Gabriel's Honor

by Barbara Mccauley

  They both agreed that Kevin’s mother didn’t need to know about the rescue.

  He hadn’t seen her all morning, though he had heard her come up the stairs and check on her son a couple of times. He’d also heard her speaking to Russell, the foreman on the painting crew. Gabe had almost gone downstairs then, just to check that everything was all right, but decided against it. If she needed his help with anything, she’d just have to ask. He wasn’t about to hover around, waiting for her to come to him. He would probably be an old man before that would happen, anyway. Besides, he had work to do, and it wouldn’t get done thinking about her.

  Since she was staying for a few days, they would be spending a lot of time together in the house. It would be a hell of a lot easier on both of them if he kept to himself and she did the same. Shoot, this was a big house. It wouldn’t be that difficult to stay out of her way.

  And since he’d made a promise that he wouldn’t kiss her again, he knew he’d better keep his distance. Because all he could think about was kissing her again.

  The only problem was, he was thinking about a whole hell of a lot more than just kissing.

  The next few days were definitely going to be…uncomfortable.

  Well, dammit, why should he tiptoe around the house, worrying that he might run into her? So he was attracted to her. So what? She certainly wasn’t the first—and she sure as hell wouldn’t be the last—woman he ever kissed. Big deal. If she could forget about it, then so could he.

  He tossed his wrench into his toolbox, scrubbed his hands, then headed down to the kitchen. He was hungry, and if he wanted to go to the kitchen and find something to eat, then that’s what he would do, dammit.

  Halfway down the stairs, he saw her and stopped. She knelt beside a stained glass lamp sitting on an antique desk behind the sofa, a dreamy expression on her face.

  His throat went dry as he watched her gently run her fingertips over the colorful yellow and dark green glass on the lamp.

  When she glanced up and saw him watching her, he expected her expression to change, for her to retreat behind the mask of cautious indifference she normally wore.

  But she didn’t. Instead she did something that equally surprised him.

  She smiled.

  A bright, genuine smile that reached her gray eyes and lit up her entire face.

  The tightness in his throat nearly cut off his breathing. Dammit, he should have stayed upstairs, after all.

  “Gabe.” She practically whispered his name. “Come here, you have to see this.”

  With the look she was giving him, he would have gone over there and done a triple somersault if she’d asked him to.

  He moved beside her, knelt down, forced his attention to the lamp she so lovingly stroked.

  “It’s a Tiffany,” she said reverently.

  “Yeah?” He knew that. Everyone knew these were called Tiffany lamps.

  “No, it’s a real Tiffany. Bronze base and leaded glass.” She touched one delicate yellow flower design. “There were hundreds of thousands of reproductions, but this one is not only an original, it’s signed. It’s old, probably around the turn-of-the-century. And it’s in perfect condition.”

  “I take it that’s good?”

  She looked at him, startled, then gave a dry laugh. “Good? My Lord, it’s better than good. And look at this desk.” She ran her hand over the unusual swirled grain of the desk front. “It’s solid Crotch Mahogany, probably from the early nineteenth century. Very rare for this wood to be solid. It was almost always used as a veneer. Even the brass handles are the originals, which is even more rare.”

  He had to tear his eyes away from her so he could look. It just looked like an old desk to him. A nice one, maybe, but nothing to get all dewy-eyed over.

  “There’s more,” she said breathlessly. “They’ll have to be authenticated, but those paintings are also nineteenth century. Broome, Cooke, Thornley. And that’s just this one room. There’s no telling what we’ll find upstairs or in the attic or basement.”

  Her eyes were bright, her face flushed with excitement, her lips softly parted. He was only inches from her. He could smell the faint floral scent that drifted from her skin. His insides cinched and twisted, and the hunger he’d felt earlier had nothing to do with the hunger that filled him now.

  He stood, took a step back and shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans before he broke his promise not to kiss her. He looked around the room at all the furniture and paintings and miscellaneous lamps and knickknacks. Before, he’d thought it was all junk, just a bunch of old stuff, but Melanie seemed to know what she was talking about.

  In fact, she was quite knowledgeable, now that he thought about it.

  He glanced back at her. “This is your business, isn’t it?” he asked her pointedly. “What you do.”

  Her smiled slowly faded. “Was, what I used to do. Not anymore.”

  “And that’s how you knew Mildred, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” she said quietly. “She bought a few small things from the antique dealer I used to work for. Mostly china and a few small silver items. I handled her account.”

  The light had faded from her eyes, and suddenly Gabe wanted to kick himself for asking. Dammit, anyway, why couldn’t he have kept his big mouth shut and just let her enjoy herself for a few minutes? He felt like he’d just kicked a puppy.

  He’d think about this new information later, he decided. Much later. Right now he wanted to see that smile of hers again.

  He forced a light tone and grinned, looking around the room once again. “So what now?”

  The brilliance returned to her eyes. “You mean you don’t know?”

  He shook his head.

  Her smile lit up the room. “We have an auction.”

  Chapter 6

  In Bloomfield County, Squire’s Inn and Tavern was the place to have a cold one and the “best darn pepperoni pizza known to man,” according to the carved wood sign outside. Reese Sinclair, owner and proprietor, and the youngest Sinclair male at thirty-one, also boasted his establishment made the “best darn hamburgers, too.” Since Melanie had already sampled one of those hamburgers her first night at the Witherspoon house and agreed with Reese’s assertion, she was looking forward to the pizza.

  Cara had taken Kevin to look at a suit of armor standing guard by the bathrooms, and except for the jukebox in the corner currently playing Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ Free Falling, everything about the tavern was eighteenth century English: tudor design, dark woods, heavy oak beams, peg and groove floor.

  The room was large and masculine, charming, very much like the men surrounding her at this very moment: Gabe on her right, Lucian on her left, Ian directly across.

  She felt absolutely overwhelmed.

  She still wasn’t quite certain how she’d let herself be talked into this “celebration” as Gabe had called it. One minute she’d been talking about an auction, and the next thing she knew, Gabe had called Cara and told her to round everybody up and meet them at the tavern at seven o’clock.

  It made her nervous to be out like this, in a public place, with so many other people around, but at the same time, it also made her feel alive. She hadn’t even realized until this moment how long it had been since she’d been with other adults, laughing and having a good time. How much she missed it.

  “Hey there, gorgeous, you come here often?” Reese Sinclair winked at her as he set a pitcher of frothy beer and carafe of dark red wine on the table. “How ’bout you ditch these morons and come out with me?”

  While Gabe glared darkly at Reese and Lucian told him that he’d seen her first, Melanie blushed at the brothers’ outrageous flirting. If there was one thing that the Sinclair brothers were not, it was shy. And based on the longing looks from some of the ladies in the room, they weren’t at a loss for female companionship, either. No big surprise there.

  One woman in particular, Melanie noted, a petite, pretty redhead in tight black pants and a sc
oop-necked fuchsia tank top, had locked her gaze on Gabe since the moment he’d walked into the tavern. Melanie was certain that if looks could kill, she’d be laid out flat right now holding a bunch of lilies. Gabe had nodded and smiled at the woman, but he hadn’t gone over to say hello, which had seemed to aggravate the redhead all the more. And though Melanie knew she had no right to feel the way she did, she couldn’t stop the warm ripple of pleasure inside her that she was the one sitting here with him.

  While the brothers argued over which one of them was the best looking and the smartest, Ian poured a glass of wine and handed it to her, then he filled the beer mugs all around. Gabe’s shoulder brushed hers when he reached for a frosty mug, and the simple contact made her pulse skip.

  The Sinclair brothers might all be good-looking, she thought, but there was only one who turned her mind to mush and her insides to gelatin. Even now, with his shoulder pressed to her shoulder, his thigh a whisper away from her thigh, she felt the burn. The rising, steady heat in her blood.

  She inched away from him, reached for her wine and sipped. Anything to keep her mind off Gabe and the proximity of his body to hers.

  The next number on the jukebox was Shania Twain singing about how her man better walk the line. The tune brought cheers and whistles from the women in the room and boos from the men. Reese’s tavern was obviously popular with the townspeople. There were all age groups here: families, couples, singles. Everyone just out having a good time. Everyone seemed to know everyone else. And though it was different from the restaurants in Los Angeles and Beverly Hills, it felt strangely comfortable to her.

  Smiling, Melanie turned her attention to her son, watched as he took Cara’s hand and hurried back to the table, his face flushed with excitement.

  “Did you see me, Mommy?” he asked, his eyes wide. “I touched him. Cara said I could, and I looked inside his head, too, only it was empty.”

  “Hey, just like Lucian,” Reese quipped, which started a volley of insults between the two brothers.

  Melanie’s mind spun as everyone else, including Cara, jumped in to add their own opinions on what was inside Lucian’s head. Lucian was less than appreciative, and he gave back as good as he got.

  Melanie had never seen anything like the Sinclair family. She had been an only child, and meals, whether they were in a restaurant or at home, were always reserved and quiet. Phillip hadn’t liked conversation at the table, either, unless it was business. All this chatter and ruckus were foreign to her, and to Kevin, too. His eyes were wide, and his little head went back and forth like a Ping-Pong ball, trying to absorb every word. It was obvious he was as captivated by the Sinclairs as she was.

  She glanced at the man who captivated her the most, and noticed that Gabe’s attention had been diverted to the jukebox, where the redhead was now standing. Melanie saw the woman wiggle her fingers at him, then give him a knowing smile as she dropped a coin in the jukebox and push a button.

  A slow song filled the tavern, and Melanie immediately recognized it as the Righteous Brothers’ Unchained Melody. She felt Gabe stiffen beside her, then he glanced quickly away from the woman. No question there was a history here, Melanie realized and hated the stab of jealousy that shot through her. She had no business to feel anything, or think anything at all about Gabe and the redhead.

  “Darn, if you were going to pick on Lucian, you should have waited for me and Abby.”

  The sound of the newcomer’s voice jolted Melanie back to the table, and she watched as a man scooted in beside Cara, bumping her over with his hip, then pulled a pretty blonde in beside him.

  Smiling, he stuck his hand out to Melanie. “I’m Callan, and this is Abby.”

  He was every bit as tall and handsome as the other Sinclairs, Melanie noted, and his wife was delicate, with brilliant green eyes and porcelain smooth skin. Based on the possessive touch of Callan’s arm around his wife, and the look in their eyes as they glanced at each other, they were also very much in love.

  The banter continued around the table, until Gabe raised his voice over everyone else and told them to be quiet.

  Lucian, who’d been in the middle of a suggestion to Reese as to what he could do with his opinions, clamped his mouth shut when he remembered there was a child present.

  “Melanie has good news,” Gabe announced.

  When everyone looked at her, Melanie felt her heart start to pound. She hardly wanted to be the center of attention.

  She swallowed, glanced nervously around the table. “Well, it’s a little soon to know for sure,” she said hesitantly, “but it’s a strong possibility that at least a few items in the house are worth a considerable amount of money.”

  There was a stunned silence at the table, though the conversation in the tavern was still thunderous. Melanie glanced at the jukebox again, and her pulse jumped as she realized that the redhead was making her way toward them, her gaze firmly locked on Gabe.

  “Are you telling us that there’s more than just garage sale junk in Mildred Witherspoon’s house?” Cara asked.

  Melanie forced her attention back to the table. “I’ve only gone through the living room and part of the dining room, but it appears that way. The Tiffany lamp in the living room alone is probably worth about fifty thousand dollars.”

  Cara choked, then reached for a glass of water and took a swig.

  The redhead grew closer, and Melanie felt her stomach knot.

  “So what now?” Abby asked when everyone else seemed too stunned to speak.

  “What?” Melanie looked at Abby. “Oh, well, an auction would be best. A date will have to be set, invitations sent to the best dealers, an auctioneer hired.”

  “Oh, Melanie, this is so amazing.” Cara reached across the table and touched her hand. “What would we do without you? Just tell us how we can help.”

  How they could help? Melanie felt a rush of panic. “But I can’t…I didn’t mean—”

  “Hello, Gabe. Long time no see.”

  The redhead stood beside Gabe, one hand on her curvy hip as she smiled down at him.

  “Hi, Sheila.” He smiled back, and Melanie felt him shift uncomfortably on the seat beside her. “How’s it going?”

  “All right. How goes it with you?”

  “Hey, Sheila.” Reese grinned at the woman. “I heard your daddy bought you a new Porsche.”

  She grinned back. “He sure did. Goes real fast, too.” Sheila turned her attention back to Gabe. “Wanna go for a ride?”

  Melanie figured that the car wasn’t the only thing that went fast, and the ride she was talking about probably had nothing to do with cars.

  “Some other time,” Gabe said stiffly. “Ah, this is Melanie and her son, Kevin.”

  Melanie forced a smile when Sheila’s gaze shifted momentarily to her. The redhead nodded briefly, then looked back at Gabe. “Can I talk to you a minute?”

  “Sure.” He looked at her expectantly.

  The woman pressed her lips tightly together. “Alone?”

  “Oh, right.”

  Melanie felt Gabe’s fingertips brush over her thigh before he slid out of the booth. She was certain it was accidental, but nonetheless, she still felt a shiver all the way down to the tips of her toes. She watched him follow the pretty woman outside, realized that she was staring at the two, then quickly snapped her attention back to the table.

  What had they been talking about? Oh, yes, the auction.

  “Cara,” Melanie said awkwardly. “I won’t be able to work the auction. I’ll be leaving in a few days, and you’ll need at least two weeks minimum to set everything up.”

  “Well, I guess we’ll just have to do what we can while you’re here, then, won’t we?” Cara picked up her glass of wine and lifted it. “And now I propose a toast. To a successful auction.”

  Everyone else at the table lifted their drinks, as well. Even Kevin joined in by raising his soda, though he had no idea what he was doing. In spite of herself, Melanie felt a thrill rush through her veins
as they clinked glasses all around.

  Her gaze drifted once again to the door that Gabe had just walked through with the redhead. While everyone at the table talked excitedly about the auction, she smiled and sipped her wine, tried unsuccessfully to stop her mind from wandering to thoughts of Gabe.

  And suddenly she knew that her fear of staying in Bloomfield County was more than her worry that Vincent Drake would find her. Much more.

  For the next three days, Gabe worked outside with the painters. Not because they needed his help. They were a good crew, more than capable of painting the house without his supervision. If anything, he was probably in their way.

  Lord knew that he had more than enough work in the big house to keep him busy for another month, but with Melanie puttering around in all the rooms, the house suddenly felt small. Everywhere he turned, it seemed that she was there. He couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t think. He’d hear her muttering to herself as she examined some new piece of furniture, or hear her gasp as she’d open a drawer and discover some new treasure, and he’d want to go see what she’d found, he’d want to see that look of profound pleasure in her eyes.

  He couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to know that he’d put that look there, not some old desk or painting. He wanted to see that flush of pleasure on her face as he moved over her, covered her body with his and filled her. He wanted to hear her moan, to feel her hands on his skin as she cried out his name.

  Now, as he stood on the roof sanding an upstairs window frame, he could hear her singing softly in the bedroom next to where he was working. The window was open and he glanced over, saw the ends of the white lace curtains ripple in the warm breeze blowing through the house.

  The song was familiar, a Bonnie Raitt tune about people talking. Melanie had a nice voice, he thought. Smooth and mellow. Smiling, his hand stilled as he listened.

  Since that night at the tavern, it seemed to him that she’d carefully kept her distance from him. They had fallen into the routine of her cooking breakfast for him, but most of the conversation was between Kevin and him, and afterward, she’d busy herself with cleaning up, refusing to let him help, then disappear into another room. She’d offered to make him dinner, as well, but by the end of the day he was too keyed up to sit casually through a meal with her. Too frustrated.