Allison Leigh - The Bride and the Bargain

They were Harry’s sons, after all.

What did any of them know about making a marriage work?

But what Gray did know was that he wouldn’t—couldn’t—sacrifice HuntCom for anything. He might as well stop breathing. So he’d tackled the task of finding Amelia, himself.

Even though he’d given her his private number, he wasn’t going to wait around on the chance that she might phone him. Not when he considered her wariness where he was concerned. It would take a miracle for her to use that number.

And Gray wasn’t a big believer in miracles.

Fortunately, the cab company had a record of the address where that particular fare had been dropped. And when money hadn’t provided the impetus to release the data, some computer hacking had .

Now he sat at his desk in his downtown apartment that evening, his earpiece tucked in his ear, and worked his way down the list of phone numbers assigned to every apartment inside Amelia’s building.

Unfortunately, none of the phone numbers belonged to an Amelia White, so it was a matter of calling every number.

Call, after call, after call. “Amelia White, please. Wrong number? Pardon me. Sorry for the interruption.”

Most times, he didn’t even get to the “pardon me” part.

He recited the next number. “Amelia White, please,” he said automatically when the call was answered.

“She’s busy right now. Who is this?”

He almost missed it, so accustomed was he to failure. He sat up straighter, eyeing the display on the desk unit of his voice-activated telephone.

The voice that had answered was male. Young. Maybe on the verge of puberty considering the way it seemed to crack.

“This is Gray.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose again, stifling an oath. “Matthew Gray,” he corrected. “Who is this ? ”

“Jack. What do you want?”

The kid didn’t lack nerve, that’s for certain. “I want to talk to Amelia.”

“What for?”

“Do you always give her callers the third degree?”

“My aunt doesn’t have callers,” the boy returned.

Aunt. The nugget of information made Gray smile. So Amelia had a niece and a nephew. “I’m calling to see how she’s feeling after her tumble in the park this morning.”

“How do you know about that?”

“I was there.”

The boy sighed a little. “She’s in the bathtub,” he supplied grudgingly.

Every nerve inside of Gray tightened at the image that immediately jumped into his head of Amelia’s curves glistening with water.

Was she a bubble bath kind of girl?

Or was she strictly in it for the Epsom salts route, given the way he’d plowed into her?

He pinched his eyes shut. What the hell was wrong with him? He’d never lacked for feminine company when he wanted it, but his reaction was more like a man who’d gone hungry for it for about a decade too long.

“Could you tell her I’m on the phone?” Decency should have had him leaving a message with the boy, but Gray didn’t have time to pussyfoot around with the good manners his all-about-appearances mother had tried to drill into him during their infrequent visits. Besides, he didn’t expect that Amelia would return his call.

“Yeah. I guess. Hold on.” A clatter blasted through Gray’s earpiece and he winced, pulling it off even as he hit the speaker on the desk unit and waited.

“H-hello?”

For some reason, she sounded even younger when she finally came on the phone line. “How’re the knees?”

She exhaled softly. In his mind’s eye, he saw the soft purse of her lips, the sweep of her lashes hiding her brown eyes from him. “Sore. I was, um, soaking them.”

And everything else. “Epsom salts?”

“I…what? Oh. No, I don’t have any of that.”

“Should have picked some up when you stocked up on bandages. Good for taking the pain out of sore muscles and stuff.”

“I have heard of it,” she said, sounding slightly affronted. “And you seem awfully certain that I did stock up on bandages. Maybe I used your money for—oh, I don’t know—a manicure.”

He was reasonably confident that she hadn’t. Her slender fingers had been entirely natural, the nails trimmed short and neat. The women he knew paid ridiculous sums to keep their hands looking unnaturally natural. “Did you?”

She sighed a little. “Not exactly. How did you find this number, anyway?” Her voice was suspicious.

He glanced at the list. The phone number belonged to some woman named Mason. The mother of the niece and nephew? “I’ve called nearly every number listed for your building.”

“And you knew which building, because—”

“Because the cab company said that’s where you were dropped.”

She was silent for a moment as if she were trying to figure him out. “Why would you go to such trouble, Mr. Gray?”

“Matt.”

“Fine.” Her voice sounded suddenly tight. “Matt.”

“Because I’m that kind of guy.”

Her silence was loud.

He tried again. “Because I’ve thought about you all day.” There was more truth than he liked in the admission.

“I can’t imagine why.”

“There is the small matter of your bloodied knees and hands,” he reminded. “How old is your nephew?”

“Jack?” Her soft voice lifted again with suspicion. “Why?”

“Because I’m curious. You mentioned your niece. Didn’t mention a nephew.”

“He’s twelve,” she supplied. “Look, I really have to be going.”

“Bathwater getting cold?” Evidently he was developing a masochistic streak. Why else punish himself with the vision of her delicately placing one foot into the tub, followed by the other. Steamy water lapping at her calves, then her thighs as she lowered herself. Sank back against the side, water climbing higher, tickling the base of her throat, the point of her slightly triangular chin.

“If you must know, yes, it is getting cold.”

He eyed the speakerphone, as if he could see her face, instead. “Did you think about me today?”

Silence reigned again, broken only by the background noise of that tinny television. “You have no idea,” she finally answered.

“Don’t sound so solemn.”

She made a soft sound. He couldn’t tell if it was annoyance or something else. “Look, Mr. Gray. Matt. I…I appreciate your efforts in making certain that I’m okay, but I think it’s best if we just—”

A sound broke out that made the hair on Gray’s nape stand on end.

A baby’s cry.

“That’s a baby.” He stated the obvious. Another nephew? Or hers? She’d said she wasn’t married. But women had babies all the time these days without benefit of marriage.

“My nephew,” she said. “Timmy. And I have to see to him, as you can plainly hear.”

“Are you playing babysitter or something?” he asked, speaking a little more loudly to be heard above the wail that was drawing closer to the telephone.

Either she’d gone to pick up the baby, or someone had brought the baby to her. Jack, maybe. Or the other one. Molly.

“Or something.” Her voice was short. “I’m watching them for my sister. This is their place.” She neatly satisfied Gray’s speculation. “He’s three months old,” she said suddenly.

What he knew about babies would fit on the head of a pin and his ignorance hadn’t been without design. “Sounds like he’s got a healthy set of lungs.”

“He’s hungry.”

“What about you? Have dinner with me tomorrow.”

She made a strangled sound that not even the baby’s crying could disguise. “I’m sorry, Mr.…Matt. I have to go now.”

The crying was cut off midwail to be replaced by the soft buzz of the dial tone.