Grady's Wedding by Patricia McLinn Page B

monosyllables. As thickening traffic required more of his attention, Michael stopped carrying the conversational ball, and it dropped with a thud.
    Grady preferred it that way. He’d had enough of talk in the past twelve hours. First, that exchange with Leslie last night. And this morning, Paul.
    They’d been alone in the kitchen, drinking the strong black coffee they’d needed to revive on many a morning during college. The only hangover this time, though, was from a night of tossing and turning.
    “Leslie Craig’s a very nice woman,” Paul had started.
    “Yeah,” he’d said, wondering where this was going.
    “Glad you agree. You know, Grady, I’ve never known you to deliberately hurt anybody. Oh, sure, you’ve hurt people—by accident, from misreading them, from honest thoughtlessness. I guess we all do that sometimes. But never when you realized that what you were doing could hurt somebody, and especially never somebody nice.”
    Then the man who had been his friend since they were boys clapped him on the shoulder and walked out of the kitchen, leaving Grady feeling as if he’d been blindsided.
    “Let’s drop Leslie off first.”
    Tris’s suggestion—an order really—brought Grady’s attention back to the present. He didn’t know the area well, but he knew that dropping off Leslie, then him before Michael and Tris returned home, would be a roundabout route.
    But no one protested. Leslie wasn’t transparent enough to look openly relieved when they pulled up in front of her small apartment building, but the tense line of her shoulders eased.
    “Thanks for the weekend, it was wonderful.” She addressed the car at large. Michael got out to retrieve her bag from the trunk, and Grady started to follow. “No, please don’t get out.” Their eyes met an instant. “There’s no need. Goodbye, Grady, good luck with your business. Tris, I’ll see you in the office tomorrow. Thanks again.
    The door closed. He heard her exchange goodbyes with Michael, then she was gone.
    Michael turned into the hotel’s driveway. But before Grady could put his hand on the door handle or marshal words of cheerful farewell, Tris slued around to face him.
    “Grady, stop trying to seduce Leslie.”
    Her distrust was like a slap; the unfairness only added to the sting. He could have tried to seduce Leslie—and probably succeeded—but he had released her. And later, when some sense they didn’t have a number for had told him her resistance was weakening, he had warned her to run back to her room.
    He said none of this. He stared at the woman who’d been his friend, who’d once idolized him, and said nothing.
    “How can you do this, Grady. Another piece of the Grady Roberts legend? You don’t need more notches. What are you trying to accomplish? When I introduced you two last fall, I was so happy that two people I love seemed to get along. But now . . . This isn’t right, Grady.”
    “It’s none of your business, Tris.”
    “Yes, it is my business because Leslie’s my friend. And if it weren’t for me, you never would have met her. You never would have made her a target for one of your all-out campaigns. The flowers and candy and wine— No, she didn’t tell me. She probably thinks I don’t know. But I do. And even if I didn’t I saw you at the reception and this weekend. Remember, Grady, I’ve been around you a long time. I know the signs. And I won’t stand by and watch you treat her the way you always treat the women you date.”
    He said nothing, afraid of what he would say if he started.
    “Why can’t you just leave her alone?”
    He shifted but still said nothing.
    “Grady, you’ve always been careful to try to pick women who won’t be hurt when you leave, but Leslie’s not like that.”
    “I know that.”
    “Then how can you do this to her? How can you go after her like any other woman?”
    “It’s different.”
    “Different? How? It looks like a standard Grady operation to me, except Leslie’s