“Mr. Gallagher?”
Gina’s feather-soft voice lured him away from the memory, and he swallowed the lump forming in his throat and sighed with frustration.
“Okay,” he said, “let’s forget Frankie for a minute. What about the other two kids before him? Why in the heck is it the second I put up a Do Not Disturb sign everybody and his sister shows up at my door?”
“What were you going to do with Frankie if I hadn’t stopped you?” Gina countered.
She wasn’t going to like this answer, either. Matt took a deep breath before he answered. “I figured he had nothing to do, so I was going to let him pull weeds in my backyard.”
“You were going to force Frankie to work for you? He’s only a little boy.”
“Then someone ought to be watching him,” he said stiffly. At the look on her face, he added with a sigh, “Don’t look at me like that. I was going to pay him.”
No one could argue with this man, that was obvious! Gina’s hands went to her hips. Gallagher’s gaze dropped there and lingered. She didn’t care—let him look. Meeting Bedley Hills’s newest bachelor had only proved to her she really wasn’t going to run into a love story in her own backyard—or in the backyard next to her, either.
So now that Frankie was safe, it was time she gave Mr. Gallagher back the privacy he was craving. First, though, since she was so mad at her new neighbor for being such a stick-in-the-mud when it came to children, she couldn’t resist having the last word.
“If you don’t want the neighborhood kids to bother you, Mr. Gallagher,” she said, “you should remove the kick-me sign from your backside.”
He automatically reached behind him, but stopped just short of brushing off his rear view. His lips juggled a smile, as though he wasn’t used to being teased. “You mean that figuratively, right?”
Throwing up her hands in exasperation, Gina marched over his lawn to the thick cardboard sign on the tree, which she pulled free. “If you need it in writing before you understand—here.” She gave it a toss that made the poster land face-up on the grass near him.
Bewildered, Matt looked down. This time his smile came fast, followed by real glee in his eyes, and then laughter that stemmed from pure enjoyment of the joke. Gina forgot herself and grinned, too. She almost, for a few seconds, saw something she could like in the tall, handsome bachelor—a sense of humor. Then, with a start, she realized how dangerous a turn her thoughts were taking. Very dangerous, if you weighed in how physically attracted she was to him.
Turning, Gina walked to the end of the bushes and around the corner into her yard, focusing on that word. Danger.
Gallagher had mentioned prison of his own accord, almost like he was trying to warn her away. As Gina gathered up her gardening tools, she recalled his face, his rugged features, his hardened, intense black eyes. Accustomed to seeing troubled people when she’d worked three years as a marriage counselor, she could read her new neighbor easily—he’d been through hell. He was what some people called an old soul. From the way he held his body, stiff and upright, to the way the sides of his mouth drew back, he appeared filled with tension from an unknown source. Could he be a bundle of nerves because he’d escaped from prison somewhere?
Stay out of his life, Gina, she told herself. What with the attraction factor involved, she’d only end up getting hurt. Somehow, she had to remember to stop playing Little Miss Fix-it to every tortured soul she ran across. But it wasn’t easy; she’d been at it a long time.
Her need to help people had started when she’d been a child watching her parents grow dissatisfied in their marriage. As mediator, she’d read their moods and soothed troubled waters before the fights started. But her parents had grown apart and finally divorced the year she’d turned eighteen and gone off to college. The three of them led separate lives now, and all her caring had been for nothing.
That was, she thought now, the main reason she’d gone into marriage counseling. She’d been suffering because she’d been unable to keep her family together. Of course, she’d also had a knack for reading human emotions, but really, it had been her desire to prove to herself that she could be important to somebody’s life—and she didn’t care whose at that point—that had pushed her into counseling. She’d been desperate to connect, to be needed and appreciated by someone. By saving all the marriages she could, she’d also be saving their poor kids whose lives were, in reality, powder kegs waiting to explode.
And so, fresh out of graduate school, she’d gone to work at the Bedley Hills Family Help Center as a marriage counselor. That’s where she’d met Mac Delaney, a co-worker. Poor, dear Mac. He’d worshipped her. No one ever had before, and in return, she’d gladly given him her heart, and pretended with her body. Finally needed, she’d been ecstatically happy with the man, and she wanted nothing more than to make him happy, too.
But then he’d died in a car accident. A chilly numbness had taken hold of her body, and she couldn’t bear to return to counseling troubled couples and see love dying all around her. Because of her marriage to Mac, she was even more confident of her idea that any two people, even those not that sexually attracted to each other, could make a wonderful marriage if they remembered love. In love with love, she’d opened up a bridal shop. That way she could meet couples at the beginning of their marriages, basking in happiness. And if sometimes she spotted problems brewing, and occasionally gave a couple free advice, well, so much the better for them all.
She’d been doing that for a little over a year, and it was a joy to go to work. No way was she letting Matt Gallagher and his magnetism upset her equilibrium and cause her to lose what happiness she was carefully maintaining. From what she’d observed, he didn’t seem to have the capacity to care about anyone, much less need someone, and she knew better than to go near a man like that. Sex wasn’t enough. Her parents’ unhappiness had taught her that.
Closing the door to her shed, Gina walked to her patio door, flung it open and slipped inside her house. Gallagher had too many questions wrapped up around him. Where had he come from? How had he really gotten those scars? Did the answer to that have anything to do with how badly he craved privacy?
Gina stared down at her hand in surprise as she pushed the lock into place. She’d never felt the need to do that before. She loved her neighborhood and trusted the people around her. They were like the family she’d never had until Mac. Better than family, if you counted that she never had any arguments with her neighbors-until Gallagher, anyway. Was he dangerous? Or was she worrying for nothing?
Maybe, she thought, staring out the window in the direction of Gallagher’s home, she’d be wise to keep an eye on him-just in case.
When Matt stopped laughing, he plucked up the sign with muscles toned from years of working out and carried it around to the back of his house, where he tossed it against one side of his screened-in porch. He should have known better than to rent a house in the middle of what his landlord had called “a friendly little neighborhood in a friendly little town.” But he’d done without his space in foster homes and during basic training in the air force, and ever since he’d been able to afford to, when given a choice, he rented a house with a yard rather than an apartment or hotel room. Tuttle had been the only landlord around willing to rent him one here for the single month he was on military leave, so he’d jumped on it.
Friendly town or not, he hadn’t guessed the neighborhood kids might mess with his sign. What he’d had of a childhood before his father had walked out on his family had been in the hill country in Kentucky. If somebody had put a sign up there, he and his brother would have left it alone.
Smiling bittersweetly, he headed into his house for some coffee. His brother West, not liking trouble, would have made him leave the sign alone. For sure, the two of them wouldn’t have disturbed any adults if they could help it.
The old familiar tightness ached again between his shoulders as it always did when he thought about his brother. The night they’d dragged his eight-ye
ar-old brother off was the last time he’d seen West. That had been about a week after their mother had abandoned them at the courthouse, twenty years ago now.
So much had happened in those years. With his bad rep from the break-in, he hadn’t been popular in the foster care system, so he’d taken to the streets. Angry with the world because he didn’t have a family anymore, he’d survived on pure guts for a year until he’d gotten beaten up trying to save another smaller kid who’d reminded him of West. Bleeding, he’d stumbled into a church on Fifth Street—a place he’d figured he’d be safe—and just like that, his life had changed.
The minister and his wife had taken him in, sent him back to school and put him to work helping others. Sick of being on the streets, Matt had listened to the Cavels and channeled his anger into a relentless drive to do something great with his life. He’d finished high school and on the minister’s advice had joined the air force. While training, he’d figured out what he was going to do with his life. He was going to fly, and he was going to find his brother. Once he had those goals, he’d thrown himself into fulfilling them. In the years that followed, he’d gone to college and become a pilot, but he hadn’t, even with his best efforts, been able to find West.
Matt rubbed his neck until the muscles relaxed, and then he took a deep breath. His brother wasn’t why he’d come to Bedley Hills—at least not directly. He was here to burn a bridge, and damn it, he needed to be alone to think. All he seemed to have done by putting up his sign was to invite trouble like a magnet—in the form of kids and Gina Delaney.
She’d be back; he knew it. Something in the way she’d protected Frankie, and in the way she’d looked at him when he’d been thinking about West, had given him the idea she was the mothering type. He’d have to be downright unpleasant when she came over again, and he didn’t want to do that.
Coffeepot in hand, Matt stared down at the gleaming steel sink. Well, he’d settled into his temporary home, and he knew what his next step had to be. The question was—was he ready now to take it?
Would he ever really be?
2
Gina paced the small aisle in her bridal shop as she waited for a customer who was scheduled for an eleven o’clock consultation. Nothing had changed. Events since the sign incident had only served to make her even more suspicious of Matt Gallagher—to the point of obsessing about the guy.
If only she had time to discuss it all with her streetwise, savvy assistant, now working in the stockroom a few feet away, she thought maybe Chantie could alleviate her fears. Unfortunately, Gina’s customer, Deborah Osbourne, was walking up to the shop’s door, man in tow. No time.
“Ms. Osbourne’s here.” Gina moved closer and added, more softly, “Grab any customers that come in, and remind me I’ve got a problem to talk with you about later, will you?”
“Sure, boss,” Chantie said, her hand waving through the open doorway. “Sounds interesting.”
“It will be.” Rounding the counter, Gina greeted her client, a graceful, slim redhead in her early twenties. Deborah’s wedding was in about six weeks, and for this visit, she’d brought her fiancé in to help her finalize plans. Gina had long ago found that future grooms were seldom interested in details, and so, after seating the couple at the small table she kept for consultations, she directed her comments toward Deborah.
“I’m going to give you a checklist with tips to help you do everything right down to the most minute detail.” Gina kept a basic list and altered it according to the type of wedding the bride had requested and whether or not Gina had been given full charge. Deborah’s ceremony and reception were to be small and held outdoors, and she’d requested limited assistance. A no-brainer, which left her too much time to think about Matt Gallagher.
Taking a deep breath, she got to work. “I’ve got some questions for you to answer so we can get the biggest details settled,” she told Deborah. “I’ll note your answers on the list for your own reference later.” She glanced down at the paper. “Have you decided upon your attendants’ gifts?”
“I’m not sure.” Opening her purse, Deborah took out the catalog Gina had given her on her last visit and tapped a page with a glossy red fingernail. “I think I want either these necklaces, or the little music boxes with the lovebirds on top.” She turned to her fiancé. “What do you think?”
“Whatever you like,” Joe said. He caressed his fiancee’s hand, and Gina held back a wistful sigh. She missed a man’s touch. She missed touching a man. Suddenly, she thought of Matt, and just as swiftly, she mentally shoved him and his tight jeans over a precipice into oblivion.
Deborah picked the necklaces, and Gina wrote up the order. “The ushers’ gifts?”
The bride-to-be turned to Joe.
“I don’t care,” he said. “You decide.”
Deborah chose pen sets, and then her eyes returned to her fiancé, her mouth pouting.
Trouble ahead, Gina thought. “You’ll need to coordinate a day to take off work and get your marriage license.”
Deborah looked at Joe. Gina held her breath. Don’t say “whatever,” Joe.
“Whatever,” Joe said amiably.
Gina winced as Deborah daintily exploded. “Why did you bother to come along if you aren’t going to give me feedback?” she blurted out, her eyes gushing tears. His face bewildered, Joe withdrew his hand from Deborah’s and stared.
“I’ll wait for you in the car,” he said finally, rising and walking toward the door. Shoving back her chair, Deborah raced after him. The two of them stood on the opposite side of the display window, gesturing as they fought. A minute or so later, Deborah reentered the shop, still teary-eyed.
Grabbing the box of tissues she kept on her front counter, Gina offered them and waved her hand at the empty chair. “Can I help?”
Seeming grateful for the kind offer, Deborah sank down in the chair. “I don’t understand Joe,” she said. Taking a tissue, she wiped her face and blew her nose—loudly. “Sometimes I wonder if he really loves me.”
“Only you can determine that for certain,” Gina said in the same quiet voice she’d once used with couples as a marriage counselor. “But I think he does.”
“How do you know that?” Deborah wailed.
“He was communicating with you,” Gina said. “Women talk to connect, but most men act. The fact that he came with you to a bridal shop, a woman’s territory, shows how much he cares. And he held your hand.” She smiled. “My guess is he let you decide everything because what he really wants is for you to have your wedding day the way you want it.”
“To make me happy?”
“Exactly.” Gina nodded, watching her point sink in. “Do you want to go ahead over the rest of the details now, or come back at another time?”
“Another time, and I’ll bring my mother. Thanks!”
That wasn’t the best news—Gina had met the woman’s mother. But at least Deborah was one step closer to having a marriage that might last, and that alone made Gina smile.
Waving, she watched the bride-to-be until she reached the car where her fiancé was waiting. Embracing, the two began a long, hot kiss. As Gina watched, her face heating, she flashed on Matt Gallagher’s strong, muscular arms pulling her close like that, imagined one of his big hands curved on her waist and the other on the round part of her hip, right before it slid down over her buttock and then caressed—
From behind her, Chantie gave a long, slow whistle. “Whooee! What in the world did you say to those two, Gina? It’s gonna take a hosing down to get them apart.”
Her fantasy popping like a balloon, Gina whirled around and hoped her cheeks weren’t as flushed as her body felt. Although she was pleased with herself for helping Deborah start her marriage off right, she was also kind of irritated. Marriage was so sacred, so beautiful. Lust without love was meaningless. So why was she fantasizing about Matt Gallagher, a man she would never fall in love with? She didn’t need this misery! “I just gave Deborah a little premarriage counseling,” she to
ld Chantie.
“You know enough to get a man and woman revved up like that, honey, what on earth are you still doing single?”
“I’ve given up on finding love.” Gina glanced again at the couple, who were finally getting into their car. She knew where they were headed, and she pushed away a wave of jealousy and longing. “Love is not in my cards.”
Chantie cast a long, dark-eyed look of amusement around at walls filled with paper hearts, wedding dresses and roses, both silk and fresh, all picked out by her boss. “Yeah, sure, Gina, whatever you say.” She grinned. “Just don’t give up on a love life.”
“I think your employer’s love life is not a suitable topic for discussion at work,” Gina said, grinning back.
Chantie hooted. “You’re sure right about that. Your love life isn’t a topic to discuss, girl, ‘cause you ain’t got none. And if you don’t start looking around, you probably ain’t ever going to get any, either.”
“I don’t want a sex life. I want a love life. I was lucky once, but I doubt if it will happen again.” Even as she said the words, Gina thought of Matt and swore under her breath. She’d never melted like that before under any man’s scrutiny. Everything made her think of him—and of being touched. She wanted him. But it was far better if she didn’t give her body to a man who didn’t have her heart—or a heart of his own. Or maybe, in Matt’s case, it was both.
Chantie sorted through the mail on the counter. “You said to remind you you’ve got a problem?” She rolled her eyes. “But of course, I figured that out a long—”
“Chantie!” Gina scolded laughingly. “It’s this Matt Gallagher again.” Chantie already knew about the sign incident, so Gina continued from there. “A couple of my neighbors and I spotted him out walking around midnight, by himself, both last night and the night before. Everyone’s edgy about that because of the minor vandalism that started this week. You add in that I’m head of the neighborhood watch and my neighbors look to me for guidance, and Gallagher is making me crazy.”
The One-Week Wife Page 2