Gwynneth Ever After (19 page)

Katie swooped down, snatched up the keys, and handed them back to her without missing a beat in her tale about the red squirrel that had climbed her leg to get a peanut. Gwyn clutched, missed, and closed her eyes as the keys dropped a second time.

“Mommy!” Katie’s voice was exasperated.

“Here, Katie,” Gareth’s deep tones said, “I’ll open the door for your mum.”

 
Gwyn opened her eyes and watched him turn the key, push the door inward, and herd her children inside. He turned to her.

“Are you coming?” he asked, with that familiar, faint trace of humor.

I haven’t decided yet
. She moistened parched lips with the tip of her tongue – and immediately regretted the action when a muscle in Gareth’s jaw tightened and flickered.
 

“Gareth, come see my pinecone!” Nicholas demanded, reappearing in the doorway and tugging at Gareth’s arm. “I found the biggest one!”

“Did not!” Maggie’s muffled voice denied from inside the house.

“Did too! Gareth, are you having supper with us? Mommy’s making Goldfish soup.”

A dark eyebrow rose above sunglasses. “Goldfish soup?”

With a mighty effort, Gwyn regained her voice. “Tomato soup with cheese crackers shaped like fish.”

“Ah.” He squatted down in front of the little boy, removing his sunglasses – finally – and tucking them into his inside jacket pocket. “Tell you what,” he said, “I need to talk to your mum for a bit, and then I’ll come see your pinecone, all right?”

“And mine?” Maggie’s hopeful face appeared in the open doorway over his shoulder.

Gareth reached around and poked at her belly with his finger. “And yours,” he promised. “But you have to let me and your mum talk first.”

They both nodded and disappeared back into the house. Katie arrived next in the doorway.

“Can I have – ”

“May I have,” Gwyn corrected automatically.

Katie heaved a pained sigh. “May I have a glass of milk? Please,” she added quickly.

Gwyn nodded. “Pour some for your brother and sister, too, please.”

Three sets of feet thundered toward the kitchen at the back of the house, leaving the two of them alone. His eyes no more readable now than they’d been behind his sunglasses, Gareth stepped back in a silent invitation for her to precede him inside. As he followed her and closed the door, she removed her coat and hung it in the closet, then began picking up the items strewn about the hall floor by her children.

Any other day she would have called them back to do the work themselves, but for now, with the tension building in the front entry the way it was, the task kept her hands busy. Unfortunately, it did nothing to keep her mind off the image of Gareth standing next to another woman, her face turned up to his...

Gareth cleared his throat.

Maggie’s hat fluttered to the floor.

“Gwyn – ”

Panic prodded her to speech. She whirled to face him.

“I’m sorry, I’m being rude,” she said. “Would you like a cup of tea or coffee or something? You must be frozen after sitting on that porch.”

A faint smile curved his lips. He leaned back against the door, his fingertips tucked into the front pockets of his jeans; his leather jacket opened to reveal the same snowy fisherman’s knit sweater he’d worn when they first met; his hair loose, the way it had been the last time they’d stood in this hallway together...

Gwyn gulped. If the tension didn’t do her in, the memories very well could.

“I’m fine, thanks,” he said.

Gwyn picked up Maggie’s hat a second time. “Are you sure? It’s no trouble, because I was going to make myself something anyway – ”

“Gwyn, we need to talk.”

She tucked the hat into Maggie’s wicker basket on the closet shelf. She tried to take a deep breath, but it lodged in her chest, forming a painful lump that pressed against her breastbone. She stooped to collect Nicholas’ mittens.

Gareth shifted his weight against the door. Her heart hammered against her ribcage.

“Did you hear me?” he asked quietly.

Her children’s voices floated down the hallway to her. She hesitated, tuning in to the sound. Absorbing it. Letting it fill her, ground her. Then she steeled herself and turned to face Gareth, lifting her chin.
 

“We’ve already said everything that matters.” Fierce pride stabbed through her at the firmness she heard in her own voice.
 

Gareth straightened from his post, shaking his head. “I don’t think we have because it matters that you saw me with Catherine today,” he said. “And we haven’t talked about that yet.”

Catherine.
..knowing the woman’s name didn’t make the hurt any less. Or change what she needed to do. Had to do, not just for the kids, but for her own sake. She stiffened her resolve.

“Who you take to a restaurant is your own business.”

“I didn’t
take
anyone to L’orée du Ruisseau except you. Catherine is my ex-wife. We had some...business to discuss, and she suggested the place because it’s out of the way. The local paper has caught wind that I’m in town, and Catherine isn’t fond of the media.”

Gwyn forced herself through the flood of relief brought on by the words
ex-wife
. It didn’t change anything, she assured herself, because it still wasn’t any of her concern. And neither was that oblique reference to
business.
“You don’t have to tell me this.”

“I wanted to explain.”

She turned to the closet and stuffed Nicholas’ mittens into the nearest basket, her labeling system forgotten. “Friends don’t need explanations.”

Silence followed her words.

“Friends,” Gareth repeated, his voice low. Gruff. “Is that what you want us to be?”

Gwyn couldn’t have forced a reply through her constricted throat if she’d tried, and so she contented herself with a nod – an affirmation of a lie. Her back still to Gareth, she closed her eyes and concentrated on not diving headlong into the closet in a desperate attempt to escape.
 

His voice dropped an impossible octave lower. “And what if I don’t want to be just friends, Gwynneth with two n’s? What if I want more?”

Her eyes shot open. She heard him move, felt the heat of his body behind her, the warmth of his breath stirring her hair. Oh, dear God.

“Are you finished talking yet?” Nicholas demanded.

Gwyn sensed Gareth’s sudden, coiled tautness, heard his sharp inhale. For the life of her, she couldn’t turn around.

“Not yet, buddy,” he said.

“Then can we watch a movie?”

“Gwyn?”

The word caressed the nape of her neck. She jerked her head up and down, hoping he would interpret the movement as the agreement for which it was intended.

“Your mum says yes,” he informed her son.

“Mommy says we can watch a movie!” Nicholas bellowed, thudding into the living room behind them.

Katie and Maggie’s footsteps sounded in the hallway, headed toward them from the kitchen. Gareth muttered a curse behind her and she smothered a giggle - Lord, hysteria was the last thing she needed right now. The kids’ footsteps moved into the adjacent living room. She took a deep, steadying breath and sidled sideways, edging out of the closet and away from Gareth’s overwhelming nearness.

“That won’t work, you know,” Gareth’s voice rumbled.

She shot him a quick look over her shoulder.

“Running away,” he elaborated.

She stopped sidling and turned to face him, wiping her sweaty palms against the seat of her jeans. The closet door frame nudged between her shoulder blades. “I’m not running away.”
 

But she’d like to.

“Good.” His hands still in his pockets, Gareth studied the tile floor. “I didn’t come just to explain about Catherine, Gwyn.”

Gwyn’s heart thudded against its confines.

“I meant what I said on the phone. I really do want to see you again. And not just today.”

“B-but you’re leaving – ”

He smiled. “And coming back. Friday, I hope.”

That hadn’t been what she meant, but try as she might, she could put together neither protest nor explanation. She stared at him, seeing the tension in his shoulders, the muscle flickering in his jaw, the outline of hands curled into fists in his pockets. Her belly quivered.

You’re a consenting adult, Gwyn Jacobs. A grown woman. If your very own private fantasy is this insistent...

Gareth raised his gaze to hers, eyes dark with intensity, determination, desire. Memories of motherhood scattered to the four winds. The hollowness beneath her ribcage settled lower in her belly, becoming an ache. A hunger.

A woman’s need.

“Gwyn?” The rough sound of her name carried a multitude of questions.

She closed her eyes. Enough. She was a mother, yes, but she was also human. She could take no more...could deny no more. As long as she kept Katie and Maggie and Nicholas out of it -

“All right,” she whispered.

“I know you’re concerned about your kids, and I respect that, but – ” Gareth’s voice broke off. “What did you say?”

Her voice still husky, but louder this time, she repeated, “I said all right.”

“You’ll see me again?”

“Yes.”
 

“I’m not talking about being friends.”

She opened her eyes. Lifted her chin. Met his gaze with a steady one of her own. There would be consequences, she knew, but heaven help her, she just couldn’t care anymore. “I know.”

He took a single step towards her. Locking her knees into place to keep herself upright, she wrapped her fingers around the door frame at her back for extra support.

“As much as I like your kids,” Gareth continued softly, “this has nothing to do with them.”

She nodded. Her fingertips lost all feeling.

He took another step. “This is just you and me.”

He stood so close now that she could smell his warmth mingling with the clean, sharp scent of his aftershave. Intoxicating. Devastating. His breath fanned her cheek. Her own strangled in her throat. She lifted her chin, closed her eyes...

“Are you guys kissing?”

Gareth’s jaw clenched. Gwyn released the air from her lungs in a tortured rush. She opened her eyes again.
Lord, Nicholas...

Gareth dropped his chin onto his chest, sighed, and looked sideways and down at her son. “Not yet,” he told Nicholas, “but that was the general idea.”

“Gross.”

Gareth smothered a surprised laugh with a cough. “You wanted something?” he reminded Nicholas.

“Katie can’t get the movie to work.”

“Would you like to handle this, or shall I?” Gareth asked Gwyn. Despite the wry amusement dancing in his eyes, heat still glowed in the dark depths.

She tightened her numb fingers around their anchor. “Be my guest,” she said, not bothering to mention that she didn’t dare move from her post for fear of falling flat on her face if she tried.

Gareth moved off to help her children –
her children
– and Gwyn sagged against the door frame
.
A hot wave of shame swept over her. He would have kissed her if Nicholas hadn’t interrupted just now, she thought. Kissed her the way he had the other night and she wouldn’t have done anything to stop him. Stop him? Dear Lord, she would have encouraged him...

With her children here. She bit back a groan. So much for keeping them out of it. What kind of mother was she?

Gareth strolled into the front hall, his eyes dancing. He held up a DVD case.

“They wanted to see this,” he said, “but I made a judgment call and vetoed the idea. I hope you don’t mind.”

She blushed. It was one that Sandy had brought over the week before. One of his. And definitely unsuitable for the kids.

“You never told me you were a fan,” he teased, tossing the case onto the hall bench.

“I’m not – I mean, I am, but I – ”

“Mommy watches all your movies,” Katie called from the living room.

The heat in Gwyn’s cheeks intensified – and began to spread.

“Does she, now?”

“Her and Auntie Sandy,” Nicholas added. “But they won’t let us.”

Not to be outdone, Maggie piped up, “Auntie Sandy says you’re a hunk. What’s a hunk?”

Gwyn found a semblance of a voice. “Never mind. Watch your movie.”

Crossing his arms, Gareth leaned against the living room doorway, near enough that she had no trouble seeing the wicked glint in his eyes.

“And what does your mum say about me?” he asked the three traitors in front of the television set.

She closed her eyes, sure that even her toes were blushing now, and wished fervently to be transported far away...

“She says you’re a god,” Katie replied. “And she growls.”

...
very
far away...

Peeking through her lashes, Gwyn found Gareth doubled over in silent, helpless laughter. She opened her eyes and scowled at him. “Are you having fun?” she asked crossly.