Gabe poured coffee into a mug the next morning, inhaling the rich aroma. It didn’t help. All the coffee in the world wasn’t enough to wipe the remnants of last night’s seizure from his mind or his body.
He shook his head, trying to shake away the paralyzing sensation of the heavy sleep he’d fallen into afterward. His head felt as if it were packed with cotton.
He took a gulp of the coffee. Any feeling, including anger, would be better than this lethargy that seemed to sap his will.
Someone rapped at the door. Even if he hadn’t known it had to be Nolie, Max’s enthusiastic tail-wagging would have identified her.
“Come in.” The effort of crossing the room to let her in was too much.
“Good morning.” Nolie paused inside the kitchen door, her blue eyes grave as they assessed his condition. “Coffee smells good. Is there an extra cup?”
“Help yourself.” He slumped into one of the ladder-back chairs at the small round table in front of the window. “There’s milk in the fridge, if you take it.”
“Black’s fine.” She poured coffee and carried a mug over to the table, setting it on the apple-printed placemat before sitting down opposite him. “How are you this morning?”
Max put his head on Nolie’s knee with a soft whine, and she patted him.
He shrugged. “Okay. Sleepy.”
“That’s pretty common, but I guess you know that.”
“Yes.” Unfortunately, he did. “Aren’t you going to say I told you so?”
She ruffled the fur around Max’s neck, and the dog fixed her with an adoring gaze. “Why would I do that?”
“Because you warned me not to cut back on the medication.” He forced himself to admit it. Fair was fair. “I didn’t listen.”
“That doesn’t give me any pleasure. I wish I’d been wrong.” She honestly seemed to mean that.
“Thanks.” He took another gulp of the coffee, relieved to notice that his head was starting to clear, maybe just from making the effort to talk. “Well, I’m back on the recommended dosage now, you’ll be glad to know.”
He hoped that didn’t sound bitter, but even bitterness was preferable to struggling through a gray fog, like a dream where you had to run but couldn’t.
“That’s good.” Her voice was carefully neutral. “Danny will be here in about half an hour.”
He couldn’t. He pressed both palms flat against the tabletop, trying to come up with a reason she’d accept. Maybe the truth was his only option.
“Nolie, let me off the hook this morning, okay? I just need to clear my head before I see anyone else, even Danny.”
She studied his face for a long moment, as if measuring the honesty of his words. Finally she nodded. “All right. You can have the morning off, as long as you don’t try to get out of tonight.”
Tonight. The foundation event. “I can’t—”
“Don’t even think about it,” she said quickly. “We have to be there tonight. Believe me, I don’t like it any better than you do, but neither of us has a choice.”
He’d agreed to this. “Right. I’ll go. I won’t promise to enjoy it, but I’ll go.”
Her smile sparked. “Well, that will be two of us not enjoying it. In the meantime, I’ll let you off working with Danny, but don’t sit around the house.”
“I thought I’d take a walk in the woods.”
He hadn’t really thought any such thing, but now that he’d said it, it sounded like a good idea. A little time alone in the fresh air would finish the job of clearing his head.
She nodded, as if she understood his purpose. “You’ll find a path behind the barn. It circles around and eventually leads to the top of the hill. Take Max. He knows the way.”
“I’ll find it.”
“Take Max,” she repeated. “Please.”
His hands tightened around the mug. “You think I’ll need his help today, is that it?”
Her expression didn’t change at his sharp tone. Maybe she was used to working with irritable clients.
“Probably not, but take him, anyway. He deserves the reward of a walk in the woods. He did everything right last night.”
Last night, during the seizure. He’d felt Nolie’s arms around him, cushioning his fall. He’d felt Max, too, putting his body between him and the table. Protecting him.
“He didn’t know the seizure was coming.”
He hadn’t intended to say that. What difference did it make, when he had no plans to be dependent on the dog, anyway?
“It’s true he didn’t alert you.” Nolie’s brows knitted. “But it was the first seizure you’ve had since you’ve been working together. We can’t really train for that response. I believe it will happen, given time.”
“Given some more seizures, you mean.”
“Gabe—” Nolie paused, seeming to edit what she was about to say. He thought that sympathy lurked in her eyes, but she kept her voice matter-of-fact. “I hope you don’t have another seizure. I’ve told you that.”
His jaw hardened. Did she actually believe that? How could she separate what was good for him from what was good for her program?
“I thought I was over them.”
“Maybe you are. After all, that was a fairly mild one. You never completely lost consciousness.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good thing.” He’d been able to feel the exact moment when his body stopped obeying his commands, betraying him.
“I know.” Her hands moved, as if she wanted to reach for him but she restrained herself. “But it is more encouraging than having a severe seizure. And if you’ll take your medication the way you should—”
He held up his hand to stop her. “Lesson learned. I promise I’ll take it.”
But if he did, what were the odds the department doctor would pass him to go back on active duty? He didn’t have an answer to that.
She did reach out to him then, clasping his hand in both of hers. “I know you’re disappointed. I’m sorry.”
He stood abruptly, his chair scraping back. Her hands dropped away from his.
“I don’t want to talk about this right now.”
Her lashes fell, but not quickly enough to mask the pain in her eyes. He’d hurt her.
She stood, her face once again composed. “I understand. But please take Max with you today.”
He’d rejected her sympathy, pushed her away when all she wanted was to help. Still, he couldn’t talk about this with her, of all people. She had too much invested in him.
So he’d hurt her.
“I’ll take Max with me. I promise.”
Now please go away. The message couldn’t have been clearer if he’d spoken the words.
* * *
“Well, when are you going to tell me about him?” Claire spread the dress she’d brought on Nolie’s bed.
Nolie looked at the dress doubtfully. The sophisticated froth of black silk chiffon looked incongruous on the double-wedding-ring quilt that covered the four-poster. If she argued about the dress, maybe Claire would forget about Gabe.
“I really don’t think—”
“You don’t have to think. If you had any fashion sense, I wouldn’t have to do this.”
Claire eyed Nolie’s faded jeans with disfavor. Even dressed casually for her fashion emergency trip to the farm, Claire radiated elegance.
“Now get rid of the jeans and sneakers so you can try this on.”
Arguing with Claire in a makeover mood was like having a discussion with the tornado that was sweeping your house away. Nolie obediently kicked off her sneakers.
“I’m not a foundation patron. I’m a beggar.” She suspected this argument wasn’t going to go anywhere, but she’d give it a try, just so Claire wouldn’t get used to pushing her around. “Maybe I ought to look poor and needy when I meet them.”
“This is a social event, even if you are there to conduct business.” Claire yanked Nolie’s T-shirt out of her hands and tossed it across the room. “Believe me, people like this want to feel as if they’re giving their money to someone like them. If you went in looking needy, they’d think you wouldn’t know how to handle your grant.”
“Maybe.” She hadn’t gotten that impression from her one encounter with Mr. Henley, but Claire knew more about people like him than she did.
Claire handed her a pair of pantyhose. “Never mind arguing about the pantyhose. I want to see the complete effect of the outfit, pantyhose and all.”
Nolie sat down on the birds-eye maple rocker she’d found at a yard sale and painstakingly refinished. “You know I hate these things. I always feel as if they’re cutting off my circulation.”
“You have to suffer a little, or you’re not properly dressed.” Claire frowned at her. “Well? When are you going to tell me about him?”
It would do no good to ask who she was talking about. They both knew.
“There’s nothing to tell.” She eased the black filmy stocking over one leg. “He’s a client.”
“He’s a gorgeous hunk of man.”
She could hardly say she hadn’t noticed, but she certainly wasn’t going to admit the depth of her feelings.
“All right, he is. But we have a professional relationship, that’s all.”
“The way you looked at him didn’t seem too professional to me.”
She concentrated on pulling up the pantyhose without snagging them. “You’re imagining things. I look at him the same way I look at every client.”
“Sure you do. And what about the way he looks at you?”
She couldn’t stop her gaze from jumping to Claire’s face. “What do you mean? How does he look at me?”
“Like you’re a tall glass of cold water after he’s been fighting a fire.”
“That’s certainly not the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.”
Claire shrugged. “I don’t know about that. A man will die without water.” Her eyes twinkled. “So you do want romance.”
“No, I don’t. I keep telling you, we just have a business relationship. Neither of us is looking for anything else.”
That speech might have been more impressive had it not been muffled by the dress Claire was slipping over her head.
“You might not be looking for it, but it found you. Besides, your professional relationship doesn’t preclude a personal one. You won’t be his trainer forever.”
“It still wouldn’t work.” Why couldn’t Claire leave it alone? “Even if the whole thing with my work and the grant didn’t come between us, our family backgrounds are just too different. We’d never find any common ground. We both know that.”
Claire paused, the zipper halfway up Nolie’s back. “You told him about your childhood?”
Now she’d done it. Claire knew she never talked about her history.
“It just sort of came out one day when we were talking. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Sure.” Claire ran the zipper up the rest of the way.
“It doesn’t.”
“You keep telling yourself that, sweetie. Maybe you’ll actually start to believe it.” She swung Nolie around so that she was facing the full-length mirror. “There. That’s the woman the foundation people are going to see tonight.”
Nolie blinked. The black dress clung to her body sleekly, and then burst into a flirty ruffle at the hem, drawing the eye to her legs. Claire had swept her hair back from her face to cascade down her back, so that the sparkly earrings she had brought dangled against her neck.
“That’s not me.”
Claire laughed. “That is definitely you.” She gave her a quick hug, enveloping her in a wave of fragrant scent. “The you that’s been in hiding. Now don’t let the wicked aunt or Brother What’s-his-face out of the closet tonight.”
“I won’t.” She hoped.
“And enjoy Gabe’s response when he sees you.”
“Claire, I keep telling you—”
“And I keep not believing you.” Claire waved an airy goodbye. “Enjoy. And don’t come home early. Your coach won’t turn into a pumpkin, I promise. You can dance with Prince Charming until midnight.”
She was gone before Nolie could come up with a suitable retort, even supposing there was one that didn’t reveal how much she wanted to have Gabe look at her as if she really were his Cinderella.
* * *
Gabe glanced at his watch as he headed back toward the cottage. He had plenty of time to get ready, and thanks to the tramp in the woods, he actually felt human again. Maybe he’d be able to get through being put on display tonight.
As he crossed between the barn and the paddock, he spotted the woman who stood by her car on the lane. Nolie’s friend, Claire, looked as if she were waiting for something. Or someone.
He veered from his path and walked over to her. “Hi. I’m Gabe Flanagan. We met a couple of weeks ago.”
“I haven’t forgotten.” Her gaze assessed him. “You’re Nolie’s prize client.”
Something about that measuring look annoyed him. “I don’t know about the prize, but I’m one of Nolie’s clients, yes.”
“More than that, I think.” She frowned, and he realized that was concern in her eyes. Not for him, so it had to be for Nolie. What was bugging the woman?
He shrugged. “Our work is supposed to lead to the grant, so in that sense it’s more.”
“She told you about her past.” Claire gave him an uncompromising frown.
“Yes, she did.”
I never tell anyone, Nolie had said. But she’d told him.
“Then you know how vulnerable she is after living through that horror. She could be hurt easily by someone she cared about. I don’t want that to happen.” The steely look in Claire’s eyes suggested she’d know what to do to someone who hurt her friend.
He stiffened at the implied threat. “I appreciate your caring for Nolie, but I’m not sure it’s necessary. She’s a grown woman. She survived an awful childhood, but she’s over it now.”
“Over it?” Claire’s brows rose until they disappeared behind her auburn bangs.
“Yes.” He wanted this conversation finished. The woman didn’t need to lecture him about Nolie.
“If you think she’s over it, go take a look in the shed behind the barn.”
“What are you talking about?”
She ignored his question, swinging into her car. “Just do it. And be careful with her.”
She revved the motor and spun out in a spray of gravel.
He looked at Max. “That is one irritating woman.”
Max waved his tail.
“Still, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to take a look.”
As if he agreed, Max fell into step with him. They strode toward the barn, then past it. The barn’s bulk sheltered them from the house. Unless Nolie came outside, she wouldn’t see what they were doing.
He glanced, frowning, at the shed. It was a tumbledown affair, its gray unpainted planks a contrast to the well-kept appearance of the rest of the farm outbuildings. He hadn’t noticed that before, but now that he did, it stuck to his mind like a burr.
His feet were following a path through the tall grass. So even though the building looked desolate, someone must come here.
Not someone. Nolie. There wasn’t anyone else.
He didn’t want to go on, but Claire had told him to. Unless he very much missed the mark, Claire cared for Nolie more than anyone. She wouldn’t tell him to look in the shed unless there was something there he had to see.
He tugged on the knob. Locked.
Max whined, as if he didn’t like this any better than Gabe did.
“I think we have to look, Max. Otherwise we’ll always wonder.” He reached up to the top of the door frame. Sure enough, his fingertips touched the cold metal of a key.
He pulled it down and slid it into the lock. It turned easily.
“Come on, buddy. We’ll go in together.”
He shoved the door open, releasing a shaft of light that didn’t do much to penetrate the gloom within. He stepped inside, groping automatically along the wall to the right until he found a switch. He clicked it.
Old furniture. There was nothing in the shed but piles of old furniture. Looked like stuff that dated from the twenties or thirties, dark and solid.
There was nothing in the shed to cause the revulsion of feeling he felt. Why would Nolie, whose whole farm was a testament to the joy she took in her work, have a rundown shed filled with stuff that should have been gotten rid of years ago?
Then Claire’s words clicked in his mind. He’d said Nolie was over the past. She’d disagreed, and here was the evidence.
This wasn’t just castoff furniture. These were her great-aunt’s things. Nolie said she was over the past, but she’d never gotten rid of them.
Not only that. Judging by the state of the path, she came in here. Relived the past she claimed to have forgotten.
An old-fashioned leather photo album lay on the oak dresser next to the door. He flipped it open, turning the crumbling pages.
The old man in his dark suit and high collar must be the great-great-uncle who’d tied up the property. Judging by the look of him, he’d been typical of the thrifty German farmers who’d turned this part of Pennsylvania into a thriving farming area.
He flipped a few more pages, then stopped, hand frozen on the page. This was a different era on the farm, judging by the car that stood in the lane.
The sour-faced woman who had to be Nolie’s great-aunt stood a couple of paces behind a wild-eyed, bearded character who looked like someone’s screwy idea of an Old Testament prophet. This was Brother Joshua, presumably. He had the air of a fanatic who’d sacrifice anyone and anything to his version of the truth.
Another figure stood beside the aunt, head bent in a subservient posture. The child’s slight frame was shrouded in an ugly dark dress that fell to her ankles, and her hair had been completely covered by a black scarf. Nolie.
A wave of nausea swept over him. He’d listened. He’d sympathized. And he hadn’t had the faintest idea of what she’d gone through.
Max leaned against him, whining a little, and then looked through the open door toward the sunshine.
“I know what you mean, Max. There’s something pretty sick in here.” It was as if a miasma of misery and evil clung to the very furniture.
Poor Nolie. She’d said she was over her past, but Claire was right. She clearly wasn’t over it, not when she kept her past locked up in this shed.
And Claire was right about something else. Nolie was vulnerable. He had to be careful.
* * *
That thought was still uppermost in Gabe’s mind an hour later, when he closed the cottage door behind him and Max. He straightened his tie.
“What do you think, Max? Will we do?”
Max waved his tail. The dog probably felt more at home in the company they were going to encounter tonight than he did. Well, like it or not, he’d promised. He stepped off the porch, Max at his heels.
They crossed the lawn toward the farmhouse. Its lighted windows sent a welcoming glow across the grass. He couldn’t help a glance toward the shed. The barn’s bulk hid it, but he knew it was there now. He couldn’t forget about it any more than Nolie could.
How did anyone get over a childhood experience like hers? He felt momentarily ashamed of his happy childhood. He’d had it so easy, compared to what Nolie had gone through. Alone. She’d done it alone and come out a whole person, but she had her scars. She had to, even though she functioned well.
Just be careful, he warned himself. Now that he understood, it was more important than ever that he resist that attraction that tugged at him each time he was near her. There were too many barriers between them in any event, and this put the final piece of the barricade in place.
Arranging an impersonal smile on his face, he rapped on the door.
“Come in.” Nolie’s voice echoed faintly.
He opened the front door and stepped into the living room, Max beside him. He closed the door, glancing around. He’d been in the farmhouse kitchen a number of times, but he hadn’t been in this room.
Obviously Nolie’s redecorating efforts had been at work here. The multi-paned windows were draped with crisp white ruffled curtains, and a colorful rag rug brightened the wide planks of the floor. Everything about the room, from the buttery-soft leather sofa to the built-in bookshelves crowded with books to the wide brick hearth said that this space was designed for the comfort and happiness of the person who lived here.
What had it been like during Nolie’s childhood? Nothing like this, that was certain. She’d wiped her aunt’s baleful presence from the room, maybe even from the farmhouse, but she hadn’t been able to get rid of it entirely. It lingered in that rundown shed.
Would he ever tell her that he’d seen it? Probably not. To do so would be admitting to a depth of relationship that wasn’t possible for them. That was why Claire had sent him there. She’d wanted him to see that he wasn’t the man for Nolie.
“Sorry if I kept you waiting.” Nolie came quickly down the stairs, hand running along the polished rail.
He took a strangled breath, feeling as if someone had just punched him in the stomach. Maybe Claire should have thought twice about what Nolie was wearing tonight if she wanted him to stay away from her. That clingy black dress accentuated every delectable curve of Nolie’s body, and the skirt flirted around legs that certainly looked different in black stockings than they did in jeans.
She’d reached the bottom, and she was looking at him strangely. He had to say something.
“I wasn’t here long.” Surprisingly, his voice sounded almost normal. “Max and I didn’t have to do all that much to get ready.”
“Well, you both look very nice.” Her gaze swept over his dark suit. Approving, he thought. He straightened his tie again.
“I only put a suit on for weddings and funerals. Good thing it still fits.”
“I wish I hadn’t had to do much to get ready. Claire can go from office to party in ten minutes flat, but she’s in practice. This took a lot of work.”
“It was worth it.” He may as well tell her the truth. “You look breathtaking.”
Color flooded her cheeks. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” His tie seemed to be strangling him. “Well, are we ready to go knock them dead at this thing?”
“Not quite.” She held out her hand, a chain dangling from it. “Claire insisted on this necklace with the dress, but I can’t get it fastened. Will you give me a hand?”
“Sure.” He tried to sound casual as he fumbled with the cobweb-fine chain.
Nolie turned her back to him, sweeping that silky fall of pale gold hair away from the nape of her neck. All he wanted to do was press his lips against that smooth curve of skin.
Concentrate, he commanded himself. He swung the necklace around her neck, careful not to touch her. If Nolie knew the longing that pounded through his veins, she’d run screaming from the house. That would certainly be safer.
His fingers brushed the nape of her neck as he fumbled with the catch. It was so fine he nearly dropped it, but that wasn’t why his fingers didn’t seem to work.
He leaned a little closer, inhaling the flowery scent that clung to her skin. A bit nearer, and he’d give in to the temptation to drop a kiss. Except that it would amount to more than that, and he knew it.
He fastened the clasp, letting his fingertips linger for a moment against her warm, smooth skin. The Nolie he’d seen in that photograph hadn’t had anything pretty to wear, or anyone to tell her how lovely she was. She hadn’t had any evenings of innocent enjoyment.
So he’d take her to the foundation party, and he’d see to it that she had a good time. He’d do everything she wanted him to do tonight.
But he wouldn’t give in to the longing to have her in his arms—he wasn’t going to be the one to hurt her.