough to fingertips now more familiar with silk, but was no less welcome for that. “What are you doing here? Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

“It was a last-minute decision. Grace, you’ve lost a lost of weight,” Alyson said, holding Grace away from her and looking her up and down.

Grace stood back and twirled in a circle for her mother to see. “I look good, don’t I?”

“You were beautiful before.”

“Thank you. But I look better now, you have to admit.”

Looking dismayed, Alyson touched Grace’s hair, then her cheek where a touch of blush had been expertly applied. “I hardly recognize you. You look like an actress in a magazine.”

“You’re exaggerating,” Grace said, grinning. She turned to the others in the room, and her confusion returned afresh. “Professor Joansdatter? Cat? What
are
you all doing here? Did you come for the Concours d’Elegance?”

“Grace, darling,” her mother said. “We came for you.”

Andrew led her to a seat and sat her down, then sat next to Cat on the sofa. He sat forward, his elbows on his knees, his face earnest.

“What exactly is going on here?” Sophia asked. The slight flare to her nostrils was the only evidence that she viewed the group as intruders little better than plague-ridden rodents.

Cat answered, a defiant challenge in her voice. “This is an intervention, Sophia. You and Declan have done your damage, but we’re here to save the Grace we know and love from disappearing forever.”

Grace sprang up from her chair. “You can’t be serious! An intervention?” She started to laugh. “What, you think I’ve become a drug addict? Mom? You know me better than that.”

“No, we don’t suspect drugs,” Cat said, in a tone that suggested it hadn’t been off the plate for discussion. “What we’ve all noticed are the dramatic changes that have been happening to you this summer. Your withdrawal from friends and family, your picking fights with me as if to drive me away—those are both signs of being in an abusive relationship. And you’ve lost too much weight.”

“You’ve gone from healthy eating habits to bad ones in these
last few weeks,” Andrew threw in. “That can be a sign of depression.”

“Or of having been half starved on your freaking CRON diet!” Grace protested.

“You used to be a vegetarian,” Cat said. “I hear you’ve been eating lots of meat lately.”

“So? And how would you know that, anyway?”

Cat and Andrew exchanged glances. Grace’s jaw dropped. “You’ve been keeping tabs on me? I knew it! I thought I was crazy, suspecting a conspiracy, but I was right.”

Angry, Grace turned to Professor Joansdatter. Her advisor wore her trademark long scarf wrapped loosely around her neck, and her salt-and-pepper wiry hair pulled back in a low, bushy ponytail. Wooden bangles clacked on her wrist. “What did they tell you that made you think it worth coming down here?” she demanded.

“It was more what I found in your research notes that concerned me. You haven’t written a word of your dissertation.”

The heat of embarrassment burned Grace’s cheeks. “You read my notes?” Though the professor had access to her files, Grace hadn’t asked her to look at them. All the details of her sexual encounters with Declan rose to her mind. The bet with Sophia. Her own questioning of whether Women’s Studies was a worthwhile field for her.

“You seem to have been derailed from what had been a promising thesis. I wanted to be sure you were all right, and not at risk of becoming one of those students who never finishes her dissertation.”

“That could have waited a few weeks, until I was back in Seattle. You didn’t have to come down here.”

Joansdatter shrugged and looked a little sheepish. “My partner wanted to see Monterey and Carmel.”

Grace turned accusing eyes on Andrew. “Why did you arrange this?”

“You are the most perfect woman I know, when you’re being the real Grace. The Grace I met the first day you arrived here. The Grace you are when Declan O’Brien is nowhere to be found.”

“You’d rather I was fat and dumpy again?”

“I’d rather you cared more about social issues than clothes and makeup, and flirting and teasing so much that a man doesn’t know what message you mean to send.”

The arrow hit home, and she had no defense to offer. She cast a beseeching look to Aunt Sophia, wondering why her aunt had stayed quiet for so long.

Sophia made a show of looking at her watch. Grace glanced at the ormolu clock ticking on the mantel and realized she had twenty minutes at most before the historic auto race would pass by the end of Sophia’s driveway. She wouldn’t be able to forgive herself if she missed Declan driving past, and he then was in a wreck at the turn south of Sophia’s house. The odds were astronomically against it, yet the seed of fear had been planted and there was no arguing with the irrational certainty that if she was not there to wave to Declan as he went by, he would be distracted and crash.

“Have you all had your say now?” Sophia asked, sounding bored.

“No,” Alyson said, coming to stand beside Grace. “I want to know why you’ve done this to Grace. Why did you invite her down here for the summer? You’ve never shown the least interest in our family.”

“It does appear that way, doesn’t it?” Sophia nodded faintly toward the chair Grace had vacated, and Grace offered her arm to her aunt and led her to it, watching with concern as Sophia settled into it with a twinge of pain.

“The truth,” Sophia said, “may not be something you’re prepared to hear.”

Alyson crossed her arms, looking suspicious but intrigued. The others stirred, curiosity bright in their eyes.

Grace looked in puzzlement at her great-aunt. “I’m here because you need a hip replacement, aren’t I?”

Sophia shuddered delicately. “Grace, that term.”

“Sorry. ‘Procedure.’”

“I’m afraid that while true, that was the least of my reasons. You see, dear Grace, you are not my grand-niece at all. Nor is Alyson my niece.”

“I’m not?” Grace and her mother said in unison, as breaths of surprise were sucked in around the room.

Sophia shook her head, and left them hanging for several long moments. “No, you’re not. You, dear Grace, are my great-granddaughter.”

Grace sank in shock to the arm of the sofa, staring with an open mouth at Sophia. “No way.”

Alyson shook her head. “That can’t be. My mother, Lucy, was your sister. Grandmother said she came very late in life, a surprise, but . . .”

“Did you never question why my mother should have given birth at age forty-six, in that era? I’m seventeen years older than Lucy. I was pregnant at sixteen, and gave birth at seventeen.”

“Why the lie, all these years?” Alyson asked.

“I was obviously not going to raise the child. Pretending the child was my mother’s was what families did in those days, if the child wasn’t given away entirely.”

“But . . . who was Lucy’s father? Where was he?”

Amusement teased at Sophia’s mouth. “He was long gone by the time I discovered I carried his child. He wouldn’t have made much of a father, anyway.”

“Who was he?” Grace asked, as stunned and curious as her mother. Sophia was her great-grandmother! She was a direct descendant of this woman who had loomed so large in her life these past months. No wonder they looked so much alike. No wonder Sophia had been so interested in her.

“Your great-grandfather was a lion tamer.”

Grace laughed, startled. “What?”

“With the circus.”

Grace’s mother sat down. “You’ve got to be joking.”

Sophia smiled faintly. “You can imagine the romantic figure such a man would present to a sixteen-year-old girl with a hunger for adventure. It was like sleeping with Tarzan.”

“You didn’t try to find him when you found out you were pregnant?” Grace asked.

“What was the point? I didn’t want to raise children in a traveling circus. I had bigger dreams.”

“So you abandoned my mother and went to Hollywood,” Alyson said.

“It wasn’t quite as easy as that. It was a difficult birth, and afterward the doctor warned me that I might never be able to carry another child to term. Leaving Lucy was not easy. It was better for her, though, to grow up with a family, and without the stigma of being a bastard; the times were different then, you know. Once I left, the thought of seeing her or hearing of her was too painful. I resolved never to look back.”

“But you did look back,” Grace said. “That Easter when you came to Connecticut.”