first person in Temptation to lend credence to his mother’s words.
“Well, aren’t you a sight for these sore old eyes,” a woman said. “You and that spicy little car you’re driving.”
She’d walked right up to him and now had a hand resting on his arm. Her perfectly coiffed dark brown hair was streaked with what looked like bronze in the front. Wrapped around her shoulders was some sort of black cape and she wore a festive red scarf.
“Good evening,” Gray finally said, remembering once again how everyone in small towns thought they knew everybody else.
They’d all thought they knew how good a father and husband Theodor Taylor was, until the day he’d up and left his family in that big old house on Peach Tree Lane. So had Gray’s mother, Olivia, and his siblings. That had been the moment of truth for Gray, one he would never forget, no matter how many years had passed, or how far away he managed to get from this town.
“You look awfully familiar,” she said, squinting her eyes and moving in closer.
Her perfume was strong and her fingers clenched his arm a little tighter as if she thought the contact might jog her memory. For as much as Gray would like to have gone unnoticed a little while longer, he knew his presence would be made known eventually. Especially after he’d already introduced himself to the pretty woman at the community center last night.
“I’m Grayson Taylor and I’m just heading into the diner to have dinner,” he told her.
“My word, Grayson Taylor,” she said, a smile spreading instantly across her face. “The last time I saw you I don’t think you came past here.”
Here was the level near her thigh that she’d shown with a motion of her hand.
“How old were you then? Six or seven? That’s when Olivia packed up and shuffled you poor children out of your home in the dark of night.” She was shaking her head as she talked. “Shame the way she did that. You should have been allowed to grow up in your home, around the people that loved and cared about you all.”
What she really meant was the people that loved all the revenue that the reality show his family had starred in brought to the town. The birth of the sextuplets had come at a time when Temptation was struggling to use its historic background to bring tourists and, subsequently, money into the town. The show had been a savior for the town, but a death sentence to his parents’ marriage.
“I was seven years old back then, ma’am, and I really am hungry, so if you’ll please excuse me,” he said and attempted to walk away.
“Oh, don’t go in there. Pearl doesn’t work on Sundays. Her daughter, Gail, does, but she’s not as good a cook as her mama. You come on over to the hospital with me. They’re having their annual charity ball and that food will be catered. Hopefully, it’ll be better than Gail’s since I know they paid this fancy new chef a ton of money.”
She looped her arm around his and had started walking them across the street before Gray could accept or decline her offer.
“Ma’am, I’d rather not intrude,” he began after a couple of steps.
“You can drop the ma’am and call me Millie. Millie Randall, that’s what everybody around here calls me. And you’re not intruding. We heard your daddy died a couple months back, poor fella. And with a young lady in his bed. At least that’s what we heard.” Millie whispered those last sentences.
She shook her head and continued before Gray could interject.
“So I suspect you’re here about his properties. The hospital is one of them, so you might as well come on inside and see what you own.”
First, Gray wasn’t certain why the whispering was necessary, since they were the only two people outside at the moment. Second, her assumptions about his father’s death were wrong and totally inappropriate, but still, he tried to keep his irritation under control.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Randall,” he said because he’d already noted the gigantic diamond on her ring finger and he recalled Morgan mentioning her name last night. “I really don’t think this is a good idea. I have other business to take care of.”
“Always in a rush,” Millie said with a shake of her head. She took two steps away from Gray and then turned back. “You get that from your mother. Olivia was always trying to move faster than she should have. Running to those fancy doctors and using all that money to produce that ungodly pregnancy.”
“Wait a minute,” Gray said, finally fed up with this woman and her comments.
He didn’t give a damn who she was or where she worked. As he’d told Gemma earlier, he didn’t need anyone in this town to show him the buildings he owned. He was simply trying to honor his mother’s memory by coming back here and doing business as civilly as he could. That didn’t mean he had to deal with any of this petty, small-town BS in the process.
“I’m here to handle current business, not to rehash the past,” he told her curtly.
It was the best he could do, especially since instinct and habit were telling him to defend his mother and put this busybody in her place.
“Well, that’s fine,” she snapped and continued walking toward the building. “But we don’t rush around in Temptation. It’s not our way, so you’ll just have to get used to that.”
Gray frowned as he reluctantly walked behind her. He didn’t want to get used to anything in Temptation.
“You’re just not used to being close to men anymore,” Wendy said as she zipped the back of Morgan’s dress.
Morgan turned away from the full-length mirror and closed the closet door it hung on. “I don’t have a problem being around men, I just don’t like arrogant and snobbish men,” she replied.
After stewing about the issue all night she’d finally broken down and told Wendy about meeting Grayson Taylor last night. Lily and Jack were staying with her grandmother tonight, while she attended the annual holiday charity banquet at the hospital with Wendy. The event was to benefit the Widows and Orphans Fund, which had been started years ago by an anonymous mother who at one point had lost everything, but then came into a huge sum of money and wanted to give back. No one in town had ever seen this woman in person, but they’d accepted the money and agreed to continue the efforts, using each year’s proceeds to help support single mothers with young children.
Wendy had worked at the hospital for the past five years. So Morgan had been attending this event before becoming a widow herself. She’d always believed in its purpose, and now, being a single parent, she knew firsthand how important it was to have assistance. In her corner were Granny and Wendy. Her parents had been gone since Morgan was a sophomore in high school, when her father received a job offer in Australia.
“I hear he’s sexy as hell,” Wendy continued.
She was standing near Morgan’s dresser now, fluffing her loose curls. Her older sister was gorgeous, from her five-seven height to the generous curves she’d been blessed with and the bubbly personality that had landed her as captain of the cheerleading squad in high school. They shared the
