Forever With You (Bayou Dreams Book 5) (11 page)

Of course, if his dad hadn’t died, his mother never would have married Raynaldo, and his sister and brother never would have been born. He would not trade Daniela and Elias for anything in the world, but he would give his asshole of a stepfather up for a nickel. Hell, he would pay for someone to take him away from his family. Although, knowing Raynaldo, he likely wasn’t around anyway.

Thinking about his loser stepdad, who could never stick around for more than a few days at a time, reminded Gabe that he hadn’t talked to his mom all week. As he reached for his cell phone, it trilled with the ringtone he’d set for his mother.

“
Hola
,
Mami,” Gabe answered. “I was just about to call you.”

His mother started in rapid Spanish, which was his first warning that something was horribly wrong. Other than calling her children the occasional endearment, his mother rarely spoke in her native tongue anymore.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Gabe said, trying to get a word in. “What’s wrong?”

“Your sister,” she said. “She was supposed to be home three hours ago, and she is not answering her cell phone.”

“Where was she going?”

“That’s just it! She didn’t say. She just left the house! I don’t know what I’m going to do with that girl, Gabriel. She makes straight A’s. How can I punish her?”

“It’s her job to get good grades in school,” Gabe said. “It’s not her job to turn your hair gray. Let me try calling her, Mami,” Gabe said. “She’s probably out with one of her friends. I’ll call you as soon as I hear from her.”

“You tell her to call me.”

“I will, Mami.”

Gabe disconnected and immediately speed-dialed his sister’s number. He massaged the bridge of his nose with his free hand, trying to stave off the worry that was building in his gut. His biggest fear with living six hours from Houston was that something would happen to his mother or one of his siblings, and he wouldn’t be around to help.

Daniela answered on the second ring.

“Gabe. What’s up?”

“Daniela, why did Mami just call me, frantic because she couldn’t get in touch with you?”

He could practically see his sister’s eyes roll as her tired sigh drifted over the phone. “I texted Elias and told him to tell her that I was fine.”

“Why didn’t you just answer when she called?”

“Because she would give me all kinds of shit if I talked to her.”

“Watch your mouth,” Gabe said.

“Oh, please. I’m seventeen.”

Gabe lightly pounded his fist in the center of his forehead. He needed an aspirin. Or a drink.

“Call your mother, Daniela. She’s worried sick about you.”

“Ugh,” his baby sister groaned. “That woman lives to spoil my fun.”

That woman?

“You’d better show her some respect,” Gabe said. “I mean it. If I get another call like that from Mami, I’m coming to Houston and carting you here to live with me in the sticks.”

“I’ll call her!” Daniela practically screamed.

“Where’s Raynaldo?” Gabe asked. His mother shouldn’t be the only one dealing with Daniela.

“Who knows? He dropped in on Sunday, but he was gone by Tuesday morning.”

Gabe’s jaw stiffened.

“I gotta go, Gabe,” Daniela said. “I promise I’ll call Mami.”

Gabe tossed the phone on the old chest that served as his coffee table and leaned his head back on the rim of the sofa.

It was the same old story. It had been this way since his mother married Raynaldo Gutierrez the summer before Gabe started sixth grade, two years after his own dad died. Raynaldo had been worthless from the very beginning. He’d drift back home when he was out of money and needed a place to stay. All it took was a few halfhearted whispers of sweet nothings into his mother’s ear, and she welcomed him back.

A couple of days later, the old tin coffee can where his mother kept her emergency grocery money would be empty and Raynaldo would be gone. By the time Elias was born, Gabe had been fourteen and done with his stepdad. The knuckleheaded crowd he’d fallen in with at school had convinced him that he didn’t need some lowlife drifter telling him what to do. He was a man.

To prove it, on a dare, Gabe had broken into his science teacher’s car one day after school. Instead of turning him in to the principal, or even worse, the cops, Mr. Caldwell had given Gabe a ride home. The next day, he’d asked him to stay after class.

The words Mr. Caldwell had spoken to him that day had changed Gabe’s life. For the first time since his father, he’d had a male figure tell him that he was worth something. He had someone who believed in him. From that day forward, Gabe had been working to prove to his science teacher that he could be the man Mr. Caldwell had believed he was capable of becoming.

Aside from Gabe, Daniela and Elias didn’t have someone like Mr. Caldwell in their lives. They actually had to rely on their own father to be a father to them, and Gabe knew that sure as hell wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.

He cradled his head in his hands and tried to swallow back the guilt that was clawing at his throat. He needed to do more for them. His mother already worked two jobs; she could not do any more than she already was doing.

That was why he needed the assistant principal position to become a permanent thing. The boost in his salary would create stability for his entire family. It would lighten his mother’s burden. It would alleviate the worry of wondering how to pay for the extra college expenses Daniela’s scholarship didn’t cover. And it would take Elias out of his current environment, a situation that was too much like the one Gabe had been in at that age.

“You have to find a way to make this work,” he whispered.

It wasn’t going to be easy, but he would do whatever he had to do to make that job his.

At least he knew he had one ally in his corner.

Just the thought of Leslie sent a flood of arousal coursing through his body.

He closed his eyes and relived every second of that kiss they’d shared at the diner the other night. The touch of her fingertips against the back of his neck, the rapid rise and fall of her chest as she’d took those breathy pants of air, the incredibly sweet flavor of her warm mouth as she’d opened it for him and sucked his tongue inside.

Gabe groaned and ran his hand against his aching groin.

He had anticipated what it would be like to kiss her for months, ever since the first day she’d walked into his classroom as a volunteer. Within moments of his mouth meeting hers, Gabe had decided that she had been worth every second of the wait.

He grabbed his cell phone and punched in her number.

“Hi,” she answered. “What are you up to tonight?”

“Oh, nothing. Just grading papers and thinking about pecan pie. For some reason I can’t get it off my mind.”

“Neither can I,” she said.

“Do you want me to make one and bring it over? I doubt it would be as good as the one we had the other night, but who knows? I might surprise myself.”

She gave a nervous laugh. “Actually, I’m at The Jazzy Bean with a few parents from the PTO. We’re putting together prize packs for the Lock-In/Learn-In.”

“Oh, cool. I can come over and help.”

The pregnant pause that filled the phone line was fraught with tension. “I think we have it under control,” she said.

Understanding had Gabe’s shoulders slumping in disappointment. Of course she didn’t want him around when other parents were there.

Her insistence that they be discreet had not been that big of a deal. In fact, it had been kind of fun to slip away to that cozy little diner in St. Pierre, away from everyone they knew. But on nights such as tonight, when all he could think about was holding her close to him and tasting her lips again, their secret affair was the exact opposite of fun.

He wanted the freedom to be with her out in the open, where everyone could see that she had chosen him. There were no rules against them being together, nothing that said that he, as a teacher or school administrator, could not date a single parent.

But perception was everything, and if parents thought she was siding with him on issues concerning the school because they were seeing each other, it could make things awkward for her during her tenure as PTO president. She’d had enough to deal with the past couple of years. The last thing Gabe wanted to do was cause her discomfort.

So, instead of getting in his car and driving to the coffee house on Main Street, he returned to the papers he’d been grading and consigned himself to a night of wishing for what, at the moment, could not be.

* * *

Her feet curled underneath her, Leslie relaxed on the wooden swing that hung in the corner of her porch. This was
her
spot; it had been so since the day she and Braylon had moved into this house. How many evenings had she spent relaxing on this swing, the gentle sway lulling her into a state of calmness as she sipped lavender tea and decompressed from her hectic workday?

Today, it was both lavender tea and running her fingers through Buster’s soft coat that provided the dose of contentment. There was no denying it; this little stinker was growing on her. The dog released a slight snore, and Leslie grinned. It looked as if the swing worked on canines, as well.

“Mommy?”

“Yes, baby?” Leslie asked, turning toward the front door at the sound of Kristi’s voice.

“Can I please, please,
please
play Monster High on the computer?”

“You’ve put away those toys?” Leslie asked.

“Yes. And I put my socks in the drawer, too.”

“Okay,” Leslie said, planting a kiss on her forehead. She held up her watch. “You can play for thirty minutes. So what time will that be?”

Kristi studied the clock face. Telling time on a regular clock had proven to be more difficult for Kristi than it had been for Cass at this age.

“Seven o’clock,” Kristi said, her face beaming.

“Good job.”

“And then we can watch
Dancing with the Stars
,” she said.

“You know it. Do you want Buster to come with you while you play?”

“No,” Kristi said, shaking her head. “She just tries to eat the computer mouse. You can keep her.” Kristi ruffled Buster’s coat, then skipped back into the house.

“Send Cass out here,” Leslie called after her. A couple of minutes later, Cassidy came out onto the porch.

“How’s your science project coming along?” Leslie asked her.

Cassidy had begged her not to help with the science project, which was due tomorrow. She had insisted that she and Willow, her science-fair partner, could handle it on their own. The two of them had been on Skype all afternoon, even though Willow only lived two streets over. Kids.

“Are you sure you don’t need any help?” Leslie asked.

“Yes, Mom. Willow and I know what we’re doing. I promise.”

“Okay,” Leslie said, putting a hand up. “Just remember that I’m here if you need me.”

“Can I go back into the house now?” Cassidy asked.

Leslie blew out a weary breath. “Yes, Cass.”

Leslie tried to ignore the melancholy slowly creeping in, but it wasn’t easy. Cassidy was exerting her independence more and more these days, and each time she did, it pierced Leslie’s heart a little more. She missed her baby. And she knew it would only get worse as Kristi grew older, too.

Leslie heard whistling moments before she noticed someone out of the corner of her eye. She sat with her teacup arrested halfway to her mouth as she watched Gabriel leisurely walking along the sidewalk, hands in his pockets, a derby cap slung low over his brow. Her eyes tracked him as he strolled past her house, never once looking her way.

She set the teacup on the saucer and started to rise, but Buster protested with a yelp and she returned to her seat. The whistling returned, this time coming from the opposite direction. Once again, he walked right past her house, but just a few yards away, he stopped, pivoted and came back again toward her house. He turned and strolled up her walkway.

“So, did I convince you that I just happened to be walking in the neighborhood?” he asked.

“Is that what you were trying to do?”

“Kind of,” he said.

Buster raised her head, let out a halfhearted bark, then put her head back on Leslie’s lap.

“Quite the guard dog you have there,” Gabe said.

“Don’t let her extremely relaxed demeanor fool you. She’ll attack your best pair of shoes and chew them to within an inch of their lives. So, why exactly were you trying to convince me that you just happened to be in the neighborhood?”

“Well, it wasn’t you that I was trying to convince as much as any curious eyes that may be wandering and happen to catch us out here. Maybe they would think that I just so happened to run into you as I was taking a stroll in a neighborhood that’s on the opposite side of town from my own.

“Is it okay for me to join you?”

She hesitated for the barest moment before she nodded. “Please do.”

An easy smile spread across his lips as he climbed the steps and perched himself against the railing. Crossing his arms over his chest, he leaned back and looked from left to right along the tree-lined street. “It is a rather nice neighborhood,” he said. “A lot nicer than where I’m renting.”

He told her about the shotgun house where he lived not too far from the water-treatment plant.

“Mr. Mayes is a sweetheart,” Leslie said. “At least you have a good neighbor and landlord.”

“Except he’s nearly deaf and plays his music loud enough for half the town to hear.”

“A small price to pay for the chance to live next to one of Gauthier’s former police officers.”

“Seriously? I didn’t know that.”

She nodded. “For a long time he was the
only
police officer. After he retired the police station closed. Now it’s only the parish sheriff’s office.”

Gabe shook his head. “I never imagined myself living in a town that’s not big enough to sustain a one-man police force.” He looked over at her and smiled. “It’s a good thing it has other perks.”

“Like?” she asked, her cheeks reddening.

“Oh, I can think of a few. Take the local PTO president, for instance. You don’t find many of those who look—”