Hot Date. Amy Garvey

seems so happy to see you,” Toby said, eyebrows raised and his arms folded over his chest.

      Maybe not happy, she thought. But…not unhappy, either. And neither was she.

      But what she said was, “Oh, you know Nick. Now, come on.” She grabbed his arm and dragged him toward the door. “That stuff isn’t going to carry itself.”

      An hour later, everything Grace had crammed into the back of the VW was in the upstairs hall, piled against the wall outside the spare room. Which wasn’t exactly spare anymore, Grace saw with dismay.

      Once, it had been Toby’s old bedroom, complete with New Kids on the Block posters and a lava lamp and Spiderman sheets that Toby had always detested. Long before Toby’s parents had died, Celeste had turned the biggest bedroom upstairs into a sitting room and used the second biggest bedroom as hers, and Toby had adopted that room as his when she was gone. His old room was now stacked rafter to floor with boxes, old furniture, mismatched china, candlesticks, dozens of books, and what looked like an amateur taxidermist’s first experiment with a rabbit, just to start.

      “Is that real?” Nick said, stepping inside and poking the stiff, yellowed animal with a tentative finger.

      “Once.” Leaning against the doorjamb, Toby shrugged. “It came as part of a lot. I’m fairly certain there’s not much market for it, though.”

      “Gee, do you think?” Grace glared at him and promptly tripped over a doorstop shaped like an old flatiron as she followed Nick inside. “Where’s the bed?”

      “It’s…under there,” Toby said, waving vaguely. He glared back at Grace. “It’s not like you told me you were coming, you know. I was trying to explain downstairs…”

      Nick was smirking this time, and Grace resisted the urge to glare at him. He knew where the VW had been towed, after all.

      “What about the other spare room?” she said, fighting to keep the desperation out of her tone. The fourth small bedroom was over the kitchen, a servant’s room, Celeste had once told her, and she had always used it as a junk room.

      Toby snorted, then waved for her and Nick to follow him down the hall.

      “Second verse,” he said, opening the door with a flourish—until it smacked into something. “Just like the first.”

      “It’s even worse than the other one,” Nick said in wonder. “I bet Jimmy Hoffa’s in there.”

      Grace stared at the wall of cardboard cartons, stacked chairs, and piles of old newspapers and realized she couldn’t even see the window on the other side of the room.

      “I can’t believe I’m saying this,” she muttered, rolling up her sleeves, “but the other room is better. I can clean it up. I will clean it up. I am not staying with my father.”

      “You’re going to clean it up?” Toby asked doubtfully, looking her up and down.

      “I’m starting my life over.” She dug in her pocket for one of the elastics she always carried and scooped her hair into a ponytail. “I figure if I don’t get a little bit dirty, I’m probably not doing it right.”

      “Oh, God,” Nick mumbled. “That sounds dangerous.”

      Toby grunted in agreement. “You’re not kidding.”

      “Hey!” She smacked him. “You’re supposed to be on my side. And when did the two of you get so chummy, anyway?” Toby was her friend, which had always meant he was slightly suspicious in Nick’s eyes, since any friend of hers was bound to aid and abet her, in his words, if not make trouble of his own.

      “Um, Grace, we’re grown-ups now,” Toby said in the tone of voice people used to talk to not-very-bright first graders. “And besides, he kept some kids from breaking into the store the last time I was away.”

      Nick shrugged when she looked at him and asked, “You did that?”

      “It’s kind of my job, Grace,” he said in the same tone. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I was actually doing my job before you ran into me.”

      “I’m sorry,” she said, and grabbed his arm before he started down the stairs. “Thank you. Really.” Without thinking about it, she stretched up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. It was remarkably warm, with a hint of scratchy stubble against her lips, and a jolt of surprise flashed through her when she realized how good he smelled.

      Like…evergreen, and cool spring days, and big strong man.

      She blinked and moved out of his way.

      Nick blinked back at her, his face warmer now, almost ruddy. He muttered a good-bye and something about the bus, then jogged down the steps as Toby folded his arms over his chest, smiling, Grace could tell, like the proverbial Cheshire cat.

      She turned to face him, and he tipped an invisible hat. “Welcome to your new life, Grace Lamb.”

      Chapter 3

      Two days later, Nick pulled up outside Priest Antiques. The rambling old house looked like it always had, faded, harmless, a grand old lady who had never given up her old-fashioned clothes, but he knew better. Grace was in there—and most likely doing something impulsive and ill considered.

      Grace, who was just as infuriating and unpredictable as ever, but who was somehow all grown up now, in all kinds of ways he had never imagined. And in ways that made him think about her like a…well, like a woman, not the annoying honorary kid sister she had always been before Wednesday.

      Grace, who had kissed him without thinking twice about it. On the cheek, in perfect innocence, but that hadn’t seemed to matter to his brain when her lips brushed his skin. No, his brain had skipped right over that and focused on how good she smelled, and how soft and full her lips were, and the faint heat coming off her body as she got close.

      His brain had decided, without any help from any other part of him, that kissing her, really kissing her, on the mouth, would be even better. And touching her? Even better than that. Actually, maybe a few other body parts had voted yes to that, too.

      And that was bad. So, so bad. It would be a mistake for the history books. Grace Lamb was his best friend’s sister, a woman who had just left her husband and whose life was, to be blunt, a mess. He had no business thinking about kissing Grace, and he knew it.

      So he’d told his brain to cut it out, to think about someone else. Josie Reese, the bartender at Newtown Brew, who had a cute ass and bright blue eyes. Maggie DeFiore, who had just bought the café down on Canal Street, and made an awesome cheese steak on garlic bread.

      But his brain didn’t take orders very well, it turned out. It kept reminding him that Josie always smelled like rum and whiskey, and smoked too much. And Maggie kept hinting about sleeping over, about keeping a toothbrush at his place, and liked to look at his gun, which was frankly a little disturbing.

      Nope, his brain just kept pulling out the memory of Grace stretching up on her tiptoes to kiss him. All wild hair and soft lips and dark eyes, and Christ, that was the last thing he needed.

      Grace was the last thing he needed. Grace back in Wrightsville, wreaking havoc, was even farther down the list of things he needed.

      If the world was turning the way it was supposed to, she’d make him crazy the minute he walked in Priest Antiques, and he could forget all about the new, sexy Grace and focus on the old, irritating one. He needed to remind himself that he was this close to taking a job in Doylestown and getting out of Wrightsville himself.

      Just as he opened the door and got out of his Jeep, a broken chair sailed out of a second-story window and hit the ground beneath it with a splintering crash.

      It was reassuring to know that some things never changed.

      “Grace!” he bellowed, and shook his head at the haphazard pile of furniture and assorted junk that apparently couldn’t fly either. Some of it had landed over the property