AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"I have enough trouble sleeping as it is without worrying about what's going on up here."
"I don't need a baby-sitter, but I guess I wouldn't mind a little company."
That, he knew, was the closest he'd get to an acknowledgment that she was worried. She disappeared to put the shotgun away, and he carried his suitcase down the back hallway to his grandmother's old bedroom, which was now empty of Kristy's things. As he gazed around at the old rough-hewn bed and the rocker in the corner, he remembered how scared he'd get at night when he was little. He used to sneak in here and crawl in with Annie. He could have climbed in with Cal, but he hadn't wanted his older brother to know that he was afraid. One time, though, he'd slipped in with his grandmother only to discover that his big brother was already there.
He heard Rachel behind him and turned. She looked rumpled and beautiful. The V-shaped crease in her cheek told him she'd been asleep when he'd driven up. He studied the shirt she was wearing more closely and felt vaguely irritated. "Don't you have anything else to sleep in?"
"What's wrong with this?"
"It's Cal's. If you need a shirt, you can wear one of mine." He tossed his suitcase on the bed, opened it, and yanked out a shirt that was clean, but marked here and there with various stains that hadn't come out in the laundry.
She took it from him and regarded it critically. "His is a lot nicer."
He glared at her.
She gave him an impish smile. "But yours looks more comfortable."
"Damn right it is."
She smiled again, and pleasure leached into some of the barren places inside him. He thought about how she managed to find amusement in the smallest things, even with her life hanging in shreds around her.
Her green eyes grew crafty, and he braced himself. She planted one hand on her hip, a gesture that hiked up her shirt a few more inches. She was killing him, and she didn't even know it. "If you expect me to cook, you have to buy all the food."
Rachel had more ways of holding on to her money than anyone he'd ever known, and he couldn't resist giving her a hard time. "Now why would I expect you to cook? I'm probably better at it than you are."
She thought about that. "You also eat a lot more, so it wouldn't be fair for me to spend my money on your food. Really, Gabe, you have the most enormous appetite I've ever seen. You're always eating."
Before he could figure out how to respond to that one, a small voice interrupted.
"Mommy?"
He whirled around and saw the boy standing there in the doorway. He was wearing a new pair of pajamas so big they had to be rolled at the cuff. Trust Rachel to protect her pennies by looking to the future.
She moved to his side as if the kid were burning up with fever, and when she bent over, he saw the edge of her panties. The boy gave him a brief, unfathomable look, then stared down at the floor. Gabe turned his back on them and busied himself unpacking.
"Come on, sweetie," Rachel said. "Let me tuck you back in."
"What's he doing here?"
She began moving him out of the room into the hallway. "It's Gabe's cottage. He can come here whenever he wants."
"It's Pastor Ethan's cottage."
"He and Gabe are brothers."
"Are not." Gabe heard them turning into Annie's old sewing room. The boy said something he couldn't quite make out, but it sounded like behead—a peculiar word for a five-year-old to know. The kid was strange, and Gabe knew he should feel sorry for him, but memories were swallowing him up.
Jamie in his pajamas fresh from his bath. That little whorl of dark, wet hair on the top of his head. The way he'd snuggle into Gabe's lap with his favorite book, sometimes falling asleep before they reached the end. Sitting there with a sleeping child heavy in his arms and one small, bare foot cupped in his hand…
"Do you have everything you need?"
He hadn't heard Rachel come back in. He blinked his eyes and shook his head. "No." The breath left his lungs in a shudder. "I need you."
She came to him at once, pressed her body against his, and he knew this waiting had been as hard on her as on him. He pushed his hands underneath the shirt she wore, his brother's shirt, and touched the soft skin beneath. But then she broke away. He felt a chill at her desertion, only to realize she was locking the door.
How many times had he or Cherry done that? Locked the bedroom door in that old Georgia farmhouse so Jamie wouldn't wander in? The pain came back.
Rachel cupped his jaw, and her soft whisper fell on his cheek like a prayer. "Stay with me, buddy. I need you, too."
