Getting Gabriel (15 page)

What was he doing?

More to the point: who was he doing it to?

Gasping for air he pulled away and before Alice opened her eyes he turned around, stalking away. He could feel her eyes on him all the way to his car, but he didn’t look back.

Chapter 11

"A kiss? Okay, progress."

"Progress? You call this progress? It was a total kiss-and-run. I tell you, there should be law against this sort of thing."

"Yup. He thinks he’s being honorable. I’m not sure this qualifies as progress at all. It’s not very flattering to have a man running away from me all the time."

"He’s running. That’s the important bit. If he weren’t interested, he wouldn’t be running. He’d just shrug you off."

"He thinks he’ll hurt me," Alice complained. "Because he’s not exactly Mr. Commitment, I guess. I mean – I’m not expecting him to promise forever after."

"Hmm. Really? Weren’t you the person who wanted eternity? Side-by-side burial plots and all?"

"Of course I want that! But I’m not expecting him to rush out and order our color-coordinated wreaths just yet! I mean – commitment comes gradually. Right?"

"Have you talked to him since last night?"

"No. I called him, but he didn’t answer. I left a message on his machine though – saying thanks but no thanks to Mr. H – just in case he got any ideas about showing up with some guy in tow."

Susan cackled. "You have him on the run. I doubt he’ll be ‘showing up’ any time soon. You’ll have to do the chasing, hon."

"Hi, Gabriel."

He grunted a greeting, but didn’t look at her. The gutters were much more interesting, especially since he was up a ladder, and if he so much as glanced Alice’s way, he’d see straight down her shirt, and he’d done enough ogling last night to last a lifetime.

Alice took a deep breath. Then she laughed. "That was quite a kiss yesterday."

He grunted again. What had he been hoping? That she’d become an amnesic overnight? Of course she was here. Of course she wanted to discuss that kiss.

"Wow," she breathed. "I’d love to find out how you kiss when you really like the woman. I mean, I’ve had my share of kisses, but nothing like that. It made me feel so... so..."

He climbed down from the ladder while he still could hold his balance. The way this conversation was heading, he might not know his up from his down in a few minutes.

"Made you feel so what?" he asked, against his better judgment. He knew how it had made him feel. It was nothing short of a miracle that he’d managed to tear himself away from her. It was another miracle he wasn’t dragging her to his bedroom right this minute.

"Well...I don’t know.... just.... alive, I guess. I couldn’t even go to sleep, I was so... "

Gabriel waited patiently, but she wasn’t finishing her sentence, just waving her arms in wordless gestures. "I know, Alice," he drawled. "I was also ‘so....’. You shouldn’t read anything into it. It’s physical. That’s all. No big deal. It was just a kiss."

"Just a kiss?" Alice snorted. "Don’t give me that. I know all about what ‘just a kiss’ is like, Gabriel, and that was not it!"

He shrugged, clenching his hand around the rusty old screwdriver he’d used to muck old leaves out of the gutters. He would not let her breathless words and wide eager eyes affect him. "You haven’t been kissing the right men. Thanks for the compliment, though. You’re not bad yourself."

She came closer, still staring at him with that wide-eyed look. "You kissed me like you meant it. Like I was the most important thing in the universe. It was amazing. So incredibly romantic." She touched his arm briefly. "But you’re right. I haven’t been kissing the right men. I should have been kissing you."

He swore, at her words, and her touch, trying not to relive that memory because he knew she was right. She had been the most important thing in the universe and if it hadn’t been for that overwhelming need to protect her – from him -- he’d never have been able to let go. He’d wanted her so badly he was still tingling from it.

After one blasted kiss. She was right, damnit. It hadn’t been ‘just a kiss’. It had been something else. Something he’d never come across before.

Obviously, he’d lost it. Any moment now he’d start believing in little green men. He steeled himself and forced up harsh words. He had to. If this went any further, sooner or later, she’d get hurt. "Don’t make me into a romantic hero, Alice. I’m not one. I never will be. I don’t do romance, I don’t do I-love-you’s or Valentine’s Day or any of that crap."

She shook her head. "I don’t care. That kiss was more romantic than all the silly candy hearts in the world."

"There was nothing romantic about that kiss," Gabriel growled. "Kisses aren’t romantic. That’s just a silly fantasy. Something for books and movies. Kissing serves a purpose. Crude and to the point, kisses are just a precursor to sex. They’re just foreplay."

Alice was gaping. "Foreplay? We were doing foreplay? Seriously? Oh, wow. I hadn’t though of it that way."

She sounded ecstatic. Gabriel closed his eyes. This had backfired. He needed to stop talking himself into a corner. "Forget the damn kiss, Alice. It won’t happen again."

"I’m not sweet. I’m rough and inconsiderate. I hurt people’s feelings. I go to extreme lengths to avoid commitment. In your own words, I’m typical ‘scum’."

His lids lifted, meeting her gaze for a moment before they closed again and he rested his forehead against hers. "You know there is no girlfriend."

"Who is the room in your house for?"

"Terrific grammar for an editor."

She touched the corner of his lips with her thumb. "To hell with my grammar. I don’t like the idea of having kissed someone else’s guy."

Alice poured the coffee, while he leaned against the counter, wondering how he was going to tell her – what he was going to tell her. It wasn’t simple. It wasn’t easy.

"But... wouldn’t she just move into her own apartment or something? Or a hotel? I mean... no offense, but your parents are loaded and this isn’t exactly the Hilton."

Gabriel looked down and absently stirred his coffee. "It’s not that simple." He kicked a table leg. "It’s complicated. She may need a place. This was her aunt’s house. She spent a lot of time here as a child. She’ll feel more at home here than anywhere else. If she goes through with this, she’ll be vulnerable. I don’t want her alone in a hotel somewhere."

"Oh..." Alice breathed. "That’s why you’re out of your father’s company, isn’t it? You’re taking your mother’s side in the divorce and he doesn’t like it."

Sometimes things clicked in Alice’s head without much conscious thought to put together the pieces. "She’s the ‘friend’ you talked about, isn’t she?" she whispered. "The battered wife. She’s the reason you’re teaching self-defense classes. Your dad is hitting your mother."

"We’ve talked about this before, Alice. You’re not accounting for hope. And love. And trust – misplaced as it may be. All emotions that make you vulnerable – and human. Hope keeps her with him."

"Fear, Gabriel. It’s fear, not hope."

"Hope and fear are two side of the same coin, aren’t they? Anticipation of the future – negative or positive." He shook his head. "That’s the philosophy of it, anyway."

"That’s just it, Alice." Gabriel’s tone was harsh, but there was grief in his eyes. "I can’t make her do anything. You have no idea how much I want to make her leave that house. But I can’t. All I can do is provide her with options and hope she takes them. Believe me, I’ve done everything short of carrying her forcibly out of the house – and I’ve been damn tempted to do that."

"She wants to stay?"

"She doesn’t want to leave." Gabriel’s shoulders sagged. "She won’t leave him," he said softly, his head turned away from her. "She says he’s changing, that it won’t happen again – and she defends him, saying it isn’t that bad, doesn’t happen that often – there’s no way for me to know the details. She says she won’t give up on their marriage after all these years." He slammed the counter with a fist. "I talked to my father. He knows he’ll not get away with it one more time. I even went all 21st century on him and discussed counseling. But he insists this was none of my business and not to interfere in their personal life."

"That’s why you’re not talking..."

"I left his company and threatened him with his worst fear -- public exposure, if it ever happened again. But I don’t know if that’s enough. I wish I could just drag her out of that house. How the hell can I convince her to leave him?"

"You can’t," Alice murmured. She put her arms around him and leaned her cheek against his back. He was filled with angry energy, his body tense, and she longed to heal him. "You’re right, Gabriel. You can’t do anything more than what you’re doing. I’m sorry."

She couldn’t heal this. How new was this? Had he suffered his father’s anger too, as a child? It wasn’t the right time to ask, but maybe later. "I’m so sorry, Gabriel. You’re doing all you can – support her and give her a place to come to when she’s ready. There’s nothing else you can do now."

He turned, and his arms went around her, and she hugged him tighter, reveling in giving him some measure of comfort. His breath ruffled her hair and she reached up to his stubbly cheek and found a lone tear hiding.

She felt his helplessness and frustration as if it were her own. She wanted to help him. Wanted to heal him. Wanted to take all his pain away.

"Damnit, Gabriel," she whispered and stood on tiptoe, pulling his head down so she could kiss the tear away. "I wish there was something I could do. I wish I could make everything bad go away."

He chuckled, his fingers briefly grazing over her cheek. "You do, honey. You make it all go away. When you’re around I can’t think about anything else."

"Really?"

He rested his forehead against the top of her head and closed his eyes. "Yeah. Really. And fighting you off has me exhausted."

Alice preened and put her hands on his chest, tilting her head in the hope of a kiss. "Stop fighting, then?" she murmured.

Gabriel’s hand circled her wrists, squeezing gently before he removed her hands from his chest and stepped away. "What do you want from me, Alice?"