When they sat side by side on a loveseat, Gracie lifted the lid on the bowl and handed Clay a spoon. “It’s peach.” She wiggled her eyebrows in invitation. “Your favorite.”

“We’re eating the festival ice cream?” He feigned shock. “Is this legal?”

“Quality-control check.” She dug right in. “I’ve been dreaming about this all day. The first bite is always the best.” Closing her eyes, she rolled the rich creaminess over her tongue. “Consider it a taste test.”

Clay took the dish and inserted his spoon. “Mmmm. Delicious.”

Gracie hoped this peace offering would smooth over the ill-will from the afternoon, but didn’t expect immediate success. Clay usually took his time putting unexpected change into perspective.

He looked tired and pensive, and still bruised from the fight the night before. After a second bite, the companionable silence came to an end.

“Gracie, about this afternoon...”

She held up her hand in a stop sign. “Stay out of it.”

“If you’re saying it’s all right for you to poke your nose into my business, but I’m not allowed to even comment on yours, you can forget it. For your information, I’d just as soon you butt out of Dylan’s investigation.”

“I’m doing it for you.”

He snorted. “Bull.”

“If it weren’t for me, the two of you wouldn’t even be talking to one another.” Not technically true, but close enough.

“If it weren’t for me,” he countered, “Dylan Bradford wouldn’t be within five hundred miles of here, which is why I feel responsible for your involvement with him.”

“There’s no involvement,” she denied too quickly.

“It sure looked that way to me when you had your tongue down his throat.”

“Clay...” She blew a breath upward, displacing wisps of hair from her forehead. Since she didn’t understand the attraction between Dylan and her, she sure didn’t know how to explain it to Clay. “It was one kiss. That’s all. I’m not his type. He’s not mine. And I’m not in over my head.” Much.

Clay frowned before licking ice cream off his spoon. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

She smiled in acknowledgment of his concern. “I won’t.”

“Right.” He tossed up a hand in resignation. “Just like you didn’t break your arm that time I told you not to jump off the roof of the garage into your sandbox.”

“You loved it when that happened. You got to practice your first-aid skills until Mom and David showed up to find out what I was squalling about.”

“If you had stayed still like I told you, it wouldn’t have hurt nearly so bad.” He smoothed his hand over her forearm, as if still trying to relieve her pain.

“I never would follow good advice.”

He shook his head ruefully, a corner of his mouth quirked into a near grin at the memory. “And I guess you never will.”

“There’s nothing to worry about.” Gracie wasn’t nearly as sure as she sounded. “He won’t be here much longer, and neither will I. We’ll go our separate ways, and I’ll be able to tell my grandchildren that in a brush with the rich and famous, I kissed a Bradford once. Of course, he won’t be able to pick me out of a lineup within a week of being back in town.”

Clayton’s eyelids dropped down, and he cut her a look out of the corners of his eyes. “You make more of an impression than that.”

“Oh, sure.” She wanted to believe him, but good sense overruled wishful thinking. Besides, Clay’s opinion was always biased in her favor.

“When I’m acknowledged as a Bradford,” he said with his slow smile, “Dylan will have to accept you as part of my extended family.”

“That might be sooner than you think. Things are really moving along. Aren’t you thrilled about the DNA tests?”

The slow smile disappeared. “I guess.”

“You don’t sound thrilled. What’s bothering you now?”

He brooded so long she didn’t think he was going to tell her, but finally he came out with, “Something David said. This morning when he told me about the money, I asked him why he hadn’t told me about it sooner.”

“He’s always downplayed the possibility of a Bradford connection.” She was well aware of David’s stand on the subject.

“Right, but when I asked him why he was so reluctant to admit that it might be a possibility, he said…” The words came to a standstill.

She punched his shoulder. “He said what, for God’s sake?”

“He said he thought Matthew had killed my mother.”

The anguished statement caused Gracie’s heart to wrench for both Clay and Dylan. The knowledge that their father might have killed Lana would destroy any pleasure Clay would have in being acknowledged as a Bradford. And what would it do to Dylan? “Why does he think that?”

“I don’t know.” With elbows propped on his knees, Clay studied his shoelaces. “When I questioned him, he became so agitated that he had to take his nitro. I insisted he lie down, and I haven’t brought it up since. But you know David as well as I do. He’d never make an accusation without solid information to back it up.”

Gracie searched for something positive to offer. “On the other hand, he’s such a straight arrow that if he had solid information, he would have shared it with the police a long time ago. So it must be something he suspects, not something he’s sure of. He could be wrong, you know.”

Clay’s despondent “Right” mirrored Gracie’s doubts. He lifted his head to look at her with troubled eyes. “Have you ever known him to be wrong before?”

“No, but you should try to talk to him again. Find out what he really does know.”

He sighed heavily. “That’s the plan, but he seems so fragile right now.”

Polly knocked on the door and popped her head inside the room. “Sorry to interrupt, Gracie, but the Taggertys accidentally put strawberries in a batch of peach ice cream. What do you suggest?”

“Fruit smoothies.” Standing, Gracie linked her hand with Clay’s and pulled him up with her. “C’mon, back to work.”

Chapter Seventeen

Dylan flicked a wall switch. A single overhead fixture provided him with enough light to locate the kitchen counter where he dumped a bag of cleaning supplies. Earlier, the electrician had strung cords with bulbs to augment the existing lamps. Dylan moved through the living room and kitchen flicking them on.

The scarred walls, buckled flooring, and sorry furnishings almost made him prefer the darkness. Only the spiders and rodents that dove for cover convinced him that the brighter the lighting, the better.

Years of decay and neglect permeated the room. He grimaced at the stench. With the woodsy noises outside providing background music, he rolled up his sleeves and tackled the shambles in the kitchen.

He’d hoped to have dinner with Gracie. But when he’d stopped by the B&B earlier, she was out. Probably just as well. In between the day’s chores, his thoughts had veered with tedious regularity between his father, Clayton, and Gracie.

Another phone call to Gilmore had gotten his assistant busy digging into Clay’s trust fund. Natalie promised to look through their father’s papers. He’d left another message for Uncle Arthur, urging him to question the law firm that had handled the deed and the trust as soon as possible. Both documents seemed connected with Clay’s paternity, but Dylan cast about for some scenario that didn’t end up with his father as the villain of the piece.

His dad’s presence at the factory the night Lana Harris disappeared suggested a connection there, too. He’d rejected the idea of his father and Lana being lovers for as long as he could. But now, it was time to prepare for the possibility that he and Clayton could be related. Closely related.

A brother. The word rang hollow and alien inside his head.

He loved his mother and sister. But after his father had died and they’d settled into what passed for a normal life without him, he’d missed having another male in the all-female household. Even the household help ranged heavy on the female side.