Page 20 of Gabriel's Angel

“It looks like... Well, never mind what it looks like.” He set it back on the stove. “That powdered stuff tastes filthy, doesn’t it?”

“It’s hard to argue with the truth.”

“I’ll try to make it into town tomorrow.”

“If you do, could you...” Embarrassed, she let her words trail off.

“What do you want?”

“Nothing. It’s stupid. Listen, could we sit down a minute?”

He took her hand before she could back away. “What do you want from town, Laura?”

“Marshmallows, to toast in the fireplace. I told you it was stupid,” she murmured, and tried to tug her hand away.

He wanted, God, he wanted just to fold her into his arms. “Is that a craving or just a whim?”

“I don’t know. It’s just that I look at the fireplace and think about marshmallows.” Because he wasn’t laughing at her, it was easy to smile. “Sometimes I can almost smell them.”

“Marshmallows. You don’t want anything to go with them? Like horseradish?”

She made a face at him. “Another myth.”

“You’re spoiling all my preconceptions.” He wasn’t sure when he’d lifted her hand to his lips, but after the faintest taste of her skin he dropped it again. “And you’re not wearing the shirt.”

Though he was no longer touching it, her hand felt warm, warm and impossibly soft. “Oh.” She took a long breath. He was thinking of the painting, not of her. He was the artist with his subject again. “I’ll change.”

“Fine.” More than a little shaken by the extent of his desire for her, he turned back to the counter and his coffee.

The decision came quickly, or perhaps it had been made the moment she’d heard him lie for her, protect her. “Gabe, I know you want to work right away, but I’d like... I feel like I should... I want to tell you everything, if you still want to hear it.”

He turned back; his eyes were utterly clear and intent. “Why?”

“Because it’s wrong not to trust you.” Again the breath seemed to sigh out of her. “And because I need someone. We need someone.”

“Sit down,” he said simply, leading her to the couch.

“I don’t know where to start.”

It would probably be easier for her to start further back, he thought as he tossed another log in the fire. “Where do you come from?” he asked when he joined her on the couch.

“I’ve lived a lot of places. New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland. My aunt had a little farm on the Eastern Shore. I lived with her the longest.”

“Your parents?”

“My mother was very young when I was born. Unmarried. She... I went to live with my aunt until... until things became difficult for her, financially. There were foster homes after that. That isn’t really the point.”

“Isn’t it?”

She took a steadying breath. “I don’t want you to feel sorry for me. I’m not telling you this so that you’ll feel sorry for me.”

The pride was evident in the tilt of her head, in the tone of her voice—the same quiet pride he was trying to capture on canvas. His fingers itched for his sketch pad, even as they itched to touch her face. “All right, I won’t.”

With a nod, she continued. “From what I can gather, things were very hard on my mother. Even without the little I was told, it’s easy enough to imagine. She was only a child. It’s possible that she wanted to keep me, but it didn’t work out. My aunt was older, but she had children of her own. I was essentially another mouth to feed, and when it became difficult to do so, I went into foster care.”

“How old were you?”

“Six the first time. For some reason it just never seemed to work out. I would stay in one place for a year, in another for two. I hated not belonging, never being a real part of what everyone else had. When I was about twelve I went back with my aunt for a short time, but her husband had problems of his own, and it didn’t last.”

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