“Okay, then. How are you feeling?”
The question took him by surprise.
“I’m holding,” he said. “I made it through when my grandparents died. So I know the drill.”
“Were you ever going to tell me?”
“I would have gotten around to it.” He splayed his hands out and contemplatively flexed his digits together from thumb to pinkie. “There didn’t seem to be an opportune moment.”
“You should have told me.” Sabrina’s voice was soft and fierce.
“When? While we were at the gala? After Molly miscarried? Christmas night? You were dealing with your own problems with your family. Telling you, ‘That’s nothing; my sister’s on life support’ would have been classic one-upsmanship. I’d have doubted your intentions even more. No pity fucks for the man with the comatose sibling. I make it a rule.”
“I do too.” Sabrina looked at him matter-of-factly. “I never offer sex out of sympathy. Just so we’ll have at least one thing straight in the future.”
In the future. Was she trying to tell him they had one? They stopped talking and watched a flurry of snowfall coming down in front of the large glass panels for a spell.
“I can’t believe it,” Sabrina finally said. “I’m in Des Moines, Iowa.”
“You most definitely are,” he sighed. “I’ll hand it to you, honey. You don’t usually leap before you look. But when you do, you leap long and far.”
“I have a hotel room reserved. I never intended to be a bother.” She glanced at the stack of bags.
“No hotels,” he said firmly. “You’re staying with me. You’ll have your own room. If that’s what you want, of course.”
“I’d like that. I’d like it a lot, Gage. I’d like — this is so hard for me to say.” Sabrina cradled her elbows in her hands and studied the toes of her ridiculously impractical shoes. “I realize that life doesn’t always offer do-overs. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here right now. But I’d like one — with you.”
Gage didn’t doubt that she meant it. Not when she was looking into his eyes with such utter candor. He resisted the urge to scoop her into his arms and lose himself in the smell of her perfume. He’d already lost himself in her before, and he knew where that had got him.
“We’d have to start over,” he warned. “You’ll have to see me at my worst. And we would have to talk — really communicate.”
Sabrina gave him a worried look. “Do you think we can?”
“I don’t know,” Gage told her honestly. “We got off to a rough start.”
Sabrina contemplated his response and nodded. Was it his imagination, or had he seen a fleeting look of devastation in her eyes? She looked so out of place, sitting there brushing lint from her fancy coat and frowning at the scuffs on her black patent shoes. Regardless of what happened between them, it would be interesting to see how a woman like her translated into a small town like Walden.
“I’ll bring the car around.” He stood and picked up the two largest suitcases. “I want to get out of the city before the roads are covered with snow.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
As they drove down the highway away from Des Moines in a black Chevy Tahoe with rental tags, Sabrina peered through the window and tried to acquaint herself with the unfamiliar landscape.
She knew that the Midwest was flat. But her initial impression was that Iowa was flatter than she could have possibly imagined. The point at which sky met land to create the horizon was abrupt, spreading out in every direction like Texas Panhandle terrain. Accustomed to Austin’s rolling green hills and staggered tree lines, Sabrina found the view bleak and oddly beautiful. Flakes of snow hit the windshield and skated up the glass until they blew out of sight.
“We’re almost there,” Gage told her after a half-hour.
“Where is ‘there’?”
“Walden, my hometown. I told you about it when we first met, remember? It’s really small,” he warned.
Sabrina did remember him telling her that. Walden was not charming or quaint like the towns in Austin’s surrounding Hill Country, unless she considered the small mom ’n’ pop restaurants and shops stuffed between more functional, uninspiring architecture. The town seemed to have just enough small local businesses, houses and satellite dishes for its resident population.
A lot of satellite dishes, she noticed.
“You come from this place?” Sabrina realized how critical the question sounded as soon as it escaped from her lips. Everyone had to come from somewhere. It was all the luck of the draw. She was from a big city; Gage was from Walden, Iowa.
Population 2,112.
Because somebody had to be from Walden.
“Born and raised,” he said. “I would have probably ended up with a fond attachment to hard alcohol and a remote control had I not left when I did. But Walden has some positives. The folks here have good hearts. And this town has at least one of everything. One movie theatre, one skate park, one pizza place, one sports bar, one coffee shop. One twenty-four-hour market, of course.” He slid her a sly glance. “You have to be really good with the number one if you live here.”
Sabrina was not. She would have gone stir-crazy. “So what did you used to do for fun?”
“In the winter? My high school buddies and I went down to the lake and drank cheap beer by the bonfire. Sometimes we cruised Nicki’s Coneys downtown for girls. Come the thaw, we got drunk and drove into Des Moines, in that order. Somebody always had an older brother with an apartment we used as a crash pad.” Gage was silent for a moment. “I can’t complain too much. Something about Walden made me who I am.”
“So it was just you and your sister and grandparents?”
“That’s right. After my grandparents died, it was just me and Michelle. She’s ten years older than me. She was my legal guardian until I turned eighteen. She worked her ass off to make sure I went to college.”
His voice sounded distant, Sabrina noticed. Michael Gage Fitzgerald had a story to tell. What was it?
“So your parents, are they—?”
“Never really in the picture,” he replied promptly. “My mother was — how do I phrase this delicately? I can’t. My mom slept with other women’s husbands. It was true love every time. That is, until the wives found out. My dad was an out-of-towner. I think I met him once when I was three. Michelle never found out who her dad was.”
“So the two of you are half-siblings.” Sabrina processed what he had just told her. It was true that she and Les didn’t see each other too often, but she had largely facilitated their estrangement. She couldn’t fathom being born to parents with absolutely zero interest in parenting.
“I never thought of Michelle as my half-anything,” Gage replied. “She was always my big sister.”
“What happened to your mother?”
“When I was old enough for grade school, she unloaded me and Michelle on my grandparents and took off to do her own thing. I have no idea where she is today or if she’s even alive. So if you ever find yourself wanting to call me a bastard, you won’t be telling me anything I don’t already know.” He shot her a crooked smile.
Sabrina suddenly felt ashamed. She had carried around her unresolved issues with Les — a father she could name — like a dead weight. She had refused to drop it. Her childhood could have been so much worse.
“God, Gage,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Why should you be sorry?” He gave her a curious look. “I don’t know my old man. So what? I’m sure I’m not the only one.”
“I seem to be dragging you down into further despair,” Sabrina sighed. “Should I shut up?”
“Of course not. Just change the channel to something less emo. Say something that only the illustrious Chief of Staff Sabrina March would say. Make it off the cuff and irreverent.”
Safe words, she thought.
“Okay.” She spoke the first thing that came to mind. “How long?”
“How long—?” He glanced at her quizzically.
“How long had it been for you before you and I — before, you know, we—”
“Still obsessed with my sex life.” He smiled. “It’s never going to end, is it?”
“It ends when you ’fess up.”
“It was a very long time.” And with that, he gave her a hearty pat on the thigh.
Gage turned the car into a residential neighborhood. The street was sparsely lined with older homes. The battered green house at the end of the cul-de-sac was the type of property that real estate agents typically described as a “cozy bungalow” or “small fixer-upper.” If there were truth in advertising it would have been marketed as: “Lot for sale with teardown.” An impossibly large, solitary tree was in the front yard. Its barren limbs covered the roof of the house almost protectively.
Gage pulled the Tahoe into the driveway behind an old sedan.
“Home, sweet home,” he said.
Given the dryness in his voice, Sabrina didn’t take the adage literally. When she and Molly were children, they always had one friend who lived in the Poor House. The house without central air that was too hot in the summer. The house where all the kids slept on fold-up cots in the same bedroom.
Gage’s childhood home wasn’t quite the Poor House. Whoever had lived there last — Sabrina assumed it was Michelle Fitzgerald— had taken pride in the place. The siding still looked relatively new, and the moldings around the windows had been recently repainted. Frigid air crept into the cabin and wound around her ankles. Sabrina shivered.
Maybe coming here to be with Gage had been a bad idea.
“I feel like I’m intruding,” she blurted. “If you want me to fly back to Austin tomorrow—”
“—Shh.” He placed a gloved finger against her mouth then replaced it with his lips. It was just a simple kiss. A good-to-see-you kiss. But it stirred something inside of her. The image of his bare chest molded to her own came to mind. No erotic thoughts, she scolded herself. Gage’s situation was too grave. His state of mind was too fragile.
“Because I can always … leave and go back home,” she rambled on nervously.
“Look, darlin’, if I didn’t want you here, I’d tell you,” he said. “But I do. Now, if you want me to continue to convince you to stay so you’ll feel more comfortable about it, let’s take it inside. I’m freezing my ass off.”
Gage unlocked the front door and ushered her in before retrieving her luggage from the Tahoe. A small rose-shaded lamp sat on the accent table near the entryway. It cast a warm glow into the otherwise bleak room. Most of the furniture was still covered with plastic drop sheets and the few pieces that weren’t were covered in a thick coat of dust. The pine flooring was scuffed and dull, the wallpaper faded and darkened by age and water stains. A dark hallway doglegged off to the left, leading to what Sabrina assumed were the bedrooms. Gage’s childhood home needed so many renovations and repairs that her house in Cadence Corners was in pristine condition by comparison.
Gage came back inside with her luggage. He put it down and turned up the thermostat. “I’ve pulled a lot of all-nighters at the hospital, so I haven’t been here much,” he explained. “It should warm up soon.”
Sabrina pulled off her gloves and looked around. “When was the last time someone lived here?”
“Not since Michelle’s accident. The neighbors offered to keep an eye on the place to make sure it’s not burglarized. I humor them. I’m sure you’ve noticed this isn’t exactly prime real estate.”
“Promise me something, Gage,” Sabrina insisted.
“What’s that?” He looked up. She noticed the opalescent blue circles under his eyes. The merry sparkle in them was absent. He looked beyond tired. He looked like a man who was overwhelmed and valiantly trying not to let the rest of the world know it.
He looked like the Gage she wanted to get to know better.
“You’re not to play host,” she went on. “Don’t entertain me. Don’t call to check up on me. I refuse to get in the way of anything you need to do. Besides, I brought my work to keep me occupied.” She held up the messenger bag that contained her laptop.
He nodded. Then he slipped a key off of his key ring and placed it on the accent table. “I’ll leave you the key to the Impala just in case you need to get around. Have you driven in snow before?”
“Never. But I’ve seen Fargo.”
He chuckled. “Then obviously you’re good to go.”
“Show me where I can set up camp tonight.” She picked up her train case. “I need to sleep off the jet-lag.”
“Texas and Iowa are in the same time zone, Sabrina,” he reminded her. She pulled her cell phone out of her coat pocket and looked at the time display. He was right. They were.
She hunted down the next excuse. “Plane travel makes me tired.” The truth was that Gage was exhausted and needed his sleep before he embarked on another day at the Des Moines hospital. She could see it written all over his face.
“I’ll take you to the spare bedroom,” he said, gathering the rest of her suitcases.
The spartan room housed a twin bed with a bare mattress and pillow, a small desk and chair, and nothing else. The braided rugs were frayed from age. While Gage fetched sheets from the linen closet, Sabrina pulled off her coat and draped it over the chair. The small house was definitely heating up slightly, but the air still had a bite to it.
“Thank you.” She collected the pile of linens from his arms. “I can take it from here.”
“Are you hungry?” he asked. “There’s leftover pizza in the fridge.”
She was famished. “Just what I need. Jet lag and pizza dreams.” She put a little more gruffness into her tone. “Are you trying to make my night miserable, Fitzgerald? I can forage for myself if I need to. Now, vanish.”
He lingered in the doorway with a veiled expression on his face that made Sabrina feel awkward. She could be curled up against him in the same bed, legs intertwined, sharing cold pizza straight from the box had circumstances been different. But they weren’t. Memories of their last sexual encounter and its terrible ending still hung in the room like demolition dust.
“I’ll be gone when you wake up,” he told her. “Just so you’ll know.”
Their gazes met for a moment. He looked slightly vexed but resigned, as though he had finally given up trying to figure out the last word in a crossword puzzle. Then he slid his hand down the doorframe and disappeared from sight. She heard his footsteps going down the hall.
Then she heard a door close.
Sabrina deftly made the bed, stopping only to rub her palms together to warm her hands. She hadn’t slept in a twin since her freshman year in college. The muslin linens were printed with a pink, yellow and orange seventies design and were coarse and heavily pilled, but the feather comforter was heavy and soft. She sifted through the clothing she’d hastily stuffed into her suitcases. No nightgown. Or extra socks. She would have sacrificed any one of the expensive pieces of luggage for something warm and flannel, but the only thing she could find that remotely passed for nightwear was a long silk robe.
She quickly doffed her clothing, slid into the robe and scooted into the bed. She turned off the bedside lamp and shivered while she waited for her body temperature to warm up the sheets. Finally, after what felt like hours, she felt herself growing sleepy.
She was startled back into awareness by a loud popping noise that sounded like water hitting a searing hot pan. What the hell? She bolted up and peeled back the blinds. Other than the odd crackling noises, everything was quiet. A thick blanket of snow buffeted the sound of passing cars. Now she heard voices coming from the direction of the yard next to the Fitzgerald home. It sounded like a couple of kids and their parents.
Why were families up at such an ungodly hour?
She jumped when another series of mystery pops crackled through the night. She didn’t remember it was New Year’s Eve until the effusive flare of a Roman candle shot high into the clear night sky. How can something so simple be so beautifu
l? she wondered as the brilliant flares of pink light and blue midnight moon cast their light on the virgin white dunes below. The snow sparkled like it had been cast with countless diamonds.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“Can you talk?” Molly asked in a hushed voice.
“Of course. Gage isn’t here. Even if he were, he couldn’t hear what you’re saying.” Sabrina angled the cell phone closer to her ear with her shoulder as she opened the door to the kitchen pantry. Surely there had to be something to eat in the house other than leftover pizza.
“Oh, right,” Molly resumed her normal tone. “I bugged Sebastian until he finally gave me the inside scoop about Gage’s sister. He figured you’d probably tell me anyway. Poor Gage. How is he?”
“I dunno, Molls,” Sabrina sighed. “I can’t imagine how difficult the past two years have been for him. There have been many times when I wished Chet banished to a forgotten island, and I’m sure he’s felt the same way about me. But if he were in a near-fatal car accident and fell into a coma, I’d still have a hard time pulling the plug.”
“That’s what you need me for,” Molly commented dryly. “How are you, Brini?”
“Cold. There’s too much snow here,” Sabrina complained. “I’m also starving.”
She opened one of the cupboards and felt a surge of hope when she spotted a box of wheat crackers. She shook it. Empty. Damn.
“There’s bound to be a café somewhere in Walden if you drive around long enough,” Molly said helpfully. “Small towns like that are always full of cute little diners that serve masses of greasy food.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Sabrina tossed the empty cracker box in the trash. “I’ve never driven in the snow before — at least not snow like this.”
“Oh, it’s easy-peasy,” Molly said happily. “If you start to spin out, all you have to do is turn the wheel in the direction the car is skidding.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positively sure. I read it on the Internet.”
Something About You (Just Me & You) Page 31
