Adelia sighed. She knew that wouldn’t be better. But what made the most sense of all was to never start anything in the first place, not with a man who’d declared very clearly that there would be no commitment, not ever. It didn’t matter that she thought he was selling himself short. It only mattered what he thought.
And while she might not be anywhere near ready for a commitment herself, she wasn’t so sure she was cut out for a flirtation that had absolutely no potential for going anywhere.
“Gabe, are we crazy for spending even a single second with each other?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“We both know there’s some kind of attraction thing going on. Heaven knows, I liked kissing you.”
“Right back at you,” he said.
“Then it seems to me we’re playing with fire. I don’t think I’m capable of having some sort of passionate fling without expecting it to go somewhere. And you’re very clear about where you stand on anything more than a fling. One of us is bound to get hurt, and, frankly, I’ve had about all of the misery I can handle.”
“It would kill me to know I’d made you miserable,” he said, gently cupping her cheek with his hand. “It really would. I don’t ever want to give you a reason to lump me in any category in which a man like Ernesto is the star offender.”
She smiled at that. “I doubt I’d ever compare you to him. You’ve already shown me more thoughtfulness and consideration than he had in years.”
“Still, it’s not a risk I’m willing to take.”
“So, where does that leave us?” she asked, already knowing the sensible answer. “Do we agree just to be friends? Do we avoid each other entirely?”
Gabe looked genuinely taken aback by the limited options she’d presented. “Friends isn’t going to work, Adelia. Not for me. That attraction thing isn’t going to go away. Sooner or later one of us will cave in to it. I’m betting it will be me.” He gave her a self-deprecating grin. “And given my excellent powers of persuasion...”
She couldn’t help smiling at that, too. “Really?”
“Oh, yes. I’ll be very persuasive. You’ll give in and then you’ll wind up hating me for it.”
She understood his logic and bought the argument. Even now, if he reached for her, she knew she’d be unable to resist.
“Then I suppose we have to avoid each other,” she said with real regret. She drew herself up, though, and said with resolve, “We can do that. I know when you’re likely to be at the bakery. I’ll go in at a different time or not at all. As for the work here, I can call the kids and let them know when I’m heading home. They can alert you and you can be gone by the time I get here. That should be easy enough.”
“Or I could insist that Mitch replace me on this job,” he said.
“That’s not fair,” she protested. “I don’t want you to lose the income and I like the work you’re doing. I’ll just make sure to limit the times we cross paths.”
Gabe sighed, clearly reluctant to agree to her plan. “I have to tell you, Adelia, I hate this.”
“I’m not wild about it, either, but it’s the only sensible way to handle things so they don’t get out of hand,” she said.
“Preventative medicine, so to speak.”
She nodded. “Exactly.”
Even as she managed to sound determined, her heart was aching. The thought of not seeing Gabe anymore like this, of not witnessing the growing bond between him and Tomas or the laughter he stirred with her girls, made her incredibly sad. Sure, this was the smart decision, perhaps the only decision, but that didn’t mean she had to like it.
Just when she was trying to mentally congratulate herself for making the tough choice, Gabe stepped closer. His heat drew her the way that giant magnet he had Tomas using in the yard drew metal. She swayed toward him, just as she’d predicted she would.
He put his hands on her shoulders and held her in place, his touch gentle but firm.
“One last kiss?” he said.
It was posed as a question, but there was a quiet urgency, a command to the words, too.
Adelia nodded, her heart in her throat.
His hands—his big, strong hands—left her shoulders to frame her face. His gaze held hers, his eyes darkening with desire.
And then his lips were on hers. This wasn’t a tender, exploratory kiss like the one they’d shared on Main Street, or the teasing kiss he’d bestowed on her earlier. This was passion and heat and longing all wrapped up in a moment that seemed to last forever. It stole her breath and left her pulse racing.
And it filled her with a longing she’d never expected to feel again.
I just ended this, she thought to herself incredulously. I just declared this man off-limits? Am I nuts?
The kiss stopped too soon and yet not nearly soon enough. It had lasted long enough to give her second thoughts, maybe even third thoughts. From the dazed and hungry look in Gabe’s eyes, it had done the same to him.
“No second thoughts,” he said, as if he’d read her mind. “We’ve agreed that this is for the best.”
“It is,” she managed to say, even though she found it hard to believe that anything this good could possibly come to a bad end.
He caressed her cheek one last time, then regarded her with unmistakable regret. “Good night, Adelia.”
The regret in his eyes was almost her undoing. Then she steadied her resolve. “Bye, Gabe,” she whispered as he walked away, closing the back door oh so quietly but emphatically behind him.
If this was so right, she thought, why did it feel as if she’d just given up the best thing to come into her life in years?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It had been a slow morning at the boutique. None of the new merchandise Adelia had helped Raylene select had turned up. Customers had been few and far between. Adelia had straightened up all the displays, dusted every surface and looked through half a dozen catalogues for potential new stock. Raylene always took her recommendations seriously, which had given her self-confidence a much-needed boost.
Typically on a day like today, she’d lock up for a ten-minute break and head next door for a pick-me-up cup of coffee, maybe even one of Lynn’s tart lemon-blueberry bars. Ever since her most recent encounter with Gabe, though, she’d grown more skittish than ever about dropping into her friend’s bakery. She and Gabe had an agreement, and while he was rarely at the bakery in the middle of the day, she couldn’t take a chance on running into him, not while this agreed-upon separation of theirs was so new. It would be far too easy to backslide.
At the sound of the bell over the door, she bounced up eagerly and walked into the front of the store.
“It’s just me,” Raylene called out. “I thought you might be ready for a break, so I brought coffee.”
“Thank goodness,” Adelia said, accepting the cup.
Raylene grinned. “Quiet day?”
“You have no idea. It’s as if everyone in town is all shopped out. I suppose that’s to be expected after the crazy busy days we had last week.”
“You should know by now that it’s feast or famine in retail,” Raylene said, not sounding particularly upset by the decline in business.
Adelia couldn’t make herself be so blasé. She’d spent the morning thinking of ways to generate more customers. “Maybe we need to have a sale,” she suggested. “Or send out an announcement about the new lingerie line. We have email addresses for all our customers. I could do that this afternoon.”
“And that is why you’re going to make an excellent business partner,” Raylene said. “Ever since you came to work here, you’ve been coming up with ways to build the business. I hope you know how much I value your input. If you want to do an email blast to our customer base, go for it.”
“I’m going to blunder sooner or
later,” Adelia warned.
Raylene laughed. “No doubt about it. You weren’t working here at the time of my great Christmas sweater catastrophe.”
“What was that?” Adelia asked, intrigued.
“I ordered a ton of what I thought were really fun Christmas sweaters before I realized that my customers were looking for style, not things that would be passed around at parties as the year’s worst gifts. I’ll bet you would have steered me away from that disaster.”
“Absolutely,” Adelia said. “This shop has become the fashion trendsetter in town. Those sweaters sound as if they might have been just a bit off the mark.”
“And there’s that diplomatic skill of yours again,” Raylene said, laughing. Her expression sobered as she held Adelia’s gaze.
She studied Adelia over the rim of her own take-out cup of decaf. “Is there some particular reason you’re so jittery today?”
“I’m not jittery,” Adelia said. “I’m bored. It’s ironic really. Before I started working full-time for you, I was on so many committees for the schools that I never had a spare minute. Now it feels as if I’m at loose ends, even when I’m here on days like today.”
“That’s not boredom, my friend,” Raylene said, her eyes twinkling with mirth. “I’m guessing this has something to do with Gabe Franklin.”
Startled by the assessment, Adelia stared at her. “Why on earth would you jump to that conclusion?”
“Because Lynn told me you’ve stopped coming by in the morning to pick up coffee. She has the feeling you’re avoiding him.” Raylene gave her a penetrating look. “Are you? Did the two of you have a fight?”
Adelia sighed. It was useless to try to pretend with Raylene. She’d keep poking and prodding till she got the answers she wanted. In recent months, Adelia had discovered it was something friends did. She still wasn’t sure how she felt about the habit.
“There was no fight,” she told Raylene, then tried to minimize the situation that had left her more shaken than she’d expected to be. “He’s still doing the work at the house. It’s all good.”
“Then why do you sound so unhappy and why is Gabe storming around as if someone stole his favorite power saw?”
Adelia actually took some comfort from hearing that Gabe was no happier than she was. Of course, neither of them had genuinely wanted this separation. They’d just agreed it was for the best.
“I can’t explain Gabe’s moods,” Adelia claimed. “As far as I know, everything’s just fine.”
“I’m not buying it,” Raylene said. “You’re saying all the right words, but the look in your eyes says something else entirely. What really happened between you two? He didn’t cross a line, did he? I certainly know the two of you kissed.”
“Everybody in town knew the two of us kissed,” Adelia said wryly.
“Well, I thought it was something you were into,” Raylene said. “Was I wrong? Gabe wasn’t making unwanted advances, was he? Was he pressuring you?” Indignation immediately laced through her voice.
“Absolutely not,” Adelia said quickly. She certainly didn’t want the full weight of a bunch of riled up women coming down on him, not when he’d done nothing to deserve it. “He’d never do anything like that.”
“And the kids like him okay?” Raylene prodded, clearly determined to find the missing piece to the puzzle she was trying to unravel. “I know Tomas is like his little shadow, but the girls? How do they feel about him?”
Adelia regarded her with exasperation. “You need a hobby, something other than my life.”
“Probably so,” Raylene said unrepentantly. “But for right this second, you’re all I’ve got. Were things okay with Gabe and the kids? You didn’t dump him because of them, did you?”
In a way that’s exactly what had happened, Adelia thought, but she wasn’t prepared to admit it. Instead, she said, “You’re absolutely right that Tomas thinks he hung the moon, or at least he did before Gabe went along with Natalia and Juanita and attended one of their tea parties. He’s struggling a bit with why a real guy would do that.”
Raylene chuckled. “Yeah, that picture made the rounds. I thought it showed a lot about the kind of man Gabe is. Not many men could pull off a tiara and a feather boa and still look sexy as sin.”
“Not many men would be willing to try it just to make a couple of little girls happy,” Adelia commented.
“So, we have a man who puts a blush in your cheeks, is a good role model for your son and makes your girls happy,” Raylene assessed. “I’m not seeing the downside. What am I missing?”
Adelia finally gave up on keeping the situation under wraps. “It was never going to work,” she confided.
Raylene stared at her incredulously. “And you knew that after a couple of weeks and not even one real date? How?”
“It just wasn’t. We have very different ideas about what we want in life. Better to end it before it got started and anyone got hurt, especially my kids.”
Understanding dawned in Raylene’s expression. “Now I get it. You did call it off to protect your kids, just not the way I was talking about.”
Adelia shrugged. “Pretty much.”
“But he’s still at the house. He’s still in their lives on a daily basis. How is this helping to protect them?”
“They won’t get any ideas about the two of us,” Adelia said. They’d miss any displays of affection, any stolen kisses.
“Ah,” Raylene said, nodding. “And what about you? Do you feel all safe and secure now, too?”
“I did what I had to do,” Adelia said defensively. “Gabe agreed with me.”
“Well, that is just plain wrong,” Raylene said.
“How is it wrong to want what’s best for my family, especially after all they’ve gone through with the divorce?”
“Putting your family first is always good,” Raylene agreed. “It’s what mothers do. But smart women know that sometimes what’s best for a happy family is taking care of their own needs, too. Remember that expression, ‘If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy’?”
Adelia smiled. “A simplified slogan isn’t necessarily the best motto for living your life.”
“I think this one has merit,” Raylene said. “Happiness is contagious. Even in the very limited time you and Gabe have been acquainted, I’ve seen a change in you. You were happier, Adelia. Don’t even try to deny it. This job may be giving your self-esteem a boost when it comes to your professional skills, but with Gabe you were rediscovering your worth as a woman.”
Adelia didn’t bother trying to deny it, because she knew it would be a lie. “It wouldn’t have lasted,” she said instead. That wasn’t a lie. It was the inevitable truth.
“Gabe doesn’t do forever,” she revealed to Raylene. “How could I get involved with someone who openly made that clear from the outset? I’ve already been with one man who was incapable of sticking to his wedding vows. Gabe was pretty clear he’d never even take the vows.”
Raylene scowled at the comment. “Don’t you dare compare him to Ernesto. It’s not fair.”
“That’s not what I’m doing. Gabe said—”
Raylene cut her off. “Men say stuff. They even believe it to be true. It gives them an easy out if they decide down the line that they need one. It’s very rare for anyone to fall head over heels in love in a minute. It takes time. People have to get to know each other, to trust each other. Look at Carter and me. We had enough issues and past history to scare off any sane person. But we hung in there. Actually I should say that he did. He was persistent even in the face of all my doubts. In the end, love won out.”
“If it were just me,” Adelia began, unable to keep a wistful note from her voice.
“You’d take the chance,” Raylene said triumphantly. “That right there tells you that you’re giving up too easily.
”
“My kids,” she protested.
“Your kids deserve to have a happy mom who has a wonderful man in her life. He’s already won over Tomas, Juanita and Natalia, right?”
“Even Selena has fewer reservations,” Adelia admitted. “That whole tea party thing, even though it was for the benefit of the younger girls, made an impression on her, too, probably because it was such a contrast to anything Ernesto would have done to please her or her sisters.”
“Well, there you go.”
“But if Gabe and I can’t make it, I’ll be dragging them through a whole big drama all over again,” Adelia said. “I can’t do that. I won’t.”
“You’re scared,” Raylene assessed. “And who can blame you? This is a man who flirts, who makes you feel like a woman, who makes you feel alive. That’s scary stuff after too many years of being dismissed as unworthy and competing with a string of mistresses.”
“Okay, yes. I’m finding it hard to trust that Gabe’s even attracted to me, but I swear that is not why I called it quits. It was the sensible thing to do.” She gave her friend a defiant look. “And I’m not changing my mind.”
“Okay, this calls for an intervention by a higher authority,” Raylene said.
Adelia stared at her, surprised. “You think I should pray about it?”
Raylene grinned. “Well, that probably wouldn’t hurt, either, but I was thinking that what you really need is a margarita night with a bunch of women who’ve been there, done just about everything.”
“The Sweet Magnolias,” Adelia guessed, then shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“Come with me,” Raylene ordered, pointing to the back room. “Let’s think about this.” She led the way into the tiny office. “Sit.”
“I don’t want to,” Adelia said, then chuckled. “What is wrong with me? I sounded like Selena then, just like a sullen teenager.”
“Want to know what I think?” Raylene asked, then continued without waiting for Adelia’s reply. “I think of all the women I know, nobody deserves the chance to flirt and feel like an attractive woman again more than you do. Ernesto took that skill set away from you. He played havoc with your self-confidence by going after all those other women. You’re entitled to have a little fun. Flirt with Gabe if you want to. Let him make you laugh. Let him make you blush. It doesn’t have to lead to anything more, not if you don’t want it to.”
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