Grady's Wedding Read Online Free PDF Page A

for Tris and Michael in adjusting to their new relationship, but that was past—as Tris’s face clearly showed at the moment.
    “I know, Tris. I know exactly what you mean.”
    “And I really just started to appreciate what a great guy Grady is in the past few months. Maybe I’m seeing him better now or maybe he’s more relaxed with me because I’m not starry-eyed around him. Whatever it is, I see the good things in him, the real good things in him, not just his looks and his charm, but his loyalty and his kind heart and his caring for—”
    "You sound like the man’s press agent,” Leslie murmured.
    Tris frowned without pausing. “—his friends. With his friends he’s terrific. But when it comes to the women he dates . . . I’ve seen him, Leslie, time and time again. I know he doesn’t mean to hurt anyone, and most times he doesn’t because he picks women who won’t be hurt because they want the same thing, but sometimes he doesn’t realize, and he’s so charming . . . It’s like he just can’t help himself and—”
    “Tris, let me set your mind at ease.”
    Leslie stopped the spate of words partly out of self-preservation; her head was spinning. Now she leaned forward and put a hand on her friend’s arm, speaking with the assurance of a thirty-seven-year-old who knew she was well past foibles of the heart.
    “I would not succumb to Grady Roberts’s famed charms, even if he were intent on trying them on me, which he most certainly is not. Is not, you hear? It’s very simple. Business kept Grady in town the weekend before you and Michael came back. He wanted to get a present for Paul and Bette’s housewarming. He asked me to help. I did. He called to thank me.” She straightened and smiled. “As simple as that.”
    Tris still wore a faint frown.
    “Grady called to simply say thank-you?” She sounded skeptical.
    "Yes."
    “Are you sure—”
    “I’m sure.”
    Perhaps she spoke a little sharply because Tris cut a look at her that reminded Leslie that Tris, while younger and perhaps a bit less battered by life’s disappointments, was not stupid.
    “I’m just concerned about you. Leslie.”
    “Bless your heart.” She meant it—she valued Tris’s friendship and caring, but she also used the expression that Tris got such a kick out of on purpose to lighten the mood.
    Tris’s frown lifted, and Leslie adroitly shifted the conversation as she continued dryly, “But if you were truly concerned about me, you would volunteer to help entertain my little cousin April this weekend.”
    Tris snorted. “Concerned, I said. Not stupid. I still remember that trip to the zoo two years ago.”
    They exchanged a look of survivors remembering a shared horror. But Leslie felt obliged to defend her relative.
    “She’s two years older now. Surely she’s grown out of the stage of trying to infuriate the gorillas by pelting them with peanuts.”
    “She’s probably just two years stronger,” was Tris’s uncomforting prediction. “Now she’d probably make them so mad they really would shake the bars loose.”
    * * * *
    By late Saturday afternoon, Leslie wasn’t sure if April Gareaux was stronger, but the thirteen-year-old certainly was more sullen.
    Friday evening she’d taken the girl for dinner on a boat that cruised the Potomac. Admittedly, Leslie had been a bit distracted by the earlier delivery of a half-dozen red roses with a card simply signed “Grady.” Thank heavens Tris had been out of the office.
    Saturday morning, Leslie took April to the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum; the you-are-in-the-cockpit movie left most of the audience gasping and April yawning. They ducked into the National Archives building for a peak at the original Constitution and the genuine John Hancock signature on the Declaration of Independence. For lunch, Leslie took her to the food court in the Old Post Office Pavilion so there would be enough choices for a thirteen-year-old palate.
    April moved like an automaton