Finding Isadora(57)

His fingers drummed forcefully on the desk. His whole body seemed taut with nervous energy. “I was out doing my thing and they were at home doing theirs.” Now he turned my way. “I was good at my work, Isadora. I am good. I’ve made a difference. Not as much as your parents maybe, but my life has counted.”

“I’m sure of it. But being a parent counts, too.”

“Well, I’m a shitty one. I hate doing things I’m not good at.” He sounded like a petulant teenager.

I suppressed a smile. “It’s hard to be good when you never try. Most things worth doing take some practice.”

“Yeah, I guess. I do try, sometimes, to be a decent father, to do the right thing.” He gave a humorless laugh. “Really hard, sometimes.” There it was again, that almost acknowledgement.

I studied him, in his surly, sexy, James Dean slouch. “What was your own father like?” I had little hope he’d answer the question. Richard had said Gabriel never talked about his family. But maybe I could at least change the course of this conversation.

He closed his eyes for a long minute. When he opened them he said, so softly I could barely hear, “Abusive. An alcoholic. The days he didn’t come home were the good ones.”

Just as Richard had suspected. “And your mother?”

“Mom.” His voice softened and so did his expression. “She was from Portugal. Dad met her there when he was in college, taking a summer holiday. He grew up in Vancouver and his family was Italian, so he went over to Europe and visited Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Mom was only seventeen but she was absolutely beautiful. You oughta see their wedding picture.”

That explained Gabriel’s Mediterranean coloring. And I could well believe, looking at him, that both his parents were gorgeous.

“Her family was poor,” he said, “and he swept her away from them, brought her back to Canada, dropped out of college, and got a job selling insurance.”

“And your mother? Did she work?”

“He wouldn’t let her. He was jealous, possessive. Didn’t even want her to have women friends. Her English wasn’t very good but he wouldn’t let her take lessons. She was lonely and bored, but then she had me and that kept her busy. Too busy.”

“Too busy?”

“He was jealous of me. He drank more, beat her up. When she got pregnant again, he beat her so badly they had to do a hysterectomy. So she not only lost that baby—my sister—but the chance of ever having another child.”

“How terrible,” I murmured.

“When I was a kid, he beat both of us. If someone called the police, my mom would lie because she was terrified of him. Besides, she’d been raised to believe a woman obeyed her husband. And he’d kept her so isolated, she had no support network to draw on.”

“How did it end?” I asked softly, battling the overwhelming urge to touch him. “Did you run away from home?”

He didn’t answer, just stared at me, his face giving away nothing.

“Gabriel?”

He jerked his head, like he was coming out of a trance. “They both died,” he said flatly.

“How?”

Another long pause. “An accident.”

“Car accident? Was he drunk?”

“He was drunk. It was his fault.” He closed his eyes, squeezing them tight. “His fault.” He sounded like he was trying to convince himself.

“How old were you?”

“Fifteen.”

“Did you go to your grandparents?”

“No. The system.”

Foster care. Okay, his mother’s parents would have been in Portugal, but why didn’t his father’s take him in?

His gaze held mine, almost as if he was daring me to probe further. I had a dozen questions but didn’t want to upset the delicate balance between us. Why had he talked to me about these things, when he hadn’t told Diane or Richard? Did he want me to tell Richard, perhaps in hopes it would help him understand why Gabriel hadn’t done the best job of parenting? “Gabriel? Why haven’t you told Richard about your parents?”

He shook his head. “What good would it do him to know?”

“It might help him understand. Understand you.”

One corner of his mouth tilted in a wry grin. “Oh, Isadora, you have such good intentions.” He sounded like a patronizing teacher patting a naive child on the head.

“I try,” I said stiffly.

“Yeah, you do.” He pushed himself away from his desk. “Time to go. I’ll drive you.”

Still feeling huffy about being patronized, I said, “I can catch a bus.” I glanced at my watch and was surprised to find it was almost midnight. “Or call a cab.”

“I’ll drive you, damn it.” He glared at me, now looking angry rather than patronizing.

And suddenly that crazy tension was zinging between us again. Insane. I’d been having a parenting discussion with my future father-in-law, but now I was feeling anything but daughterly.

I wanted this man. He could be infuriating but he was the most dynamic, impressive, intelligent, sexy man I’d ever met. He was a man to feel passionate about.

The way Grace felt about Jimmy Lee.





Chapter 9


Shock rippled through me, chilling my blood. I couldn’t be falling in love with Gabriel DeLuca. If I was, it was a far different emotion than what I felt for Richard. I stared down into my wine glass, afraid to meet Gabriel’s eyes for fear he’d see too much.