His Answered Prayer (If Wishes Were Husbands Book 2) (Inspirational Contemporary Romance)

by Lois Richer

  “My family means everything to me.” Suddenly she realized that Gabe was part of her family, too. She could see by the twinkle in his eye that he’d hit on the same idea.

  “Even me?”

  “Well, of course, you’re i-important,” she stammered. “I mean, I owe you a great deal.”

  “You don’t owe me anything, Blair. Even in this day and age a man expects to provide a home for his wife and child.” He shrugged carelessly.

  “And her grandfather, her aunt and a man who’s no relation at all?” She kept her gaze steady on him. “That’s a great deal for anyone to do, Gabe. Let alone someone who’s not…” She let the words die away, unwilling to finish.

  “Someone who’s not in love?” he asked. He shook her hand off his arm. “I do not want you to feel obligated to me. You do not owe me, Blair. Do you hear me? I will not be added to the list of people you have to repay!” He surged to his feet in one lithe move and stood glaring at her. “That’s not what I want from you.”

  Blair sat where she was and studied him. This was the Gabe she remembered, strong, in control. His eyes sparkled, and his hands were planted firmly on his hips, daring her to contradict him.

  This was the man she’d fallen in love with.

  “Well?” He glared at her. “Don’t just sit there. I want your word that I’m not going to have to hear you thanking me for every rock and stone of our home. I did it for me, too, you know,” he grumbled, his chin thrust out. “I like Mac and Willie. I needed somebody like Albert to keep me on my toes. He’s got more ideas than I do.”

  She burst out laughing, good humor restored. “All right, Gabe. I’ll only say it this once. Thank you very much for accepting my family as yours and for giving us such a lovely place to live.” She grabbed his hand and pulled herself up, standing on tiptoes to press a kiss against his lips. “Thank you. For the last time.”

  Before she could move away, his arms came around her waist and his mouth landed on hers. When he finally lifted his head, Blair opened her eyes and blinked twice, only then realizing that her arms were around his neck, her fingers embedded in his hair. She pulled them away and shifted until his arm was loosely around her waist.

  “If you say thank-you one more time,” he warned, his eyes glinting with suppressed emotion, “I’m going to kiss you again.”

  “Hmm.” She pretended to think about that.

  He laughed, hugged her close, then let one arm drop away to snag the backpack. The other he moved to her shoulders, holding her at his side as they walked across the hill.

  “Can I ask you something, Blair?”

  The uncertainty of the question made her wonder, but she decided to face it head-on and whispered a tiny prayer for help.

  “Go for it.”

  They walked for several minutes before he finally allowed himself to ask, “Why didn’t you tell me about Daniel? Didn’t you think about it, wonder if I’d want to know? Were you so afraid I’d take him?”

  Blair took a deep breath. “Yes,” she whispered, and saw his chest sink as he took the hit. But she had to tell all of the truth. “And no.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I realized that I didn’t want Daniel growing up in your world.” She took a deep fortifying breath and let the truth spill out.

  “I became someone else there, Gabe. I wasn’t me, I was someone who was playing me. You were right. The only time I could really breathe, really feel free, was when I was on the beach. It’s hard to pretend on a beach.”

  “It is?” He frowned, considering.

  “It sure is. The wind messes your perfect hair, the sun melts your makeup, the sand gets in your clothes. And the water washes away everything but the basics.” She stopped and faced him. “I was living a lie, even though I didn’t realize it. By the time Daniel was born, I’d begun to look past the mistakes and see the root problem.”

  “Which was?” Anger was in his voice.

  Blair sighed. “The root problem with me is that I don’t fit in in L.A. At first I didn’t think I fit in here, either, but it’s like buying shoes.”

  Gabe blinked and knocked his fist against the side of his head as confusion clouded his eyes. “I wonder if I’ll ever be able to follow your thinking. What do you mean? Your logic escapes me.”

  “Just listen. Sometimes I buy shoes that fit like a glove. I hardly notice I’m wearing them. Call them sneakers.” She waved a hand. “This place is like my sneakers.”

  “Okay.” He waited patiently, one eyebrow tilted up.

  “For me, L.A.—your style—was like a pair of very high heels. Okay for a little while, but eventually you have to take them off or your feet get very sore and messed up.”

  “Okay to visit but you wouldn’t want to live there.” He pondered that. “What you mean is that you didn’t dare tell me about Daniel because you couldn’t imagine me living anywhere else?”

  She nodded. “I never dreamed you’d come here. You always seemed intent on frequenting the in places, hobnobbing with the big boys.”

  He snorted. “Hardly hobnobbing, Blair. I doubt they ever even noticed I was there.”

  She smiled. “It was the place you wanted to be. I just couldn’t see how Daniel would fit into that, even if you’d changed your mind.”

  Sorrow vied with wry reluctance on his face. “That remark will haunt me forever, I’m afraid. I freely admit it, I was a fool. Daniel is a godsend. I’m glad I have a son.” He pulled her to a stop. “I’m hungry. Can we eat lunch here? It’s so pretty.”

  Here was a lovely grassy spot beside the creek where it tumbled over rocks. Blair nodded and within minutes Gabe had spread a blanket and laid out some plastic dishes, two napkins and an odd assortment of food.

  She watched, mouth pinched in a prim line as Gabe unpacked chips, peanut butter sandwiches, two sugar-free lollipops, a piece of leftover pie, six grapes—rather the worse for wear—and a thermos of—

  “Water?” she squeaked.

  “Water. You need to lay off that stuff you call coffee. Last night your hand was shaking when you were dipping those candles. It was probably from exhaustion, but all that caffeine doesn’t help.”

  Blair tried to chew her peanut butter sandwich as she considered this. Finally she swallowed. She had to ask. “You’re concerned about my health? You, the junk food addict?”

  He was affronted. “I’ll have you know that I’ve become very health conscious.” He munched on a couple of grapes.

  “You?” Blair could hardly imagine it. “The man who loves everything fried and nothing green? Amazing.” She glanced at the pie. “Who’s that for?”

  “Half for you, half for me. I’m not totally reformed.” He flashed her a smile that made her tummy clench and her toes tingle. “If you can’t stand plain water, I brought along some lemon wedges. Let’s see.” He rooted through a bag and finally emerged with two plastic-wrapped halves, which he squeezed into her water.

  “You’ve got more on you than in the glass.” She sipped it, then forced her pursing lips to unclench. “Lovely.” It wasn’t easy to suppress the shudder at the sheer sourness of it. “You certainly have changed.”

  “Well, I’m trying.” He took a sip of her water, made a face and handed it back. “That’s too sour.”

  She burst out laughing. “Maybe we could dissolve the lollipops in it. Of course, we’d be putting that fake sugar chemical into our body. That can’t be good.”

  He frowned. “I never thought of that. Hmm. Guess we’ll have to make do with the chips. They’re low salt.”

  “Then why bother?” Blair said grumpily, but she was hungry so she munched on a few of the flat, tasteless chips and the sandwich. Screwing up her courage, she finally asked the one thing that had preyed on her mind for weeks.

  “Why did you decide to move, Gabe? Did something happen?”

  He was silent a long time. Blair had decided he wasn’t going to answer, that it was time to pack up and go home, when he spoke.

  �
�I couldn’t go on.”

  The harsh words hit her hard. “What do you mean?”

  “It was gone. All the fun, all the thrill of making things work, the anticipation—it was all gone. I was stuck in a rut making decisions about stuff I didn’t care about. I was so bogged down in details there was no time to do what I really liked. I knew if I didn’t get out then, I never would. I’d be caught in the cycle of endless meetings.”

  Blair smiled, remembering his ability to submerge himself in his work without noticing time or people. “You always were a loner. You preferred the solitude of working by yourself. Even I knew that.”

  He nodded. “So did I.” His face tightened. “I knew it but I couldn’t accept it. You see, Blair, I figured it was something my father had inflicted on me, that it was antisocial behavior I’d developed from being alone too long.” He shoved their lunch remains into the knapsack, shuffled over until he was beside her on the blanket, then picked up her hand.

  “I figured I had a flaw, a weakness that needed fixing. The only way I could think of to fix it was to be in a crowd. Do you understand?”

  “You mean you were proving something to yourself by hanging around those celebrities?” She couldn’t quite see in-control Gabriel as that needy, but then, maybe she hadn’t really known him.

  “Exactly.” He fiddled with her rings. “I hated it. I wished we were somewhere else, just the two of us. Listening to the waves, maybe. Or at the library while you studied.” He cleared his voice. “After a while, I thought you were beginning to enjoy it. That really bothered me.”

  “Enjoy that circus?” Blair couldn’t help it. She burst into laughter at the mess they’d made of everything. They’d been so stupid, so foolish.

  “Do you know how many times I ate snails just because I thought you loved them?” His lips turned down in distaste, and she laughed even harder. “I hate snails—I don’t care what they call them or how elite they are.”

  “I do, too.”

  “Anchovies?” She waited for his nod. “Caviar?”

  He shuddered. “Fish eggs? No, thanks!” Suddenly he caught on. “Screaming over music so loud your ears hurt? Having everyone call you ‘darling’ because they can’t remember your name?”

  She giggled at his pronunciation, then laughed even harder when he started on the vernacular she’d never understood. They laughed until their sides ached and they could laugh no longer.

  Blair lay on the blanket, peering at the sky as she remembered those days and her fear of doing or saying the wrong thing, of asking to leave early and worrying that Gabe would miss out. After a few moments she turned her head toward him. Gabe was staring at her, his mouth twisted in a lopsided grin.

  “You have my permission to shove my head under the water in the pool and hold it there for as long as you want.”

  She giggled. “You have my permission to demand I wear four-inch heels for the next week without taking them off.”

  He groaned, closing his eyes. “What a pair of fools! When I think of how many sinus pills I took after breathing that smoke, I could boot myself down the hill.”

  “When I think of listening to Eunice blabber on about Pippi and Poppi, I could push you down it with no compunction.”

  He shouted with laughter. “Those ridiculous dogs!” he exclaimed. “How did you stand having them underfoot all the time?”

  “Underfoot wasn’t bad. It was in my bag that really got me. ‘Pippi just adores tuna!’” She repeated the phrase in Eunice’s shrill falsetto. “Maybe I owe those dogs. They helped me keep my figure when you kept feeding me those lavish meals.”

  “Hey, I thought you liked Antonio’s!” He held out one hand with a flourish. “We have the chicken cordon bleu that madame loves as the special tonight.”

  Blair held her aching stomach. “Yuck! I haven’t eaten that since I left.”

  Gabe studied her for a long time, his smile fading. “I’m sorry I put you through all that.”

  “I’m sorry I pretended to be someone I’m not and made you think it, too.”

  They looked at each other, awareness tingling between them. Blair was so conscious of Gabe sitting next to her, she could feel the hairs on her arm stand at attention. When he reached out to brush her bangs off her forehead, she leaned toward him, holding her breath as his fingers slid across her brow and over the curve of her cheek. They stopped at her jawbone.

  “You’re very beautiful,” he whispered. “That hasn’t changed one bit. I used to be so jealous when you’d get into those discussions with your chemist friends. I had no idea what you were talking about, but I knew they were admiring you.”

  “I hated the starlets fawning over you.” She kept her eyes down. “I couldn’t compare and I knew it.”

  “Blair?” He waited until she looked at him. “I only ever saw you.”

  Tears pooled in her eyes at the wonderful compliment. “Thank you,” she whispered, staring into that dear, solemn face.

  A slow, provocative smile took possession of his face until his mouth was a wide white grin in his dark skin. “I told you, I don’t want your thanks.”

  Blair blinked. “What do you want?” she asked warily.

  His eyes dared her to listen. “Lots of things.”

  “Like what?” She couldn’t turn away, couldn’t get free of his magnetism. He drew her to him with a smile.

  “Laughter,” he murmured, his hand sliding down her back. “Lots and lots of laughter.” His hand moved up, and moments later her hair tumbled around her shoulders. “Picnics.”

  “Without lemons.” She nodded. “What else?”

  His hands cupped her face. “Time,” he whispered. “Time to get to know you, to understand why you drive yourself so hard. Time to learn what you really like, what you want from life.” He closed his eyes and thought for a moment. “Time to teach Daniel to ride a bike, time to learn how Mac knows so much. Time to help Albert perfect his gizmos. Time to go to church together, to sit all lined up in that pew like a real family.”

  “Time to let go of the past and build a future.” She waited for his response.

  His words came on a rush. “Yes. I want that, Blair. I want to start over. I want to build something good, something we can be proud of.”

  “We’ve got lots of time,” she murmured, her eyes closing as his thumb traced her lips. “All the time in the world.”

  “I hope so.” He kissed her so gently, so tenderly, that the tears fell of their own accord. He wiped them away, helped her up and walked her back without saying a word.

  As she stood in her workroom alone, Blair lifted a hand and traced her mouth, remembering. He was so sensitive, so considerate.

  But will there ever be enough time for him to learn to love me, God? Will there be time and faith enough for that?

  Chapter Nine

  “Blair?”

  “Yes?” She turned from the delicate task of rolling a sheet of beeswax into an intricate design she’d almost perfected. Gabe stood in the doorway, his face a comical expression of confusion as he studied the mess littering her workroom.

  For the past three weeks, ever since the wedding, while busying herself with every job she could find, she’d secretly watched him. The old Gabe seemed to be back, at least the innate curiosity that had drawn her to him in the first place. But a different facet of his personality had also emerged. This Gabe seemed more determined, more purposeful. Which was all right as long as he didn’t superimpose his will on hers.

  “When is Daniel’s birthday?”

  Blair clapped a hand over her mouth as reality hit home. “Good grief, I almost forgot! It’s Saturday.” That glittering stare of his forced her to think a little longer. “Oh, no!” She closed her eyes and groaned. “I promised to help out with the Scouts on that wiener roast.”

  “I know. Someone named Mona Greeley just phoned to remind you.” Gabe glared at her. “How could you forget his birthday?”

  “Don’t look at me like that!” Anger simmered just
beneath the surface. Gabriel Sloan dared to remind her of her own child’s birth date? It was laughable. “I’ve been a little busy, you know.”

  He nodded. “A little too busy. I told you that a week ago. You can’t keep this up, Blair. Daniel doesn’t want Willie or Mac reading to him every night. Sure, they can pitch in once in a while, but it isn’t fair to count on them all the time.”

  “I don’t. It’s just been very hectic.” She gently squeezed the wax together with the rose imprinter. The simmering inside her inched up a notch to a boil. “They don’t mind helping out, and it’s good for Daniel, too.” She reached for another sheet of wax before glancing at him. “It wouldn’t hurt you to read to him. You’re his father.”

  Gabe’s jaw tightened. “I know that, thank you. I understand the ramifications of being his father, but I can’t do it all. He wants you there, too. He wants you to hear all about his day and listen to his prayers. I’ve tried, but evidently I don’t have the same method as you.” Gabe yanked an old rickety chair forward and sank into it. “He keeps asking for you, Blair. Can’t you put off your work for just a few minutes to spend time with your son?”

  The pot inside her began to boil and bubble, roiling with indignation that edged nearer the top.

  “That’s rich, coming from you!” She set down the wax in case she damaged it with her taut fingers. “I’ve spent six years of his life being everything to my son. I don’t neglect him. I don’t abuse him. I love him with all my heart. I spend as much quality time with him as I can. I certainly don’t need lessons from you!”

  His cheeks darkened. “I’m not suggesting you do. I know you love him. But he’s confused right now. His whole world has changed, and he just wants his mommy to tuck him in. Is it so much to ask?” His voice rumbled low, condemnation in its depths.

  Blair strove to remain calm as she clenched her hands together.

  “I do tuck him in, as soon as I get back.” She forced her fingers to unbend and started fiddling with the ribbon she wrapped each pair of candles in. She couldn’t do anything because she was too angry, but she would put on a brave front.