Page 14 of So Wrong It Must Be Right

Gallagher. Her name was like a fucking cancer. He couldn’t get it out of his head, not her name, not last night. Just across the way, Gallagher’s Tap Room stood in all its ivy-covered brick, century-old glory, and he sat here in this barely surviving century-old house. Barely . . . At best he was barely holding on to his legacy. At best, barely scraping by.

He sat back on his haunches and looked at the house his grandmother had lived in her whole life until she’d been moved into the nursing home. Her family’s restaurant had been only two blocks away, though it had been demolished a few years ago to make way for a trendy new apartment complex.

She’d always kept a garden here, mostly herbs that she would harvest and use in the kitchen. He remembered her puttering in the back, and he could perfectly picture the way her face would light up when someone paid their compliments to the chef.

When she’d been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, there had been no one in the family willing to take over the restaurant, willing to fight for it. He was no chef, no restaurateur, and so it had gone.

Just like the farm he’d grown up on, west of St. Louis. Just like his uncle’s farm where Carter had worked while Grandma had worked the restaurant. The city had crumbled, and farms had been sold to build up suburbia.

Carter had never been on the right side of history. Not. Ever.

Dinah Gallagher could be a fantasy, but she could not have this little piece of him. Thislastpiece of who he was and what he’d come from.

She did not get to take this over and turn it into Gallagher’s, no matterwhat.He had built thisfarmfrom his grandmother’s poorly kept yard. He’d cultivated this soil and grown these plants inthisplace as a testament to all that he had in him.

One night of insanely hot and really, really, really ill-advised sex was not going to change the course of his life. He wouldn’t allow it. As much as he’d been tempted to ask Dinah to stay, or to ask her for more, he couldn’t give in to that. Because it didn’t matter what was beneath all the layers of fantasy they’d written to each other; it didn’t matter if seeds of truth existed.

Theirrealitywas that she wanted the land he had fought for. Fought to keep and build and cultivate.

No, last night had to be a one-time mistake. Something he could never, ever return to.

So, it was time to stop looking over in the direction of Gallagher’s and focus on the day ahead. He had fall vegetables to harvest for tomorrow morning’s farmers’ market, and then this afternoon he was giving a brief tour to a class from a local charter school.

That’d be good. Getting out of his head. Talking to kids who were patently amazed when he pulled a carrot out of the ground.

He focused on that as he worked harvesting the squash and the beans. He practiced the little pseudo-script he had for these visits as he washed and packaged the produce, and he most certainly didn’t think of Dinah Gallagher.

Until he heard the unmistakable clip-clop of heels on the sidewalk outside his haven. Yesterday he might not have thought anything of it. People came and went in the neighborhood all day long. But the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, and heknewshe was back.

With the speed of a hero facing down the villain in an old movie, Carter stood and turned to face the entrance gate.

Dinah stood at the chain-link gate looking as she had yesterday afternoon—not as she had last night. She was all polish and color and a sleek sort of sophistication that made him want to itch, instead of the slightly disheveled, wounded woman who’d shown up at his door and shoved her phone in his face.

He always marveled at people who could be two things, because he’d never had any luck at that. At best he could sport a pissed-off façade, but that wasn’t much different than his soul, truth be told.

“Mr. Trask,” she greeted, all businesswoman coolness.

“Ms. Gallagher.” He made sure to say her last name in the same tone he might sayfucking damn it. Because though his brain was nothing but a string of curse words, his body was remembering other things.

The way those legs—clad today in what looked like some kind of lace tights—had wrapped around him, the sweet, wet slide of his cock straight into—

“You have to leave.” She had to get the hell out. He trusted his brain to override his dick, but only just. He didn’t want to chance it.

“I only wanted to clear up a misunderstanding between you and my uncle.”

“Your uncle? Oh, the piece of shit spouting on about parking lots? I don’t think that was a misunderstanding.”

“Itwas,” Dinah insisted, shoving a piece of paper at him. “If you’d look at our actual plans, you’d see how wrong—”

Carter scowled at it and shoved it back at her. “I do not care what your plans are. Parking lot. Homeless shelter. Vatican Jr. This land is mine and I ain’t selling.”

She pursed her lips. Lips he’d kissed, licked, bitten. Lips he wanted to sink into again.

No. No, you don’t.

She pressed the piece of paper, what looked like some kind of sketch, back into his hands. “Keep it.”

“No.” He tried to hand it back to her, but she crossed her arms over her chest and tucked her hands underneath.

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