by K. E. Saxon
What time was it anyway? Nine? Ten? Eleven? Well, it was late anyway. Too late for visitors.
But not murderers. She shot to her feet and pushed the door open with a swift turn of her wrist and a butt of her shoulder and hip.
* * *
“Sorry I frightened you a minute ago,” Gabe said and took a sip of his iced tea.
Julie folded and unfolded the dishtowel on the island counter. She shook her head. “I was just being silly—I don’t know what got into me—too many years in a crime-filled city, I guess. Anyway, I’m glad you’ve come, because—” Oh, God. She looked up at him. “You do know that Jason’s not here?”
Gabe reached over and patted her hand. She hadn’t even realized she’d fisted it around the towel until his touch loosened her grip on the thing. “Yes, Julie. I know the whole story. Jason called me from the airport.”
“Airport?”
Gabe nodded. “A client in Dubai wants him to build a sustainable space hotel and resort—he didn’t tell you?”
Julie busied herself straightening and refolding the towel. “No—no he didn’t. Good for him. It sounds like a great project.”
“Julie, look at me.”
She blinked a few times and cleared her throat. Then with a sniffle, she tossed her head a little and brought it up.
“He was planning to take you with him, but you broke up with him.”
The battle between her sorrow and her pride came to an abrupt and crippling end. She covered her face with her hands and wept.
Gabe put his arm around her shoulder, gave her arm a rough pat, and then squeezed her to him. “Now, now. None of that. I’m sure this can all be fixed in no time.”
* * *
“My wife was only twenty-one the year she wrote that,” Gabe said. He and Julie were seated in her living room now and she was quietly, and avidly, reading every word in the notebook his wife had used as her diary.
It was crowding midnight, but neither he nor Julie was ready to call it a night. He reckoned the nap he’d awakened her from was her reason. He just didn’t sleep as well as he used to.
Although…he was curious as hell why she’d been asleep on the porch swing when he got here. Well, that conversation could wait for another day.
It was this one that he was determined to have with her now. Especially after the reaction she’d just had in the kitchen. It’d given him even more hope than his earlier conversation with Jason had done. And that one had been a real eye-opener for sure.
Jason was so nuts for this little gal that he’d actually told Gabe to shove it and hung up on him. Totally out of character.
His son was clearly having the battle of a lifetime.
And Gabe planned to add just enough pressure on the heart side to smash his kid’s fear once and for all.
Now all he had to do was get Julie in his corner as well.
Even if she didn’t know she was.
* * *
Julie slowly closed the notebook, but kept a light grip on it, holding it in her lap. “It was worse than I ever imagined.”
Gabe sat forward. “So—Jason told you? It wasn’t a complete surprise?”
Julie glanced down at the diary. “Yes. He told me—but…” She met Gabe’s gaze again. “He said—the way he phrased it—I don’t know. I guess I got the impression that his mother—your wife—manipulated you. Maybe even made you believe the baby was yours so that you would marry her.” She looked back at the notebook and ran her hand over the once-shiny, now dulled-with-age-and-wear, cover. “But that’s not what happened at all.”
“No. We’d been married for almost a year.”
Julie shook her head. “How awful for her.”
“Yes. Yes it was. It was a horrible shame that she kept to herself—took it to her grave.” Gabe sighed and sat back. “I suppose I would have gone to mine as well—maybe even Jason, too—not knowing the truth of what happened, if it hadn’t been for my damned heart.”
“I don’t understand,” Julie said. But she was beginning to suspect.
“Transfusions. Blood transfusions.” Gabe tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair. “Jason and I both needed one after the car crash.”
“Oh.”
“Yep. It was actually Jason who put two-and-two together: I’m O, he’s AB. But I was so sure the so-called inheritance pattern for blood types had more wiggle room—I mean, this is the Twenty-first century, for Christ’s sake!—that I allowed Jason to talk me into getting a DNA test done.” He scrubbed his hands over his face. “I wish now that I’d refused it, because once those damned results confirmed Jason’s suspicions and I found that—” He indicated the notebook with a wave of his hand. “Well, nothing’s been the same between us since.”
Julie sat forward and placed her hand on Gabe’s knee. “How did your wife die?”
“That, to me, is the saddest part of all.” He pressed his fingers against his eyes. “She died of a brain aneurysm. A year before the car crash.”
“I’m so sorry, Gabe.”
“It was the hardest thing I ever had to do, going through her things to try and find some information on who had fathered our child.” He looked at her then. “I know. It sounds crazy. You’d think burying her would have been harder—but it wasn’t.” He shrugged. “It—it just hadn’t seemed real to me.”
Gabe got to his feet and walked over to the stone fireplace. He picked up one of the wooden and brass candlesticks and then set it right back down again. “After she was gone, I—I don’t know—I just liked keeping everything as she’d had it before. So, I left all her clothes in the closet, kept her makeup and hairbrushes and goo-gaws on the bathroom counter.” He looked down into the fireplace and toed the iron screen. “Going through her things—imagining that she’d been unfaithful—suspecting every friend I had. It was—” He looked up toward the ceiling. “It was a living, breathing nightmare.”
He looked over his shoulder and caught her eye. “But you know what was worse? My going through her things made her absence from my life so final.”
“Oh, Gabe.” Julie clasped her hands. “I know. I haven’t touched anything of Connie’s since…. It does feel like that. That’s why her house in Laurel Canyon’s closed tight as a clamshell. I’m not ready to say goodbye to her yet.”
“No need to rush it. It takes time.”
Julie nodded. She cleared her throat and fingered the edge of the notebook. “It must have killed you when you read this the first time—understood what really happened to her.”
Gabe’s chuckle was dry and hollow. He nodded. “Let’s just say, it was a good thing I was on heart medication.”
Julie dropped her gaze to the notebook and bit down on her lip to stop it from trembling. A very painful lump formed in her throat and her eyes misted with tears, but she refused to give in to the weakness. After a long second, she cleared her throat again and looked at Gabe. “What happened after? When you told Jason?” She lifted the diary. “About this?”
His lips pursed and he shook his head. “It was not a good scene.” He turned and looked at her then. “But after the initial shock and holler, my son did exactly what he always does: Instead of standing firm and dealing, he ran. That time, he ran to Austin.”
Julie sat forward. “And tended bar.”
Gabe nodded. “How did you know?”
“We bumped into a guy he used to work with—Steve—when we were in Houston the other day.”
Gabe gave a brief nod. “After three years of awkward phone conversations, I finally decided I’d have to go wrangle my kid up if I was ever going to get him back home again.” Gabe strode back and sat in the chair again. He leaned forward and said, “You see now, don’t you, that Jason’s only reacting. He’s a good guy—he’s going to be a great husband to you, if you’ll only give him a chance.”
Julie shook her head. “It’s not the husband part that worries me—it’s the fact that he’s so determined not to have children.” Julie sat forward then as well. “And Ga
be—I want children. I want a family again. Very badly.”
Gabe reached out and took hold of her hand. “He does too—he’s just convinced himself he doesn’t.”
“He’s getting a vasectomy, Gabe.”
“Horseshit! There is not a chance in hell of that happening. Not one chance in hell.” He snorted. “He’s not that committed to his own hype.”
He gave her hand a slight squeeze. “I know my kid. Believe me. At this very moment, he’s probably swilling down a whiskey and grinding his teeth to quiet the argument in his head. The one that’s telling him to turn right back around and come back to you—make babies with you.”
Julie stood up and started to pace with her arms crossed over her chest. “I wish I could believe you.” She stopped and looked at him. “In fact, earlier today, I would have—quite easily.” She started to pace again. “But you should have heard him, Gabe. Even if you don’t believe him—I do.” She stopped and turned to face him. “Did he tell you about the condoms? There were holes in them—and he thought I was the one that put them there.”
Gabe resettled himself on his chair, switching crossed legs. “Julie—the thing about the condoms?” He coughed into his fist. “I did it.”
She dropped her arms. “Wh—What??” She slapped her hand over her mouth and said, “Jason would be livid.”
One side of Gabe’s mouth pursed and he raised an eyebrow. Then he gave a sheepish shrug and said, “Yes. Livid describes his reaction to a T.”
Julie’s jaw dropped. “You told him?”
Gabe got up and walked over to her. “I had to. I couldn’t let him blame the hotel. For all I knew, he’d try to sue them or something.” He took her hand between both of his. “He didn’t think you’d done it—not when I spoke to him.”
She dropped her gaze. “Well. I guess that’s something.”
“Sure it is. Look: Will you just let me fix what I fouled up?”
Her eyes shot to his face. “What do you mean?” But she was afraid she already knew.
“Get you two back together, of course.”
She took several steps back and shook her head. “No way. Uh-uh. Nope. AND: Not-a-chance.”
* * *
Gabe sighed as he toweled his face dry. He’d pretty much known that he’d end up reverting to subversive means to do this operation, but he’d had to try to get Julie on board first. It would have made the whole thing so much easier—and quicker too, he was sure.
But at least she knew the whole score now. She’d be much more sympathetic and, no doubt, willing to do even more for him if he asked.
And con-hearted man that he was—he intended to take full advantage. Because the ends would definitely justify the means.
* * *
Over the next week, Gabe did two things: Mailed a package to his son—one that was sure to rock Jason’s world to its very center, and got Mike to ask Julie out on a date.
He was rather proud of himself.
* * *
Jason slugged down a second shot of José Cuervo at the ground floor Mexican-themed nightclub of his Dubai hotel and then swiveled around on the stool and leaned his elbows back on the bar. He looked at his watch: 2:45 am. Another quarter-hour and the club would close.
“Bonsoir, Jason.”
Jason dashed a glance to his left and saw the black-haired, lithe-as-a-cobra French Executive V.P. for the hotel chain he was doing business with just placing her what’s-the-point-it’s-so-small purse on the bar next to him. “Evenin’ Giselle. How’s it hangin’?”
He got a kick out of saying stuff like that to the overly refined.
Her black-lined, crystal-blue eyes widened ever-so slightly and one perfectly-arched black eyebrow lifted, but she kept the smile on her face. She melted onto the barstool beside him and pulled out a cigarette from a gold metallic case. “Have you a light?”
“No, sorry. Don’t smoke.”
“A drink then, s’il te plait?”
“Sure.” He twisted around and hailed the bartender. “What would you like?”
“Tequila, bien sûr. We are, are we not, in Mexico ce soir?”
She leaned into him and he caught a whiff of a very delicate floral scent. It reminded him of Julie’s shampoo. He bent his head closer to her ear and breathed it in again before he realized what he was doing and straightened.
“Jason,” Giselle said and lightly twined her long, red nail-polished fingers over his upper arm. “This project will take months. You and I, we are young, célibataire—single—we have our needs, mais oui? It would be—how do you say?—convenient, do you not agree, for you and I to indulge our naturelle urges?”
Jason eyed her for a minute then tossed down the shot of tequila. He set the glass down and said, “Your room or mine?”
* * *
CHAPTER 12
When Mike showed up at the door that evening, Gabe was ready for him. “Okay. Let’s set some ground rules,” he said and indicated that Mike should take a seat on the couch with a point of his finger. “Wanna beer?”
“No thanks. What ground rules?”
Gabe settled in the chair and said, “First: You’ll treat my Julie with the respect that she deserves—no pawing at her.”
Mike puffed up like a blowfish. “I wouldn’t—”
Gabe waved a hand at him. “Fine, fine. Next: No kissing until you get her to her front door—and then only, I mean ONLY, if she gives you permission.”
Mike sat forward. “What the hell—are you saying you want me to ask her for a kiss? Like I’m in junior high school or something?”
Gabe leveled a hard penetrating look at him. “Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
Mike stood up “What a load of horsesh—Hi, Julie.”
“Hi, Mike. What’s a load of horse manure?”
Gabe craned his neck around to look at her. “Oh, we were just talking about the Cowboys’ chances against Tampa next Sunday.” He stood up. “My, don’t you look pretty.” She was wearing something real feminine. A lively pink summer dress with a flouncy skirt that ended a couple of inches above her knees. And strappy silver sandals, to boot.
Julie smiled at him. He was glad to see the blush brighten her features, too. “Thanks, Gabe.”
Gabe turned to Mike and said, “Where are you taking my little gal?”
“There’s a catfish joint I like in the next town.” Mike turned to look at Julie. “If that’s all right with you?”
Julie nodded. “Sounds great.”
As Mike held the door open for Julie, Gabe said, “Don’t forget what I said about the Cowboys.”
Mike gave him a brief nod and followed Julie out the door.
* * *
Jason was having a hard time becoming aroused, so he forced Giselle’s mouth open more by jamming his tongue further inside and ripped at the low neckline of her black dress.
She twisted out of his embrace. “Mais non, cheri. This is Dior. You must not ruin it.” She turned around. “There is a zipper, do you see it?” she said over her shoulder.
Jason’s hand felt like a lead weight as he dragged at the fastening. He had the thing halfway down before he finally admitted defeat. “Sorry, Giselle, but I’ve changed my mind.”
She turned to face him. There was a decided moue of disappointment on her face. “Trop de tequila? Quel dommage. À demain—tomorrow—then?”
“No, Giselle. I’ve changed my mind about the whole thing.”
Her initial look of surprise turned to pity. “Ahhh, oui,” she said with a nod, “Je comprends—I understand. You only had to tell me, non?” With a quick turn, she was settled on the end of her bed. She leaned back on her palms and looked up at him. “‘On ne voit bien qu’avec le coeur.’ Le Petit Prince—do you know it?”
Jason was in a hurry to leave. He took a step backward, but nodded. He had to work with this woman, after all. He couldn’t be too abrupt in his departure.
“What is your rose’s name—the lady you love?”
“Juli
e.”
“Hmm.” Giselle sighed and took the pin out of her hair that had been holding it up. She tossed her head and it fell in a shiny black swath around her shoulders. “Au revoir, Jason.”
He didn’t pause. In a flash, he was out the door and down the hall punching both buttons for the elevator.
* * *
Love. Was he in love with Julie? Jason dropped down on the bed and lay back, tucking his arms behind his head. It was the second time now that someone had assumed he was. Of course, the first time, it had been his dad saying it, so Jason had only thought it a verbalized wish that his dad was harboring.
Except, just now he hadn’t even argued the logic of Giselle’s assumption. And it had been Julie’s name that had popped out of his mouth the minute the Frenchwoman had asked.
Plus—What the holy hell was going on with his sex drive? He hadn’t felt like getting laid since he’d left the States.
Not only that, his one attempt at it had been like a betrayal of Julie. And what was even scarier: the whole time he’d held Giselle, kissed Giselle, he’d wished it had been Julie’s lips, Julie’s body pressed up to his.
Everything—everything—had felt wrong.
God, what the hell was he supposed to do about that? He missed her. So bad.
He wondered what she was doing right now. He glanced at the clock on the nightstand. 4:00 a.m.—so, 7:00 p.m. BP time. She was probably eating her supper. In that cozy little farmhouse kitchen. With his dad and Pookie.
Jason sighed. This time, two weeks ago, he’d be there with her. They probably wouldn’t even make it through the meal before he’d take her to bed.
He gritted his teeth against the pang in his chest. If it weren’t for the kid thing, he’d be with her right now. Inside her right now.
Great! Now his dick comes to attention. Traitor.
Maybe he was in love.
* * *
After Mike and Julie left, Gabe settled back in his chair, positioned his reading glasses on his nose and picked up his cell phone.
