Gabriel's Angel Read online

  Sometimes they would talk. Sometimes they would not.

  Beneath the routine, she sensed some kind of hurry in him that she couldn’t understand. Though he might paint for hours, his movements controlled and measured, he still seemed impatient to finish. The fact was, the portrait was coming along faster than she could ever have imagined. She was taking shape on canvas—or rather the woman he saw when he looked at her was taking shape. Laura couldn’t understand why he had chosen to make her look so otherworldly, so dreamy. She was very much a part of the world. The child she carried grounded her to it.

  But she’d learned not to complain, because he didn’t listen.

  He’d done other sketches, as well, some full-length, some just of her face. She told herself he was entitled, particularly if that was all the payment she could give him for the roof over her head. A few of the sketches made her uneasy, like the one he’d drawn when she’d fallen asleep on the sofa late one afternoon. She’d looked so … defenseless. And she’d felt defenseless when she’d realized that he’d watched her and drawn her while she was unaware of it.

  Not that she was afraid of him. Laura poked halfheartedly at the mixture of powdered milk, water and chocolate. He’d been kinder to her than she’d had any right to expect. And, though he could be terse and brusque, he was the gentlest man she’d ever known.

  Perhaps he was attracted to her. Men had often been attracted to her face. But whether he was or not he treated her with respect and care. She’d learned not to expect those things when there was attraction.

  With a shrug, she poured the liquid into a mug. Now wasn’t the time to focus on the feeling Gabe might or might not have. She was on her own. Fixing a mental image of creamy hot chocolate in her mind, Laura downed half the contents of the mug. She made a face, sighed, then lifted the mug again. In a matter of days she would be on her way to Denver again.

  A sudden pain had her gripping the side of the counter for support. She held on, fighting back the instinctive need to call for Gabe. It was nothing, she told herself as it began to ease. Moving carefully, she started into the living room. Gabe’s chopping stopped. It was in that silence that she heard the other sound. An engine? The panic came instantly, and almost as quickly was pushed down. They hadn’t found her. It was ridiculous to even think it. But she walked quickly, quietly, to the front window to look out.

  A snowmobile. The sight of it, shiny and toylike, might have amused and pleased her if she hadn’t seen the uniformed state trooper on it. Preparing to stand her ground if it came to that, Laura moved to the door and opened it a crack.

  Gabe had worked up a warm, healthy sweat. He appreciated being outdoors, appreciated the crisp air, the rhythm of his work. He couldn’t say that it kept his mind off Laura. Nothing did. But it helped him put the situation into perspective.

  She needed help. He was going to help her.

  There were some who knew him who would have been more than a little surprised by his decision. It wasn’t that anyone would have accused him of being unfeeling. The sensitivity in his paintings was proof of his capacity for emotion, passion, compassion. But few would have thought him capable of unconditional generosity.

  It was Michael who had been generous.

  Gabe had always been self-absorbed—or, more accurately, absorbed in his art, driven to depict life, with all its joys and pains. Michael had simply embraced life.

  Now he was gone. Gabe brought the ax down, his breath whistling through his teeth and puffing white in the thin air. And Michael’s leaving had left a hole so big, so great, that Gabe wasn’t certain it could ever be filled.

  He heard the engine when his ax was at the apex of his swing. Distracted, he let it fall so that the blade was buried in wood. Splinters popped out to join others on the trampled snow. With a quick glance toward the kitchen window, Gabe started around the cabin to meet the visitor.

  He didn’t make a conscious decision to protect the woman inside. He didn’t have to. It was the most natural thing in the world.

  “How ya doing?” The cop, his full cheeks reddened by wind and cold, shut off the engine and he nodded to Gabe.

  “Well enough.” He judged the trooper to be about twenty-five and half frozen. “How’s the road?”

  Giving a short laugh, the trooper stepped off the snowmobile. “Let’s just say I hope you’ve got no appointments to keep.”

  “Nothing pressing.”

  “Good thing.” He offered a gloved hand. “Scott Beecham.”

  “Gabe Bradley.”

  “I heard somebody bought the old McCampbell place.” With his hands on his hips, Beecham studied the cabin. “A hell of a winter to pick for moving in. We’re swinging by to check on everybody on the ridge, seeing if they need supplies or if anyone’s sick.”

  “I stocked up the day of the storm.”

  “Good for you.” He gestured toward the Jeep. “At least you’ve got a fighting chance in a four-wheel drive. Could’ve filled a used car lot with some of the vehicles towed in. We’re checking around on a compact, an ’84 Chevy that took a spin into the guardrail about a quarter mile from here. Abandoned. Driver might have wandered out and got lost in the blizzard.”

  “My wife,” Gabe said. In the doorway, Laura opened her eyes wide. “She was worried that something had happened to me and got the idea of driving into town.” Gabe grinned and drew out a cigarette. “Damn near ran into me. At the rate things were going, I figured it was best to leave the car where it was and get us back here. Haven’t been able to get back out to check on the damage.”

  “Not as bad as some I’ve seen the last few days. Was she hurt?”

  “No. Scared ten years off both of us, though.”

  “I’ll bet. Afraid we’re going to have to tow the vehicle in, Mr. Bradley.” He glanced toward the house. His voice was casual, but Gabe sensed that he was alert. “Your wife, you say?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Name on the registration was Malone, Laura Malone.”

  “My wife’s maiden name,” Gabe said easily.

  On impulse, Laura pushed open the door. “Gabe?”

  Both men turned to look at her. The trooper pulled off his hat. Gabe merely scowled.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt—” she smiled “—but I thought the officer might like some hot coffee.”

  The trooper replaced his hat. “That’s mighty tempting, ma’am, and I appreciate it, but I have to get along. Sorry about your car.”

  “My own fault. Can you tell us when the road will be open?”

  “Your husband ought to be able to manage a trip into town in a day or two,” Beecham said. “I wouldn’t recommend the drive for you, ma’am, for the time being.”

  “No.” She smiled at him and hugged her elbows. “I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere for a little while yet.”

  “I’ll just be on my way.” Beecham straddled the snowmobile again. “You got a shortwave, Mr. Bradley?”

  “No.”

  “Might not be a bad idea to pick one up next time you’re in town. More dependable than the phones. When’s your baby due?”

  Gabe just stared for a moment. The pronoun had stunned him. “Four or five weeks.”

  “You got yourself plenty of time, then.” With a grin, Beecham started the engine. “This your first?”

  “Yes,” Gabe murmured. “It is.”

  “Nothing quite like it. Got myself two girls. Last one decided to be born on Thanksgiving. Hardly had two bites of pumpkin pie when I had to drive to the hospital. My wife still says it was my mother’s sausage stuffing that started her off.” He raised a hand and his voice. “Take care, Mrs. Bradley.”

  They watched, Gabe from the yard, Laura from the doorway, as the snowmobile scooted up the lane. And then they were alone.

  Clearing his throat, Gabe started up the stairs. Laura said nothing, but she stepped out of the way and closed the door behind him. She waited until he was sitting on the low stone hearth, unlacing his boots.

>   “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “You told the trooper that I was your wife.”

  Still frowning, he pried off a boot. “It seemed less complicated that way.”

  “For me,” Laura agreed. “Not for you.”

  He shrugged his shoulders and then rose to go into the kitchen. “Any coffee?”

  “Yes.” She heard the glass pot chink against the mug, heard the liquid pour into the stoneware. He’d lied for her, protected her, and all she had done was take from him. “Gabe.” Praying that her instincts and her conscience were right, she walked to the doorway.

  “What the hell is this?” He had the pan she’d used to heat the milk in his hand.

  For a moment the tension fled. “If you’re desperate enough, it’s hot chocolate.”

  “It looks like … Well, never mind what it looks like.” He set it back on the stove. “That powdered stuff tastes filthy, doesn’t it?”

  “It’s hard to argue with the truth.”

  “I’ll try to make it into town tomorrow.”

  “If you do, could you …” Embarrassed, she let her words trail off.

  “What do you want?”

  “Nothing. It’s stupid. Listen, could we sit down a minute?”

  He took her hand before she could back away. “What do you want from town, Laura?”

  “Marshmallows, to toast in the fireplace. I told you it was stupid,” she murmured, and tried to tug her hand away.

  He wanted, God, he wanted just to fold her into his arms. “Is that a craving or just a whim?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just that I look at the fireplace and think about marshmallows.” Because he wasn’t laughing at her, it was easy to smile. “Sometimes I can almost smell them.”

  “Marshmallows. You don’t want anything to go with them? Like horseradish?”

  She made a face at him. “Another myth.”

  “You’re spoiling all my preconceptions.” He wasn’t sure when he’d lifted her hand to his lips, but after the faintest taste of her skin he dropped it again. “And you’re not wearing the shirt.”

  Though he was no longer touching it, her hand felt warm, warm and impossibly soft. “Oh.” She took a long breath. He was thinking of the painting, not of her. He was the artist with his subject again. “I’ll change.”

  “Fine.” More than a little shaken by the extent of his desire for her, he turned back to the counter and his coffee.

  The decision came quickly, or perhaps it had been made the moment she’d heard him lie for her, protect her. “Gabe, I know you want to work right away, but I’d like … I feel like I should … I want to tell you everything, if you still want to hear it.”

  He turned back, his eyes were utterly clear and intent. “Why?”

  “Because it’s wrong not to trust you.” Again the breath seemed to sigh out of her. “And because I need someone. We need someone.”

  “Sit down,” he said simply, leading her to the couch.

  “I don’t know where to start.”

  It would probably be easier for her to start further back, he thought as he tossed another log in the fire. “Where do you come from?” he asked when he joined her on the couch.

  “I’ve lived a lot of places. New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland. My aunt had a little farm on the Eastern Shore. I lived with her the longest.”

  “Your parents?”

  “My mother was very young when I was born. Unmarried. She … I went to live with my aunt until … until things became difficult for her, financially. There were foster homes after that. That isn’t really the point.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  She took a steadying breath. “I don’t want you to feel sorry for me. I’m not telling you this so that you’ll feel sorry for me.”

  The pride was evident in the tilt of her head, in the tone of her voice—the same quiet pride he was trying to capture on canvas. His fingers itched for his sketchpad, even as they itched to touch her face. “All right, I won’t.”

  With a nod, she continued. “From what I can gather, things were very hard on my mother. Even without the little I was told, it’s easy enough to imagine. She was only a child. It’s possible that she wanted to keep me, but it didn’t work out. My aunt was older, but she had children of her own. I was essentially another mouth to feed, and when it became difficult to do so, I went into foster care.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Six the first time. For some reason it just never seemed to work out. I would stay in one place for a year, in another for two. I hated not belonging, never being a real part of what everyone else had. When I was about twelve I went back with my aunt for a short time, but her husband had problems of his own, and it didn’t last.”

  He caught something in her voice, something that made him tense. “What sort of problems?”

  “They don’t matter.” She shook her head and started to rise, but Gabe put his hand firmly on hers.

  “You started this, Laura, now finish it.”

  “He drank,” she said quickly. “When he drank he got mean.”

  “Mean? Do you mean violent?”

  “Yes. When he was sober, he was discontented and critical. Drunk, he was—could be—vicious.” She rubbed a hand over her shoulder, as if she were soothing an old wound. “My aunt was his usual target, but he often went after the children.”

  “Did he hit you?”

  “Unless I was quick enough to get out of his way.” She managed a ghost of a smile. “And I learned to be quick. It sounds worse than it was.”

  He doubted it. “Go on.”

  “The social services took me away again and placed me in another home. It was like being put on hold. I remember when I was sixteen, counting the days until I’d be of age and able to at least fend for myself. Make … I don’t know, make some of my own decisions. Then I was. I moved to Pennsylvania and got a job. I was working as a clerk in a department store in Philadelphia. I had a customer, a woman, who used to come in regularly. We got friendly, and one day she came in with a man. He was short and balding—looked like a bulldog. He nodded to the woman and told her she’d been absolutely right. Then he handed me a business card and told me to come to his studio the next day. Of course, I had no intention of going. I thought … that is, I’d gotten used to men …”

  “I imagine you did,” Gabe said dryly.

  It still embarrassed her, but since he seemed to take it in stride she didn’t dwell on it. “In any case, I set the card aside and would have forgotten about it, but one of the girls who worked with me picked it up later and went wild. She told me who he was. You might know the name. Geoffrey Wright.”

  Gabe lifted a brow. Wright was one of the most respected fashion photographers in the business—no, the most. Gabe might not know much about the fashion business, but a name like Geoffrey Wright’s crossed boundaries. “It rings a bell.”

  “When I found out he was a professional, a well-known photographer, I decided to take a chance and go to see him. Everything happened at once. He was very gruff and had me in makeup and under the lights before I could babble an excuse. I was terribly embarrassed, but he didn’t seem to notice. He barked out orders, telling me to stand, sit, lean, turn. He had a fur in his vault—a full-length sable. He took it out and tossed it around my shoulders. I thought I was dreaming. I must have said so aloud, because while he was shooting he laughed and told me that in a year I could wear sable to breakfast.”

  Saying nothing, Gabe settled back. With his eyes narrowed, he could see her, enveloped in furs. There was a twist in his stomach as he thought about her becoming one of Wright’s young and casually disposable mistresses.

  “Within a month I had done a layout for Mode magazine. Then I did another for Her, and one for Charm. It was incredible. One day I was selling linens and the next I was having dinner with designers.”

  “And Wright?”

  “No one in my life had ever been as good to me as Geoffrey. Oh, I knew he sa
w me as a commodity half the time, but he set himself up as, I don’t know, a watchdog. He had plans, he’d tell me. Not too much exposure too quickly. Then, in another two years, there wouldn’t be a person in the Western world who wouldn’t recognize my face. It sounded exciting. Most of my life I’d been essentially anonymous. He liked that, the fact that I’d come from nothing, from nowhere. I know some of his other models saw him as cold. He often was. But he was the closest thing I’d ever had to a father.”

  “Is that how you saw him?”

  “I suppose. And then, after all he’d done for me, after all the time he’d invested, I let him down.” She started to rise again, and again Gabe stopped her.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I need some water.”

  “Sit. I’ll get it.”

  She used the time to compose herself. Her story was only half done, and the worst part, the most painful part, was yet to come. He brought her a clear glass with ice swimming in it. Laura took two long sips, then continued.

  “We went to Paris. It was like being Cinderella and being told midnight never had to come. We were scheduled to be there for a month, and because Geoffrey wanted a very French flavor to the pictures we went all over Paris for the shoot. We went to a party one night. It was one of those gorgeous spring nights when all the women are beautiful and the men handsome. And I met Tony.”

  He caught the slight break in her voice, the shadow of pain in her eyes, and knew without being told that she was speaking now of her baby’s father.

  “He was so gallant, so charming. The prince to my Cinderella. For the next two weeks, whenever I wasn’t working, I was with Tony. We went dancing, we ate in little cafés and walked in the parks. He was everything I’d thought I’d wanted and knew I could never have. He treated me as though I were something rare and valuable, like a diamond necklace. There was a time when I thought that was love.”

  She fell silent for a moment, brooding. That had been her mistake, her sin, her vanity. Even now, a year later, it cut at her.