by Nora Roberts
“Yes, you must have a favorite, or a name of someone who’s important to you. I’d like you to choose.”
“Michael,” he murmured, looking down at the sleeping infant.
Chapter Six
San Francisco. It was true that Laura had always wanted to see it, but she had never expected to arrive there with a two-week-old son and a husband. And she had never expected to be shown into a tall, gracious house near the Bay.
Gabe’s house. Hers, too, she thought as she rubbed her thumb nervously over her wedding ring. It was foolish to be jumpy because the house was beautiful and big. It was ridiculous to feel small and insecure because you could taste the wealth and the prominence just by breathing the air.
But she did.
She stepped into the tiled foyer and wished desperately for the comfort of the tiny cabin. It had begun to snow again the day they’d left Colorado, and though the mild spring breeze and the tiny buds here were wonderful, she found herself wishing for the cold and ferocity of the mountains.
“It’s lovely,” she managed, glancing up at the gentle curve of the stairs.
“It was my grandmother’s.” Gabe set down the luggage and took in the familiar surroundings. It was a house he’d always appreciated for its beauty and its balance. “She held on to it after her marriage. Shall I show you around, or would you rather rest?”
She nearly winced. It was as though he were talking to a guest. “If I rested as much as you’d like, I’d sleep my way through the rest of the year.”
“Then why don’t I show you the upstairs.” He knew he sounded polite, overly polite, but he’d been edgy ever since they’d stepped off the plane. The farther away from Colorado they’d gotten, the farther Laura had withdrawn from him. It was nothing he could put his finger on, but it was there.
Hefting two cases, he started up the stairs. He was bringing his wife, and his son, home. And he didn’t know quite what to say to either of them. “I’ve used this bedroom.” He strode in and set the cases at the foot of a big oak bed. “If there’s another you’d prefer, we can arrange it.”
She nodded, thinking that though they’d shared a motel room while the baby had been in the hospital they had only shared a bed in the cabin, the night before Michael had been born. It would be different here. Everything would be different here.
“It’s a beautiful room.”
Her voice was a little stiff, but she smiled, trying to soften it. The room was lovely, with its high ceilings and the glossy antiques. There was a terrace, and through the glass doors she could see a garden below, with green leaves already formed. The floors were dark with age and gleaming, just as the Oriental rug was faded with age and rich with heritage.
“The bath’s through there,” Gabe told her as she ran a finger down the carving in an old chifforobe. “My studio’s at the end of the hall. The light’s best there, but there’s a room next to this that might do as a nursery.”
When they spoke of the baby, things always relaxed between them. “I’d love to see it. After all those days in the incubator, Michael deserves a room of his own.”
She followed Gabe out and into the next room. It was decorated in blues and grays with a stately four-poster and a many-cushioned window seat. As with the other rooms she’d seen, paintings hung on the wall, some of them Gabe’s, others by artists he respected.
“It’s beautiful, but what would you do with all these things?”
“They can be stored.” He dismissed the furnishings with a shrug. “Michael can stay in our room until his is finished.”
“You don’t mind? He’s bound to wake during the night for weeks yet.”
“I could stick the pair of you in a hotel until it’s convenient.”
She started to speak, but then she recognized the look in his eyes. “Sorry. I can’t get used to it.”
“Get used to it.” He moved over to cup her face in his hand. Whenever he did that, she was almost ready to believe that dreams came true. “I may not have the equipment to feed him, but I figure I can learn to change a diaper.” He stroked a thumb under her jawline. “I’ve been told I’m clever with my hands.”
The heat rushed into her face. She was torn between stepping into his arms and backing away. The baby woke and decided her. “Speaking of feeding.
“Why don’t you use the bedroom, where you can be comfortable? I have some calls to make.”
She knew what was coming. “Your family?”
“They’re going to want to meet you. Are you up to it this evening?”
She wanted to snap that she wasn’t an invalid, but she knew he wasn’t speaking of her physical health. “Yes, of course.”
“Fine. I’ll make arrangements about the nursery. Did you have any colors in mind?”
“Well, I …” She expected to paint the room herself.
She’d wanted to. Things were different now, she reminded herself. The cabin had easily become theirs, but the house was his. “I’d like yellow,” she told him. “With white trim.”
She sat in a chair by the window while Michael suckled hungrily. It was so good to have him with her all the time instead of having to go to the hospital to feed him, touch him, watch him. It had been so hard to leave him there and go back to a hotel room and wait until she could go back and see him again.
Smiling, she looked down at him. His eyes were closed, and his hand was pressed against her breast.
He was already gaining weight. Healthy, the doctor in Colorado Springs had said. Sound as a dollar. And the tag on his little wristband had read Michael Monroe Bradley.
Who was Michael? she wondered. Gabe’s Michael. She hadn’t asked, but knew that the name, the person, was important.
“You’re Michael now,” she murmured as the baby began to doze at her breast.
Later she laid him on the bed, surrounding him with pillows though she knew he couldn’t roll yet. Going to her suitcase, she took out her hairbrush. It was silly, of course, to feel compelled to leave some mark of herself on the room. But she set the brush on Gabe’s bureau before she left.
She found him downstairs, in a dark-paneled library with soft gray carpet. Because he was on the phone, she started to back out, but he waved her in and continued to talk.
“The paintings should be here by the end of the week. Yes, I’m back in harness again. I haven’t decided. You take a look first. No, I’m going to be tied up here for a few days, thanks anyway. I’ll let you know.” He hung up, then glanced at Laura. “Michael?”
“He’s asleep. I know there hasn’t been time, but he’s going to need his own bed. I thought I could run out and buy something if you could watch him for a little while.”
“Don’t worry about it. My parents are coming over soon.”
“Oh.”
He sat on the edge of the desk and frowned at her. “They’re not monsters, Laura.”
“Of course not, it’s just that … It seems we’re so out in the open,” she blurted out. “The more people who know about Michael, the more dangerous it is.”
“You can’t keep him in a glass bubble. I thought you trusted me.”
“I did. I do,” she amended quickly, but not quickly enough.
“Did,” Gabe repeated. It wasn’t anger he felt so much as pressing regret. “You made a decision, Laura. On the day he was born, you gave him to me. Are you taking him back?”
“No. But things are different here. The cabin was—”
“An excellent place to hide. For both of us. Now it’s time to deal with what happens next.”
“What does happen?”
He picked up a paperweight, an amber ball with darker gold streaks in the center. He set it down again, then crossed to her. She’d shed weight quickly. Her stomach was close to flat, her breasts were high and full, her hips were impossibly narrow. He wondered how it would feel to hold her now, now that the waiting was over.
“We might start with this.”
He kissed her, gently at first, until he felt he
r first nerves fade into warmth. That was what he’d been desperate for, that promise, that comfort. When he gathered her close, she fitted against him as he’d once imagined she would. Her hair, bound up, was easily set free with a sweep of his hand. She made a small sound—a murmur of surprise or acceptance—and then her arms went around him.
And the kiss was no longer gentle.
Passion, barely restrained, and hunger, far from sated, rippled from him into her. An ache, long buried, grew in her until she was straining against him, whispering his name.
Then his lips were roaming over her face, raking over her throat, searing her skin, then cooling it, then searing it again, while his hands stroked and explored with a new freedom.
Too soon. Some sane part of him knew it was too soon for anything more than a touch, a taste. But the more he indulged in her, the more his impatience grew. Taking her by the shoulders, he drew her away and fought to catch his breath.
“You may not trust me as you once did, angel, but trust this. I want you.”
Giving in to the need, she held on to him, pressing her face into his shoulder. “Gabe, is it so wrong of me to wish it was just the three of us?”
“Not wrong.” He stared over the top of her head as he stroked her hair. “Just not possible, and less than fair to Michael.”
“You’re right.” Drawing a breath, she stepped back. “I want to go check on him.”
Shaken by the emotions he pulled out of her, she started back up the stairs. Halfway up, she stopped, stunned.
She was in love with him. It wasn’t the love she’d come to accept, the kind that came from gratitude and dependence. It wasn’t even the strong, beautiful bond that had been forged when they’d brought Michael into the world. It was more basic than that, the most elemental love of woman for man. And it was terrifying.
She had loved once before, briefly, painfully. That love had kept her chained down. All her life she’d been a victim, and her marriage had both accented that and ultimately freed her. She’d learned through necessity how to be strong, how to take the right steps.
She couldn’t be that woman again, she thought as her fingers gripped the banister. She wouldn’t. That was what had bothered her most about the house, about the things in it. She had stepped into a house like this before, a house in which she had been out of place and continually helpless.
Not again, she told herself, and shut her eyes. Never again.
Whatever she felt for Gabe, she wouldn’t allow it to change her back into that kind of woman. She had a child to protect.
The doorbell rang. Laura sent one swift look over her shoulder, then fled up the stairs.
When Gabe opened the door, he was immediately enveloped in soft fur and strong perfume. It was his mother, a woman of unwavering beauty and unwavering opinions. She didn’t believe in brushing cheeks, she believed in squeezing, hard and long.
“I’ve missed you. I didn’t know what it would take to drag you off that mountain, but I didn’t think it would be a wife and a baby.”
“Hello, Mother.” He smiled at her, giving her a quick sweeping look that took in her stubbornly blond hair and her smooth cheeks. She had Michael’s eyes. They were a darker green than his own, with touches of gray. Seeing them brought a pang and a pleasure. “You look wonderful.”
“So do you, except for the fact that you’ve lost about ten pounds and can’t afford to. Well, where are they?” With that, Amanda Bradley marched inside.
“Give the boy a chance, Mandy.” Gabe exchanged bear hugs with his father, a tall, spare man with a hangdog expression and a razor-sharp mind. “Glad you’re back. Now she’ll take to rattling your cage instead of mine.”
“I can handle you both.” She was already slipping off her gloves with short, quick little motions. “We brought a bottle of champagne over. I thought since we missed the wedding, the birth and everything else, we should at least toast the homecoming. For heaven’s sake, Gabe, don’t just stand there, I’m dying to see them.”
“Laura went up to check the baby. Why don’t we go in and sit down?”
“This way, Mandy,” Cliff Bradley said, taking his wife’s arm when she started to object.
“Very well, then. You can hold me off for five minutes by telling me how your work’s been going.”
“Well.” He watched his parents sit but couldn’t relax enough to follow suit. “I’ve already called Marion. The paintings I finished in Colorado should be delivered to her gallery by the end of the week.”
“That’s wonderful. I can’t wait to see them.”
His hands were in his pockets as he moved around the room with a restlessness both of his parents recognized. “There’s one piece in particular I’m fond of. I plan to hang it in here, over the fire.”
Amanda lifted a brow and glanced at the empty space above the mantel. Gabe had always claimed that nothing suited that spot. “It must be very special.”
“You’ll have to judge for yourself.” He drew out a cigarette, then set it down when Laura moved into the doorway.
She said nothing for a moment, just studied the couple on the couch. His parents. His mother was lovely, her smooth skin almost unlined, her hair swept back to accent her aristocratic features and fine bones. There were emeralds at her ears and at her throat. She wore a rose silk suit with a fox stole carelessly thrown over her shoulders.
His father was tall and lean, like Gabe. Laura saw a diamond wink at his pinky. He looked sad and quiet, but she saw his eyes sharpen as he studied her.
“This is my wife, Laura, and our son.”
Braced for whatever was to come, holding the baby protectively against her breasts, she stepped into the room. Amanda rose first, only because she always seemed to move quicker than anyone else.
“It’s so nice to meet you at last.” Amanda had reservations, a chestful of them, but she offered a polite smile. “Gabe didn’t mention how lovely you were.”
“Thank you.” She felt a little trip-hammer of fear in her throat. Laura knew formidable when she saw it. Instinctively she lifted her chin. “I’m glad you could come. Both of you.”
Amanda noted the little gesture of pride and defiance and approved. “We wanted to meet you at the airport, but Gabe put us off.”
“Rightly so,” Cliff added in his soothing take-your-time voice. “If I’d been able to, I’d have held Mandy off another day.”
“Nonsense. I want to see my grandchild. May I?”
Laura’s arms had tightened automatically. Then she looked at Gabe and relaxed her hold. “Of course.” With care and caution, she shifted the slight weight into Amanda’s arms.
“Oh, how beautiful.” The cool, sophisticated voice wavered. “How precious.” The scents, the baby scents of talc and mild soap and fragile skin, made her sigh. “Gabe said he was premature. No problems?”
“No, he’s fine.”
As if to prove it, Michael opened his eyes and stared out owlishly.
“There, he looked right at me.” With emeralds glowing on her skin, Amanda grinned foolishly and cooed. “Looked right at your gran, didn’t you?”
“He looked at me.” Cliff leaned closer to chuck the baby under the chin.
“Nonsense. Why should he want to look at you? Do something useful, Cliff, like opening the champagne.” She clucked and cooed at the baby while Laura stood twisting her hands. “I hope you don’t object to the wine. I didn’t ask if you were nursing.”
“Yes, I am, but I don’t think a sip would hurt either of us.”
Approving a second time, Amanda started for the couch. Laura took an instinctive step forward, then made herself stop. This wasn’t Lorraine Eagleton, and she wasn’t the same woman who had once cowered. But as hard as she tried to dispel the image, she saw herself standing just outside the family circle.
“I’d get glasses,” she said lamely, “but I don’t know where they are.”
Saying nothing, Gabe went to a cabinet and drew out four champagne flutes.
&nbs
p; Cliff took Laura’s arm. “Why don’t you sit down, dear? You must be tired after traveling.”
“You sound like Gabe.” Laura found herself smiling as she eased into a chair.
Glasses were passed. Amanda lifted hers. “We’ll drink to— For goodness’ sake, I don’t know the child’s name.”
“It’s Michael,” Laura offered. She saw the grief flash into Amanda’s eyes before she closed them. When she opened them again,