Charity's Angel (16 page)

She concentrated every fiber of her being on her left leg, on moving it. Even the merest fraction of an inch would do. Something, anything, to show that she hadn't dreamed the earlier movement, to show that there was reason to hope for the future.

Gabe was watching. Even if her leg twitched, he'd see it and tell her. But she didn't need him to tell her. She felt the movement. Not much, certainly—an inch or less—but it didn't matter how much she moved. Only that she'd moved her leg.

Her eyes flew open, reading the confirmation in Gabe's eyes that she didn't really need. She stared at him, hardly able to absorb the miracle.

"I moved." It wasn't a question but he answered it anyway.

"You moved."

"I think I'm going to cry." She blinked moisture from her eyes.

"No, you're not." Gabe sat up, pulling her into a sitting position. "You'll be walking before you know it. Next thing you know, you'll be running marathons. Hell, you'll probably be ready for the next Olympics."

Swept along on his extravagant vision, Charity laughed shakily. "Don't you think you're going a little overboard? I've never run a marathon in my life."

"It's never too late to start." His smile faded. "God, Charity, this is all I've wanted since the shooting. Just to see you walk again."

"Well, I'm not walking yet." She was trying desperately to rein in her hopes. "It could have been a fluke."

"It wasn't a fluke. I can feel it in my gut." His hands slid down her arms to take hold of her fingers. "This is your big break, kid," he said, in his best imitation of a studio mogul.

"I hope so, Gabe. God, I hope so."

"I know so." In that moment, with Gabe holding her, his eyes bright with belief, Charity didn't doubt that he was right.

If Charity had been determined to keep up her exercises before, she became obsessed with them now. Given even a fragment of progress, she wasn't going to let it slip away. She spent as much time at her exercises as Mary would allow.

And she made progress. Agonizingly slow at first but it was progress. Every tiny step forward was a triumph, even if she promptly took two steps back.

Now that she had reason to believe she really would walk again, she focused every fraction of her energy on that goal.

The more she concentrated on regaining the use of her legs, the less time she had to think about Gabe, to think about him saying he loved her. She didn't want to think about that. If she thought about it too much, she might begin to believe it, and that would almost certainly lead to nothing but heartache.

❧

"Please, Diane. Please say you'll come and stay." Charity was not too proud to beg. Her sanity was more important than her pride. She couldn't take much more time alone in Gabe's house. It was either convince Diane to move in or she would have to move out.

"Why? Does Gabe turn into a werewolf at midnight or something?" Diane leaned back in her chair, giving her sister a suspicious look.

"Of course not. It has nothing to do with Gabe," she lied.

"Then why do you want me to move in? And wouldn't Gabe have some objections?"

"I already asked him and he said he didn't mind." Charity shifted uneasily, remembering the way his brows had risen. Something in his eyes had told her that he knew exactly why she wanted her sister to move in and that it had nothing to do with her rather tangled explanation about Diane helping with her therapy.

It had been a thin excuse at best since Gabe knew as well as she did that Diane would be gone most of the day. So unless Charity expected to work on her therapy in the middle of the night, there wasn't much by way of practical reasons for her sister to move in.

"There's no practical reason for me to move in," Diane said bluntly.

"Can't you just do it because I asked you to," Charity suggested hopefully.

"Of course." Charity had only a moment to feel relieved at her prompt agreement before Diane continued. "But if I'm going to move to Pasadena when my home and business are in Beverly Hills I don't think it's unreasonable of me to be curious about why

I'm doing it. Not to mention that you're asking me to move next door to that dreadful prig of a doctor."

"Jay isn't a prig," Charity said, taking on the most minor objection first.

"You couldn't prove it by me. The man looks at me like I'm an insect."

"You just don't know how to cope when a man doesn't fall panting at your feet. It's not an uncommon experience for us mere mortals."

"I don't expect a man to pant at my feet." She caught Charity's disbelieving look and shrugged. "Okay, so maybe I've gotten used to a pant or two. But there's got to be something between panting and sneering. And don't think you're going to distract me from the point of this whole conversation," she added, fixing Charity with a stern look. " Why do you want me to move in?"

Charity ran her fingers along the arm of her wheelchair—the wheelchair she would soon be leaving behind.

"It's Gabe, isn't it," Diane said.

"More or less." Charity sighed. She should have known she wasn't going to be able to fob Diane off with some thin story.

"What did he do?"

"He told me he was falling in love with me."

Seeing Diane's stunned expression almost made it worth having to explain. Diane blinked, opened her mouth and closed it again and then sat staring at her as if she wasn't sure she'd heard correctly.

"Well. The beast! How dare he! Shall we call the police?"

"He is the police," Charity reminded her. She smiled at Diane's exaggerated indignation.

"That doesn't mean he can say that he's falling in love with you! What kind of a fiend would do that?"

"Okay, okay. So it doesn't seem like a serious problem to you. But it is to me."

"Why?"

"Why?" The simple question stumped her for a moment.

"Yes, why? You feel the same way about him, don't you?"

"Of course not." Her denial trailed off under Diane's stern look. "That's not the point."

"You love him. He loves you. That seems to be very much the point."

"But he doesn't love me," Charity cried. "That's the problem. He only thinks he loves me. It's really just because he feels guilty about the shooting. If it hadn't been for that, he'd never have noticed me at all."

"Why are you so sure that's all it is? You're a terrific person. Why is it so hard to believe Gabe could really be in love with you?"

Charity ran her hands restlessly over the wheels of the chair. She didn't want to hear what Diane was saying. There was nothing she'd like more to believe than that Gabe was in love with her. But all her instincts were telling her that she was going to get hurt if she didn't keep all the facts clearly in mind.

The fact was that Gabe felt guilty about her paralysis. It wouldn't have been hard to confuse some of that guilt with something that seemed like love.

"I just don't want to be here alone with him," she said finally, sidestepping Diane's question. "Will you come and stay?"

"Of course I will, Char. If it means that much to you, you know I will. But I'm going on record as saying that you're going to regret it if you walk away from this without at least giving it a chance. Gabe is a great guy and he's had the good taste to fall in love with you. Don't let him get away."

Charity nodded. It was easier to pretend to agree with Diane than to argue. As for Gabe's feelings for her, she was going to try not to think about that until she could walk. Once she was walking again, she'd see if Gabe still thought he loved her.

C
harity sank into the wheelchair with a bump. Her face was shiny with sweat, her arms ached from the effort of holding herself upright on the parallel bars, and her legs felt like overcooked spaghetti. But she was grinning from ear to ear. She tilted her head back to look at Diane, seeing the happy tears in her sister's eyes.

"Not bad, huh?"

"Not bad?" Diane's voice shook with emotion. "You were fantastic! I can't wait to tell Brian."

"Maybe once he hears this, he'll stop treating Gabe like a serial killer," Charity said. She wiped her face with the towel draped around her neck.

"Gabe is going to be so thrilled."

"I'm not going to tell him. Not yet."

Diane's eyes narrowed on her sister. "Why not? I know you've got some doubts about your relationship but he'll be so thrilled about this."

"I know. But it isn't like I'm really walking yet."

"But you're making so much progress."

"I'll tell him," Charity said. "I just want to do it in my own time and in my own way. Promise you won't say anything?"

Diane nodded reluctantly. "If that's what you want."

"It is."

❧

"So YOU'VE really done it." Annie's words were half statement, half question.

"I handed in my resignation," Gabe confirmed. He leaned back in his desk chair and put his feet up on the corner of the desk, hands behind his head, as he grinned at her. "I am about to join the ranks of the unemployed."

"You were just waitin' until we nailed Moodie, weren't you?" Annie leaned against the side of the desk.

"Yep."

"It meant that much to you to put him away?"

"I wouldn't have felt good about leaving him on the streets."

"Because of Nita?"

"Maybe." He lowered his hands and dropped his feet from the desk. "Maybe I just wanted to go out on a positive note. And leaving Lawrence Moodie loose would not have been a positive note."

Annie eased one hip onto the corner of the desk. She tilted her head to one side, studying him. Gabe raised his brows. "Do I have a smut on my nose? Or are you just trying to memorize my face so you won't miss me so much when I'm gone?"

"I'm just tryin' to remember when I've seen you so relaxed. I think the last time was at Jim Briggs's wed-din' when you drank half a bowl of punch and serenaded us all with your version of 'Tangerine.'"

"If you're implying that I had consumed more liquor than I could hold with dignity, I deny the charge," he said stiffly.

"Dignity? You and dignity weren't even kissin' cousins that night, sugar." She dodged the wad of paper he threw at her, grinning. "You certainly proved you weren't the next Perry Como."

"You know, the real question isn't why I'm resigning," Gabe suggested. "The real question is how I managed to live with you as a partner all these years."

"Just lucky, I guess." They grinned at each other, in perfect accord.

Annie's smile was the first to fade. "You know, I am goin' to miss you. This place just won't be the same without you around to annoy me."

"Maybe you'll be lucky and your next partner will be just as irritating," Gabe suggested.

"Impossible."

Gabe glanced around the station house. Already he felt a certain distance from it. A good percentage of his life had been spent here—some of it good, some of it bad—and he was going to miss it. But it was time to move on. And he didn't think he'd be looking over his shoulder, wishing he'd made a different choice.

"You goin' to join your dad and become a cowpoke?" Annie asked, breaking the slightly melancholy silence that had fallen between them.

"I've been giving it some thought. Wide-open spaces have a certain appeal after L.A."

"You takin' Charity with you?"

Gabe shot her a sharp look, not at all fooled by her casual tone. Annie had been worried about his involvement with Charity from the beginning. She thought he was going to take a nasty fall. She could be right, he acknowledged ruefully, thinking of the distance Charity kept between them these days.

"If she'll go," he admitted slowly.

"And if she won't? Would you still go?"

"Well, that would depend on why she wouldn't go." He picked up a pencil and turned it idly between his fingers. "If she isn't too fond of Wyoming, we could work something else out. If she isn't too fond of me, then I guess there wouldn't be much reason to hang around, would there?"

"Any woman in her right mind would be glad to move anywhere with you," Annie said loyally.

"Thanks. Now if I could just be sure Charity was in her right mind."

"How's she gettin' along with learnin' to walk again and all?" Annie straightened an untidy stack of papers on his desk.

"I guess it's going pretty well." Gabe shrugged. "She doesn't discuss it with me. But I gather everyone's happy with her progress."

The truth was that Charity didn't discuss much of anything with him these days. She held Diane as a shield between them. Gabe could almost laugh at her obvious machinations to make sure they were never alone together. Almost.

"You really love her, don't you?" Annie's soft question made him realize that he'd been staring at her without really seeing her. His mouth curved in a half-embarrassed smile.

"Yeah. I really love her."

❧