Stop it, Gina! she ordered silently. His life was none of her business. Walking with great purpose back toward her house, she held her head high when she passed Matt’s. Unfortunately, though, she couldn’t escape him. All the way up her driveway to her side porch, she could hear his deep voice through the bushes. He was asking the woman if she would like to continue their discussion at the same place he’d taken Ms. Breadstick to the day before. If he ended up hiring that woman, Gina thought, he’d have to make his father believe they were happily married. How? Maybe by putting his arm around her, or sharing a kiss or two. The picture of him with the girl who had just shown up whirled around inside Gina like a meteor with a tail that tied her up in jealous knots.
Feeling jealous was unreasonable of her, Gina knew. She had absolutely no claim on Matt. She had no desire to pose as his wife, to be kissed and held by him again, not even for a day. It would lead nowhere, and she didn’t indulge herself in that kind of behavior. Sex should mean something between two people, she felt with all her heart.
And as for love—she’d been correct from the beginning. It wasn’t in the cards for them, no matter how her body tingled when Matt touched her. She wasn’t stupid enough to think she was going to change his cold personality. Matt didn’t seem capable of loving anyone. For her, that would be like living with her parents again, desperately seeking their love but never getting it. Mac had worshipped her, and now that she knew how that felt, she wasn’t settling for anything less from a man.
Besides, Matt would only be using her for temporary thrills. It wasn’t worth it. She’d spent her childhood being used by her parents as a sounding board and a miniature marriage counselor. Never again. She wanted real love in her life, not some warm body next to her in bed. Her lips thinned. No matter how good Matt’s warm body might feel next to hers.
Resolutely, she walked inside her house, determined to forget about Matt and concentrate on getting her life back to normal. She wasn’t even going to ask him if the latest candidate for his wife had worked out.
She swore she wasn’t.
An hour later, Matt pulled into his driveway and parked. Turning his lights out, he sat in the driver’s seat and surveyed his yard, seeing if Gina was hidden somewhere waiting to spy on him. After what he’d been through with Tuttle’s interviewee, Matt wasn’t even irritated at the idea. He could sense the draw between Gina and him as he never had with any other woman, and it wasn’t just sexual. Gina was the most interesting thing that had happened to him in his whole life, a human puzzle, and he couldn’t wait to see what she was going to do next. He highly suspected that she had planned something, now that she knew he was back to his quest for a temporary wife.
And she did know. A few seconds after Tuttle’s interviewee had arrived, Matt had seen Gina pass by his driveway, not looking right or left. He hadn’t seen her since, so he figured she was in her house plotting some way to get him to tell Olivia Gottlieb to go home.
Only Matt had already gotten rid of her. Everything had been fine with Olivia until he’d told her his background story and then quizzed her on it. As it had turned out, Olivia was pure fluff. She couldn’t even remember where she’d left her car keys, let alone what kind of plane he flew. So much for Tuttle’s taste in women.
Now I’m desperate, Matt thought, finally getting out of his car. He was almost to his back door when he heard the rustling of leaves in the tree behind him.
“Okay, Gina, come on down,” he said, turning and peering up into the heavy foliage of the tree, lit by the porch light. To his surprise, it wasn’t Gina.
“Frankie, what are you doing up there?”
“You took down the sign and all those ladies are coming to your house. Can you be disturbed now?”
“Gina seems to think so,” Matt muttered under his breath. But he could see Frankie really wanted to know.
“I still want to be left alone,” he told the kid, “but I’m not going to yell at you about it. Just come down out of that tree.” Before you get hurt, and Gina has me run out of town on a rail for causing more trouble.
Frankie hesitated. “Did you really escape from San Quentin?”
“Of course not.” Matt swore under his breath. San Quentin? Boy, didn’t that little tale get blown all out of proportion? He’d never thought the adults would tell the kids that story, let alone embellish it so much. He’d never thought it would get past Gina and Tuttle. Geez, did he really appear to be that much of a cold desperado that everyone believed he was an escapee? “Who told you that?”
“Ms. Delaney told my mother to keep us away from your yard because you didn’t like company, and Mr. Tuttle told my mother it was because you escaped from prison—”
“Frankie, I’m a pilot in the air force. I fly fighter planes.”
Frankie’s eyes went big, and he slid down out of the tree and walked closer to Matt, though he still maintained a healthy distance. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Prove it.”
Why wasn’t he just yelling at the kid to get lost? Taking out his wallet, Matt tossed a picture of himself on the hood of his car so Frankie wouldn’t have to come too close to him. In the snapshot, he was in uniform standing in front of the plane he’d flown in Germany.
Frankie picked it up, studied it, and his eyes went big. “Wow. You are a pilot. So what are you doing here?”
“Lately I’ve been asking myself exactly that.”
Frankie stared up at him. He really was a cute kid, Matt thought suddenly, what with his dark hair all ruffled up on top, and his freckles dotting his applelike cheeks. Suddenly he wondered what it would be like to have a kid of his own. Nah. It didn’t bear thinking about. It just plain wasn’t ever going to happen.
“I like airplanes and jets,” Frankie told him. “But my mom and dad say I should study and be a scientist or a doctor since I’ve got the intelligence.”
What that implied about his own choice of a career, Matt wasn’t certain, but he decided he’d better not argue with an eight-year-old genius. “You should do whatever you really want to do with your life, Frankie. You’ve got a few years to decide.”
“Not really. I’ve already started high school courses.”
High school? Matt’s eyebrows lifted in alarm. “But you’re only a kid. You’re going to miss out on the best years of your life, and that isn’t good.” He might not be a genius, but he knew that much.
“Don’t worry about me, Mr. Gallagher. I’ve got ways of compensating.”
Matt stared down at him. The kid reminded him of West in a way, too mature for his years. He ought to talk to Frankie’s parents and tell them the hazards of making a kid grow up too fast, genius or not. But that would be getting involved, and he didn’t want to do that.
A woman called Frankie’s name in the distance, and Frankie’s ears perked up. “That’s Mom. Gotta go. See you later.”
“Just don’t climb my tree anymore, you hear?” Matt called after him as the kid ran off. His eyes narrowed. His picture was still in Frankie’s hand. Forgetting to give it back might have been a simple oversight, but there was also what looked like the top of a small paper bag sticking out of the kid’s back overall pocket. It took Matt a minute, but then he remembered where he might have seen just such a paper bag recently—in his tool chest. Coincidence?
He didn’t think so. Striding to the screened-in porch that he’d forgotten to lock, Matt inventoned the small tool set he owned and discovered his tape measure was missing, along with a small bag of nails Tuttle had left behind after doing some repairs on the porch.
His eyes narrowed. Lord, he was going to hate to burst Gina’s bubble, but maybe it was better if she learned sooner rather than later that the world wasn’t all cotton candy and sweet dreams. Frankie was either a kleptomaniac, or he was pilfering so he could sell items to get money, or he had some other scheme cooked up in his little genius mind. Any way you looked at it, Matt had discovered the identity of the Bedley Hills vandal, and he was g
oing to have to let the head of the neighborhood watch know.
Now, why wasn’t that upsetting him? He grinned suddenly, as he realized the reason. He was desperate for a wife, and information like this could come in very handy. If he played his ace right, he could win the lady’s hand—for as long as he needed her, of course. He had no desire to go after a real relationship with Gina. She needed a man who could lavish her with love, and he didn’t even know the meaning of the word.
Gina was bent over a box in the storeroom the next morning when Chantie flew in. “Oh, girl,” her assistant whispered, “you have to see what just moseyed into the shop—a man who caught a bridal bouquet—and there’s no sign of a woman anywhere near him.”
A man who’d caught a bridal bouquet? Confused, Gina followed Chantie into the main shop, where she found Matt holding a half-dozen roses tied with a white lace ribbon.
“Why didn’t I already know this?” Gina asked aloud.
“For you,” Matt said, extending his arm.
“Thank you.” Accepting the flowers, her lips tilted upward in a half smile of joy. The woman hadn’t worked out. That shouldn’t make her happy, but it did. “The woman I saw turned you down, and now you’re desperate,” she said.
“You were always my first choice,” Matt said.
“Sure I was,” Gina said. “You didn’t want me as a wife until you’d been turned down by other women. How many has it been now?”
“I lost count—but I never wanted anyone but you.”
Chantie’s gaze had been swinging back and forth between them like she was observing a tennis match. She sighed loudly and began fanning herself again wildly. “I think I’m going to swoon!”
Concerned, Matt turned to Chantie, but Gina shook her head. Getting a chair, she pushed her assistant, who knew nothing about Matt’s search for a wife and must be thinking this all pretty strange, down onto it. “Chantie, this is my neighbor, Matt Gallagher. Matt, this is Chantie, my assistant.”
“Charmed,” Matt said.
“Oh, honey, so am I,” Chantie said. She turned to Gina. “Is this where you declare your everlasting love for him, get married and the book ends? Or is this more like the black moment, where you watch your best friend go off with him and live in nonstop regret for the rest of your life that you didn’t grab him while you had the chance?”
Gina blanched. “This is the part where I consider writing out the minor character if she doesn’t shut her mouth and soon. Chantie, if you want to stay and watch, you’ve got to keep quiet.”
“Gotcha, boss.” Chantie stared at them, her eyes big. “Go ahead, you two. I’m waiting with bated breath to see what happens next.”
Matt studied Chantie for a few seconds. Hell, this was the craziest town he’d ever been in. A comedienne in a bridal shop, a neighborhood spy, a landlord who claimed to be an ex-con, kids who messed with signs and a wife who posed as a vandal to annoy her husband—with Gina the center of it all. He began to laugh and had to search for breath to speak.
“Do you pay her extra to be funny?” he asked Gina.
“Really, Matt, not everyone is as materialistic as you. Chantie’s funny for free.”
“You can pay me extra if you want,” Chantie piped in.
Ignoring her, Gina occupied herself with putting the roses into a vase and thought hard about what she was going to do about Matt’s request.
“I really need your help, Gina,” Matt said quietly, trying not to notice the way her pale pink silk blouse draped over her breasts, or how the color added a rosy glow to her cheeks. “And since you don’t like my constant references to money, I wouldn’t even consider insulting you by offering to pay you for the time.”
Gina stared at him in mock shock over the roses. “Matt, was that a joke that just came out of your mouth?”
“Occasionally, when provoked, I can come up with a zinger or two. Had my life gone differently, I might even have developed a real sense of humor to go along with my other assets.”
“Oh, merciful heavens,” Chantie broke in, fanning herself harder with a napkin she had folded. “His assets, he says. Gina, you either grab those assets, or I will. This is one man who shouldn’t have to beg for a wife, let alone pay for one.”
“Chantie, you have no idea what’s going on,” Gina replied sternly, putting the roses down on the counter. “And remember, Mr. Gallagher might just be a prison escapee. You were the one who said I should be careful.”
That reminded Matt. “I know I shouldn’t have let you believe that story, but really, Gina—San Quentin?”
Gina’s eyes went huge. “You escaped from San Quentin?”
“Of course not. But Frankie Simmons got the idea I did from somewhere.”
“When did you see Frankie Simmons again?” Gina rounded the counter and confronted him, poking her finger directly into his chest. “If you frightened that child—”
Matt caught her finger, ignoring the need that surged through him at the mere touching of her skin. “I’d be careful with the accusations if I were you. Frankie has the idea that I escaped from San Quentin, which is so ludicrous I won’t even begin to discuss it. He got this idea from something you said to Tuttle, who told Mrs. Simmons. If anyone is responsible for scaring the kid, it’s you “
Since she looked properly disturbed, Matt decided to save his trump card about the vandalism for later.
“If you didn’t escape from prison,” she said uncertainly, “then what you told Breadstick—”
His eyebrows lifted in question.
“The woman you took to the restaurant,” she clarified.
“Oh, okay,” he drawled, a grin on his face as he took a long, lazy look up and down her hourglass curves Her body reminded him of those ladies in the fifties movies—real women.
“What you told her must have been the truth,” Gina said in wonder. “You are in the air force.”
Matt took his service I.D out of his wallet and handed it to Gina. The identification looked valid, but she’d never seen one, so she didn’t protest when Chantie, whose brother was in the army, grabbed it out of her hand.
“I’m a captain,” Matt told her. “In a little over two weeks, I’m due to report to Langley Air Force Base in Virginia. Assuming this town hasn’t worn down my nervous system and killed my edge, I’m going to be flying F-15s.”
“He is a pilot,” Chantie whispered forcefully to Gina, flapping his identification. “It’s just like my brother’s.”
“Then why did you let me believe you were dangerous?” Gina asked Matt, plucking the card from Chantie’s fingers and handing it back to him.
“I thought it would make you leave me alone.” Matt gave her a charming grin. “It didn’t work.”
“No kidding,” Gina shot back, but finally, she smiled, too. Subconsciously he had wanted someone to be interested in his life. He needed people, and he didn’t even realize it.
They stared at each other. The room became so quiet and the connection between them so intense that even Chantie dropped her usual quips. “Break time,” she said, grabbing her purse and heading out the front door with only a tinkling of the bell to signal her exit.
Matt watched her leave and then turned back to Gina. “To answer your question about Frankie, I saw him last night. He was in my tree.”
Gina frowned, remembering the feeling of being watched she’d gotten when she’d walked past Matt’s. Had Frankie been watching her—or Matt? Why? “You didn’t come to tell me you strung him up, did you?”
He shook his head. “I think you know me better than that by now. We had a very interesting conversation about me being in prison, and then his mother called for him.”
“I told his mother to tell him to leave you alone.”
“I don’t think Frankie ever intended for me to know he was there.” He probably wouldn’t have, had he not been looking for Gina. Reaching out, he pushed her wayward bangs off her forehead. “I need you to pose as my wife. Please?”
Her breath caugh
t, and her lips pulsed out gently. “I don’t want to get involved in your life.”
“I’m desperate,” he pleaded. “I know pretending to be married goes against everything you believe in, but if you would just do this, I could leave Bedley Hills. You’ll never have to see me again. Then you could go back to fooling with neighborhood watch meetings, and Tuttle, and Babs—all the important things in life that make you happy.”
Gina knew Matt was leaving whether or not he got a wife to help lie to his father. There was no future for them—not that she wanted one—and Gina saw no reason to make herself miserable by helping him out.
“I’ll make it worth your while.” He reached out and ran his fingers down her cheek, over the curve of her chin and down the exposed part of her neck, stopping just short of touching her breasts. Gina swallowed and took a deep breath to combat her racing libido. Or was it her heart?
“Just say no,” she whispered. No to a man who could probably take her to heaven and home again with his touch. She was a fool, but she was going to say it. She was going to absolutely, positively, without a doubt say—
”I know who the Bedley Hills vandal is,” Matt said.
Gina pulled away and scowled at him. “I don’t believe this. You’re trying to bribe me.”
“Seduction isn’t working.” He glanced around the shop to make sure they were alone.
She eyed him steadily. “Did you purposely mean that to sound cold and calculating, or was it my imagination?”
He stared at her, realizing that she was right. And then he said something completely uncharacteristic. “I apologize. Let’s just say I never learned how to relate to people really well. I don’t know if I ever had the ability, or if life beat it out of me. So if I sounded cold, I’m very sorry. I need your help, Gina.”
Lord, Gina thought, she was such a sucker for a man in distress, and this particular one was pitiful. Matt didn’t really need her help—he just wanted to use her. But was she really being used if she stood to gain something—the identity of the neighborhood vandal? If she saw him through this, and showed him how important it was that he somehow connect for real with his father, wouldn’t he leave Bedley Hills destined for a more satisfying life than he had now as Matt Gallagher, the recluse?
The One-Week Wife Page 7