Walking on Air (18 page)

When the business about her assets was completed, Nan stood, thinking that they would leave, but Gabriel indicated by gesture that she should sit back down. To Hamm he said, “Now I’d like you to draw up my will, and make Nan my sole beneficiary. It should be simple enough. I liquidated all of my father’s assets after he died, so there’s no real property involved, only some money in my Kansas City bank account.” He paused. “Well, that’s not exactly right. I do have a horse down at the livery.” He glanced at Nan. “When I die, will you take care of him for me? Maybe rent some pasture at the edge of town, have a shelter built, and see to it that he’s fed and watered every day? His name’s Brownie, and he’s been a loyal friend to me. I don’t want him sold.”

Nan stared at her husband. She’d ridden often in New York, but she hadn’t been near an equine since, except for when she and Laney had traveled cross country, partly by stagecoach. “You’re not going to die, Gabriel. And you’ve made your point. There’s no need to draw up a will.”

“Everyone dies,” he replied. “Will you take care of my horse or not?”

“Of course. I just think—”

“How you
think
is what got us here,” he snapped, cutting her off. To Hamm, who was staring at them both in bemused amazement, he continued. “That takes care of it, then. When I cock up my toes, Nan gets everything, including my horse. If anything happens to her, it goes next to Laney. I don’t give a damn about my personal effects.”

Hamm shifted papers on his desk and cleared his throat. “I can certainly draw up a will for you, Mr. Valance, but in order to make it ironclad, I should include all the pertinent financial information, the name of your bank, the names or numbers of your accounts, and—”

“There’s only one account.” Gabe gave the attorney the name of the bank and his account number. “It’s also under my name, Gabriel Valance.”

Hamm hunched over his desk, jotting down the information. “And your middle name?”

“I don’t have one. My mother just named me Gabriel. Maybe she didn’t know about middle names. I don’t think she came from educated folk.”

Nan’s heart squeezed.

“And, roughly estimating, of course, how much would you say is in the account?” the attorney asked.

Gabe frowned thoughtfully. “It’s been a while since I looked at the balance, but the best as I can recollect, about one point five, give or take a few thousand.”

Hamm’s pen jerked to a stop. He lifted his head to stare at Gabriel. “I’m sorry. You mean one point five thousand, surely. Fifteen hundred?”

Gabriel’s mouth tipped into a humorless grin. “I don’t know where you learned your numbers, Hamm, but where I learned mine, you can’t give or take a few thousand from fifteen hundred dollars. My father left me all his money, plus gambling and whorehouses in four different states. After I sold all the damned businesses, I had a little over one point five million in the bank. I don’t live high on the hog and haven’t spent much of it, so I’m guessing what’s left is still on the plus side of one point five.”

Walter Hamm emitted a sound that reminded Nan of a cat trying to cough up a hairball. He wasn’t the only one who was stunned. Nan nearly fell off her chair.

After concluding business at Hamm’s office, Gabriel, without speaking a word, ushered Nan across the street to Simon White’s banking establishment, where he arranged to transfer ten thousand dollars into Nan’s bank account. During the transaction, Gabriel never looked Nan’s way. Feet numb, thoughts circling, she stood at his side, her gaze pinned to the muscle that ticked in his lean cheek as he signed the necessary paperwork.
Ten thousand.
Nan’s father was wealthy, and she’d grown up in palatial surroundings, but never in her life had she had access to so much money. And to top it off, Gabriel had signed away his right to touch a single cent of it.

If his purpose had been to make her feel like a worm, he’d certainly succeeded by the time they exited the bank and started across the dirt thoroughfare to her shop. When they reached the boardwalk, Nan groped in her cloak pocket for the key. Gabriel didn’t follow her over to the door. When she turned to glance back at him, she felt sure the memory of him standing there on the boardwalk, feet spread, hands resting at his hips, would be forever branded in her mind. Black Stetson, black hair, black clothing, and black boots. He still looked like Satan himself, only Nan now knew he wasn’t. The anger had gone from his face. It was completely expressionless. She thought she preferred the anger. Behind those fathomless dark eyes, she suspected, swirled a world of hurt. And she was responsible.

There was a lump in the middle of her chest that ached like a sore tooth. She owed him an apology. She knew that. But so many feelings were tangled within her that she couldn’t sort one from another to form a coherent thought, let alone a sentence. Besides, a busy boardwalk wasn’t the place to conduct that sort of conversation.

“About that bet we made,” he said slowly and succinctly. “When I come back, you need to pay up. I want a hundred dollars out of that satchel.”

“What?”
Nan wasn’t sure she’d heard him right. “You nailed the plank back down at all four corners.”

His eyes burned into hers. “In between waiting on customers, I guess you’ll be plenty busy, then, won’t you? I want my hundred dollars, no ifs, ands, or buts.”

“You just transferred ten thousand dollars into my bank account. Why can’t you wait and let me withdraw a hundred?”

“That’s
my
money.” He jabbed a thumb at his chest. “I want a hundred of
yours
.”

Nan searched his dark face, but she found no trace of emotion there. What difference did it make where the hundred dollars came from? He’d just given her far more than that.

“Gabriel, you’re making no sense.”

He spun on a boot heel to walk away. Over his shoulder, he said, “Why do I have to make sense, Nan? You sure as hell don’t.”

N
an spent an hour working the floorboard loose. Gabriel had not only nailed the silly thing down, but apparently glued it into place as well. Sweat trickled down her spine and dripped from her nose before she finished. Then she pulled, tugged, and finally braced her feet on the floor to pull the stupid satchel up through the opening. When the bag finally popped free, Nan was unprepared for the sudden give and lost her balance, staggering backward into shelving.
Ouch.
It was her second injury of the day. Now in addition to a tender thumb, she had an aching shoulder blade. And both injuries were her own fault for doubting Gabriel Valence.

No sooner had Nan regained her balance than she heard Geneva out front, calling, “Na-an? Na-an, dear, where are you?”

Usually Geneva’s habit of giving her name two syllables amused Nan, but today it irked her. She didn’t feel like dealing with a demanding customer right then, but she set the satchel on her project table and pushed aside the curtain anyway. “Well, hello, Geneva. How
lovely
to see you.”
Please, God, don’t let her insist on another stuffed canary.
“I spoke with Mr. White early this morning, and he mentioned that you’ve been talking nonstop about your new gown. I can’t wait to hear your ideas.”

Geneva, who considered herself to be up-to-date on all the latest Parisian fashions, having as a cherished possession a six-year-old copy of a French ladies magazine, swept off her luxurious wool cape, an eye-popping blue one today, and hung it on a hook by the door. “I do, Nan. And I am eager to share them.” She fluttered her fingertips over her puffed sleeves, which were hopelessly passé, and then swatted her bustle, which ballooned behind her, giving the viewer a general impression of a ship approaching at full sail. Though Nan had tried at least a dozen times to tell the woman that subtler bustles were now in style, Geneva had turned a deaf ear. Laney called it selective deafness. Pressing her palms together as if she were at prayer, Geneva cried, “I have the most beautiful gown pictured in my mind! It is going to be
astounding
!”

It would be astounding, all right, Nan thought grimly. Just then Prudence and Loretta swanned into the shop to pay for their trim, and before Nan could collect their money, three other ladies walked in. Nan felt like a curiosity on display in a traveling circus. Sometimes she had browsers in her establishment, but seldom five women at once. Perhaps Laney had it right, and Nan should sell tickets. Problem:
Her husband, the main attraction, had vanished.

Four hours later, after finally clearing her shop of customers, Nan had a brutal headache, felt sick to her stomach, and yearned to lie down before she had to start supper. Geneva’s gown would be memorable, but not in the way the fool woman intended. Silver and red sequins on a black day gown? Nan shuddered at the very thought.

After closing the shop, she went upstairs and settled for dabbing lavender water at her temples. Glancing at her bodice watch, she determined that Gabriel had been gone now for more than five hours. She gazed solemnly at her bed. Even though she’d tidied the covers and drawn up the coverlet that morning, she could almost see him lying there, naked from the waist up, his muscular arms folded behind his head. He’d slept beside her for five nights running, and he’d yet to touch her in any improper way. Not that she was complaining.

She sank onto the edge of the bed and rested her forehead on the heels of her hands. Oh, how she wished he would return before Laney came in from school. Nan needed to apologize to him, and she preferred to do it in private.
Ten thousand dollars.
The man was wealthy beyond most people’s measure, yet all he owned was a horse, a saddle, a bedroll, and clothing. From the moment he had appeared in her shop last Wednesday, Nan had believed he was after
her
worldly possessions. Or her person. Yet he’d laid claim to neither one, had made her the sole beneficiary in his will, and now . . . well, now she no longer knew what to think. She still wasn’t
entirely
certain he wasn’t after her person, but she’d had irrefutable proof that he wasn’t after her money.

His appearance in her life made no sense to her. Absolutely
none
. Unless, of course . . . Oh, no, not that. It couldn’t be.

Deep in her heart, Nan had always believed that her heavenly Father looked after her. Thinking back over her life, she couldn’t count the times, using all her fingers and toes, when divine intervention had either saved her from a dastardly fate, sent precisely the right person to help her, or led her directly where she needed to go. But Gabriel Valance? He was completely
wrong
for her, as well as for Laney, more of a catastrophic visitation than a blessing.

All the same, Nan couldn’t deny how many times she’d failed to recognize a blessing in disguise until months or even years later. Barclay’s attack on her, for instance. At the time, Nan had felt that it was the most
terrible
thing that could possibly have happened to her, but in retrospect, she knew the assault and Barclay’s consequential death had been the catalysts that had given her the courage to grab Laney and run. A horrific occurrence, yes, and it haunted her to this day. But Nan knew, beyond a doubt, that if not for the events of that night, she would have been forced to wed Horace Barclay and would now be his desperately unhappy, browbeaten, physically abused broodmare. And Laney, raised by Martin Sullivan, would now be nearing a marriageable age and possibly even be already betrothed to a man she detested. Nan couldn’t help but feel that they’d both escaped a dire future and landed in a far better place.

As for landing where they had, here in Random? Nan’s decision to stay in this town had not come about because she’d wanted to live in a tiny community off the beaten track, but because Laney had sickened with pneumonia during their journey west. Nan had rented a room at the Random Hotel and sent for the doctor, nursed Laney back to wellness, and then decided to remain for a few more days to let the child regain her strength. It had been turning spring at the time, and as happened in Colorado, the cold, stormy weather suddenly gave way to a delightfully warm day, enabling Nan to take her sister outside for a little walk. During that outing, Nan had spied the For Sale sign on a milliner’s shop. For an amazingly low price, the considerable inventory would go with the building, and the place had been in ready-to-open condition.

According to the notice posted on the shop window, the elderly Mrs. Barker, who owned the shop, had taken sick and never recovered enough to resume her entrepreneurial duties. She’d decided to sell and had moved to the edge of town to live with her daughter. Nevertheless, she loved her store and came in weekly to dust and polish, keeping everything in excellent shape. Nan remembered how her heart had leaped with excitement when she’d peered through the windows. Then she’d pooh-poohed the idea, laughing at herself for being so ludicrous. She couldn’t become a milliner. She didn’t know the first thing about making hats.

The thought had no sooner settled in her mind than a crackly voice behind her said, “Ah, interested, are you?” And Nan turned to see a bent lady with snow-white hair who just happened to be Mrs. Barker, the shop owner. She had taken an instant liking to Nan, encouraged her to buy the business, and then had come every single day to teach Nan her trade. Eight years later, Nan couldn’t say she’d gotten rich being a milliner-cum-seamstress, but she had managed to build a good life for herself and her sister. Random and this shop had become their salvation, something Nan never would have predicted when she first clapped eyes on this dusty little town.

And now there was Gabriel Valance, who’d blackmailed Nan into marrying him. Only, for what reason? He didn’t want her money, and if he wanted her body, he was taking his own sweet time in availing himself of her favors. So, why, why,
why
? If he’d suddenly decided he wanted to get married and any woman would do, then why pick her? Was Gabriel himself even clear on his reasons for being here?

Nan knew only that he’d somehow worked his way past all the barriers she had erected around her heart, and he was making her feel things she’d been determined all her life
never
to feel. Though her instincts told her not to trust him, she was coming to consider now that her instincts weren’t instincts at all, but learned reactions, taught to her by her father. Was it possible that Gabriel was right, and not all men were like Martin Sullivan? Taking that one step further, was it possible that Gabriel was everything he seemed to be: a wonderful, caring man whose exterior had been tempered to steel by a horrible childhood and an even sadder adulthood?
My first real Thanksgiving.

Tears burned at the backs of Nan’s eyes. She sighed and sat erect, so confused and upset that she could barely sort her thoughts.
Gabriel.
He was like a storm in her life, turning everything topsy-turvy. Nan had always liked order—in her home and in her shop—and there was nothing wrong with that, really, but being around Gabriel was starting to make her realize that she’d become so focused on being responsible that she’d forgotten how to laugh and enjoy life. Or, even more troubling, Nan wondered if she’d ever learned how to do either in the first place. She’d been raised in a singularly somber and unpleasant home.

Was it any wonder Laney seemed so much happier now that Gabriel brightened their lives? Her sister had laughed more in the past few days than she’d done in the last few years.

Nan wasn’t ready to concede, even to herself, that Gabriel’s invasion of her world might have been divine intervention. Divine intervention and blackmail didn’t mix, at least not in her view. But she was coming to believe that he intended no harm to either her or Laney. So why did it matter
why
he was here? For once in her life, could she not simply go with the flow and see where the current led?

Nan collected the stuffed satchel from the foot of her bed and put it in a drawer. She had a lot of sorting out to do, and not the kind one did with one’s hands.

•   •   •

Despite the chill breeze, Gabe’s brow beaded with sweat, and his shirt, damp from toil, filmed his skin like wet flour glue. He’d lost track of how many times he’d swung Nan’s ax. He knew only that he’d split a mountain of logs and now had a huge pile of wood to stack. As he attacked each piece, he thought, “Dammit, Gabriel, where are you?” But his heavenly namesake refused to answer him.

Gabe needed to talk to the angel and get a few things straightened out, first and foremost that this plan wasn’t working. He wasn’t
saving
Nan. Instead he was upsetting her constantly. To add frosting to the cake, he’d gotten angry with her this morning and acted like a total ass over something that he never should have held against her. She’d known him for less than a week, for God’s sake. Who could blame her for drawing all her money out of the bank and trying to hide it from him? She’d been watching out for herself and her sister. There was no crime in that. Gabe had been guarding his own back since childhood. So why had it pissed him off that she’d tried to do the same?

Bottom line, he was wasting his time down here, still miles from the goal the archangels had set for him. Even worse, today when he’d been walking off his ire, he’d seen that boy again huddling under the whorehouse staircase, cold, hungry, and alone. The kid’s mother would never come back, and the good people of Random were turning a blind eye to the child’s plight. It gnawed at Gabe deep in his gut. He’d met the boy prior to dying, and he’d meant to help him. So why would it be held against him in the final accounting if he helped now?

It made no sense to Gabe. And after being around Nan for five days, he was sick to death of rules that made no sense. The angel Gabriel needed to come down here and take a good hard look at the realities. It wasn’t only humans who were suffering. Gabe’s meandering walk had taken him out behind Lizzy’s Café, where he had come across a half-grown pup huddled in a lean-to on a piece of wet blanket. The poor thing obviously stayed there hoping to get scraps of food, but apparently Lizzy, the owner of the place, didn’t have a generous soul. The animal was nothing but yellow fur and bones, and it had gone against everything in Gabe’s nature to turn his back and walk away.

But he’d done it, because helping the dog was against the damned
rules
he’d been told he had to follow. Gabe understood that he couldn’t be turned loose down here with advance knowledge of future events and the ability to alter history. If a person was supposed to die, it wasn’t up to Gabe to stop it from happening. But how about being free to practice common decency? It wouldn’t alter the course of world events if he saved a dog from starvation.

“Gabriel?”

In the middle of a swing, Gabe gave such a start at the sound of Nan’s voice that he nearly nailed his boot instead of the log. “
Dammit!
Don’t call me that. Okay? My namesake is a fellow I don’t much like at the moment.” He tossed the ax aside and turned to face her. “I prefer plain old Gabe. It may not be fancy enough to suit you, but it sure as hell suits me just fine.”

The words no sooner erupted from Gabe than he winced. He’d spent half the afternoon wondering how to tell this woman he was sorry for his contemptible behavior that morning, and now he was biting her head off.

The wind picked up just then, whipping her dark green skirt to twist it around her legs. Her hair, always so perfectly arranged, tore loose in places from the pins and fluttered around her head like curlicues of spun gold. But as beautiful as she looked to his hungry eyes, it was the expression in hers that caught and held his attention.

I never cry
,
she’d told him once. And Gabe believed it. Nan was a woman who guarded her feelings and revealed them to no one. At least, that was how she’d been before meeting him. Now her eyes were swimming with tears,
again
, and it was all his fault.

“I’m so sorry,” she said shakily. A gust caught her words and flung them away, but he caught the faint ring of each one. “I don’t know what else to say, only that I’m very,
very
sorry.”