the woman was prickly.
The waitress nodded, promised to bring their drinks right away, and then escaped, looking quite happy to get far, far away from them.
Wyatt sat back in his chair, trying to look relaxed and in perfect control of the spitfire that was Jane. “So, as I said before, my uncle’s attitude toward women is inexcusable. Outdated, sexist, arrogant, immature. I realize that. I freely admit it and apologize sincerely for it.”
Jane gave him an odd look, hopefully discarding the next three insults she had planned to hurl at him over Leo’s behavior.
Good. They were getting somewhere.
“If there was anything I could do to change the way he behaves, believe me, I would have done it years ago. It’s caused him and me enormous amounts of trouble and grief. But I fear, at eighty-six—”
“Eighty-six? He told Gram he was only eighty-one.”
“Well, he’s not,” Wyatt went on. “Honestly, a woman can’t believe a word that man says, and unfortunately, I simply cannot change him. I’ve tried. So, at this point, all I can do is be completely up front about…how he is…and hope that saves women like your grandmother and great-aunt from being hurt by him.”
“That’s it? That’s your solution?”
Wyatt shrugged, trying to look both reasonable and helpless at the same time. “I don’t know what else to do. He’s a grown man. I have virtually no control over him. Any more than you can control your grandmother—”
“My grandmother’s not the one running around with two different people at the same time.”
Wyatt could only pray it was merely two women for Leo at the moment.
“I was just hoping,” he explained quietly, “that your grandmother might be more…reasonable…to deal with than my uncle. That once we explain to her…the way he is…”
“You want to tell her that he’s a complete cad and a liar?” Jane asked.
“Better than her finding out on her own. And, actually, I thought you might tell her. That the news might be easier coming from you. But if you think it should come from me, of course, I’ll do it.”
Jane’s mouth fell open, literally.
The waitress returned with their drinks. Jane didn’t touch hers. Wyatt downed his in one long gulp.
“Another, please?” he asked the waitress before she left.
Jane leaned toward him, whispering urgently, “My grandmother thinks she’s in love with him!”
Wyatt sighed, feeling a headache coming on. “He’s only been there a week.”
“I know. It’s ridiculous, I admit, but she does! What in the world does he do to these women?”
Wyatt could only shake his head in wonder. He refrained from saying that surely any woman who could believe she was in love in a week’s time was, perhaps, just asking to get hurt.
He wouldn’t dare say that to Jane.
She sat back in her chair, looking sad and worried. “You have to understand, my grandmother has never been in love before. She’s had men, of course. She’s a beautiful woman.
Been married a number of times, and been genuinely happy for a time with a man, but she’s never claimed to be in love. She doesn’t even believe in love, as far as I know.”
“So what the devil happened between the two of them?”
“I have no idea.”
Jane sat back in her chair, taking a sip of her wine spritzer. What could this man possibly find offensive about a white wine spritzer?
But on the topic of Leo, she had to concede to herself at least, that for a man, Wyatt Gray was being exceedingly reasonable, much as she hated admitting it.
He had acknowledged his uncle’s bad behavior and didn’t really try to make excuses, merely admitting he was incapable of controlling the man. Jane had tried for decades to change Gram and Gladdy’s attitudes toward life in general and men in particular without much success. Except for getting control of their finances. So she had to empathize with Wyatt’s own troubles where his uncle was concerned.
“What about Gladdy?” Wyatt asked finally. “She doesn’t think she’s in love with Leo, does she?”
“I have no idea. I couldn’t believe they were holding hands under the table. It’s like something twelve-year-olds would do.”
Jane felt awful remembering that soft, warm glow on Gladdy’s face. She’d looked delighted with their intimate dinner at first, and Jane had simply thought Gladdy was happy for Gram, silly as that would be, because Gladdy didn’t believe in love any more than Gram did.
“They’ve never fought over a man before,” Jane confided. “And they grew up together, moved into their first apartment together and have lived together off and on ever since. The thought of a man coming between them is unthinkable.”
And yet, Jane had seen with her very own eyes the way Gladdy looked at Leo and Leo looked at her. And Gram!
That little weasel of an eighty-six-year-old man!
“I suppose we could start by talking to Gladdy,” Wyatt offered. “Appeal to her sense of friendship and devotion to your grandmother, and at the same time, tell her the sad, hard truth about Leo. That might, at least, keep him from coming between the two women.”
Jane nodded sadly. “It would be a start.”
“Just tell me what you want, Jane. I’ll do whatever you think would be best. If you want me to talk to Gladdy, I will. I’ll be unmerciful in explaining Leo’s lifelong habits with women.”
“Short of hog-tying your uncle to his bed and locking him in his room—”
“Believe me, I’ve wished I could.”
Which actually had Jane smiling a bit.
Wyatt Gray was a reasonable man, and Jane had found that so few men were. She regretted how things had started out between them.
“I’m sorry if I behaved badly toward you at first,” she said, because a polite, well-bred, empowered woman always acknowledged her own unfair treatment of others and apologized. “Gram and Gladdy…Well, I just adore them both, and looking out for them hasn’t always been easy, but believe me, they need someone to look out for them and I try my best.”
Wyatt gave her a reassuring smile and let one of his hands settle softly over hers on the table between them. “I’m sure you do your absolute best for everyone you care about.”
Which was just so nice of him.
People sometimes thought Jane could be overzealous and maybe even a bit aggressive in her attempts to take care of others, when she truly never wanted to do anything but help. Women could just be so mixed up about some things, have such wrong ideas, and she felt it was her calling to straighten them out, to educate them, to help extricate them from the troubles they found themselves in. It wasn’t a job to Jane. It was her calling, her mission in life.
“That’s incredibly kind and generous of you,” she admitted. “Especially when I yelled at you at first.”
“It’s completely forgotten,” he promised, smiling once again.
She could see a bit of Leo in him when he smiled like that. The dangerous charm, that wicked twinkle in his eye. Not that he was flirting with her or anything like that. He’d been perfectly respectful during their exchange. Some men thought flirting was as natural and expected as breathing in any exchange between the sexes, even the most businesslike. Something of which Jane naturally disapproved.
But Wyatt hadn’t been like that at all.
Still, the dangerous