Finding Isadora (39 page)

He nodded.
“My father’s parents sure as hell weren’t taking me. And no-one was likely to adopt a kid who’d killed his father, even if the cops didn’t lay charges. I left the system when I was seventeen and made my own way. With the help of a friend of my mother’s.”

“
Maria? The woman you mentioned before?”

“
Yeah. She was a widow with kids of her own and wasn’t in a position to take me in herself, but she found me work, a house to room in. I grew up fast, scraped together money for university.”

We sat in silence and I was
vaguely aware of people passing on the walkway behind us, anonymous shapes and voices. My attention was focused on the man beside me. I breathed deeply, inhaling the fresh, cleansing ocean air, then asked softly, “Are you all right?”

His hand squeezed one of mine and I realized I was still hanging on to him. Hanging onto a hand that had killed a man.

“Yeah.” His voice was rough. “Are you?”

“
Me?”

“
Shocked?” His gaze searched deep inside me.

I couldn
’t lie. “Yes, of course. But the whole thing, the way you grew up, it’s all so different from…” I thought about my own childhood with Jimmy Lee and Grace. “I can’t imagine how horrible it must have been.” My parents loved me, loved each other, so much. I tried to imagine a scenario where…

And suddenly, I truly understood. Adrenaline, emotion, surged through me and my shell-shocked body zinged back to life.
“If someone was beating up on Grace,” I said firmly, “yes, I’d want to put a knife in the bastard.”

His gaze probed me a
gain. “Thanks.” His smile was strained, but genuine. “You see now why I didn’t tell Richard?”

Richard. I
’d forgotten all about Richard. Now I reflected, thinking back to how upset I’d been to find out about Jimmy Lee and Grace burning that draft office. “I see it’s not something you’d tell a child,” I said slowly. “But he’s an adult now. Doesn’t he have the right to know?”

“
The right. We get back to rights again.” There was a new edge in his voice. “Well, Isadora, maybe it depends on whether he’s really my son.”

I kept forgetting that, too. To me, Gabriel and Richard
were
father and son. I couldn’t imagine ever thinking of them differently.

Abruptly he freed his hand from mine and rose.
“Let’s walk.”

My reactions were slow tonight. By the time I
’d scrambled to my feet in the soft sand, he’d gathered both sets of sandals.

“
Sun’s gone down,” he commented.

I realized I
’d missed the rest of the sunset while we were talking. The sky was still fairly light, but the drama and dazzle had ended.

“
Let’s walk back the other way,” he suggested.

Away from the city, toward the car. Did this mean
our evening, like the golden sunset, was at an end? After the bombshell he’d dropped, it hardly seemed appropriate to raise the subject of our relationship.

“
Wish I knew the result of that DNA test,” Gabriel said abruptly.

“
Do you really think it will change things between you and Richard?”

“
If I am his father, then probably not. If I’m not…”

“
What then?”

“
He’ll think of me differently. No obligations, for either of us. He’ll stop feeling like he has to stay in touch, to be civil.”

Ouch. Did he honestly believe that?
And was it true? “How about you? Will you think of him differently?”

His jaw tensed and he didn
’t answer for a long moment. “Shit. No, I won’t. Fuck, Isadora.”

I wasn
’t following this train of thought any more than I’d followed the one that led him to confess to murdering his father. Tonight, Gabriel was an enigma.

To our left
was the lot where he’d parked. Most of the other cars were gone. But Gabriel didn’t turn toward his car, he kept walking the beach, and so I paced beside him. The fading sky, accented now by a nearly full moon and the first evening stars, provided enough light that we could see our way among the logs, rocks, and washed-up kelp. The sand was cool underfoot.

Gabriel stepped ahead of me then stopped abruptly, catching my shoulders in his hands and bringing me to a stop, too. I stumbled, then righted myself. His fingers bit into me and the sandals he held in one hand clunked against my back. My heart raced with sudden awareness of him.

“Why did you break up with Richard?” he demanded roughly.

Again he
’d surprised me, and I struggled to adjust. This was private between Richard and me, and yet I felt compelled to answer. But how to explain? “I guess I realized … I mean…” I foundered. “Richard’s wonderful but I think we make better friends than…” I shrugged, my shoulders moving against his hands, not wanting to say
lovers
or
spouses
.

“
Why now?”

“
Uh, well … I realized I didn’t feel … I mean, I didn’t want…”

I was still stumbling for words when he reached out and touched my lips with one finger, hushing me. His touch made me tremble.

“Isadora, from the first moment I saw you, I wanted you.” His words were measured and sure, which made them even more powerful.

I sucked in a breath. It was true. Everything I
’d suspected—maybe hoped for, despite knowing I shouldn’t—was true. But how could he now, this easily, acknowledge it? Excitement danced across my skin and tingled through my veins. He’d said it. Gabriel DeLuca desired me.

I wanted to sing and dance and
… cry.

“
No response?” he asked softly, his hands on my shoulders holding me a willing prisoner.

“
Too many,” I confessed. But he’d been honest and I had to be, too. It was the only way we could work out what to do. So I sucked in another deep breath and said, “I fought it, but it’s been the same for me.”

His face lit with smug male satisfaction.
“I thought so. But I can’t read you the way I can other women.”

So I was just another woman to him. A hot surge of anger flooded through me and I stepped back, freeing myself from his grip.
“I can guess how other women react to you. They probably throw themselves all over you. But I was engaged to someone else, and I don’t subscribe to my parents’ belief in
open
relationships. I’m sure
you
think there’s nothing wrong with sleeping around, but I take vows seriously.”

He shook his head abruptly.
“Sorry, that came out wrong. Believe me, Isadora, I don’t group you with other women. If I did, I’d have been able to forget about you, replace you with someone else.”

Testing, I said,
“I guess it was hard to forget about me when we kept constantly showing up in the same place.”

“
Even before that. Remember when you phoned to ask if I’d represent Jimmy Lee? I was sitting at my desk daydreaming about you, knowing I shouldn’t. Then, for a moment, I thought you’d called because you were doing the same thing.”

“
I had been. I couldn’t get you out of my mind.”

We stood about two feet apart, staring at each other in the
moonlight.

“
That’s why you broke up with Richard.”

I frowned.
“Yes and no. Not because I thought you and I would… I mean, it’s not like we could… But it did make me realize there was something missing in Richard’s and my relationship.”

“
Why couldn’t we? You and I?”

Sleep together, I was sure he meant. Men. How could they think things were so simple?

“Richard, for one reason,” I said coolly.

Certain that he
’d protest that Richard and I had broken up, I was surprised when he nodded, his expression grim and almost sad. “Yeah. That’s what held me back all along, and it’s still a problem, isn’t it? I’d been trying to convince himself that if the test proved I wasn’t his father, I wouldn’t feel…”

When he didn
’t finish the thought, I said, “In your heart he’ll always be your son, and you don’t want to hurt him. You and I, uh, having a relationship, would hurt him.”

We stared glumly at each other for a few minutes, then I asked,
“Why did you tell me about your father?”

He gave a rueful laugh.
“My last chance to drive you away? Then we wouldn’t have had to talk about this.”

I smiled a little.
“Did you think it would work?”

He shook his head.
“No. You’re an empathetic woman. Guess what I really wanted was for you to know, and tell me you understood.”

“
I do.”

“
I know. Just like I know we have to have this talk. There’s something between us. No matter how I try to deny it—or reason myself out of it—it only gets stronger.”

I nodded vigorously.
“I know. And it doesn’t make sense. You’re not into serious relationships, right?”

He shook his head again.
“Been there, done that, and did it badly.”

“
And I want marriage and kids, fidelity, the house and mortgage, all those things you reject. Plus, I want someone to grow old with, not someone—”

“
Who’s already old?” he asked dryly.

“
No! I definitely don’t think of you as old. But the fact is, there’s eighteen years between us. I don’t want to be left alone in my old age, and—” I broke off and gave a rueful laugh. “See there? I had us married. I can’t help it, that’s how I think about relationships. If there’s no future potential, I’m wasting my time.”

I stared at him, lean and dangerous, vital and sexy. Hard to imagine that having sex with Gabriel would be a waste of time. Hurriedly, I added,
“But of course, all of that stuff’s irrelevant because there’s Richard.”

“
So how are we going to deal with this?” he said, gently touching my shoulder and turning me back toward the parking lot. Side by side, we began to walk, but this time he reached for my hand and gripped it, and I welcomed his touch. It wasn’t a sexual contact, but an acknowledgment we shared a problem and together would work it out.

It dawned on me that, despite our age difference, he treated me as an equal. He didn
’t try to tell me what to do, and he genuinely valued my opinion. The feeling was heady, and yet… “I guess we should avoid each other,” I said reluctantly.

“
But I don’t want to avoid you. You’re good for me. You challenge me.”

I felt even more flattered.
“You challenge me too. Maybe we could try being friends?” Could I force myself to think of him that way?

“
Isn’t that what we’ve been doing? Hasn’t worked too damn well.”

“
No, but… Maybe it’ll work better now everything’s out in the open.”

“
Maybe.” He didn’t sound any more convinced than I was.

We
headed up the beach toward the paved walkway. He released my hand, dropped our sandals on the ground, then bent to put his on. When I leaned down to do the same, he said, “Let me,” and knelt at my feet.

Resting a hand on his shoulder, I lifted one foot. He
’d jammed his own sandals on over the granules of sand that clung to his feet, but he didn’t do that with me. Instead, he gently brushed the sand away. “Cold,” he commented gruffly, then cradled my foot in his hands, warming it, before he eased it into a sandal.

Such a sweet, perfect gesture. He
’d never be a conventional man, not the kind who brought roses and chocolates on Valentine’s Day, but he did things like this. Things like giving me the absolutely perfect earrings just because they made him think of me. Things that were more meaningful, more romantic, than the stereotypical ones.

Slowly, caressingly, he cleaned off my other foot and warmed it, his every touch sending pulses of pleasure up my leg.

Then, rather than sliding that foot into a sandal, he rose in a surge of motion. “Damn it, Isadora.”

Those hands that had been so gentle with my feet
thrust into my hair, gripping my head, tilting it back. He was going to kiss me.

I could stop him.

No, I couldn’t. Not when everything in me wanted him so badly.

His lips came down on mine.

They weren’t gentle. They weren’t polite.

His tongue claimed my mouth. All my senses came alive and I was dizzy with sensual overload. I gave one
needy little gasp, sucking him in even deeper, and kissed him back.

We pillaged each other
’s mouths like starving animals after days of deprivation, greedy now that we could finally indulge. Hungry for more, then even more.