Raven’s haughty gaze lanced Toby. “Grant’s not your daddy, kid. Why don’t you bother somebody else?”
Breath hissed through Jami’s teeth. Nobody talked to her son that way. She felt like flattening the ebony-haired vamp. Hands closed into fists and chin high, Jami marched forward.
“Toby’s no bother,” Grant said, reaching down with one hand to boost the boy upon his broad shoulders, a split-second before she showed the offensive woman what happened to someone who insulted her cub. “We’re buddies. Aren’t we, partner?”
“Yeah, buddies,” Toby proudly agreed, hands clinging to Grant’s head and short legs dangling. “Let’s go tell Homer, now.”
“We’ll do even better than tell him—we’ll show Homer your fish.” Left hand steadying Toby, Grant’s right hand waved the ice cooler. He winked at both women, then strode through the hallway. “Hang on, Partner.”
Jami swallowed a lump in her throat. The man might be a bachelor, but he also proved to be a natural-born daddy. Confused, she plowed fingers through her wind-tousled hair. For the moment, Grant had stepped out of the womanizer mold she’d placed him in. That fact unnerved her.
She listened to Toby’s giggles drifting through the hallway as Raven’s venomous gaze met hers. Jami smiled in triumph. Score one for Toby and a big zero for the man-eater.
Ten minutes later, Becca commandeered the fish-packed cooler, shooing Grant and the boy out of her kitchen after they had swapped fish stories with Homer. “You caught enough trout to feed you guys and the family. I’ll cook them for supper.”
“I’m eating with you, right?” Toby asked, watching her nod. “But the lodge guests don’t get any of our fish. Just us and Mom, huh?”
“You bet, Toby.” Becca slung a dishtowel over her shoulder. “We’ll eat early, before I need to feed the lodge guests, so be back here by six, or I’ll eat your prize trout myself.”
Grant chuckled, guiding Toby by the shoulders through the kitchen doorway. “Your mom probably wonders what happened to us. Let’s get back to the suite. Pronto.”
“It’s fun talking to Homer,” Toby stated as they climbed the curved stairway, his hand trailing along the smooth banister.
“I agree.”
“I don’t know many old people.”
“You probably do if you think about it.”
“Well, Mrs. Porter who watches me after school is sort of old. She can’t catch me ‘cause of her aching bones.” His freckled face lit and he snapped his fingers. “I know somebody as old as Homer and Nell—Mrs. Willoby who lives in the big house on the corner.” Toby skipped ahead up to the top of the stairs, then turned to face Grant and, for a moment, the boy stood eye to eye with the man. “She has a dozen cats and they’re mostly broken.”
“Broken cats?” Grant queried, unsure of the child’s meaning.
“Yeah,” Toby earnestly replied, “I heard Mom say that it was a shame Mrs. Willoby never had her cats fixed.”
Grant laughed, tousling the youngster’s hair. Toby again fell in step, and they traipsed along the hallway together. Kids were refreshing devils. In fact, Toby’s high spirits and antics had sent Grant and Jami into peals of laughter during their boating trip. Jami had good-naturedly allowed Grant to give them both fishing lessons, but showed no interest or aptitude in wielding a pole. While Toby tried his hand at fishing, Jami and Grant had discussed their common love of jazz, football, and old musicals. He smiled. They had more in common than he’d imagined.
He opened the suite door, followed by Toby. Something zinged through the air. Whack! Grant batted it away, sending the object clattering to the floor. A partially open Saks department store box, white tissue paper, and aqua silk spilled out onto the carpet. “What the...?”
“Think you can buy me?” Jami hissed, sailing toward him with fight taut in every inch of her. “Give your expensive gifts to gullible females.”
She snagged the box off the floor and flung it at Grant again, this time catching him on the jaw.
“Ouch!” Grant rubbed his chin.
“If a man wants something from a woman, he thinks he can just buy her. Well, Mr. Lady-killer Carrington, you can’t buy me.”
“Mom?” Toby stood with his mouth dropped open.
Jami took hold of her son’s arm and towed him through their bedroom doorway, slamming the door behind them.
Dazed, Grant automatically gathered up the damaged box, strewn tissue paper and rejected dress. Shaken by Jami’s reaction, he carefully refolded the sexy aquamarine silk cocktail gown he’d ordered to be delivered to her