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“Andrea and I can handle it,” Dick told him.
“Wouldn’t it be better to have an extra pair of hands helping you?” Emery countered. He gave Andrea a long simpering look. “Besides, it’s obvious that Andrea is shaken by the incident. I’d like to pitch in and help her however I can.”
“Emery, look.” I stood on wobbly legs. My head swam, and the floor tilted toward me. “I don’t feel so well.”
“You’re going home,” Gabriel told me as he caught my elbows and kept me from smacking my head on the floor. “Dick, would you mind closing up?”
I was too dazed to object or hear Dick’s response. Dick and Andrea could figure out what to do with Emery. I let Gabriel lead me to his car and tuck me into the passenger side.
I stared out the window, unsure of what to say, as he drove me to River Oaks. When we got there, he let Fitz out to run and took me to the upstairs bathroom, where he carefully stripped me out of the silver-laced clothes. While Gabriel ran bathwater, I caught a glimpse of my face in the mirror and was relieved to see that it no longer looked like raw hamburger. I had a few shiny, pale pink patches across my cheeks and nose, like a human recovering from a bad sunburn.
Gabriel let me slip in under the bubbles, and I closed my eyes to avoid looking at him while he ran a sponge down my still-healing arms and legs. He poured some of my “fancy” antifrizz shampoo into his palm and massaged it through my hair. Apparently, he didn’t expect me to talk about my feelings or how awkward it was for me to let him see me naked again, especially with my fabulous shiny pink healing burns. It was just as well. I wasn’t sure how I felt about him seeing me naked again, with or without shiny pink healing burns.
When he tilted my head back to rinse my hair, I caught him staring at my face. You’d expect someone in his situation to be sneaking looks about eight inches south, but he was wholly concentrated on my face. The burns must have been worse than I thought.
“I know, it’s bad,” I told him. “But I’m feeling a lot better.”
“No, you’re almost completely healed. I just—I’m trying to take in as much as I can before you’re strong enough to drop-kick me out the door.”
“Why are you being so sweet?” I asked.
“Because you’re letting me,” he said, a sad little lopsided smile tilting his mouth. “I’m so sorry.”
“I missed you, too. But I didn’t do anything wrong, ergo no apology.”
“I can live with that.” He nodded, gently pouring warm water over my head. “I would like you to consider moving to my house for a while, Jane.”
“I couldn’t do that. It would feel weird. And I don’t think living together would be right for us at the moment. There’s too much going on.”
“Well, then move into Andrea’s place, at least until the threats stop.”
My eyebrows arched, the new skin around them stretching tight. “Andrea’s place, where Dick lives? You must be scared.”
“I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“I’ll be fine. And I’ll be much more careful when I open the mail, I promise.” He gave me a withering fatherly look. “I’ll let Andrea open the mail from now on?” When that didn’t satisfy him, I huffed. “I’ll take it to the airport and have it X-rayed?”
“I will be spending a lot more time at the shop with you,” he said. “You don’t even have to acknowledge my presence. I will just sit in the back and watch you, to make sure you’re safe. Wherever you go, I go.”
“Like a stalker.”
He nodded. “Yes. Jane, I don’t care what capacity you let me have in your life. I just want to be there. And if that means I have to keep my distance, I’ll do that.”
I sighed. If ever there was a time for me to lay all my cards on the table, this was it. Naked, wounded, and vulnerable. “So, here’s my basic problem with us, the reason I can’t seem to relax into a relationship with you, the reason I find problems where none exist and I push you away. I—I can’t figure out why you’re with me!” I exclaimed, clapping my hand over my mouth. I hadn’t meant for that part to come out. I had meant to say, “You lie and hide things from me.”
Gabriel pried my fingers away from my lips. My hands trembled as stuff I’d been feeling for months tumbled from my tongue. “I know that makes me neurotic and sad, but I can’t figure out why you want to be with me. Every other woman in your life is exotic and beautiful and has all this history. And I’m just some drunk girl you followed home from a bar, some pathetic human you felt your usual need to protect, and you got stuck with a lifetime tie to her because she was dumb enough to get shot. I can’t stand the idea that you feel obligated to me. I know I’m insecure and pushy and spastic, desperately inappropriate at times and just plain odd at others. And I can’t help but wonder why you would want that when there are obviously so many other options. I can’t help but feel that I’m keeping you from someone better.”
I let out a loud, long breath. It felt as if some tremendous weight on my chest had wiggled loose and then dropped away. No more running. No more floating along and waiting. My cards were on the table. If Gabriel and I couldn’t have a future after this, it wasn’t because I held back from him. Now I could only hope it didn’t blow up in my face in some horrible way.
I wasn’t sure my face could handle much more.
Gabriel sighed and cupped my chin, forcing me to look him in the eye. “I didn’t follow you that night because I wanted to protect you. I followed you that night because you were one of the most interesting people I’d met in decades. You had this light about you, this sweetness, this biting humor. After I’d only known you for an hour, you made me laugh harder than I had since before I was turned. You made me feel normal, at peace, for the first time in years. And I didn’t want to lose that yet. Even if it was just watching over you from a mile away, I didn’t want to leave your presence. I followed you because I didn’t want to let you go. Even then, I saw you were one of the most extraordinary, fascinating, maddening people I would ever know. Even then, I think I knew that I would love you. If you don’t love me, that’s one thing. But if you do, just stop arguing with me about it. It’s annoying. ”
“Fair enough,” I conceded. “Why the hell couldn’t you have told me this a year ago?”
“I’ve wanted to. You weren’t ready to hear it.”
The water cooled. Gabriel helped me out of the tub and wrapped my robe around me. I snuggled up under the covers and pulled him under with me. He held me close for a long, silent moment before I finally said, “Tell me about Jeanine. Tell me everything. I won’t get mad, no matter how bad it is.”
