One chef lifted his hand. "Seth!" And he broke into a stream of French.
Seth answered in excellent French, but Gabrielle was too overwhelmed to even begin to translate. The chef grabbed Seth's arm and hurried them through the kitchen and out through an internal door, into a passageway that led, in turn, to a small office. The chef tipped a finger to his brow. "Take your time, Captain," he said, in a heavy French accent. "The manager, 'e will not be in tonight."
"Merci, Bastien," Seth said, and shouldered his way into the office. He lowered Gabrielle into the big executive chair, just as a kitchen helper appeared in the doorway, holding out a soda can.
"Thanks," Seth said and dropped a two dollar coin into the boy's hand. He shut the office door and locked it, then popped the lid. "Drink this, as quickly as you can," he told Gabrielle.
"It's loaded with sugar," she objected, wrapping her arms around her as chills seemed to sweep through her.
"Exactly. The sugar will offset the shock. It'll help. And in a few minutes, when you feel more human, we'll go and eat a huge meal. That will make you feel even more human. Drink. I promise this will work."
She recalled that Seth, of all people, probably knew more about getting the body through shock quickly than most other people. She took the can and drank, trying to drain the cold beverage quickly despite how cold she was feeling.
Seth perched on the edge of the desk, watching her.
By the time she had finished the can, she was feeling better. Marginally. The cold still seemed to grip her, though. She put the can on the desk with a grimace. "No wonder you insisted on telling me when we were inside."
Seth crossed his arms. "I was more worried about bugs and sightlines, but yes, this, too."
"You should insist on having your way, more, Seth. Then you wouldn't have to keep making me look so foolish."
He smiled. "You're a stubborn lady."
"Who's too used to having her own way." She sighed. "I need to start listening to you properly. I mean really listening. I should have put this together sooner. There's too many things you don't say that I should be hearing."
Something touched his face and was gone, so swiftly that she thought she may have imagined it.
"What?" she said.
"Dinner," he said firmly, and picked up her hand. He threw the can in the garbage bin, and led her from the office.
* * * * *
While the luxury chalets and cabin areas were foreign territory to Seth, he was quite familiar with the public areas and restaurants in the main building of the lodge. Once they were out in the public section of the main building, his senses went on alert, as all the subliminal feeds of information worked to keep him aware of any possible dangers or concerns, all focused on Gabrielle.
Thanks to the steadily thickening snow and heavy fall warnings, there were very few people using the public restaurants tonight. Jasper Park Lodge was outside the main town of Jasper and in heavy snows, it became a challenge to reach. Tourists tended to stay in the town itself for meals. That meant the only patrons would be residents.
Gabrielle's fame would be an issue. Seth murmured in the maitre d's ear. "A discrete table, please. Not somewhere where everyone passing will see her."
They were offered a corner table guarded by a big potted palm tree. The only way Gabrielle would be recognized was if someone walked right up to the table and leaned in to peer at her face. Gabrielle visibly relaxed when she saw the location and beamed her thanks at the maitre d', who swelled with pride at her reaction.
They ordered a small meal each, for they had just eaten a short while before. Seth ordered a bottle of wine. The waiter hurried away after the wine was opened.
"I don't usually drink, anymore," Gabrielle confessed, lifting the glass of ruby red liquid. "And I'm surprised you would, under the circumstances."
"A few mouthfuls—enough to keep up appearances," Seth told her. "If I'm eating, it's not a big deal. Don't drink if you don't want to. I thought you might like a glass to relax. You've had quite an afternoon and I just hit you with hard news."
She finally looked directly at him for the first time. There was pain in her marvelous brown eyes and his gut clenched. "Why is someone trying to kill me, Seth?" she whispered.
"I don't know. And for right now, it's not my job to find out. The only thing I have to do is stick with you and keep you alive."
"You don't care to know?" she asked. "It doesn't bother you that someone out there hates me that much?"
Seth winced. She had misunderstood, as most people did. "Other people are working on the reasons why, Gabrielle. If I run around trying to find out, I'll trip over their work and worse, I'll lose focus on my job. And as far as I'm concerned, my job is the most important work in the world right now."
She still looked miserable, so he relented a little. "They'll let me know as soon as they know anything," he said. "And I'll tell you anything I learn."
"You promise?" Gabrielle said. "None of this top secret, I'll-have-to-kill-you crap?"
Seth stared at her. It was her life the explosive had been set to take out, he reasoned. So he nodded. "I promise," he said and meant it.
She took a deep breath, her shoulders lifting. Then she settled back in her chair. And she smiled. It was the same full-wattage smile she had given the maitre d' and Seth felt just as rewarded. Abruptly, he realized that Gabrielle trusted him. Just like that. He'd promised, and she took him at his word.
Wow. Suddenly, he was the one who couldn't look her in the eye. He felt like an awkward school boy on his first date. He gripped the wine glass and fought hard not to drain the damn thing. He looked around the room, scanning it automatically, and saw a familiar face.
Tyler Winters was settling at a dining table with a companion, both in civvies. No recognition on his face, but he moved the salt shaker, then moved it back. He was on duty, then. Back-up had arrived.
Seth looked back at Gabrielle. She was sipping the wine cautiously, exactly like someone who was afraid it might bite her. "Oh, that's delicious," she said, her face lighting up.
"It's one of my favorites," he told her. "Enjoy."
She took another sip, a bigger one this time, and closed her eyes, really studying the wine in her mouth. After she swallowed, she said, "I don't think I stopped to truly enjoy wine before. I used to knock it back...a fast way to get drunk. And some of the stuff I used to drink was horrendously expensive. I would have been better off with the cheapest vino, for all the appreciation I gave it." She sighed. "You wouldn't have liked me much back then, Seth." Then her face lit up in a silent laugh. "But the media loved me."
Seth laughed. "Did you get to know their faces well? So you could spot them in crowds and avoid them if you wanted to?"
Gabrielle nodded. "But they came and went pretty quick, so it was hard to keep up with them all."
"There's a man and woman at a table behind your right shoulder. He's got short brown hair and he's wearing an awful dark brown jacket I keep telling him to get rid of and brown pants, and she's a blonde. When you go to the washroom, have a good look at them, so you remember their faces."
"Why?"
"They'll be faces you see in the crowd if you're out in public in the next two weeks. If there's trouble at all, and for any reason I can't help you, Tyler and the woman he's with will step in."
"They're...with you?"
"Yes."
Gabrielle licked her lips. "You're...you really are on duty then, aren't you?" She spoke quietly, and there was an odd note in her voice that Seth couldn't quite unravel.
"Yes. Gabrielle, what's wrong?"
She tried to smile. "Nothing." She stood up. "I'll be back in a moment. Excuse me." And she hurried to the washroom. Seth watched her go, his heart hammering, not understanding the sudden tension in her. The blonde at Tyler's table rose and hurried after Gabrielle. She disappeared into the washroom, too.
Seth strummed his fingers on the tablecloth.
After what felt like a month, but
was in reality only three minutes, for he timed it on his watch, Gabrielle returned to the table, her long legs moving with dancer's grace under the lace hem of the dress. She slid back into her seat and picked up the wine glass again. This time she smiled properly.
"You have to understand, Seth. I'm the girl who's used to getting what she wants. For a moment, I felt like a three year old being told she couldn't have her candy. You said we would have a date tonight. And I suddenly realized it wasn't a date at all. It was a security set-up and I wasn't going to get my candy after all. I just had to take a moment to avoid a full-on temper tantrum. By the way, the blonde's name is Sam."
Her smile had turned brittle even as she spoke.
Seth could feel his pulse pounding in his temples, as he saw it from her side of the table, what this must look like to Gabrielle. He reached for her hand where it lay curled on the table, but aborted the movement. She would resent his touch right now.
"I'm sorry." But that sounded pathetic. He pushed his hand through his hair. "Gabrielle, I told you I had my own dilemma. Well, this is it. Do you know how much I wish this was a straight-forward date? Where we could just sit and enjoy this without me having to worry about who the hell is out there trying to take out the first woman in five years who apparently gives a damn that I walk the planet?"
Her eyes widened and Seth grimaced. "Sod it," he said. "Can I take that back?"
"Are you kidding?" she breathed. "I finally get to know something beyond military dates and times... You don't get to take that back, Seth O'Connor. Nuh-uh." Her fingers uncurled. "Five years, Seth? Why? Does the non-uniform scare them?"
He stared at her. Amazingly, she'd got it in one. He nodded slowly. "That and the constant tours with unspeakable details, the inexplicable wounds and scars, and loyalty to another master. Most women don't take kindly to the idea that they'll always be second. A hair's breadth second, but second."
Gabrielle sipped her wine. "There's a lot of that goes on in Hollywood. It's the reason most of the marriages there fail. Most of them put their careers before their marriages, but pretend otherwise. If only they could see it as clearly as you do and stopped being hypocrites about it, there'd be far fewer divorces, I suspect."
"There would probably be a lot less marriages, too."
She shrugged. "I'm not so sure about that. If you know going in where you stand in the arrangement, you can be very happy. Look at my mother. She knows exactly where she stands in my father's life, and it's certainly not first in his priorities."
"You don't believe in love, Gabrielle?" Seth asked.
"Not the all-consuming overwhelming romantic love they paint in the movies," Gabrielle said. "That's just fiction for the consumers. I thought I did, but I got burned too often looking for it. Adrian was the last straw and I finally got cured."
The meal arrived then, and the mood was broken. Seth could have killed the waiter for his poor timing, but it wasn't his fault and Seth held in his petty response.
Gabrielle was charming and witty and the waiter glowed with the attention, preening like a peacock and fussing over her. He finally floated away and Gabrielle picked up her fork.
"Perhaps you and I are alike, Seth. I used to put my career first, too. And you do, still." She dug into her salad. "This can't be a date, but it can still be a fact-finding mission and it can run both ways. I know you like red wine and this one is excellent."
Seth stared at her, his heart almost stopping. Fact finding? Mission? What was she doing? She sounded almost clinical.
"And I know you drink rye when you're serious about drinking," she said, stabbing at a cherry tomato. "What about coffee? How do you take your caffeine, Seth?"
"Black," he said flatly, staring at her, the wheels of his mind sluggishly turning.
"Tea?"
"If my mother makes it."
"Herbal tea?"
"Only if you tie me down first."
"Favorite movie?"
"Stop it, Gabrielle."
"Come on, everyone's got a favorite movie. You don't have to pick one of mine. I won't mind."
"Stop." He put his hand flat on the table. "What are you doing?"
She lowered her fork. "Making lemonade," she said gently.
"You sound like a medical technician with a clipboard," he said.
Her lips thinned as she pressed them together. "I feel like one," she confessed.
"Then stop this nonsense." He took her hand firmly in his and relief circled through him when she didn't try to tug her hand back. Her hand was tiny...and cold. "You're already dealing with a dilemma of your own, right? You don't know who I am, you haven't seen me bleed yet and therefore don't know that I'm human enough to kiss you and even then, your father's offer to pay me a million dollars to marry you makes my motives cloudy at best. That's your dilemma, isn't it?"
He could see the breath she took was shaky. She nodded and bit her lip.
"Then why do you want to dive into my dilemma and roll in it, too, Gabrielle? Don't you have enough to worry about?" he asked her.
She looked at him with hurt eyes. "It's a way to know you," she said simply.
He felt like he'd been slapped. "Damn it, Gabrielle..." He sighed. "You make me feel like the biggest heel."
"I wasn't trying to."
"I know." He rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand. It was like gliding over satin. "You know I actually was thankful they bounced me back on duty?"
Her eyes widened. "Why?"
"After I did that stupid macho thing about not being able to stay here yesterday and walked out of your life, I drove away thinking I'd just done the most stupid thing ever. Me and my idiot pride had put me in a place where I couldn't come back and say I'd made a dumb-ass mistake, although that's what every corpuscle in my body wanted to do. I just wanted to turn the truck around and crawl back to you, and ask you to forget that I had been such an A-grade fool. I wanted to see if we could pretend that your father hadn't opened up his mouth at all."
"But you didn't," Gabrielle pointed out.
He shook his head. "I figured if I was going to crawl back to you, I'd better come back bearing gifts."
"My camera..." Gabrielle breathed.
He nodded, pleased that she had put it together so fast. And he stayed silent, letting her pull together the rest.
"And when you went to get the camera, you must have found the explosive and reported it to your superiors and suddenly, you were put on duty again. Right?" She looked at him.
He nodded. "Right," he said softly. "I was told to stay close to your family—you, specifically—until further orders. You've no idea how much of a relief that was for me, Gabrielle. It was the perfect excuse to come back to you. A sap to my pride and dignity."
Her eyes were shining. "You were coming back any way."
"Don't confuse the issue with facts," he said softly.
She laughed. "How did you get yourself invited to the luncheon?"
"You've forgotten your father's scheming, Gabrielle. He phoned me this morning and invited me to the lunch himself. We're not the only people with plans in all this."
"Mmmm..." Her eyes narrowed. "Speaking of which, in amongst that hidden arsenal you're wearing, is there a pocket knife?"
"There might be. Why?"
"Could I borrow it for a moment?"
"There's a perfectly good steak knife by your elbow. Will that do?"
"It's been used on food and I don't know how sterile the kitchen is. I presume you know how to keep your own knife blades clean, yes?"
"Damn right."
She held out her hand. "Only for ten seconds, I promise."
Curiosity got the better of him. He reached for the hidden pocket inside his jacket and popped out the switchblade. He looked around the restaurant, then laid the knife on the table, but before he could lift his hand away, Gabrielle pressed her own hand on top of his.
"Wait." She turned his hand palm up, picked up the switchblade and triggered the blade with surprising expertise
. With a quick motion, she lightly stabbed the tip of the blade into the ball of his thumb, then folded the switchblade closed again.
A tiny red pearl of blood formed on his flesh. Gabrielle picked up the blood with the fold of a napkin and held it out for him to see. Seth stared at it, fascinated.
"And now you have bled for me, Seth O'Connor," she said, her voice low and husky.
Seth's heart was a runaway train, slamming into his ribcage. He couldn't speak if his life depended upon it.
Gabrielle got to her feet and walked around the table, carrying the folded knife. She opened his jacket and dropped it into one of the inside pockets. Her scent washed over him, something light and deadly, designed to bring him to his knees if he wasn't already there.
She pushed his chair back a few inches from the table, moving it easily, for it was on wheels. She sat in his lap, her arms around his neck. It brought her face level with his. Seth found himself holding her, his hand on her hips, which were also pressed up against his belly and other parts of his anatomy, which were suddenly alert and straining for attention. He swallowed. His throat was as dry as a dessert.
"You know what comes next, Seth O'Connor," she whispered.
"God, yes," he groaned, and kissed her.
It was ambrosia. Beyond his expectations and he had been anticipating what she would taste like since that moment in his truck yesterday afternoon, despite his best intentions not to linger over it. But as his lips pressed against hers, she gave a little moan and pushed against his chest, and he was lost.
He gathered her in his arms, and devoured her, thrusting his tongue into her mouth so he could taste all of her, every inch at once. He held her head steady with his hand, and explored the soft fullness of her lips with his, probing with his tongue, before going back to simply kissing her. Kissing her was glorious. He could kiss her forever, if his body didn't wind up to a full meltdown in the meantime.
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