Not certain whether to laugh or swear, Gabe stood at the foot of the stairs and stared after her.
Chapter Seven
Laura brushed the glossy white enamel paint over the baseboard. In her other hand she held a stiff piece of cardboard as a guard against smearing any of the white over the yellow walls she’d already finished.
On the floor in the far corner was a portable radio that was tuned to a station that played bouncy rock. She’d kept the volume low so that she could hear Michael when he woke. It was the same radio Gabe had kept on the kitchen counter in the cabin.
She wasn’t sure which pleased her more, the way the nursery was progressing or the ease with which she could bend and crouch. She’d even been able to use part of her hospital fund to buy a couple of pairs of slacks in her old size. They might still be a tad snug in the waist, but she was optimistic.
She wished the rest of her life would fall into order as easily.
He was still angry with her. With a shrug, Laura dipped her brush into the paint can again. Gabe had a temper, he had moods. He had certainly never attempted to deny or hide that. And the truth was, she’d been wrong not to trust him to do the right thing. So she’d apologized. She couldn’t let his continuing coolness bother her. But, of course, it did.
They were strangers here, in a way that they had never been strangers in the little cabin in Colorado. It wasn’t the house, though a part of her still blamed the size and the glamour of it. Before, the simple mechanics of space had required them to share, to grow close, to depend on each other. Being depended on had become important to Laura, even if it had only been to provide a cup of coffee at the right time. Now, beyond her responsibilities to Michael, there was little for her to do. She and Gabe could spend hours under the same roof and hardly know each other existed.
But it wasn’t walls and floors and windows that made the difference. It was quite simply the difference—the difference between them. She was still Laura Malone, from the wrong side of the tracks, the same person who had been moved and shuffled from house to house, without ever being given the chance to really live there. The same person who had been handed from family to family without ever being given the chance to really belong.
And he was … Her laugh was a bit wistful. He was Gabriel Bradley, a man who had known his place from the moment he’d been born. A man who would never wonder if he’d have the same place tomorrow.
That was what she wanted for Michael, only that. The money, the name, the big, sprawling house with the stained-glass windows and the graceful terraces, didn’t matter. Belonging did. Because she wanted it, was determined to have it for her son, she was willing to wait to belong herself. To Gabe.
The only time they were able to pull together was when Michael was involved. Her lips curved then. He loved the baby. There could be no doubt about that. It wasn’t pity or obligation that had him crouching beside the cradle or walking the floor at three in the morning. He was a man capable of great love, and he had given it unhesitatingly to Michael. Gabe was attentive, interested, gentle and involved. When it came to Michael.
It was only with her, when they had to deal with each other one on one, that things became strained.
They didn’t touch. Though they lived in the same house, slept in the same bed, they didn’t touch, except in the most casual and impersonal of ways. As a family they had gone out to choose all the things Michael would need—the crib and other nursery furniture, blankets, a windup swing that played a lullaby, soft stuffed animals that Michael would undoubtedly ignore for months. It had been easy, even delightful, to discuss high chairs and playpens and decide together what would suit. Laura had never expected to be able to give her son so much or to be able to share in that giving.
But when they’d come home the strain had returned.
She was being a fool, Laura told herself. She’d been given a home, protection and care, and, most of all, a kind and loving father for her son. Wishing for more was what had always led her to disappointment before.
But she wished he would smile at her again—at her, not at Michael’s mother, not at the subject of his painting.
Perhaps it was best that they remained as they were, polite friends with a common interest. She wasn’t entirely sure how she would manage when the time came for him to turn to her as a woman. The time would come, his desire was there, and he was too physical a man to share the bed with her without fully sharing it much longer.
Her experience with lovemaking had taught her that man demanded and woman submitted. He wouldn’t have to love her, or even hold her in affection, to need her. God, no one knew better how little affection, how little caring, there could be in a marriage bed. A man like Gabe would have many demands, and loving him as she did she would give. And the cycle she’d finally managed to break would begin again.
Gabe watched her from the doorway. Something was wrong, very wrong. He could see the turmoil on her face, could see it in the set of her shoulders. It seemed that the longer they were here the less she relaxed. She pretended well, but it was only pretense.
It infuriated him, and the harder he held on to his temper the more infuriated he became. He hadn’t so much as raised his voice to her since their first day in the house, and yet she seemed continually braced for an outburst.
He’d given her as much room as was humanly possible, and it was killing him. Sleeping with her, having her turn to him during the night, her skin separated from his only by the fragile cotton of a nightgown, had given new meaning to insomnia.
He’d taken to working during the middle of the night and spending his free time in the studio or at the gallery, anywhere he wouldn’t be tempted to take what was his only legally.
How could he take when she was still so delicate, physically, emotionally? However selfish he’d always been, or considered himself, he couldn’t justify gratifying himself at her expense—or frightening her by letting her see just how desperately, how violently, he wanted her.
Yet there was passion in her, the dark, explosive kind. He’d seen that, and other things, in her eyes. She needed him, as much as he needed her. He wasn’t sure either of them understood where their need might take them.
He could be patient. He was aware that her body needed time to heal, and he could give her that. But he wasn’t sure he could give her the time it might take for her mind to heal.
He wanted to cross to her, to sit down beside her and stroke his hand over her hair. He wanted to reassure her. But he had no idea what words to use. Instead, he tucked his hands into his pockets.
“Still at it?”
Laura started, splattering paint on her hand. She sat back on her heels. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Don’t get up,” he told her. “You make quite a picture.” He stepped into the room, glancing at the sunny walls before looking down at her. She wore an old pair of jeans, obviously his. He could see the clothesline she’d used to secure the waist. One of his shirts was tented over her, its hem torn at her hip.
“Mine?”
“I thought it would be all right.” She picked up a rag to wipe the paint from her hand. “I could tell from the splatters on them they’d already been worked in.”
“Perhaps you don’t know the difference between painting and—” he gestured toward the wall “—painting.”
She’d nearly fumbled out an apology before she realized he was joking. So the mood had passed. Perhaps they were friends again. “Not at all. I thought your pants would give me artistic inspiration.”
“You could have come to the source.”
She set the brush on top of the open paint can. Relief poured through her. Though he didn’t know, Gabe had found exactly the right words to reassure her. “I would never have suggested that the celebrated Gabriel Bradley turn his genius to a lowly baseboard.”
It seemed so easy when she was like this, relaxed, with a hint of amusement in her eyes. “Obviously afraid I’d show you up.”
She smiled,
a bit hesitantly. He hadn’t looked at her in quite that way for days. Then she was scrambling back up on her knees as he joined her on the floor. “Oh, Gabe, don’t. You’ll get paint all over you, and you look so nice.”
He had the brush in his hand. “Do I?”
“Yes.” She tried to take it away from him, but he didn’t give way. “You always look so dashing when you go to the gallery.”
“Oh, God.” The instant disgust on his face made her laugh.
“Well, you do.” She checked the urge to brush at the hair on his forehead. “It’s quite different from the rugged-outdoorsman look you had in Colorado, though that was nice, too.”
He wasn’t certain whether to smile or sneer. “Rugged outdoorsman?”
“That’s right. The cords and the flannel, the untidy hair and the carelessly unshaven face. I think Geoffrey would have loved to photograph you with an ax …” She was staring at him, seeing him as he’d been and as he was. Abruptly she became aware that her hand was still covering his on the handle of the brush. Drawing it away, she struggled to remember her point. “You’re not dressed for work now, and I was in the fashion business long enough to recognize quality. Those pants are linen, and you’ll ruin them.”
He was well aware of the sudden tension in her fingers and the look that had come into her eyes, but he only lifted a brow. “Are you saying I’m sloppy?”
“Only when you paint.”
“Pot calling the kettle,” he murmured, ignoring the way she jumped when he ran a finger down her cheek. He held it up to prove his point.
Laura wrinkled her nose at the smear of white paint on his fingertip—and tried to ignore the heat on her skin where his finger had brushed. “I’m not an artist.” With a rag in one hand, she took his wrist in the other to clean the paint from his fingertip.
Such beautiful hands, she thought. She could imagine how it would feel to have them move over her, slowly, gently. To have them stroke and caress the way a man’s might if he cared deeply about the woman beneath the skin he was touching. Her imagination had her moistening her lips as she lifted her gaze to his.
They knelt knee to knee on the drop cloth, with his hand caught in hers. It amazed her when she felt his pulse begin to thud. In his eyes she saw what he hadn’t allowed her to see for days. Desire, pure and simple. Unnerved by it, drawn to it, she leaned toward him. The rag slipped out of her hand.
And the baby cried out.
They both jerked, like children caught raiding the cookie jar.
“He’ll be hungry, and wet, too, I imagine,” she said as she started to rise. Gabe shifted his hand until it captured hers.
“I’d like you to come back here after you’ve tended to him.”
Longing and anxiety tangled, confusing her. “All right. Don’t worry about the mess. I’ll finish up later.”
She was more than an hour with Michael, and she was a bit disappointed that Gabe didn’t come in, as he often did, to hold the baby or play with him before he slept again. Those were the best times, those simple family times. Tucking the blankets around her son, she reminded herself that she couldn’t expect Gabe to devote every free minute to her and the child.
Satisfied that the baby was dry and content, she left him to go into the adjoining bath and freshen up. After she’d washed the paint from her face, she studied herself in the mirrored wall across from the step-down tub. She didn’t look seductive in baggy, masculine clothes, with her hair tugged back in a ponytail. Regardless of that, for an instant in the nursery, Gabe had been seduced.
Was that what she wanted?
How could she know what she wanted? She pressed her fingers to her eyes and tried to sort out her feelings. Confusion, and little else. One moment she imagined what it would be like, being with Gabe, making love with him. The next moment she was remembering the way it had been before, when love had had little to do with it.
It was wrong to continually let memories intrude. She told herself she was too sensible for that. Or wanted to be. She’d been in therapy, she’d talked to counselors and other women who had been in situations all too similar to her own. Because she’d had to stay on the move, she hadn’t been able to remain with any one group for long, but they had helped her. Just learning that she wasn’t alone in what had happened to her, seeing and talking with others who had turned their lives around again, had given her the strength to go on.
She knew—intellectually she knew—that what had happened to her was the result of a man’s illness and her own insecurity. But it was one thing to know it and another to accept it and go on, to risk another relationship.
She wanted to be normal, was determined to be. That had been the communal cry from all the sessions in all the towns. Along with the fear and the anger and the self-disgust, there had been a desperate mutual need to be normal women again.
But that step, that enormous, frightening step from past to future, was so difficult to take. Only she could do it, Laura told herself as she continued to stare into her own eyes. With Gabe, and her feelings for him, she had a chance. If she was willing to take it.
How could she know how close they could be, how much they could mean to each other, if she didn’t allow herself to want the intimacy?
Catching her lower lip between her teeth, she turned to study the lush bath. It was nearly as large as many of the rooms she’d lived in during her life. White on white on white, it gleamed and glistened and invited indulgence. She could sink into hot, deep water in the tub and soak until her skin was soft and pink. She still had most of a bottle of perfume, French and suggestive, that Geoffrey had bought her in Paris. She could dab it on her damp skin so that the scent seeped into her pores. Then she could … what?
She had nothing lovely or feminine to wear. The only clothes she hadn’t taken to thrift shops or secondhand stores during her cross-country flight were maternity clothes. The two pairs of slacks and the cotton blouses didn’t count.
In any case, what would it matter if she had a closetful of lace negligees? She wouldn’t know what to do or say. It had been so long since she’d thought of herself strictly as a woman. Perhaps she never had. And surely it was better to try to reestablish that early friendship with Gabe before they attempted intimacy.
If that was what he wanted. What she wanted.
Turning away from the mirror, she went to find him.
She couldn’t have been more surprised when she walked into the nursery and found the painting finished, the cans sealed and the brushes cleaned. As she stared, Gabe folded the drop cloth.
“You finished it,” she managed.
“I seem to have struggled through without doing any damage.”
“It’s beautiful. The way I’d always imagined.” She stepped into the empty room and began arranging furniture in her head. “There should be curtains, white ones, though I suppose dotted swiss is too feminine for a boy.”
“I couldn’t say, but it sounds like it. It’s warm enough, so I’ve left the windows open.” He tossed the drop cloth over a stepladder. “I don’t want to put Michael in here until the smell of the paint’s gone.”
“No,” she agreed absently, wondering if the crib should go between the two windows.
“Now that this is out of the way, I have something for you. A belated Mother’s Day present.”
“Oh, but you gave me the flowers already.”
He took a small box out of his pocket. “There wasn’t the time or the opportunity for much else then. We were living out of a suitcase and spending all of our time at the hospital. Besides, the flowers were from Michael. This is from me.”
That made it different. Intimate. Again she found herself drawn to him, and again she found herself pulled away. “You don’t have to give me anything.”
The familiar impatience shimmered. He barely suppressed it. “You’re going to have to learn how to take a gift more graciously.”
He was right. And it was wrong of her to continue to compare, but Tony had been so casual, s
o lavish, in his gifts. And they had meant so little. “Thank you.” She took the box, opened it and stared.
The ring looked like a circle of fire, with its channel-linked diamonds flashing against its gold band and nestled in velvet. Instinctively she ran a fingertip over it and was foolishly amazed that it was cool to the touch.
“It’s beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. But—”
“There had to be one.”
“It’s just that it’s a wedding ring, and I already have one.”
He took her left hand to examine it. “I’m surprised your finger hasn’t fallen off from wearing this thing.”
“There’s nothing wrong with it,” she said, and nearly snatched her hand away.
“So sentimental, angel?” Though his voice had gentled, his hand was firm on hers. Now, perhaps, he would be able to dig a bit deeper into what she was feeling for him, about him. “Are you so attached to a little circle of metal?”
“It was good enough for us before. I don’t need anything else.”
“It was a temporary measure. I’m not asking you to toss it out the window, but be a little practical. If you weren’t always curling your finger up, it would fall right off.”
“I could have it sized.”
“Suit yourself.” He slipped it from her finger, then replaced it with the diamond circle. “Just consider that you have two wedding rings.” When he offered her the plain band, Laura curled it into her fist. “The new one holds the same intentions.”
“It is beautiful.” Still, she pushed the old ring onto the index finger of her right hand, where it fit more snugly. “Thank you, Gabe.”
“We did better than that before.”
She didn’t have to be reminded. Yet the memories flooded back when he slipped his arms around her. Emotions poured through with those memories the moment his mouth was on hers. His lips were firm and warm and hinted, just hinted, at his impatience as they slanted across hers. Though his arms remained gentle around her, his touch light and testing, she sensed a volcano in him, simmering and smoking.
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