Every Waking Moment

by Doreen Roberts

  If he’d had just himself to worry about, he would have taken a chance. But he would not, could not risk the life of an associate again. He handed in his resignation.

  When he tried to explain, haltingly, the reason he wanted to quit, Paul Richmond, his superior, interrupted him.

  “You don’t have to tell me what’s wrong with you,” he said, giving Blake a direct stare from across his wide, antique desk. “It’s written all over you. You’re still wallowing in guilt over the loss of your men.”

  Blake started to deny it, but again, Paul interrupted with a swift movement of his hand. “It happens to most of us, sooner or later. This is a tough job we’re in, and sometimes things go wrong. It goes with the territory, and every man knows that when he accepts the job. You are not responsible for the deaths of those men. The bastards who shot them are responsible. The problem is, Blake, you’re waiting for someone to forgive you. It doesn’t happen that way. You have to forgive yourself. You won’t have any peace until you do.”

  It took him another month of wrestling with his conscience before he made the trip north. He wanted to be sure he could offer her a stable future. He would not disrupt her life again unless he was certain that he could give her what she wanted—a comfortable home, reasonable security, and above all, his everlasting love.

  The sun was shining on Main Street when he drove down it a few days later. The mountains welcomed him, their white peaks stark against a clear blue sky. The sun warmed the car enough to have the window down, and the breeze rustled his hair, while the scent of pine brought back the sharp memory of the night at Deep Frost Lake.

  He smiled, his heart leaping with excitement at the thought of seeing her again. And he wondered if Heather had grown, and if she would remember him. Children forgot so fast.

  She’d never sent him the picture that Heather had drawn for him. He hoped she still had it. He wanted to keep it, as one of his most treasured possessions.

  His pulse quickened when the bookstore came into view. His gaze went eagerly to the parking space opposite. Only one car stood there, and it wasn’t hers.

  His stomach took a nosedive, but then he glanced at his watch. It was a little past noon. She was probably at lunch. He was tempted to stop at the diner, in case she was there. He wanted to walk in and surprise her. But he didn’t want to waste the time if she’d gone somewhere else for lunch. Polly would know where she was.

  He pulled into the space next to Polly’s car and shut off the engine. His heart was pounding now, vibrating throughout his entire body. Just looking at the bookstore gave him goose bumps. It looked different than he’d remembered, without the snow banked along the curb, and the sign looked as if it had a coat of fresh paint.

  He opened the car door and climbed out, wondering just how much she’d told Polly. Had she talked about their relationship? What if she were no longer interested in him? That possibility had occurred to him a couple of times on the drive up, but now that he was minutes away from seeing her, the enormity of the question and its consequences hit him full force.

  She had to still care, he told himself as he crossed the road. If not, he would make her care again. He would work at it for the rest of his days, if need be.

  The bell on the door jangled as he opened it, evoking the sharp thrust of memory. Polly stood yards away, poised in the act of placing a book on the shelf. He could see at once by her expression that she wasn’t happy to see him. His spirits dropped.

  “Hi,” he said easily. “Remember me?”

  “Indeed, I do, Marshal.” She placed the book on the shelf with extreme care, as if she wanted to give herself time to collect her thoughts. “What can I do for you?”

  “I came to see Gail. Is she out to lunch?”

  Polly came forward slowly, her eyes wary behind her rimless glasses. “Gail no longer works here,” she said quietly.

  He tried to ignore the swift rise of panic in his gut. “Oh? Where is she working, then?”

  “I really wouldn’t know.” She moved behind the counter and began sorting through a stack of mail, her movements slow and deliberate.

  He clamped down on his impatience. “Come now, Polly, this is a small town. You must know where she’s working.”

  There was no mistaking the hostility in Polly’s eyes when she looked at him. “Gail doesn’t live here anymore. She and Annie left Mellow Springs a few weeks ago. They won’t be coming back.”

  His disappointment was so acute he couldn’t speak for a moment. “I see. Where did she go? Back to Portland?”

  He half expected Polly’s answer.

  “I really can’t say.”

  “Can’t, or won’t?”

  Polly’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t bring your dang police tactics in here, Mr. Foster. Gail has left to begin a new life. The best thing you can do for her is leave her alone.”

  He managed to control his spurt of anger. “Don’t you think that’s up to her to decide?”

  Polly lifted her chin. “She has decided,” she said evenly. “She asked me not to disclose her whereabouts...to anyone.”

  The sun threw sparkling rows of diamonds on the waters of Lake Washington as Gail drove over the floating bridge from Mercer Island. Summer was at its height, and a light haze hung over the Seattle skyline.

  In just a matter of weeks, Heather would be starting first grade, Gail thought, as she slowed behind the line of traffic at the light. She would have to start using her lunch hours to buy her daughter some new clothes.

  Minutes later she parked beneath the small shopping mall. After the brightness of the sunshine, the underground parking lot seemed dark and dismal. She’d been working at the mall bookstore for several weeks now, but still couldn’t rid herself of the eerie feeling she got every time she had to walk through the lonely rows of cars to the elevator.

  The hollow echo of her footsteps followed her, and she resisted the temptation to look over her shoulder. She was slowly overcoming her irrational fears. After living with them for so long, they’d been harder to conquer than she’d anticipated.

  A small group of people waited at the elevator, and she relaxed. She had nothing to fear anymore. She was safe. Heather was safe. She’d found a nice house to rent, close to the school where Heather would go in the fall, she had a job she liked and she was beginning to make new friends. Heather had settled down, and their lives were slowly but surely taking shape.

  And if, now and again, the bittersweet bite of nostalgia disturbed her peace, she knew it was only temporary and would pass, given time. All in all, she was reasonably happy.

  The bookstore was always busy on Saturdays, and today was no exception. Gail hardly had time to stop for coffee as the customers streamed in to browse and invariably left with purchases. It was a long way from The Book Nook in Mellow Springs.

  Gail rarely thought about Polly these days. She’d sent a couple of postcards, and Polly had responded, filling her in on all the local gossip. No real news. Nothing unusual had happened in town since she’d left, Polly had assured her. Darcie, who had confessed to being notoriously bad at writing letters, hadn’t answered her last one. Gail had made an effort to put Mellow Springs out of her mind, so she didn’t really miss the correspondence.

  By the end of her shift, Gail was exhausted. She worked until nine on Fridays, leaving Heather at her new baby-sitter’s until she could pick her up on the way home. It was the only night she worked late, and she was always tired at the end of it.

  The thing she disliked most about the late hour was the walk through the parking lot to her car. It was bad enough in the daytime, but at night it felt positively creepy.

  The elevator was empty when she stepped into it, and she punched the button for her floor, wishing she had some company. Irritated with herself, she wondered when she would be completely free of her ridiculous hang-up of feeling uneasy whenever she was alone.

  The elevator jerked to a creaky stop, and the door slid open. The dim lights of the parking area only serv
ed to increase the shadows that lay in wait for her.

  She hurried to the car, trying not to listen to the echo of her footsteps. She’d done this every week for months, she reminded herself. She was perfectly safe.

  Her fingers were actually turning the door handle of her compact when a shadow detached itself from the thick stone pillar a few feet away.

  She stared at the figure moving toward her, shock sending protests screaming through her mind. It wasn’t possible. He couldn’t have found her. Yet deep down, she’d always known that he would.

  “Hello, Gail,” Blake said, in the husky tone she remembered so well.

  He stepped out of the shadows, while her fingers curled painfully into her palm. She felt a jolt when she saw his face. In the cold, green-tinted light from the fluorescent lamps, he looked drawn and immeasurably tired.

  “How did you find me?” she demanded. In spite of herself, she felt a twinge of compassion when she saw the pain in his eyes.

  “I was hoping you’d be glad to see me. You weren’t easy to track down.”

  She looked down at her car, and reached for the handle again. “I’m sorry, Blake. I wish you hadn’t come.” It was still there, after all—the pain; the deep, tearing need. She’d thought she’d finally buried it, but all it had taken was one look at him, and she found she hadn’t buried it at all.

  “I had to come. I had to see you. I need to talk to you.”

  “I think we said all we had to say the last time we met.” Go away! her mind screamed. Haven’t you done enough?

  “I quit the force, Gail.”

  She froze, her hand gripping the handle. Her heart had stopped leaping around like a startled rabbit and was now throbbing—a slow, steady beat of hope. She moistened her lips. “Why?”

  A car’s engine roared to life across the aisle, making her jump.

  “Can we go somewhere and talk?” He moved closer, and the trembling started, deep inside her.

  “I have to pick up Heather.” God, how she wanted to go with him. No, no! Don’t listen to him. He’ll hurt you again.

  “You can call, can’t you?”

  She fought with herself, angry over her inability to resist him.

  “Please, Gail. This might be the most important decision of your life. Of both our lives.”

  Of both our lives. She was afraid to believe, afraid to hope. Damn him! Why did he have to come back now? She couldn’t answer him, for fear she would betray her own convictions.

  “I understand. I can’t say I blame you.”

  She looked up, and saw him turning away. “I’m not going to let you hurt me again.” Her voice trembled, in spite of her best efforts to prevent it.

  He paused, but didn’t look back at her. “I know. I hurt myself, too. I have to live with that the rest of my life. I’m sorry that I waited too long to find out that I love you, Gail. That the only important thing in my life is you...and Heather.”

  The words seemed to fill every pore of her being—soothing, healing, melting away the pain. She drew a long, shaky breath. “Did you really quit?”

  He uttered a dry laugh. “Yeah, I did. I guess I’m a threeway loser.”

  She hesitated, knowing she was a fool, yet helpless to stop the torrent of love that refused to die. “There’s a bar around the corner,” she said carefully. “I’ll call the sitter, but I can only stay a few minutes.”

  He turned back to face her, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He wore a pale cream shirt with a banded collar, and had rolled the cuffs back to his forearms. He looked thinner, defeated and carefully controlled. She had never loved him more in her life.

  She led the way and he followed in silence, his footsteps now echoing with hers. The bar had tables outside on the sidewalk, and she spotted an empty one in the corner. “Grab that one,” she told him. “I’ll be right back.”

  She made the call, asking if Heather could stay the night. She needed time to deal with this, no matter how things turned out.

  When she came back to the table, he’d ordered her a glass of wine. She sipped at it without tasting it, conscious of his eyes on her.

  “You look great,” he said, when she found the courage to meet his gaze.

  “Thank you. I feel pretty good.”

  “And Heather?”

  “She’s fine. She starts grade school in the fall. She talks of nothing else.”

  “I’ve missed her so much. I’ve missed you.”

  Careful, she urged herself. Take it slowly. “Why did you quit the force?”

  He let out his breath in a long sigh, dropping his gaze to the beer glass between his fingers. “It wasn’t working. It didn’t mean anything anymore. I found myself thinking about you, when I should have been worrying about the whereabouts of the escaped cons I was supposed to find.”

  “Blake—”

  “No.” He looked up, and the passion burned so bright in his eyes that she wanted to cry. “Let me say this. I just hope I can say it right. I was a fool. I should never have walked away from you. I told myself it was for the best. I convinced myself—and you—that it was because of my job. When all the time I knew that it was more than that.”

  He tilted his head back and looked up at a night sky carpeted in stars. When he lowered his chin again she could swear he had tears in his eyes. “I couldn’t forgive myself for losing those three men, Gail. The reason I felt so compelled to stay in law enforcement wasn’t because it was my life, it was because I was trying to make amends for what I’d done. I was looking for forgiveness.

  “You and Heather represented everything I’ve ever dreamed about, but no matter how much I wanted you, subconsciously I felt that I didn’t deserve you. How could I be happy with a home and family, when I’d destroyed three other families?”

  She searched his face, needing so much to understand. “And now?”

  “It took me a while. A good friend pointed out where the problem lay, but it took a lot of soul-searching before I finally accepted the fact that in order to live my life, I had to let go of the guilt. If I really wanted to make amends for what happened, I could do it best by spending every waking moment doing my damnedest to make someone else happy.”

  He reached across the table and enclosed her hands in his strong fingers. “I love you, Gail. I love Heather. Nothing means anything to me without you both—not the job, not my life or anything in my future. I need you. I have some money put away. I’ve been wanting to start my own security business and settle down somewhere. Anywhere. Mellow Springs, if you like, or here in Seattle. I don’t care where it is, just as long as I’m with you. Marry me, Gail. Marry me, and give me back my life.”

  Now she was crying—tears of happiness slipping heedlessly down her cheeks. There had never been any real doubt in her mind. “On behalf of Heather and myself,” she said unsteadily, “I joyfully accept.”

  His smile was beautiful to see. He lifted her fingers to his mouth and kissed them. “I love you, Gail.”

  “I love you, too,” she said softly. “Now...let’s go home.”

  ISBN : 978-1-4592-7224-8

  EVERY WAKING MOMENT

  Copyright © 1997 by Doreen Roberts

  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 editorial office, Silhouette Books, 300 East 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017 U.S.A.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  ® and TM are trademarks of Harlequin Books S.A., used
under license. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  Gail knew she would be willing to trust Blake with her life.

  Letter to Reader

  Books by Doreen Roberts

  About the Author

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Copyright