Page 135 of Perfectly Matched: Harbor Falls Romance Collection

“You don’t have to carry me, Dad. My legs ain’t hurt.”

“Aren’t hurt.”

“The glass is in my hand not my leg. Put me down now.”

“I’ll put you down in a minute. I don’t want to risk you tripping and breaking your fall with that hand.”

“But—”

Rick stopped at the stop of the stairs, narrowed his gaze, and investigated his daughter’s face.

“But what, Iz?”

he replied with a huff.

Izzie smirked.

“Nothing, Dad.”

Rick wasn’t quite sure what made him so scared—the fact that Izzie had momentarily disappeared, that the sight of her blood drops on the floor had rendered him nearly incapable of functioning, or the thought that Grace Hart would now never rent to him.

Truth be known, it was a mixture of all three, with extreme emphasis on the blood issue. His heart leapt into his throat every time he thought about Izzie bleeding to death somewhere and him not being able to find her.

He held her close and waited while Grace opened the door to her apartment then showed them into the kitchen.

“The light in here is better,”

she said.

“Why don’t you sit her there on the counter and I’ll go get tweezers and some peroxide.”

Rick nodded and followed her instructions.

The small kitchen was bright and airy, cheerful and welcoming. In fact, the whole apartment appeared to be that way. It smelled nice, too. Kind of like lemons and cinnamon at the same time. He didn’t know about the combination, but he liked it. He’d noticed all that as soon as he’d stepped over the threshold—registering it secondarily though, his primary thoughts still on Izzie’s wound.

“Let me see that, Bubblebuns.”

He cradled Izzie’s small hand in his then looked into her eyes.

“Don’t call me that, Dad. She might hear.”

Rick frowned at his daughter, whose face still held an unhappy expression, then tossed a teasing wink at her. Finally, after a moment of scrutinizing him, she winked back.

“I’ll call you anything I darned well please,”

he added with a hint of a grin.

“You’re my Bubblebuns, and don’t you forget it.”

Izzie laughed, her smirk fading fully into a broad smile.

“Dad,”

she began.

“It was an accident. The cookies, I mean.”

“Later,”

he told her, and then turned his concentration on her wound. He’d settle with Grace about the damages later. And he’d settle with his daughter about the damages much later. Like, with a huge talk and some extra chores to earn out enough funds to pay him back for replacing the delicate china she’d shattered.

He just hoped it wasn’t priceless.

Grace re-appeared with a damp washcloth, bandages, cotton balls, tweezers, and hydrogen peroxide.

“Here, I think this is all we need.”

She set the items on the counter, fumbled the peroxide, righted it again quickly, then simultaneously looked up into Rick’s eyes and bit her lower lip.

“Thank you,”

he replied.

She was nervous. For the life of him he couldn’t figure out why, but she was. Her hands were shaking as she set the items on the counter. Funny, a self-assured businesswoman like herself didn’t seem the type to be nervous about much. But for some reason, there was a slight change in her demeanor. Not able to put his finger on it, he glanced to Izzie and stared once more at the child’s palm.

“Would you like to do the honors or shall I?”

Grace offered.

Rick realized he’d made no move to pick the glass out of Izzie’s hand, and that while he was studying his child’s wound, he was also wondering what the woman standing beside him was all about.

Mind to task, man.

“I’ll do it,”

he returned. Never let it be said that Richard Price didn’t take care of his own.

“Do what?”

Izzie queried.

His eyes met his daughters once more.

“There is a little piece of glass in there, Iz. It has to come out. It won’t hurt, I promise. And then we’ll clean it up and bandage it and we can get on with our day, okay?”

He reached for a cotton ball and the peroxide.

“And if you’re real still and quiet and good, I’ll even treat you to lunch.”

Turning to Grace, he said.

“I’m sure there’s a hamburger joint around here somewhere, right Ms. Hart?”

Grace looked at him—a rather odd little look, like he’d grown another head, or his ears had suddenly sprouted points or something. She didn’t answer.

“Ms. Hart?”

“Gracie,”

she answered.

Gracie. The words flowed off her lips and landed feather-light on his brain. Gracie. He liked the sound of that.

Suddenly she shook her head, as if she were shaking herself out of a trance, and said.

“Grace, I mean.”

Puzzled now, he stood a little straighter and peered into the eyes of the woman who stood before him.

“So, which is it? Grace or Gracie?”

She looked rather puzzled herself, which was almost as amusing at it was endearing.

Rick felt a loss for words, a little light-headed, and surprisingly, a whole lot like smiling. Smiling like a fool. Like something had clicked deep down inside of him and had pleasantly turned this disaster of a morning into something more. Something—

Something he didn’t want to think about.

He looked at Iz. Task at hand, Price.

“My name is Grace, but everyone calls me Gracie. I mean, my friends call me Gracie.”

Slowly, he turned back to look at her. “Oh,”

was all he said. What else could he say? May I call you Gracie, too? Are we friends? Even though my daughter just smashed your china teapot, crushed cookies into your polished hardwood floors, and obliterated one very expensive-looking cookie plate? Can I still call you Gracie?

For some reason he did want to call her that. Yes. For some crazy, insane notion, he wanted to get to know Ms. Grace Hart well enough to call her Gracie.

****

Idiot!

Gracie wasn’t quite sure what was happening. Maybe she was getting sick. The flu had been going around. Her hands were shaking, her heart was pounding, and she felt just a little bit faint. Thank goodness, Richard Price had stopped looking at her and was now concentrating on getting that minute piece of glass out of his daughter’s hand.

Get a grip, she told herself.

This was all very unnerving and extremely unsettling.

She knew what it was although she hated to admit it. It wasn’t the flu or a bad fish sandwich or anything of that nature. No sir. She could only attribute what she was feeling to one thing.

There was a man in her kitchen.

A real live, muscular, drop-dead-gorgeous, intelligent man with eyes like she’d never in her life seen. And his occupancy in her small galley kitchen seemed to suck the very air out of the room.

He made a commanding presence. A bit overwhelming and more than a little overpowering. Larger than life. Expectantly caught unaware at the sight of him when she’d returned with the first aid supplies, her entire body went into stupid mode and she’d temporarily lost all functioning of her lips and her hands. Which was why she’d said that dumb thing about her friends calling her Gracie.

But that Ms. Hart stuff was getting to her.

“Please call me Gracie,”

she said.

“No one calls me Grace and hardly anyone calls me Ms. Hart so…”

“On one condition,”

he countered.

“And that is?”

“Call me Rick.”

Suddenly that felt way too personal. She backed up.

“Oh no. I couldn’t, Mr. Price. I mean, Richard. I mean…”

He narrowed his gaze and stared at her.

“I’m rambling.”

“A little.”

“My apologies.”

He shook his head.

“No. My apologies. I think I made you uncomfortable and that was not what I had intended.”

He returned his attention to his daughter’s hand. Gracie wondered if that was a subtle dismissal.

She was clearly out of practice with men.

Standing there, she wracked her brain trying to recall the last time a man had stood in that spot. Right there. Occupying that narrow space between her counter and the refrigerator.

Pathetic, she told herself. Gracie Hart you are pathetic.

Truth be known, she was more than pathetic. She was thirty-five years old and couldn’t remember the last time she’d entertained a man in her apartment.

Years. Ages. Eons.

Pathetic.

She might as well just dry up and blow away.

“Ow!”

“Got it!”

“You did?”

Gracie stepped forward just as Richard lifted the tweezers into the air. She studied the small piece of glass held between the tweezer’s points in his hand.

“I’m bleeding, Dad.”

Grace caught sight of the thick bubble oozing up out of the wound. She grabbed the damp washcloth and covered the cut, applied some pressure, and cradled Izzie’s small hand with her own.

Somehow, Richard’s hands simultaneously ended up around hers.

Surprisingly, his hands were shaking.

He jerked them away again quickly and said.

“Oh! You have that? Okay. I’ll fix a bandage.”

He then proceeded to busy himself with cutting a swatch of sterile gauze. He dropped the roll of gauze once, then twice. Gracie tried to concentrate on Izzie, rather than Richard who seemed to be having a difficult time managing the bandage.

“You like cheeseburgers, Ms. Hart?”

She looked at Izzie. “What?”

“Cheeseburgers? You like ‘em?”

She studied Izzie’s impish face and Gracie’s heart suddenly turned warm and fuzzy. Isabella Price was a beautiful child with an animated face and big ol’ Disney character eyes. She was looking up at her now, those huge blue eyes full of expression and question.

“Well, do you?”

Gracie hadn’t eaten a cheeseburger since she was sixteen.

“I love them,”

she replied.

“Me, too. Wanna come with us to get a cheeseburger?”

Gracie felt her own eyes widen at the question. “Me?”

“Yeah.”

Her heart suddenly didn’t feel warm and fuzzy anymore but lurched abruptly into panic mode. She glanced at Richard, who had finally managed to cut the bandage and was looking at her with an unreadable expression on his face, then back to Izzie. Sharing kitchen space was bad enough—she wasn’t up for a cozy lunch for three at the neighborhood kid hangout.

“I... Well, thank you, Izzie, but perhaps another time.”

“I’m sure Gracie has to stay with her shop, Iz.”

My shop? Yes. I must stay with the shop. Did he call me Gracie?

Nodding profusely, she agreed.

“Yes. That’s right. I need to stay with my shop. Business, you know.”

The shop, which she suddenly realized, was standing wide open to the street with no one manning the cash register.

“And, I really should be getting back down there.”

Slowly, she removed the washcloth and pushed the child’s hand toward Richard.

“Perhaps you should take over from here.”

She felt like she was backing up at the same time. Well, actually, she was.

“All right,”

he replied. He glanced to his daughter.

“Don’t you have something to say to Ms. Hart before she leaves, Iz?”

Izzie screwed up her face and slowly turned to look at Gracie. “Sorry,”

she finally whispered.

“About the plate and cookies.”

“I know,”

Gracie returned, and then smiled back.

“It’s okay. I’m just glad you weren’t badly hurt.”

Then she turned quickly back to Richard.

“I... I really do need to get back down there. The shop is open.”

“I understand.”

She retreated two more steps.

“Help yourself to whatever you need.”

“We’ll be fine and will join you in a few minutes.”

“Oh, sure.”

She was nearly in her living room now.

“And we’ll finish our business then.”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

“Okay.”

Then Gracie left. She tripped over the throw rug at the entrance to her door and nearly turned her ankle on the first step down the stairway. What in the world was wrong with her? Obviously, stupid mode had traveled to her feet.

Stopping at the first landing, she paused a minute, allowing a couple of thoughts to collect themselves in her head.

She hoped stupid mode didn’t bounce back up to her heart. She’d kept such tight control over her heart for such a long time, it would be a shame for it to get broken over a guy like Richard Price.

****

“Your change comes to two dollars and sixteen cents.”

Gracie smiled at the young woman on the other side of the counter. The woman took her change, the Aromatherapy candle she’d just purchased, grinned back, then leisurely left the shop.

Gracie watched her leave and made a mental note to order more of those candles. The aromatherapy brand was something new from a different supplier and that item was flying out of the shop faster than she could keep them in stock.

Turning, she decided that instead of a mental note, she needed to add a note about the candles to her computer inventory software program before she forgot about it.

She lifted her laptop lid and glanced once more toward the back stairway. Twenty minutes earlier, she’d left Richard and Izzie upstairs. She’d seen hide nor hair of them since.

Odd, she thought, hoping that Izzie was okay.

“He’s probably still fumbling with the bandage,”

Gracie said to herself, then chuckled. Her computer screen came to life with a series of clicks and clacks and pings. Every time she started the thing, she said a little prayer that it would keep working for a while longer. She couldn’t afford to buy a new one quite yet, although it was on her wish list. She started clicking icons to open the file she was after.

During the time Richard had been upstairs, Gracie had seriously contemplated the sanity of renting the shop and the apartment to him and his daughter. She’d had her doubts early on—then in a moment of stupidity had reconsidered—now, she was sure she should not rent to him. Quite sure.

There was no sound reason why she shouldn’t, really. He appeared to be a friendly person with good character and sincere intentions. Obviously, he wasn’t some derelict off the street. He was a family man with a child to raise. Besides, a nice cafe next door would certainly compliment her shop.

The members of the Chamber would surely welcome the new business endeavor.

But she didn’t know the wisdom of renting to this man who made her insides flutter. Fact was, she wasn’t used to fluttering insides and she was quite sure she didn’t want them to flutter. She was just going to have to come up with some excuse not to rent to him.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

“Oh, shut up!”

“Excuse me?”

Startled, Gracie turned toward the voice.

“Oh! Mr. Price.”

“Were you talking to someone?”

he asked with a slight smirk on his face.

“I swear I heard you tell someone to shut up.”

He glanced about the shop.

“And I don’t see anyone else here but the two of us.”

Gracie felt her cheeks grow warm with embarrassment. He was teasing her, sort of, and she wasn’t quite sure she liked it. Or maybe, she liked it at little too much.

“I was—”

She glanced around the shop. Where in the heck was that darned shop cat when she needed her? People talk to animals, don’t they? Then she glanced back at her computer.

“I was... I was talking to the computer,”

she added quickly, then patted the monitor and turned back with a small grin.

“I have to talk to her occasionally, a little sweet talk, you know. She works better for me that way.”

“She?”

Richard arched a brow in amusement.

Gracie wrung her hands and glanced off to the side.

“Ah, yes. She. The computer is definitely a she.”

He nodded, slowly, the expression on his face still resembling amusement.

“But that didn’t sound like sweet talk to me. You told her to shut up.”

How in the heck was she going to talk her way out of this one? Gracie cocked her head to once side.

“Well, I’d be inclined to agree with you, Mr. Price, but,”

she turned and patted the laptop again.

“you don’t know old Clara Belle here. She needs a good swift, sweet-talking nudge occasionally.”

As if on cue, the newly christened Clara Belle sputtered with another series of clicks and a bing as if she were acknowledging her own incompetence.

Gracie then arched her brow, looked once more to Richard, and shrugged.

“See? What did I tell you?”

“Well, I fail to see—”

“So how is Izzie?”

She had to turn this conversation quickly. She did not intend to share with Richard Price the fact that she had these ongoing conversations with her biological clock occasionally.

“Oh, she’s fine. All bandaged up and ready to move on to another escapade.”

He glanced back toward the stairwell.

“She’s actually staking claim on her room in the apartment upstairs. I hope you don’t mind. While we were up there, we looked around next door. It was open.”

A bit taken aback, Grace said, “Oh?”

She had unlocked the apartment this morning.

“Yes.”

“And?”

“We love it.”

“Oh.”

“So, we’d like to take the package deal.”

“You would?”

Gracie wasn’t sure to be thrilled or panicked.

“Yes. The apartment and the shop. I would like to move as soon as possible if that’s okay with you. In fact, I’d like to start this weekend.”

“But I have to clean—”

“No, forget about that. If you will give me a cut on the first month’s rent, I’ll clean and even paint Izzie’s bedroom upstairs. She wants purple. I hope you don’t mind. She said pink was for girls. And I’ve claimed dibs on the blue room at the back, so the pink room has to go.”

The blue room in the back. The room next to mine, Gracie thought. One thin wall separating us.

Oh, boy.

She took a deep breath.

“Mr. Price. I think we need to discuss a few things before—”

“Do you have a lease?”

Puzzled, Gracie suddenly lost her train of thought.

“Well, yes, I do. It’s in the computer, in fact, but—”

She wasn’t sure she was ready to do this yet.

“Good. Why don’t you print one off, I’ll take it with me tonight, read it over, and then come back in the morning with either the signed copy or notes about issues we need to discuss.”

“But you haven’t filled out an application yet.”

He nodded.

“Well, print one of those off too and I’ll bring it in the morning. You can sign the lease after you’ve checked my references.”

“Well, I—”

Clara Belle clicked and pinged in the background again.

Richard chuckled and smiled at the machine.

“I think she agrees. So, would you print all that off for me while I fetch Iz? I should be getting back to Asheville. We’ll touch base in the morning if that’s okay with you.”

“Well, sure, I suppose. But—”

But he was gone, already moving toward the back of her shop. Gracie was at a loss for words.

Clara Belle pinged again. Gracie turned toward the computer and gave it one nasty look.

“I didn’t need your input back there a minute ago, you know. Whose side are you on, anyway?”

The computer monitor sat silent.

“Oh hell,”

Gracie muttered. Then she clicked on the new file with Rick’s name on it, where she had saved a copy of her standard lease and application. She made a few impromptu adjustments, tweaked a couple of other terms, and generally made some overall ridiculous changes. Maybe, once he’d looked this over, he would decide not to rent after all.

She sure hoped so. It would be much easier if he said no, rather than her having to say no to him. She didn’t want him to get the wrong idea, or anything. She didn’t want him to think that Izzie was the reason she couldn’t rent to him.

In fact, she liked Izzie a whole heck of a lot. Izzie, the sweet child, was not the problem. She just couldn’t fathom living next door to the child’s father. Not when he made her insides flutter like he had today, on the first day they’d even met.

She printed off the lease and application, putting no further thought into it and keeping her fingers crossed that Richard Price would not return with them in the morning.