by Marta Perry
“You do?” The kid’s eyes were big. “Do you really slide down a pole when the alarm goes off?”
“Every time,” he said solemnly. All right, this wasn’t so hard. He’d answered these kinds of questions from kids dozens of times. There was no reason to tense up.
“Wish I could go to the fire station.” Danny’s tone was wistful.
He wished the same. But he had no intention of going as a visitor. He’d go when he was ready to go back on duty, not before.
“It’s a pretty busy place,” he said.
He caught Nolie’s look and returned it with an annoyed one of his own. She was obviously thinking that he should offer to take the kid to the station. Well, she’d just have to go on thinking it, because he wouldn’t offer.
“Mom was sorry you couldn’t go to church with us yesterday.” Let her feel guilty about what she hadn’t done, instead of trying to load guilt onto him.
For an instant she looked startled at the change of subject, and then her eyes narrowed. She got his point, all right.
“I spent the day with my friend, Claire. You met her.”
He nodded, remembering the woman who’d seemed such an odd friend for Nolie to have. “Did you—”
He stopped, frowning at the tan SUV that spun into the lane, kicking up gravel as it stopped abruptly behind Danny’s mother’s van. Someone was in a hurry.
The soft intake of Nolie’s breath was almost a gasp. He looked at her to see that her face had paled.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.” She managed a smile, but it looked frozen.
“What’s my dad doing here?” Danny sounded apprehensive.
All Gabe’s hackles went up. Something wasn’t right. The kid’s father charged out of his car, slamming the door.
“Gabe, would you take Danny in the house for a drink?” Nolie’s voice was calm, but her eyes showed strain. “There’s a pitcher of lemonade in the fridge, and some cookies on the counter.”
He shot a look toward the man. He was saying something they couldn’t hear to his wife, but whatever it was, it didn’t look pleasant.
“Maybe I’d better stay,” he said softly.
She shook her head. “I can handle it. Take Danny inside. Please,” she added.
Presumably she knew best about this. He grabbed the wheelchair handles and began pushing the boy toward the ramp that led up to the farmhouse porch.
“Let’s go get some of that lemonade, okay?”
The skin on the back of his neck prickled as they went up the ramp, but there was no explosion of voices behind him. Nolie had said she could handle it, but he wasn’t so sure. A big, angry man might be too much for her. Still, Max had glued himself to her side, and the man would have to be stupid to take on that dog.
“Okay.” He held the screen door open and pushed the wheelchair into the kitchen. “Where’s that lemonade?”
“And cookies,” Danny added.
Given the obvious age of the farmhouse, he was a little surprised to find the kitchen had been completely modernized with sleek birch cabinetry and a sweep of white tile floor. Baskets hung from an exposed beam, and white curtains framed the windows.
“Lemonade and cookies coming right up.”
He grabbed a couple of glasses from the dish drainer and took the pitcher from the fridge, keeping half his attention on Danny and half on the scene that was unfolding outside. The kid’s father was obviously outraged about something. At the slightest sign the scene was going to turn physical, he’d be out the door in a split second.
But nothing happened. He kept Danny distracted with tales of riding the fire truck, sirens screaming, while he glanced out the window every few seconds. Nolie was, as she’d said, handling it. At least, he guessed she was. After a few minutes’ worth of arm-waving, the man slammed his way into his SUV and spun back out of the lane.
“Looks like your mom is coming in for you now.” He managed a more genuine smile. The crisis was over, apparently. “How about another cookie for the road?”
Whatever they were feeling, both Nolie and the boy’s mother managed to smile when they came inside. Nodding her thanks, the mother seized the wheelchair and headed back out the door immediately.
“Bye, Gabe. Bye, Nolie. See you next time.” Danny waved as his chair rolled down the ramp.
Nolie waved back, smiling, but he could see the strain in the lines around her eyes and the tightness of her mouth.
“I’m sorry,” he said, once they were gone. “Was it a bad scene?”
She shook her head, as if trying to shake off the feelings brought on by the encounter. “Not too bad. I think I told you Danny’s parents were separated.”
“Not an amicable separation, obviously.” He handed her a glass of the lemonade.
“No.” Tears filled her eyes. “That poor child. He loves them both. Don’t they see that they’re tearing him apart?”
The note of anguish that filled her voice struck him right in the heart. Of course she cared about Danny, but her pain went deeper than that. It almost sounded as if she were talking about herself.
“Is that what your parents did to you?”
The question was out before he thought about how personal it was. She’d probably tell him to mind his own business. That was pretty much what he’d told her about his family, after all.
“N-no.” Her voice shook. “I was talking about Danny, not me.” She put up one hand to brush her hair back away from her face, and the hand shook, too.
“Were you?” He touched her arm lightly, feeling the tension that vibrated through her. “Seems like you identify with the kid’s situation pretty closely.”
“Anyone would.” Her anger covered pain, but didn’t quite hide it. “You don’t have to have experienced it to feel for him.”
“You and I are not friends,” he said carefully. “You don’t have to tell me anything. But I know what my instincts are telling me. And they’re saying that you’ve got a history something like Danny’s.”
Nolie glared at Gabe for an instant longer. She’d like to be angry with him. She’d like to tell him to mind his own business.
Unfortunately, he was right. She shook her head, her anger seeping away, leaving her chilled. “You have pretty good instincts, it seems to me.”
Gabe leaned back against the counter, his body language inviting her to talk.
She didn’t tell people about her past. She certainly didn’t want to confide in a client.
Still, Gabe’s solid presence was oddly reassuring. She’d been aware of that presence the whole time she was dealing with Danny’s father, knowing that if she’d needed him, Gabe would have been there.
There was no explaining that kind of knowledge. It simply was. She’d known Gabe for a week, but she had no doubt about that. His urge to protect would never let him stand back when someone was in need.
“My parents separated when I was two, I think,” she said carefully. “And again when I was three and four and five. Even at that age, the quarrels were memorable. I know how it affected me. I hate to see it happening to Danny.”
“Sounds like your situation was even worse.” His voice was a low, sympathetic murmur.
“I’m not sure you can quantify something like that.” She wrapped her arms around herself. She needed something to hold on to whenever she thought about the past. “Usually, when my father left, my mother would dump me with anybody she could find who’d take me.”
Gabe reached out a long arm and pulled her closer, so that she was leaning against the counter next to him. His arm around her was a lot stronger, a lot more reassuring, than hugging herself.
“Then she’d take you back again?”
She nodded. “We’d play at being a happy family for a while. Then it would happen all over again.”
He ran his hand up and down on her arm, the movement as soothing as stroking one of the dogs. “You told me the other day that an aunt raised you.”
She’d told him too much,
but she couldn’t seem to back away. It was entirely too comforting to feel the warmth of his tough, strong body next to her. To hear the sympathy in his voice.
“Eventually they decided they were better off without a kid complicating things. So my mother got the bright idea of dropping me off here with my great-aunt. She figured Aunt Mariah’s ideas of duty wouldn’t let her turn me away. But she took the precaution of pinning a note to my jacket and dropping me off at the end of the lane.”
The look on Gabe’s face was thunderous. “She should have been tossed in jail. They both should have.”
She shrugged. “They didn’t want to be parents. I was in the way.”
“No kid should ever feel in the way.”
She pictured the children she’d seen the night she’d had dinner with the Flanagans. In that family, children were cherished. What must that be like, never questioning that you were loved?
“Well, at least my mother was right about Aunt Mariah. She didn’t kick me out.”
She could feel his gaze on her face, probing. “Judging by the tone of your voice, I’d say that situation wasn’t exactly happily ever after.”
He was never going to know just how bad it had been. “My great-aunt didn’t want a kid, either, but at least I was fed and clothed. And I had the animals to love. That made a difference.”
Was she sounding pitiful? She certainly didn’t mean it that way. Having the animals to take care of and love had saved her.
She looked up at Gabe, wanting to explain that, so he wouldn’t think he had to pity her. But somehow the explanations got lost on their way to her lips.
Gabe’s face was very close, and those deep blue eyes were so dark they were almost black with emotion. She could see the faint stubble on his jaw, the crease next to his mouth, the cleft of his chin. His breath touched her face.
For an instant neither of them moved, but it seemed that their breaths mingled in wordless speech. Then she moved—or he moved—and their lips met.
Warmth. He was so warm. If she were just close enough to him, she’d never be cold again. Gabe’s arms closed around her, and the room went spinning away. The world narrowed down to the circle of his arms.
She’d wanted this from the first time they’d met, she recognized through a haze of longing. It didn’t make any sense, but it felt right. His arms around her felt right. If she’d ever imagined that she could care about a man enough to let him get this close, it would be someone like Gabe—someone strong and brave and caring.
Gabe’s lips moved to her cheek, incredibly gentle. “Nolie.” He said her name on a soft exhalation of breath that caressed her skin.
Then, as if the sound of his own voice had roused him from a dream, he pulled away. She could only stare up at him, knowing she must look as confused as he did.
Then his eyes lost the confused look. Now they were just appalled.
“I’m sorry.” His voice was a husky whisper. “I don’t know quite how that happened.”
Neither did she. She swallowed hard and then forced herself to take a step away from him.
“It’s all right.” She shook her head. “I’m afraid there was a little too much emotion floating around this kitchen.”
He looked relieved at that suggestion, as if she’d just handed him a way out of an impossible situation. “Guess so. Anyway, I’m sorry.”
She couldn’t let him see that his embrace meant anything more to her than it had to him.
“It was just a kiss.” There wasn’t anything “just” about it.
“Right.” He took another backward step. “Well, I—” He looked out the window, and the air of relief increased. “Looks like my ride is here. I’d better get going.”
Fleeing, she thought as he hurried out the door. Gabe was escaping.
She couldn’t blame him. Any relationship between them was out of the question, and they both knew it.
Now all she had to do was convince herself to forget that kiss, and she’d be fine. Just fine.
Chapter Six
He was looking at a coward. Gabe stared at his image in the mirror as he shaved. A coward. He could face a wall of fire, but he couldn’t face a woman’s pain. He’d run away from Nolie.
What’s more, he’d spent the rest of the week pretending it hadn’t happened. He’d acted as if Nolie hadn’t exposed her painful past to him, as if he hadn’t been drawn to her, as if he hadn’t kissed her.
Unfortunately, pretending didn’t make it so.
Since Monday, he’d been carefully cooperative, showing up for his sessions every day, doing exactly what Nolie suggested. He’d worked with Danny each time. Maybe Nolie had arranged it that way because she was just as happy as he was to have the protection of a third party.
That protection was about to vanish, though. He rubbed his face with a towel, and then pulled a polo shirt over his head. This was Saturday, the day appointed for his move to the farm to begin his intensive training.
From now on he’d be seeing Nolie constantly, most of the time without the buffer Danny provided. They were both going to have to learn to deal with that.
He crossed the bedroom and grabbed his duffel bag. Nolie would be by to pick him up soon.
He seemed to see again her face, vulnerable and open to him when she’d told her story. His heart clenched. He suspected very few people had ever heard what she’d told him. And he’d responded by running away.
Why on earth hadn’t her parents put Nolie up for adoption if they didn’t want to take care of her? Some childless couple would have lavished on Nolie all the love and cherishing she deserved. Instead she’d been tossed around like a toy no one wanted.
Nolie had grown up alone, lonely, unwanted. She’d had to give all the love she’d stored up to the animals. Meanwhile he’d had more love and more family than he deserved. They might drive him crazy sometimes, but he never doubted their love.
He glanced at the photographs on the walls—pictures of him with his brothers and sisters, of ball-games, picnics, camping trips, family reunions. Family.
His gaze zeroed in on a photo of Ryan, taken at the end of his firefighter training. Head flung back, laughing as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
Ryan was taking unnecessary risks, and something had to be done about it. He’d tried talking to Dad, but that had done no good. The old man had just laughed and told him he was worrying too much. Maybe Dad thought he was fussing about Ryan because of his own close shave.
Nolie’s crazy theory about Dad popped into his head, and he shrugged it off. She didn’t understand. Still, if Dad didn’t see how serious this business with Ryan could be, it was up to him. One more reason why he had to get back on the line, and soon.
He picked up the container of seizure medication from the bedside table. He should be taking one now. He balanced the plastic container on his palm. Should be. But he’d never get back on active duty while he was on the meds. So maybe it was time to start weaning himself off them.
Tossing the unopened bottle into his bag, he started down the stairs.
Voices from the living room told him Nolie was already here. Arranging his face in a smile, he jogged down the steps to meet her.
“Right on time, I see.”
Nolie nodded a greeting to him, her expression coolly detached.
If this situation bothered her, she certainly wouldn’t show it. The trouble was that he now knew enough about her history to understand those barriers she kept in place.
“We can stop by your apartment and pick up anything else you need, and then you’ll have time to get settled at the cottage before we get in a session this afternoon.”
Mom handed him a shopping bag. “I put some food together for you. So you won’t have to worry about getting groceries in right away.”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
Ryan came through from the kitchen, jacket in hand, on his way out to work. “Relax, Mom. He’s not going to Siberia. Hi, Nolie.”
Siobhan grabbed
Ryan’s arm and planted a kiss on his cheek. “You be careful, now.”
“Hey, that’s no fun.” Ryan hugged her.
“Be careful anyway,” Gabe said, frowning at his brother. He’d like to say more, but he couldn’t, not in front of their mother.
“Take care, bro.” Ryan’s expression mocked him. “You, too, Nolie.” He went on out the door.
“That boy.” His mother’s expression was indulgent. “He always has to have the last word.”
“Time he got over that. He’s not six any more, even though he acts it sometimes.”
His mother patted Gabe’s cheek, and he thought she suppressed the urge to tell him to be a good boy. “We’ll pick you up for church in the morning.” She turned to Nolie. “We’d love to have you join us, too.”
Nolie’s expression didn’t change. How, then, did he know that a wave of revulsion went through her?
“Thank you, Siobhan, but I can’t. I—” She seemed to struggle for an excuse. “I have something else I have to do in the morning.”
“Another time, then.”
He followed her out to her van and tossed his bag in the back. As soon as they’d started, he looked at her.
“Atheist? Agnostic?”
She shot him an annoyed look. “I’m a Christian. I just don’t want to go to church with your family. Is that blunt enough for you?”
“Pretty much.” He didn’t have the right to ask her why. She’d confided in him once, and he’d run like a deer. She wouldn’t make that mistake again. “If you turn right on Sycamore, that will take us toward the apartment. It’s not much out of your way.”
They drove a few blocks in an uncomfortable silence. Then she glanced at him.
“What was that business with your brother?”
“What business?” She couldn’t possibly know he was worried about Ryan.
“It sounded to me as if you really meant it when you told him to be careful. And it sounded as if he blew you off.”
Okay, she did know. Apparently he was more transparent than he’d thought.
“Ryan’s young. Cocky. Maybe a little reckless.” He moved restlessly in his seat, wishing he could get out and do something. Anything. “I should be there to keep an eye on him.”
