Once Upon a Proposal (2 page)

“At Golden Ability?” Fiona was the founder and long-time director of the small nonprofit canine assistance agency. “I'm just a volunteer for them. I actually work at Between the Bean. It's a coffee place downtown.” Just the latest job in a long string of them, but she wasn't about to tell this man that. “Lots of, um, business people stop in there,” she added even though she knew she was rambling. She just couldn't quite seem to help herself. Her brains still felt scrambled.

“What sort of volunteering do you do?” He straightened again from studying the door and moved around to the inside, giving her another whiff of the intoxicating scent that she'd noticed when she was kissing him.

“I'm a puppy raiser.” She dumped the roses on the narrow entry table that was a general collecting ground for her mail
and keys and puppy toys, effectively moving far enough away from him so that she wouldn't be in danger of accidentally drooling on him. He'd pulled a hefty screwdriver out of his back pocket and used it, along with the hammer, to tap out the hinges on the door. “Have been for about ten years.” It was the longest she'd ever stuck with anything.

But then how could you not stick with raising golden retrievers that could—someday—become invaluable assistance dogs?

“For some reason, I had the impression that you were in the office with her.” The hinges freed. He stuck the handles of his tools in the back pocket of his well-washed jeans, then wrapped his long, bare fingers around both sides of the weighty wooden door, lifting it right out of the door frame.

“Well, I've helped out now and then when she's short-staffed or something special's going on.” She realized she was staring at the play of muscles beneath the short-sleeved white T-shirt he wore and quickly backed out of the way when he turned the door sideways to carry it out to the porch and down the steps where he leaned it against the iron railing. “What do you do with the door now?”

He dusted his hands together as he straightened. “I'll plane the edges. Shave off the warped parts,” he translated when she gave him a blank look. “I've got the tools in my truck.” He glanced at the sturdy watch that circled his wrist. “Won't take me long, and then your door will be back in business.”

“Good grief.” She darted down the steps, grabbing his wrist to look at his watch. “I forgot all about the time. I've got a class to get to.” She raced back into the house, straight to the kitchen where she kept the puppies' kennel cages. Even when she was home, they preferred sleeping there, but when they heard her, the two fourteen-month-old dogs jumped to their feet and dashed out of the opened doors to race in circles around her. She snatched their leashes off the hook on the
wall as well as the puppy jackets they wore when she took them out in public, and quickly clipped the leads onto their collars.

It took only a matter of seconds, yet the exuberant pups nearly pulled her after them, their paws scrambling as they ran across the hardwood floor to the front door. She had them back under control by the time they made it outside, though, and they waited obediently until she allowed them to go sniffing around the bushes that clustered against the foundation of the carriage house.

“Handsome dogs,” Gabriel commented.

“They are.” Glad for a reason to keep her eyes off of Gabriel's—well,
everything
—she crouched down and fondly scrubbed her fingers through Zeus's golden ruff. His eyes nearly rolled back in his head with pleasure. Archimedes wasn't so quick to finish his business before seeking out her attention, but that didn't surprise Bobbie. She'd gotten the pups just after they'd been weaned and even then, their personalities had been developing. “Zeus here is a little lover, plain and simple.” She patted him on the back and nodded toward the other dog. “Archimedes there is the explorer.”

And the explorer had moved from sniffing his way around the azaleas to the wooden door that was definitely not where he was used to it being.

He whined a little and trotted back to Bobbie, obviously ready for his share of petting when he sat his too-big-for-his-body paws right on her thigh, nearly knocking her over. She laughed and righted herself even as Gabriel's hand shot out to catch her arm.

“You okay?”

“Fine.” Except that her arm was tingling all over again from his touch. “After all these years with puppies like these two, I'm pretty used to it. Have a collection of bruises most days,” she added blithely as she moved away from him so
she could breathe normally again and clipped on the leashes once more.

“Maybe you should try smaller dogs,” he suggested dryly. “Ones that aren't half your size before they're even full-grown.”

“Why?” She crouched down with the pups again, getting her face slathered with sloppy tongues while she deftly fastened their guide-puppy-in-training jackets on their backs. “What's a bruise or two when you get love like this?”

“There are bruises and then there are bruises.”

She straightened again, unreasonably curious about the suddenly grim set of his lips, but he was already striding across the lawn toward the big dark blue pickup truck that was parked in the narrow drive in front of her cottage. A sign on the truck's door said
Gannon-Morris Ltd
.

“Come on, guys,” she told the dogs as she followed him. “You'll be all right if I leave you?”

He reached into the bed of his truck and hefted out a large, red toolbox. “I think I can manage,” he assured her solemnly.

She smiled. “Right.” Of the two of them, there was no question that he would be the one in the “good at managing” column, whereas she was usually so
not
.

The corner of his lips twitched as he watched her just stand there. “Thought you had a class to get to.”

“Criminy.” Her face heated again. “I do.” She lifted the dogs' leashes. “Obedience class, actually. It's held in the park at the end of the block, rain or shine.” She glanced up at the partially cloudy sky. “So far, looks like we'll have a little shine. Thanks for fixing the door. And, thanks also for…you know—”

“Making it look good?” His gaze slid her way, and this time, the heat slowly oozed from her face and down her body into all manner of interesting places.

Zeus and Archimedes were tugging at their leashes. They knew they had a walk in store.

“Yes,” she managed around her dry throat as her feet slowly followed their pull toward the street. “Making it look good.” And then, before she could admit the painfully obvious—that he'd made it
feel
pretty darn good, too—she turned and followed the exuberant dogs.

At least trying to keep up with them gave her a safe excuse on which to blame her racing heart.

“F
iona!” A few hours later, the door repairs nearly completed, Gabe entered the rear of his grandmother's house, going through the laundry room that—as far as he knew—had never once been used personally by his feisty, diminutive grandmother. That was something she'd always left for the “help”—individuals who, in Gabe's mother's opinion, were more in need of that particular quality than they were competent in providing it to Fiona.

“Fiona,” he called again, gesturing for his son and daughter to go inside before he followed them with his heavy toolbox.

“I don't see why we can't stay home.” Lisette continued her argument that had begun the moment she'd climbed in the passenger seat of his truck when he'd picked her up after her ballet lesson. “Twelve is old enough to babysit Todd.”

“I don't need no babysitter,” Todd returned acidly. He was two years younger than his sister, who never failed to remind
him of her superior age. He headed straight to Fiona's oversize refrigerator and pulled open the door, sticking his rumpled blond head inside. “I'm hungry.”

“You're always hungry,” Lisette observed with a sniff that would have done her mother proud.

Gabe closed his hand around the back of her slender neck beneath the tight little knot she'd made of her pale-blond hair. “You should eat something, too,” he told her, managing to contain the rest of his thought—that she was too thin.

“I'm not hungry.” The response was predictable. Unfortunately, the way she shimmied out from his touch was predictable, too.

He stifled a sigh and set his toolbox on the floor in the kitchen. “Then help your brother. And if you wouldn't mind, fix a sandwich for me, too. I'm going to find your great-grandmother.” Without waiting for an argument, he headed through a narrow hallway that led from the kitchen to his grandmother's office. But she wasn't behind the massive desk that had once belonged to Gabe's grandfather. Nor was she in the sunroom, fussing over her orchids and begonias. Where he did find his nearly 85-year-old grandmother was upstairs, standing on a six-foot ladder with a long-handled duster in her hand, trying to reach the lower arms of the enormous antique chandelier that hung suspended over the two-story foyer.

“Fiona,” he said calmly from the foot of the stairs, because the last thing he wanted to do was startle her, even though he had to clench his hand over the carved newel top to keep from bolting up the stairs, “You told me you hired someone to clean the chandelier.”

“Oh, I did.” Leaning precariously over the handrail, she swiped the duster toward the chandelier. It groaned a little as it swayed slightly. “But Rosalie's poor husband was arrested.”

“Ah.” He began climbing the stairs. “The husband was the one you hired?”

“No, no.” Fiona shook her head, and looked down, waving her duster at him as if he ought to know better. “Rosalie was the one I hired. But she obviously couldn't be
here
when she need ed to be at her husband's side.” She turned her attention back to the lofty chandelier.

“When was he arrested?”
And for what?

“Oh, a week ago. I told Rosalie not to worry about a thing, financially or otherwise.”

Gabe let out a slow sigh. Between his kids, who gave every impression of wanting him to disappear from their lives—again—and his grandmother, who was a soft-hearted target for every soul needing some sort of break, he had definitely been learning the fine art of keeping his patience.

He reached the top of the stairs and turned along the landing. “Grandma,” he said mildly, “why not hire someone else?” He knew from long habit that there was no point in trying to convince Fiona that she didn't need to save everyone she met. “Or wait for me to get here and save your money altogether? You knew I'd be here today.” He made it to the ladder and reached up, closing his hands around her waist and lifting her right off the ladder.

“Gabriel—” she swatted at him with the duster, giving him a face full of dust “—put me down this instant.”

“That's what I'm—” he let out a huge sneeze “—doing.” He set her well away from the ladder. And kept himself between her and it. He sneezed again, and swiped his hand down his face. “How much dust was
up
there?”

“A lot,” Fiona said tartly. “Which is why it needed to be done.” She propped her narrow hands on her skinny hips and eyed him with no small amount of relish when he sneezed a third time. “That's what you get for interrupting me.”

He snatched the wooden handle out of her hand before she could brandish the feathery thing in his face again. “I'll finish it.”

“Don't be ridiculous.” She grabbed the handle right back, proof that age hadn't slowed her much at all. “I thought you had Lisette and Todd this afternoon?”

“I do. And they're downstairs raiding your kitchen as we speak.”

Fiona's eyes lit up. “They're here, then? That's wonderful. For how long?”

“Not long enough.” He grimaced. “I tried to get Stephanie to let me keep them overnight, but—” He shook his head.

Fiona's gave a frowning sniff. “As usual, she wants to make things as difficult for you as she possibly can.”

Gabe could have denied it, but what would have been the point? His grandmother knew as well as anyone in the family just how little love was lost between him and his former wife. Fiona was about the only one, though, who didn't blame him for it.

Now, she patted him on the arm and waved at the ladder. “It really needs to be cleaned up before that dreadful birthday party your mother is insisting on next weekend.”

“Would that be dreadful because it is
your
birthday? Or because Astrid is throwing it?” Not only did his mother like to control everything, but she was far from a devoted daughter-in-law. Any party his mom threw would be about appearances—hers. Sweet and loving, she was not.

Fiona gave him a look. “Take your pick. Were you able to fix Bobbie's door for her earlier?”

She didn't wait around for an answer, but tugged at the sleeves of her sweater as she wandered along the long landing, straightening the frames of the portraits hanging there. Three generations of Gannons and not a blue-collar guy like Gabe among them.

“Yeah.” He climbed the ladder and began finishing the job his grandmother had begun. “I'm going to replace the lock
set, though, before I leave today. She said she's been having problems with that, too.”

“So you saw her, then.”

“I saw her.” An understatement if there ever was one.

“What did you think of her?” Fiona stopped in front of the portrait of her husband, cocking her white head as she nudged one corner of the frame. “A dear girl.”

That “girl” had felt like she was all woman when she'd been filling his arms. “Seemed friendly enough,” he offered. Another understatement. He realized he was grinning like some damn fool at the crystal prisms above his head. “She was taking her dogs out to some class.”

“She teaches it, actually. When it comes to the dogs, she'll do most anything.” Evidently satisfied with the portraits, Fiona moved to the top of the stairs. “That's good enough, darling. If your mother wants to get up on a ladder to inspect the thing, she's welcome to do so.” She shook her head. “As if I need some darn party to remind me just how old I am.” She started down the steps with an ease that belied her age. “Will that lock thing take you long enough that I can purloin your children for an hour or so?”

He eyed her from his perch atop the ladder. “What are you planning?”

She waved her hand at him. “Nothing for you to worry yourself about.”

He made a face. “The last time you told me that, I ended up with two hamsters that had to live with me,” he reminded her. And those two hamsters had quickly multiplied…fertile devils that they were. It had taken him nearly three months to find homes that had been satisfactory to his kids.

“We won't come back with anything that breathes,” she assured, disappearing down the hallway where he could hear her cheerfully greeting his kids.

He shook his head and climbed off the ladder. Just because
whatever it was didn't breathe didn't necessarily mean it would be welcome. But he wasn't going to complain.

Neither Todd nor Lisette was chomping at the bit to spend time with their old man, but they
did
enjoy their great-grandmother and for that, Gabe could be grateful. He folded up the ladder and carried it and the duster downstairs, stowing them both in the cluttered utility closet. Fiona and the kids were still in the kitchen when he got there. Not surprisingly, there was no sandwich waiting for him and the way their chattering clammed up the second they spotted him wasn't exactly comforting. “No new pets,” he warned again, giving each of them—including Fiona—a stern look before he picked up his toolbox and headed for the door. “I'll be done in an hour and maybe,
maybe,
I'll take you to the movies afterward. Okay?”

One thing Gabe knew was that Stephanie and Ethan rarely let the kids go to a movie theater. And maybe he shouldn't be proud of offering them this particular treat, but sometimes a man had to pick his battles. He'd had an ongoing one with Stephanie when it came to the children since they'd split up eight years earlier, but now the stakes had escalated.

And sometimes he simply needed to see a smile on his kids' faces. One that was directed at him.

Right now, both Lisette and Todd were looking surprised and pleased. “Check the newspaper for the movie times,” he added. “And nothing rated R.”

“Dad.” Lisette rolled her dark blue eyes—the only feature she'd inherited from him. “Don't be lame.”

“Would you rather I said to find something rated G?”

She rolled her eyes again, but shook her head. “I'm not going to the theater in my leotard, though. Somebody might see me.”

“You'll have time to change,” he promised, smiling faintly.

“Nobody cares what you look like anyway,” Todd added,
ever the supportive little brother. “'Specially not
Jeffrey
Russell,” he goaded.

“Shut up.” Lisette rounded on him, lifting her fist. “Or you'll—”

“Make me change my mind about the movie altogether,” Gabe warned.

Lisette's hand slowly dropped, though she gave Todd a killing glare. One that he returned, complete with crossed eyes.

Fiona quickly nudged Gabe out the door. “Go on. Finish Bobbie's door. Everything's fine here.”

He wouldn't go so far as to say
fine,
but they were pretty much standard. The only thing Lisette and Todd could unequivocally agree on was their mutual annoyance with each another.

That at least was something that Gabe understood. He'd grown up with two older brothers, and a day hadn't passed when they hadn't been squabbling about something. But as he crossed the expanse of lawn leading toward the carriage house, he hoped to hell that he could keep Lisette and Todd from growing up to be as distant from one another as he was now from Liam and Paul.

When he reached the carriage house, he could hear dogs barking inside. Evidently the obedience class was over.

He knocked and a moment later Bobbie pulled open the door, a phone tucked between her ear and her shoulder and her other hand latched onto Zeus's collar. Her dark brown hair hung in dozens of long spirals around her shoulders. “Hey,” she mouthed. “Door works great.” She swung it back and forth.

He held up the new lock set. “It'll just take a few minutes.”

Her mother was chattering in her ear, but Bobbie didn't really hear her. “You're replacing the lock, too?”

Gabe's deep blue eyes crinkled at the corners. “Neighborhood like this, a pretty woman should be able to lock her door securely.”

She couldn't help but laugh at that. Fiona Gannon's neighborhood wasn't exactly one prone to petty crime and break-ins. It was far too well-bred.

“Bobbie?” Her mother's voice had sharpened in her ear. “Are you listening at
all?
”

“Sorry, Mom. Can you hold on for just a second?” She didn't wait for an answer, but tucked the receiver under her arm and focused on her landlady's handsome grandson again. Not exactly a hardship. The man was eye candy in a serious way. And he'd taken note when she'd mentioned the troublesome lock. “You didn't need to replace it,” she told him now. “I figured it just needed a squirt of oil or something.”

“It needs replacing,” he assured. “The tumblers are worn down to nothing.”

“Well.” She moistened her lips, very aware of the fact that she was practically staring at him. “That's really nice of you. Thanks.”

“We at Gannon-Morris are all about full service.”

Warmth zipped through her. “I'll bet.”

“Bobbie? RobertaNicoleFairchild—”

She realized the faint voice was coming from the forgotten telephone tucked beneath her arm and felt a new flush—this one entirely from embarrassment—flood her cheeks. “Excuse me,” she told Gabe and quickly turned away, pulling Zeus with her into the kitchen. She pointed, and he trotted into the kennel cage alongside Archimedes, turned a few circles and plopped down with a noisy breath. “Sorry, Mom. I wasn't ignoring you.” She stuck the phone back to her ear, keeping her voice low. “I just had someone at my door.”

She heard her mother give a faint sigh. “And you still haven't answered me. Why did I have to learn from Harry,
of all people, that my own daughter is engaged again? You can imagine what he thought when it was clear I had no idea what he was talking about.” Cornelia Fairchild's voice rose slightly, a true indicator that she was genuinely perturbed.

If there was one person in the family to perturb the normally unflappable, elegant woman, Bobbie knew it was she, Cornelia's youngest daughter. The one who was entirely flappable. And decidedly
in
elegant.