“They’re okay. More than okay. Adam…he never gave a damn who I was. It was my being dishonest and hiding things that nearly destroyed our relationship. Afraid he’s a better and more ethical man than his dad.”
“I think you’re a pretty good guy yourself, bro,” Rebecca said. “Anyone can lose their way and make mistakes.”
“Yeah, well, I’m afraid I did both, big-time. As far as Erica…we’re back together. And I’ll be damned if I don’t think we might have a shot at one hell of a marriage. The woman loves me.”
“This is a shock to you?” Rebecca teased gently.
“I thought she loved the Fortune heir. I thought she loved all the trappings, the money, the position.” Jake shook his head. “I was always trying to be the man I thought she wanted. We wasted a hell of a lot of years not being honest with each other….”
The ring of a telephone interrupted them. Both the phone and the answering machine were buried on a far table, under some pillows and papers and a needlework project. Her brother would never have picked up her telephone, even assuming he could pin down its location, but his eyebrows raised in a silent query when she didn’t immediately answer it.
Rebecca had no intention of answering it, but she braced herself, going as stiff as a fireplace poker, at the sound of the first ring. The answering machine was programmed to kick in after two.
Gabe’s voice came on. Slow, quiet, sexy-husky, and painfully familiar. “One of these times I’m going to find you in, shorty. Rebecca…I need to talk to you.”
That was the whole message, but it was enough to rivet Jake’s attention. He studied her face with an older brother’s shrewd eyes. “You knew who it was, didn’t you? Why didn’t you pick up the phone?” he asked her.
“Because you’re here, and I don’t get a chance to talk with you very often, and I can easily call him back another time.”
“You’re the worst liar I ever met, sis. What’s wrong? Was that Gabe? I couldn’t recognize the voice, because it was so muffled with all the junk piled on top of the machine—”
“Nothing’s wrong. Absolutely everything’s fine,” she assured him cheerfully, and quickly turned the conversation back to family business. Jake stayed another half hour. When he had to leave, she walked him to the door, thinking that he’d forgotten about that phone call. But he hugged her before he left.
He also gently cocked up her chin to deliver a brotherly mini lecture. “If you need help, any kind, I’d be really ticked if you don’t give me the chance to come through for you. The whole family stood by me through this mess, but you, squirt, were my main line to sanity. I’d be there for you so fast it’d make your head spin, and no questions asked.”
“Thanks, sweetie.” She knew her brother meant the offer, but there were certain problems that a woman simply had to face alone. When Jake was gone, she pressed a hand on her abdomen.
The container for the pregnancy test was in the bathroom. She’d known the results for three days.
She walked back into her office, switched on the computer and pulled up the chapter she’d been working on. Work had been her salvation for weeks now. Normally her mind blocked out everything else when she was writing, and before her brother’s visit, she’d left a hero hanging in terrible danger. She needed to fix the crisis and save him, yet minutes ticked by. The cursor kept blinking, but no words would come.
Right next to the computer, she kept her Abe Lincoln teddy bear with the sad hound-dog eyes. He’d been her pal on bad writing days for years now. She picked him up and snuggled him, and when that didn’t work, she fingered the talisman charm bracelet on her wrist. Both had always been symbols of comfort for her.
Neither worked worth spit today. She wrapped her arms around her legs and closed her eyes. Gabe had been trying to contact her for a week now. Using the answering machine to dodge him was immature and stupid and dishonest…but, temporarily, Rebecca just didn’t feel ready to talk with him.
He could have called weeks before this. He hadn’t, and his long silence hurt like a wound. Rebecca was no fan of logic, but Gabe certainly was. The sudden calls had an all-too-logical reason. Enough time had now passed for her to know if she’d missed a period or could be pregnant.
Weeks ago, as of that one long, unforgettable night together, she’d decided not to tell him if she was carrying a baby. He had always made his feelings about not wanting a child or family clear. Gabe was so damned honorable and old-fashioned that she had no doubt he’d offer a ring if he believed her pregnant. Rebecca couldn’t imagine a worse disaster. No love could grow where a partner felt trapped, and she was afraid his feelings of resentment would end up destroying them both.
If Gabe had called her before, she might have believed they had a chance. Love might have built for him, from what they had already started. But now was simply too late. It seemed logically obvious that only his sense of honor and responsibility motivated his calls at this point. She could, she knew damn well, fall into bed with him again. She could, she was afraid, fall into any relationship he was willing to consider. Her pride had never stopped her picking up the phone.
But loving him did.
She opened her eyes and stared blindly at the spring buds out the window. She’d never met a man who needed love more than Gabe. Relationships based on duty or responsibility were all he seemed to believe in. It would take the right woman to give him a whomp upside the head. The right woman would make him feel free—free to let loose that huge, vulnerable tenderness inside him, free to discover that real love wasn’t a cage, but an opening-up of choices and possibilities. The right woman could make a giant and wonderful difference in his life.
But it didn’t seem to be her. Tears stung and burned her eyes, but she squeezed them back, unshed. Crying was no solace. Gabe had teased her dozens of times about being unrealistic, but Rebecca saw no choice but to face this reality. She hadn’t been able to break Gabe out of his prison. Love—or her brand of love—either wasn’t right or wasn’t enough. Not for him.
She’d tasted hardship before. She’d known loss. She knew all the flavors of loneliness. But nothing in her life had ever ached like knowing she’d lost him.
Twelve
When her secretary tracked her down in the lab, Kate Fortune was just finishing a meeting with two of her chemists. Her mood was exhilarated. The Secret Youth Formula was her newest and most ambitious product, yet problems and sabotage—more of Monica’s doing—had crippled her new baby from the start. Finally those problems had been resolved, and the last studies and tests completed successfully. Her brainchild was almost ready to take wing. When her secretary delivered the message that Gabe Devereax was in the downstairs lobby, she was delighted to have the break.
She strode into the lobby with both her hands outstretched to take his in greeting. “Well, if this isn’t a surprise! I can’t believe you didn’t come right up. You should have known you didn’t need to stand on any ceremony with me.”
“I wasn’t sure if it was still kosher protocol to wander upstairs, now that I’m no longer in your employ.”
“Bosh on protocol. I’ve missed you, Gabe.”
He chuckled. “Well, that’s a relief. There was a good chance you’d feel the opposite. The only times I was around, you were having trouble with sabotage or kidnapping or murder. I had a bad feeling you might associate being around me with the wrong kind of excitement.”
Kate heard the humor in his voice and saw his familiar dry smile. But something was seriously different in his appearance, his manner, his eyes. Trying to figure it out, she steered him toward her private elevator and kept an easy conversation going. “I’m afraid excitement comes with responsibility for a financial empire. I admit I wouldn’t mind a nice long stretch with no trouble—it does seem like we’ve had our share in recent times. But I’ve missed talking with you, far beyond all the investigative work you’ve done for us. And so has Sterling.”
Kate could hear her voice automatically softening when she men
tioned the longtime Fortune attorney and friend. Gabe had spent as much time with Sterling Foster as with her. One of these days, she probably needed to get around to telling the family exactly how deeply her feelings for Sterling went. Now though, she ushered Gabe upstairs and into her private office.
“You haven’t said why you stopped. You were never much for idle chitchat, Gabe, but I don’t know what business we could have. I’m pretty sure our check to you didn’t bounce,” she said, deadpan.
Again, she won a grin, but it didn’t linger more than a slash of a second. “Uh, no. Your check spent fine. So did the generous bonus, Kate.”
“It wasn’t generous. I’m an extremely smart woman, dear. I never give money away for nothing. You earned every penny.”
He ignored the praise, and though he entered the office, she couldn’t get him to take a chair. He stood as stiff as a poker and jammed his hands in his pockets. “This visit is about a personal matter. I want to talk to you about your daughter.”
“Hmm. Somehow I don’t think you mean Lindsay.” Thoughtfully Kate ambled over to the sterling-silver tea set on the credenza. “Would you like some coffee? Tea? Something stronger?”
“You may not feel like offering me anything when I tell you what I’m here for, Kate.”
“My, that sounds ominous.” Privately she mused that it sounded far more interesting than ominous. The last time they talked, she’d sensed chemistry building between Gabe and her youngest daughter. Kate had thought a great deal about that since. Still, as tactfully—and relentlessly—as she’d tried to worm information out of her daughter, Rebecca had revealed precisely nothing.
Gabe’s appearance, though, told her a great deal. It took a minute before she realized what was so different about his looks. During all the months he’d done investigative work for the Fortunes, Kate had never seen his appearance less than neat, contained, professional. Gabe simply gave away nothing about himself with his clothes or his expression. He not only looked like, but had proved to be, a brick in a crisis.
But he hadn’t had a haircut in a month, she noticed now. His hair was shaggy; his boots were scuffed; his rugged face looked thinner and more gaunt. If he hadn’t been in a fight, he appeared to be looking for one. His shoulder muscles were bunched and braced, and his whole posture was edgy.
Typically, he didn’t beat around the bush. “I’ve been trying to reach your daughter for three weeks now. If I call, she’s ducking me with an answering machine. If I show up, she’s either not there or bolted up tight behind a locked door.”
“Hmm…” Shrewd eyes studied him again. “Well, Rebecca has been known to hole up like a hermit when she’s writing, Gabe. But if you’re asking for my help in reaching her—”
“Hell, no. That’s not your problem. It’s mine.” Gabe scrubbed a hand over his face. “Kate, you may kick my behind from here to Siberia when you hear what I have to say. There’s no way you’re going to like it. But the alternative was to shut up and put you in a position where you’d worry. I’ve worked too damn close with you over these last months. It seemed to me that you’ve had enough children to worry about because of secrets that were kept from you.”
“This is getting more fascinating by the minute,” Kate murmured, but she doubted he heard her, doubted he would hear anything anyone said right then. Clearly too wired to sit, he stood there, bristling with more virile, potent, electric energy than an imminent crack of lightning. “You know, I’m inclined to pour a sherry, even if it is only four in the afternoon—”
“I intend to kidnap your daughter, Kate.”
“Ah.”
“Since she’s been avoiding me like I have an infectious disease, I’m not sure she’ll go with me willingly. Which is why I may have to go the kidnapping route.”
Those dark eyes met hers squarely—full of defiance, full of defensiveness, full of fire. He seemed to expect her to knock his block off, which Kate technically wouldn’t mind doing. Even at seventy-one, she’d never lost her love for a challenging fight—and she’d metaphorically TKOed more than one adversary who mistakenly assumed that a woman would fold near real trouble.
Regrettably, though, she couldn’t give Gabe what he seemed to badly want. “Do you, um, have any particular location in mind as far as this kidnapping?”
“No. Haven’t got that down yet. But I’m thinking along the lines of a desert island with no phones and no way out. In no way am I asking your permission, Kate. I can imagine what you’re thinking. The only reason I’m telling you is that if—and when—your daughter suddenly disappears, I couldn’t have you worrying she was dead or injured or some terrible thing had happened to her. She’ll be with me.”
“This is quite a bomb to drop in a mother’s lap. I want you to know that I’m shocked and appalled,” Kate said primly, and then paused. “If you can’t find an island deserted enough, I could put the family yacht at your disposal.”
“I… Come again?”
“I just offered you the use of the family yacht. Or would one of the planes be more helpful?”
Gabe didn’t answer. He couldn’t have looked more bewildered if an elephant had walked into the room. Kate’s opinion that he really hadn’t heard a word she said before this was confirmed. Fascinating, how gut-sure he’d been that she’d be opposed to his involvement with Rebecca.
He’d clearly expected to face a bullet from her.
Kate smoothly poured him a glass of sherry instead. It was an awfully sissy drink for Mr. Devereax, but she kept no hard spirits in the office. A little bolster would surely help. He looked as if he were suffering from shock.
More relevant, he was unlikely to talk unless he was more relaxed. And Kate certainly had no intention of letting him leave until she’d heard a great deal more about Gabe and her daughter than she’d heard so far.
Gabe noted that all the maples were leafing out in Rebecca’s neighborhood. Daffodils and tulips peeked from flower beds. The grass had already turned that lush velvet green unique to spring.
Spring might be the season for love, but the rest of the omens weren’t good. Ponderous black clouds were roiling in from the west, turning the afternoon darker than gloom. When Gabe pulled into Rebecca’s driveway, the streets were deserted. There were no kids on swing sets or bikes anywhere, no ambling walkers, no moms pushing strollers. Lightning striped the sky. Thunder cracked loud enough to smack the eardrums.
Gabe opened the door of his Morgan, and using both hands, lifted his left leg outside the car. The Velcro cast fit the limb from knee to ankle. The cast made wearing a shoe on that foot impossible, and mobility was additionally tough because of the tan canvas sling holding his left arm close to his chest. Slowly, awkwardly, he stepped out. Slowly, awkwardly, he managed to get the crutch out and installed under his armpit.
A curtain stirred in Rebecca’s front window.
Gabe made a grimace of pain. And stopped for a moment to rub his right temple hard—the one with the butterfly bandage.
Big, fat spatters of rain started to splash down. Cold rain. His sweatshirt wouldn’t stay dry long, and his jeans had had to be cut to accommodate the Velcro cast. The spattering drips almost immediately turned into a steady driving rain. Still, there was no way he could hustle, when the fastest he could move was a hobble.
If he turned into a duck in the deluge—or got hit by lightning—there was no way he wanted to move fast, anyway.
Her front door was a long twenty feet away. Long enough for any chance passerby to see what pitiful shape he was in. Long enough for Gabe to mentally replay parts of the strange conversation he’d had with Kate Fortune in her office.
Considering that he came from the wrong side of the tracks, had never had an ounce of education or polish—and for damn sure had never been near an Armani suit—Gabe still wasn’t sure why Kate hadn’t raised hell over his involvement with her daughter. She hadn’t even asked if marriage was on his mind.
Instead, she’d poured him a glass of sickly-sweet cream sherr
y and rambled down a side conversational track. Over the past two years, her whole family had been thrown into chaos, she’d told him. “Every one of my children has suffered through some kind of serious personal crisis. We also had sabotage and financial problems affecting the business—which you know well, Gabe. Somehow, though, each of my children has grown and ended up stronger, happier, closer. With one exception.”
“Rebecca,” Gabe had guessed.
“Yes. Rebecca.” Kate had poured herself a crystal glass of that sherry, but she never had gotten around to taking a sip from it. “I could help all my children, except for her. Others see us as totally unlike because Rebecca doesn’t have my head for business. That’s poppycock. She’s extremely bright, just in a different way from me, and in personality I’m afraid we’re two peas in a pod. She’s never done one thing by anyone else’s rules, and nothing sways her when she’s determined. I want to see her happy. I want to see her settled. I want to see her with the houseful of children she wants. But of all the men who’ve come knocking on her door, there hasn’t been one, not one, who made her nervous. Until you.”
Nervous.
Gabe took another hobbling step toward Rebecca’s front door, thinking that the word nervous had been stuck in his mind for days now. Damned if he knew what Kate Fortune was trying to tell him. Damned if he knew if nervous meant something good—or something worrisome—when it came to Rebecca’s feelings for him.
No matter what the consequences, he’d discovered that he couldn’t wait any longer to find out.
Weeks ago, when Jake was freed, Gabe had been relieved that job was over, relieved that stacks of work kept him busy, relieved to have space away from Rebecca. As always, he’d been thrilled with his solitude and freedom.
Then came the flulike symptoms. An emptiness, gnawing at his gut. A sick-sad malaise that he couldn’t shake. A feeling of loss so huge that he couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep. The fever was all for her, but there seemed no recovery from the symptoms.
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