The words slammed through Gabe like a full body blow. He looked at his father, unblinking, as the reality of what he’d just learned sank in.
“She didn’t leave after she got sick again.” This made so much more sense. “Estelle sent her away.”
“It was the best for both of you.” Gabe could see his father pulling defensiveness to himself like a shield. “Nothing good was going to come, the way you two were going.”
“You don’t understand.” He’d been furious, devastated, lost when Ellie had broken her promise to him. And yet he knew that if she’d needed anyone while she recovered, it would have been him.
The anger that he’d held so tightly to for the last decade, a life preserver in a sea of loss… it was all a lie.
And now he wasn’t sure what to hold on to.
“Did she try to get in contact with me?” Gabe asked quietly. His father had just turned his word upside down.
“Irrelevant by now, isn’t it?” Ed huffed, and Gabe watched as the older man visibly struggled to shove the hints of guilt aside. “Point is, you moved on with your life. Made something of yourself without the distraction of a girl who would have dragged you down. I made sure of that. I did my duty as a father. So you owe me.”
As if pulled by strings, Gabe found himself rising to his feet. Ed stood with him, and the two men stood, facing off.
It was impossible not to be struck by all of the similarities, the things he’d inherited from his father.
Gabe had always known he didn’t want to be a clone of his father. But in that moment, seeing how angry, how self-righteous Ed was, he knew he would go to the ends of the earth to avoid it.
“I don’t want to see you right now.” Gesturing to the door with his thumb, he inhaled deeply, tried to calm himself. “I’m going for a walk. When I get back, I expect you to be out of the station.”
“Watch your tone with me, boy.” Ed sputtered as Gabe reached for his cell, strapped it to his belt. “This was all for your own good.”
“Maybe it was then. But I’m a grown man now, and I can decide that for myself.” Strolling to the door, Gabe nodded at Suz, who watching the scene open mouthed. “I’ll be gone for an hour.”
The air outside was warm, but it was still early enough that it held only the promise of the heat that would come later in the day. Gabe savored the slight chill, letting the briskness wake him up as he started to stride down the street.
He could tell himself he was just going to walk off his mad. But even before he turned in that direction, he knew where he would end up.
***
The meeting with the realtor was not positive.
“I won’t lie to you, Ms. Kendrick. I’ve never understood how a business like yours survived in a town like this.” Billy Huggins was one of the few people since coming back to Florence that Ellie hadn’t recognized. It should have been a relief, but his news had ruined that. “Most things that succeed in Florence? They have to do with the prisons. Cheap motels geared toward people visiting inmates. The bookstore with the literacy outreach program. But a florist… you can’t take flowers to an inmate. Though heaven knows if I can think how you’d make a shiv from a rose stem.”
He chuckled a bit at his own joke, while Ellie sat, stone faced. Some small devil inside of her kept urging her to just walk away, to let someone else deal with it.
But though she hadn’t thought she’d cared, she found that she needed to have some say in the fate of Estelle’s, the place where she’d spent so many years of her life.
“I am going to list it. Will you do it or not?”
Billy blinked at her sharp tone. “Of course I’ll take the listing. But you need to understand that this isn’t going to be a quick sale. The economy is down, and Florence isn’t a well-to-do place to begin with.”
A throbbing headache started to pinch the nerves behind Ellie’s eyes. “Is there anything I can do to make things go faster?”
Billy steepled his fingers, placed them under his chin.
“Well, I can’t say that I know anything about flowers,” he started slowly, nodding at Ellie with a motion that was almost hypnotic. “But the apartment… you could make sure it’s appealing to buyers. Fresh paint, nice carpet. Things like that. In fact, I don’t know that you’ll ever sell without that.”
Ellie winced. “And will we be able to raise the price if I do updates?” Not that it really mattered. She just didn’t have the liquid cash to undertake something like that—she made enough every month to live comfortably, and no more.
Billy hesitated, his wince barely detectable but present nevertheless. “We’ll see what we can do.”
Ellie wanted to throw something—she knew a brush-off when she heard one.
But what was she to do? Billy wasn’t the only realtor in town, but deep down she knew that they’d all tell her the same thing. And they may not even be as nice about it.
Just running away from it all wasn’t a viable option due to her sheer stubbornness—and no matter what others thought, she’d never been the time to just dump her problems on someone else, like her parents had.
But she was stuck between a rock and one hell of a hard place here. She needed to sell the place. And if she didn’t have to buy any paint or carpet in order to do so, she would have been okay with selling it a bit under value, though she knew that would make Estelle roll over in her grave.
But if she needed to fork out money, she needed to recoup that investment.
Which she didn’t have in the first place.
Damn it all to hell.
Consequently, her mood was sour as she left Billy’s office. She hadn’t listed the property, though she clutched a business card with his smiling, moon-like face in a clammy palm.
What the hell was she going to do?
The sun rose high overhead as she walked, and she shrugged out of her thin cardigan before she’d gone half a block. In Colorado weather could change in a split second, and she was used to dressing in layers. She’d forgotten that the desert had mostly one kind of weather.
Scorching, dry heat.
After returning her groceries to the apartment above the flower shop, it had seemed silly to drive the whole three blocks to the realtor. But as her cheeks heated and sweat dripped down the curve of her spine, Ellie found herself dreaming of the air conditioning in the rental.
Seeing the all too familiar figure leaning against the closed door of Estelle’s Blooms didn’t do a thing to improve her mood.
“If you’re out for a stroll, you can just keep on walking.” Pulling the metal ring that was weighted down by heavy shop key from her battered red purse, Ellie fit it to the lock, cursed when the deadbolt wiggled a bit and she missed.
“You need a new lock. Especially if you’re going to be staying here.” Gabe came up behind her, took the keys from her hand, unlocked the door himself. “And if you’re going to get prickly, consider that advice from your friendly neighborhood sheriff.”
“Yeah, well, this place needs a lot of things.” Ellie ground her teeth together when the heat of Gabe’s body, his front to her back, threatened to make her knees wobble. She wouldn’t show weakness in front of this man. She’d die first.
“Doesn’t mean it’s going to get them.” Wrenching the door open, she pushed through. Even though she knew Gabe would follow her in, she let the door fall shut behind her, enjoyed the twinge of satisfaction.
It was a brief sensation, quickly replaced by irritation that two minutes around him was all it took for her to revert to childlike behaviour.
Still, she didn’t apologize. If he couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge all that she’d gone through in the past, then she certainly didn’t need to say sorry for a door accidentally-on-purpose slamming in his face.
Ellie stalked to the flower cooler, opened the weighted door. Even though it had been turned off for two weeks, the dim interior was infinitely cooler than the heat outside, and she drew in a lungful of the stale air greedily.
/> Gabe followed her right on in. Frustration dogged her steps as he took the keys he still held, fitted one—the correct one, she noted—to the lock that led upstairs, and opened the door for him.
“What are you doing here, Gabe?” Pausing with her hand on the doorknob, Ellie turned to face the man who had haunted her dreams for the last decade. Chin raised defiantly, she stood tall and proud, though after the morning she’d had, she was feeling more vulnerable than she had in years.
Those intense green eyes that she could still picture perfectly, even when they weren’t right in front of her, pinned her in place, made a quiver run through her.
“My dad stopped by to see me this morning,” he admitted quietly, and Ellie felt her entire body tense. “And I wanted to see you.”
“And I’m sure he had nothing but wonderful things to say.” Wrenching the door the rest of the way open, Ellie started up the stairs, knowing Gabe would be right on her tail. The bitterness in her voice made her sad.
Her relationship with this boy—this man—had shaped the entire course of her life. And yet with him here, in front of her, all she could feel was the pain.
They reached the top of the stairs in silence. Ellie stood for a moment, looking over the living room of the apartment, taking in the same things she had the night before. But where last night they had just held memories, now she saw them through the eyes of a potential buyer.
The place was a dump. Estelle hadn’t changed a thing since the day that Ellie’s mom had dropped her off, and likely long before then.
It would take more than carpet and paint to sell this place. It would take a miracle.
Ellie wasn’t one to panic. Though once upon a time the sensation had come creeping in whenever it damn well pleased, she’d learned to just stand her ground through it.
But the longer she stood there, looking at that room, the grief and old memories and trepidation all came down on her in one big rush, and she found the room spinning, her knees giving out.
“Whoa.” Like a cliché from the drugstore novels that Estelle had liked to read, Gabe caught her under the arms just as she wobbled. “Damn it, Ellie.”
Opening her mouth, she intended to snap at him to get his hands off of her—he’d lost the right to touch her long ago. But she couldn’t deny the surprising little stab of heat and, more than that, the familiar comfort as he swung one arm behind her knees and lifted her off of her feet.
Her stomach did a slow roll, gratitude and need and anger mixing together into one hot mess.
As he carried her to the kitchen, the gratitude and anger faded a bit, but the need did not, and Ellie became rather painfully aware of how closely she was pressed against Gabe’s chest. The muscles beneath the thin fabric of his T-shirt were solid, more developed than they’d once been, and she would have been a big fat liar if she denied appreciating the sensation of them flexing beneath her weight.
The scent of his skin, soap and man and him, made her feel like she was fifteen again.
And that longing had her kicking like a mule, planting her hands on his arms and trying to wiggle free. “I can stand up. Put me down.”
Gabe ignored her, crushing her to that rock solid chest with one arm as he retrieved a drinking glass from the cupboard where Estelle had always kept them with the other.
“If you knew what that wiggling was doing, you’d likely stop.” His voice was mild, but the words froze Ellie in her tracks.
Surely he didn’t mean…
Setting her down on the counter then turning on the tap, Gabe let the water run for a moment before placing the cup beneath the stream.
Ellie dared a quick peek at the front of his jeans.
Yes. He meant exactly what she thought he did.
Her mouth grew dry as, rather than offering her the cup, he pressed it right to her lips, tilting until she felt the kiss of cool liquid.
“Drink.”
Narrowing her eyes, Ellie contemplated refusing, just to be stubborn, but the fact was that the water felt like heaven on her dry throat.
“When’s the last time you ate?” Planting himself firmly across from her, Gabe crossed his arms over his chest and glared disapprovingly.
“I can feed my own damn self.” She snapped, though she continued to sip at the water. She was off balance by all the changes in the last few days, that was all. She wasn’t softening toward Dominic Gabriel. It would be a cold day in hell before she did. “It’s the heat, that’s all. I’m not used to it anymore.”
Gabe nodded, even as he tilted his head to look at her, contemplation written in his features. Ellie was bracing herself for him to bark another order at her or, worse, make her something to eat that she might be tempted to throw in his face.
But what he did instead made her come almost completely undone.
Nudging her knees apart, he pushed gently between them, bringing them almost face to face. Her pulse stuttered, then beat anew with frenetic energy as she tried to back away, found herself pressed against the unyielding wood of the cupboards.
“What the hell are you doing, Gabe?” Damn it, her voice sounded like she wanted to be kissed. This man couldn’t kiss her. She wouldn’t survive it.
He didn’t reply, nor did he push closer with touches meant to seduce, to convince.
The frantic pulsing of her heartbeat became as light as butterfly wings, brushing against the soft skin of her temple, as Gabe took one of her wrists in his hand. Her skin, a pale white compared to the gold of a man who spent a good deal of time outdoors, was threaded through with pale purple veins. The skin that stretched over top was nearly transparent, and looking at her big hand in his made her look fragile, though she knew she was anything but.
But when he traced the rough pad of a finger over the raised lines that striped her forearms, her wrists, Ellie felt brittle enough to shatter.
She tried to pull her arm away, but he locked his fingers around her wrist and held tight, even as he stroked her arm higher, tracing the crease of her inner elbow.
The way he was looking at her scars… it was an echo of an earlier time, someone with a solid family life wondering why on earth a young girl would tempt fate by sliding the tip of a knife into her flesh. Ellie felt her face heat.
The cutting… it had been a way to release some of the pain, the confusion of being abandoned by a father she barely remembered, then a mother who had never much wanted her, anyway. The grief at finding not a loving shoulder to cry on in her grandmother, but a brusque old woman who hadn’t had the faintest idea of how to deal with a young girl.
Compared with some of the things that fate had thrown her way later, her youthful angst seemed pale and insignificant. Like it had happened to someone else entirely.
“Why?” When Gabe finally spoke, his voice was low, not quiet loud enough to dispel the cloud of memories that had gathered. “Dad told me that you didn’t run away. That you were sent away. But for the love of God, Ellie, why?”
Ellie blinked. “Why what?” Of all the things she’d thought he might ask, she just couldn’t quite make this one fit.
Letting her go, Gabe wrenched away from her, his body language telling her that he was closing down. She could see the anger, a thin shield that protected who he really was.
“There’s no need to play coy, Ellie. Not after so long.” He smiled grimly, all traces of warmth gone. “Don’t you think I deserve an explanation?”
Ellie felt her temper begin to rise, a hot pool filling to the brim, about to spill over. “You deserve an explanation? How in the hell do you figure that?”
She was… stunned. That was the only word for it. After his tenderness of the moment before, she’d been certain that he was about to tell her what had gone so wrong. To explain himself, even apologize, for his absence in her life when she needed him the most.
The way he was looking at her now, resentment and hurt radiating from his eyes… it set her off. How dare he feel hurt? Even if he now knew that she’d been sent away, that she had
n’t left of her own accord, where had he been? She’d still had e-mail. He wouldn’t have even had to try that hard.
“You have no right, none at all, to stand there and demand an explanation from me.” Ellie’s voice shook, the pent up emotion of a decade threatening to break through the dam she’d built, the one she’d thought was impenetrable.
All softness was gone. He had no idea, no idea, what she’d been through, and even if he’d wanted to understand, he wouldn’t have been able to.
“How can you say I have no right?” Gabe demanded, stepping closer to her, his face mere inches from her own. “You promised me, Ellie. You promised me that no matter how bad things got, you’d come to me, let me be your strength. I trusted you.”
Ellie froze in place, ice coating her rage, rising up in her throat, choking her.
“What did I promise you?” She knew what he was referring to… shortly after they’d come together, he’d made her promise, no, vow that she would never do anything stupid that would take her away from him. That she’d borrow some of his strength until she could find her own again.
But she was struggling to fit that promise into the demand he’d just made from her.
Slowly, Gabe’s sneer began to dissipate, and it was replaced with caution. “There was only one big promise between us, El.”
His use of her nickname made her heart thump, but she ignored it, tried to focus. “What… where did you think I’d gone?”
Gabe blinked once, slowly. “You tried to kill yourself. You took a bottle of pills. And once you got your stomach pumped, you ran away.”
Ellie felt the world tilt on its side, unceremoniously dumping her off into a free fall. Like a sheer drop on a roller coaster, her stomach just couldn’t quite catch up with the rest of her body.
“I never broke that promise. I’ve never tried to kill myself.” Her voice was soft, the word weighed down with disbelief. Of all the things that Estelle and Ed could have come up with to hide her tracks, this was what they’d chosen to dump on young Gabe?
Unspoken Page 4