Chapter 10
TEN
As Roxie drove towards home she saw Gabe jogging through the park. He signaled and she pulled over. He raised a brow at the P-plate on the rear window. She’d known he’d spot it straight away.
‘I didn’t just do the theory, I passed my practical. First time,’ she said smugly.
‘I should hope so,’ he answered drily as he got in the passenger seat. ‘You’ve been driving on the roads long enough.’
Roxie giggled and drove the final few meters to the garage. It had been a brilliant day: she’d taken the afternoon off work and done her test, gone to practice with the Blades, they’d asked her to do some freestyle—to help work out a new routine. Now she’d come home and found him. And he’d just gotten out and opened the heavy old garage door for her to park the car and was waiting to close it once she was in. First time ever anyone had done it for her. Life just couldn’t get better. Her smile widening, she stepped out to meet him. And her foot sank into a puddle. Several inches deep and lapping—water was flowing in from somewhere. She headed straight for the boxes sitting in the new lake.
‘Maybe we left a hose on.’ Gabe disappeared out of the side door. He was back in a nanosecond but the sound of running water hadn’t ceased. ‘Probably a burst pipe, won’t take anything to fix,’ he said, pulling his phone from his shorts pocket.
Only money she didn’t have. She should have been saving everything—not having her hair done or buying multiple bottles of Bollinger. She should have waited until she had more resources to deal with these seemingly inevitable setbacks. The house had eaten all her resources over the last year; she’d really hoped she’d hit the end of it. This was supposed to be her new start. Angered with her idiocy, she splashed forwards to lift the first of the boxes to safety out in the garden. The contents of the ones at ground level must be sodden already.
Gabe had his phone to his ear; she could hear the ‘on hold’ music as she walked. ‘You should move into the Treehouse while this dries out,’ he said.
She shook her head. No way would she move in with Gabe. Her instinct had been whispering a warning to pull back on the time she spent with him and at that suggestion it shrieked. ‘It’s just a flood. Upstairs isn’t damaged, only the stuff stored down here. It won’t take long to dry.’ She hoped. She also hoped like hell the plumber wasn’t going to cost a bomb.
‘You might want to transfer some of this stuff to plastic boxes for longer-term storage, especially the paperwork,’ he said.
Did he think she hadn’t considered that first time round? Of course she should have used better storage when she’d originally sorted all the stuff, but the banana boxes had been free from the supermarket. She didn’t bother answering—the man was made of money, he had no clue what it was like for those not born with silver spoons.
‘Don’t do that.’ He frowned at her. ‘I’ll lift them for you—’ He broke off as someone finally took him off hold.
Roxie kept lifting and lugging—they were her boxes after all. Gabe’s frown deepened as she marched back and forth past him carrying the worst affected out to the deck. She listened to him issue instructions to the plumber with his innate lord-of-all authority. Which annoyed her even more. She couldn’t ask him not to make the call, didn’t want to reveal her proximity to the poverty line, but she couldn’t let the entire property flood either. As he wrapped the call she bent down for the next box—the bottom one of the first tower. The water was already at the one-third mark. She hoisted it up, cold wet running down her arm.
‘Oh, hell,’ she muttered, quickly changing her grip, but it was too late—the box simply disintegrated and its contents splashed everywhere. Glancing down at it all, her blood froze. She immediately looked for his reaction. Tension twisted his usual good-humored expression. She could see him thinking, his face hardening as his jaw clamped, his eyes darkening.
Did he doubt her?
Defensiveness rose, intensified by tortured memories and the frustration from this latest fix-it job the house demanded. Truthfully she’d forgotten that box was even there. She’d had to. But his icy attention was fixed on the stuff now scattered, half submerged, over the floor and that defensiveness burst from her in a bitter torrent. ‘I’m not a junkie, Gabe.’
He went all the more rigid. ‘I know that,’ he said roughly.
Given the number of plastic-wrapped syringes, blister packs of prescription-only painkillers, bottles of morphine and who knew what else, she wouldn’t really have blamed him for wondering.
‘They were your grandfather’s,’ he said shortly.
She bent, scrambling to get it all together. ‘I meant to take it to a pharmacy to get rid of, but I just boxed and forgot it.’
‘I can drop it off.’ He bent down beside her and gathered the needles.
‘He was diabetic,’ she felt compelled to explain. ‘Injections a couple times a day. Then pain relief too. Some of the pills were Grandma’s.’ It really did look as if she were running some kind of drugs lab. ‘She had so many they took an age to dispense.’
‘Why did it have to be you?’ he asked. ‘Where were the district nurses?’
‘Busy.’ Her defensiveness resurged—higher. ‘I could manage. Grandad didn’t want to die in hospital so at the end I didn’t call anyone. I gave him the painkiller the doctor prescribed and I held his hand and I watched him. In the end I called an ambulance because...’ Because she couldn’t bear it any more. She paused and tried to suck back her emotion. ‘By the time it got there, he’d gone. That’s a decision I made and I live with.’
She’d fought so damn hard with her stupid garden with her organic everything, and trying to make him laugh and do everything and anything anyone said might help battle that bastard disease. And for a couple of years there she’d succeeded. She’d thought it would go on like that indefinitely—what a dream that had been. Because all of a sudden he’d deteriorated and there had been no coming back from it. She looked up from the dirty puddle. ‘It happens all the time. Cancer is the country’s number one killer. People cope.’
‘Most people don’t have to cope alone,’ Gabe answered gruffly, his hands full.
She shrugged, fully regretting revealing the little she just had to him. ‘There was so much bad stuff happening in the city at that time, the medics were run off their feet.’
Gabe nodded but said nothing more. His pallor surprised her—for a doctor he looked a little shaken by all the medical guff. Tight-lipped, he stood and got a plastic bag to tip it all into. Then came back and viciously chucked the remainder in too.
Roxie blinked at the energy crackling off him. He was angry? Well, so was she. She didn’t want to deal with this—least of all in front of him. She was so sick of fighting to keep this place okay. She picked up the box that had her mother’s letters and papers in. She’d put it down here after it had given her nothing but disappointment. Not a single clue as to who her father had been. That dream had died a year ago too.
‘I’ll take some of these boxes upstairs,’ she said dismissively.
‘You don’t want me to help you carry them up?’ he called after her.
‘No, I’m fine.’
Really? Gabe wasn’t so sure about that—he heard raw emotion in her bitten-off words. ‘It wouldn’t take me a minute.’
‘You’ve already done enough calling the plumber.’
Yeah, and she didn’t exactly sound grateful about that. Gabe gritted his teeth, feeling extremely pissed off and it was worsening with each second. ‘It really wouldn’t take a minute.’
‘I can manage.’ She had her back to him, box in arms, stomping up the stairs already.
‘I can help,’ he argued. He hated her stubborn insistence on managing all by her damned self. She’d had to manage all kinds of hell as the primary carer, for not one, but two terminally ill elderly people. Alone. Why couldn’t she say yes to a bit of muscle to help lug some bloody boxes now? Why couldn’t she smile and say ‘sure’ and ‘thanks’?
She looked over her shoulder, shooting him a quelling look. ‘I don’t need you to.’
Don’t want you to, was what she really meant.
Gabe flung the bag of drugs into the corner of the garage. He could hear her stropping around up in her postage-stamp-sized studio. His fists clenched. There’d been no need for her to get snippy with him —the pipes weren’t his fault, despite his random wish that she’d move in with him, he hadn’t tampered with the plumbing like some sick stalker. But from years of working with finely balanced athletes, Gabe knew that a bad mood was often aggravated by not enough food. She must have gone straight from work to her driving test and then to the Blades practice. She had to be hungry. So he’d feed her. He wanted her to accept something from him tonight—and not merely sex.
He knocked on her door an hour or so later. For once she answered almost right away but that wasn’t what made him blink so rapidly. No, she’d changed into the most hideous trackpants he’d ever seen, and, given he worked with sportsmen, he’d seen some ratty trackies. These were thick, massive and shapeless and he really just wanted to remove them then and there. But he reminded himself that wasn’t the first priority.
‘I’m guessing you probably haven’t made dinner so I made enough for you too.’ He refused to be offended if she said no to him. Even if he had gone to a stupid amount of effort.
‘You have?’ She blinked at him.
He nodded. ‘It’s on the deck if you want to come and get it.’
She hesitated.
‘It’s getting cold and I’ve gone to a lot of trouble.’ He put on some pressure with a wicked look. He wanted to see her smile.
And she did smile—all skeptical, as if she didn’t believe he’d ever go to any trouble. Oh, the irony.
‘Okay, give me a second.’ Roxie stepped back inside and shut the door.
Gabe had gotten over his snappy temper flare, surely she could too. Hopefully he’d forgotten her angst moment in the garage. She was too tough to let a blasted pipe get her down—so it would delay her trip another couple of weeks perhaps; worse things had happened. She grabbed the half-bottle with the D on it—that and Gabe back in stud mode would help bubble her out of the funk.
‘Wow,’ she said, taking in the laden plates on the outdoor dining table. ‘Not sure the Bolly is good enough for this.’
‘Don’t get too effusive.’ He pulled out her chair. ‘It’s only burger and chips.’
‘Not your average burger and chips.’ She sat, breathing in the yum display. They were bean patties, ripped-from-the-plant salad and freshly dug new potatoes cooked then crisped up something yummy. Her mouth watered, her appetite suddenly screaming. ‘You cooked all this?’
‘I’m a single man, living alone,’ he drawled. ‘You didn’t think I could cook?’
‘But it’s?—’
‘Veggie, I know. Not bad for a beef-farm boy, huh?’ He popped the cork and poured the champagne into two glasses—frowning when that was enough to empty the bottle.
She picked up her fork and took a bite of the patty poking out from the toasted roll. Oh, wow. ‘You really made this from scratch?’
‘Your amazement is insulting.’
She chuckled, warmth trickling back into her chilled body. ‘I’ve never met anyone who makes veggie burgers like these. From scratch. Not even me.’
He pulled his phone from his pocket and swiped the screen a few times. ‘Okay, I got the recipe online. Here.’ She angled her head to read the page he’d pulled up. ‘The Heganator? ’ She didn’t just giggle, she squealed, ‘Hegan?’
‘Yeah, cool recipes for the hot vegan male.’ He turned the phone back to study it, oh, so intently. Then he peered over the top of the phone, eyes twinkling. ‘I think it’s really written by a woman. Apparently hegans like burgers and barbecues.’
‘You’re hot but you’re not a hegan,’ she said, almost all her old flirt tone back.
‘But I can cook like one on occasion.’
‘It is amazing. I mean that in a good way.’ She looked at him and her teasing smile died. ‘Thank you.’
Her heart was beating too hard. She couldn’t remember when someone else had cooked dinner for her. When someone had gone to so much trouble and thought. Someone who bothered to understand what she preferred to eat and not eat. Certainly not her lame ex-boyfriend. The joke died from his eyes too—leaving them warm and gentle and so deep...
She dropped her knife so she had the excuse to break away from that acute, wordless communication. Surely she was reading the wrong messages. It wasn’t caring she was supposed to see in him, it was supposed to be all carnal. But for a weird second there everything had gone upside down and inside out.
‘While I have this out, I want your number,’ he said. She looked back up at him.
‘Mobile number,’ he elaborated at her blank expression. ‘I’m away for the next week, so I need your number. In case.’
In case of what? ‘I don’t have one.’
‘You don’t have a mobile?’ He leaned forward.
‘Don’t have any kind of phone.’ She chased a bit of patty round the plate with her fork. ‘Don’t need one.’
‘Of course you need one,’ he said, still sounding amazed. ‘Everyone needs one.’
‘Well, I don’t.’ It was an expense she didn’t need. The very few calls she had to make were usually local, so she made them from the gift shop.
‘Roxie, it’s a safety issue as much as anything. What if your ancient car breaks down when you’re on some back country road?’
‘I don’t drive back country.’ She smiled.
‘You know what I mean.’ He didn’t smile back. He growled. ‘You should have a phone.’
She didn’t have a phone because she didn’t have anyone to call. And that was the way it was going to stay.
‘If I hadn’t been here tonight, how would you have gotten hold of a plumber?’ he asked, still holding his phone mid-air as he waited for her to answer.
‘I would have figured something out,’ she answered frigidly. She always had before.
Tonight if she’d been alone she’d have turned off the water at the mains and waited ’til she had the money to deal with it. She stabbed a potato and stuffed it in her mouth. Having to chew stopped her saying too much more about her ability to manage just fine and about her funding issues. She didn’t want him to know all that. He put his phone down and mirrored her actions, attacking his burger as if it were alive and about to scuttle off the plate away from him.
Several minutes later, both meals almost entirely eaten, Gabe spoke. ‘Want to go out tonight?’ His humor-laced attitude was back; so was his sinful smile. ‘I’m guessing you haven’t had nights and nights out on the club scene. I know a couple of places.’
Roxie’s blood burned, but the melt from ice to fire was so rapid it hurt. Maybe dinner with Gabe hadn’t been such a great idea—she felt wobblier now than when she’d first seen the water washing over the garage floor. As if her world were more on the edge of danger in this seemingly easy instant. ‘I went dancing with the Blades after that first game. You know, the night you decided to go home early.’ She matched his light’n’teasy tone.
‘Another time.’ He shrugged, that smile widening. ‘But I confess I saw these poking out from that last box on the garage.’ He bent and picked up something under his side of the table.
‘Oh, I remember those.’ She studied the couple of old records he held up and felt the ice threaten her heart again. She’d played those to her grandfather in the last few days as he’d slipped in and out of consciousness.
‘No doubt you have a player up in that overcrowded antique shop you call your studio.’
‘Somewhere under a million other things.’ She didn’t want to dig it out.
‘No matter.’ He put the vinyl records back by his seat and picked up his phone again. ‘Because I found a couple of tracks online and downloaded them.’ He tapped the screen and the intro started. ‘Come on, you can’t deny me when I cooked you that amazing dinner.’
In the end Roxie pushed her chair out and took his hand because it was herself she couldn’t deny—she ached for the pleasure of his touch. She wanted a return to that simple, mindless, uncomplicated pleasure. Her bare feet were mud-splattered, her ugliest trackies hung shapelessly from her hips and her hair was a tangled mess. But he held her as if she were Cinderella herself in all her finery—only extra firm, as if he wasn’t about to let her run away.
He danced smooth and natural and strong. Clearly not intimidated by her ballet background, he was in charge and not afraid to let her know it. She liked it more than she’d thought she would. She’d danced alone for years, but being partnered, guided like this? It was surprisingly good. The song was a big-band swing number from the nineteen fifties, one she’d always loved, one that brought happy with the sad in her mind’s eye. But there was no room for memory, there was only now. He swept her from one side of the deck to the other, turning her on a coin-sized spot and all with the ease of a professional. Breathless, she pulled back to look in his face.
He shook his head ruefully. ‘You didn’t think I could dance either? Don’t think I’m capable of anything much other than sex, do you?’
There was an edge to his comment that pushed Roxie’s caution button. She thought him capable of a hell of a lot actually—thought he was more magnificent than was good for either of them. She didn’t need to be wowed further by his cooking and dancing talents. It wasn’t fair of him, not when this was supposed to be a trifling fling.
‘Are you fishing for compliments?’ she murmured lightly. ‘You, the doctor who has all those dancers faking injuries to get near you?’
She felt the slight movement in his chest, guessed it to be a grunt of amusement. He pulled her closer to keep her moving. Another song automatically played from his phone. Another swing number, slower this time. She let her lashes droop as he swayed with her, felt the stresses from the flood ease. So easy to lean against him, so easy to let him take all her weight, to take all this and more from him... But he didn’t want to give more. And if she did that, if she let herself depend, then she’d want more. And wasn’t she determined not to want that from anyone? It would only end badly. Being too close always brought loss and that was what she wanted to be free of most of all.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ he asked softly, his smooth voice inviting every confidence.
Roxie stared over his shoulder at the top of the trees. What man ever wanted to talk ? Men hated that emotional ‘talking’ thing, didn’t they? They were all action over words. Then she realized—this wasn’t Gabe acting like a man, this was Gabe acting like a doctor. Was he taking care of her because he felt sorry for her, because he’d found out something more about her time with her grandfather’s last days? Was he cooking for her and offering to counsel her too? Was he afraid she was fragile? That she might go deep depressive as Diana had? It was nice he was concerned and all, but medical concern wasn’t what she wanted from him.
Ever.
So no, she didn’t want to talk. She didn’t want anything from him. She pulled free and stepped out of his arms. ‘Actually I’m pretty tired,’ she said coolly.
‘Okay,’ he said.
There was a silence as she took another step back and didn’t meet his eyes. He stood exactly where she’d left him, as if he was waiting—for what? There was nothing she could bear to give. And she couldn’t take anything more tonight either.
‘I have some dishes to do,’ he said eventually, quietly.
That hit her conscience. ‘Oh, I should?—’
‘No, my mess, my shame,’ he answered with a brief facsimile of a smile. ‘You’re not seeing it.’
Now she looked at him—and with superhuman effort refrained from asking him to come up with her. For now, contrarily, she didn’t want to be alone. Now she wanted back in his arms. For a second there she’d glimpsed something so sweet, but it was a mirage lasting only while the music played. If she took him now, she’d be vulnerable to investing too much as he’d warned her before their first time together. She couldn’t chase a dream that would disappear in a blink and a smile. Her bruised heart would be battered worse than ever. Exactly what she didn’t want. So she turned and took the stairs alone.
Frustrated, Gabe let her go, at a loss as to how else he could try to break through the defensive barriers that she could erect in the blink of an eye. Lying alone in bed, he watched the light at her window. It was after two in the morning before she switched it off. Less than four hours later he heard her flick the hose on in the garden. He was due at the airport soon and he’d be in Sydney for the next five nights and, damn it, he wanted to reach out to her.
He walked out of the house, saw her pallor and the dark rings beneath her eyes. She couldn’t completely hide her stress. The pipes would be nothing to fix, he’d already paid the plumber to come back later today and finish last night’s temporary patch, but as for the other hurts he suspected went deep? He didn’t know how to help with those, not when she wouldn’t admit to them—least of all to him. But he wanted to. He really wanted to.
She tossed the hose and strode to meet him. Her bruised eyes burned, feminine aggression made her slim frame strong—and made him unusually weak at the knees. She didn’t give him the chance to say anything. No, she led the dance and reverse cowgirl rocked. It really did. He loved watching her half-lightened, half-natural colored hair swinging over her back. Loved tracing the curve of her butt. Loved sliding his hands around to her breasts, down her slender ribs and beyond to her hottest spot, teasing the ecstasy out of her. But he wanted to look into her eyes too. Wanted to know her—to connect so much more completely than this.
He knew she was determined and today more aggressive than ever—more hungry, more driven, more demanding. Her hands were so tight on his thighs he’d bear her fingermarks for days. For someone so slight she had gut-wrenching strength and she ripped what she wanted from him. He growled through gritted teeth, desperately holding back as she rode him. Glad there were no neighbors overlooking them—given they were outside, given it was six in the morning, given this was all screaming, sweaty, animal sex. But the best sex of his life wasn’t enough any more.
She arched as her orgasm hit, her piercing shriek loud enough to make the sparrows fly from the trees. As soon as she crumbled he moved, flipping her over and then rolling again so she was back above him, but facing him this time. He held her face so he could see into those sex-dazed eyes and pushed as deep as he could go.
He waited, breathing hard while he got it together. Because he refused to have sex with her now. Now he was making love. Now he was giving everything he could.
Her eyes widened and he firmed his grip, holding her so she couldn’t escape his kiss. And slowly, so slowly he started all over again. Every movement, every touch filled with care and passion. His hands sweeping, fingers drifting, his heart bursting. He ached for completion, contentment—hers. He wanted to fill her, to treasure her.
She lay limp above him—as if she was sated already and could move no more. So he was gentle, slow. And then he felt the subtle change, her skin warming as muscle beneath became energized. She draped like silk now—her limbs curving, embracing. Her hands cupped almost shyly. And then he heard her breathy sob—it wasn’t an entirely sexual plea. He cradled her and kissed her, the simplest of caresses. Until that moment when she moaned, until she clung, until she murmured his name brokenly just that once. Until she was soft, warm, accepting. And his.
He groaned as words failed, emotion overwhelming him—the need for her, to care for her. But also, for her to care back. He wanted it all back from her. Oh, now he felt it—the yawning need that had never before been realized, let alone exposed. So vulnerable.
He pulled her closer, buried his face in her warm soft skin, and gave in to it.
Afterwards her eyes remained firmly closed. Apparently she was asleep. He sat up, managed to hook one arm under her legs, while supporting her back with the other. He carried her to the comfort of a soft mattress and cotton coverings and space. To his bed, not hers. She didn’t open her eyes as he covered her and told her to sleep. But he knew she was awake. He could feel the aware tension emanating from her body. But there was no time left to call her on it.