Lady Be Good by Nancy Martin Read Free Book Online Page A

glanced down one hall, then another. “This whole house is amazing.”
    “Yeah, one Super Bowl can buy some nice real estate.”
    He’d left a coffee mug on the table beside a folded newspaper. An empty milk carton stood in the sink, but there were no dirty dishes anywhere. The tiled floor was spotless, and so were the windows. Grace guessed he hired a cleaning service to keep his home spotless.
    “The living room’s that way, and here’s a powder room.” He pushed a door open with his boot and headed around the corner with her luggage. “Look around, if you like. You can put your hat and coat in the closet to your left.”
    The closet was large enough to serve the needs of a hundred guests, but he’d only hung a few jackets there alongside a set of golf clubs. A shelf held some knitted hats, baseball caps, several pairs of gloves, and a Garneau bike helmet with a big scrape on one side.
    Grace took a peek into the darkened living room. She saw the shapes of several long sofas, some low tables made of glass, and a carved white marble fireplace big enough to accommodate Santa Claus and at least one reindeer.
    Most people figured Dear Miss Vanderbine lived in luxury, with bowing servants and plenty of caviar in the pantry. But after her divorce, Mama had raised Grace and Todd in a modest house on a quiet suburban street, so Grace was impressed by the opulence of the Laser’s house. No expense had been spared in the building materials. His ex-wife had expensive tastes in decorating, too.
    Grace said, “There must be more square footage here than the Astrodome.”
    “Yeah, almost. But no cheap seats.” Luke walked across the marble floor of a large entry hall, his footsteps echoing, and then he started up a curving staircase in the dark. “I’m gonna wash the grease off my hands. I’ll be back in a few.”
    He was taking her suitcases upstairs and politely giving her an opportunity to use the bathroom, Grace decided. After hanging up her coat, she took him up on the offer and sequestered herself in a spacious lavatory for a few minutes. It gave her time to think while she stared at her reflection in a mirror better suited to a French chateau.
    At all costs, she lectured herself, she shouldn’t let herself get carried away. A sordid hookup could not be part of her book tour. She was here to learn something for Nora, that was all. Well, mostly all.
    Still trying to get her hair to behave, she let herself out of the powder room and poked her nose around the corner into what she assumed was the dining room. A large chandelier hung from the coffered ceiling, but there was no furniture. Down the hall was another room—a kind of den, she guessed, because some recliners suited for big men were pointed toward a television screen gargantuan enough to suit a drive-in theater. She could imagine Super Bowl parties there. A desk in one corner looked like it was the place Luke did some business, so maybe the room was his base of operations. The rest of the house seemed pretty empty.
    Luke thudded down the stairs. “Your toes must be frozen.”
    Grace sadly looked down at her shoes and hoped she hadn’t ruined them. “I’ve been warmer,” she admitted. “Maybe I should have chosen southern cities for this tour.”
    “You could be in South Beach right now.” He handed over a clean pair of white socks. “Here. Fresh back from the laundry service. Put ‘em on.”
    Grace gave up her pride and promptly sat down on the bottom step of the grand staircase. She kicked off her damp shoes and pulled on the big woolly socks.
    “Wonderful,” she sighed, wiggling her toes in comfort. She smiled up at him. “Thank you.”
    Luke smiled back, then scooped up her shoes and carried them to the breakfast room. He squashed up some sheets of his morning newspaper and packed a page into each shoe. That done, he put them down on the floor by the back door and made a beeline for the refrigerator. “Let’s eat.”
    He unfastened the