CHAPTER NINE

A few months ago, Gabriel and I had sat on the shores of Lake Michigan and talked about our dream vacation homes, places we’d go to get away from the city and Cainsville and all they entailed. Mine had been a cabin on the lake, where I could read and relax on the deck. That’s what Gabriel had found for me.

After dinner, we sat on the back deck, watching the waves. The sun had dropped, taking any warmth with it. We had a fire roaring inside and the chalet radiators jacked up, with the rear windows and door wide open to let that heat flood out. We sat right on the deck, in a nest of every blanket and pillow we could find. And we had wine. An amazing—and very expensive—Bordeaux, probably another untouched gift from a client.

Between the fire and the blankets and the wine, we kept warm through the first hour of conversation, but as we entered the second, Lloergan had retreated indoors to lie by the fire, and I could no longer hide my chattering teeth.

“Let’s go in,” Gabriel said.

“I don’t want to.”

“If you’re—”

“I’ll be fine,” I said as I tugged the blanket higher. I managed to stop my teeth from chattering…only to start shivering convulsively.

“Here,” he said, and held out the blanket he was using.

I shook my head and shifted closer to pull it over both of us. He put his arm out, motioning for me to come closer still, and I didn’t need a second invitation. I sat beside him. Then I inched closer, as casually as I could, chatting and sipping wine. He put his arm around me, and a few minutes later I was snuggled up against his side, his arm around me.

“Better?” he said.

The pile of blankets trapped our body heat and made it very toasty. But if I admitted I was fine, he might shift aside. So I nodded, chattering my teeth a little, which gave me the excuse to snuggle closer still. He tugged me over until I was curled up in his lap, his arms around me, and I decided I heartily approved of this “lakeside cabin in December” plan.

If I gave another shiver, it wasn’t the cold, but the fact I was snuggled up with Gabriel, feeling the heat of his body, smelling the scent—his scent—that permeated his bed when he would insist I sleep there, and I’d wake from dreams I didn’t want to have, not while I’d been with Ricky. Dreams that I was allowed to have now, even if they left me aching and torn between hoping that one day they’d no longer be dreams and fearing they always would.

When I shivered, he mistook it for a lingering chill. His arms tightened around me, and he lowered his face to my hair, and I could feel his breath and the pound of his heart, and all I could think was this.

This, this, this.

This is what I want. This is more than I ever thought I could have with him, and I want to stay just like this for as long as I can, not breathe, not move a muscle in case the buzz of the wine passes and he pulls away.

I closed my eyes and listened to the sound of his breathing, and then I smelled wildflowers. Smelled wildflowers and felt the heat of the sun and arms around me, and I was thinking the same things. Don’t breathe, don’t move, or you’ll spook. He’ll realize what he’s doing and it’ll be over.

“You’re certain you’re all right?” It was Gwynn’s voice, young. “You scared the life out of me, Mati, seeing you tumble like that.”

No. I squeezed my eyes shut and pushed the vision aside.

I like you just fine, Gwynn. I like those little glimpses into what was, those touchstones with the past. But right now, I want Gabriel.

One last mental shove, and I smelled the lake and Gabriel.

There. That’s better.

I snuggled in, and he rubbed his thumb over my cheek.

“Still cold,” he said, and tugged the blanket higher.

“At least I didn’t fall in the water again,” I said. “Now that was cold.”

He went still, and I replayed my words, wondering if there was any other way to interpret them.

“The river, I mean,” I said. “When we fell in the river.”

I shivered for dramatic effect, but he stayed tense, his breathing slowed, his arms stiff around me.

Damn it. What did I do now?

“I…have a question,” he said.

Now I was the one tensing. “Okay.”

“If a thing occurred, and one party was not aware that it occurred, and the other party did not intend for it to occur, should the second party admit that it did? If the thing is a thing that may cause discomfort? The answer, I believe, should be no, that the second party should not admit to it. But if the second party worries that somehow the first party will find out, and in keeping the secret, the second party will seem complicit in the action, which will cause additional discomfort…”

I twisted to look up at him. “I have no idea what you’re saying, Gabriel.”

He nodded, a little curtly, and started to pull away.

Goddamn it, no. What was I supposed to say?

He stopped withdrawing and stayed still for a moment. Then he settled in, awkwardly now, as if he wasn’t quite sure how he’d done it before.

“Let me simplify that,” he said. “I’m going to tell you something you may not want to hear, and I hope I’m not doing it merely to assuage a guilty conscience, but if I am, I apologize.”

“Noted.”

“It’s about your fall into the river. When I rescued you, you were cold, as you say. Very cold. Also unconscious, and as I was trying to warm you up, you—” He cut himself off and shook his head. “No. Not you. It was me. I may have…” Another head shake, sharper now. “There’s no may about it. No equivocating. I did. That is to say, I…”

He trailed off.

“I kissed you, didn’t I?” I said. “I was dreaming of swimming with Gwynn, to this place he had with Matilda, a cavern under the lake. I dreamed of that, and I kissed you.”

After a moment, he said, carefully, “You may have started it, but that’s no excuse. I did not…I didn’t stop you. I…” He cleared his throat. “I thought you had regained consciousness, and I was having difficulty organizing my thoughts.”

“Hypothermia causes mental confusion. I wasn’t the only one freezing in that water.”

“Yes.” A pause. “I mean, no. While there may have been some of that, I’m not making excuses, Olivia. Once I was certain you were not conscious enough to know what you were doing, I stopped. But I let it proceed longer than I should have. I thought you knew what you were doing and I wasn’t thinking straight and…”

He squeezed his eyes shut. “And that’s more excuses, which dull an apology. Which is what this is. An apology. You were very clearly not aware of what you were doing, and I took advantage of that, however inadvertently, and I want to apologize.”

“There’s no need.”

“Yes, there—”

“No.” I twisted on his lap and looked him square in the face. “I’m not trying to deny you an apology, Gabriel. I’m saying it honestly isn’t necessary.”

Because the dream may have started with Gwynn and Matilda, but when I was kissing Gabriel, I’d been dreaming of kissing him.

Now I just needed to say that. One tiny step.

It should be so easy. He’d admitted to returning my kiss, therefore my advance, however unintentional, had not been unwelcome. Yet I’d spent so long analyzing that I couldn’t help doing it even here.

Screw it. Just screw it. If I waited for every damn omen to align, I’d grow old and gray.

“I actually wasn’t—” I began.

Gabriel’s phone sounded. We both jumped.

“So…apparently we have cell service,” I said.

He went to hit a button—Ignore, I hoped—but the phone stopped before he could.

“All right,” I said. “Full speed ahead. It wasn’t Gwynn I was—”

The phone rang again. Gabriel went to hit it again, harder, and then he stopped. I saw the screen, showing a division of the Chicago Police Department. He moved his finger over Ignore, slower now.

“You need to answer that,” I said. “Or we’re both going to spend the night wondering which client has gotten himself in trouble.”

“I’ll be quick.”

He rose to take the call inside, away from the pounding surf. I followed and stoked the fire, hearing only the crackle and snap of that as he talked. Then there was a crash behind me, and I leapt up to see Gabriel’s cell phone at the foot of the wall…where he’d thrown it.

He unclenched his fists, blinked, and stared at the phone as if not knowing how it got there. When he saw me watching, he looked down at his hand.

“It…” he began, and then trailed off, as if he’d been about to say it had slipped before realizing that was logistically impossible. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“For what? Getting angry and throwing your phone? Not an indictable offense, Gabriel.” I walked over and bent to pick up his cell. “It’s an inanimate object, easily replaced. It doesn’t even look that badly damaged. Try harder next time.”

I quirked a smile at him, but he didn’t seem to notice, just stood there, frozen and wide-eyed. In his face, I saw a much younger Gabriel, a boy who’d let his roiling anger spill over, instantly regretting it, terrified of the consequences.

I set the phone on the table. “Was the call about Seanna?”

“Yes.”

I winced. “She’s in trouble.”

“The detective wouldn’t tell me over the phone. She only said I need to go there. And I…” Gabriel swallowed. “I don’t want to.”

“You don’t have to. I’ll handle this. Lloe? Time for a ride.”

Gabriel shook his head. “You can’t—”

“Yep, I absolutely can. Let me do this for you. I’ll gather the data as if Seanna were any other potential client. Then she can sit in a jail cell until morning. Hell, with a little help from Lydia, we can make sure she sits there until Monday, meaning you and I can continue our weekend away.”

He hesitated.

“There’s no reason you need to do this,” I said.

“And what should I do instead? Pace the floor? Wait for you to come back and tell me what happened?” He lowered his voice. “That doesn’t help, Olivia. I know you mean well, but the best way for me to take this weekend off is to tackle this first. Get it out of the way. We’ll come back tomorrow night and start again.”

“Promise?”

“Yes. No matter what she’s done, we’ll be back.”