by Anne Stuart
She lifted her arms, but he'd already stepped away, unaware of her longing. "I'll make you some tea," he said briskly, "and toast, and maybe some applesauce. If you can manage that then maybe we can graduate to eggs."
"I'm not hungry," she said, trying to squash her longing. "And I want coffee."
"Too bad. If you eat enough to satisfy me then maybe I'll let you have a little bit of coffee. Maybe not." He looked down at her, a considering light in his eyes. "You stay put. If you want to get dressed I'll help you, after you have something to eat."
"I can take care of it myself."
"Trust me, Carrie, I've seen you without a stitch on any number of times during the past few days."
"I'm sure you can control your raging passions," she said sharply, "but I want my privacy."
He halted by the door, staring at her. "I wouldn't be sure of any such thing," he said with a crooked smile. "Stay put."
There was something about his smile. Something about the look in his eyes, that made her start wondering whether there might be a future for her after all.
She didn't do as he told her to, but then, Gabriel hadn't expected it. To everyone else she was Lady Bountiful, the saint, the martyr, ready to sacrifice everything for her fellow man. When it came to him she was stubborn, determined and sharp-tongued. He wondered whether it was love.
He hoped not. He'd saved her life twice, above and beyond the call of duty. Surely by now he was quits. He didn't think Augusta would look too kindly on things if Carrie fell in love with him, only to have him vanish in two weeks' time.
He thought about her mouth, tasting of toothpaste and longing. Of her huge eyes, staring up at him with such a troubled expression in their blue depths. He thought of her skinny body that needed food and love and sex, and he thought it just might be worth it. He'd already been here half his allotted time and it didn't seem as if he'd made any progress at all. Maybe he ought to take what he wanted and prepare to spend eternity in hell. Since he seemed bound there anyway, he might as well have something to remember.
He'd do it, too, if it was only his eternity he had to consider. But Carrie had been through enough. She'd already been used and rejected by Emerson MacVey. If Gabriel entered into an affair with her, knowing it was doomed, then he'd deserve any torment fate could offer him.
It took all his self-control not to go to her when she appeared in the kitchen door, swaying slightly, dressed, triumphant, pale. He wanted to put his arms around her, he wanted to carry her back up to bed, he wanted to make love to her.
He contented himself with glancing her way, then turning back to the stove. "I knew you wouldn't stay put," he said. "I've got the fire cranked up. Go lie down on the sofa and I'll bring you something to eat."
"Are you always this dictatorial?"
He grinned. "Only when I get the chance. Are you always this crabby?"
Her slow, answering smile was a revelation. "Only when I get the chance."
She ate everything he put in front of her, then demanded coffee. Faint color began to reappear in her cheeks, and by the time the Swensens' car pulled up the long, icy driveway she was arguing about who was going to do the dishes.
"It's a miracle," Maggie breathed when she rushed into the room, not taking time to discard her coat. "Yesterday you were at death's door and now you look like the cat that swallowed the canary."
"I told you she'd be all right," Lars said, coming in behind her, his broad face creased with pleasure. "She was in good hands with our Gabriel. A hospital would have been a waste of time and money."
He heard the phrase, "our Gabriel," and the warmth of it sent a shaft of sorrow through him, for the connections he'd never made when he had the chance. He squashed it down—it was too late for recriminations. "You need coffee," he drawled. "I'll get it, while you see if you can put the patient in a more agreeable mood."
Both the Swensens turned to look at Carrie in surprise. "Carrie's always agreeable," Maggie said.
"Of course I am," Carrie said. "Except when a bully like Gabriel tries to boss me around."
Lars looked at Maggie, and the two of them grinned. Gabriel knew what they were thinking, and he wanted to tell them to stop it. There was nothing worth grinning about—he was bad for her, the worst possible man. He could offer her sex and desertion, and she deserved love and commitment.
"Coffee," he said morosely, disappearing into the kitchen.
The day was a stream of visitors. Everyone brought something. Food, flowers, homemade tokens. Gabriel kept himself out of the way, busy with making the drafty old house more secure against the harsh December winds. He caulked windows, fixed the banking on the west side of the house, and was in the midst of stacking firewood when he had an uneasy prickling sensation at the back of his neck. He knew who it was even before he turned.
"You're running out of time, Gabriel," said Gertrude Hansen in Augusta's peremptory tones.
He paused, leaning on the splitting maul, and looked down at her. Emerson had been the same height as Augusta, but here in Minnesota he was taller and she was shorter. He didn't bother pretending to misunderstand. "I have two weeks left."
"And what have you done so far?"
"Saved Carrie's life. Twice. Surely that's enough."
"Could be," the old lady murmured. "It all depends on what kind of state you leave her in. She doesn't need her heart broken again."
"I'm not going to touch her," he snapped.
The old lady just looked at him. "We'll see," she said obscurely, moving past him onto the porch just as Lars and Maggie came out.
"Hi, there, Gertrude," Lars said. "Come to see the invalid? You wouldn't believe how well she's doing. Gabriel's a miracle worker."
Gertrude directed a sour glance back at him. "Is he?" she murmured in the deceptively gentle voice that fooled the Swensens, a far cry from Augusta's autocratic tones. "I would have thought he was the type to save his miracles for himself."
Guilt swamped him, leaving him speechless as Gertrude disappeared inside the house. She was right, damn it. His miracle had been for himself, for his miserable, cowardly self.
"She's an old tartar sometimes," Lars said, putting a hand on Gabriel's shoulder. "Don't pay any attention to her. We've known her all her life, and we're used to her."
It was enough to startle him out of his abstraction. "I thought she was new in town."
"What made you think that?" Maggie asked, perplexed. "She was born here, and as far as I know she's never even left the state in all her eighty-some years."
Gabriel shook his head. Trust Augusta to take care of details. "Just a guess," he said. "How's Carrie doing? Is she getting overtired?"
"Hell, she's fine," Lars boomed, then silenced as Maggie kicked him.
"She's doing quite well," Maggie corrected him, "but I don't think she ought to be left alone. Would you mind staying here a little bit longer?"
It was the last thing he needed, and what he wanted most. The longer he was around her, the harder it was for him to resist her. And resist her was the one thing he had to do. If he hadn't known it already, Gertrude's warning had reminded him.
"She's got enough food to feed the Russian army," he said. "Her fever's normal…"
"She needs you, Gabriel," Maggie said gently.
He wanted to deny it. He wanted to explain to Maggie just how dangerous he was to Carrie Alexander's fragile well-being, but he knew it was a waste of time. "Of course I'll stay," he said, hating the savage relief he felt at having to agree.
"In the excitement, I forgot to tell you," Lars was saying, "someone's coming to look at the railings. He might be interested in commissioning some other work."
"He's got a Russian-sounding name. Something like Boris Gudonov," Maggie said.
"Borodin," Lars corrected her. "His name's Alexander Borodin. He must have money—he's using his own jet to fly into Saint Cloud."
Gabriel closed his eyes for a moment, offering up a silent prayer of thankfulness. "I've heard of him," he said carefully. "If h
e likes your stuff you've got it made."
"Let's not count our chickens," Maggie said, but she sounded a great deal more cheerful than she had in the past few weeks. She put her hand on Gabriel's arm, and her eyes were suddenly dark with concern. "Do you really not want to stay here, Gabriel? I could come out, or Gertrude, or any number of people would leap at the chance to do something for Carrie, after all she's done for us."
"I'll stay," Gabriel said, putting his hand over Maggie's work-worn one. "I want to."
But he wasn't about to go back into the house as long as Gertrude was there, and she stayed a damnably long time. The sky grew dark early as they neared the shortest day of the year, and he could sense another winter storm in the air, he who'd never paid the slightest bit of attention to the weather. The temperature was dropping, he'd left his jacket inside, and there was a limit to how much wood he could split and stack before his energy gave out. He'd been through two days of hell, two days of panic, spooning medicine and soup and tea down Carrie's throat, moving her from bed to bath and back again, all the while cursing Augusta and the fate that had put her life in his hands. He'd barely slept or eaten since Sunday, and he wanted to sit by the wood stove and look at Carrie. With no one interfering.
"You can go in now." Gertrude strode out the door, her cloth coat buttoned up under her wattled chin, her thick glasses glinting in the waning sunlight. "You behave yourself now. She tires easily."
"I have no intention of tiring her," he said sourly.
Gertrude's smile was no more warming than the weather. "I don't trust you, Gabriel," she said. "You'll have to prove yourself to me." And before he could reply, she was gone, zipping off at an alarmingly fast rate in her sturdy sedan.
He watched her go. "At least she called me Gabriel," he muttered out loud. Right then and there he didn't want to be reminded of who he once was, and would be again in another couple of weeks.
Carrie was fast asleep on the living room sofa. Someone, probably Lars, had loaded the wood stove, and the heat was wonderful after the chill winter air. Gabriel poured himself a cup of coffee, took a brownie from the plate someone had brought that morning, and took a seat by the fire, where he could watch Carrie. He didn't know why fate had given him one more night with her. He only knew it would be his last chance. And he intended to make the most of it. By watching her, simply watching her. So that he'd have something to remember, throughout eternity. Wherever he ended up.
It was an interesting phenomenon, lusting after a man. Carrie had more than enough time to consider it, advantages, disadvantages and all. In her twenty-seven years she'd never been unduly interested in men. Her sexual experience consisted of a vaguely unsatisfying short-term affair with a fellow student, and the cataclysmic night she'd spent in Emerson MacVey's office.
She'd sworn off sex after that. Sworn off men, relationships, dating, and doing just about anything else a normal, healthy young woman might be interested in doing. Most men, including Steve from the garage, had taken no for an answer. The sexless aura she put forth had been astonishingly convincing.
She wasn't quite sure why it hadn't convinced Gabriel. From his sudden appearance in her life, she'd gone out of her way to be motherly, asexual, a friend and nothing more. But he had a way of seeing through that, of getting under her skin, so that she was aware of him constantly, as she'd been aware of no other man.
She ought to bless the fact that her responses were normal, healthy ones. After all, Gabriel was a devastatingly attractive man, quiet, strong, with a streak of ironic humor that matched her own. He was only going to be around for another few weeks—what could be wrong with indulging her unexpected longings?
She'd gotten support from the most unexpected quarter. Gertrude, maiden schoolteacher and pillar of the community, had taken one look at her and shaken her head.
"It's not the things you do that you regret," she'd murmured, following Carrie's glance out the window toward Gabriel as he stacked firewood with his graceful economy of movement. "It's the things you don't do."
Carrie had turned to look at her, scandalized. "He's leaving in two weeks, Gertrude."
"When did you last do something for yourself? Something just because you wanted to do it, and to hell with the consequences?"
"Are you telling me to have an affair?" Carrie demanded. "Gertrude, you were my seventh-grade social studies teacher!"
"I'm telling you to do what your heart tells you," Gertrude had said placidly. "Nothing more. And nothing less."
But it wasn't her heart talking to her, Carrie thought, staring at Gabriel across the table as she ate more pasta than she'd eaten in the past year. It was something a lot more elemental. She watched his hands, strong, elegant hands that he'd put on her more than once, and she wondered how she could entice him to put them on her again. She looked at his mouth, wide, mobile. That mouth had kissed her when she wasn't sure that she wanted to be kissed.
This time she was sure. But she didn't know how to get him to kiss her.
And damn it, he was keeping his distance, fussing around her like a mother hen, as deliberately asexual as she had been. It was almost as if their roles had been reversed. Suddenly she wanted him to see her as a woman, not a plaster saint. And suddenly, he was coming on like Francis of Assisi.
"You should go to bed," he said when she finished off her third brownie. "You need to rebuild your strength." He began clearing the table, keeping well out of her way, almost as if he suspected she might grab him.
Tempting thought. "I've spent the past week in bed," she countered, rising to help him. "I feel restless."
He turned in the doorway, and she almost ran into him. They were breathlessly, deliciously close, close enough for her to feel the heat from his body, close enough to see the flicker of reaction in his beautiful brown eyes, a reaction he banished so quickly she wondered if it was wishful thinking on her part.
"Are you afraid of me, Gabriel?" she asked suddenly, artlessly.
"Why should I be?"
"You seem to be running away from me," she murmured, beginning to enjoy herself.
"I didn't know there was anything to run from."
She took the plate from his hand and put it on the adjacent counter. "There isn't."
He looked at her. "Don't."
"Don't what?"
"If you've decided to come alive again, hallelujah. But don't come alive with me. I'm not the man for you to experiment on, Carrie. I'll be gone in two weeks, and you need someone who's going to be around for the long haul. You don't need to have your heart broken again."
She flinched, shocked. "What makes you think I've ever had my heart broken?" she demanded.
"Someone hurt you very badly. You don't want to make the same mistakes over and over again. You don't want to pick the same kind of man."
"You're completely different from Emerson," she said stubbornly.
"Am I? Maybe you just don't know me that well."
She put a hand on his arm, but he jerked away as if her touch burned him. "Don't," he said in a tight voice. "For God's sake, just don't."
She stared at him, unable to keep the pain and misery from her face. "Sorry," she muttered. "It was stupid of me. I thought you wanted me."
The words were out now, shocking in their very simplicity. He shut his eyes for a moment, as if asking for help. "Of course I want you," he said roughly. "I'd be a fool not to. But you need love and cherishing. You need someone to father your babies and stay with you. All I can offer you is sex."
From somewhere she summoned a wry smile. "I'll take it," she said, moving toward him.
He didn't move, didn't dare move, simply because he wanted to so badly. "Carrie," he said, his voice deep with exasperation. "I'm warning you. For your own sake, leave me alone."
"Chicken," she said softly. And she reached for him.
Chapter Thirteen
« ^ »
Gabriel had a choice. He'd always had a choice, whether he'd known it or not. She stood in front of him, s
hy, trembling, filled with a misplaced love and longing. And he wanted her so badly he felt as if he were the one with the fever.
If he touched her, took her, his fate was sealed. There'd be no heaven for the likes of him.
He could move. Push past her and walk out of the house before he could change his mind. Or he could let her down gently, explain that he didn't really want her, that she should pay no attention to that bulge in his jeans.
He could do it, when there was nothing he wanted more than to take her. He could accept an eternity of longing for her, imagining what it might be like. He could punish himself, when it was more than he deserved.
But he couldn't do it to her.
If he walked away from her she'd never reach out again, he knew it with a despairing triumph. She wanted him, wanted him enough to fight for him, and if he turned her down she would never ask again. Leaving her would be just as cruel as taking her.
What was the saying, damned if you do, damned if you don't? He was damned, all right. He might as well enjoy his fate to the fullest.
He reached out and cupped her pale face, his long thumbs brushing against her trembling lips. "You're asking for trouble, Carrie," he said softly.
She smiled up at him, her eyes luminous in the shadows. "I know," she said.
He stared down at her, not saying a word. Maybe, just maybe it would work. She'd told him she'd settle for sex. Maybe if he made love to her it would be enough to make her realize that life was worth living. That if she found pleasure and warmth with him, she could find it with someone else, someone better.
Stupid rationalization, he mocked himself. He was grasping at straws, at some insane justification. Because he'd already gone too far. The moment his hands had touched her, there was no turning back. He was going to carry her up to the big bed beneath the eaves and make love to her, and if he spent eternity in hell for it, it would be worth it.
He put his lips against hers, lightly at first, feeling them tremble. Emerson MacVey had been good at sex—it was one of his coldhearted talents. Gabriel Falconi had never made love before, and each sensation was overwhelming, exquisite. The way her lips parted beneath the pressure from his mouth, the taste of her on his tongue, the soft, shaky little sigh she emitted when he kissed her ear. The thudding of her heart against his chest when he pulled her against him, pulled her arms up around his neck. The thudding that came from desire, and panic.