Free Daring Dylan (The Billionaire Brotherhood Book 2) by Jacie Floyd

compared her mediocre talent against her
mother’s creative brilliance. Mimicking her abilities had been enough for
Gracie once. But now, on her own for so long, she sometimes felt that if she
could only duplicate her mother’s artistic skills, then maybe she would be as
successful in other areas, too.
    The
repetition of wedging the clay into a malleable consistency began to work its
magic. Press, fold, turn. Press, fold, turn. If only everything could be
handled as easily. Time... work... men...
    Obviously,
she didn’t have her mother’s knack with any of those subjects. Especially men.
Marlene O’Donnell Collier had handled the two loves of her life as effortlessly
as she threw a bowl on the wheel. Or she had handled David that well, anyway.
Gracie wasn’t as sure about her father.
    He’d died
before she had a chance to know him, to remember seeing them together, or to
analyze the closeness they’d shared. But share it they did, or so everyone
said.
    They’d
married right after her mom graduated from high school. They spent one year
together before her father joined the Navy. He’d been killed in a plane crash
right after basic training, on his way to his first assignment.
    He’d spent
a total of thirty days of his life with Gracie. Days her grandparents had done
their best to capture on camera.
    Sometimes,
late at night, she looked at those fading images. But she took small pleasure
in the fact that the handsome daredevil with the brilliant eyes who tossed her
in the air was her father. Instead, watching the movies made her sad and angry
to know the potential, the liveliness, the joy that existed in Bobby O’Donnell
had been extinguished before she could experience it firsthand.
    Gracie
slapped the ball of clay onto the turntable. With a sharp gesture of
impatience, she wiped away a tear with a muddy finger.
    Kicking the
wheel furiously, her thoughts turned to David. He’d courted her mother for
eleven years. Slow and sure, that was David. Apparently, the gentle doctor was
as different from Bobby O’Donnell as sunlight to shadow, but he became a steady
fixture in Gracie’s life. One that never failed her. He’d brought both Clay and
medicine into her life.
    With the
wheel spinning around, her thoughts whirled from the past into the present. She
worried that Clay would never realize his true potential if he couldn’t
establish his biological identity. It meant that much to him. Therefore, it
meant that much to her. She would do whatever she could to promote that
outcome. Even if it meant keeping a close eye on Dylan.
    An image of
his solid flesh, bone, and muscle formed in her mind. She grew warm with the
realization that keeping her eye on him didn’t revolt her as much today as it
had yesterday.
    He hadn’t
gone out of his way to endear himself to her or the community, but then he had
his own agenda. She appreciated that. If family loyalty prevented him from
believing his father had sired an illegitimate son, she hoped he’d man enough
to admit the truth when science confirmed it.
    Some men
had trouble admitting the truth. Baxter hadn’t wanted to even when she’d caught
him with his pants down. And once he had admitted his indiscretions, he’d tried
to deflect the blame for his infidelity onto Gracie.
    She
flinched away from his final hurtful comments on her sexual inadequacies. The
inclination to accuse Baxter of worse disabilities loomed pointless and
childish. She preferred to concentrate on ailments she could cure instead of on
the hopeless.
    After
dampening the drying clay with her sponge, she reduced the form to a round
blob. She slowly pushed her fingers inward, the way she would press against the
abdomen of a child with a tummy ache.
    The
indention deepened and transformed the clay into a lopsided bowl. Pulling
outward, she reduced the object into a plate, then brought her fingers up,
creating a ridged vase and fluting the rim outward until the sides collapsed.
    She slowed
the wheel to