Gabe (Steele Brothers #6)

by Cheryl Douglas

  “He’s an idiot if he implied that,” Gabe said, sounding disgusted. “I know plenty of guys who’ve never even been tempted to cheat on their wives.”

  “Like Ryker?” I guessed, thinking how lucky his wife Mackenzie was to have a man she could always count on.

  “Yeah, like Ryker.” He took a sip of his lemonade before he said, “I knew if I ever got married that’s the kind of husband and father I’d want to be.”

  “Your brother is a good role model,” I agreed. “No doubt about that.”

  “Maybe that’s part of the reason I never got in too deep with a woman,” he said, sounding hesitant. “Maybe I didn’t think I had it in me to be the man he is.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, frowning.

  “Mac and Ryker have hit some rough patches over the years,” he said, setting his glass down on a small table. “But he never stopped being there for his family, never stopped loving them.” He shook his head. “I don’t know. He’s as solid as a rock, and as much as I admire his devotion to his family, maybe I’m afraid I don’t have what it takes to be… that guy.”

  I heard what he was saying. He questioned whether he was more like Jason than Ryker. He was worried that he would hurt me and disappoint me the way my ex had. Not that he would cheat, because that wasn’t the kind of man he was. But maybe that he wouldn’t be enough to live up to my expectations of what a husband and father should be.

  “I don’t know where this thing between us is going,” I said, knowing I needed to take some of the pressure off him. “What I do know is you’re twice the man Jason is. He’s a firefighter because he likes all those days off. You do it because you’re heroic.” When he didn’t look convinced, I added. “When someone asks Jason for help, he wants to know what’s in it for him. You help people without wanting anything in return.”

  “I’m not a saint,” he said, shaking his head. “If you try to paint me as one, you’ll be disappointed.”

  “That’s really what you’re afraid of, isn’t it?” I asked, touching his leg. “Letting me down?”

  “I’m afraid of letting both of you down,” he said, clearing his throat. “There’s an innocent little girl in there who’s already had her heart broken once. I don’t want to be the guy responsible for breaking it again.”

  My heart went out to him because I knew no one tried harder or struggled with more self-doubt than Gabe. Touching his back, I said, “Kids are pretty resilient. Char is struggling right now because she’s still holding out hope that Jason and I can get back together. Once it’s official, she’ll adjust to our new reality.”

  “You’re probably right.” Leaning forward, he looked at me over his shoulder. “But I don’t want her to hate me because she thinks I’m the reason you guys can’t be a family. I couldn’t live with myself if she thought that.”

  This didn’t come as a surprise to me. I’d known all along it was a big part of the reason he’d been holding back. “As a parent, you learn pretty quickly your kids will find hundreds of reasons to hate you. At this stage, it’s because I won’t buy her a toy she wants or I make her clean her room when she wants to go out and play.”

  He smiled, nodding. “I guess so.”

  “Later it’ll be because I tell her she’s too young for her own phone or I make her work for her spending money instead of just handing it over.” I remembered what I’d been like as a teen, so I couldn’t blame my daughter if she followed in my footsteps.

  “I guess I never really went through that phase. You know, hating my mother. I was too worried about whether she’d be around for my next birthday or Christmas to get caught up in that trivial, day-to-day stuff.”

  I knew Gabe had never fully recovered from his mom’s death. He’d been young when she died, only nine years old. He was a scared little boy who still needed a parent. Thankfully, he’d had older brothers to take care of him, but losing that maternal figure in his life had taken an unspeakable toll on him.

  We were silent for a few minutes and I was sure he was trying to recall something, anything about his mother. Her smile. Her laugh. Her unique scent. Anything that would bring her back to him, even if only for a moment.

  “My point is,” I said quietly, when I was sure he was back with me, and no longer lost in his memories, “being a parent is hard. And being public enemy number one goes with the territory. I’m dreading it, but I’m pretty sure there will come a day when my daughter tells me she hates me more than she loves me.”

  “Are you trying to tell me I need to develop a thick skin if I want to be a part of Char’s life? That I can’t be so sensitive, worrying about whether she likes me all the time?”

  “Something like that.” I leaned forward, resting my chin on his shoulder. “I don’t know where this thing between us is going, Gabe. And neither do you. Maybe we’ll go on being friends and neighbors, nothing more. Or maybe we’ll fall in love and you’ll be Char’s step-dad someday.” I knew which one I’d vote for, given the choice, but he had to feel the same way I did. My days of trying to convince a man how to feel or behave were long over.

  “No pressure, huh?” he asked, obviously wrestling with how he felt about that.

  “No pressure.” I linked my arm through his, resting my cheek on his shoulder. “In my experience, these things have a way of working out the way they’re supposed to.”

  “What about you and Jason?” he asked, seemingly surprised by my philosophical take on relationships. “That didn’t work out the way it was supposed to. You must have gone in to your marriage hoping it would last forever, didn’t you?”

  “Don’t we all?” I asked, trying to let go of the last vestiges of bitterness. “In the end, sometimes, it’s meant to last forever, and sometimes, it isn’t. But I’d never say it didn’t work out as it was supposed to.”

  “I guess I don’t follow,” he said, looking confused. “If you—”

  “If I’d never met and married Jason, I wouldn’t have Char. I know, without a doubt, that little girl was meant to be a part of my life. Because of her I’m a better person. So, even if Jason only came in to my life to give me Char and teach me some tough lessons, I’m okay with that.”

  “You’re pretty amazing, you know that?” His full lips turned up in a half-smile. “Most women would want to castrate the bastard who cheated on them and turned their family upside down.”

  “There’s no place in my life for hate or regret,” I said, reciting the words I’d written in my journal dozens of times since the separation. “I have to let go of all of that. It’s the only way to make room for the life I want.”

  “I have to ask again,” Gabe said, entwining his hand with mine. “Are you sure you want to take a chance with me? I’m not very good at this whole relationship thing. Like Jason, I could be a really lousy risk.”

  I kissed his cheek, lingering long enough to breathe in his spicy scent. “I don’t think you will be, but even if you are, it’s my risk to take. No matter what happens, Gabe. I won’t have any regrets.”

  Chapter Seven

  Kendra

  I texted Gabe the following day to find out if Jason was working. I could have texted Jason, but I wanted the element of surprise working in my favor when I showed up on his doorstep to demand some answers.

  Rounding the corner, the sweet little two-story we’d bought and fixed up together the first year of our marriage came in to view. I expected to feel some twinge of regret or remorse, looking up at the home I’d loved, but it never came. Sitting in the driveway, I considered the house I was living in now to the home I’d shared with Jason.

  My parent’s rental was utilitarian with the basic creature comforts, but they hadn’t spent a lot of money on cosmetic upgrades. So I’d used a lot of elbow grease to make it feel like home. Thanks to the skills I’d learned working on this house with Jason, I knew how to tile a backsplash, paint, sew curtains, refinish cabinets and furniture, and create a kick-ass garden.

  Now that I knew I wanted to stay
in the house, I thought about having a conversation with my parents. Maybe they’d go for a rent-to-own deal, allowing me to purchase the house instead of paying rent. Food for thought. But right now I had to take the next step in my take-back-my-life plan.

  I rang the doorbell, turning to look at the freshly mowed lawn. The gardens needed to be weeded, the shrubs pruned. But that had always been my department, while Jason cut the grass. The fact that he hadn’t taken over my chores was further evidence that he expected me to come back to him.

  “Hey,” he said, smiling when he opened the door. “This is a nice surprise. What’re you doing here?”

  I half-expected to find him entertaining, which wouldn’t have bothered me in the least. In fact, it would have given me the ammunition I needed to convince him this marriage was truly over.

  “Can we talk?” My blood was still boiling after my conversation with Char last night, but I was determined to be civil. “I don’t have a lot of time.” Gesturing to my teal scrubs, I said, “I’m on my lunch break.”

  “Sure, come on in,” he said, stepping back. “Uh, sorry the place is a bit of a mess. I wasn’t expecting company.”

  There were dirty dishes stacked on the end tables, an open cereal box on the coffee table, and dirty socks on the floor. The TV was blaring: sports highlights. But I didn’t come to critique his housekeeping skills. I came to set him straight.

  “Our daughter seems to think we have a chance of getting back together.” I set my purse down in the foyer, slowly turning to face him. “Why does she think that, Jason?”

  He ran a hand over his disheveled, sandy blond hair before scratching his flat stomach. He was wearing a black Nike T-shirt and black-and-white tyro pants that were streaked with powdered sugar from the pack of mini doughnuts sitting on the table.

  “Uh, I don’t know.”

  I walked farther into the room, noting all of the little touches I’d added to make it feel homier. The framed photos on the mantle, handmade cushions and drapes to soften the kid-friendly leather furniture, and the shaggy area rug that kept little feet warm.

  “I think you do.”

  I crossed my arms, regarding him carefully. He was a handsome man who routinely used that cheeky grin to get him out of trouble. I couldn’t deny it had worked a time or two with me. But not this time. This time I had his number. I was tired of his games and one way or another, I was divorcing him.

  “I think you’re trying to use our daughter to manipulate me.”

  He sighed, throwing his arms up in the air. “Fine, I admit it. I want my family back. Is that so terrible?”

  “Not if I believed that was your only motive.” I’d been so concerned with maintaining a cordial relationship with him for Char’s sake, I’d never really let him have it. But it was time. “But I don’t think it is.”

  Raising a brow, he mirrored my pose. “Fine, why do you think I want you back?”

  “Look around,” I said, opening my arms. “The house never looked like this when I lived here. I cleaned up after you, cooked your meals, and did your laundry.” I took a deep breath, trying to calm my raging temper. “You never had to do anything for yourself and you liked it that way. You liked having someone to take care of you.”

  He shook his head slowly, obviously considering his denial carefully. “That’s not fair, babe. I never asked you to do those things for me. You did them because you wanted to, because you loved me.”

  “In the beginning that may have been true,” I conceded, thinking of the dumb, love-struck, girl who would have done just about anything to please her man. “But I grew up over the course of our marriage, Jason. I changed.”

  “No kidding,” he muttered.

  “I got tired of being taken for granted, being taken advantage of. I didn’t want to be married to a little boy anymore. I wanted to be married to a man who could take care of himself.” In recent months, I’d spent a lot of time thinking about the factors that contributed to the break-down of our marriage and I knew this one topped the list. “I started to resent you. And maybe that wasn’t fair to either one of us. You couldn’t be who I needed you to be, and I guess it wasn’t fair of me to expect you to be someone else just to please me.”

  “I can change,” he said, looking stunned by my admission. “If that’s what it takes to get you and Char back, I can change.” He moved around the room, stacking dirty dishes. “Look, I’ll start right now by cleaning up after myself. I can do a lot of things I couldn’t or wouldn’t do before. Like laundry, grocery shopping—”

  “Jason,” I said, touching his arm, “put the dishes down. This isn’t about dividing the chores equitably. We both know we’re way past that.”

  “Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it,” he said, looking desperate.

  “Why did you cheat on me?” I’d asked him before, immediately after I’d found out about his mistress, but I’d been too shocked and hurt to believe anything that came out of his mouth then.

  He set the dishes back down on the table, curling his arms over his broad chest again. “I don’t know, babe. It just kind of happened, like I said. It was the stupidest mistake I’ve ever made—”

  “But not the only one.” I tipped my head back, looking him in the eye, daring him to lie to me again. “Admit it, she wasn’t the first woman you slept with while you were married to me, was she?”

  He paled, sinking down on the sofa before dropping his head into his hands. “I know I messed up, but I’ll do anything to fix it, Kendra. If you want me to go to counselling, I will. Just say the word.”

  I didn’t need to hear him say the words, or assign a number to the women he’d been with. The guilt written all over his handsome face told its own story. “I don’t feel the need to fix you anymore, Jason.” I sat down on the chair next to the sofa. “I don’t want to change you or help you or try to understand you. I just want to let you go so you can live your life as you see fit and I want you to respect me enough to do the same for me.”

  He shook his head, looking stubborn and determined. “No way. When we married, you said it was for better or worse. You swore you’d never leave me.”

  I tried to imagine him as a scared little boy, feeling abandoned by his parents, who cared more about their own happiness than his. “And you swore you’d never dishonor me. I guess we all say things we don’t mean sometimes.” I wasn’t trying to be cruel. I just wanted to remind him that he was the one who’d broken our vows first. He was the one who set this whole thing in motion.

  “Would you have left me if I hadn’t cheated on you?” he asked, looking into my eyes. “Was that really the reason you left or was it because you didn’t love me anymore?”

  “I honestly don’t know,” I said, trying to make sense of my feelings. “But if you’d loved me, you never would have cheated in the first place, so it’s a moot point, isn’t it? The bottom line is somewhere along the way we fell out of love. We have to acknowledge that now so we can both be free to move on with our lives.”

  His dark eyes flashed with anger. “Is that what this is really about? You want to divorce me because you’ve found someone else?”

  I didn’t want to make things awkward between Gabe and Jason at work, and there really was nothing to tell. We’d shared a few kisses and a couple of intimate conversations about the possibility of a future together. That was the only thing that took us out of friend territory.

  “I want a divorce because it’s the best thing for all of us, including our daughter.”

  “Char told me you guys have been spending a lot of time with my boss. What the hell’s that about?”

  I knew I didn’t owe him an explanation. It was none of his business who I spent time with, but I also knew if I didn’t answer his questions he would demand answers from Gabe and I didn’t want that.

  “Gabe and I are friends,” I acknowledged, choosing my words carefully. “He’s been there for me and Char, helping us with—”

  “And you don’t think he has an
ulterior motive?” he demanded, raising his voice. “He wants you! He wants my life, my family. Well, he’s not going to get it. So if you think I’m going to sign those goddamn papers so you can be with him, you’re as delusional as he is.”

  I sighed, trying to remind myself he was saying these things because he was scared and hurt. He didn’t know how to be alone and wanted to hold on to the only family he’d ever known.

  “You don’t have to consent to the divorce, though it would be easier if you did. We both know contested divorces can get tied up in court for years, costing both parties a fortune in legal fees.” That was the only reason I hadn’t pursed that option earlier, because I’d been holding out hope I could make Jason see reason. “Do you really want to do that? Think about Char. She doesn’t deserve to get caught up in a messy divorce.”

  “She doesn’t deserve to come from a broken home either,” he said, his voice low and intense, as though he were grappling his emotions too. “She deserves two parents who love her enough to try to work things out.”

  “Don’t you dare call into question how much I love my daughter! I would do anything for that little girl and you know it.” Knowing this was sliding into dangerous territory and he was clearly determined to be unreasonable, I stood, preparing to leave. “I came here hoping we could resolve things without lawyers, but that obviously isn’t an option. You can expect to hear from mine—”

  He jumped up, grabbing my arm as panic flashed in his eyes. “Don’t do this. Please. I’ll do anything. Just give it a little more time.”

  I knew more time wouldn’t solve our problems. It would just allow him to go on hoping for a reconciliation that would never happen, encouraging our innocent little girl to go on hoping too. I couldn’t do that to her.

  “It’s over, Jason. You need to find a way to deal with that.”

  ***

  Gabe

  I was sitting at my desk, dealing with my least favorite part of the job, paperwork, when Jason stormed into my office without knocking.