by Bella Andre
Sweet Lord.
Her skin was so warm. So smooth. With a delicious golden glow. As he glided down, down, down, she was fire beneath his fingertips.
And he was burning up all over.
She made a noise, a hum, almost a moan—but that had to be his lust-filled brain playing tricks on him.
“I think you missed right here.” She reached back to point to the base of her shoulder blades, then held her ponytail out of the way.
His hands were actually shaking as he glided up, rubbed the lotion in circles over smooth skin, then up to her nape, massaging her.
“Oh my gosh.” She made another of those sweet little sounds. “I always get knotted up right there.” This time it was definitely a moan. He felt it deep inside his own chest. “Mmm, that’s perfect.”
As he used his thumb on the knot he could barely feel, could she hear his labored breathing? Could she feel the drumming pulse in his fingertips? Did she have any idea at all how much he wanted her? With every last fiber of his being.
Finally, she turned her head to look at him again. “Thank you, Gideon. I feel so much better. Do you want me to get your back?”
“No, I’m fine,” he said so quickly it was almost one word. He was anything but fine. His blood was still rushing like Niagara Falls as he leaned back in his chair.
“Did you ever try to research the painting?” She went back to her iPad as if nothing had happened.
While he was a mess of ragged nerve endings.
“No.” As he watched the boys splashing and laughing, he wondered how he was supposed to explain about Karmen. “My friend—it belonged to her grandmother.” He’d held so much back from everyone for so long, but in the span of these past few days, his carefully constructed barriers seemed to be crumbling one after the other. His throat constricted. He’d heard boa constrictors could swallow their weight in prey—but he felt like he’d swallowed an elephant. “She said the painting was magical.”
He’d never told anyone about the painting, not even Ari. Though his sister knew he’d met with Karmen’s mother, they’d never discussed what happened over there—the sandbox, the hellhole.
But now that Rosie had not only seen Karmen’s painting—but had also seen his painting that was of everything except Monet’s Water Lilies—he knew he needed to tell Rosie.
And it would be as much a release as talking to the boys about the war, as much as telling Rosie about daily life in the sandbox, as much as letting go last night with Noah. Each word out of his mouth was like a revelation, not only to Rosie or the kids, but to himself.
“Her name was Karmen Sanchez. She was a combat medic working with my unit.”
* * *
Rosie had never felt anything as good as Gideon’s hands on her. His touch had been hotter than lying in the sun, sweeter than feasting on vine-ripened grapes. She never wanted him to stop, and for a few blissful moments, she’d focused on nothing but his touch. And yet, though his fingers no longer glided over her skin, this moment, when he was actually trusting her with his story, with his past, with his pain—this moment was monumental.
“She was a great soldier,” he said in a low voice made raw with emotion. “She wanted to join up right after her cousin died in the Twin Towers, but her parents made her finish college. After that, she was in all the way. She wanted to make a difference.”
“She sounds heroic.” Just like Gideon.
“Too heroic,” he said softly. “I tried to get her to stay inside the wire.”
“Inside the wire?” She didn’t want to interrupt his flow, but she needed to understand.
“Back at the base. Where it was safe. She could have taken care of the wounded back there. But she wanted to follow us outside the wire.”
“Couldn’t you have ordered her to stay inside?”
“She wasn’t in my command, not directly. Medics go on patrol with whatever team needs them. But she was with my team a lot—enough that she was one of us. And she was good. Calm under fire. Everyone respected her. She did whatever she had to do, took whatever risk was necessary to save others.”
Karmen sounded like the kind of woman Rosie strove to be for Jorge, even if she often fell short. “She sounds amazing.”
“She was.” He swallowed hard. “She gave me the painting a couple of days before she died. Like she thought I’d need its magic.” He ran a hand over his face. “There was an IED.”
He was so silent, so still, she didn’t know whether it was better to be quiet, or to try to draw him out with a question. Especially when she was almost positive this was the first time he’d opened up to anyone about it.
Yet he continued on his own. “My guys. They got taken out.” He held his breath a long moment, as if absorbing the blows all over again. “And Karmen, she rushed in like she always did. Because that’s what she did, she helped whoever needed her. Regardless of the risk to her own life.” Regret was etched into the lines of his face. “A sniper shot her.”
“I’m so sorry, Gideon.” Rosie wanted to gather him close, hold him the way she would hold Jorge, soothe his pain. “You must have loved her very much.” A woman as brave, as fierce, as fearless as he.
“She was a close friend.”
Though she didn’t believe that was all there’d been to their relationship, she didn’t push. Instead, she said, “I’m so sorry about your friends, your team.”
He stared at the boys splashing their way across the pool, his eyes hidden behind his sunglasses, his features immobile. Until he finally spoke again. “It’s almost like she had a premonition, and that’s why she gave me the painting. She said I was supposed to pass it on when the time was right. All this time, I’ve been waiting for some sort of sign.” Frustration rose in his voice as he said, “I just wish I knew what the magic is that she was talking about.”
Rosie didn’t want to utter some meaningless platitude like, You’ll know it when it happens. Instead, she said, “If it’s truly magical, then wouldn’t it be the painting’s job to tell you when the time is right?”
He thought about that for a long moment. “I’d have to believe in magic,” he said. “But I suppose if I did, that would make sense.”
Surprised, and pleased, that he didn’t fight the idea of magic for too long—even if he wasn’t completely sure he believed in it—she said, “Whatever happens with the painting, I have faith in you, Gideon. Just as Karmen did.”
He sat in silence as if absorbing her words. After long seconds, maybe even minutes, he turned to her. “I don’t know what I could have done to earn your faith in me. But I’m not going to lie and say I don’t appreciate it. Because I do.”
“Thank you for having faith in me too, and for sharing your story.” She flashed him a smile, trying not to make a big deal of the massively big deal of a conversation they’d just had. “What do you say we join the boys in the pool?”
They jumped into the pool, where they spent the rest of the afternoon playing Marco Polo and doing cannonballs off the diving board. And though neither of them said another thing about the painting, or Karmen, for the rest of the day, Rosie knew in her heart that they’d chipped away great big pieces of the wall that Gideon had built around himself. What he’d experienced had been the worst life could throw at him. But today, during their hike, he’d acknowledged that some good things had happened over there.
It meant so much that he’d been able to share both the worst and the best with her. It meant so much that he’d unburdened himself. It meant so much that he’d let her in. She could already feel the healing begin for him. And she was glad his walls were dropping.
So damned glad.
Because Gideon deserved every good thing life could bring him.
Even magic.
Chapter Fifteen
Gideon had admitted to Rosie that he’d failed both his team and Karmen. Yet Rosie hadn’t hated him for it. He’d been right: Sharing his story with her had been a release, easing more of the tension twisting his insides. The ache would never go
away—but his body felt looser now. For the first time in a very long while, he didn’t feel like a coiled snake ready to strike.
After the boys finally agreed to get out of the pool and dry off, Gideon made spaghetti for dinner, with homemade sauce, not bottled. Rosie prepared the salad, while the boys slathered garlic butter on the bread and watched it toast under the broiler.
After the four of them ate, they played Monopoly. For just a little while, he thought about nothing but games and the boys. And about Rosie, of course, which was a given since he couldn’t get her out of his head, no matter how hard he tried.
At eight o’clock, Rosie told Jorge, “Time to go. Let’s clean up the board, guys.”
“Can Jorge sleep over?” Noah had perfected that please-please-please pout, his hands together in pleading. Jorge imitated him.
Gideon was sure she’d give in, but she shook her head.
“No, honey, you need to come home with me.”
“I won’t let anything happen to them.” Had she reacted more to his story than he’d thought? Didn’t she realize that he would never make the mistakes of his past, not with the boys?
“It’s not that,” she said, meeting his eyes. “I would never doubt you.”
His heart felt at least two sizes bigger with her sweet words. “Then what is it?” The boys were carrying the Monopoly box to Noah’s room, letting the adults battle it out. Smart kids. “I thought we’d promised the boys sleepovers for these two weeks.” Hah. Three days ago, he’d been the one fighting the idea.
She gathered up her stuff, tossed her iPad in her bag. “It’s nothing. We just can’t do it tonight.”
Nothing meant it was something. If anyone knew that, he did. “Tell me about nothing, then.”
She pulled the elastic band out of her ponytail, running her fingers through her silky hair. Just that quickly, he was back by the pool with lotion on his palms and her smooth skin beneath his fingers.
“Rosie…talk to me.” He’d shared with her, now he hoped she’d do the same with him. “Please.”
She crossed her arms over her breasts, hunched in on herself in a way he’d never seen her do before. “I’ve gotten a couple of hang-up calls.”
“You mean like obscene phone calls?” His skin crawled, and his fingers curled into fists.
She shook her head. “There’s just someone breathing on the other end of the line. And I…” She paused, her face going pale. “I think I know who it is.” She looked down the hallway toward Noah’s room. The door was closed. “I think it’s Jorge’s father.”
He’d wondered more than once about Jorge’s father, but he’d never felt he could ask either Rosie or Ari for information about Rosie’s past. Not when he hadn’t been willing to share his past beyond the imperative details.
She lowered her voice, even with the closed door. “We broke up before Jorge was born. Even though I was only nineteen, Jorge and I were way better off without him.”
“Was he abusive?” Again, Gideon’s hands clenched into fists at his sides.
Her lips flatlined. “No, he just didn’t want to be a father.”
“And you haven’t seen the guy since?”
She sniffed, part disgust, part anger, part I don’t care. “Like I said, he wasn’t interested in having a kid. He left when I told him I was pregnant.”
What an asshole. But there had to be something more to make her so worried today, something he wasn’t getting. “So what makes you think it’s him calling now?”
“It’s just a feeling.”
Until now, he’d always been the reticent one. But the tables had turned, and he was fishing for information. Enough, at least, to know if he needed to tear the guy apart with his bare hands. Or worse. “But he doesn’t say anything when he calls?”
She grimaced. “I might have heard my name.”
“Your name?”
“Yeah, just a whisper.” Her lips twisted. “Sort of like he’s taunting me. Ro-o-o-o-sie…”
This was not good, really not good. “Why do you think he’s come back after all this time?” he asked. Although he could guess.
She breathed in, huffed out, then confirmed his suspicions. “I think he wants Jorge.”
No. Gideon’s heart seized as though someone had squeezed it in a vise. “But you said he didn’t want to be a father.”
For the next few minutes, she gave him the whole story about seeing her ex in a TV interview with his wife, talking about babies and infertility. Rosie was nearly certain that meant the wife was infertile.
“And you think that after seven years,” he said, “this guy gets married and suddenly decides he wants to have kids?”
“Yes. Or maybe his wife decided for him.”
“So he dumped you when it suited him, and now, because it suits him, he’s barging back into your life because he covets your son.”
“Yes.” She closed her eyes, dipped her head. “I know my ex. Because his wife can’t have a child of her own, he thinks it would be a great idea to take mine. He would only think of himself—it’s the way he’s wired. Which I didn’t figure out until too late.”
Gideon wanted to wrap Rosie in his arms and make it all better. He wanted to snap his fingers and wipe all her pain, and her fears, away. He wanted to smash her ex down. But most of all, he wanted to keep Jorge safe forever.
“When I met him,” she said in a low voice, “I thought he was smart and charming. He was older, and I let him beguile me into thinking that he could help my art career. I believed everything he said. I thought he was something special. But he wasn’t. He didn’t care about my art. He didn’t care about me. And he sure as hell didn’t care about Jorge.” Her voice rose slightly, with frustration and anger.
His fists bunched tight with the need to crush the guy. And his heart ached with the need to pull Rosie close, to hold her, to feel her lean on him, to give her whatever she needed.
For now, however, all he could do was gather as many details as possible. “Was he some sort of art professor?”
“Archie was a gallery owner.” She laughed, but there was no humor in it. “He hated it when I called him that. He always insisted on Archibald. Archibald Findley.”
Archibald Findley. Gideon hated the man, hated the pompous name, hated anyone who could treat Rosie and Jorge the way he had, as though they were disposable.
“He owned a prestigious art gallery in San Francisco called Impressions,” she continued. “Everyone wanted their work to be shown there. If you got into his gallery, you had made it.”
As she spoke, Gideon could see how it had been for her all those years ago. A girl only months out of high school, needing affirmation from some big, important person that she could be great.
“He told me my paintings were amazing. He told me I was talented. He told me I was going to be such a huge success. And I believed him. He was going to do this big show just for me. But there was always one more little thing that needed to be tweaked on a painting.” She sighed. “Then I found out I was pregnant. And there was no more Archie, and there was no more show, and I was alone. If he had been a good man, I would have wanted him in Jorge’s life. I would never have kept my son away from his father, unless it was absolutely necessary.” Her expression hardened. “Archie made it clear to me that it was absolutely necessary that both I, and the baby, went away, lest we ruin the fancy life he’d worked so hard to build.” She swallowed hard. “He told me never to make the mistake of contacting him again. Or to try to get child support. He said the best thing I could do was—” It was obvious that she could barely say the words. “He wanted me to get rid of Jorge.”
Gideon couldn’t stop himself from laying his hand on her cheek. “I’m so sorry, Rosie.”
She covered his hand with her own, as though to take strength from him before saying, “I wasn’t alone, fortunately. Because I had Ari and Chi. They helped me through school. They helped me with Jorge. Anything I needed, they were always there. Jorge and I, we would never ha
ve made it without them.”
Her skin was warm beneath his palm—and her hand over his was sizzling. “I see now why you love my sister so much.”
She smiled with memory. “I loved her before that. Chi and Ari and me, it was like we were sisters who were separated until we were thirteen.”
He’d always thought of Ari as being alone, out there by herself against the big bad world. But she’d never truly been alone. Not when she’d had Rosie and Chi. It eased a small piece of his soul to know the three of them had been so close and supportive of each other while he was gone.
Unfortunately, none of that changed the situation with Rosie’s ex. He was still the worst kind of man, and he still needed to be shut down. “I say we take a trip up to Impressions—” He didn’t hold back the snide note in his voice at the stupid name. “—in San Francisco and put the fear of God into the guy.”
She pulled away as she shook her head. “No. No way. That would be like spraying a hose into a hornets’ nest. We should just leave this whole thing alone. As long as I keep Jorge near me, I feel so much better.”
He didn’t want to upset her any more than she already was, but he had to make her face reality. “What are you going to do when Jorge goes back to school and you return to work? Because if it really is your ex, and he really is after Jorge, then he’s probably waiting for you both to be in two different locations, leaving Jorge vulnerable.” Too much was at stake to pretend otherwise.
Her face turned pale and stricken.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t mean to scare you. But we’ve got to be prepared for anything.” Especially since Gideon knew firsthand that sometimes the worst really did happen. “Let me take care of this for you, Rosie.”
He would do anything to keep her and Jorge safe.
And this time he absolutely would not fail.
* * *
What had she done?
Gideon was a big protector, all muscle-bound, military style. She should have known he wouldn’t let this go. She trusted him and respected his opinion—of course she did. Only, if Gideon went poking around, then Archie could very well retaliate, not just against her, but against Jorge and Gideon. She would never forgive herself if anything happened to her son or the man she was coming to care for so deeply.