So Irresistible (32 page)

“—she would never have let Shane walk out of here.”

Caught, Gabriella paused in midscoop. She needed to clear out that crème anglaise. But she had to have her priorities.

Deliberately, she straightened. “Things are . . . complicated.”

Bowser greeted her very dignified response with a snort.

“Good pizza is complicated. An excellent extra-dark stout is complicated. Making a woman
love you
is complicated—”

“Humble brag,” Pinkie shot back, buzzing him out by slapping her hand on an imaginary game show buzzer. “Try again.”

“—but what
you
are, Gabriella,” Bowser went on steadfastly, ignoring Pinkie, “is stubborn. And proud. And way too willing to let both of those things stand in the way of your happiness.”

Silence fell in the pizzeria’s kitchen.

Gabriella lifted her chin, stymied for a comeback.

From the pass-through, Jeremy spoke up. “Shane’s not ever coming back here,” he said somberly. “You know that, right?”

Fed up, Gabriella whirled to face him. “That’s too far, Jeremy. Even for you. I know you don’t like me, but—”

“I like you!” Jeremy seemed astonished—and, suddenly, completely sincere. Wide-eyed, he said, “Sure, I can be snippy sometimes. But I don’t ever mean it. I’m
trying
to be funny!”

“Try again,” Scooter advised drily. “You’re about ten miles off the mark. Ellen DeGeneres, you
ain’t
.”

“She’s
so
funny,” Pinkie said. Everyone else agreed.

Gabriella thought maybe her brain
had
turned to pudding.

“Sor-
ry
!” Jeremy sniffed. Huffily, he grabbed a tray of salt and pepper shakers. “Ellen, huh? I guess I’d better go practice my dancing.”

To everyone’s amazement, he arched his brows and then wiggled away, dancing while he headed to the wait station to refill condiments and make roll-ups.

“Now
that’s
funny!” Hypo yelled through cupped hands.

Jeremy waved, then just kept boogying.

Gabriella couldn’t help laughing. “My whole world has gone crazy. Up is down. Black is white. Bad is good.”

“Maybe you need the perspective of leaving the pizzeria,” Hypo suggested. “You’re obviously working too hard.”

“Yeah,” Bowser agreed. “And now that we have rich Uncle Moneybags footing the bill, you can take a vacation.”

Meaningfully, they all advanced on her.

Gabriella stepped back, confused as all get-out.

“You’re taking a vacation. Right now,” Scooter advised.

“That’s right,” Pinkie agreed. “Go find Shane already!”

“This
has
to be the first day you two have gone without nookie since you met,” Bowser added. “So go get some!”

They came closer. They surrounded her.

Unbelievably, they lifted Gabriella off her feet.

She was basically being crowd-surfed toward the back door.

“But . . . the prep!” she protested, waving her arms. “The first seating! We’re short one server, down two line cooks—”

“We’ll handle it,” Hypo assured her. “We can do it.”

They pushed through the back door. They deposited Gabriella on the pizzeria’s back steps, in the alleyway near her bike.

She blinked at the bright sunshine, feeling as though she hadn’t glimpsed it for hours. Which, actually, she hadn’t.

She’d been too busy stuck inside, trying to deny the truth.

Shane
wasn’t
coming back. She’d seen it in his eyes.

“I don’t know what to do in this situation,” Gabriella argued. “I haven’t done it before.”
And I can’t trust myself
. “I need guidelines. There are no rules, no handbooks, no traditions—”

“Screw those.” Bright-eyed, Bowser gave the finger.

He actually had a lot in common with Shane, Gabriella realized. That would be one reason to bring Shane back.

“If you get scared,” Hypo told her, “just think of something that will distract you long enough to get through it.”

Gabriella met his gaze. “Penguins!” they shouted together.

Warmed by her crew’s efforts on her behalf, Gabriella hugged herself. She looked at them. They beamed back at her.

“We believe in you, dummy,” Pinkie said. “Move your ass.”

“Yeah.” Scooter nodded at her. “Go get your man.”

“Shane might not want me,” Gabriella confessed. She couldn’t count on what had happened between them in the walk-in earlier. They’d both been under duress. Neither of them had been thinking straight. “I
did
accuse him of sabotage. That’s hard to come back from.”

“Pshaw.” Bowser waved away her concerns. “You had your reasons. What’s a little misunderstanding between friends?”

“At least you
talked
to him about that,” Pinkie pointed out, giving her a significant look, “instead of hiding.”

She was right, Gabriella realized. They were all right.

Hiding out was
not
like her at all.

“Okay.” She squared her shoulders. “I’m going.”

Already prepared, Hypo tossed Gabriella her bike helmet. Pinkie threw her her purse. Bowser offered two encouraging thumbs-ups. So, fully outfitted in seconds, Gabriella looked down at herself. She was dressed in her sauce-splattered whites with a safety-first bike helmet and superdorky kitchen clogs.

She hardly looked her best. But there was no time to waste.

“Well, here I go!” Gabriella exclaimed, arms thrust high in a pose she hoped would foretell victory.

Then she turned . . . and saw the flat tire on her bike. Rats.

 

 

It became obvious to Shane pretty early on that he wasn’t supposed to be doing this. He wasn’t supposed to be standing in the crowded Pioneer Square in downtown Portland—with the TriMet rail sliding by every few minutes and the pigeons bobbing and weaving at his feet and the passersby gawking—handing out food to the unfortunate homeless few who hung out there.

He wasn’t a damn food bank.

But when Shane had considered all the steps involved in donating that cardboard box of groceries on his way to the airport—locating the food bank, driving there, parking, hauling the stuff inside, speaking to someone who would undoubtedly spot him as an impostor good guy right away—he’d decided to skip it.

Over a “good-bye Portland” triple ristretto espresso from his still favorite Bridgetown coffeehouse (where the barista had again recognized him with a smile, even after all this time), Shane had decided to take a new approach. He’d decided to take the food straight to the people who needed it most.

With Aussie Bill’s genial help, the whole endeavor had morphed into a sort of raucous midday picnic. Someone had started making sandwiches. Someone else had volunteered to share the squeeze packets of mustard sequestered in his backpack. Another person had begun pouring orange juice. Conversation had picked up, turning from travels to shelters to weather.

Amid it all, Shane grinned. He could have wound up like one of the perennially “backpacking” college-age homeless kids who played music on street corners while busking for change. If things had been different, he could have ended up checking municipal trash bins for cans to recycle. He could have been alone sleeping rough in doorways for shelter from the rain.

Something more lasting than a picnic needed to happen for these people, Shane knew as he caught Aussie Bill’s eye and grinned. But for now, this was a start. It was the start of Shane’s redemption. It might have been cheesy and obvious, but it was also stupidly fulfilling. He was on the right track now.

On the opposite side of the square, a woman came into view, bicycling as though her life depended on it. She was easy to spot on account of her blazing white (if sauce splattered) chef ’s uniform—and on account of her persistent presence in his dreams.
Gabby
. Shane blinked, sure he was imagining her.

He wasn’t. It was Gabby. But she was already bicycling past. He was going to miss her. He couldn’t reach her in time.

Downhearted, Shane watched as she whizzed down the street. Even if Gabby
was
going to his apartment, she wouldn’t find him there. She couldn’t call him; he’d already ditched his phone to avoid the temptation of weakening too much and calling her.

He needed to redeem himself before he did anything else.

He needed to finish this, then track down Casey Jackson—

“Uh-oh, mate. We’ve got trouble.” Aussie Bill nodded down the street at a police patrol. “We’re about to get shut down.”

“The police can’t shut down a harmless picnic.”

Aussie Bill disagreed. “Can and will, mate. See ya.”

He picked up a sandwich and ajar of farmers market jam for the road, then disappeared around the corner. Everyone else followed his lead, leaving Shane alone with a box of carrots, ground coffee, plenty of crumbs, and some orange juice. Plus a single peanut butter cookie that had gotten wedged into a corner and had been overlooked in the mêlée. Shane loved peanut butter cookies. He wondered if Pinkie made a good peanut butter cookie.

Not that that was relevant to him. Not for a while yet.

Easily dodging a suspicious-looking police officer, Shane hefted his cardboard box and left the square. He headed for his car, parked several blocks away near Portland State University.

He looked up. He was going to miss these damn American elm trees. Even in the light drizzle that was falling, they looked good. Green. Leafy. Majestic. Those trees were sturdy in a way that Shane had never experienced. They were planted for good.

Still walking, Shane caught a flash of white.
Gabby?

No. Gabby wasn’t an overeager pigeon fighting for bread crumbs being thrown by one of those ill-advised people who insisted on feeding birds—when the winged scavengers could damn well forage for themselves and probably would have feasted on the bread-crumb thrower’s fingertips if the person wasn’t careful.

Maybe, Shane realized, he was a little surly today.

Deliberately countering that, he approached a group of students. In short order, he’d given them his box of food.

“Dude,” one of the students called as Shane walked away. “Did you know there’s still a peanut butter cookie in here?”

“You can have it.” Genially, Shane waved.

“Sweet.” With an eager grin, the students split it.

Pursued by their wolfish exclamations of how delicious it was, Shane continued down the south park blocks. People passed while walking their dogs; couples shared lunch on park benches; flowers bloomed in well-tended beds beside the sidewalk.

His car came into view. Just one more block, and he’d be headed for the airport—headed for his uncertain redemptive future.

But he could handle that, Shane told himself, even as he felt reluctance to leave pull at him. He could handle anything.

“Hey, you!” a woman called loudly from behind him, breaking into his thoughts. “I’ll buy you a drink if you can accurately guess my bra size!”

Shane stopped. Only one woman had ever been bold enough to challenge him that way. Only one woman had ever dared.

It couldn’t be. Could it?

With his heart in his throat, Shane turned around.

“You are damn hard to catch up to,” Gabby told Shane, grinning as she pulled off her bike helmet. She strapped it to her bike, then came nearer. “I almost had you back at Pioneer Square, but then the police came and you bolted.” She gave him a teasing look. “Have you done something bad again?”

He couldn’t believe she was joking about that.

“I told you,” Shane said, “I’ve done a lot of bad things. I could give you a list.” That would scare her away. Maybe he
wouldn’t
give her a list. “I could give you references.”

“References who’d attest to your legendary badness?”

Yes
. He was too gobsmacked at seeing her this way to think clearly. Shane regrouped. “You need to know the truth. I’m not a wholesome guy with an all-American past and a bright future.”

“You can’t say what your future will hold.” Gabby looked right at him, just as brash and as confident as she’d always been—at least when she wasn’t being run into the ground by a secret saboteur. “And as far as your not being ‘wholesome’ goes . . . well, I just saw you give a box of food to a bunch of strangers. You’re not a bad person, Shane.”

“Actually,” he tried arguing, “I am. Sometimes.”

“You clearly need a self-image check,” Gabby persisted. “Because the man I see is someone who saved me today. Someone who saved my family’s business. Someone who pulled together my crew when I couldn’t, who helped manage all those disasters, who made sure I reconciled with my mom and dad and then washed all the dishes afterward.” She stepped nearer, her eyes full of compassion. “Maybe no one else has ever told you this, but I’m going to. You’re a good man, Shane. Maybe in spite of yourself—”

“Definitely in spite of myself. It’s all an accident.”

“—but you
are
. All the better parts of you are trying to get out. If you’d just quit stomping them down so hard—”

Inexpressibly moved by Gabby’s defense of him, Shane swallowed past a lump in his throat. His eyes kind of burned, too. Maybe he was allergic to those majestic American elm trees.

“—maybe you would feel better about things.” Gabby kept her beautiful gaze focused on him, generous and certain. “Maybe you would feel better about me. About being with me.”

Argh
. That was all he wanted. All he couldn’t have.

Hoping to achieve some necessary misdirection, Shane nodded at Gabby’s bike. It leaned against the granite base of the ten-foot-tall bronze statue of Abraham Lincoln that was a feature of the south park blocks. Even now, Honest Abe stared somberly down at them, seeming to either eavesdrop, judge, or approve.

Given the ambiguousness of his sculpted expression, Shane couldn’t be sure. But Shane had to make a stand anyway.

Otherwise, he’d weaken for sure.

Preparing to resist Gabby, he cleared his throat. “I don’t think that’s an appropriate parking space for your bike.”

There
. That would send her away. She was obsessed with rules and determined to do the right thing. Now she’d leave.

Instead, Gabby smiled. “I don’t think I care.”

Uh-oh
. “I, uh, have some things to do.” Vaguely, Shane gestured toward his car. “I was headed to the airport. I need to settle something with my friend Casey Jackson. I did something to him a long time ago, when we were just teenagers, and—”

“Later. If it was that long ago, it can wait a little while longer, right?” Seeming suddenly nervous but endearingly persistent, Gabby stepped closer. Now they were both encompassed by Abe’s cryptic, all-seeing gaze. “Whatever you have to do, it can wait.”

“I have to turn over a new leaf,” Shane blurted. “The food donation was a good start, but there’s so much more to do.”

With surprising perceptiveness, Gabby angled her head at him. “I get it. You don’t feel ready for this. With us.”

Mutely, Shane shook his head. “I will be,” he swore. “I thought I already was,” he admitted. “But this morning, with the walk-in and Frosty . . .” Another flash of that big man aiming his gun in Gabby’s direction chilled him. If he hadn’t moved quickly enough, they wouldn’t be having this conversation. Shane would have committed his most colossal screwup of all time. “I could have lost you. We could have lost each other.”

“So it’s better that we go our separate ways?”

He couldn’t help grinning. “You make it sound so crazy.”

“Because it
is
crazy!” Gabby cried, laughing. She shook her head. “Don’t you think I was scared, too? I was! But just because we might lose each other doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.”

Shane couldn’t respond to that. He was too stuck. Too confused. Too caught up in knowing he had to make things more definite. More manageable. More predictable and controllable.

Giving him a canny look, Gabby put her hands on her hips. “I understand. You’re trying to ‘fix’ this. You’re trying to make sure you
can’t
lose before you go for it with me.”

This time, it was Shane’s turn to laugh. “Believe me, I’m not.” He shook his head. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“But that’s what your ‘fixing’ is all about,” Gabby persisted. “You’ve had an uncertain life. As a kid, you couldn’t know what would happen to you next. You couldn’t change it. You couldn’t escape it, either. But now, as an adult, you can affect things. You can control the outcomes. You can set up things so that you win every time.
That’s
why you kept on fixing.”

Shane scoffed. “Nice try, Freud. But I didn’t win this time.” Pointedly, he nodded at her. “Otherwise, we’d be someplace else right now, having a different conversation.”

“We’d be getting naked and getting it on, and you know it.” Gabby’s eyes sparkled with certainty—and interest. She glanced up at Honest Abe. “Sorry, Mr. President, but it’s the truth.”

Shane laughed again. “He looks so . . . judgmental, doesn’t he?”

Musingly, Gabby glanced up again. “He looks patient. Like me.” She swerved her gaze to Shane. “I’m willing to wait for you to do whatever you have to do to feel ready. But I have to say, I think we should go for it. No rules. No certainty. Just love.”

Shane had the distinct sensation that his heart stopped.

After a little more drizzle rained down on him, his heart kicked back into action again. Standing there in the soggy south park blocks, with Gabby and Honest Abe and all the friendly Portlanders nearby, Shane found he just couldn’t do it anymore. He couldn’t deny himself. He was only one man with a laughably meager store of honor and self-sacrifice.

He wanted Gabby. He needed her.

“Love?” he asked. Embarrassingly, his voice broke.

Gabby took his hand. “Yes, you lunkhead.
Love
.”

“Because you haven’t said it for a while—”

“You’ve been keeping my mouth busy with other things.” Audaciously, Gabby winked at him. “And I’m not really the type to make flowery, over-the-top declarations.”

“Me neither,” Shane assured her, trying to look tough.

Evidently, he failed completely. Because Gabby grinned.

“I love you, Shane,” she told him. “I love you like anchovies on pizza and customers filling all my tables. I love your smile and your sexiness and your way of making me laugh—”

“You’re a
very
easy touch when it comes to jokes.”

“—and I love your generosity and your stubbornness—”

“I can’t believe you weren’t too stubborn to say that.”

“—and I’m so glad I found you at the brewpub that night,” Gabby went on determinedly, “because you are the only person who could have made me see what I was missing—what I was costing myself by working too hard and getting stressed out—”

“I know an
excellent
stress-relieving maneuver.”

“—and without you questioning me every step of the way, I would never have discovered what matters to me and what doesn’t. Because the truth is, I kind of intimidate some people—”

“They don’t know what they’re missing.”

“—and that gets lonely sometimes, but
you
got through to the real me, and you genuinely respected and liked me—”

At that, Shane could take no more. “‘Liked’ you?” Taking her face in his hand, he shook his head. “Are you kidding me?”

“—and I love you for that,” Gabby finished, breathless. “I do. I love you, Shane. So that’s . . . all I came here to say.”

“And now you’ve said it.”

“Right.” Bravely, she inhaled. “I have. So now I guess I—”

Shane stroked her cheek with his thumb. He sighed.

“You’re cute when you’re delusional,” he said. “You actually seem to think I’m going to let you go.”

“You are.” Gabby blinked. “You seemed pretty determined to do that a few minutes ago. And earlier, when you ducked me.”

“I wasn’t ducking you. I was avoiding the police,” Shane clarified. “Also, that was
before
you made that very sappy, very sweet, very sentimental love declaration.”

“Don’t try to tell me you didn’t like it.” Her eyes flashed at him, full of vivacity and conviction. “I know you did.”

“I’m not going to try to tell you that. First of all, it wouldn’t be true,” Shane said. “Second of all . . . I’m going to beat you. I’m going to make the biggest, baddest, most heartfelt—”

“You’re
competing
with me to say ‘I love you’?”

“I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t.”

As though considering that, Gabby examined him. She shook her head. “I don’t think you can win. Did you hear me just now? That was a
fantastic
love declaration. It was sweet and personal and meaningful. It was, if I say so myself, really good.”

“I loved it,
and
I can beat it,” Shane promised her.

“All right, then. Go ahead. Take your best shot.”

“All right, I will.” Feeling his heart swell with affection for her, Shane brought his mouth to hers. He kissed her.

He felt as if he were toppling into heaven. Upside down.

When he pulled away again, Gabby was gazing at him through dazzled eyes. “Very nice. But nonverbals don’t count.”

“I know. That was the warm-up.”

“I
do
feel pretty warm.”

“You just wait.” Shane inhaled, then regarded her seriously. “After I’ve said my piece, you’ll be really warm.”

She grinned. “You’re bluffing.”

“I’m creating anticipation,” Shane disagreed. Then, taking the final step he’d resisted for so long—because Gabby had been right after all, about him wanting to ensure success with her by “fixing” things first—he threw aside all his plans. “I’m getting ready to knock your socks off.”

“Now you’re stalling.”

“Wow, tough crowd.”

Gabby’s arched eyebrow prodded him on.

Full of mingled certainty and trepidation, Shane took her hand. He looked straight at her. “I love you, Gabby.”

She smiled at him. A moment passed. Birdsong rang out.

Abraham Lincoln seemed to glower down at them.

“Is that it?” Gabby asked. “Because my socks are still on.”

“No.” Somberly, Shane shook his head. “How could that be it? You’re the woman who saved my life! You’re the woman who showed me how to
have
a life in the first place. You’re the woman who taught me what it’s like to really laugh, to really worry, to really work hard.”

“You
are
the best mopper Campania’s ever had.”

“You made me earn my place with you, and I’m grateful to you for that. Because you showed me the kind of man I could be—”

“The kind of man who still can’t beat me at this?”

“—and
that
man is more than an abandoned kid, more than a troublemaking teenager, more than a loner who knows how to fix things for people who don’t deserve it.” Shane went on steadfastly, “Because of you, I know there’s more to me than rule breaking and rebellion. There’s heart and soul—”

“And lots of stuff that still
doesn’t
begin with L-O-V-E.”

“—and a sexual capacity I’d never truly tapped—”

“Hubba-hubba.” Gabby’s grin widened.

“—and a whole lot of love. For you,” Shane finished, ardently and absolutely. “Because I
do
love you, Gabby. When you’re around, the sun shines brighter and the rain doesn’t matter.” A few drizzly drops slid down his face, punctuating that fact. “When you’re around, I feel as though I could move mountains or write songs or create miracles—”

“Your mushroom-chopping ability has gotten pretty miraculous, given your rocky start.”

“—and the only thing better than seeing you smile at me is hearing you laugh,” Shane said. “Or maybe feeling you hug me. Or maybe, you know, listening to that sexy little moan you give, urging me on, right before you—”

“You’re getting off track, hot stuff.”

She was right. Inhaling, Shane refocused on Gabby. “I love you because you’re
you
, Gabby. I love you because together we’re so much better than we are apart. I love you because I need to see that smile of yours every single day. Because without it, I’m pretty sure I might die of longing. I’ve needed you for a long time, and I didn’t even know it. But now that you’re here with me, giving me another chance, I’ll be damned if I’ll blow it.” Shane hauled in a deep breath. “Whatever it takes, I’ll be there for you. Whatever you need, I’ll give it. If I don’t already have it, I’ll find it. I’ll track it down and I’ll bring it to you, and if that doesn’t work, then I’ll start all over again.”

“You’re getting a
little
warmer now.” Gabby sniffled.

“I’ll give you everything I have to make you happy,” Shane promised, feeling his heart finally overload with fondness for her. He gave her a crooked smile. “Because if there’s one good thing about being abandoned and alone and unloved so far—”

“Oh, Shane.” This time, Gabby did cry. “You’re not unloved.”