Mistletoe Hero

Chapter Ten

When Gabe woke in the dark room, his head hurt some but it was a distant pain that paled in comparison to the other physical sensations jolting his body. Arianne was snuggled across him, her warm weight draped over him like the world’s sexiest blanket, her thigh pressing against his erection. Although he wasn’t complaining, he couldn’t remember crawling into bed with her.

He barely recalled finding the grit to make it down the hall on his own two feet. How long had they been here? No light shone around the edges of the window shade, so the sun must have already set. To get a look at the digital clock on his dresser he would have to shift Arianne, and he didn’t want to disturb her.

In fact, part of him wanted nothing more than to sink back into slumber, enjoying her nearness and accepting it as fate’s gift to him, a reward for helping that kid earlier. But Gabe didn’t think he’d be able to sleep that easily. He was too alert now, too aware of the sensual softness of her, the crush of her breasts against him, the teasing scent of her shampoo. The kisses they’d shared earlier came back to him in excruciating detail.

He fidgeted, restless and trying to get more comfortable as his arousal spiked to new levels.

“Mmm.” Arianne burrowed closer, and he almost laughed. How could she feel so addictively good yet be torturing him at the same time?

The phone shrilled, and Arianne’s eyes popped open, going wide as they met his. “Oh!”

He suspected that if there were enough light in the room he’d be watching her blush.

She started to roll away, but he hugged her first, just long enough to let her know he wasn’t sorry she was there. When their gazes locked again, she no longer looked embarrassed at finding herself sprawled in such a position. Shadows fell across her features, but he could sense a new emotion in her. Dare he hope, desire?

He slid his hands from her back down to the curve of her butt. She moved against him, the friction overwhelming, even through his jeans.

“What about the phone?” she whispered, propping herself on one elbow.

The phone was the least of his problems. He wanted-needed-to kiss her again. But they weren’t in Mistletoe town square now. They were alone in his bed. If they got carried away by the same passions they’d kindled in each other earlier, there was no question of how this would end. He would make love to Arianne Waide.

And then what? His conscience tried to make itself heard over his libido. Gabe’s only affairs in the past decade had been with women who either lived in neighboring towns or women who, like Nicole, wouldn’t be in Mistletoe long. Arianne would probably be here for the rest of his life. What kind of bastard would seduce a woman like her, then leave without a backward glance? While Gabe thought Shane McIntyre was largely a horse’s behind, the man had been accurate when he said Gabe wasn’t worthy of her.

“Gabe?” His name was a husky caress on her lips.

“You were right,” he said halfheartedly, dropping his hands to his sides. “I should get the ph-”

“It stopped ringing.” She used his horizontal position to mitigate the difference in their height, moving up to nip at his neck and then his bottom lip.

His body tensed in piercing pleasure. “Arianne-”

“Kiss me,” she said against his mouth.

God, yes. “Wait, I-”

She froze. “I’m so selfish! I’m hurting you, aren’t I? Is your vision still blurred?”

How could he tell? He was nearly cross-eyed with lust anyway.

“You aren’t hurting me.” At least not in the way she meant. “But you don’t know me well enough to do this.”

“Shouldn’t I get to decide that?” She poked him lightly in the chest.

“Not if you don’t have all the facts,” he countered.

Shushing his protests, she pressed two fingers against his mouth, then drew them down so that her index finger slipped between his lips. He sucked on the tip, reveling in the way her breathing sped up. Arianne was never shy about expressing herself. Making love to her would be-

“I know enough,” she pledged, swiveling her hips so that she was astride him. “And I want you.”

He surprised a gasp out of her when he pushed himself upright, gathering her to him for a searing, openmouthed kiss that burned away the last of his qualms. Plunging his fingers through her hair, he slanted his mouth over hers. The clip she’d been wearing clattered to the hardwood floor and long blond waves fell forward, curtaining them.

Arianne burned with need. No one had ever kissed her like this. She felt dangerously, exhilaratingly out of control. She was greedy for more, wanted to explore the hollows and planes of his hard body. She started to pull back so that she could remove his T-shirt, and gasped when the motion rocked her against him, the sensation so exquisite that she rolled her hips a second time with slow deliberation.

He swore softly, then grabbed her waist, hauling her to him and kissing her breathless. Somehow he managed to unbutton the top half of her long shirt using only one hand, shoving the material backward so that it dropped away from her body. The cool air was a sensual balm against her overheated skin. Under the lacy cups of her bra, her nipples beaded into tight points.

She was unprepared for Gabe to roll them over suddenly, pinning her beneath him. Should a man with a head injury be moving so qui-? Oh! She inhaled sharply as he kissed her through the lace. The pleasure was nearly unbearable-she couldn’t tell if she wanted him to keep going or if she needed a second to catch her breath.

Almost as if reading her mind, he gave her a moment’s respite, stopping just long enough to pull his shirt over his head. Wow. Even in the darkened room, she could appreciate how his well-muscled arms tapered to a movie-screen-worthy chest and a stomach indented with a straight line down the middle, ringed with the faint outline of abs. Next to that kind of physical perfection, Arianne should probably feel self-conscious about how rarely she exercised, but instead the only feeling she experienced was giddiness at the thought of being able to touch him.

She trailed her fingers over the flat dip of his navel, toward the waistband of his jeans. Her fingers shook as she undid the button and the zipper. Gabe held himself as still as a predatory cat right before it pounced.

When she rubbed him through the cotton of the boxer-briefs, his head fell back, his expression strained and indefinably erotic. “Arianne.”

He said her name like a pagan prayer. He made a pilgrimage of her body, worshipping with his hands and his lips. Her denim capris and then her bra vanished beneath his expert touch. By the time he slid a finger over the satiny material between her thighs, she was practically writhing with need. When he opened the nightstand drawer to get a condom, she almost sobbed with relief, long past ready to take him inside her.

She stroked him one last time, guided him to her center, her body bucking upward when he thrust into her. He braced himself above her, his muscles rigid with exertion as he watched her. She met his gaze as long as she could, until the intensity became too much, and she had to look away as the tremors built inside her. She closed her eyes, spasmed around him and let go, the ripples escalating into shock waves. Gabe finished with a wordless shout, then rolled flat onto his back, reaching for her hand among the tangled sheets and blanket. They lay there panting with their fingers entwined.

When Arianne noticed that he was pressing his temple with his free hand, she experienced a twinge of contrition. “Are you all right?”

“I could use some more of those pills,” he admitted. “Other than that, I’m perfect.”

Yes, you were. “I’ll be right back,” she said, shrugging into the shirt she’d worn earlier. She padded down the hall to the kitchen where she scooped the acetaminophen off the counter and poured a glass of water for Gabe. Standing in front of the refrigerator, she realized that she was famished.

“Thank you,” Gabe told her when she returned. He’d flipped on the nightstand lamp, the soft golden glow bathing his skin.

She dropped the pills in his palm. “It’s the least I can do.” What had she been thinking, attacking a concussed guy? This probably had not been what the doctor had in mind when he’d instructed her to wake Gabe every few hours and check for a response.

“I only hope I didn’t do you irreparable harm,” she said ruefully.

A smile flirted around the corners of his mouth. “If you did, I forgive you. It was worth it.”

She sat next to him, tucking her feet under her. “Any chance you’re hungry? We never did have lunch, and I’m pretty sure we missed dinner, too.”

He paused, as if taking stock. “Earlier I was nauseous, but now that you mention it, I’m starving.”

“I could make us dinner,” she volunteered, the offer making her incongruously bashful. The man had just seen her naked, but there was a different kind of intimacy in fixing him a meal in his home. It just felt so uncharacteristically domestic. “Although I should warn you, I’m not a very accomplished chef. My mother, bless her heart, tried to teach me, but I always wanted to be playing basketball out on the driveway or riding bikes with my brothers.”

“Arianne, right now, you could serve me a burned grilled cheese sandwich made with stale bread, and I’d still think you were a goddess. The problem is I doubt I have much in the way of groceries. I stock up on the weekend and had planned to go later today.”

She considered this, too hungry to get dressed and drive into town in search of sustenance. “Well, there’s ice cream.”

“Ice cream for dinner?” Gabe grinned at her. “Woman after my own heart.”

IT WAS A SIX COURSE MEAL, if one counted chocolate syrup, sliced bananas and ice-cream flavors as courses. Dress was informal, Arianne only in a shirt and Gabe in formfitting boxer-briefs. They each picked out two varieties from the assortment in his freezer-Arianne had been curious about one called Hawaiian Vacation that included coconut slivers and macadamia nuts-and made large, sloppy sundaes.

Gabe didn’t actually have a kitchen table, explaining that he mostly ate at the breakfast bar. But they opted not to perch on the high-backed stools and instead sat together on the navy plaid couch. Arianne, curious about everything from his choice of decorative touches to what movies he might have in his DVD collection, tried to take in her surroundings without seeming too nosy. It was a nice place, nothing fancy or fussy, but he used colors she thought worked well and he obviously wasn’t a slob. Frankly, if the tables had been turned and she’d ended up with him as unexpected company this afternoon, she wasn’t sure her place would have been as neat. It seemed like she was frequently on her way somewhere-to work, to her parents’, out with friends-and she had a tendency to dump stuff in the chair closest to the door as she passed.

A picture in a wooden frame, sitting on top of the shelves of the entertainment center, caught her eye. It looked like a personal shot rather than a professionally taken photo, and a pretty young woman on a railed front porch was smiling at the camera. Judging by her clothes and hairstyle, the picture was at least a couple of decades old.

“Your mom?” Arianne hazarded a guess.

Gabe paused with his spoon in midair. “Yeah.”

“Were you close?”

“No. She died before I was two weeks old. If it weren’t for pictures, I wouldn’t even know what she looked like.” He said the words blandly, with no emotion, and she wondered how he really felt. Did it bother him that he’d been denied the chance to bond with her, or had he made his peace with that years ago, not truly missing something he’d never known?

“What happened?” she asked, wanting to know more about this man and the upbringing that had shaped him.

“Postsurgery complications. I was a really large baby and they decided to do a C-section.” Again said eerily without inflection. Not sorrow or misplaced guilt that the C-section might have been his fault, simply a rote statement of fact. “She got an infection afterward, which is always dangerous, but she was diabetic, which made it harder to fight.”

Thinking of how important her mother, Susan, had been to her all her life, Arianne got a lump in her throat. But nothing in Gabe’s demeanor suggested he wanted to discuss his own feelings, so she found another outlet for her sympathy. “That must have been hard on your father.”

Gabe’s laugh was harsh. “And he never let me forget that. You should have seen his face when I, in the third grade, foolishly asked if there was a chance he might remarry, if I would ever have…” He trailed off, staring into space with such anger and pain that she couldn’t believe she’d thought him emotionless moments before.

Had she done it again, pushed too hard?

No, she told herself. Even if Gabe didn’t want to admit it to himself, this was probably something he needed to deal with. Was this strain why he and his father weren’t close? If Gabe was going to leave Mistletoe-her heart ached at the thought-then this might be his last chance to make peace with his dad. Although the past couldn’t be altered, perhaps they could at least gain closure.

Relationships, familial or romantic, were messy, often painful, but extraordinarily worth the effort. Maybe Gabe just hadn’t had anyone in his life to demonstrate how rewarding they could be. Arianne had taken a front-row look at her parents’ long marriage and her brothers’ relationships. David and Rachel had struggled for several years with infertility and one miscarriage before beautiful Bailey had been born, and Arianne had watched them cope with the stress on their marriage. It took special people to weather the bad times together instead of distancing themselves from the problems and from each other.

Sometimes you just needed help bridging the distance.

Gabe stood suddenly, his unfinished ice cream melting into a tricolor mess. “If you don’t mind, I think I’m going to grab a shower.”

She tried not to feel wounded by his abruptness. The man had been working outside all morning, been at the hospital this afternoon and had given her the best sex of her life less than an hour ago. He deserved the comfort of a hot shower. But she couldn’t ignore the sense that he was once again retreating. Getting to her feet, she took the bowl from his hand.

“You go ahead,” she told him. “I’ll clean up out here.”

“Thanks.” His gaze lingered, softened for just a moment, but then he disappeared down the hall without another word. Soon she heard the pipes creak to life behind the walls as the water started. Trying not to fantasize about what it would have been like if Gabe had invited her to join him in the shower, she carried the bowls to the kitchen and rinsed them out.

She had just turned off the sink when she realized that his phone was ringing. Nicole, again? She tried not to feel cranky about that possibility.

But it was a different female voice that came through the answering machine. “Gabriel? This is Mindy Nelson. I probably shouldn’t have called-you might be sleeping. But I was just so worried when I heard-”

Arianne decided that Gabe wouldn’t mind her fielding this one. “Hello? Mrs. Nelson? This is Arianne Waide.”

“Oh, hi, Arianne.” Mindy sounded confused but pleased that someone had answered. “Are you at Gabe’s house?”

“Yes, ma’am. I was with him this afternoon when he got hit on the head and drove him to the E.R.”

“I heard all about it. Fawne Harris makes it sound as if he appeared out of nowhere and saved her son’s life.”

“Well, he did catch Ben and keep him from injury,” Arianne admitted proudly.

She’d thought Gabe was a hero long before then-when he’d volunteered to help despite not having kids at Whiteberry and not being sure he wanted to, when he’d stood up to Shane on her behalf and when he’d offered today to manufacture a way to keep Ben and Toby out of trouble. If only they’d realized sooner how necessary that would be!

Mindy clucked her tongue. “What a blessing that Gabe was there-I think Fawne’s ordering him roses. I heard about it at dinner tonight and got concerned about Gabe. I almost didn’t call, what with it being after nine by the time I got home, but…well, I was afraid he didn’t have anyone else to check in on him.”

Arianne ached, wondering how many good and bad moments he hadn’t been able to share with someone. “No need to worry, ma’am. I’m here.”

“I’m glad. He’s such a good man. Do you know, when he was building the deck for my yard, I was trying to teach my oldest how to drive so that he could get his license? We were struggling with the parallel parking, making each other tense, and Gabe took it over for me one afternoon. My son passed his test the following week.”

“Gabe volunteered to teach your kid to parallel park? Gabriel Sloan?”

“I told you, he’s a good guy. Speaking of which, will you let him know that I spoke to my brother-in-law? I really talked up Gabe, so if he wants to call and ask about job opportunities, the way has been paved.”

Arianne scowled. Yet another woman was trying to help Gabe get out of Mistletoe. Why wasn’t anyone trying to help him stay? “I’ll pass that message along.”

Once they hung up, Arianne realized that it had been hours since she’d looked at her phone. She probably should have checked in with Lilah and Tanner long ago. Sure enough, when she retrieved her cell from her purse, she saw that she had three voice mail messages, all from Lilah’s number.

Instead of taking the time to listen to them, she called her sister-in-law.

“There you are!” Lilah sounded equal parts exasperated and excited. “I’ve been trying to reach you. How’s Gabe?”

“Doctor said it was a concussion. He seems all right now, slept for hours. He took some more acetaminophen and is in the shower. I’m supposed to stay so that there’s someone to monitor him until tomorrow.”

Lilah was silent.

“What?” Arianne asked defensively.

“Nothing. I was just thinking about you needing to stay the night. With Gabriel Sloan.”

“Don’t say it like that. It’s so I can wake him up periodically, check his pupil size, make sure he’s not throwing up. That kind of thing,” Arianne said, trying for virtuous.

“Uh-huh. Well, if you’re not comfortable staying out there, I can send Tanner over. He could sleep on the couch. He can sleep anywhere. Just ask him about the one-and-only time we saw a ballet together.”

For all Arianne knew, she’d be bunking on the sofa. Judging by his tension when he’d left the room, Gabe was no longer under the thrall of what they’d shared earlier.

“I’m good here,” she said. “But could you pick me up in the morning? My car’s still at the festival site.”

“Actually, Tanner moved it with our spare key just a little while ago. That’s one of the reasons I was trying to get in touch with you, to let you know it’s at our house.”

Arianne laughed. “Because it wasn’t safe overnight in downtown Mistletoe?”

“I know,” Lilah agreed, a teasing lilt in her voice. “Talk to your brother. I guess he lived in the city too long. Call us in the morning when you’re ready to go.”

Arianne promised that she would and ignored the cheerful innuendo in her sister-in-law’s voice when she advised Arianne to have a good night. They disconnected, and Arianne paused for a moment, listening. Gabe was still in the shower. Since she had nothing to do, she decided to go ahead and give free rein to her curiosity.

There was nothing of major interest to see in the kitchen, so she returned to the living room, scrutinizing the entertainment center. As far as she could tell, it was the only TV in the house, a nice, large flat-screen. She grinned when she noticed that he owned a video game system, although she only saw one controller.

Against the far wall of the converted barn was the old loft. A set of painted wooden stairs with no railing led up to a carpeted, only partially enclosed loft with a skylight in the slanted roof. He’d made it a library of sorts. His computer sat on a desk in the corner, but the rest of the narrow space was eaten up by a large bookshelf. The man either loved to read or a hundred books had been included in the purchase when he bought this place. His tastes were varied, from lots of nonfiction and do-it-yourself books to Zane Grey’s Westerns, some of which were yellowed with age, to futuristic cop stories by J. D. Robb to a collection of comic essays by Dave Barry.

Suddenly the water switched off, and Arianne scrambled down the staircase, not wanting to look like the snoop she was. By the time Gabe reappeared-shirtless in a pair of low-slung running pants-she was resituated on the couch.

She cleared her throat, trying to break her gaze away from his chest. “I was thinking about it and, if you’d rather, I can sleep on the sofa. If that would make you more comfortable,” she offered, but she-or someone else of his choosing-was staying the night. That part was nonnegotiable.

“Don’t be silly.” He frowned at her. “The couch’s not half as comfortable as the bed. If you don’t mind my snoring, you’re welcome to share. I can keep my hands to myself.”

That hadn’t been what she was hinting at, but it probably was better for his recovery if she didn’t jump him again tonight.

“I pulled out a towel for you,” he said. “It occurred to me after I was already in that a good host probably would have let you shower first.”

“That’s all right. I wanted to wash the dishes and call Lilah anyway, let her know you’re okay. And Mindy Nelson called to check on you.”

“She did?”

Arianne nodded. “She heard about the injury and was worried.”

He looked bemused by this.

“She also wants you to know that she put in a good word with her brother-in-law.”

“Already?” He pressed his palms together, speaking almost to himself. “It’s really happening. I set it in motion, and I’m really doing this.”

Yep, he was really leaving Mistletoe. Ya-freaking-hoo.

“Gabe,” she began, “I’m not sure I understand why you’re going.”

“What’s there to understand?” He blinked at her. “You’re the one who asked me why I’d stayed this long in the first place. Remember?”

“Yeah, but…That’s just my point! Since you have stayed in Mistletoe so many years, why give up on us and leave now?”

“I’m not ‘giving up.’ I’m moving on. Moving forward.” His tone had chilled, and he was looking at her reprovingly. “You’re such a proactive person, I thought you’d understand.”

“No, I do. I understand,” she said quietly. But I want you to stay.