Angel's Rest (30 page)

She drew in a breath and caught the scent of pine in the air, and she smiled. She loved this little section of her backyard. Surrounded by a hedge of holly and lit with soft lanterns and ambient solar lights, it was her private oasis. She spent evenings out here whenever weather allowed. Though the outdoor space heater warded off the worst of the chill, she grabbed a blanket from the basket of covers and quilts she kept beside the glider during warmer months and spread it over her knees. She so enjoyed the sensation of snuggling beneath a blanket as the sky above filled with stars.

What a great evening this had been. Gabe, Pam, and her son had teased and joked and even reminisced about
shared events in the past. Once or twice emotions had swelled, but grief never overtook the moment. It was, Nic thought, a hopeful sign.

Hearing the screen door creak, she glanced up to see that Pam had returned from a trip to her car to get her sweater. She did not, however, have it on. “Couldn’t you find your sweater?”

“Yes, but I also looked at your clock. I didn’t realize it was this late. We have to get back on the road. Gabe is on the phone with someone talking about a pump problem at Cavanaugh House. We’re going to head out.”

Nic started to stand and she added, “No. Stay where you are. Gabe says you’ve been on your feet too much.”

“He’s a worrywart.”

“Yes, but I guess that’s understandable, don’t you think?”

“Yes, I—” She broke off when Gabe opened the back door and stuck his head outside.

“Hey ladies, I need to run to the site for a bit. We have a pump problem. I don’t know how long I’ll be.”

“We need to head out anyway,” Pam told him. “I was just saying good-bye to Nic. Would you tell Nathan I said to get that box for you from our trunk?”

“Sure.”

Then he was gone and Pam stood staring after him, a bittersweet look on her face. Nic reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze. “I’m so glad you came, Pam. This is the happiest I’ve ever seen him. You’ve given him his smile back.”

Pam sank down on the glider beside her. “I don’t think it’s me. I think it’s you. I admit that, in a way, it’s hard to see him with someone other than my sister. However, it’s not as difficult as I thought it would be. You’ve helped him, Nic.”

“Do you really think so?” she asked, the catch in her heart betraying her vulnerability.

“Yes, I do. I was worried about him. Last year was horrible. Just horrible. Having Matty linger on like he did drained Gabe. I think that despite what the doctors told us, Gabe believed he could will his son well. The weeks after the funeral …” She shook her head. “I couldn’t reach him. No one could. When he came to Colorado, I was honestly afraid I’d never see him again. I’m glad he found Eternity Springs and I’m glad he found you. I like you, Nic. I think my sister would like you, too.”

Nic basked in the glow of the warmth of Pam’s words long after Gabe’s family took their leave. When he returned a half hour later, he was surprised to find her still outside. “I figured the cold would have chased you in by now.”

“What, you think I’m a Texan or something? This isn’t cold.”

“Hey now, no ragging on Texans. You’ll alienate half of the property owners around here.”

She nodded. “I think we’re starting to speak with a drawl. How’s the pump situation?”

“Fixed.” Gabe sat beside her and casually draped his arm around her shoulders. “It was a valve problem I’ve had experience with before, so it was an easy repair.”

They sat silently for a few minutes in a relaxed, companionable state. He smelled of sawdust and sandalwood, and Nic allowed herself to snuggle against him and relish the contact. Eventually Gabe said, “It was a great evening, wasn’t it?”

“It was.”

Gabe looked up to the star-filled indigo sky, then said, “I love it here.”

“You do?”

He looked at her and smiled. “Yeah. I do. I really do.”

Then he leaned forward and kissed her.

Gabe suspected that kissing her was a mistake, but his body didn’t care. He felt great. Spectacular.

He felt horny.

Something had changed between him and Nic during these weeks they’d lived in the same house, but not together. He didn’t have a term for it, or if he did, he wasn’t prepared to admit what it was. All he knew for certain was that against what had seemed like insurmountable odds, springtime had returned to his soul. Like the cottonwoods and aspen blooming on the mountainside, he’d survived the long, harsh winter. He wanted to live again. And, he wanted to do that living with her.

Beneath the starlit sky and surrounded by the clean, fresh scent of a mountain springtime, Gabe kissed her, a kiss different from any he’d shared with her before. It was passionate yet gentle. It was a kiss from his heart.

Nic responded in kind. She was so sweet. Warm. Welcoming. She was light. Brightness, when he’d lived in darkness for so long.

He broke the kiss and drew back, watching her closed eyes, the way her tongue snaked out and licked her lips as though she savored the taste of him. It was then, in that moment, that he knew. No, no mistake. It was time. It was right. She was right.

She opened her eyes, and their gazes met and held. “Nicole? Can I take you to bed?”

Her smile bloomed slow and sweet and soft. “Take me here, Gabriel. It’s a beautiful, quiet night. Spread the blanket on the grass.”

He grinned. “You sure? We’ll freeze our asses off.”

“Something tells me heat won’t be a problem.”

He laughed out loud at that, then rose and spread out a blanket and quilts. Then he held his hand out to her and she took it, rising and moving naturally, gracefully into his arms. He bent down to her and they kissed. She tasted of lemon bars and smelled of a Rocky Mountain spring.

His hand stroked down her back, over the curve of her hip, then up again. When she made a soft sigh of pleasure into his mouth, he groaned in reply. Then, careful of her knee, he scooped her into his arms and knelt. He lowered her onto her back as if she were the most precious of jewels, then smiled down into the deep, blue depths of her eyes and allowed himself to fall. He took the moment for himself and for her and it was … good.

Tender, yet erotic. Physical, yet gentle. They took their time this time, learning each other, enjoying each other, giving pleasure and receiving pleasure in return. It was more than simply sex. It was rebirth for Gabe and a new beginning for them both.

Afterward, Gabe lay on his back staring up at the starry sky, one arm tucked beneath his head, the other around his wife. He felt as if he’d just scaled a mountain pass and discovered Shangri-La on the other side. It was a place, a state, he’d like never to have to leave. He was sated, satisfied, luxuriating in boneless aprés-orgasm bliss—and, thank God, free of both guilt and ghosts.

Almost happy.

That thought threatened his mellow mood, and he told himself to turn away from it. This was not the time
to analyze and fret. Not the time to resurrect those ghosts. He needed to live for the moment, in the moment. So far, so good. He hadn’t invited thoughts of Jennifer into his bed—such as it was—with Nic. That’s the way it should stay for both their sakes. Nice. Simple. Surface.

“Are you okay?” Nic asked, showing an uncanny ability to read his mind.

He tried to bluff his way through it. “Let me catch my breath and I could be better.”

A long moment passed in silence. He thought she’d let it go, and he started to relax.

Too soon, it turned out.

Her quiet voice chastised. “Don’t hide from me, Gabe. Not now.”

He opened his mouth to protest, but shut it again without speaking when she rose up on her elbow. The soft light from the garden lanterns bathed her form, revealing the solemn entreaty in her eyes. “This was a big step for both of us. Look, I’m not trying to be your psychologist or your grief counselor, but I think it’s important that we communicate. It’s part of any healthy relationship.”

“I don’t like to talk about my feelings.”

“Well, at least you admit you have feelings. Look, I’m not asking for details about your sex life with Jennifer. What I’m asking is for you to talk to me. Give me a clue here.”

He scowled. “I think what just happened was a pretty big clue, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do. But until you confirm it, I’m just guessing. I’m still learning who you are, Gabe. I could guess wrong, and that could lead to misunderstandings that could hurt us both. I need to know what to expect. Or, in this case, what not to expect. That’s not asking too much.”

“You’re asking where we go from here?”

“Yes.”

“I’m hoping upstairs to bed.”

“Together?”

“Yeah.”

“And what about tomorrow night? Tonight has been a change, but I’m clueless how big a change it’s been. My leg is better. I can get along okay on my own. Where do we go from here, Gabe? Will you stay, here, in my bed? Or will you go?”

“You sure ask a lot of questions, don’t you?” When she didn’t respond to that, but simply stared at him with a steady, solemn gaze, he sighed and closed his eyes. “All right. All right. I want to stay here. I want to move into your bedroom. I’d like a regular sex life again.”

He opened his eyes then and gave her a sidelong look. “So, you happy now? I spilled my guts. Did it spoil the mood?”

“You didn’t spoil the mood for me.” She trailed a finger down the center of his chest to his navel. “Honest talk turns me on.”

Her hand continued its southward trek and his body responded to her touch. When her mouth traced the path of her hand, he gave himself up to a long-missed pleasure until his hunger grew too hot, too fierce. He pulled her up, positioned her above him, her knees straddling his hips, and took her fast, with lots of enthusiasm and little finesse. When they finished and she collapsed atop him, laughing breathlessly, he stroked the silken waterfall of her hair and wondered if the demonstration of risk-reward had been a conscious one. Somehow he doubted she did anything coincidentally.

He shook his head in wonder. “I don’t know what to make of you, Nic.”

She propped herself up and met his gaze. “Why do you say that?”

“You are a wonderful woman. You’re gorgeous, witty, intelligent. Sexy as hell. I am a head case.” Though he wasn’t at all certain he wanted the answer, he finished with a quiet question. “Why are you willing to put up with this BS from me?”

She slid off him then, sat beside him, and wrapped herself in a blanket. “My turn for some honest talk, I guess.”

Never mind
, he wanted to say.

“The truth is that if not for the babies, I probably wouldn’t be in this. The odds are against us. You are more work than I need at this point in my life. Plus I have a bone-deep aversion to being any man’s doormat.”

“Doormat? Excuse me?” He didn’t like that all. He didn’t treat her like a doormat. Did he? Guilt snaked through him, but this time he refused to accept it.

“Work with me here, Callahan. See, I need you to understand me, too. While I definitely have a wish-upon-a-star side to me, the bottom line is that I’m a pragmatic kind of girl. I like a road map. I saw what living without one did to my mother. She put up with a man’s mistreatment for years, and it cost her the entire life she could have had with a man who deserved her.”

“You think I mistreat you?” he asked, annoyed.

“No. That’s not what I’m saying. Look, the path we’ve started down is uncharted territory, and there’s not an atlas for us in the self-help section of the bookstore. Believe me, I’ve checked. Advice for WOWs doesn’t really help in this case.”

“Wow?”

“Wife of a widower. See, it’s the added letters for the acronym that makes it dicey. I’m a PWOW or PWT-WOW or APWT-WOW. Accidentally-pregnant-with-twins wife of a widower. That puts an entirely different spin on the situation.”

Technically he wasn’t a widower any longer since he was married to her, but he thought it best not to bring that up. She appeared to be on edge. “Nic, maybe we should go inside. Get you some warm milk. It’ll help you calm down.”

Jen had always liked warm milk when she was pregnant.

She scowled at him, and he recognized he’d sounded patronizing, but she did look a little wild-eyed at the moment.

“Stop it,” she snapped. “See, here’s the thing. I understand that we have happened too soon for you. In a perfect world, you would have had a lot more time to let go of the past relationship before attempting to begin a new one. Unfortunately, our world isn’t perfect.”

“Tell me about it. My wife died.”

The barb visibly hit home, and as he saw Nic flinch, his feeling of guilt intensified. Before he could apologize, she continued, “I get that the grieving process for you will be full of fits and starts. But like it or not, I’m part of your life, which automatically makes me part of your grief. I understand that Jennifer is always going to be part of our relationship. I think I can deal with that, but only if we to learn to talk about her. I won’t ignore the ghost in the room. Not anymore.”

Gabe rolled to his feet and shoved his legs into his jeans. “I think
I
need that warm milk.”

With a shot of whiskey in it.