Page 38 of Gabriel's Angel

“Don’t get up,” he told her. “You make quite a picture.” He stepped into the room, glancing at the sunny walls before looking down at her. She wore an old pair of jeans, obviously his. He could see the clothesline she’d used to secure the waist. One of his shirts was tented over her, its hem torn at her hip.

“Mine?”

“I thought it would be all right.” She picked up a rag to wipe the paint from her hand. “I could tell from the splatters on them they’d already been worked in.”

“Perhaps you don’t know the difference between painting and—” he gestured toward the wall “—painting.”

She’d nearly fumbled out an apology before she realized he was joking. So the mood had passed. Perhaps they were friends again. “Not at all. I thought your pants would give me artistic inspiration.”

“You could have come to the source.”

She set the brush on top of the open paint can. Relief poured through her. Though he didn’t know, Gabe had found exactly the right words to reassure her. “I would never have suggested that the celebrated Gabriel Bradley turn his genius to a lowly baseboard.”

It seemed so easy when she was like this, relaxed, with a hint of amusement in her eyes. “Obviously afraid I’d show you up.”

She smiled, a bit hesitantly. He hadn’t looked at her in quite that way for days. Then she was scrambling back up on her knees as he joined her on the floor. “Oh, Gabe, don’t. You’ll get paint all over you, and you look so nice.”

He had the brush in his hand. “Do I?”

“Yes.” She tried to take it away from him, but he didn’t give way. “You always look so dashing when you go to the gallery.”

“Oh, God.” The instant disgust on his face made her laugh.

“Well, you do.” She checked the urge to brush at the hair on his forehead. “It’s quite different from the rugged-outdoorsman look you had in Colorado, though that was nice, too.”

He wasn’t certain whether to smile or sneer. “Rugged outdoorsman?”

“That’s right. The cords and the flannel, the untidy hair and the carelessly unshaven face. I think Geoffrey would have loved to photograph you with an ax....” She was staring at him, seeing him as he’d been and as he was. Abruptly she became aware that her hand was still covering his on the handle of the brush. Drawing it away, she struggled to remember her point. “You’re not dressed for work now, and I was in the fashion business long enough to recognize quality. Those pants are linen, and you’ll ruin them.”

He was well aware of the sudden tension in her fingers and the look that had come into her eyes, but he only lifted a brow. “Are you saying I’m sloppy?”

“Only when you paint.”

“Pot calling the kettle,” he murmured, ignoring the way she jumped when he ran a finger down her cheek. He held it up to prove his point.

Laura wrinkled her nose at the smear of white paint on his fingertip—and tried to ignore the heat on her skin where his finger had brushed. “I’m not an artist.” With a rag in one hand, she took his wrist in the other to clean the paint from his fingertip.

Such beautiful hands, she thought. She could imagine how it would feel to have them move over her, slowly, gently. To have them stroke and caress the way a man’s might if he cared deeply about the woman beneath the skin he was touching. Her imagination had her moistening her lips as she lifted her gaze to his.

They knelt knee to knee on the drop cloth, with his hand caught in hers. It amazed her when she felt his pulse begin to thud. In his eyes she saw what he hadn’t allowed her to see for days. Desire, pure and simple. Unnerved by it, drawn to it, she leaned toward him. The rag slipped out of her hand.

And the baby cried out.

They both jerked, like children caught raiding the cookie jar.

“He’ll be hungry, and wet, too, I imagine,” she said as she started to rise. Gabe shifted his hand until it captured hers.

“I’d like you to come back here after you’ve tended to him.”

Longing and anxiety tangled, confusing her. “All right. Don’t worry about the mess. I’ll finish up later.”

***

She was more than an hour with Michael, and she was a bit disappointed that Gabe didn’t come in, as he often did, to hold the baby or play with him before he slept again. Those were the best times, those simple family times. Tucking the blankets around her son, she reminded herself that she couldn’t expect Gabe to devote every free minute to her and the child.

Satisfied that the baby was dry and content, she left him to go into the adjoining bath and freshen up. After she’d washed the paint from her face, she studied herself in the mirrored wall across from the step-down tub. She didn’t look seductive in baggy, masculine clothes, with her hair tugged back in a ponytail. Regardless of that, for an instant in the nursery, Gabe had been seduced.

Was that what she wanted?

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