Just Believe (12 page)

He tried to be irritated at her thin
skin, even as he sensed her vulnerability. No, it was more than
that; it was tenderness, the pain of a bruised soul, but one still
willing, in spite of all the hurts.

Her brown eyes flew open, staring at
him as though she could hear his thoughts. Only then did he realize
he'd probed, sent his mind into hers, seeking.

He withdrew, grateful for the sudden
appearance of the waiter with their drinks.

Still shaken, Gaelen allowed the
silence to hang between them. It was actually restful to be with a
woman who didn't demand to be entertained. Though he was good at
entertaining, he also enjoyed the rest Annabelle unwittingly
offered.

Did she feel it, too?

Again her eyes met his, questioning.
Yet she didn't open her mouth to give him an answer to his unspoken
question.

"Are you ready to order, Dr. Riley?"
The waiter hovered.

"Miss Tinker? What will you have?"
Gaelen asked.

She jumped, as though not expecting the
question. "I'm sorry. I haven't made up my mind."

"May I suggest the Beef
Stroganoff?"

She nodded with a thin
smile.

"Make that two," he told the
waiter.

"Two Stroganoffs. Thank you." The
waiter took their menus, the shields they'd used to maintain their
distance.

Gaelen felt exposed and covered his
sudden uncertainty by picking up his vodka martini.

Conversation was definitely called
for.

"I was just thinking," he started, then
stopped. What he'd started to say was how nice it was to just be
with her.

What the hell was wrong with him,
anyway?

This is a mortal woman, Gaelen. You
can't allow her to get to you. Look at the mess Lucas has gotten
himself into.

"What?" she asked when his silence
became conspicuous. "What were you thinking?"

The willing soul was back. She leaned
forward, resting her arms on the table before her. Did she notice
how her breasts molded against her arms?

"Oh, nothing. I think I've been working
too hard." He sipped his drink to give himself a reason for
pausing. Better get to business. He didn't think he could do this
again. She was way too much for him. "Actually, I was thinking of
Lucas, where he is. Why he hasn't returned my calls."

* * * *

Since she had been prepared for it, his
raising of Lucas in the conversation didn't throw her. But the tone
of his voice, the worry, touched her. Did he know how much he loved
his brother? She could hear it clearly enough.

So, why was Lucas so afraid of Gaelen?
Why was he desperate that Gaelen not find him?

Annabelle put on her reporter's hat.
How could she get him to talk about his relationship with his
younger brother?

"Why wouldn't he return your calls?"
she asked.

He looked at her as though she'd grown
wings. "Didn't I just say I didn't know why?"

His tone was decidedly edgy. Should she
proceed?

Why not?

"Well," she offered, leaning forward,
selecting her words carefully, "if he's avoiding you, there has to
be a reason. From what Erin tells me, you and Lucas are
close."

"Why would she say that?"

"Aren't you?"

"Well, not close like you and Erin
are." He cupped the martini glass and rolled it between his large
hands. His large, strong hands. "We talk, but we've taken vastly
different roads."

"Does that matter? You're still
family."

"I don't think men are as
family-oriented as women." He drained his drink and set the glass
on the table. "Let's stop talking about me. I'm a very boring
subject, I assure you."

"I doubt that." She didn't know where
the words had come from.

The waiter delivered their Stroganoff
and lightly steamed broccoli.

"Ah, good. I'm starved," Gaelen said,
greeting the waiter's arrival.

Annabelle wasn't sure it was the food
he greeted, so much as a chance to change the subject. She watched
him dig in with typical masculine gusto for good food. He even
seemed to enjoy the broccoli.

She took a forkful of the Stroganoff
that was the restaurant's specialty.

"Ummm!"

"Good, huh? I was right?" His fork
hovered over his plate as he waited for her reply.

"To die for."

His smile returned in full force,
making her tummy jump. "Told you so."

They gabbed for a bit about harmless
stuff: hobbies, movies, books. Gaelen waved over the waiter for
refills for their drinks, and another plate of Stroganoff for
himself. Annabelle refused--she was still working on her first--but
enjoyed watching him enjoy.

It was so...restful. Annabelle hadn't
been so comfortable with someone in a long time. Maybe
never.

"What do you do?" he asked between
forkfuls of his second plate of Stroganoff.

So much for being comfortable. The
noodles coated in the savory sauce may as well have turned to
shredded newspaper soaked in mud. Annabelle was disappointed in
herself to be suddenly hesitant to reveal her line of work to a man
who held an advanced degree in Classical Literature. She wasn't
ashamed of her job. Exactly. It just suddenly seemed so...so
stupid.

"So, what do you do?" he asked
again.

Why bother hiding it? I'll never see
him again once Erin is better and I can go back to New
York.

"I'm a journalist."

Leaning slightly forward, with an
expectant expression, he clearly wanted more.

"I write for The Weekly
Investigator."

His reaction wasn't exactly what she'd
expected.

For the space of an instant, he stared,
his mouth hanging open. Then a flicker of sublime amusement crossed
his handsome face. Followed by a hoot of unrestrained
laughter.

"Oh, Bridget!" he snorted, rocking in
his chair and slapping his leg.

Heads turned in the fancy
establishment, causing a tide of heat to rise in Annabelle's
face.

Not only embarrassed at the attention
he was drawing to them, but furious that he'd laugh at her, she
tossed her napkin on the table and stood up with as much dignity as
she could manage.

He grabbed her hand, holding her beside
the table.

"No, please. Don't leave," he wheezed
between snorts.

"Don't leave? Why on earth would I stay
here to be laughed at?"

"Oh, no, no. I'm not laughing at you, I
promise," he sputtered. He drew a deep breath and added, "Please,
sit down. Please? I swear, Annabelle, I'm not laughing at
you."

"Then please share with me what's so
darned funny."

Shrugging his broad shoulders, he
smothered another outburst.

"Let's just say, you reminded me of
something else."

His strong fingers held her arm in a
tight grasp, so unless she wanted to make more of a spectacle of
them than he'd already done, she had to sit as he asked.

"Besides," he said, "you wouldn't want
to miss dessert, would you?"

Just at that moment, as though conjured
by his words, the waiter appeared with cheesecake and
coffee.

"The cheesecake here is the best in the
whole world."

"You've tried them all?" she asked,
skeptical.

"I've tried enough to know the best
when I get it. Tell me about your job."

"What do you want to know? I make up
stories for a supermarket tabloid."

His eyes flew wide. "You mean they're
not true?" he asked, with perfect sincerity.

In spite of her irritation with him,
she had to laugh.

"'Fraid not. After all, it's hard to
get aliens to submit to an interview."

"How did you get the job?"

"It was a mistake. I answered an ad in
The New York Times for a newspaper journalist. I was so naïve, I
figured, why wouldn't The New York Times advertise in their own
classifieds for a reporter? I almost didn't take it when I found
out, but I was fresh out of school, and I needed a job."

"But it isn't journalism?" It was a
question.

"No. But then it turned out journalism
isn't really my thing, anyway."

"What kind of stories do you
write?"

"I am a specialist in paranormal
phenomena, aliens, UFOs, psychics, potatoes that look like
Elvis."

"All fake?"

"All fake."

"Do you like it? Is it what you want to
do?"

Was he really interested? Should she
really tell him?

Annabelle shrugged and picked at her
cheesecake. "It's close enough, I suppose, fiction of a kind. I
really want to write children's books. The bane of being exposed
too early to Peter Pan."

"Peter Pan. Let me guess. You always
wanted to be Wendy?"

"No, Tinkerbell. She could
fly."

Gaelen narrowed his eyes and smiled,
then chuckled. "Tinkerbell," he whispered gently.

"Didn't you ever want to be some
fantastic creature?"

He laughed, a soft soothing sound. "No,
I've only ever wanted to be a mortal man."

"Even when you were a boy?"

"Even then."

A chuckle escaped her. "Why don't I
believe that?"

An expression crossed his face, one of
fear. He quickly masked it, but Annabelle was sure she'd seen
it.

"What don't you believe?" he asked, his
voice strained.

"That you only wanted to be mortal.
Where's the fun in that?" She raised her fork to her mouth,
noticing only as she closed her lips around the tines that he was
watching her intently. The cheesecake went down like gravel. "I
mean, Peter had ever so much more fun."

"There's fun to be had in living and
working. In doing something you love and producing something that
will show the world you were here. That you really
existed."

"Isn't it enough to exist?" she asked.
"Why do you have to prove anything?"

Gaelen smiled, "Maybe because..." He
puffed a chuckle. "I guess it must be a man thing. Live, work,
die." He scraped at the crumbs on his plate. "Maybe it's a fear
that I could disappear and no one would ever know I'd been
here."

Annabelle could hear there was more to
his fear than just not accomplishing anything in his
life.

"But, Gaelen, you are. You don't need
anybody's belief to make it so."

"That is a comforting thought. I'll
have to put it to the test sometime."

His words carried a heavy dose of
irony. Anxious to put him at ease again, she asked about the
subject obviously closest to his heart.

"So what exactly does a professor of
Celtic Lit do?"

He looked up from his plate. "Sure you
want to open up this topic? I'm just a man, dear, and very likely
to go on for hours once a beautiful woman shows interest in my
work."

"I'll take the chance."

A smile lit his face. "Well, I work in
the language department, actually. I pour Old, Middle and Modern
Irish into the sponge-like minds of my eager students." He looked
into her eyes to make sure she got his joke. "And I also teach in
the Medieval Studies department."

Well, she'd gotten him started. She'd
never had much interest in Ireland, but found herself caught up in
his passion for the subject.

"In fact," he said, stabbing his fork
in the air, "if it weren't for Ireland and her monasteries, there
would have been no Renaissance. Everything would have been
forgotten in the Dark Ages." He stopped suddenly and smiled,
clearly embarrassed. "Sorry. I didn't mean to get carried
away."

"Don't apologize, it's
fascinating."

He smirked a grin. "You're kind.
There's nothing more boring than a professor spoutin' off on his
area of study. And nothing less called for during an intimate
dinner with a lovely lady."

He'd done it again. He'd made her the
center of discussion. Though she couldn't say she minded how he did
it. Charming didn't begin to describe him.

A moment or two of silence passed
before he made her reporter's instincts twitch to life again with
an entirely innocent question.

"I don't suppose you've heard anything
of Lucas?" he asked.

Annabelle chuckled. "Don't you have
your brother's phone number, Dr. Riley? Why don't you just call him
if you want to talk to him."

He smiled, and the effect it had on her
wasn't even decent.

"Well, as I said before, Miss Tinker,
my brother seems to have forgotten how to return a
call."

He raised his coffee to his lips,
sipping slowly.

In the extending silence, Annabelle had
to fight the urge to talk. It was a clever reporter's trick, one
she'd used herself, and she admired the smooth way he'd done
it.