Once Upon a Proposal

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  Fiona nodded. Her eyes narrowed slightly as she sipped her cocktail. “He’d do anything for them.”

  “Mmm.” Bobbie took another too-hasty drink that burned all the way down her throat. Already her head was beginning to swim a little and she quickly set the glass on the small table next to the chair while she could still set it safely without spilling it. “I imagine they’ll all be here for your party tomorrow evening?”

  “I’d certainly prefer Todd and Lisette over their mother’s presence, but Astrid hasn’t included the children.”

  Bobbie blinked. “Gabe’s…ex-wife is coming?” Given their strained relationship, she hadn’t expected that. Had he exaggerated the situation?

  “Yes. I know it sounds odd. But Astrid and Stephanie’s mother are dear friends and for some reason, Astrid still believes that Stephanie and Gabe will reconcile. Doesn’t seem to matter that Stephanie betrayed Gabe in the worst possible way, or that she’s doing her level best to keep Gabe’s children from him as much as she can. She picked Stephanie for Gabe years ago, and can’t bring herself to realize that her choice stunk.” Fiona let out an exasperated sigh. “The woman doesn’t even know her own son. And my son doesn’t seem any better. Even though I myself haven’t seen Stephanie in years, I’m not holding out hope that she’d have the good taste to decline the invitation.” Fiona drained her glass and with no seeming regard for the fine crystal, set it on the side table with a clunk. “I think you should come to the party. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.”

  Bobbie straightened her spine. “What?”

  Fiona lifted her eyebrows. “It’s my birthday party. I should be able to invite at least one person that I want to be there, shouldn’t I?”

  “Well, of course, but—”

  “Then it’s done.” She pushed to her feet. “Sadly, it’s black tie.” She rolled her eyes. “Astrid’s doing, of course. You have something suitable? Maybe a dress left over from that drip of a fiancé you had?”

  “I have a gown or two.” Shoved in the back of her closet because she didn’t have the good sense to get rid of clothing that she never wore—or never planned to wear again. Until her involvement with Lawrence, the only times she’d had to dress formally were for the annual Christmas parties that her Uncle Harry always threw. “But honestly, Fiona, I’ll feel like I’m gatecrashing.” She knew Astrid Gannon had sent out the engraved invitations weeks ago, because Fiona had been bemoaning the upcoming party ever since.

  “Frankly, I feel like I am gatecrashing,” Fiona countered. “Mark my words. It will be stuffy and boring. But I beg you. Just come for a few minutes. Long enough to give me someone besides Gabriel I can honestly say how nice it is to see.”

  “One of these days I’m going to learn how to say no to you, and mean it.” Bobbie stood up also. Her head felt light from just those few sips of her cocktail. She needed to eat.

  Fiona smiled victoriously and tucked her arm through Bobbie’s as they strolled through the house toward the kitchen. “You’ll be the belle of the ball.”

  “Now I know your cocktail has gone to your head,” Bobbie accused wryly. “Since you know as well as I do how un likely that will be. If you want a belle, you’d need Frankie or Georgie.” Both of her older sisters could sweep into any setting and have the masses charmed with barely a flick of their fingers. It was a talent they’d come by naturally from their mother. Even Tommi possessed it—when she could be dragged out from the kitchen, where she usually ended up even when she wasn’t the chef.

  “Give yourself a little more credit.” Fiona pulled open the back door for Bobbie. “You might surprise yourself.”

  “I doubt it.” Bobbie hugged Fiona. “But I’ll be there, for you.”

  “Be where?”

  Bobbie straightened like a shot, spinning around so fast that she nearly tipped over.

  Gabe’s hand shot out, catching her shoulder. “Steady there.”

  She didn’t know which was worse. The dizzying effect of Fiona’s lethal cocktail, the sudden thrill of Gabe’s touch, or the fact that both were probably as plain as the nose on her face to Fiona, Gabe and his daughter and son, who were standing on the porch beside him.

  “At the party tomorrow,” Fiona answered, which was good because Bobbie didn’t seem able to make her mouth work in concert with her brain. “Bobbie’s coming, too. Isn’t that lovely?”

  “Sure.” Gabe’s gaze rested on her face and she couldn’t tell what he was thinking to save her life.

  What she was thinking about was what he’d asked her to do. And that she knew she should refuse. Again. Which wasn’t something that she could very well tell him right then and there. Not with his grandmother and kids witnessing her non-conversation with him. “I, um, I need to get home,” she finally managed to say to the air in general. She glanced at Fiona. “See you tomorrow.” She moved past Gabe without looking at him directly, and managed to smile at his kids as she quickly ran down the porch steps.

  “I’ll come with you.” His deep voice followed her, putting an abrupt end to her hasty departure. “Still need to finish that tile job.”

  She looked back, not meeting his eyes or Fiona’s, and nodded jerkily. “Okay.”

  “Lissi, Todd, you go inside with Grandma and finish your homework.”

  Bobbie realized belatedly that both of his children were sporting extremely fat, heavy-looking backpacks.

  “We’ll go out for dinner when I’ve finished at Ms. Fairchild’s,” he added.

  They both nodded without argument and went inside the main house with Fiona.

  “Ready?” Gabe prompted when Bobbie didn’t start moving again toward the carriage house.

  She stopped staring after the children and started walking instead. Even without letting her gaze sidle toward him, she was excruciatingly aware of him. “Your kids seemed rather subdued.”

  “I guess that’s one way of putting it.”

  She couldn’t help herself. She looked right at him, taking in his unshaven jaw and bloodshot eyes. “And you look like you haven’t slept in days. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing that another ten hours in every day wouldn’t cure.” He took her elbow, helping her along the uneven stone pathway that led to her door, even though he had to know that she’d walked over it hundreds of times before. “One of my construction managers had a car accident a few days ago and I’ve had to fill in on the job site for him.” They stopped at the door of the cottage and he waited for her to unlock it.

  “Is he going to be all right?”

  He gave her an odd look. “Yeah. Broke a few bones, but he’ll probably be nagging me to get him back at the site before the doctor even says it’s okay.” He followed her inside. “You’re the only one who has asked that.”

  Her little carriage house felt cozy at the best of times. With him standing in the center of her living room between the leather chair that she’d purloined from her mother’s basement and the outdated floral-patterned but immensely comfortable couch she’d bought at a consignment store, the space felt even smaller. More intimate. “I’m sorry? I’m sure his coworkers want ed to know how—”

  He waved his hand. “Yeah. Of course folks on the crew and at the office asked.” He ran his hand tiredly down his face, then around to the back of his neck. “Don’t mind me.” He turned toward the short, narrow hall that would lead him to the bathroom, only to do an about-face a second later.

  She nearly bumped into him and he caught her shoulders in his hands again. “Sorry.” He stepped around her. “Tools are in my truck.”

  She chewed the inside of her lip, watching him leave.

  He hadn’t brought up the business about her posing as his fiancée. Maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe he’d changed his mind so thoroughly that he didn’t even want to bring it up.

  As if she’d have forgotten it if he didn’t.

  She exhaled roughly and headed into the kitchen to let the dogs out of their kennels. The light on her answering machine was blin
king, and she poked the button before opening the cage.

  “Bobbie, this is Quentin Rich.”

  She glanced at the machine as she snapped on Archimedes’s leash. “Who?”

  “We met at the Hunt Christmas party last year. I heard you were available and I thought it would be nice to get together again. Maybe dinner? Call me.” The caller reeled off his number.

  Bobbie looked down at Archimedes. “Do you remember him?”

  The dog’s tongue lolled out of his mouth. He gave her a goofy look.

  “Me either. And that party was ten months ago.” She erased the message and called Zeus, who’d been patiently waiting. With their leashes on, they both bolted out the front door, pulling her along with them. They veered away from their original target—the bushes—when they spotted Gabe and raced toward him instead.

  A grin stretched across his face, erasing years of tiredness, as he set down his bucket filled with tiling tools and crouched down to greet them. “How you doing, Zeus?” He rubbed one dog down, then the other. “Archie? You staying away from eating Bobbie’s couch cushions?”

  “I’m surprised.” Bobbie slowly walked closer, giving the leashes more play. “Not even Fiona can tell them apart.”

  Gabe figured it was safer all around for him to focus on the oversized puppies slathering slobber over his hands and arms than on Bobbie.

  Or he’d be the one likely to start slobbering over himself.

  He was used to being around beautiful women. Hell, he’d been married to one, even if she’d turned out to be carved from ice. So what was it about this woman that turned his guts inside out? He knew he should look at her and think “too young,” but her age was truthfully the last thing he had on his mind when she was around.

  Maybe that explained midlife crises…

  “They’ve got their differences,” he pointed out a little doggedly. “Archie here has a quirk in the way he holds his ears. And Zeus just looks at you like he wants to lie on your feet and sleep for a week. Which is a thought I’ve had myself lately.”

  Bobbie laughed softly, and he couldn’t help himself. He looked up at her.

  She wore stretchy black pants that clung to every inch of her shapely legs from knee to hip. And even though she had some gauzy white shirt on, it didn’t do diddly to disguise the lush curves adoringly displayed by a sleeveless black top beneath it that ended well above her waist. What the thin fabric did succeed at was taunting him mercilessly with the filmy silhouette of those inches of bare skin exposed between the top and the pants. Bare skin that nipped in over a tiny waist that made everything else seem even more…curved.

  He stifled on oath, dragging his gaze away.

  Archimedes slapped his gold, feathered tail on the ground, still grinning sloppily as if he read Gabe’s mind all too easily.

  And maybe the dogs did, because Zeus trotted back over to his mistress, leaning his healthy, growing body protectively against Bobbie’s legs. Her hand dropped to her side, her slender fingers sliding over his well-shaped head. The dog looked as if he wanted to purr. “They’re both good boys,” she said. “Once they go to their trainer, I’m sure they’ll end up being excellent assistance dogs.”

  Gabe distracted Archimedes from sniffing the bag of grout sitting inside the bucket. “How many puppies have you raised for Fiona’s group?”

  “Counting these two?” She didn’t hesitate. “Seventeen.”

  “That’s a lot of dogs. You have them for nearly two years, don’t you?”

  “They usually go into training around eighteen months. I generally get them when they’re about eight weeks old, but sometimes it’s later because they’ve been moved from another raiser for some reason. These guys were littermates, so I got them at the same time. Usually, I have a mixture of ages. One time I had four dogs at once.” She grinned wryly. “Needless to say, my mother and sisters thought I’d lost a few screws. And it was a little…crazy. Compared to that, just having these two now is pretty quiet, actually. I have photo albums of all of my puppies on the shelf in the hall.”

  The shelf he’d nearly knocked over the day he’d brought the tile in for her bathroom floor. “But in the end, you give them all up.”

  She looked down at the dog beside her. “That’s the point. I’m just the puppy raiser. Not one of Fiona’s dog trainers.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because this is something I’m actually good at. All of the puppies I’ve raised have been successfully partnered with someone. Guide dogs for the blind, a few hearing dogs, a few service dogs. One even became a search and rescue dog out in Montana.” She lifted her shoulder and the filmy shirt shimmied around her hips. “It’s my one part in helping someone else’s life be a little easier.” Her cheeks colored and her eyes looked like fog clouding Rainier. “I know that probably sounds—”

  “—like Fiona talking.”

  She shook her head, her lips curving slightly. “That wasn’t what I was going to say.”

  “But it’s the truth.” For several generations, the Gannon family had had nearly every advantage in life. But instead of simply donating her money to some cause she believed in, his grandmother had spent most of Gabe’s life personally involved in one. She’d founded her small agency that trained and placed assistance dogs around the country, and even though the rest of Gabe’s family thought she was more than a little eccentric for working so hard for so long when she didn’t have to, he’d admired her for it.

  In her way, Fiona Gannon was as much the oddball in the family as he was.

  “You’re doing a good thing,” he told Bobbie now. Truthfully. He pushed tiredly to his feet. “And for the record, I’m certain that you’re good at a lot more than raising puppies. But I still think it’s gotta be damn hard to give them up when it’s time.”

  Her lashes swept down for a moment. “It’s always hard to say goodbye. But I get to meet the person they’re partnered with when they finish their training, and the dogs always remember me.” She looked up then with a crooked grin. “And I receive a ton of Christmas cards with the dogs’ pictures in them.”

  “Well, you’re still a better person than I am.” He picked up the heavy bucket, lifting it away from Archimedes’s inquisitive snout. “I probably wouldn’t want to let them go.”

  “You really don’t have to finish the floor today, you know. It’s not going anywhere. Take a break.”

  Her gaze danced over him, then away again, and he wished to hell he knew what he could do to ease her obvious nervousness. But he wasn’t ready to hear her tell him again that he was on his own when it came to the fake fiancée business, so they were both stuck. Unfortunately, every day that ticked past was a day that took him closer to the judge’s courtroom.

  “It’s not like you haven’t been working hard enough already, covering for your injured guy,” she continued.

  Unlike his ex-wife, who’d quite vocally considered Gabe’s injured worker to be a personal inconvenience to her. “It won’t take me long to grout the floor.” Not when her bathroom was barely large enough to turn around in.

  “And then you’ll go and have dinner with your children?”

  “I’ll take them to dinner,” he clarified. “They’re none too happy right now to begin with, since their mother decided to go to D.C. with Ethan a few days ago for some meetings. The last thing to help that situation would be my cooking.”

  She worried her soft lower lip with the pearly edge of her teeth for a moment. “Lisette and Todd have been staying with you, then? When is their mother coming back?”

  “Tomorrow, and it was surprising that Steph was willing to leave them with me.” Particularly when she’d learned he was putting in even more hours on the job than usual, until she’d realized the advantage the situation might afford her. “But then she realized that I might do such a rotten job of caring for them full-time for a few days that she’ll have extra ammunition against me when we go to court again.”

  Bobbie’s soft lips tightened. “No w
onder you’re tired. Extra work on that job site on top of your usual load, plus having the kids and getting them to and from school?” Shaking her head, she walked over to him and wrapped her free hand around the bucket handle, unsuccessfully trying to dislodge his hand in the process. “Give me that. My floor can definitely wait.” The curls coiled on top of her head tickled his chin, smelling faintly of lemon.

  He still didn’t let go of the bucket. “I’ll let the floor wait if you’ll come to dinner with me and the kids.”

  He had to steel his nerves against the soft gaze she turned toward him. “I think that’s bribery or something.”

  Bribery and a good dose of self-torture. “Is it working?”

  “You’re as bad as your grandmother,” she accused. But there was a faint smile on her soft, soft lips.

  “That’s probably one of the nicer things I’ve been accused of,” he admitted wryly. “Is that a yes?”

  “Yes. To dinner,” she added quickly.

  But he didn’t mind the qualification.

  After a little time with his kids, maybe she’d see that one more “yes” would be just another way of making someone else’s life a little easier for a while.

  Namely, his.

  And if she did, the trick then would be for all of them to get through it unscathed when their arrangement was no longer necessary.

  Chapter Five

  The next evening, Bobbie tilted her head sideways and studied her reflection in the full-length mirror attached to the front of her closet door. The hem of the pewter-colored gown was pooling on the carpet around her bare feet, but that would be solved well enough when she put on her high heels. Squinting at herself, she gathered up two fists of ringlets and piled her hair on top of her head.

  “I don’t know, Zeus. What do you think? Does it look like I’m trying to play dress-up? What do you think Gabe will think?” She looked at the dog’s reflection in the mirror. He was watching her with patient eyes from where he lay on the floor at the foot of her bed that was strewn with a half-dozen gowns, already tried and rejected.