Page 9 of Gabriel's Angel

“Didn’t he?”

Her hand jerked again. This time the blade nicked her finger. The blood welled up as Gabe dropped his pad to take her hand. Once again she saw her face in the sweeping charcoal lines.

“I’ll get you a bandage.”

“It’s only a scratch,” she began, but he was already up and gone. When he returned he dabbed at the wound with antiseptic. Again Laura was baffled by the care he displayed. The sting came and went; his touch remained gentle.

He was kneeling in front of her, his brows drawn together as he studied the thin slice in her finger. “Keep this up and I’ll think you’re accident-prone.”

“And I’ll think you’re the original Good Samaritan.” She smiled when he looked up. “We’d both be wrong.”

Gabe merely slipped a bandage over the cut and took his seat again. “Turn your head a little, to the left.” When she complied, he picked up his pad and turned over a fresh sheet. “Why do they want the baby?”

Her head jerked around, but he continued to sketch.

“I’d like the profile, Laura.” His voice was mild, but the demand in it was very clear. “Turn your head again, and try to keep your chin up. Yes, like that.” He was silent as he formed her mouth with the charcoal. “The father’s family wants the baby. I want to know why.”

“I never said that.”

“Yes, you did.” He had to hurry if he was going to capture that flare of anger in her eyes. “Let’s not beat that point into the ground. Just tell me why.”

Her hands were gripped tightly together, but there was as much fear as fury in her voice. “I don’t have to tell you anything.”

“No.” He felt a thrill of excitement—and, incredibly, one of desire—as he stroked the charcoal over the pad. The desire puzzled him. More, it worried him. Pushing it aside, he concentrated on prying answers from her. “But since I’m not going to let it drop, you may as well.”

Because he knew how to look, and to see, he caught the subtle play of emotions over her face. Fear, fury, frustration. It was the fear that continued to pull him over the line.

“Do you think I’d bundle you and your baby off to them, whoever the hell they are? Use your head. I haven’t got any reason to.”

He’d thought he would shout at her. He’d have sworn he was on the verge of doing so. Then, in a move that surprised them both, he reached out to take her hand. He was more surprised than she to feel her fingers curl instinctively into his. When she looked at him, emotions he’d thought unavailable to him turned over in his chest.

“You asked me to help you last night.”

Her eyes softened with gratitude, but her voice was firm. “You can’t.”

“Maybe I can’t, and maybe I won’t.” But as much as it went against the grain of what he considered his character, he wanted to. “I’m not a Samaritan, Laura, good or otherwise, and I don’t like to add someone else’s problems to my own. But the fact is, you’re here, and I don’t like playing in the dark.”

She was tired, tired of running, tired of hiding, tired of trying to cope entirely on her own. She needed someone. When his hand was covering hers and his eyes were calm and steady on hers, she could almost believe it was him she needed.

“The baby’s father is dead,” she began, picking her way carefully. She would tell him enough to satisfy him, she hoped, but not all. “His parents want the baby. They want... I don’t know, to replace, to take back, something that they’ve lost. To... to ensure the lineage. I’m sorry for them, but the baby isn’t their child.” There was that look again, fierce, protective. A mother tiger shielding her cub. “The baby’s mine.”

“No one would argue with that. Why should you have to run?”

“They have a lot of money, a lot of power.”

“So?”

“So?” Angry again, she pushed away. The contact that had been so soothing for both of them was broken. “It’s easy to say that when you come from the same world. You’ve always had. You’ve never had to want and to wonder. No one takes from people like you, Gabe. They wouldn’t dare. You don’t know what it’s like to have your life depend on the whims of others.”

That she had was becoming painfully obvious. “Having money doesn’t mean you can take whatever you want.”

“Doesn’t it?” She turned to him, her face set and cold. “You wanted a place to paint, somewhere you could be alone and be left alone. Did you have to think twice about how to arrange it? Did you have to plan or save or make compromises, or did you just write a check and move in?”

His eyes were narrowed as he rose to face her. “Buying a cabin is a far cry from taking a baby from its mother.”

“Not to some. Property is property, after all.”

“You’re being ridiculous.”

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