time they arrived. Luis, Manuel and Enrico had already knocked off for the day. But their work was complete. All the burned material and the damaged cabinets had been torn out. The kitchen was ready for rebuilding.
“It looks like they even took out all the wiring,” Gabe said.
Maggie propped both hands on her hips as she continued to look around. “They have to, for safety’s sake.” She slanted Gabe a glance over her shoulder. “I assume you want everything built back pretty much the way it was.”
Gabe strolled the length of the downstairs, stroking the rugged line of his jaw, with the backs of his fingers as he moved. “Actually I thought I’d like to take the opportunity to tear down the wall between the kitchen and the living room and just open it up.”
That was a pretty expensive and time-consuming change, more than Maggie had bargained on. She frowned. “It’ll take a lot longer and be a lot more expensive,” Maggie warned, hoping he’d change his mind.
No such luck.
Gabe drifted near. “I don’t mind,” he told her lazily, studying her upturned face.
“Spending time with me?” Maggie tilted her head back and sized him up with a considering look of her own, wondering what the ultimate Good Samaritan was up to now. Had he planned this extra request, or was he just winging it, asking to make things much more complicated, on a whim? “Or the extra construction mess?”
“Both,” Gabe said curtly.
Maggie fell silent as she studied the half-hidden apology in his eyes.
She turned away from him, trying not to think about how handsome he looked in his sage-green shirt, coordinating tie and khaki slacks. “You don’t owe me anything, Gabe.” Least of all this.
“Maybe I think I do.”
Maggie turned back in time to see the flicker of guilt in Gabe’s expression. It didn’t take a genius to know where it had originated. “You’ve been talking to Enrico, Luis and Manuel, haven’t you?” She had known better than to leave the four men alone. Especially since the three Chavez brothers had never forgiven Gabe for his part in her breakup with Chase.
Gabe shrugged, obviously respecting her too much to try and tell her otherwise. “The guys are right,” he said quietly. “If not for me, you would be married and have a baby by now.”
Maggie rolled her eyes and thrust her hands in the pockets of her jeans. “They’re hopelessly overprotective of me. They always have been, and it’s gotten worse since my mom and dad died.”
“They want you to have it all.” Gabe closed the distance between them in three long strides. “Not just a child.”
Maggie studied the scuffed toes of her dark-brown work boots. “Suppose that’s not possible?”
“Suppose it is?” Gabe put his hands on her shoulders and kept them there. “At least take another few days to think about this.”
Heart racing, mouth dry, Maggie looked up at him. “I can’t,” she said, doing her best not to tremble at his touch.
“Why not?” Gabe asked, so gently she wanted to cry.
Maggie drew a deep breath, extricated herself gracefully from his light, detaining grip and wheeled away. “Because my monthly ovulation window is in three to five days,” she told him grimly as she paced back and forth. “And, given the fact my endometriosis has already made me damn near infertile and I may not conceive on the first try, I can’t afford to waste any time.”
Gabe’s eyes darkened with emotion. “I understand all that,” he told her quietly.
Maggie squared off with him contentiously. “But?”
“I still don’t like the idea of you using an anonymous donor.”
“Why not?” At his firm insistence, it was all Maggie could do not to clench her teeth.
“Because I think you should know your baby’s father.”
So did Maggie, if the truth be known. But that wasn’t possible, either, she thought. Furthermore, Gabe should know it, too, instead of pretending otherwise. She shook her head and asked wryly, “And what guy would say yes to a request like that?”
Gabe angled a thumb at his chest. “Me.”
FOR A MOMENT, both of them were silent, Gabe every bit as speechless and stunned by his impetuous offer as Maggie looked. Finally, she pulled herself together, shoved a hand through her wavy hair and regaled him with the fiery Irish temperament she had inherited from her dad. “Look, Gabe, I think it’s great that you are the Good Samaritan of Charleston, South Carolina, always volunteering to help women out, but this is just too much!”
Gabe drank in the husky vehemence of her voice and the bloom of new color in her fair cheeks, as a car pulled up outside. “So you won’t even consider it?” He was stunned by the intensity of his disappointment. Since when had he considered fatherhood? he wondered in shocked amazement. Never mind with a woman who generally speaking wouldn’t give him the time of day! And yet, the thought of Maggie having a baby with someone else—anyone else—even someone anonymous who meant nothing at all to her was even worse. Gabe couldn’t say why he felt the way he did, he just knew he didn’t want Maggie Callaway to be having anyone’s baby but his. End of story.
“For you to be the sperm donor of my baby?” Maggie gaped at Gabe, as a younger woman got out of the car and made her way toward the house. “I hardly think so!” she said vehemently.
“I have to tell you,” Daisy Templeton said, as she strolled casually in to join them. “But I have to go with Maggie there. Having a baby via artificial insemination is not the way to go.”
Not the opinion Gabe would’ve expected from Charleston society’s wild child and most sought after new photographer. The twenty-three-year-old heiress had been kicked out of seven colleges in five years. Now, Daisy was telling everyone she had no intention of ever going back, and was instead going to devote herself to becoming a professional photographer. Fortunately for the spirited and beautiful young heiress, she had the talent, if perhaps not the discipline, to make her boast a reality, Gabe thought.
“As it happens,” Maggie said stiffly, turning to face Daisy, “in my opinion, artificial insemination of donor sperm is exactly the way to go.”
Daisy raised her pale blond brows in inquiry, looked at Gabe, then Maggie. “Are you planning to tell the baby who his or her father is?” she asked Maggie carefully.
Maggie shrugged and looked, Gabe noted, even more defensive in light of Daisy’s disapproval. “Probably not,” Maggie said.
Daisy popped her gum and got her camera out of the case. “Big mistake,” Daisy said, shooting Maggie a sober glance. “And I mean gargantuan. I should know because I’m adopted.”
That stopped Maggie in her tracks, Gabe noted.
“You have no idea who your parents are?” Maggie asked.
Daisy shrugged as she set up to take the Before pictures for Chase’s magazine, Modern Man. “No, I don’t,” Daisy admitted with a troubled look,
