“She was wild as a kid, but never irresponsible.” Gabe felt his temper snap like a cornered wolf, pulled it back on a choke chain. And when the red haze cleared, he saw Suz grinning at him like the fool he was.
“You know, boss, Pete and Hal are both on tomorrow. You could try this new-fangled thing that working people do. It’s called taking a day off.” Suz rolled her eyes at Gabe’s glower. “You know, rest. Take care of… things.”
“Don’t you have violations to file?” Casting a smirk at the woman whose older sister he’d once dated, Gabe saluted her with his fresh mug of coffee, carried it to his desk.
There was a small mountain of paperwork that needed to be attended to, tacked haphazardly on the corner of the desk that had once been his father’s, and was now his own. His hands reached for it, but his mind was a million miles away.
His whole life, he’d risen to the expectations of others. He’d played football from childhood, because he’d been told to. He’d been a steady if maybe not brilliant student, because it was expected. He’d behaved the way his parents expected him to, always getting reined back in when he stepped out of line.
He’d gone into law enforcement, because it simply hadn’t occurred to him to do anything else.
Loving Ellie Kendrick had been his one rebellion. When he’d resigned himself to the fact that she’d left him, he’d returned to the steady calm of those expectations, the pain in his heart convincing him that life was better that way.
But now, knowing just how much he’d missed by not trying harder to find her, for not believing in what they’d had between them…
It made him feel like doing something crazy again. Some grand gesture, partly for Ellie.
Partly for him.
Before the urge left him, he picked up the phone. He’d have to hash this out with Ed at some point, he knew, but today was not that day. He was still feeling too raw.
He placed the call, asked some questions. And when he hung up, he smiled.
He might not be able to do a damn thing about the injustice that was served to him and Ellie. But he could do what he could to make things right.
***
Ellie ran out of paint with just a strip of the living room wall left to go.
For a moment, she just stared, pale blue paint dripping off her brush and onto the garbage bags that she’d laid out to protect the floor.
And then she screamed. One shrill lamentation of her frustration, reverberating off of the walls.
“Damn it. Damn it!” Ellie was mortified to feel hot tears sheen over her eyes. But she was so… defeated.
She really didn’t have a lot of cash, and with the time she’d taken off to come to Florence, she wasn’t making any money, either. Not to mention the flight, the rental car.
After racking her brain and crunching numbers for the last two days, she’d decided that she would spend money that she really couldn’t afford and paint the apartment to freshen it up a bit. She would clean it to remove the stench of cigarette smoke, the yellow spots of tobacco that had accumulated on every surface. She would remove all of the things that made it look like an old lady had lived there for years.
Then she would list it and hope that someone would see the potential. And every penny of money from the sale, if it ever happened, would go the facility that Estelle had dropped her in front of ten years earlier.
And if it didn’t sell… well. At least she’d tried. Hadn’t left her mess for someone else to clean up.
She just needed to get the place painted, then she’d hightail it back to Colorado and let Billy keep her apprised of any details.
She couldn’t stay here. Not now that Gabe knew. She didn’t expect anything from him. But here, in Florence, where she could run into him anywhere, anytime… she just couldn’t do it.
Before he’d known, she’d been able to tuck the pain away. But now… now their baby would be on his mind, every time he looked at her. And knowing that, she in turn wouldn’t be able to see him without remembering the way their son had had soft, silky tufts of black hair, just like Gabe’s. Or that when she’d pulled those little eyelids apart, his eyes had been not the blue that most newborns had, but the same bright, startling green as Gabe.
She couldn’t live like that.
And now… now she’d have to start the whole bloody wall over. The clerks at the store had warned her that if she wanted it to look professional, she needed to mix the two buckets of paint she’d purchased into a bigger bucket, to eliminate any minute difference between the batches. They’d said there would likely be a subtle but still noticeable difference if she just went from can to can.
So unless she wanted the place to look like she’d cheapened out, which she had, she had to start over.
Paint had been the cheapest way to freshen up the apartment, but it still wasn’t what she’d call cheap.
Dropping the paintbrush with frustration, she gasped when it bounced… right off the plastic and onto the carpet. Bending, she snatched it up, but the damage had been done—a huge pool of sky blue was making itself at home in the shag rug.
“Fuck.” Though she’d had quite the salty tongue as a kid, Ellie had cleaned that up—you couldn’t hold an adult job with that kind of mouth. But there was just no other way to describe how she felt in that moment, paint on the floor, in her hair, painted messily on the walls. Even, she noted with a wince, in splotches on the old fashioned popcorn ceiling.
Rather than making it better, she’d made it worse.
“Why do you even care?” Ellie muttered as fisted her hands in her hair and pulled. “It’s not like you give a damn about this place.”
Her fingers came away smudged with paint. When she found a streak of it in her hair, she just closed her eyes in defeat.
Damn this town. Damn Ed Gabriel for taking away her choices, and damn Estelle for never giving her the love that a teenaged girl needed.
Damn Dominic Gabriel for not being there when she’d needed him the most.
Damn herself for having all these feelings even after she’d spent so many years cauterizing the old wounds.
Those temper tears gathered once more, threatening to overflow. She refused to cry. To her, it was weakness, and there had been precious little room for that in her life.
So instead she checked that the windows were closed. Then she screamed, a full, glass shattering sound that let her express her feelings in the only way she knew how. It had been suggested to her back in high school, by Anna, as a way of getting her feelings out without cutting, and sometimes, it was the only thing that she could do.
She screamed until her throat was raw, then slumped down on the floor, spent.
Did she feel better? Absolutely.
Were any of her problems fixed? Hell no.
“Ellie!” The masculine shout, the pounding of feet on the stairs leading up from the shop below had her whirling, scrabbling on the floor, her heart in her throat. Grabbing for the metal cage that still held a dripping blue foam roller, she was braced on her feet when the door to the apartment swung open.
It was Gabe. Of course it was Gabe. A town with nine prisons meant that ninety percent of the population was more than capable of disarming anyone looking to cause trouble, which meant very little crime. In fact, she’d probably been Florence’s most wanted for the time she’d lived here.
Still, her heart was pounding, her blood pumping, and it took a full moment for her to melt the tension in her muscles.
I’m just on edge, she told herself. But watching Gabe stalk across the floor toward her, his face set in tense lines, didn’t help her relax.
“What happened? I heard you scream.” Bending toward her, he gently pried the roller cage out of her fingers, then held it up with a smirk on his face. “Fight or flight never was an option for you, was it? You’ve never been afraid to face your fears.”
Until now. Until you.
Ellie swallowed down the words. Admitting that she was afraid of what this man was capabl
e of making her feel was just the first step to actually feeling it.
That ship had sailed. She had no intention of hopping on board ever again.
“What are you doing here?” Turning on her heel, she busied herself closing up the now empty can of paint, which sent yet another wave of frustration crashing over her.
Was it too much to ask for just one thing to go right?
“I don’t know,” he said finally. Weariness played over those string features of his, and Ellie felt her heart twist. “Right now, I’m not sure that I know much of anything.”
“I won’t talk about it.” Her voice was soft, but underlain with steel. “I can’t. I shouldn’t have even told you as much as I did. There’s no point.”
He growled with frustration, running his fingers through that thick mass of hair. The simple movement sent Ellie spinning back in time. She well remembered that gesture, one he’d made whenever he was upset.
She used to catch that hand, kiss the tips of those fingers until the tension melted away. She had the sudden insane urge to do that now.
Not an option.
She studied him as he stood there. Even upset—with her, with his father, with Estelle—he cut a strong figure. She’d noted that he never wore a uniform, preferring jeans and some kind of button-down shirt, but the badge on his chest and the belt around his lean hips told anyone who wanted to know exactly who he was.
He wore them with the confidence of a man who knew that he wouldn’t fail. A confidence that Ellie had never had in herself.
Ellie’s gaze followed his as he looked around the apartment, seeing things as he must have. Defensiveness grew when he took in her horrific paint job, but never found an outlet, because he his eyes landed on the couch that she’d shoved to the centre of the room to get it out of the way.
Her cheeks burned. His lips twitched. A nervous laugh coughed from her throat, making him smile wryly.
“Having that thing around isn’t going to add to the looks of the place if you’re trying to sell.” Straight from the seventies, the couch was covered in nubby brown fabric, lumpy from years of behinds settling into it.
It was also saturated with memories. The very first time that they had made love, it had been on that couch, both of them breathless and awkward and so entirely wrapped up in one another that it had seemed like their love could never end.
When Ellie tore her stare away from the couch, she found Gabe’s stare fixed on her. She found that she couldn’t help but stare back, and as she did she remembered, only too well, how much she’d once felt for him.
Back then, she’d needed him. He’d been the only one to care enough to look inside of her, past the eyeliner and the bad attitude.
Now? She’d made it through hell and back by herself. She didn’t need anyone.
But need and want weren’t the same things at all. Ellie felt a great lump rise up in her throat, choking her, and she broke the stare, moving to the small kitchen in an attempt to get some space.
The cold water from the tap was a shock to her skin, but didn’t do much to clear her mind. Damn it, she wished she’d never told him, that her most painful secret had stayed locked inside of her, which would have been better for all concerned.
But it was out now. And when she finished scrubbing flakes of paint from her hands, she turned and found Gabe right there again right in her personal space.
He looked… forbidding. Strong. He was no longer the kid who would be happy enough to follow her rebellious lead… he would be the one taking charge.
The green of his eyes brightened, intensified, and Ellie felt that connection stretching between them like it had never been broken, that strange and indefinable thing that had once pulled two such polar opposites together. A heart recognizing a heart.
He was the only one in this world with the power to hurt her. And never mind that she now knew it hadn’t been entirely his fault, she just couldn’t give him that kind of power again.
“I want to know, Ellie.” He swallowed, and she watched the bob of his Adam’s apple in his throat.
“Me telling you won’t do anything except hurt me.” Though she wasn’t proud of it, she felt a small surge of satisfaction when he flinched.
What was it about him that brought out the instincts she thought she’d long left behind?
She wanted to look at the walls, at the floor—anywhere but at him. But that would make her seem weak, so she risked being lost in that glass green stare once again.
“You knowing details won’t change what happened. And I’ve told you what I need. So by pressing me, it’s telling me that you don’t care about anyone but yourself.”
“Bull shit.” Gabe swore, face tightening. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Unfortunately, I know all too well. Because I was all alone.” The anger was out of her control, a flash so hot it nearly burnt her alive. “Don’t act like you have the same grief that I’ve had to live with. It’s not the same. It’s not even comparable.”
She very nearly cried then, and only just managed to hold it back.
“I need to get back to the hardware store before it closes.” Skirting the counter, she forced herself to walk slowly out of the kitchen, as if she couldn’t have cared less about what had just passed between them, though her heart felt like mincemeat. “I ran out of paint.”
She’d spring for another can, and damn the minute color difference. She’d figure it out if it meant she could get Gabe out of here, out of her space, out of her life.
“About that.” Damn it all, the man followed her, right into her bedroom as she retrieved her purse.
Whirling to face him, she found herself pinned, the bed at her back, Gabe between her and the door. When his gaze darkened, her pulse thundered in her veins.
“Ellie.” His voice was like melted chocolate, warm and silky and damn near irresistible. She did her best to conceal a shudder when he reached for her, her brain screaming at her body to move.
And when he did nothing more than tuck a paint streaked lock of hair behind her ear, easing back, relief and disappointed crashed together, nearly knocking her right off of her feet.
“My father wants to buy Estelle’s Blooms.” Releasing her, Gabe stepped back yet again, held still, waiting for her reaction.
If he’d dumped a bucket of ice water over her head, she couldn’t have been more shocked. Icy fingers danced down her spine, disappointment turning to rage.
“Never.” Needing space, needing to breathe, Ellie pushed past him, pushed right out of the apartment, her sneakers squeaking on the tile of the steps that led down to the shop.
He was right behind her. It wasn’t until they were outside the shop, the late afternoon sun casting them both in a golden glow, that she let him catch up.
“So your dad sent you here to talk to me.” She wanted to weep, she had so many feelings churning around inside. “Well, no matter how much you butter me up, I won’t do it. I’ll sell to anyone before I sell to him.”
A spark lit in Gabe’s eyes, and he shielded them from the glare as he caught her arm with his free hand, kept her from running away.
“That’s good. Because I’m not going to ask you to buy it from him.” His frustration was painfully apparent.
“What do you want from me?” Ellie didn’t give him the satisfaction of pulling back, but every muscle in her body tensed, painfully aware of his warmth, his scent, of him. Gabe had been right on the money when he’d said that Ellie was more prone to fight than flight. But in that moment, she was just tired. There was little fight left, and it scared her.
“You know what I want from you. I want answers.” His determination had her chafing to do the opposite of what he wanted.
But bringing up his dad in this way... she didn’t believe he actually wanted to know anything about their baby. Didn’t think he could possibly care about something that had never been a reality for him.
He’d just been trying to soften her up so that she�
��d be more receptive to Ed’s offer. Which was preposterous anyway. What the hell would the cantankerous old fool do with a flower shop? It meant nothing to him.
“Let it go, Gabe. Pretend I never told you.” God, but she wished she hadn’t told him. That moment of weakness was costing her deeply.
Gabe had always been the level headed one of the two of them, but she’d gotten to him—she could see the anger simmering just below the surface. This time, though, rather than giving her satisfaction, it just made her sad.
“If you think I can just forget something like that, Ellie, then you never really knew me at all.” His words left her shell shocked, but before she could say anything in response, he’d moved on. “But back to what you just said—that you’d sell to anyone but my father. That’s perfect then. You can sell it to me.”
A freight train slamming into her body couldn’t have made Ellie feel any less off balance. A shudder passed through her from head to toe.
But... wouldn’t that solve all of her problems? She wanted to sell. She had a buyer. She could sign the paperwork and go back to Colorado.
Back home, she corrected herself. Back to her life.
“What makes you think I’d sell to you anymore than I would to your father? You have some nerve.” The words were out of her mouth before she could even think them through, making the decision for her. “What would you do with it, anyway? What would he?”
Not that she cared, she reminded herself. Hell, maybe she should just burn it to the ground.
A muscle in his jaw worked, making the planes of his face stand out in sharp relief. “I don’t know what the hell the old man would do with it. Me, I’ll flip it.”
Ellie huffed out a breath of exasperation. “If you’re just going to sell it, why do you want it in the first place?”
Gabe eyed her with exasperation, but after a long sigh, during which he scrubbed his hands over his face, he looked at her with such compassion shining in those fathomless eyes that seeing it gave her another wound, one she didn’t exactly know the cause of and certainly didn’t know how to heal.
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