Ten

Gabriel clawed himself out of the thick foggy sleep that weighed him down, pressing him into the comforting warmth of the mattress. Beneath closed lids, his eyes burned with fatigue and his throat felt raw and scraped, as if he’d swallowed a ball of steel wool. It was always this way after a show, exhaustion coupled with aching limbs.

God, what was that sound? It couldn’t be the alarm. Not more than an hour had passed since his head hit the pillow.

Once again the piercing ring assaulted him. It was the phone, not the alarm. He blinked, forcing his eyes open. The digital clock read 3:00 a.m. Groggily, he reached for the receiver, fumbling in the dark bedroom, hoping it wouldn’t wake the kids. “Hello,” he said tersely.

“Gabriel, it’s Lynne.”

Her voice, like a shot of adrenaline, cleared his cobwebs instantly. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s Emma. The police have her at the Ventura station. They called me. She was driving without a license. The policewoman said she’d been drinking.”

Gabe was already shrugging into his shirt and jeans. “I’ll be there right away.”

“I won’t have this, Gabriel. The girl is out of control. What is she doing out at this time of the morning?”

“We’ll discuss it later.”

“Gabriel—”

He hung up and turned on the light. It blinded him. Hesitating for a minute, he stumbled across the room to his closet, found his Nikes, grabbed a jacket and ran downstairs in his bare feet. “Damn you, Emma,” he cursed softly. “Damn your spoiled little ass.”

Inside the truck, his hands shook as he slid the key into the ignition and turned it over. Nothing. Again he tried turning the key, flicking his wrist back and forth several times. The familiar, empty click signaling a dead battery was the only sound in the cold cab.

Rage and fear warred in his chest. He rested his head on the steering wheel. Emma was in police custody. Emma with her flirty smile and her smoke-rimmed Madonna blue eyes and her indecently cut jeans. Christ. She must be terrified. Once again, Gabriel tried the engine, willing it into life. Still nothing.

He was still barefoot. The simple act of putting on his shoes, pulling back the tongue, sliding his feet in and tying the laces steadied him. All right. His battery was dead. He could wake his mother and take her car, but he wasn’t up to his mother tonight. He glanced at the white Impala parked beside him and made up his mind.

In a flash he was out of the car and up the stairs. Restraining himself, he knocked softly on Whitney’s door. She opened it immediately, her face a mix of curiosity and concern.

“What is it?”

“Emma’s being held at the police station. My truck battery is dead. Can I take your car?”

“It’s only insured for me,” she said quickly. “I’ll drive you.”

“I don’t have time—” he began, but stopped when he saw her reach for her keys and bag. She was dressed in gray sweats and socks.

“My jacket’s in the car,” she said. “Let’s go.”

“You need shoes,” he reminded her.

“They’re in my bag.”

She ran lightly down the stairs ahead of him, pulling the silky banner of her hair back and securing it with an elastic band. Less than two minutes after he’d knocked on her door, her shoes were on and they were heading toward the 101 north exit.

Gabriel breathed a sigh of relief and leaned back against the headrest. Her efficiency calmed him. This was a woman who knew how to take charge. Heavens, how deeply you at once do touch me. He closed his eyes, absorbing the heat pouring from the vents.

She broke the still warmth with a question. “What happened?”

“My mother-in-law called. She isn’t happy. Emma was caught drinking and driving.” He shook his head. “One of the above would have been enough. She’s underage. This time she may very well have gone too far.”

“What’s her problem?”

“How should I know?”

“C’mon, Gabriel. You can do better than that. A fourteen-year-old girl doesn’t cry out for attention the way Emma does unless there’s a problem. What do you think it is?”

Gabriel looked at the profile of the woman beside him. It was austerely clean and honest. Without hesitating, she’d come to his aid. She deserved an answer, even if it meant his pride took some bruising. “She misses her mother,” he said simply. “Kristen dumped all of us, the kids and me.”

“Does she write?”

“No.”

“She has no contact with her children at all?”

“If she does, it’s minimal. According to Eric, he’s heard from her four times in eighteen months.”

Whitney thought of her own mother’s cloying interest in her life. Suddenly it assumed a new perspective. “Are you divorced?”

“Yes.”

“What are the custody arrangements?”

“She didn’t show up at court when the settlement was finalized. I have full custody.”

“In other words, you have three children who feel their mother has abandoned them.”

That was it in a nutshell. Whitney had a way of dispensing with fluff and exposing the core of the situation. Gabriel wondered if it was all legal training or if her personality wasn’t given to superfluous detail. “Yes. The case is classic, isn’t it? Emma is testing me to see if there’s anything she can do that will make me abandon her, too.”

She glanced at him. “You seem to have figured it out. Why are you surprised and upset? This isn’t that big a deal. She won’t be able to get a driver’s license at sixteen and she’ll do community service, but that’s about it. No one will take her away from you.”

“Her maternal grandmother wants to do just that. Emma isn’t my biological daughter.”

She thought a minute. “My expertise isn’t in family law, but if you’ve been her father for more than ten years, and if her mother has abandoned her, you shouldn’t have much to worry about.”

“Lynne will hire a lawyer. If she does, I will, too. I can’t afford that kind of drain right now.”

“I see.”

The offer from the Austrian government lay between them, thick and impassable.

“I’m sure you’ll work it out,” was all she said.

He stared out the window without answering.

The Ventura police station saw its share of activity on a Saturday night. Gabriel and Whitney waited nearly thirty minutes before Emma, escorted by a thin-lipped policewoman, was released to them. She sat on the bench beside Whitney while Gabriel filled out paperwork and spoke to the officer at the desk.

“What are you doing here?” she asked Whitney.

“Your dad needed a ride. He had a dead battery.”

“Lucky for him you were still here.”

Whitney shrugged. “I suppose so. I imagine he would have awakened your grandmother.”

“Why didn’t he do that in the first place?”

Whitney looked at Emma, deliberately not answering until she saw a rosy flush stain the girl’s chest and cheeks. “Like your other grandmother, Mercedes is an old woman. He didn’t want to worry her.”

The implication was clear. Emma had already unnecessarily worried one old woman.

“You don’t like me, do you?”

The corners of Whitney’s mouth turned up. The girl certainly was an original, a blunt one. “I don’t know you, Emma,” she said honestly, “but that’s your intent, isn’t it, to behave badly so people dislike you?”

“I don’t like you, either.”

Again Whitney shrugged, frustrated with the child’s disagreeable attitude. “I can handle it.”

Gabriel joined them. “You have a court date in three weeks.” He reached for Emma’s arm. “Let’s go.”

On the ride home no one spoke for a long time.

Emma broke the silence. “Am I grounded?”

“Yes,” Gabriel replied.

“I wasn’t really drinking,” she began.

“The police report says differently.”

The lies flowed easily from Emma’s mouth. “I was trying to help Casey. She was the one who was drinking. She couldn’t drive home.”

“You’re fourteen, Emma. You couldn’t drive home, either.”

“But I wasn’t really drinking. I had just a little in my Coke. Honest, Dad. It really isn’t a big deal.”

“Tell that to the judge and to your grandmother.” His composure slipped. Turning around he glared at his stepdaughter. “You’re damn lucky that Casey’s parents didn’t report the car as stolen. What in the hell did you think you were doing by involving Lynne?”

Whitney looked in the rearview mirror. Emma’s eyes had the wide, frightened look of a cat caught in the headlights.

“I didn’t want to wake you.”

Gabe snorted and turned away. “Right, Emma. I really believe that one.”

“How long will I be grounded?”

“For the rest of your life.”

“That’s not fair,” she wailed. “You can’t make me. You’re not my father. I want my mother. I want to live with Grandma Lynne.” Tears rolled down her cheeks.

Gabriel opened his mouth, and then closed it again.

Whitney was impressed. Gabriel Mendoza had remarkable self-control.

“I’m the only father you have, Emma, and living with Grandma Lynne isn’t an option.”

“Why not?”

Whitney watched Gabriel struggle for an answer. Seconds ticked by, and then minutes. Her heart felt hard and tight. Lord, if parenting was this hard, she was grateful she’d never had the opportunity. Mentally, she spoke to him. Make this right, Gabriel. Whatever you say, make it right.

She thought he’d decided not to answer and searched her brain for an appropriate filler—the weather, the horse show, anything to fill the tense silence. She was just about to pick up the ball when he spoke.

“Because I’d miss you too much.”

The wave of relief that engulfed Whitney was palpable. She needn’t have worried. Gabriel was not going to destroy this incorrigible child, who cried out for any kind of attention. She smiled into the night, and then wondered why on earth she should be concerned at all.

Only Claire was awake and seated on the stairs, waiting for them. Her feet were bare and she wore a white, gauzy nightgown without sleeves. With her hair, a cloud around her pale little face, and her too-big eyes, she looked to Whitney like an angel awaiting her wings.

This time Gabriel didn’t bother to lower his voice. He scooped the little girl into his arms. “Damn it, Claire, you’re freezing to death. What are you doing up?”

“I looked for you,” the child whimpered. “You weren’t in your bed.”

“Emma needed us.”

Claire peeked over her shoulder at her sister. “Are you okay, Emma?”

Emma, stricken into silence, nodded.

Whitney looked down at her feet. What was it about this family that affected her so? Everything she witnessed was either intimate or painful.

Gabriel sighed. “C’mon, punkin, let’s go upstairs.” He turned and looked at Emma, then reached out and pulled her close. “I’m mad as hell at you. Don’t you ever do anything like that again. Now, go to sleep, because I’m waking you up tomorrow at nine o’clock. You’re going to help me muck out the stalls. Understood?”

Without answering, she ran up the stairs.

Claire laid her head on her father’s shoulder. “Will you read to me, Daddy?”

“It’s late, Claire. You need to sleep.”

“Just one story. Please.”

He groaned. “Okay. One story and that’s it.”

Over her head, his eyes met Whitney’s. “I don’t think I thanked you for rising to the occasion tonight. I appreciate it.”

She smiled. “You’re welcome. I have only one favor to ask in return.”

His eyes hardened. “What’s that?”

“Don’t wake me up at nine o’clock.”

For a minute it didn’t register. He was too exhausted. Then he laughed. “It’s a deal. Don’t stay in bed too late. Tomorrow’s my mother’s Sunday brunch. The whole family will be here again after church, this time with husbands and kids. You shouldn’t miss it.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. What time does she serve?”

“Food comes out at about ten and is replenished until one. We all sort of drift in when we can. Guests come, too, when they’re here.”

“I’ll be there.”

He stepped aside. “After you.”

She preceded him up the stairs and watched him disappear with Claire into her bedroom.

The light in her own bedroom was still on. She sat down on the rumpled bed, pulled off her shoes and socks and fell back on the pillows. Tonight, Gabriel Mendoza had impressed her. Every other man she could think of, without exception, would have lost his cool and given Emma the tongue-lashing she deserved. Who was she kidding? Every other man would have shipped the child back to her mother, postage due on receipt. At the very least, Emma would be packing her bags and moving in with her maternal grandmother.

Instead, Gabriel had not only kept his anger under control, he’d reassured Emma that she was still loved and wanted, even while he was under extreme duress with very little sleep. There was more to Gabriel Mendoza than met the eye. Whitney liked him. More important, she respected him.