To Have and to Hold (15 page)

“I'
m pretty certain the milk was drugged. It was verified that none of the others had even tried to get out. And there was incontrovertible proof of the fire having been deliberately set.” His voice didn't shake, didn't fracture under a load which would have crippled many men. “They assumed it was my father but I knew it couldn't have been. Once he passed out, he stayed that way for eight hours or more.”

All she wanted to do was hold him. But would he accept the tenderness? “It was ruled an accident.”

“It's a small town and the men in power at the time were good friends of my father's. They decided the truth would serve no purpose other than to make my life hell, so they buried it. It wasn't until I was sixteen that I pushed them to confirm what I already knew.”

Stunned at what she'd learned and what it told her about the man who was her husband, she tried to find the right words. “You're nothing like him.”

“Enough, Jess.” He brushed back her hair and kissed the soft skin of her nape. “I don't want to talk about this ever again.”

It wasn't in her nature to give up, but they'd come so far today. Turning in his arms, she let him sweep her under in a dark wave of masculine heat. And for the first time, she didn't fight the surrender. In any way.

* * *

The next week passed by in a blur of happiness. Gabriel was no Prince Charming, but the man did have a way of melting a woman's insides when he decided to smile. And he'd been smiling a lot more often of late.

So when Jess ran into Corey at the grocery store, she felt terrible at being so happy that she'd forgotten the hardship he had to be going through…forgotten this aspect of Gabe's personality. Ruthless practicality might be part of her husband's nature, but it hurt her to think of him as callously unforgiving.

About to take the coward's way out and leave, she was caught off-guard by Corey's shouted greeting. Walking over, she smiled at both him and the little girl in his arms. “Hello.”

“This here's Christy. My daughter,” he explained, as if afraid she wouldn't remember.

“Nice to meet you, Christy. Your daddy's told me all about you.”

The shy child half hid her face in her father's neck but Jess could see her smile. She felt even worse. “Corey, I'm so sorry about what happened.”

Corey shook his head. “It was my fault. Mr. Dumont was right to be piss—I mean angry,” he substituted, glancing down at his daughter. “I would have been mad as anything, too, if that had been my wife and all. I wanted to tell you I quit. Smoking, I mean. For good.”

“That's great.” She was stunned by his lack of bitterness. “Do you still want me to do the sketch?”

“Would you?” At her nod, he grinned. “Could you do it from a photo?”

“Sure. If that's what you want.”

“It's just that we won't be in town for long. I came back to pick up my mom and Christy. Needed time to set up things.” His smile was very young. “The work's a little different with the vines and everything, but I think I like it even better than station stuff.”

Relief rushed through her as she realized he must've found employment in a wine-making region. “Oh, I'm so glad for you.”

“Anyway, we'd better be getting on home. It was nice talking to you Mrs. Dumont.”

“You too, Corey. Good luck with your new job.” She was about to move on when he slapped his forehead and stopped.

“I'm such a dolt.” He made a face. “I wanted to thank you.”

“Thank me? For what?”

“For talking to Mr. Dumont. I figured it must've been you.” His expression was so sincere she felt her world rock on its axis. “If he hadn't called his friend in Marlborough, I might've been looking for work forever.”

Jess somehow managed to nod. “Have a safe trip.”

“Thanks. And don't worry, I won't stuff up this chance.”

Watching him leave, she put her hand on one of the shelves and tried to steady her mind. Gabe had not only listened to what she'd had to say, he'd acted on it. Then why hadn't the dratted man told her?

Because he wanted to keep her at a distance.

So long as she thought of him as unnecessarily harsh, she'd never fully trust him, which played right into his hands. For her husband, a man who'd loved and lost everyone who mattered, her mistrust was far easier to accept than either her love or her care.

Jess's face cracked into a slow smile. Too damn bad for Gabe that she'd just found him out.

* * *

Buoyant after what she'd learned, she was almost ready to tell Gabe everything about her own feelings, willing to take a chance on the man she knew him to be. Perhaps she'd whisper it to him in bed, she thought, knowing she had to choose her moment.

“So,” she asked after dinner that day, curled up on the sofa in his study, “do you want to know if it's a boy or a girl when I'm far enough along for them to tell, or do you want it to be a surprise?”

“I don't want to know.”

“Really? I don't know if I'm going to be able to stand the suspense.”

“That's not what I meant.” He put down the fax he'd been examining. “I told you, I don't want to be a father. Don't involve me in anything where my participation isn't strictly necessary.”

Staring at the implacable mask of his face, she tried to find some hint of softness. Of hope. “But Gabe, now that we've talked…You're nothing like him. You don't have to worry about hurting your child.”

He circled his desk to face her. “Don't try and psychoanalyze me on the basis of something you know less than nothing about. I've made my decision.”

Feeling dread chill her blood, she unfolded her legs and stood. “You can't mean that.”

He ran a hand through his hair. “I won't ignore the kid if that's what you're worried about. I just want him or her around as little as possible.”

“And how will being shipped off to boarding school and summer camps from such a young age make our child feel loved?”

His cheekbones stood out against skin stretched taut. “I'll take care of everything the baby needs.”

“I see.” And she did, far too clearly. “Love isn't part of the bargain?”

“It never was.”

She flinched at the brutal execution of all her silent hopes and dreams. “I made that bargain for me. You're not going to cheat our child out of it!”

“I never lied to you about who I was.”

“I thought—” She shook her head, furious at herself for having once again fallen for a man who'd only ever existed in her imagination. And this time, she'd gone far beyond girlish infatuation.

Horror drenched her at the thought of how close she'd come to declaring her love to someone who didn't want it and would throw it back in her face if she gave it to him. Wrapping her arms around her body, she told herself not to break down, not here, not now. “But men like you don't change, do they?”

“Why would you expect me to?”

* * *

Gabe's question from the night before echoed in Jess's mind as she sat on the steps to what had once been her home. However Randall Station no longer occupied that place in her heart. She'd accepted Angel in a way not even Gabe realized.

But it wasn't enough.

Touching the wood of the beloved home she'd thought she'd sacrifice anything to save, she shook her head. “Not my baby.” Her child would not be held hostage to this place as she'd been, would not be forced to grow up alone and isolated in order to keep the Randall heritage safe.

And who had she been keeping it safe for but the life in her womb? Yes, it would break her heart to walk away, leaving her parents' legacy to the mercy of the developers. But that she could survive. What she'd never survive, what she'd never forgive herself for, was if she stood by and allowed her child to be torn from her arms in order to fulfill Gabe's inexplicable change of heart on being a father.

“I'm sorry, Daddy.” She put a hand over her abdomen. “I'm sorry for not keeping my promise but I know you'll understand.” A breeze whispered through the air to trail across her face, flicking away the single tear that had escaped her determination to be strong.

She'd been such a fool, first in thinking that she could survive a marriage based on nothing but business, and second, in seeing Gabriel Dumont as her very own knight in shining armor. He was no knight, not a man who'd ever be willing to give her what she most needed.

Perhaps the ability to love had been cut out of him long before the fire, his heart permanently damaged by witnessing his father's brutalization of his mother. Perhaps he'd lost it that night when Angel became an inferno that swallowed everything he'd ever loved. Or perhaps it was her he couldn't love. She didn't know the answer, but she did know that her child wasn't going to suffer for her stupidity.

Rising she walked down to the SUV and started it up. As she drove away, she allowed herself only a single backward look in the rearview mirror. Tears threatened to burst the banks of her control, but she resisted pulling over until she was out of sight of the house. Then she stopped. And let the tears come.

She was calm again by the time she reached the place that had become her new home. If there was one thing she didn't want, it was for Gabriel to see her as weak or pitiful. She was no longer that broken girl who'd begged him to save her home. Finally, she'd grown up.

Still, she was glad he hadn't yet come in when she entered the house. Going up to her bedroom, she packed a suitcase and carried it to the bottom of the stairs before heading to her studio. There, she began putting the bare essentials into a small bag. She'd get Mrs. C. to ship her her paintings after she found somewhere permanent to stay.

“What the hell are you doing, Jess?”

Closing the bag, she looked up at the man who'd become the center of her life in a few short months. “I'm leaving you.” The pronouncement sounded shockingly blunt, but she knew no other way to make it without betraying the depth of her pain.

Green eyes glittered beneath the shadow thrown by the brim of his hat. “If you think this stunt will make me chase after you, you don't know me.”

She drew in a ragged breath. “I don't expect that. We had a deal. I'm reneging with full awareness of the consequences.” Tucking her hair behind her ears, she folded her arms and met his gaze without flinching. “I know you'll sell Randall Station. I'm not going to ask you to stop. It's legally yours.”

“Your first payment under the pre-nup doesn't come due until we've been married two years.”

She should have expected the cold-blooded response but there remained a foolish emotional softness in her, something that insisted on seeing the invisible scars on his heart, and that bled at his lack of feeling for her and their child. “I don't want your money.” It inadvertently came out like the most severe kind of rejection.

“It'll take me a while but now that I have a source of income, I'll pay you back for L.A. Don't worry about maintenance for the baby, either. It hardly seems fair when you'd rather I wasn't pregnant.”

“Don't be absurd, Jess.” White lines bracketed his mouth. “I'm not having it said I threw my pregnant wife out on the street.”

She picked up the bag with her art supplies. “Fine. Support the child, that's your right, but I don't want anything else from you.”

He blocked the doorway. “Why the sudden about-face? You were perfectly happy with this arrangement a year ago.”

She could have lied, but that no longer seemed an option. Maybe she'd had enough of hiding things, or maybe she was hoping for a last minute reprieve from a man who knew no such thing as mercy. Whatever it was, she told him the absolute truth. “A year ago, I didn't love you.”

T
here was no reprieve.

Gabriel went silent after her confession and it took everything she had not to give voice to the anguish inside of her. Instead, she let him put her suitcase into the trunk of the SUV and when he asked where she was going, said, “I'll call you when I get there.”

In truth, she had no idea of her destination. All she knew was that she had to leave. Driving aimlessly toward Kowhai, she thought about going to Merri Tanner, but disregarded the idea a second later. Merri was her good friend, but Mr. Tanner was Gabe's. It wasn't fair to put them in the middle of her and Gabe's problems.

In the end, she simply kept driving until night fell and tiredness forced her to check into a motel. Sleep was a long time coming. It was during those dark, lonely hours that she finally accepted the inescapable fact—she could no longer live in or around the Mackenzie Country.

Because in spite of its wide open sky, it was too small a community. She'd be unable to avoid hearing news about Gabe, unable to avoid running into him at area events. And she needed to forget him, needed to find a way to live without her heart.

Getting up early the next day, she drove straight to Christchurch Airport. After parking the car in the airport lot, she called Angel Station and left a message on the machine telling Gabe where it was.

Her second call was to another man.

* * *

Gabriel hung up the phone, trying not to crush the receiver in his hand. Jess hadn't called him. If the man she'd run to hadn't felt compelled to let him know that his wife was safe, he wouldn't even have known where she'd gone after she left the car at the airport
three days ago
.

Picking up the address he'd been given, he shoved it under a paperweight and tried to concentrate on checking some invoices. Jess had left him and she'd done it with a clear head. There was nothing to discuss—they'd had a deal and she'd broken it, though he knew he was to blame for that. He should have never tried to get her pregnant. Of course he'd support her as well as the child. He wasn't a man who ran from his responsibilities.

The pen snapped under the force of his grip, splashing ink across the invoices and staining his fingers a deep blue. Swearing, he threw the broken pieces into the trash and went to wash his hands. Afterward, he found himself walking not toward his study, but toward Jess's studio. He hadn't gone near that room since the day she'd walked out, but now he flicked on the light and began looking at the paintings she'd left behind.

Pride rushed through him at the depth of her talent. Her rural and city scenes were stunning but it was in portraiture that her skill became truly apparent. Life stories told in brush strokes on canvas, each paid painstaking homage to her subject—from a youthful Corey who was a cheerful sketch, to a laughing Mrs. C. in the kitchen.

The one of Damon was stacked with the others, a silent reiteration of what she'd said that night at the hotel. Jess had grown up, leaving behind both her innocence and her childish love for a man who'd never been good enough for her. And now she'd left her husband, too.

A year ago, I didn't love you.

Letting the portrait drop back to rest against the wall, he left the studio. But he couldn't escape the soft whispers of a feminine voice that insisted on speaking to him.

The sound of a car pulling up outside was a welcome distraction despite the late hour. Part of him was convinced that Jess had apprehended her mistake and returned. Hauling open the front door with enthusiasm he wasn't willing to admit even to himself, he walked across the verandah. But the woman who exited the gleaming sedan wasn't the one he wanted to see.

“What are you doing here, Sylvie?”

She waited for him to reach the car. “I got back tonight from a trip to Wellington. I heard what happened with you and Jess.”

The sound of his wife's name made his entire body react with an explosive mix of need, denial and anger. She was his. She wasn't supposed to leave him.

“Gabe.” Sylvie put a hand on his arm. “What we had was good.”

“We were over a long time ago. I don't recall either of us crying tears over the split.”

“We could have it again.” Her voice was even but determined. “I'm ready to settle down and so are you. She just wasn't the right woman.”

At that moment, Gabriel knew without a doubt that Sylvie would accept his decree to remain childless. She'd never ask anything more from him than he was prepared to give. That was how their relationship had always worked—two practical adults with little emotional investment in each other or their relationship. “No, Sylvie. You can't renew what was never there.”

Her face blanched. “She'll never know you like I know you.”

He'd had enough. “The single reason you know about the fire is because you overheard your father talking to the old coroner one night,” he reminded her. “You never knew me.” And nobody, not even her father, knew the real truth of who'd set the blaze.

Gabriel had told only one other person, the sole human being he trusted to never break her silence or use it against him. Because she was too gentle, too loyal, too damn loving. And he'd known that from the day he'd proposed.

“Do you really think Jess can ever be the kind of wife you want?”

The question silenced everything around him. “Maybe not,” he said quietly, “but she's the kind of wife I need.”

Sylvie's arm dropped away. “She's not here though.”

No, she wasn't. He'd let her walk away. It might rank as the most idiotic thing he'd ever done but some mistakes could be rectified. Jess was his wife and she was going to stay that way. He refused to let her have her way on this one crucial point.

* * *

Jess had taken Richard at his word and not worried about finding an apartment for the week that he was in Australia. He had insisted she housesit for him when she'd phoned to ask about cheap rental accommodation. Leaving the night she'd arrived, he'd told her to rest and reconsider going back to her “beautiful shark.” She'd thrown herself into work instead, doing sketch after sketch on a small pad she'd bought at a nearby bookstore.

And if her mind kept drifting to the last page in the pad, to the sketch she'd done first, at least she was able to stop herself from turning to it. Except at night. When her defenses crumbled and she gave in to the most awful kind of loneliness.

Conceding defeat after yet another long morning spent in a useless attempt to wipe Gabriel from her mind, she decided to walk the short distance to the gallery. Maybe Trixie, one of Richard's assistants, would like to go for a late lunch. It looked like rain so she hoped Trixie knew someplace nearby.

Pushing through the glass door of the gallery, she stopped dead at the sight of the man waiting inside. “Gabe?” Her whole body came to vibrant, turbulent life.

“You weren't at the apartment.”

She fiddled with her purse, crushing that initial burst of wild hope. “Did you need to travel up here for a meeting?”

He looked very businessmanlike in his dark pants and crisp shirt. Except that it was
that
green shirt, the one permanently stamped with memories of his furious passion and her complete surrender. The emotional impact was devastating. But, of course, that wouldn't have occurred to him when he'd put it on.

“Yes, a very important meeting.” Moving forward, he reached past her to reopen the door. “Let's take a walk.”

She probably should have told him where to put his orders, but she was still so shaken up at the sight of him that she walked out without saying a word. It took the crisp winter-turning-to-spring air to slap her back to sanity.

“What did you want to talk about?” Facing him on the sidewalk, she tried not to let his presence affect her, a hopeless endeavor. Gabriel had affected her from the first—anger, passion, hurt…love. “Did you want me to sign something to speed up the divorce?”

A flash of some dark emotion sparked in the green of his eyes. “Trixie told me there was a park nearby.”

She fell into step beside him despite her better judgment.

“Were you ever going to call me?” he asked, as they reached the narrow path, which cut between two buildings and led to the park.

She told herself she was imagining the edge in his voice. “I wanted to get settled into an apartment first. I thought it'd be more convenient for you to know where to send my paintings and things.” A flat-out lie. She'd just been unable to bring herself to talk to him. The wound was too fresh, the hurt too close to the surface.

He thrust his hands into the pockets of his pants, shirt pulling tight across broad shoulders. Even now she had to curl her own hands into fists to keep from giving in to the urge to stroke.

“And you didn't consider that I might've been worried about you?”

The path ended. Needing time to think, Jess looked out over the empty green space. The usual crowd had probably been put off by the inclement weather. Clouds hung thick and heavy in the sky, threatening to break at any moment. But that thought was a momentary diversion—Gabe was waiting for an answer.

“No.” She turned toward him. “I know I lie low on your list of priorities, somewhere beneath overseeing the reconstruction of the stables and above balancing your checkbook. Actually, I'm not so sure about that last one.”

The skin of his face stretched taut. “Then why do you love me?”