Gideon had admitted to Rosie that he’d failed both his team and Karmen. Yet Rosie hadn’t hated him for it. He’d been right: Sharing his story with her had been a release, easing more of the tension twisting his insides. The ache would never go away—but his body felt looser now. For the first time in a very long while, he didn’t feel like a coiled snake ready to strike.
After the boys finally agreed to get out of the pool and dry off, Gideon made spaghetti for dinner, with homemade sauce, not bottled. Rosie prepared the salad, while the boys slathered garlic butter on the bread and watched it toast under the broiler.
After the four of them ate, they played Monopoly. For just a little while, he thought about nothing but games and the boys. And about Rosie, of course, which was a given since he couldn’t get her out of his head, no matter how hard he tried.
At eight o’clock, Rosie told Jorge, “Time to go. Let’s clean up the board, guys.”
“Can Jorge sleep over?” Noah had perfected that please-please-please pout, his hands together in pleading. Jorge imitated him.
Gideon was sure she’d give in, but she shook her head.
“No, honey, you need to come home with me.”
“I won’t let anything happen to them.” Had she reacted more to his story than he’d thought? Didn’t she realize that he would never make the mistakes of his past, not with the boys?
“It’s not that,” she said, meeting his eyes. “I would never doubt you.”
His heart felt at least two sizes bigger with her sweet words. “Then what is it?” The boys were carrying the Monopoly box to Noah’s room, letting the adults battle it out. Smart kids. “I thought we’d promised the boys sleepovers for these two weeks.” Hah. Three days ago, he’d been the one fighting the idea.
She gathered up her stuff, tossed her iPad in her bag. “It’s nothing. We just can’t do it tonight.”
Nothing meant it was something. If anyone knew that, he did. “Tell me about nothing, then.”
She pulled the elastic band out of her ponytail, running her fingers through her silky hair. Just that quickly, he was back by the pool with lotion on his palms and her smooth skin beneath his fingers.
“Rosie…talk to me.” He’d shared with her, now he hoped she’d do the same with him. “Please.”
She crossed her arms over her breasts, hunched in on herself in a way he’d never seen her do before. “I’ve gotten a couple of hang-up calls.”
“You mean like obscene phone calls?” His skin crawled, and his fingers curled into fists.
She shook her head. “There’s just someone breathing on the other end of the line. And I…” She paused, her face going pale. “I think I know who it is.” She looked down the hallway toward Noah’s room. The door was closed. “I think it’s Jorge’s father.”
He’d wondered more than once about Jorge’s father, but he’d never felt he could ask either Rosie or Ari for information about Rosie’s past. Not when he hadn’t been willing to share his past beyond the imperative details.
She lowered her voice, even with the closed door. “We broke up before Jorge was born. Even though I was only nineteen, Jorge and I were way better off without him.”
“Was he abusive?” Again, Gideon’s hands clenched into fists at his sides.
Her lips flatlined. “No, he just didn’t want to be a father.”
“And you haven’t seen the guy since?”
She sniffed, part disgust, part anger, part I don’t care. “Like I said, he wasn’t interested in having a kid. He left when I told him I was pregnant.”
What an asshole. But there had to be something more to make her so worried today, something he wasn’t getting. “So what makes you think it’s him calling now?”
“It’s just a feeling.”
Until now, he’d always been the reticent one. But the tables had turned, and he was fishing for information. Enough, at least, to know if he needed to tear the guy apart with his bare hands. Or worse. “But he doesn’t say anything when he calls?”
She grimaced. “I might have heard my name.”
“Your name?”
“Yeah, just a whisper.” Her lips twisted. “Sort of like he’s taunting me. Ro-o-o-o-sie…”
This was not good, really not good. “Why do you think he’s come back after all this time?” he asked. Although he could guess.
She breathed in, huffed out, then confirmed his suspicions. “I think he wants Jorge.”
No. Gideon’s heart seized as though someone had squeezed it in a vise. “But you said he didn’t want to be a father.”
For the next few minutes, she gave him the whole story about seeing her ex in a TV interview with his wife, talking about babies and infertility. Rosie was nearly certain that meant the wife was infertile.
“And you think that after seven years,” he said, “this guy gets married and suddenly decides he wants to have kids?”
“Yes. Or maybe his wife decided for him.”
“So he dumped you when it suited him, and now, because it suits him, he’s barging back into your life because he covets your son.”
“Yes.” She closed her eyes, dipped her head. “I know my ex. Because his wife can’t have a child of her own, he thinks it would be a great idea to take mine. He would only think of himself—it’s the way he’s wired. Which I didn’t figure out until too late.”
Gideon wanted to wrap Rosie in his arms and make it all better. He wanted to snap his fingers and wipe all her pain, and her fears, away. He wanted to smash her ex down. But most of all, he wanted to keep Jorge safe forever.
“When I met him,” she said in a low voice, “I thought he was smart and charming. He was older, and I let him beguile me into thinking that he could help my art career. I believed everything he said. I thought he was something special. But he wasn’t. He didn’t care about my art. He didn’t care about me. And he sure as hell didn’t care about Jorge.” Her voice rose slightly, with frustration and anger.
His fists bunched tight with the need to crush the guy. And his heart ached with the need to pull Rosie close, to hold her, to feel her lean on him, to give her whatever she needed.
For now, however, all he could do was gather as many details as possible. “Was he some sort of art professor?”
“Archie was a gallery owner.” She laughed, but there was no humor in it. “He hated it when I called him that. He always insisted on Archibald. Archibald Findley.”
Archibald Findley. Gideon hated the man, hated the pompous name, hated anyone who could treat Rosie and Jorge the way he had, as though they were disposable.
“He owned a prestigious art gallery in San Francisco called Impressions,” she continued. “Everyone wanted their work to be shown there. If you got into his gallery, you had made it.”
As she spoke, Gideon could see how it had been for her all those years ago. A girl only months out of high school, needing affirmation from some big, important person that she could be great.
“He told me my paintings were amazing. He told me I was talented. He told me I was going to be such a huge success. And I believed him. He was going to do this big show just for me. But there was always one more little thing that needed to be tweaked on a painting.” She sighed. “Then I found out I was pregnant. And there was no more Archie, and there was no more show, and I was alone. If he had been a good man, I would have wanted him in Jorge’s life. I would never have kept my son away from his father, unless it was absolutely necessary.” Her expression hardened. “Archie made it clear to me that it was absolutely necessary that both I, and the baby, went away, lest we ruin the fancy life he’d worked so hard to build.” She swallowed hard. “He told me never to make the mistake of contacting him again. Or to try to get child support. He said the best thing I could do was—” It was obvious that she could barely say the words. “He wanted me to get rid of Jorge.”
Gideon couldn’t stop himself from laying his hand on her cheek. “I’m so sorry, Rosie.”
She covered his hand with her own, as though to take strength from him before saying, “I wasn’t alone, fortunately. Because I had Ari and Chi. They helped me through school. They helped me with Jorge. Anything I needed, they were always there. Jorge and I, we would never have made it without them.”
Her skin was warm beneath his palm—and her hand over his was sizzling. “I see now why you love my sister so much.”
She smiled with memory. “I loved her before that. Chi and Ari and me, it was like we were sisters who were separated until we were thirteen.”
He’d always thought of Ari as being alone, out there by herself against the big bad world. But she’d never truly been alone. Not when she’d had Rosie and Chi. It eased a small piece of his soul to know the three of them had been so close and supportive of each other while he was gone.
Unfortunately, none of that changed the situation with Rosie’s ex. He was still the worst kind of man, and he still needed to be shut down. “I say we take a trip up to Impressions—” He didn’t hold back the snide note in his voice at the stupid name. “—in San Francisco and put the fear of God into the guy.”
She pulled away as she shook her head. “No. No way. That would be like spraying a hose into a hornets’ nest. We should just leave this whole thing alone. As long as I keep Jorge near me, I feel so much better.”
He didn’t want to upset her any more than she already was, but he had to make her face reality. “What are you going to do when Jorge goes back to school and you return to work? Because if it really is your ex, and he really is after Jorge, then he’s probably waiting for you both to be in two different locations, leaving Jorge vulnerable.” Too much was at stake to pretend otherwise.
Her face turned pale and stricken.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t mean to scare you. But we’ve got to be prepared for anything.” Especially since Gideon knew firsthand that sometimes the worst really did happen. “Let me take care of this for you, Rosie.”
He would do anything to keep her and Jorge safe.
And this time he absolutely would not fail.
* * *
What had she done?
Gideon was a big protector, all muscle-bound, military style. She should have known he wouldn’t let this go. She trusted him and respected his opinion—of course she did. Only, if Gideon went poking around, then Archie could very well retaliate, not just against her, but against Jorge and Gideon. She would never forgive herself if anything happened to her son or the man she was coming to care for so deeply.
“Archie doesn’t live in San Francisco anymore,” she told him. “When he left, he shut down the gallery in the city. He’s somewhere out in Vegas now.”
Gideon’s eyes took on that dark, stormy cast. “Las Vegas doesn’t mean you’re safe.”
For a guy who didn’t talk much, he sure as heck was doing a lot of talking now. “Look, really, I can handle it.”
“Rosie—”
“I’m just going to get Jorge and take him home. We’ll be fine.” She sidestepped Gideon and headed to the bedroom door.
But when she opened it, the boys were already fast asleep in the twin beds, their faces angelic.
Foiled at every turn. She sighed as she closed the door on them. “All right, you win. He can stay.” In fact, now that she had calmed down a bit, she could see that Jorge might even be more protected here. Because if Archie was planning something, then the safest place her son could be was with big, strong Gideon. “I’ll head out now and be back early, before they wake up.”
But Gideon was shaking his head. “I don’t think you should go home by yourself. Not when you’ll be safer here too.”
“I really can’t.” Her mind worked to find a valid excuse. “I mean, I don’t have a change of clothes. Or even a toothbrush.”
Even as she spoke, her heart was urging, Stay.
“I’ve got an extra toothbrush,” he countered. “Brand new. And I can lend you a clean T-shirt until we get back to your place tomorrow morning.”
“You have all the answers, don’t you?”
He grinned. Gideon Jones actually grinned. With her. And without the boys nearby. It was amazing.
It might even be a miracle.
Plus, he was right that she would be safer here. She shuddered at the thought of Archie prowling around outside her cottage. What if he showed up tonight and she was alone? What would she do? What could she do?
The truth was she didn’t know exactly what Archie was capable of, or to what lengths he’d go to get what he wanted from her. All she knew was that he had a lot more money than she did. If it came to a fight in court, he might win. No matter what, she needed to keep her son out of a potentially ugly court case.
Then Gideon added one more inducement. “I’ll worry about both of you all night long if you go. Please stay.”
The wind went out of her remaining protests. Yes, she wanted to be independent, but she wasn’t stupid. And her heart squeezed tight at the thought of Gideon worrying about her.
“Okay,” she finally said. “I’ll stay the night. Thank you.” She held out her hand to shake his, as if they were making some sort of deal. As if they were business associates instead of—
She didn’t know what they were. Even friends didn’t seem quite right anymore.
When he took her hand in his, there was nothing even remotely businesslike in his touch. She felt the earth move, felt it shake, felt her world tilt. The way it had when she was dancing with him. And when he’d cupped her cheek only minutes before.
“You can have my bedroom,” he said in a low voice, “and I’ll sleep out here on the couch.”
“I can’t let you do that.” She fluttered a hand at the love seat, then raked her eyes over his long, tall, gorgeous frame. “There’s no way you’ll fit.”
“It’s a pull-out sofa. I’ll be fine.”
“I don’t mind taking the sofa.”
“Nope. Ari would read me the riot act if I didn’t treat you right.” He followed up his words with another smile.
She’d already been a goner before this. But when he was charming? And smiling? And touching her every five minutes?
No woman alive would stand a chance.
She held up her hands in surrender. “All right, I’m sold. I’ll take your bed. But I’m going to make you a really nice breakfast tomorrow in return.”
“Deal.”
Who would have guessed that tonight she’d be sleeping in Gideon’s bed?
The only thing better would be if he were sleeping in it with her.