by Janet Dailey
"I do love him, mom." Jonni said the words anyway, knowing they would reassure her mother. She raised her left hand to offer her engagement ring for her parents' inspection. "See?"
"It's beautiful!" her mother breathed.
"It's as big as a spotlight," her father remarked, and glanced at Trevor. "She'll have you in the poorhouse if you let her keep picking out jewelry like this."
"Jonni is worth it." Trevor smiled at her, but didn't bother to explain that the ring had been his choice, not hers.
"Good heavens, what are we doing still standing on the porch!" Caroline exclaimed. "Come inside. John, bring your daughter's suitcases in."
As they entered the house Trevor said, "I hope our arriving so unexpectedly won't cause you too much inconvenience."
"John and Caroline won't tell you if it does," Gabe inserted in a cool, dry voice.
"Don't listen to him." Caroline spoke up, dismissing Gabe's remark with a wave of her hand. "We never know when we're going to have company, so we're always ready. My daughter — and my future son-in-law — would never be an inconvenience to us anyway. Let me hang up your coat for you, Trevor."
As Trevor shrugged out of his top coat Jonni saw her father eyeing the suit and tie. Trevor wore. In this part of Kansas, men dressed much more casually. Ties, especially, were reserved for more august occasions. John Starr had never been one for formality.
"Which suitcases are yours, Jonni?" Gabe interrupted her thoughts. "I'll carry them up to your room."
"All but the two tan ones with the brown straps." That left four containing her clothes.
Gabe's raised eyebrow was the only indication that he questioned why a man who only intended to stay for three days would need two suitcases, but the question wasn't voiced. Jonni found it impossible to explain to Gabe how meticulous Trevor was about his wardrobe. Everything had to coordinate perfectly. Then she became irritated that Gabe was making her feel an explanation was necessary to justify the amount of luggage Trevor had brought. She pivoted away toward her mother, trying to conceal the anger in her expression.
"Will I be sleeping in my old room, mother?" she asked.
"Yes, dear," was the smiling answer. "I thought Trevor could take the guest room at the end of the hallway. Will that be all right?"
"Fine," Jonni agreed.
"Let's go into the living room," Caroline Starr began to move in that direction. "I'll fix some coffee. Or would you rather have something to drink?"
"I think what they would like," her father intervened, "is some time to rest and freshen up after that long plane trip here."
"Of course. How foolish of me!" Caroline stopped, her teeth biting at her lower lip in chagrin as she glanced apologetically at Trevor. "You must think we're terrible hosts. I don't have any excuse, except that it's so wonderful to have Jonni home again that I don't want to let her out of my sight."
"I can fully understand that, Caroline." Trevor smiled, inclining his head in agreement. "I feel that way about her myself."
The adoration in his response was calculated to draw a pleased smile from her mother, and it succeeded. "I'll take you upstairs and show you your room," Caroline offered.
"There's no need, mother I know the way. Why don't you put some coffee on instead?" Jonni suggested. "Trevor may want a drink later, but I'd love a cup of coffee."
"I'll fix some," her mother agreed.
As Jonni turned toward the stairs, she saw Gabe had separated her luggage from Trevor's. Her weekend bag was tucked under an arm. He was already holding one of the heavier cases and he was reaching for the other. Her cosmetic case still sat on the floor.
"I'll take this one, Gabe." Jonni bent to pick it up.
"I planned on that." His expressionless reply reinforced his statement that he took it for granted she would carry part of her own luggage.
The absence of any protest, even a polite one, thinned the line of Jonni's mouth. Gabe seemed to be implying that if she thought she was going to be waited on like a celebrity, she was wrong. Jonni expected nothing of the kind and resented him for thinking she did.
The sparkle of veiled temper was in the glance she swept to Trevor. "This way," she said to him. She added over her shoulder to her parents, "We'll be down shortly."
Gabe was four steps up the stairs before they started. Jonni sent daggers into the broad expanse of his tapering back. Under the weight of the suitcases his muscles bulged to fill the shirt. Yet he carried the cases with seemingly little effort. At the top of the stairs Gabe paused to wait for them, his sun-leathered face impassive in its expression.
"Your room is at the end of this hall, Mr. Martin." The rolled brim of Gabe's Stetson dipped toward the right.
"Thank you." There was a faintly condescending ring to Trevor's voice.
"There's an adjoining bath, shared with the other guest room, which is unoccupied at present," Gabe stated. "Caroline always keeps fresh towels in it."
"I'm sure it will all be satisfactory." But the glittering light in Trevor's eyes indicated he thought Gabe knew too much about the house and its routine. It was a stiff smile he gave Jonni. "I'll meet you downstairs in twenty minutes or so."
"All right," she agreed.
As Trevor started down the hall to his room, Jonni turned in the opposite direction toward hers, but Gabe and the width of the suitcases he carried blocked her way. She saw the dark, calculating look that watched Trevor walking away, and immediately a wary feeling stole through her.
"By the way, Mr. Martin — Gabe's low, drawling voice halted Trevor's steps " — Jonni has probably forgotten after six years, but the floor-boards there in front of John's and Caroline's door squeak rather loudly. You might want to keep that in mind if you're planning any late-night wanderings." The implication, of course, was "to Jonni's room."
A nerve twitched below Trevor's left eye, betraying his incensed reaction to the information. There was an instant of electric silence before a smiled curved his mouth.
"Thank you, I'll remember that," he said. With the next step he took the floorboards creaked loudly under his weight. Trevor hesitated for a split second before continuing on his way.
Gabe turned toward Jonni's room but she saw the deadly smile of satisfaction on his face before he completed the pivot. She did a slow burn as she followed him to her bedroom and closed the door. Anger simmered to the forefront when Gabe set her luggage down and turned to face her. The blue sparks shooting in her look didn't seem to interest him greatly.
"If I were a man, I'd punch you in the mouth, Gabe!" Jonni declared, issuing the statement through tightly clenched teeth.
Amusement flickered briefly in his eyes. "Your fiancé doesn't appear to share your opinion. Maybe that says something about him."
"Trevor is a gentleman. He doesn't feel it's necessary to resort to violence over a mere insult," she retorted.
"I suppose he thinks it's beneath him." Gabe's mouth curled into the black mustache above his lip. Almost instantly, his gaze made a leisurely appraisal of her figure, lingering on the agitated rise and fall of her jutting breasts. "Of course, if you were a man, Jonni, this situation would never have occurred." His gaze lowered to take in the rounded curve of her hips. "Even without the Gucci label on your jeans, I can tell you aren't a man."
A tremor shivered through her nerve ends at his blatantly sexual looks. "They aren't Gucci jeans." She denied the designer label for want of a more cutting response.
Contemptuous amusement was in his quick exhalation of breath. "They sure as hell aren't Levis." His long strides carried him past her to open the door leading into the hallway.
"Damn you!" Jonni choked on a mixture of hurt and anger. "I almost wish I hadn't come home!"
Gabe paused in the doorway, impaling her with a hard, cynical look. "We can agree on that. I'm beginning to wish you hadn't come back, too." He walked out of her bedroom, punctuating his sentence with the closing of the door.
Jonni wanted to throw something at the door to vent the
aching rage inside her. But it was a childish impulse and she wouldn't submit to it. She turned her back on the door, digging her long fingernails into the palm of her hand until the subsequent pain made her relax the fist.
In a burst of agitated energy, she set the cosmetic case on the dresser and began unpacking the contents. Below, she heard the banging of the screen door shutting. The window beside the dresser faced the front of the house. Dotted Swiss curtains of pale yellow were drawn from the window panes by ties in matching material.
Compelled by an invisible force, she stepped to the window as Gabe emerged from the shadow of the porch overhang. His unhurried, rolling gait gave an impression of lightness that was unusual for a man his size. It reminded Jonni of the unobtrusive stealth of an animal.
A tightness gripped her throat. Her homecoming hadn't lived up to her expectations and it was Gabe's fault. His discordant welcome had set the tone, throwing everything else off-key. Why? What had gone wrong?
What had happened to that invisible link that had always made her feel close to him? Had it ever existed in anything other than her imagination? Maybe in the past six years she had created in her mind the idea that there was some special bond between them. What had her relationship to Gabe been? Not friends — the gap in their ages precluded that. Not brother and sister, either, since Gabe had never permitted her to be that familiar with him. Jonni found that she couldn't define their relationship because she didn't know what it had been.
Once, in her teens, she remembered that she had attempted to idolize him. But as soon as Gabe realized it, he had figuratively removed himself from her pedestal and crushed the puppy adoration in its beginnings. He had destroyed the dream she had tried to build around him with a callous indifference that had bordered on cruelty. After that painful experience, Jonni had never again made the mistake of fantasizing about him as a lover.
What did that leave? Jonni couldn't find a label that fit. In her confusion she watched the tall, well-muscled figure walking toward the pickup truck. Black hair, black eyes, black mustache, all that was familiar to her, even the features that had hardened to shut out the world. Yet Jonni had the feeling Gabe was a stranger, that she didn't really know him at all, and never had.
At the sound of her bedroom door being opened Jonni stepped guiltily away from the window as if she had been caught doing something she shouldn't. Her behavior irritated nerves that were already raw. She had nothing to hide, especially not from Trevor. As he entered her room his gaze narrowed curiously, having caught her furtive movement away from the window.
"Hello, darling. Is your room all right?" She attempted to assume a bright facade to mask her previous reaction to his entrance.
"It's comfortable, yes." He walked to the window where she had been standing and looked out.
Glancing sideways, Jonni saw Gabe walking around the pickup to the driver's side. He opened the cab door and paused to look up at the window. The wide brim of his Stetson no longer shadowed his sun-bronzed face. His features were drawn in a grimly set expression before his chin came down and the hat brim shielded his face once again.
"He's an insolent devil," Trevor remarked.
Looking away from the window, Jonni didn't pretend that she didn't know whom Trevor was referring to. The metal slam of the truck door closing echoed into the room. She began arranging the bottles of lotion, perfumes and powder in the proper order on the dresser top. "I wouldn't say that to Gabe's face if I were you," Jonni murmured.
Trevor laughed shortly and without humor. "I have no intention of doing so," he assured her. "Not that wouldn't like to back it up with a pair of brass knuckles, just for the sheer pleasure of ramming my fist down his throat!"
"If I'd given it a thought, I would have warned you Gabe doesn't know the meaning of the word 'tact,'" she offered ruefully.
"I would have been better prepared." He moved to stand behind her, lifting aside her pale amber hair to nibble at the curve of her neck. "I expected an inquisition like that about my background and our future plans from your father — not a hired hand."
"Gabe is a hired hand only in the loosest meaning of the term, like an executive in one of your firms," Jonni corrected, and shrugged a shoulder in vague protest against the exploring caress of his mouth.
Trevor straightened to take her by the shoulders and turn her to face him. "I didn't realize it was a touchy subject with you, too." He studied her closely. Jonni squirmed, inwardly at his piercing examination, although she didn't know why, since she had nothing to hide.
"It isn't that." She ran her fingers along the lapel of his jacket, unnecessarily smoothing the material. "I just don't want you to let something slip that might cause more ill feelings."
"You know me better than that," he admonished.
"I'm just being cautious. I want you to make a good impression on everyone." To make up for the way she had avoided his previous caress, Jonni let her lips seek his to initiate a kiss that his practiced skill would finish.
With studied passion he took possession of her mouth and drew her more fully inside the circle of his arms. Her lips parted under his. His hand slipped inside her sweater jacket to cup the rounded peak of her breast. Jonni yielded to the consummate experience of his embrace.
When his arm tightened around her to mold her more firmly to his male shape, it touched the bruised flesh near her rib cage, the injury Gabe's hands had inflicted. She broke away from the kiss, gasping and wincing at the brief but sharp pain.
"What's the matter, darling? Did I hurt you?" Trevor was instantly concerned and curious.
"My ribs hurt from the ride," she lied, loath to mention the incident with Gabe since it would accomplish nothing.
An understanding smile curved his mouth. "I don't know which was worse," he acknowledged, "the springs on that truck or the chuckholes in that so-called road."
"Probably a combination," Jonni suggested, and stepped out of his encircling arms. "The truck could never be mistaken for your Mercedes, although the condition of the road could rival what's found in New York."
"The driver wasn't your local drugstore cowboy, either." Trevor brought the subject back to Gabe. "Where does he live? Here in the house?"
"No." With the cosmetic case unpacked, Jonni set it on the floor and lifted the suitcase containing her lingerie onto the bed. "Dad took one of the bunkhouses and turned it into private, living quarters for Gabe. Why?"
"He seemed to have such an intimate knowledge of the house." Trevor shrugged, then elaborated, "The location of your bedroom and the squeaking floorboards in relationship to the guest room."
"Gabe is practically a member of the family," Jonni replied a shade defensively. "He's free to come and go as he pleases. Besides, nothing escapes his attention, no matter how trivial," she explained. "He has an uncanny memory. He can be in a room once and remember every detail — the location of furniture, a sticking window, which drawer an item is kept in — everything."
"What was his reason for being in your room?"
Jonni didn't like the way. Trevor was looking at her — or what he might be implying. "One of my windows was stuck and dad needed his help to get it loose," she snapped. "What did you think he might have been doing in here?"
"Hey, temper!" he chided with amusement.
"I resent your insinuations!" Jonni flashed, unpacking her lingerie and shoving the expensive lace garments in the empty drawers of her dresser.
"Why are you so upset because I briefly thought there might have been something going on between you two six years ago?" Trevor studied her controlled fury with alert curiosity. "Is he married?"
"No, he isn't married." Telling herself she was overreacting, Jonni tried to calm down.
"Then why get so upset?" Trevor wanted to know, but he kept the tone of his question deliberately offhand. "He has a kind of he-man toughness that might appeal to some women, especially adolescents. He looks as if he just stepped out of an advertisement for Marlboro cigarettes. Is it inconceivable t
hat you might have developed a crush on all that brawn?"
"Brawn and brains. Don't make the mistake of underestimating his intelligence," Jonni warned. "It isn't inconceivable that I could have been infatuated with Gabe, but it so happens that I wasn't." She finally answered his question.
"I was just finding out where the competition is," Trevor said. "The last thing I want to do is compete with an old love from the past. I dislike being jealous of ghosts."
His explanation relaxed her. She abandoned her defensive attitude and smiled. "Gabe doesn't rank among my list of old flames, so you have nothing to worry about."
"Good. I'll feel more at ease about leaving you here alone for two weeks." He lifted a sheer nightie from her suitcase. It was brown, trimmed with beige lace. "Very pretty. Remind me to have you model this for me sometime."
His glance was deliberately suggestive, but it wasn't his unsubtle message that was sending a pleasant glow of warmth through Jonni. It was the prospect that Trevor could be jealous.
"You really thought it was possible that I might have loved Gabe, didn't you?" she marveled. "And it worried you."
"It concerned me." Trevor avoided the stronger word. "Is it so unlikely that you would have?"
"Gabe is so much older than I am, for one thing," Jonni pointed out.
"So much older?" He appeared skeptical of that reason. "He can't be more than thirty-seven, thirty-eight. And you're twenty-five. Twelve years, even thirteen years, is not that vast an age span. We're nine years apart. So, if you're trying to imply that Stockman is old enough to be your father, it would be unlikely even for a very precocious child."
"I … I suppose not," she conceded after a second's hesitation. "I guess Gabe probably seemed older because I was younger."
"Probably," Trevor agreed, and handed her the chocolate brown nightgown of thin silk he had admired. "Are you going to finish unpacking or shall we rejoin your parents downstairs?"