Wrangling with the Laywer (17 page)

Gabe was getting married.

She couldn’t believe it. She literally could not believe it. Her head just couldn’t get round the concept. She helplessly played over in her head the night they’d made love in his apartment, her brow furrowing with pained confusion. He’d made love to her three times before they’d fallen into an exhausted sleep, and the
n once again in the morning. It was as if he hadn’t been able to quite satisfy himself each time. She’d felt the same insatiable hunger, but it had been partly physical, partly emotional for her. She’d stupidly believed it must be the same for him. After he’d left that morning she’d lain among the crumpled cotton sheets and looked forward to satisfying that emotional hunger for him in the following days, weeks, and months... years. 

Nothing he’d said or done had given her any indication that the night was to be anything more than what it was, and yet with every caress, every look and every shudder that went through his body she’d felt the intense  connection between them. Even now, knowing how wrong she’d been, how wrong she was, she still couldn’t equate any of that with his distant behaviour immediately afterwards. She couldn’t believe he’d really fallen in love with someone else.

A wail erupted from the garden. It started low, with a shocked tenor at the base of it. As it grew, Harper came to her feet, hearing fear in its resonance. She raced out through the hallway and into the garden.

“What happened?”

There was a crowd on the lawn around the buffet table. After pushing her way through, she came across a panicked –looking Karen. Alice was being comforted in the arms of one of the attending mothers. When Alice saw Harper, her cries rose another two decibels and she outstretched her arms. Harper enveloped the girl’s tiny body wordlessly in her arms, feeling trembling shock and fear as Alice buried her blonde curls in her neck.

“What happened?”
Harper asked again through the confusing chatter. Her heart started to thud painfully in her chest. “Is she hurt?”

“She put her hand in the sandpit and there was a spider,”
Karen wailed. “It was just a spider! I didn’t think it was going to be such a big deal, but then she started crying-”

Harper
took Alice’s hands quickly and studied them. Cold shock ran through her when she saw a massive gash on her wrist. The blood was seeping into her red cardigan unseen. Making a muffled sound of alarm, Harper turned quickly and pushed through the group towards the kitchen. “She’s cut herself on something.” Her voice shook a little.

“Cut herself?” Karol Granger followed quickly after her. “Where? Is it deep?”

“I don’t know.”

“She was just playing in sandpit with the other kids.”

Turning on the tap, Harper sat Alice by the side of the sink. The girl was crying as hard as ever. “Sweetheart, I need to take a look at your arm,” Harper told her as gently as she could, but keeping her tone strict. “You’ve got a little cut and we have to clean it.”

After some persuasion Alice eventually let
Harper pulled the cardigan sleeve back. When the amount of blood oozing from the deep gash was fully evident, Harper felt woozy for a second. She bit back the vague panic in her throat and focused on taking the cloth from Karol and touching it gently against the fragile, pale skin. Alice squealed in pain; Harper’s expression creased in acute sympathy. “I know, sweetie. It hurts. I just need to get a good look at it.”

Within five minutes, the cut had been cleaned and dressed as well as it could be.
Harper stared at her phone with a sinking sensation, knowing she would have to call Gabe. Alice had to go to the hospital for a tetanus shot and perhaps even stitches; they still had no idea what had caused the cut. Karen was so upset that Karol had had to take her through to the den to sit down. Harper blew a long, slow breath from her mouth as though this could somehow stall the inevitable. Her last words to Gabe after the case had settled hadn’t exactly been friendly. She wasn’t relishing being the one to tell him his daughter was hurt. At her party. In her sandpit. By God knew what.

Giving Alice a kiss on her now quiet forehead, she lifted the girl more securely on her lap and found Gabe’s number in her contacts.

He picked up on the first ring. “Harper?”

His low voice sounded faintly intrigued. Swallowing, she aimed abstractedly for an efficient tone. “Hi, Gabe. I’m calling about Alice,” she rushed. “She’s fine, but she cut her hand at a party I’m holding for the kids. We’re not sure what she cut it on, so I think we should take her to-”

“Is she okay?” His voice had risen by an octave.

“She’s fine-”

“Just a minute.” There was a quick silence followed by a muffled sound. Two seconds later, his voice resounded clearly down the line. “What do you mean she cut herself? Where? How did she cut herself?”

“She’s fine. We’re not sure. I thought maybe you could come meet us at the hospital-”

“At the hospital?”

Harper
heard real alarm in his tone now. “It’s just precautionary thing. I think they should look at it. It’s on her hand.” She kept her tone calm. “She’s fine. She’s sitting on my lap quite quietly. She’s not even crying.” She kissed the girl’s cheek again, smiling. “She’s been so brave.”

“Which hospital?”

“St David’s is the closest. It’s in the Heights. Do you know it?”

“We’ll find it. I’m leaving now.” He paused but she could hear the line was still active. “What is she doing at your house?” he asked eventually, sounding totally confused.

“I’ll explain when I see you.” She relaxed her features in resignation. She would have to go. She was responsible, and Karen was a wreck. Not only that, Alice seemed now to be attached to her side. “We’ll be in the St John’s clinic.”

“Let me speak to her.”

Harper put the girl on the phone. Alice’s voice was wobbly and soon began verging on tears. “Are you coming to get me?” Harper could hear the suggestion of Gabe’s low, reassuring tone on the other side, but couldn’t quite make out the words. “I don’t want to go to the hospital.”

After another ten seconds, Alice pushed the phone back at
Harper. “Make sure you stay with her, would you?” he asked brusquely. “I told her you’d stay with her.”

“Of course I will.” She tried not to sound defensive. “I’ll being
Karen with me, too.”

Gabe’s answering sigh was not reassuring. “Okay, I’ll see you.”

Gabe tore into the waiting room and the St John’s Clinic some forty-five minutes later.
Harper watched him arriving with the same trepidation one might have watching a severe weather system approaching. A head and shoulders above the other occupants near the automatic doors, and dressed as always in a sharp blue suit, he looked like a reigning monarch mingling with the humble masses. His dark eyes swept over the room; she felt them eating up the air as they moved closer. In a split second they seemed to merge with hers, as if he’d been seeking her out, and now that he’d found her, he stilled. He watched her for what seemed like an eternity. Suddenly he narrowed his gaze and looked next to her, finding Alice’s small face and immediately galvanised into action.

“You daddy’s here,”
Harper whispered into the girl’s hair. She felt Alice stiffen, wiggling to get down.

It was touching to watch. Gabe swept his daughter up in a dramatic arc, holding her out in front on him with the most beautiful smile
Harper had ever seen on his face. His dark eyes glittered with warmth and there was no hesitation, no doubt at all in them. “So what’s going on here?” He pulled her in, holding her to his chest. “Did you see the doctor?”

Alice held up her bandaged hand triumphantly.

Standing, Harper ignored the stiffness in her legs from sitting so long. She kept her gaze trained on Alice’s flushed features. “She was really brave. The doctor gave her an injection.”

“But no stitches?”

She glanced at him, feeling bruised by the intensity of his searching eyes. Like something sinking down through her body, she felt a pained sense of loss. “No stitches, just the tetanus. She said it’s a clean cut, so it was probably a piece of glass.”

Gabe fell serious now. He lifted Alice further up on his shoulder, easily supporting her tiny frame with his broadness. “So what happened?” his head scanned the seating area. “Is
Karen here?”

“She’s in the bathroom.”
Harper wasn’t sure how to put this. “I was inside, but apparently Alice was playing in the sandpit with the other kids.” The alarm of the situation started to tell on her. Feeling unaccountably shaky suddenly, she looked down at took a deep breath. When she looked up again, his expression was opaque on her. “I’m really sorry, Gabe. I wouldn’t have let the kids play there if there’d even been a suggestion...” She shoved her hands into her jeans to hide them, feeling a tremble in her wrists. “Finn plays in that thing all the time. I’m going to get rid of it.”

The last thing she expected was for Gabe’s hand to reach out and touch her. He took a step forward, his features softening into something like hard regret. Rubbing the skin on her arm gently, he then slid it to her shoulders and pulled her towards him in a casual hug. “Don’t worry about it,” he said on an exhale. “It’s done now. It was nobody’s fault.”

“I’ve paid the treatment on my insurance-”

His brows lifted.

“I just wanted to make a gesture.” She knew he could afford it; she also knew she felt wretched that Alice had been hurt on her watch. “If there’s anything else-”

“Actually...” His frown deepened. Letting her go reluctantly, he stepped back.

He was about to speak when Karen appeared from the corridor. Her face lit up on seeing him; she looked pale and shaken. Moving towards him quickly, she fell into his embrace wordlessly, leaning into him so that Alice was on one side and she was on the other. Gabe kissed her forehead; Karen was tall but he still managed a good few inches on her. In fact he made his statuesque fiancée look slight next to him. Harper turned her gaze away, feeling like a voyeur. The imprint of the three of them together, a family, was burned into her mind. Karen, with her stunning blonde looks, could easily have passed for Alice’s mother. They looked like the perfect family.

“I’m so glad to see you,”
Karen told him finally. “What a day.”

“I thought you were heading out to the storytelling group at the Natural History Museum.” Gabe’s expression was still smiling but
Harper sensed a thread of anger behind the words.

Karen
looked crestfallen; Harper could only imagine how she was feeling. “I know... we were going to, but then Alice told me she’d promised you we would go to this party-”

“Alice promised me?” He sounded incredulous. He turned and looked at
Harper.

Under a spotlight,
Harper stilled. She opened her mouth and closed it again, unsure of what to say. “I told some of the moms to invite their friends. It was kind of an open house...”

All eyes turned on Alice. The girl squirmed in her father’s arms, burying her head in his strong neck.
Harper recalled how good that felt, but she pushed the wayward thought out of her mind.

Gabe’s brows made an inverted frown. “How about we get to the bottom of this another time...?”

“I’d better get back to the party if you guys are okay.”

“Thanks so much for everything,
Harper.” Karen gave her a quick hug. “You were an absolute star. I would have had absolutely no idea if you hadn’t been there.”

“It’s no problem,”
Harper told her warmly. “I’m just sorry it happened.”

“If you haven’t been totally scared off, I was telling some of the other women at the party before this all happened that we’re planning a dinner party in a couple of weeks. I’d really love it if you’d come. Bring anyone you like. There’ll be quite a few new people from Alice’s after school group.”

Some of the pieces started to fall into place. Finn attended an afterschool group on Fridays now, where they made field trips to the local museums and cultural spots. It was in Manhattan, which explained the link. She nodded brightly. “Sounds great. Just let me know when. Hopefully I’ll be free.” She had no intention of being free.

Two weeks later, Gabe sat on his balcony trying to ignore the efficient noise coming from the catering staff inside the apartment. He swept a finger across the screen of his tablet, scanning a document for the third time. Tension was building slowly in his chest, like a grey mist interfering with his thought process.

Tossing the expensive tablet aside, he leaned back and stared up at the late spring sky. The last thing he felt like doing tonight was giving a dinner party. He sighed. Actually, that wasn’t precise; the last thing he felt like doing was sitting through a polite evening of chit-chat with
Harper at the table. Harper wasn’t chit-chat material. He had no idea why Karen had invited her. Harper was funny and intensely challenging, and bright and informed. When he had her attention, he didn’t want to share it with a table full of inane strangers talking about rubbish collection or ballet investment or whatever irrelevant concern was sweeping the city.

He recalled the dinner his parents had thrown and how well she’d charmed everyone there, the memory at odds with his current state of mind. Irritated, he stood up and walked over to the glass balcony, leaning on it carelessly. Okay, so she’d probably make an excellent dinner guest. It irked him that she had confirmed she was bringing a date. It irked him that some other man was going to get the benefit of displaying the good taste to be with her. It irked him that some man would get the benefit of her probably dry, amusing take on the evening as they went home. It irked him that some other man would get to home with her.