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the thing to solve the mystery of its origin.
    Juggling her burdens, she fished out her keys and let herself in, tumbling her attaché, purse and mail on top of the wide bookcase near the hallway to her bedroom. The package she handled more gingerly.
    She looked at it a full minute, then tore off the wrappings. Plunging through padding, she fished out a container of her favorite scent. Not cologne or the thumbnail-size bottle of perfume she indulged in only when she felt particularly rich or so blue even chocolate licorice couldn’t perform a cure. What she held now was a bottle big enough for a case of the blues to drown in.
    The phone rang once but she ignored it, placing the bottle carefully on the bookcase and staring at it until the phone rang again. She snagged the plain envelope that had nestled amid the padding, had the envelope open and was reading the single word on it when she snatched the receiver up as the third ring faded away.
    “Hello.”
    Grady, she read.
    “Hi, Leslie. It’s Grady,” she heard.
    Damn. Her heart sank. She could have used another moment to consider this. Which might explain why her heart picked up speed at the same time it sank.
    But Craigs didn’t waffle when it came time to charge ahead.
     

Chapter Three
     
    "Hello, Grady. I’ve just opened the most extraordinary package from you.
    “Extraordinary?”
    “Yes. I didn’t know perfume could be purchased by the half gallon.”
    He chuckled, a very masculine, very satisfied sound.
    “Really, Grady,” she went on in a tone she kept light and friendly, “it’s most generous of you to keep thanking me for helping you decide on the gift for Paul and Bette, but totally unnecessary. I enjoyed it. So, please, no more.”
    In his momentary silence she read indecision over whether to deny the flowers, food and perfume had been expressions of thanks, and perhaps a bit of confusion.
    “All right,” he said slowly. “But then let me take you to dinner tonight.”
    Her eyebrows rose. What was the man up to? She’d told Tris he wasn’t trying to charm her, but she was beginning to wonder. “You’re in Washington again?”
    “Yes, the client I told you about wanted to introduce me to some of his connections. There’s really a need for my sort of business here in Washington. I’ll have to learn more about the links between the private sector and government around here, but other than that, I think a branch could practically open itself . . .”
    She listened to his discussion of the prospects of a branch of his business brokerage in the Washington area, enjoying his enthusiasm, while another level of her mind focused on a more personal issue.
    If he was trying to charm her, why?
    Surely he must see she wasn’t a candidate for his usual romantic interlude. At the very least he’d recognize that the web of their mutual friendships would make the post-interlude period awkward for all concerned. And with Grady, post-interlude followed interlude as surely as day followed night—and nearly as quickly.
    So, since he couldn’t be after a fling, what was he after?
    That’s when it hit her.
    He was after friendship. He just didn’t know how to go about it.
    Sure, he was friends with Tris and Bette, but he’d known Tris more than a dozen years and viewed her as a sort of kid sister, and Bette he’d known always as the woman who made Paul Monroe’s eyes glow.
    But other than those two, she would wager the family heirlooms that the only way Grady Roberts knew to interact with unattached females was romantically.
    In its own way, Grady’s situation was truly sad. What he needed was someone to teach him how to be friends with a woman. Someone who wouldn’t be taken in by his romantic ploys. Someone who wouldn’t fall for the glint in his blue, blue eyes.
    Someone who over the past ten years had succeeded in helping several men see how they could make their lives happier, without making the mistake of getting dangerously involved