Mary Anne Wilson - Millionaire's Christmas Miracle

She barely knew him, but she knew for sure that she’d never vote to stop whatever time he had left on earth. “I’m sorry,” she said. “This has just been the most awful evening. There was so much work and so many people crawling out of the woodwork asking the dumbest questions. I tried, I even made a gingerbread family thing, and that drove Charlie crazy. He loves gingerbread. And my dress…” She brushed the tear in the skirt. “It’s not even mine, I mean, my—” She bit her lip, not about to explain anything else to this man. A stranger. She didn’t even know his name. “Listen Mr….?”

“Gallagher, Quint Gallagher.”

She stared at him. Quint Gallagher? Oh, no! Gallagher, the planner, the man brought in from New York by Matt Terrel to map LynTech’s future. The man who, so she’d heard, had refused to go on one of the tours of the center they’d arranged for this reception. And she’d thrown a rat at him, knocked him over and accused him of killing that same rat. “Oh, Mr. Gallagher, I didn’t know.”

“Stop. Let’s just start all over again.” He held out his hand. “I’m Quint Gallagher.”

She would gladly start all over again, but when she slipped her hand into his, she knew that whatever was spooking her tonight was just getting worse. She had to try twice to say her own name. “Blake…Amy.”

“What goes first?” he asked, his gaze flicking over her as he kept his hold on her hand.

She drew back on the pretext of smoothing the dress she’d borrowed from her sister-in-law. “Amy…that’s first.”

“Amy Blake. And you’re here because…?”

“I was giving tours of the center to the people invited for the reception.”

He eyed her again. “A professional tour guide?”

“No, I work here in the center, and right now, I need to find the rat.”

“No, he found you,” Quint said and pointed down at her feet. Sitting on the carpet, right between the two of them, was Charlie methodically licking his paws then cleaning first one ear and then the other. “And if you don’t move, I think your worries are over,” he murmured in a half whisper.

Slowly, he sank down to his haunches and Amy watched with fascination as he reached out strong, tanned hands, easing them cautiously toward the rat. He cupped his hands around and behind the rat, then closed them around the animal. Charlie squealed once, then Quint stood with the rat at his chest, just the head peeking out and the nose twitching in the air. “Okay, Amy, show me the cage.”

“I’ll get it,” she said and hurried around the tree and back to her office, trying to ignore the way the ruined skirt of her dress was riding up on her thighs with each step she took. She flipped on the overhead light and crossed to her cluttered desk where she’d left the metal cage. Grabbing the wire handle, she turned and ran right into Quint behind her. Heat, muscle, fine material, that aftershave, all mingled, and she gasped. “Good heavens,” she said as she moved back, her hips pressing against the edge of the desk to help her keep her balance. Amazingly, she didn’t drop the cage, but the handle began to bite into her hand as she saw that smile again, that slow, seductive curve to his lips. “That is a horrible habit you’ve got there,” she muttered, not daring to move because she didn’t want to touch him again.

“Well, catching rats isn’t my idea of a habit,” he drawled while Charlie cuddled in his hands against his chest. Even the rat liked the guy. Damn that amusement deepening in his eyes.

“No, you sneak up on people.” She turned from him, plunking the cage back on the desk, then she turned to take Charlie out of the man’s hands. “I’ll take him,” she said, and reached for Charlie, being very careful to make as little contact with Quint as possible.

She didn’t reckon on the man’s heat being in the rat’s fur as she cupped Charlie and eased him through the door of the cage. She set him down, then snapped the clip to secure the door. She stared at the rat instead of turning back to Quint as he spoke.

“I wasn’t sneaking anywhere the first time. I heard you talking to Charlie, and I thought…” The sudden chuckle was rich and deep and disturbing. “Lady, why don’t you just forget what I thought. Everything’s turned out just fine.”

Well, it wasn’t just fine. She was harried and tired, and feeling just a bit sick about being near a man who so disturbed her. She seldom noticed men. Even before Rob, she’d walked past most men in this life. Then Rob had shown up in her world. He’d been the other part of her soul, and she knew that the wait had been worth it.

This wasn’t happening to her. She wouldn’t let it. She didn’t want it. “Never mind. It’s late,” she said softly, then turned as he moved back half a step.

“Would you do me a favor?”

“I don’t know what favor I could do for you.” She edged around him as she spoke, making it past without touching, and headed for the door to go out into the main area. He was there, she felt him behind her, and she kept going toward the tree.

“Amy?” he said right behind her as she stopped by the tree.

She touched the painted bark with one hand, the hand with her wedding ring on it. The gold band glinted in the twinkle of lights, and it centered her. Grounded her. As she turned to Quint, she felt a control that she hadn’t felt since he’d walked in on her. “I’m sorry, what was that favor?”

“I missed a tour of this place earlier, and I thought since you’re here and I’m here, I wouldn’t mind looking around.”

She clasped her hands behind her back and relished the feel of her ring, smooth and warm and comforting. “Well, if you really want to. Where did you want to start?”

He shrugged, the action testing the fine material of his tux jacket. “Surprise me,” he said in a low voice that ran riot over her nerves.

She turned to avoid looking at him and to concentrate on the center, but as she turned, she realized that the fragrance of baking gingerbread coming from the new oven in the redone kitchen had become a pungent odor. And smoke was seeping out through the swinging door of the kitchen.

Quint didn’t realize what was going on until Amy turned and sprinted barefoot across the room, then he saw the smoke. She burst through swinging doors and disappeared as smoke spilled out into the room. He ran after her, heading for the smoke, and suddenly a sound split the air—a smoke alarm.

He cursed himself for being so distracted by the woman and the rat that he hadn’t noticed anything else. Instead of paying attention, he’d been trying to figure out if Mike’s advice was worth taking. The damn building could be burning down around him, and he was trying to figure out if he should go for it and ask Amy out for a drink, stalling for time by asking her to give him a tour of the place. He shoved back the door and stepped into a room filled with smoke.

“Amy!” he called above the alarm, coughing when he took a breath.

Quint heard a scream, a crash, and he dove into the smoke as someone behind him called out, “What’s going on?”

Through coughing, Amy’s disembodied voice came from inside the room, “Gingerbread.”

There was movement behind him, then a motor started up and the smoke began to thin dramatically. Quint spotted Amy crouching on the far side of the room by an open oven surrounded by shattered glass from what looked to have once been a dish and a number of blackened, smoking lumps. He went to her, dropped to his haunches and made himself not touch her. That scream had shocked him, followed by his reaction that something had happened to her.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She stared at the mess in front of her, coughing again before she answered him. “Yes, I’m fine.”