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Without looking up, she stabbed a fork into the corn bread pudding, mixing it with a roasted-corn salad. “What did you mean by saying Kevin had forgiven us?”
Hank set his fork down carefully on the gold ring edging the plate. “He didn’t seem to know any details other than we had feelings for each other. He said he understood, and he wanted us both to go on with our lives.”
Gasping in horror, she dropped her fork. Shame piled on top of the guilt. Kevin had known. Somehow he’d seen her confused feelings when she’d thought she’d hidden them so carefully. He’d been so argumentative just before leaving, picking fights with her about anything because she wouldn’t agree to move closer. She’d held her temper in check because of his upcoming deployment—until nerves got the better of her.
He’d wanted her to skip out on work and party with him, but nerves were already chewing her over the last time he’d partied, gotten reckless and forgot birth control. She’d told him she was tired of always having to be the adult in their relationship. He’d snapped back, telling her to go hang out with Hank, then, since he was mature enough for ten people. The fight had been hurtful and a product of fears about him leaving.
How damn sad that a ridiculous fight led her to act on those feelings, to kiss Hank.
She flattened her shaking hands to the table. “Are you saying Kevin gave me to you in a dying declaration?”
“Not in so many words.” He reached for his water glass. “He said he loved you, he forgave us both and then he mumbled something about being sorry for not taking you out for gumbo.”
Tears welled fast and acidic. The enormity of what Hank had said, of his showing up here in the first place, exploded in her brain, then came back together like puzzle pieces fitting into an unsettling image. “You aren’t actually expecting to pick up where we left off with that kiss, are you?” She pressed her fingers against her speeding heart. “Because that would be incredibly crass, if you came here looking for an easy pickup off your friend’s death.”
He choked on the water. “That would be crass.”
“Glad we agree on that much. So why are you here again?”
“Gabrielle—” he set his glass down “—I’m here to tell you Kevin’s last thought was of you, that he loved you and let you go. End of story. Or so I thought. But finding out Kevin had a kid? That changes everything.”
Now he was sticking around because of Max? That should make her happy. Her son was everything, after all. Hank had said he wanted to be a stand-in dad. Yet something about the notion of him being here for her baby felt off. “Max doesn’t have to change anything. You’re free to go.” She shoved her chair back sharply, just barely catching it before it tipped to the floor. “He is not your child, and he’s not your responsibility.”
Hank shot to his feet and grabbed her shoulders. “You know me better than that, Gabrielle. Do you honestly think I’m the kind of man who could walk away now?”
“You feel guilty.” She gripped his polo shirt, the cotton warm from the heat of his body. “Even though he released you, you still feel bad about that kiss. Well, consider yourself absolved by me, too. I instigated it. My fault. Bye-bye.”
She let go, pushed him away and raised her hands before she succumbed to the temptation to crawl right into his arms.
“Bull.” He twined his fingers with hers. “What happened that night—it was me. I kissed you, and yeah, I still feel guilty as hell because if I had the chance, I would do it again.”
Four
Hank stood so close to Gabrielle he could smell the lavender scent on her skin, on her hair. His body flamed to life, lust pounding through his veins leaving him hard and hungry. As much as he wanted to chalk it up to extended abstinence, he’d always felt this way around her. The day he’d met her, he’d been seeing someone else, a year-long relationship that he’d promptly ended. In fact, his abstinence stint had started that day, nearly two years ago.
Good God, much longer and he should get some kind of honorary monk status.
With Gabrielle this close, her hands linked with his, he remembered all the reasons he’d kissed her in the first place. Or rather the reason. He felt a crazy, inexplicable draw to this woman, a gut-deep need to claim her as his that wasn’t dimming one damn bit with time.
Her lithe body was so close, motherhood having added some curves he ached to explore. She swayed, not much, but definitely toward him. Her sparkling green eyes went wide, her pupils dilating with unmistakable desire. Then she blinked fast, her shoulders rolling back. Slowly, she inched her hands from him.
“Hank,” she whispered, her voice husky, accent thicker. “I think you should go now.”
Disappointment whipped through him, quickly smothered by reason. Things were ten times more complicated than before and being with her had been damned convoluted then. He needed time to sort through the major bombshell the stork had dropped into his world tonight.
Hank stepped back, needing distance from her in more ways than one. He’d meant it when he said he would be here for her and her son during the surgery. He owed his friend—and he owed her.
The rest, he would figure out later, back at his place while soaking in his hot tub with a beer. “I’ll be here at nine to take you to the baby’s appointment.”
She tugged at the collar of her loose tank top. “How did you know he has another appointment tomorrow?”
For a self-indulgent second, he let his eyes linger on the curve of her breasts under the silky cotton, her slim thighs hugged by black leggings. “You left the slip from the doctor’s office under a magnet on the fridge. Some kind of early registration work at the hospital, right? He has surgery the day after tomorrow?”
“Yes to all, but Hank, this is my son, my life. I can handle it on my own.”
“Yes, you can.” And that was one of the things he admired about Gabrielle, her independence. God, he was so screwed. “But you don’t have to.”
The next morning, Gabrielle hitched the diaper bag over her shoulder, grabbing an extra receiving blanket at the last second. She was seriously scattered this morning. It was tough enough getting out the door with a baby, but leaving a half hour earlier than expected was darn near impossible.
Still, she was determined to go before Hank showed up. His sudden arrival last night, his words, his touch—just the sound of his voice—had tipped her world upside down. The twisted sheets and coverlet on her bed attested to how he’d plagued her dreams. First, he’d been wearing a mask, dark and mysterious with blues music and fog wrapping around him. Then she’d been the one in disguise, but her mask took on a more sensual tone, her clothes and inhibitions falling away… .
Nerves tingling to the roots of her hair, she turned away from her brass bed. In her dreams, she’d spent the entire night there with him. She did not need more time with him today, especially not when she was so emotional over her son. She would just leave Hank a message on his voice mail once she got in her car.
She slipped the floral baby sling over her neck and settled her sleeping son inside. Today’s blood work would bring them one step closer to having the surgery behind them. Two days from now, her son would have the procedure and life could return to normal.
Whatever normal was anymore.
She backed out the door, working her key down the locks. Hank’s warning about the neighborhood, about providing for her child, tugged at her conscience. She turned around and pulled up short.
Hank sat on her top step. No Top Gun flight jacket today. He wore jeans and a button-down, loafers without socks. Old-school aviator glasses rested on top of his head without making a dent in his close-cropped brown hair. He had a casual air that worked for him without even trying.
How did he pull that off this early in the morning?
“Uh, Hank, what are—”
He held up a hand, and he gripped his iPhone in the other hand as he… played a game? The squawk, squeak and explosion noises coming from the handheld increased until a final blast and victory tune filled the morning. Hank didn’t fist pump, but he smiled before tucking away his phone and reaching for his coffee beside him.
Shoving to his feet, he dusted off his jeans and slid his sunglasses down from his head and in place over his eyes. “Are you ready?”
She was so jangled from the explicit images of her dreams that she felt them simmer through her even now. She couldn’t seem to draw a breath, as if just having him here stole all the air around her. Fighting for some distance, she shot him a level gaze and hoped her emotions didn’t show.
“How long have you been there, and how did you get past the front gate?” She eyed the wrought-iron entry at the top of the alley. Still locked up tight. She looked back at Hank. “Well?”
“I’ve been waiting for twenty-five minutes to go with you to the doctor’s appointment. As for how I got in, suffice it to say I’ve made my point about security.” He drained his coffee cup with a final long swallow.
“Fine, you’re right.” She sighed and yanked off the diaper bag. She thrust it against his chest. “Make yourself useful and carry this.”
Grabbing the handrail, she started down the stairs.
“Yes, ma’am.” He laughed softly, his footsteps sounding behind her.
His laughter taunted and turned her inside out all at once. God, he made her mad at the way he assumed he could thrust himself into her life, and she was even madder at herself for the leap of excitement over finding him waiting for her. “My car’s parked in a lot a block away.”
“I have my car right out front. I’ll drive.” He took her keys from her hand and opened the wrought-iron gate.
“You don’t have an infant seat.”
“Wrong. I do.” He palmed her waist, guiding her past the shopkeeper sweeping beads and other Mardi Gras tokens littering the sidewalk.
“It’s not even eight in the morning. Did the Renshaw-Landis influence make a baby seat appear in the night?”
He peered over the top of his aviator shades, blue eyes piercing and too darn appealing. “I went to Walmart Supercenter. Open twenty-four hours.”
“Renshaws shop at Walmart?” She closed the gate behind her, stepping into her sleepy city and aware from the draw of just a look from Hank.
“For a car seat at midnight. Yeah.” He pitched his coffee cup into a street trash can, then fished keys from his pocket and thumbed the automatic lock. Lights flashed on a dark blue Escalade. Not tricked out. Just understated wealth.
“Nice,” she conceded. “Definitely more comfortable than my five-year-old little hatchback.”
Forcing him to fold himself into her tiny econo car would be silly and pointless. In fact, fighting him every step of the way could be more telling than just going with the flow, pretending they were still simply friends.
He opened the back door and tossed in the diaper bag. “And does the infant seat meet with your approval?”
“Let me see… .” She checked the belt, making sure he’d installed it properly.
“The air force trusts me with a B-52. I think you can trust me to follow instructions.”
“It’s my child’s safety. I have to be sure.” And she found nothing wrong.
Wow. It had taken her three hours to figure one of these out. She eased Max from the sling, her son so small in her hands, so perfect. Love and protectiveness welled up inside her—along with gratitude that Hank had gone to such trouble to make sure her baby had everything he needed.
Hank had to be exhausted, just back from overseas, then immediately on the road to see her. No wonder he needed the coffee. Her mouth watered at the thought of having a taste of something she’d been denied since getting pregnant with Max… .
Uh, coffee. She missed coffee and chocolate and spicy foods, things she gave up while breastfeeding.
“Gabrielle?” Hank stood in the open door, her beautiful historic city behind him.
Her adventure. She’d started out here with such plans for taking the world by storm, launching a powerful career in international banking. Now she just wanted to help her child get healthy.
“Right, let’s go before we’re late.”
She clicked Max in securely and thought about staying in back with him. But he was already asleep again and Hank was holding the passenger door open for her. Without another thought, she shuffled into the front, and Hank pulled out into the early morning traffic.
His GPS spoke softly. Of course he’d already plugged in the address for the hospital where Max would have his pre-admission blood work. Outside the car, people walked to work in business clothes. A mom pushed her kid in a stroller, passing by a homeless guy sleeping in a doorway. New Orleans was such a mix of history and wealth, poverty and decay. The city had looked different to her before her son was born. Her plans had looked different.
Hank’s phone chimed from where he’d placed it on the dash. He glanced at the LED screen and let it go to voice mail. It was the same phone she’d seen him playing with earlier.
“I wouldn’t have pegged you as the video game type.”
He glanced over with barely a half smile, so serious for a guy who’d been blasting digital bugs on her steps. “I went to a military high school. One of my roommates was a computer geek.”
“He got you hooked on games?”
“You could say so. His computer access was limited in school—conditions of not going to jail for breaking into the Department of Defense mainframe.”
Her eyes zipped to his phone. “How did I never know you attended a military high school? Or that you’re into video games?”
“You and I spent most of our time together keeping things light.”
They had always avoided more serious subjects, like where they’d gone to school and their family histories. Until that day she’d poured her heart out over her fight with Kevin. How he’d wanted her to move in and she’d wanted the space to finish pursuing her dreams. Kevin had been living his. She just wanted the same chance.
She’d stopped short of telling Hank everything the fight had been about, unable to bring herself to share intimate details about a forgotten condom. How she’d been frustrated about Kevin’s partying. The very playful attitude she’d originally been drawn to was beginning to pall. She was tired of always having to be the responsible one.
But God, she couldn’t break up with Kevin right before a deployment, especially not when she wasn’t even sure what she wanted. Talking to Hank, the harder she’d cried, the more she’d gasped, the more each breath hauled in the scent of him. Before she could think, she’d been kissing him, stunned as hell over the desire combusting inside her. She’d been attracted to him—sure—but she’d thought she had that under control. She was focused. She and Kevin were a good match. They balanced each other out, his humor lightening her driven nature. She didn’t need more intensity in her life.
Except when Hank had focused all that intensity on her, she’d been damn near helpless to resist.
Her hands fisted until her gnawed-down nails bit into her palms. Their past time together was better left alone, especially today with everything he’d said last night still so fresh and raw. “Back to the DoD hacker high school roommate?”
“Once he turned twenty-one and got free of his cyber watchdog, he set up a small company that developed cutting-edge software. Computer games. Mostly save-the-world type of stuff.”
“What game were you playing this morning?” she asked, intrigued by this side of Hank she hadn’t guessed at before. Had he never seemed lighthearted around Kevin because Hank had been relegated to the role of mature grown-up? Had she lost some of her lightheartedness around her fiancé for the same reason, playing less rather than more around him? “Maybe I’ve heard of it.”
“It isn’t out yet.”
“How nice of your friend to let you test run his material.”
“I own part of the company.”
That caught her up short.
“Really? Yet another thing I didn’t know about you.” Did his influence stretch to every niche of the stratosphere—political, financial, military and now even the geek-squad world, as well?
“I’m a silent partner, and I prefer to keep it that way. I’ve got enough notoriety hanging around my neck thanks to my family.”
“Why this investment, though?” She wished she could see his eyes, read what he was thinking as her impression of him altered. “You’re not a games kind of guy.”
“But I’m a practical guy.” He stopped smoothly at a red light. “The venture made good business sense.”
The MBA part of her applauded him, although she suspected something else was at work here. “You’re all about the military, not business. You don’t care about money. You never have.” Her more frugal upbringing applauded that, as well. “You risked the money to help a friend, and it just turned out well for you.”
“When did you swap from a business major to psychology?” He slid his sunglasses down his nose, his eyes laser sharp as he looked over the top of the lenses at her.
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