Redemption on Rivers Ranch

by Kathy Douglass

  Knowing that a doctor would be around did ease Gabriella’s concern, and she relaxed as she stepped inside. The single reception desk had been replaced by a line of tables. Check-in was alphabetical. She found Justin and Sophia and strapped their colored wristbands around their wrists. She hugged them each goodbye and told them to have a great time.

  They nodded absently before racing to join a group of kids their age who marched down the hall and out of sight. Waving goodbye to Charlotte and Carmen, Gabriella got back into her SUV and headed home.

  She spent the day catching up on tasks that she’d let slide and then ate a quick dinner. Before she knew it, the sun had set and evening was making an appearance. She stood on her front porch and thought about Carson’s hot tub. He’d said that she had an open invitation to use it.

  Before she could think better of it, she changed into her swimsuit and covered it with a loose dress. Since there wouldn’t be anyone around to see her, she put on a tiny orange bikini. She shoved her feet into a pair of old sandals and crossed the road to the Rivers Ranch.

  The horses were in the stable and all was quiet.

  Gabriella turned on the hot tub, stepped out of her shoes and pulled her dress over her head. Exhaling a soft sigh, got into the hot tub and sank into the warm, bubbling water. She leaned back and closed her eyes. “I should have brought a bottle of wine,” she murmured to herself.

  “I’m having a beer, but I can get a glass of wine for you.”

  Her eyes flew open. Carson was standing in front of her dressed only in his swim trunks.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “I live here.”

  “You know what I mean. You’re not supposed to be here.”

  His eyebrows rose and he gave her a crooked grin. “Where am I supposed to be?”

  “The kids told me you were out of town delivering a horse.”

  “I was. But it was only a couple of hours away.” His eyes glowed with mischief. “So, what are you doing here?”

  “You said I had an open invitation to use your hot tub. The kids are spending the night at the youth center, so I decided to take advantage of a night to myself.”

  “I see. Do you want that wine?”

  “I’ll take a beer if you have another.”

  He nodded and then went inside. Gabriella used those few moments alone to take several deep breaths in a desperate attempt to calm down. Her heart was pounding and the blood rushed through her veins. Though she and Carson were only friends, she was incredibly attracted to him. Standing there in nothing but his swim trunks, his muscular torso bare, he was a tempting sight. She’d seen him like this before, but, unlike the other time, her kids weren’t around to chaperone.

  She and Carson were completely alone. This time she was wearing a tiny bikini. Thank goodness, she hadn’t removed the top as she’d planned to do.

  Carson returned and stepped into the hot tub. After sitting down, he handed her the cool bottle of beer. She twisted off the top and took a long swig of liquid courage before daring to look at him. He was staring at her. Even though the night and the water were warm, she shivered.

  They were silent for a while.

  “The kids get off okay?” he asked finally.

  “Oh, yeah. They forgot about me as soon as they spotted their friends.”

  He grinned and patted her shoulder. “You know they still need you, though. Right?”

  “I know. And I’m happy that they’re enjoying themselves without me. After the divorce, they clung to me as if they were afraid that I was going to leave, too.”

  * * *

  Carson took a long pull from his beer and then leaned against the back of the hot tub. Questions about Gabriella’s marriage and her husband swirled around his mind. He’d reminded himself repeatedly that her divorce was none of his business, so he hadn’t asked her about it. Now he wondered if he’d been wrong about that. He and Gabriella were friends. Their friendship had survived both time and distance. Over the past weeks they’d grown closer although he wasn’t sure how much closer they could—or should—become.

  He didn’t know how to label their relationship. They were more than friends and less than lovers. Potential lovers? Who knew? The night was young. Maybe their relationship didn’t need a label. Perhaps simply being Gabriella and Carson—summer friends—was enough for now.

  “So what happened? Why did you get a divorce?”

  She inhaled and then blew out a long breath. She toyed with her beer bottle, picking at the edges of the label as if organizing her thoughts. “Where to begin?”

  “The beginning?”

  She lifted one corner of her mouth in a sad imitation of a smile, and he felt a twinge of pain in his heart. She laughed humorlessly. “The beginning. The start of our relationship was actually the end of another one for him. Or rather, it was the middle.”

  “I have no idea what that means.”

  “I met Reggie my first year of college. I was waitressing part-time at a restaurant and he came in. He seemed so sad. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I actually tried to cheer him up by giving him a free slice of pie.”

  “That sounds like something you would do.”

  “Yeah. It didn’t work, and he was just as sad when he left as he’d been when he came in. But he left me a nice tip. A few days later he came back and sat in my section. He didn’t seem as down. We talked for a few minutes while he decided what to order. A lot of guys I served tried to hit on me, but he didn’t. He was a perfect gentleman. He came back three more times. The last time, he asked me to go to this affair at the museum. I was reluctant to say yes at first because it sounded so fancy and not something that I would ordinarily do. I mentioned it to my mother and she encouraged me to go. So I did.

  “It was a bit stuffy and a lot of the people were really old, but it wasn’t that bad. Reggie introduced me to his friends. They were nice and I ended up having a good time. When he asked me to go out again, I said yes and we started dating. He was always a gentleman and we always had fun. My parents adored him. Before I knew it, we were engaged. Not long after that, we were married.”

  She sighed. Carson couldn’t tell if it was sadness or resignation that he heard. Though the events she’d described had occurred over a decade ago, he wanted to know what it was she’d felt at the time and how those feelings affected her now.

  “Reggie’s thirteen years older than I am, but he always said age was just a number.” She shrugged. “And truly, he was right. The difference in age didn’t have anything to do with the problems in our marriage.”

  She swallowed more beer before continuing. “He wanted kids right away so when I got pregnant with Justin, I quit school. Sophia was born two years later. When she started kindergarten, I went back to school and got my degree in child psychology.”

  “You’re a psychologist?”

  “Yep. I never worked, though. Tucker wives get college degrees, but they don’t get jobs. They volunteer at worthy charities.” There was a self-disgust in her voice Carson had never before heard. A tone that he hoped never to hear again.

  “What does your husband do?”

  “Ex-husband. His family owns a bunch of television stations across the country. Reggie is a vice president of the corporation. They’re also minority shareholders in a professional football team, but I think that’s more a status thing.”

  “I see.” Spoiled rich kid.

  “It’s not like that,” she said, in a rush to correct any bad impression he might have of her ex-husband. Interesting. Why would she care what he thought about the other man? Did she still have feelings for him? “Reggie’s really smart and works hard. His father might own the company, but he earned his position.”

  “Okay. He sounds like a great guy. So what was the problem?” He heard the bitterness in his voice. Apparently she did, too, because she gave
him a startled look. He grabbed his bottle and chugged more beer. The last thing he wanted to hear from Gabriella was how great another man was. From where he sat, Gabriella was still hung up on her ex. He’d been there and done that once before. The ride hadn’t been fun the first time around, and he wasn’t anxious to repeat the experience.

  “He didn’t love me. Oh, he liked me well enough and seemed content enough to be married to me. But that was before.”

  “Before what?”

  “Remember when I said that our beginning was really the middle of his story. The day we’d met was the day after the love of his life married someone else. Reggie had asked her to marry him, but for some reason she’d said no. Up until the moment that she’d said I do to the other man, he’d held out hope that she’d end her engagement and come to him. Once the deed was done, Reggie faced reality. Since he couldn’t have her, he decided to move on with his life.

  “And there I was. All young and innocent. And stupid.”

  “You weren’t stupid.”

  She snorted. “What do you call it?”

  “You said it yourself. You were young and innocent. And he was a jerk who took advantage of you. You were honest about your feelings. He was a liar. He let you believe his heart was available all the while knowing he was in love with someone else.”

  Her eyes filled with tears. She blinked and one fell. She brushed it away before he could. “Thank you for saying that. For the longest time I thought that I’d done something to make him stop loving me. The truth is, he’d never started. I couldn’t lose his love because I never had it.”

  Sadly, Carson could relate. He knew that story all too well. He’d lived it. But, unlike Gabriella, he’d always known that Raven was still in love with Donovan. But he’d believed that Donovan was dead. Carson had hoped that with enough time Raven would come to love him. Now he was wiser. He knew that love didn’t work that way.

  “Anyway, a couple of years ago, Natalie’s marriage ended. She called Reggie and he went running. The next day he asked for a divorce and I gave him one.”

  “Bastard. I hope you made him pay.”

  “I’d signed an ironclad prenup. Remember, I was young. Not that it mattered. He felt so guilty about what he’d done that he gave me a ton of money. Plus the house and my cars. Even my lawyer was shocked by the amount he offered. As if that could make up for abandoning his family.” She frowned again. “Or maybe he was just so eager to be rid of me that he didn’t care about the money and wanted to avoid a prolonged fight. All he wanted was to be with Natalie.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Why? You aren’t the one who deceived me.” She closed her eyes for a long moment. When she spoke again her voice was so quiet he could barely hear her. “And you know what the worst part is?”

  “No.” He couldn’t imagine what could be worse.

  “He tossed the kids aside, too. Not at first. The divorce decree gave him regular visitation. Every weekend and one day a week. But then Natalie got pregnant. Suddenly Reggie was making up reasons not to take the kids overnight for their weekend visits. He would pick them up on Saturday mornings, take them on an outing and then to lunch. They were always back home by dinnertime. At first he came back on Sundays, but that didn’t last long.

  “I understand if Natalie was sick and unable to care for them. But they were his kids. He should have been taking care of them when they were at his house. Once she had her baby, things went from bad to worse. Suddenly Reggie didn’t want to spend Saturdays with them. He made up lame excuses, but I knew the truth. Unfortunately, so did the kids. Now that he had his baby with Natalie, he didn’t need them. His new family was complete and there wasn’t room for Justin and Sophia.”

  “He doesn’t see them?”

  “Not really. He hadn’t seen them in months before we came here. I didn’t know what pain was until I watched my children staring out the front window, waiting for their father to come visit them when we all knew that he wouldn’t. I hated being helpless and unable to fix things.

  “But it wasn’t until Justin asked me what he’d done to make his father stop liking him that I knew we needed a change. We couldn’t stay in that house any longer. Or in that town, for that matter. So I called Aunt Mildred. You know the rest.”

  He knew some. But he didn’t know all. Like, was she still in love with that jerk? Had she been standing beside her children, looking out that front window and hoping her ex would show up? What about the future? The way he saw it, nothing had changed and probably wouldn’t. Did Gabriella believe things would be different when the summer ended and that her ex would become a doting father? Was she counting on their absence making his heart grow fonder? And why did Carson’s stomach sour at the thought?

  “I stand by my earlier statement. Your ex-husband is a jerk. And a fool. Trust me, he’ll regret letting you and the kids go.”

  “The kids? Maybe. I sure hope so. But me? I was nothing but a distraction. A placeholder.”

  Carson agreed with her assessment, but he kept that to himself. There was no sense adding to her pain.

  “And the worst part is that I never knew. If I had known the truth, I never would have married him. But he didn’t care enough about me to tell me the truth. And because of that, my kids are hurting.”

  Carson couldn’t stand to hear the pain in her voice for a moment more. The sorrow was ripping a hole in his heart. Though he knew better than to get close to her, knew that touching her would awaken all kinds of feelings that he’d deliberately buried, he reached across the hot tub and pulled her into his arms.

  She froze for a second as if uncertain of where this was leading, and he worried that he’d made a mistake. While he was contemplating a way to ease out of the situation before it became uncomfortable, she inhaled and then collapsed against him. Her soft breast pressed against his chest and he sucked in a ragged breath. She moved even closer and her sweet scent wafted around him. Fighting against the desire growing within him, he patted her back. From the strength of her sobs, it was clear that she’d never let the tears fall before. No doubt she’d been trying to remain strong for her kids.

  The harder she cried, the angrier Carson became. What kind of man took advantage of a woman as sweet as Gabriella? She might not believe her ex-husband had deliberately targeted her, but Carson knew better. The guy had been looking for someone young and naive who could be easily fooled. Someone without money who’d be impressed by fancy restaurants and expensive gifts. Someone exactly like Gabriella.

  Though his relationship with Raven was similar to Gabriella and Reggie’s, there was one big difference. Raven had agreed to marry him, but she had never deceived him. He’d always known that her feelings for him hadn’t come near to what she’d felt for Donovan.

  After listening to Gabriella’s tale, he also knew he had no reason to resent Raven or Donovan. He’d been holding on to his pain and anger, but he now knew those feelings were misplaced. They hadn’t done him wrong. Gabriella’s experience was a perfect example of what being done wrong looked like.

  He wished he could take away her pain. Caressing her hair, he whispered nonsensical words to her. He found himself promising her that things would get better and that she’d find a man worthy of her love.

  Gradually her sobs slowed and she lifted her face. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears. But he saw more than moisture in her eyes. He saw longing. And need. On some level he knew he was making a monumental mistake, but he couldn’t resist. Her parted lips were mere inches from his. Beckoning him. Moving slowly, giving her time to stop him, he brushed his lips against hers.

  The shock that swept through his body was unsurprising. He’d felt that tingling sensation often enough when their hands accidentally touched or when their eyes met. But the intensity of the electricity he experienced now had him wondering if he’d ever be the same. If he hadn’t known the hot tub had been expertl
y grounded, he’d think there was a short in one of the wires. But no. The sensation came from kissing Gabriella.

  Her lips moved gently beneath his and he groaned. Without breaking contact, he slipped his arms beneath her knees, lifted her onto his lap and increased the intensity of the kiss. He had kissed many women in his life, but the feelings that were currently growing within him far exceeded anything he’d ever felt in the past.

  It was more than just the physical pleasure, although that was off the charts. Being with Gabriella felt right. She made him whole. Life with her was good. The pain of the past year lessened when she was around. He felt her easing away and reluctantly released her. Breathing heavily, he leaned his forehead against hers. Her breathing was just as labored and unsteady as his. After a moment, she slid from his lap and returned to the spot she’d vacated. He didn’t like the distance between them and yearned to pull her back into his arms, but he resisted the urge. She’d made her wish clear and deserved to have it respected.

  “Uh.” She blinked as if she were as startled and amazed by the kiss as he was. It had been an earth-shattering kiss and he was gratified to know that he hadn’t been the only one who’d been struck speechless.

  “Yeah.”

  She blew out a breath. “I didn’t expect that. I certainly didn’t plan on it.” She looked at him and he saw the concern in her eyes. Was she worried that he’d think she’d set out to seduce him? He wasn’t that lucky. Besides, he remembered how surprised she’d been when he’d stepped onto the deck. She’d believed she was alone.

  “I know. Neither did I.”

  “I guess it’s no secret that I’m really attracted to you. I mean, who wouldn’t be?”

  The excitement that had been building inside him began to dissipate, replaced by dread. He knew where this was going. “But.”