was cute, really, if a man liked that sort of thing, though he was certain that was not the look she was going for.
His mouth twitched, amusement warring with the need not to offend her or to show any undo interest. After all, she already thought Leo was an awful flirt. Wyatt didn’t want her to think all the Gray men were like that.
“Well, it was lovely to meet you all,” Wyatt said. “I won’t keep you from your dinner. Leo, just don’t forget what we talked about, okay?”
“Wyatt, you’re not staying for dinner?” Kathleen asked.
“Oh, honey, it’s my fault,” Leo said. “I didn’t know he was coming by today, and I didn’t call in time to make a reservation for him.”
Wyatt hadn’t been here for dinner yet. He usually took Leo out to a restaurant nearby. But he knew guests were welcome, for a slight meal fee and with a few hours’ notice, to make sure there was enough for everyone in the cottage who wanted to eat that evening.
“Sorry, ladies. Another time,” he responded, thinking how happy he was to escape this little group.
“Oh, you’re welcome to stay,” Amy piped up from the kitchen. “We have a resident who has a sore throat and just told me that she wasn’t coming to dinner tonight. So there’s plenty.”
Wyatt tried to keep the pained expression from his face, knowing it might be smart to stay and see firsthand what the problem was, maybe even talk to Leo’s new lady himself and set her straight about Leo’s abysmal record with women, much as he dreaded the idea.
“Well, in that case, I’d be happy to join you,” he said.
Leo held out a chair for Kathleen, and Wyatt did the same for Gladdy, then hesitated over doing so for Jane, feeling she would see it as an insult to her abilities to pull out her own chair, rather than plain, old-fashioned manners.
He played it safe and stood back, indicating that she should take her choice of seats, the one next to Gladdy or Kathleen. Leo, of course, seated himself between the two women at the small, round table. Jane picked the seat next to Gladdy, leaving Wyatt the one next to Kathleen.
Everything was fine for a while. The food was actually outstanding. He joined the others in heaping praise on the very young-looking girl who had made and served the meal.
Amy, a bit flustered by the attention, fumbled the fork on his empty plate as she removed it, and Wyatt and Jane both hurried to bend over and pick it up.
And that’s when Wyatt—and unfortunately Jane—saw it.
They already knew Leo was leaning comfortably toward Kathleen, his arm stretched across the back of her chair, his hand cupping her far shoulder. But now that they’d bent over to pick up the fork, they could see he was also holding hands under the table with Gladdy! He pulled his hand away when they bent over, but not quickly enough.
Jane gave an outraged huff, her mouth falling open, eyes shooting sparks at Wyatt under the table. Wyatt, hoping he looked properly shocked to Jane, picked up the fork and slowly straightened.
He handed the lost fork to Amy, then got another zinging look from Jane. Gladdy, he noted, had the grace to blush and carefully bring both her hands to the top of the table, clasping them together almost in a prayer-like motion.
Begging them not to tell?
Leo, the idiot, looked relaxed as could be, and Kathleen perhaps a bit confused, but smiling all the same in that lovely way of hers.
Wyatt wiped his mouth with his cloth napkin and as unobtrusively as possible, leaned toward Jane and whispered, “Meet me at that bar across the street after this? We need to talk.”
Her seething look said, Yes, we certainly do.
Chapter Three
“What in the world is wrong with that man?” Jane demanded, upon entering the bar, not even bothering to sit down.
Wyatt had selected a table in the far corner, wanting privacy and anticipating that this conversation might get loud at some point. Not thinking she’d walk in and stand there, all puffed up and mad, trying to glare down at him. A ridiculous attempt, given how tiny the woman was.
Even sitting down, he could very nearly look her in the eye.
And she was really adorable when she was spitting fire like that. Not that Wyatt would dare tell her. She already had a terrible opinion of the men in his family.
“Is he demented in some way that isn’t quite obvious to a person untrained in geriatric medicine?” Jane asked, hands on her hips, still filled with anger.
“Unfortunately not,” Wyatt told her.
“Unfortunately?” She enunciated each syllable like he might be demented himself and didn’t quite understand the big word.
“Yes. If he was actually impaired in some way, he’d have some excuse for his behavior,” Wyatt admitted. “Jane, I’m very sorry, but there’s simply no excuse. It’s just the way he is. Always has been. He’s like a kid in a candy store where women are concerned.”
He had her agreeing with him for a minute, maybe even sympathizing, and then she started seething again.
“Kid in a candy store? Like women are all laid out in a row, his for the taking, waiting for him to pick which one he wants?”
“Unfortunately, yes. He’s just that…“ Wyatt would have said confident, but stopped himself. He thought she might have hit him, if he had. “Look, I know it’s…offensive, especially to someone like you—”
“Someone like me?” She practically spit the words at him.
“A modern woman,” he said, trying desperately to save himself now. “An enlightened woman. A strong, successful, extremely capable woman.”
Who doesn’t think she needs a man for anything at all. He got it. He understood her perfectly, he believed. Oh, yes, he did, because his last words placated her a bit.
“Look, the man was born in a different era. He was raised to see women and relationships differently than we do today,” Wyatt tried, not about to explain that his father, twenty years Leo’s junior, thought of women the same way and that he’d been raised much in the woman-as-candy-in-a-store philosophy, too.
“That’s really no excuse for his behavior,” Jane said, not quite as militant-sounding as before.
“I know. Believe me, I do, and I’m sorry.” Wyatt dared to pull out the seat next to him and offer it to her. “Jane, please, sit down. Let’s talk about this. Let me get you a drink. God knows, I need one after dealing with Uncle Leo.”
She looked a bit miffed, like she’d been winding up for a really great fight or a rant on women’s rights, and he was depriving her of that opportunity by agreeing with her and apologizing. It was one of Wyatt’s greatest weapons—being able to soothe outraged females. He was a master at work right now, even if he did say so himself, much like Leo in that gigantic candy store of women.
Jane sat, still looking as if she didn’t trust him a bit, but not foaming at the mouth or anything. With Jane, he decided, that was progress.
He motioned for the waitress who’d been hovering a few feet away, figuring out if they were really going to start a fight at the bar and how she might handle it. She came to the table, looking a bit nervous but calming down as Jane stayed silent.
At his quiet question about her drink preference, Jane looked a bit sheepishly at the waitress and murmured, “White wine spritzer, please.”
Wyatt tried to contain a grimace at the idea of wanting to dilute good wine with anything, at the idea of such a sissy, girly drink. Jane didn’t seem girly at all. Maybe she didn’t approve of really drinking. She was prim and buttoned-up after all.
“You’re going to make fun