Page 88 of A Beach House Beginning

“Oh, yes,” Ellen answered, apparently oblivious to the frustration seething under Christa’s skin.

“I’m sure you don’t mind,” her mother went on blithely, “but I’ve invited him to have dinner with us.”

So much for any ideas she might have briefly entertained on the short drive home about spending a quiet evening at home with her mother and daughter. Any pleasure she had found in the lovely spring evening seemed to float away on the breeze.

Her mouth tightened. What was his game? She had quite firmly rejected him the other day. Given that, why on earth would any man still want to hang around with her and her sixty-year-old mother and her brain-injured teenager?

She wanted to tell him to go back to his starlets and his sultry country music stars and leave her and her little family alone. But of course she couldn’t. This was her mother’s house, and Ellen could invite anyone she darn well pleased to dinner.

“Lovely,” Christa murmured instead.

He sent her a swift look as he helped Hope back into her wheelchair, and she could swear she saw him wink, as if he knew exactly the dire thoughts racing through her mind.

She was angry.

All through Ellen’s mouthwatering pot roast and creamy mashed potatoes, she concealed it. She was polite to him as she passed the peas or another roll and she even smiled a few times, usually at her daughter but sometimes at Ellen and even once at something he said.

She was cordial and good-humored, but underneath it he sensed the slow burn of her temper, just waiting to flare.

She said nothing through the delectable dessert Ellen produced—a crunchy, golden-crusted peach cobbler that would have brought a lesser man to tears, served with vanilla ice cream.

He finished every scrap on his plate and would have licked it clean if his grandmother hadn’t raised him better. Christa, on the other hand, barely touched hers.

When they all finished, she rose from the table and started clearing away dishes.

“I can get these,” Ellen said. “Just relax. You’ve been working at the store all day.”

“And you’ve been working here all day, which is every bit as hard. You’re the one who needs a rest.”

“Youbothrest. I’ll clean up,” Hope interjected with her labored speech before the argument could turn heated.

Both women smiled and Christa hugged her daughter’s shoulders. Jace swallowed a lump in his throat at the obvious affection between the three of them.

“Why don’t we all do it?” he suggested. “Junemarie used to say something about many hands making light work.”

“Good idea,” Ellen said.

The four of them quickly cleared the dishes away and loaded them into the dishwasher.

When they finished, Christa wiped her hands on a dish towel. “I need to go feed the horses,” she said.

“Oh, we should have taken care of that when we were down there,” Ellen said, apology in her eyes. “You’ve been doing the chore for so long I don’t even think about it anymore.”

“It’s no big deal. It won’t take me long.”

Jace stood. “I’ll come with you.”

A small, tight smile crossed her lovely features. “That’s really not necessary.”

“Many hands make light work, remember?”

She studied him for a long moment, then she shrugged. “Fine. Come on, then.”

She had been simmering all through dinner, and he figured it was almost time for her temper to blow. As he was the cause of it, the least he could do was step up and take the sharp edge of her tongue like a man—especially since he knew damn well he deserved it.

They walked in silence until they reached the small, well-kept horse pasture. The Arabians were beautiful, high-spirited animals and they sniffed the air when Christa and Jace approached.

She murmured in a low voice to both of them, and without hesitation both horses trotted to the fence and nudged at her with affection, much as they had done earlier with Hope.

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