Gwynneth Ever After (15 page)

“I love you, sweetie,” she said huskily.

“I love you too, Mommy. And I’m glad you came to my class today.”

Little arms gave her a quick, fierce hug, and then Katie scampered up the stairs, only to stop half way.

“Mommy?”

“Yes, my love?”

“If Gareth
was
our daddy, he wouldn’t leave us like our first one did.”

Gwyn stared after her daughter for an eternity, then staggered down the hallway in search of peanut-butter cookies, her other children, pain killers, and whatever equilibrium she could hope to recover.
 

***

“
The
Gareth Connor?” Sandy’s voice squealed in Gwyn’s ear. “That was
the
Gareth Connor standing on your front porch yesterday and you didn’t introduce me? I can’t believe you didn’t introduce me!”
 

Gwyn cringed. Cradling the phone against her shoulder, she lifted a teary-eyed Nicholas onto the kitchen counter and settled him among their dinner leftovers. Wearily, she continued dabbing calamine lotion onto the spots covering his belly.

“How did you find out?” she asked.

“Hello? Your babysitter’s mother, my office assistant? Elaine thought I already knew – and I can’t believe I didn’t! She was horrified when she realized, of course, and made me promise not to tell, but God, Gwyn, why didn’t
you
tell me?”

Gwyn closed her eyes. Of course. Why hadn’t she thought of that? She’d been the one to recommend Elaine to Sandy in the first place, when Kirsten’s mom had decided to return to work part-time and Sandy’s assistant had just quit.

She scowled. It was the last time she’d do any favors like that again.
 

“Because I knew you’d squeal like a schoolgirl,” she told her friend.

“Mee-oww. Who peed in your cornflakes today?”

Gwyn sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m just a bit edgy today. I have a headache.”

“Kids up again last night?”

“Hm? No,” Gwyn said absently. “They actually slept through. Nicholas has a few more spots today, but it looks like he’s almost done, and there’s nothing new on Maggie.”

But while the kids had slept through the night, she’d managed to stay awake all on her own anyway.

Very unsatisfactorily all on her own.

With only the memory of a kiss and her treacherous thoughts to keep her company.

When what she’d really wanted was -

Sandy’s voice jarred her back to the conversation. “Then what? Trouble in paradise?”

“There is no paradise.”

“Ah. The guy didn’t live up to his screen image, huh? They never do, you know. I have a cousin who dated an actor once – ”

A memory of Gareth, half-nude, standing in her upstairs hallway, seared through Gwyn’s mind. Calamine lotion slopped onto Nicholas’ pajamas.

“Sandy,” she croaked.

“Mm?”

“The man is ten thousand times better than his image.” She swallowed hard. “Trust me on that.”

She mopped up the spilled lotion with the cotton ball in her hand and started doctoring the spots on Nicholas’ face.

“Then I don’t get it,” said Sandy. “What’s the problem?”

“The problem is that he’s leaving in a week and the kids are starting to get really attached to him. I don’t think it’s wise to let things get out of hand.”

It would be even less wise to admit to her friend that things already had.

Silence met her words.

“Sand? You still there?”

“Yeah, I’m here. I’m just trying to decide whether I should smack you for being such an idiot or tell you how much I admire you for being so together.”

Gwyn glanced down as Maggie arrived to lean against her leg, looking utterly forlorn. She cleared another spot on the counter, sat the little girl beside her brother, and reached into the nearby freezer for two chocolate-flavored Popsicles. Their suffering momentarily forgotten, the twins reached with pudgy little hands for the treats.

She returned her attention to Sandy. “And?”
 

“I’ll let you know when I decide. God, no wonder you’re edgy. Have you told him yet?”

“Last night.”

Gwyn tugged Nicholas’ pajama top down over his belly, lifted Maggie’s, and started on her daughter’s spots.

“What did he say?”

“Well...”

“What? What?”

Gwyn pictured her friend almost dancing in anticipation of a response. She sighed again. “He wouldn’t agree.”

Silence met her words. Then, her voice subdued, Sandy said, “Oh. My. God.”

Her response couldn’t have been more unnerving if she’d tried.

Setting the calamine bottle on the counter, Gwyn took a steadying breath and tried to settle her quivering insides. It didn’t work. “Sandy – ”

“What are you going to do? I mean, you’re going to see him again, right?”

Gwyn’s hold on the cotton ball tightened. Pink lotion oozed between her fingers. “No.”

“Are you nuts?”

“Thanks a lot.”

“I’m sorry, and I know it’s your decision, but – ”

“But what?”

“Don’t you think you’re being a little hasty? Maybe he’s a really nice guy.”

Blindly, Gwyn slopped more lotion onto the cotton ball she’d wrung dry. She couldn’t believe her ears. Sandy was normally such a cynic that the last thing Gwyn had expected was for her to take the side of an impossible fantasy.

And the last thing she
needed
was help second-guessing herself.

“He
is
a really nice guy,” she said. “But he’s a really nice guy who lives in another country, remember? In a life so far removed from mine that it might as well be in another universe.”

“Yes, but – ” Sandy broke off and sighed. “Are you sure it wouldn’t work? I mean, stranger things have happened, you know. And besides, you can’t protect your kids forever, sweetie. People are going to come and go all their lives. It happens.”

“Maybe, but I can still protect them now. I’m
supposed
to protect them.”

“Fine. Then what if you just see him on the side, away from the kids?”

Fighting her sense of betrayal, Gwyn demanded, “Sandra Masters, since when did you become such a hopeless romantic? You’re supposed to tell me that you can’t believe I got involved in the first place, and that I had no business doing so, and that it’s a good thing I’ve come to my senses and made the right decision, and – ”

“Gwyn, darling,” Sandy drawled.

Gwyn stared at the pale pink splotches decorating her counter and floor from the bottle she’d been waving around, and then at her children’s astonished faces. A tear trickled down her cheek. She sniffled. “What?”

“Well, it just seems that if you thought you’d made the right decision, you wouldn’t need me to tell you so.”

Chapter 20

Gareth took the elastic from between his teeth with one hand and wrapped it around the hair he held back with the other.

“You know, there’s a really great barber just down the street.”

Giving the elastic a final twist, he met Sean’s gaze in the mirror. His cousin had given him a hard time about his hair for as long as he could remember.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he replied, “if I ever need one.”

Sean shook his head. “You know what cops think when they see guys who look like you?”

“That they’d like to ask for my autograph.”

Rolling his eyes, his cousin leaned a uniformed shoulder against the door frame. “So did you get hold of Catherine yet?”

“Not yet. I think she’s having too much fun making me suffer. I left her another message.”

“Then I’m guessing that’s not who you’re going out to meet right now.”

Gareth wrapped the cord around his shaver and tucked it inside the black leather bag on the counter. “No.”

“Playing nurse again?”

“I’m going over to Gwyn’s, if that’s what you mean,” he said, refusing to rise to the bait.

“The kids must be getting used to having you around.” Jaw flexing, Sean crossed his arms. “Maybe they’ll let you watch Saturday morning cartoons with them.”

Gareth reached for the coat he’d hung on the hook behind the door. He didn’t bother responding.

“Did you think about what I said the other night?” Sean prodded.

“No.”

“Why not?”

Tipping his head to one side, Gareth pretended to consider the question for a second. “Because I’m a big boy?”

His cousin scowled at him. “Funny.”

Shrugging into his coat, Gareth lifted his hair free of the collar and sighed. “Look, Sean, I understand your concern, but have a little faith, will you? I’m not a complete idiot. I know what kind of damage can be done, and you know me better than to think I’d just walk out on anyone’s kids. Satisfied?”

“No.”

Gareth faced his cousin. “Why not? What more can I do?”

“You can leave them alone, damn it. I have a great deal of respect for you, Gareth, and I’d like to keep it that way. But playing daddy to someone else’s kids isn’t as easy as you think, and good intentions aren’t worth squat if those kids get seriously attached to you and you blow it.”

Gareth’s jaw tightened. “I’m not playing. I happen to like Gwyn. A lot.”

“Bull. This isn’t about Gwyn, it’s about her kids.”

“Excuse me?”

As soon as he spoke the question, Gareth remembered the theory Sean had wanted to share with him Thursday night. He pushed past his cousin and stalked down the hallway, but it was too late.

“Think about it.” Sean followed him into the living room. “You’re here to meet the daughter whose entire life you’ve missed out on. You’d have to be made of stone not to feel just a bit nostalgic about the whole situation. Then along comes Gwen – Gwyn – with her kids. She’s kinda cute, her kids are kinda nice, and before you know it, you’re up to your neck in the one role you’ve always wanted, but never had.”

If Sean had been anyone but his kid-brother-type cousin, Gareth would have decked him on the spot – uniform or no uniform. As it was, he curled his hands into fists and stared at the standard, apartment-issue white front door for a long moment before he trusted himself to turn around. He glared at the other man.

“You have one hell of a nerve, McKitrick.”

“Just calling it the way I see it.” Sean shrugged, choosing another wall to lean against. He shifted his sidearm to a more comfortable position.

“Then get glasses.” Gareth felt for the door handle behind him, closed his fingers over the knob, and tugged the door open, signaling an end to the conversation.

His cousin ignored the signal.
 

“You’re telling me you don’t feel like you’ve missed out on something?”

“I’ve known I was missing out on something every single day since I let Amy go,” Gareth growled. “I didn’t need Gwyn or her kids to point it out.”

“So if it’s not a misguided desire to play daddy, then you keep seeing this Gwyn person because - ?”

But before Gareth could reply – or better yet, tell Sean to simply kiss off – a female voice demanded,

“Who’s playing daddy, who is Gwyn, and why haven’t you returned my calls?”

Gareth’s head snapped around and he stared at the svelte, fifty-ish woman in the doorway. “Angela?” he croaked.

***

Fingers laced behind his head, Gareth stood at the sliding glass doors, staring out at the Ottawa River far below. If he looked to the west, he could just make out the scattering of houses that marked the town on the Quebec side where Gwyn lived.

Would she wondering why he hadn’t called yet? Think he’d given up? Be relieved? His mouth twisted.

In view of Sean’s theory, maybe she
should
be relieved. Because no matter how much he wanted to deny his cousin’s words, he couldn’t help but wonder if there might be a grain of truth in them.
 

Leather squeaked behind him as Angela shifted her weight on the sofa. She cleared her throat.

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Well, say something.”

He sighed. “What would you like me to say? Of course, Angela, I’m thrilled to give up my holiday with no notice of any kind and fly back to fix Damon’s screw-up?”

“If you’d bothered to listen to my messages or call me back, you would have known about this three days ago,” his agent pointed out, her voice distinctly testy. “I really do have better things to do with my weekends than chase after you, you know.”

 
Gareth glowered at his faint reflection. As if three days would have made a difference. Swinging around to face the woman on the sofa, he dropped his hands to his hips. “Damn it, Ange, this is a really bad time for me. Can’t it wait for a couple of weeks?”

His agent stared at him. “You’re visiting your cousin, and we’re talking about going back for a week. How bad can that be?”

If she only knew. Bloody hell, he and Catherine were still playing telephone tag, he had no idea when Amy was returning, and he didn’t even want to think about the effect leaving would have on his relationship with Gwyn.