The chief said gruffly, “Well...just let me know if you change your mind.”
Gabe’s co-workers continued to hover after the chief went back to his office. They were obviously bursting with questions, but reluctant to pose them. Gabe knew he would feel the same way if the situation were reversed.
“She’s quite a looker,” said David McGregor, a recent addition to Tyler. “From the pictures I’ve seen hanging in Marge’s Diner,” he added lamely in explanation.
There were nods all around, then Maureen said, “I didn’t move to Tyler until the tenth grade and she was a year ahead of me, but I remember she was nice. We were in a couple of talent shows together.”
“Talent!” one of the other fire fighters teased. “What kind of ‘talent’ did you have, Maureen? Don’t tell me that caterwauling you do could be called a ‘talent’!”
When Maureen turned to defend her singing voice, Richard Jensen, Gabe’s closest friend inside and out of the department, tapped his elbow and motioned for him to follow him downstairs. They went to stand by the huge red fire engine, where Richard used the pretext of showing Gabe a worn spot on a hose. Richard was just coming off duty and would be going home soon.
“This just doesn’t seem right, Gabe,” Richard said, his dark eyes filled with concern. “You never said a thing, and I saw you yesterday.”
Gabe shrugged. He’d wanted to tell Richard when he’d asked him for a ride back to Tyler from Sugar Creek after returning the rental car, but he hadn’t been able to find a way.
“I also heard another rumor,” Richard continued levelly. “It’s pure speculation at this stage, of course, but—”
“I imagine you have.”
“Is it true, too?”
Gabe had first met Richard Jensen when they started training together six years earlier. More than once during the intervening years, they’d taken turns saving each other’s skin in ticklish situations. Gabe knew he could trust Richard with his life, just as Richard could trust him. But there were some things a man just didn’t tell another man.
“Is it yours?” Richard asked, taking Gabe’s silence as agreement.
“Who else’s?” Gabe quipped.
“I’ve heard you talk about her,” Richard said slowly, “but I never thought...”
“I love her,” Gabe said, and his simple statement rang with such sincerity that Richard had to believe him.
Still, Richard seemed to sense that Gabe wasn’t telling the entire truth, that some essential element was missing. But he chose not to press him further. Instead he extended his hand, his rugged features rearranged into a half smile. “Then I should be offering my congratulations, too, instead of giving you the third degree. If anyone around here deserves to find a little happiness, Gabe, it’s you.”
Richard was four years Gabe’s senior and lived in Sugar Creek. He had a wife and a son that he never saw because his wife had disappeared with the boy several years before. The half smile was about as much levity as Richard seemed capable of these days. And what he said meant a lot to Gabe.
“Thanks,” Gabe said. Then, to lighten the moment, he said, “You’ll have to come meet Raine. Have dinner with us.”
“In a week or two,” Richard murmured.
“Yeah,” Gabe agreed, realizing again a little too late that he wasn’t acting like a brand-new bridegroom who would rather not have people visit. “In a week or two.”
Richard held Gabe’s gaze for another second, then he turned to leave the station.
As Gabe started back upstairs to the dayroom, he braced himself for what was to come. People were full of curiosity, and not all of them based their interest on concern, like Richard. In the days ahead Gabe knew he was going to be met with questions from every direction—at the station, whenever he went out on call, as he carried out his regular duties, in his free time.
Under normal circumstances a marriage between himself and Raine would shake up interest. But done like this? They might as well have hit a hornets’ nest with a hockey stick!
CHAPTER FIVE
RAINE MOVED RESTLESSLY to the couch, where she plopped down to click on the TV with a remote control. A talk show sprang instantly to life, its guests gesturing wildly as they argued. Raine changed channels. Another talk show, another argument. She changed channels again. This time a big purple dinosaur was dancing with a batch of singing children. She switched off the television. She didn’t really feel like watching, anyway.
She got up and went to a front window. Outside the sun was shining, a woman was walking her dog, a young child rode by on a bike. Raine sighed. She wanted to be out there with them, doing something. Her body was unaccustomed to such a long stretch of inactivity. But she shied away from leaving the house. Word of the marriage had spread like wildfire.
The telephone had rung so many times that morning that Raine finally had been forced to leave it off the hook. Declarations of surprise and offers of congratulation were all too often followed by prying questions and the occasional catty remark. Did Marge know? What about Charles? He wouldn’t have left on vacation if he’d known, would he? Gabe was such a sly one...no one suspected. Or: I knew it all the time! I always suspected the two of you would get together! After two or three calls Raine had wanted to scream!
What they needed was an answering machine in order to screen the serious calls from the merely curious. She couldn’t have done without her service in New York, catching word of callbacks, preserving messages about upcoming tryouts, intercepting her mother’s calls during the time she lived in Joel’s apartment....
Thinking of Joel only increased Raine’s restlessness. The way he had looked, the things he had said... He’d hurt her badly. She hadn’t meant to complicate his life. She hadn’t meant to complicate hers!
Joel was like quicksilver in an already fast-paced world. He was a fascinating man, a charming man, complex, volatile. A wonderful dancer and choreographer. He’d taken her breath away in the first seconds of their initial meeting. Women loved him. He’d had his pick. And he had chosen her.
All along she’d known he had a somewhat undesirable reputation to go along with his many theatrical successes. He used people, friends had told her. Took what he wanted and discarded them when they were of no further use. She’d put their warnings down to jealousy. If he hurt people, he didn’t mean to do it. He had to make choices. And sometimes it was those choices that hurt people, not him! It distressed him when others accused him of being callous. She’d defended him, supported him. Only, when she’d found herself in need of support, he’d shown a side of himself that she had never seen before.
“Raine? Raine, it’s me! Britt,” a muffled voice called through the front door. “I know you’re in there! I talked with Gabe.”
Raine lifted her head, blinking. “Britt?”
“Come on! I won’t bite, I promise.”
Raine opened the door and Britt Marshack spilled into the room. She didn’t look at all like the mother of five children, the oldest of whom was sixteen and the youngest—a new addition with her new husband—only two. As was her usual habit, Britt had attempted to subdue her mass of strawberry-blond hair into a single braid, but a goodly number of shorter hairs had escaped to curl rebelliously around her smiling, freckled face. It was a face that, at that moment, Raine wholeheartedly welcomed.
“My goodness, are you expecting a siege?” the new arrival teased. “I thought I heard the sound of a bar lifting. Not that I blame you. You certainly are the number-one topic of conversation around Tyler today. I was only in town five minutes before someone rushed up to give me the news. I didn’t believe it at first, then someone else told me, and someone else.... So I went searching for Gabe and he confirmed it.” She looked at Raine carefully. “Raine...what’s going on? I saw your mother Friday morning just before she left for Florida and she never said a word about you c
oming home, or about you and Gabe, or—”
Raine interrupted their old family friend with a quick hug. “Hello, Britt,” she said, smiling. In Raine’s opinion Britt was one of the dearer residents of Tyler. She was sweet and kind and always attempted to see the good in people before looking for the bad.
Britt hugged her back, then, chagrined by her own lack of manners, said, “How terribly rude I’ve become. My only excuse is that things are just so hectic in the business right now. You know we’ve opened a Yes! Yogurt shop in Tyler.”
“Mom told me.”
“Well, it’s doing great, but every single day another problem seems to crop up. That’s why I came into town today. To deal with one.”
“How are Jake and the kids?”
“Fine, just fine. You haven’t seen Jacob yet, have you? He’s absolutely the most adorable two-year-old on the face of the planet, but I might be a tad prejudiced. He looks just like his dad. Blond hair, brown eyes...”
They settled on the couch.
“You’d just found out that you were pregnant the last time I was home,” Raine said.
“I thought it had been that long.” Britt frowned. “Raine...”
“Mom doesn’t know,” Raine said.
Britt’s frown deepened. “The marriage wasn’t...planned?”
Raine knew that she could tell Britt anything and it would go no further. But she owed it to Gabe to keep up the pretense. “No, Gabe and I didn’t want a fuss.”
“I didn’t know there was a ‘Gabe and you’ to fuss about. At least, not like that.”
“You said you saw him earlier?” Raine asked.
Britt’s frown cleared into a smile. “He looked a bit frazzled, but I guess that’s understandable, considering how he was on his way back to the station after giving a fire-safety demonstration to a class of preschoolers.”
Raine smiled as well. Gabe would be wonderful with children.
Britt echoed the thought. “He’ll make a great father...one day.”
The slight pause told Raine that Britt had heard the other rumor, as well, but it wasn’t something she was going to ask about. Her sentiment concerning Gabe had been natural, not used as a probe.
She stood up. “Well, I can’t stay. Jake was expecting me back at the farm an hour ago. Which reminds me, could I use your phone? Just to let him know I’ve been delayed? Otherwise he’ll worry.”
“Of course.” Raine motioned toward the telephone on the desk.
Britt crossed over to it. “The receiver’s off the hook,” she said, glancing back curiously.
“Too many good wishes,” Raine said dryly.
Britt grimaced. “I can imagine.”
The call took only a moment and Raine soon was accompanying Britt to the door. She thought about asking her to stay for dinner, but talk would inevitably return to recent events, and Raine wasn’t ready yet to discuss them with anyone, not even an understanding friend.
* * *
A SHORT TIME LATER the telephone rang again, startling Raine with its unexpectedness. When Britt had finished her call, she must have forgotten to leave it off the hook, and Raine had failed to check.
She stared at it, of two minds whether to answer. What decided her was Gabe. From what Britt had said, he too must have been getting bombarded with questions and comments, and if it was him trying to reach her...
She lifted the receiver on the fifth ring, but didn’t get to say anything because the caller’s anxious voice burst into her ear.
“Gabe! Thank goodness! It’s me, Marge. Listen, I only have a minute. George’s friends are waiting for us. They’re taking us out on their sailboat for a few days, and I just realized that I forgot to leave you the key. In fact, I’m looking at it right now. That’s how I realized... Gabe?” Her mother’s tone underwent a subtle change, as if it had suddenly occurred to her that she might not be speaking to Gabe. “Gabe, is that you?”
Raine’s throat was so tight that she could barely answer. “Mom?” she said huskily.
There was silence on the other end, then, “Raine?”
“It’s—it’s me, Mom,” Raine confirmed.
It didn’t take a trained ear to detect that something was wrong. Emotion had swept over Raine the instant she heard her mother’s voice. Frequently while growing up she had resented her mother’s rules, her way of doing things. They’d clashed, they’d butted heads—particularly about her move to New York. Her mother had wanted her to be satisfied with doing theater work within the state. But at this moment, nothing in the world was as sweet or as dear to Raine as her mother’s voice.
“Raine?” Marge repeated sharply. “You’re at Gabe’s? What’s happened? What—?”
Raine wiped away the moisture that had spilled over onto her cheeks. She strove to hold herself together. “Nothing’s happened, Mom. Everything’s fine. I—I just...came back for a visit.”
“Then how come you don’t sound fine?” Marge demanded, not fooled for a second.
“I just... I—”
“And why are you visiting now? You never come home without letting me know first. New York isn’t exactly a hop and a skip away. You can’t just drop in for a coffee.”
Raine could say nothing more.
Neither, for a moment, could her mother. Then Marge stated firmly, “George and I are coming home. Right now. You can deny all you want that something is wrong, but I know better. We’ll catch the first plane that we can.”
“But your visit...” Raine whispered.
“To heck with our visit! We’re not having that much fun anyway. These people used to know George when he and Mary were married. I don’t quite fit the bill for them. They’re nice, but I can tell.”
“Mom,” Raine blurted out, “Gabe and I are married.”
There was another long silence. “Tell me the rest when I get home,” Marge instructed, just before she hung up.
Raine pressed the disconnect lever with her finger and very carefully laid the handset down on the desk to prevent it from ringing again. All the while a thick haze of tears continued to blur her vision.
She hadn’t wanted to do that. Now her mother’s flight home would be fraught with worry. But Raine didn’t want her to hear the news from someone else, which could easily happen the second she set foot in Tyler.
* * *
GABE REQUESTED AND received permission for a quick trip home. He knew he would have to suffer knowing looks and ribald comments from his cohorts, but his concern was such that he was willing to endure it. He’d tried numerous times to contact Raine, and at each attempt he’d gotten a busy signal. As the afternoon wore on, he’d started to worry.
Gabe stepped inside the house. “Hey, Raine, it’s me!” he called.
The house was quiet. Too quiet. Then he saw her, sitting very still on one corner of the couch, a damp tissue crumpled into a ball in her fist. Relief surged though him, only to be followed by a resumption of his previous concern.
He hunkered down beside her, assigning the couch arm the duty of keeping him from drawing her into his arms. She looked so beautiful sitting there, so sweet and vulnerable. A spark of physical desire shot through him, which he quickly subdued.
“What are you doing here?” she asked softly, reaching out to smooth her fingers through the short hairs above his left ear.
“I came to check on you,” he answered honestly. His smile didn’t come easily. “All I’ve been getting were busy signals. Now I see why.” He indicated the disabled phone across the way.
“We’ve had a lot of calls. Gabe,” she said, frowning, “it would help if we could get an answering machine. I have a little money left. I’ll be glad to—”
He went to the hall closet and rummaged inside. “I have one,” he said. “I set it up for a while, but Dad hated it. He told
me to put it away or he was going to pull it out by its roots and throw it out the door.” He came back with a telephone/answering machine combination and quickly made the exchange. “He says he hates talking to a machine, so he’s not going to make anyone else do it.”
Raine smiled tightly. “I would have liked to have that option earlier.”
“I’m sure.”
“No, I mean I really would have liked to have it earlier. Mom called.”
Gabe’s attention was caught. “What did she say?” he asked.
“She and George are coming home...right now, immediately. I had to tell her that we were married, Gabe. I couldn’t let her come back and have someone else—”
“Did you tell her why?” he asked.
“No. We’re going to talk more when she gets here.” Raine started to twist the already abused tissue.
“They could be home tonight,” Gabe murmured.
“Probably. For sure tomorrow morning.”
“Would you like me to take the rest of this shift off? The chief offered—”
Raine shook her head. “No. It’s better if I talk to her alone.” She looked at him. “I’ll have to tell her the whole truth, Gabe. I can’t lie to her. She’ll probably think you’re insane, and that I—”
“Made a big mistake in agreeing to marry me.”
“That I’m taking terrible advantage of you,” she corrected.
Gabe released a long breath. “Well, you’re not. And I’ll tell her so myself.”
“I wonder...”
“What?”
“How she’s going to feel about being a grandmother.”
Gabe couldn’t stop himself. He went back to hunker down at her side. She looked so lost, so afraid.
“If it’s your baby, Red, she’ll love it,” he said gently.
She reached out to him again, this time resting her hand at the back of his neck. The act was so warm, so easy, so intimate that Gabe’s heart skipped a beat. It took every ounce of strength he had to merely smile at her, then stand away.
Daddy Next Door (Hometown Reunion) Page 6
