Some nights when she crawled into bed she would have sworn she heard her feet crying.

‘‘Seth’s minding her for me. I had to switch my days. Mrs. Lynley called this morning and asked if I’d shift doing her house till tomorrow because her mother-in-law called her from D.C. and invited herself down to dinner. Mrs. Lynley claims her mother-in-law is a woman who looks at a speck of dust like it’s a sin against God and man. I didn’t think you’d mind if I did y’all today instead of tomorrow.’’

‘‘You fit us in whenever you can manage it, Grace, and we’re grateful.’’

He was watching her from under his lashes as he mopped. He’d always thought she was a pretty thing. Like a palomino—all gold and long-legged. She chopped her hair off short as a boy’s, but he liked the way it sat on her head, like a shiny cap with fringes.

She was as thin as one of those million-dollar models, but he knew Grace’s long, lean form wasn’t for fashion. She’d been a gangling, skinny kid, as he recalled. She’d have been about seven or eight when he’d first come to St. Chris and the Quinns. He supposed she was twenty-couple now—and ‘‘skinny’’ wasn’t exactly the word for her anymore.

She was like a willow slip, he thought, very nearly flushing.

She smiled at him, and her mermaid-green eyes warmed, faint dimples flirting in her cheeks. For reasons she couldn’t name, she found it entertaining to see such a healthy male specimen wielding a mop.

‘‘Did you have a good day, Ethan?’’

‘‘Good enough.’’ He did a thorough job with the floor. He was a thorough man. Then he went to the sink again to rinse bucket and mop. ‘‘Sold a mess of crabs to your daddy.’’

At the mention of her father, Grace’s smile dimmed a little. There was distance between them, had been since she’d become pregnant with Aubrey and had married Jack Casey, the man her father had called ‘‘that no-account grease monkey from upstate.’’

Her father had turned out to be right about Jack. The man had left her high and dry a month before Aubrey was born. And he’d taken her savings, her car, and most of her self-respect with him.

But she’d gotten through it, Grace reminded herself. And she was doing just fine. She would keep right on doing fine, on her own, without a single penny from her family—if she had to work herself to death to do it.

She heard Aubrey laugh again, a long, rolling gut laugh, and her resentment vanished. She had everything that mattered. It was all tied up in a bright-eyed, curly-headed little angel just in the next room.

‘‘I’ll make you up some dinner before I go.’’