Off The Clock: First Responders, Book 1 (9 page)

How could he explain? “Because you’re…well, you’re Carly.”

She wrinkled her brow. “And that makes me undesirable?”

“God, no.” She thought she was undesirable? Even after all they’d shared? “I’ve known you forever, you know?”

“I know.”

She stared at her plate.

“I don’t want to upset you. That’s the last thing I want. I just…dammit.” A muscle ticked in his jaw. “I should have been more careful with you.”

For long seconds they sat in silence until finally Gabe forced his shoulders to relax. “I didn’t mean to complicate things. Let’s just finish our dinner, okay?” He began to pick up his fork but Carly reached out and gripped his forearm.

“No, not okay. It’s already complicated and it’s driving me crazy. I want to know why being with me was such a big mistake. I think you owe me that, Gabriel.”

She called him Gabriel. She only did that when she was particularly scared or angry. He wasn’t quite as willing to take the blame as he’d thought. Maybe because he could still smell her on his skin. He searched for the words to explain how their joined pasts made things more difficult, that she wasn’t just some woman he could be casual with. “For God’s sake, Carly. You’re Brandon’s sister.”

“So what? You and Brandon haven’t been friends for years. You should fix that, by the way.”

“You said yourself you’re not interested in a relationship after the disaster of your marriage. You’re focused on Nathan and being a good mother and you said you weren’t interested in romance. I pushed the issue, and I understand it went too far. Let’s just take a step back, okay? Find our feet again.” If they could remain friends, get back to solid footing, perhaps all wasn’t lost. They’d leapt ahead several spaces tonight and the way she slipped from the room afterward told him it had freaked her out big time.

Carly fought to hold back the tears that were stinging the backs of her eyes. Everything he said was true. She had said all those things and she had meant them. Weeks ago. She loved Nathan more than she’d thought possible, and every decision she made from here on in was with his best interests at heart.

But she was still a woman. She still had hopes and longings and needs, and tonight Gabe had exceeded all expectations and dreams. Being with him, loving him, had been insane and wonderful. Now he was being so unbearably polite—and apologizing for something he need not apologize for. Did he really believe what he was saying? Or was it his way of letting her down easy?

She’d spent years in an awkward marriage with a man who never really loved her the way they’d promised to love each other forever. She wouldn’t ever put herself in that position again. If Gabe thought they’d made a mistake, she’d gather what was left of her pride and keep on going. She was good at surviving, after all.

“Thank you for dinner,” she said, noticing her voice sounded like it belonged to someone else—higher and far too light to be attached to her current feelings. She pasted a smile on her lips and rose from the table, going to Nathan’s seat and beginning to pack up his things. “I really should be getting home so he can have his last feed and be put down in his crib for the night.”

Gabe got up from the table and she saw confusion in his eyes. She tucked a stuffed animal into the diaper bag and put it over her shoulder.

“I’ll call you,” Gabe said, coming forward. He gripped the handle of the seat and followed her to the door. She thought about insisting on taking Nathan herself but decided it was probably just as easy to make as few waves as possible.

He padded out to the car in his bare feet and fastened Nathan in the back. Carly checked the seatbelt and then straightened, keeping one hand on the door.

“Carly, are you sure we’re okay?” he asked, and she felt the words bubble up inside her. What if she let it all out? How she felt? How afraid she was? Where would her pride be then? She wouldn’t beg for his love, or hang all over him like a hopeful puppy.

He had admitted they’d made a mistake, that they’d gone too far, and that was that.

“We’re fine,” she replied. “I gotta go.”

He shut the door after she got behind the wheel, and stayed standing on the pavement as she backed out of the driveway and turned on to the road.

She was halfway home when she finally let the tears come. She’d given Gabe everything she could give tonight, and he’d handed it back to her. And the worst part of all was that she still loved him.

A week went by, and then two, and Gabe never called. Carly started having a love-hate relationship with her telephone, her heart leaping each time it rang, and then hating it when it remained silent. He’d said he’d call her. The absence of those calls spoke volumes. And Carly wasn’t going to call him. She’d done all the chasing she was ever going to do.

She wanted to say that she agreed with him. That making love had been a mistake. But she couldn’t. She didn’t regret it, or how he’d made her feel. Wanted and beautiful. That was what she chose to take away from the night, not the crushing words after.

She was in the backyard deadheading the flower beds when he came around the corner of the house. He looked more delicious than ever in a pair of board shorts and flip flops and a T-shirt that fit his shoulders perfectly. A jolt of awareness shuddered through her as she brushed off her hands, slightly sticky from picking old petunia blooms.

And as he came towards her all she could think was,
He came
.

“Hello, stranger.”
Oh, well done
, she thought. Her voice had come out all steady and cool. And he did look slightly chagrined, she noted as his steps slowed.

“Hey,” he answered back, stopping at the edge of the flower bed.

“How’ve you been?”

His dark eyes widened and she thought he looked a little confused. What had he expected? That she would fall into his arms as easily as she had last time?

“Not so good,” he replied. He met her gaze. “Sorry I didn’t call.”

“I didn’t really expect you to. It’s okay.”

Which was a damned lie.

“You didn’t?”

She picked up the bucket with the wilted blooms. “You made it pretty clear you wanted to take a step back from everything.”

“Me?” He held out his hand and then dropped it again. He stepped around the corner of the bed so they were face to face. “You were the one running scared. I stayed away to give you space.”

“Running scared?” Her fingers started to tremble on the handle of the bucket. “I distinctly remember what you said during dinner, Gabe. You were the one who said we needed to cool off.”

“Only because I saw you when you got up. When Nathan cried. You couldn’t even look at me. And you were in a big hurry to get back into your clothes. You couldn’t get away fast enough.”

Carly’s lips dropped open. “Good God, for a man who I thought was smart, you can be really dense! I wasn’t trying to get away. I was trying to get to Nathan as fast as I could so he didn’t wake you up.”

The moment hummed through the air as Gabe absorbed what she was saying.

“Then you showed up at the door and suggested dinner like nothing had happened. You were all dressed. It wasn’t come back to bed, it was come have dinner. I thought maybe I should go. And then everything you said…”

“You thought I was running scared.”

She nodded.

“But you don’t want romance.”

It was true. She had said that. Except that he was the exception and didn’t know it. She was simply afraid of screwing it up. But she was more afraid of letting him walk away this time, she realized.

“So you thought I was into one-night stands?”

“Of course not!”

“I trusted you. Don’t you understand that? I’ve always trusted you.”

“I know,” he replied, taking the bucket from her hand and putting it on the ground. “Believe me, even waiting as long as I did was torture. I said I wasn’t going to push. Only I couldn’t help myself.” He sighed and stepped forward, lifting his hand to cup her cheek. “I see you and I want to take care of you. I know how hard it is and I want to make your day easier. I don’t know what it is…” his voice dropped to a husky whisper, “…but you make a man want to do things for you.”

Carly knew of a few women whose fantasy was to be taken care of, but she wasn’t one of them. She wanted so much more than that. She blinked a few times, trying to figure out exactly how she was feeling and what she wanted to say. When Gabe leaned in again, she turned her head away while everything seemed to turn cold.

“I don’t know why I have to keep telling you this, but I’ll say it one last time, Gabriel.”

She looked him square in the eye and said firmly, “I don’t want your help. I don’t need your help. And I don’t want you hanging around out of any misplaced sense of guilt or obligation or duty.”

Carly’s heart gave a painful lurch when Gabe dropped his hand and stepped back. “Is that what you think this is about?” he asked. She tried to ignore the underlying hurt in his voice. She didn’t want to hurt him, not ever. But what he was saying…it wasn’t love. And Carly couldn’t settle for anything less. Not ever again.

She took a breath, trying to steady her emotions so that she could actually speak. “Think about it. In high school you took me to the prom. Why did you do that?”

“Because you were stood up and I felt sorry for you.”

Carly lifted an eyebrow, trying to hide how the truth hurt even though she’d asked for it. “Like you feel sorry for me now?”

Gabe’s expression darkened. “That’s what you think? That I kissed you out of pity? That I
slept
with you because I felt sorry for you?”

It sounded so harsh when he put it that way. And it wasn’t really what she meant. But she wanted everything—his love, his heart—and he was holding back. “Okay, so maybe not. But let’s be honest here. I was Brandon’s little sister and you knew I had a huge crush on you. You came to my rescue then, but I didn’t hear from you for years, not while I was away at school or after I got married. Not even when we lived and worked in the same town. What got us talking again? You came to my rescue, and I thank God every day that you did. Then I became poor Carly. Single mum trying to do everything and there you were, stepping in to assist.”

“So I’m wrong for wanting to help you?”

Carly wanted to cry. “That’s not it, don’t you see? I don’t ever want to be an obligation. I never want to be tied to someone because they think it’s their duty.”

Could she really tell him how she felt? She’d look foolish, wouldn’t she? After all she’d been through, she was still holding on to her romantic notion of love. Still believing in the fairy tale even though she had proof that they didn’t exist.

And yet she knew in her heart that nothing would be the same after today. What did she have to lose? Because it wasn’t what she was saying that would make the difference. It was what she wasn’t saying. She kept getting stuck on what she didn’t want rather than just telling him what she did.

“I don’t need to be rescued. I…I just need to be
loved
.”

Silence fell like an axe and Carly lowered her gaze. She knew it was probably a girlish ideal but she couldn’t escape the certainty that she was right. “What happens when I don’t need rescuing anymore? Where would we be then? Because you’re right about one thing. I never want to go through with anyone what I went through with Jason. And with you it would be so much worse.”

“Why worse?” He asked it quietly.

“Because I have loved you over half my life,” she replied, feeling more sure of herself with every breath. “Because you have always been my ideal and finally getting to love you and then lose you would be more than I could take.”

Gabe put his finger beneath her chin and tilted her face up the tiniest bit. His dark eyes were wide and his throat bobbed as he swallowed. “Say that again,” he ordered.

“Say what…”

“The first bit. Say it again, Carly. Please.”

“Because I’ve loved you half my life?”

He closed his eyes and Carly watched the lashes tremble.

Gabe fought against the emotion threatening to overwhelm him. Hearing her say the words was more—was better—than he could have imagined.

He opened his eyes to see tears in hers and he took her hands in his, squeezing. “I didn’t expect that,” he whispered. “I hoped. I hoped that maybe, with time, you’d love me back.”

“Back?”

He loved how she sounded a little breathless, just like he felt. “Yes, back. Don’t you see? There is a world of difference between ‘I don’t blame you’ and ‘I love you’. I wasn’t sure you ever would…”

“So it was all to…to make it up to me?”

“Not an obligation, and not a duty, don’t you see? It was to earn back what I lost that night when Brandon ODed. I thought I had failed you all. I’d let you down.”

“You thought we stopped caring about you.”

“Didn’t you?”

Carly stepped into his embrace, knocking over the bucket and scattering the blooms over the grass. She put her arms around him, resting her head on his warm chest. “Never. We didn’t, and I certainly didn’t. You never had to
earn
my love. It was always yours, right from the beginning. You didn’t have to save my life or cut my grass or cook me dinner. You didn’t even have to blow my mind in bed.” She tilted her head and looked up at him, smiling now. “All you had to do was look at me like you are right now. All you had to do was say the words.”

“I love you, Carly. I always have, even when I thought I shouldn’t. Even when I knew I didn’t deserve you.”

“The only thing you’ve ever had to do to deserve me is love me,” she replied. “It still is.”

“I promised myself I’d take it slow. That I wouldn’t rush you…” Gabe had wanted to take his time. To rebuild the friendship and trust they’d always had. To make Carly see that they could be happy together. To show her that not all marriages were doomed to failure like hers had been with Jason. But going slow wasn’t working out so well.

“Take it slow?” Her light laugh reached in and grabbed him. “Gabe, you’ve had nearly fifteen years. If you go much slower…”

He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I do love you. Not because of obligation, or duty, or guilt. I love you because I always have and I don’t know how to do anything else. And I always will, if you let me.”