Colleen scowled at the members of the Widows Club who were fastening the pink honeycomb wedding bells above the chair of honor in the sitting room. They were ruining her plans to keep Olivia away from the manor. Colleen dialed back her temper. She was being too hard on them. They had no idea what they were up against.
Nothing seemed to be going her way these days. Especially when it came to her dealings with Jasper. He refused to comply with her plans. He was moping about and ignoring her. She was almost positive it had something to do with Kitty being all in a tizzy over Kyle Bishop.
It’s too bad she couldn’t sit her daughter-in-law down and let her have a look at the book because it wasn’t only the women of Harmony Harbor who had secrets. Kyle had a few of his own. But that was neither here nor there with the evil one still roaming free.
The spot where her heart should be clenched at the thought of the woman out to get her great-grandson’s true love.
Colleen had been happier than a clam in a tide pool when Olivia announced she’d bought the house on Primrose Lane and started working at the clinic. It wasn’t a problem when she was working on the spa either because she held her meetings with Sophie and the girls on-site at the cottages. But now with the big wedding only days away, she’d be back at the manor. And of course, the Widows Club had to go sticking their noses in things and ensuring she was here today for the shower they had planned.
Colleen walked over to Gabriel’s pram and gave it a jiggle. He looked at her with his big blue eyes, giving her a gummy smile. “You aren’t afraid of your GG, are you, my little man?”
Unlike George, who would be the answer to Colleen’s prayers if only the child could get over her fears. It’s too bad she didn’t see Colleen as a tree or a big wave or a greasy pole she had to conquer. She’d heard all about the child’s latest antics.
“Where would you like the punch, Miss Kitty?” an ingratiating voice asked her daughter-in-law.
Oh, she was good, that one, worming her way into the hearts and minds of Colleen’s loved ones and spreading her poison. She’d seen Ivy talking to that man who’d come nosing around about Olivia. A private investigator, she’d since heard. But Ivy had been canny with how she’d gone about it and no one was the wiser.
“On your head,” Colleen muttered in response to Ivy’s question about the punch. She walked determinedly through the woman. Ivy shuddered, spilling the punch on the floor.
Kitty and her friends fussed over the maid and the mess. “There’s no need to work yourself up. It was just an accident,” Kitty said, patting the distraught woman’s shoulder.
Ivy had missed her calling. She should have been an actress.
Simon chose that moment to pad into the sitting room. He took one look at Ivy and was about to retreat when she spotted him. Pointing an accusatory finger in his direction, she said, “It was the cat’s fault. He got underfoot and tripped me up. He does it all the time. If you’re not careful, one of these days he’ll kill someone and then their loved ones will sue and put the manor out of business for good. If it were me, I’d get rid of him before that happens.”
Unfortunately for Simon’s sake, every time Colleen pulled one of her tricks on Ivy, he was there.
“Do you really think so?” Kitty asked, clutching the neck of her light-blue shirtdress.
“Go, Simon, scoot before Ivy paints you as the murderous villain that she is. Hide in the tunnels till we banish her from the manor. Hurry!” Colleen cried when Evelyn Harte agreed with Ivy and advanced on Simon.
“Come here, you,” Evelyn said, reaching for Simon. She just missed getting a hold of his tail.
Colleen relaxed when he’d gotten safely away. Though she truly was on her own now. She turned to see what lies the villainous Ivy was feeding Kitty and Ida while Evelyn went chasing after Simon. It wouldn’t do her any good. Once he got to the basement, she’d never find him in the tunnels.
Ivy was whining about how she couldn’t go back to the kitchen and tell Helga she’d spilled the punch. Supposedly Helga had it in for her. It wouldn’t surprise Colleen if that were true. Helga could be a cantankerous old woman. She was also a canny judge of character.
Ida and Kitty, kindly old women that they were, did the girl’s bidding and headed to the kitchen with the half-empty punch bowl.
There was a sly smile on Ivy’s face as she watched them go, and then she turned with a laugh that made Colleen’s hair stand on end. Walking to the chair of honor, Ivy reached out to tug on a bell but her cell phone rang.
She took it out of her pocket. “Nice of you to finally return my calls, Paige. Anything new to report? Well, isn’t that a shame. No delays with the spa at Greystone. Yes, I could. I could indeed set them back a bit. What’s it worth to you?” The woman listened with a smile twitching her lips.
Colleen would bet her last dollar Ivy was playing Paige. If she was smart, Paige would have nothing to do with this one.
“Sorry, not enough money for me to bother. By the way, Paige, thanks for passing along your boss’s number. We had an interesting chat. Seems he’s unhappy with your progress and won’t be renewing your contract. He’s awarding it to me.” She lifted her eyes to the ceiling and released a breath through her nose before saying, “Stop yelling or you won’t be able to hear my offer. I’ll give you twenty-five percent. Better than nothing, don’t you think? Whatever. Get back to me.”
She disconnected and sucked her teeth. “They say there’s one born every day. You won’t be getting a dime from me, Townsend. But that’s not something you need to know before I’ve gotten away with what I have planned. It’s a toss-up where the blame will land. Either you or the cat.” She tugged on the bell. “Ding dong, the bride is gone.”
At the sound of women’s voices approaching the sitting room, she stuck her phone in her pocket and turned with a pleasant smile, all evidence of crazy gone from her face. She scared the bejaysus out of Colleen. Mia and George ran into the room, followed by the shower guests.
Colleen walked backward through the wall behind the chair of honor. She didn’t want to frighten George and ruin the party, but with Ivy’s little ditty playing in her head, Colleen wouldn’t be more than a foot away from Olivia.
George screamed and pointed at the chair.
Bejaysus, she hadn’t been fast enough.
The women converged on George, trying to comfort her. The circle grew around the child as the rest of the Widows Club arrived, including Rosa, who turned her back on Kitty when she returned with a new bowl of punch.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, they’d better not start anything now. They had enough to deal with. George’s crying had upset baby Gabriel. The child had a pair of lungs on him like his father.
Mia sidled up to the wall. “It’s you, isn’t it, GG? I wasn’t sure because George kept talking about someone called bad juju. Don’t worry, I’ll talk to her.”
“You do that, child. And you do that fast because the clock’s ticking down.”
Someone noticed Olivia walking into the room. “Surprise! Surprise! Oh, surprise!” was repeated at various octaves.
Olivia offered her thanks with her typical grace and warm smile but it was obvious she was concerned about George.
“She saw the evil spirit again,” Kitty said, twisting the neck of her shirtdress between her fingers.
“I see an evil spirit every time I look at you. Do you hear me scream? No,” Rosa said to Kitty, and then stuck her Roman nose in the air, her dark curls bouncing around her shoulders as she turned back to George. “Cara, don’t cry. I’ll get rid of the ghost, sì?”
“Stop butting your big nose into my family’s affairs,” Kitty said, and then her eyes went wide as though she couldn’t believe she’d said it. Under any other circumstances, Colleen would have given her daughter-in-law a celebratory pat on the back for standing up to Rosa, but not now. She was worried what form Rosa’s payback would take, and knowing Rosa, she wouldn’t take the jab lying down.
There was a communal gasp as the Widows Club reacted to what Kitty said. Everyone stepped back as though giving them room. With the glow of anticipation on their bloodthirsty faces, Colleen was surprised the call to “fight, fight, fight,” hadn’t gone out.
“What? It’s true. Finn is my grandson, not Rosa’s. He’s marrying Olivia, so George is my step-great-grandchild, not hers. You’ve always been after what’s mine since we were in grade school, and I’ve had it, I tell you. I have had it!” Kitty stomped her foot and then pressed her fingers to her mouth.
Colleen breathed a sigh of relief when Jasper appeared beside her daughter-in-law. He’d make sure she didn’t say anything more. He wouldn’t allow the whole sordid mess to come out. They all had too much to lose, Jasper included.
“Miss Kitty, you’re overwrought. Perhaps a cup of tea. Ladies, please take a seat, and I’ll have the rest of the refreshments brought in.” He imperiously snapped his fingers at Ivy, gesturing toward the kitchen while narrowing his eyes at Rosa.
“Eh, don’t give me that look, bag of bones. She—”
He made a point of holding Rosa’s gaze while giving Olivia a slight bow. “Enjoy your shower, Miss Olivia. If there’s anything you need—”
“Thank you, Jasper. If you don’t mind, I need, um, some garlic…and a cross. Yes, that should work.” Olivia rubbed George’s back. “We’re going to get rid of your ghost once and for all.”
“Quite,” Jasper said, holding back a smile.
“You won’t find it amusing if they actually get rid of me, now, will you, laddie?” Colleen said.
Ava, Sophie, Kitty, Rosa, and half the other women in the room held up crosses. Jasper nodded. “I’ll be back with the garlic.”
Colleen heard the chuckle in his voice.
Julia waved her hand to get the women’s attention. “I’m not an expert, but unless your ghost is a vampire, I don’t think garlic and crosses will work.”
“The cross, it will work. But we need a priest. Someone call Father O’Malley,” Rosa said.
“They might just be the literal death of me after all,” Colleen murmured.
Thirty minutes later, she remained in the wall despite an entire sitting room of women and children banishing her from the manor with their garlic and crosses. Holding hands, they formed a circle, and Father O’Malley politely asked the ghost to leave. The temptation to jump in the middle of the circle and shout boo was almost too much to resist. But for George’s sake, she did.
Finally, the shower got under way. George and Mia sat beside the chair of honor, placing the bows from the gifts on a paper plate. Still stuck in the wall, Colleen picked up on their conversation. It sounded like Mia was telling George about her.
Ten minutes later, when Colleen took a careful peek out of the wall, she prayed that was so. Because Ivy, who was ostensibly standing close by to refill drinks and clear away the garbage, cocked her head when George said, “Finn and Livy don’t think I know my daddy’s parents are trying to take me away, but I do.”
Mia patted her hand. “It’s okay. We won’t let them. You’re going to be a Gallagher just like me.”
George nodded. “Livy and Finn won’t let them take me. I heard them talking when I was playing hide-and-seek with my friend. Livy was going to give Finn a million dollars to marry her, but he said he doesn’t want the money because he cares about me and Livy.”
“My mommy and daddy said we don’t have to worry about the manor anymore. I bet that’s because Finn’s going to tell Olivia to give the million dollars to Greystone instead of him.”
“We’re rich, we’re rich,” the two of them said, laughing and throwing the wrapping paper in the air.
Ivy’s face darkened, and she slunk over to the refreshment table. Colleen couldn’t see what she was doing. For Olivia’s sake, she had to take the risk. She walked out of the wall. George froze, and her eyes rounded. Colleen pressed a finger to her lips. The little girl nodded and tugged on Mia’s hand.
They got up. George towed Mia along behind her as she followed Colleen, who pointed to Ivy. She mouthed bad juju and made devil ears behind her own head.
Sensing she had an audience, Ivy palmed the vial she had in her hand. “Would you girls like something to drink?” she asked, smiling sweetly at Mia and George.
Colleen shook her head and pointed at her palm and then Ivy’s.
“No, the ghost says you’re bad.” George lifted her chin. “What’s in your hand? What are you doing?”
The woman’s face changed. “You need help, kid. You’re seeing things. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get lost. Now. The two of you. Scat.”
Colleen walked behind Ivy and placed her hands around her neck and mouthed Tell her to go.
“She has her hands around your neck. She’s going to kill you if you don’t leave Greystone. She’s going to murder you dead.”
Ivy blanched and touched her neck. Glancing from side to side, she slowly backed away and then turned and ran.
Colleen smiled at George and gave her a thumbs-up. They made a good team. With the little girl’s help, she should be able to keep Olivia safe until she got Jasper to read the book.
The last thing Finn expected to be doing the night before he said I do was making wedding keepsakes. It looked like his brothers felt the same. The three of them were giving him the stink eye.
“What? I didn’t ask you to come. Your wives volunteered you,” he said to Liam and Griff, and then looked at Aidan. “And Dad volunteered you because you’re being a moody pain in the ass.”
His brother’s black hair was long and shaggy, and he’d yet to shave his beard from his last undercover assignment. He looked as dangerous as the biker he’d been impersonating. There’d been changes in his brother’s behavior that made Finn wonder if Aidan was more like the man he’d been pretending to be than the one he remembered.
Finn took a swallow of his beer and thought better of complaining. It was a nice night. The air was warm and fragrant, the sounds of crickets and the blinks of fireflies flitting about the yard reminding him of long-ago summer nights. The four of them were together, and that hadn’t happened in a while.
They were sitting around the kick-ass fire table Liv had picked out while they drank beer and made up the blue glass bottle keepsakes. It wasn’t like it was a difficult job; all they had to do was add sand, a shell, and a message from him and Liv, tie some fancy ribbon called raffia, and add a thank you charm. But there were a lot of bottles and their hands were big and the work tedious, so he supposed he could understand his brothers’ death glares.
“That’s like the pot–kettle thing, you know?” Liam said in response, Finn assumed, to him calling Aidan a moody pain in the ass.
Griff raised an eyebrow at Liam and gave his head a slight shake before saying, “Don’t mind him. He’s been spouting this kind of crap since Mia moved back to Harmony Harbor.”
“No, it’s not a Mia saying. It’s a GG saying. And you’re missing the point. Finn’s calling out Aidan for being moody, and he’s just as bad.” Liam pointed the blue bottle at him. “Are you getting cold feet?”
“No, I’m not getting cold feet.” Not that he planned to share with his brothers, but he wasn’t moody; he was frustrated.
Frustrated because he’d been sleeping in the same bed as the woman he was going to marry tomorrow and that’s the only thing he’d been doing, sleeping. Come to think of it, he’d hardly done that either.
It was frustrating and annoying and, at least once in the night and once in the morning, extremely uncomfortable, bordering on painful, and potentially embarrassing. And apparently, Liv wasn’t having the same problem. She was sweet and relaxed and didn’t think twice about parading around in her sexy lingerie, which she got a shit ton of at her shower.
“Really? You sound off to me,” Griff said.
“Yeah, totally off. Actually, you know what he sounds like to me—”
Oh no, his brother, the recently former DEA agent, read people even better than Griff, which was saying something. Finn had no intention of getting into this with them now. He needed a diversion. “Does it look like Ella Rose is coming to the wedding? Dad said Harper’s giving you the runaround.”
“Yeah, well, her days of giving me the runaround are almost over. I just want to get myself settled here with a job and a house, and then I’m going to go after shared custody. If that’s what Ella Rosa wants.”
“What do you mean? She thinks the sun and moon rise around you. She’s a total daddy’s girl,” Liam said, and he’d know better than both Finn and Griff did.
“This last assignment was tough on her, on both of us. Harley says Ella Rose doesn’t want to talk to me. She’s mad at me.” He took a swig of beer and looked away.
“You know what you need? You need to get laid,” Griff stated succinctly.
And Finn, who had just sucked back a mouthful of beer, spewed it across the fire. His brothers shifted in their chairs to look at him. “Oh, come on, you have got to be shitting me. You haven’t—”
“Shut up,” Finn said to Griff.
“This is a joke, right? You and Olivia…You had to…You haven’t?”
Finn gave Liam a keep-talking-and-die look. It didn’t stop him.
“Okay.” Liam nodded. “Your choice of song for tomorrow is starting to make sense now.”
“What song is he singing?” Griff asked.
“‘Marry You’ by Bruno Mars.” Liam sang the chorus.
“That is not the song you sing to a woman you…Holy shit, you’re not in love with her, are you?” His big brother crossed his arms. “Unless you want me to object at your wedding tomorrow, you better tell us what’s going on. And don’t even think about lying.” Griff gestured to himself and Aidan. “We’re the equivalent of human lie detectors.”
Olivia had just come home from a last-minute fitting of her wedding dress. Finn’s brothers were gone, and she was helping him pack away the wedding keepsakes. She glanced at him as she picked up a bottle. He’d been acting strange, almost remote the past two days.
She looked down at the black trench coat and high heels she was wearing. The man hadn’t even noticed she was dressed like a high-class hooker. She’d thought the trench coat would be a dead giveaway. She’d actually hoped he’d take the hint, and she wouldn’t have to follow through with her plan.
He was a doctor, for goodness’ sake. Did he not know women get as sexually frustrated as men? What if she misread him and that wasn’t the reason he was short with her and George this morning? She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. It was now or never. She couldn’t take it anymore.
“Thanks for all your hard work. You guys did an awesome job. I told you DIY projects were fun.” Fig Newton, could she sound any more Pollyanna? She should just whip off her trench coat and have done with it.
She cast him a sidelong glance, her hand moving to the belt. He caught her glance and…returned to packing his box of bottles. That wasn’t very encouraging. He was acting as moody as his brother Aidan.
His brother whom Olivia had immediately thought of when she walked into Books and Beans yesterday. Julia had been reading and acting out Beauty and the Beast at children’s story hour. Aidan would have been perfect in the role of Beast. Although that would mean Julia would be his Belle, and that was not a match Olivia wanted to contemplate. Julia was too sweet for a man like Aidan. And she didn’t see Aidan coming out of beast mode anytime soon, if ever.
“So, did your brothers give you a hard time?” she asked, imagining that Aidan probably did. It would explain why Finn was cranky.
“Why? Did they say something to you? If they did, just ignore them. Especially Aidan, he’s not himself.”
“Neither are you. You’ve been acting weird since we came back from the rehearsal. What’s wrong?” Her heart rolled over in her chest as she realized the most likely cause for his mood. “Are you getting cold feet?”
He fit one side of the cardboard lid under the other and placed the packed box beside the back door. “No, I’m not getting cold feet.” He came to stand beside her. He didn’t look her in the eyes. He seemed intrigued with the tendril of hair that had escaped from the knot at her nape. The tips of his fingers brushed her cheek as he reached for it, gently twisting it around his finger. Then he lifted his eyes to hers. “I’m not reneging on my promise either, but I think we should renegotiate the terms of our agreement.”
With just his fingers in her hair, the heat from his body, the smell of his cologne, he had her practically vibrating with desire, and he wanted to talk money? “The only terms we had were that I’d pay you a million dollars, but you…you want more?”
He nodded, his mouth tipping up at the corner.
She was glad he found it amusing, because she didn’t. A million dollars was a lot of money. “I’m not sure how I feel about that, Finn. I suppose I could give you an extra hundred thousand, but only if I gave it to a charity in your name.”
“It’s not money I want more of. I want more of you, Liv. I can’t go another night without kissing you, touching you, making love to you. So if you’re not—”
She glanced around the yard. “How private is it back here? Do you think Dr. Bishop can see us through the back windows?”
“Liv, I’m a patient guy. Some might even go so far as to say laid-back, and I don’t often lose my temper, especially with a woman, a woman I’m going to marry tomorrow. But, Sweet Cheeks, I’ve gotta tell you that you’re ticking me off. I’m putting myself out there, telling you I want you, and you want to know if Doc—”
“You are not the only one who is frustrated and ticked off, Finn Gallagher,” she said, shrugging out of her trench coat and letting it drop to her feet.
He stared at her, his gaze moving slowly and appreciatively over her body. Her skin warmed and tingled everywhere his eyes touched. He smoothed his hand over her shoulder and down her arm; his fingers briefly touched and caressed her before moving to her waist and drawing her closer.
“You’ve been teasing me with your barely-there nighties, so I knew you had a beautiful body, Liv. But seeing you like this, you take my breath away.” He kissed her eyelids, her nose, her cheeks, then slid his mouth to her ear. “Do you know what it was like to lie beside you without touching you?” As if to make up for lost time, his hands moved over her body. They were big and warm. His touches and caresses making her shiver with anticipation and moan with desire. “I won’t be able to get enough of you tonight, tomorrow, or the night after that and the night after that.”
She took his face in her hands and kissed him like she’d been dying to. She was on fire. She wanted him, all of him. His body, his heart.
“We’ve wasted so much time. We’ve been lying in bed, both of us wanting the other, too afraid to say anything, too afraid to take the risk. I’m not afraid anymore, Finn. I’m not. I love you. Tomorrow when I walk across the beach to you, I’ll be walking to the man I love. The man I want to spend the rest of my life with.”
“God you’re beautiful, Liv, so soft, so sweet.” He brought his hands to her face and then slanted his lips over hers, kissing her passionately, deeply.
There was no denying he wanted her. He just didn’t love her. And somehow, she had to find a way to be okay with the man she loved wanting to be friends with her. A friend with amazing benefits that would probably make her love him more.