Page 26 of The Lovers
“No.”
Gabe poured her more wine and set the empty bottle aside. “Say you could get rid of this gift you possess once and for all. Would you do it, Quinn?”
“To be perfectly honest, I don’t know. To have the ability to tell someone’s untold story is a precious gift, but it’s also a responsibility. I feel like I am no longer an impartial bystander; I become a part of the story.”
Gabe looked at Quinn, his eyes soft with compassion. “Is it because you don’t know your own?”
“In part. You have no idea what it’s like not to know where you come from. There are all these people searching for their natural parents, despite the fact that their parents didn’t want them. But the need to know is stronger than any pain of rejection. They just want to know who they came from and why they were givenaway. I don’t want another mother. I love the one I have, who’s loved me all my life, but I want to know the woman who gave birth to me and I want to know why she didn’t want me.”
“And you want to know if she had the same ability to see into the past,” Gabe added.
“I do. I have so many questions, but there’s no one to ask, and at this point in my life, I know that I will likely never know who my parents were. The trail had gone cold thirty years ago.”
“Quinn, have you ever tried to learn anything from the blanket you came wrapped in?” Gabe asked.
Quinn nodded. “Yes, but I felt nothing at all. I can only connect with the dead, not the living, so I knew for certain that my mother was still alive. That might have changed since the last time I tried.”
“Have you considered having a family of your own?” Gabe asked, his gaze soft on her face.
Quinn nodded, tears suddenly springing to her eyes. She thought she was going to have a family with Luke, but instead he broke up with her by text and left the country before she could come back and force a confrontation. She didn’t want Luke back, but she did need closure.
“Quinn, you must move on. Luke was a fool to let you go,” Gabe said. “Had you been mine?—”
“No, don’t.” Quinn cut him off as she sprang to her feet and started clearing away the dishes. She hadn’t meant to sound abrupt, but Gabe was her closest friend and also her boss. There was a part of her that longed to walk into his arms and let him kiss her, but neither one of them had an exemplary track record when it came to relationships. If their romance fizzled in a few months, she would lose not only a true friend but possibly her job, because working alongside him might prove to be too awkward or painful,depending on the circumstances of their breakup. She simply couldn’t risk that.
“Quinn, it needn’t end,” Gabe said, as if reading her thoughts, but Quinn just shook her head.
“Gabe, please, don’t.”
Quinn never turned from the sink, but she sensed Gabe getting his coat and walking to the door.
“Good night, and thank you for dinner,” he said softly, but still she didn’t turn around.
“Good night, Gabe,” she said to the empty room after the door closed behind him.
SIXTEEN
Gabe scarcely noticed where he was going as he navigated the nearly pitch-black lane leading away from Quinn’s house and toward the motorway. The windshield wipers were swishing madly, but still the visibility was no more than a few inches, the rain coming down in a torrent. He knew he should slow down, but his agitation clouded his judgment, and he stepped on the gas instead, racing blindly—not toward home, but away from Quinn. He hadn’t meant to reveal his hand, not this soon anyway, but he never could think clearly around Quinn. Luke’s departure had thrown Gabe into turmoil and upended his well-organized existence, forcing him to confront the truth. He supposed he was happy enough with Eve. He’d given up on the idea of ever finding the type of love that made him feel as if he’d come home at last and didn’t wish to ever leave, but Quinn’s altered status changed everything.
Gabe had come to terms with Quinn’s choice a long time ago and braced himself for the moment when she’d tell him that Luke had finally proposed and she’d joyfully accepted, but Luke, damn fool that he was, had never made the ultimate commitment. Gabe tried to ignore the gossip in the archeological circles, had closed his heart to the black rage that made him want to kill Luke when Gabe heard that he was playing the field. There had been more than one indiscretion, mostly while Quinn was away on a dig and Luke was left to his own devices or was on an assignment of his own. The liaisons were brief and meaningless, by all accounts, but it still made Gabe burn with a helpless fury to know that the woman he’d adored for the past eight years was being deceived by that philanderer who took her for granted. She deserved so muchbetter than Luke, but Quinn appeared to be blind to his faults—or perhaps, given her history, she was just desperate for a family of her own.
Gabe supposed that Luke could be charming and urbane. He had a certain polish that many academics lacked and had a knack for making women feel beautiful and special. Quinn had been no exception. Luke had managed to charm her and steal her away because Gabe had made the mistake of hesitating too long and putting his professional commitments before his romantic feelings. Luke got there first, and there wasn’t a day since that Gabe hadn’t regretted his decision to wait until the end of the dig to pursue Quinn Allenby.
For some while after that dig, Gabe lived in the hope that Luke would tire of Quinn and clear the way for him, but Luke seemed to love her, as much as he could love anyone, until Ashley Gallagher came along. Gabe had seen her several times: a bouncy American graduate student with golden tresses and wide blue eyes set in a china-doll face, atop a body that was all legs and large breasts. Luke seemed charmed by Ashley’s American accent and her giggly forwardness. She played the ditzy Barbie doll to perfection, but Gabe could see the shrewdness behind the eyes.
Ashley was no fool, and she got her man in the end. A flirtation turned into something more, and Ashley had staked her claim while Quinn was in the Middle East. Luke had gone to the States to be with his new love and to put an ocean between himself and Quinn, whom he couldn’t face. Quinn clearly knew nothing of Luke’s betrayal, and it wasn’t for Gabe to enlighten her. But he finally had a chance, and he’d be damned if he let it slip away. He’d ended things with Eve. It’d been easier than he anticipated, for both of them.
He was free, and now all he had to do was wait for the right moment. Quinn was skittish and on the rebound, and he had to giveher the time and space to mourn her loss and get to a place where she was ready for a new relationship. Sound reasoning, except that all his plans went tits up the moment he saw her again. He’d blurted out the words before he could stop himself. She clearly wasn’t ready to hear what he had to say, but there was no going back. He’d made the opening move and now he had to play the game to the end.
Gabe swerved as a stray dog ran into the road, its wet fur clinging to a skinny frame and lips stretched back in a snarl. Gabe forced himself to slow down and took the next turn with more care. He was still upset, but he was beginning to regain perspective. His carelessness this evening had been a minor setback. He’d lost the battle, but he hadn’t yet lost the war.
SEVENTEEN
Quinn threw down the dish towel and retreated back to the sofa, suddenly too tired to tidy up. She’d seen a lot of Gabe over the years, but this was the first time he’d referred back to that night in Ireland—well, the second, actually, in as many weeks, and it rattled her. Gabe had seemingly made up his mind to drudge up the past, and Quinn supposed that as an archeologist, that was what he was trained to do to clear up any unanswered questions.
“Had you been mine,” Gabe had said. Perhaps it just slipped out, or perhaps he’d been waiting to say the words all along, his feelings for her buried but never fully forgotten. Had he carried a torch for her all these years, or was this something new, something built on years of friendship and not the attraction they felt for each other before? Had she made a mistake when she’d chosen Luke? She hadn’t thought so, but looking back, she knew that her choice had been motivated by all the wrong reasons. She had been young and impressionable and perhaps a little dazzled by Luke, who’d always been the soul of the party and the bloke all the girls tried to get close to. She had been flattered by his interest, seduced by his good looks and his aura of unshakeable confidence.
Quinn knew that Gabe had feelings for her. She’d been drawn to him as well, and the intensity of her attraction to him frightened her. She was somewhat relieved that Gabe was in a position of authority, being the dig supervisor, and couldn’t act until the dig was officially over and his pursuit of Quinn wouldn’t be seen as unprofessional and inappropriate. She could have waited, but she hadn’t. She’d gone for Luke, who was easygoing and fun, the polar opposite of Gabriel Russell, who was intenseand demanding. In retrospect, she realized that she ran because she wasn’t emotionally ready for him.
