To Have and to Hold (11 page)

“I know. I don't think that of you. Really. But seeing you reminds him of…of what he gave up.” Her eyes were huge. “I've asked him to move away from Kowhai, maybe up to Hawkes Bay. I have family there and he could easily find work, what with the orchards and all.”

Jess hated that she was the cause of another woman's unhappiness, even if that same woman had once driven a stake right through her heart. Things had changed since then, become far less black and white. “I hope you two make it.”

Damon walked in the very next second. He put the can of juice beside the flowers on the beside table. “Here you go. Gabe's grabbing you a coffee, too,” he told Jess, an edge to his voice that she understood all too well and which made her incredibly angry. He was speaking in front of his wife for God's sake.

“So, what have you two been talking about?”

Kayla smiled. “It looks like congratulations are in order for Jess and Gabe.”

Jess felt her stomach drop but the other woman was too excited at sharing the news to notice anything wrong.

“She's going to have a baby, too!”

Damon's face went blank for a frozen second before he recovered. “Hey, that's really something.”

“What is?” Gabe's voice came from the doorway. “Jess.” He held out a cup of takeout coffee. “It's not too bad.”

She walked over and took the coffee, hoping against hope that something would happen to interrupt the inevitable. “Oh it's—” she began, but Damon was already speaking.

“The baby.” He smiled and Jess could tell it was forced. And if she could tell, then so could her husband. “You must be really happy.”

J
ess knew the second Gabe understood. She'd been leaning slightly into him and now felt the muscles in his body go as taut as high-tension wire. But when he spoke, there was no indication of surprise in his tone. “Nothing in the world quite like it. But you'd know that.”

Damon nodded. “Yeah.”

“We'd better get going.” Jess needed to get out of here and fix this mess. If it could be fixed. The single good thing that could be said was that neither Kayla nor Damon appeared to have any inkling of what had really just happened. “Things are getting busy at the station.”

“Thanks for coming.” Kayla smiled, but her eyes were on Damon as he came to hug Jess.

“If you ever need me,” he took the chance to whisper.

Calling on his strength was no longer her right. Nor did she covet it. “Take care of your family, Damon.”

And then she turned and walked away with the man who was now supposed to be her strength. Except that he was far too hard, far too untouchable.

* * *

Clear blue sky spread out in front of the plane, but the air was decidedly stormy inside. “Aren't you going to say anything?” Jess finally asked several minutes into the flight.

“What would you like me to say?”

“I'm sorry. So, so sorry. Kayla guessed and then she told Damon.”

He looked at her, the green of his eyes clouded by the darkest fury she'd ever seen. “Why didn't
you
tell me?”

“I needed time to get used to the idea.” She hated how hollow that sounded, though it was at least half the truth. Still, it was hardly enough to justify what had happened. “I never thought anybody would figure it out before I told you.”

Instead of releasing his anger at her, something she would have fully understood, he didn't say another word on the subject. The next week passed in the same near-silence. When they spoke, it was about nothing important, and in bed, the solitary sounds were those of his demands and her whispered pleasures.

Or of her crying out his name.

Ever since that lie she'd thrown at him in anger, he always made her say his name, made her remember whose arms she was in. As if she could forget.

Jess knew it wasn't just her pregnancy they had to talk about, but also how Gabe had treated Cecily in the hospital. But she couldn't do it, simply could not bring herself to shatter her last illusions about this man she'd married for all the wrong reasons. So she threw herself into her work. However even her beloved art failed as a tool to keep her from thinking.

And the reason for that was terrifying. Despite her repeated admonitions to herself to never forget that theirs was a marriage based on business, not love, she'd somehow begun to think of Gabriel as her husband in more than name only, begun to accept him on a level that went far below the surface.

That night when he'd gone with her to help Kayla and Damon had altered how she viewed him. The change had been coming bit by slow bit but that one act had truly pushed aside her preconceptions about who he was. Now she wasn't sure she hadn't merely replaced one illusion with another.

Tapping her pencil on top of the sketch pad, she stared at the beautiful mare nickering at her from over the stall gate. “I wish I could get on you and ride away into the sunset.” Just run away from her problems. But the thing was, she'd done that once already. And if she still wasn't strong enough to deal with her life, then that year in L.A. had been a total waste.

Which brought her back to the endless circle of her confused thoughts. Gabriel was the one who'd sent her to L.A. on the faith of her promise that she'd be back. He'd let her go, given her what she wanted. Did that make him a good man, or simply one calculating enough to play the odds and ensure he came out the winner? After all, that year of freedom had left her even further indebted to him.

Jess didn't know the answer…to anything. Least of all her own emotional turmoil. Frustrated, she began to draw. Page after page after page, stroke after stroke, capturing every inch of the stables and the two horses currently in it. The hours passed. And at last, she was able to stop thinking and simply
be
.

* * *

Gabriel was talking to Jim about some repairs to the quarters where the shearing gang stayed when they came around each season to strip the sheep of their woolly coats. However his concentration was shot, anger tearing holes through his focus and deflecting his attention toward the stables…toward Jess. “What?” he said, when Jim seemed to be waiting for a response.

“You okay, Gabe?”

No.
Right now all he could think about was the distant way Jess had been acting since that day at the hospital. He could well guess why—Damon had told him about his and Kayla's planned move.

Surprised at the depth of his own anger at Jess's inability to get over the younger man, Gabe had made no move to bridge that distance. Except at night. And then he'd made very sure that
he
was the only man on her mind. “Why don't we discuss this another time? The maintenance isn't urgent.”

Jim raised an eyebrow. “Sure. Not like you're listening to me anyway.”

“Sorry.”

“Good thing I don't offend easy.” He grinned. “The quarters can wait, but we do have to talk about whether or not to start break feeding.”

Break feeding involved putting the ewes into a defined area much smaller than their usual pastures until they denuded that section of grass. It slowed their weight gain, a necessity since overweight ewes sometimes had trouble lambing.

Gabriel forced himself to think. “Let's hold off on that for a week.”

“Yeah, that's what I was thinking, too.” The foreman raised his head at a call from one of the hands. “Gotta go. Oh wait, I forgot to tell you—one of the farm bikes died for good yesterday. We need to get it replaced.”

“It's already on the way along with a spare.” He'd put in the order after conferring with the station mechanic last month. “Should be here within the week.” A delighted wave later, Jim was gone, but Gabe stood staring at the ground for several minutes before giving himself a mental kick and getting moving.

He had a hundred things to do, including checking the southern access road for damaged gates. That was all he needed right now-stock escaping out onto a road used by heavily laden trucks among other vehicles. Kowhai was fine for small purchases, but the bulk of their supplies were delivered, either by truck or by air. Which reminded him—he needed to talk to one of the contractors about some additions to the usual delivery.

Frowning in thought, he lifted his head just in time to see smoke puff out from the stables. A lick of flame followed. His heart stopped.

Jess was in there.

Everything else was wiped from his mind, his sole thought to get her out. Alive. He didn't stop to give instructions to the men—there was a detailed system in place on Angel in case of fire. Gabriel had been accused of being obsessive about the drills, but today, the men reacted with military precision. The fire wouldn't be allowed to spread. However that wouldn't save Jess if she'd already been overcome by the smoke.

One of the horses burst out in a rush of terror as Gabe ran inside. Coughing against the smoke, he refused to consider that Jess might've been crushed under the hooves of the panicked animal.

The fire was far worse than it looked from the outside, the stored hay going up like paper. “Jess!” He had no idea where she'd been when the fire broke out, but went with instinct and headed toward the two stalls that had been occupied today. If he knew his wife, she would have tried to save the animals. “Jess! Jessica!”

Eyes burning, he lowered his body in an effort to get under the smoke. The sound of violent neighing alerted him that the other horse remained trapped. A second later, he found both the horse and Jess. She was attempting to lead the animal out but it was too frightened to cooperate, kicking and rearing back from the flames licking up the opposite wall.

Tears streamed down his wife's face but he knew she'd never even considered leaving the horse behind.

“Jess!”

Seeing him, she mouthed his name. Every protective impulse he had punched through to the surface, screaming at him to get her out. Taking the reins from her, he pushed her forward. “Go!”

She didn't argue. He got the horse moving and headed in the same direction, only to bump into her as she stood bent over, body wracked by coughs. Decision made in a split-second, he set the horse free and slapped its rump. It ran instinctively toward the freedom it could sense in the slight wind blowing through the doors.

Gabe took Jess into his arms. His lungs were on fire and his scarred arm seemed to burn anew, as if the skin remembered its decades-old ordeal. Gritting his teeth, he fought off the memories and followed the sound trail laid by the horse. They'd wrenched back his struggling body when he'd tried to save his family but he
was
going to get Jess out.

Not allowing himself to think of anything else, he focused on locating the entrance. Then there it was—a gate out of hell. Cold air rushed into his lungs as he staggered out. Someone tried to take Jess from him but he refused to release her until he was sure she'd survived unscathed. Her hand touched his cheek. “I'm okay.” The words came out as a croak but they proved to be what he needed to hear.

* * *

Several hours later, Jess went looking for her husband. Dr. Mackey had checked her out and declared what she already knew—she was fine. He didn't think the baby had been harmed, but had in his practical way, pointed out that she was barely pregnant. If her baby was strong, it'd make it. Jess had preferred hearing that over platitudes. She also had every faith in her child. Half its genes were Dumont and those were nothing if not stubborn.

She found Gabe near the smoldering ruins. The stables had been gutted, but none of the other buildings had suffered any damage due to the quick action of the men and women on the station. “They did good,” she said, walking up to stand beside him.

“What are you doing up?” He scowled, the brim of his hat shadowing the expression to dark intensity. “You were supposed to rest.”

“Dr. Mackey said nothing about that.” She coughed to clear a slightly husky throat. “You're the one who decided I should play invalid.”

“What happened in there?” He turned to face her, hands on his hips.

Paradoxically, the aggressive posture calmed her. She'd worried the fire might have awakened bad memories, but from what she could see, he was his usual abrasive self. “I don't know. I fell asleep.”

“You what?” It was almost a growl.

“I spent the night throwing up,” she told him in case he hadn't heard her lurching about.

“So you fell asleep in the
stables?
”

She scowled. “What's wrong with you? No one got hurt, the horses are okay.”

He took a long, deep breath, as if trying to calm himself. “Where did you fall asleep?”

“What does it matter?” She really couldn't see why he was getting so worked up about this.

“Where?” he snapped.

“Where do you think? On one of the haybales. It was there and I was getting drowsy so I just laid down.” Nothing out of the extraordinary.

“You were on hay.” He sounded so in control, it told her exactly how angry he was. “You could've been killed.”

“I woke up when the horses started kicking the walls. There was time for me to open up the stalls, but Starr wouldn't leave.”

“So you decided to risk your neck to save hers.”

“I couldn't leave her there.” She could not believe he was arguing with her over this. She'd seen the way he cared for the station animals. “She was completely panicked.”

“You should've got the hell out the second you knew something had gone wrong.”

“Why?”

“Why?” He looked as though he wanted to strangle her. “Because you know how fast hay burns and the building was wood for crissakes!”

A twinge of conscience pinched her because he was right. If he hadn't come in after her, she could have been in serious trouble. But something in her wouldn't let her admit that. “I had to get the horses out.” She had a sudden thought. “I'm fine, Gabe. Really. And the baby will be, too.”

“I have trained men for emergencies. They could've rescued Starr and with less fuss.”

The ice in his eyes put paid to her silly notion that he was acting this way because he'd been frightened for her safety. “Pardon me for having a heart. Maybe if I was like you,” she said without thinking, “I would have been able to leave that poor horse in there!”

He'd opened his mouth to respond when Jim walked up and spoke in his ear. His entire face went so dangerously quiet that she knew they'd located the person responsible for the fire.

“Send him to my office.” The words were ground out.