A Wish For Love

by Gina Wilkins

  Typically, her first reaction was a desire to help him. Before, he’d been a suspicious stranger. Now that she knew he was Anna’s brother, she felt some of her doubts fading. Anna wouldn’t miss him so much if she didn’t love him, would she? And she wouldn’t love him if he hadn’t in some way earned her affection. Maybe there was something Bailey could do to help.

  “Would you like to sit down?” she invited, motioning toward one of the two armchairs arranged in front of the tiny fireplace that had not yet been used. “I’ll make coffee.”

  “No coffee for me,” he said. “I can’t stay.”

  “Then sit for a minute, and we’ll talk,” she said, moving toward one of the chairs and settling into it invitingly. “We’re family now,” she added. “We should get to know each other, don’t you think?”

  Bran perched gingerly on the edge of the other chair, looking prepared to leave at any moment. Bailey wondered why the man was so skittish.’

  “Tell me about yourself,” she prompted. “Where do you live? Are you married?”

  That last question had just occurred to her. For some reason, she didn’t like it.

  It was the only one he answered. “No, I’m not married.”

  She tried again. “I suppose you grew up in London, like Anna? Yet I’ve noticed that neither of you has much of a British accent.”

  He shrugged. “We’ve moved around.”

  “Anna doesn’t talk much about her past.”

  “The present is all that matters to us,” he replied.

  “Was your childhood an unhappy one?” Bailey asked sympathetically.

  “Not particularly.”

  Bailey was growing more frustrated by the moment, and she could tell that he knew it, darn him.

  “What do you do for a living?” she asked.

  He hesitated. “I’m unemployed at the moment.”

  She sighed. “That makes two of us,” she muttered.

  His eyebrow rose. “You, too?”

  She nodded glumly. “I was fired from my job with a large antique store in Chicago. I haven’t even told my family yet, it’s just too humiliating.”

  “Why were you fired?”

  “I spoke my mind once too often.”

  His mouth crooked into a one-sided smile. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

  She made a face. “I can’t imagine. But, really, Quentin—my ex-boss—is a jerk. He’s running what could have been a great business into the ground with his stupid, impractical ideas. You can’t imagine how frustrating it is to watch someone destroy a thriving business through sheer incompetence.”

  “Oh, I think I can imagine how you must have felt,” Bran murmured, and something in his eyes told Bailey that he understood completely.

  “You’ve had a similar experience?” she asked carefully.

  He nodded, but didn’t elaborate. “What will you do now?”

  “I don’t know. 1 don’t think I’ll move back to Chicago. I like it there, but my family is here now. I’d like to find something that will allow me to live closer to them. There are quite a few antiques stores in Hot Springs and Little Rock. I don’t know if I have the nerve, and I certainly lack the financing, to go into competition with them on my own, but maybe I could go to work for one of the larger stores as a buyer.”

  “Is that what you want to do? Work for someone else again? Buy and sell old furniture?”

  “I love old furniture. The craftsmanship, thestyles, the history. As for working for someone else—well, most people have to, don’t they? Surely all bosses can’t be like Quentin.”

  And then she realized they were talking about her, which wasn’t what she wanted at all. “When was the last time you saw your sister?” she asked abruptly.

  “We saw each other not long before she married your brother. Why?”

  “Do you know she’s expecting a baby?”

  It occurred to her after she asked that Anna might have liked to have broken that news, herself. She issued her sister-in-law a mental apology, but knew she would add, in her own defense, that making conversation with Bran wasn’t exactly an easy task. She found herself saying things just to get a response out of him.

  “Is she?”

  Bailey noted that he didn’t look particularly surprised. “You already knew?”

  “She must be very happy about it,” he commented, neatly avoiding her question. “Anna has always wanted children.”

  “She and Dean are both thrilled. So am I. I can’t wait to be an aunt. And you’ll be an uncle. Won’t that be fun?”

  Bran seemed to be more interested in her. “Wouldn’t you like to have children of your own?”

  She felt her cheeks grow warm. Avoiding his gaze, she imitated his careless shrug. “Sure, someday. But I’m the old-fashioned type. I’d prefer to be married before I have a child. And it doesn’t look as though that’s going to happen anytime soon.”

  “Why not?”

  His bluntness took her aback. “Well, it just… I don’t know. I haven’t met the right guy yet.”

  “How old are you?”

  “I’m twenty-nine. How old are you?” she asked wryly.

  “I have celebrated my twenty-fifth birthday,” he replied carefully.

  She lifted an eyebrow at his odd wording. “Then you’re younger than I am.”

  He smiled then. “Not exactly.” Before she could demand to know what he meant by his teasing, he spoke again. “I would have thought you’d already be married and have children by now. Most women do so by your age, don’t they?”

  “I think you’re even more old-fashioned than I am.”

  He smiled. “Quite likely,” he murmured.

  He had a decidedly strange sense of humor. Bailey couldn’t follow him at all. “You’ve never been married?” she asked, trying to lead the topic back to him.

  “No. You’re a very attractive woman, Bailey. I wouldn’t have thought you’d lack for suitors.”

  She choked. “And you accused me of being outspoken!”

  “I’m sorry. Have I offended you?”

  “No,” she admitted. “I’m not easily offended. And it isn’t as though I haven’t dated. It just never seemed to work out for me, relationship-wise. The guys I date all seem to have some sort of emotional baggage to deal with, and—”

  “Emotional baggage?” Bran repeated, looking confused.

  “Surely you’ve heard the term. It refers to emotional scars—you know, garbage left over from past experiences.”

  “I see,” he said slowly. “And all the men you’ve dated were scarred?”

  “That’s an odd way to put it, but—well, yeah. I guess most of them were. I’d do my best to help them, and then, as soon as they got their confidence back, they’d move on to someone who didn’t know them as well as I did by then. It seemed to embarrass them that I knew their weaknesses.”

  “Perhaps you’ve been dating the wrong sort of men.”

  “Obviously. But it isn’t going to happen again. I’m out of the meddling, ego-bolstering business for good. Folks can just solve their own problems from now on. I—darn it, you’re doing it again!”

  “Doing what?” he asked blandly.

  “Changing the subject. I want to talk about you.”

  He smiled, a slight curve of his lips that sent a warm ripple of response coursing through Bailey’s middle. She swallowed.

  “I find you so much more interesting,” he said.

  She gave him a look of reproval. “Tell me what happened between you and Anna,” she said, deciding she could be as blunt as he was. “She seemed so unhappy when she mentioned you. Did you quarrel? Is there anything I can do to help?”

  His smile faded. He cocked his head and spoke coolly. “Are you rummaging through my baggage now, Bailey?”

  Her cheeks burned. “I’m just trying to help,” she muttered.

  “I thought you said you had given that up.”

  “Not when it comes to people I truly care about. Anna’s part of my famil
y now. I don’t like seeing her unhappy.”

  “Neither do I,” Bran assured her flatly. “If there were anything I could do to change the situation, I would. But believe me about this, Bailey. There is nothing you can do.”

  “I could listen,” she suggested. “Maybe it would help if you talk about it.”

  “No. It wouldn’t.” He shifted on the chair. “I really should be going. It’s very late.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  “Not far away,” he said, standing.

  He glanced around the cottage, as though in curiosity. Bailey knew he noticed the lack of furnishings. There were no tables to accompany the love seat or two armchairs, no lamps to soften the overhead lighting, no chairs or stools pulled up to the small eating bar that separated the sitting room from the tiny, equally bare kitchenette. No prints hanging on the freshly painted walls.

  “Dean hasn’t had a chance to decorate this cottage yet,” she said, hoping Bran wouldn’t assume that the inn was as meagerly furnished. “It was finished only a few days before I arrived. I told him I’d keep my eye out for some tables and things while I’m here. I can talk to some of the local antiques dealers about a job while I’m shopping for Dean.”

  “Does it bother you to be out here alone?”

  “It hasn’t before tonight,” she admitted, suddenly frowning again. “I didn’t realize how easy it would be for someone to get in. How did you get in, Bran?”

  “Make sure you check the door locks next time,” he murmured.

  He seemed to be implying that she’d left the front door unlocked. She bit her lip, knowing Dean would have yelled at her for such carelessness.

  She must have been lulled by the comfortable rural setting of the inn, she thought. She would never have been so lax about her safety back in Chicago.

  But still, Bran was hardly in a position to criticize her. “You can be sure that I will. I don’t want anyone else barging in without waiting for an invitation,” she said pointedly.

  He acknowledged the hit with another faint smile. His dark gaze drifted downward, taking in her bare legs and feet beneath her shorts. “You aren’t exactly dressed for unexpected visitors, are you? Not that I’ve minded the view,” he added.

  She stalked past him, suddenly self-conscious. She tried to hide the surge of heat that rushed through her in response to the way he’d just looked at her. It had been a long time—if ever—since she’d reacted this dramatically to a suggestive look.

  “Good night, Bran,” she said, twisting the dead-bolt lock to open the door. He must have locked it after he entered, she thought, though she didn’t know why he would have bothered. “Next time, knock.”

  He was still smiling when he walked past her. Even annoyed with him, she couldn’t help admiring the way he moved. The image of a sleek, silent, lethal black jungle cat popped into her mind again.

  She shivered in response.

  She’d always had a weakness for black cats—even the dangerous kind.

  Since it was after midnight, the grounds were quiet and deserted outside the cottage. A thin fog shimmered and swirled beneath the security lighting, and a cool autumn breeze drifted in through the open door, chilling Bailey’s exposed flesh.

  “You’d better be careful out there,” some mischievous impulse made her murmur. “Looks like a night when the ghosts could be out.”

  Bran seemed to stumble on the threshold. “The, er, ghosts?” he repeated huskily.

  She chuckled. “Surely Anna’s told you that the inn is supposedly haunted by a couple of your distant relatives who were murdered by their bootlegging stepbrother. Or at least, it was haunted until Dean and Mark released the spirits by solving their murders and redeeming the Cameron-family name.”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about,” Bran said, sounding a bit peevish.

  “I’ll have to tell you the story sometime. It’s fascinating.”

  “It sounds ridiculous.”

  “Somehow I would have expected that reaction from you,” Bailey said a little too sweetly, “You seem much too unimaginative to believe in ghosts.”

  With that, she shut the door firmly behind him. He’d deserved that after breaking into her cottage, scaring her half to death, then refusing to tell her anything about himself, even when she’d finally resorted to blatant prying.

  As far as helpful meddling went, she hadn’t been particularly successful that day, she thought with a rueful grimace. Neither Cara nor Bran had cooperated with her efforts to assist them.

  Maybe it was time for “Dear Bailey” to concentrate on her own problems.

  IT WAS ALMOST DAWN. Outside, the sky was a rich, deep purple, the sun still just a hint of brightness toward the east. A few birds chattered in the autumn-bare limbs of the trees, undisturbed by human intruders at this early hour.

  Inside the cottage, the silence was disturbed only by Bailey’s even breathing as she slept soundly, blissfully unaware that she wasn’t alone.

  Ian stood beside the bed, his hands buried in his pockets, his gaze locked on Bailey’s sleep-softened face.

  She’d kicked off the covers, exposing her long, shapely legs. Her T-shirt had twisted around her, baring a couple of inches of slender midriff. Her copper-tinted brown hair was tousled, one lock resting enticingly on her cheek, temptingly close to her parted lips. He longed to reach out and stroke the lock away from her face.

  Would he be able to touch her? Feel her?

  Anna had once described the sensation of touching Dean; it was as though she were doing it through unresponsive, unsatisfying layers of cloth, she’d said. It was that possibility that made Ian resist the impulse to reach out to Bailey.

  It was better to fantasize about how warm and soft she would feel than to be confronted with a cruel reminder that he wasn’t meant to touch her at all.

  He knew now what made her unhappy. Though she’d recounted her problems lightly enough, he’d been able to see how badly her confidence had been shaken by her string of misfortunes in Chicago. It must be difficult for a woman who prided herself on helping others to admit she had problems of her own that she didn’t know how to solve.

  He smiled wryly as he remembered how confidently she’d informed him that she was out of the “meddling business,” and had then proceeded to probe into what she believed to be his unhappy relationship with his sister.

  Her propensity for prying was going to get her into trouble someday. Maybe he could convince her that it would be safer for her to concentrate on her own needs and let others take care of themselves.

  If, of course, he ever had a chance to speak with her again.

  He still feared that their two conversations thus far had been mere chance, that he would not be granted the opportunity again. Several times during the past few days, he’d been close to her without being able to reach her. With each moment he spent watching her, he grew more fascinated. She was the most intriguing woman he’d ever encountered.

  He’d begun to accept that the conversation in the gazebo had been a one-time-only opportunity—one he hadn’t handled at all well—and then she’d opened her bedroom door and spoken to him as he stood in her sitting room, wishing he could talk to her again.

  Would she see him now if she opened her eyes? Or would he be as invisible to her as he’d been so many other occasions?

  She wouldn’t like knowing he was here, watching her as she slept. Yet he found himself reluctant to leave. Only when he was near her did he feel…anything. It was both pleasure and torture to be with her, knowing how truly far apart they were. Imagining how she would react if she knew the truth about him.

  Often during the past years he’d chafed against the restrictions of the half life he was trapped in, but now he found himself more disheartened than ever. Bailey Gates was an all-too-vivid reminder of what he was missing. She was beautiful, bright, impulsive, kindhearted, unpredictable … everything he could have wanted in a woman of his own.

  His gaze m
oved from her sleep-flushed face to the pulse that throbbed in the hollow of her throat, that visible evidence of the difference between them. He studied the rise and fall of her breasts beneath the pink T-shirt, and he imagined how they might feel against his palms. Her waist was so small he could span it with his hands, and her hips flared with a soft womanliness that made him ache to be cradled against them. Her long legs would lock neatly around him, her fingers would slide into his hair…

  He closed his eyes and swallowed a groan.

  He’d forgotten how it felt to ache like this. He’d forgotten how pleasure could so closely border pain. But even the discomfort was almost welcome after years of weary numbness.

  At least he would have this to remember when Bailey was gone, when he’d returned to the anesthetic grayness.

  Reluctantly, he noticed the slight tugging that would take him away until the next time he could return, whenever that might be. He hated having no control, no choice. He hated the loneliness, the meaninglessness, the hopelessness.

  He opened his eyes and looked longingly at Bailey, the symbol of everything he wanted and could never have. “Bailey,” he murmured, reaching out to her despite his reservations. “Ah, Bailey, I wish…”

  He was taken from her before his unsteady fingers could touch her cheek.

  BAILEY STIRRED against the pillows, frowning as she struggled to awaken. Had someone said her name?

  Blinking against the pale light just creeping through the curtains, she peered through her tangled lashes. “Bran?” she murmured, still half-asleep. “Are you—”

  A moment later, she was fully awake. And definitely alone.

  Shaking her head at her foolishness, she rolled onto her side and pulled the covers up to her chin, telling herself that his voice must have come from her provocative dreams of him.

  4

  June 25, 1903

  I met a very nice gentleman today. His name is Gaylon Peavy and he is a widowed farmer from Saline County. Esther Cunningham introduced us. His late wife was her first cousin.