The One-Week Wife

by Hayley Gardner

  “The end of the line,” Matt said when they reached her patio door. While she unlocked it, he added, “Since I solved one of your mysteries for you about the vandalism, I’d appreciate you telling your friends to leave me alone. I’d hate to have to build a moat around my house.”

  “Don’t waste the cash,” Gina advised. “The kids would cross it on rafts and ring your doorbell, anyway.”

  As absurd as that was, Matt chuckled.

  He was so damned appealing when he smiled, Gina thought, gazing up at him, it made her wish for another kiss. “Matt, if you’d only just stop doing outof-the-ordinary things,” she said with a sigh, “you wouldn’t have problems with us.”

  “Sure,” he said, not believing that one iota. “I think I’m going to buy some stock in a binocular business tomorrow. I feel a real run coming on with everyone spying on me.”

  “I can’t believe you’re against a program that keeps the neighborhood safe,” she said as evenly as she could. Why was he being so exasperating?

  “I’m not, as long as it’s not used to butt into other people’s lives.”

  “Is there something about you others shouldn’t know?”

  “That’s exactly my point, Gina.” He smiled slowly. “This watch stuff is turning you into a snoop.” With that, he strode away.

  “I’ve got news for you,” she called after him, “I already was!” Exhausted, she slipped inside her house instead of resuming her watch. Whether or not she would follow him again she didn’t know, but tonight, she was done.

  Leaning against her locked door, Gina pressed her fingers against her mouth. The throbbing inside her had died down to an ache of desire. Matt had accomplished what he’d set out to do. He’d sidetracked, her—right into his arms.

  Damn. Pulling off her clothes and pitching them to the rug as she went, Gina headed toward the shower. Didn’t it figure? The first man she’d found the least bit interesting since Mac’s death, the first one who’d reminded her she was a woman, and all she felt for him was lust. Not respect, and not trust. Lust Worse, he was a recluse and possibly an ex-con.

  She should have slapped him when he’d kissed her.

  Sitting in the dark and staring through his window, Matt watched every light upstairs in Gina’s house blink on. He’d thrown her for a loop, but she wasn’t going to let go. She wasn’t the type.

  So he had to. He was thinking too much about her, how it felt to kiss her and hold her in arms that had been empty for too long. He needed to leave town before he kissed her again—or worse.

  Tomorrow. Tomorrow morning he was going to that house he’d been staring at, and without a plan, without knowing what he was going to say, he was just going to do what he’d come to Bedley Hills to do—confront his father.

  3

  Early the next morning, Matt sat in his car in front of his father’s brick house, his nerves buzzing.

  Just go knock, he told himself. Get it over with. Then he could get the hell out of Bedley Hills, away from Gina’s allure.

  He hit the steering wheel. Why now? Why had he finally stumbled across a woman who might have the power to make him feel again? Why now, when he was supposed to be dealing with the issue of his father, was he instead obsessing about a woman with doe eyes and a big heart for kids?

  He took a deep breath, forcing himself to concentrate on Luke Gallagher. His father’s leaving was why he couldn’t settle down, why he stayed busy…why he stayed apart from the world. If he could get his past settled in his mind, maybe he could finally have a normal life.

  It was time. The next minute rushed by in a blur as he got out of his car, walked up the driveway and rapped on the front door. Seconds later, it opened, and time stood still.

  Thinking and dreaming about this moment for almost twenty years was one thing, but now that Matt actually faced his father, he didn’t know what to say. They had the same hair color, so deep a brown it was hard to tell it from black, but Luke’s was graying now. His father also had his build, broad shoulders and a still-flat midriff, even though according to Matt’s mother, Luke was sixty.

  “If you’re a salesman or a con man, you might as well save your breath. I haven’t got anything worth a nickel anymore,” his father said, traces of Kentucky in his speech.

  “Isn’t that the truth,” Matt agreed, even as he fought hard against the clench of sympathy in his gut. He didn’t want to feel anything for his father, because that would mean he cared about the old man, and he didn’t care. Why should he? His father hadn’t cared two hoots for his kids or his wife.

  Luke Gallagher apparently thought a crazy man had chosen to bother him today. Suddenly looking alarmed, he stepped back to close the main door. Reaching out. Matt jerked open the screen barrier so he could see the man’s face clearly.

  “No, don’t go. It’s me, Matt.”

  “Oh, my God.” Luke’s face filled with shock, but then a ray of hope filled it. Again, Matt had the sensation that he was about to kick a dog when it was. already down, but he fought against his guilt by remembering his little brother’s face as they tore the kid away from him and left both of them with nobody. No real family for almost twenty years.

  “Come in, Matt. Please, come in.” Luke swung the door wide open. Once Matt stepped over the threshold, Luke started forward as if to hug him, but Matt drew back, purposely putting off the gesture. He hadn’t hugged anyone for years; he saw no reason to start with his father.

  Luke jolted backward, but then nodded slowly as though he understood, and then waved toward the couch. “Please, son, sit down.”

  Ignoring the “son” part for now, Matt nodded. He’d sit, he’d talk, and he’d get the answers he’d been waiting years for. Why had Luke left? Why had he robbed him and West of their youths? How could anyone walk out on their children like that? After Luke told him, he planned on walking out and not looking back.

  Surveying the small living room, Matt maneuvered around a cluttered coffee table to sit on a worn-out couch. From what his mother had said, his father had just moved to Bedley Hills late last year from elsewhere in the state. Where Luke had been before now, his mother either hadn’t known or hadn’t wanted to say.

  Matt’s anger began to boil inside him. He wanted to yell at his father for leaving them on their own; he wanted to tell his father about living on the streets and about the bitterness inside him that wouldn’t go away. But on the other hand, he didn’t want to give Luke the satisfaction of finding out his leaving had so much power over his son that it had destroyed Matt’s chances of trusting people and of feeling emotions that ought to come naturally to a person.

  “Hold on, son. I’ll get us some coffee,” his father said, disappearing into a hallway.

  Staring around the nondescript, working-class living room, Matt shoved his hand through his hair in frustration. It was finally payback time, and he didn’t have the slightest idea of where to begin.

  His father returned with two thick white mugs filled with coffee, one of which he handed to him. Matt held it for a minute, letting the heat burn into his palms and center him. He could handle this. Hell, if there was one thing he’d learned, it was that he could handle anything. One step at a time.

  Luke smiled tentatively, as though afraid he might make the wrong move. “I know you have a lot of questions.”

  “Yeah,” Matt said. “One right after another. Mom sent me your address, but she wouldn’t tell me where you’d been or why you’d left. She said I should come see you and ask.”

  Luke nodded. “Mary’s still angry with me, but she did write and tell me she’d talked to you. She wasn’t sure if you’d come. I had almost given up hope.”

  “I didn’t figure there was any hurry to get here,” Matt said. “It took you almost twenty years to contact Mom. You could have written me.” With an apology.

  Luke cleared his throat. “Your mother didn’t want me to push myself on you, so she wouldn’t tell me where you were. Son—”

  Matt shook his head. �
��I’d appreciate it if you’d stop calling me that. Matt’s okay, but let’s not pretend a relationship that hasn’t existed for a long time.”

  His father bowed his head, looking ashamed. Matt shifted uncomfortably. “So I’m here,” he said. “Why did you leave us?”

  Leaning forward, Luke picked up his coffee mug with shaking hands. Since he was taking his sweet time about answering, Matt stared around him. The walls were bare. No paintings or photographs of his family. Had Luke left without taking so much as a picture of his sons? Or had he purposely wiped them out of his life altogether?

  “I drank.” Luke said finally. His eyes were the same intense ones that Matt saw in the mirror every morning when he shaved. “Your mother told me to choose—the bottle or you boys and her—and…I chose wrong.” Stopping, he shook his head. “It was solely my fault, and I am very, very sorry.”

  “Hmm,” Matt said. Even with the coffee mug warming his hands, and the coffee heating his throat and stomach, he still felt icy cold around his heart.

  A picture of Gina drifted into his mind, bringing with it a surge of warmth. He shouldn’t have been so hard on her. They were so dissimilar, she couldn’t possibly understand what drove him…

  “I’m sorry you’re so unhappy,” Luke said, jerking him out of the comfort of his thoughts about Gina.

  Momentarily confused, Matt frowned. “Unhappy?”

  “Your mother told me that things had turned out awful for you. That you’d never married, or anything. I’m sorry. You boys were the most wonderful things that ever happened to me, and I was a fool to give you up for liquor. That finally hit me two years ago, when I started straightening out my life.”

  Abruptly, Luke stopped talking and shook his head. “But I’m not the important one here, Matt. You are. I wish I could help you somehow—”

  “I don’t need any help,” Matt said icily. God. His father thought he was a basket case. He certainly didn’t want his father’s pity, nor did he want his father to know the man’s leaving him had held so much importance in his life that he hadn’t been able to cope with relationships as an adult. His pride was already suffering. “I’m fine.”

  Luke set down his cup. “But West is still lost and you don’t keep in contact with your mother much—”

  “She knows where I am if she needs me.” Matt would never fail to come through for her. She, at least, had tried to keep the family together. Things had been hard for a woman alone back then—hell, they still were. But his father had been different. His father was a man and should have been able to cope.

  “You’re alone and unhappy…” Luke said.

  “I’m not alone.” Matt breathed outward. He knew his father was trying to relate to him, but that wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted his father to see what a wonderful son he had and what he had missed not having Matt in his life. What he’d be missing in the future, after Matt left.

  But now he had to come up with an explanation to what he had just said. The hell he wasn’t alone. He was the loneliest person on earth. He guessed saying he had a pet dog he loved wouldn’t cut it. That would be pitiful, and besides, if his father knew he flew off for weeks at a time, it wasn’t even believable. If he were going to lie to the man, he might as well do it right.

  “I have a wife,” he blurted out Yeah. That was more like it Hell, why not?

  Luke looked confused. “Your mother didn’t know that”

  “My marriage was sudden.” At least that was the truth. This had to be the quickest marriage on earth, concocted in less than a second.

  His father’s keen eyes focused on him as he waited for an explanation. Matt shrugged and added, “After I visited Mom, I went back to Europe. On the next trip back here, my girlfriend and I tied the knot.”

  Luke still looked doubtful. “Are you and she having problems, Matt? Is that why you never told your mother?”

  “No problems at all,” he said, shrugging nonchalantly. “I just didn’t get the chance to send out notices. I’m not much on writing, and I had to fly off again soon after the wedding. I’m in the air force,” he added, feeling a great need to change the subject from the wife he didn’t have. “Did Mom tell you that?”

  “She said you fly fighters.”

  “That’s right.” Matt stood and stared his father straight in the eyes. “Got myself through school, love my job, love my wife. All I need is to win a Purple Heart or a Medal of Honor, and I’ll be a regular redblooded American hero. So you can rest easy. Put any thoughts you might have had that you wrecked my life out of your mind. I did real well without your guidance, and I suspect I’ll continue right along down the same road I’ve been on.” Wasn’t that the truth, too? “Since I don’t need you, I suspect it’s time we parted ways again.”

  His father winced, and as he stood up, his face held a look of regret and sadness so strong that Matt once again felt strange inside. For so long, he’d waited to meet up with his father, and now that the meeting was almost over and he had his answers, it didn’t feel as if anything had changed for him. He still felt angry. But there was nothing left for him to say.

  Luke, however, had plenty. “I don’t believe you, Matt. I think everything’s the same as when you talked to your mother. You just don’t want me to worry about you.”

  “You’re questioning me?”

  “I’d like to meet this wife and see for myself that you two are happy,” Luke said.

  Matt wanted to say no. But if he walked away, and Luke forever believed he was lying, he wouldn’t have proved to his father that his leaving hadn’t affected him adversely. Matt wasn’t sure why it was so important to him, but it was.

  “Fine,” he agreed stiffly. “Right now, she’s visiting her parents in New York. Just as soon as I can get her here, I’ll bring her over, and you can see for yourself just how well my life turned out. I’ll be in touch.”

  Without waiting for his father to say another word, he crossed the room, pushed through the screen door and strode down the driveway to his car. He was just getting in when he heard his father call from the house, “You didn’t tell me her name!”

  You’ll know when I know, Matt thought, shutting the door and pretending he hadn’t heard his father’s voice. He wasn’t certain how he was going to get a woman to pose as his wife for a day, but he supposed he could go to an employment agency or put an ad in the paper. Once his father saw a warm and loving woman in his arms, maybe Luke would believe his older son was just fine. And then, Matt thought, he could walk away and stop wishing for what couldn’t be—a real family relationship with his father, mother and brother. It couldn’t be, because until West was located, he wouldn’t be able to forgive his father totally. Maybe not even then.

  As he drove away, he flashed on asking Gina to volunteer, but immediately shook his head. Doing so would cause more problems than the solution was worth. It was bad enough that he’d already kissed her; if he approached her on this, Gina would start thinking he was interested. Besides, he didn’t need her help. After all, how hard could it be to find a woman to pose as his wife?

  As it turned out, more was involved for what he wanted to do than Matt had first imagined. That day, as he composed the ad, something occurred to him. What if he found a woman in Bedley Hills and it turned out his father knew her? The odds were against it, Matt knew, because the town wasn’t that small, but just in case, it would be pathetic if Luke caught him in a lie. He decided to stick to advertising in the next town over, twenty miles away.

  And then there was the pay and the amount of time the job would last. What he ended up with was simplistic:

  Woman in twenties wanted to play wife for up to one week. Legitimate work. Pay rate $100/day, one day minimum.

  He’d ended it with his first name and his phone number. He put in the one-day minimum because he figured it would take a half day to rehearse the background story he’d prepared that morning, and a half day to convince his father he was happy. But with an indefinite time frame, Matt could keep his
options open. He didn’t really expect it would take any longer than a week, tops, to convince his father he had a marriage made in heaven.

  The ad went into the paper the next morning. In the following two days, Matt had five calls. One woman turned down an interview when Matt had told her the job was on a private basis and not in a theater production. After that, he’d held back that particular bit of information. Two women had been over fortyfive but hopeful—and he’d gently told them that it was a very specialized role. A vast age difference between Matt and his wife would give his father new worries about his happiness.

  That left two interviews. The first was scheduled for a few minutes from then at three—Marcia Peterman. If all went well, Matt would cancel the other one and spend the rest of the afternoon rehearsing. Then he and Marcia could visit Luke tomorrow. After that, he’d be free to fly somewhere exotic to relax until the rest of his leave was over.

  While he knew he ought to be happy that he was so close to leaving Bedley Hills, he couldn’t stop thinking about Gina. She had pretty much left him alone since their last meeting. While he should have been pleased, for some reason, he kept wondering why he no longer warranted her attention. Whenever he went outside lately, he found himself looking around, half expecting her to pop up. She didn’t, but he still felt like someone was watching him.

  A car pulled up into his driveway blaring music loudly enough to make Matt wince. If there was anything he valued as much as his privacy, it was quiet.

  The music stopped abruptly. He stepped out onto the porch at the same time his first interviewee tottered up the sidewalk on high heels. Almost reflexively, he reached out to help her up the porch steps.

  “Hi! I’m Marcia.”

  Red-haired Marcia seemed awfully young, with a black leather miniskirt and a bad perm. She was about five feet, if you counted the two inches her teased up, hairspray-stiffened bangs added. Matt didn’t think he could bear to touch her hair, let alone an arm or a shoulder. And if he didn’t touch his “wife,” his father would see through his ruse in a second.