Hours later, the stage was set.
And now, he must wait. But if she didn’t return soon, he would haunt Darrell and Skeeter until they caved.
* * *
JEZEBEL’S FEET were dragging as she emerged from her car. Two days spent waiting for nothing; she had not been required to testify, but Russ Bollinger had still been convicted. She couldn’t help being relieved that he wouldn’t be able to blame his conviction on her, and she could put that chapter behind her.
Home free, at last.
She stopped dead before her doorway.
But…where was home for her now?
Every hour away from Three Pines, she’d alternated between resolve and despair. She didn’t have to leave Three Pines; Gamble surely would be gone the instant his mother’s situation cleared.
But soon, her secret would be out, and too many people had seen them together. She’d made her peace with the knowledge that she and Gamble had no future. What worried her most was having her child suffer the consequences of having no father, if he didn’t want to be involved even to the degree of claiming his child. She was familiar with being a misfit, and she would do everything in her power to save her child from the misery of it.
If she went somewhere else, she could call herself a widow and her baby would never have to know, until the time was right, that its father had made a choice. But she kept returning to the fact that if she left Three Pines, the fate she feared most for her child could materialize. The child would be defenseless, as Jezebel had once been, should something happen to her.
She’d had very little sleep since she had walked away from Gamble’s studio like a zombie. When she tried, the portrait of Charlotte haunted her…mocked her, with its reminder of a love Jezebel could never have. Tired to the bone, she unlocked the door to her makeshift quarters—
And was swallowed up in the abundant affection of one sloppy dog and the irritation of a too-long-ignored cat.
“Oh, Rufus…” For the first time since her hopes had shattered forever, Jezebel allowed herself to weep. She buried her face in his fur and clung as sobs refused to be stemmed.
She slipped from kneeling to sitting and cried out her misery, all the lost illusions, every last unattainable dream. Oscar prowled and rubbed as if to comfort her, and Rufus snuffled at her hair.
Finally, the storm abated. Drained by the force of it, she sat on the floor, hunched over, stroking her two best friends, and reminded herself of all she had to be grateful for. Eyes closed, she leaned her head against the door and focused on gathering herself to face a life that had, only a matter of days ago, seemed pretty wonderful.
She pulled Rufus close with one arm and placed the other hand on her belly. “We’ll be all right, baby. I promise.” She regarded her faithful friend. “Rufus, I’m going to need your help.”
Then she smiled ruefully. Look at you, asking for help from a dog. You are a head case, Jezebel.
“Okay,” she said. “Pity party over. Time to make plans.” She got to her knees, then rose to her feet, kicked off her shoes and padded to the kitchen table to check her mail.
And froze.
Flowers, scattered in pots all across her kitchen counters. Roses, gardenias. Honeysuckle and azaleas.
And square in the center of the table, a note.
Jezebel, the envelope said, in bold letters.
With a tiny sketch of the cottage beside her name. One created by no other hand than Gamble Smith’s.
In trembling fingers, she lifted the envelope and turned it over.
Then paused.
What could be inside it? She was terrified and thrilled, eager and reluctant.
But curiosity won. She opened the flap.
You have no reason to forgive me. I never meant to hurt you, but I realize I did. We have a lot to talk about. Please come to the cottage. I’ll wait for you, however long it takes.
And signed it only G.
She stood there with it in her hand for a very long time, afraid to hope but desperately wishing she dared.
She thought about all she’d surmounted in her life, reminded herself that taking a simple drive to a cottage would be considered by most people to be a piece of cake, compared with stripping off your clothes for strangers or sleeping in bus stations or living alone on the streets at thirteen.
But if she’d ever been more scared, she couldn’t recall it.
Because this…could be everything. Her dreams, her fantasies, a child’s yearning, a woman’s deepest longings.
Or it could be only a decent man trying to find a way to square accounts—
Before walking out of her life.
She squeezed the envelope—
And felt something else inside.
When she turned the envelope on its side, a key fell out. She’d seen it before, marked with a blue dot, the day Gamble unlocked the door and let her enter the house he had built with so much love.
She clutched it to her breast.
But her heart filled with sorrow. Gamble was going to leave, but conscience was making him grant her the cottage he knew she wanted so badly.
She managed a small smile. Not that long ago, she would have been the happiest woman in the world to have the cottage for what it would mean to Skeeter and to herself. She just hadn’t understood then that the man who owned it would mean so much more.
Jezebel squared her shoulders. “Okay. All right.” Time to count blessings, not to mourn what she couldn’t have. She glanced at the flowers, inhaled their perfume. Peered down at Rufus. “Want to come with me, fella?” She could use the reinforcements.
In the end, though, she decided she had to face Gamble alone. She petted Rufus and Oscar, grabbed her purse—
And left to get this—whatever it was—over with.
* * *
EACH REVOLUTION of her tires brought a memory, and Jezebel stopped fighting them. Someday, she would share them—the G-rated ones, anyway—with his child.
At last, the cottage emerged into view, and she fell still before the onslaught of emotions rolling over her.
Everywhere she looked, she saw him. Angry and demanding that she go. Sweaty and gorgeous, hacking at vines. Wet and muddy, wrestling with Rufus. Pain-racked and haunted as he waited while she went inside.
And caught in the spell as he painted a masterpiece of the woman who was his life.
When she stopped the car and emerged, he was nowhere to be found after all. She walked to the front door on unsteady legs, with each step attempting to imagine living here with her child.
His child.
On the front porch, she stalled, overwhelmed by longing. Trying not to wish for a miracle. Unable to succeed.
Finally, she opened the screen door, slipped the key into the lock and turned. Entered a house that would, she feared, forever be Charlotte’s and never hers.
But love dwelled here, and she would add to its account. Swell its coffers every day so that the baby inside her would never experience what it felt like to be abandoned or alone.
She glanced automatically toward the mantel, where his magnificent painting of the cottage last hung—
And halted in shock.
For there, against the stone, was a new painting.
Of her. The sketch she still treasured, of her in the filmy gown, rendered in paints this time. Exploding with life and color, rich bronze and burgundy background, her hair raven black, her gown the green of her eyes.
“You made me beautiful,” she murmured, and stepped close.
“I only painted what I saw.”
She gasped. Whirled.
And there he stood, the man who owned her heart.
For endless moments, they studied each other in silence.
Then spoke at the same time.
“You’re beautiful—”
“I know you’re leaving—”
He frowned. “You do?”
Her spirits sank to her toes, but she squared her shoulders and refused to let that show. “Of cour
se. Your life is in New York. You have a bright future ahead. You’re too talented to bury yourself here in East Texas.”
Gamble was still feeling the jolt of her presence, so he was slow to argue. However much he thought he’d done her justice in the portrait, even without oils, he now understood he had failed completely. Life burst from her, glowed from every pore. Inside her dwelled an endless well of goodness, a soul so vibrant and rich with compassion and strength that his own dead heart had stirred and stretched toward her as a seedling seeks the light.
The nerves that had plagued him as he waited for her were still on edge about her reaction to all he’d done—
But deep within him, impatience demanded that he stop sitting on the sidelines of life and leap back into the fray.
“What about you, Jezebel? What’s your future?” He walked closer. “Where will it play out?”
“Me?” Her eyes darted to the side. “Oh, well, I…”
He’d never seen her flustered. Hope rose in him. She didn’t have everything figured out. “Surely the woman who bosses everyone else around has some idea what she wants for herself.”
He moved in on her. She took a nervous step to the side.
He captured her, unable to stand not touching her for one more second. But as he pulled her near, she resisted. “Jezebel?”
Her head was down. He tipped up her chin. “Honey, what’s wrong?”
The eyes that beheld him were huge and green… and swimming with tears. “You know what I want,” she whispered. “Don’t tease me with what can’t happen. I realize that you and Charlotte had something special. I understand that you’ll never get over her. I just wish—” She pressed her lips together to stem the words.
“What?” he asked softly, sensing that he must tread carefully.
Only silence greeted him, at once intimate and immense, as if the slightest step wrong would destroy what was so fragile between them.
Gamble was not a man to discuss his emotions. No guy liked it, and he preferred not to even think about them, much less voice them.
But for the sake of this beautiful soul, he would try.
He released her while he gathered his thoughts. Jezebel visibly shrank into herself, and he sought to explain. “It’s not—” He cleared his throat. “Oh, hell. I told you I’m lousy with words.”
He could divine nothing from her brief nod, and she had resumed staring at the floor.
“I love Charlotte,” he began. She flinched, but he made himself forge on. “I always will. She and I were bound from the time I was ten and she was eight. I felt responsible for her. She was always frail.” Every sentence seemed to make Jezebel feel worse, but he wouldn’t lie to her.
“I was angry about her being pregnant, but I don’t have anything against babies. My reaction was more about how scared I was of losing her. I wanted to be a father. I still do.”
Jezebel’s gaze shot to his, and he saw an instant of wild hope before she quickly shuttered it. “So—” Her voice was hoarse. “You…might be willing to acknowledge this child, even if—” She bit her lip. “I mean, you’ll leave, and I can raise this baby fine by myself, but—”
“So you didn’t—” He halted. Closed his eyes. “The baby’s safe.”
“Of course. I never considered not keeping it.”
“I’m glad.”
“You are?”
She was so stunned that anger got the better of him. “Of course I am, damn it.”
She opened her mouth automatically. “That’s a—”
“Dollar,” he finished for her. And fell the rest of the way into love. “I’ll put the money in your bleeping jar.”
“I’m sorry. You don’t have to.”
He couldn’t stay away from her anymore. Had to touch her again. “Jezebel, why is it you’ll fight for everyone else but yourself? Would you honestly just let me waltz back to New York so easily? Demand so little of me?”
Her pupils nearly swallowed the green. “You love Charlotte, not me. I’m a realist. That sort of devotion doesn’t happen twice in a lifetime. I don’t expect it to.”
“Then you’re selling yourself too short, and it makes me so—” He inhaled, then abandoned caution. “Damn mad. Go ahead. Fine me again.”
A small smile played around her lips, but her eyes were an aching tangle of longing and resignation.
“I can’t forget Charlotte, no.” When Jezebel averted her face, he brought it right back. “She’s a part of me. My life with her made me who I am. But she’s my past. That won’t grow or change, yet I will. I have, already, because of you.”
He felt his words vibrate through her, and that beautiful, too-honest face let her yearning show through, speckled as it was with caution he understood was squarely his fault.
So he redoubled his efforts. “I love you, Jezebel Hart. I want a chance with you. A life with you.”
She blinked. “But what about your career and New York and—”
He smiled. Shook her gently. “Don’t you get it? I’m not going back there. I can paint anywhere. I’ll have to visit for shows, but you can go with me, you and—”
He glanced down. Extended his hand toward her belly, then paused. “May I?”
She bit her lower lip and nodded.
He touched her. Felt the warmth of her still-flat belly. Cupped his fingers as if to cradle the new life.
When she tenderly placed her own hand over his, he could truly breathe for the first time in days. Months.
Years, really.
“You’re so strong,” he marveled. “For years, I’ve had to be…careful.” He refrained from bringing up Charlotte’s name. “But I need you to believe that you can lean on me. You’re not alone now.”
A jumble of emotions swept over her face, among them wonder and more than a little reluctance. She opened her mouth, then hesitated.
“What?”
“You said that you can’t live here.”
“I didn’t believe I could.” It was time to face the last hurdle. Prove to her that he was committed. “Come with me.”
“Where?”
He didn’t answer; instead, he led her down the hall, clutching her hand.
Doubts rushed in. He wheeled in front of a door. “Never mind. Maybe I shouldn’t have—”
Her brow wrinkled. “What’s in there?”
He ranged himself before the opening, all faith in his bright idea vanished. “I have no idea what I was thinking,” he muttered.
She reached for the knob.
“No, don’t—You—”
Too late. She’d opened the door.
Jezebel gasped at the sight.
“I meant well, I swear it.” He tugged at her arm. “Stand back, and I’ll get rid of it.”
Jezebel barely breathed as she absorbed the sight of walls covered with stunning paintings of nursery rhymes, executed not in pastels but in bold, glowing colors, obviously the work of the man at her side.
She was speechless at the beauty of it.
“Oh, Gamble…”
Then she realized that the room was empty of furniture, except—
A crib. So sturdy and graceful…from the tension in the man beside her, she was sure it was the one he’d made for Charlotte. She covered her mouth with her free hand.
“I knew it. Wrong thing to do. I’m an idiot. Of course you wouldn’t be comfortable with anything that had to do with Charlotte or—”
All she could do was shake her head at first, as the room and the crib blurred in her vision.
He strode across the room and grabbed one end. “Go back in the living room. I’ll disassemble it.”
She leaped toward him. Stilled his hand. Stroked the satiny wood. “No,” she finally managed. She gripped his fingers. “It’s the one, isn’t it? The crib you brought home that day?”
He nodded, his expression miserable. “You’d be worried. I should have seen that. Be afraid that something would—” His gaze shifted to her belly. “Wait outside.”
She cupped his face. “You fashioned this with your own hands. With love in your heart.” She gestured to the walls. “Painted these. Priceless, all of it.”
“You’re not superstitious?”
She shook her head. “Over the years, I’ve learned that you make your own luck. Bad things happen, but you just…deal with them.” She smiled. “It’s only between us, Gamble, how to deal with your past. To honor Charlotte’s memory this way might be odd to some, but to me, it feels…right. We knit two parts of your life together.”
The tension in his frame eased. His voice was thick when he spoke. “I swear that heart of yours is as big as the world. I’m not a good man, Jezebel, but I want to be one for you. Will you let me give you a home? Make a family with me?”
They stood there, mere inches apart, the moment ripe with words and dreams and fears and hopes.
“I would love nothing more.” Jezebel’s throat brimmed with tears. “But you’re wrong. You are a good man, Gamble Smith.”
He sagged as if with great exhaustion. She rose to her toes and wrapped him in her arms, while his slid around her waist. Slowly, they rocked together, gathering to themselves what had so nearly been lost.
Gamble turned his face into her hair and whispered into her ear, “Babies and puppies and kittens, right?”
She laughed shakily. Gratefully. “Maybe even horses and chickens.”
His mouth curved in a grin. “And every last stray, animal or human, who crosses your path, I’m damn sure.”
She leaned back and drank in the sight of him. “That’s four dollars for the jar.”
“What if I don’t have it on me?” His eyes took on a twinkle. “Will you take payment in kisses?”
“I think something can be arranged.” She was smiling as his head dipped, and his lips brushed hers.
“But don’t you dare tell Louie.”
* * * * *
ISBN: 9781488025372
SWEET MERCY
Copyright © 2006 by Jean Brashear.
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
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