He waited, sure she’d throw him out. His proposal was, after all, a damn cold-hearted way to go into what could only be physical release. He’d be attentive and give her what he had to offer, but it wasn’t much.
Suddenly, he was exhausted; weary in soul more than body. This woman probably deserved better, and in another existence, maybe he would, too. But he’d had the kind of love you only get once in a lifetime, if you’re very lucky, and he’d squandered it.
He looked away from the green eyes that studied him so intently. “Never mind. I wouldn’t agree, either, if I were you.”
She detained him with one hand on his elbow. Slowly, she softened against him. One hand slipped into his hair as she drew his head down toward her.
The love-goddess body brushed over the front of him, and heat rose again between them.
And that husky bedroom voice answered at last.
“Deal.”
CHAPTER FOUR
SHE KEPT HIM CLOSE to her as they left through the side door. Gamble was glad for the contact, because once she’d brought up Charlotte, he was about two steps away from running. His body was absolutely sure of what it wanted; his mind, still more logical than he’d like, was barely half-convinced. His heart? That cursed organ persisted in surviving, no matter how often he’d tried to starve it out of existence, and it was miserable. Torn between the battering of guilt and a yearning to escape the loneliness that was his self-imposed prison. Afraid that finding even a moment’s surcease was so wrong that the punishment would be levied in some cosmic toll—perhaps his mother’s health.
All the way around the building, his pace dragged. “Where are we going?”
Jezebel dropped his hand. “I’m headed in there,” she said, indicating a door on the back side of the bar. “But you’re leaving. You don’t want to be here, and I’m not that hard up.”
In the light from the parking lot, he could see her cheeks stained with color. Shame rose. “No.” His voice was hardly audible. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I do want to be with you, Jezebel. If you’ll have me.”
She remained still, placing on him the burden of convincing her.
And his fears that this would be another Kat situation eased. This woman had more control of her emotions. With Kat, sex had been all thunder and fury and drama to hide a terrifying vulnerability. A heart that demanded an answering opening of the self from him…something he would never again share. All that was tender in him had died with Charlotte.
Jezebel’s looks might be flamboyantly sexy, but he had a sense of a stalwart inner gate that guarded the woman inside. She might share her body, but she would not easily expose her core.
Which was a relief. Jezebel could protect herself, he felt certain. Lonely she might be, but not needy, and therefore, not a threat.
She wouldn’t have to be alone tonight, and neither would he. Gamble locked away any misgivings and let body speak to body, the only language in which he was fluent with women.
Taking a chance, he slicked his tongue down her neck and taunted the delicate slope of her collarbone.
She inhaled sharply. Dug her fingers into her jeans. Gamble smiled and began to work his way into the teasing hollow of her cleavage, gently separating the panels of her shirt once more.
Her hands rose from her sides, then fluttered helplessly downward again. She murmured something in that unbelievably erotic voice, and Gamble’s body reacted.
“Keys,” she said, as her back arched. “Dropped them.”
He caught a glint of metal. Anchoring one hand on her hip to prolong the contact, he bent and retrieved them. “Which one?”
Her unfocused gaze aroused him unmercifully. He scrambled to follow the pointed finger and jabbed that key in the lock before returning his attention to her brain-draining mouth.
Jezebel moaned and gripped his hands, placing them squarely on her very abundant breasts.
Her very natural breasts, he registered in the millisecond before he quit thinking at all.
After that came a ballet of farcical proportions as they did their best to get inside and move across the floor without relinquishing one micron of contact with the other’s body. Gamble saw nothing of his surroundings, had only the vague impression of a hissing cat and a scrambling dog. He carted Jezebel across a blessedly small space toward the bed she indicated between devouring kisses, her legs locked around his hips, his hands filled with hers.
He managed to kick the door shut before he fell onto the bed with her, and they proceeded to thoroughly lose their minds.
Sighs and moans and whispers…fingers trailing over curves, hands grasping hardness. The glide of his tongue over her sweet inner hollows…her raven curls sliding across his belly.
“Gamble, now. Please, now. I can’t—”
Instead, he drew her along on another wild ride into bliss.
At last, she unbalanced him, pinned him to the mattress and straddled him, condom brandished with a smile gleaming triumph. Nipples erect, skin blooming rose, hair a-tumble, she poised above him and began to apply the protection with her mouth.
Gamble bucked teasingly to unseat her, and reveled in the novelty of this woman who made him remember how to play. With Charlotte, everything had been so serious—
No. Not Charlotte. Don’t think about—
But he couldn’t help reacting.
Jezebel noticed, and froze. Withdrew.
Fury at himself took over then. Ruthlessly, he flipped her and entered her in one thrust, then set a hard pace. Charlotte was dead and he was alive, however often he’d wished different. His mother was hurt and his life was a sham and—
Jezebel was crying.
He flinched. Pulled away.
“No.” She stared at him with so many expressions skating over her face that he couldn’t interpret. Fierce determination. Hunger. Sorrow and, damn her, pity.
“Don’t you feel sorry for me. Don’t you dare,” he growled.
Her expression was stricken. “It’s not—”
He kissed her to shut her up. All playfulness vanished, and the two joined battle, only Gamble couldn’t figure out if he was fighting her or himself.
Jezebel’s back arched, those long, muscular legs locked him to her, and his twice-damned body betrayed him.
When his brain cleared, his head lay on her bosom as her hand stroked over his hair. For once, his mind was quiet and still. For a breathless, forbidden moment, he allowed himself to simply be.
How long since he’d known even a moment’s peace? One stray beam of sunshine and hope. Of…connection.
It felt so good. Too good.
He couldn’t see her expression without moving, and he wasn’t sure he was brave enough to chance it, anyway. He didn’t know whether to apologize or say thank you, to run like hell or stay and make it up to her.
Before he could figure it out, her body began to slacken into slumber. When her breathing settled into a slow, easy rhythm, he peeled himself from her.
And saw tears dried into silver tracks over skin like white velvet.
But her mouth was curved in a smile.
Gamble lay back for a minute and tried to decide if he was the most pathetic loser or sorriest bastard he’d ever known.
Ah, Charlotte. What did you ever find to love in me? He spoke, as he often did, to the woman whose memory proved elusive when he needed it most. He couldn’t remember how her voice sounded anymore, and he was losing his hold on too much else.
He had to summon the strength to paint her portrait before he lost her altogether.
Gamble removed himself from Jezebel’s bed as quietly as possible. On silent feet, he gathered his clothes and left without looking back.
Those extra condoms wouldn’t be required tonight.
* * *
JEZEBEL AWOKE when the door clicked shut.
Heavenly days. Delicious echoes of his lovemaking still shivered through her body. Gamble Smith was a complicated mixture of raw physical power and staggering fines
se. Hard, ropy muscles, long, virtuoso fingers and a sixth sense for a woman’s sweet spots.
All of that mingled with enough shadows and pain to break your heart.
She sighed and rolled over, gathering his pillow to her as she had wanted to cuddle him. Shield him.
Boy, you sure can pick ’em, can’t you?
But Gamble Smith wasn’t a child she could nurture or a stray like Rufus or Oscar that she could simply sweep up and incorporate into her life. She had her hands full, in any case, with Skeeter and the bar.
And Gamble didn’t want to be tended; he’d made that perfectly clear.
Even if his body had responded differently at the end there. She didn’t think he was aware of how tightly he’d clung to her, but he’d raised a riot of feelings. Her body still tingling from his, her heart twisting in sorrow, she’d also felt the bite of shame that he thought her so pathetic that he’d grant her mercy sex.
She shoved the pillow to the floor; Oscar yowled and scampered away. Instantly, Jezebel rolled and held out her hand. “I’m sorry. Come here,” she entreated. With the slow disdain only a cat can muster, Oscar avoided her.
“You and Gamble have a lot in common.” Just then, Rufus nudged her hip with his cold, wet nose. She turned to him in gratitude. “And you’re too much like me, aren’t you, boy? Always hungry for affection.” She sighed and shook her head. “Well, that man is a fool’s errand, no matter how much he needs love.”
No one had ever stuck by her in all her life; still, she’d never been able, in a small, secret part of her, to quit wishing for that special someone. Even to flirt with the notion now was emotional suicide, however, particularly given what she understood of Gamble and his past.
She glanced at the cat, a cool distance apart, occupied in grooming himself, so sure of his place in the world and caring not a fig for anyone else’s desires.
She pressed a kiss to Rufus’s head. “We could both learn a lesson from the Emperor here.”
Rufus swiped his tongue over her cheek and nudged closer.
Jezebel chuckled and cast the night away like broom-swept dust. “I know, I know. We’re both too old to change, aren’t we? Good thing that man is leaving town soon. We’ll just hope he doesn’t come back into the bar before he goes.”
Then she sobered. How would he feel about her offer to buy his cottage now?
Borrowing trouble, Jez. Nothing you can do about it tonight. With a shake of her head, she rose.
And felt an unmistakable wetness trailing down her thighs—
Left by a broken condom.
CHAPTER FIVE
OH, NO. NO. What if I’m—
Jezebel sank onto one of her two mismatched kitchen chairs and tried to pinch off the word, but it wouldn’t be forestalled.
Pregnant. She couldn’t be, that was all. The odds were high against it, and she should be relieved. She had no business with a baby, not without a husband, however much she longed for a child. Single parenthood might be fine for some people, but not for someone with her background. What did she know about mothering? She’d been left on her own for days at a time until the child welfare people finally removed her from the junkie aunt who’d taken her in to collect child-welfare payments, and no one after that had wanted her.
But a baby… Regardless of the lousy timing, she couldn’t help going gooey inside at the thought.
Jezebel cherished the few remnants of memory of her brief life with a whole family. She had been surrounded by love once, and she wished that for any child she might bear. One parent could give it, sure, but the small Jezebel had treasured her mother’s gentleness and her father’s strength; both had contributed to the sense of haven a little girl had assumed was normal.
However badly she craved to be a mother someday, she desired just as much for any child of hers to have that wealth. The loss was forever an ache inside her.
“Good grief.” She shoved out of her chair. “It only happened a few hours ago, and I’m acting as if a baby is a done deal.” She busied herself making coffee and starting breakfast.
Gamble Smith would have to be some kind of stud to knock her up the first time they’d made love—
Had sex, she corrected herself.
But she could still feel his hair beneath her fingers, thick and sable-dark, as he laid his head over her heart for those few moments when he’d let down the mile-high walls.
That poor man. He didn’t appreciate her pity, and he was anything but weak, yet she couldn’t help wishing to heal him.
Rufus ambled up and leaned against her leg in that funny way of his, as though he must be propped up. She cooed to him as she scratched his wide head, then dropped to her heels to extend the same favor to Oscar. She glanced around herself at the tiny, cramped space she inhabited and tried to envision where she’d put a crib.
“Stop it.” She jerked to standing. “This is crazy. You’re not pregnant.”
But a powerful inner sense said different. She had no idea how early she could take a pregnancy test, yet some instinct chimed that one wasn’t necessary.
“Don’t borrow trouble,” she ordered herself aloud to reinforce the message.
She could shout it, however; the tactic wasn’t working. Now, more than ever, she wanted the cottage. Had to have the cottage. She would not bring up a child behind a bar.
Jezebel bent over the counter and dropped her head into her hands. How much more complicated could this get? If it was true, she would have to tell Gamble at some point, but how on earth would he take it?
Not well, she’d bet her life on that.
Would he insist on marrying her to provide—
“No.” She straightened. Slapped her palms on the cracked tile to knock some sense into herself. “The condom only tore hours ago, and already you’re getting married.” She began to pace. To seek an answer to what to do, since inaction was never her first choice. She’d made a lot of mistakes in her life—dropping out of school, living on the streets, hooking up with lousy men—but she was beginning to correct them, and every step forward was the result of planning. The road out of the quagmire of her past had not been straight or smooth, but she had the money for a down payment because she’d thought ahead.
Maybe she wasn’t pregnant. A part of her sighed and settled its shoulders in relief, though another piece of her mourned.
But if she was, then she had to plot very careful steps through the minefield that was Gamble Smith. The first one was to check with Levi to determine if her offer had been conveyed and if so, what Gamble’s answer was. Whether she was pregnant or not, she still wanted that house, and somehow it seemed fitting that a child of his would grow up there. Not for a second did she consider an alternative to keeping any baby that might have resulted from last night.
And just in case, she poured out the coffee into the sink and began a cup of tea.
As she busied her hands, her mind ranged over what to do next. The small grocery in Three Pines wasn’t open yet, and besides, she didn’t dare buy a pregnancy test there. The news would be all over town before she pocketed her change.
At any rate, surely it was too soon to have answers to that question, but she could get another one resolved in the next hour or so when Levi’s office hours began. Meanwhile, she couldn’t stay here any longer; she’d wear the floor out pacing.
She could visit her cottage, however. Watch the sun rise.
And dream.
* * *
DAWN CREPT OVER the edge of the earth as Lily made her way to the first of her mother’s three greenhouses that comprised the soul of Blossom Central. She longed to drive to the hospital and witness for herself what the nurse had conveyed: that her mother was resting comfortably, her condition was stable and no, she still had not awakened.
But Gamble was there, the woman told her. Had been most of the night. So Mama wasn’t alone.
And she’d skin Lily if a single one of her plants died.
They’re like babies, Marian Smith had always said.
Completely dependent on us for everything—food, water and light. We must give them the same devotion, Lily Belle. My babies are grown, and yours are still a ways off, so there’s no good excuse for not tending these well, at least until your Prince Charming has come.
Lily had worked beside her mother since she was small. Not forced effort—well, teenage tantrums excepted—but a labor of love that ran in her own blood, as well. From her earliest memories, Lily had relished having her hands in the dirt. She had a nose a winemaker would envy for its ability to divine the delicate chemistry in a sample of soil, what it lacked and what might be wrong. Roll it between finger and thumb, crumble it in her palm, then sniff and be on the mark every time…even her mother’s wizardry could not compete with Lily’s innate gift.
When she was younger, Lily imagined taking over the business and carrying on the tradition. There was only one cloud on the horizon.
Prince Charming didn’t live in Three Pines and wasn’t likely to visit.
As she watered and pinched, tamped soil gently over a stray root and rotated trays, Lily inhaled the peace that was as much a part of this rich, moist air as the tang of pine needles beneath her feet and spice of geraniums on her fingertips. And told herself that she was young yet and had plenty of years left.
But if anything happened to Mama—
No. Mama would be fine.
If anything did, though, the full weight of her mother’s dream would press heavily on her shoulders.
And not for the first time, Lily wondered what she would be missing in the world outside Three Pines.
“Good mornin’.”
Lily jolted. She hadn’t heard the door open. “Hello, Calvin.”
“You’re up early. How’s your mama?”
“Stable, they tell me.” Deliberately, she didn’t look up but kept working.
He halted beside her and lifted the spray nozzle from her hand, twisting it to the mist needed for the ferns hanging overhead. “I can finish here, chère. Bet you’d like to go visit her.”
Tough, muscular Cal Robicheaux, sandy haired with wicked brown eyes, had the annoying habits of thinking he could read her mind and forgetting who gave the orders around here. Since he’d entered their lives three months ago as temporary help who seemed disinclined to leave, he’d taken on more and more responsibilities her mother had gladly handed over. Always respectful of Mama’s opinions and tastes, he didn’t accord Lily the same courtesy.
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