My Secret Wife. Cathy Thacker Gillen

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.

      Chapter Two

      “What are you doing here?” Maggie asked in surprise as Gabe walked up to her in the crowded fertility clinic waiting room.

      She made room for him and he sat down beside her, his expression as tense and serious as her own. “I thought you might want some help screening prospective donors,” he said.

      Maggie wasn’t thrilled to be picking out a father for her baby at a sperm bank, but if she wanted to have a baby of her own, and she did, it was something that had to be done, before she lost her ability to have a child forever. She turned slightly so she could see the expression on Gabe’s face. Seating was tight, and her knee nudged his in the process. “Does that mean you approve of what I’m doing?” She studied him warily.

      Gabe shrugged his broad shoulders casually. “It’s not up to me to approve or disapprove,” he said quietly. “It’s your decision. I’m just here to support you in any way I can.”

      His words certainly seemed sincere enough, Maggie thought. Nevertheless, her gut feeling told her that Gabe wasn’t any happier about her plan than anyone else who knew about it. Everyone thought she should wait. Give love and the prospect of marriage another try. Unfortunately, Maggie sighed to herself, it wasn’t that easy finding a man she was attracted to physically, emotionally and intellectually. In fact, to date, there had only been one man who had caught her attention in all three ways, and that had been Gabe.

      Not that it mattered, since Gabe’s attention span when it came to women was notoriously short. According to those who knew him, Gabe hadn’t dated any women for longer than a few weeks, if that, since high school. These days, he got involved with women—like Penny Stringfield—who needed help. Which he selflessly gave. When they were okay again, he moved on to the next damsel in distress.

      Maggie had been one of those damsels in distress once, just prior to her wedding to Chase. She’d been having a lot of doubts leading up to the wedding that wasn’t. But only Gabe had seen those qualms for what they really were—the gut-wrenching realization that she couldn’t marry Chase because she didn’t really love Chase any more than Chase really loved her.

      She just hadn’t known how to tell everyone that, including—and especially—Chase.

      Had Gabe not seen her conundrum and stepped in to her rescue, encouraging her to speak what was in her heart and mind and then act on it, well…Maggie might well have married—and eventually been divorced from—his brother. Or at least she might have made it all the way down the aisle before coming to her senses and bolting.

      But Gabe had come to her rescue.

      And stood by her during all the social and family hubbub afterward, even going so far as to date her—twice—before deciding that that wasn’t such a good idea after all.

      Maggie had been deeply disappointed—for by then she had developed quite a crush on Gabe—but she had known, intellectually anyway, that Gabe was right. His brother Chase had been humiliated enough by Maggie’s actions, without Gabe and Maggie making the situation worse by dating. Or even being friends.

      So, for the next two years, they had pretty much steered clear of each other, seeing each other only occasionally and by accident. Until the afternoon almost a month ago when Maggie had realized her increasingly severe physical symptoms were not going to go away, and that she had to do something about her physical problem fast. So she had called Gabe, and instead of returning her phone call, he had dropped by her beach house in person to hear her dilemma and offer his professional medical advice. One thing had led to another. The next thing she had known, she had been weeping in his arms, and then they were kissing. Nearly three weeks later, Maggie was still thinking about that breathtaking kiss. For no one—no one—had ever made her feel like that. Nor did she think anyone else ever would. Which was, bottom line, exactly what had brought her to the decision she had made. She wasn’t going to marry anyone if she didn’t love him the way she should. And the only person she could envision ever falling in love with was Gabe Deveraux.

      Unfortunately, Gabe did not feel the same.

      Although he had recently professed a desire to date her again, she suspected that his urge was grounded in her recent troubles and would fade as soon as she landed on her feet. Then, as always, he would be off to rescue the next damsel in distress that came his way.

      Maggie had been dumped by Gabe once, albeit for the noblest of reasons—his brother’s feelings, and Deveraux family unity. She wasn’t setting herself up to get dumped again.

      Not that Gabe realized, even subliminally, that’s what he was doing. No, she was pretty sure he just looked at each problem—or damsel—as they came into his life, and then acted from his heart, without even thinking about the future. But it was the future, and her baby’s future, that Maggie was concerned with now. And in that sense, she knew, Gabe could assist her, the same way he had recently assisted her in finding a specialist to diagnose her medical problems.

      “Well, I could use your medical knowledge,” Maggie reluctantly conceded, after a moment.

      Gabe looked satisfied. “Then let’s go through the books together,” he said.

      A few minutes later, they were in a cozy room, with a round table and two chairs. They sat shoulder to shoulder, elbows on the table, as they pored over each page. “Here’s a good one,” Maggie said. “The guy is six-four, 220 pounds, with blond hair and blue eyes.”

      “He also has a history of arthritis in his extended family,” Gabe pointed out.