My Secret Wife
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Cathy Gillen Thacker
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Chapter One
Gabe Deveraux met Maggie Callaway halfway down the steps to his beach house and regarded her with embarrassment. “Thanks for coming,” he said, waving as the last of the Isle of Palms fire trucks drove away.
“You said it was an emergency.” Maggie looked at the charred interior of the rear of his house, then turned back to him. She was dressed as she always was when working—in work boots, nice-fitting jeans, a long-sleeved cotton shirt and an open khaki vest with multiple pockets. Her honey-blond hair framed her piquant face in tousled waves. Her kissable lips were softly glossed, her lively light-green eyes alight with interest as she looked him over from head to toe. “What happened here?” she asked, her gaze roving the wrinkled state of his clothes before returning once again to his unshaven jaw and weary eyes. At five foot five, she was some seven inches shorter than he was. “Did you finally decide to learn how to cook?”
Gabe grimaced and shoved a hand through the short layers of his hair as he led Maggie all the way inside. “Actually, I’m not really sure how it happened,” he admitted.
“Well, I am.” Penny Stringfield emerged from the master bedroom on the second floor and walked down the hallway overlooking the first floor to the stairs. The petite redhead was dressed in a hospital nurse’s uniform and carried a suitcase in one hand, a smaller toiletries bag in the other. “I put some soup on to boil and then forgot about it,” Penny explained to both Maggie and Gabe as she came down the staircase and walked over to them. “The pan boiled dry and the wallpaper caught fire, and the next thing I knew it was time to dial 911.”
Her face filled with regret, Penny set her things down, propelled herself into Gabe’s arms and hugged him fiercely. Over the top of her head, Gabe saw Maggie’s faintly disapproving expression as she watched what was going on between him and his houseguest.
“I’m so sorry, Gabe,” Penny said, in a voice still scratchy from the voluminous tears she had shed the night before. “I never meant to set your kitchen on fire while you were at the hospital. Especially after last night. If you hadn’t been here for me, well, I don’t know what I would have done.”
“I was glad to help,” Gabe said, knowing even as he spoke the soothing words how they would likely be misinterpreted by Maggie. He grasped Penny’s shoulders and drew her back so she had no choice but to look into his face. “You know that. But—”
“But nothing,” Penny sniffed indignantly. “I’m moving to a hotel now.”
“You don’t have to do that,” he said firmly. Recalling how devastated Penny had been the night before, when she had first showed up on his doorstep, Gabe’s heart went out to her. Although why Penny felt that Lane Stringfield was about to stop loving her, Gabe still didn’t know, because she hadn’t explained. All he knew for sure was that Penny was very upset, very frightened and agitated, and still very in love with Lane. People in that condition needed a friend. And since he was the one Penny had turned to, he felt bound to do whatever was necessary to help her.
“Yes, I do, Gabe.” Fleeting regret crossed Penny’s face, as she wiped her tears away. “We both know it’s for the best,” she said, pausing to blow her nose delicately. “I never should have agreed to stay here with you in the first place. The last thing I want to do is drag you into the middle of the breakup of my marriage.”
Gabe wasn’t so sure the Stringfield union was ending—after all, the two had been man and wife for five years now. Happily espoused, as far as he and everyone else could see. Surely, whatever the misunderstanding was, it could be cleared up.
Catching the curious, slightly jealous expression on Maggie’s face out of the corner of his eye, Gabe faced his houseguest determinedly and tried again. “Penny—”
“I’ll be fine, Gabe.” Penny stepped back and away from Gabe. “Really. I’m not so sure about your kitchen, however.”
“Oh, we can fix that,” Maggie said, already eyeing the devastation with a professional kitchen designer’s unerring eye.
“Good. Because I want to help pay for it,” Penny said emphatically. She picked up her bags, stepped past. “I’ll talk to you later, at the hospital, Gabe.”
Gabe waited until Penny had driven away, then turned back to Maggie. As he had suspected, she did not look happy with him at all. “It’s not what you think,” he said quietly, guessing from the downturned corners of her soft lips what her thoughts were. “Penny Stringfield and I are not romantically involved.” He had not come between Lane and Penny the way he had inadvertently come between Maggie and his brother, when she and Chase were just days from saying “I Do.”
Maggie shrugged her slender shoulders as she plucked a small spiral notepad from one of the pockets of her khaki cargo vest. “Did I say you caused the breakup of Penny’s marriage?” she said coolly as she removed a pen from another pocket, flipped back the cover on her notepad and began to scribble notes to herself.
“You didn’t have to.” Gabe followed Maggie around as she inspected the damage the licking flames had done to his appliances, cabinets, walls and windows. Although all were still standing, all were so smoke-, flame- and water-damaged they were going to have to be ripped out and replaced. Needing some fresh air, Gabe tried to open the window and found the frame so warped it wouldn’t open. He went to the patio door opposite and opened that to let more fresh ocean air blow in. “I can tell by the look on your face that you’ve jumped to the conclusion that I’m responsible,” he continued as the first floor filled with the cool ocean breeze. “But it’s not true. Penny and I are just friends. All I was trying to do was help her out by giving her a place to crash until she calmed down.” And came to her senses, Gabe added mentally.
“Look, Gabe, it’s really none of my business.” Careful not to back up against anything, Maggie tipped her head back and studied the soot clinging to every inch of his kitchen ceiling, “Since you and I are just friends, too.”
“Yeah, well, that wasn’t really my choice now, was it?” Gabe said, as Maggie squatted down and tested the vinyl tile that had melted into the water-logged floorboard beneath it. “I wanted to date you.” And, in fact, had asked her out several times during the past few weeks, only to be turned down with one flimsy excuse after another.
Exasperation swept into Maggie’s high, delicately boned cheeks as she stood. Propping one hand on her hip, she squared off with him again. “We have to face it, Gabe, whether we want to or not.” Regret shimmered in her pretty long-lashed eyes. “I caused your entire family a great deal of unhappiness when I broke off my plans to marry your brother just days before we were to walk down the aisle, and I did it because I was attracted to you.”
Fresh guilt flooded Gabe. He refused to let it get to him as he met Maggie’s gaze, bluntly and emphatically reminding her of the reconciliation that had taken place a few weeks prior, after two years of considerable familial unrest. “Chase has forgiven us.”
“But I’m not so sure the rest of your family has, or ever will,” Maggie replied. “Nor can I say I blame them. The whole episode was really humiliating and embarrassing for everyone. And we only made it worse when we tried to date, immediately after I ended it with your older brother. So I think, for a lot of reasons, it’s best we continue just to be friends.”
Gabe sighed.
Intellectually, he knew Maggie was right. His parents, sister Amy and brother Mitch were a long way from ever forgiving Maggie for the acrimony she had caused his already broken family. It didn’t stop him from wanting her. Nor her, he guessed, from wanting him. That had been proven weeks ago, when, without warning, they had met to talk about something else and suddenly found themselves kissing again. And worse, been spotted by Chase when they were doing so!
Emotionally, he still wanted her—for reasons he had yet to closely examine. Reasons he probably didn’t want to examine.
“So back to why you called me here,” Maggie said, commandeering Gabe’s attention once again. “What is it exactly that you want me to do for you?” she asked in a crisp, all-business tone that let Gabe know in an instant that any fantasies he might still be harboring about the two of them were not about to come true, now or at any other time.
Gabe grimaced and pushed his disappointment aside, looked her straight in the eye and directed just as firmly, “I want all the damage cleared away, and my kitchen put back the way it was as soon as possible. So. Now that you know what I want—” Gabe regarded Maggie impatiently, folding his arms in front of him “—how fast can you do it?”
WASN’T THAT JUST LIKE rich boy Gabe Deveraux, Maggie thought. To want what he wanted when he wanted it. Damn the consequences. “Right now, I’ve got a four-month waiting list,” she said, a trifle impatiently.
Gabe shoved a hand through his midnight-black hair. His distress showed in his boyishly handsome face. “I can’t live like this. I need my house repaired right away.” He fastened his gaze on her face. “Isn’t there anything you can do to speed things up?”
Maggie had to turn away from the seductive expression in his blue-gray eyes. “Sure.” She shrugged, telling herself she was immune to the desire that shimmered through her whenever she was this close to his lean and athletic six-foot frame, now that she had learned the hard way that his interest in her would always be only a fleeting—and hence hurtful—thing. “But it would cost you double time.”
Gabe beamed. “Done!” he said enthusiastically.
Maggie told herself she was only accommodating Gabe’s wishes to help boost the profits of the home-remodeling-business-turned-kitchen-design emporium she had inherited from her mother and father the year before. She didn’t want to spend time with him, or do anything that would further the mounting sexual tension between them. Which was why she had avoided seeing Gabe—and everyone else in his family—until about a month ago, when a medical problem had prompted her to call Gabe, to get some advice—and a referral—she could trust.
He had come through for her that afternoon, as she had known he would.
But he had also kissed her.
And stirred up a lot of feelings she hadn’t wanted to feel.
Since then, Gabe and his brother Chase had made up and agreed to let the past be just that. Which left Gabe wanting to date her again. But knowing Gabe never dated any one woman for more than a few weeks, if that long, Maggie had declined. Repeatedly.
And she was glad she had.
She didn’t want her heart broken by Gabe again.
Aware Gabe was waiting for her to continue, Maggie said, “I can get the guys to start clearing out the charred rubble this morning. But we won’t be able to do anything more than that until I clear it with the client whose job I was to begin tomorrow morning.”
“Just do what you can as fast as you can,” Gabe said with a frown.
While Maggie was on the phone with the next client on her waiting list, Gabe’s brother Chase arrived. As she watched her former fiancé, now a happily married man, mount the steps to Gabe’s beach house, which was just a mile or so from Chase’s own, Maggie thought how odd it was to have no feeling at all for Chase, except maybe a lingering warmth—the kind you had for a guy who had once been your boyfriend, but who now was merely a casual acquaintance. Had she ever really loved Chase Deveraux, surely she would have felt more for him now. But she didn’t. Which only went to show, Maggie thought dispiritedly, that she really didn’t know anything about what the love between a man and a woman should be after all.
“Hey, Mags,” Chase said with a smile the moment Maggie got off her cell phone. “I’ve got a proposition for you. I want to do a story on this kitchen fire and a before-and-after photo-spread of the renovation for Modern Man magazine. Interested?”
“I wouldn’t mind the free advertising,” Maggie said. The magazine Chase published was one of the hottest publications for men. A lot of women read it, too.
Chase nodded, pleased. “Great. I’ll send Daisy Templeton over on a daily basis to photograph the work in progress.”
The pager attached to Gabe’s belt went off. “It’s the hospital. Excuse me for a minute.”
Maggie and Chase stepped outside on the deck to give Gabe the privacy he needed while talking to the hospital. Chase looked at Maggie curiously. “So what’s going on between the two of you?” he asked, abruptly becoming more protective older brother to Gabe, than ex-fiancé to Maggie. “Are you dating now or what?”
Maggie had the feeling a part of Chase would have been relieved if they had been—it would have been easier on his male ego had she and his younger brother not been able to keep their hands off each other. It would have explained once and for all why she’d left him at the altar to be with Gabe. Because everyone knew Maggie wasn’t the type of woman to string any man along.
“Gabe and I are just friends, Chase,” Maggie responded quietly. And not very good ones at that, Maggie thought, given the continuing sexual tension between them. The fact their relationship was unrequited and destined to stay that way made a strictly platonic relationship between her and Gabe all but impossible.
“That’s too bad.” Chase’s disappointment was evident. Maggie knew Chase had hoped his forgiveness would spur her and Gabe on to a more meaningful relationship. “I want Gabe to be with his dream woman,” Chase said seriously. “And I’ve thought for a while now that woman was you.”
“Well, it’s not,” Maggie said briskly, recalling all too well how swiftly and remorselessly Gabe had dumped her. “But thanks for caring enough to want to see your brother happy,” she said sincerely, relieved that Chase was no longer angry with her for the mistakes she had made when she was engaged to him.
Chase rested his hands on her shoulders. “I want to see you both happy, Mags. As happy as Bridgett and I are,” Chase said firmly.
“I want that, too,” Maggie said. She just didn’t see how it would ever happen with her and Gabe, no matter what Chase and his new bride Bridgett hoped.
Chase then headed off for the magazine office, and Maggie got her laptop computer out of her truck. By the time she had walked back into the living room, which, thanks to the quick response of the fire department as well as the judicial use of a fire extinguisher on the blaze in the kitchen had remained unscathed, Gabe was just getting off the phone.
“Sorry about that. I had a patient admitted last night. We don’t know who she is. She’s eighty-something and obviously confused. I was hoping the police would have been able to connect her with a missing persons report, but so far, nothing.”
“Is she going to be all right?”
“I hope so. But we have to figure out what’s wrong with Jane Doe first, and that’s not easy to do when we don’t have a medical history on her, and she isn’t able to explain to us how she ended up in the historic district with a sprained ankle in the middle of the night, or even how long she was lying there on the sidewalk before the newspaper delivery person happened along and found her. But she’s such a lovely lady I can’t imagine she could go missing for very long. So I’m sure it’ll all be worked out in a matter of hours.”
Maggie frowned as she mulled over the dilemma. “You could always get the TV stations involved,” she suggested.
“We will, believe me, if we don’t get some answers soon.” Gabe turned his intent blue-gray gaze on her. “And speaking of medical situations—how are you?”
MAGGIE HAD BEEN HOPING Gabe wouldn’t bring that up.
It was bad enough she had called him for advice and broken down in his arms; his pity for her had led to the infamous kiss on the beach that Chase had seen—and a lot of family turmoil between Gabe and his brother Chase. True, that conflict had since been resolved, but she was still embarrassed about the way she had bared her soul to Gabe that day. It wasn’t like her to reveal her deepest hurts or darkest fears to anyone. She preferred giving off a self-possessed, independent aura. No way was she a vulnerable woman in need of a man to lean on. Steeling herself against the kindness in his eyes, Maggie swallowed, and said, “I saw the physician you recommended.”
“And…?” Gabe tensed as he waited for her reply.
“I have severe endometriosis.” Maggie turned her back to the three Callaway Kitchen Construction trucks pulling up in the drive. She folded her arms in front of her and faced Gabe with as much courage as she could muster. “If I want to bear a child, and I do, very much, it’s recommended that I get pregnant as soon as possible.”
Gabe looked first stunned—then accepting over the news of her impending parenthood. “Who’s the lucky dad?” he asked casually, thrusting his hands in the pockets of his slacks, as truck doors opened and shut and heavy work boots clopped up the beach-house steps.
Maggie hedged, aware the next part was even more embarrassing. “I don’t know yet,” she said, biting her lower lip. “I have to visit the sperm bank this afternoon and pick one out.”
Gabe stared at her as if she had suddenly grown two heads. “You’re kidding, right?”
Maggie pretended a great deal more insouciance than she felt. “It’s either that or the old-fashioned way,” she said with a confident tilt of her head. “And since time is of the essence and I’m not currently even dating anyone…” She shrugged her slender shoulders and let her words trail off.
She could tell by the disapproving look on his face that Gabe was about to tell her what a mistake she was making. Fortunately, he had no chance to do so as they were joined by Maggie’s electrician, Enrico Chavez, his brother, master plumber Manuel Chavez, and her carpenter and cabinetmaker Luis Chavez. The three brothers were all in their fifties. They had worked for Maggie’s dad and mom for years, and now they worked for Maggie. Devout Catholics, family men, they were fiercely protective of her. They were also, after the sudden deaths of her parents the previous year, the only “family” Maggie had, and she treasured the way they looked out for her, just as she did her best to look out for the three Chavez brothers and their families.
“Hi, guys,” Maggie said, as she physically aligned herself with Gabe to better make introductions and talk to her crew. “This is Gabe Deveraux. He’s a critical care doc over at Charleston Hospital, and it’s his kitchen we’re going to be working on here.” Glad to have something else to talk about, Maggie finished the introductions and then explained briefly what was going to need to be done, once the new design was settled on, and when.
“What about the Hegameyer job?” Luis asked, concerned.
Realizing she was standing almost too close to Gabe, Maggie moved slightly away from his tall, strong frame. “The Hegameyers have generously agreed to wait another four months.”
“How’d you get them to agree to that?” Manuel asked, dark brow furrowing.
“I promised to cut fifty percent off their labor costs. Not to worry though,” Maggie added hastily, reading the worry on Enrico’s face, “Gabe here is going to pay us double time for labor for the entire project so we’ll still come out at least fifty percent ahead. I plan to split the additional profit four ways, so we’ll all come out better off.” Her parents had taught her the first rule of running a successful small business was to treat your employees as well as you treated yourself. She wanted them all to benefit.
“Sounds good to me,” Enrico said. Luis and Manuel nodded, too.
“Well, I need to get going,” Maggie said. Before Gabe could delay her further, she rushed down the steps to her own pickup truck.
“THIS IS ALL your fault, you know,” Manuel Chavez said the moment Maggie had driven off.
“What do you mean?” Gabe turned to the three men in surprise. Now that Maggie was gone, her employees seemed ready to string him up by his thumbs.
“If not for you,” Luis said practically, “Maggie would have been married to your brother two years ago, and probably would have already had a baby when her parents died last year. But because of your selfish actions, Maggie’s wedding to Chase did not happen. And now she’s in an emotional tailspin, without any family at all, and going against nature to have a child.”
“She told you about that?”
The Chavez brothers nodded. “We’re family to her.”
As much as Gabe was loathe to admit it, the three Chavez brothers had a right to be concerned. Two years ago, Maggie never would have considered what she was considering now, even if she had been facing infertility. Two years ago, she had known babies should be conceived in love, by two people who cared about each other, not by strangers in a science lab. “What do you want me to do?” Gabe asked gruffly, doubting Maggie would listen to him even if he did try to talk her out of getting pregnant this way.
Manuel’s dark eyes glittered in abject disapproval. “We want you to do whatever you have to do to make it right.”
“And keep Maggie from making a mistake she will regret the rest of her life,” Luis added, scowling.
Enrico crossed his burly arms in front of his chest. “We’re going to be watching you. Because no way are we letting you hurt our Maggie again.”
That was just it, Gabe thought miserably. He didn’t want to hurt Maggie. Never had. But he—a guy who prided himself on helping people—had done so just the same. The question was, how could he make it right and get Maggie to come to her senses? The men who worked for her were correct—Gabe owed her that and more, for the havoc he’d created in her life.
