Teresa Hill - Runaway Vegas Bride / Vegas Two-Step - Runaway Vegas Bride / Vegas Two-Step

“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?”

Jane waited until Gram was at her regular tennis lesson two days later, because normally Gram and Gladdy were practically inseparable, and then went to do her duty, to save poor Gladdy from Wyatt’s ill-behaved uncle.

Jane pasted on a fake smile, walked into Gladdy’s room, and—

“Oh, my God!”

It looked like Gladdy and Leo were…necking on the love seat! Gladdy had her head on Leo’s shoulder, and his was bent over hers. When Jane burst in, Gladdy gave a start and her head popped up, banging into Leo’s forehead.

Jane stood there, astonished and really, really mad on both Gladdy’s and Gram’s behalf.

“Oh, Jane, dear, will you ever learn to knock?” Gladdy asked, practically giggling.

Giggling?

Jane worked herself up into a good, steaming rage and pointed her finger at Leo, who didn’t look guilty in the least over what he’d done. “You,” she said, advancing on him. “Get your hands off my aunt! Right now! Now!”

She’d beat him off with her briefcase if she had to. Jane lifted it up and back, preparing to take a swing.

Leo Gray stood up, all too slowly for Jane’s current mood, smoothed out his shirt, brushed back the bit of hair on the sides of his head and looked for all the world like he was the insulted party here.

“Girly,” he said. “You’ve got to learn to have a little fun.”

Jane’s mouth fell open.

Girly?

He’d called her Girly!

“I’ll have you know that I am a twenty-eight-year-old adult woman! I am no girl,” she yelled after him, as he left Gladdy’s room. “I should have you arrested for this!”

“Arrested?” Gladdy said, taking her arm and pulling the briefcase out of her hand. “Jane, what are you doing?”

“I came to warn you about that awful man! Did he force himself on you? Tell me, because if he did, I’ll—”

“Leo Gray’s never had to force himself on a woman in his life,” Gladdy insisted. “I mean, have you looked at the man? I know you’re not seventy-five years old like me—”

“Gladdy, you’re eighty,” Jane reminded her.

“Shhhh. He doesn’t know that. A woman should never admit to her real age and never look her real age. There’s no reason to in these days. Speaking of which, Jane, darling, is it too much to ask for you to use that nice ageresistant face cream Kathleen and I bought you for Christmas? You have beautiful skin, dear, but you want to keep it that way. You’ll care about these things one day. At least, I pray that you will.”

“That I’ll worry about wrinkles one day? That’s what you pray for?”

“No, that you’ll learn how to enjoy a man and want to look your best for him.”

Jane sank down into the love seat Leo had just vacated, suddenly so tired and frustrated, she could have cried or screamed. That awful man!

“Are you sure you’re all right?” she asked Gladdy.

“Of course, I’m all right. I’m better than I’ve been in years, in fact. Nothing like a fabulous man to make a woman feel young again. I think I’m going to get my hair done and have a facial. What do you say, Jane? A facial? My treat?”

Jane felt like she might turn into a stark raving lunatic at any moment. “A facial? Gladdy?”

“Good skin care is nothing to scoff at, Jane.”

“What about Gram? You love Gram. You always have, and she thinks she’s in love with that man, that awful man—”

“He’s far from awful, and Kathleen has never been in love in her life,” Gladdy insisted. “You know that. You know what the women in our family are like.”

“Yes, but she told me that she loves him. I’ve never heard her sound this way, and if she knew what the two of you were doing behind her back. Not even behind her back,” Jane remembered. “The other night, at dinner?”

“We were holding hands. It’s hardly a crime, hardly anything at all. What a prude you can be sometimes, Jane. I just hate that for you. I want you to be happy in every way, including having a man in your life.”