‘Promise me you’ll always remember that.’
Her smiled dimmed. ?
?I don’t understand.’
‘Promise me,’ he said urgently.
She looked at him, seeing once again the dark shadows and the livid flesh beside the stitches across his cheek, and she nodded.
, ‘I promise.’
James stared back at her, then leaned across the table and kissed her. His kiss was tender at the start and then, with a swiftness that left her breathless, he cupped her face in his hands and his kiss deepened, became more impassioned and somehow more poignant than she’d ever thought a kiss could be.
An explosion of light blossomed behind her closed eyelids. She felt it shimmer like a white flame that invaded her mind and body. Her lips parted beneath his; she moaned softly and wound her arms around his neck, whispering his name against his mouth like an incantation for the spell she was falling under.
The shrill ring of the doorbell shattered the magic and they separated. James’s eyes held Gabrielle’s as he smoothed dark strands of silken hair from her cheeks.
‘Who…?’ She swallowed. ‘I wasn’t expecting anyone.’
‘It’s probably for me. The car rental people said they’d make delivery within the hour.’ He kissed her and got to his feet. ‘I’ll be right back.’
Gabrielle nodded. She watched as he hobbled into the kitchen, watched until he vanished into the shadowy hallway, and then she leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes.
A little while ago, she’d told Alma she’d taken James in because he needed her.
The truth was more complicated.
A few days ago, James had been a stranger to be feared and avoided. Now, it was she who needed him. She longed for his kisses, for his presence—and for the moment she could tell him she was falling in love with him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
A fire-engine red Corvette was parked at the door of the carriage house.
James was straight-faced when he marched Gabrielle to the kerb and showed the car to her, but the laughter in his eyes gave him away.
‘The boy who dropped it off said the manager told him to say they were awfully sorry, but they were out of sedans.’ He smiled and looped his arm lightly around her shoulders. ‘I told him we’d do our best not to be too distressed.’
‘It’s a lovely car, James. But your knee—are you sure you’re up to a drive?’
He smiled. ‘When I injured it in college, my mother was determined to take me home and keep me in bed until it was healed.’ He shifted the single crutch he was using, and he and Gabrielle started slowly through the courtyard to the house. ‘My father insisted I stay at school and keep moving. I preferred my mother’s plan, of course…’
‘Of course?’
There was a brief silence and then James laughed. ‘My father was—is—a man who believes you measure success by how many awards you’ve won or how many dollars you’ve earned. I was up for an athletic trophy and he was sure I’d lose it if I gave in to the injury.’
Gabrielle looked at him as they entered the house. ‘So you stayed at school?’
‘No. I went home. And after a couple of days of being pampered, the knee froze up completely. So I took my father’s advice, went back to school, and kept moving—all of which would have been fine, except it meant admitting he’d been right in the first place.’
‘And that was hard to do,’ Gabrielle said with a questioning smile.
He nodded. ‘We’re different people, the old man and me. We have different goals and…’ He paused and looked at her ‘… and it still amazes me when I realise that, in many ways, he’s known me better than I’ve known myself.’
A curious flatness had crept into his voice. ‘James? Is something the matter?’
His eyes met hers, then slid away. ‘No. No, nothing. It’s getting late, that’s all, and if we’re not careful this special day is going to slip by.’ Smiling, he opened the door to his room. ‘You have five minutes to get ready, Nurse Shelton. Can you manage?’
Gabrielle laughed and touched her hand to her hair. ‘Not if I’m going to put on some make-up and fix my hair and..
James’s eyes darkened. ‘What could make you more beautiful than you already are?’ he said softly, and the door closed quietly after him.
An hour later, he’d traded his crutches for a cane. ‘These things have to go,’ he’d said impatiently as he settled behind the wheel of the Corvette. ‘They’re much too restrictive.’
Gabrielle smiled at him. ‘You’re not likely to play football today,’ she said gently.
There was no answering smile. ‘You never know what you’re going to have to do,’ he said tersely, pulling out from the kerb. ‘Just tell me where I can find a surgical pharmacy.’
It took time to find a cane long enough to suit his height, but, once he’d found the right one, he was surprisingly agile. His knee hurt despite all his bravado—
Gabrielle saw the skin whiten around his mouth when he first put his weight on the injured leg—but after a few steps he was smiling.
‘See? I’m good as new. Now, where would you like to go?’
‘Some place where you won’t do any walking,’ she said quickly. ‘Please, promise me that.’
She needn’t have worried. The streets of the city were thronged with revelers. The French Quarter was all but impassable, by car as well as on foot. The crowds were thick along the Rampart Street parade route.
‘No crowds,’ James muttered, and Gabrielle breathed a sigh of relief. He tapped his fingers lightly against the steering-wheel, then turned to her. ‘Any suggestions?’
‘We could go back to the carriage house,’ she said. “or we could get out of the city altogether. Alma once mentioned River Road—she says there are some beautiful plantations along the banks of the river. I’ll bet they’re all but deserted today.’
‘Plantations?’
Gabrielle laughed. ‘That’s exactly what I said to Alma. But she swears they exist.’
‘Well, let’s go find out.’
The River Road followed the twists and bends of the sluggish Mississippi. It was an old highway, one that had in past times wound its way from plantation to plantation, and, as Alma had promised, many of the big houses were still standing, some in majestic splendour, others in brooding decay.
‘After a while, you’ll expect to see Rhett Butler, waitin’ at the side of the road,’ Alma had said, ‘a mint julep in his hand and his eyes smilin’ just for you.’
Gabrielle glanced across the car at James. Never mind the mint juleps or Rhett Butler, she thought with a little shiver of excitement, the man beside her was all she wanted.
The day was warm. Out here, near the river, the air was hot and humid, thick with the promise of summertime. James had taken off his tweed jacket and tossed it into the back of the car. He’d changed his sweatshirt for a long-sleeved, cream-coloured shirt which he wore with the sleeves rolled up. Sunlight danced along his muscled forearms. The top buttons of the shirt were undone, and she could see dark whorls of hair curling out from beneath the soft fabric. He was wearing the mirrored sunglasses that had so angered her when they’d first met, but now they only added to the aura of rugged masculinity that emanated from him. The car windows were open, and the breeze played with his hair, tossing the dark locks across his forehead.
He was as handsome as any wicked-eyed riverboat gambler from the past, a dazzling combination of charm and good looks, strength and gentleness. He was a man women dreamed of, and he was here, with her, smiling at her, talking to her, touching her hand as it lay in her lap.
The thought of it took her breath away. When had she last felt this happy?
Not in years, she thought, putting her head back and closing her eyes, not even before her father’s illness or the nightmare that had followed. She’d never smiled as much, or laughed as much—not since she was a little girl.
She’d been happy then. Her growing-up years had been filled with laughter, despite the fact that she’d lost her mother. Her father—and Uncle Tony—had been all the warm and loving fam
ily she’d needed.
But as she’d grown older, her life had undergone a subtle change. She had been excluded from the little cliques and secret sororities at school. She knew it had had something to do with her father’s connection with Vitale, but there was nothing she could do about it. Her father had explained things to her. Powerful men, like Tony Vitale, were envied and feared. .
It was as simple as that. It had to be. Because if it wasn’t, if there was a shred of truth to the rumours, then what did that make of her father?
‘Gabrielle?’
She started as she felt the weight of James’s hand on hers. It seemed to take great effort to open her eyes and look at him.
His gaze moved over her face. ‘What’s wrong? You seem so far away.’
She felt .the harsh pressure of past unshed tears in her eyes and she turned her head before he saw them, too.
‘I was just thinking,’ she said slowly. ‘This morning, when you talked about your father, you said he knew you better than you knew yourself.’ She paused, swallowed, then looked at him again. ‘But what about knowing him? I mean, do you really know the kind of man he is?’
His jaw tightened. ‘I thought I did,’ he said after a while. ‘But I’m beginning to think I was wrong.’ He glanced at her and smiled tightly. ‘When you’re a kid, you see things in black and white. Fathers are good or bad, that’s all. It’s only when you grow up that you realise they’re people, that they can be both good and bad, just like the rest of us.’
A sob caught in Gabrielle’s throat. James looked at her, then drove to an easy stop on the shoulder of the road. She came into his arms in a rush, her face buried against his chest.
‘What is it?’ he demanded, tilting her face up to his and looking into her eyes. ‘Gabrielle?’
She shook her head. ‘I just thought about my father. I wish I could tell him I love him again, that nothing could ever make me stop, no matter what he—no matter who…’
A muscle moved in James’s jaw. ‘I’m sure he knows that, somehow.’ He bent to her and kissed her mouth. When he drew away, she sighed and smiled tremulously.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I haven’t thought about the past at all, and suddenly, today…’