He padded across the bedroom floor to the mammoth wardrobe and pulled out a gift bag from a French Quarter parfumeur. Her eyebrows pinched together curiously as she tucked the Egyptian cotton sheet under her arms. He dropped the bag into the middle of the bed where it landed with a hefty thump.
Tugging out red-and-gold tissue paper and tossing it onto the bed, she peered inside the gold foil bag. A slow smile spread across her face… .
“Bubble bath!” she squealed, pulling out one bottle, then the next, digging her way through the bag filled with different scents and bathing accessories with obvious joy.
“You’d mentioned hurried showers before now. There are definite perks to having me and a nanny around. You can stay in the tub as long as you like.”
She uncorked a small bottle of scented oil and sniffed, moaning in ecstasy. “Heaven.”
Chuckling, he passed her a long skinny box. He had definite ideas for that oil later. “I know this isn’t as nice as diamonds, but I figured you would pitch jewels back in my lap anyway.”
“You figured right. Besides, bath pearls are more precious than the real kind because this really was thoughtful.”
“So why don’t you go try it out now?”
“Right now?”
“Sure. The bathroom’s right through there.”
She rocked forward on her knees and kissed him fast before gathering up her French milled soaps and gels and whatever else chicks called the rest of the stuff. Nearly tripping over the sheet in her excitement, she raced straight for the master bath.
Hank sat in the middle of the bed, leaning back against the headboard and listening to her hum as she filled the tub. As much as he wanted to have her again, he wasn’t going to interrupt her first long bath since her son had been born.
How insane was it that he felt every bit as good about sitting here listening to her sing as he had when making love to her? The sound of her voice stroked him just as completely as her hands.
Damn. Gabrielle might be the one in the tub, but he was the one in serious hot water.
Now that he’d had her, there was no way in hell he could let her go.
* * *
Gabrielle toed the hot water on again, reheating the tub for the third time.
There had to be a special place in heaven for whoever invented the tankless water heater. This hour-long bath soaked stress from parts of her body she hadn’t even realized were kinked. Tension slipped from her every time she opened the drain.
Although she couldn’t give all the credit to the spa bath. Lavender perfume hung in the humid air, Hank’s thoughtful gifts soothing her soul and tugging her heart all at once. The man could have bought her jewels, which she wouldn’t have accepted. Or chocolates, which she couldn’t eat because of nursing Max.
Instead, Hank had paid attention to her needs, to the scent she wore.
She sank deeper into the tub big enough for two and soaked in the mellow tan and butter cream-colored decor around her. Maybe she would finish off with a shower, another pure spa delight with jets lining the corners to spray from all angles.
There was even a flat-screen television mounted high in a corner if she wanted to lean back, hide out and watch a movie.
This place was mama nirvana. She’d never considered herself a materialistic person, but she wouldn’t mind having this all to herself at the end of each day.
With Hank waiting for her in the bedroom?
She couldn’t ignore that they’d taken a huge step tonight. As much as she wanted to tell herself it was only a fling, she wasn’t an affair kind of person. She was still the same person she’d been from the start—the girl who’d lived to be a mother, to have her own happily ever after with the best dressed, most well fed, happiest babies on the block.
Which brought her right back to those fears that had iced her after making love to Hank.
Her last romantic relationship hadn’t gone all that great, even before Kevin died. That last fight with him kept whispering through her mind, how he’d wanted her to move near him and she’d resisted.
Was she crazy to be thinking of the future now? If anything, Hank was more tied to the military lifestyle than Kevin had been. As if their shared past with Kevin didn’t already make things complicated enough.
She toed the hot water off. There wasn’t a heater big enough to chase away the chill settling into her bones.
* * *
Listening to Gabrielle take a bath had been pure torture. But as much as he wanted to slide into the water with her and make love to every inch of her body, he was determined to let her have her quiet time alone, soaking.
Pivoting away from temptation, he pulled on sweat pants, left his room and headed for hers. He could check on Max, give Leonie a break if she was awake. Seemed as if the entire household had an upside down sleeping schedule, their lives wrapped up in making sure Max was okay.
As it should be.
He stepped into her room, scanning for where she’d left the nursery monitor. Leonie’s voice crooned from the next room as she sang some old nursery rhyme. A memory flashed of his mom singing off-key while she decorated the tree, his dad hooking an arm around her waist and vowing his ears were bleeding from the sound.
Both of them laughing together.
Everyone told him she’d been a great mom and from the videos he’d seen, they were right. His dad hadn’t talked about her much over the years, just saying she’d been a real wonder woman, parenting alone most of the time since the military lifestyle kept him away.
Hank trailed a finger along the edge of Gabrielle’s makeshift workstation. She’d set up her laptop on the sofa table behind the love seat and pulled a chair from the hall to set up a mini-office. For her website work? Or school? Or both while she took care of her son? She carried the load of three women. He dropped into the seat and wished somehow he could absorb some of the burden for her.
His eyes landed on two scrapbooks resting on a stack of her textbooks. He pulled the album off the top and thumbed it open.
Kevin’s face stared back at him like a sucker punch from the grave.
Hank studied the photo of Kevin with Gabrielle at the squadron Christmas ball, a red rosebud pressed to the corner of the image like a splash of blood. The staged portrait didn’t tell him much other than that it commemorated an event. He flipped the page and found a photo of the three of them at a Shreveport Captains baseball game. Gabrielle wore a jersey and cap, her blond ponytail lifted by the wind. Kevin had his arm hooked around her shoulders. They appeared happy. Really happy.
He looked at himself…and crap.
No wonder Kevin knew how he felt about Gabrielle. One look at this picture would have told an idiot that Hank had a thing for her. His eyes were glued to her like a starving guy on food after a hunger strike.
Yet Gabrielle hadn’t picked up on it. She’d seemed stunned when he’d kissed her a year ago. Or she’d kissed him, as she kept insisting. Once they started, it had been mutual.
Would he ever get over feeling guilty? Even now, the weight of it bored into him like eyes watching him from the grave.
He glanced up fast. Gabrielle stood in the open doorway wearing a simple satin robe. The fabric clung to her damp body in places, her face still flushed from the steamy heat. Her hair was piled up on her head, wisps trailing down and sticking to her neck. Just the sight of her had him wanting her again. His hand fisted on top of the photo.
She walked deeper into the room and sat on the love seat, resting her chin on her arms and staring at him over the sofa back. “I thought you might come join me in the tub.”
“I thought the bath was about you having time to yourself. If I joined you, doesn’t that negate the whole alone-time point?”