Wife With Amnesia (8 page)

“It's not a problem. Things here are fine, and I've penciled the job in my book. The truth is I'm looking forward to baking and decorating the cake myself.”

“Oh, that's wonderful. Maggie will be so pleased. Thank you, Claire.”

“You're welcome.” Growing excited at the prospect of creating the teddy-bear-shaped cake to match the theme on the shower invitation, Claire said, “Since I've finally convinced your son I can drive again and don't need a chauffeur, I'm going this evening to buy a baby gift for Maggie. I saw an adorable little jacket and booties in a boutique window in the French Quarter when I had lunch with Matt earlier this week. Do you think Maggie would like that, or should I get her something more practical?”

“I think she'll love whatever you get her.”

Claire grinned. “She's easy to please,” Claire conceded as she thought of Matt's sister. “Still I can't wait to see her face when she opens it.”

Maureen blinked. “Then you're going to be able to come to the shower after all?”

It was Claire's turn to be surprised. “Well, of course, I'm coming. Maggie is Matt's sister. I wouldn't think of missing her baby shower.” She frowned, chewed her lower lip a moment. “Did I forget to RSVP? I just assumed I had when I saw the invitation taped to the refrigerator door. I'll call the number on the invitation and let the hostess know I'll be coming as soon as I get home.”

Maureen Gallagher fairly beamed. “That's all right, dear. Matt's cousin Erin is giving the shower, and since I was planning to stop by her house when I left here, I'll let her know that you're coming. She'll be thrilled to have you there—just as Maggie will be. Now I'd better be on my way and let you get back to work. Goodbye dear.” She gave Claire a quick hug and kissed her cheek. “Give my son a kiss for me.”

 

“Not that I'm complaining, mind you. Because believe me, I'm not,” Matt began, equally surprised and pleased to have had Claire be the one to kiss him first for a change. “But was that kiss for anything in particular?”

Claire grinned up at him. Her eyes sparkled with laughter. “Actually it was from your mother.”

Matt narrowed his eyes and reluctantly allowed her to step back. “My mother?”

“Uh-hmm. She stopped by the shop today and said to give you a kiss for her.” She looked past him to the stove, where he had tomato sauce simmering in one pot and pasta boiling in another. “Something smells wonderful.”

When she reached for the lid on the tomato sauce, Matt snagged her fingers. “Not so fast, Mrs. Gallagher,” he said as he walked her backward until she came up against the kitchen counter. Caging her, he whispered, “If that kiss was from my mother, where's my hi-honey-I'm home kiss from you?”

The laughter in her eyes turned wary for only a second. Then she cupped his face between her palms. “Hi, honey. I'm home,” she murmured in a voice guaranteed to make a man think of sin. Slowly she drew his mouth down to meet hers and brushed her lips across his. The contact was soft, like silk whispering against skin and as slow as a Southern drawl. And it sent heat licking through him like a greedy flame.

Matt balled his hands into fists at his sides to keep from reaching for her and deepening the kiss. Sweat pooled between his shoulders with the effort it took not to touch her. Still, he held himself back, determined to let Claire set the pace.

Over and over she made that lazy foray of his mouth,
shaping his lips, fitting her lips to his. Every nerve ending in his body seemed to have centered on his mouth, and Matt wondered if it was possible for a man to die from a kiss that brought him pleasure and at the same time fueled his need for more.

Just when he was sure he was going to break unless he touched her, Claire repeated the movements—this time with her tongue. She tasted him, tested him, tempted him. And she drove him right to the edge of sanity. When she nipped his lower lip with her teeth, Matt heard a groan. He didn't know who it belonged to—him or Claire.

“Matt,” she whispered his name like a prayer and looked up at him out of dark eyes that had gone sultry and hot.

“Say my name again,” he commanded, his voice rough with need.

“Matt.”

He pulled her against him, ran his hands down her spine, anchored her hips. When she trembled, desire jolted through him hard and fast. Unable to wait a moment longer, he devoured her with his mouth. And the groan that followed, this time, came from him.

Matt didn't know how long he kissed her, trying to feed the insatiable hunger inside him. He didn't know if it had been minutes, hours, days. All he knew was that he couldn't get enough of Claire. He feared he might never be able to get enough of her. And given the way she was kissing him back, he suspected she'd become infected with the same fever that he had. “I want you,” he told her as he filled his hands with her breasts.

Her breath hitched. Her eyes went dark and hot before her lashes swept down. He rubbed his thumbs across the nipples that strained against her bra and shirt. And when
she gasped, Matt swallowed the sweet sound with his mouth.

This was insane, he told himself as he released the first button on her blouse. When she made no move to stop him, he undid the next button with fingers that were no longer steady. For the space of a heartbeat, he contemplated carrying her upstairs to the bedroom. He knew he'd never make it that far. He wanted her here. He wanted her now. And he would have taken her right then, right there, standing up with both of them half-dressed and her pressed against the kitchen countertop had it not been for the angry hisses and spitting coming from the stove.

Matt jerked his mouth free. Darting his gaze to the stove, he swore. The pot of pasta was bubbling furiously, sending starchy foaming water sliding down the sides of the pot onto the burner and splattering all over the stove. “Damn!” Matt swung Claire to his left and reached over to turn off the fire. Moving around to the front of the island stove, he threw on the oven mitts, grabbed the handles of the hissing pot and carried it over to the sink where he dumped the pasta into a colander.

“How bad is it?” Claire asked from behind him.

Matt glanced at her. Her cheeks were pink, her lips bare. And her blouse, though rumpled, was buttoned and tucked into her skirt. But it was the confusion and wariness in her eyes that told him the moment of passion they had shared was gone. “That depends,” he finally managed to say, as regret and disappointment dealt him sharp blows.

“On what?”

“On whether or not you like your pasta overcooked,” he said with a snarl.

“I don't mind. But if it'll make you feel better,” she
said as she opened the white pastry box she had brought home with her to reveal his favorite—chocolate chip walnut cookies—and held them out to him. “We can always start with dessert.”

 

They started with dessert and moved on to the salad, overcooked pasta with meatballs and tomato sauce and a nice bottle of Chianti. Polishing off the last of the cookies and sitting over steaming cups of coffee had helped to dull the edge of Matt's frustration. He leaned back, stretched his arm out over the back of the couch and took a sip of the cognac he'd poured for himself. He looked at Claire. Seated across from him, she had curled up in the big overstuffed chair with her knees pulled up and her feet tucked beneath her. She'd been asking him about his day and the restaurants for the better part of the last fifteen minutes. “Enough about me,” Matt told her. “Tell me about your day.”

“It was busy, tiring, fun,” she said smiling. “Business is good.”

“I'd be surprised if it wasn't. You're a good businesswoman, Claire Gallagher.”

“Am I?”

“Yes. You offer a great product at a reasonable price. You've worked hard to make a success of Desserts Only. And you have. You should be proud of yourself. I am.” And he was proud. She hadn't had the advantages that he'd had—a stable home and loving parents growing up, a family business that he loved and could be a part of. She'd had everything stacked against her, and she'd come out a winner, anyway. Not only did he adore her, but he admired and respected her, too. He even understood her fierce desire to be independent. He just wished that her
independence and her determination not to rely on anyone hadn't included him—at least not emotionally.

“Thanks,” she murmured. “I guess it's a good thing I didn't forget how to bake, or I'd be in real trouble.”

Matt shrugged, but he didn't miss that flicker of uncertainty in her eyes. “If you had forgotten, you'd simply have learned all over again. You're not a quitter, Red. You're a fighter.”

She smiled at that. “Maybe you're right.”

“So, tell me about the rest of your day.”

She told him, including about the visit from his mother. “Matt, you should have seen her face. I swear, I think this cookie weakness must be in the Gallagher genes.”

“Wouldn't surprise me if it was. My dad said that my mom, when she was pregnant with me, craved chocolate chip cookies all the time. She even sent him out during a hurricane to get some.”

“Now that I don't believe.”

“Scout's honor,” Matt replied with a grin as he held up three fingers.

She arched her brow in such a way that reminded him so much of the old Claire—the one he'd first fallen in love with—that Matt felt an urge to kiss that skeptical look off of her face. Instead, he wrapped his fingers around the glass in his hands. “So, did my mother come by for anything in particular or just to mooch some cookies?”

“She came to ask about the cake for your sister Maggie's baby shower.”

Matt set down his glass, leaned forward. “You don't need to worry about that,” he told her, irritated with his family for asking her in the first place. “I told Katie you
had enough on your plate already. Don't worry about it. I'll tell my mother and Katie to use a retail bakery.”

“You'll do no such thing,” she insisted. “Your mother already offered and I turned her down. It's for your sister's baby shower, Matt. I want to do this. How could you think I wouldn't?”

“You've been through a lot these last few weeks.” He avoided her gaze, afraid she would see more than he wanted her to see. “And you said yourself that Desserts Only keeps you busy.”

“Your mother said something similar.” She paused a moment. “Matt, I want to ask you something. Will you be honest with me? Tell me the truth even if it's not something I'll like?”

“Yes,” he told her, and waited for the questions to come that he'd dreaded these past few weeks. He would tell her the truth, everything, Matt decided. Only, he didn't want to do it when she looked so lost, so vulnerable, as though a stiff wind would break her in two. “What do you want to know?”

“What kind of person am I?”

Surprised, he said, “I'm not sure I know what you mean.”

“Am I ambitious? A hard worker?”

“Yes,” Matt told her, still unsure what had brought this on. “But you're fair-minded. You never ask more of others than you're willing to give yourself. You're also loyal and trustworthy. And I've never known you to be unkind to a soul. As my wife, I've found you to be sweet, sexy and passionate.”

She bit her lower lip, a habit he'd detected she did when something was troubling her. Matt went to her and crouched down beside her chair. He angled her chin up
with his thumb, saw the stress swimming in her eyes. “What's worrying you, Red?”

“Was success and making money more important to me than family? Than us?”

“No. Where did you ever get that idea?”

She shrugged. “Lori indicated that before I was hurt I usually worked twelve-and fourteen-hour days. And your mother thought I was too busy to go to Maggie's baby shower. She was surprised when I told her I planned to come.”

“Your business was growing and you were very busy during these past few months,” he offered because it was true. Claire was a good businesswoman, and once they had split, he'd been guilty of doing the same thing she had—filling the emptiness with work.

“Too busy to go to Maggie's shower? Did I really not plan to go?”

Matt wasn't sure how to answer her, how much he should tell her. Whatever he chose to tell her would hurt her…and him. “You said that you would try to go.”

“But I didn't promise I would go. God, how could I have been so selfish?” she asked, and covered her face with her hands.

Matt pried her fingers free and held them tightly between his. “You couldn't be selfish if you tried. It's simply not in you. If you're guilty of anything, it's of pushing yourself too hard, demanding too much of yourself.” Matt swallowed, tried to find the right words to ease her distress. “I'm not a shrink, but from the little you told me about your childhood, there wasn't anything stable about it—shifting from one foster home to another, in and out of the state facilities in between. And all of it was beyond your control. I think Desserts Only gave you the chance to be in control, to be independent. And some
times…sometimes the demands were high. Running the business ate up a lot of your time and energy.”

“Time and energy away from you? Away from us?”

“It wasn't that simple.” He refused to allow her to take the blame for things that had gone wrong in their marriage when the greatest sin rested with him. “We both have demanding careers. It caused us a few problems and we've both made mistakes. But the one thing that's never changed, that will never change, is that I love you.”

“Matt, I don't…I can't—”

He pressed a finger to her lips. “I'm not asking for the words back. I know you don't feel the way I do. You can't. Because you don't remember how things were between us, how much we loved each other. What I do want, what I do hope is that we can concentrate on now, on the future. Because I want a future with you, Claire. I need you in my life. I want to be a part of your life.”