bedroom looking just as relaxed as Colin. “Someone got a tan,” Grace told her.
Parker lifted her arms and looked at them. “I almost feel guilty,” she said.
“I don’t,” Colin teased.
Parker blushed and came in for a hug. “We had the best time.”
“I don’t want to hear about your sex life.” Grace’s comment pulled a chuckle out of her mother.
“I can get away Friday afternoon for that issue you have on Sierra Highway,” Colin told her.
“Around three?”
“Works for me.”
The front door opened again, and she heard Matt and Erin walk in.
“Looks like the party started without us,” Matt said before kissing their mom on the cheek.
Grace handed her brother the bottle of wine. “Not unless you open this,” she told him.
Matt grinned. “Hello to you, too.”
“Where’s Austin?” Erin asked.
Parker’s younger brother still lived with her . . . and now Colin. Parker had been responsible for taking care of him and her younger sister after their parents died a few years back.
“Working the Christmas tree lot again this year.”
Grace’s gaze moved to the tree in the den that flashed with colored lights and brightened up the room. “When did you guys have time to do that?” she asked.
“We didn’t. Austin and Mallory put it up while we were gone. Wasn’t that sweet?”
Matt had worked the cork free of the bottle and poured some for Grace.
“My siblings never put up a tree for me,” she complained.
“Where would we put it? Your patio?” Colin asked.
“He has a point,” their father said. He’d given up the rope to the dog and sat on one of the barstools at the kitchen island.
Colin handed out beers to his dad and brother, and Matt opened a bottle of white for Erin.
“Is Mallory coming?” Erin asked.
“She has finals.”
Grace had been in Parker’s kitchen enough to find what she needed to make the salad. As they all danced around the kitchen preparing dinner, the conversation swirled.
Out of nowhere, Colin asked, “So who is Dameon?”
Hearing his name brought Grace’s attention away from what she was slicing. “Uhm . . .”
“How do you know about Dameon?” Erin asked. “You told him about Dameon?”
“No, I—”
“I don’t know about a Dameon.” Parker pushed her shoulder into Grace’s arm.
“You’ve been in Maui,” Grace reminded her.
Colin reached over Grace’s shoulder and snagged a tomato. “If Erin knows about Dameon, he must be someone.”
“He’s not!”
“Instant denial is always a sign of a lie,” her father chimed in.
“Give it up, Gracie . . . who is he?” her mom asked.
“Oh my God. Seriously, he’s no one.” Her family was like a dog with a bone.
Silence ensued and all the eyes were on her.
She set the knife down with a sigh. “He’s a guy.”
“We figured that,” Colin said with a laugh.
“A client. He’s a land developer . . .”
Still the room was silent.
Then Erin spoke up. “Who called you from Facebook.”
Now the room started to buzz.
“He did what?”
“Can you do that?”
“Who calls someone from Facebook?”
The questions came so fast she couldn’t answer them all. Instead she stared at Erin. “Thanks, friend.”
Erin lifted her hands in the air. “Hey, I think he’s a stalker.”
That’s all anyone needed to hear.
Everyone started talking at once.
Grace stood back and took a big drink of wine.
It wasn’t until her father asked for Dameon’s last name that Grace ended the conversation. “Enough,” she shouted.
Even Scout stopped licking himself and turned to stare.
“Dameon is not a stalker.” She put her wineglass down. “He is a guy I met completely by accident before I knew he was a land developer and showed up at the office. And before you ask . . . no, nothing happened. We met in a coffee shop.”
“And at the wedding,” Erin corrected her.
“He was at the hotel, not the wedding. And we didn’t meet then. We just . . .” She stopped talking, knowing what she was about to say would get everyone going again.
“You just what?” her mom asked.
“Noticed each other.”
Parker sighed and leaned against the counter, all smiles. “You mean like across the crowded room noticed?”
In that second, Grace remembered him standing inside the hotel watching her.
“Someone is blushing,” Matt teased.
“Am not!” She looked at Erin.
Erin shrugged her shoulders and nodded.
Grace put the back of her hand to her warm cheek. “It’s nothing, okay? He’s a flirt.” She picked up the knife again and started working. “Not to mention it’s completely inappropriate. He’s working with the city on permits and zoning changes for his massive project. It’s a conflict of interest.”