by Leanne Banks
“The cut definitely needs stitches,” he said, and wiped his hands on a cloth Lauren passed him. “And it looks like you’ve only sprained your ankle, but an X-ray wouldn’t hurt just to be sure.”
Irene extolled her gratitude and was on the telephone immediately, making an appointment to see their local doctor within the next half hour.
“I’ll drive you,” Lauren volunteered, but her mother quickly vetoed that idea.
“Grace can drive us,” she said, and looked toward her daughter-in-law, who nodded instantly. “You can stay and clean up. And I need you to keep an eye on dinner. We won’t be too long.”
“That’s for sure,” Franciszek agreed cheerfully, although Gabe was pretty sure the older man was in considerable pain. He patted Gabe’s shoulder. “Thanks for the doctoring, son. Much appreciated.”
Gabe’s stomach sank. Being reminded of who he was, even though no one but his family knew the truth, hit him like a fist of shame between the shoulder blades. He glanced at Lauren and then looked away. There were questions in her eyes. Questions he had no intention of answering.
It took several minutes to get Franciszek into the car, and when Gabe returned, Lauren was in the kitchen, picking up pieces of shattered glass from the floor. She was concentrating on her task, looking shaken and pale.
“Are you okay?”
She glanced up. “Just worried about my dad.”
“He’ll be fine.”
Her small nose wrinkled. “Thanks to you,” she said as she rose to her feet and walked around the countertop. “You might want to consider switching careers.”
His gut sank. “What?”
“You’d make a good paramedic,” she said, and grabbed a banister brush from the cupboard beneath the sink. “You clearly have a knack for it. You know, I have a friend who’s an admin in emergency services. I could probably arrange for you to—”
“No...but thank you,” he said, cutting her off before she said too much about it. “Need some help with this?”
She held his gaze for a moment, and then passed him the broom. “Sure. I’ll get the mop and bucket.” She propped her hands on her hips and looked at his blood-stained shirt. “I’ll find you something to wear and you can pop that shirt in the machine before it permanently stains. I think Cameron has some clothes in one of the guest rooms. I’ll go and check.”
She disappeared, and Gabe stared after her. Guilt pressed down on his shoulders. He wanted to tell her the truth about himself. But one would lead to another and then another. And what was the point? There were already too many questions in her lovely brown eyes.
When she returned with the mop and bucket, she placed a piece of clothing on the table. “I’ll finish up here. You can go and change.”
He met her gaze. “Okay.”
Gabe left the room and headed for the laundry. Once there, he stripped off his soiled shirt and dumped it in the washing machine. He added liquid, cranked on the start switch and rested his behind on the edge of the sink. Then he expelled a long breath.
Damn.
He wanted to kiss her so much. He wanted to touch her. He wanted to feel her against him and stroke her soft skin. He wanted to forget every promise he’d made to himself about waiting to see if his illness returned before he’d consider being in a relationship. But it wouldn’t be fair to any woman. More than that, it wouldn’t be fair to Lauren. He couldn’t ask her to risk herself. He wouldn’t. He’d seen firsthand what it had done to his mom when his father had battled cancer for three years. He’d watched his mom lose the light in her eyes and the spirit in her heart. He’d watched her grieve and cry and bury the man she’d loved.
And Lauren had been there, too. He’d heard the pain in her voice when she’d spoken of her lost love. It should have been enough to send him running.
She thought he’d make a good paramedic? The irony wasn’t hard to miss. There were questions in her eyes, and they were questions he didn’t want to answer. But if he kept doing this, if he kept being close to her, he would be forced to tell her everything.
And admitting how he’d bailed on his life and career wasn’t an option.
Pull yourself together and forget her.
He needed to leave. And he would have if Lauren hadn’t chosen that moment to walk into the laundry room.
* * *
When Lauren crossed the threshold, she stopped dead in her tracks. Gabe stood by the sink in the small room with the fresh shirt in his hands. And naked from the waist up. He turned to face her.
It had been so long since she’d been this close to a man’s bare skin. And because it was Gabe, he was thoroughly mesmerizing, as she’d known he would be. She’d known his skin would look like satin stretched over steel and that his broad shoulders and arms would be well defined and muscular. The smattering of dark hair on his chest tapered down in a line and disappeared into the low waistband of his jeans, and Lauren’s breath caught in her throat.
His gaze instantly met hers, and she didn’t miss the darkening blue eyes and faint pulse beating in his cheek. Somehow, she moved closer, and when Lauren finally found her voice, they were barely feet apart.
She dropped the bucket and mop. “I...I’m sorry...I didn’t realize you were still in here.”
Heat swirled between them, coiling around the small room, and she couldn’t have moved even if she wanted to. She tried to avert her gaze. Tried and failed. He had such smooth skin, and her fingers itched with the sudden longing to reach out and touch him.
“You...” Her voice cracked, and she swallowed. “You were right with what you said before. We’d be...crazy...to start something...to start imagining we could...”
Her words trailed off, and still he stared at her, holding her gaze with a hypnotic power she’d never experienced before. Color spotted her cheeks, and she quickly turned and made for the doorway. Only she couldn’t step forward because Gabe’s hands came out and gently grasped her shoulders. She swallowed hard as he moved in close behind her and said her name in that soft, sexy way she was becoming so used to. The heat from his body seared through her thin shirt, and Lauren’s temperature quickly spiked. His hands moved down her arms and linked with hers. She felt his soft breath near her nape, and his chest pressed intimately against her shoulders.
His arms came around her and Lauren pushed back. One hand rested on her hip, the other he placed on her rib cage. The heat between them ramped up and created a swirling energy in the small room. Her head dropped back, and she let out a heavy sigh as his fingertips trailed patterns across the shirt. It was an intensely erotic moment, and she wanted to turn in his arms and push against him. She wanted his kiss, his touch, his heat and everything else. She wanted him to plunder her mouth over and over and then more. Flesh against flesh, sweat against sweat. She wanted his body over her, around her, inside her. She wanted him...and not only his body. Lauren tilted her head, inviting him to touch the delicate skin at the base of her neck with his mouth. But he didn’t. Instead, Gabe continued to touch her rib cage with skillful, seductive fingers, never going too high and barely teasing the underside of her breasts.
She could feel him hard against her. He was aroused and not hiding the fact. Lauren moved her arms back and planted her hands on his thighs. She dug her nails against the denim and urged him closer. His touch was so incredibly erotic, and she groaned low in her throat. Finally, he kissed her nape, softly, gently, and electricity shimmered across her skin.
“Lauren,” he whispered against her ear as his mouth trailed upward. “I’m aching to make love to you.”
Lauren managed a vague nod and was about to turn in his arms and beg him to kiss her and make love to her when she heard a door slam. The front door. Seconds later, she heard her brother’s familiar voice calling out a greeting.
Gabe released her gently and she stepped forward, dragging ai
r through her lungs. “I should go.”
“Good idea,” he said softly as he grabbed the shirt and pulled it quickly over his head. “I should probably stay here for a minute.”
She nodded and willed some serious movement into her legs and was back in the main hallway seconds later. Cameron, dressed in his regulation police-officer uniform, greeted her with a brief hug and ruffled her hair.
“Hey, kid...what’s happening?” he asked once they were in the kitchen and saw the pan of broken glass on the countertop.
She quickly filled him in about their father’s mishap, and once she was done, he immediately called Grace. Her brother was still on the phone when Gabe walked into the room. Her body still hummed with memories of his touch, and their gaze connected instantly. If Cameron hadn’t turned up, she was sure they’d be making love that very minute. And it would have been a big mistake. When the moment was over, there would be regret and recrimination, and she’d hate herself for being so weak.
When her brother ended his call, he explained that their father was being triaged, and that they’d be home as soon as he was released. In fact, they returned close to an hour and a half later. By then, Lauren had shuffled the men out of the kitchen and finished preparing dinner.
It turned out that Gabe was right. Her father had needed stitches for his hand, and his foot was only sprained. By the time they settled her dad at the head of the table, crutches to one side, it was nearly nine o’clock. Lauren was seated next to Gabe and felt his closeness as if it was a cloak draped across her shoulders.
Once dinner was over, she headed back to the kitchen with Grace and began cleaning up. Gabe and her brother joined them soon after, and Grace tossed a tea towel to each of them.
“Idle hands,” her sister-in-law said, and grinned when Cameron complained. “Get to work.”
Lauren laughed and dunked her hands into a sink full of soapy water. Like with everything he did, Gabe ignored Cameron’s whining and attended the task with an effortless charm that had both Lauren and Grace smiling. It would, she decided, be much better if he had the charisma of a rock. But no such luck. Aside from the insane chemistry that throbbed between them, Lauren liked him so much it was becoming impossible to imagine she could simply dismiss her growing feelings. Sexual attraction was one thing, emotional attraction another thing altogether. It was also hard to dismiss how her mother, Grace and even her brother watched their interaction with subtle, yet keen interest.
By the time they left, it was past eleven o’clock, and then a quarter past the hour when Gabe pulled his truck into his driveway. She got out, and he quickly came around the side of the vehicle.
“Well, thanks for the lift,” she said, and tucked her tote under her arm.
He touched her elbow. “I’ll see you to your door.”
“There’s no need,” she said quickly.
“Come on,” he said, and began walking down the driveway, ignoring her protest.
Lauren followed and stepped in beside him as they rounded the hedge that separated their front lawns. He opened the gate and stood aside to let her pass. By the time she’d walked up the path and onto the small porch, she was so acutely aware of him she could barely hold her keys steady.
Open the door. Say good-night. Get inside. Easy.
Lauren slid the key in the screen door and propped it open with her elbow while she unlocked the front door. “Um...thanks again,” she said, and turned on her heels. “And thanks for what you did for my dad. I’m glad you were there to—”
“Lauren?”
She stilled, clutching her tote, hoping he wouldn’t come closer. Praying he wouldn’t kiss her. “We...we need to forget what happened tonight,” she said in a voice that rattled in her throat. “We agreed it would be crazy to—”
“Nothing really happened,” he said, cutting her off. “Did it?”
Lauren took a breath. “Well, what almost happened. I’ve made a vow, a promise to myself...and it’s a promise I intend to keep. And I’m never going to find what I want if I get drawn deeper into this...this attraction I have for you. We both know it won’t go anywhere other than your bed, and I’m not prepared to settle for just sex. Not again.”
He didn’t move. But he stared at her. He stared so deeply, so intensely, she could barely breathe. The small porch and dim light overhead created extreme intimacy. If she took one tiny step she would be pressed against him.
“You’re right,” he said, and moved back a little. “You shouldn’t settle for sex. You should find that middle road you want, Lauren, with someone who can give you the relationship you deserve.”
Then he was gone. Down the steps and through the gate and quickly out of view. Lauren stayed where she was for several minutes. Her chest was pounding. Her stomach was churning. Her head was spinning.
And her heart was in serious danger.
* * *
Gabe knew he was right to leave Lauren alone. He hadn’t seen her all week. Deliberately. He left for work earlier than she did and returned home before her small car pulled into the driveway each afternoon. Not seeing her helped. A lot. Or more like a little. Or not at all.
Unfortunately, not seeing her seemed to put him in a bad mood.
Something his cousin took pleasure in pointing out on Thursday afternoon when Gabe dropped by the B and B.
“You know, you’ll never get laid if you don’t ask her out,” Scott said with a wide grin, and passed him a beer.
“Shut up,” he said, and cranked the lid off.
His cousin laughed. “Hah. Sucker. Just admit your five-year plan is stupid and that you’re crazy about Lauren.”
Gabe gripped the bottle. “I know what I’m doing.”
“Sure you do,” Scott shot back. “You’re hibernating like a bear because you don’t want to admit you like her. That’s why your mom has been calling my mom and my mom has been calling me. You haven’t been taking any calls from your family for the past two weeks.”
“They worry too much,” he remarked, and shrugged. “They think I’m going to relapse and die a horrible death. And maybe I will. All I know is I don’t want to put anyone in the middle of that. Not anyone. Not Lauren.”
“Maybe you should let her decide that for herself.”
“Will you just...” Gabe paused, ignored the curse teetering on the end of his tongue and drank some more beer. “Stop talking.”
Scott shrugged. “Just trying to see my best friend happy.”
“I’m happy enough,” he shot back. “So lay off.”
His cousin laughed, clearly unperturbed by his bad temper. “You know, not every woman is going to run for the hills if you get sick again.”
“Mona didn’t run,” Gabe reminded the other man. “I broke it off with her.”
Scott shrugged again. “Another example of you needing to control everything, right?”
Tired of the same old argument, Gabe finished his beer and stood. “I have to bail.”
“Hot date?”
Gabe grabbed his keys off the table. “A wall that won’t paint itself.”
“Sounds riveting,” Scott said drily. “Renovating that house won’t keep you warm at night, old buddy.”
His cousin was right, but he had no intention of admitting that. He took off and was home within a few minutes. Once he’d dropped his keys on the hall stand, he rounded out his shoulders. Pressure cramped his back, and he let out a long breath. He needed to burn off some of the tension clinging to his skin. There was easily over an hour of sunlight left, so he changed into his running gear and headed off down the street.
Gabe reached The Parade quickly. The long road stretched out in front of him. He crossed the wide grassy verge and headed for the pathway leading to the beach in one direction and to the north end of the small town to the other. He vetoed the beach and he
aded left, striding out at an even pace and covering the ground quickly. It was quiet at this end of town. Without the holiday park, surf club and kiosk there was only a scattering of new homes, and the waterfront was more rock than sand. He spotted a pair of snorkelers preparing to dive close to the bank and waved as another runner jogged past.
Up ahead, he spotted someone sitting alone on one of the many bench seats that were placed along the line of the pathway. It was Lauren. He’d recognize her blond hair anywhere. He slowed his pace and considered turning around. But he kept moving, slowing only when she was about twenty feet away. She was looking out toward the ocean, deep in thought, hands crossed in her lap. An odd feeling pressed into his chest. As though he suddenly couldn’t get enough air in his lungs. God, she was beautiful. He stopped a few feet from the seat and said her name.
Her head turned immediately. “Oh, hi.”
She was paler than usual. Sadder. The tightness in his chest amplified tenfold.
He stopped closer. “Are you okay?”
“Sure,” she said quietly, unmoving.
Gabe wasn’t convinced. He moved around the bench and sat down beside her. “I’m not buying. What’s up?”
“Nothing,” she insisted.
“It’s four-thirty on a Thursday afternoon. You’re not at the store,” he said pointedly. “You’re sitting here alone staring out at the sea.”
She shrugged a little. “I’m just thinking.”
He knew that. “About what?”
She drew in a shallow breath. “Tim.”
Of course. Her lost love. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”
“It’s his birthday,” she said quietly, and turned her gaze back to the ocean. “I always come here on this day. It’s where he proposed to me.”
Gabe immediately felt like he was intruding on an intensely private moment. Big-time. He got up to leave, but her hand came out and touched his arm.
“It’s okay,” she said, her voice so quiet and strained it made his insides twinge. “I could probably use the company.”
