know if there’s anything more.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“I want you to look.” He held out a hand. When she didn’t move, he walked over to her and drew her to her feet. “Look at the portrait and tell me what you see.”
“Myself.”
It seemed to be the day for showdowns, Gabe thought. He quickly carried the sleeping Michael upstairs to the nursery and put him in the crib. Going back down to Laura, he took her by the shoulders and, holding her in front of him, made her face the portrait. “Tell me what you see.”
“I see myself as you saw me then.” Why was her heart hammering? “I seem a little too vulnerable, a little too sad.”
Impatience had him giving her a quick shake. “You don’t see enough.”
“I want to see strength,” she blurted out. “I think I do. And I see a woman alone who’s ready to protect what’s hers.”
“When you look at her eyes. Look at them, Laura, and tell me what you see.”
“A woman falling in love.” She shut her own. “You must have known.”
“No.” He didn’t turn her toward him. Instead, he wrapped his arms around her so that they both continued to face the portrait. “No, I didn’t know, because I kept telling myself I was painting what I wanted to see. And what I was feeling myself.”
Her heart leaped into her throat and throbbed there. Whatever he could feel, he could paint. That had been her own conclusion. “What are you feeling?”
“Can’t you see it?”
“I don’t want to see it there.” She turned to grip the front of his shirt. “I want to hear it.”
He wasn’t sure he had the words. Words came so much less easily than emotion. He could paint his moods, and he could shout them, but it was difficult to speak them quietly when they mattered so much.
He touched her face, her hair, then her hand. “Almost from the first you pulled at me in a way no one ever had before and no one ever will again. I thought I was crazy. You were pregnant, totally dependent on me, grateful for my help.”
“I was grateful. I’ll always be grateful.”
“Damn it” was all he could manage as he turned away.
“I’m sorry you feel that way.” She was calm now, absolutely, beautifully calm, as he glared at her. She’d remember him like this always, she thought, with his hair tousled from his hands, a gray shirt with the sleeves shoved up to the elbows and his face full of impatience. “Because I intend to be grateful for the rest of my life. And that has nothing to do with my intending to love you for the rest of my life.”
“I want to be sure of that.”
“Be sure. You didn’t paint what you wanted to see, you never do. You paint the truth.” She took one step toward him, the most important step she’d ever taken. “I’ve given you the truth, Gabe. Now I have to ask for it. Are your feelings for me tied up in that portrait, in that image, are they an effect of your love for Michael, or are they for me?”
“Yes.” He caught her hands in his. “I’m in love with the woman I painted, with the mother of my child, and with you. Separately and together. We could have met anywhere, under any circumstances, and I would still have fallen in love with you. Maybe it wouldn’t have happened as quickly, maybe it wouldn’t have been as complicated, but it would have happened.” She started to move into his arms, but he held her back. “When I married you, it was for purely selfish reasons. I wasn’t doing you any favors.”
She smiled. “Then I won’t be grateful.”
“Thank you.” He lifted her hands to his lips, the one that wore the old wedding band, then the one that wore the new. “I want to paint you again.”
She was laughing as his lips came down to her. “Now?”
“Soon.”
Then his hands were in her hair, and the kiss became urgent and seeking. It was met equally as her arms went around him. Love, fully opened, added its own desperation.
There was a murmur of pleasure, then a murmur of protest as he drew her to the floor. Her laugh turned to a moan when he unbuttoned her blouse.
“Michael—”
“Is asleep.” He dragged her hair back, leaving her face unframed. Everything he’d wanted to see was there. “Until he wakes up, you’re mine. I love you, Laura. Every time you look at the painting, you’ll see it. You were mine from the first moment I touched you.”
Yours, she thought as she drew him back to her. Gabriel’s angel was more than a portrait. And she finally belonged.
* * * * *
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