Walking on Air (14 page)

Laney retraced her footsteps to her room to don her robe. Nan set bowls of porridge and plates of toast on the table. Then she went to a drawer for spoons. She deliberately avoided Gabriel’s gaze, because it was not her intent to debate with him her parenting decisions. The man had no idea how to raise a girl to become a proper young woman, so his opinions were not only impertinent but also unwelcome.

To his credit, he voiced no objections, and by the time Nan joined him and Laney at the table to break their fast, some of the tension had eased from her spine. Laney tucked into her meal without speaking. She tended to be less talkative upon waking than she normally was. As a result, Nan often leafed through fashion periodicals during the first meal of the day. Studying fashion plates was something she rarely found time to do, so she jumped at any opportunity. Unfortunately, with Gabriel at the table, she felt obligated to rigidly observe the rules of proper etiquette.

She yearned briefly for one of the fashion issues she kept tucked away in a kitchen cupboard, but Gabriel’s low moan of pleasure when he took a bite of cinnamon toast soon distracted her. He actually closed his eyes to savor the taste. Then, lifting his lashes, he grinned at her and said, “This is
delicious
. I’ve never tasted the like.”

Nan noted that he at least swallowed his food before speaking. Otherwise, his manners were deplorable. He had one elbow propped by his bowl. He didn’t bother to put down his spoon before taking a sip of coffee, choosing to use both hands, as if dining were a race to the finish line. The linen napkin she’d put at his place remained folded on the tablecloth and, she surmised, would never make it to his lap. She decided to be grateful for small blessings: He had not yet slurped or used his spoon as if it were a shovel, so he wasn’t completely beyond salvation.

“You’ve never had cinnamon toast?”

“No. How the hell do you make it?”

Nan shot him a meaningful look. He appeared to be puzzled for a second, but then he glanced at the quiet Laney and said, “Pardon my language.”

Nan bit back a smile, feeling heartened.
Definitely trainable
,
she decided, but giving the man even a glimmer of polish would take unflagging determination on her part. “Cinnamon toast is easy to make.” She quickly told him how. “It’s difficult for me to imagine never having tasted it. It became a favorite breakfast treat for me when I was a small child.”

He took another bite, once again humming appreciatively at the taste. “I wonder if they serve this in restaurants. I don’t recall ever seeing it on the menu.”

As a young woman, Nan had gone with her father to restaurants for supper, but she’d eaten out in the morning only while traveling out west, and then during a brief layover at the Random Hotel while Laney recovered from pneumonia. Though Laney’s illness had frightened Nan at the time, she now felt it had been fortuitous because she had discovered the hat shop during their stay. “My experience with breakfast menus is limited, I’m afraid. In the future, perhaps you should suggest to a café or restaurant entrepreneur that cinnamon toast be added to the morning selections.”

His ebon brows snapped together. “A restaurant
what
?”

Laney giggled. Battling a smile herself, Nan sent the girl an admonishing glance. “
Entrepreneur
is a word of French origin, meaning business owner or proprietor.”

“Ah. Thank God it’s French. I’ve worked hard to build my vocabulary, but I’ve stuck to only English. For a second there, I thought I’d missed a big word. They’re my main focus—learning how to say them, what they mean, and how to use them. The widow Harper stressed to me during the year I stayed with her that being well-spoken is important.”

Nan felt it unnecessary to say that
entrepreneur
was commonly used by English-speaking people. Given what little she knew about Gabriel’s appalling childhood and lack of formal education, she found it admirable that he’d studied so hard on his own to learn his letters and build his language skills.

“The next time you make this, will you show me how?” he asked.

Nan quite liked cinnamon toast herself and wouldn’t mind having it two days in a row. “Tomorrow morning then,” she agreed. “It’s truly very simple.”

“It doesn’t taste simple to me,” he said, his voice ringing with sincerity.

Nan refused to believe he would remain so easy to please at mealtimes. She’d once seen her father bludgeon her mother in the face with a full platter of hot meat because it had not been prepared to his taste. Though the fault had lain with the kitchen staff, Helena had still taken the brunt of her husband’s temper.

•   •   •

Unaccustomed to company in the kitchen, Nan was rattled by Gabriel’s intent observation of every move she made as she prepared yeast bread, mixed up a batch of corn bread to go in the stuffing, and then began pie dough. He was full of questions, asking why she did this and why she did that. A careful measurer when she cooked, Nan grew so distracted while adding ingredients to a bowl that she feared she might have put in twice the amount of baking powder.

Hoping for a brief respite, Nan set him to the task of cutting into the pumpkin. Behind her, she heard him ask Laney, “Did you have a jack-o’-lantern for Halloween?”

“We did! Mama helped me carve it. She saves our candle stubs all year long so we can have ours lit in the shop window until right before we go to bed and still have some fat stubs left over for our Christmas tree.” Laney was a great fan of holidays. “Ours was the best jack-o’-lantern in all of Random.”

“Do you often use candles?” he inquired.

“Fairly often. When we’re doing nothing that requires a lot of light, candles are cheaper to burn than kerosene.”

“Less expensive,” Nan corrected over her shoulder. She could almost see Laney rolling her eyes. “You won’t run low on breath using that term, little miss, and it is far more ladylike.”

“Burning candles is
less expensive
,” Laney complied, her tone implying that the trials she endured under Nan’s tutelage were nearly unbearable.

“I figured Nan for being big on decorations during the holidays,” Gabriel mused. “The Christmas boughs that framed the shop window were beautiful.”

Nan turned to give him a curious study. “When were you here at Christmas?” she asked. “I thought this was your first visit to Random.”

Darting worried looks at their pumpkin carver, Laney avoided Nan’s gaze, which struck Nan as being rather odd. Gabriel, however, didn’t miss a beat. “Yes, I’ve been here before.”

Nan was about to ask when, but he forestalled by saying, “Are we having turkey? I know some folks around here raise domesticated ones. Not that I care. I only ask because you mentioned making stuffing.”

Since coming to Random, Nan had served turkey at Thanksgiving only once. Though it had been a small bird, she and Laney had been unable to consume but a portion of it, and the remainder had gone to waste. “With only the two of us, I serve roasted chicken as a substitute. It’s quite good, the stuffing is just as marvelous, and we aren’t left with meat going bad. Hope you don’t mind.”

“Mind?” His white teeth flashed in a teasing grin. Not for the first time, Nan noticed how the creases in his lean cheeks deepened when his mouth curved. “I’ll bet your roast chicken today puts all the turkeys cooked in Random to shame.”

“If you’re implying that I’m the best cook in town, you’re in for a big disappointment,” she replied. “Luckily, it’s hard to go wrong with one of Ellen Hamm’s hens. I don’t know what she feeds her chickens, but their eggs are superior, and so is their meat.”

Gabriel had scooped out the pumpkin seeds onto an open newspaper, and one bit had fallen to the floor. Nan stooped to pick it up.

“I’m sure it will be delicious,” he assured her. “Hell, I’d be happy if you served shit on a stick. You’re just that good a cook.”

B
y nightfall, Nan had grown so weary of Gabriel’s lavish and nonstop compliments on the Thanksgiving Day meal she’d prepared that she was feeling a bit waspish as he stoked both fires while she prepared for bed. Granted, he’d done full justice to the meal, actually helping himself to thirds of everything, but no man could be as nice and easy to please as he pretended to be.
Drat him.
Was this what it felt like to play chess with a master?
No
, she decided.
It’s a vicious game of cat and mouse, and I am the unfortunate mouse.

Nan was too miffed to be worried overmuch tonight about being raped in her own bed as she jerked off her clothing.
This pumpkin pie could take a blue ribbon at any state fair in the country.
She couldn’t get over that one. Nan considered herself a fairly accomplished baker, but she’d never produced anything from her kitchen that deserved such accolades. Gabriel Valance was a master, all right—a master at spouting poppycock. He didn’t miss a trick at figuring out what a person would want to hear.

She wasn’t buying any of it. The man was doing his deliberate best to charm her. Playing along with him, and formulating an escape plan if needed, was her only option while she waited for the ax to fall. What irritated her most was that she’d enjoyed hearing the compliments. She wasn’t sure if that made her madder at Gabriel or at herself.

As for the ax . . . well, she knew it
would
fall. It always did with men. Right when she least expected it, he’d turn vicious, lacerating her with words—or fists. Every time she looked at his broad, work-hardened hands, her stomach knotted. Martin Sullivan had been possessed of a wicked backhand, which he hadn’t hesitated to use on Nan when, in his view, she spoke out of turn. She had vivid memories of mind-numbing pain radiating through her jaw after he smacked her. Sometimes in very cold weather, her jaw still ached. Gabriel topped her father by several inches, and outweighed him, too. If he ever dealt her such a blow, she’d be picking herself up off the floor nursing a shattered cheekbone. Better not to irritate the man.

Nan donned her nightgown and then jerked so hard on her hairpins that several strands came away with them. Tears stung her eyes. Laney was totally bamboozled by Gabriel. Nan didn’t like that one bit, either. In the space of a single day, the girl had burst out laughing more times than she had over the last six months. It bruised Nan’s feelings. She wasn’t sure why. There was no harm in laughter. It was just such a marked change, with Laney giggling so much more than she usually did. Was Nan so somber and unsmiling that she smothered Laney’s natural high spirits?

Nan sank wearily onto the edge of the bed. She’d tried so hard to be a good mother, doing for Laney all that she’d yearned for herself as a child—doling out lots of hugs, giving plenty of praise, using endearments, buying presents the child coveted, and spending fun time with her each evening, sometimes playing cards or board games, other times just talking. And Laney had seemed happy.

Now she seemed
happier
. Nan tried to tamp down the resentment that welled within her. She had been born with a tendency to open her mouth when she shouldn’t. Years of living under her father’s stern rule had taught her a certain reticence, but she still had a temper that could flare quickly and make her forget to control her tongue. If she allowed herself to feel angry with Gabriel, if she stupidly grew lippy with him . . . Well, the possible consequences didn’t bear thinking about.

She heard a board creak in the hallway, a prelude to his imminent invasion of her cherished privacy. She leaped up and dashed to the armoire to fetch her wrapper, tossed it on the foot of the mattress, and then dived under the covers, drawing them firmly beneath her chin just as he tapped at the door.

“Come in,” she called.

He stepped into the room rubbing his middle and smiling. “I am so full I feel like I’m going to pop. Never should’ve had that fourth piece of pie, I guess. It was too delicious to resist, though.” Standing just inside the closed door, he began unbuttoning his shirt. “The one and only time I ever got homemade pumpkin pie before today was the Thanksgiving I lived with old widow Harper. She was feeble and had bad eyesight, so it wasn’t a very good meal. The whole time I stuffed my face, I had my eye on the pie she’d set out by the stove. I could barely
wait
for a piece.”

Nan tried to imagine him as a hungry little boy brought in off the streets by a sickly but well-intentioned old woman. “Was it good?” she couldn’t resist asking.

He laughed and shrugged out of the shirt, his well-muscled shoulders rippling in the lantern light as he moved. Nan was reminded of a beautiful sculpture of dark teak, rubbed to a high sheen.
Beautiful?
The thought no sooner settled in her mind than she shoved both it, and her gaze, away. Men could be handsome, she supposed, but never comely or beautiful. What in tarnation was she thinking?

“It was
horrible
. She added salt instead of sugar.”

Startled from her discomfiture, Nan said,
“What?”

“You heard me, salt. I took a huge first bite, chewed once, and then tried not to gag or spit it out.” Seemingly comfortable in a half-naked state, he strode around the foot of the bed. “She was a sweet old gal, stern and unsmiling most of the time, but God rest her, she never laid an angry hand on me. Aside from the fairly brief time I had with my mother, I have no memory of kindnesses from anybody except that frail, shaky old lady.” He sighed. “She no longer cared for sweets at that age, so she never tasted the pie. She’d worked so hard to make it, and I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, so I pretended to eat the whole thing. Mostly I spit it in my napkin and became an expert at rinsing out the linen after supper, but sometimes she wouldn’t look away so I could do that, and I had to swallow it.”

Nan’s eyes burned. Only a boy with a very gentle heart would have done that to save an old lady’s feelings. How, she wondered, had that boy matured into a man who coerced a woman into marriage simply because he liked her looks?

“I’m sorry your childhood was so awful.” Despite her resentment and distrust of him, Nan sincerely meant that. No youngster should have to endure what he had. “It’s so sad.”

“Hey, I lived through it,” he said as he hung his guns on the bedstead. “If it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger.”

Nan wasn’t sure the trials she’d survived had strengthened her. She often felt like a puppy trying to paddle in a swift current and barely managing to keep its nose above water.

Gabe sat behind her to kick off his boots. “Can you turn off the lantern tonight? I’m so full I’d have to roll over there to do it.”

Not wishing to be treated to another display of amazing masculine musculature, Nan complied, pushing up on an elbow, quickly dousing the light, and then huddling under the covers until the residual amber glow faded away to leave them in blackness.

•   •   •

Gabe hated that he made Nan so nervous. When she shifted to face him, he knew it wasn’t to snuggle down and get more comfortable, but to watch every move he made so she’d be ready if he decided to grab her. What she planned to do about it, he couldn’t imagine. She wasn’t much bigger than a minute.

As he’d done last night, he stretched out on his back, using his folded arms as a pillow. It was a comfortable enough position for him; he used his saddle as a pillow out on the trail and often slept this way. Not that he wouldn’t have enjoyed lying on his side or stretching out a little, but that would make Nan even more uneasy. She needed her rest, and if he meant to let her get any, he had to play like a corpse laid out in a coffin: ankles together, legs straight, arms folded. His only exception to that pose was to have his hands behind his head instead of resting on his chest.

Once he got settled, he whispered, “Good night.” After she responded, he closed his eyes, waited a couple of seconds, and then emitted a snore that he hoped sounded real. She’d fallen for it last night, thank God. Only after she’d heard him snore had she been able to relax.

He forced out another sputter, trying not to overdo it, and waited, feeling the mattress shift under her slight weight as she snuggled down and sighed. The sound was laced with relief. He bit back a smile, wondering how long he’d have to do this before she finally started to trust him.

It didn’t surprise him when he soon heard a change in the rhythm of her breathing. She’d worked her little fanny off all day, and had to be exhausted. So exhausted, in fact, that she hadn’t insisted on sewing in her workroom long into the night. Soon there came that soft little snuffle of hers. He smiled into the moon-silvered darkness.
Ladies do not snore.

Gabe was still grinning slightly as he drifted off to join her in slumber.

•   •   •

Gabe wasn’t sure how long he’d been asleep when a choked cry jerked him back to consciousness. It took him a second to recall where he was and, more important, with whom. His heart caught when he realized Nan was jerking and muttering nonsensically in her sleep. In the shaft of moonlight that bathed the bed, she thrashed with her fists, tossed her head from side to side on the pillow, and then strained as if to escape a great weight on top of her.

Gabe’s sleepy bewilderment was swiftly replaced by understanding.
A nightmare.
And he knew exactly what it was about.
Barclay, the fat bastard pig.
Nan was either pinned under her attacker’s limp, massive body, or she was enduring a cruel pawing of her breasts. The memory of it that flashed through Gabe’s head made him angry enough to kill. If he’d had another year to live, instead of only a measly month, he would have hit the trail for Manhattan to have ten meaningful minutes alone with Horace Barclay. Hell, while he was at it, he’d give Martin Sullivan a good ass kicking, too.

Wanting to wake Nan and bring the torture to a swift end, Gabe grasped her shoulder. “Nan. Hey, honey. Wake up. It’s only a—”

A small, bony fist caught him in the mouth, and the next thing he knew, his wife was grunting, scratching, and slugging. He ducked his head, trying to protect his eyes. “Nan! Stop it. It’s a dream, only a dream!”

With a low wail, she nailed him on the ear with the heel of her hand, which sent a peal of loud ringing through his temples. Then she brought up a knee and almost got him in the groin. He snaked out an arm to catch her around the waist, rose up on his other elbow, and pinned her flat on her back in a two-count move.

“It’s me, Gabe,” he told her. “Wake up, Nan. It’s only a dream.”

With him holding both her wrists in one hand, she could no longer swing at him. So instead she panted—whiny, jerky pants brought on by panic—and bucked with her hips. The futility of her efforts drove home to Gabe just how helpless she’d been to defend herself against Barclay. Gabe knew the instant she escaped the clutches of the dream and came awake. She dragged in a deep breath and went absolutely still.

“A dream,” he said again. “Only a bad dream. You know who I am now?”

“Gabriel?” she whispered. “Oh, mercy.”

Her nightgown was damp with sweat. He felt the tips of her breasts harden and thrust against his bare chest. A certain part of his body reacted, but Gabe didn’t allow his mind to follow its lead. He was too concerned about Nan right then to entertain such thoughts.

She stared up at him, her large eyes shimmery with tears. “I’m sorry. Oh, dear, I’m so sorry.”

Confident now that she’d come fully awake and wouldn’t swing at him again, Gabe released her hands and levered his weight off her. As he drew slightly away, she reached out with wildly shaky fingers to touch his mouth. “You’re bleeding.”

He tasted with his tongue. “Well, shit, you busted my lip.” Gabe shifted onto his back and got his head comfortably cradled on his pillow. “That’s quite a right hook you’ve got going there, darlin’.”

He had hoped to make her laugh. Instead she said, “It wasn’t you. I never meant to hit you.”

Gabe wiped his mouth. “I know that. And no harm done. It’s not the first time I’ve been served a knuckle sandwich. At least you didn’t loosen my front teeth.” He angled her a glance. “That must have been some nasty dream you were having.”

She drew the covers over her shoulders and huddled on her side, facing him. He wanted her to tell him about it, but she remained silent for so long that he was about to give up on that when she said, “I have bad nights sometimes, one nightmare after another. That’s one reason I always work so late, because I dread going to bed. I never know when the dreams will come, and the one I just had is the worst of all.”

“Barclay?”

She pushed at her tousled hair and nodded. No words to describe the dream slipped from her lips, though. That worried him.

Her delicate features were defined by moonlight and shadow, enabling him to see the soft arch of her brows, the dainty bridge of her small nose, and the fullness of her soft mouth. A very kissable mouth.

Whoa, son. The last thing she needs is for you to get as horny as a two-pronged goat.
All the same, he wanted her. She was so beautiful, how could he not? During his adult years, he’d bedded a lot of women, prostitutes one and all. Maybe gals like that started out in their profession looking fresh and sweet, but if so, Gabe had never run across one. It was a hard, punishing life that they led. Most of them grew old and worn before their time. By contrast, Nan was like a fine bit of lace fresh from the bolt.

“I’m not going to be able to go back to sleep,” she confessed. “I think I’ll go to my workroom for a while. I can finish trimming Mrs. Hamilton’s dress with lace. Sewing helps calm my nerves.” She sat up. “I truly am sorry about your lip.”

Gabe hated to think of Nan working well into the night while he lay in bed sleeping. “You’ve already had a long day. Won’t you at least try to get some rest?”

“I . . . can’t.” Perched on the edge of the bed, she craned her neck to look back at him. “Once this starts, it goes on all night, one dream after another.”

Gabe understood all too well. It had taken him years to outgrow his nightmares, and even now, they still woke him occasionally. “You can’t go the rest of your life avoiding sleep. It’ll take you to an early grave.”