Finding Isadora(89)

And suddenly, I truly understood. Adrenaline, emotion, surged through me and my shell-shocked body zinged back to life. “If someone was beating up on Grace,” I said firmly, “yes, I’d want to put a knife in the bastard.”

His gaze probed me again. “Thanks.” His smile was strained, but genuine. “You see now why I didn’t tell Richard?”

Richard. I’d forgotten all about Richard. Now I reflected, thinking back to how upset I’d been to find out about Jimmy Lee and Grace burning that draft office. “I see it’s not something you’d tell a child,” I said slowly. “But he’s an adult now. Doesn’t he have the right to know?”

“The right. We get back to rights again.” There was a new edge in his voice. “Well, Isadora, maybe it depends on whether he’s really my son.”

I kept forgetting that, too. To me, Gabriel and Richard were father and son. I couldn’t imagine ever thinking of them differently.

Abruptly he freed his hand from mine and rose. “Let’s walk.”

My reactions were slow tonight. By the time I’d scrambled to my feet in the soft sand, he’d gathered both sets of sandals.

“Sun’s gone down,” he commented.

I realized I’d missed the rest of the sunset while we were talking. The sky was still fairly light, but the drama and dazzle had ended.

“Let’s walk back the other way,” he suggested.

Away from the city, toward the car. Did this mean our evening, like the golden sunset, was at an end? After the bombshell he’d dropped, it hardly seemed appropriate to raise the subject of our relationship.

“Wish I knew the result of that DNA test,” Gabriel said abruptly.

“Do you really think it will change things between you and Richard?”

“If I am his father, then probably not. If I’m not…”

“What then?”

“He’ll think of me differently. No obligations, for either of us. He’ll stop feeling like he has to stay in touch, to be civil.”

Ouch. Did he honestly believe that? And was it true? “How about you? Will you think of him differently?”

His jaw tensed and he didn’t answer for a long moment. “Shit. No, I won’t. Fuck, Isadora.”

I wasn’t following this train of thought any more than I’d followed the one that led him to confess to murdering his father. Tonight, Gabriel was an enigma.

To our left was the lot where he’d parked. Most of the other cars were gone. But Gabriel didn’t turn toward his car, he kept walking the beach, and so I paced beside him. The fading sky, accented now by a nearly full moon and the first evening stars, provided enough light that we could see our way among the logs, rocks, and washed-up kelp. The sand was cool underfoot.

Gabriel stepped ahead of me then stopped abruptly, catching my shoulders in his hands and bringing me to a stop, too. I stumbled, then righted myself. His fingers bit into me and the sandals he held in one hand clunked against my back. My heart raced with sudden awareness of him.

“Why did you break up with Richard?” he demanded roughly.

Again he’d surprised me, and I struggled to adjust. This was private between Richard and me, and yet I felt compelled to answer. But how to explain? “I guess I realized … I mean…” I foundered. “Richard’s wonderful but I think we make better friends than…” I shrugged, my shoulders moving against his hands, not wanting to say lovers or spouses.

“Why now?”

“Uh, well … I realized I didn’t feel … I mean, I didn’t want…”

I was still stumbling for words when he reached out and touched my lips with one finger, hushing me. His touch made me tremble.

“Isadora, from the first moment I saw you, I wanted you.” His words were measured and sure, which made them even more powerful.

I sucked in a breath. It was true. Everything I’d suspected—maybe hoped for, despite knowing I shouldn’t—was true. But how could he now, this easily, acknowledge it? Excitement danced across my skin and tingled through my veins. He’d said it. Gabriel DeLuca desired me.

I wanted to sing and dance and … cry.

“No response?” he asked softly, his hands on my shoulders holding me a willing prisoner.

“Too many,” I confessed. But he’d been honest and I had to be, too. It was the only way we could work out what to do. So I sucked in another deep breath and said, “I fought it, but it’s been the same for me.”

His face lit with smug male satisfaction. “I thought so. But I can’t read you the way I can other women.”

So I was just another woman to him. A hot surge of anger flooded through me and I stepped back, freeing myself from his grip. “I can guess how other women react to you. They probably throw themselves all over you. But I was engaged to someone else, and I don’t subscribe to my parents’ belief in open relationships. I’m sure you think there’s nothing wrong with sleeping around, but I take vows seriously.”

He shook his head abruptly. “Sorry, that came out wrong. Believe me, Isadora, I don’t group you with other women. If I did, I’d have been able to forget about you, replace you with someone else.”

Testing, I said, “I guess it was hard to forget about me when we kept constantly showing up in the same place.”