“You have?”
He nodded, and then he reached up and caressed the side of her head, running his fingers through her soft black hair and causing all sorts of feelings of desire to boomerang through her.
“But what about us, Matt?” she asked softly.
“I’ve been afraid I’d only make a woman as giving and full of love as you miserable because you’d end up wanting a man who can feel.”
“You’ve been feeling plenty for me since we made love, Matt, you just won’t admit it.”
Her simple statement stunned Matt. Was she right? Had this torture he’d been going through all day been because of feelings? This fierce attraction to the woman. The relief when he was around Gina, like…like when the minister and his wife had rescued him from the streets and told him they weren’t letting him go back. That kind of relief. With Gina, he’d felt like a part of something magical, like he was holding something precious, special and serene, like a tinkling glass ornament on a Christmas tree. With Gina, he felt like someone really cared and thought his life was worth saving—and what she had tried to do for him had been only to save his life.
But were all these things together love?
“What if I can’t give you back what you need?” he asked, almost pleadingly. “I don’t want to have you, just to lose you.”
“I know,” Gina whispered, moving over until she was sitting on his lap and wrapping her arms around his shoulders. “I know what that’s like, and I know what you’ve been through. Do you honestly think I could do that to you?”
Slowly, he shook his head. She couldn’t, and his subconscious knowledge of that was probably what had kept him from leaving today.
Their lips met in a kiss that was torturous, because of where they were, and the fact that they couldn’t take it any further. When they pulled apart, Matt slipped his hands under her shirt, just so he could feel the warmth of her skin, and hugged her closer to him.
“You trusted me,” she whispered, “and believe me, I’ve learned my lesson about interfering. I’ve never been so worried about anyone as I’ve been about you in my whole life. I’ll never do that again, I promise—”
Abruptly, as she noticed his huge grin, she stopped trying to explain herself. “What?” she asked.
“Don’t ever change,” he said. “I’m just thinking about how funny it is that opposites attract.”
Sighing, she threw up her hands. “I personally don’t find anything funny about it. You are the most exasperating man I’ve ever met, and—”
“And you love me.”
“I most certainly do not!” Gina’s eyes widened. “Well, maybe I do. I don’t know. But even if I do—which I’m not saying I do, mind you—I am not going to sit here and admit that to you.”
“Why not?”
“Because that’s not the way it’s done.”
“I thought it was ‘ladies first.’”
She shook her head. “Love is equal opportunity.”
“I guess I have a lot of learning to do about love,” he told her. “How would you feel about teaching me?”
Gina’s mouth fell open, and, grinning, Matt sucked on her bottom lip, which started another long kiss. When he was done, his expression was earnest.
“It’s my turn to talk, and I promise after this I’ll let you be the talker,” he said, and then dodged the playful slap she gave his arm. “Frankie showed me I’ve been prejudging an awful lot of people. That started when my parents left me and that fiasco happened in the judge’s chambers.”
He paused to pull her more snugly against him. “Whenever I meet someone,” he continued, “I start out by thinking I’m going to get hurt, or that somebody is going to do me wrong. Any relationship that might have developed pretty much goes downhill from there. I realize now I was scared to trust people because I didn’t think I was worth loving.”
Cupping her face with the side of his hand, he added, “Then you came along. You started caring about me from the first and never stopped…” He buried his face in her hair, not wanting to think what his future might have been like if she hadn’t agreed to pose as his wife and changed him.
“So you’ve forgiven me?” she whispered, half turning in his arms to look at him.
“You and Frankie both.” He grinned down at her. “That’s some kid, huh? Building this place just for me?”
“Boy, you have learned something from all this,” Gina said, glancing around the tree house. “But what you don’t seem to understand is that he built this place so you could hide from me.”
He grinned.
“I don’t particularly think that was so noble,” she said with a sniff.
“You aren’t thinking like an eight-year-old boy,” Matt said, grinning at her.
“I guess that’s true. So if that’s the idea of this place, what am I doing up here in its sacred boundaries?”
“You’re up here because I’m not thinking like an eight-year-old boy, either,” Matt said.
“I guess that means you want me.”
He grinned. “I’ve always wanted you from the second I first saw you, and you know it.” He stared into her huge brown eyes. “It’s time I put away the past and quit fearing the future, Gina. I started that yesterday with my dad, thanks to you, and now I want to start it with you, if you’ll have me in your life.”
His face was so filled with the uncertainty and fear that she would say no, that Gina had to reach up and kiss him. And when she did, she knew.
Lightning can strike twice.
Epilogue
Two months later
“But Mr. Gallagher, you promised you wouldn’t let Ms. Delaney trick you into anything!” Frankie said softly enough for everyone in the three front pews of the church to hear. Frankie, Matt and Luke, who was best man, were standing in a small side room next to the sanctuary, waiting for the music to start. The boy was officially an usher, but after escorting a few people to their seats, he’d hurried over to make a last-ditch attempt to convince Matt he was making the mistake of his life.
“This is marriage, for crying out loud,” Frankie said. “That means you have to keep her forever. My dad says that can get expensive.”
“Are you worried about my freedom or my bank account?” Matt asked solemnly, holding back his laughter only with great difficulty as he glanced at his father. Frankie was too preoccupied to notice their amusement.
“Is she going to let you climb up into the tree house? Dad says women have to give you permission for everything, and they’re always mad about something.”
“Hey, nobody ever told me that,” Matt said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Maybe I ought to reconsider this whole thing, after all.”
“And you can never go off alone,” Frankie added, just warming up. “I thought you liked your privacy!”
His mother stuck her head in the doorway. “Frankie, don’t you dare give Mr. Gallagher any ideas,” she said sweetly, smiling through gritted teeth. “You’d best come sit with me—now.”
“Told you they like to give orders!” Frankie whispered, hurrying after his mother.
Far from calling anything off, Matt thought back over the last two months and how well everything had worked out. After they’d come down from the tree house, he and Gina had decided they wanted to see how things worked between them, considering that he was stationed in Virginia and might be for a while, and Gina had a good life already in Bedley Hills that he didn’t want her to give up. So he’d stayed with her the rest of the month until he’d had to report for duty. By then they knew they didn’t want to live without each other.
It wouldn’t be easy. Because he’d be gone a lot on flights and they’d decided Gina shouldn’t have to give up her store, they would have to have a commuter marriage. Gina had already made Chantie her manager so that she’d be free to come to Virginia when he wasn’t flying.
But now that Matt had a real home, he found he wasn’t all that eager to go flying off, and he was considering other work in the
future so he could be a full-time husband. He grinned. Maybe even a father. But come hell or high water, he wasn’t running from this love. Gina was everything he wanted—not just in a woman, but in life. He felt like he’d finally come home.
Glancing out the door, he thought it looked like about everyone who would be attending had arrived. So he only had one question now—what was holding up the bride?
At the far side of the sanctuary, through the doors that led to the rest of the church, Gina stood waiting next to Chantie, who was her only attendant.
“Can I say it?” Chantie asked. “Please, let me say it.”
“What?”
“I told you so,” Chantie said, smirking.
Gina rolled her eyes. “I knew you wouldn’t let up just because it’s my wedding day. I should have made you wear that yellow chiffon bridesmaid dress—the one that made your skin look sallow.”
As usual, Chantie ignored her. “Why aren’t we starting, anyway?” she asked cheerfully. “It’s past time.”
Holding her bouquet, Gina peeked through the door into the church. “Believe me, I’m as eager as you are—”
Chantie giggled at the obvious overstatement.
“But it shouldn’t be long now, and then Matt should have what could possibly be the best moment of his life.”
Chantie’s eyes got big. “You aren’t going to do it in a church, are you?”
“Chantie!” Gina’s mouth dropped open as she whirled around to stare at her bridesmaid. “I wasn’t referring to that.”
“Well, what could possibly be a better moment for the man than sex?”
Gina smiled mysteriously, then turned back to watch as Matt’s mother was escorted into the church and headed toward where her son and her ex-husband were waiting for the ceremony to begin. Despite the fact that she’d vowed not to “fix” people’s lives again, Luke had asked her for some help with his marriage. As a client. What she’d told him had apparently worked, because a previously hesitant Mary Gallagher was now considering a trial reconciliation with Luke. It was now up to Matt’s father to convince his ex-wife that he had changed.
Any minute now, Matt, Gina thought, every inch of her tingling with happiness as Matt’s mother paused outside the door to the room where her son was standing, and the rest of your life is going to start.
Matt turned to look through the doorway at the pulpit. The minister was in his place.
“Someone should have signaled a start by now,” Matt said to Luke, adjusting his tie nervously. “You don’t think Gina left me at the altar, do you?”
“That girl is crazy in love with you.” Luke grinned, shuffling his feet and glancing at his watch. “But you’re right. It is time.”
“Shouldn’t you go find out if Gina’s all right?”
“No need. I already know what’s going on.”
Matt shifted his weight. Luke was looking very serious, and suddenly he was beginning to worry something might be wrong. “Gina is here, isn’t she?”
“I saw her with my own eyes earlier. But this isn’t about your fiancee. This is about me. I’m afraid I can’t be your best man, after all.”
Matt felt the old walls start to go up, and he forced them down. He had Gina now, and that would be plenty if his father was about to disappoint him again.
“But,” Luke added, suddenly grinning, “I found you a volunteer.” He turned. “Mary? You can come in now.”
“Mom can’t be my best man, Luke,” Matt joked halfheartedly. Confused, he watched as a man stepped through the doorway.
Dark-haired, the newcomer was taller and much broader through the shoulders than Matt, but the family resemblance was there in his face, as were the memories. Matt stared. It couldn’t be. After all these years…two dreams were coming true on the same day.
“Your mother’s and my wedding gift to you, with Gina’s full approval,” Luke told him. “We found your brother.”
Matt blinked, hard, at the burning behind his eyes. Walking quickly forward, he met West halfway across the room, and without hesitation hugged his younger brother to him.
“I searched for years,” Matt said, turning back to his father but not letting go of West, feeling as though if he did, the mirage in front of him would disappear. “How…?”
“Luke found me,” West clarified.
“I saw him on a television talk show. Seems like your brother’s gone and made himself famous.”
“Famous?” Matt felt dazed. He couldn’t believe he had his whole family back in his life, and Gina as the icing on the cake.
“Just a little bit famous,” West clarified, smiling at Matt. “I was pushing my seminars and my book.”
“You wrote a book?” Matt’s eyes widened in surprise. “What kind?”
“Would you believe—motivational? Follow your dreams, make your life what you want.”
“Where were you when I needed you?”
West grinned and looked down at Matt’s black suit and gestured outside. “I saw your bride. I’d say you found your dream just fine without my advice.”
“I never used to follow it, anyway,” Matt quipped back.
“Wasn’t that the truth!”
It was like they’d never been apart, Matt thought. West had always been the optimist, the good boy to his bad, the good-humored one who never wanted anyone upset. Life hadn’t appeared to have killed his easygoing, happy manner, but knowing what he himself had been through, Matt secretly wondered if West really had escaped their past with no scars. If he had, great. But still…
He nodded slowly at his younger brother. “Your career makes sense. Seminars. You always did like to jabber.”
West smirked and punched him playfully on the arm, and Matt jabbed him back and grinned cockily. He couldn’t remember ever feeling as good as he did right at this moment. “I don’t understand how you turned out bigger than me,” he added.
“Must have been all that milk,” West said. “You always hated it, so I snuck in and drank yours.”
“You did?” their mother asked. “How did I miss that?”
The two of them looked at Mary. “You don’t know the half of what you missed, Mom,” West said. “We were a pair.”
Their mother shook her head and smiled at her exhusband. “Before I find out something else I don’t really want to know, Luke, I think it’s time we took our places, don’t you?”
Luke nodded. Matt turned to them and gave his mother a quick hug. “Thank you. Thank you both.”
They left the room smiling.
Matt had a million questions, but he didn’t know where to start. He just stared, almost dumbfounded, at his brother.
“I met Gina,” West told him. “You’re very lucky.”
“I know. How about you?” Matt asked. “You married? Any kids?”
A shadow crossed over West’s face.
“Bad subject?” Matt asked.
The shadow disappeared, replaced by the onceagain familiar, cocky grin. “We’re standing here at your wedding, big brother, and you’re asking me if marriage is a bad subject? Where’d you find that sense of humor from? You didn’t have it when we were kids.”
“Must have been Gina.” The fact that his brother had changed the subject wasn’t lost on Matt. He stared him straight in the eye and West stared back.
“We should get out into the church before someone decides to take your place,” West said. “If you wait any longer, Gina might start thinking we went out for a quick beer and find someone she likes better.”
“God forbid,” Matt said meaningfully.
“She’s that great?”
“She’s that great,” he replied, totally serious. “Just remember, West,” he added, heading toward the door to the sanctuary with his brother a step behind, “I’m here if you need me.”
“That was worth waiting twenty years to hear,” West said.
The minister saw them enter and signaled the organist to begin. Matt leaned close to his brother to make sure he could hear his ne
xt words. “Just do me a favor and don’t need me until after the honeymoon’s over.”
West grinned, and both of them turned just in time to see Gina follow her bridesmaid inside the church. Matt’s breath caught and he put his brother totally out of his thoughts. She looked beautiful in her wedding gown, a pearl-studded lace bodice over a white satin skirt. The neckline showed just enough cleavage to remind him of how eager he was to get her out of all that satin and lace. He glanced at the minister as Gina joined him.
After the wedding, of course.
The two of them spent an appropriate amount of time at the reception in Gina’s backyard and then slipped away to a hotel room on the other side of town.
Matt picked her up and carried her over the threshold, white gown and all, He had begged her to wear it to the hotel, and even though walking through the lobby had embarrassed her no end, the fact that Matt was looking forward to taking the gown off her gave Gina the courage to go through with it. After the bellboy had left, Matt kicked shut the door and set her on her feet. A second later, their lips locked together in a kiss that rocked her off her heels.
“I take that to mean you enjoyed your surprise?” she whispered, her arms wrapped around his neck.
“My mother enjoying my father’s company? Sure.”
She shook her head in exasperation. “Having your brother here for your wedding, you nincompoop.”
“Is that any way to talk to your husband?” He kissed her again, and added, “Maybe I should have listened to Frankie. He tried to talk me out of marriage, you know.”
“Really?” she asked, her fingers unbuckling his belt.
“He as much as warned me I’d never have any privacy again.” Matt rained more kisses down her neck to her bare collarbone, while his fingertips ran over the off-the-shoulder lace sleeves she was wearing. There couldn’t be anything sexier than lace on Gina, he thought. “Can you imagine that?”
“Hmm, don’t worry. I’ve got that privacy thing covered,” Gina said, her head falling back as he worked his lips down to the top of her cleavage.
The One-Week Wife Page 14