by Nicole Helm
Again Dinah waited for the shame to swamp her. Again, it didn’t appear. She smiled instead.
She walked into the back and up the stairs to the offices on the second floor. The restaurant and bar wouldn’t come to life until later, but she’d always loved this time of day. When the first floor was quiet, and the second floor pulsed with business.
“I guess you didn’t take to heart my lecture about being on time.”
Dinah came to a complete stop at her grandmother’s voice. Wide-eyed and startled, she glanced up to find Grandmother standing ominously at the end of the hallway.
Lucille Dinah Gallagher was an imposing figure even in her early eighties. Though she had married at twenty, she had insisted on keeping the Gallagher name and giving it to her children in a generation where that was frowned upon. The oldest Gallagher of her generation, though she had stepped aside for her son thirty-five years ago, she had remained a constant figure at Gallagher’s Tap Room.
A constant looming, scary figure. Dinah was both 100 percent intimidated by her and 100 percent in awe of her. She admired her grandmother fiercely, and she loved her as much as Grandmother allowed.
That was the tricky part. “I thought you were in Chicago.” Dinah beamed at her in a way that had Grandmother narrowing her eyes.
“You’d certainly like it if I were in Chicago. Slinking in here late.”
“Grandmother,” Dinah admonished. “I’m five minutes early.”
The older woman scowled in return. “Five minutes early is ten minutes late.” Grandmother gave her a quick flick of a glance that amounted to a once-over. “Kayla told me you talked to Trask yesterday. I assume it was unsuccessful?”
Dinah tried to keep her smile in place. She had always assumed Grandmother gave her a hard time because it was the only way she knew how to express her love. At least, Dinah really hoped that was the case.
But when it came to business, Grandmother was all Gallagher, and zero grandmother. So much so, Dinah hesitated spouting off about Craig trying to sabotage her. With her luck, Grandmother would just tell her that if she wanted to be DOO, she’d have to outmaneuver him.
So, rather than let Grandmother think she was weak or whining, Dinah decided to keep the challenge to herself. That’s all it was, after all. A challenge. That’s how Grandmother would view it.
Dinah wasn’t sure she completely wanted to be like her grandmother, but she mostly wanted to be like her. She just . . . never quite knew how.
It was amazing how much that kept coming up; that she didn’t know how to be the things she wanted to be. With Grandmother. With Gallagher. Hell, even with . . . Carter. C.
“Dinah.”
She met her grandmother’s shrewd gaze and tried to smile. “Mr. Trask has a very significant emotional connection to his land, and it seems he’s been a little misinformed about our purpose in wanting to buy it. But I have no doubt I’ll convince him.”
“How soon?”
Dina’s weak smile faltered, but she refused to break eye contact. She knew how easy it was for Grandmother to spot weakness.
“I’m not sure, but I have no doubt I’ll be successful. I just might need some time in order to convince him.”
“I want his agreement by the end of October, and all papers signed by the end of the year.”
“And if I fail?” Dinah asked, not because she thought she would fail but because she sincerely wondered what Grandmother’s plans were if Dinah didn’t do exactly what Grandmother had asked. Dinah had always lived up to Grandmother’s expectations, though sometimes by the skin of her teeth. She wouldn’t let her down now.
But she was a little curious what failure would look like.
“You’re a Gallagher, Dinah. Failure is not an option.” With that, Grandmother stepped into Craig’s office and the door closed behind her with an audible click.
“Psst.”
Dinah looked over to where Kayla was sticking her head out of her office door. “Is it safe?”
“I don’t think it’s ever safe.”
Kayla smiled. “True enough.”
“Have you been hiding from her the whole time?”
“You know how much that woman scares me,” Kayla answered with an exaggerated shudder as Dinah stepped into Kayla’s sunshiny little office.
Dinah slipped her arm around Kayla’s shoulders. “She’s your grandmother.”
“She’s Lucille Gallagher. I’m under no illusions that our relationship means anything to her. You being the oldest lends you some leeway, but me? The daughter of the second Gallagher? It’s like being . . . I don’t know, those grapes at the bottom of the bag that are all shriveled up and only the most desperate people eat.”
“Kayla, you’re crazy. And I love you. We have got to figure this out. What’s your schedule today?”
Dinah took a seat across from Kayla’s desk and they went over Kayla’s day as sustainability manager. She had some meetings to attend, and Dinah had a few things that she would have to do for Uncle Craig in the morning, but in the afternoon they could focus on the Trask problem together.
Right now, she wasn’t quite sure she trusted herself to focus on it alone. Not with Grandmother’s looming Gallaghers don’t fail edict hanging over her head.
“I don’t think anything is going to matter to that man. Not after the way he talked to us. This might be—”
“Everyone has a point to fold,” Dinah said forcefully. “Everyone has a straw that will break their back. We just have to find it.” And she had to keep C and Carter as two different people in her mind.
“What if he’s sitting in his little—adorable, by the way—house thinking the same thing? That there’s some way to break us from being Gallagher’s bitches? That all he has to do is find a weakness?”
Dinah felt the uncomfortable truth of that statement settle in her gut. Though she hadn’t known it at the time, she had gotten to know at least the Internet version of Carter Trask. Which seemed to be pretty damn close to the real him. He talked about land like it was his . . . Not even like it was his girlfriend or his wife, but like it was his god. His religion. What were the chances she’d get through to a man who viewed farming as a calling?
“You’re worried,” Kayla accused.
“No. I’m thinking. Gallagher’s has been here for over a century. We’re not going anywhere. He’s got nothing on our century.”
“But we’re not going anywhere even if we don’t get his land. It’s not like we fail if we don’t get that land.”
“It’ll be my failure. And, as Grandmother so lovingly reminded me, Gallaghers don’t fail.”
“I think there are a lot of ways to fail, and not all of them have to do with this business.”
Dinah was sure Kayla felt that, but her cousin didn’t have the same kind of pressure on her, and she didn’t have the same kind of connection. Kayla was more interested in her sustainability and green initiatives than she was in the integrity and the history of Gallagher’s. As one of the seconds, it hadn’t been poured into her like blood.
Gallagher’s was Dinah’s own religion to compare to Carter’s. The thing she worshipped and breathed and believed and needed.
And hers was bigger, deeper, and more damn important. So she wasn’t going to lose. No way in hell.
* * *
Carter cut himself on a jagged corner of brick edging, for the third time that morning. He kept meaning to stop and fix it, but then would get completely distracted by his squash.
He was never distracted at work. His work was everything. His life, his soul, his promise. But last night had left him . . .
It had been a long time since he’d been this mixed up. Since anything had reached through and touched him as deeply as the land touched him.
Which was moronic. Everything with D—Dinah Gallagher—had been emails and instant messages. It had been fake. Like reading a book or watching a movie. Even though he’d poured his own self into it, the exchanges didn’t require anything of him. H
e could be moved, or not moved. It was all about him.
But she was real, and she had come to him last night. Now he had to deal with how that affected him and . . .
Gallagher. Her name was like a fucking cancer. He couldn’t get it out of his head, not her name, not last night. Just across the way, Gallagher’s Tap Room stood in all its ivy-covered brick, century-old glory, and he sat here in this barely surviving century-old house. Barely . . . At best he was barely holding on to his legacy. At best, barely scraping by.
He sat back on his haunches and looked at the house his grandmother had lived in her whole life until she’d been moved into the nursing home. Her family’s restaurant had been only two blocks away, though it had been demolished a few years ago to make way for a trendy new apartment complex.
She’d always kept a garden here, mostly herbs that she would harvest and use in the kitchen. He remembered her puttering in the back, and he could perfectly picture the way her face would light up when someone paid their compliments to the chef.
When she’d been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, there had been no one in the family willing to take over the restaurant, willing to fight for it. He was no chef, no restaurateur, and so it had gone.
Just like the farm he’d grown up on, west of St. Louis. Just like his uncle’s farm where Carter had worked while Grandma had worked the restaurant. The city had crumbled, and farms had been sold to build up suburbia.
Carter had never been on the right side of history. Not. Ever.
Dinah Gallagher could be a fantasy, but she could not have this little piece of him. This last piece of who he was and what he’d come from.
She did not get to take this over and turn it into Gallagher’s, no matter what. He had built this farm from his grandmother’s poorly kept yard. He’d cultivated this soil and grown these plants in this place as a testament to all that he had in him.
One night of insanely hot and really, really, really ill-advised sex was not going to change the course of his life. He wouldn’t allow it. As much as he’d been tempted to ask Dinah to stay, or to ask her for more, he couldn’t give in to that. Because it didn’t matter what was beneath all the layers of fantasy they’d written to each other; it didn’t matter if seeds of truth existed.
Their reality was that she wanted the land he had fought for. Fought to keep and build and cultivate.
No, last night had to be a one-time mistake. Something he could never, ever return to.
So, it was time to stop looking over in the direction of Gallagher’s and focus on the day ahead. He had fall vegetables to harvest for tomorrow morning’s farmers’ market, and then this afternoon he was giving a brief tour to a class from a local charter school.
That’d be good. Getting out of his head. Talking to kids who were patently amazed when he pulled a carrot out of the ground.
He focused on that as he worked harvesting the squash and the beans. He practiced the little pseudo-script he had for these visits as he washed and packaged the produce, and he most certainly didn’t think of Dinah Gallagher.
Until he heard the unmistakable clip-clop of heels on the sidewalk outside his haven. Yesterday he might not have thought anything of it. People came and went in the neighborhood all day long. But the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, and he knew she was back.
With the speed of a hero facing down the villain in an old movie, Carter stood and turned to face the entrance gate.
Dinah stood at the chain-link gate looking as she had yesterday afternoon—not as she had last night. She was all polish and color and a sleek sort of sophistication that made him want to itch, instead of the slightly disheveled, wounded woman who’d shown up at his door and shoved her phone in his face.
He always marveled at people who could be two things, because he’d never had any luck at that. At best he could sport a pissed-off façade, but that wasn’t much different than his soul, truth be told.
“Mr. Trask,” she greeted, all businesswoman coolness.
“Ms. Gallagher.” He made sure to say her last name in the same tone he might say fucking damn it. Because though his brain was nothing but a string of curse words, his body was remembering other things.
The way those legs—clad today in what looked like some kind of lace tights—had wrapped around him, the sweet, wet slide of his cock straight into—
“You have to leave.” She had to get the hell out. He trusted his brain to override his dick, but only just. He didn’t want to chance it.
“I only wanted to clear up a misunderstanding between you and my uncle.”
“Your uncle? Oh, the piece of shit spouting on about parking lots? I don’t think that was a misunderstanding.”
“It was,” Dinah insisted, shoving a piece of paper at him. “If you’d look at our actual plans, you’d see how wrong—”
Carter scowled at it and shoved it back at her. “I do not care what your plans are. Parking lot. Homeless shelter. Vatican Jr. This land is mine and I ain’t selling.”
She pursed her lips. Lips he’d kissed, licked, bitten. Lips he wanted to sink into again.
No. No, you don’t.
She pressed the piece of paper, what looked like some kind of sketch, back into his hands. “Keep it.”
“No.” He tried to hand it back to her, but she crossed her arms over her chest and tucked her hands underneath.
He didn’t think about yanking her hands free, or nuzzling his mouth at the scoop of her shirt’s neckline. Not at all.
“I’m not taking it back.”
Carter shrugged, crumpled the piece of paper into a little ball, and tossed it at her feet. Being an asshole was his only fight against this stupid lust-fog she’d covered him with. “There is no way, under any circumstances, I sell to anyone—but most especially Gallagher. End of story.”
She straightened her shoulders, fixing him with a determined gaze, the green of her hazel eyes seeming to blaze a little brighter.
“Everyone has a breaking point,” she said, but it was no simple statement. That was a threat.
“I don’t.” He’d seen too many people’s breaking points, and what broke after the fact. It wouldn’t be him.
When a throat cleared, and it was neither his nor Dinah’s, Carter was finally jerked out of whatever odd spell she had him under.
Jordan, his friend and the charter school science teacher who had a small group of children in uniforms behind him, was grinning at him from the other side of the gate. “Sorry to interrupt. But we have a field trip scheduled.”
“Yes, Ms. Gallagher was just leaving.”
Dinah lifted her chin slightly and gave the group a charming smile. “A field trip? You know, if you’re looking for more opportunities in this area, Gallagher’s Tap Room would always love to offer you a tour.” She pulled a card from her sleek purse and handed it to Jordan.
Jordan, bless him, didn’t take it. “As much as that would be very educational for our students, I’m not sure a tap room is the appropriate place for a middle school class. But thanks for the offer.”
Dinah didn’t wilt or frown or do anything to show that she’d just been denied. Her smile was frozen on her face, and Carter figured that was the extent of her reaction to rejection. To freeze. To pretend as though nothing had reached her.
He really hated that she could do that.
“Well, I’ll leave you to your field trip then. It was a pleasure to meet you, and I’ll see you again soon, Mr. Trask.”
“No, you won’t.” But she was walking away with a little wave, as though she hadn’t heard him. Well, he supposed that she had heard him, but she wasn’t going to listen.
“Don’t tell me Gallagher’s is trying to ruin more of the city.”
Carter grimaced at Jordan as the kids filed into the yard. He didn’t quite agree with Jordan’s assumption that Gallagher’s was ruining anything. It couldn’t be bad for the neighborhood to have some history, some restaurants that did well and brought in money.
&nb
sp; But then again, Gallagher’s was also the group trying to pave over his heart. What the hell was he doing trying to defend the devil?
“She’s hot though.”
Carter shook his head. “Don’t we have kids to teach?” He nodded at the group of chattering school kids.
Jordan laughed, but he dropped the subject, leading the kids back to the shed where Carter would go through his presentation about the tools used to plant and harvest his crops. But he couldn’t resist one last glimpse back to where Gallagher’s loomed like the intimidating beast that it was.
Everyone has a breaking point.
She was probably right, but he’d be damned if she’d ever find his.
Chapter 5
“Dinah, come on. You’ve got to let this go.”
Dinah looked up from her phone as Kayla slid into the booth across from her.
Five days of near constant obsessing about Carter Trask and she was no closer to new ideas for how to obtain his land, no new plans, and just a few too many fantasies about showing up at his doorstep again—very much as D. No Dinah Gallagher to be found.
“If you hadn’t been late, I wouldn’t have been sitting here with only my phone for company.” Dinah forced herself to smile. “Girls’ night begins now.” Of course, as she slid her phone off the table and into her purse, she might have left the screen faceup on the off chance Kayla was distracted by something and she could finish her ten millionth Internet search on Carter Trask.
“Look, I know this is really important to you . . .” Kayla looked pained and let out a gusty breath. “But maybe it’s time we accept the reality of the situation.”
“What reality?” Dinah returned, frowning at her cousin.
“My dad is not giving up power like Grandmother gave it up for our dads. Craig Gallagher is going to hold on to DOO with everything he has, and he’s doing everything he can to make sure you don’t get it, ever. He’s making sure I can’t get anything done in my role. Maybe we accept that Gallagher’s isn’t going to be for us.”