Gwynneth Ever After (7 page)

Calm permeated every corner, giving the space the air of a retreat. It presented a study in harmony and balance, from the soothing shades of moss green on the walls and ceiling to the Palladian windows that soared from floor to twelve-foot ceiling around the perimeter. Narrow strips of wall broke the expanse of glass, just wide enough to pull back the drapes without sacrificing the view, and a set of French doors opened onto a wide stone terrace visible in the shadowed night outside.

A woodstove, unlit at the moment, sat in one corner. A huge wooden trunk served as coffee table. Dark leather couch and chairs were oversized and overstuffed. There was probably too much furniture for the size of the room, but far from feeling cluttered, the entire space invited a person to come in and stay a while. To be at home.

Much the way its designer did.

He realized Gwyn waited for him to speak.

He cleared his throat, working past the
home
thought. “So when you sketched that picture and drew up the plans, this is what you envisioned?”

She nodded, and her satisfied gaze wandered the room.

“Exactly this,” she said. “I’d sat inside this space a thousand times before I ever hired a contractor.”

“Then I’ll say it again. You’re very talented.”

She gave him a pleased smile. “Thank you. I’m glad you like it. Are you sure you don’t want coffee or tea? I can plug the kettle in while I make Katie’s lunch for tomorrow.”

A clock in another room chimed a distant eight o’clock. Gareth glanced at his own watch for confirmation of the time and looked askance at her.

“I’m not intruding? You said you work in the evenings.”

“Nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow. I may even be a little ahead of schedule at the moment, though I’ll probably jinx myself by saying so. You’re welcome to stay for awhile.”

He thought of the cluttered work desk and knew she lied. Knew, too, that he would accept even as he went through the entire list of reasons he shouldn’t. It wasn’t a real involvement, he told himself, just a brief interlude. A moment of peace in a currently insane life. Surely not even the jaded Sean would begrudge him that.

“All right. Coffee would be nice, then.”

And it was. Very nice.

At first, Gwyn wasn’t sure the invitation had been wise. While she’d made Katie’s lunch and tried very hard to keep the flutters in her belly to a minimum, her gaze had wandered again and again in Gareth’s direction as he flipped through her music collection.

He’d left his hair loose tonight. It gave him an unruly, untamed air, in sharp contrast to the sleek, pulled-back look of the night before. In fact, everything about him was different from the night before. And as mouth-parchingly handsome as he’d looked in his sport-jacket-and-slacks dinner attire, jeans and an untucked denim shirt were proving a hundred times more dangerous.

Gwyn swallowed and pressed the lid of the plastic sandwich box into place.

And his appearance was only the beginning. Far more unsettling was the comfortable way he’d fit into the family dynamic. From the moment he’d walked in the front door, he’d been so natural with the kids, so at ease with tuna casserole and bagged salad. And he’d cleaned her kitchen.

How many real men cleaned a woman’s kitchen on their second date?

And
that
was the true issue. She stuffed a handful of baby carrots and some celery sticks into a plastic container and pressed on the lid. He
wasn’t
real. He was a fantasy come into life for a brief time, and that was all. She tucked the various containers into Katie’s lunch bag: veggies, sandwich, yogurt, grapes.

Heck, this evening hadn’t even been a real date.

The rich, gravelly voice of Nat King Cole drifted into the kitchen. Glancing over, she saw Gareth straighten up from the CD player. He turned, caught her eye, and smiled.

A fantasy, she reminded herself. Only a fantasy.

“What a wonderful world,”
sang Nat King Cole.

They sat at opposite ends of the couch. Gwyn facing Gareth with both her feet tucked up under her, he half-turned toward her with his arm stretched along the back. Conversation that had seemed easy the night before became positively comfortable now.

He asked more questions about her work, about where she’d trained and why she’d chosen architecture; listened to stories of her family with an attentiveness that had her revealing details she’d long ago forgotten.

He described growing up with two younger sisters in Cardiff, Wales, and moving away to London when he was fifteen in a dismally unsuccessful attempt to break into the theatre. He told her about returning to school and emerging older and wiser several years later with no particular degree but a determination to try the stage a second time.

He had her in stitches with his descriptions of his first roles, and in awe of the entire movie world with his tales of what life was really like on the set.

And once again, he steered clear of territory that might be too personal with a perception that was almost uncanny.

He was funny, he was warm, he was fascinating...

...and fantasy or no fantasy, Gwyn was in serious trouble.

She’d suspected it all evening, of course, but she managed to more or less ignore the possibility – right up until the clock in the living room chimed midnight and Gareth smiled his regret.

“I think that’s my cue to be going,” he said.

She had to quite literally bite her tongue to stop herself from asking him to stay. Controlling her impulse for the moment, she made a show of looking at her watch.

“Time really flies, doesn’t it?” she murmured. She hated herself for the inanity of the remark but needed to say something to fill the sudden silence that threatened.

Gareth’s lips twitched. “Indeed it does.” He rose from the couch and raised his hands over his head in a stretch. “Thank you again for dinner, and for coffee. I hope I didn’t keep you from anything too important.”

Gwyn didn’t think much could be more important than watching a thin denim shirt strain across a broad chest, but neither did she think it wise to say so. She simply smiled and shook her head.

“Nothing at all,” she said, and trusted that he wouldn’t hear the slight strangulation in her voice. She uncoiled her feet from beneath her and leaned forward to put her mug on the trunk. When she straightened up, she found Gareth’s hand extended to her.

She hesitated, exhaling shakily. Then she put her hand in his and let him pull her to her feet, inches away from the broad shoulders she’d just admired. Along with all the rest of him.

No amount of reasoning with herself could make her raise her gaze to his. Long seconds ticked by, alive with electric expectation. Gareth cleared his throat.

“I should go,” he said, his voice husky.
 

A tremor twisted through Gwyn’s belly.

She stared at a button at eye level on his shirt. The one that marked the beginning of an open vee and exposed a glimpse of dark, curling hairs. “I know.”

“Gwyn – ”
 

She inhaled sharply at the rough sound of her name. Gareth’s fingers tightened for an instant on her own, then began a slow slide up her arm to her shoulder, around to the nape of her neck. She closed her eyes. A strand of hair, not her own, brushed her cheek.
 

“Mommy, my head hurts.”

It took a moment for the whimper to penetrate. Another moment for the world to steady itself enough that she could step away from Gareth’s hand and trust herself not to fall over.

Maggie stood by the end of the couch, rubbing her eyes and swaying on her feet. Gwyn’s heart sank as a single glance took in her daughter’s abnormally flushed cheeks. Crouching down, she held out her hands.

“Come here, sweetie.”

Gareth guided the little girl past his own feet until she’d reached Gwyn, then he dropped onto the edge of the couch.

“Is she all right?”

Gwyn swept a damp lock of hair away from Maggie’s forehead and folded her daughter into her arms where she nestled listlessly, her hot face pressed into the crook of Gwyn’s neck. “She has a fever,” she replied.

“Is it serious?”

“I doubt it. It could be the start of a cold, or it could disappear by morning. We’ll have to wait and see.”

“Can you give her something?”

Gwyn shook her head. “Not just yet. I’d rather let it run its course as long as she’s not too uncomfortable. I’ll bring her into bed with me for the night– ”
 

A sudden flash in Gareth’s expression swept away the remainder of her words. But whatever it was disappeared again so quickly, she felt sure she’d imagined it. She grimaced.

Inspired by her own frustration, no doubt.

“Can I do anything for you before I go?” Gareth asked.

“Thanks, but we’re fine.”

“Shall I see myself out, or do you have to lock the door?”

“I have to lock.” With Maggie cradled in her arms, Gwyn rose to her feet and led the way through the house to the front door. She waited while Gareth put on shoes and coat, then she attempted a smile, not quite certain how to behave after what had almost happened.

Gareth took away the guesswork, along with her breath.

First he stroked Maggie’s head and, his voice soft, said, “Feel better soon, Maggie.”

Then he stepped close to Gwyn, tipped up her chin, and brushed his lips across hers, feather-light. “I’ll call tomorrow,” he said. “To see how Maggie is.”

Then he left.

Chapter 9

 
“Well?” Sandy’s voice demanded the instant Gwyn put the telephone receiver to her ear. “How did it go?”

“Hello to you, too,” said Gwyn dryly. “And I’m fine. Thank you for asking.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Now how did it go?”

Gwyn grinned and tucked the receiver against her shoulder to free her hands. She continued slicing mango into a bowl of fruit salad for Maggie.

“You know what you are, don’t you, Sandra Masters? Nosey.”

“Gwyn – ”

Gwyn relented. “It went fine.”
 

A small silence ensued on the other end of the line. “That’s it? You invited a man into your home for the first time ever, and that’s all you’re going to tell me? It went
fine
?”

“There’s nothing else to tell. He had dinner with us and stayed for coffee. That was all.”
Right, Gwyn, but if it hadn’t been for Maggie
...Gwyn’s insides did a brief series of back flips and she paused in her slicing, afraid of doing damage to herself.

As if she’d read her mind, Sandy said, “Oh, my.”

“Oh, my, what?”

“You really do have it bad.”

“What? All I said was – ”

“It’s not what you say that counts, Gwynneth, it’s what you
don’t
say. And you know it. You’ve told me everything about any other date you’ve ever had. What you ate, what you did – ”

“We ate tuna casserole and chocolate-fudge-ripple ice cream, and he cleaned the kitchen while I put the kids to bed. Then he asked to see my work, and then we had coffee. Is that better?”

Gwen rinsed her hands in the sink and reached for the kitchen towel hanging on the fridge door. An image of Gareth wiping his hands on the same fabric popped into her mind. She took a clean one from the drawer.

“He cleaned your kitchen?” Sandy echoed. “Did you ask him to?”

“Of course not!”

“Hell, I haven’t even met him and
I’m
in love with him,” her friend muttered. “So when are you seeing him again?”

“I don’t know if I am.”

“Mommy!” a pathetic whine came from the sitting room, where she’d left Maggie dozing on the couch.

“Was that my little Magpie?” Sandy asked, distracted at last from her third-degree routine. “What’s she doing home?”

“She has a fever. I was up most of the night with her.” Gwyn carried the bowl of fruit to her daughter. Maggie lay where she’d left her on the couch, cuddled under the duvet brought down from her bed. The flush of fever had gone from her cheeks, replaced by a pallor that made the normally robust four-year-old look tiny and fragile.

A single pink spot stood out on one cheek.

Gwyn’s heart dropped.

“Oh, no,” she muttered.

“What?” Sandy asked.

Gwyn jumped. She’d forgotten she even held the telephone.

“You’re not going to believe this,” she told Sandy. She perched on the edge of the couch beside her daughter, dropped a kiss on her forehead, and smoothed back the little girl’s hair.

“What?” Sandy asked again, her voice impatient.

Gwyn tugged Maggie’s pajama top out of the way. Tiny pink dots covered the little belly. Gwyn’s heart plummeted even further, coming to rest somewhere in the region of her knees.

“Spots,” she informed Sandy.

“Spots?”

“Chicken pox.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Oh, believe me, I wish I was.” Pulling a face at Maggie, Gwyn leaned over to rub noses with her. She turned her attention back to her friend. “I have to go, Sand. I need to locate the calamine lotion and then pick up Nicholas. I guess I’ll see you again when we’re spot-free.”