Cursed by Love (18 page)

One of her eyebrows shot upward. “Ah, so
you didn’t want to waste your money on me.”

“I was happy to order it, I was happy to
spend the money—if it was something you wanted. It would have been a waste if
you hadn’t liked it. I took the guesswork out of the equation, that’s all.”

She couldn’t believe that lips that
could kiss like his could speak words that took all the joy, all the risk, all
the fun of discovery out of life. She shook her head over the practicality of
it.

Would he ever lighten up?

“Sorry dinner took so long.” Gabe pulled
into Molly’s driveway. He noted the Porsche’s engine growled like a tiger and
handled like butter. Gabe gave into a moment of serious car-envy. He’d been
extra-careful with Max’s pride and joy all night. Except for Max’s new fiancé,
the reporter loved nothing more than his vintage Porsche. Gabe’s ass would be
grass if he let anything happen to it.

The car could go from zero to sixty in
ten seconds flat. Unlike his date, who had perfected dawdling to an art form.
Or to be generous, maybe she just enjoyed all of life’s little moments so much,
she wouldn’t hurry through any of them. Either way, for a workaholic like Gabe,
her pace took some adjusting.

And watching her roll every bite of
soufflé around on her tongue as she savored it had provided him with pure
pleasure, once he quit worrying about the time and the money and the public
display of affection. They could go to a movie any day. But a night of Molly’s
undivided attention was priceless. “Are you sure you don’t want to go to the
midnight show?”

Her blonde bob flared out like adorable
wings as she shook her head. One strand caught on her cheek and she brushed it
back, tucking it behind her ear, exposing a sparkly, star-shaped earring. “That
dinner was worth all the time it took. You should have let me split the bill
though. I'd have paid any price for that dessert.”

His gaze fastened on her as it had been
doing all night. Looking vibrant and gorgeous, she took his breath away, just
sitting there.

From the shiny cap of hair, to the slash
of shimmery eye shadow, over the creamy skin of her bare back and fabulous
curves, all the way down her smooth and shapely legs to the strappy-backless
sandals and her rosy-painted toes and toe ring, Molly held him enthralled. She
presented a bright and lively package designed to tantalize and frustrate him.
And she kept him on the edge of a full-blown boner most of the time.

Closing his eyes, he shoved away the
real-life fantasy of her and the memory of their kisses. He focused instead on
her last comment. She’d suggested they catch a movie another night. Relieved she
wasn’t brushing him off and out of her life, he pressed. “Sure. Good, when?
Where?”

She scrunched up her nose. Again,
adorable. “Tomorrow? I’ll have to check the listing in the morning.”

 He turned off the car and killed
the lights, plunging them into shadow. “Okay, then.”

He suppressed the urge to check the
information on his phone right this minute, since she found his command of the
Internet less than impressive. Instead, he hurried around to open her car door.
Walking up the drive, he hooked his hand through her arm. Her skin felt silky
smooth, warm and soft.

She accepted his touch willingly enough
again. But at some point during the evening, the mood had changed from the
sizzling excitement that flashed between them to a more cautious, more subtle awareness.
Something had happened to make her retreat.

Maybe he’d pressured her too hard about
selling the Lotus.

Maybe he hadn’t been romantic enough for
her, or spontaneous enough. But damn, he just wasn’t programmed that way. What
was wrong with being well-organized and logical? Nothing. Probably. But maybe
she found him boring.

And somewhere along the way, he’d
disappointed her. After she’d been so pleased about the daisies. And about the
choice of restaurant. And the soufflé.

And the kiss. Which had been great.
Fabulous. Fan-freaking-
tastic
.

Maybe it had been too much. But no, he
realized with a rare flash of insight, it hadn’t been enough. She’d enjoyed
every second of the kiss. It was his response that had annoyed her. Apparently
she’d found his
hesitation, embarrassment, and withdrawal
unappealing.

He thought fast about ways to regain his
lost ground. She liked spontaneity. He could be spontaneous. As long as he had
a minute to plan it.

“We don’t have to call it a night yet.
Isn’t there a little park on the corner? Why don’t we walk down there?” He
didn’t want the evening to end. He hoped she didn’t either.

“Sounds good.” She smiled up at him and
turned around with a little bounce in her step, encouraging the hope that he’d
redeemed himself a bit.

They strolled in silence, close but not
touching. He pulled off his stupid, constricting tie and stuck it in his
pocket. A perfect evening, with perfect company. Crickets chirped. An ambulance
wailed in the distance. Air conditioners hummed and some kind of citrusy,
flowery scent hovered nearby. Or maybe it was—yes, definitely—the scent of
oranges. 

Molly’s scent.

He had to get past his awkward reaction
to her perfume. These days, he got a hard-on just walking through Kroger’s
produce section. And down the ice cream aisle.

“You never talk about your parents.”
Just like that, his step faltered, and his erection vanished.

Even though he didn’t have Sierra’s
psychic ability, he should have seen the question coming. As close as Molly was
to her parents, she’d want to know about his sooner or later.

“They’re gone.” This was a subject he
didn’t share, period.

“How long have they been gone?”

He could sandbag her with vague comments
all day long. But with all that honesty and sincerity beaming up at him from
those oh, so curious eyes of hers, he couldn’t bring himself to lie, evade, or
mislead. His throat muscles worked overtime to force a response out of his
mouth. “My mother disappeared when I was a child. My father a couple of years
after that.”

He felt her warm gaze studying him as
she weighed his comment.

She slipped her hand inside his in a
comforting show of support. “Disappeared, how?”

They reached the park and left the paved
path. A circle of light surrounded a deserted gravel playground and they headed
toward it. She took a seat on an old-fashioned merry-go-round, as if it were
common practice for her. And it probably was. It didn’t take a genius to
imagine her enjoying playground duty with her students.

Doffing his suit coat, he turned away to
drape it across one of the bars while he composed his expression and his
answer. “She disappeared. Literally. Without a trace. ‘Suspected foul play,’
according to the police report.”

Despite a momentary stillness, empathy
oozed from Molly. “How old were you?”

He worked his throat in a swallow to
manage even one word. “Six.”

The one word brought the memories
rushing back. He remembered playing on the swings in the schoolyard. His
buddies had left when their moms arrived to take them home. He’d had on a new
Batman jacket his mother gave him for his birthday. One of the pockets had
gotten ripped at recess, and he dreaded letting her know. Not that she would
have been mad, just disappointed. Trendy jackets didn’t come cheap. Even as a
kid, he realized she must have had to sacrifice to get him something special,
something she knew he’d really like, even if it was something he needed, too.

After waiting for what seemed like an
eternity, a policeman had shown up with Granddad and the school principal. The ripped
pocket had turned out to be the least of his worries. Illogically, he’d carried
a grudge against Batman ever since.

“A difficult age for a child to lose a
parent,” she said quietly. “Were you in first grade?”

 “Yes.” He didn’t intend to say
anything else. Probably if she’d asked for more, he would have refused to
elaborate. But in her restrained silence, he discovered an uncustomary need to
pour his heart out, like some idiotic guest on Dr. Phil.

“She was on her way to pick me up from
school, but she never got there. Sierra was found in a stroller between school
and our house. Crying. Abandoned.”

He shrugged, trying to negate the
painful memory. As if it wasn’t important anymore. But it was important. Still.
Always would be
.

Talking about it brought back
everything. How he had felt. How devastated. How lost. Afraid. Nothing had ever
been the same. But lots of people had it worse.

“Just one of those unsolved mysteries
that happen in big cities every day.” Unfastening Granddad’s prized onyx cuff
links and rolling up his sleeves, Gabe blinked hard.

Molly dug her heels into the packed,
well-worn earth beneath her feet and idly walked the merry-go-round a few steps
to the right. “What do you think happened to her?”

Slipping his hands in his pockets, he
rocked back on his heels. “Don’t know. Granddad, Sierra, and I—we don’t talk
about it. It’s the proverbial elephant in the room that gets ignored.” Gabe dug
the toe of his shoe into the dirt while childhood recollections rushed to the
surface, mostly bad ones. But there were a few good ones featuring his mom. And
Sierra. And Granddad.

“Suspected foul play?” She asked it
casually, like she was inquiring about the weather and not the single most
important event of his life.

He ruthlessly shoved the idea away like a
plate of bad tuna. “She would never have abandoned Sierra in the street, or
leave either one of us unattended. But people do strange things all the time.
Maybe something unbearable happened at home. Maybe something with my dad, and
she just thought ‘That’s it, I’m outta here’.”

“But you don’t think so?” He heard the
strains of understanding in her voice. She was a third-grade teacher, for
Pete’s sake. Of course she’d be sympathetic to any child’s misery.

“I don’t.” He gnawed the inside of his
cheek. “Dad did some sketchy things in those days, and he knew a lot of
unsavory characters, but no connection was ever found.”

“Difficult. For you and Sierra.” Molly
reached out to him again. She placed her hand on his arm lightly, a gentle
touch of comfort that eased some of the tension. “Not knowing what happened to
her leaves it hanging out there though, doesn’t it? No closure, as my dad would
say.”

Gabe grunted, unable to form words.

“What about your father? Does sketchy
mean unreliable?”

“That’s a polite way to put it. I guess
you’d more accurately call him a con-man.” Gabe grabbed one of the
merry-go-round’s support bars and shuffled a few steps, setting the equipment
in motion. Just enough to remove him from the comfort offered by her touch,
before he came completely undone. “He’d only been around off and on before Mom
disappeared. He tried to handle us on his own after that, but it wasn’t his
style. He dropped us off with Granddad when I was eight, left to pursue some
dumb-ass scheme, promising to come back and get us. But he didn’t.”

Putting some force behind it this time,
he pushed against the merry-go-round, pushing away the bitterness at the same
time.

Molly lifted her feet from the ground,
tucking her skirt around her knees to sit Indian-style. The wheel spun through
a few half-hearted revolutions. When it stopped in front of him, she spoke.
“Devastating, but knowing what we know about the curse, kind of inevitable,
don’t you think?”

He glared at her. “Don’t start about the
curse.”

“Right, no connection at all.” She threw
her hands up in surrender. “Did you ever see your father again?”

He gripped the bars and pushed harder.
If he were smart, he’d milk the needy-child card. She was such a softy. He
could see she’d be all over that one. But as much as he wanted to sell the
Sleeping Lotus, as much as he wanted Molly in his bed—and somehow, the two
wants weren’t as intertwined as they had been—he couldn’t stomach the thought
of using pity to get what he wanted. Of using his past to get to her or the
Sleeping Lotus. He’d worked hard over the years to leave that pitiful child
behind.

Being abandoned by his parents, from
intention or circumstance, had taught him who he could count on and who he
couldn’t. It taught him to be tough and resourceful. He wanted to show her that
toughness now, not the vulnerability of the child.

As the merry-go-round slowed, he stopped
it with Molly in front of him. “There were occasional visits filled with empty
promises. We learned early on not to believe anything he said.”

“So your grandfather raised you.” Molly
smiled brightly, moonlight illuminating her face. “He’s a character, all right,
and he’s crazy about you.”

“Yeah, he’s the best.” Just thinking
about the old man brought a smile to Gabe’s face, too. “He’s all about that fun
and spontaneity you like so well. Sierra thrived on it, but I always preferred
things more orderly. And don’t give me that look. I went to enough therapy
sessions as a kid to know what a psychologist would say about my need to
control my environment.”

“Your history does put things into
perspective. I can relate to you a lot better now.”

He stared at her in disbelief, then took
a seat beside her, pushing the merry-go-round with his feet. “Can you? How? It
looks like you had the storybook-perfect childhood.”

She pulled back, and he felt like a jerk
for causing the pain that flitted across her face. “I’ve seen terrible things
happen in the lives of my students. My heart breaks for them. Their reactions
run the gamut, from shock to defiance to denial, withdrawal, disruption. And
yes, my childhood was pretty ordinary, if there is such a thing, but nobody
gets through life unscathed, you know. My grandmother recently died. My parents
are getting divorced.”