Once Upon a Proposal

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  “You might have warned me,” she murmured once they’d reached the safe distance of the elevator and were riding down to the main floor.

  “About this?” He lifted the folder. “That’s Fiona’s deal with you. I’m just playing the courier.”

  “Well, just because my signature is on those papers doesn’t mean I’m going to go along with the rest of her idea.” She plucked at a loose thread on one of her patches. “I’d be a disaster.” Even contemplating taking Fiona up on her offer had her feeling panicky inside.

  “Why?”

  “Because!”

  He lifted his brows slightly. “Again…why?”

  She exhaled noisily. Their acquaintance may have been short, but Gabe should understand her shortcomings by now as well as anyone. “Forget it. Are you taking that thing back to the bank now?”

  He glanced at the sturdy black watch around his wrist. “If I can make it before they close.” The elevator doors slid open and he settled his hand at the small of her back as she stepped out first.

  She pulled in a silent, careful breath and was glad he couldn’t see her face. All he’d done was touch her back and she wanted to dissolve.

  They turned in the direction of the front entrance and his hand fell away. “Are you heading home now?”

  “I don’t know if there will be any trick-or-treaters who make it around to the carriage house, but I want to be there just in case.” She ruthlessly bit back the suggestion that he join her. “And, um, you?”

  “I’m in an apartment. Never had any kids come by before.”

  “Not even Todd and Lisette, I suppose.” She tried to focus on buttoning her jacket rather than the brush of his arm against hers as they neared the doorway, and failed miserably. “Your ex-wife brought them by to see Fiona. They were still there when I got here. They both looked adorable.”

  The sliding doors opened. “I’m glad at least one of us got to see them.”

  She looked up at him, then. “Maybe they’re still dressed up. You should go by and see.”

  “Can’t. I’ve got a meeting back at the office at six with a new commercial developer, plus my attorney’s been playing phone tag with me all afternoon. I need to find out what he wants. Where are you parked?”

  She automatically gestured toward the right, but her mind wasn’t on her vehicle. Gabe wouldn’t have been able to come by her place even if she’d asked, and the disappointment that swept through her was intense and all the more disturbing as a result. “Well, good luck then, with all of that.” She started to step off the curb, but he caught her arm, holding her back from walking in front of an SUV.

  She felt the solidness of him standing behind her and after a shaky moment, made herself straighten away from him. “Thanks.”

  He squeezed her shoulder. “You just need to watch where you’re going.” Then he tugged lightly on the end of her braid and headed off the curb toward his own truck that she could see parked to the left of the entrance.

  She watched his long legs eat up the distance.

  He was right.

  She did need to watch where she was going. Most particularly where he was concerned, or she was going to end up with her heart hurting in ways that it had never hurt before.

  Chapter Eleven

  Bobbie waved her hand at the two adults standing behind the trio of children dressed like a band of pirates who’d just scored a handful of candy from her bowl of wrapped sweets. Then she closed the door, leaning back against it for a moment. Zeus and Archimedes were lying on the floor next to her couch. They both had bands over their heads with devil horns sticking up from them, but the lazy thumps of their tails were hardly devilish.

  They’d behaved beautifully all evening, not once getting upset or agitated over the surprisingly frequent buzzing of her ancient doorbell or the unfamiliar children who greeted the opening of her door with varying decibels of “Trick or treat!” She tossed them each a small, crunchy dog treat before carrying her empty candy bowl into the kitchen to refill it. The dogs were so well behaved already, she knew that she could turn them over even now to an assistance trainer and they’d do well, even if it was several months earlier than scheduled.

  Her doorbell rang again, and she turned back around to answer. Even before she pulled the door open, though, the dogs scrambled to her feet, woofing softly, as they crowded around her.

  “Guys,” she chided and pointed. “Sit.”

  They sat, but Archie still whined under his breath.

  “Maybe not so ready, after all,” she told them, and scratched her fingers over his nose while she pulled open the door, a smile already on her face.

  But it wasn’t another costumed child, holding up a plastic pumpkin for a treat.

  It was Gabe.

  And after that first, quick leap of excitement inside her, she realized he looked more harried than she’d ever seen him. His hair looked like he’d been combing it with a garden rake and there were lines around his eyes that hadn’t been there when she’d seen him just a few hours earlier.

  Her pleasure abruptly turned to worry. “Is Fiona all right?”

  His frown was quick. “Yeah.”

  She let out a relieved breath and pulled the door open more widely. “Come on in. I wasn’t expecting to see you.”

  He stepped into her living room, his hands dropping to the dogs’ heads. “Even they get the Halloween treatment, huh?”

  She lifted her shoulders, suddenly feeling foolish. “The kids who came by seemed to like it.”

  “Had some takers after all, then, did you?”

  She held up the empty bowl. “Enough to go through the first batch.” She headed back to the kitchen again and carried the full bowl back out to the living room. “How’d your meeting go?” She held the bowl out to him in offering.

  But he shook his head and she set the bowl on the table by the door.

  “I ended up having to reschedule,” he said. He paced across the small confines of the living room. Zeus and Archimedes trotted after him. “The custody hearing has been moved up.”

  “Why?” Alarmed, she sank down onto the arm of the couch. No wonder he looked stressed.

  “Because of Ethan’s schedule. HuntCom’s now sending him to Europe in a few weeks, instead of a few months.”

  “And just like that—” she snapped her fingers together “—the hearing is rescheduled?”

  “Ethan works for HuntCom. What they want has a lot of sway in this area,” he reminded her a little grimly.

  Bobbie’s nerves started to knot, but he said nothing more about her connection to the company. “That doesn’t seem very fair,” she said after a moment.

  Gabe shoved his hand through his hair, and looked at Bobbie’s face. The freckles she’d drawn on stood out even more noticeably against her pale cheeks. “Fair hasn’t exactly been part of the equation so far,” he pointed out. Not from his perspective, anyway. “So why would now be any different?”

  “What can I do?”

  His jaw felt tight. He pulled a jeweler’s box out of his jacket pocket and held it out to her. “Wear this.”

  The fake freckles stood out even more. Her gray gaze finally looked away from his and to the box. She slowly took it from him and thumbed it open. She lowered the box to her lap, the tender nape of her neck exposed below her crazy braids as she looked at the ring.

  “My attorney wants you to go to court with me.”

  She shot him a startled look. “That wasn’t part of our agreement.”

  “I know.”

  Her throat worked. She slid off her perch on the arm of the couch and onto the cushion properly. An inch of smooth thigh was visible above the edge of her high, striped stockings. “I don’t have a good feeling about this, Gabe.”

  “You won’t have to say a word when you’re there.” He’d grilled his attorney on that point.

  “Are you sure?” She looked up at him. “I can’t lie outright to a judge.”

  “I know.” She couldn’t car
ry off a lie if it was stuck inside a bucket. It was a wonder that Fiona hadn’t already seen through their pretense, despite her health crisis. “I wouldn’t ask you to.” Short of convincing Bobbie to marry him for real before the court date—something he’d actually found him self considering while he’d been blindly driving around the city after his attorney had delivered the news—he didn’t know what else he could do.

  A real marriage was not an option. Not even if it meant winning his case.

  She rubbed the pad of her thumb over the emerald-cut solitaire diamond. “Is this a real diamond?”

  It was the last question he expected. “Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “Band is platinum.” And picking it out should have been a no-brainer, yet he’d stood in that infernal jewelry store studying one ring after another, trying to imagine which one would please her best.

  “It would have been better to get a fake stone,” she said after a moment. Her voice was low. “Since everything else about this charade is fake.”

  “There’s nothing fake about how much I need you.”

  If he weren’t so serious, he could have laughed at himself over that one. He’d “needed” her on a visceral level that was probably illegal in some states since she’d jumped into his arms and ordered him to make it look good. If anything, that need had only intensified since then.

  She closed her eyes. “You need me because of the children.”

  He was dying. He needed all his focus on Todd and Lisette. Not on falling for a woman who deserved a lot more than he could offer. He took the jeweler’s box out of her unresistant fingers and opened it again. He pulled out the ring.

  “Will you wear this?” Everything inside him felt tight, waiting.

  She looked up at him, a solemn Pippi Longstocking. Her throat worked in a swallow. And then she slowly lifted her left hand.

  He slid the ring into place and her fingers curled. She lowered her hand to her lap and looked at the ring. “It’s beautiful,” she said huskily. “You, um, you’ll tell the kids now?”

  “Yes.” And they’d be thrilled, which was just another reason to hate himself. “I’ll tell them tomorrow.”

  She nodded and plucked at the hem of her dress then, seeming to realize how much thigh she was revealing. “So when is it? The court date.”

  “Friday.”

  “This Friday?” She looked alarmed all over again. “Good grief. They really don’t give a person much warning, do they?” The doorbell buzzed and she jerked a little. She pushed to her feet and answered the door.

  Gabe had to give her credit. His announcement had definitely thrown her for a loop, but she was cheerful and kind when she greeted the two little kids—a boy in a cowboy hat and a girl in fairy wings—and doled out more candy.

  But when she shut the door and leaned back against it, her smile disappeared. She looked at him for a long moment, then turned around and opened the door even though the bell hadn’t rung, and set the still full container of candy on the step. Then she closed the door, locked it and yanked down the old-fashioned rolling shade that covered the only window facing the front of the carriage house.

  His nerves ratcheted up another notch. “You know you’ve just guaranteed some enterprising kid a full haul when he takes the entire bowl for himself.”

  She just shook her head, and reached for one of the red ribbons tied around the end of a braid. “Have a little faith.” Blindly working at the ribbon, she straightened away from the door and kicked off her high-heeled, shiny black shoes.

  Gabe actually felt his mouth run dry. But all she did was move past him on her way into the kitchen. Zeus and Archimedes trailed after her.

  “I suppose you didn’t take time to eat dinner, did you?”

  Eating had been the last thing on his mind. “No.” Feeling some sympathy for the blindly faithful dogs, he followed her, too. “What’d you have in mind?”

  “Frozen pizza.” She dropped the ribbon on the counter before yanking open her freezer door to pull out a large, flat box that she dumped on the counter, followed by a bottle of wine from her refrigerator that was treated only marginally more gently. “Don’t tell Todd or Lisette about the pizza and lack of veggies. They’ll never let me forget it.” She turned on the oven and yanked open a drawer, rummaging for a moment before unearthing a corkscrew from the jumble. “Here.” She handed it to him. “Sorry, but it’s just a cheap chardonnay. Otherwise there’s still the rest of the orange juice we had with dinner last night.”

  Only Bobbie could have come up with that color-themed meal and gotten away with it.

  His kids had been wholly won over by her.

  He cleared his throat. “Wine’s fine.” Then he picked up the bottle and began peeling away the foil around the cork while watching her jerky motions around the kitchen. She pulled off the dogs’ horns and gave them fresh water before starting on putting away the dishes from the night before. “Would you rather I left?”

  She looked at him over her shoulder. “I don’t know.” Then she shook her head. Her braids stuck out at lopsided right angles from the sides of her head, one with a ribbon, one without. “No.”

  She didn’t sound particularly sure about it, but he decided to take her answer at face value, rather than probe more. Leaving was the last thing he wanted to do.

  He twisted the corkscrew into the cork and slowly pulled it out of the wine bottle. “Glasses?”

  She opened a cupboard and pulled out two crystal stems. She held them while he poured, and then handed him one. He lifted the glass into the light.

  “I know. It’s Waterford. Hardly goes with the plastic plates from last night’s dinner. But these were a gift and even cheap wine tastes decent when it’s in a beautiful glass.” She took a drink of her wine and padded back into the living room. “The oven will take a while to heat.” She sat down in the leather chair and crossed her legs.

  He got another glimpse of smooth, toned thigh.

  He threw back a mouthful of wine as if it were a tequila shooter. “How’s the floor doing in the bathroom?” He went down the short hallway, feeling an abrupt need to escape.

  He still felt her gaze following him. “Perfect. Did you expect it to be otherwise?”

  He looked into the bathroom. But instead of surveying the tile job he’d done, his eyes landed on the three sheer bras hanging over the shower curtain rod and the equally sheer panties looped alongside them.

  The palms of his hands suddenly itched and he prowled back to the living room. He paced off a triangle in the room, then repeated it. “The ceiling needs painting.”

  “So do the walls,” she pointed out accurately enough. “But I’m perfectly capable of rolling a coat of paint on the walls my self.” She sipped her wine, watching him over the delicate crystal.

  He knew what was on his mind. Her.

  But he wished to hell he knew what she was thinking.

  “What’s your place like? An apartment, you said?”

  He was struck by a sense of strangeness. He could almost count on two hands the number of days they’d known one another, but it still felt as if he’d known her much longer. And that, somehow, the prosaic details of his existence had already been covered. “It’s just a place to sleep, as far as I’m concerned. There are two extra bedrooms for Todd and Lisette, which have only been actually used once—when Steph left them with me last week.” He studied a settling crack in her plaster wall. “I got it just because it was close to the kids. Even the furniture is rented. All my own stuff is still back in Colorado. I built a place there about six years ago.”

  “And what will you do if you get joint custody?”

  “I don’t want to uproot them again. I’ll buy here. Or build again if I find a lot to my liking.”

  Her fingertip slowly tapped the rim of her glass, and the ring sparkled in the light. “And if you don’t? Will you try again?”

  He didn’t have to ask her what she meant. “I could keep pulling Steph back into court every time I turned around,
even with her out of the country. But what does that end up doing to Todd and Lissi?” He still didn’t have a good answer for that. “I don’t know. I’ll probably go back to Colorado.” Following his children to Switzerland wasn’t an option. He had too much tied up in Gannon-Morris. If he couldn’t keep his kids in the country, the company was the only thing he’d have left.

  Her lashes lowered. She sipped a little more wine. “What about your company here?”

  “My partner and I can hire a manager, the same as we have for the branch in Texas.”

  “Wouldn’t you miss Fiona?”

  “I’d miss a lot of things,” he muttered. Not least of which was Bobbie. There was a beep from the kitchen and she started to push out of her chair, but he waved her back. “I’ll stick the pizza in.”

  She subsided and he went into the kitchen. He drank down the rest of his wine in two gulps, unwrapped the pizza and slid it onto the ancient oven rack. He found the directions on the box, studied the front of the oven for a minute and decided there was no timer on it. So he pressed a button on his watch and set the timer there. Then he refilled his glass and took the wine bottle with him back out to the living room.

  Zeus and Archimedes had sprawled across the floor, leaving very little space left to pace. Bobbie held up her glass and he topped it off, then set the bottle on top of the crowded book shelf beside her chair. Then, because he wanted to fill his hands with her, he plucked out one of the photo albums instead and flipped it open.

  A younger Bobbie, her curls tumbling from where they were clipped on top of her head, with two full-grown golden retrievers. He flipped the page. More dogs of various ages. More people. A couple of striking blonds he assumed were her sisters that he hadn’t yet met. “You should consider Fiona’s offer.” He closed the album and by some miracle, managed to fit it back into the too-narrow space on the shelf. “You’d be good at it.”