Once Upon a Proposal

He'd never before thought his thumb had a mind of its own, but evidently it did, brushing across the fullness of her lower lip.

Her gaze flickered. “Let's not forget what we're really doing here.”

His left hand seemed damnably independent, too, sliding more firmly around her back, drawing her silk-draped curves even closer to him. “What I'm really doing,” he murmured in her ear, “is trying not to kiss you right now.”

Her head went back a little farther. Her long spiraling curls tickled his fingers pressing against her spine. “Really?”

“Don't be surprised,” he reminded. “You started it.” His lips closed over hers.

Dear Reader,

A few years ago, I had the privilege of sharing with three extraordinary authors the lives of Harrison Hunt and his four sons as he forced their hands into marriage…and happiness. The Hunt for Cinderella was the name of that rather magical series, and those other authors were Christine Flynn, Lois Faye Dyer and Patricia Kay.

Now, I'm lucky enough to visit Harry Hunt's world with them—
and you
—again!

This time Harry has set his sights on his dearest friend in the world, Cornelia Fairchild, and bringing marital bliss to her four daughters—Bobbie, Tommi, Frankie and Georgie. Naturally, in Harry-style, he goes about it in his oft-misguided way.

But once again, despite Harry's interfering ways, I'm happy to say that fairy-tale magic is alive and well.

Thank you for joining all of us to share a little more magic!

Allison Leigh

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Epilogue

“C
orny, I promise you that I'm not meddling in the boys' affairs anymore.” Harrison Hunt sat at his desk talking on the phone in an office high atop the HuntCom complex in Seattle. He no longer ran the computer juggernaut that had been a brainchild of his and his best friend, George Fairchild, a lifetime ago. Harry's eldest son, Grayson, ran the corporation now. But Harry still maintained this office at their headquarters.

He still kept his finger in a lot of pies—mostly because it pleased him to ruffle Gray's feathers. To keep the boy from becoming too much like his old man.

He didn't want his sons making the same mistakes he had. And while he hadn't been too popular with them a few years earlier when he'd forced their hands—into donning wedding rings—everything
had
turned out well all around. Even they managed to admit that.

Now.

“Don't lie to me, Harry,” Cornelia Fairchild was saying. She was George's widow. More importantly to Harry, she was his oldest friend. “I had lunch with Amelia this afternoon.”

Amelia. Gray's wife and, if truth be told, not at all the pushover that her sweet name and demeanor would suggest. Harry picked up one of the framed photographs on his desk of Gray and Amelia and their brood—larger than Harry had ever dared hope, considering his son and daughter-in-law were also raising Amelia's niece and nephews. “All I did was suggest that Gray wasn't getting any younger. If they want another baby, they ought to get cracking. That's true enough, isn't it?” He replaced the photograph among the others in his collection. And there
was
a collection where, for much of his lifetime, there had been none at all.

“Coming from anyone but you, that might be a good enough assurance,” Cornelia said warily. “Let your sons be, Harry. They've chosen their wives well. They're
happy
.”

“Yes, they are,” Harry agreed. Evidenced by their rapidly expanding families. He'd wanted grandchildren. And he'd gotten them.

At last he was happy. Wasn't he?

He decided to change tack, not wanting the conversation to end when it was the first time he'd heard her voice in nearly a week. “How are the girls?”

“Fine,” Cornelia said immediately. “Georgie's enjoying working with Alex and all the traveling it includes. Frankie is busier than ever at the university. Tommi's working nonstop at that little bistro of hers.”

“And Bobbie? She doesn't seem to be moping anymore about that idiot who broke up with her.” He picked up the tall, insulated cup sitting on his desk pad. It was currently empty, but would be filled soon enough with a rich, caffeinated brew. Bobbie was Corny and George's youngest daughter. And
he
knew that he probably saw her more often than Corny did, since Bobbie personally delivered the high-octane drink to him twice a week.

“Thankfully. She's busy raising those dogs that she can barely afford to feed.”

“Say the word, Corny, and none of your girls would have to work another day in their lives.” It was an old argument. One he'd given up on ever winning.

Once George was gone and the financial plight he'd been hiding had come to light, Corny had insisted on cleaning up the mess all on her own. She'd flatly refused Harry's assistance in every single way. By anyone's standards, she'd managed to do well by her girls despite her diminished circum stances. Harry was as proud of each of them as he was of his own sons. But the most
he'd
ever been allowed to do for George's daughters was make an occasional gift to them. He'd still managed to spike Corny's guns a little, though. He'd given each of the girls a substantial monetary gift when they'd graduated from high school, as well as honorary seats on HuntCom's board. Seats they would have had eventually if their father hadn't secretly gambled away nearly every asset he'd possessed. Even in Harry's socially backward way, he'd wanted them to have options.

The girls, each of them, had been beyond thrilled.

Corny? Less so.

She hadn't spoken to him for a solid month.

“Don't even bring up the subject of money with me, Harrison Hunt,” Corny said, sounding testy. “Anyway, the girls are all fine. Alone, of course, but I guess I shouldn't complain when that's generally of their own choosing.”

“Living up to their mother's example,” Harry pointed out, not for the first time. Cornelia had never remarried after George. She'd never been seriously involved with anyone again. As if she'd been determined to prove—after having
had a marriage that turned out less perfect than it had seemed on the surface—that she needed only her daughters to be happy.

Even he could see the irony that it had taken him nearly two decades to recognize that particular point. But he'd been the one who could make a computer sing. It was George who'd had the gift of dealing with people, Cornelia in particular.

“I want my daughters to have fulfilling lives of
their
choosing,” Cornelia returned pointedly. Harry's method where his fully grown sons had been concerned had been much more hands-on, considering he'd threatened to take away everything that mattered to them if they didn't get married and start families within the twelve months he'd allotted them. But he'd had good reason at the time, and even now he couldn't entirely regret the course he'd taken.

“You telling me you don't wish you could hold your own grandbabies in your arms before you die?”

Corny gave a short, muffled laugh. “Trust you, Harry, to remind me just how
old
I am.”

He grinned, looking at the framed photograph from Gray and Amelia's wedding that sat in the center of all the rest. But it wasn't his son and new bride in the picture. It was Cornelia. Clothed in soft gold, slender and fair-haired and looking every bit as lovely as she had when she, George and Harry had been youngsters chasing around together. “What are friends for?”

She laughed again and his smile widened. It was there, even after they'd hung up. And a few minutes later, a familiar brunette with corkscrew hair peeked her head around his office door. She was holding a familiar-looking coffee cup.

How many times had he wanted to make Corny's dreams come true? Too many to count.

He waved his dearest friend's youngest daughter into his
office, his mind suddenly ticking. He'd gotten his boys onto the road of marital bliss, hadn't he?

Why not his dear Corny's girls?

His smile widened as Bobbie crossed the office toward him.

After all, what were friends for?

“K
iss me.”

Gabriel Gannon stared at the petite bundle of curly-haired brunette energy standing in the doorway of his grandmother's carriage house. “Excuse—”

He didn't even get the rest of it out, as the girl—after a harried glance around him—grabbed his shoulders and yanked him down with an urgency that surprised him so much, he couldn't help but go with it.

Her mouth pressed against his.
“Kiss me,”
she muttered again, her lips moving against his as she twined her arms around his neck. “And for pity's sake, make it look good.”

Look good? His brain was faintly aware of some insult there, but his hands were too busy being filled by the shapely body practically climbing up his. He had a vague recollection of the last time he'd kissed a woman. Some leggy blond architect he'd met in Colorado. Maybe he'd even taken her to bed.

Hell. Who could remember a minor detail like that when he had the taste of this little body-climber in his mouth, making him feel like the top of his head was about to blow right off?

His fingers flexed against her waist. Spread against her back, feeling the supple stretch of her spine through the soft fabric of her cherry-red shirt.

He'd seen her before, of course. She was his grandmother's new tenant, living in the old carriage house at the rear of Fiona Gannon's stately Seattle property.

But he damn sure had never figured on
this.

His fingers flexed again and it took every speck of self-control he had not to run them down to her hips, to her rear, and drag her even tighter against him. Not to press her back against the opened front door—which he fleetingly remembered that he was there to fix—and really make it look good…

She made a soft sound, her mouth opening, her fingers sliding through his hair and her tongue dancing against his. Even through their shirts he could feel the soft push of her breasts; could feel, too, the way her heartbeat raced.

Or maybe that was his.

All he could think about was where in the hell was the nearest bed. Or couch. Or floor.

He took a step. Then another. Over the threshold of the door way.

“Bobbie?” The deep voice came from behind them and an oath raced through Gabe's thoughts, but not past his lips, which were still fused to hers. “What's going on here?”

Gabe tore his mouth away, hauling in a deep gasp. His hands slowly—way too slowly—let go of his kissing bandit as he lowered her feet back to the floor. He caught a glimpse of startled gray eyes before her thick lashes fell and she looked around him at the man who'd interrupted them.

“Tim,” she greeted, sounding as breathless as Gabe felt. “What are you doing here?”

Gabe couldn't even move away. For one thing, she had her arms wrapped around him in a maddening way that kept him trapped against her luscious curves. For another, he was none too anxious to face a strange guy while he felt strangled by jeans that had gone too tight.

He might as well be seventeen again, instead of the forty-one he really was, for the amount of self-control he seemed to have just then.

“I brought you these,” the other guy—
Tim
—was saying, as he passed a bunch of sickly-sweet smelling roses between Gabe's shoulder and the doorjamb.

“Oh.” Bobbie finally had to let go of Gabe's arm to take the flowers and he used the moment to take a step away. But her free hand frantically grasped his, holding him close with a strength that was surprising. “That's very sweet of you.”

The fingernails digging into Gabe's palm didn't feel all that sweet. He looked down at the top of her head. It barely reached his shoulder. And behind the veil of the flowers that she was sniffing, the glance she flashed up at him looked decidedly panicked. Gabe's nerves tightened and this time it had nothing to do with wanting a woman for the first time in longer than he cared to admit.

He turned to face the intruder, casually sliding his arm around Bobbie's shoulders, tucking her neatly against his side.

Tim—who'd evidently been the reason why Gabe had needed to make anything look good on this particular October morning—didn't appear particularly threatening. Medium brown hair. Medium brown eyes. Creased khaki pants and a navy-blue crew-neck sweater. If anything, he looked like he belonged in one of those yuppie-courting store catalogs that
Gabe's daughter, Lisette, had suddenly begun showing an interest in.

But there was still no mistaking Bobbie's anxiety. So he curled his palm around the point of her shoulder in a possessive move that the other guy couldn't fail to notice. “Who is this, honey?”

“Tim.” The other guy introduced himself before Bobbie could utter a word. “Tim Boering.” He stuck his hand out, obviously not as put off by Gabe's arm around Bobbie as Gabe had hoped. “And
you?
”

“This is…is Gabriel Gannon,” Bobbie finally spoke. She was probably trying to sound cheerful, but her musical voice mostly just sounded high-pitched and half-strangled. “Gabriel, Tim is a, um, a friend of Uncle Harry.”

Gabe nodded, as if he had a single clue who in the hell her uncle was.

“Not just Mr. Hunt's friend, I hope.” Tim shot Gabe a tight look before smiling winsomely at Bobbie. “You and I
did
spend a very memorable day together last weekend.”

“Sightseeing,” Bobbie put in quickly. “Uncle Harry asked me to show Tim around the city. He's just moved here from…” She trailed off, looking back at Tim with a question in her eyes.

“Minneapolis,” Tim provided after the faintest of hesitations. He smiled a little deprecatingly, and Gabe supposed that if a woman liked that pretty-boy kind of guy, she'd probably lap it up. But in Gabe's estimation, Bobbie didn't seem the least bit thirsty. And the look Tim directed at Gabe was entirely competitive. “Are you an old friend of Bobbie's?”

Gabe smiled faintly, amused at the other guy's attempt to point out that he was plainly older than Tim. And Bobbie. He looked down at her. She was giving him another gray-eyed look of pleading. “Something like that,” he murmured, his voice low. Intimate.

Her eyes widened slightly and that cool, panicky gray turned soft and warm. Then she blinked suddenly, looking away. She moistened her bow-shaped lips and color suffused her cheeks.

“I see,” Tim said slowly. He tugged at his ear. “Bobbie, maybe I could call you later?”

Clearly, a lack of persistence wasn't one of Tim's faults.

Bobbie's mouth was opening and closing, as if she didn't know what to say. “I, well, I—”

Tim's gaze went from Bobbie to Gabe and back again. “I wasn't trying to poach. I just got the impression from Mr. Hunt that you weren't involved with anyone.” He gave that toothy smile again. “I got that impression last weekend, too,” he said to Bobbie.

If Gabe had to guess, he'd bet that Bobbie was wishing she could disappear into thin air as she hemmed around for something to say.

Gabe thought of the door he still had to fix for his grandmother before he could get out of there and pick up his kids for the day. At this rate, with Bobbie not getting rid of the guy she clearly wanted to get rid of, it was going to take more time than Gabe had.

“Blame that on me,” he said smoothly. He nudged a finger beneath Bobbie's slightly pointed chin, and nudged it upward. “A misunderstanding, I'm afraid.”

He lowered his head and pressed a kiss to the softly surprised O of her lips.

When he lifted his head, those gray eyes had a distinct silvery cast. He'd never seen anyone with eyes so expressively changeable. Fascinating. For a man with the time to explore it. Which did
not
describe him.

He didn't even want to recognize the regret he felt as he brushed his thumb over the lips he'd just kissed, keeping up
the act for young Tim. “But that's all worked out now, isn't it, sweetheart?”

She nodded hurriedly. “Mmm-hmm. For, um, for better or worse.” Her cheeks were pinker than ever when she smiled brightly at Tim again.

“I see.” Tim's expression tightened. “Well. Congratulations, then.” He gave Gabe a terse nod and turned on his heel, striding back down the three porch steps to the stone walkway that led beyond the large main house and out to the hillside street.

Gabe leaned down again toward the riotous brown spirals covering her head. “I'm guessing you don't want to run and stop him?”

She let out a breathless sound and tilted her head to look up at him. “I…no.” Her lips closed, softly pursed. They were pink and rosy. Lushly curved.

And now he knew they tasted sweeter than a summer straw berry.

It was all he could do not to take them again. He pressed his hand against the doorjamb above her head, realizing belatedly that he was still holding his hammer.

He didn't know whether to laugh at himself or curse. So he did neither. He straightened away from her and nodded toward the bouquet she was clutching. “Remind me never to give you roses. Lord knows what other innocent person you might attack.”

She flushed and looked at the bouquet as if she'd forgotten all about it. “It's not the roses,” she assured, running her hand over the perfectly pink blooms. “I love any sort of flower. And, I
am
sorry about, well, about all that.”

He couldn't say that he was. “Getting kissed by a pretty girl isn't the worst thing that's ever happened to me.”

Her lashes flew up and again he couldn't help but think
that she really did have the most distinctive eyes. And right now, they were as soft a gray as a mourning dove.

“Thank you.” A dimple came and went in her smooth cheek. “I think.”

“Just for future reference, though, if it wasn't the roses, what was so objectionable about the guy?”

“Boering wasn't just his last name.” She gave a little huff, shaking her head and causing silky brown curls to dance around her shoulders. “And honestly, I never encouraged him. We spent a few hours visiting Pike Place and the Space Needle and I've been dodging his phone calls since.”

“Ever think about just telling the guy you weren't interested?”

Her smooth forehead crinkled. “I tried!” She huffed a little at the look he gave her. “Honestly, I did. It's just not as easy as you make it sound. And I really didn't want to offend him. He's a friend of Uncle—”

“—Harry's,” Gabe finished.

“Right.”

“Well, I hope your Uncle Harry doesn't have too many friends like Boering that he sets you up with or you're—”

“No, no, no.” Her curls danced some more. “Uncle Harry didn't set us up. He just happened to introduce us when I delivered some coffee to his office. He's not supposed to be drinking it, you see, but when he called me—” Her shoulders lifted.

“You couldn't say no to him, either.” Gabe grinned a little.

Her lips curved, and that dimple flirted into view again. “I was just doing a favor. Really.”

“Well.” He tapped the doorjamb with the butt of his hammer. “Someday you can thank your Uncle Harry for me. Whoever he is.”

This time her cheeks went even rosier than the velvety
flowers. Her eyes sparkled. “You're pretty gracious, considering everything.”

“My grandmother would expect nothing less,” he assured wryly.

“Right. And though Fiona has talked about you, we haven't ever been properly introduced.” She tucked the roses under her arm and stuck out her hand. “I'm Bobbie Fairchild.”

He took her palm in his. His hand practically swallowed her smaller one. “Gabe Gannon. It's nice to kiss you, Bobbie Fairchild.”

She laughed. “I suppose I deserve the teasing.”

If he teased long enough, maybe he could forget the taste of her. Which would be the smartest thing all around. For one thing, he had seriously more pressing issues going on than his dearth of a love life. For another, he figured Bobbie was one of the causes that his grandmother had taken under her wing. What other reason would Fiona have for suddenly renting out the carriage house the way she had?

It wasn't as if his grandmother needed the money. And it wasn't as if the carriage house was in such great shape. Structurally sound, maybe. But nobody had lived in the place for longer than Gabe could remember.

Which reminded him all over again about the door.

He lifted the hammer between them. “Fiona asked me to fix the door. It's been sticking?”

“If it's not sticking, then it's not locking properly.” Bobbie was grateful to focus on something other than the way she'd virtually attacked the poor man. It seemed like hours since she'd yanked open the door at his knock, but she knew it really had only been a matter of minutes.

Only when she'd seen Tim Boering bearing down the walkway with determination in his step and roses in his hand, she'd simply panicked. No amount of hinting had been able to convince the man that she wasn't interested. And since
there'd been six-plus feet of very manly man already standing on her porch, she'd impetuously decided to
show
Tim that she wasn't interested.

She just hadn't expected to find herself wrapped around a ticking bomb of sex appeal.

Her heart was still dancing around inside her chest.

And she realized that Gabriel Gannon, her sweet Fiona's oft talked-about grandson, was clearly waiting for her to say something.

The door. Right.

Her face felt hotter than ever as she backed up until she was out of the way of the opened door. “It stuck so badly the other day that I couldn't make it budge. I had to climb out the back window to get to work on time.”

He had the decency not to laugh at that, though he didn't stifle his grin all that quickly. “Can only imagine. This old door's been warped since I was a kid.” He was running his very long-fingered hand down the edge of the door but his gaze—impossibly blue—was on her. “You work with my grandmother, don't you?”