Gabe (Steele Brothers #6)

by Cheryl Douglas

  “Would you have told me if you did?”

  That was a loaded question. Jason was my friend. Kendra had merely been an acquaintance before she moved in next door to me. “I try not to get involved in other people’s marital problems,” I said honestly. “So I can’t say for sure that I would have.”

  “I appreciate your honesty,” she said, nodding. “I kind of suspected you’d say that anyhow.”

  I kissed her, both to take away the sting of my words and because now that I’d finally tasted her lips, I craved them. “I’ll always be honest with you, Kendra. I swear to you. I’ll never give you reason to question whether you can believe in me or what we have.”

  “I know that,” she said, wrapping her arms around me with a contented sigh. “That’s how I knew you’d be worth waiting for.”

  Chapter Nine

  Kendra

  The following weekend, Jason took Char, so Gabe invited me to a family barbeque at Kane and Macy’s house.

  “So, it looks like you and my brother-in-law are getting closer,” Macy said, curling her hand around a glass of lemonade, a self-satisfied smile curving her lips.

  “We are.” I looked at Gabe over my shoulder, but he was manning the grill with Kane, giving us some time for a little girl talk.

  Ever since Kane hired me as a private nurse to care for his wife after a car accident she’d had last year, I counted Macy among my closest friends.

  “But we’re taking it slow.”

  Macy rolled her eyes. “How much slower can you take it? You two have been practically inseparable for the past year and a half and you’re still not willing to cop to being a couple?”

  “I didn’t say that.” I bit my lip, trying to hold back my grin.

  “Then you guys have…” She rolled her hand. “Oh my God! Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Ssshhh.” I pulled Macy away from the crowd so we would have a little shelter from the sun and privacy from her raucous family. “We’re trying to keep it under wraps for now. I haven’t even talked to Char about it.” I’d been tempted half a dozen times, but then I imagined the tears and temper tantrum I was sure would follow and I chickened out. As much as she liked Gabe, and enjoyed spending time with him, he wasn’t her daddy.

  “What are you waiting for?” Macy demanded. “The sooner she realizes you’ve moved on, the sooner she can move on too.”

  I knew there was some truth to Macy’s statement, but I just didn’t think we were there yet. “We’ll get there,” I said, taking a sip of my Chardonnay. “In the meantime, we’re making it work.”

  “You mean when Jason has Char you guys get a little alone time?” When I nodded, Macy said, “But I thought you said he’d only been taking her one or two weekends a month, that it hadn’t been a regular thing.”

  “I’m going to talk to him when he picks her up this weekend. I want him to know that things can’t go on like this, and he’s going to have to step up and take responsibility, be the kind of father Char can count on.”

  “How do you think that’s going to go?” Macy asked, looking concerned. “From everything you’ve told me, the guy has a temper. Maybe backing him into a corner isn’t such a good idea.”

  I knew Macy was speaking from experience. She had a bad break-up last year. So bad, in fact, that her ex-boyfriend tried to take her life. “I’m not worried about Jason hurting me,” I said, squeezing Macy’s forearm to try to put her mind at ease. “And I don’t want you to worry, either. He’s never been violent with me or given me any reason to believe he would be.”

  “But he’s never had to face losing it all before,” Macy reminded me. “You said yourself he’s been holding out hope that you’ll put your family back together. Now that he knows that’s not going to happen, who knows what he’ll say or do.”

  “He knows about me and Gabe,” I said quietly, turning my back to the crowd so no one could read my lips. “He confronted Gabe about it.”

  “Oh, God,” Macy said, clutching her stomach. “That couldn’t have gone well.”

  “I think it was a good thing. It forced Gabe to face facts: that it’s really over between me and Jason. Not because of my feelings for him, but because Jason and I just aren’t good for each other.”

  “You think he’ll finally go along with the divorce?” Macy asked, guiding me to a set of lawn chairs positioned under a shade tree. “Now that he knows you and Gabe are a couple?”

  “I’m not going to give him a choice.” I’d been thinking about my situation endlessly over the past week, and I knew it was time for me to take matters into my own hands, no matter the fallout. “I’ll talk to him this weekend about Char, tell him that she needs more time with her dad. Hopefully he’ll agree and that will at least put us on friendlier terms.”

  “You think then he’ll realize he has no other choice?”

  I didn’t want to make him feel backed into a corner, like he was losing everything that mattered to him, even if he was the one who’d set it all in motion. “I’m going to give him a little more time to step up, settle into this visitation arrangement. Then I’ll tell him I need more help with Char… that we should work out some kind of definitive financial arrangement.”

  “So you’re taking baby steps.” Macy nodded. “Maybe that would be for the best.”

  I hoped so. I didn’t want to prolong the inevitable, but I also didn’t want to cause an irreparable rift with a man I’d have in my life forever through Char. “I just hope Gabe’s okay with that,” I said, smiling when his eyes met mine and he tugged on the brim of the baseball cap shading his eyes. “Now that we’re finally together, I don’t want anything to tear us apart.”

  “I don’t think you have to worry about that,” Macy said, laughing. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you. You couldn’t get rid of him now if you tried.”

  ***

  Gabe

  “You gonna fill me in on what’s going on between you and Kendra?” Kane asked, flipping a row of his wife’s homemade burgers.

  “Things are good.”

  I wanted to keep it under wraps for a little while longer. Not because I wasn’t proud to be the man in her life. I was. I just didn’t want my brothers and their well-meaning wives and fiancées giving us a hard time about our relationship, asking questions we couldn’t answer.

  “That’s all I’m gonna get out of you?” Kane asked, sounding disgusted. “Didn’t I confide in you when I was trying to sort out my feelings for Macy?”

  He had me there. “Fine. What do you want to know?”

  “Is Jason out of the picture yet?”

  I brought my beer bottle to my lips, pausing, before I said, “He’ll never be out of the picture, man. He’s Char’s dad.”

  “You know what I mean,” Kane said, nudging me in the ribs with his elbow. “Has he finally agreed to the divorce?”

  “No, but he knows there’s something between me and Kendra,” I said, my eyes drifting to her as I tipped my bottle back.

  “He knows there’s something between you?” Kane parroted. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Look, I just want to take this slow, let Kendra set the pace. She has a hell of a lot more to lose than I do if things blow up.”

  “You need to go to bat for your woman. Tell Jason he needs to sign those goddamn papers or you’ll shove them down his throat.”

  I had to admit my brother’s idea held some appeal, but I knew I couldn’t do that. “It’s up to her and Jason to work that out, buddy. It’s their marriage, their divorce, their little girl who’s caught in the middle. I’m not going to be the one to try and rush it along because I selfishly want her all to myself.”

  “Maybe you don’t mind it this way,” Kane said, tipping his head as he looked at me thoughtfully.

  “What’re you talking about?” I didn’t like where this was going. My brother, the cop, was an expert at reading people and I got the feeling he’d picked up something he didn’t want to see in me.

  “If Jason d
rags his feet, you and Kendra can keep it under wraps indefinitely. You won’t have to step up and acknowledge that it’s a real relationship as long as she’s another man’s wife.”

  I used the burgers as an excuse to set my beer down and push Kane out of the way. Flipping them while toasting the buns on the top rack, I said, “Not everyone runs to Vegas and ties the knot even before they’ve had a real date. Some of us are content to take it slow.”

  “Or stay stuck in neutral forever.” Kane started placing cheese on the buns, his intense gaze fixed on me. “Is that it?”

  I swallowed, ignoring the uncertainty unravelling in me as I tried to process his question.

  “You’ll never have to man up, tell the girl you love her, or plan a future with her as long as she’s legally bound to someone else, right?”

  I didn’t respond. I couldn’t.

  “I think you’re still afraid,” Kane said quietly. “Afraid to go all in. Afraid to have the responsibility that goes with a love that just might last forever. I think you’re afraid to break Kendra’s heart, afraid to break that little girl’s heart… the way the old man broke our hearts when he left.”

  It always came back to him. The father who wasn’t. “I’m nothing like him,” I whispered fiercely, wondering if the resentment was as obvious to my brother as it was to me.

  “Clean it up, bro. That’s the only way you’ll be able to move on with your life, with Kendra or anyone else.”

  “Clean what up?” I asked, though I already knew who he was talking about.

  “We’ve all made our peace with him.” He curled his hand around his bottled water, holding it against his chest. “That doesn’t mean we forget what he did to Mom or to us. But we have forgiven him. I think you need to do the same. Don’t you?”

  “What I feel about him has nothing to do with what’s going on with me and Kendra.”

  “Doesn’t it?” Kane gave me a long, hard, assessing look before shaking his head. “You’ve been running away from love and relationships all your life. Every time you meet a good girl who really cares about you, you find a reason to end it.”

  I wanted to deny the truth, but I couldn’t go on lying to myself forever.

  “I know you. You’ll never forgive yourself if you screw things up with Kendra. She just might be the one, Gabe. So for Christ’s sake, do yourself a favor and make peace with the past already.”

  I started to defend myself, but Kane’s words stopped me.

  “Fight for what you want this time… because you believe you deserve it.”

  ***

  “You’ve been pretty quiet since we left the barbeque,” Kendra said, threading her hand through mine as we walked Poncho down the dimly lit street.

  He didn’t really need another walk, since he’d been running around in Kane and Macy’s backyard all day, but I needed time to think and couldn’t find a reasonable excuse when Kendra offered to join me.

  “I don’t know about you, but I was fielding some pretty intense questions about us today. I guess it just got me thinking about the future.”

  “Your family wants to know where we stand,” she said, her voice small and uncharacteristically timid. “They worry about you.”

  “I wish they wouldn’t. I’m a grown-ass man. I can figure things out for myself.” I didn’t mean to sound so harsh, but I was sick and tired of everyone thinking they knew what was best for me, that they had my life map, and all I had to do was learn to follow their directions.

  “Some people wish they had a family who cares as much as yours does.” She looked up at me. “Maybe you’re not really angry at them, Gabe. Maybe you’re angry at yourself.”

  “What?” I stopped in the middle of the street, bringing a confused Poncho to an abrupt halt. “Why would I be angry at myself?”

  “Because even though you claim to be all in with me, you’re not, and you don’t know how to get there.” She shoved her hands into the pockets of the hoodie she’d slipped on before we left her house. “Or even if you want to try.”

  “I do want to try.” I hate that I was already making her question me when I’d sworn to myself I would never give her reason to doubt my feelings for her the way Jason had.

  “You thought sex was the answer.” She shrugged, looking down at the pup instead of meeting my eyes. I knew that was a bad sign. “Maybe I did too. I thought that would make us feel like a real couple. But it hasn’t, has it?”

  I swallowed, unable to respond. I knew she was waiting for me to say something, to give her some reason to stay and fight, but the words wouldn’t come because I wasn’t even sure what they were supposed to be.

  I couldn’t tell her I loved her. I thought I did, but I’d been wrong on that front before and I refused to make that mistake with Kendra. I couldn’t tell her I saw a future with her when I wasn’t even sure what that future would look like. Marriage? More kids? A step-daughter who hated me because I’d broken up her family?

  “I don’t know what we are, Gabe.” Kendra sighed, the sound laced with disappointment. “Friends? It doesn’t even feel like that anymore because we’re not being honest with each other. You’re standing there, staring at me, afraid to say what’s really on your mind. That’s not the Gabe I know.”

  “I don’t know who you think I am,” I whispered, knowing I couldn’t let her walk away without another word. “But maybe I’m not that guy, the one you thought I was.”

  She shook her head, looking more dejected than she had when she told me the reason her marriage was ending. “Maybe you’re not.”

  Chapter Ten

  Gabe

  I showed up on my old man’s doorstep bright and early the next morning, wondering if Kane was right. Could laying the past to rest open the door to the future I wanted with Kendra? After last night, I didn’t even know if she’d be willing to give me another chance.

  “Gabe,” he said, opening the door to his tidy split-level, “this is a nice surprise.”

  We’d been living in the same city for almost a year, yet I’d never paid him a visit. “Can we talk?”

  “Of course.” He stepped back, inviting me in. “My wife’s at church and the boys went to meet some friends at the gym.”

  “Good, that’ll give us a chance to talk.”

  I followed him into the kitchen. Since they’d retired to Florida so their sons could attend college here, the old man had retired from his trucking job. According to my brothers, he’d become quite the handyman, which was evidenced by the newly remodeled kitchen he’d been working on for months.

  “Nice place you got here,” I said, trying to break the awkward silence with a few kind words.

  “Thanks, we like it. It was hard to leave the old one behind,” he said, setting two steaming cups of black coffee on the table. “It belonged to Sandra’s parents and the boys were born and raised there. But we’re settling in here nicely.”

  “Looks like you’re keeping yourself busy.” The shaker-style cabinets were painted a warm white, the appliances stainless and the countertops a dark granite. The space was warmed up with splashes of red, which I was sure had been at his wife’s suggestion.

  “I am.” He smiled. “I hear you’re pretty good with your hands too. Maybe you got that from me, huh?”

  I didn’t want to admit I’d inherited anything from him, but denying it would only steer the conversation off course.

  When I didn’t respond, he ran a shaky hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. “Look, Gabe, if you’re here to let me have it, I wish you’d just get it over with already.”

  Since Brody and Riley had invited him to the wedding and he’d been present for the birth of Nex and Jaci’s baby girl, we weren’t strangers to polite small talk, but this was the first time we didn’t have to pretend with each other. The first real chance I’d had to air my grievances without the risk of causing a scene.

  “You taught me to hate.” I was surprised by the venom in my voice. “I was just a little kid. That was a lesson I shou
ldn’t have had to learn until later in life. And no kid should ever have to hate his own father.”

  Jack took a deep breath, his hand trembling as he reached for his coffee cup. After raising it a few inches off the table, it became obvious he couldn’t bring it to his lips without spilling it, so he set it back down with a thud.

  “You’re right about that,” he said finally, his blue eyes meeting mine. “No kid should have reason to hate his father. But I gave you plenty of reasons to hate me. I treated your mother like dirt. I raged at you boys like a lunatic. I was never there when you needed me. You couldn’t rely on me to keep a roof over your heads or food in your bellies. I was a poor excuse for a man, and an even poorer excuse for a father.”

  I looked directly at him, noting he didn’t look away. “Am I supposed to be relieved to hear you acknowledge it? Is that supposed to make it all better?”

  “I can apologize until I’m blue in the face,” he said, swiping a hand over his mouth. “But I know it ain’t gonna change a damn thing. I was a deadbeat loser back then. I’m not anymore.”

  I couldn’t argue with his claim. I’d seen the evidence that he was a decent man who’d raised two great kids who loved and respected him. But that didn’t change the way I felt about him, the way I feared I’d always feel about him.

  “I know this resentment is crippling me,” I said, staring into my untouched coffee. “It’s ruining my relationships and maybe to a larger degree, my life. But I don’t know how to let go of it or whether I even want to.”

  “Because letting go of it would be doing your mother a disservice.”

  I was surprised by his insight. I’d never considered that I was holding on to my anger toward him in deference to my mother, but maybe I was.

  “One thing I can say about your mother, Gabe. She was the kindest, most loving, forgiving person I knew.”