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RUNAWAY VEGAS BRIDE

TERESA HILL

AND

VEGAS TWO–STEP

LIZ TALLEY

www.millsandboon.co.uk

RUNAWAY VEGAS BRIDE

TERESA HILL

Dear Reader,

Writers will tell you story ideas are all around us, and they truly are.

This idea came from a newspaper story about two elderly residents of a retirement home falling in love, much to the outrage of their respective families. Love in the eighties took on a whole new twist.

I took that idea and played with it, twisted it this way and that, turned it just so. It’s what writers do to make a story our own.

Who were these people who fell in love? What were they like? What reasons would their respective families have to be upset about that? How complicated could I make this? How much fun could we all have along the way?

The result is the kind of life in our eighties and even nineties that I hope all of us have: busy, fun, active, surrounded by friends and lots of love, along with glorious adventures. (And maybe a little scheming and meddling in our loved ones’ lives.)

Happy reading,

Teresa Hill

About the Author

TERESA HILL lives within sight of the mountains in upstate South Carolina with one husband, very understanding and supportive; one daughter, who’s taken up drumming (earplugs really don’t work that well. Neither do sound-muffling drum pads. Don’t believe anyone who says they do.); and one son, who’s studying the completely incomprehensible subject of chemical engineering (Flow rates, Mom. It’s all about flow rates.)

In search of company while she writes away her days in her office, she has so far accumulated two beautiful, spoiled dogs and three cats (a black panther/champion hunter, a giant powder puff and a tiny tiger-stripe), all of whom take turns being stretched out, belly up on the floor beside her, begging for attention as she sits at her computer.

To my son, John, on the occasion of his 21st birthday

and first trip to Vegas.

May your math skills and all those poker probabilities

you memorized serve you well.

And please stay far, far away from the

Love Me Tender Wedding Chapel.

Chapter One

“Darling, I’m in love!”

Jane Carlton choked on her hot tea, then covered the phone with her hand and mouthed to her assistant, “Did you say this is my grandmother?”

Lainie nodded, looking concerned. “What is it? She sounded okay. Is she okay?”

Jane threw up her hands as if to say she had no idea, then tucked the phone into her shoulder once again and said, “Gram?”

“Yes, dear. Did you hear me?”

“I…maybe,” Jane admitted. “Say it again?”

“I’m in love!”

The words came out sounding like lyrics in a musical—theatrical, whimsical, larger-than-life.

There was just one problem.

The women in Jane’s family didn’t do love. They didn’t do forevers.

Oh, they had men in their lives. But they made no mistakes about it involving anything as substantial and long-lasting as love.

Jane had learned that the hard way.

“Gram, I thought—”

“I know. I know! That’s why it’s so amazing! Me, in love, finally, at seventy-six! Who’d have believed it?”

“Wait,” Jane said, shaking her head. “Gram, you’re eighty-one—”

“He moved into one of the cottages a week ago! The most amazing man I’ve ever met in my life, Jane, and…Oh, here he comes! Leo! Over here! Over here!”

Jane’s grandma sounded like a teenager.

This was so bizarre.

Was it some kind of sudden-onset dementia that had her believing she was only seventy-six? Worst yet, could that have taken her back in her own mind to her teenage years in the four days since Jane’s last visit?

Because that’s what she sounded like, a ridiculous kid in love.

“Say you’ll come and have dinner with us so you can meet him,” Gram said. “Tonight? All right? It’s lasagna night. Goodbye, my darling girl.”

Thursdays.

Lasagna night.

One of Jane’s big dates of the week.

Thursdays was lasagna with Gram, her great-aunt Gladdy and a few of their friends from their active retirement village—they stressed the word active in all things—called Remington Park. Sunday afternoons were spent taking Gram and Gladdy shopping, maybe to a movie or brunch.

There it was, the sad truth about Jane’s big dates.

Oh, she could have found a man to go out with. Men were everywhere. But a man she truly wanted to spend time with? A man who could be depended on to show her a good time that topped a hot bath, a glass of wine and a good book?

There certainly weren’t a lot of those around, Jane had found in her twenty-eight years.

She put down the phone—forgotten by Gram, who’d gone in search of Leo, the supposed love of her life—and sighed, trying not to think Gram had more of a social life than she did.

“Is she all right?” Lainie asked, hovering as she tended to do.

“Well, she’s either forgotten her own age or she’s pretending to be five years younger to impress a man. Please tell me we won’t give a flip about impressing a man when we’re eighty-one. I mean, at that age, who really wants one? They’re bound to be more trouble than they’re worth in their eighties. I mean, I think men in their thirties are more trouble than they’re worth.”

Lainie frowned. “Jane, you think all men are more trouble than they’re worth.”

Jane considered, decided she couldn’t argue that point. “And?”

Lainie looked sad, as if she might just feel a bit sorry for Jane. “I’m just saying…Don’t you ever get lonely?”

Absently drumming the keys on the powered-off calculator on her desk, Jane considered. “Not really. I have my work, my family. I guess I’m a little lonely now that Bella’s gone—”

“Bella was a dog, Jane.”

“I know. I’ve never met a man who was nicer to me than my dog was.”

Then there was no even trying to hide it. Lainie definitely felt sorry for her, which made Jane wonder if it was really that sad, to have a beloved and recently deceased dog who was nicer to her than any man she’d ever met. But really, Jane felt lucky to have no illusions. To be honest with herself and in the way she’d put together a life of her choosing. And it was a good life. A good, satisfying life most of the time.

Sure, every now and then she got lonely, but didn’t everyone?

“Men are so unpredictable,” she complained.

“Life is unpredictable,” Lainie insisted.

“No, life with men is unpredictable.” Jane smiled, quite satisfied with that catchphrase.

She quickly scribbled it down on a list she kept handy for just these occasions. She’d come up with another great catchphrase for her work with the poor, unhappy women who hadn’t yet come to the wisdom she had, wisdom she happily shared with others in her Fabulous Female Financial Boot Camp seminars. Where she preached financial independence with the same fervor of a good old-fashioned preacher trying to save lost souls. The women in her seminars were lost, too, in a wilderness of financial ignorance, irresponsibility and the completely mistaken idea that they were helpless to assist themselves, to take control of their own financial destiny.

Men were what messed up everything.

Most women would be so much better off without them.

Jane didn’t come right out and say that, exactly, to the poor, lost female souls who came to her. She didn’t want to freak them out too badly right away, and Jane knew she could really freak people out if she wasn’t careful, being so passionate and insistent in getting her ideals across. She just told women that unless and until they were in charge of their own lives, they would never have any true independence or stability, and that who, if anyone, should be in charge of their lives except themselves?

Empowerment and enlightenment, Jane promised in the advertisements for her seminars. Changing women’s lives for the better.

Jane was completely in charge of her own life, and it was wonderfully predictable, dependable and sane.

And she liked it that way.

Wyatt Addison Gray IV got the look the minute he walked in the door at the main offices of Remington Park.

The administrator, a most aptly named Ms. Steele, was waiting for him, all starched and pressed and so buttoned-up it looked like her blouse might be strangling her, even as she stood there.

Wyatt asked himself, How bad could it possibly be? The man had only been here for a week. How much havoc could an eighty-six-year-old man possibly cause in seven days?

And come to think of it, why couldn’t his uncle be immobile like so many men his age? Maybe just stuck in a wheelchair that conveniently didn’t move, the wheels sabotaged for his own good? Was that too much to ask? Drugged into a mild haze that left him feeling no pain and causing no trouble? What would it take to arrange that? It wasn’t really illegal, was it? Drugging and restraining a troublesome eighty-six-year-old?

Wyatt tried to fortify himself for what was to come, put on his best I-can-fix-this smile and extended a hand. “Ms. Steele. What can I do for you?”

“You promised there wouldn’t be any trouble,” she said, attacking from the first word as she stood in the doorway to her office.

“Yes,” he said, pretending he believed every word he was about to say.

No trouble.

No problem.

Nothing to fix.

She gave a curt nod that said, Inside my office. Now.

Wyatt smiled reassuringly and then tried to appear calm and confident—none of which he felt—as he complied with her unspoken command.

Ms. Steele seated herself behind a desk organized with rigid precision, pen here, clock here, phone here, files neatly housed in a small holder on her desk, paper in a short stack that looked like someone had taken a ruler to the edges.

Ooh, Wyatt thought, feeling like he was a teenager and had been summoned to the headmaster’s office at boarding school. Again.

He sat back, determined to at least seem relaxed, and smiled. “What can I do for you?”

She huffed like she was already disgusted with him and his uncle, and Wyatt hadn’t even begun to make his explanations yet.

“You think those of us in the eldercare community don’t know each other?” she began. “Don’t talk? Don’t get together to share our problems and ideas on how to address them?”

Oh, hell.

He hoped not. Though he probably should have thought of that and negotiated a confidentiality clause with the other retirement homes his uncle had been in.

“Well, we do talk to each other,” Ms. Steele said. “And I did some checking. I don’t know how I let you talk me into taking him without talking to some people first—”

Wyatt knew exactly how he’d done it. It was, simply, what he did—talk people into things they didn’t want to do. He was a divorce lawyer, and what he’d found, mostly, was that by the time they got to him, people really didn’t want to divorce their spouse. They wanted to torture their spouse, mercilessly and without end, and the way to do that was to keep fighting about the divorce.

So he usually let them fight it out for a while, chalking up billable hours like crazy, until most of the fury had burned out, that gleam in their eyes about revenge giving way to exhaustion and growing financial distress, and then he talked them into what they really needed to do. Agree to the divorce.

It sounded cold and maybe a little as if he was taking advantage, but truly, he wasn’t. People needed that time to let their emotions rage, he’d discovered. It wasn’t pretty, but it was all about processing those bad, messy feelings that came from the breakup of most relationships. And without that processing time, people simply couldn’t move on.

He gave them that time, at an outrageous sum per hour, as most attorneys did, and then when he felt they were ready, he got them to agree to the actual divorce.

Wyatt liked to think he provided a much-needed service to the miserably married public, that he gave his clients a nice balance of hand-holding, emotional venting opportunities and, in the end, closure. For that, he was incredibly well paid and had learned how to talk almost anyone into anything. A skill that he never imagined he’d need in such abundance in looking after his beloved but troublesome elderly uncle in the man’s waning years.

Problem was, certain things about uncle Leo showed no signs of waning. Most distressingly, his interest in women.

When they’d come to Remington Park, Wyatt had been at his most charming, most reassuring, pushing to seal the deal without ever seeming like he was pushing, seeming like a man with no troubles at all, when he convinced Ms. Steele to take uncle Leo.

“Kicked out of three retirement homes already!” Ms. Steele commented.

It wasn’t a question. She knew it was true. Damn. “Look, he just went a little…you know—”

“No, I don’t,” Ms. Steele said. “The man’s eighty-six, not sixteen!”

“He and my aunt Millicent were together for eleven years,” Wyatt explained.

Ms. Steele didn’t seem impressed at all with the number.

Wyatt frowned. “No one in my family’s ever stayed married that long. This was the marathon of marriages for the Gray family men—a record likely to stand for the ages if history is any guide—and uncle Leo was faithful to her the entire time. He swears it. But then, when she was gone…I mean, he was devastated. Truly, he was. But he also felt like…”

“He was running out of time?” she suggested.

Wyatt nodded. “I suppose.”

“Had to get everything while he still could?”

That sounded more selfish than he’d ever considered Leo to be, but still, Wyatt conceded, “It’s possible.”

“A little like a kid in a candy store, given the fact that there are so many more women than men at his age? Or even in the age group ten or twenty years younger than he is? So many lonely women with no one to talk to? No one to flatter them? Flirt with them? Hold them? Convince them to let him take care of certain physical needs they might have forgotten, that he can bring back to life, like magic?”

“Okay, yes. He likes women,” Wyatt admitted. “Always has. And they like him.”

“Don’t expect me to see this as some sort of public service he’s offering. Servicing—if you will—lonely women,” she said, looking every bit as dour and imposing as the last administrator who’d kicked uncle Leo out of her facility. “Because I certainly don’t see it that way.”

“And how do you see it?” Wyatt asked, thinking if he knew where she was coming from, surely he could fix this.

“Like he has caused women who’ve lived together happily, some of them for years in the same cottage, to now be at each other’s throats! Like they were in high school, fighting over a boy! I won’t have it. I can’t—”

“Look, he’s a flirt—”

She frowned down her upturned nose, holding a file folder in front of her. “He’s doing more than flirting.”

Damn, Wyatt thought. Leo’s still got it. At eighty-six! A part of him couldn’t help but feel a sense of admiration and reassurance about his own twilight years.

Eighty-six and still going.

On the other hand, he could really go for Leo moderately drugged and confined to a deliberately sabotaged wheelchair in an all-male home right now.

Did they have those? All-male homes? Wyatt would have to look into it, if he couldn’t salvage this situation.

“Look, these women…He swears he doesn’t make them any promises. No commitments. I told him he had to make that clear up front, so no one would get hurt.” He’d thought about actually drafting a release, spelling it out in writing. No expectations of any permanent arrangement. And getting them all to sign before Leo got too close. “I mean, surely women still aren’t looking for a long-term commitment in their eighties? Please tell me they’re not?”

Ms. Steele looked aghast.

“He can’t help it if women like him,” Wyatt said.

“The women here got along just fine with each other until he came,” Ms. Steele reiterated. “So I don’t think the women are the problem. He is. And if he causes any more of an uproar here, he’s gone. I mean it. And you’ll have to take him out of state to find him a new home. I won’t have him doing the same thing to anyone I know in this business.”

Okay, so…it wasn’t that bad yet? They still had a chance. What a relief!

“He’ll be great,” Wyatt vowed. “Quiet, kind—without being too kind. Friendly without being too friendly. A model resident. I promise.”

Bigger lies had seldom fallen from Wyatt’s lips, he feared.

He wrapped up his meeting with Ms. Steele and went to find his uncle.

Remington Park was actually a series of small cottages, each housing eight to ten residents who had their own bedrooms and shared a common kitchen, living room and dining room. Those cottages were set around larger, more traditional assisted living apartments and a nursing home facility for people who needed a higher level of care. Once they could no longer live in the cottages comfortably, they could move next door to assisted living or the nursing home, without leaving all the friends they’d made within the community.

The whole complex also had extensive walking trails, gardens, a few small shops, a pool, a rehab center and cafeteria, and boasted of the fitness and activity level of its residents.

Wyatt thought it seemed homey, those little cottages—kind of like old-fashioned boarding houses. Plus there were the more traditional care options. He hadn’t thought, as he clearly should have, that with the place being this big, there were bound to be tons of women.

As he walked down the path that led to Leo’s cottage, he saw them. Some of them frail-looking and hunched over, some of them glossy, white-haired, beauties-in-their-day women, bare arms pumping with each step, wearing walking shorts, their toned, tanned legs moving at a pace that might even leave Wyatt breathless as they went about their exercise.

As Leo liked to say, eighty was the new sixty.

Wyatt just shook his head and thought he had to get to the gym more. He could take out some of his frustrations over Leo there, and he wanted to be in good shape, still able to chase women if he wanted to when he was in his eighties.

He got to Leo’s cottage, then to Leo’s room, but seeing it was empty, went to the kitchen and asked the young woman in the cheery yellow polo shirt the staff wore where his uncle was. But she wasn’t sure.

“He doesn’t spend much time in his room,” she said, looking like she was trying to be diplomatic and maybe was a little scared.

Wyatt wondered if she was the one who had squealed on Leo to the dragon-lady administrator. Poor girl. She didn’t look like she was much past twenty and certainly no match for Leo at his most charming or most manipulative.

“Do you have any idea where he spends most of his time, if not in his room?” Wyatt tried.

“Well, he has a new lady friend,” she admitted. “I mean…at least one new one that I know of. It’s hard to keep up, you know?”

“I know,” Wyatt admitted.

“There’s a bench on a little hill in the formal gardens overlooking the outdoor pool. You know where the outdoor pool is?”

Wyatt nodded, remembering from the tour.

“I’ve heard him say how much he likes that spot.” She leaned in closer, whispering. “The view…of the ladies at the pool, sunbathing…You know what I mean?”

“Oh, yes.”

Bathing beauties had always done it for the Gray men.

“You might try there,” she offered.

Wyatt thanked her.

He found the gardens, followed the sound of low laughter and a faint blend of ‘40s big-band music to the little hill overlooking the outdoor pool.

There was the bench, but no Leo.

Then Wyatt heard giggling.

Leo had always had a knack for making the women laugh.

Around a bush, a cypress tree and a decorative rock wall, there was a more secluded bench and Leo with his arms around a lovely white-haired woman, her head laid back against his arm as she gazed up at him adoringly. He bent down to kiss her, his hands starting to wander.

“Leo,” she said, still giggly, pushing one wandering hand away. “We just met!”

Wyatt rolled his eyes and swore under his breath.

Leo copping a feel at eighty-six, just like a damn teenage boy with more hormones than functioning brain cells.

Was there some sort of anti-Viagra? Something they could slip into Leo’s nightly bourbon and Coke? Maybe that would do the trick.

Wyatt strode forward, calling out to his uncle as he did. The lady jumped up and away from Leo, blushing like an innocent young miss.

Leo got to his feet, too, smiling for all he was worth. “Wyatt, my boy. What are you doing here?”

“Oh, I think you know,” Wyatt said.

Chapter Two

“But, I know the pay for aides in a retirement community is not good.” Abysmal, actually. How could any woman live on that, and the workers here were primarily female, as the lowest-paid workers most usually were, Jane knew.

“Yes,” Amy admitted. “But all I have is my GED. You don’t make a lot of money with a GED.”

“Which is why going back to school is so important,” Jane said.

“And costs a ton of money. Where would I get the money?”

“There are programs to loan money to people who are furthering their education. I’ll bring the paperwork here. We can fill it out together.”

“And then what? Classes at night? Working all day? When am I going to see Max? I’m all he has. And I can’t afford to pay someone to take care of him all the time.” Amy looked tired suddenly, taking care of too many people for too long with no one to help her.

“Do it now, and you’ll be grateful for the rest of your life and Max’s. No more living paycheck to paycheck. Think about it. Job security, health insurance. You can do it. I know you can,” Jane promised, trying not to break into her basic speech on education and financial well-being with all the bells and whistles, the cheerleading, the chants, the whole bit.

She tended to do that, even when she wasn’t on the podium conducting a seminar, and it made some people uncomfortable.

“I’ll think about it,” Amy said. “But I just don’t see how I can make it work.”

“I do. I’ve helped thousands of women just like you get back to school and get good jobs—”

“Jane?” Gram said, as she and Gladdy came around the corner and into the kitchen. “Don’t nag, dear. Amy loves it here, and we can’t imagine this place without her.”

“Sorry, Amy.” Jane took a breath and hoped she truly did look sorry.

Gram thought Jane was too militant in her ways, crusading for women’s financial freedom and security.

Of course, Gram and Gladdy’s idea of financial security was a man, a well-to-do man. Jane had finally convinced them to at least ask for gold and diamonds as gifts from their various admirers. Gold and diamonds held their value quite well and could always be sold, if need be. Stock certificates and bonds in divorce settlements worked well, too. They’d been involved with enough men, by this age, to have accumulated smartly diverse and extensive investment portfolios, something of which Jane, who’d handled their finances for years, was very proud.

“Don’t worry.” Amy laid her hand on top of Jane’s. “It’s fine. And it’s nice to have someone who cares.”

“I do,” Jane promised. “If you ever decide to leave here, or they catch you bringing Max to work one day, promise to call me.”

“Jane!” Gram said again.

“You know the administrator would fire Amy if she ever caught Max here during Amy’s working hours,” Jane argued in her own defense.

“We love Max and Amy, and we are very good at hiding Max when necessary,” Aunt Gladdy said. “Plus, we have our eyes out for a nice young man for Amy. We’re going to find her someone fabulous!”

Jane groaned, then looked pleadingly at Amy. “A man is not the answer.”

“They are to some things,” Amy countered. “I’ve been alone a long time, if you know what I mean.”

“Okay, men have their uses,” Jane admitted. “Limited at best, but they are not the answer.”

“Well, I don’t know about that,” a lively older man claimed, smiling as he took his place by Gram’s side and leaned over to give her a little kiss on the cheek. “I’d have to say it depends on exactly what the question is.”

Though he looked younger, Jane would bet money he was at least eighty, maybe older, just because she knew men seemed to think they were entitled to a younger woman, the younger the better.

Her father had already married and divorced two women younger than Jane. Why was that, exactly, that they thought they were entitled to younger and younger women? Didn’t they know how ridiculous they looked? Running around with wives younger than their daughters?

Jane had never been able to figure that one out.

And she feared she disliked Leo Gray on sight.

Gram gave him a dazzling smile, which faded fast after Leo greeted her and then turned to give Gladdy the same treatment, little kiss on the cheek and all. Gladdy glowed for a moment, then caught Gram’s look and eased maybe an inch farther away from Leo.

So…Gladdy liked him, too?

Not good, Jane thought. Really not good.

She tried to comfort herself by remembering that in all their years together, Gram and Gladdy had never fought over a man. Surely they wouldn’t start now.

Gram put her hand on Leo’s arm and said, “Leo Gray, meet my favorite granddaughter, Jane Clayton. Jane, darling, this is Leo.”

Jane held out her hand, only to find Leo clasping it in both of his and slowly bringing it to his lips for the barest hint of a kiss. “Well, she is just as adorable as you said, Kathleen. I can see now what you must have looked like as a girl, you gorgeous thing.”

Adorable?

Girl?

He made it sound like Jane was six. She fumed but said nothing, not wanting to embarrass Gram.

This was going to be a very long dinner.

“Men have their uses. Limited at best…”

Wyatt caught that much as he followed Leo through the cottage door, then hung back, not wanting to walk into the middle of that particular conversation. Leo, of course, had no reservations about getting into anything with any number of women, kissing his new lady-love, Kathleen, and her friend, which Wyatt could see didn’t go over so well with Kathleen.

Jeez, right in front of her like that? What was Leo thinking?

And the granddaughter, Jane, the adorable girl, had just met Leo and already she was fuming on her grandmother’s behalf.

Wyatt decided navigating this room was going to take all the diplomatic skills he possessed, that he’d rather step in between feuding spouses on the way to divorce court than this particular group.

Bracing himself, he walked to Leo’s side.

“My nephew Wyatt dropped by for a few minutes. To take care of some business for me,” Leo said. “He met Kathleen in the garden by the pool earlier. Gladdy, my dear, Jane, meet Wyatt. Wyatt, these two lovely ladies are Kathleen’s cousin Gladdy and her granddaughter, Jane.”

Wyatt smiled and nodded to Gladdy, a shorter, more gently rounded version of Kathleen with the same pretty white hair. He would have done the same to Jane, but she stood ramrod straight and extended a hand, giving him a firm, businesslike handshake, which he returned in the same manner, fighting the urge to snap to attention and salute at the way she held herself.

He hoped he passed her little test, being properly businesslike and not trying the bowing-over-the-back-of-the-hand kiss Leo favored in greeting all women, whether they were five or one hundred and five.

Wyatt anticipated Jane might have slapped him if he’d tried it. He’d seen her reaction to Leo’s patented move, after all.

She was obviously going for the classic power-suit look some women favored, and she might have pulled it off. She had the matching skirt and jacket in power-red, a no-frills white blouse, hair raked back from her face in a severe knot and carried her leather briefcase by her side.

It was just that Jane was pint-size, maybe five foot two, Wyatt guessed.

She looked like a dress-up doll in that outfit. Like a little girl who’d been sneaking into her mother’s closet.

It was cute, really, if a man liked that sort of thing, though he was certain that was not the look she was going for.

His mouth twitched, amusement warring with the need not to offend her or to show any undo interest. After all, she already thought Leo was an awful flirt. Wyatt didn’t want her to think all the Gray men were like that.

“Well, it was lovely to meet you all,” Wyatt said. “I won’t keep you from your dinner. Leo, just don’t forget what we talked about, okay?”

“Wyatt, you’re not staying for dinner?” Kathleen asked.

“Oh, honey, it’s my fault,” Leo said. “I didn’t know he was coming by today, and I didn’t call in time to make a reservation for him.”

Wyatt hadn’t been here for dinner yet. He usually took Leo out to a restaurant nearby. But he knew guests were welcome, for a slight meal fee and with a few hours’ notice, to make sure there was enough for everyone in the cottage who wanted to eat that evening.

“Sorry, ladies. Another time,” he responded, thinking how happy he was to escape this little group.

“Oh, you’re welcome to stay,” Amy piped up from the kitchen. “We have a resident who has a sore throat and just told me that she wasn’t coming to dinner tonight. So there’s plenty.”

Wyatt tried to keep the pained expression from his face, knowing it might be smart to stay and see firsthand what the problem was, maybe even talk to Leo’s new lady himself and set her straight about Leo’s abysmal record with women, much as he dreaded the idea.

“Well, in that case, I’d be happy to join you,” he said.

Leo held out a chair for Kathleen, and Wyatt did the same for Gladdy, then hesitated over doing so for Jane, feeling she would see it as an insult to her abilities to pull out her own chair, rather than plain, old-fashioned manners.

He played it safe and stood back, indicating that she should take her choice of seats, the one next to Gladdy or Kathleen. Leo, of course, seated himself between the two women at the small, round table. Jane picked the seat next to Gladdy, leaving Wyatt the one next to Kathleen.

Everything was fine for a while. The food was actually outstanding. He joined the others in heaping praise on the very young-looking girl who had made and served the meal.

Amy, a bit flustered by the attention, fumbled the fork on his empty plate as she removed it, and Wyatt and Jane both hurried to bend over and pick it up.

And that’s when Wyatt—and unfortunately Jane—saw it.

They already knew Leo was leaning comfortably toward Kathleen, his arm stretched across the back of her chair, his hand cupping her far shoulder. But now that they’d bent over to pick up the fork, they could see he was also holding hands under the table with Gladdy! He pulled his hand away when they bent over, but not quickly enough.

Jane gave an outraged huff, her mouth falling open, eyes shooting sparks at Wyatt under the table. Wyatt, hoping he looked properly shocked to Jane, picked up the fork and slowly straightened.

He handed the lost fork to Amy, then got another zinging look from Jane. Gladdy, he noted, had the grace to blush and carefully bring both her hands to the top of the table, clasping them together almost in a prayer-like motion.

Begging them not to tell?

Leo, the idiot, looked relaxed as could be, and Kathleen perhaps a bit confused, but smiling all the same in that lovely way of hers.

Wyatt wiped his mouth with his cloth napkin and as unobtrusively as possible, leaned toward Jane and whispered, “Meet me at that bar across the street after this? We need to talk.”

Her seething look said, Yes, we certainly do.

Chapter Three

“What in the world is wrong with that man?” Jane demanded, upon entering the bar, not even bothering to sit down.

Wyatt had selected a table in the far corner, wanting privacy and anticipating that this conversation might get loud at some point. Not thinking she’d walk in and stand there, all puffed up and mad, trying to glare down at him. A ridiculous attempt, given how tiny the woman was.

Even sitting down, he could very nearly look her in the eye.

And she was really adorable when she was spitting fire like that. Not that Wyatt would dare tell her. She already had a terrible opinion of the men in his family.

“Is he demented in some way that isn’t quite obvious to a person untrained in geriatric medicine?” Jane asked, hands on her hips, still filled with anger.

“Unfortunately not,” Wyatt told her.

“Unfortunately?” She enunciated each syllable like he might be demented himself and didn’t quite understand the big word.

“Yes. If he was actually impaired in some way, he’d have some excuse for his behavior,” Wyatt admitted. “Jane, I’m very sorry, but there’s simply no excuse. It’s just the way he is. Always has been. He’s like a kid in a candy store where women are concerned.”

He had her agreeing with him for a minute, maybe even sympathizing, and then she started seething again.

“Kid in a candy store? Like women are all laid out in a row, his for the taking, waiting for him to pick which one he wants?”

“Unfortunately, yes. He’s just that…“ Wyatt would have said confident, but stopped himself. He thought she might have hit him, if he had. “Look, I know it’s…offensive, especially to someone like you—”

“Someone like me?” She practically spit the words at him.

“A modern woman,” he said, trying desperately to save himself now. “An enlightened woman. A strong, successful, extremely capable woman.”

Who doesn’t think she needs a man for anything at all. He got it. He understood her perfectly, he believed. Oh, yes, he did, because his last words placated her a bit.

“Look, the man was born in a different era. He was raised to see women and relationships differently than we do today,” Wyatt tried, not about to explain that his father, twenty years Leo’s junior, thought of women the same way and that he’d been raised much in the woman-as-candy-in-a-store philosophy, too.

“That’s really no excuse for his behavior,” Jane said, not quite as militant-sounding as before.

“I know. Believe me, I do, and I’m sorry.” Wyatt dared to pull out the seat next to him and offer it to her. “Jane, please, sit down. Let’s talk about this. Let me get you a drink. God knows, I need one after dealing with Uncle Leo.”

She looked a bit miffed, like she’d been winding up for a really great fight or a rant on women’s rights, and he was depriving her of that opportunity by agreeing with her and apologizing. It was one of Wyatt’s greatest weapons—being able to soothe outraged females. He was a master at work right now, even if he did say so himself, much like Leo in that gigantic candy store of women.

Jane sat, still looking as if she didn’t trust him a bit, but not foaming at the mouth or anything. With Jane, he decided, that was progress.

He motioned for the waitress who’d been hovering a few feet away, figuring out if they were really going to start a fight at the bar and how she might handle it. She came to the table, looking a bit nervous but calming down as Jane stayed silent.

At his quiet question about her drink preference, Jane looked a bit sheepishly at the waitress and murmured, “White wine spritzer, please.”

Wyatt tried to contain a grimace at the idea of wanting to dilute good wine with anything, at the idea of such a sissy, girly drink. Jane didn’t seem girly at all. Maybe she didn’t approve of really drinking. She was prim and buttoned-up after all.

“You’re going to make fun of my drink?” she asked, apparently not going to let him get away with anything.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Wyatt insisted. Then asked for a bourbon, straight up.

Jeez, the woman was prickly.

The waitress nodded, promised to bring their drinks right away, and then escaped, looking quite happy to get far, far away from them.

Wyatt sat back in his chair, trying to look relaxed and in perfect control of the spitfire that was Jane. “So, as I said before, my uncle’s attitude toward women is inexcusable. Outdated, sexist, arrogant, immature. I realize that. I freely admit it and apologize sincerely for it.”

Jane gave him an odd look, hopefully discarding the next three insults she had planned to hurl at him over Leo’s behavior.

Good. They were getting somewhere.

“If there was anything I could do to change the way he behaves, believe me, I would have done it years ago. It’s caused him and me enormous amounts of trouble and grief. But I fear, at eighty-six—”

“Eighty-six? He told Gram he was only eighty-one.”

“Well, he’s not,” Wyatt went on. “Honestly, a woman can’t believe a word that man says, and unfortunately, I simply cannot change him. I’ve tried. So, at this point, all I can do is be completely up front about…how he is…and hope that saves women like your grandmother and great-aunt from being hurt by him.”

“That’s it? That’s your solution?”

Wyatt shrugged, trying to look both reasonable and helpless at the same time. “I don’t know what else to do. He’s a grown man. I have virtually no control over him. Any more than you can control your grandmother—”

“My grandmother’s not the one running around with two different people at the same time.”

Wyatt could only pray it was merely two women for Leo at the moment.

“I was just hoping,” he explained quietly, “that your grandmother might be more…reasonable…to deal with than my uncle. That once we explain to her…the way he is…”

“You want to tell her that he’s a complete cad and a liar?” Jane asked.

“Better than her finding out on her own. And, actually, I thought you might tell her. That the news might be easier coming from you. But if you think it should come from me, of course, I’ll do it.”

Jane’s mouth fell open, literally.

The waitress returned with their drinks. Jane didn’t touch hers. Wyatt downed his in one long gulp.

“Another, please?” he asked the waitress before she left.

Jane leaned toward him, whispering urgently, “My grandmother thinks she’s in love with him!”

Wyatt sighed, feeling a headache coming on. “He’s only been there a week.”

“I know. It’s ridiculous, I admit, but she does! What in the world does he do to these women?”

Wyatt could only shake his head in wonder. He refrained from saying that surely any woman who could believe she was in love in a week’s time was, perhaps, just asking to get hurt.

He wouldn’t dare say that to Jane.

She sat back in her chair, looking sad and worried. “You have to understand, my grandmother has never been in love before. She’s had men, of course. She’s a beautiful woman.

Been married a number of times, and been genuinely happy for a time with a man, but she’s never claimed to be in love. She doesn’t even believe in love, as far as I know.”

“So what the devil happened between the two of them?”

“I have no idea.”

Jane sat back in her chair, taking a sip of her wine spritzer. What could this man possibly find offensive about a white wine spritzer?

But on the topic of Leo, she had to concede to herself at least, that for a man, Wyatt Gray was being exceedingly reasonable, much as she hated admitting it.

He had acknowledged his uncle’s bad behavior and didn’t really try to make excuses, merely admitting he was incapable of controlling the man. Jane had tried for decades to change Gram and Gladdy’s attitudes toward life in general and men in particular without much success. Except for getting control of their finances. So she had to empathize with Wyatt’s own troubles where his uncle was concerned.

“What about Gladdy?” Wyatt asked finally. “She doesn’t think she’s in love with Leo, does she?”

“I have no idea. I couldn’t believe they were holding hands under the table. It’s like something twelve-year-olds would do.”

Jane felt awful remembering that soft, warm glow on Gladdy’s face. She’d looked delighted with their intimate dinner at first, and Jane had simply thought Gladdy was happy for Gram, silly as that would be, because Gladdy didn’t believe in love any more than Gram did.

“They’ve never fought over a man before,” Jane confided. “And they grew up together, moved into their first apartment together and have lived together off and on ever since. The thought of a man coming between them is unthinkable.”

And yet, Jane had seen with her very own eyes the way Gladdy looked at Leo and Leo looked at her. And Gram!

That little weasel of an eighty-six-year-old man!

“I suppose we could start by talking to Gladdy,” Wyatt offered. “Appeal to her sense of friendship and devotion to your grandmother, and at the same time, tell her the sad, hard truth about Leo. That might, at least, keep him from coming between the two women.”

Jane nodded sadly. “It would be a start.”

“Just tell me what you want, Jane. I’ll do whatever you think would be best. If you want me to talk to Gladdy, I will. I’ll be unmerciful in explaining Leo’s lifelong habits with women.”

“Short of hog-tying your uncle to his bed and locking him in his room—”

“Believe me, I’ve wished I could.”

Which actually had Jane smiling a bit.

Wyatt Gray was a reasonable man, and Jane had found that so few men were. She regretted how things had started out between them.

“I’m sorry if I behaved badly toward you at first,” she said, because a polite, well-bred, empowered woman always acknowledged her own unfair treatment of others and apologized. “Gram and Gladdy…Well, I just adore them both, and looking out for them hasn’t always been easy, but believe me, they need someone to look out for them and I try my best.”

Wyatt gave her a reassuring smile and let one of his hands settle softly over hers on the table between them. “I’m sure you do your absolute best for everyone you care about.”

Which was just so nice of him.

People sometimes thought Jane could be overzealous and maybe even a bit aggressive in her attempts to take care of others, when she truly never wanted to do anything but help. Women could just be so mixed up about some things, have such wrong ideas, and she felt it was her calling to straighten them out, to educate them, to help extricate them from the troubles they found themselves in. It wasn’t a job to Jane. It was her calling, her mission in life.

“That’s incredibly kind and generous of you,” she admitted. “Especially when I yelled at you at first.”

“It’s completely forgotten,” he promised, smiling once again.

She could see a bit of Leo in him when he smiled like that. The dangerous charm, that wicked twinkle in his eye. Not that he was flirting with her or anything like that. He’d been perfectly respectful during their exchange. Some men thought flirting was as natural and expected as breathing in any exchange between the sexes, even the most businesslike. Something of which Jane naturally disapproved.

But Wyatt hadn’t been like that at all.

Still, the dangerous charm was there lurking below the surface in the man, even if he didn’t turn it on every time with all women. But when he did…

Jane shivered just a bit, thinking he really was too good-looking for any woman’s good and likely too used to getting his way with women, just as Leo was. She couldn’t let herself forget that.

Not that Jane ever really forgot herself with a man.

“Well,” she said, feeling a little warm and uneasy suddenly. “I suppose the best thing would be to talk to Gladdy first. I’ll try it myself and see how it goes.”

“And if that isn’t enough, I’ll talk to her. Just give me a call,” Wyatt offered, pulling out a business card and scribbling down a phone number on it. “My office and personal numbers. Feel free to call anytime, Jane.”

She pulled out a card of her own, wrote her private number on it and handed it over to him. Picking up his card, she saw Wyatt Addison Gray IV, attorney at law, with what she knew was a pricey downtown address.

“What kind of law?” she asked.

“Divorce.” His mouth twitched, trying to hold back what she suspected would be a mind-numbingly gorgeous grin. “I have to admit, it seemed to come naturally to me. I saw so many of them in my family as I was growing up.”

Jane nodded. “Me too. What was the longest marriage in your family?”

“Leo’s last one. Eleven years.”

“Wow. Impressive,” Jane declared. “We never managed to do better than six.”

Wyatt shrugged, as if to say, What are you going to do?

“I think we’re going to work together well to handle this little problem,” Jane told him, quite pleased with herself and Mr. Wyatt Addison Gray, Esquire.

“I do, too, Jane.”

Jane felt like a dynamo the next morning, charging through her routine with even more enthusiasm and effectiveness than usual. Powering through her morning kickboxing class, getting to the office early, proofing the copy for her latest ad campaign for her Fabulous Female Financial Boot Camp, even sketching out ideas for a series of advanced classes for women who’d mastered the principles laid out in the first seminar.

She felt like she could do anything.

Her assistant, Lainie, showed up at the usual time, looking puzzled at the way Jane rattled off a list of things she already needed Lainie to take care of.

“You didn’t have one of those energy drinks again, did you?” Lainie asked. “I told you, Jane, your system really can’t handle those. You’re already on overdrive. You don’t need the boost.”

“Of course not.” Jane looked puzzled. “After all, a well-rested, well-nourished woman doesn’t need artificial stimulants.”

She reached for her notepad, always close at hand, and started scribbling.

“Sorry,” she said, quite pleased with herself. “I need to write that down. I’m thinking about working on a book of my philosophies. Financial advice for women is such a nice niche market these days, and it would be a wonderful cross-promotion for my seminars. Don’t you think?”

“Sure,” Lainie said, still frowning.

“What?”

“It’s just that…you seem…happy.”

“I am almost always happy,” Jane insisted.

Lainie looked skeptical. “I think you might have been whistling when I walked in.”

Jane thought back. Had she been? And what if she was?

“How did things go with your grandmother yesterday? Did you meet this man she claims to love?”

“Oh, yes,” Jane said. “A complete cad, but Wyatt and I will take care of the situation.”

“Wyatt?”

“The man’s nephew. Wyatt Addison Gray IV. I have to say, I disliked him on sight as we sat down to dinner, but then we went across the street to this bar and had drinks afterward, and he was completely open and honest and reasonable. Altogether, a remarkable man.”

Lainie gaped at her. “You met a man you think is reasonable?”

Jane nodded.

“And honest?”

“I told you, a remarkable man,” Jane repeated even more emphatically than before.

“And you had dinner and drinks? Like…a date?”

“I date,” Jane insisted.

“Not in this calendar year,” Lainie reminded her.

“I’m just very selective about the men I find worthy of my consideration and time.”

Lainie’s bottom lip curled over her teeth, and she looked like she might bite herself to keep from replying to that, but finally gave up the battle and said, “And when you do, you don’t show up in the office whistling the next morning. If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you and Wyatt Gray didn’t end things with dinner and drinks last night.”

“Of course we did. I would never take a man home with me that I’d just met, and going home with him would be just as risky and irresponsible.” And Jane never took irresponsible risks. “Besides, this wasn’t a date. It was dinner at the retirement park with Gram, Gladdy and Wyatt’s uncle, the cad. Assessing the situation we’re facing with them.”

“And the drinks afterward?” Lainie prompted.

“A place to talk without them present, where Wyatt and I found out that we’re in complete agreement that the relationship between his uncle and Gram has to be stopped. We plotted our strategy to make that happen.”

“Of course,” Lainie said. “I just got so excited when you said you met a man you think is reasonable.”

“Well, I’m sure there are a few of them in the world,” Jane admitted.

Granted, that might be considered a rather large concession on her part to the quality of men alive on the planet at this moment. But she did consider herself a reasonable woman, and a reasonable woman would have to concede that Wyatt Gray had not been what she’d first thought.

“I’ll even admit we had a very interesting and enlightening conversation,” Jane said, thinking she was being exceedingly reasonable and fair-minded now.

“Okay, tell the truth. He’s gorgeous, isn’t he?” Lainie asked with a knowing gleam in her eyes.

“That had absolutely nothing to do with…anything,” Jane insisted, thinking, oddly, that she felt a little…tingly inside and just a tad overly warm all of a sudden.

How odd.

Lainie laughed.

“It didn’t,” Jane corrected. “You know I always say the worst thing in the world a woman can do, besides depend on a man financially, is to judge one by his looks. I would never, ever do that. In fact, the best-looking men are almost always the most spoiled and immature.”

It was true. She knew it. Long experience with the women in her family had proven it.

“We must be talking Greek God in a designer suit here,” Lainie claimed.

“He was beautifully dressed,” Jane admitted, again only trying to be fair.

And still, feeling that unusual, unsettling tingly warmth inside her.

“You know, I may be coming down with something,” she told Lainie. “Does it feel warm in here to you? Could you check to see if anyone messed with the thermostat?”