Amazing Gracie. Sherryl Woods

swallowed hard and reminded herself she wasn’t at Worldwide anymore. “There are mice?”

      “Not so many now that the weather’s warming up. Once you sweep away the dust bunnies and get to stirring around inside, the last of ’em will go.”

      “I certainly hope so,” she muttered. “When can you show it to me?”

      “Now’s as good a time as any, I suppose. You have a car with you?”

      “I left it at the hotel.”

      “Then you can ride with me. I’ll stop by the office and pick up the keys.”

      Gracie wasn’t sure what she’d expected, someplace ramshackle and neglected, probably. At any rate, it wasn’t the tidy little white cottage with the Wedgwood-blue shutters and sprawling porch across the front. A pair of white rockers had been upended on the porch. That was all she needed.

      “I’ll take it,” she said at once.

      “You haven’t even been inside yet,” Johnny Payne protested.

      “Okay, maybe you’re right. Maybe I was being impulsive, but this is exactly what I was looking for.”

      “Miss, if you don’t mind me saying so, you must not do much negotiating.”

      If only he knew, Gracie thought. She’d handled more tough negotiations in recent years than Johnny Payne probably had in his lifetime. “I’ve done my share,” she said modestly. “I just don’t believe in playing games once I’ve made up my mind about something.”

      “And you want this house?”

      “I do.”

      He shrugged. “Then let’s see how many mice took up residence this winter before we settle on the details.”

      The details were a snap. The asking price was so reasonable, Gracie saw no reason to argue about it, though Johnny Payne looked a little disappointed when she didn’t.

      By nightfall, Gracie had swept and vacuumed and dusted away cobwebs. She’d left the windows open to the cool April breeze off the water. More than once she’d slipped outside to sit on the porch for just a minute and take in the view of the wide, wide Potomac with the Maryland shore in the distance and a peek at the banks of Robert E. Lee’s birthplace, Stratford Hall, off to one side.

      After dinner, her muscles aching and her clothes and hair an untidy wreck, she took her cup of herbal tea onto the porch for one last time. An unfamiliar feeling stole over her as she sat there with the sky darkening and the waves lapping on the narrow patch of beach across the street. She felt at peace. Worldwide Hotels and Maximillian Devereaux were very far away. She could almost imagine a time when neither would so much as enter her thoughts.

      That moment couldn’t possibly come soon enough to suit her.

      2

      By the end of the week Gracie had established a routine. Still up at the crack of dawn, she went for a walk along the river, always winding up at the Beachside Café for breakfast.

      On her second visit, Jessie and everyone else in the place already seemed to know that she had just rented the Taylor place on the waterfront. They knew she wasn’t from the area and that she planned to stay at least through summer.

      “I’m surprised they haven’t nailed down my credit rating,” she commented to Jessie, laughing at the accuracy and thoroughness of the waitress’s report.

      “Oh, Johnny has that, too, I’m sure, but there are some things he manages to keep to himself.” She eyed Gracie with curiosity. “Why here? You look like a big-city girl to me. I’ll bet you don’t even own a pair of jeans.”

      That was true enough, but Gracie decided not to confirm it. “Maybe I’ve just had a little too much of big-city living,” she said, which was the truth as far as it went.

      “The fast pace’ll kill you, that’s for sure,” Jessie agreed, then peered at her thoughtfully. “Or was it a man?”

      She nodded sagely, though Gracie hadn’t said a word. “It usually is, if you ask me. At the heart of any woman’s troubles there is guaranteed to be a man.”

      “Not this time,” Gracie replied, even as an image of Max popped into her head. Max wasn’t a problem, not for her heart, anyway. He was just a simple pain in the neck, professionally speaking.

      Unfortunately, her conversation with Jessie had stirred up the very memories she had been trying so hard to forget. Thanks to Max she was in a strange place, completely at loose ends. Listening to Jessie’s curious speculation reminded Gracie that this little sabbatical of hers would end sooner or later. What then?

      Maybe thinking about the sorry state of her life and the dim prospects for her future explained why she noticed the house, the huge Victorian with its dilapidated, sagging porch and its intricate gingerbread trim. It was hidden away behind an overgrown hedge and a heavy wrought-iron gate.

      Gracie figured she must have passed it half a dozen times before as she strolled along lost in thought, but this morning with the sun glistening on its fading white paint and grimy windows, it caught her eye.

      Three stories tall, with a widow’s walk on the top, it was like something out of a book, albeit a Gothic horror novel at the moment. It was the kind of place kids would assume was haunted.

      But despite its state of disrepair, Gracie could envision it all primped up with fresh paint and shining windows. In her mind’s eye, pots filled with bright flowers decorated the front porch and the lawn was tended, the hedge neatly trimmed. She could also imagine a simple, discreet sign hanging by the gate, declaring it a bed-and-breakfast.

      “Ridiculous,” she muttered the minute the idea struck. She hurried her step as if to escape her own thoughts. Though the house was clearly unoccupied and ignored, there was no For Sale sign out front. Even if there had been, she wasn’t interested in staying in Seagull Point for more than a few months.

      Was she?

      Of course not, she insisted, again picking up speed after a last backward glance over her shoulder. Coming here in the first place had been impulsive. Staying would be, what? Lunacy? Jessie had pegged it. She was a big-city girl. The more exotic the city, the better. Seagull Point was a far cry from Cannes, France.

      Still, she found herself strolling past the house again that afternoon and pausing in front of it on her way to breakfast the following morning to study it with a critical, experienced eye.

      “It wouldn’t take much,” she murmured, ignoring the little voice inside that suggested boredom, not good sense, was behind the notion of buying the place. Once again, she dismissed the idea.

      Unfortunately, it kept coming back. When she stopped at the hardware store to pick up a new broom and some nails to fix a loose board on the porch of the rental, she couldn’t help looking at the paint chips. Before she knew it, she had a whole handful.

      “Johnny hasn’t talked you into painting the Taylor place while you’re here, has he?” the man behind the counter asked when he saw the collection of paint chips.

      Gracie grinned. “No way. I have another project I’ve been thinking about, that’s all. It probably won’t come to anything. Is it okay if I take all these samples?”

      “That’s what they’re there for. Let us know if there’s anything you need. I’ve got a fellow working for me who takes on odd jobs painting. Needs the extra money. He does good work, too, as long as you don’t mind him doing it evenings and on his days off from here.”

      “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”

      On her way home, she stopped in front of the old Victorian once again. This time, though, she opened the rusty gate and stepped through. The grounds were far more expansive than she’d envisioned from the street, though at the moment they were a tangle of weeds. There was room enough for a badminton net and a croquet course