“Uh…it’s a pleasure to meet you as well.” Maya let go of his hand, needing to break that connection while she tried to figure out how to take this man. He was unlike anyone in the family she’d met so far. Actually, he was unlike anyone she’d ever met. Period.
“Don’t mind Gabe, Maya,” Makayla said with a disapproving look at the man. “He can be a bit overwhelming, even to those of us who’ve known him for years.”
Before Maya could reply, the front door opened again, and Mitch walked in. She couldn’t keep from smiling as he did the very same thing as Gabe had when he’d arrived. After stomping the snow from his boots, Mitch joined the group.
“Good morning, Maya and siblings.”
Now that the two men were standing side by side, the differences were clear. Though it was very apparent they were identical with their striking blue eyes and dimples in their cheeks, Mitch’s reserved personality showed through in his slower smiles and his quieter nature.
When they’d first met, Maya had thought Mitch was cute, but other than that, she hadn’t felt drawn to him as anything more than a co-worker. It was completely different from how she couldn’t seem to keep her gaze from going to Gabe. There was just something about him that appealed to her. It was like he radiated life with his sparkling eyes, wide smile and larger than life reactions to things.
Gabe draped an arm around his brother’s shoulders. “How’s it going, Mitchy?”
Mitch rolled his eyes but didn’t shrug off Gabe’s arm. “It’s going fine. What are you doing here? I thought you were going out to the house.”
“I’m here to make use of the boardroom to meet with Tennyson and Forrest. But why didn’t you tell me about the lovely new receptionist?” Gabe gave her another smile, and Maya felt her heart skip a beat.
“Didn’t you come by the office when you were here in August?” Mitch asked, stepping away from Gabe. “She’s been here since just before the wedding.”
“I came by the office, but I know I would have remembered meeting her.” Gabe put his hands on his hips and frowned. “What I don’t understand, though, is why she didn’t know about me.”
Mitch shook his head. “I don’t talk about you all the time, Gabe.”
“Well, apparently you don’t talk about me at all to Maya.”
The door opened again, stopping their conversation as they turned toward it. Two tall men walked in, and Gabe moved in their direction. “Hey, guys. Good to see you.”
“Glad to see you’re still in one piece,” the tall one with dark blonde curls said, a smile on his face as he held out his hand to Gabe.
“Always.” Gabe shook his hand then held it out to the other man.
“None of that.” The dark-haired man grinned as he bumped Gabe’s hand out of the way and wrapped him in a quick hug. “Good to see you again, man. Even if I did have to get up at the crack of dawn to do it.”
“Lazy, dude.” Gabe punched his shoulder. “I went to bed at almost one and was up by seven.”
“Not all of us are suckers for punishment,” the man replied with a grin.
After Makayla and Mitch had said hi, Gabe introduced them to Maya. “These are my friends and business partners, Tennyson Page and Forrest Williams.”
After they had all exchanged pleasantries and shaken hands, Gabe turned to Maya once again. “Do you have plans for lunch?
“Plans for lunch?” Maya wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly.
“Yeah.” He tilted his head as one corner of his mouth lifted. “I’d like to take you out for lunch.”
Maya felt a burst of excitement, but at the same time, she was nervous. It was a rare thing she went out with anyone but her parents. Since starting with C&M Builders, she had joined the staff on Fridays for lunch sometimes, but she’d never gone out with a guy. Just the two of them.
She glanced over at Makayla for some guidance, but the other woman just gave her a slight smile and a shrug. With equal parts trepidation and eagerness, Maya turned back to Gabe and said, “No, I don’t have plans for lunch.”
“Perfect,” Gabe said, his smile broadening. “Now you do.”
“Okay.” Maya hoped the smile she gave him in return was as enthusiastic as his.
“See you in a bit.” He swung back to the two men as if it was the most natural thing to invite a woman out to lunch then go back to business. “Let’s go, guys. I’ve got plans.”
When they’d gone down the hallway to the board room, and Mitch had headed for the back offices, Maya turned to look at Makayla. “Um. Was that okay?”
Makayla tilted her head. “You mean accepting Gabe’s invitation for lunch?”
Maya nodded. “I wasn’t sure what to say.”
“It’s fine,” Makayla assured her. “But only go if you want to. Don’t feel pressured. I know Gabe can be a force to be reckoned with.”
Maya thought about it for a second then said, “I do want to go. He seems like a really interesting person.”
“Oh, he’s interesting all right,” Makayla said with a rueful grin. “Just don’t fall in love with him. He doesn’t live here. And probably never will.”
Makayla’s words sank in, but somehow it didn’t dim the interest Maya had in the man. As a whole, the Callaghan and McFadden family was fascinating to her. Since she was an only child, it was so interesting to see the interactions between the siblings she saw at the office. Even the youngest ones, whom she’d met when they’d stopped by, seemed to get along really well with their older brothers and sisters. So it wasn’t a surprise that Gabe Callaghan interested her, but her intrigue of him was more than she’d felt for any of the others.
“Just tell me when you guys are taking off for lunch,” Makayla said.
Maya nodded then returned to her work as Makayla went back to her office. Although, how she was supposed to concentrate on work with a lunch date looming, she didn’t know.
2
Gabe listened—sort of—as Tennyson gave the run-down on a company they were to start working with in the new year. Usually, he was excited about a new project, but this time around, he found he was distracted by thoughts of the woman at the reception desk. He regretted not having met her when he’d come for the wedding in August. To have lost four months of knowing Maya St. James seemed a shame.
He tried to keep his focus on the discussion as they broke down their responsibilities for the next project. It wasn’t a difficult thing to do since they each had skills and interests that allowed them to naturally take on different roles within the projects they were working on. Of course, Forrest liked to discuss it all anyway. Tennyson and Gabe were convinced it was mainly so he could hear his own voice. They tended to let him ramble on and then just followed through with how they usually did things.
When the conversation shifted away from his part of the upcoming project, Gabe found his attention drifting as well. How could it not, when he still was trying to figure out his reaction to the woman with the dark brown eyes, framed by even darker lashes, set in a delicate face? The slight tilt to her eyes, her silky dark hair, and the light tan of her skin spoke of a mixed heritage, and Gabe wanted to find out what that was. And he wanted to learn about her family and all the things that made her who she was.
Something told him that one lunch wasn’t going to be enough.
He’d be hard pressed to explain to anyone the way his interest had been piqued from almost the moment he’d laid eyes on her. Seeing her working at the desk immediately told him that she was a good person since his family wouldn’t have hired someone who wasn’t. A quick glance at her left hand had shown it to be free of rings, so he’d assumed she wasn’t engaged or married. But it had been the flare of interest in her eyes that had let him know that there wasn’t another man in the picture, and that was what had prompted the lunch invitation.
Was it love at first sight?
Before that day, Gabe would have said no because he hadn’t believed it to be possible. However, he couldn’t deny that he’d never re
acted to anyone at first meeting the way he had to Maya. If there was one thing that Gabe had always done, it was to follow his instincts. And in this particular case, his instinct said to get to know Maya St. James.
“So I guess we’re not going for lunch, eh?” Forrest asked when they finished up an hour and a half later.
“Sorry, boys,” Gabe said as he got to his feet, gathering up the papers and his laptop. “Maybe next time.”
“I absolutely can’t believe you’re putting a woman ahead of us.” Forrest sounded outraged, but Gabe knew he was only joking. “We always do lunch or dinner after our meetings.”
“Yeah, but you know how I am. Never letting an opportunity pass me by.”
The two guys good-naturedly grumbled their way out of the building, appeased by Gabe’s offer to meet up with them for dinner later. Once they were gone, Gabe went back to Maya’s desk where she greeted him with a tentative smile.
He leaned a hip against the desk and crossed his arms. “So, what are you in the mood for?”
“I don’t know.” Maya gave a slight shrug of her slender shoulders. “I’m not really too fussy.”
“You’re not a vegetarian?” Gabe asked.
“No, not at all.”
“How about Montana’s? Would that work for you?”
Maya smiled as she nodded. “Sure, that would be great.”
“Are you ready to leave now or do you need some time?”
After a glance down at her desk, Maya said, “Maybe give me about five minutes.”
“Sounds good. I’m just going to talk to Bennett.” Gabe gave her a wide smile before heading down the hallway to find his older brother.
Maya saved the file she’d been working on for Makayla then sat for a moment, trying to calm the nerves that were fluttering in her stomach. She’d been able to ignore them while she was working, but now that lunch time was drawing close, the butterflies were back.
The thing causing her the most anxiety was wondering if the lunch invitation was actually a date. Her inexperience with stuff like this—even at the age of twenty-four—left her feeling confused and uncertain.
Given the way she’d been forced to live her life, Maya had often wondered if this day would ever come. If a man would ever have enough interest in her to want to spend more time with her. To ask her out on a date.
Maya hoped that this was a date since Gabe was the first man that she’d really felt this kind of attraction to. Though she wanted to spend more time with him, she was still a bit nervous about it. After all, they’d only just met. Was it normal to feel that way about someone so quickly? Unfortunately, she had no one to ask in the few minutes before they were due to leave.
One very good thing about this being a lunch date—if it was an actual date—was that her mother wouldn’t have a chance to interfere. Maya had no doubt that if her mother had been aware of the invitation, she would have found some way to put a stop to it.
“Ready to go, beautiful?”
Heat rushed to Maya’s cheeks at Gabe’s words. She’d never considered herself beautiful, so to hear that word from a man she’d just met was something of a surprise.
“Um…yes, I’m ready.” Maya got up and retrieved her purse from the desk drawer.
“Is this yours?” Gabe asked as he motioned to the coat rack behind her desk. At Maya’s nod, he plucked it off the hook and held it for her. She slid her arms into the sleeves, and after he lifted it onto her shoulders, she quickly buttoned it up. “Makayla, we’re off!”
Makayla popped her head out of her office. “Okay. Have fun.”
“No worries. Fun’s my middle name,” Gabe called back as he opened the front door.
As Maya walked out of the building with Gabe by her side, she began to consider something else that hadn’t occurred to her earlier. Though she’d felt comfortable with all the members of the Callaghan and McFadden family she’d met so far, she had managed to keep conversations fairly surface. They didn’t know anything about her past, and she’d given only the most vague information about her family. And she definitely preferred to keep it that way. However, now that she was going to have this time alone with Gabe, he was probably going to be asking her questions she wasn’t entirely comfortable answering.
At his vehicle, Gabe opened the passenger side first, offering his hand with a smile to help her climb inside. May hesitated for just a moment before taking his hand, appreciating his strength as she stepped up into the truck. He waited until she was settled in her seat and buckled in before closing the door. Maya took advantage of the few moments alone in the cab of the truck before Gabe climbed behind the wheel to try to settle her nerves by taking a couple of deep breaths.
“Is Winnipeg your hometown?” Gabe asked as he steered his truck out of the parking lot a few moments later.
“Yes. I was born here.” She hesitated. “How about you?”
“I was born in Brandon but grew up in a small town not too far from Winnipeg.”
“When did you move here?”
Gabe didn’t answer right away, and Maya wondered if she’d inadvertently steered the conversation into a touchy area. She’d thought it was a fairly safe question, but now she wondered if it was something negative that had forced them to make the move.
“Dad moved us to Winnipeg when I was around five. I didn’t know the reasons at the time,” Gabe began, pausing again as he turned onto the highway. “When my parents divorced, my mom didn’t ask for any sort of custody of us four boys. Instead, she went on to remarry and have another family. Living in a small town, there were rumors spread and lots of gossip about us which was made worse because our situation was fairly high profile since my mom’s dad was a former mayor of the town. Finally, my dad decided we’d be better off in Winnipeg. And we were. Almost right away, we met my step-mom, Emily, and her four kids.” Gabe tossed her a quick smile as he pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant. “And the rest is history.”
Grace Moore, the woman she was covering for while she was on maternity leave, had given Maya a brief rundown of the blended family—although she’d left out the Mitch has an identical twin brother bit of information. She hadn’t asked many questions because she hadn’t wanted any asked of her. Also, Grace had had other things on her mind with her husband’s recent passing and her pregnancy.
“So you’ve been working for the company just since August?”
“Yes. Right before Ethan and Makayla’s wedding. They hired me to help Grace out and then to cover for her once she went on maternity leave.”
“Where did you work before this?”
That was one of the questions she didn’t want to answer because it would only lead to more questions, but she couldn’t bring herself to lie. “This is my first job in the field since finishing my business admin course.”
She saw the surprised look Gabe shot her as he turned off the truck’s engine.
“Uh, how old are you?” He lifted a hand off the steering wheel. “Wait. That’s not a question I’m supposed to ask a woman.”
Maya gave a soft chuckle. “I’m twenty-four.”
“And this is your first job?”
“Doing this type of work.” That wasn’t necessarily a lie.
Thankfully, he didn’t pursue anything further since they needed to get out of the truck. As they walked on the snow packed parking lot to the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, Gabe placed a hand on her back. When they approached the door, he opened it and held it for her so she could enter the restaurant and escape the cold.
They were seated quickly and left with menus. Even as she glanced over the options, Maya tried to organize her thoughts so that she could hopefully control the conversation and keep it away from the things she didn’t want to talk about yet. It was just too bad that most casual conversation between two people just getting to know each other included a lot of what she didn’t want to share yet.
Knowing that this wasn’t going to be a long meal since she needed to get back to work, w
hen the waitress returned, Maya just ordered a sandwich while Gabe went for a burger and fries. After the waitress collected their menus and left them alone, Gabe leaned forward, his arms resting on the table and his bright blue gaze focused on her.
Before Gabe could pose any questions to her, Maya asked, “Since I haven’t met you before, I’m assuming you don’t live here.”
“No, I don’t live in Winnipeg full-time, but when I’m not traveling the globe, I’m either here or in Denver.”
“Is the traveling for your job?” Maya wondered what he had been thinking, asking her out when he wasn’t even living in Winnipeg. She recalled Makayla’s caution about not falling in love with him and knew she needed to take that advice to heart.
“Sort of, but most of my work is related to business interests I have here in Winnipeg. Fortunately, I can do a lot of that work remotely.” Gabe reached out and ran his fingers along the sides of his glass of soda. “I travel mostly for adventure.”
“Adventure?”
A big smile spread across Gabe’s face, his dimples deepening. “Yep. I like Bungee jumping. I like rock climbing. Skydiving. Scuba diving. Anything that gives me a rush.”
Maya considered his words, wondering what it would be like to do things like that. She hadn’t even considered attempting anything that dangerous. Over the years, just doing what she had to, to get to that point in her life, had been a rush for her.
“So what do you do for fun?”
She’d been so caught up in her head, Maya had forgotten to continue to ask him questions. There was no way to avoid answering him, so she scrambled for a response that would satisfy him and was truthful.
“Well, I’m definitely not into the extreme kind of fun you are,” she said with a smile. “I tend to stick close to home.”
“And do what?” Gabe prompted, apparently not willing to let her off the hook.
“I like to read. I do some cooking. I enjoy swimming and spending time on the computer.”
Gabe arched a brow. “Not at the same time, I hope.”
The Love of Her Life: A Christian Romance (The Callaghans & McFaddens Book 3) Page 2
