The Kissing Stars (16 page)

As he asked himself the question, she glanced outside and their gazes met and held. Wordlessly, she drew him toward her, and as he entered the kitchen,

Gabe’s heart seemed to swell to twice its size. For the first time in a dozen years, he felt as if he’d come home.

“Hi,” she said shyly.

“Hello.”

“Supper’s almost ready.”

“Good. I’m hungry.”

“Me too. I had thought to wait until the others get back from town, but they’re taking longer than I expected. I hope they didn’t have any more trouble.”

“I’m sure they’re fine.” For something to do, he crossed over to the stove and lifted the lid from a pot of boiling potatoes and sniffed. Why the hell was he feeling so awkward all of a sudden?

Tess tossed him a curious look, then opened the oven and checked the roast “So you don’t want to wait? Shall we go ahead and eat our meal?”

“Mmmm…” he murmured, his gaze focused on her behind as she lifted the pan from the oven. The meal. Tess. A meal of Tess. The question burst from his lips like a prayer. “Darlin’? Tell me I’m not sleeping in the guest bed tonight.”

CHAPTER 9

TESS DROPPED THE ROAST beef.

The pan banged against the floor and the juices sprayed but, thankfully, the meat remained in the pan. Rosie was up on all fours in an instant, but Tess moved quicker. With the beef safely placed on the cutting board, she ushered the pig away from the juice splatters and out the door saying, “You’ll burn your snout, sweetheart. I love you dearly, Rosie, but I don’t believe a pig belongs in the kitchen. I think this is a bad habit Twinkle allowed Will to start, and I intend to put an end to it.”

Tess was proud she managed to keep her voice level and nonchalant. Inside, she was quaking.

“Tess? How about it? Haven’t I worked my way down that list of chores well enough?”

Gabe’s questions sent shivers of anticipation up her spine. What should she say? What should she do? Why did she feel so ill at ease with him now when the trip home had been so… so…wonderful. Bracing herself not knowing how to reply, she turned to face him. Looking at him, she knew how she must answer.

Honestly.

“I don’t know what is best, Gabe. I know what I want, but I’m not sure I’m brave enough to let it happen.”

“Brave enough?” His brows dipped in a frown.

She waved her hand, uncertain how to put her feelings into words. It was more than the feminine insecurity that had brought her to tears early this morning. She chose her words as if she were walking through a field strewn with raw eggs. “What happened between us this afternoon caught me by surprise. You swept me away, Gabe. But for us to take it further, well, to me that would be a commitment of sorts. We have so many issues between us left to settle. Would it be right for us to ignore them and…”

“Make love?” He said it baldly, forcefully. “Hell, yes. Maybe that’s just what we need to settle these ‘issues’ that have you in knots.”

Her cheeks warmed with a blush. “I don’t think problems can be settled that way.”

“I think you’d be surprised.” He took a step toward her. “What problems do we have anyway, Tess? You told me you no longer hold Billy’s death against me. We’ve spent some time getting to know each other again. You can’t deny you want me. I knew that even before today. Am I wrong about any of this?”

She couldn’t lie, not about this. “No, you’re not wrong. But you don’t know everything, Gabe. I haven’t told you everything.”

“So tell me now.”

“I can’t. Not like this.”

He raked her with a measuring gaze. “Are you in love with another man?”

She shook her head forcefully and said, “No.”

“Then I can’t think of anything else important enough to stand between us.”

Which just goes to show how much you know
. Suddenly, he was standing in front of her, his face intense, his gaze heated. “Gabe, I…”

He lifted his hand and traced her cheek with his thumb, staring at her mouth. She smelled the hint of peppermint on his breath.

“Oh, Gabe. I can’t think.”

“I’ve decided that’s the problem dividing us, darlin’. Thinking. But you don’t need to think, not anymore. You need to be loved.”

Oh, yes
.

“No.” She couldn’t help but sway toward him. But knowing this man as well as she knew him, aware of how betrayed he might feel when he learned all her secrets, she forced herself to add, “Not until I’ve told you everything.”

“Everything?” He slipped his arms around her waist. “Like how your body aches for my touch? Like how your blood is running hot? Like—”

She moaned his name. “Stop. Please. I can’t think.”

“Good. I don’t want you to think. I want you to feel.”

“I am and I can’t. I can’t lose again, Gabe. It’ll destroy me.”

He waited a long beat and when he finally did speak, his question was hesitant. “What do you mean?”

She pulled away from him, whirled and paced across the room to stand beside the kitchen window. Staring outside, she folded her arms against the shivers racking her body, tremors having little to do with the chill in the early evening air. “I’m afraid, Gabe. If I drop these last few barriers…if I let myself love you again and then I lose you, I…”

When it finally became obvious she didn’t intend to finish the sentence, she heard him clear his throat. “Why would you think you’d lose me, Tess? I don’t understand.”

The windowpane reflected Tess’s bittersweet smile.
That’s because I’ve kept things from you
.

She turned and faced him. “We’ve danced around this long enough. I need to tell you what happened after Billy died.”

He grimaced and hung his head, scratching the back of his neck “Darlin’, look I know this isn’t what I said when I first came out to Aurora Springs, but I’ve given this quite a bit of thought. I’ve realized that for me, the past is best left in the past. We’ve been apart twelve years. I imagine we both have done things we’d just as soon the other didn’t know. Confession may be good for the soul, but I’m not so certain it’s good for a marriage.”

Conflicting emotions buffeted her. He’d said marriage like it was something he wanted, but he didn’t want to confess his past sins. He was thinking of romantic liaisons, and she agreed with him in that regard. She didn’t want to know.

And she didn’t want to tell him her secrets tonight.

Fatigue rolled over her like a hurricane’s breaker. It had been an eventful day, to say the least, followed on the heels of a dream-haunted night. She needed a break. She needed a little peace.

She shook her head and said, “No. Not tonight. I can’t do this right now, Gabe. I’m not ready.”

He scowled, looking every bit the little boy whose candy had been snatched away. “You were ready enough this afternoon.”

“And you feel cheated because you didn’t get a turn?” she replied, frustrated at the…the…male-ness of this man. “We’re not seventeen anymore. That argument won’t—”

“That’s not what I meant.” Anger bristled in his tone. “I just don’t see why you’re backing away from me now, not after this afternoon.”

“This afternoon was a mistake, Gabe.”

His chin jerked up and his jaw went hard. His eyes all but snapped as he said, “Now you’re making me mad. How can you say something that…wonderful was a mistake?”

“I’m sorry. That’s not what I mean to do. It’s just that…” She closed her eyes and gathered her thoughts, searching for the right words to express the emotions rioting through her. “Remember our first time? Do you remember how you felt afterward?”

He folded his arms. “Yeah. I felt good, real good.”

“You felt guilty. You told me so later. You said you felt guilty as sin.”

Gabe shrugged, and Tess pressed on. “But I didn’t feel guilty. Not at all. That’s because I was one hundred percent certain of my love for you.”

“Tess,” he said, a warning in his tone. “You’re not making this any better here. I loved you, too.”

“I know you did, but I don’t believe you knew you did. Not at that moment. If you’re honest, you’ll have to agree.” She paused, and when he didn’t argue, she thought she might have gotten through to him. “Gabe, I want to be just as certain this time. What we had was special. I couldn’t bear it being anything less than that now.”

“Are you so certain it would be less? At the risk of bringing up a sore subject, I have learned a thing or two in the past few years. I can play your body like a fiddle, Tess. Don’t doubt it.”

Her head dropped back and she railed toward the heavens. “You are such a
man!
I’m not talking about sexual prowess, Gabe. I’m talking about my heart. I won’t give my body unless my heart comes along with it. Right now…tonight…I’m simply not positive it does.”

For one, brief, unguarded second, she saw anguish and pain reflected in Gabe’s eyes. Her heart twisted. She hadn’t wanted to hurt him. She guessed she hadn’t realized she had the power. Then as quickly as the emotions appeared, they vanished. His gaze shuttered, but he pasted on a wry smile. Even before he spoke, Tess braced for the blow. She knew this man. Knew he’d defend himself by lashing out.

“Hell, Tess. I wasn’t asking for your heart. I just need to get laid.” He gestured toward the stove. “Don’t worry about me for supper, after all. I’ve a hankering to ride back into town. I’ll satisfy my appetites there.”

THE NEXT afternoon Gabe lay sprawled across the bed in the most expensive room of Sally McGuire’s Gentleman’s Club in Eagle Gulch, Texas. “Fancy name for a whorehouse,” he muttered, pouring the last of a bottle of whiskey into a glass.
Especially a whorehouse as sorry as this
.

Counting Sally, the house had four working girls and not a one of them was tempting enough to put the lead in Gabe’s pencil, so to speak. “Almost enough to make a man doubt his vigor,” he grumbled, tossing back his drink. He’d be worried except that every time he thought about his wife, his prick got hard enough to drive a railroad spike. “Maybe I should get a job up there building the spur. That’d show her.”

Only problem was, he didn’t want to show her. He wanted to love her.

Gabe reached for another bottle of rotgut, pulled the cork with his teeth, spat it out, then took a long draw. He choked and coughed hard, then lifted the bottle to the light and stared at it. Too much of this brew would damn sure kill a man, so he’d be careful to stop at just enough.

Gabe wasn’t ready to die. He just wanted to act stupid for a bit. A man had to do that now and again. Animals licked at their wounds, and a man had to act stupid.

“Which is why I’m in a whore’s bed when I want to be in Tess’s,” he said to the stone spittoon in the corner. Of course, he was alone in the bed and had been since his arrival. He hadn’t crossed the line from stupid to idiot, and he hoped like hell he never would. A man had standards he simply had to keep, even when he was acting stupid. “Especially then.”

The problem with standards was that the backfire could be deadly. Like now, for instance. He was in between drunks, but lit enough so as not to be laid out from the last hangover. In this state it was possible for a man to think. Not a good thing for a man who was drinking to forget.

Under the circumstances, Gabe had to admit he was wrong to hold his hurting against Tess. She hadn’t known he’d just figured out he loved her. She couldn’t know how her disavowal of love cut him like a red hot bowie knife. It wasn’t fair of him to expect her to reach the same conclusion at the same time as he. But he damned well expected her to figure it out sometime.

“Because she does love me,” he told the spittoon. “I know it as sure as the walking porkchop likes mud.” He punctuated his statement with one more glug of booze.

That proved to be a mistake. What it did was lower his defenses just enough to get him thinking about things he didn’t want to be thinking about. Those damned secrets she wanted to tell him. They were the problem. They drove her to doubt.
And me to a soiled dove’s empty bed
.

Gabe didn’t want to think about any secrets. If he did, he’d wonder what they were, and then he’d be in even bigger trouble. He’d changed some in the last dozen years, but the basic core of him and his beliefs had remained the same. So, if Tess worried the secrets might drive him away, she stood a chance of being right. Gabe didn’t want to know because he didn’t want to be driven away. Not now.

He’d brought the bottle back to his mouth for a full tumble into idiot when the door to his room burst open. He dropped the bottle and the whiskey spilled, soaking both his britches and the bed Gabe barely noticed. He was too busy being shocked sober. “Tess? What the hell are you doing here?”

She drew herself up, arrowed a glare his way, and stepped inside, slamming the door behind her.
Uh oh
, Gabe thought. His wife was wearing her warrior goddess persona again.

“Get up and get dressed, Gabe Cameron or Montana or just plain Idiot.”

Ooh, had he crossed that line after all?

She continued, her voice razor sharp, “You are leaving this place here and now. I won’t put up with this, Gabe. You won’t shame me this way. You and I are married for better or worse, and I won’t have you using some two dollar pleasure bunny just because I am trying to do the right thing.”

Two dollar pleasure bunny?
“I ordinarily spend more than that, darlin’.”

Her glare was hot enough to set the alcohol afire, and Gabe thought he’d better get moving before he got burned to bits. “All right, I’m getting up. Fair warning, though. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m naked.”

“It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

He considered that. “No, that’s not totally true, Tess. You’re bosom isn’t the only thing that grew in the past twelve years.”

Damned if it didn’t work. Her gaze dipped to his crotch, then shot back up again. “Give me half a minute and I’ll be even bigger, sweetheart,” he said with a wicked grin, watching the pretty blush spread across her face.

“Just put your pants on. We’re leaving.”

“Where we going?”

“The hotel. I took a room so we can have some privacy to talk. After that, you can either come home with me, or hop a train. But we’re not leaving matters in limbo any longer. I can’t go on this way. We must choose one or the other. Marriage or divorce.”

If Gabe hadn’t already sobered up, that would have done it.

Hell. The woman is bound and determined to spill her damned guts
. Glumly, with a headache beginning to pound at his brain, he dressed. The sense of impending doom that settled on his shoulders had him grabbing up the bottle of whiskey as he followed her from the room.

Sally met them in the hallway. “Winnie told me you were here, Tess. I guess you didn’t come for more chocolates, hmm?” Then she laughed and said, “Now I understand why what happened happened. Just so you know, he turned down every one of my girls. Your man was faithful to you, missy. You have yourself a good one, there. I’d hold on to him if I were you.”

Tess eyed him sharply, and he sent her that sheepish, boyish grin that he saved for getting out of trouble with women. She reacted to his smile and Sally’s information with a lifting of her chin and a smile of feminine confidence. “I’ll give the matter some thought.”