Once Upon a Bride. Helen Lacey

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      “I’m just curious as to why your brother didn’t mention you specifically.”

      She shrugged a little. “I may have told him that I thought you were an ass.”

      Gabe laughed. “Oh, really?”

      “It was after the wedding, so who could blame me?”

      He raised his hands. “Because I innocently overheard your deepest secret?”

      “Well, that was before I...” Her words trailed. Before what? Before she realized he wasn’t quite the ogre she’d pegged him for. Now wasn’t the time to admit anything. “Anyhow...good night.”

      Once he left, Lauren forced herself to relax. She took a long shower and changed into her silliest short-legged giraffe pajamas and made a toasted cheese sandwich for dinner. She ate in the lounge room, watching television, legs crossed lotus-style, with plans to forget all about her neighbor.

      And failed.

      Because Gabe Vitali reminded her that she was a flesh-and-blood woman in every sense of the word. The way he looked, the way he walked with that kind of natural sexual confidence, the way his blue eyes glittered... It was all too easy to get swept away thinking about such things.

      And too easy to forget why she’d vowed to avoid a man like him at all costs.

      She’d made her decision to find someone steady and honest and ordinary. No powerful attraction. No blinding lust. No foolish dreams of romantic love. Just friendship and compatibility. It might sound boring and absurd to her friends, but Lauren knew what she wanted. She wanted something lasting.

      Something safe.

      Since she spent most of the night staring at the ceiling, Lauren wasn’t surprised when she awoke later than usual and had to rush to get ready for work. She fed the dog and then tied him on a generous lead to the post on her back patio and headed to the store. Her mother was there already, changing mannequins and merchandising the stock that had arrived Friday afternoon. Irene Jakowski had first opened The Wedding House twenty-five years earlier. Lauren had grown up around the gowns and the brides, and it had made her fall in love with weddings. During her school years, she’d worked part-time in the store, learning from her mother. When school finished, she’d studied business and accounting for two years at college before returning to the store, taking over from her mother, who now worked part-time.

      Lauren dropped her laptop and bag on the desk in the staff room and headed to the sales floor. The rows of wedding gowns, each one immaculately pressed and presented on hangers, filled her with a mix of approval and melancholy.

      “How’s the dog?” her mother queried when she moved around the sales counter.

      Lauren grimaced. “Missing his owner and slobbering all over my furniture. You know, like in that old movie Turner & Hooch?”

      Irene laughed. “It’s not that bad, surely?”

      “Time will tell,” she replied, and managed a rueful grin. “I don’t know why he can’t go into a boarding kennel like other dogs.”

      “You’re brother says he pines when he’s away from home,” Irene told her. “And it’s only until the house sitter returns, isn’t it?”

      “Yeah,” Lauren said, and sighed. “Gabe is taking him to the surf club today, so at least my patio furniture is safe while I’m here.”

      Her mother’s eyes widened. “Gabe is? Really?”

      Of course her mother knew Gabe Vitali. She’d mentioned him several times over the past six months. Irene Jakowski was always on the lookout for a new son-in-law, since the old one hadn’t worked out. The fact he’d bought the house next door was like gold to a matchmaking parent.

      “Matka,” Lauren warned, using the Polish word for mother when she saw the familiar gleam in her mother’s eyes. “Stop.”

      “I was only—”

      “I know what you’re doing,” Lauren said, smiling. “Now, let’s get the store open.”

      * * *

      By the time Gabe returned home that afternoon, he was short on patience and more than happy to hand Jed over to his neighbor. Damned dog had chewed his car keys, his sneakers and escaped twice through the automatic doors at the clubhouse.

      When he pulled into the driveway, he spotted the fencing contractor he’d called earlier that day parked across the lawn. He locked Jed in Lauren’s front garden and headed back to his own yard. He was twenty minutes into his meeting with the contractor when she arrived home. Gabe was in the front yard with the tradesman, talking prices and time frames, as the older man began pushing at the low timber fence that separated the two allotments and then wrote in a notepad.

      She walked around the hedge and met him by the letterbox, eyeing the contractor’s battered truck suspiciously. “What’s going on?” she asked, looking all business in her black skirt and white blouse.

      “A new fence,” Gabe supplied and watched her curiosity quickly turn into a frown.

      “I wasn’t aware we needed a new one.”

      “This one’s falling down,” he said, and introduced her to the contractor before the other man waved his notepad and said he’d get back to him tomorrow.

      Once the battered truck was reversing from the yard, she clamped her hands to her hips. “Shouldn’t we have discussed it first?”

      “It’s only an estimate,” he told her. “Nothing’s decided yet.”

      She didn’t look convinced. “Really?”

      “Really,” he assured her. “Although the fence does need replacing.”

      Her eyes flashed. “I know it’s my responsibility to pay for half of any fence that’s built, but at the moment I’m—”

      Gabe shook his head. “I intend to pay for the fence, should it come to that.”

      She glared at him, then the fence, then back to him. “You don’t get to decide that for me,” she snapped, still glaring.

      He looked at her, bemused by her sudden annoyance. “I don’t?”

      “It’s my fence, too.”

      “Of course,” he replied. “I was only—”

      “Taking over? And probably thinking I couldn’t possibly afford it and then feeling sorry for me, right?”

      He had a whole lot of feelings churning through his blood when it came to Lauren Jakowski...pity definitely wasn’t one of them. “Just being neighborly,” he said, and figured he shouldn’t smile, even though he wanted to. “But hey, if you want to pay for half the fence, go ahead.”

      “I will,” she replied through tight lips. “Just let me know how much and when.”

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