Mr. Wrong (A Homespun Romance) Read online

  Well, thought Katie, spotting the number she’d jotted down and parking beside the curb, she’d just mention to George that Nan might need a thorough physical.

  Karen Webb had asked her twice in the last fortnight if she could watch Cody. Each time Kate had refused quietly, knowing exactly what Brady’s sister was trying to do.

  How would Brady ever forgive her when she couldn’t forgive herself? Better that he should forget her and get on with his life. His great, important, well to do life. Bitterness welled in Katie’s throat reminding her of the hummingbird that used to flutter there. It was stilled forever.

  She was grateful to Brady really. He had taught her a valuable lesson, saved her from marrying Harold and put her in touch with herself. Maybe one day she would send him a thank you card. When she was eighty-five.

  Kate stared at the house. It was part of the tract called Meadow Estates, in Jacaranda Meadows. On a lower level than Goldrush Hill each house was huge with a half-acre lot. In California, where land was always at a premium, the yard alone put the value of the house close to four hundred thousand dollars. Nan hadn’t mentioned she had a rich cousin.

  Where was everybody anyway? The house sat well back from the road, Katie had parked on. There didn’t seem to be any other cars around. Nan had said it would be an open house type of thing. Maybe she needn’t stay too long.

  Katie rang the bell, waited and then rang it again. There was no sound from the inside. Frowning, she extracted the piece of paper from her bag and looked at the number of the house again. No, she wasn’t making a mistake. She hesitated. It was a barbecue so maybe everyone was at the back and couldn’t hear the bell.

  Turning the corner of the house she saw a patio, a magnificent tiled pool that looked like something out of Better Homes and Gardens, but still no sign of anybody. Did she have the wrong day? With Nan’s recent preoccupation it was a possibility. About to turn away she caught a flash of red. Someone was lying by the pool asleep. Well, as she was here she might as well check.

  “Hello,” she called softly not wanting to startle the person.

  He jerked upright as if she had lashed him with a whip and as she stared at him, the color drained from Katie’s face and her knees began to tremble.

  “Brady!” she whispered, beginning to back off.

  “Katie!” There was no mistaking his surprise. “What are you doing here?”

  “I was set up,” she said coldly, not caring whether he believed her or not. “What are you doing here?”

  “This is my parent’s house. They called and asked me to come down this afternoon but there was no one here when I arrived.”

  “So, you were set up too,” Katie shrugged, hoping the casualness she was trying to get across, seemed genuine.

  Naturally his parents owned something like this. They were probably filthy rich as well. How could they have agreed to this deception? Was the whole world in on this?

  “I’m sorry to intrude on your privacy.” Turning she began to retrace her steps.

  “Katie, wait! We have to talk.”

  “I have nothing to say to you Mr. Gallagher.” If she said that often enough to herself she might even begin to believe it.

  Brady stopped flummoxed. Mr. Gallagher! So, Katie knew. Well, it didn’t matter except that he’d wanted to be the one to tell her.

  “Whatever happened to plain Brady?” he demanded.

  This close he could see the new hollows in her cheeks, the sadness in the green eyes that lightened them to the color of the most expensive jade in the world, the lids that looked puffy, the lower lip that wouldn’t stop trembling and had to be held still by her even white teeth. Even the little gap looked miserable.

  Brady’s heart slid into a drumroll. Could Karen and his mother and Mrs. Kettle have been right after all?

  Katie looked at Brady, frantically taking pictures for her memory book. He was blocking her way, standing just a heartbeat away. This close she was overwhelmingly aware of the insidious pull he exercised on her senses. His unbuttoned shirt and cut away shorts left very little to the imagination.

  What is it he had just said? Whatever happened to plain Brady? In case he didn’t know she would spell it out for him.

  “The Brady I knew is dead,” said Katie staring him in the eye.

  How he had lasted two weeks without her, Brady didn’t know. He wanted her. On any terms.

  “Katie I love you,” he said, “Marry me.”

  A pulse leapt into life in the base of her throat but she didn’t bat an eyelash, “No.”

  “I have money, Katie. You can have everything you’ve ever wanted.”

  “I know,” said Katie and sidestepped him to keep on walking.

  “You know?” He did a double take. How had she found out? “Why won’t you marry me, then?”

  “Because of your money.”

  He put a hand on her arm and spun her around. “Run that by me again.”

  There was an electric silence as they both recalled the last time he had said those very words.

  “Leave me alone, Mr. Gallagher,” Katie gritted and he could see the tears in her eyes. “I won’t marry you because you have too much money. Was it funny making me think you were a salesman, that you had nothing?”

  Brady stared at her, unaware that his grip on her arm had tightened painfully, “What’s with you? First you’ll only marry a rich man, now you won’t marry me because I have too much money. You’ll have to do better than that lady.”

  “Let me go,” Katie hissed. “I don’t ever want to see you again.”

  “I will as soon as you let me have a reason that makes sense.”

  Katie looked at his face and all the anger drained out of her. Who was she trying to kid? This man meant everything in the world to her.

  “I won’t marry you because if I did you’d never believe I loved you for yourself. You’d always wonder if it was your money that was the real attraction.”

  Katie closed her eyes in despair. There, she had said it out loud. Now surely he would let her go.

  “Katie, Katie darling if you only knew how long I’ve waited to hear you say the words.”

  She opened her eyes to find Brady had hauled her into his chest and was planting tiny kisses all over the top of her head. From there he progressed to her face. Katie closed her eyes. If this was a dream she never wanted it to end.

  “Brady you didn’t hear what I said. You can’t...”

  “Hush,” he ordered, "I heard every word. I love you Katie. Nothing else matters.”

  His mouth captured hers, wreaking havoc with her intentions to be sensible about this. It was heaven to be back in his arms, feel his strength enshrouding her in a private paradise. Without breaking contact with her lips Brady lifted her and carried her to the patio, sitting down with Katie on his lap.

  “Katie I’m sorry,” Brady whispered finally against her hair, “I couldn’t understand why you wanted money in spite of everything you told me. But then I went to areas like the one you grew up in and saw how people in the same circumstances lived and what it did to them I wanted to come rushing back to you. To get down on my knees and beg you to marry me.” He held her close with a convulsive gesture and Katie looked up surprised at the moisture in his eyes, “But what I saw there scared me, Katie. I didn’t think anything I could say or do would make you understand my reasons for not telling you the truth in the first place, the reasons for a love that blindly dismissed your requirements. It’s a selfish love Katie. It expected you to throw the lessons of a lifetime away and trust a man who seemed to possess nothing, not even the good sense to tell you the truth. I was turned off by women who always befriended me for what I had. I wanted you to fall in love with the Brady you took me for. Then came your bombshell about money and security going hand in hand. Arrogant, hurt, that you didn’t believe in love, I determined to tear down the walls you had put up around you not really understanding the blood and suffering that had put them up in the first place. That you lo
ve me is a miracle I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve. Can you ever forgive me, sweetheart?”

  But Katie’s hand was on his mouth. Enough time had been wasted in talk.

  “Brady....,” her eyes darkened in invitation and his lips swooped to hers, greedy for what she offered.

  Reluctantly he released her after a while, quieting her with a tender touch when she would have drawn his mouth to her again.

  “Katie, let me finish. Halfway through last week I knew what a conceited ass I was, but I didn’t know how to come back. If you’ll give me another chance, Katie love, just one, I’ll never let you down again.”

  “I’m sorry too Brady about the things I’ve said to you. It took so long for me to realize what really mattered was just your love. To think I almost lost it.”

  “Never that, Katie mine, never that. I’ll always love you. Tell me you’ll forgive me for letting you think I worked at Bernie’s.”

  “Brady, what were you doing there that afternoon?”

  “Helping my mother out in a crunch, darling,” he whispered into her ear, his lips caressing it’s curves. "Tell me again you love me.”

  “Brady,“ the truth shimmered in her eyes as she looked at him and with a groan Brady reached for her.

  “Brady,” it was Katie who pulled away this time and held her palms against his chests to maintain a distance between their bodies, “Brady, everybody will think I’m marrying you for your money.”

  “Not the people who really matter, Katie mine,” he said tenderly. “Karen told me how sad you looked and for a while there I think my sister almost hated me. She said I was the last of the male chauvinist pigs in the twenty-first century. My Mom gave me the cold shoulder after you went to the shop, and told me there was none so blind as thick headed lawyers who thought they knew it all. They both know you love me. As for the rest of the world, one look at you and they’ll know I’m the luckiest man in the world.” He kissed the tears away before he took her mouth.

  A long time later he said, “I know what you want woman, but it’s not what you’re going to get and if you keep this up I’m going to throw you into my parent’s pool and then jump in myself.”

  “Oh?” said Katie her eyes sparkling like newly cut emeralds, “And what, may I ask, Brady Gallagher am I going to get?”

  Happy beyond her wildest dreams Katie looked up at him the curve of her lips advertising the exalted fountain of joy that gushed within.

  “Marriage. That’s what you’re going to get minx, as soon as it can be arranged.”

  “Oh.” There was a pause as Katie digested the fact she’d just been proposed to. Then she said, “Brady I still want to finish getting my degree and be a teacher.”

  “You can be anything you want to love, as long as you’ll be my wife as well,” his mouth traced the outline of one ear. “In fact I have a making up present for you.”

  “What is it?”

  “A friend I know has bid on a piece of land for us in Corona. Five acres. I’ll show it to you tomorrow. It will be ideal for a home for children. I thought we’d call it, `The McArthur Project’. It’s going to take time but I’ve already got Mom and Dad and a few other people interested in donating towards the building. It will take time to be completed but when it’s ready we can find the right people to run it for us.”

  Against his neck he felt Katie’s tears warm from her body, “Shh. Don’t cry, love. I thought it would be something you’d like.”

  “I do,” she sobbed.

  Never in her wildest dreams had she thought another human being would understand her so well, make her most secret dreams his own. Do everything to see they came true.

  “Do you want to run it yourself?” he asked.

  “No,” said Katie, “not yet at least. I like your idea of getting an experienced couple to do it better. That will leave me free to hit on all your rich friends for donations. If I can go to college full-time in the fall, I’ll have my degree in a year and then I want to start teaching. I need some experience before I’ll know if I want to run the place myself or just be a fundraiser for more of the same kind of places.”

  “What are your plans for the summer, Katie?” The line he was tracing down her neck had her tingling with excitement.

  Lifting her eyes she looked into the gray depths, her delight at finding them soft as the sheen of a dove’s wing, as she had once imagined, tremendous, “For the summer,” she said softly, "I think I’d just like to concentrate on being Mrs. Brady Gallagher. I hope I won’t let you down Brady.”

  “Don’t ever say that, Katie,” for an instant he was almost angry, then he kissed her lingeringly, “As long as we love each other how can we ever let each other down?”

  The simple beauty of his words made Katie want to cry again but there was something else she had to know, “How long will we have to wait to be married?”

  Brady looked at her face seeing the love written there plainly for all the world to see and knew she would find the waiting as hard as he would.

  Kissing the tip of her nose he said, “Not long. If I know my mother and sister they’ll probably turn up with the preacher later tonight.”

  It wasn’t quite like that but three weeks later Brady and Katie were pronounced man and wife in a church massed with June roses, before a congregation of two hundred people.

  “I love you Katie mine,” Brady’s eyes glistened with emotion as he cupped his wife’s face in both his hands, looked into her eyes and then bent to give his wife the first kiss of their wedded life.

  “Me too,” was all Katie could choke out.

  “You looked beautiful dear,” sniffed Nan Kettle when she congratulated them, “so beautiful. When you looked up at him before you said, `I do’, the whole crowd caught their breath. You take good care of my friend Brady,” she hugged him fiercely and Brady knew exactly what she meant as he said, “I will, Nan, you’ll see.”

  “I can never thank you both enough,” Katie said tearily to Brady’s mother and sister as they helped her change into her going away outfit, a green silk suit with a matching hat. The reception, attended by five hundred people, was still in progress downstairs at the Hollywood Sheraton, but the bride and groom had earned their right to slip away.

  The Gallaghers had taken her to their hearts and arranged the wedding as if she were their own. Bernie and Gary had insisting on buying her a trousseau that would rival a debutante’s, overruling Brady’s protest that it was his privilege. Karen had stuck to her side like a sister, easing awkward moments for her when Brady couldn’t be there, helping her with all the little decisions she’d had to make. Katie hadn’t lacked for love or kindness since the day she had agreed to marry Brady. She longed for more than twenty-four hours in a day, to be able to be with them, surprising them with genuine enjoyment of their company. Brady had often complained in the last few weeks that he wasn’t quite sure whom she loved most.

  She had danced with Ben and her father-in-law at the reception and both of them had welcomed her into the family with heartrending warmth.

  “We love you, Katie,” Bernie said simply now and she knew it was true.

  “Be happy, Katie,” Karen whispered against her cheek, “that’s all we ask.”

  Katie wiggled her finger till the light reflected off the emeralds in her engagement ring, casting a glow on the platinum band on her finger. Around her neck she wore the thin chain with tiny emeralds set in a heart shape, one of her husband’s many gifts to her in the last weeks. His wedding gift to her, the necklet of diamonds with matching drop earrings she had left behind with her in laws. It was far too valuable to have to worry about on her honeymoon.

  “Tired?” asked Brady, pressing his lips to the curve of her neck and inhaling Kate’s special fragrance. It was the one thing he hadn’t wanted her to change. Her perfume.

  They were on their own at last in the deluxe suite he had reserved in Newport Beach for their wedding night and the two following days. On Tuesday they were leaving on a mon
th’s cruise in Europe.

  “A bit,” said Katie softly.

  Picking up his hand she looked at the ring she had slipped on his finger in church that morning. It matched hers and was the only thing she had been allowed to pay for with her own money.

  “I can sleep in the other room you know,” devilish lights danced in her husband’s gray eyes.

  “Not on your life Mr. Gallagher,” Katie wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him close to her yearning softness, “Remember those vows we made in church this morning? Well unless we start right now with that interesting part we might never get around to the rest of them.”

  “Which interesting part?” Brady punctuated each word with a kiss, loving the color that came up under his Katie’s skin.

  “The one that says,” replied his wife of a few hours unbuttoning his shirt in a purposeful manner, “With my body I thee worship.”

  “Let it never be said Brady Gallagher didn’t honor his vows,” said Brady hastening to obey.

  EPILOGUE

  Kate came up on deck after putting two year old Liam into the special crib Brady had installed in the boat. She looked at her husband as he waited for her, a drink in his hand.

  “Is he actually asleep?” he asked softly though Liam couldn’t hear them.

  “Yes”, Kate glanced at the baby monitor on the table between their chairs to make sure.

  “Where does he get all that energy from?” Brady said in wonder.

  “I don’t know,” Kate laughed. “But thanks for taking him swimming before his bedtime. That’s what got him really tuckered out.”

  “Anything for you Katie mine,” said Brady.

  Kate felt the rush of color to her face. They’d been married five years and it still just took a few words, a certain look from Brady to make her blush.

  They were spending the weekend anchored in the little cove off the island that belonged to the Gallaghers. Kate liked the privacy the boat afforded them, preferring it to the house on the island.