• • •
Three interminable hours later, Gwen sat alone in the hotel bar. Kristen and Justin were on their way to the airport, and most of the guests had departed. She’d declined the ride home from her parents and she’d turned down the limo service. She got herself a room. With everything her parents had put her through that day (six attempted setups, thirteen introductions to men old enough to be her father, and handing her number out to all of them), she’d gone ahead and used her dad’s credit card to purchase herself some new clothes from some boutique on Newbury Street, which would be delivered by the morning.
There was no way in hell she was leaving the hotel dressed as an aquatic arthropod.
But she also didn’t want to stay at her parents’ home in Connecticut. They were moving to California soon, which was a blessing, for she needed some distance from them. They expected her to follow them to L.A. once she graduated, but she wanted to be done with the lifestyle. The insincerity, the constant round of parties with the same faces, always being known as “the Allen heiress”—it was overwhelming, and she hated it.
She hated it.
She wanted to be someone else, but she wasn’t sure how.
“Is this seat taken?”
Her breath caught in her chest, and she slowly turned. She looked up, high enough that her neck felt funny, and blinked at the man standing next to her.
Mutely, she shook her head and quickly looked forward again. Reilly O’Malley slid into the seat, and the bartender—who had barely glanced at Gwen the entire time she’d been there—hurried over to take his order.
“What are you having?” he asked Reilly.
He glanced in her tumbler, then picked it up and gave it a sniff. His eyebrows nearly disappeared into his hairline, but he was smiling when he said, “I’ll have what the lady’s having. Make it a double.”
Embarrassed, she hesitated. She’d been taught that ladies drink wine, and sometimes trendy spirits. Jameson whiskey on the rocks did not qualify as a ladylike drink. Yet, it was her favorite, and since no one was around…
She fiddled with her napkin. “You like whiskey?”
He chortled. “Lass, I’m Irish. Not liking uisce beatha isn’t an option.” She gave him a questioning look, and he explained, “Uisce beatha. Gaelic for water of life. Or, as you call it, whiskey.”
“I like your accent,” she blurted out.
“I like you,” he returned.
A delicious feeling started to unfurl throughout her skin, and she was pretty sure it wasn’t the whiskey. “Are you picking me up in a bar?” She liked this. She liked him. He was different than the men she’d dated; he was older, of course. But there was something almost uncivilized about him. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but there was an edge to him that thrilled her.
“Do you want me to pick you up in a bar?” he asked, his voice, like the whiskey, was smooth and strong.
She chewed her lip for a moment. “I think I do.”
He leaned in closer, his lips inches from hers. “Full disclosure: I give but one night.”
She sized him up. “So, should I save mine for a special occasion?”
He blinked at her, thrown, and suddenly, he laughed. The rich, warm sound invaded her soul, letting loose a thousand butterflies in her stomach.
He took his double and drained it. “By the saints, I really do like you, Gwendolyn.”
She gave him a small smile, a real one. “I like you too, Reilly.”
He banged his head against the bar. “You know what this means, though, don’t you?”
She hoped it meant he was going to take her upstairs to her room and show her what was inside those soft jeans of his, but she refrained from saying so. She merely remained silent, watching him with what she hoped was a sexy expression on her face.
“It means that I can’t take you to bed.”
Her mouth dropped open. “What?”
He downed his drink, then signaled to the bartender for another. “You’re something special, Gwendolyn Allen.”
“I never told you my last name.”
He truly smiled at her then, and she was left witless from the wattage.
“You’re worth more than a single night, and I’m not capable of giving that. So let’s agree to carry on as friends, aye?”
“You’re a strange man.”
His eyes glinted with humor. “You’ve no idea, lass. But like I said before, I’m one of the good guys.”
“Apparently too good,” she muttered.
He chuckled, then tossed some cash on the bar. When she rifled through her purse for her wallet, he frowned at her. “Nay. This is on me. It’ll always be on me.”
“Always?” she scoffed. The man had just turned down sex, and he was talking as if they were going to be best buds and hang out for all time? He must’ve been drinking prior to joining her.
He nodded, then glanced in her open purse. “Still have my number, or did you chuck it in the nearest rubbish bin?”
She colored. The napkin was clearly visible in the tiny satchel that held her credit card, a small roll of cash, and her lipstick.
He chuckled, then gently drew her hand to his lips. He kissed each knuckle, weakening her knees to the point of jelly. “Aye, always.” His eyes turned serious. “Please call me, Gwendolyn.”
She knew she would. And somehow, she knew he knew she would.
Chapter One
Present Day
The hammer came down fast, but Gwen was faster. She pulled her thumb out of the way just as the tool missed the nail head. She leaned back a little and studied the new indentation on the stair she was attempting to build.
Installation of the risers was not going well.
In fact, this entire trip wasn’t going very well. Just last night their bodyguards had exchanged gunfire with a couple of men intent on robbing the small group of volunteers as they made camp for the night. In the four months that Gwen had been out in the wilds of Venezuela, she’d been thankful for the guards every single day.
After they’d completed work on the orphanage, her team was asked to help create some housing for a remote village. She’d wanted to go home, but the rest of the team agreed to stay on for the additional month, and she knew she couldn’t leave them.
Since their arrival to their current area a few weeks ago, however, Gwen wondered if they were there for purposes other than what was written on paper. Sure, they’d framed out some houses and even gotten some limited electrical and plumbing done. But she hadn’t seen any villagers. Or any signs of humanity, other than their team of forty, the ten bodyguards, and some government officials who looked more like members of an army than anything else.
Gwen knew her boss wanted them out of there. Despite his easy manners and teasing words on the job site, there were tension lines around his eyes and a tightness in his shoulders that hadn’t been there when they were working on the orphanage. He negotiated their stop work date by bringing in local Venezuelans to complete the houses, and Gwen suspected people at the top of their charitable organization had also done some negotiating to get them out of there faster.
She certainly didn’t like living in a makeshift camp in the Venezuelan jungle, surrounded by armed guards and being watched over by armed government men.
“Need any help?”
Gwen gathered the strands of her fiery red hair and secured them with a hair tie. “No thanks, Anth. I can do this.”
The project manager, Anthony Ferraro, gave her an understanding smile. “I have no doubt. But stairs are a tricky thing, and they need to pass code. Whatever code they have here…still can’t quite figure that out.”
Gwen frowned at the stair in front of her. “I know. I think I need a lighter hammer. That’ll make it easier for me to control where I drop it. Hopefully next time, it’ll be closer to its intended target.”
Anthony’s good looks and easy charm had most of the women on the volunteer team swooning. He was young, only a couple of years older than G
wen. He was also dedicated to each charitable project he worked. He had infinite patience with everyone, taught the volunteers new skills, and involved everyone in everything that happened around the worksite. Of all the charity project managers Gwen had worked for in the past five years, he was her best boss. They’d been dating for the better part of four months, though most of their together time was on a jobsite.
In fact, very little of their time together was offsite. It was weird when she thought too much about it, but Gwen preferred not to dwell on it. After all, once she returned to the States, she planned to take an extended hiatus from volunteer work, at least the home-building kind. She needed a personal and mental reset.
“I’ll make you a deal. I’ll find you a lighter hammer, and you go out to dinner with me when we get back to the States in a couple days.” He gave her a mock-thoughtful look. “Hmm. That actually seems to be a good deal all around.”
She laughed. “It does, but I can’t. I have plans.”
He reached around to the back of his tool belt and pulled a smaller hammer from it. He waved it a little. “You seeing someone, Red?”
She smiled easily. “Yep.”
“Is it serious?”
“Serious enough for me to say no to a very charming project manager.”
He dramatically staggered back, his hand holding the hammer over his heart. “Aw, what a rejection!”
Gwen rolled her eyes even as she grinned at him. “Sorry to break your heart. But I’m sure you’ll be just fine.”
He winked at her and handed her the hammer. “Not as fine as your serious-but-not-serious boyfriend, but I’ll recover nonetheless.”
Seeing as he was her serious-but-not-serious boyfriend, she had no doubt. She smiled up at him, and he pointed to a piece of framing under the stair, then handed her the hammer. “Don’t nail the step into the riser. Nail the riser into the stringer.”
She squinted at the wood, then nodded firmly. “Makes sense. It’s a good thing that nail didn’t go into the stair. Getting it out would’ve been impossible.”
“Things tend to happen—or not—for a reason,” he agreed, then gave her a smart salute and headed over to the workers struggling to turn on the cement mixer.
“Maybe,” she murmured, watching him go, then realigned the nail and hammered it perfectly into place.
She knew what Anthony was referring to, and it wasn’t a nail in a stair. Last night, he’d proposed to her. He’d gotten the whole crew involved. They sang some pop song that had been all over the radio a few weeks ago, each taking turns holding up signs and making crazy faces. Then, after the last one dropped her sign to the ground and stepped to the side, Anthony had stood there, looking adorably nervous yet determined, holding up the final sign that read Marry Me.
She’d said yes, because really, what else was she supposed to say after everyone went to all that trouble, and she did like him a lot. Maybe even loved him. And if she didn’t love him yet, she knew she could grow to love him.
And, she reminded herself firmly, she’d decided months ago to move on with her life. She would marry a perfectly nice man who loved her enough to want to spend his life with her. She could be content enough with that.
Suddenly, a loud bang sounded in the not-so-distant jungle, quickly followed by a series of pops.
“Is it a holiday?” one of her coworkers, Jan, asked, brushing her hands on her jeans.
Gwen shrugged. “Maybe. It sounds like fireworks.”
More pops sounded, this time louder, and suddenly the bodyguards were pulling guns from their holsters and yelling at everyone to move out. The hammer fell from Gwen’s hand, and she leaped down to the ground, fear clogging her throat when she heard the words.
Pipe bomb. Gunfire. Guerrilla war.
Everyone was running, panicked, toward the five vehicles that had been parked on the perimeter of their worksite. She ran to the van in the middle of the line, but one of the bodyguards pointed to the Jeep in front of it, indicating that the van was full already. She shoved herself into the all-terrain vehicle and quickly scooted over to make room. Others piled in behind her, and then they were moving, not over the well-packed dirt road, but down a less-worn jungle path, over bumps and tree roots. Her teeth clacked against each other, and she hung onto the strap hanging from the clear plastic above her head, her hands sweating, her stomach in tight, painful knots.
Without warning, the Jeep swerved to the left, the wheels lifting slightly from the ground. Gwen screamed, and as the vehicle righted itself, she watched in horror as a small, round object passed right over them and landed on the windshield of the van behind them. The longest second passed, and the grenade detonated, engulfing the vehicle in a ball of flames.
Gwen’s driver lurched them forward, and they were moving so fast through the jungle, it was all she could do to remain in her seat. All around her people were sobbing and screaming.
She closed her eyes and began to pray.
• • •
“If I have to hear one more word about bows or flowers, I’m kidnapping her and we’re going to elope,” Colin O’Rourke announced, frisbee-ing his beer cap into the recycle bin of his kitchen.
Reilly O’Malley popped the top off his own beer and shuddered. “Don’t see why you didn’t just do that in the first place.”
“Two words,” Colin muttered. “Winifred Emsworth.”
Winifred Emsworth—the United Kingdom’s most notorious and influential gossip columnist—just happened to be Colin’s future aunt-in-law. Colin—rather, Eleanor, his fiancée—was neck-deep in wedding plans with her aunt, and Reilly still wasn’t sure if all the fuss was worth it. Not that he’d been to many weddings, or seen any of the black-tie affairs like the one that was currently besieging his best friend.
Reilly seated himself at one of the bar stools in his lavishly appointed kitchen. “Sorry, mate. Seems like a headache and a half.”
“It is.” They clinked bottles and Colin added, “Thanks for agreeing to be in it.”
Reilly choked. “What?”
Colin shrugged. “I gave your name to Winifred, so it’s a done deal. You’re an usher.”
He groaned. “Do I have to plan anything?”
“Nope. James is the best man—he’ll take care of it. All you have to do is show up, dance with a bridesmaid or two, and enjoy the open bar.”
Reilly took a slow pull of his drink. That didn’t sound so bad.
“And wear a tux,” Colin added with a snicker.
Reilly swore. “Anything else you want to drop on me?”
“Actually, there is.” He cleared his throat, then leveled Reilly with a direct stare. “Gwen’s the maid of honor.”
Reilly’s heart jumped in his chest, though he showed no outward signs of distress.
Gwendolyn Allen. The only woman he’d ever met who scared the daylights out of him.
She was, coincidentally, his best friend.
And that’s the kind of friendship that you don’t mess up with a relationship, he told himself frequently.
While they were traveling in the past, he had made such a massive misstep with her that he feared he would lose her forever. He groveled, apologized, and begged her forgiveness, and Gwen being Gwen, readily gave it to him. But she also hightailed it out of Ireland almost the moment they returned from the past.
Gwen had always been direct with him. There was never any beating around the bush, never any word games or mind tricks. She said what she felt and he could always count on her for her forthrightness. Sometimes it made him want to bang his head against the nearest hard surface, but at least with her, he always knew where he stood.
Until the day she left for the States.
She had barely spoken to him for the last year. Every time he’d send her a message, he’d get a quick reply such as, “In Rwanda this month. Let’s talk when I get back!” or “China is crazy right now. Sorry I missed you last week. Let’s talk soon!”
They never did, until she unexpecte
dly video called him from Venezuela. He knew then that something was wrong, but she wouldn’t say. But he knew her.
To Colin, he shrugged indifferently. “Makes sense Gwen would be maid of honor. She and Ellie are best friends, after all.”
Colin idly swirled his own beer, then walked around the kitchen island and sat next to Reilly. “You sure you’re okay with seeing her again?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Just the fact that after more than a decade of friendship, she cut you out of her life?”
“She didn’t cut me out of her life,” Reilly replied mildly, though his chest tightened with Colin’s words. “She’s a busy woman. She’s got an entire world to save, you know.”
Colin grabbed the bowl of tortilla chips and jerked his head toward the bowl of salsa. Reilly followed him into the living room, where Colin pushed a button to make his fancy television appear from behind a piece of art. They arranged the snack and their beers to their liking, then Colin flipped to a rugby match.
About three minutes in, Colin, who apparently couldn’t seem to keep quiet, noted in an off-hand sort of way, “Rumor has it she was in South Africa on a safari.”
Reilly grunted in response. Gwen had been known to tell her parents one thing, then hop a plane and do something completely different. Gwen’s parents were a little high-handed, though he knew they worried about their only daughter. She was a free spirit and fiercely independent. They’d never quite known what to do with her.
Neither, he admitted, had he. But he’d kept tabs on her anyway; he never stepped in unless asked, but he felt better knowing that at least someone in the world knew where she was.
“Of course, that’s what she told her parents,” Colin mused.
The way in which the words dropped from Colin’s overactive mouth made his muscles tense. Warily, he asked, “Why?”
“Because of the attack on the humanitarian group,” Colin said quietly. He handed his phone to Reilly, an article already on the screen. “Rebels ambushed them and killed thirteen people by throwing a grenade on one of the cars.”
Falling Through Time Page 2
