Chapter Fourteen

Nan was like a fire in Gabe’s blood, and his helplessness to save the life of a little girl fanned the flames. He wanted to tear off Nan’s clothing, shed his own, and lose himself in her, not only once, but again and again, letting himself become so dizzy with desire and passion that he wouldn’t be able to think.

But, oh, God, she was so incredibly sweet, a precious package that should be carefully unwrapped so as not to damage the ribbons and pretty paper. Though need slammed through him in urgent waves, more intense than he’d felt with any other woman, he tried to gentle his kisses and his touch, nibbling hungrily but persuasively at her lips to teach her the primal dance of tongues that would fan the embers of her ardor, so long banked and buried. He stretched out with her on the coverlet, canopying her slender body with his own, his weight resting on one arm and hip. Feathering light kisses along the curve of her cheek, he found the sensitive hollow under her shell-like ear and traced teasing circles there with his tongue. He had imagined doing this so many times that it seemed as if he’d done it before, only nothing he’d conjured in his mind could compare to the reality. Lavender and silken skin. Tendrils of golden hair that wisped against his jaw like bits of goose down, so soft, so fine, so absolutely feminine. When she moaned and arched her body against him, he nearly lost control.

But this was Nan, not some woman he’d hired to satisfy his physical needs. Nan, whose laughter had been a prize hard won, whose trust was a priceless gift, and whose innocence humbled him. She caught his face between her slender hands and angled her head to settle her mouth over his, flicking shyly at his lips with the tip of her tongue. Need knotted in his groin, the ache spreading upward. His manhood throbbed and pushed against the fly of his jeans.

In between kisses, she whispered, “I love you, Gabriel. I love you so very much.” She sighed into his mouth, her breath honey sweet. “I shall thank God every day for the rest of my life for bringing you to me.”

“I love you, too,” he whispered back, his voice thick with desire. “Oh, God, sweetheart, I love you, too.”

As Gabe uttered the words, they slithered through his mind like venomous snakes, sinking their fangs into his conscience and releasing their poison. He froze above her, his breath coming in tortured, ragged gasps. He loved her. This wasn’t mere fondness that he felt. He’d fallen completely and irrevocably in love with this gentle, wonderful woman, and now he was about to betray her trust by taking the gift of her body when a monstrous lie and a web of deceit hung between them.

He jerked away from her, filled with self-loathing. She wouldn’t thank God every day for the rest of her life. On Friday at dawn, he was going to die and leave her, and there was nothing, absolutely nothing within his power to change that. He could hold her and cherish her and protect her for only three more days.

Gabe sprang from the bed, caught his balance, and stared at her, his aching lungs grabbing for breaths that couldn’t breach the clench of his throat. Nan stirred and blinked up at him in bewilderment.

“Gabriel?” She stretched a hand toward him. “What is it? Come back to me. Whatever I did, I—I’ll not d-do it again.”

“It’s not you,” he rasped, thrusting his hands into his hair and making hard fists, glad of the pain, because he hoped it would clear his head. His throat felt as if it were being vised by a hangman’s noose. “I . . . can’t . . . do . . . this,” he squeezed out. And then, as if driven by a demon within him, he threw back his head and screamed the words. “I can’t do this, damn you!” He heard Nan’s frightened gasp and saw her recoil as words boiled past his lips. “I won’t do this! It’s a bargain with the devil I’ve made! Do you hear me! I’m done with it!”

A jolt shot through Nan’s body as Gabriel left the room and slammed the door behind him. The portal hit its frame with such force the walls vibrated. She heard his feet pounding down the stairs. Breathing fast, her body still thrumming with yearning, she sat up slowly, so astounded—no, stunned—that her brain felt frozen. Then the reality of the situation slowly sank in. She’d just offered herself to the man she loved, and he’d turned her down flat.

Nan didn’t cry. The pain that lacerated her chest ran so deep it made her bones ache. Gabriel. She hugged her arms around her waist and slowly started to rock, so tortured with myriad emotions—pain, bewilderment, and a sick sense of rejection—that she wanted to scream, but she had no voice. The silence of the room, broken only by the incessant ticking of the alarm clock, pounded against her ears. Her eyes remained dry, burning in their sockets like smoldering coals. Love, she realized, wasn’t always a priceless gift; sometimes it was a person’s worst agony.

•   •   •

Gabe went to the livery, threw a saddle on Brownie, and sent the horse down the silent street at breakneck speed to get out of Random. He didn’t know where he meant to go, just that he needed to escape. The hard blowing of the gelding finally forced Gabe to slow the pace to a walk, and then, his head so muddled he couldn’t reason past the tangle of his thoughts, only lifelong habit made him continue at that speed to cool down his mount.

When Brownie’s lathered neck finally dried, Gabe drew the horse to a stop and swung down from the saddle. He left the gelding’s reins to dangle, not really caring if the horse spooked and ran. Not that Brownie would ever hare off and leave. Over the last ten years, the equine had been Gabe’s only true friend, ever faithful, never faltering.

This far from town, beyond even the farms that skirted the community, Gabe knew he could scream at the top of his lungs and be heard by only the horse and wild critters. And that was precisely what he did—scream. The immeasurable anger that churned within him was impossible to contain, and the worst part of all was that Gabe didn’t know for sure with whom he was most furious, the angels or himself.

“I’m finished!” He yelled the words with such rage that the tendons along his throat stung. “The deal is off!” When he heard no response, he doubled his fist and punched at the darkening sky. “I was a fool to agree to your terms in the first place! I’m not saving Nan! I’m destroying her! Breaking her heart! Ruining her life!” Heaving for breath, Gabe stood with his feet spread and his head hanging back to glare at the sky. Brownie cocked his ears at his master. Gabe ignored the horse’s mildly astonished expression. “Gabriel! Do you hear me?” he roared. “Dammit, answer me! To hell with my mission! I quit! I don’t care! Just do like you said you would if I mucked this up and erase her memory! Now! She’s hurting! Do you understand that?” He stared wildly around to see if the angel was going to materialize but saw only a startled-looking prairie dog peering cautiously at him, his head and forepaws poked out of his hole. Somehow that made him even madder. He’d never liked being ignored, even by an angel.

“You listen to me, dammit, Gabriel! I let her fall in love with a lie! I set her up to break her heart! She believed it could be forever, that if she let herself care, I’d always be there for her! But that’s not the way of it. I don’t have a lifetime to give her, only three miserable days!”

Silence answered him. The prairie dog vanished. The gloaming began to deepen, and Gabe started to panic. Where the hell was Gabriel? Why wasn’t he at least answering? Gabe didn’t care if all the fury of heaven rained down on him; he was reneging on the deal, finished, done.

Exhaustion finally drove him toward a boulder, where he sat and hung his head. He’d yelled himself out. Darkness settled over the rolling, grassy landscape, making Gabe feel like a tiny speck in its vastness. His throat felt raw. The bite of the wind cut through his shirt, chilling him to the bone. Soon not even a star winked to brighten the darkness. Brownie came to nuzzle at his shoulder, his warm breath somehow making Gabe feel less alone. He hugged the horse’s silky neck, pressing his cheek against the animal’s solid reality. The gelding chuffed, gave Gabe a gentle bump, and moved away.

“I don’t understand,” Gabe whispered. “Why’d you send me here? Why? A second chance, you told me.” He searched the endless expanse of sky. “I was supposed to get it all right this time. Only, the truth of it is, by following your damned rules, all I did was make the same mistakes all over again. Guard my own back, save my own ass; those were always my mottoes. And that hasn’t changed. It’s still all about saving myself.”

Gabe listened to the low moan of the night wind, the swishing whispers of countless blades of grass, the faint grinding sound of Brownie’s jaws as he snatched a few mouthfuls of prairie grass. The horse’s teeth clanked slightly against the bit as he chewed. And then a truly horrible thought struck Gabe: What if he had imagined it all? What if he’d never taken that predawn walk up Main and been shot dead? What if Pete Raintree didn’t even exist? That first morning, Gabe had toyed with the idea that he might have had too many whiskeys the prior night and somehow injured his head. Only the angel Gabriel’s rebuttal on the boardwalk in front of the hotel had driven that suspicion from Gabe’s mind.

But what if the angel hadn’t been real? What if everything Gabe believed he’d experienced had never happened? Was his mind playing tricks on him?

No, no. That couldn’t be right, Gabe assured himself. He couldn’t have conjured up all those details about Nan’s past without help. He’d known too much, things no one could possibly learn, not even if he hired the best agents available and had them investigate Nan for years. Gabe recalled the scenes he’d witnessed through the parting of the clouds, and he knew, way deep inside, that he couldn’t have dreamed all those details. In person, he’d never yet seen Nan half-dressed, but he was willing to bet she had a dark little freckle or mole on the swell of her right breast.

He slowly released a weary breath. Clearly neither angel planned to communicate with him. Why, he couldn’t imagine. He’d just scotched the bargain, and now, unless they reined him in, he would, in a sense, be like a runaway horse, unpredictable and without direction. Maybe he’d automatically damned himself through both his actions and his screaming that the deal was off. He’d certainly yelled loud enough for his words to echo for miles.

So be it. Gabe pushed up from the rock, stood gazing at the sky for several seconds to give his celestial mentors a final chance to speak, and then strode to his horse. Fine, he thought as he swung back into the saddle. Leave me to muddle through on my own. If that’s your plan, then I’m doing this my way from here on out. And I’m starting with Nan. Even if she doesn’t believe me and thinks I’m crazy, I’m telling her the truth, every last bit of it.

As Gabe rode toward Random, at a much slower pace this time, he wondered if Nan would even know him now. The angels had promised that they’d erase her memory if he messed up. And he’d sure as hell messed up. She was not supposed to be hurt. The thought that Nan might not recognize him stabbed Gabe’s heart. But, hey, it wasn’t as if he could offer her anything. Three lousy days. In a way, he’d be relieved—at least for her—if she remembered nothing about him.

Now he had to figure out how to approach her so that if she knew him, he wouldn’t ram his boot into his mouth any farther than he already had, but not scare the crap out of her if her memory had been erased. Great choices here, Gabriel. Gabe hoped the angels were having themselves a good laugh.

•   •   •

When Nan grew upset, she worked. It was her way of escaping—losing herself in a project, finding calm in the mindless rhythm of simply doing, and blocking out whatever pained her. From long habit, she had done that this evening, seeking refuge in her project room downstairs. She had three hats in progress, and the dratted gown for Geneva. She couldn’t face that hideous gown tonight, so she gravitated toward a particularly challenging hat, which begged for something—a different angle with the arrangement, a focal point of color, or perhaps a complete new start.

Normally, growing immersed in her work lulled Nan into a numb state, compartmentalizing her mind so that her emotions were tucked neatly away in a corner. Not tonight. Her husband’s eyes, the memory of those burning kisses, the feel of his arms crushing her close, refused to be dislodged by bits of millinery. She stabbed her fingertip with a pin and bled on a flower. The appearance of the hat frustrated her so much that she ended up tearing everything off it. And then, after fussing with it for well over two more hours, she finally gave up.

What she needed was a good long cry, but the tears wouldn’t come. She recalled hearing or reading that some heartbreak ran too deep for tears. And the pain she felt over Gabriel ran very deep. She’d sworn never to love a man, and fool that she was, she’d gone and done it anyway. If she lived to be a very old woman, she would never forget the humiliation she’d felt when he sprang away from her. Just deserts. Any woman who lost her heart to a man was asking for grief. Now she had to pick up the pieces, glue them back together, and move forward. If she couldn’t do it for herself, she had to do it for Laney.

With a start, she remembered that the boy and dog hadn’t yet been fed. Dark and late though it now was, she couldn’t leave them to go hungry all night. Glad to have something, anything, to distract her from thoughts of Gabriel, she rushed upstairs, rifled through the icebox, and found enough leftover food to fill both of their bellies. Champion. This way, she wouldn’t have to cook when the mere thought of eating made her stomach clench. She prepared sandwiches for the boy, filled a bottle with milk, and tossed what remained into the pail.

When she stepped from her shop, a rush of uneasiness came over her. A lady should never walk about town unescorted after dark. It could be dangerous, especially near the saloon. Stuff and nonsense. She would make fast work of delivering a meal to the boy and be gone in a blink. If some drunk did start down the brothel stairway, she’d be out of sight before he ever gained the walkway. As for going out behind Lizzy’s, Nan thought that would be safe enough. No miscreant was likely to be sharing the lean-to with a dog.

Hurrying through the night, Nan swiftly executed her acts of kindness and made her way back to the shop. She half expected to find Gabriel there when she stepped inside. He’d left his personal effects and would have to return at some point to fetch them. He was a decisive individual, and it would be just like him to waste no time in coming. Somehow, though, she knew the moment she stepped into the building that her husband wasn’t there. Gabriel had a way of filling the very air with his presence, and Nan’s senses always picked up on that.

She sighed, relieved that she didn’t have to face him right then. When he did show up, she intended to be the very picture of serenity. Never would she reveal to him how deep his rejection had pierced. Never would she let him see that he’d broken her heart.

•   •   •

After returning to the livery, Gabe spent nearly an hour grooming Brownie, not because the horse actually required that amount of attention, but because Gabe needed time to think before he faced Nan. If the angels had kept their promise and she didn’t remember him, he at least had to learn where she’d tucked the Pinkerton Agency report. She’d probably think he was a lunatic if he began searching her shop, but he absolutely had to find the document and then place it where Nan would be sure to come across it later. The Pinkerton investigation had set her free from her past. No dead fiancé, no murder charge. The angels could erase every other memory of Gabe from Nan’s mind, but Gabe wouldn’t allow that information to be taken from her.

Apart from that, Gabe would accept what came. With no recollection of him, she would revert back to the Nan he’d first met, a fussy spinster who fretted over her clocks, rigidly adhered to the rules of propriety, and rarely laughed. Even if she happened upon the roses he’d ordered from Denver and planned to leave atop a fence post behind the woodpile right before he walked up Main on Christmas morning, she wouldn’t recall their conversation about Santa and wouldn’t know the flowers were from him.

On the other hand, if she did remember him, Gabe had a heap of explaining to do, and when he went over the story in his mind, he had a bad feeling that Nan probably wouldn’t believe it. If someone had told him the same story, he sure as shooting wouldn’t.

After puttering as long as he could, Gabe set off up Main Street, his gaze fixed on Nan’s illuminated shop windows. So, she was downstairs. Working, probably. Whether she remembered the earlier bedchamber debacle or not, she’d have her hands busy. It was how she held unpleasantness at bay.

Gabe was just passing in front of the hotel when a voice called out behind him. “Valance!” a youngish male voice hollered. “Turn around.”

Incredulous, Gabe froze. This was not supposed to happen. He’d lived through this month. He’d lived through this very night, in fact. He slowly turned to face his challenger, feeling so weary of it all that he nearly sighed.

In the squares of light cast by the street-side hotel windows, a kid stood about twenty feet away, feet spread, one hand poised over his gun holster. Gabe doubted he was much older than seventeen—tall, skinny as a well-gnawed chicken bone—and quivering with either excitement or fear. Gabe guessed it was the latter. It was scary the first time you faced a man in the street. All kinds of thoughts went through your mind, first and foremost being that if you went for your gun, the other fellow would shoot back.

Well, not this time. Gabe had only three more days left to live. He didn’t really give a shit if he had to check out early, and he saw no point in taking a boy along with him. He’d died the first time regretting that he’d killed Pete Raintree, and he wasn’t a man who liked making the same mistake twice, even though he’d done precisely that often enough. “Out to make a name for yourself, son?” Gabe asked.

“I ain’t standin’ here to talk, Valance. Draw. What’s the matter? You turnin’ yellow?”

Gabe nearly smiled. “Nope, I’m turning my back.” He pivoted on his heel, resuming his walk toward the shop. “Go ahead. Just be sure of your aim. I don’t want a slug in my kidney.”

“Turn back around!” the kid yelled. “I mean it! Come back here! Or I’ll kill you dead!”

Technically Gabe was already dead. And because he’d already died once, he wasn’t afraid to go through it again. Pretty simple stuff, actually. Even so, he flinched when he heard the hammer of the kid’s gun cock. “You ever known a back shooter who got congratulated and patted on the shoulder?” Gabe called out. “Is that the reputation you’re aiming to get, son? You’ll be talked about in saloons from here to Frisco, all right, but not for your bravery or your skill with a gun.”

“I ain’t no back shooter! I wanna face you, fair and square.”

Gabe kept walking.

“You crazy or somethin’?” the boy hollered. “I gotta bead dead center on your spine!”

“Then shoot,” Gabe suggested. “Either that or holster your weapon and go home. There’s nothing worse than a man who talks it to death and never does anything.”

Gabe angled left and gained the boardwalk. He knew then that the boy wouldn’t pull the trigger. He strode purposefully to Nan’s shop door, started to walk in, and then thought better of it. He angled a glance over his shoulder to be sure the kid had skedaddled. The last thing he wanted was for Nan to catch a stray bullet. When Gabe saw no one in the street, he rapped his knuckles against the glass. Watching through the door window, he saw Nan emerge from her downstairs workroom. As always, she looked beautiful, and moved across the room with precisely measured steps. She wore the same pretty blue dress that he’d yearned to tear from her body only hours ago.

He braced himself as she drew open the door, uncertain which Nan he’d be facing: the one he’d first met or the one he’d left that afternoon.

Hand still grasping the doorknob, she stared up at him for an endlessly long moment, her expression unreadable. Then, in a flat voice, she said, “Gabriel.”

He wasn’t sure if that pleased him or did quite the opposite. “So you remember me.”

His words rattled her composure. He saw her shoulders tense and glimpsed a flash of bewilderment in her eyes. “Well, of course I remember you. It’s been only a few hours since I, um, saw you.”

She spun to retrace her steps to the workroom, leaving the door open wide. Over her shoulder, she said, “Your things are upstairs, right where you left them. I’m quite busy, so I’d greatly appreciate it if you’d vacate the premises with as little fuss and bother as possible.”

Gabe had rehearsed what he would say if she remembered him, but now every single word eluded him. “I love you, Nan.” He paused to swallow the cotton in his throat. “I know I hurt you this afternoon by taking off the way I did, but it wasn’t because I don’t love you and want you.”

She stopped in her tracks and spun to face him. “You . . . you love me?” Her eyes went bright with tears. “I think you made your feelings quite clear this afternoon. Get your things and get out, Gabriel. I’m not interested in hearing anything more that you have to say.”

Gabe closed the door and followed her into her work area. She shot him a fulminating glare. “What are you doing?” she cried. “I politely asked you to leave.”

“Not so politely,” he replied. “And as you can see, I’m not going to oblige you.”

She folded her arms and began tapping her toe, a habit of hers when she grew agitated. Oh, how he wished in that moment that the angels had erased her memory of him. He’d hurt her in ways that might never heal. She clung to her self-control by a thread. In her eyes, he saw the supreme effort it cost her. The rigidity of her posture was also a telltale sign to someone who knew her so well.

“So say what you must and then leave.”

There were two chairs at the table, one for Nan and one for a customer. Geneva White spent a goodly part of each morning in here, supervising the creation of her gown, which was becoming the worst eyesore Gabe had ever seen.

Gabe gestured for Nan to take a seat. She fidgeted for a moment, clearly not enthused about sitting across from him. But being the intelligent and practical woman she was, she finally gathered her skirts and perched on the seat, reminding him of a small bird prepared for quick flight. Recalling his manners, Gabe reached to remove his Stetson, then realized that he hadn’t grabbed it on his way out.

He sighed as he sat down. When he braced his crossed arms on the table, Nan drew back slightly. Gabe wished . . . Well, he wasn’t sure what. His not making love to her this afternoon had wounded her, but he couldn’t honestly say that he’d do things differently. A woman like Nan didn’t give her body lightly, and Gabe wasn’t the lucky chap who had a right to accept that gift unless she knew the whole truth about him first. Only how could he explain it to her? Gabe wasn’t sure where to start.

So he plunged in with, “That first morning when I came into your shop, I didn’t just suddenly up and decide that marrying you was a great idea. I was sent here by two angels.”

Nan rolled her eyes and puffed air into her cheeks, releasing it in a huff that said more clearly than words that she’d never heard such bunkum. “Have you been drinking?” she asked. Her tone was done to a crisp.

“It’s true!” Gabe insisted.

He began to tell her the whole story, beginning with leaving an upstairs room of the brothel, seeing the boy under the staircase, and then walking farther up Main later, drawn by the candlelight in Nan’s shop window. He left nothing out, not even the less-than-complimentary remarks the angels had made about his miserable failures to be a decent person. He even related all that he’d seen through the parting of the clouds as he was shown the three souls he could choose from to save: Tyke Baden, the abandoned boy, and Nan. Her expression hadn’t changed from the instant he started explaining, and that expression wasn’t encouraging.

“I chose to save you in exchange for being granted eternal salvation,” he told her, his voice going thick. “And, yes, I picked you for all the wrong reasons. You were so damned beautiful, and I figured I might as well enjoy myself while I was down here. That’s all.”

Nan’s gray eyes began to smolder with anger. “Is that the best explanation you could come up with during all those hours since you slammed out of here? Do you honestly expect me to believe all this poppycock about angels and visitations and damnation? I am not and never was a lost soul!”

•   •   •

Fury licked through Nan, and even though she abhorred physical violence, she yearned to punch Gabriel Valance right on the nose. How dared he sit there and spin a pack of lies that insulted both her faith and her intelligence? Even worse, how could he possibly expect her to believe them? She started to rise from the chair, but his voice, throbbing with urgency, made her freeze.

“Don’t leave, Nan. I know it all sounds crazy. But I swear to God it’s true, every word of it. Do you honestly think I couldn’t come up with a better tale than this? Hell, I could dream up two dozen better stories that would be a lot easier for you to swallow.”

The earnestness in his dark eyes made her feel vulnerable, and she crossed her arms over her breasts. “Then you’d better talk fast, because I certainly don’t swallow this one,” she snapped.

“And lie to you? Is that really what you want from me, a bunch of lies? That’s one thing I can tell you, Nan. During all of this, except for a couple of white lies, I only ever lied to you by omission. As for your not being a lost soul, you’re absolutely right—in a sense. I have no doubt that when you die, you’ll be instantly welcomed into the presence of God. I wasn’t sent to save you from living a life of sin. I was sent because you were so very lost in other ways—fearful of marriage, harboring a disgust of men, and holding yourself apart from others.” His gaze, aching with appeal, held hers. “Remember asking me to teach you how to laugh? And realizing that you were so wrapped up in all the responsibilities of life that you couldn’t let go and enjoy its small pleasures?”

Nan did remember that, and she hated him—hated him—for reminding her. He’d sung her a lovely tune, and she’d danced for him like a marionette. She’d revealed her deepest emotions and insecurities to him, and this was her reward.

He leaned closer, still holding her gaze. “You were unhappy, and you were missing out on all the joyful stuff—falling in love, getting married, raising a passel of kids with a wonderful man. You deserve to have all of those things, and it was my assignment to help you reach out for them.”

Oh, but he was a clever liar. And he knew exactly which strings to tug. It was true that she’d always yearned for the life he described—way down deep, she’d wanted to love and be loved, to hold her own baby in her arms, to live in a real house that rang with the voices of a family. And for a brief time, she’d believed she might have all of that with this man. Now she knew that had been the height of idiocy. Gabriel Valance was not only a spinner of beautiful dreams, but also a spinner of cruel lies. He’d created that world for her, and it was all an illusion. And, oh, how she wanted to hurt him as he’d hurt her.

“So,” she said softly, “you’re to die in the street on Christmas morning just before dawn.”

He nodded.

Nan curved her lips in a smile that she hoped sliced him clear to the bone. “Well, then, Mr. Valance, I shall make a point to attend your funeral and leave a bouquet of artificial flowers on your coffin. They’ll be as real as our relationship is. Was.”

He flinched as if she’d slapped him, and Nan took satisfaction in having delivered the blow. He was a liar and a stealer of hearts. He deserved no tears from her. Once he left this building—and hopefully that would occur soon—she would never allow herself to think of him again. But now pain throbbed all through her, and it made her strike again.

“You may tell those imaginary angels of yours that I will welcome having my memory erased,” she went on, keeping her voice level with an enormous effort. “I’ll liken it to emptying out the trash.” She forced herself to look him straight in the eye. “You’ve told me absolutely nothing that you couldn’t have somehow learned in a completely worldly way. I know for a fact that you hired investigators to prove that Barclay lived. You probably hired them to dig into my past as well.”

“No investigators could have discovered all the things I know, Nan. Think. How could they have learned what happened between you and Barclay?”

He had Nan there. But she shrugged it off. “You’re a clever man. You took a lucky guess and I—very helpfully, I might add—told you all the rest.”

He sighed and hung his head for a moment. When he looked back up at her, she was startled to see tears glistening in his eyes. Real, or fake, like everything else he’d offered her? “All right. We’ll leave it there, then. It won’t really matter in the end whether you believe my story or not. But will you at least try to believe one thing?”

“What is that?” she asked, hating the quaver in her voice. God help her, but even now, knowing him for the despicable person he was, she still had feelings for him. Under the bend of her left arm, she clenched her right hand into a fist so hard that her nails cut into her flesh. Hang on, Nan. He’ll be out of here soon. You can fall apart then. But not now. Not in front of him.

“It was never my plan to fall in love with you,” he said, his voice gravelly. “But I did. Head over heels, irrevocably, I’m in love with you.” He pushed to his feet, his shoulders slumped with apparent weariness. “Until the angels wipe your memory clean, believe in at least that. The only reason I called a halt to what we were doing in the bedroom this afternoon—the one and only reason—was because I realized how much I care for you, and I couldn’t make love to you with a lie between us. It was one of the requirements, a part of the tasks assigned to me by the angels—to show you how beautiful lovemaking can be—but in the end, I couldn’t do that to a woman I love, not even to save my own ass.”

Nan refused to be moved. “Are you finished?”

“Not quite. Where did you put the Pinkerton report?”

“I put it back on the top shelf where you had it. It’s not something I want lying around where a customer might see it. My father would pay a great deal of money to learn of Laney’s whereabouts.”

Gabriel reached up to get the envelope and tossed it onto the table. “Put it someplace where you’ll be sure to come across it after your memory is erased. I don’t want you to live out the rest of your days believing you killed Barclay.”

Nan couldn’t look away from his dark face. His eyebrow wasn’t twitching, she realized, and he’d looked her directly in the eye when he said he loved her. She remembered what he’d told Laney: that the most important thing for her to do when a man professed his love was to search deep within her heart and decide whether or not she believed him.

Nan felt as if the floor turned to water beneath her chair. Gabriel reached for the curtain. In an instant, he would step out of this small room and then out of her life. And if his story was true, he’d die just before dawn on Christmas believing that she detested him.

“Gabriel?”

He flinched, stood with his back to her for a long moment, and then finally angled her a look over his shoulder. “What, Nan?”

“Give me something,” she whispered shakily. “Just one little tidbit of information no one could possibly know about me—unless he watched me from heaven through a parting in the clouds.”

His eyes searched hers. “I do have a tidbit of information no one could possibly know about you, Nan, but if I give it to you, I’ll be buying your faith in me. I’m not real experienced in matters of the heart, but it seems to me that if you love me—I mean really and truly love me—you should know, way deep where reason holds no sway, that I’d never come in here and tell you a pack of lies.”

Nan shot to her feet. “You’re asking me to set aside all rational thought and believe a story that is incredible. To take a . . . a mindless leap of faith!”

He smiled sadly. “You’re right. I guess that is what I’m asking. If you take a mindless leap of faith, where do you think you’ll land? Right in my arms, that’s where. If you don’t feel that’s a bad place to be, then leap, honey. I’ll catch you.”

Frozen with indecision, Nan gaped at him. And then, without even feeling herself move, she launched herself at him. True to his word, he caught her close against him. Trembling violently, Nan went up on her toes, locked both arms around his neck, and buried her face against his shirt. “Damn you! I think I hate you. No, I don’t. I take it back. I think I’m losing my mind.”

He laughed—a deep, rich rumble that she’d thought never to hear again—and tightened his embrace. Then he pressed his face against her hair, swaying on his feet and taking her with him. “Thank you,” he said, the words muffled.

“For what, damning you?”

Another chuckle shook his torso. “No, for believing me.”

Nan’s chest squeezed painfully. “I’m afraid you’ve suffered a head injury and have imagined everything, but I am convinced that you honestly believe all that you’ve told me.”

“Ah, so you think my brains are rattled, do you?” He smiled against her hair. “I wish they were, Nan. I wish they were. Then I could simply work on getting better and live into old age, loving you with every fiber of my being. Sadly, that won’t be the case. I have only three days left. You may not believe it, but it’s true. I’m not confused. I didn’t imagine anything. It happened exactly as I said. And just so you don’t get it into your head to call Doc Peterson to dose me with tonic until I regain my right mind, I’ll happily share that tidbit of information about you now, something that nobody on earth, unless it might be Laney, could possibly know.”

Nan turned her face upward to press her nose against his neck. “I’m waiting.”

“You, my sweet, beautiful, nearly perfect wife, have one tiny flaw. Well, not a flaw, really; I found it extremely enticing when I glimpsed it through the parted clouds.”

Curiosity aroused, Nan asked, “What? What did you see?”

“A mole or a dark freckle, I couldn’t tell for sure which, on your right breast. It peeked out at me over the lacy top edge of your chemise. I was so captivated that I damned near lost my balance and fell through the hole in the clouds.”

Nan stiffened. No one—not even Laney, so far as she knew—had ever seen her mole. It had appeared on her breast about two years ago, and in the time since, she’d been trying, without stellar success, to teach Laney modest behavior. Parading about in one’s underthings was not ladylike.

“Oh, dear God,” she whispered. “There’s no way you could know about that—unless you’re a keyhole peeper.”

He chuckled again. “A smart fellow like me? You’re the lady who’s handy with knitting needles. If I’d dared to press my eye to a keyhole, you probably would have stabbed me right in the pupil.”

Nan giggled. But her mirth quickly faded. Gabriel had just offered her inarguable proof of . . . well, something. She still had problems believing that he’d stood on a cloud and witnessed scenes of her life. But if he hadn’t, there was no way—absolutely no way in this world—that he could know about the mole. And if that much of his story was true, then did it follow that all of it was? And if it was—

“Oh, dear God, no!” She clung frantically to his neck. “You can’t die. Not in three days! Not even in a year! I shan’t be able to live without you!”

His mood changed swiftly with hers. “I wish I could stay with you, sweetheart. I’d give anything for that.”

“What shall we do?” she cried.

“Well, my plan is to make love to you—passionately, intensely, and nonstop—before Gabriel or Michael erases all your memories of me.”

He shifted to sweep her up in his arms, the move so unexpected that Nan squeaked with a start. As he carried her up the steep staircase, a horrible thought occurred to her.

“What if . . . well, what if they erase all my memories of you while you’re making love to me?”

Gabriel missed a step, barely managed to catch his balance by pressing his shoulder against the wall, and tucked in his chin to give her a slightly horrified look.

“I reckon I’ll say, ‘Pardon me, ma’am. I don’t know how I wound up in your bed. I’m leaving now. So please don’t scream.’”

Nan digested that, and then they both burst out laughing.

Laughter, one of Gabriel’s gifts to her. And, oh, how glorious a gift it was.