VERONICA WOKE TO a sensation of being bound by something hot and heavy and comforting. When she stretched, Gabe’s hand spread over her naked waist and pulled her more snug against him.
“Mmm,” she sighed as she turned her head into his shoulder and inhaled the scent of his sleep-warmed skin. He smelled like spice and sex. Despite that she’d come right before falling asleep, lust still settled into her belly as she breathed him in.
“I’m sure it’s just my sister,” he murmured into her hair, and she realized what had woken her as his phone gave another brief buzz. His hand stroked her hip, then stilled again.
Veronica entertained the idea of rousing herself enough to initiate sex, but she must have fallen back asleep before she could act on it, because the next thing she knew, she was jerked awake again.
Gabe’s phone was buzzing again.
“I swear to God,” he rasped, “if she’s calling because she can’t find the bottle opener...”
Cold seared her back when he left the bed, and she quickly rolled over into his spot. He cursed and she heard something on the dresser fall over, but then he must have found his phone, because the glow of the screen lit his naked chest.
“It’s my mom,” he said, all the sleepiness leaving his voice.
Veronica sat up and turned on the lamp next to her bed, sheet clutched to her chest in deference to his faraway mother.
“Mom?” he said. “What’s wrong?”
When Veronica saw the way fear fell over him, taking all the color in his face with it, she almost wished she’d left the room dark.
“You’re at the hospital?” he asked. “What are they saying?” He paced toward the dark doorway that led to her living room, then back, scrubbing his free hand over his hair.
“I...I don’t get it. Didn’t he just go to the doctor last month? I know, but— Okay. Okay.”
Veronica watched his eyes search the room until they found the clock.
“I’ll get a flight out for me and Naomi, but it won’t be for at least six hours, and we’ll have to connect. I’ll call as soon as I have something. Leave your phone on, Mom, okay? Let me know if anything changes.”
Veronica was already out of bed and pulling on clothes when he hung up. “What’s wrong?”
“My dad. He had a heart attack.”
“Oh, Gabe.” He looked so lost, just staring at her, the hand holding the phone still raised halfway to his ear. She crossed the room and wrapped her arms around his waist. “I’m so sorry. Is he going to be okay?”
“I don’t know. They said he’s critical but stable. Stable is good, right?”
“Yes,” she agreed, “stable is really good.”
“His doctor has been warning him to get healthier, but he was just there a month ago and he was fine.”
She squeezed him harder. “Does your sister know?”
“I’m not sure. I’d better go.” Still, he didn’t move; he just held tight to her, heart thundering against her ear.
“He’s going to be okay,” she said, wishing out loud for him.
She felt the movement of his muscles as he nodded. “You’re right. He’ll be okay.”
She kissed his shaking heart and whispered his name before he took a deep breath and let her go. “I’ll let you know when I’m leaving and when I can...” His words trailed away as he looked down at the shirt he’d picked up.
“Don’t worry about that,” she said.
His forehead creased and he shook his head, but he couldn’t seem to speak.
“It’s okay, Gabe. Just go tell your sister and get back to New York.”
He nodded and finished getting dressed, then gave her a quick kiss before leaving.
It was only 3:00 a.m., but Veronica knew she’d never get back to sleep now. She pulled on warm clothes and made herself tea to try to shake off the chill that had settled beneath her skin. Poor Gabe. And his poor family. It was so awful that this had happened while Naomi was away, too.
She hoped Gabe’s mother wasn’t all alone. Surely they had more family there? Everyone she’d ever met from New York had had cousins stretched throughout the boroughs.
She wanted to call Gabe and see what was happening, but she was in a very strange position. She wasn’t his girlfriend. They’d barely started dating. She had no right to insert herself into this tragedy or distract him while he was worried. She didn’t even know his parents’ names.
Feeling awful about that, she curled up in bed with her cup of tea and looked up MacKenzie’s.
She immediately recognized the pictures of Gabe’s dad. He looked like a bigger, bulkier version of Gabe. The man was clean shaven, but the kind brown eyes and sturdy nose were the same. He smiled in every single picture she found. A fantastic smile that said he loved the world and everyone in it.
Blinking back tears, she found a history of the business. Gabe’s dad was named James, and he’d taken over the business from his father, who’d started the first MacKenzie’s in 1970. The family’s love for the place was evident in the stories on the website. And right there in the About Us section was a picture of Gabe’s whole family. It must have been taken years ago, because Gabe was a teenager, gangly and thin faced. His two sisters framed him, both of them tall and beautiful. His dad had one big arm around Gabe’s mom, a woman in her late forties who wore her hair in a ponytail and her sunglasses perched on top of her head.
They looked so happy. Veronica crossed her fingers and hoped hard that everything would be okay. It wasn’t fair that a family like that could be broken up so early.
This kind of family had been Veronica’s fantasy her whole life. Even when her mom had been alive, she’d watched other kids’ fathers and wondered what it would be like to have a big laughing dad who was willing to take off work to come to the school musical performances.
After her mom had died, Veronica hadn’t really dreamed much about family at all, until the day her dad had announced that he was remarrying. His courtship had taken place entirely out of Veronica’s sight, so she’d had no picture of who this new woman would be. But her mind had formed someone a lot like that picture of Gabe’s mom. Pretty and funny and a little no-nonsense. A woman who would come in and organize their sterile little household into a real family.
Veronica had been utterly off base. Her stepmother had swept into Veronica’s life and reorganized the household, all right, but her main goal had been resetting the flow of the home so that it all revolved around her and her son. If Veronica had had a stepbrother like Gabe, everything would have been different.
Okay, maybe not like Gabe. That would have been an awful made-for-TV movie. My Brother, My Lover. So someone just as kind as Gabe but without Gabe’s lust-inducing pheromones. That would’ve been perfect.
She did a load of laundry and made herself breakfast, checking her phone about five times a minute to be sure Gabe hadn’t texted.
At 6:00 a.m. just as she was dozing off on her couch, there was a quiet knock on the door. She raced over and jerked it open.
Gabe’s heavy eyes widened for a moment. “I didn’t want to wake you,” he said.
“I couldn’t sleep.” She opened the door wide and pulled him in out of the predawn cold. His fingers felt chilled. “How is he?”
“The same. Still stable, though. They think it was a pretty minor heart attack as far as damage, but he’ll still be in the hospital for a few days.”
“Thank God.” She put her arms around him and tried to absorb some of the cold from his body.
He kissed the top of her head. “Veronica, I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be silly. There’s nothing to be sorry for. Did you get a flight?”
His chin rubbed her head when he nodded.
“What time?”
“Nine-thirty. We should get in by 5:00 p.m. Someone offered Monique a free tour of Yellowstone, so she’s going to stay at my place for a couple more days. But she won’t eat these, so I brought them for you.”
She pulled back to see a plastic container in one of his hands.
“My mom’s cookies,” he explained.
“Oh, Gabe. That’s so sweet.” She blinked hard, but she still had to wipe a tear from her cheek as she took the cookies to the kitchen.
“She’s a great baker. Not so great at cooking, but my dad took care of that. He does take care of that, I mean. He’d come home to make us dinner sometimes before going back to work. He’s always worked way too hard.”
She nodded. She knew what that was like, at least. “Do you want some tea or coffee? Do you need to go?”
“I should go,” he said, but he didn’t move.
“How is Naomi?” she asked.
He shook his head. “She’s okay,” he said, but then his words went quick and hoarse. “I need to tell you something. Can we sit down?”
Fear shot through her at the hopeless look in his eyes. She took his hand and led him to the couch. His fingers squeezed hers too hard, but then they slipped away. He spread his hands out against his own thighs and stared at them for a long moment.
“I’m really sorry,” he said again.
“Why do you keep saying that? Your dad had a heart attack. Why would you apologize for something like that?”
He took a deep breath. “Because...I don’t think I’m coming back.”
She froze and her heart held still for a long moment before it raced to catch up with her anxiety. “What?”
“My dad... He’s going to need help.”
“Gabe, you don’t know that yet. He could be back to normal soon. Try to be positive.”
But he was shaking his head. “He won’t be able to keep up this pace.”
“He has managers and people to help him, doesn’t he? Maybe it’ll take a few weeks to get everything running smoothly, but—”
“You don’t understand,” he interrupted. “I was worried about something like this. He works too hard. He doesn’t take care of himself, but he won’t sell the company to anyone else. He’s determined to keep it in the family, so I told him I’d take over when he turned sixty.”
“How old is he?” she asked.
“Fifty-nine.”
“Fifty-nine?” She didn’t understand what he meant. “That’s... You just moved to Jackson. That doesn’t make any sense.”
“I have a one-year contract with the library.”
“What?” she breathed.
“It wasn’t a permanent position. I was brought in to get digital lending up and running, because...” He glanced at her face and stopped talking. “Veronica. I was going to tell you...”
She stared into his sad brown eyes and shook her head. “Another thing you meant to tell me and didn’t?”
He winced.
“It doesn’t matter,” she managed to say despite that her throat was closing up. “I get it.”
“I came here to live the life I wanted for a year,” he explained.
“Right,” she said. “Of course.”
“But now I don’t think I can wait a year. If Dad’s okay... I need to make sure he stays okay. I need to go back.”
“Sure.” Her whole body buzzed with the shock of it. He was leaving. He’d always been leaving. That was all right, though, wasn’t it? They weren’t in love.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to tell you over the phone from New York. I just—”
“It’s fine,” she cut in. “You didn’t promise anything. I told you this wasn’t that kind of first time. It was casual.”
“It wasn’t,” he said immediately. “It wasn’t like that for me.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?” she snapped. “Either it was casual and it didn’t mean anything, or it meant something and you lied to me. Again.”
“I...” He scrubbed his hands over his face. “I’m sorry. This whole thing got away from me. It’s been intense from the start, and I didn’t know when to tell you.”
Intense. Right. She stood up. “We can’t do this right now. You need to go make sure your dad is okay. The phone will be better, anyway.”
“No, it won’t. I want you to know that I wasn’t lying to you. I want to stand here and tell you that if I don’t come back, it’s not because I don’t want to.”
She backed up because he was standing now, too, and she just wanted to hug him. She wanted to cry, and she didn’t know why. “It doesn’t matter. It was only a few dates.”
“That’s not true.”
“Then you were lying!” she yelled, wishing she could take it back even before her words settled over them. He didn’t need this right now. She didn’t even know why she felt so angry. It pushed at her skin like panic, trying to claw deeper. “You let me feel things for you,” she said, trying to keep her voice low. “Things I wouldn’t have let myself feel if I knew you were leaving.”
“I know,” he groaned. “But I knew I was leaving and I still felt those things. I don’t think it would’ve mattered, Veronica.”
“You should have let me decide that!”
“I’m sorry.” He pressed his hands to his forehead and cursed. “I thought we’d have time. I thought we could figure it out.”
“Well, we don’t have time.” Pain raked at her insides. She crossed her arms hard and tried to push it down. “You didn’t have to ask me to trust you, you know. You didn’t have to act like you were being so honest, because I believed you, and now I feel stupid.”
“Please don’t. You’re not stupid.”
She laughed. “Thanks.”
“I’m sorry, Veronica. I just... My family needs me.” He moved toward her, his hands reaching out. “But if I can find a way—”
Veronica backed up, afraid for him to touch her. If he touched her, she’d start crying. She’d cling to him and breathe him in and she’d never want to let him go. There was no reason for that, she told herself. She barely knew him.
He dropped his hands. His face fell.
“You need to go. We don’t...we don’t need to talk about this again, but please let me know how your dad is, okay? And tell Naomi I’m thinking of her, too.”
He watched her, his hands still open at his sides, as if he was pleading.
If he moved toward her again, she wouldn’t have the will to say no. She didn’t want to. This might be her very last chance to touch him, and she didn’t have the strength to reject that chance.
But he didn’t move closer. His hands turned slowly back in toward his body. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes as he exhaled. “I’ll call you as soon as I can.”
She would’ve told him that wasn’t necessary, but maybe he needed someone to talk to. She couldn’t be so harsh when he was scared for his father. “Do you need a ride to the airport?”
“No. Monique will take us in my car.”
They stood in silence for a few seconds, tension drawing so tight between them she thought she might snap, but then he nodded and turned. “Goodbye,” he said. “I’m sorry.” And he was gone, shutting the door behind him before she could even respond.
She pressed her hand to her mouth, holding back a cry or a sob or some word she couldn’t even anticipate.
She shouldn’t have let him leave like that. Not with his father still in danger. “I’m sorry,” she whispered against her own skin. She wanted to chase after him and hold him and tell him everything was fine, that she was fine. But she felt stupid for even considering it.
This wasn’t a movie, and he wasn’t her boyfriend. They’d had sex a few times and they hadn’t even pretended to be in love. It had been a hookup. Now it was over, and his mind was already back in New York, where he belonged.
Gabe had been an amazing lover. More than she’d ever hoped for. But it was over now, so she let him go. For good.