The One-Week Wife

by Hayley Gardner

  Cursing, Matt paced on his porch early the next morning, unable to leave. He was ready. His suitcases had been in the car since late last night, and his tank was filled. There was only one hitch.

  He glanced at the bushes, knowing that somewhere on the other side of them was Gina. When he’d returned from walking, resolute that he had to leave, she had already left his house and gone back to hers. He wanted to say goodbye, but he thought going over there now to do so would only add insult to the injury he’d already caused her.

  He paced faster. After she’d left, he’d spent the rest of a sleepless night packing his things, and then tossing and turning in bed, unable to forget her smile. Without her warmth and caring beside him, he’d been left with nothing but the same old cold emptiness he’d had since he’d been a child to keep him company. Only now the cold had evolved from manageably chilly into a killing Arctic front.

  He was a damned fool for not pursuing her, but he was scared. Since his father had walked off, he’d always felt like he was on the outside looking in, and where relationships were concerned, he guessed he’d helped that feeling right along. All his life he had left people behind before they could do it to him, and he’d be left with the pain. How much easier it had been before Gina, when he was still the iceman.

  He swore. With his people record, Matt figured marriage or anything else forever—like love—was well out of his reach. But now, he was leaving Gina, and that was proving to be harder than he’d ever believed it could be.

  But he had to go. With determination, he bounded off the porch toward his car—and then he stopped in his tracks. His mouth twisted as he stared at his car and figured out why it seemed out of kilter. Someone had let the air out of all his tires, and he had a feeling he knew who.

  Frankie. When he got his hands on that kid…Frustrated, he slapped the side of his car, then cursed as his thumb whacked the wrong way on the door handle.

  “Damn you, Frankie,” he cursed loudly as he shook his hand to get the blood circulating, “I’m going to paddle your vandalistic little a—”

  “I hope you were going to say behind,” Gina called from the sidewalk at the end of the driveway. “There’s a town ordinance against public swearing.”

  Matt stared at her smiling face. Why was she in such a good mood? He forgot that question as he took in the rest of her. She was dressed in terry-cloth-type shorts that hugged her hips, with a sweatband around her head, and a sexy little jogging T-shirt Matt swore she’d worn to make his last minutes in Bedley Hills miserable.

  “Get up here,” he ordered. “I need to talk to you.”

  “Well, I don’t know, Matt. Is it safe to trespass?” she asked, not moving off the sidewalk. “I was going to wait until you left before I jogged all over your front lawn.”

  Something was up. Maybe she’d decided it was better if he left, after all. That served him right, but it also hurt.

  “Sure, it’s safe,” he told her. “But you’ll have to wait on that jog. I’m going to be stuck here for a while.”

  “How much longer?” she asked.

  “Long enough to find Frankie and give him what for. Messing with a man’s car. It ought to be outlawed—”

  Like her body ought to be outlawed, he thought, diverted by the sight of Gina’s breasts bouncing as she jogged up the driveway toward him with just a little too much gusto.

  “What did Frankie allegedly do to you now?” Gina asked in a sweet voice as she jogged in place. Her full breasts jumped right along with her, and Matt gulped as his insides tortured him about his decision to leave the woman behind.

  Staring into her eyes as best he could, considering she kept moving, Matt tried to concentrate on the vandalism of his car. But doing so was difficult, as his body tightened in response to her bouncing breasts.

  “There’s no alleged about what Frankie did,” he told her. “You’re head of the neighborhood watch, right?”

  “Now, you know I am, Matt,” she said, doing small lunges to stretch her legs. Matt’s eyes returned traitorously to watch her moving her hips and her thighs—

  “Do you have to do that in broad daylight?” he growled.

  She stretched her arms up in the air, thrusting her breasts outward less than a half an arm’s length away from his fingers. “Do what?” she asked, bending over slowly to touch her toes, offering him a view of her cleavage, rounded enough to make his fingers twitch.

  “Exercise! Would you just stop?”

  “I can’t. You aren’t supposed to. If your blood stops circulating, it’ll pool in your legs and kill you.”

  “Yeah,” he said meaningfully. “That sounds about right, only I’m the one who’s going to die here.”

  Her eyes went wide and innocent. “Matt Gallagher, I am trying to forget that there was anything at all between us, just like you want, and you’re accosting me.”

  “I’m accosting you?” he asked indignantly, indicating her outfit with a hard downward glance. “Between that outfit and that body, you’re singlehandedly making mincemeat out of my concentration. It’s almost indecent exposure.”

  “You didn’t think it was so indecent when I was exposed last night,” she replied with a smirk.

  “No, I guess I didn’t do much complaining.” His lips spread in a solemn, sheepish smile, and Gina almost couldn’t bear to keep up the pretense that she didn’t care that he wanted to leave. She took a deep breath.

  “You have a problem with Frankie?” she asked.

  “I was vandalized last night,” he told her.

  Her lips contracted into a pouty grin. “Does that mean you were a virgin? You should have told me before we got started—I would have gone a little easier on you.”

  “Seriously, Gina. I was ripped off.”

  “What happened, Matt?” she asked. “Did someone steal your privacy?”

  Oh, Matt thought, so that’s what she was doing. He understood it now, this one-woman comedy act to cover either her anger or her hurt over his leaving town. He felt powerless. He didn’t know how to change himself into the type of man Gina deserved. He didn’t know how to give her the love she needed.

  What a mess.

  “No,” he told her. “Frankie let the air out of my tires. He stole my freedom.”

  She stared at him evenly. “I guess that would be a hanging offense to you, wouldn’t it? I’ll have to warn Frankie to keep well away from you.”

  Matt frowned. She hadn’t so much as glanced down at the tires. Something bothered him about that, but he wasn’t sure what. “I’m certain Frankie did it”

  “Oh, really? Did you take a turn at the neighborhood watch last night and catch him in the act? Did you even bother to ask him about it?”

  He shook his head. “No, but—”

  “Then you have no proof whatever that Frankie did it.”

  “I saw him steal nails out of my shed a few days ago.”

  She had the good grace to look surprised, and Matt had the bad grace to smirk. “I told you so.”

  “Oh, now, that I didn’t need,” she said. With an irritated look at him, Gina started doing aerobic sidestepping, which made him get sidetracked again.

  “Would you stop that bobbing around?” he asked. “You don’t need to lose any weight, anyway.”

  Her face softened. “That’s always good to hear coming from a man, whether it’s the truth or not.”

  “I never say what I don’t mean.”

  “You just don’t talk at all.”

  He nodded. “I avoid trouble that way.”

  “You avoid everything that way.”

  Now he was getting irritated with her. “So I take it you have no sympathy for this neighbor, just all the rest”

  “I’ll give you a lift to the gas station so you can blow up your tires. Maybe on the way we can talk about you trying one more time to make a new start with your father. I think you both deserve that.”

  Boy, now he was suspicious. This seemed just a little too pat. Matt studied her ey
es. They gazed back at him earnestly.

  “I can’t forgive him, Gina. I don’t believe he won’t disappear on me again when I start to care about him.”

  “You don’t know that. You only gave him two short visits to prove himself.”

  “That was long enough.”

  Gina’s face tightened in anger. “Somewhere along the line, Matt, probably in order to survive, you developed a cynicism that is going to be the ruin of you. The way you see the worst in everyone was selfpreservation when you were a kid and no one else was there to protect and comfort you. But now you’re an adult. It’s time you grew up and started letting yourself trust in the good in people.”

  “I grew up when I was eleven years old,” Matt said evenly. “Since then, I can count on one hand the people I’ve trusted—or respected. My father isn’t one of them.”

  “You are so damned stubborn!” Gina said, her voice rising along with her emotions. “I’m glad you didn’t try with me. I’d only end up doing something that would inadvertently blow the whistle on you, and poof!” She smacked her hands together for emphasis. “You’d be judge and jury, and then you’d be out of my life again!”

  She turned and started walking away, but Matt caught her by the arm and spun her around. “I don’t know, Gina,” he said tightly. “Suppose you tell me one thing you could possibly do wrong where I’m concerned?”

  “Care about you,” she said, staring up into his expressionless eyes. “That was enough, wasn’t it?”

  “I’m leaving because I’d be no good for you,” he told her. His voice was even and controlled. “I’m doing you a favor.”

  “Bull. You’re leaving, Matt, because you won’t admit that you need anyone in your life badly enough to trust them.” She shook her head, staring down to where his fingers gripped her upper arm—hanging on for dear life, and he didn’t even realize it. She raised her eyebrow at him, and he let go of her. Still frowning, she continued, “I forgot that only you can change yourself. I was wrong to try to make you stay one last time.”

  His mouth dropped open as what she was saying registered. “You let the air out of my tires? You? Miss Do-gooder?”

  She blinked at him. “Yeah, me. Every saint has some sinner in them. Before I realized you’re happiest being all by yourself, I wanted you to stick around and reconsider reconciling with your father. So what are you going to do now, Matt? Paddle my vandalistic little behind?”

  “Now, there’s a thought,” Matt said between clenched teeth, before letting his breath whoosh out of him. “But instead, I’m just going to get my tires fixed.” He nodded when she frowned in disbelief. “Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

  “And then you’ll leave,” she said, shaking her head, sounding really disappointed. “You don’t have the character I thought you did.”

  “If you weren’t in love with the idea of being in love, Gina, you could have saved yourself a whole lot of grief by realizing that no matter how much you try to help, I can’t change into the kind of man you need. But no, you have to get involved and try to help everyone, don’t you. Even when you end up being the one hurt.”

  He suddenly saw golden sparks of fury and pain in her brown eyes, and she whirled around and half ran down the driveway. Matt swore under his breath. He shouldn’t have said that to her. She could no more change the way she was than he could. But her remark about his character had cut him to the bone, and his immediate reaction had been to strike out.

  Suddenly he found himself full of an emotion—anger. He did have character, he told Gina silently. Even after being labeled a juvenile delinquent, he’d made something of himself in spite of what everyone thought. He could put his life in some sort of order—and he would be happy. And before he left, somehow he’d make damned sure Gina learned just how wrong she was about him.

  But first he had to fix his tires.

  As it turned out, Eli Tuttle, two blocks away, was only too glad to help, but once again, Matt paid. Not in money this time, but in listening to Tuttle’s cackling laughter when he learned what Gina had done to keep Matt from leaving.

  “If a woman tried that hard to cook my goose, boy,” Tuttle told him, “I’d sure as heck stick around and let her enjoy the meal.”

  Matt was still too annoyed at Gina to grin. But the old man had a point.

  “If you change your mind about leaving,” Tuttle added, “just give me a call. You’re paid up for a whole month, so it won’t be a problem.”

  That’s what Tuttle thought. Maybe his staying wouldn’t be a problem for his landlord, Matt thought, but so far, being in this town had been one continuous problem for him.

  By the time they’d fixed the flats and Tuttle drove off in his truck, Matt had done a lot of serious thinking about his problem and come to a decision. He was going to try a true reconciliation with his father. Forgiveness just didn’t seem to be in him, but at the very least, he figured he could leave his father with good feelings between them. He’d prefer to run, but damn it, he could not leave Bedley Hills until he earned Gina’s respect. Why he cared so much what her opinion was of him, he didn’t know, but he did.

  And maybe, in the meantime, he might get to hold Gina in his arms one more time before he gave her up forever. Even if he believed he could love—which he didn’t—he had to go to Virginia, and he couldn’t see the mama bear of this Bedley Hills neighborhood giving up everything she had here.

  Not for the likes of him.

  Confident in his decision, he sighed. If he were staying, he’d have to tell Tuttle he’d changed his mind about leaving and then he’d have to go see Gina, beg her forgiveness and ask for her help. With the reaction she was bound to have after what had happened between them, he’d rather get shot down over enemy territory—it would probably be safer.

  What, Luke wondered for the hundredth time since Matt had walked out the night before, could he have done or said to make his son believe he’d changed? Probably nothing, his contact from AA had told him, if his son didn’t want to reconcile. He’d hurt Matt so badly, there might be no fixing it.

  Done with his shift where he worked, needing to divert himself from the heavy sadness inside him, Luke turned on the television to his favorite talk-show hostess. The woman had recently started having very upbeat guests instead of the whining humanity who appeared on most of the other channels. Motivational shows, they were called, and Luke fully enjoyed watching others who had changed their lives for the better.

  He settled in with a cup of coffee and listened. Ten minutes later the coffee had been forgotten, and he was riveted to the program, hoping that they would give the phone number for more information over again so he could write it down. The show spotlighted people who had pursued their dreams and achieved them. One woman mentioned a seminar that had helped her given by a man named West or Wes Gallagher—he hadn’t been able to tell. Could it be his other son?

  For long minutes, Luke waited and prayed that the successful seminar leader so admired by the people on the show was indeed West, and that he would be able to contact him. And most of all, that West hadn’t grown so bitter over the years that he didn’t want to be reunited with his family. If that were the case, contacting West would be painful, but Luke was desperate enough to help Matt that it was worth a try.

  9

  After work, Gina plopped down in the most comfortable chair she had in her house and slipped off her sandals. She’d made it through the day at the shop, even though, after what Matt had said to her, her heart didn’t seem to be in the hearts-and-flowers business like it usually was. Every couple who walked through the door of the shop reminded her of what could never be between Matt and her.

  He was wrong, she insisted silently. She could help him deal with his past. He was just too bullheaded to want any changes, and that was going to doom him to spending the rest of his life alone. Well, that was his choice.

  A tentative knock at her door broke into her thoughts. Right after she’d arrived home, she’d told
Jimmy Simmons she wanted to see Frankie as soon as possible, planning to ask him about the nails that he’d supposedly taken. Not that she doubted Matt. But mistakes could be made, and she wanted the whole story before she went to Karen, the boy’s mother.

  Since she was expecting Frankie, the last person she expected to see holding a heart-shaped candy box was Mr. Do Not Disturb himself. Surprise, trepidation and pure joy that Matt was still around kept her from saying a word. What on earth was he up to? She didn’t know. But she was still angry about this morning, so she did the first thing that came to her.

  She slammed the door shut in his face.

  The second knock came a few seconds later, and she yanked it open immediately. “Matt, you are a fool—”

  “I know.”

  Her gaze dropped, and her heart gave a strange little tug as she realized he was down on the concrete on a bent knee. Men like Matt never went down on one knee, unless…

  “I came to bring you a peace offering and to ask you a favor,” he said.

  Gina took a short, quick breath as she took the box he handed her and set it on a small table next to the door. Of course he wasn’t proposing. That would be stupid for both of them. Even she knew better. They might have a stormy bond, but she wasn’t going to get struck by lightning twice.

  “You look uncomfortable,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “That concrete must be murder on the knees.”

  “It is. Can I get up now?” he asked hopefully, his dark eyes meeting hers.

  “No.” She shook her head. His face fell like a little boy’s, and her heart went out to him, but still…“Some suffering will be good for your character.”

  “Good for my character—or for your female pride?”

  She gave him a smug smile that held none of her usual openness. “Look at it this way—if the favor you want is something I don’t like, and I hit you over the head, you won’t have as far to fall to the ground.”