Finding Isadora (25 page)

“
Doesn’t it?”

I was getting a strong inkling as to how Gabriel
’s and Richard’s relationship might have gone so wrong. In some ways, they were very alike. In their stubbornness, for example. “Relationships take work,” I pointed out.

“
If something takes that much work, it wasn’t meant to be.” He took a slug of wine and detached another slice of pizza, which he handed to me.

I bit off the point and chewed slowly, reflecting. After I swallowed, I said,
“That’s a load of crap, and you know it.”

He froze in the act of separating another slice of pizza, then stared at me with an expression that suggested he couldn
’t make up his mind whether he was more angry or amused. “Crap?”

“
Relationships aren’t about fate, Gabriel. They’re about emotion and effort. If you love someone, then you don’t let circumstance dictate whether the relationship is going to work. You invest in it. Time, emotion, hard work,” I said vehemently. “You discuss things, share, try to understand the other person. You support them, glory with them in their triumphs, comfort them when they fail.”

He shrugged.
“When it comes right down to it, we’re all alone. A person can’t count on having someone there to pick them up when they fall down. They have to learn to do that all by themselves.”

“
Children ought to be able to count on their parents.”

“
Told you I was rotten at parenting.”

I could see why. He seemed determined not to grasp my point. But then I remembered Richard saying his father had probably grown up in a dysfunctional family. Perhaps Gabriel didn
’t have a context from which to understand about loving, committed relationships. So I’d give him an analogy. “You’re a lawyer, an advocate. You fight for your clients, right?”

“
Yeah, sure. What’re you getting at?”

“
In your work, you support and defend your clients, you fight for them, you don’t give up. You don’t take the attitude, ‘If something takes that much work, it wasn’t meant to be’.”

As I parroted his words back to him, his eyebrows rose.

“But when it comes to your son, you opted out a long time ago. And isn’t your son more important than a client?”

I expected him to curse, to maybe throw me out. Instead he just chewed pizza slowly and methodically, not looking at me. When the slice was finished, he gazed at me, his eyes expressionless.
“Yeah. And so?”

“
So it’s not too late. You love him, Gabriel. Fight for him. You can’t make up for the things you did and didn’t do when he was growing up, but you can apologize, tell him how you feel, try to build something better.”

He ran a hand down one side of his face, across his jaw, and up the other side. He must have pressed hard because a flush came to his
dusky skin wherever his hand had touched it.

His skin. For the first time I realized he was clean-shaven, rather than stubbled as he
’d been when he brought Valente to the clinic. When he’d showered, he had shaved. For me?

“
Richard doesn’t want a relationship with me,” he said.

“
I think you’re wrong. He’d be prickly at first because he’s felt for a long time that you didn’t care. But you can get through to him.”

Gabriel rose and walked over to a window. For a few minutes, he gazed out in silence. Then he came back and squatted in front of me so our eyes were on a level, less than a foot apart.
“I don’t know how, Isadora. I don’t know how to be a father.” Those brown eyes were dark with pain.

I touched his shoulder.
“Most parents don’t have any instruction, they go with their instincts.”

“
Instincts.” His eyes sparked to life and, under my hand, his muscles tensed. Then he sprang to his feet, jerking away from my touch, and paced away from me. Half way across the room, he turned and stared at me. “My instincts can’t be trusted.”

The tension in the air had changed, and I knew he was talking about more than his paternal instincts. It was the closest either of us had come to admitting an attraction, and I desperately didn
’t want him to go any further. Once something was acknowledged, you could no longer pretend it didn’t exist. I sucked in a breath and grabbed my wine glass, cupping it tightly in both hands.

“
The first instinct should be to protect your child,” he said. “Shouldn’t it? To keep him from harm? From being hurt?”

I nodded warily.
“I think so.”

“
Me, too.” He walked toward me, but only to pick up his own glass and move away again. He paced over to his desk and leaned against it, staring at a painting of a weathered totem pole.

After a few minutes of silence, still looking at the painting rather than me, he said,
“When he was a baby I was busy with university, then law school. And activism. And let’s face it, I was also smoking dope and screwing my brains out. Yeah, I loved Richard, but a kid didn’t fit my life. He fit Diane’s, so I left the two of them alone together much of the time. It set a pattern.”

His fingers drummed forcefully on the
desk. His whole body seemed taut with nervous energy. “I was out doing my thing and they were at home doing theirs.” Now he turned my way. “I was good at my work, Isadora. I am good. I’ve made a difference. Not as much as your parents maybe, but my life has counted.”

“
I’m sure of it. But being a parent counts, too.”

“
Well, I’m a shitty one. I hate doing things I’m not good at.” He sounded like a petulant teenager.

I suppressed a smile.
“It’s hard to be good when you never try. Most things worth doing take some practice.”

“
Yeah, I guess. I do try, sometimes, to be a decent father, to do the right thing.” He gave a humorless laugh. “Really hard, sometimes.” There it was again, that almost acknowledgement.

I studied him, in his surly, sexy, James Dean slouch.
“What was your own father like?” I had little hope he’d answer the question. Richard had said Gabriel never talked about his family. But maybe I could at least change the course of this conversation.

He closed his eyes for a long minute. When he opened them he said, so softly I could barely hear,
“Abusive. An alcoholic. The days he didn’t come home were the good ones.”

Just as Richard had suspected.
“And your mother?”

“
Mom.” His voice softened and so did his expression. “She was from Portugal. Dad met her there when he was in college, taking a summer holiday. He grew up in Vancouver and his family was Italian, so he went over to Europe and visited Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Mom was only seventeen but she was absolutely beautiful. You oughta see their wedding picture.”

That explained Gabriel
’s Mediterranean coloring. And I could well believe, looking at him, that both his parents were gorgeous.

“
Her family was poor,” he said, “and he swept her away from them, brought her back to Canada, dropped out of college, and got a job selling insurance.”

“
And your mother? Did she work?”

“
He wouldn’t let her. He was jealous, possessive. Didn’t even want her to have women friends. Her English wasn’t very good but he wouldn’t let her take lessons. She was lonely and bored, but then she had me and that kept her busy. Too busy.”

“
Too busy?”

“
He was jealous of me. He drank more, beat her up. When she got pregnant again, he beat her so badly they had to do a hysterectomy. So she not only lost that baby—my sister—but the chance of ever having another child.”

“
How terrible,” I murmured.

“
When I was a kid, he beat both of us. If someone called the police, my mom would lie because she was terrified of him. Besides, she’d been raised to believe a woman obeyed her husband. And he’d kept her so isolated, she had no support network to draw on.”

“
How did it end?” I asked softly, battling the overwhelming urge to touch him. “Did you run away from home?”

He didn
’t answer, just stared at me, his face giving away nothing.

“
Gabriel?”

He jerked his head, like he was coming out of a trance.
“They both died,” he said flatly.

“
How?”

Another long pause.
“An accident.”

“
Car accident? Was he drunk?”

“
He was drunk. It was his fault.” He closed his eyes, squeezing them tight. “
His
fault.” He sounded like he was trying to convince himself.

“
How old were you?”

“
Fifteen.”

“
Did you go to your grandparents?”

“
No. The system.”

Foster care. Okay, his mother
’s parents would have been in Portugal, but why didn’t his father’s take him in?

His gaze held mine, almost as if he was daring me to probe further. I had a dozen questions but didn
’t want to upset the delicate balance between us. Why had he talked to me about these things, when he hadn’t told Diane or Richard? Did he want me to tell Richard, perhaps in hopes it would help him understand why Gabriel hadn’t done the best job of parenting? “Gabriel? Why haven’t you told Richard about your parents?”

He shook his head.
“What good would it do him to know?”

“
It might help him understand. Understand you.”

One corner of his mouth tilted in a wry grin.
“Oh, Isadora, you have such good intentions.” He sounded like a patronizing teacher patting a naive child on the head.

“
I try,” I said stiffly.

“
Yeah, you do.” He pushed himself away from his desk. “Time to go. I’ll drive you.”

Still feeling huffy about being patronized, I said,
“I can catch a bus.” I glanced at my watch and was surprised to find it was almost midnight. “Or call a cab.”

“
I’ll drive you, damn it.” He glared at me, now looking angry rather than patronizing.

And suddenly that crazy tension was zinging between us again. Insane. I
’d been having a parenting discussion with my future father-in-law, but now I was feeling anything but daughterly.

I wanted this man. He could be infuriating but he was the most dynamic, impressive, intelligent, sexy man I
’d ever met. He was a man to feel passionate about.

The way Grace felt about Jimmy Lee.

Shock rippled through me, chilling my blood. I couldn
’t be falling in love with Gabriel DeLuca. If I was, it was a far different emotion than what I felt for Richard. I stared down into my wine glass, afraid to meet Gabriel’s eyes for fear he’d see too much.

“
Finish your wine and let’s go.” That exasperated snarl was familiar. I’d heard it the first day I phoned him.

“
Fine,” I snarled back, taking comfort in anger. It was a preferable emotion to … whatever else I was feeling. After swallowing the last mouthful of wine, I carefully placed my glass on the box-table and stood up.

When I dared to look at him, he shook his head.
“Why are we arguing?”

I shrugged, guessing he knew as well as I did, but neither of us was going to admit it.
“It’s been a stressful day.”

A surprised laugh choked out of him.
“Seems like they’re always stressful days when I see you, Isadora. Come on, let’s get you home.”

As we walked down the stairs he said,
“About Richard…”

I gave a guilty start.
“Yes?”

“
I wouldn’t know how to start. Even if I did want to make things better between us.”

However confused I might be, I was sure of one thing: I cared about both these men and wanted to help them find their way to each other.
“Start with small steps. Like … well, like he’s thinking of, with that boy in his neighborhood.”

“
What boy?”

“
Oh, didn’t he tell—” I broke off. “There’s a boy he’s made a connection with. The son of a single-parent mom. Richard thinks he’s a good kid, but heading for trouble. His mom’s always working and he doesn’t have a healthy male influence in his life. So Richard is going to be a sort of unofficial big brother, if Eric and his mother will let him.”

We reached the street and walked side by side to Gabriel
’s car. “Looks like he’s on his way to being a good father,” he said. “Must have got that from Frank.”

Gabriel unlocked the passenger door and we both stared at the seat. Clean now, as if
Valente had never ridden there. Valente, who we’d actually forgotten in the time we’d been discussing Richard. But then, to be fair, we’d forgotten about Richard when we’d been focused on Valente.