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
