Gabriel's Angel

by Nora Roberts

  her since their first day in the house, and yet she seemed continually braced for an outburst.

  He’d given her as much room as was humanly possible, and it was killing him. Sleeping with her, having her turn to him during the night, her skin separated from his only by the fragile cotton of a nightgown, had given new meaning to insomnia.

  He’d taken to working during the middle of the night and spending his free time in the studio or at the gallery, anywhere he wouldn’t be tempted to take what was his only legally.

  How could he take when she was still so delicate, physically, emotionally? However selfish he’d always been, or considered himself, he couldn’t justify gratifying himself at her expense—or frightening her by letting her see just how desperately, how violently, he wanted her.

  Yet there was passion in her, the dark, explosive kind. He’d seen that, and other things, in her eyes. She needed him, as much as he needed her. He wasn’t sure either of them understood where their need might take them.

  He could be patient. He was aware that her body needed time to heal, and he could give her that. But he wasn’t sure he could give her the time it might take for her mind to heal.

  He wanted to cross to her, to sit down beside her and stroke his hand over her hair. He wanted to reassure her. But he had no idea what words to use. Instead, he tucked his hands into his pockets.

  “Still at it?”

  Laura started, splattering paint on her hand. She sat back on her heels. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “Don’t get up,” he told her. “You make quite a picture.” He stepped into the room, glancing at the sunny walls before looking down at her. She wore an old pair of jeans, obviously his. He could see the clothesline she’d used to secure the waist. One of his shirts was tented over her, its hem torn at her hip.

  “Mine?”

  “I thought it would be all right.” She picked up a rag to wipe the paint from her hand. “I could tell from the splatters on them they’d already been worked in.”

  “Perhaps you don’t know the difference between painting and—” he gestured toward the wall “—painting.”

  She’d nearly fumbled out an apology before she realized he was joking. So the mood had passed. Perhaps they were friends again. “Not at all. I thought your pants would give me artistic inspiration.”

  “You could have come to the source.”

  She set the brush on top of the open paint can. Relief poured through her. Though he didn’t know, Gabe had found exactly the right words to reassure her. “I would never have suggested that the celebrated Gabriel Bradley turn his genius to a lowly baseboard.”

  It seemed so easy when she was like this, relaxed, with a hint of amusement in her eyes. “Obviously afraid I’d show you up.”

  She smiled, a bit hesitantly. He hadn’t looked at her in quite that way for days. Then she was scrambling back up on her knees as he joined her on the floor. “Oh, Gabe, don’t. You’ll get paint all over you, and you look so nice.”

  He had the brush in his hand. “Do I?”

  “Yes.” She tried to take it away from him, but he didn’t give way. “You always look so dashing when you go to the gallery.”

  “Oh, God.” The instant disgust on his face made her laugh.

  “Well, you do.” She checked the urge to brush at the hair on his forehead. “It’s quite different from the rugged-outdoorsman look you had in Colorado, though that was nice, too.”

  He wasn’t certain whether to smile or sneer. “Rugged outdoorsman?”

  “That’s right. The cords and the flannel, the untidy hair and the carelessly unshaven face. I think Geoffrey would have loved to photograph you with an ax …” She was staring at him, seeing him as he’d been and as he was. Abruptly she became aware that her hand was still covering his on the handle of the brush. Drawing it away, she struggled to remember her point. “You’re not dressed for work now, and I was in the fashion business long enough to recognize quality. Those pants are linen, and you’ll ruin them.”

  He was well aware of the sudden tension in her fingers and the look that had come into her eyes, but he only lifted a brow. “Are you saying I’m sloppy?”

  “Only when you paint.”

  “Pot calling the kettle,” he murmured, ignoring the way she jumped when he ran a finger down her cheek. He held it up to prove his point.

  Laura wrinkled her nose at the smear of white paint on his fingertip—and tried to ignore the heat on her skin where his finger had brushed. “I’m not an artist.” With a rag in one hand, she took his wrist in the other to clean the paint from his fingertip.

  Such beautiful hands, she thought. She could imagine how it would feel to have them move over her, slowly, gently. To have them stroke and caress the way a man’s might if he cared deeply about the woman beneath the skin he was touching. Her imagination had her moistening her lips as she lifted her gaze to his.

  They knelt knee to knee on the drop cloth, with his hand caught in hers. It amazed her when she felt his pulse begin to thud. In his eyes she saw what he hadn’t allowed her to see for days. Desire, pure and simple. Unnerved by it, drawn to it, she leaned toward him. The rag slipped out of her hand.

  And the baby cried out.

  They both jerked, like children caught raiding the cookie jar.

  “He’ll be hungry, and wet, too, I imagine,” she said as she started to rise. Gabe shifted his hand until it captured hers.

  “I’d like you to come back here after you’ve tended to him.”

  Longing and anxiety tangled, confusing her. “All right. Don’t worry about the mess. I’ll finish up later.”

  She was more than an hour with Michael, and she was a bit disappointed that Gabe didn’t come in, as he often did, to hold the baby or play with him before he slept again. Those were the best times, those simple family times. Tucking the blankets around her son, she reminded herself that she couldn’t expect Gabe to devote every free minute to her and the child.

  Satisfied that the baby was dry and content, she left him to go into the adjoining bath and freshen up. After she’d washed the paint from her face, she studied herself in the mirrored wall across from the step-down tub. She didn’t look seductive in baggy, masculine clothes, with her hair tugged back in a ponytail. Regardless of that, for an instant in the nursery, Gabe had been seduced.

  Was that what she wanted?

  How could she know what she wanted? She pressed her fingers to her eyes and tried to sort out her feelings. Confusion, and little else. One moment she imagined what it would be like, being with Gabe, making love with him. The next moment she was remembering the way it had been before, when love had had little to do with it.

  It was wrong to continually let memories intrude. She told herself she was too sensible for that. Or wanted to be. She’d been in therapy, she’d talked to counselors and other women who had been in situations all too similar to her own. Because she’d had to stay on the move, she hadn’t been able to remain with any one group for long, but they had helped her. Just learning that she wasn’t alone in what had happened to her, seeing and talking with others who had turned their lives around again, had given her the strength to go on.

  She knew—intellectually she knew—that what had happened to her was the result of a man’s illness and her own insecurity. But it was one thing to know it and another to accept it and go on, to risk another relationship.

  She wanted to be normal, was determined to be. That had been the communal cry from all the sessions in all the towns. Along with the fear and the anger and the self-disgust, there had been a desperate mutual need to be normal women again.

  But that step, that enormous, frightening step from past to future, was so difficult to take. Only she could do it, Laura told herself as she continued to stare into her own eyes. With Gabe, and her feelings for him, she had a chance. If she was willing to take it.

  How could she know how close they could be, how much they could mean to each other, if she didn�
��t allow herself to want the intimacy?

  Catching her lower lip between her teeth, she turned to study the lush bath. It was nearly as large as many of the rooms she’d lived in during her life. White on white on white, it gleamed and glistened and invited indulgence. She could sink into hot, deep water in the tub and soak until her skin was soft and pink. She still had most of a bottle of perfume, French and suggestive, that Geoffrey had bought her in Paris. She could dab it on her damp skin so that the scent seeped into her pores. Then she could … what?

  She had nothing lovely or feminine to wear. The only clothes she hadn’t taken to thrift shops or secondhand stores during her cross-country flight were maternity clothes. The two pairs of slacks and the cotton blouses didn’t count.

  In any case, what would it matter if she had a closetful of lace negligees? She wouldn’t know what to do or say. It had been so long since she’d thought of herself strictly as a woman. Perhaps she never had. And surely it was better to try to reestablish that early friendship with Gabe before they attempted intimacy.

  If that was what he wanted. What she wanted.

  Turning away from the mirror, she went to find him.

  She couldn’t have been more surprised when she walked into the nursery and found the painting finished, the cans sealed and the brushes cleaned. As she stared, Gabe folded the drop cloth.

  “You finished it,” she managed.

  “I seem to have struggled through without doing any damage.”

  “It’s beautiful. The way I’d always imagined.” She stepped into the empty room and began arranging furniture in her head. “There should be curtains, white ones, though I suppose dotted swiss is too feminine for a boy.”

  “I couldn’t say, but it sounds like it. It’s warm enough, so I’ve left the windows open.” He tossed the drop cloth over a stepladder. “I don’t want to put Michael in here until the smell of the paint’s gone.”

  “No,” she agreed absently, wondering if the crib should go between the two windows.

  “Now that this is out of the way, I have something for you. A belated Mother’s Day present.”

  “Oh, but you gave me the flowers already.”

  He took a small box out of his pocket. “There wasn’t the time or the opportunity for much else then. We were living out of a suitcase and spending all of our time at the hospital. Besides, the flowers were from Michael. This is from me.”

  That made it different. Intimate. Again she found herself drawn to him, and again she found herself pulled away. “You don’t have to give me anything.”

  The familiar impatience shimmered. He barely suppressed it. “You’re going to have to learn how to take a gift more graciously.”

  He was right. And it was wrong of her to continue to compare, but Tony had been so casual, so lavish, in his gifts. And they had meant so little. “Thank you.” She took the box, opened it and stared.

  The ring looked like a circle of fire, with its channel-linked diamonds flashing against its gold band and nestled in velvet. Instinctively she ran a fingertip over it and was foolishly amazed that it was cool to the touch.

  “It’s beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. But—”

  “There had to be one.”

  “It’s just that it’s a wedding ring, and I already have one.”

  He took her left hand to examine it. “I’m surprised your finger hasn’t fallen off from wearing this thing.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with it,” she said, and nearly snatched her hand away.

  “So sentimental, angel?” Though his voice had gentled, his hand was firm on hers. Now, perhaps, he would be able to dig a bit deeper into what she was feeling for him, about him. “Are you so attached to a little circle of metal?”

  “It was good enough for us before. I don’t need anything else.”

  “It was a temporary measure. I’m not asking you to toss it out the window, but be a little practical. If you weren’t always curling your finger up, it would fall right off.”

  “I could have it sized.”

  “Suit yourself.” He slipped it from her finger, then replaced it with the diamond circle. “Just consider that you have two wedding rings.” When he offered her the plain band, Laura curled it into her fist. “The new one holds the same intentions.”

  “It is beautiful.” Still, she pushed the old ring onto the index finger of her right hand, where it fit more snugly. “Thank you, Gabe.”

  “We did better than that before.”

  She didn’t have to be reminded. Yet the memories flooded back when he slipped his arms around her. Emotions poured through with those memories the moment his mouth was on hers. His lips were firm and warm and hinted, just hinted, at his impatience as they slanted across hers. Though his arms remained gentle around her, his touch light and testing, she sensed a volcano in him, simmering and smoking.

  As if to soothe, she leaned into him and lifted a hand to his cheek. Understanding. Acceptance.

  Her touch triggered the need crawling inside him, and his arms tightened and his mouth crushed down on hers. She responded with a moan that he barely heard, with a shudder that he barely felt. Tense, hungry, he fell victim to her as much as to his own demands.

  He had wanted before, casually and desperately and all the degrees in between. Why, then, did this seem like a completely new experience? He had held women before, known their softness, tasted their sweetness. But he had never known a softness, never experienced a sweetness, like Laura’s.

  He took his mouth on a slow, seeking journey over her face, along her jawline, down her throat, drinking in, then devouring. His hands, long and limber, slipped under her full shirt, then roamed upward. At first the slender line of her back was enough, the smooth skin and the quick tremors all he required. Then the need to touch, to possess, grew sharper. As his mouth came back to hers, he slid his hand around to cup, then claim, her breast.

  The first touch made her catch her breath, pulling air in quickly, then letting it out again in a long, unsteady sigh. How could she have known, even blinded by love and longings, how desperately she’d need to have his hands on her? This was what she wanted, to be his in every way, in all ways. The confusion, the doubts, the fears, drained away. No memories intruded when he held her like this. No whispers of the past taunted her. There was only him, and the promise of a new life and an enduring love.

  Her knees were trembling so she braced her body against his, arching in an invitation so instinctive that only he recognized it.

  The room smelled of paint and was bright with the sun that streamed through the uncurtained windows. It was empty and quiet. He could fantasize about pulling her to the floor, tugging at her clothes until they were skin-to-skin on the polished hardwood. He could imagine taking her in the sun-washed room until they were both exhausted and replete.

  With another woman he might have done so without giving a thought to where or when, and little more to how. But not with Laura.

  Churning, he drew her away from him. Her eyes were clouded. Her mouth was soft and full. With a restraint he hadn’t known he possessed, Gabe swore only in his mind.

  “I have work to do.”

  She was floating, drifting on a mist so fine it could only be felt, not seen. At his words, she began the quick, confused journey back to earth. “What?”

  “I have work to do,” he repeated, stepping carefully away from her. He detested himself for taking things so far when he knew she was physically unable to cope with his demands. “I’ll be in the studio if you need me.”

  If she needed him? Laura thought dimly as his footsteps echoed down the hall. Hadn’t she just shown him how much she needed him? It wasn’t possible that he hadn’t felt it, that he hadn’t understood it. With an oath, she turned and walked to the window. There she huddled on the small, hard seat and stared down at the garden, which was just beginning to bloom.

  What was there about her, she wondered, that made men look at her as a thing to be taken or rejected at will? D
id she appear so weak, so malleable? She curled her hands into fists as frustration spread through her. She wasn’t weak, not any longer, and a long time, in some ways a lifetime, had passed since she had been malleable. She wasn’t a young girl caught up in fairy-tale lies now. She was a woman, a mother, with responsibilities and ambitions.

  Perhaps she loved, and perhaps this time would be as unwise a love as before. But she wouldn’t be used, she wouldn’t be ignored, and she wouldn’t be molded.

  Talk was cheap, Laura thought as she propped her chin on her knees. Doing something about it was a little costlier. She should go in to Gabe now and make herself clear. She cast a look at the door, then turned back to the window. She didn’t have the courage.

  That had always been her problem. She could say what she would or would not do, but when it came down to acting on it she found passivity easier than action. There had been a time in her life when she’d believed that the passive way was best for her. That had been until her marriage to Tony had fallen viciously apart. She’d done something then, Laura reminded herself, or had begun to do something, then had allowed herself to be pressured and persuaded to erase it.

  It had been like that all her life. As a child she hadn’t had a choice. She’d been told to live here or live there, and she had. Each house had had its own sets of rules and values, and she’d had to conform. Like one of those rubber dolls, she thought now, that you could bend and twist into any position you liked.

  Too much of the child had remained with the woman, until the woman had been with child.

  The only positive action she felt she’d ever taken in her life had been to protect the baby. And she had done it, Laura reminded herself. It had been terrifying and hard, but she hadn’t backed down. Didn’t that mean that buried beneath years of quiet