Oh boy, Grace thought. Déjà vu.
And indeed, Lucille produced the infamous Facebook pic.
Mallory’s and Amy’s eyes cut straight to Grace, and she grimaced. “Okay, so I maybe left a teensy little part out,” she admitted.
Amy took Lucille’s phone and cocked her head sideways. “What are you wearing? That’s one hell of a tiny frigging bikini. I had no idea pink polka dots were your thing.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” Grace snatched the phone and handed it back to Lucille. “It was you. You posted this thing.”
“Well of course I did. It’s been a slow week. Nothing exciting—until you kissed the town’s favorite bachelor.” Lucille winked, snagged a cupcake, and went on her way.
Intending to do the same, Grace slid her purse on her shoulder and picked up Amy’s box of receipts. “It’s getting late.” She made a move to slide out of the booth but Amy blocked her exit with one very wicked-looking kickass boot.
“Fine.” Grace sagged back. “We kissed, okay? No big deal. And I didn’t tell you guys because I didn’t want you to make a bigger deal out of it than it is.”
“You kissed the hottest doctor in town,” Mallory said in disbelief. “Maybe the hottest doctor ever, and you don’t think it’s a big deal?”
“He kissed me,” Grace corrected, grabbing another cupcake since her exit was blocked. “And are you sure he’s the hottest doctor ever? I mean, you’ve seen Grey’s Anatomy, right?”
“Ever,” Mallory maintained, and shrugged helplessly when both Amy and Grace stared at her. “So sue me, I have a thing for late-bloomer nerds.”
Grace choked on her cupcake and it almost came out her nose. “Late-bloomer nerd? Are you kidding me?” Josh was six foot four and solidly built. He had melted dark chocolate eyes and a smile that did more for her than the cupcake she was eating, and a way of moving his big, gorgeous self that always made her clothes want to fall right off. “Nothing about him says nerd.” Nothing.
“Well, I went to school with him,” Mallory said, carefully peeling her cupcake out of its baking paper. “He hit high school at like five-five and was the scrawniest thing you’ve ever seen. He wore glasses and still couldn’t see worth shit. Oh, and he was head of the science club and got beat up by the football players unless he did their homework.”
“Damn,” Amy said, sounding impressed. “He sure turned things around for himself. I bet he enjoys his reunions, being a big-shot doctor and everything. Not to mention he looks like he could kick some serious ass if he wanted.”
“He kicks serious ass every single day,” Mallory said. “By saving lives. He raised his sister. He’s raising his son.”
“Speaking of which,” Grace said, “what happened to Toby’s mom?”
Mallory did a palms-up. “She wasn’t from around here and she didn’t stick. That’s all anyone really knows. Josh doesn’t talk about it.” She’d finished her cupcake and licked some chocolate off her thumb before concentrating on Grace. “I know you planned to just blow through Lucky Harbor and ended up staying longer than you meant to. And we’re glad about that, so very glad.” She said this with fierce affection, reaching for Grace’s hand. “Because the three of us, we give each other something.”
“A hard time?” Grace asked.
“Hope,” Mallory said. “And courage. You wanted the courage to add some badly needed fun to your life. The kiss with Josh sounds like a good start to me. That’s all I’m saying. So don’t sweep it under the rug as a fluke or try to forget about it. Enjoy it.”
Grace blew out a breath. “Well, sure, cloud the issue with logic.”
Mallory smiled. “We made a pact to change our lives, and that’s what we’re doing. All of us. No man left behind.”
Grace was incredibly touched by the “we.” She’d never had siblings. Her parents had given her everything they had but they weren’t warm and fuzzy by nature. She’d had girlfriends, but they were always schoolmates or coworkers. Her relationships had always been born of circumstance.
Like her.
This wasn’t the case with Amy and Mallory. They were the real deal, and better than any sisters she might have spent her childhood wishing for.
Mallory pointed at her. “I mean it!”
Grace ignored her suddenly thick throat. “It’s hard to take you seriously when you have a chocolate mustache.”
Mallory swiped it off with her forearm. “And it’s not like I saw this life of mine coming down the pike, you know. Opening up a Health Services Center, falling in love…I mean, I am so not sitting in a European sidewalk café right now, rearranging my desperately alluring miniskirt and thinking about whether it’s too early to ring up U2 or go shopping.” She grinned. “That was my secret high school fantasy. But I wouldn’t trade this for the world.” She looked at Amy. “And you changed your life too. Tell her.”
“She knows.”
“Tell her,” Mallory insisted.
“I changed my life,” Amy intoned.
Mallory rolled her eyes and gave Amy a shove.
“Fine,” Amy said. “I changed things up, opened myself to new experiences. Like…camping.”
Mallory sighed. “Killing me.”
“And love.” Amy gave Mallory a little shove back. “See, I can say it. I found someone to love me. Me,” she repeated, clearly still boggled by that fact.
Grace understood the sentiment. She’d had boyfriends—some had lasted a night; some that had lasted much longer. She’d even fallen in love and gotten her heart broken. She’d learned a lot—such as how to keep her heart out of the equation.
“The truth is,” Amy said, “I came to Lucky Harbor searching for myself. Even though deep down, I was afraid that whatever I found wouldn’t be enough. But actually, my real self kicks ass.”
“Yeah, it does,” Mallory said softly, smiling at her.
Grace stared at the two of them. “You’re a pair of saps.”
“Look, forget us,” Mallory said. “We’re not the point. The point is that you’re not living up to what you said you’d do. You’re not having fun.”
“I don’t know,” Amy said slowly, studying Grace. “Posing in the nude, walking McSexy’s dog…Sounds like fun to me.”
“I didn’t pose nude,” Grace said. “Sheesh!”
“Well maybe you should,” Mallory told her. “And maybe you should have fun with the sexy doctor while you’re at it. He’s just about perfect.”
Grace understood the logic, convoluted as it was. But there was a flaw, a fatal one. Having grown up trying to live up to being damn near perfect, she refused to date it.
The diner door opened, and a man strode in wearing paramedic gear with FLIGHT CARE in white across his chest.
Ty Garrison.
Mallory took one look at the man she was going to marry and grinned dopily. She brushed her hands off and headed straight for him, meeting him in the middle of the nearly empty diner. In her scrubs and sneakers, she seemed tiny compared to the tall, leanly muscled flight medic as she leaned into him. Tiny and cute.
Ty must have thought so, too, because he bent and kissed her with lots of heat, easily boosting her into his arms, the muscles in his shoulders and back rippling as Mallory wrapped herself around him like a pretzel.
“Aw,” Grace said in spite of herself.“Get a room,” Amy said.
Behind Ty’s back, Mallory flipped Amy the bird and kept kissing her fiancé. They were holding on to each other, and even from the length of the diner, Grace could see how much Ty loved Mallory. It was in every touch, every look. She sighed and pulled out her phone, which was ringing. “Crap,” she said, looking at the caller ID.
“Bill collector?” Amy asked.
“Worse. It’s my mother.”
“The rocket scientist?”
The one and only. Grace sucked in a breath and looked down at what she was wearing before she got a hold of herself and remembered that her mother couldn’t actually see her. “Mom,” she said into the phone. “Hi, what’s wrong?”
“What, a mother can’t call her only daughter?”
Grace smiled at the imperious tone and could picture her mother in her lab, working in Dior and a white doctor’s coat to protect the elegance and sophistication that she couldn’t quite hide behind all the degrees and doctorates.
Grace didn’t have elegance and sophistication emanating from her every pore because of one simple truth—she hadn’t been born into it. She’d done her damnedest to absorb what she could and fake what she couldn’t. “It’s not the first weekend of the month,” Grace said.
“True, but I just finished up that three-week seminar on the design for NASA’s new deep-space exploration system, and I realized I missed our monthly check-in. How are you doing, darling?”
This wasn’t a “tell me about the weather” sort of question. This was a request for a full, detailed report, and guilt flooded Grace. She quickly scanned through her options. She could tell her mom what she’d been up to—which was that she’d been using her fancy college education not at all—or continue to slightly mislead in order to keep her happy.
Mallory disconnected her lips from Ty and led him back to the Chocoholics’ table. He took a cupcake, kissed Mallory, and left.
“And how’s Seattle?” Grace’s mom asked. “How’s your new banking job? You the CEO yet?”
Grace grimaced. “Actually, I’ve sort of moved on to something else.”
“Oh?”
Grace looked down at Amy’s shoe box full of receipts. “Something more accounting based.” Vague, and hopefully impressive. But there was no denying it truly was a total and complete lie, which meant she was going to hell, doubly so for telling the lie to her own mother.
“A lateral move, at least?”
A beep sounded in Grace’s ear, her call-waiting. Saved by the beep. “Hold on, Mom.” She clicked over. “Hello?”
Nothing. Damn phone. She’d dropped it one too many times. She slapped the phone against her thigh and clicked again. “Hello?”
“Grace. You available for tomorrow?”
Josh and his deep voice, the one that continuously did something quite pornographic to every womanly part in Grace’s entire body. Was she available? Unfortunately, yes. “Hang on a sec.” She clicked back to her mom and decided that since she was going to hell, she might as well make her well-meaning mom happy before she did. “I’ve made a lateral move from my usual banking specialist schtick. Nothing quite as exciting as being a rocket scientist or a biologist, but I am working for a doctor.”
“Sounds fascinating,” Josh said wryly. “Do I know this doctor?”
Grace froze. Crap. “Just a minute,” she managed. She smacked herself in the forehead with her phone; then, ignoring both Amy and Mallory gaping at her, she clicked over again. “Mom?”
“Yes, of course, dear. Who else?”
Who else indeed. Grace swiped her damp forehead.
Mallory and Amy, both clearly fascinated by the Grace Show, were hanging on her every word.
Grace twisted in the booth, turning her back on them.
“So tell me about your job,” her mom said.
“I’m…working for a doctor,” she said again.
“Using your CPA to handle his finances? Or research on that dissertation you never finished?”
She was saved from having to answer when her phone beeped again. “Hold on.” She clicked over. “Josh, I can’t talk right now.”
Nothing.
Good Lord. She really needed a new phone. She smacked it again for good measure and clicked back to her mom. “Sorry, Mom. Yes, I’m going to be putting my CPA to use.” She looked at Amy’s box. “Sort of. I’m trying some new things out. And some…research. But listen, I’ve really got to—”
“Trying new things,” Josh said. “I like the sound of that.”
“Oh for God’s sake— I have to go.” She clicked again and drew in a deep breath. “Mom?”
“Yes. Darling, you sound quite frazzled. You’re working hard?”
“Very,” Grace managed, rubbing the spot between her eyes.
“What? Hello? Grace, I can’t hear you—”
Silence.
Grace swore and hit the phone again. “Mom? Sorry, bad reception. But yes, I’m working hard, very hard. Hey, I’m a Brooks, right? That’s what we do.”
“This conversation just gets more and more interesting,” Josh said.
“Oh my God! I thought I told you I had to go!” Grace disconnected him and fanned herself. “Damn, is it hot in here?”
Mallory and Amy were wide-eyed. Mallory opened her mouth to speak, but Grace pointed at her, then grimaced as she spoke into the phone. “Mother?”
“Yes. Grace, what are—”
“Going into a tunnel, Mom. We’re going to lose reception—” Grace disconnected, closed her eyes, and took her medicine like a big girl. “I suppose you’re still there,” she said into the phone.
“Yep,” Josh said. “So the dog walking. Overqualified much?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I bet.”