Nan stifled an urge to laugh, wondering even as she did how they had come to switch roles. She was supposed to be the serious one who worried about silly things. She rested a comforting hand on his arm, her fingertips immediately feeling the heat of his skin through his shirtsleeve. “I did say ‘hypothetically.’ It would take an incredible amount of courage to die in order to save someone else, Gabriel. While we all like to believe that we possess that kind of courage, the reality is that most of us do not.”
He lowered his chin to search her face. “People commit heroic acts all the time.”
Nan allowed herself to smile again—only slightly, so he wouldn’t think she was laughing at him. “Yes, but do they have an opportunity to consider the consequences first?”
His mouth tipped into a mere shadow of the wide, slightly crooked grin that she’d come to enjoy so much. “In other words, you hold with the belief that most of us have a yellow streak and wouldn’t sacrifice our own lives to save someone else if we had so much as a second to think about it first.”
Nan nodded. “It’s sad, isn’t it? But I think the only man who possessed that kind of courage died on a cross nearly two thousand years ago. The rest of us are sorry excuses compared to him.”
He blinked and raked his fingers through his black hair, which had been longish when she met him and was now in desperate need of a trim. “Thank you,” he told her. “I really needed to hear that.” He winked at her. “Sometimes I get to thinking I’m the only coward in a whole world of heroes.”
“You, Gabriel Valance, are no coward,” Nan informed him, inserting a stern tone of absolute certainty into her voice. “You’ve faced death fourteen times without even getting the shakes. If someone aimed a gun at me, I’d be so scared I’d fall to my knees on the spot, begging for my life.” Remembering that supper was only half-finished, she stood. “As for a whole world of heroes?” She finally found the courage to cup her palm lightly over his hard jaw. “I’ve yet to meet one—unless, of course, I count you.”
“Me?”
Nan drew her arm back. Her fingers tingled from touching him, and little zings darted up her arm. “You’ve had many men try to kill you, and you remain ever ready to defend yourself against the next one who tries.”
“Defending myself is a natural human instinct.”
“True, but a lot of men would live in constant fear. You don’t. Instead you live in the moment and find things to laugh about. At least, you did until sometime last week.”
He rotated his shoulders as if to work out the kinks. “You’re right. I’ve been downright gloomy, haven’t I? I’m sorry. I’ll try to brighten up.”
“Please do. I sorely miss your laughter.” Nan went to the door, then paused with her hand on the knob to look back at him. “This whole conversation—it was hypothetical, was it not?”
He’d gotten up to follow her, and as he closed the distance, she admired the loose, masculine swing of his stride. “Purely hypothetical.”
“So you’re not thinking about dying in order to save someone else?”
He tweaked the tip of her nose. “No, honey, I’m not thinking about dying to save someone else.”
Nan was relieved to note that he looked her dead in the eye as he said it.
• • •
The evening that followed was, in Nan’s opinion, glorious. Gabriel jumped in to help finish making supper. He gave her lavish compliments on the food. Laughter rang out in her sunny yellow kitchen again. After cleaning up the cooking mess and washing the dishes, the two of them packed sandwiches for the boy. Laney, having already enjoyed one outing, was busy at the table, hurrying to complete her makeup work, which had been sent home to her by the teacher via a classmate.
“Don’t dawdle,” Gabe cautioned the girl. “If you’re not finished when we get back, we’ll play poker without you.”
“No, sir! I’m nearly done.”
A few seconds later, Nan took a deep breath of the crisp night air. “I can’t believe you’ve been plopping that boy’s food down on the boardwalk!”
“He’s afraid of me, I told you. He didn’t suddenly get over it simply because I was the only person who could bring him his meals.”
While Gabriel paused some distance from the staircase, Nan went ahead without him. In the shadowy darkness beneath the steep plank steps, she could barely see the boy, but a picture of him had been imprinted in her mind, because she’d seen him of a morning. Aside from wearing rags, being filthy, and needing someone to shear off his long brown hair, he was a handsome child with beautiful blue eyes and nice features. So far, Nan hadn’t been able to get him to talk much. He mostly said thank you and then grunted when she ventured questions. She’d yet to learn his name.
“It’s Mrs. Valance with your supper,” she said as she approached him.
“No need to say that every time. Who else do you think brings me food?”
The answer to that question was a torment to Nan’s heart. How could people she knew and counted as decent pretend not to see this child? If she lived to be a hundred, she would never understand it. Most of her customers were good, generous women, yet not a single one had brought the boy as much as a slice of bread. Perhaps, Nan decided, it was more a case of the child’s location than a lack of caring. Nan was unafraid to slip under the brothel staircase because she had Gabriel standing guard. Her female acquaintances might not have such gallant husbands.
“Well, here it is, then.” Nan bent forward to plop the makeshift sack on his lap. “We had pan-fried pork tonight, and your sandwiches are still warm. I hope you enjoy them. And, of course, I brought you milk.”
“Thanks,” he said with an unappreciative grunt. “Where the hell have you been? The last few nights only that gunslinger has come. I don’t like him one bit. I bet he’d just as soon shoot my ass off as look at me.”
Nan guessed him to be about Laney’s age, possibly a bit older. His language shocked her, but not quite so much as it might have before she’d met Gabriel, who had a colorful vocabulary himself at times. “In truth, it was that gunslinger who told me about you and encouraged me to bring you food. He is deeply concerned about you.”
Even in the darkness, Nan saw the boy’s head snap up. “Why does he care? I’m nobody to him.”
Nan sighed inwardly. Preacher Hayes was going to have a hard go when it came to convincing this young sir to accept help. “Just like you, my husband was once a boy who lived under staircases and went hungry. No one ever brought him food. I guess he thinks someone should have, and he has no wish to see history repeat itself. It was despicable then, and if it happens now, it will still be despicable.”
“You talk a lot,” he informed her, “and use big words. Are you highfalutin or somethin’?”
Nan bit back a smile. In some strange way she couldn’t define, this boy reminded her of Gabriel. “Let us just say that I was raised in a totally different environment than you. I don’t intend to sound highfalutin. I make hats and dresses for a living. I have a daughter about your age.”
“I’ve seen her.”
This was the most the boy had ever said to her, and Nan hugged the realization close, hoping it meant he was starting to think of her as a friend.
“Too fancy for me,” he said around a mouthful of food that slurred his words. “All them ruffles and such, with bows on her pigtails. She’s a fussy little snot, I bet.” He stopped chewing to peer through the darkness at Nan. “Like mother, like daughter.”
Nan bristled but managed to guard her tongue. Instead of responding in kind, she said, “That fussy little snot could clean you out in a poker game, young sir. Don’t judge a girl by her ruffles and bows lest others judge you just as quickly.”
“I’ve already been judged, lady. My mama is a whore.” He gave a bitter laugh. “I bet you don’t even know what that means.”
Nan’s heart broke for him. L
ittle wonder he reminded her of Gabriel. She could only hope he grew up to be as fine a man. “Yes, I do know what it means, and I think you have the makings to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and put all of this behind you if you get half a chance.”
“I don’t got any boots. Hell, lady, I don’t even have shoes. I outgrew them until my toes poked out the ends and they squeezed my feet so hard they ached.”
Nan couldn’t see what covered his feet now, but she wondered if he’d stolen a sheet from someone’s drying line and cut it into strips to create makeshift footwear like Gabriel once had. Now that she came to think of it, a sheet had gone missing from her own line a couple of weeks back. She’d believed some dog had dragged it off, but now she suspected the thief had been an angry, two-legged boy. If so, he was more than welcome.
“What size shoe do you wear?” she asked.
“How should I know? My mama bought me my last pair from a peddler two years back. She never said what size, and even if she had, that’d be wrong now.”
Nan felt saddened as she left the boy to his supper. When she reached Gabriel, she said, “He has no footwear. I think he may have stolen my good sheet off the line a couple of weeks ago. It went mysteriously missing.”
“Smart boy.” Gabriel grasped her arm. The touch of his hand radiated warmth through her cloak and set her skin to tingling again. “I know a lady with ten thousand dollars in the bank. Maybe she should get the kid some boots.”
“I shall.”
Nan couldn’t resist the urge that overcame her to lean against him. It felt lovely and right when he released her elbow to curl a strong arm around her shoulders. Her reaction should have shocked her, but somehow, nothing about Gabriel or her feelings toward him could surprise her anymore. Now that she knew Barclay wasn’t dead, the only thing she still had to hide was Laney’s whereabouts. She knew in her heart that Gabriel would never put the girl’s happiness at risk. Nan could get her marriage to this man annulled, if she wished. But an annulment was the last thing she wanted now. She’d fallen in love with him, and she didn’t know what to do about it. So she rested more heavily into the circle of his embrace and enjoyed the undulating bump of his hip against her side as they walked.
“I have no idea what size shoe the boy wears,” she found the presence of mind to say.
“Just guess and buy him three pairs. Redmond will take back the ones that don’t fit.”
“Champion idea!”
Nan regretted their arrival at the shop door. Gabriel drew away to open it and ushered her inside.
Later, as they played poker with Laney, Nan couldn’t concentrate on the game. Instead she studied his handsome, dark face, the graceful way his big hands moved as he shuffled and dealt cards, and how muscle played under his black shirt whenever he moved. Later, after they went to bed, Nan lay curled on her side, facing him. As always, he pillowed his head on his folded arms, closed his eyes, and drifted off to sleep before she could blink.
She yearned to reach out and touch his bare chest. Her fingertips ached to explore the mat of curly black hair and test the texture of his skin. An ache formed low in her belly, and she felt hot and wet between her legs. The lady in her wanted to pretend she had no idea what caused that, but Nan had long since left behind the innocence of girlhood, and the woman in her demanded honesty, at least with herself. She wanted—no, needed—him to hold her, to make love to her. She wasn’t sure what that kind of intimacy entailed, but she trusted Gabriel, and the niggling fears at the edges of her mind weren’t enough to dampen her desire.
The problem was, she had no idea how to tell him that.
• • •
Nan believed that Gabriel’s dark mood had passed after their talk the night before, but on Monday, she noticed that his facial expressions were once again tense and grim. Before the morning was out, he’d left and then returned with a Christmas tree, which he had selected from Burke Redmond’s boardwalk display. While Nan dealt with the occasional customer, Gabriel left and soon came back with a board from the building supply store at the south end of Main, which he quickly fashioned into a sturdy tree stand. He worked like a dervish, and she got the disturbing impression that he was trying to avoid thinking by keeping busy.
When he suddenly turned to her and asked, “If you could wish for anything you wanted for Christmas this year—I mean absolutely anything, no matter how outlandish—what would it be?”
Hoping to make him laugh, Nan quipped, “Roses, a huge bouquet.”
When he didn’t even smile, Nan laughed for him. “I’m funning with you, Gabriel. It’s the dead of December. There isn’t a rose in bloom within a thousand miles.”
He finally relented and grinned, but she could tell his heart wasn’t in it. “Not true. Haven’t you ever heard of hothouses?”
“I grew up in Manhattan. Yes, I’ve even seen a few. But no such thing exists here in Random. People who grow vegetables in this climate have starts on their windowsills until sometime in June! And even then we can get a killing frost.”
He rubbed the nape of his neck and went back to scowling. “Do you believe in Santa Claus?”
Nan sighed. “No, of course not. I don’t think I ever did. In my childhood home, Saint Nick never got soot on his suit from our chimney, and our tree was only for show. I had packages under it every year, but only because guests over the holiday season would have thought it strange if I didn’t. My father didn’t believe in filling a child’s head with nonsense about magical beings.”
“Have you filled Laney’s head with nonsense?”
Nan brushed dust away from a hat perched on a rack that she’d been neglecting of late. “I have. Santa always brings her something special.”
Gabe studied her so intently that Nan stilled her fingers on a silk flower. “Will you promise me something?” he asked.
His tone made her heart catch. It was as if he were telling her good-bye. “Anything,” she said, throwing caution to the wind.
“On Christmas morning, no matter what happens, go out to the woodpile to see what Santa left for you.”
The backs of Nan’s eyes burned. “So you mean to surprise me with something, do you?” An ache crawled up from her chest to crowd her throat. “You’re not planning to leave, I hope. I mean . . . you’re so solemn. And you seem so sad. If you mean to go, Gabriel, please don’t do so without at least bidding me farewell. I won’t make it difficult for you. I promise. I’ll only . . . wish you Godspeed.”
He met and held her gaze. “I won’t ever leave Random, Nan. You can count on that. Just don’t forget to check that woodpile. It’d be a shame for a Santa gift to get covered with snow.”
“Ah, so you predict we’ll have a white Christmas?” Nan was shaking inside.
“I’ll even go so far as to guarantee one.”
Nan had to break eye contact. She hugged her waist and turned to survey the tree. “It’s beautiful, Gabriel. You have a good eye for shape. It’s a shame we can’t decorate it tonight, but it should wait until tomorrow, when Laney will be home to help. It’s her favorite part of Christmas.”
“Well, then, we’ll wait and have a decorating party!” he said, his voice jovial and yet oddly hollow. “I’ve never trimmed a tree. I’ll probably muck it up good, and Laney will be fixing everything I do.”
• • •
Gabriel vanished for the rest of the afternoon and returned just as Nan was about to conclude business for the day. With a somber nod of greeting to her, he went directly upstairs without a word. Nan might have followed him but for Laney’s sudden arrival home from school. In a whirlwind of excitement about the party at Melody’s that evening, the girl packed her things for an overnight stay and left again so quickly that Nan could barely get a word in. As Laney raced from the shop with a stuffed satchel in one hand, Nan was in the process of telling her not to forget her toothbrush.
Her voice
trailed away when the door slammed. Stepping over to turn the sign and close for the day, Nan watched her sister skip across the dirt thoroughfare with Melody, her blue skirt bouncing beneath the hem of her cape, her beribboned pigtails swirling like golden ropes around her shoulders. Fussy little snot. Nan smiled sadly at the memory. The boy saw in Laney all that he wished for himself—and would never have by accident of birth. Nan hoped that Preacher Hayes found a family for the child soon. He deserved to have a home and people who cared about him. She would pray that he’d be settled somewhere before Christmas.
Until last night, Nan had been thinking about going against Gabriel’s advice and taking the kid in herself. She could turn her upstairs workroom into a bedroom for him. She no longer used it anymore, anyway. And in her opinion, Gabriel was the perfect candidate to take that bitter boy in hand. No matter how experienced some other man in town might be at fathering, he would never comprehend what that poor child had endured. Gabriel could, because he’d experienced it himself.
But, though Nan hated to admit it, Gabriel was right: The boy would be a handful, and she had to think of the effect his rebellious behavior would have on Laney. Not a good situation. Gabriel at least tried to mind his manners and curb his tongue.
Sighing, Nan went upstairs to start supper. Though Laney would eat at Melody’s tonight, Nan still had two hungry fellows and a dog to feed. She expected to find Gabriel in the kitchen, either making fresh coffee or drinking the cold dregs from that morning. The man did love his coffee.
Nan frowned when her husband wasn’t where she expected him to be. She stood just inside the closed door, listening for movement in the apartment and telling herself he might be in the water closet, but she heard nothing, not even the slight creak of a floor plank. Oh, no. She sincerely hoped he wasn’t in the bedchamber, lost in morose thoughts again. She’d heard from a customer that the contagion had taken another life this morning—that of an elderly man at the east side of town. Nan had never made the gentleman’s acquaintance, so though the news of his passing saddened her, she wasn’t affected in a personal way. Gabriel, however, seemed to take every death to heart—as if he might somehow have stopped it from happening.
Walking on Air Page 25
