Gabriel's Honor. Barbara McCauley
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I don’t have a husband.
Her quiet words had been running through his mind like one of those little hamsters on a wheel. And running along right beside her declaration was the burning question: What was her problem?
He’d called Cara late last night, hoping to get some answers, but she’d been tight-lipped. She told him that if Melanie wanted him to know something, then she’d tell him herself.
Yeah. Right. That would happen right about the same time that the IRS told him it was no longer necessary for him to pay taxes. Just because he was such a nice guy.
It had been a natural assumption that Melanie was hiding out from an abusive husband, Gabe thought. But unless she was lying—and he was as certain as he could be she wasn’t—then the husband theory was wrong.
So was she in trouble with the law?
It was strictly a gut feeling, but he didn’t think so, even though she’d been so panicked last night when she thought he was calling the police. He’d seen how gentle she was with her son, how tender. Gabe touched the scratch on his cheek, remembered her concern when she’d seen the blood on his face and she’d thought she’d hurt him. Even her attempt to bean him with that statue had been halfhearted. He couldn’t believe for a second that this woman was a criminal.
But if it wasn’t a husband, and it wasn’t the police, then what was it?
None of his business, that’s what it was. He rubbed his sore jaw. She’d be on the road as soon as he installed her battery, which would be right after breakfast. So what was the point in all this speculation? It was doing him no good to think beyond the present moment with Melanie. No damn good at all.
He stared at his hand, remembered the touch of her fingertips on his. The contact had been brief, a mere brush of skin, but damn if something hadn’t passed between them, something downright…unnerving.
The same as last night, when he’d shaken her hand.
There was lust, of course. He recognized that clearly enough. He’d been down that road more than a few times with a woman. But lust had never thrown him off balance like this before. Had never hit him in the solar plexus like a two-by-four.
Weird, that’s what it was.
“Are you all right?”
He glanced up at the sound of Melanie’s voice. She stood in the doorway, hands linked behind her.
“I thought I heard you bellow,” she said as her gaze took in the wrench in his hand.
“I’m fighting about thirty years of rust,” he said with a shrug.
“Looks like you lost.” She nodded toward his jaw.
“Just the battle, not the war.” Rubbing his chin, he rose, tossed the wrench back into his toolbox. “I’ll be back, packing a bigger wrench.”
Smiling softly, she glanced around the spacious bathroom, her gaze pausing at the porcelain claw foot bathtub that sat in the middle of the white tile floor, then moving on to linger and obviously admire an antique, cherry wood armoire with carved panels. A matching dressing table with a beveled mirror sat on the wall opposite the armoire. Gabe watched Melanie’s soft gray eyes widen at the assortment of crystal perfume bottles and elegant silver brushes and combs that lay on top of the dresser.
An image of Melanie sitting at the dressing table popped into Gabe’s head. She wore white silk and lace; her dark hair was swept up, exposing her long, slender neck. She touched the tip of perfumed crystal just below the delicate curve of her ear. Damn if he couldn’t even smell the sweet scent that drifted from her.
He blinked, then snapped his thoughts back to the present. Weird.
“Funny.” Gabe stared at the dressing table. “I wouldn’t have thought old lady Witherspoon was a silver brush, crystal perfume bottle kind of woman.”
“She was a nice lady,” Melanie said thoughtfully.
Nice lady? Gabe had heard Miss Witherspoon called a lot of things, but never nice. Then it dawned on him exactly what Melanie had just said. “You did know her?”
“I knew her,” she said quietly, then pulled her gaze from the dresser. “Breakfast is ready.”
He watched her turn and go back downstairs. He’d assumed that she’d been lying when she’d said that she knew the elderly woman. But how did Melanie know Mildred Witherspoon? he wondered. As far as he knew, Mildred had never left Bloomfield County. Other than church, town meetings and an occasional doctor appointment, it was a well-known fact that the woman rarely went out. For the past few years, she’d even had her groceries delivered directly to her house.
Gabe stared at the empty doorway where Melanie had been standing. And if he was certain of anything, it was that Melanie Hart had never been to Bloomfield County before.
Don’t ask, Sinclair. If she wants you to know, she’ll tell you.
With a sigh, Gabe made his way downstairs and found her in the kitchen, by the sink, her arms folded as she stared down at her son. Kevin had changed into a white T-shirt with a picture of Batman on the front, blue jeans and tennis shoes. His little hands were shoved deeply into the front pockets of his jeans.
“I just washed my hands,” Kevin said firmly.
Melanie frowned. “You washed them last night. You have to wash them again, before you eat.”
Ah, the age-old argument. Gabe suppressed a smile as he watched mother and son. Stubborn appeared to be a strong gene in Melanie and her son, he thought, recognizing the determined tilt of Kevin’s chin.
“Sure smells good.” Gabe strolled casually into the room, rolling up the sleeves of his blue denim shirt. Kevin and Melanie stepped out of his way when he moved to the sink. “I’m so hungry, I could eat a whole cow.”
Kevin stared up at him, eyes wide. “We’re not having cow. We’re having omelettes. Remember?”
“Well, I could eat a whole omelette then.” Gabe turned on the sink faucet, made a note that the washers needed replacing as he reached for a new bar of white soap on the ledge. “Soon as I wash my hands.”
Kevin pressed his lips tightly together. Even at four, he obviously recognized a con job. “My hands aren’t dirty. I already washed them.”
“Kevin—” Melanie warned.
“So did I.” Gabe worked up a foamy froth of suds. “But Batman says he always washes his hands right exactly the minute before he eats.”
Kevin stared at him with suspicion in his big blue eyes. “Batman says that?”
“Yep.”
“Why?”
Gabe glanced at Melanie, who was watching the two of them with interest and amusement. “Well, it’s kind of a secret—” Gabe lowered his voice, leaned closer to Kevin “—but the reason is that when he eats with clean hands, it makes him strong, and that’s how he catches all the bad guys.”
The freckles on Kevin’s nose wrinkled as he scrunched up his face in deep thought. He looked at his mother, back at Gabe, then pulled his hands out of his pockets and stuck them under the running water. Gabe handed him the soap, and Kevin turned the big white bar over and over in his little hands, attempting to work up the same frothy lather that Gabe had.
Pleased with his success, Gabe looked over at Melanie, expecting her expression to be approval and admiration for his cunning. But her expression was closer to worry. An uneasiness that narrowed her eyes and pressed her lips into a thin line.
What the hell had he said?
“I’ll put the food on the table while you two finish up,” she said without meeting his curious gaze, then turned away and moved toward the stove, a white-enameled gas range that had to be at least fifty years old. The refrigerator also