“You’re coming back, aren’t you?” he asked.
“Probably.”
“Probably? No, you need to come back.” He wanted a commitment, a promise. Needed to hear that she would be back, and soon. She wouldn’t leave her kitten with him permanently, he was positive of that, but he wanted her to return to be with him, not just to collect the cat.
“Why should I come back?” Her head tilted and she was asking so much more. She was asking for all the answers, for everything.
He gave her all he could. “Because I want you to.”
Sara sighed.
Gabriel ground his teeth together, desire, frustration, love all spilling up and over and making him want to kick her suitcase. Or more accurately, to pull Sara into his arms and kiss her senseless.
Instead he settled for a watered down nothing of a kiss that he brushed over her forehead and a muttered “Be careful,” before he turned and walked away, afraid of what else he might say or do.
Afraid that if she asked again, he would tell. Touch.
But when he got in the car and looked in the rearview mirror, she was already walking through the airport doors, without a single glance back, and he was regretful anyway.
Either way, he was going to lose, and he hated it.
Rafe wasn’t home. In fact, it looked like he had moved out. Sara stood on the front walk of his condo and glanced around. Everything was quiet. The blinds were partially open and there was no furniture in his dining room.
He had left. Without telling her.
Stunned and hurt, Sara felt more tears pricking her eyes. Damn it, she hated to cry, and she’d been on the verge for twenty-four hours.
She wouldn’t do it.
Taking a deep breath, she dialed Rafe on her cell phone, leaving a voice mail for him to call her back when he didn’t pick up.
She had turned to head back to her rental car and to Jocelyn’s apartment, where she was staying, when she almost collided with a woman with dark hair and big sunglasses. “Oh! Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” The woman smiled. “You’re Sara, aren’t you?”
Anyone knowing her name made her wary now, so Sara said cautiously, “Do I know you?” She didn’t recognize the woman, but the sunglasses make it harder to see her features. Sara estimated the woman was in her late twenties, and that she had money, given her sundress and expensive handbag. She had a firm, curvy figure, and her dress was flattering, her demeanor confident and sensual.
“No. I’m Rafe’s girlfriend.”
Sara took an instinctive step back and said, “What?” Since when the hell did Rafe have a girlfriend? Her mother was his girlfriend.
“I’m Marguerite.” She stuck out her hand. “Rafe’s told me a lot about you.”
He’d told her jackshit about Marguerite. Sara took her hand and shook it lightly. “Where is he, by the way?” She couldn’t force a nice-to-meet-you platitude because she really had no goddamn interest in meeting the woman who had replaced her mother in Rafe’s life.
She was angry. It had been a year already, and she understood that eventually he would move on, but it seemed too soon. She hadn’t moved on, not yet. How had he? Plus he’d been on trial for murder. When the hell had he been dating?
“He’s moved in with me. I just stopped over to pick up his mail. It’s not being forwarded correctly.”
“Oh, I see. Well.” Sara had no clue what the hell to say. “I just left him a voice mail, but tell him I said hello. I’ll only be in town for two days if he wants to give me a call.” She had wanted to see him, but now she wasn’t sure she did.
“I’m sure he’ll want to talk to you. Maybe we can go out to dinner.”
So the three of them could discuss how he’d been tried for her mother’s murder? Yeah, that sounded like good times. “Sure. Lovely.” She was such a bad liar and she wanted away from whoever the hell her name was. “Nice meeting you. I have an appointment I have to run to.”
Sara waved and started toward her car.
The woman called after her, “I’ll see you soon. And say hi to Gabriel for me.”
That brought Sara to a grinding halt. Heart pounding, she turned around, wondering if she could have possibly just heard that. The woman was already walking in the opposite direction across the parking lot, her back to Sara, too far away to question.
But she’d heard that name, coming from that strange woman’s lips. No question about it.
The real question was how in the hell could Rafe’s new girlfriend know Gabriel St. John?
Chapter Seventeen
Gabriel picked his way down the narrow alley next to the house on Dauphine Street, tromping through brush and over a random pile of bricks. Ending up behind the house, he assessed the windows and the door. Unlike some of the neighboring houses, this one still had the original wooden pane windows and no evidence of a deadbolt on the door. While not dilapidated, it was easily one of the shabbier houses on the block, paint peeling and various rusted-out pieces of furniture and car parts strewn across the small back courtyard.
Deciding the easiest approach was the door, Gabriel went up the brick step, turned the knob, and shoved, using his immortal strength. The lock gave and the door swung open with a slight squeak. Stepping in, Gabriel paused to get his bearings. This room was a kitchen now. Gabriel couldn’t remember how it had been used in the House of Rest, but it looked like it had been modernized in the eighties. The cabinets were dark, the walls a ruddy yellow, a red fruit-themed wallpaper border hung above the cabinets.
The overall effect was tired and gloomy, the original charm of the transom over the door, the thick moldings, and the wood floor lost under the influence of the drop ceiling and the muted yellow countertops. But someone was obviously in residence, since there was a dirty coffee mug in the sink and a sticky spoon on the countertop.
Moving forward through the kitchen door into the next room, Gabriel saw that a half bathroom had been added in the corner, and the remaining room was being used as an office, a desk and bookcase prominent in it. The house was shotgun style, with the rooms leading off of each other, and no central hallways. When he moved into the front room, he recognized it as the original parlor, where he had entered from the street so many nights all those years ago. At some point it had been painted a mauve color, which offended his artistic sensibilities in the extreme, and the floor was carpeted in a periwinkle blue, but beyond that, the room was unchanged. The fireplace and moldings were intact, and the front windows still had traditional shutters.