“Diamond earrings.” Lots of diamonds.
“I’ve never given a damn about money before, but I find myself wanting to spend it on you, to make your life easier.”
She stroked his rugged face, his intensity tugging at her far more than any jewels. “Thank you, but I’m not exactly the kept-woman type.”
“It could be more than that.” He pulled her hand from his face and held on. “You could move in with me. Most of your classes are online now anyway. I can help you with Max.”
Her chest tightened with increasing panic.
“Hank, stop. I’ve worked hard for this life I’ve built here in New Orleans. Let’s not rush into anything.”
“Rush? I’ve been halfway in love with you for nearly two years. Doesn’t feel like rushing to me. We were friends before. We’re lovers now.” His voice grew tighter and tenser with each angry word. “Damn it, if I had my way, we’d just get married.”
Her throat closed up. He’d shocked her silent, scared her silent. The roots of her hair tingled, and she struggled for air. She wanted to be with him, was probably halfway in love with him, as well.
His backhanded proposal touched her, without question, tempted her even. But the thought of getting married? No matter what he said about how long they’d known each other, taking such a huge step was definitely too much, too soon for her to handle.
Hank’s jaw flexed, his eyes chilling. “Your enthusiasm is overwhelming.”
Oh, God, she’d hurt him. She clasped his hand. “Hank, you just surprised me. I don’t know what to say.”
He let go, shoulders broad and braced in his uniform. “Let me make this easy so you don’t have to work on concocting excuses. My dad thinks I should give you more time to get over Kevin. Do you still love him?”
“It’s not that simple.”
His face closed up. “It is to me.”
How had this conversation gotten so out of control? How had her life gotten so out of control? She struggled for the right words to defuse the situation. “Kevin and I were having problems. You know he and I argued before the deployment about my leaving New Orleans and moving closer to him. And now you’re pushing me to make the same decision.”
“Is that what you and Kevin really fought about right before we deployed?” He pinned her with too perceptive eyes.
She looked away. “Of course it is.”
“But the two of you had been debating that for months. I don’t know why I didn’t see it at the time, but something different must have happened that day, something bigger.”
His perception made her itchy. She wanted to leave the past behind her, but that would never be possible with Hank. Their lives were too entwined. “We’d been fighting because the one time I got tipsy, we forgot to use a condom, okay? Are you happy now?” She jammed her feet into the silver heels. “Let’s go to dinner.”
Hands behind his back, feet planted, he blocked the door. “I’m not happy but I want to hear it all.”
What was he hoping to accomplish by pushing this now? Why couldn’t he just take his father’s advice on this and give her some time?
She did care for Hank, so much, and the thought of losing him scared her almost as much as the thought of moving forward too quickly. She needed to make him understand what had happened between her and Kevin, to share things she’d held back before.
“That day, we fought about it again because he wanted me to go to some party with him and I didn’t want to go drinking. I wanted to just be together before he left. Maybe I was looking for some reassurance because things were already rocky between us.”
Hank’s stoic face didn’t give her any indication of whether or not she was getting through to him. She’d been so focused on helping him through his grief over seeing Kevin die, she hadn’t considered for an instant that he might be jealous. But she couldn’t ignore the possibility now. “Before I could even see it coming we were fighting. I was tired of always having to be the responsible one. Always having to be the grown-up…like with partying and birth control.”
The next part was tougher, her words coming back to haunt her and hurt her. “I told him I wasn’t ready for a family. I didn’t want to be my mom.”
And to think her precious baby boy had already been growing inside her. She’d been working so hard to make it up to Max for not wanting him at the start.
Her voice dipped lower. “I didn’t tell Kevin about being pregnant because I was afraid he would throw that fight back in my face.”
Hank scrubbed his jaw as if he didn’t know what to think. “Why didn’t you tell me all of this before?”
“Excuse me for not wanting to talk to you about details from mine and Kevin’s sex life.”
She’d never shared the truth with anyone. The fight had been private, between her and her fiancé, and no matter what had happened with Hank back then, Kevin had deserved that kind of loyalty.
“I mean, why didn’t you tell me the two of you were having problems, deeper than just whether or not to move?” Anguish and anger mixed in his eyes. “Do you know how much I’ve beaten myself up over kissing you that night?”
“I beat myself up, too. But, back then, I didn’t want to betray Kevin’s trust by sharing something so personal. And now, I guess I thought it didn’t matter.”
“There were two of us kissing, and even if we didn’t have a relationship then, I thought we were still friends. So yeah, it mattered.”
Would things have been different if she’d been more open with Hank that day? She wasn’t sure how she could have been so honest with him when she hadn’t even been able to be honest with herself. Since nothing else seemed to be working, she tried to shift the tone of the conversation back to lighter ground. “Do you think we could just go back to me tying you to the bedpost?”
His shoulders tensed.
“Not funny. Not now,” he snapped, his anger not fooling her for a second.
She saw the depth of his pain, and she didn’t have a clue how to make things better. Damn it, she hurt, too. Why was he doing this now? Why was he pushing her for something so soon? “Tell me what you want me to do.”
“You don’t have to do anything. It’s not about you being in control in bed or in the relationship I thought we were starting.” He shook his head, stuffing his fists in his uniform pockets. “You keep talking about not wanting to be your mother, but you’re pulling the same control act that she does. You’re driving yourself into the ground trying to prove you don’t need anyone.”
“That’s not fair.” She’d come to the house with him. Allowed others to care for her son. To care for her. She was giving up control left and right.
“But it’s honest.”
His clipped words iced over her. A warning prickled along her skin.
“If you can’t accept me as I am, there’s no way this will work.” She’d fought too long and hard to carve out her independence to throw it away as soon as Hank Renshaw looked her way. She wanted him desperately. That didn’t mean she would give up control of her life with both hands.
The silence stretched.
The space between them might as well have been miles. And then she knew: there was no reaching him. His father had even tried—and astutely so. Hank talked about her being a control freak and yet he was trying to call all the shots.
She waited for him to tell her she was wrong, to tell her all the ways this would be fine. But just as Kevin had balked when she didn’t live up to his expectations of perfection, Hank was bailing on her, and the failure hurt even more this time.
What a helluva time to realize there was no halfway measure to her feelings. She’d fallen totally and completely in love with Hank Renshaw.
Twelve
Since Hank first saw Gabrielle, he’d wondered what would have happened if he’d met her before Kevin did. What if he’d had the chance to win her over?
Now he’d been given that chance, and he’d blown it in less than two weeks.
Gabrielle’s cool hand was tucked in the crook of his arm as he walked down the stairs for the photo shoot. His father waited in the foyer alongside Ginger. His dad wore the same uniform as Hank did, but with stars on his shoulder boards and a chest so full of medals it was a wonder the old man could still stand upright. His wife—Ginger—stood beside him all decked out in red and smiles. She’d maneuvered this whole gathering with such expectations. Had his family’s arrival made things worse or simply exposed the inevitable?
Hell if he knew that or anything else right now.
His whole world was exploding out of control and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. Just like when his mother had died, when his sister had been kidnapped, when Kevin had died, nothing he did changed the outcome.
From the foyer, the cameraman clicked, clicked, clicked pictures, snapping shots as fast as rapid gunfire, taking Hank back to that battlefield moment when he’d lost Kevin. Flashes blinded him until he fought the urge to duck. His mouth dried up. He couldn’t force Gabrielle to accept what he had to offer. He could only keep putting one foot in front of the other as he had his whole life.
* * *
At any other time, Gabrielle would have enjoyed the staged dinner, with all its pageantry of the local history. But right now, it took everything inside her to hold it together through this family event. She couldn’t even enjoy the magnificent dress and jewelry. But she refused to embarrass Hank by running crying from the house. She would see this dinner through, then decide where to go next with her son.
Forcing back the urge to flee, she blinked away tears and plastered on a smile as strains of Beethoven piped through the home’s sound system. The dining room had been transformed into everything she would have wished for if the house had been hers. Greenery had been scattered throughout to fill in the sparser corners. The sideboard was laden with silver chafing dishes and serving pieces, a server standing discreetly to the side.
A candelabrum spiraled up from the table with a spray of roses and stephanotis trailing down the middle. Crystal, china and silver place settings were set for—she counted—sixteen.
Sixteen?
She glanced over quickly at Ginger and the general, then at Jonah in his tuxedo with his wife in a glittering gold gown. Who else was slated to arrive and why had Ginger not mentioned it before?
The doorbell rang and the floodgates opened.
Gabrielle took a step back instinctively as all of the Renshaw and Landis offspring poured into the foyer. Ginger’s other three sons arrived with their wives, and the general’s two daughters trailed behind with their husbands. The whole group filled the space in a mix of more uniforms, designer gowns and a mint’s worth of jewels. Introductions passed in a blur of names and photos before they began to take their seats at the monster-size table. Hank held out her chair for her, a silent looming presence behind her. His hand brushed her back briefly before stepping away.
And if this event had been orchestrated for Ginger to meet Gabrielle, then they’d all been called here, as well, to inspect her. No wonder Hank had such rigid boundaries.