Page 89 of Love’s Silver Bullet

Grace threw her arms around her brother, her face aglow as she gave him a big hug. “I still can’t believe you’re here, Gray,” she said with a sheen of moisture in her eyes.

Finn masked his shock when the dandy’s eyes misted, too, before they closed in a clearly affectionate embrace. His voice lowered to a gruff whisper. “I was going crazy missing you and Sher, sis, so I had to come.”

Sheridan shifted to face Gray, her knees touching his leg while she laid a hand on his arm, causing Finn to hike a brow. “Wait—how did your competitions go?” she asked in a breathless voice.

“Competitions?” Finn’s voice was brusque, a competition of his own going on between Jake and him as to whose jaw was grinding more.

Sheridan glanced up with a bright smile beaming so much, the dandy could have been her brother instead of Grace’s. Finn’s teeth milled tighter.

Or her beau.

“Gray is the captain of Columbia University’s rowing team,” she announced with enough pride in her eyes to blind all the men on Finn’s side of the room. She turned back to shake the dandy’s arm. “So, how did they go?”

The dandy squeezed Sheridan’s waist, adding another pulsing nerve to both Finn’s face and Jake’s. “Took first place in the single sculls division, Sher, so you and Grace must have been saying those prayers you promised—”

“Columbia University,” Jake interrupted coolly, “that’s in New York City, I believe.” His hands pinched white on the back of the dining room chair he’d sat in earlier. “That’s a fair piece from Poughkeepsie, as I recall. So I guess you don’t get to see Grace as much as you like.”

“Oh no, it’s just a two-hour drive,” Grace volunteered with a smile as glowing as Sheridan’s, as if to relieve Jake’s concern. “Gray comes to Poughkeepsie every weekend or we go there, so we’re always together, which is why Sher and I missed him so much.”

“And I, them,” Gray said with another intimate squeeze of both his sister’s waist and Sher’s, getting on Finn’s last nerve.

“Sheridan.” Finn’s tone was terse as he stared his niece down, determined to tackle this problem point blank. Like I’d like to do with the dandy. “This young man claims he wants to marry you, darlin’. You mind telling me what that’s all about?”

The silence was deafening as four sets of male eyes cauterized his niece while the females on the other side of the room merely gaped in shock.

Hand to her mouth, Sheridan blinked several times as her cheeks bruised bright pink, gaze connecting with Grace’s while the dandy just sat there, grinning like a fool.

And then in a spate of giggles that seemed to infect all the females in the room, Sheridan and Grace burst into laughter that Finn didn’t find one bit funny.

Swiping at the tears in her eyes, Sheridan shook her head while she patted Gray’s arm with a look of affection. “Gray and I are good friends like Grace and I are, Uncle Finn, with barely any difference.”

Jake’s low grunt matched Finn’s silent one to a T. Maybe to you, darlin’, but not according to the lecherous look in that dandy’s eye. Finn’s mouth compressed as he suddenly thought of his sister, Peg. Like a lamb to the slaughter.

Grace tweaked the back of her brother’s neck with a giggle. “She’s right, Mr. McShane. I’m afraid my brother tends to be a bit of a tease and a flirt, so he likes to stir the pot with comments like that, but I promise you, Sher and he are dear friends and nothing more.”

“Where are your bags, Gray?” Libby intervened quickly, a flick of warning in her eyes to Finn before she lavished a warm smile on Grace’s brother.

The smile Gray returned to Libby was as warm as the one he’d given his sister, not a trace of the dandy to be found. “At the Gold Hill Hotel, Mrs. McShane, where I intend to stay for the week until we head back East again.”

“Absolutely not,” Libby said with a firm lift of her chin, straining Finn’s jaw all the more. “You are Grace’s brother and Sheridan’s good friend, so that makes you our friend, too. And a guest in our home.” She turned to grill Finn with a determined look. “Isn’t that right, Finn?”

Finn’s lips fused tighter than a tick on a dog.

“Finn?” Libby waited with a lift of her brow. Blue blazes, they were all waiting, and the count was 50/50 on which way they wanted him to go.

Expelling a noisy breath, Finn scorched the dandy within an inch of his life. “Certainly, Mr. Carmody, our home is your home, so by all means, go collect your things. We’ll have a room waiting when you come back, where you can settle in nice and close, to keep an eye on your sister.” His smile was a silent threat.

While I keep an eye on you.

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

Thunderation, Grace, where are you?? Sheridan paced back and forth in her bedroom, nightgown flaring with every pass as she bit the last of her pinky nail clean off. Halting midway, she closed her eyes to relive the scene in the parlour, when Uncle Finn had jolted everyone in the room with his bombshell question.

“This young man claims he wants to marry you, darlin’. You mind telling me what that’s all about?”

A low groan scraped from Sheridan’s throat as she continued on, rambling back and forth while she went to work on her second pinky with a vengeance. What on earth had prompted Gray to say such a thing?

Yes, he teased Sheridan like that all the time in New York, but she was used to it, merely dismissing it as his usual flirty, but lovable self. A man who despite his roguish and devil-may-care manner, truly loved and protected his sister at every turn, and now Sheridan too.