Mother and Natalie had tried to understand his feelings, but they’d been unable to appreciate the traditional rites of male passage. Grandfather Bradford had picked up the slack on the big-picture issues. But in life’s smaller rituals, Dylan had turned to Uncle Arthur. His uncle had taught him how to drive, shave, and tie a necktie.

Funny how, even though Dylan had been included in outings with Frank and Uncle Arthur, the two cousins had never quite clicked. Frank had always been just a little too perfect.

He wouldn’t sneak out at night to meet girls. Refused to drink the twelve-year-old scotch Dylan smuggled out of the liquor cabinet. Never ditched school. Never snuck behind the boathouse to smoke. Never wanted to raise any of the hell Dylan needed to raise just to break out of the confining straight-jacketed life the Bradfords and Steadmans demanded. He wondered if a younger Clayton would have been more like him or a stuffed shirt like Frank. Probably like Frank. Another depressing thought.

And now, he didn’t need a brother any longer. He’d formed his own brotherhood with his two best friends over ten years ago. Brothers of his own choosing. Brothers who never let him down. If he ever got this place fixed up, he’d love to have them up for no-frills guy getaways. Similar to Wyatt’s mountain cabin in California, they could escape from the regular pressures of their lives.

From what Mrs. Lattimer had said, Gracie had been a little hellion who’d done her best to loosen Clay up. He could picture Gracie tempting Clay off the straight and narrow. Big-hearted Gracie with her high spirits, her disregard for dignity, her irreverence. Just thinking of her called up the memory of their kiss. If she were here right now, he’d kiss her again. And again. And again.

Kissing hadn’t been a primary goal of Dylan’s since he was fourteen-years-old and on summer vacation in Cannes. That was the year four young Parisians from the next villa had taught him everything they knew about the art of kissing.

By the next summer, the girls’ curvaceous new bodies invited more advanced explorations. The four girls took turns frolicking with him through the sultry evenings, offering him the variety and instruction that formed the sexual pattern of his life.

Women were desirable, plentiful, and interchangeable. But not permanent.

Now he‘d be happy to spend the entire summer doing nothing but kissing Gracie. Well, maybe not the entire summer. June, at least... which didn’t explain the jumbo box of condoms he’d bought that afternoon.

If he were smart, he wouldn’t even try to put them to use. Clearly, Gracie wasn’t the sort to have an affair lightly, and anything more permanent was beyond his experience—maybe even beyond his ability. Gracie obviously played for keeps, and he only knew how to play for fun.

Surely the idea of attempting anything more than fun sprang from the restlessness he’d felt in New York and not from anything he felt for Gracie. He should go back to the city and lose himself in the diversion of someone else’s body.

But at the moment, he didn’t want anyone but Gracie.

His longing went beyond the desire to taste her mouth, tangle his fingers in her hair, and feel her body arch with pleasure and splinter with completion beneath his. He wanted all of that, yes, but he also wanted to forge something stronger between them. A union brought about through more than the momentary possession of her in his bed. One that wouldn’t end with the usual vague and insincere promise to call her again.

No other desire in his life had scared him so much.

While his head whirled with frustrating contradictions, the darkness outside the cabin deepened. The harsh lighting inside created ghost-like shadows. Every board and timber in the building popped and creaked in an eerie symphony. The rev of a distant motor provided the backbeat to his edginess.

Time to hang up his dust cloth. After he finished cleaning one final cabinet.

He poked a broom into a pile of debris under the sink.

The debris whirled into life. A panicked family of mice squeaked and darted about, angry and frightened by the disturbance. Ten or so of them skittered in every direction. He swept them toward the door, but more of them escaped than allowed themselves to be herded toward freedom.

Dylan flung open the door to release the one tiny mouse he’d corralled. He pulled up at the crunch of a footstep on the porch. Against the backdrop of the starlit sky, a shapeless shadow loomed across the doorway.

“Aah!” His heart pounded, and he raised his little broom.

“Don’t swing!” Gracie lifted her hands in the air as if wielding a sword instead of a pizza box and a six-pack. “I come bearing gifts.”

Feeling relieved but foolish, he retreated into the kitchen. He leaned an elbow against the counter and pretended she hadn’t startled him. She looked not at all ghoulish in jeans and a denim jacket. The aroma of onions and pepperoni wafted toward him.

“Great. Food.” His stomach rumbled. “I’m starving.”

“I bet you worked up quite an appetite chasing vicious field mice, didn’t you?” When she laughed, the sound went straight to his heart. He’d been hoping she’d show up. “How many have you set free?”

“Not as many as there are in here.” He turned to the sink to wash his hands. “I’ve been working on it, but the kitchen’s nowhere near vermin-free.”

She handed him the pizza and placed the six-pack on top of the flat box. “Be right back.”

She returned in seconds with a folding tray table, paper plates, and napkins. While she was gone, he worked on banishing his fantasies about her. But that only lasted until she bent over to erect a tray table. As she shrugged out of her jacket, the sight of beautiful, voluptuous Gracie in hip-hugging jeans and a white T-shirt that fit like a second skin brought them back full force.

Unfortunately, she didn’t harbor any indecent thoughts about him. At least, none that he detected—until they drew a pair of wobbly, mismatched chairs up to the tiny table and bumped knees as they sat down. She blushed as if he’d flashed her, but she left her knee resting against his.

After they’d attacked their first slices of pizza, she questioned him about the investigation. He filled her in on the steps he’d taken since they’d separated that afternoon.

“You know…” She paused to loop a string of mozzarella into her mouth with a casual sensuality that left him salivating. “It seems like you’re warming up to the idea that Clay’s a Bradford. How do you feel about that?”

“I won’t believe it until I have no other choice.” He popped the cap off a beer and took a long swallow.

“That’s not fair to Clay,” Gracie pointed out.

“It’s more about being fair to my father. I don’t think I could ever accept the fact that he would behave dishonorably toward a woman—either wife or mistress—or an innocent child. That behavior doesn’t fit with my own memories or my mother’s description of him.”

Gracie munched thoughtfully. “Your father wasn’t the only Bradford who visited here in those days, was he?”

“No, but I can’t picture any of the others being Clay’s father either.”

“But it’s possible,” she argued. “Tell me about the other candidates.”

“Uncle Tommy,” Dylan suggested after a long moment. “He would have been in his late twenties, I guess. But it couldn’t have been him.”

“Tommy, the one killed in a hit-and-run accident about ten years ago?” Gracie tapped her fingers against her beer. “He was gorgeous. Even in a family with looks like yours, he stood out. Women a lot more sophisticated than Lana would have drooled over him.”

She thought he was gorgeous? He’d file that nugget away for later. For now he needed to decide exactly how to reveal Uncle Tommy’s secret. She waited for his answer with her usual honest interest, and he decided to trust her. “Tommy’s, ah, sexual interests ran in a different direction.”