Page 6 of Tangled in His Embrace

Chapter 2

Gabby spent Saturday evening working on her latest novel. As Taylor got older, it became harder and harder to write. It was easy when her daughter was little, but once Taylor started crawling and walking around things had become a little more challenging. The other day Taylor had run up to Gabby’s laptop and tried to read over her shoulder. Granted, Taylor couldn’t read all that much yet, but that wouldn’t be the case in a few years. That meant Gabby had to wait until her daughter went to bed in order to find time to write. Or, now that Jax was back, for the weekends she was with him.

On Sunday morning, Gabby spent some time tidying up the house before heading over to her mom’s. Her sister, Grace, was meeting her there and the three of them were going Christmas shopping. Gabby still had quite a few things to get and time was running out. Christmas was only three weeks away.

Grace’s car was already parked out front when Gabby pulled up to her mother’s house. Her sister had changed a lot in the last two months since she’d met Alexander. She was getting out more, for one thing. Gabby no longer had to bribe Grace to go shopping. In fact, this outing had been her sister’s idea.

The muffled voices of her mother and sister greeted Gabby as soon as she walked through the door, and she followed the sound to the back of the house. “I’ve been doing some research online, trying to find something I think I can pull off.”

“What exactly are you trying to pull off?” Gabby asked her sister as she strolled into the room. Her mom was sitting on the bed, putting on her shoes, and Grace was leaning against the far wall, her arms crossed.

Caroline Lewis finished tying her shoe and hurried across the room to give her oldest daughter a hug. “We didn’t hear you come in.”

Gabby returned her mother’s embrace before raising her eyebrow at her sister, letting her know she was still waiting on an answer to her question.

“I want to make a big Italian dinner for Alexander. It’s his first Christmas since being discharged and I want it to be special.”

“What about your boss?”

Grace looked confused. “Beth?”

“She’s good at cooking, right?”

“Beth’s more of a baker,” Grace said. “I think her fiancé does most of the cooking.”

“Well, there you go. Ask him.”

“I can’t ask Drew.” The aghast look on her sister’s face was almost comical.

“Why not?” Gabby asked.

Grace opened her mouth, and then closed it again before responding. “I don’t know. I’d just feel awkward about it, I guess.”

“Well, if you want to cook a nice meal for your man you’re gonna have to get over it.”

Grace rolled her eyes. “That’s easy for you to say.”

“It’s not a bad idea, Grace,” their mother said, getting in on the conversation for the first time.

Sighing, Grace picked her coat up off the bed and draped it over her arm. “I’ll think about it, okay?”

Gabby didn’t get a chance to respond before her mother went into herding mode. “Let me get my coat and we can get out of here. I’m starving and I still have a lot of shopping to do.”

Three hours later Gabby and Grace were weaving through racks of clothes. Their mom had made a beeline for the bathrooms as soon as they’d entered the store, and so far she’d been MIA.

“Is Alexander all moved in yet?” Gabby asked as she held up a shirt for inspection.

The sides of her sister’s mouth turned up slightly in a girlish smile Gabby hadn’t seen in a long time, not since Grace found out her husband wasn’t coming home from the war. “He was going to bring a couple more boxes over today and that should be it.”

“If that smile of yours is any indication, I’m guessing the whole living together thing is going well?”

Grace glanced up at Gabby, and then away. “Yeah.”

“Well, I’m happy for you. You deserve it.”

Her sister bit her lower lip and averted her gaze to a dress on the rack next to her. “What about you? How are things between you and Jax? I mean... have you two...”

Gabby knew what her sister was asking. “No. I haven’t slept with him again.” When Grace remained quiet, Gabby knew she had to say something else. She hadn’t meant to make it sound as if Grace shouldn’t have asked. Gabby had confided in her sister about it, after all. “It’s made things between us more complicated. As if they weren’t already complicated enough before.”

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