Whatever he’d been about to say or do, he stopped moving entirely when he spotted her. He was just wearing a gray wool sweater and comfortable gray cords, but she inhaled the look of him as if they’d been separated for months. Love. She could have sworn she saw love in his eyes, deep and dark as a river, and surely he couldn’t look at her with that kind of intimate intensity if he hadn’t missed her?
But then he shifted on his feet, and his gaze shot back to his ex-wife. All emotion seemed to be vacuumed out of his expression. She’d seen that stoic look before, seen the harsh stress lines carved in his face when Gar was braced for trouble. And beneath his skier’s ruddy tan was a gray tiredness that came too damn close to matching his sweater.
His ex-wife’s words pounced back into her mind. I need help, Gar…I’m in trouble…
Abby knew perfectly well that trouble didn’t scare him. Gar could probably manage a couple of small countries in his spare time. But she also knew he had a couple of nasty Achilles’ heels, namely his sense of honor and that disgracefully archaic rescuer streak he had about women.
Janet spun around suddenly then, and spotted her, too. Abby’s mouth opened. The only conceivable thing to do was apologize quickly for interrupting them and leave.
Only…he needed her. She wasn’t positive where the strong feminine instinct came from, when she’d never felt confident about trusting her woman’s instincts before. And it wasn’t like she doubted that he could cope. It was just…she simply couldn’t desert a man with a flat tire in a blizzard in the middle of the night.
“I didn’t realize there was anyone in here but Gar,” she said swiftly.
“Well, you’re interrupting a private conversation.” When Janet swiveled around completely, Abby caught a better look at her. That beautiful face was more gaunt than the last time she’d seen her; the pupils were dilated and huge, the long, slim, pretty hands were trembling slightly. Abby had no way to judge how much might be a manipulative act and how much was real, but this wasn’t a happy woman. And she thought, somewhere in that face, in those eyes, was a woman he’d once loved.
“I realized that right away, and I’m sorry for interrupting,” Abby said carefully, “but I also couldn’t help but overhear what you were saying. You’re in some kind of trouble? There’s something you need our help with?”
Our. Her man needed big guns, and the best she’d come up with was a paltry three-letter word. Because it simply wasn’t enough, she crossed the room to Gar and claimed his hand, just the heart’s breadth of a quick squeeze, but she hoped enough to communicate a gesture of alliance.
“This has nothing to do with you,” Janet said curtly.
“That could well be true, but if you’ve got a problem, it wouldn’t make much sense to turn down another listening ear…. You look like you could use a cup of tea or coffee.”
“I don’t want a drink.”
“Okay.” Without thinking, she took a protective step in front of Gar. “I had the impression what you wanted was money.”
“I’m in debt.” Those big, haunted eyes zoomed behind her. There was no question about who she wanted to talk to—and it wasn’t another woman. “Terribly serious debt—”
Abby gently interrupted. “And it sounds as if you’re scared, as well. Pretty hard not to be afraid—if you’ve got drugs controlling your life.”
“I just had a small setback—”
“Uh-huh.” She’d already seen the dilated pupils, the shaky hands. “I’m sorry, Janet. I mean that. I can’t claim to really understand, because I haven’t had the problem, but I’ve had friends and people I worked with who did. I heard them say it more than once…you can’t fight it until you’re seriously ready.”
“I am ready. I just got in some financial trouble—”
“So you said.” Abby sucked in a lungful of courage. It was going to take some extra oxygen to come out with these lies. She’d sworn she’d never fib or evasively color the truth around Gar ever again. Worse yet, she was miserably conscious of intruding on something he might well feel was none of her business. “Janet, we both feel that money is no way to help you, because we’re afraid of what you’ll use it for. If you want help, real help, you’ve got it. Gar has already agreed with me that we’d be willing to help you with another rehab try. There are lots of places with different ideas on treatments, if the first one didn’t work for you. Counseling, as well. And that offer’s good whenever you’re ready to take it. But that’s it.”
“Gar!” Janet turned to him with welling tears. “I came to talk to you, not her. And I know you wouldn’t turn me out in the street—”
Abby couldn’t see his face, but a hand—a big, heavy hand—reached down and cuffed her wrist as securely as a handcuff. “Then you’d better believe it,” he told his ex-wife, “because it was Abby’s idea to do anything. Not mine. If I were you, I’d be thanking her.”
“I don’t need counseling—”
“Neither of us said you did. Only that if you needed financial help, that’s the only form we’re offering it. And that’s the only way it’s going to be, Janet.”
An awkward silence followed. His ex-wife stared at him, and then abruptly turned around and grabbed her coat and purse. She let herself out, with shoulders proud-straight and eyes filled with dramatic, tragic tears.
When the door finally closed, the office was quieter than a cave for several moments. And then Gar heaved an exhausted sigh. “Every encounter I have with her makes me feel like I’ve been hit by a moving train. Not exactly a restful way to end an afternoon.”
“No.” He was still holding her hand. Abby wasn’t sure if he realized it. “Um, Gar?”
“What?”
“It’s okay to kill me now.” She felt his eyes on her face, but guilt was weighing her eyelids down so heavily that the best she could do was stare at his desk.
“Why would I want to kill you?”
A kindergartner could have figured it out, but she filled him in. “For interfering. For coming up with those lies. For making her think it was your idea on the rehab. For volunteering your money that you may not have wanted volunteered, for that matter.”
“Abby…I’ve admitted before that I have a hard time being tough with her,” he said quietly.
“I know you do.”
His voice was low, slow, gentle. “And you already know I get disgusted with myself for not handling it better. I’m working on it. But for the record, I would have gotten the tough words said, if you hadn’t been here. There was no way I was giving her cash to support her drug habit, and she’s long run out of excuses to show up at my door. But I wouldn’t have said it tactfully—or half as well as you did. You not only did the right thing, you did it for me. And with me.”
“You’re really not aggravated with me.” She had to look at his face, then, to be absolutely sure. His left hand came up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. From the intensity in his expression, his ex-wife was no longer remotely on his mind.
“It’s about damn time you came back from L.A.”
“You sicced my sisters on me.”
“Yeah, I did.” His eyes were true blue. She’d never seen less than total honesty in his eyes, in his face, anywhere around him. “When you left, you were upset,” he explained, “and I didn’t think you wanted to see me.”
“Well, I want to see you now, Cameron—if you can clear your decks for a few minutes. But after that nerve-racking scene with your ex-wife, maybe you just might want a little space and time to yourself—”
“The hell I do.”
Faster than a speeding bullet, he pulled on her hand, yanked open the door and barged past Robb. “I’ll be upstairs. Tell the switchboard not to put through any calls. If the place burns down, handle it.”
“Will do.”
A number of people were spilling out of the elevator. Gar ducked around them and took the back stairs—two at a time—and since he seemed disinclined to relinquish her hand, Abby had to hustle to keep up w
ith him. By the time they were inside his lodge apartment and he’d thrown the dead bolt, she was breathless from their panting-fast job.
“You hungry?” he asked her.
Hungry? The last thing in the universe on her mind was food. “I—No.”
“Can’t help it. I’m starved. I don’t think I’ve had a real meal since you left—but I’m afraid there’s nothing in the fridge but cold pizza and maybe some beer and cola.”
She hadn’t come to eat, but nothing could coax the man to sit still. He installed her, feet up, on the couch, and then kept putting things in front of her. Napkins, silverware, nuked pizza, pop. And a marshmallow sundae with chocolate ice cream. Served with dinner, damn him.
“Gar,” she said a half-dozen times. But each time, he responded with a question about what she wanted next. Nuked pizza wasn’t remotely on her list of desires. “Cameron, would you listen to me for a second, for heaven’s sake?” And out it spilled. “I was fired.”
Gar felt like a wide receiver who’d waited three quarters to finally get his hands on a forward pass. He could see the goal posts, smell that a touchdown was possible…if he just didn’t do anything damn stupid, like fumbling the ball. “So…you were fired,” he repeated casually, as if she hadn’t finally confessed that monster secret after all these weeks.
“Yeah. From an advertising firm. McVey and Rhet-tiker.” Abby stopped to swallow. Although he doubted she was aware of it, she’d devoured three slices of the pizza, as if she hadn’t had food in days. “I was on their management team for seven years. Up for the CEO’s job when he retired. They gave it to someone else and booted me out.”
“Impossible to feel sympathy for people that dumb.” He handed her another napkin, studying her face, remembering her expression when she’d edged in front of him and taken on Janet. She’d perceived that he needed her, and for Abby, that was ample justification to step in front of a lion. There’d been naked nerves in her eyes then, and there were raw, vulnerable nerves in her dark eyes now. She thought she was risking another lion. One that could turn on her.
She gulped down the ginger ale, her face as pale as parchment. “They weren’t dumb, Gar. And I don’t know whether they were right or wrong. I just know that I felt ashamed, like I was a failure. And that’s why I didn’t tell you before. Because I didn’t want you to see me that way.”
“Pride,” Gar said.
“I’ve always had too much of it,” she admitted. “And the thing was…being fired forced me to see that I’d been making some huge mistakes. I’d made my career my whole life. Valued success like it was the Holy Grail. So I was trying to fix myself, Gar. Redefine who I was, turn myself into a different kind of woman—”
“The cookies,” he murmured. “The gourmet feast for the marines, all those crafts…”
“I wasn’t trying to fool you into thinking I was a genetic cross between Martha Stewart and June Cleaver. Or fib to you about my background in business. None of that was about lack of honesty. I didn’t know what the truth was. I wanted to erase the old workaholic Abby Stanford off the map, make sure I never made those same mistakes again, to be seriously different. Only I seemed to be failing at everything new I tried.” Abby gulped one last sip of soda and set the glass down. “And in middle of all that confusion trying to change myself, I met you. Found you. Fell in love with you.”
“You love me.” Trust Abby to drop a bomb while she was impatiently wiping her hands on a napkin.
“Dammit, I wanted…serenity.”
“Serenity,” Gar echoed, as he removed the plate from her lap. Then the napkin. Then the spoon she’d decided to pick up and cling to—as if it were a weapon that could save her from lions.
And then he claimed her hands, while she was still extremely busy talking.
“That was always the missing piece. I loved business, the challenge, the ninety-mile-an-hour pace. It just never occurred to me that I was running so fast that I was also running away. I wasn’t at peace with myself. I was never comfortable with myself as a woman. I respected Abby Stanford on the job, but the things that mattered—whether she knew how to love, whether anyone could conceivably love the flawed human being underneath, that serenity thing—were never there.” She frowned abruptly. “Where on earth are you dragging me off to now, Cameron?”
“There’s just one room in the apartment that you haven’t seen.”
“You may not want me in there.”
“Trust me. I do.”
“You may not. You may kick me out. There are still some things I seriously need to tell you—”
“You think I’m trying to cut off communication? I want you to keep talking.” But in the middle of the hall, he pinned her against the wall for a kiss. It just wouldn’t wait. He’d thought he’d lost her. That fear clanging in his pulse was lessening now, seeping away, but touching her healed and reassured him as nothing else could have. He inhaled her taste, her scent, her textures, in that kiss…and she didn’t seem to mind.
Her hands skated up’ his arms and then wrapped winsomely, yearningly, naturally, around his neck. She kissed like sweetness and sunshine. She kissed like a power-packed package of sheer concentrated love. She kissed like a sexy, sultry woman who couldn’t wait a second longer for her man.
God knew how he’d lived without her before this.
She came up for air. Eventually. Tenderly stroked his cheek, his jaw. “That was one of the things I wanted to explain,” she said huskily. “That I didn’t want you kissing any women that you didn’t feel proud to kiss. That was why I was so shook up when I fell in love with you. Everywhere I turned, I seemed to be struggling and bumbling. I didn’t want you stuck with another dependent type who needed rescuing. I wanted you to know I was strong enough to stand tall next to you.”
“I never doubted your strength, Abby. And I was proud of you the first time I saw you determined to lick a flat tire in a blizzard. Every time I needed you, you’ve been there for me. I’ve worried it the other way. That you never seemed to need me.”
“But I do.” Her voice was softer than a spring wind. “You’re my serenity, Garson Cameron.”
She was still talking when they reached his bedroom. The silky shadows provided more than enough illumination for him to pull off her red sweater. Her arms curled back around him even before he could lift her to the four-poster.
“It took me so long to see it. I was so busy trying to change, trying to hide my flaws from you—only it never worked. You kept catching me at my worst. You figured out my love for business. You already know I’m never going to master laid-back and lazy in this lifetime.”
“You sit still about as well as a wet cat,” he agreed.
“And there it is. That smile of yours. Damn you, Cameron, you accepted me before I did. Something is terribly wrong with your judgment. You always seemed to like the parts of me that I thought were all wrong.”
“Love,” he corrected her. And unzipped her jeans.
“That’s when I figured it out—that there was no truth I had to hide from you. That serenity, that naturalness, was always there. I’m happy when I’m with you. Happy on the inside.” Her breath caught. “But I don’t know how you feel about hooking up with an unemployed, fired ex-ad exec who’s still struggling for a few of those serious life answers—”
“I was ready to weld a ring on your finger a month ago.” He smoothed back her hair, loving the look in her eyes. “And I think that’s what marriage is about, Abby. Having someone you can bring those struggles home to. I don’t know any answers that last What lasts is finding someone you can grow with, learn with, share honestly with. I love you.”
“And oh, I love you back. Like I never dreamed I could love.” She reached for him. Her touch was loving, her mouth claiming his with fierce, evocative, alluring kisses that communicated promises—and need. The last of their clothes were peeled away. The sheets were cold, but not for long. The pillows were soft, but not as rose-soft as her skin, her mouth, her hands.
> He understood what she’d said about serenity, but just then, restfulness was the last thing he wanted to arouse in Abby. The first time he met her, he sensed she was a 200% woman, a woman with a mountain of love in her, who gave 200% when she loved…and who needed a man who’d give her 200% back.
The flint-and-tinder chemistry was easy; they’d always sparked fire whenever they touched. But this time the heat had the richness of commitment licking flames around both of them, burning desire hotter, freeing both of them to a different plane of honesty. Desire was a seal. Their shared vulnerability both a joy and a promise.
When it was over, he snuggled her close, touching her, loving her, until both of them got their breath back. And then he murmured, “What time do you think the marriage-license place opens in the morning?”
She chuckled softly. “You sound in a rush to make an honest woman out of me.”
“You were always an honest woman. You were the only one who didn’t know it, Stanford—but I am in a hustle to change your last name.”
“Hmmm.” She scooched on top of his chest—pinning him beneath her extremely effectively. “What do you think about having a houseful of little Cam-erons?”
“I think our kids will be hellions to raise, exhausting overachievers with way too much energy and ambition to ever keep ‘em down. Afraid they’re doomed, with a double dose of those genes coming from both parents.”
“It’s a terrifying thought, isn’t it?”
He saw the gleam in her eyes. There was nothing Abby loved more than a nice, terrifying challenge….and Gar suspected that would only get worse as the years passed. On the mom front, he already knew what their children were in for. She’d not only be a 200% mother, but the kind of nurturer to instill confidence and courage because she intimately knew those life roads so well.
Her fear of failing wasn’t going to disappear overnight, Gar understood, and her faith in herself needed building. But that was good work for a man who loved her, ideal work for a life mate to share.
The 200% Wife Page 10