Читать книгу Gabriel's Honor - Barbara McCauley - Страница 10

“You’ve been a bad girl, Melanie,” Vincent whispered. “A bad, bad girl.”

Like a snake, his voice slithered up from the darkness. She couldn’t see him, but she felt him, felt the icy-cold hiss of his breath on her neck.

Run! her mind screamed, but the dirt under her feet turned to mud and sucked at her legs, drawing her down into the thick muck. Her arms hung like lead at her sides, useless, helpless.

Kevin ran out of the thick forest toward her, smiling, his arms raised. She opened her mouth to scream, tell him to run away, but no sound came.

“You know what happens to bad girls?” Vincent warned, his disembodied voice low and sinister. “Shall I show you?”

Powerless to stop him, she heard her own whimper. Like a spider’s legs, his fingers brushed over her cheek, then wrapped around her neck.

Still smiling, Kevin jumped into her arms, but she couldn’t catch him, couldn’t hold him…

Melanie jerked awake, her heart pounding furiously. Kevin lay in her arms, giggling as he tickled her cheek with the tip of his finger.

A dream, only a dream, she told herself, even though it had seemed so real. The same dream she’d had so many nights. The same nightmare. She wrapped her arms tightly around her son, drawing deep, calming breaths as she drew him close. He tolerated the hug for all of five seconds before protesting and pushing himself away.

At the sudden bang at the back door, she jumped, once again grabbed Kevin and dragged him into her arms.

“Hey, get the door for me, will you?” Melanie heard Gabe yell.

With Kevin following closely behind in his flannel Batman pajamas, Melanie glanced at her wristwatch as she hurried to the back door. Nine o’clock! She’d been asleep over an hour, she realized, and groaned aloud at the loss of precious time.

She flipped the latch up, then opened the door. Gabe stood on the other side of the screen door, one brown paper grocery bag in each arm and two plastic bags hanging from each hand.

“Thanks.” He smiled at her, then glanced down at Kevin. “Mornin’, Batman.”

Kevin’s dimples flashed, and he grabbed hold of the hem of her sweater, hugging close.

“Do you mind?” Gabe gestured toward the screen door and Melanie pushed it open wide, then moved out of the way.

He stepped around them and strode into the kitchen, bringing the clean smell of country air with him. With a thud, he dumped the groceries onto the kitchen table that sat in the middle of the large, airy room. One bag turned over, and three cans of peas rolled across the bleached pine tabletop. Before they could crash to the hardwood floor, Gabe snatched them up, sang da dada da, da dada da, while juggling them like a circus act, then tossed them back into the bag one at a time. Grinning, he spread his hands wide.

Well, his mood certainly had changed.

His mouth open, Kevin stared, then laughed. Even Melanie couldn’t help the smile pulling at the corners of her mouth.

“And for my next trick—” Gabe pulled a carton of eggs out of a bag “—you and I are going to make these eggs disappear.”

“We are?” Kevin’s blue eyes were wide with wonder.

Gabe nodded. “Right after your mommy cooks them up into great big ham and cheese omelettes.”

Kevin giggled, and Gabe swept his gaze to Melanie. “Please tell me you know how to cook.”

There was a lightness to his tone, but the intense, sharp look in his forest-green eyes made her breath catch. He was offering his help, but at the same time, making it clear he wasn’t going to push. She already understood this man well enough to know that was not an easy thing for him. Gabriel Sinclair was a man who wanted to be in charge, who needed to be in charge.

Which was exactly the last thing she wanted, and the last thing she needed.

She sighed. But she and Kevin needed to eat, and she could rationalize that cooking a meal for Gabe was paying her way for food for her son and herself. Besides, she certainly wasn’t going anywhere until the battery was replaced on her car. A meal would fortify her, get her brain working again so she could deal with her most current crisis.

She met his gaze, lifted one corner of her mouth. “You sure you want ham in that omelette?” she asked sweetly. “It seems to me you’ve got plenty of that already.”

He lifted one brow, and she saw the glint of amusement in his eyes. “Lots of ham, darlin’, and extra cheese. A growing boy needs protein. Isn’t that right, Kevin?”

One long cowlick, dead center in the middle of Kevin’s sandy blond head, wiggled as he nodded enthusiastically, though Melanie knew her son didn’t have a clue what protein was.

When Gabe started to unload the food, Melanie reached out and took the package of cheese from his hand, accidentally brushing her fingertips with his.

There it was again, she thought with a catch of her breath. That same jolt of heat she’d felt when they’d shook hands last night. She thought that maybe she’d been overwrought and had simply overreacted to his touch, or that she’d even imagined it.

But she hadn’t imagined it. It, whatever it was, was definitely there. It zapped her fingertips, then shot straight down to her toes like electricity through a wire.

She tugged the package of already shredded cheese from his hand. “I know you have work to do here. I’ll put these things away, then see if I can find my way around this kitchen.”

He stared at her for what seemed like a lifetime, though it probably wasn’t more than three or four seconds. The playfulness she’d seen in his eyes only moments ago was gone now. In its place was something dark and intense.

Despite the heavy thud of her heart in her chest, she forced a smile. “It shouldn’t be too long. I’ll call you when it’s ready.”

At last, with a nod, he turned and headed for the door leading to the living room. She released the breath she’d been holding.

“Gabe.”

He stopped at her quiet call, glanced over his shoulder.

“You asked me earlier and I didn’t answer you then. I don’t have a husband.”

She waited, frozen in place under his penetrating gaze.

“Good,” he said simply, then turned and was gone.

Melanie stared at the empty doorway, waiting for the floor under her feet to gain substance again. She could still feel the tingle from his touch shimmering over her skin.

“Mommy, did you see what that man did? Did you see?” Kevin tugged on her sweater. “That was so neat!”

“Yes, sweetie, I saw.” She glanced down at her son, ran a hand over his rumpled hair. “Very neat.”

“I’m a growing boy,” Kevin said firmly. “Can I have lots of ham and cheese in my omelette, too? Just like him?”

Melanie wasn’t sure she liked the “just like him” part of her son’s request, but it had been a long time since she’d seen him excited about anything, including food. The first time since Phillip had died and Louise had moved into their lives that she’d seen her son’s big blue eyes sparkle.

“Sure you can.” Smiling, Melanie took Kevin’s chin in her hand and tipped his face up as she bent down to kiss his nose. “One double cheese and ham omelette coming right up.”

The sound of a door opening and closing upstairs caught Melanie’s attention. Two omelettes coming up, she corrected herself, then forced herself to concentrate on the task at hand, not the lingering feel of Gabe Sinclair’s fingers against her own.

Gabe lay on his back under the upstairs bathroom sink, a wrench in one hand and a rag in the other. He’d been trying to loosen the rusted pipe for the past fifteen minutes, with no success. Gritting his teeth, he pulled tightly on the wrench, but the stubborn pipe refused to budge. Dammit.

Must be female, he thought irritably, grunting as he bore down, but the wrench twisted off and struck him square on the jaw.

Son of a bitch! His vision exploded with stars, and his jaw throbbed from the blow. Dragging himself out from under the sink, he sat, head down between his knees and swore hotly.

Definitely female, Gabe decided.

With a heavy sigh, he raked a hand through his hair. The most amazing smells were wafting up from downstairs. He sucked the delicious aromas into his lungs and held them there. His stomach began to rumble like a freight train.

Thank God she hadn’t turned tail and run when he’d asked her to cook. He’d certainly expected her to, had been surprised when she’d agreed. But he’d been even more surprised when she’d actually teased him about the ham. There was a playful side to Melanie Hart, he realized, though she was doing her best to keep it hidden.

Along with the rest of her secrets.

He hadn’t told her that he’d already bought a battery for her car, as well, and that he intended to install it for her, with or without her approval. He figured he’d lay that one on her after breakfast. One tiny step at a time with this woman.

I don’t have a husband.

Her quiet words had been running through his mind like one of those little hamsters on a wheel. And running along right beside her declaration was the burning question: What was her problem?

He’d called Cara late last night, hoping to get some answers, but she’d been tight-lipped. She told him that if Melanie wanted him to know something, then she’d tell him herself.

Yeah. Right. That would happen right about the same time that the IRS told him it was no longer necessary for him to pay taxes. Just because he was such a nice guy.

It had been a natural assumption that Melanie was hiding out from an abusive husband, Gabe thought. But unless she was lying—and he was as certain as he could be she wasn’t—then the husband theory was wrong.

So was she in trouble with the law?

It was strictly a gut feeling, but he didn’t think so, even though she’d been so panicked last night when she thought he was calling the police. He’d seen how gentle she was with her son, how tender. Gabe touched the scratch on his cheek, remembered her concern when she’d seen the blood on his face and she’d thought she’d hurt him. Even her attempt to bean him with that statue had been halfhearted. He couldn’t believe for a second that this woman was a criminal.

But if it wasn’t a husband, and it wasn’t the police, then what was it?

None of his business, that’s what it was. He rubbed his sore jaw. She’d be on the road as soon as he installed her battery, which would be right after breakfast. So what was the point in all this speculation? It was doing him no good to think beyond the present moment with Melanie. No damn good at all.

He stared at his hand, remembered the touch of her fingertips on his. The contact had been brief, a mere brush of skin, but damn if something hadn’t passed between them, something downright…unnerving.

The same as last night, when he’d shaken her hand.

There was lust, of course. He recognized that clearly enough. He’d been down that road more than a few times with a woman. But lust had never thrown him off balance like this before. Had never hit him in the solar plexus like a two-by-four.

Weird, that’s what it was.

“Are you all right?”

He glanced up at the sound of Melanie’s voice. She stood in the doorway, hands linked behind her.

“I thought I heard you bellow,” she said as her gaze took in the wrench in his hand.

“I’m fighting about thirty years of rust,” he said with a shrug.

“Looks like you lost.” She nodded toward his jaw.

“Just the battle, not the war.” Rubbing his chin, he rose, tossed the wrench back into his toolbox. “I’ll be back, packing a bigger wrench.”

Smiling softly, she glanced around the spacious bathroom, her gaze pausing at the porcelain claw foot bathtub that sat in the middle of the white tile floor, then moving on to linger and obviously admire an antique, cherry wood armoire with carved panels. A matching dressing table with a beveled mirror sat on the wall opposite the armoire. Gabe watched Melanie’s soft gray eyes widen at the assortment of crystal perfume bottles and elegant silver brushes and combs that lay on top of the dresser.

An image of Melanie sitting at the dressing table popped into Gabe’s head. She wore white silk and lace; her dark hair was swept up, exposing her long, slender neck. She touched the tip of perfumed crystal just below the delicate curve of her ear. Damn if he couldn’t even smell the sweet scent that drifted from her.

He blinked, then snapped his thoughts back to the present. Weird.

“Funny.” Gabe stared at the dressing table. “I wouldn’t have thought old lady Witherspoon was a silver brush, crystal perfume bottle kind of woman.”

“She was a nice lady,” Melanie said thoughtfully.

Nice lady? Gabe had heard Miss Witherspoon called a lot of things, but never nice. Then it dawned on him exactly what Melanie had just said. “You did know her?”

“I knew her,” she said quietly, then pulled her gaze from the dresser. “Breakfast is ready.”

He watched her turn and go back downstairs. He’d assumed that she’d been lying when she’d said that she knew the elderly woman. But how did Melanie know Mildred Witherspoon? he wondered. As far as he knew, Mildred had never left Bloomfield County. Other than church, town meetings and an occasional doctor appointment, it was a well-known fact that the woman rarely went out. For the past few years, she’d even had her groceries delivered directly to her house.

Gabe stared at the empty doorway where Melanie had been standing. And if he was certain of anything, it was that Melanie Hart had never been to Bloomfield County before.

Don’t ask, Sinclair. If she wants you to know, she’ll tell you.

With a sigh, Gabe made his way downstairs and found her in the kitchen, by the sink, her arms folded as she stared down at her son. Kevin had changed into a white T-shirt with a picture of Batman on the front, blue jeans and tennis shoes. His little hands were shoved deeply into the front pockets of his jeans.

“I just washed my hands,” Kevin said firmly.

Melanie frowned. “You washed them last night. You have to wash them again, before you eat.”

Ah, the age-old argument. Gabe suppressed a smile as he watched mother and son. Stubborn appeared to be a strong gene in Melanie and her son, he thought, recognizing the determined tilt of Kevin’s chin.

“Sure smells good.” Gabe strolled casually into the room, rolling up the sleeves of his blue denim shirt. Kevin and Melanie stepped out of his way when he moved to the sink. “I’m so hungry, I could eat a whole cow.”

Kevin stared up at him, eyes wide. “We’re not having cow. We’re having omelettes. Remember?”

“Well, I could eat a whole omelette then.” Gabe turned on the sink faucet, made a note that the washers needed replacing as he reached for a new bar of white soap on the ledge. “Soon as I wash my hands.”

Kevin pressed his lips tightly together. Even at four, he obviously recognized a con job. “My hands aren’t dirty. I already washed them.”

“Kevin—” Melanie warned.

“So did I.” Gabe worked up a foamy froth of suds. “But Batman says he always washes his hands right exactly the minute before he eats.”

Kevin stared at him with suspicion in his big blue eyes. “Batman says that?”

“Yep.”

“Why?”

Gabe glanced at Melanie, who was watching the two of them with interest and amusement. “Well, it’s kind of a secret—” Gabe lowered his voice, leaned closer to Kevin “—but the reason is that when he eats with clean hands, it makes him strong, and that’s how he catches all the bad guys.”

The freckles on Kevin’s nose wrinkled as he scrunched up his face in deep thought. He looked at his mother, back at Gabe, then pulled his hands out of his pockets and stuck them under the running water. Gabe handed him the soap, and Kevin turned the big white bar over and over in his little hands, attempting to work up the same frothy lather that Gabe had.

Pleased with his success, Gabe looked over at Melanie, expecting her expression to be approval and admiration for his cunning. But her expression was closer to worry. An uneasiness that narrowed her eyes and pressed her lips into a thin line.

What the hell had he said?

“I’ll put the food on the table while you two finish up,” she said without meeting his curious gaze, then turned away and moved toward the stove, a white-enameled gas range that had to be at least fifty years old. The refrigerator also appeared to be as ancient, he noticed. Not a microwave or blender in sight. It appeared that Mildred Witherspoon did not subscribe to modern conveniences.

Kevin, meanwhile, had decided he didn’t just want his hands clean, he wanted them extra-extra squeaky clean. Delighted with the translucent bubbles billowing from his soapy hands, he continued to scrub and wash.

“I think we’ve got it now, partner.” Gabe rinsed the child’s hands, then dried them off. “We’ve still got to make those omelettes disappear, remember?”

Kevin ran to the table and climbed up on a ladder-back wooden chair. Gabe turned to help Melanie, who was busy at the stove, but she waved him to sit, so he did. Two seconds later, she set a heaping plate of sliced potatoes with onions and peppers and a big fluffy omelette in front of him and told him to eat. He took a bite of the eggs and closed his eyes on a sigh. Scooping up a biteful of potatoes, he actually moaned.

Lord, but he’d died and gone to heaven.

“Damn, woman,” he said around another bite, “if you cook this good, I’m going to have to marry you right now.”

Gabe watched as Kevin’s eyes opened wide, then noticed Melanie had sternly arched one eyebrow.

“Hey,” he said awkwardly, “I was just—”

“He said damn,” Kevin announced.

Had he? Oops.

“You’re not supposed to say damn,” Kevin admonished.

“Kevin,” Melanie said firmly as she sat at the table with a plate of food for Kevin and herself. “You don’t tell adults what they can or can’t say. And you most certainly don’t repeat bad words.”

“You mean like those other words Gabe said earlier when he was upstairs?” Kevin asked.

“Especially those,” Melanie said.

Remembering a few of those words, Gabe ducked his head sheepishly. He hadn’t considered that anyone else had heard, and hell—heck—he wasn’t used to being around kids.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

“It’s okay.” Kevin took a bite of potatoes. “Sometimes my mommy says bad words, too. Especially when she got into that big fight with Grandma Louise before we had to move away. She said a bunch of bad words then, but she didn’t think I heard.”

“Kevin Andrew!” Melanie narrowed a sharp look at her son. “That’s enough.”

Her tone brooked no argument, and Kevin looked down at his plate. Color had risen on Melanie’s cheeks, but it was apparent to Gabe that her concern had much less to do with her use of bad words than it did with Kevin’s mention of her argument with his grandma. An argument that it seemed had precipitated Melanie and her son’s flight.

But it was hardly logical that Melanie would pack her belongings in a car and take off with her son because she and her mother—or mother-in-law—disagreed about something, Gabe thought. Families fought all the time. Lord knew his certainly did. Well, except for Cara. Who could argue with Cara? She had a way of either smiling that cut straight into your heart, or giving you “the look” that cut straight across the knees. But he and his brothers preferred to settle their disputes with a lot of yelling and occasionally a fist flew. But they never held grudges. Well, maybe Lucian did, but only for a few days at the most.

Not that Gabe knew what Melanie and Kevin’s grandma had argued about, but running away never seemed to solve anything. And somehow, Melanie just didn’t strike Gabe as the type to run. She seemed much too strong, too stubborn to let anyone intimidate her.

He knew he hadn’t.

And he’d certainly tried.

He watched her now, saw her gaze settle intently on the cell phone he’d slipped into the pocket of his shirt. With no working phone here at the house, and stranded the way she was, it wasn’t difficult for him to figure out that she wanted to make a call but couldn’t bring herself to ask.

He sighed silently, pulled the phone out of his pocket and set it on the table between them. “Help yourself.”

Surprised, her eyes snapped up to meet his. She hesitated, then nodded stiffly. “Thank you.”

It was all he could do not to put his hands on her shoulders and try to shake a little sense into her, tell her that she could trust him, and that running wouldn’t solve anything.

But he also realized that he wanted to put his hands on her for other reasons. Reasons that had nothing to do with her secrets, and everything to do with that incredible mouth of hers and how much he wanted to taste those lips.

Gabe knew he was going to have more than one sleepless night thinking about those lips after she left, and the realization aggravated the hell out of him.

He decided he wanted her gone. The sooner the better. He didn’t need the distraction, and he sure as hell didn’t need the complication. He wanted his life to be simple and easy, and this woman was anything but.

“The parts store will be delivering a battery for your car here later on this morning,” he said firmly. “I’ll put it in for you when it gets here.”

She protested, of course, and he ignored her, felt a certain amount of smugness when she appeared as frustrated as he was. He finished his meal, then muttered a quick thanks and headed back to the upstairs bathroom.

He had the rusted pipe off in less than a minute, but he bloodied four of his knuckles in the process. And somehow managed to bite back every obscene word that danced on the tip of his tongue.

Her sweater sleeves pushed to her elbows, her hands plunged in hot, sudsy dishwater, Melanie scrubbed at the heavy cast-iron frying pan, thankful that she had a task to occupy not only her hands, but her mind, as well.

Anything to keep her thoughts off Gabe Sinclair.

The man simply filled a room. Not just because he was tall and broad, but because he had a presence, a larger-than-life demeanor that overwhelmed her. All he had to do was level that dark gaze of his at her and she felt…consumed.

She couldn’t find her balance when he was around, couldn’t think straight. And she needed to think straight. She couldn’t afford not to. For her own sake, and especially for Kevin’s.

Behind her, sitting on his knees in a chair at the kitchen table, her son hummed the Barney theme song while he colored a picture in his travel game book. Silly songs and that big game book had been two things that made the trip cross-country bearable. Though if she never heard that Barney song again in her life, that would be just fine with her.

She rinsed the pan and drained the sink, then wiped her hands on a dish towel. Gabe’s cell phone still lay on the table where he’d left it for her. She hadn’t asked, but he’d known that she’d wanted to use it. She hated that she’d been so visible, that he knew what she was thinking, what she needed. What else did he see? she wondered, and the thought frightened her.

Almost as much as his insistence at buying and installing a battery for her car frustrated her.

She’d never met a man like him in her entire life, she thought with a sigh.

“Mommy’s going to make a phone call,” she said to Kevin, and he merely bobbed his head in response. Melanie picked up the phone, heard the clink of pipes overhead and glanced up at the ceiling before she moved into the laundry room connected to the kitchen, left the door ajar so she could keep an eye on her son.

She dialed, waited three rings.

“Hello.”

Just the sound of her friend’s voice brought tears to her eyes. “Rae, it’s me.”

“Melissa! Thank God, I’ve been so worried about you. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she said through the thickness in her throat. “But the battery in my car died, and it’s being replaced today. I may not get there until tomorrow.”