My Secret Wife

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  “I helped Penny go to the police and make a report,” Lane countered. “Which in turn caused the louse to leave town, and I hope he never comes back.” Lane glared at Gabe and Maggie, before continuing flatly, “That’s all I’m prepared to do.”

  He stalked out.

  Maggie looked at Gabe. Her pulse had quickened, and she felt even more on edge. “Do you think we made a mistake telling Penny to be honest with her husband?” she asked cautiously.

  Gabe shook his head. “Lane is the one making a mistake,” Gabe said firmly.

  The hair and makeup people came back in. When Gabe and Maggie were all set, tiny microphones were clipped onto their lapels, and they were led to the front row of the audience and seated on the center aisle. A local comedienne came out to warm up the audience with a series of jokes. Before Maggie knew it, she was as relaxed as everyone else.

  Then the countdown began. The music started, the hall lights dimmed, and the stage lights came up.

  The sixty-something Rupert walked out, looking as dapper as always in one of his signature suit-and-tie ensembles. He was followed by Casey, his much younger prettier female co-host. For the first two minutes of the show, Rupert and Casey welcomed their audience and spoke enthusiastically about doing the show live in five different southern cities that week. Then they previewed the guests ahead and cut to commercial. Next up was Grace.

  Maggie’s nerves came back, full-force. She reached over and took Gabe’s hand. Her palm was damp. His was warm and dry. He squeezed her hand reassuringly and leaned over and whispered in her ear. “You’re going to be fine. Remember, all we have to do is wave and smile and look like happy newlyweds.”

  Maggie nodded, taking strength from his steady presence. It would be over in a minute. All she had to do was let Gabe help her through her first appearance on TV. It really didn’t matter that Rupert and Casey had an audience of millions—or that she was so jittery she wanted to drop through the floor and disappear!

  The show was back. Live. The first guest of the day was introduced and Grace Deveraux came out on stage to thunderous applause. Before they realized it, Maggie and Gabe were on their feet along with everyone else, clapping heartily for the newswoman who had been a part of so many Americans’ morning routines for so many years.

  “So I understand you’ve moved back to Charleston,” Rupert began as soon as they were all seated again.

  Grace nodded and smiled, looking remarkably content. “It is my home, after all,” she said, smiling broadly.

  “Your family is here.”

  “Right. All four of my grown children live right here in the Charleston area.”

  “And speaking of family,” Rupert leaned over to pick up a copy of a newspaper from the low table in front of them, “I understand one of your sons and his new bride have quite a story to tell.”

  Oh, drat, Maggie thought, her heart sinking clear to the floor once again. Here we go.

  “A happy story,” Grace smiled. She turned to the audience and cheerfully imparted, “My son Gabe eloped with Maggie Callaway earlier in the week.”

  Rupert took a drink of his coffee. “I take it you and your ex-husband were surprised,” he noted with confidence-inspiring ease.

  Grace nodded, still holding her own with the gregarious host. “The whole family was caught off-guard. But it was a happy surprise.”

  “I understand Gabe and Maggie are in the audience,” Rupert said.

  “Yes.” Grace smiled and pointed them out.

  “Let’s get a camera on them, shall we?” Rupert said.

  As soon as they did, the stage director nodded at them—and Gabe and Maggie smiled and waved. Maggie breathed a sigh of relief. Her moment of national fame was over.

  Or was it? she wondered, as Rupert stood and gestured toward them. “Come on up here, you two love-birds, and join your mom.”

  Maggie froze and shot a panicked look at Gabe. This had not been part of the bargain. They were not supposed to have to leave their seats in the audience. “Just go with it,” he murmured, as they were egged on by thunderous applause and the continued cheerleading of cohosts Rupert and Casey. What choice did she have? None, apparently. Her legs feeling like rubber, Maggie let herself be led up onto the stage. Two tall stage chairs were brought out for them to sit on, and placed between Grace and Rupert and Casey. “So tell us, you two,” Rupert began with a wicked smile, “What made you two kids run off and do this in secret instead of having a normal family wedding?”

  Grace placed a hand across her heart and interrupted with unabashed sentimentality, “I thought it was romantic.”

  “So, obviously, did we.” Gabe shot a grateful smile at his mother for the save.

  Undeterred in his quest to ferret out a little more info, Rupert turned his attention back to Grace. “You’re the mother of the groom. Are you sorry there was no big wedding?”

  Grace dropped her hand back to her lap and lifted her slender shoulders in a delicate shrug. “I can’t deny it. I would have liked to see the wedding. But on the other hand, I’ve always tried to live by the credo, to each his own. And I have two other sons—Chase and Mitch—and I recently attended both their weddings. But—” Grace paused to shoot Maggie and Gabe an affectionate glance before turning back to Rupert and the audience and finishing sincerely “—mostly, I just want Maggie and Gabe to be happy, and if having a very romantic seaside elopement is what they wanted then…more power to them.”

  The audience burst into spontaneous applause, agreeing with Grace’s unanimous show of support.

  Maggie could tell, however, from the determined gleam in his eyes that Rupert wasn’t done trying to extract some juicy detail of some sort from them that would land clips of his late-morning talk show on news programs around the country.

  “So, how long have you two been seeing each other, Maggie?” Rupert asked her, even more cheerfully.

  “We’ve known each other for several years,” Maggie allowed uneasily, praying Rupert would let it go at that.

  But of course, he didn’t.

  Rupert’s brows knit together. As the cameras zoomed in for a close-up, he looked at Maggie, perplexed. “You were once engaged to Gabe’s older brother, Chase, weren’t you?”

  Maggie swallowed as Gabe reached over and draped his arm around her shoulders in an open show of support. Gabe looked at Rupert steadily. “That didn’t work out.”

  Casey leaned in again. Her pretty eyes said she was full of sympathy for Maggie, and irritated at Rupert for sabotaging them. “You look very happy now,” Casey said.

  “I am. Very.” Maggie smiled as her nervousness increased and her heartbeat kicked up even more. And I’ll be even happier when I get off this stage.

  “YOU CAN STOP shaking now,” Gabe said, as he led Maggie out to the restricted area where his car was parked. Inside the auditorium, the show was still going on, but, wary of being waylaid by the local press for more questioning about their romance and surprise nuptials after the show, Gabe and Maggie had sneaked out through the service entrance during a commercial break.

  Maggie turned to Gabe as they walked across the crowded parking lot. Although their time in the spotlight had ended a good fifteen minutes earlier, her cheeks were still flushed a bright pink and her light-green eyes sparkled with agitation. Still studying him warily, she raked her teeth across her lower lip, and swallowed hard before continuing in a low, distressed tone, “That didn’t get to you at all, did it?”

  Gabe slid his hand beneath her elbow, and tucked her in closer to his side as they maneuvered between the rows. “I told you,” he said, as they stopped next to his sports car. “I’m used to it.”

  “Well, I’m not.” Maggie tucked her arms against her waist and turned her eyes away as she waited for him to unlock her door. “I hated lying that way.”

  Gabe helped her inside, then went around and climbed in behind the wheel. He shut the door, switched on the ignition. There was a two-second delay, then the air conditioner began to blo
w warm air into the interior of the car. Wanting there to be no distraction between them as they had this very important conversation, he switched off the radio, draped his right arm across the length of both bucket seats, and turned to her. Glad Rupert and Casey and the rest of the studio audience—never mind his family—could not see them now, he observed quietly, “You’re not at all happy with the way that went, are you?” He thought, under the very dicey circumstances, it had turned out rather well.

  “How can I be?” Maggie shut her eyes briefly and huddled miserably in her seat. “We made everyone think ours was a real marriage.”

  Gabe reached over with his left hand and touched her arm gently, offering what physical comfort he could in what was still a pretty public place. “Ours is a real marriage,” he countered practically.

  “Maybe in a legal sense,” Maggie shot back in a low, cantankerous voice.

  In every sense, Gabe thought. At least it had become so to him.

  And last night, on the yacht, he had thought she had felt the same way. Had he been wrong about that? Once again reading more into her actions than was actually there?

  “We’re not even living together,” Maggie continued her tirade, upset.

  That was a problem they could fix, Gabe thought. He curved his right arm closer about her shoulders and slipped his left hand down to twine with hers. “That’s about to change,” he said, his mood tense but hopeful.

  Maggie went very still. The color in her cheeks deepening, she looked at him apprehensively. “What do you mean?” she whispered.

  Gabe shrugged. He wished there weren’t a gear box between them—so he could take her onto his lap. In any case, this had to be said. Practically, he explained, “The surest way to get a whole posse of tabloid press after us would be to take up separate residences. For both our sakes, for the baby’s and for my mother’s sake, we have to live together from here on out.”

  Maggie took a deep breath that lifted her breasts against the soft silk of her dress, releasing it just as slowly. Oblivious to what she was doing to him, with just her presence, she said, “We don’t even know if I’m pregnant.”

  “We can hope,” Gabe said as a silence fraught with emotion fell between them.

  Because if she wasn’t, Gabe wasn’t sure how much longer Maggie would be willing to continue living under the public scrutiny that came with being his wife, and the daughter-in-law of celebrity Grace Deveraux.

  Chapter Eleven

  “I thought I might find you here,” Gabe told Maggie, when he finally caught up with her.

  Despite the fact she must hear the irritation in his low voice, Maggie didn’t so much as look up from the ceramic tiles she was laying along the backsplash. Wearing paint-splattered jeans, a form-fitting pink T-shirt and an open blue chambray men’s work shirt that hung nearly to her knees, her hair caught in a low ponytail on the back of her neck and tucked beneath a bill cap that sat backward on her head, she kept right on working as meticulously as ever.

  “I’ve been looking for you for two hours,” Gabe said grumpily.

  “Hmm.” Maggie continued working intently.

  Teeth clenched, Gabe loosened and removed his tie and thrust it down on the newly installed marble kitchen counter beside Maggie. “We were supposed to talk at six, and decide where we were going to stay tonight, your place or mine.”

  This time, to his satisfaction, she did look at him.

  She put down the tile she was holding. Straightened and planted both hands on her hips. Her pretty chin lifted as she squared off with him. “You want to flip for the sofa—is that it?” she inquired politely.

  Gabe moved close enough to smell the hyacinth in her perfume, and—wanting there to be no misunderstanding about this—stated firmly, “No one is sleeping on the sofa.”

  Heightened color swept her cheeks. She shot him a mutinous look and muttered cantankerously, “Says you.”

  Gabe had known his family’s money and/or his mother’s celebrity would become an issue for them some day. He just hadn’t expected her not to be able to blow it off, the way he always did. And even if they had fought about it, he had expected them to make up readily. Given the chill in her attitude, she wasn’t planning on doing either anytime soon.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Gabe demanded, finding without warning that he was just as piqued as she was.

  Maggie’s soft lips pursed. She glared at him, her every defense against him suddenly in place. “It means suddenly you’re pretty bossy and I don’t like it,” she spelled out plainly.

  Gabe inclined his head right back at her. “Well, I don’t like having to hunt all over heck for my wife,” he said.

  Maggie picked up another painted tile and bending across the counter, set it carefully in place. “No one asked you to do that,” she reminded in a low, chilly voice that meshed perfectly with the damp fog rolling in off the ocean.

  Finding it suddenly chilly, Gabe went over to shut one of the windows. “How come you’re working here all alone tonight?” he asked curiously.

  Maggie reached for another tile. Her focus completely on her work, she set it, too. “Because Enrico, Manuel and Luis all went home at six to have dinner with their families.”

  Gabe’s stomach growled hungrily, reminding him he hadn’t had dinner, either. “Are they coming back tonight?”

  “No,” Maggie replied stoically.

  Despite himself, Gabe began to admire the way she was laying out the tiles, and the beautiful pattern she was making, as she alternated painted and plain tiles. “Then why don’t you knock off, too?” Gabe asked curiously.

  Maggie shot him a quelling look as she straightened once again. “Because I have a deadline to meet and contractual responsibilities to my clients,” she explained impatiently.

  Gabe shrugged and leaned back against the opposite counter. “I don’t care if you finish this kitchen later than you said you would.”

  Maggie whipped off her baseball cap and slapped it against her thigh in aggravation. “But I care.”

  Gabe focused on the agitated light in her green eyes. “Why?”

  Maggie smoothed a palm across the top of her head where the hat had sat, and finding it too rumpled to fix easily, frowned unhappily. “Because if I’m late on your job, then I’m going to be late on the next job, and because I was at the TV show taping with you this morning, I didn’t even get started on my work here until around two this afternoon. Which means,” she said, as she removed the elastic band around her ponytail with a snap, “I need to work until at least eleven tonight, just to stay behind. So, if you don’t mind,” she said grumpily, as she combed her honey-blond hair with her fingertips and then put it up in a ponytail once again, “I’m going to keep going until I finish with this backsplash.”

  Gabe straightened and moved away from the counter before she could turn away. “Which will be eleven?” he inquired calmly.

  “Could be later.” Maggie slapped her baseball cap back on her head, this time putting the brim over her eyes. “It’s all taking longer than I estimated.”

  Gabe moved to block her way. “Then why not knock off and pick it up tomorrow?” he asked pleasantly.

  Maggie reached around him for another unopened packet of ceramic tile. “I’d prefer to keep going.”

  His patience fading with remarkable speed, he watched her cut across the plastic seal. “And I’d prefer you to spend time with your family.”

  Maggie shot him a contentious look from beneath the shadowed brim of her ball cap. “What family?”

  Gabe edged closer still. “Me.”

  Maggie tipped her chin at him. “We’re not a family yet.”

  He smiled insincerely, not the least bit put off by the challenging lilt to her voice. “Then what am I to you?” he asked softly, succinctly.

  “In reality?” Maggie contemplated, then said, “Potentially, the father to my child.”

  As if that were something to be discounted, Gabe thought, resentfully. “And husband
,” he reminded mildly.

  “Only in the strictest legal sense,” Maggie corrected with an arch lift to her brow. “Not in any real way.”

  Okay, Gabe thought. So maybe he deserved that one. Because the truth was, he had known from the outset that he wanted Maggie as more than just a friend, or a lover or even the mother to his child. He had wanted her to be his woman, heart and soul. He just hadn’t thought it would ever be possible, given the entanglements of the past. But that had been before she had turned to him in time of crisis, in lieu of anyone else. Before she had agreed to have a baby with him and marry him, before she had made love with him as if there was no other man for her and never would be. He wasn’t going to pretend none of that had happened. And he wasn’t about to let her pretend they hadn’t found something special, either.

  “Obviously, you’re ticked off at me,” he stated, after a moment.

  Maggie studied him, silently assessing and deciding, Gabe figured, whether or not she should get any further emotionally involved with him. He wanted her to feel she could. He figured she had to know, somewhere deep inside her, that he had never wanted their nuptials to become fodder for the media. And, in fact, would have done whatever necessary to make sure they didn’t. He just hadn’t foreseen anyone finding out about their elopement to North Carolina before they were ready to disclose it, and neither had she.

  “I guess I am,” Maggie agreed reluctantly at last.

  Assured of her attention, he stood beside her and asked, “Mind telling me why?”

  Maggie grimaced in aggravation. “I don’t like being trapped into doing things against my will.” She grabbed the bucket of cement and stirred it vigorously as she continued, “I had enough of that when I was a kid.”