Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Grace dialed her best friend and slipped the Bluetooth in her ear as she crossed the street.
“How did it go?” Chloe’s voice vibrated in excitement.
“You’re going to owe me big time.”
“I already do. So, don’t keep me in suspense. How was he?”
“Horrible. Arrogant, smart like Yoda, and cunning like Vader. Beautiful and not gay.”
“Did he say, Grace, I am your father?” Chloe asked in her best Vader voice, complete with loud breaths, before she chuckled.
“No, but if he’d said, come to daddy, I would have jumped on that train and pulled the whistle.”
“Oh, whoever he is, he sounds like fun.” Grace’s sister, Quinn, said walking up beside her as they both entered the building.
Grace slid her card key through the security panel to call the elevator. “Chloe, I’ll have to call you back. Quinn decided to live vicariously through me now that she’s married.”
“Lunch at eleven at Luigi’s?”
“Sounds fabulous.” Grace clicked her Bluetooth off.
“So who’s daddy and how big is his whistle?” Quinn asked, holding her round belly. She’d been married less than a year, and she was about to drop any day.
The elevator opened on their floor, saving Grace from having to explain. “Don’t you have a Highlander waiting at your house? Why are you here?”
“Ian is showing Collin the new house he bought and then meeting me here. Besides, I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.”
“Missed what?” Grace asked, turning into her office. She paused in her tracks. Her sisters were sitting in the dark. Binoculars lined the desk. Her sisters had converged like a pack of virgins waiting for a first-hand account of the man’s snickerdoodle.
Grace flicked on her office light.
“Honey, if you needed a date, Cooper could have introduced you to a few of his friends,” Cara said, holding her belly while rising from Grace’s desk chair.
“Who had the vision?” Grace asked, sliding around her sisters who were crowding her office.
“Aunt Betty,” they all said at once.
“What did she see? What’s the verdict?”
Cara shared a look with Quinn and Harper with Becca. Grace could have heard a fairy’s wings flutter in the silence.
“Spill it,” Grace growled, placing a balled fist on her hip.
“Whatever you’re going to do, you need to cancel.” Cara clasped her fingers together in front of her.
“And never see him again,” Harper added.
“Ever,” Becca concurred.
This was the first time in her entire life the sisters had agreed, and with an amount of conviction that startled Grace. Would the sky fall? Would the heavens open and swallow them up whole? It couldn’t be that bad, right? “What about you, Quinn?”
Quinn had always been the more outspoken of Grace’s sister. She’d give her opinion whether the person wanted it or not. She’d been the reigning mayor of crazy town. If Quinn agreed with the others, that alone would have her second-guessing the arrangement.
“How hot was he?” Quinn asked, earning her a smack on the arm from Harper. “Oww.”
Grace lifted her brow and fought back the smile from her lips.
“Fine. I agree. There’s no way you’ll come out smelling like roses with Mr. Douche’s shady past. No matter how many times you partake in his supersized extra-large Italian sausage.”
Grace collapsed into her chair. “Well, crap.”
“Don’t worry, dear. We’ll take care of everything,” Cara announced as she left the room with her sisters in tow.
“Wait, what?” It took a minute for Cara’s words to register. Grace hurried around her desk to see her sisters getting on the elevator. She ran to stop them.
“Don’t worry.” Quinn had said those same famous last words the day three feet of detergent and bubbles covered the laundry room floor when she’d been teaching Grace how to clean dishes quicker in the washing machine.
The elevator doors slid closed in Grace’s face.
Oh, the horror. A shiver skirted down Grace’s spine.
With her luck, she’d end up married to the man, instead of out of the contract, when her sisters were done.
Grace hurried back into her office and killed the lights.
She grabbed a pair of the binoculars and glanced down at the street below where her sisters were crossing and headed straight toward the dating agency building.
“This isn’t happening.” She lifted the binoculars to Stone’s window, and her heartbeat sped. He was standing at his office window staring directly at hers. Could he feel the disturbance in the Force?
Grace didn’t lower the binoculars, and she didn’t hide behind the wall.
He couldn’t have paid her to look away from the tornado that was about to blow into his office.
No way would her sisters be corralled in the waiting room.
If Grace could only read lips. James Bond would have hidden a bug to listen in. Damn her spy skills.
The office door burst open behind him. Ninja lady was walking backward with her hands held out.
“Poor, poor woman. I’m going to have to send her a crate of wine to help her forget meeting my sisters.”
Sam watched in amusement as the rest of the Thatcher sisters waited for Grace to return.
Their surprise attack when Grace flipped on the light made him chuckle.
He’d stood at the window waiting to see if Grace would be like the rest and pick up a pair of binoculars.
He hadn’t had to wait long, just long enough for the rest of them to leave for her to give in.
Only her gaze wasn’t on him. He followed the direction of the binoculars to find the rest of the Thatcher women crossing the street.
He should have known nothing would be easy with Grace.
He met her gaze once more before his door opened and Iris was pleading with them to make an appointment. He spun around.
“It’s okay, Iris.”
Iris gave him a worried look, and he gave her a nod.
He hadn’t even waited until the door was shut before he spoke.
“All of the Thatcher Five in one day. I’m sure none of you married ladies are here for my services, so I assume this is either a social visit or you wanted to see if I’d give you a discount for signing Becca, your only other single sister. ”
The redhead, Quinn, pushed through the crowd with her big belly leading the way. Two of the women looked ready to go into labor. “We’re here to tell you to back off of our sister.”
“Is that right?” Sam asked and retook his seat.
“Hi, I’m Cara, and what Quinn meant was that Grace will no longer be needing your services, so whatever dates you may have arranged, you’ll have to cancel,” the blonde announced.
“I know all of your names.”
“Well, that’s great. We’ll be glad to pay out the remainder of her contract and reimburse you for your time,” Harper said.
He watched them all work in tandem. When one quit talking, the next started. When one offended, the other corrected. They were an interesting bunch, and yet all of them were dead set against Grace working with him. The question was why?
“I understand your concerns, but I’m afraid Grace is the only one who can decide to cancel her contract.”
“Oh well, if that’s all it takes. Then come on, girls, our work here is done,” Becca said, trying to pull the others from his office.
Sam rose from his seat. “If you don’t mind me asking, can you tell me why you don’t want your sister to find love?”
The others were already out the door. Only Quinn turned to hold his gaze. “Our sister will find love, without your contract and without you setting her up on dates. We can guarantee that.”
“How?”
“We’re psychic.” Quinn pressed her lips together in a pinched smile before she walked out.
Sam turned back to the window to find Grace still watching him with those ridiculous binoculars.
A wall full of men stood behind her, also with binoculars.
Two were big and beefy, and what the hell were they wearing?
Were those kilts? The two other men were just as big.
They must be the husbands of the four who had just left, and possibly a friend, considering Sam hadn’t heard that Becca was engaged, and Sam heard everything about his neighbors.
Those guys sure did have their hands full. Laughter erupted from his lips.