‘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 humour-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 bigband 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 realised—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.