by Vivian Arend
“With you blocking me at every turn?” Gabe kept his voice low, but it didn’t stop his anger from coming through. “You’d hang me without a reason, and then blame your own incompetence on me.”
“Run the show. Do all the stupid changes you’ve been itching to try. I won’t stop you. I’ll do my part in keeping the work done, but when we have to beg for an extension come September, you admit you’re the cause and get the hell out of my life for good.”
“Jesus, Ben. Think about what you’re saying,” Mike warned. “Gabe’s done nothing wrong, and that’s not a fair challenge. No way in hell can he turn things around in that short a time, not even if his ideas are good.”
“I accept.”
The words burst from him like a bullet. His father had no idea what Gabe wanted to try. Ben had no ideas, period, and that was the trouble. Working hard at losing propositions still meant you lost.
Uncle Mike shook his head. “Gabe, don’t.”
There was little chance he could win the challenge, but it was his only choice.
“I accept,” Gabe repeated. He stuck out his hand, not really expecting his father to take it.
The man hadn’t touched him in years except in anger.
Ben glanced glassy-eyed between his son and brother then walked out without another word, his boots hitting the barn floorboards with a muffled click like the ticking of a time bomb.
Gabe took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He thought through all the reasons he had for doing this, shoving aside the desire to stick it to his father. Instead he concentrated on his ma, and on Rafe. On the feeling of riding over the land in all the different conditions—sunshine and rain, cutting cold and sweltering heat. It was worth fighting for.
He opened his eyes to see Mike staring, concern written on his uncle’s face.
“Your father is drunk. You don’t have to do this.”
It was an out if he wanted it, but Gabe had secrets Ben had no idea about. All his planning and working behind the scenes? It might not be as far a reach as his father hoped to make the payments, at least if they could get moving. “I have to do this.”
“It’s not possible.” Mike stepped closer until his firm hand rested lightly on Gabe’s shoulder. “This isn’t about you, it’s his ghosts. His…hurts.”
“It doesn’t really matter why, does it? The truth is we need to change or die. He’s willing to lie down. I’m not. The challenge stands. You’re a witness if I need it once he’s sober.”
Mike didn’t say anything for the longest time, then nodded.
Gabe glanced back toward the horses. “You’ve done a lot of things differently over the years. You’re seeing the benefit of it now. Maybe I can’t catch us up in the short time, but if I can get us on the right track, it will be worth it.”
Mike sighed. “He’s not the man he used to be. Not an excuse, just a statement of fact.”
They stood in silence for another moment before Gabe dipped his head and strode from the barn.
They didn’t need to talk about it anymore—it was well known to everyone when Ben had changed.
Only Gabe knew exactly why.
Chapter Eleven
The silence stretched between them. At first Allison hadn’t really noticed, just accepted his hand, said her goodbyes and let him lead her to his truck. They had already spoken that morning about stopping at her mom’s for dinner. She leaned back on the seat and into his side and relaxed after the chaos of the Coleman gathering.
The lot of them made a ton of noise when together, and the quiet in the truck cab was soothing.
Only there was tension in his body. Pressed against his side, she finally noticed it and wondered if she’d done something wrong.
Allison thought through the afternoon, but in terms of their deception, nothing had gone south. It was well accepted she and Gabe were together. Not that she forgot this was temporary—although thinking about what exactly would happen over the coming year was something she deliberately avoided.
Moving ahead with her life meant losing Mom. How could she even begin to prepare for that event?
But something was definitely going on in Gabe’s head. She didn’t have the right to ask what had upset him. Walking the line between friends and a more intimate relationship—they were only people passing each other for this short time. He could tell her what was wrong if he wanted to.
She ignored the tiny part inside that was saddened by that realization.
“You enjoy the picnic?” Gabe asked.
“Mostly.” Allison stretched her arms forward and rotated her neck to loosen up. “The food was great, and the conversations—well, your Uncle George trapped me and told me a long story about a cold cellar that I never quite understood the punch line.”
Gabe nodded absently, staring at the road ahead of them.
Allison sat forward and looked into his face. Now for sure she knew something was wrong. Normally he would have laughed. Told his own story about his uncle. Gabe always did what he could to make her comfortable.
All he did was flick a glance her direction. “What?”
She couldn’t ask. She leaned back. “Nothing.”
The silence stretched uncomfortably. She had to work to keep from squirming in her seat.
Five more minutes and they’d be at her mom’s house, and the business of helping, and hiding her concern, would distract her from the worry she currently felt for Gabe.
He pulled off to the side of the road, down a narrow lane that didn’t lead anywhere close to her mom’s house.
“Where we going?”
Silence answered.
A moment later they stopped, truck bumper tight against a guardrail that was the only thing between the end of the road and the bend of the river. Gabe got out and didn’t wait for her, just stepped up to the edge of the embankment and stood there, arms folded, staring down the ten-foot drop.
His face in profile was expressionless.
Shit.
Allison slid over and out the door. She stood, hanging on to the solid metal, using it like an anchor. Gabe didn’t move, and her worry increased.
Screw it if this wasn’t her business.
She followed him, pacing forward warily. The same way she would have approached a strange animal in someone’s field. Gabe didn’t acknowledge her. Not when she stood right next to him. She threw caution to the wind and slipped an arm around his waist. Rested her head against him and looked into the swirling water below, searching for a clue of what to do.
He sighed. A chest-raising, body-moving motion. Then he dropped his arm around her shoulder and brought her forward, hugging her tight. Squeezing her to him, his face buried in her neck.
Allison held on, letting him cling. Her arms were free so she stroked his back, petting him. Soothing as best she could.
How long they stood there, she wasn’t sure, but slowly the tension faded from his torso, and suddenly she found herself airborne as he scooped her up in his arms.
“Gabe, good Lord, what…?”
He’d lifted her then dropped himself to sit on the grass with her still cradled in his embrace. “I’m a fool. And you’re in the wrong spot at the wrong time and too damn cuddly for your own good.”
“What’s wrong? What happened?”
It might not be her place to ask, but she needed to know. She cupped his face. Sitting in his lap, his strong arms around her—it was strangely nonsexual. She just wanted to know what had managed to upset this man she had been spending so much time with.
Her friend—at least she hoped they were becoming better friends.
He caught her hand and pulled it from his face. He didn’t let go, though, keeping her fingers trapped in his. “Had a fight with Ben. Nothing unusual about that. Only—”
He tugged her against him again and swore lightly.
“I know you two don’t get along.” Allison hugged him, trying to give him whatever it was that he needed. Tough, when he wasn’t giving her many clues.
Allison nodded. “But you wish things were different.”
He finally made a sound that was kind of like a laugh. “I don’t know what I wish.”
“You’re a guy. This is emotional stuff. It’s tough for you to talk about it, right?”
This time he did laugh. He also let her go, and she scrambled off his lap to kneel on the grass beside him.
“It’s in the rules. I can’t talk about emotions,” Gabe deadpanned.
“Right. I forgot. You want me to talk about them for you? Like call out a list, and you check off one by one what you can’t say but you’re feeling?”
There was a flicker in his eyes—something sad and haunted—before he shook his head. “I didn’t mean to dump on you. Just didn’t want to go to your mom’s place all tensed up. I’m okay now.”
“Liar.” Allison bit her lip at his expression. “Well, you are lying about being fine. And I get that you don’t want to talk about what’s upset you. But tense I can help with. Give me a second.”
She scrambled to her feet and raced back to the truck, reaching behind the seat for the blanket she’d tucked there earlier.
He gave her a confused look. “What are you doing?”
She shook out the sturdy picnic cloth, placing the cushiony fabric on the grass beside where he sat. “You’re still tense. Take off your shirt and I can at least massage out a few of the knots.”
Gabe eyed the blanket warily, then nodded, rising on his knees to strip off his shirt and undershirt.
Allison pulled a small bottle of hand cream from her purse triumphantly. She dropped the bag to the side and turned to deal with Gabe.
Oh damn. He’d laid himself out on the blanket like she’d asked, resting his head on his hands. The position showed off his muscles beautifully—shoulders, biceps, and the firm bands that wrapped around his torso down along his waist.
A slick of sexual tension stroked her spine. A massage might help get rid of his tension, but it was going to increase hers.
“You ready?” Gack. Her voice sounded far too high-pitched and unnatural.
“Yeah, I guess.”
She knelt at his side and warmed up the cream before putting her hands on his shoulders.
For the next fifteen minutes Allison’s mind raced as she worked her hands over Gabe’s back. Her thumbs along his spine, fingertips digging into the hard bulges that slowly relaxed. She slipped lower, wondering why she was doing this to herself. What had started as an offer from a friend to another was making all kinds of more-than-friends ideas pop into her head.
No. They’d made it clear that this was about helping each other. The little bits of teasing they’d done at the start of their time together—she’d made sure that was put aside. Just ignored any of the sexual attraction she felt for the man.
But right now? Good Lord, she was getting turned on.
She’d straddled him shortly after she began, and now she sat on his legs, the edge of his jeans the barrier line for “go no farther”. Only she wanted to. Wanted to pull down the fabric and let her hands wander all over his warm skin. Wanted to press hard into his ass muscles and curl her fingers around his naked flesh.
Wanted what she shouldn’t want.
She swallowed and tried to ignore the lust. Focus instead on the sights and sounds around them.
Only the rush of the river and the nearby trees weren’t nearly as mesmerizing as his body. She smoothed her palms all the way up to his shoulders, wishing she were brave enough to lean down and set her teeth to his skin.
Suddenly she was no longer sitting on his thighs, but lying on her back as he loomed over her.
It was the little noises she made that finally broke his control.
He’d been riding hard on his frustrations as much as possible, not wanting to punish her for what Ben had stroked to a high pitch. Holding on to her and accepting her comfort had seemed like an innocent thing. Until she put her hands on him and all that adrenaline was directed away from anger at his impossible life. Now the fervour was firmly centered on his cock, and she was the reason for the change of locations.
He held her trapped, her dark hair spread out on the blanket as he examined her face for a sign he was about to get rejected. Little puffs of air escaped her lips, her chest rising and falling way too fast for someone who’d simply been giving a chaste rubdown.
She stared up, pupils dark and wide. Their bodies tight together, his groin solid to hers in a way that couldn’t possibly let her fail to recognize the state he was in.
She licked her lips, and this time he was the one who groaned in frustration. In need.
“Tell me no,” he whispered.
She caught his head in her hand, fingers threaded through his hair to hold him in place. “No.”
Then she dragged him toward her and lifted her lips.
The connection between his brain and his body shut down for the second time that day. He took the kiss she offered. Took her mouth and lips, their teeth knocking for a moment as they both went a little wild. Frustration, fire from whatever source, they both took and gave and goddammit if it wasn’t exactly what he had to have right then.
Allison squirmed, opening her thighs wider to let him settle tighter between her legs. He matched his hips and his tongue, pulsing slower now, making firm enough contact to tease them both. She dragged her hands through his hair and down his back, fingernails scraping over the territory she’d been rubbing so enthusiastically earlier.
When she clutched his ass, planted her feet on the ground and rose to meet him, he was caught wanting to take this way further than it should go.
He rolled them slightly, breaking their kiss. Keeping her against his body but pressing his lips to her face, to the hollow of her neck. “I should stop.”
“We should stop. Oh God, yes, Gabe…ahhh…” She held on too tight for her words to push him away. He sucked on her neck again, and she jerked as if he’d put a brand to her skin.
He smiled before licking the sensitive spot. “I found a hot button.”
She had thrown a leg over his thigh, keeping their groins in contact. “I think my entire body is a hot button right now.”
Somehow he found the strength to stop. Well, not stop, but slow down. He leaned up on an elbow and stroked his knuckles over her cheek. “I feel like I should apologize, but I’m not sure that’s the right thing to do.”
“You didn’t do anything to be sorry for.”
“I want to.”
Her eyes widened for a second then lowered until she was looking at him from under her lashes. “Me too.”
As if they’d talked it through, they both relaxed down from high alert. Gabe lay back, head resting on his arm. Allison leaned away slightly, a narrow gap opening between them.
He kept touching her, though, trailing his fingers along her arm, over the dip of her waistline. “We’re a couple of fools. Or I should just speak for myself.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know if it’s foolish, but…Gabe?” She lifted her chin and smiled. “We’re grownups. We’re allowed to—”
When she didn’t continue but flushed bright red, he had to stop from laughing and embarrassing her worse. “We’re allowed to go from me being mad at Ben to damn near fucking each other in an open field?”
She poked him in the chest. “You telling me you were touching me just because you’re mad at your father? I call bullshit.”
She was a smart one. He’d told Ben that, and here was more proof. “I’m touching you because you’re a beautiful woman. And you’ve been living under my roof for a month, and seeing you wander around in that thin bathrobe is driving me crazy.”
Allison’s mouth fell open. “Thin?”
“See through. Completely. Damn, when you stand in the kitchen getting coffee in the mornings? The light shines right through the window, and I can see every curve and hell if I don’t want to go back and tak
e another shower. Cold, to make me stop from thinking about peeling the fabric off you and—”
Her hand covered his mouth. “You should have told me.”
He licked her palm, and she smiled, the smile turning to a gasp as he slid his hand over her ass and cupped her butt cheek. “You would have turned even redder than you are now.”
She nodded, pulling her hand down his chest, her gaze following her fingers. “So…what’re we going to do about this?”
“Buy you a thicker robe?”
Allison stuck out her tongue, and he had to hold himself back from wanting to lean in and catch it with his mouth. Start kissing her all over again, maybe remove a few of her layers.
Lay her out in the full sunshine and examine every single part of her in minute detail, preferably with his mouth.
She exhaled slowly. “We shouldn’t strip and have sex right now, should we?”
“We shouldn’t.”
“But we want to, right? Both of us?” Her bravado slipped for a minute before the mischievous smile returned. “Well, I’ll speak for myself. Right now I’m fairly certain I’d be fine with the sex-in-the-meadow thing.”
Oh God. “Oh, we’re both on board, but we can’t. Shouldn’t.”
She shook her head. “We’re both crazy.”
Gabe gave up and rolled to his back, staring up at the sky. His body ached, but his mind was strangely clear. A lot more clear than he’d been while driving away from the picnic.
Allison leaned over him, her dark hair falling past her shoulder and brushing his chest. “Gabe?”
He kept his hands pinned where they were to stop himself from grabbing her and starting all over again. “Yeah?”
She wrinkled her nose. “We should get over to my mom’s. She’s going to wonder where we are.”
Somewhere deep inside the amusement started. It had just been that kind of fucked-up day, and there was nowhere else for this to go. From contentment to envy to anger to lust. And back to contentment—and the start and finish were because of Allison. “I’d say you were right about that.”
When she would have pulled away, he caught her, hand gentle but firm around the back of her neck. Her lashes fluttered as she stared at him questioningly.