LITMIR.BIZ

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just want his hands clean, he wanted them extra-extra squeaky clean. Delighted with the translucent bubbles billowing from his soapy hands, he continued to scrub and wash.

      “I think we’ve got it now, partner.” Gabe rinsed the child’s hands, then dried them off. “We’ve still got to make those omelettes disappear, remember?”

      Kevin ran to the table and climbed up on a ladder-back wooden chair. Gabe turned to help Melanie, who was busy at the stove, but she waved him to sit, so he did. Two seconds later, she set a heaping plate of sliced potatoes with onions and peppers and a big fluffy omelette in front of him and told him to eat. He took a bite of the eggs and closed his eyes on a sigh. Scooping up a biteful of potatoes, he actually moaned.

      Lord, but he’d died and gone to heaven.

      “Damn, woman,” he said around another bite, “if you cook this good, I’m going to have to marry you right now.”

      Gabe watched as Kevin’s eyes opened wide, then noticed Melanie had sternly arched one eyebrow.

      “Hey,” he said awkwardly, “I was just—”

      “He said damn,” Kevin announced.

      Had he? Oops.

      “You’re not supposed to say damn,” Kevin admonished.

      “Kevin,” Melanie said firmly as she sat at the table with a plate of food for Kevin and herself. “You don’t tell adults what they can or can’t say. And you most certainly don’t repeat bad words.”

      “You mean like those other words Gabe said earlier when he was upstairs?” Kevin asked.

      “Especially those,” Melanie said.

      Remembering a few of those words, Gabe ducked his head sheepishly. He hadn’t considered that anyone else had heard, and hell—heck—he wasn’t used to being around kids.

      “Sorry,” he muttered.

      “It’s okay.” Kevin took a bite of potatoes. “Sometimes my mommy says bad words, too. Especially when she got into that big fight with Grandma Louise before we had to move away. She said a bunch of bad words then, but she didn’t think I heard.”

      “Kevin Andrew!” Melanie narrowed a sharp look at her son. “That’s enough.”

      Her tone brooked no argument, and Kevin looked down at his plate. Color had risen on Melanie’s cheeks, but it was apparent to Gabe that her concern had much less to do with her use of bad words than it did with Kevin’s mention of her argument with his grandma. An argument that it seemed had precipitated Melanie and her son’s flight.

      But it was hardly logical that Melanie would pack her belongings in a car and take off with her son because she and her mother—or mother-in-law—disagreed about something, Gabe thought. Families fought all the time. Lord knew his certainly did. Well, except for Cara. Who could argue with Cara? She had a way of either smiling that cut straight into your heart, or giving you “the look” that cut straight across the knees. But he and his brothers preferred to settle their disputes with a lot of yelling and occasionally a fist flew. But they never held grudges. Well, maybe Lucian did, but only for a few days at the most.

      Not that Gabe knew what Melanie and Kevin’s grandma had argued about, but running away never seemed to solve anything. And somehow, Melanie just didn’t strike Gabe as the type to run. She seemed much too strong, too stubborn to let anyone intimidate her.

      He knew he hadn’t.

      And he’d certainly tried.

      He watched her now, saw her gaze settle intently on the cell phone he’d slipped into the pocket of his shirt. With no working phone here at the house, and stranded the way she was, it wasn’t difficult for him to figure out that she wanted to make a call but couldn’t bring herself to ask.

      He sighed silently, pulled the phone out of his pocket and set it on the table between them. “Help yourself.”

      Surprised, her eyes snapped up to meet his. She hesitated, then nodded stiffly. “Thank you.”

      It was all he could do not to put his hands on her shoulders and try to shake a little sense into her, tell her that she could trust him, and that running wouldn’t solve anything.

      But he also realized that he wanted to put his hands on her for other reasons. Reasons that had nothing to do with her secrets, and everything to do with that incredible mouth of hers and how much he wanted to taste those lips.

      Gabe knew he was going to have more than one sleepless night thinking about those lips after she left, and the realization aggravated the hell out of him.

      He decided he wanted her gone. The sooner the better. He didn’t need the distraction, and he sure as hell didn’t need the complication. He wanted his life to be simple and easy, and this woman was anything but.

      “The parts store will be delivering a battery for your car here later on this morning,” he said firmly. “I’ll put it in for you when it gets here.”

      She protested, of course, and he ignored her, felt a certain amount of smugness when she appeared as frustrated as he was. He finished his meal, then muttered a quick thanks and headed back to the upstairs bathroom.

      He had the rusted pipe off in less than a minute, but he bloodied four of his knuckles in the process. And somehow managed to bite back every obscene word that danced on the tip of his tongue.

      Her sweater sleeves pushed to her elbows, her hands plunged in hot, sudsy dishwater, Melanie scrubbed at the heavy cast-iron frying pan, thankful that she had a task to occupy not only her hands, but her mind, as well.

      Anything to keep her thoughts off Gabe Sinclair.

      The man simply filled a room. Not just because he was tall and broad, but because he had a presence, a larger-than-life demeanor that overwhelmed her. All he had to do was level that dark gaze of his at her and she felt…consumed.

      She couldn’t find her balance when he was around, couldn’t think straight. And she needed to think straight. She couldn’t afford not to. For her own sake, and especially for Kevin’s.

      Behind her, sitting on his knees in a chair at the kitchen table, her son hummed the Barney theme song while he colored a picture in his travel game book. Silly songs and that big game book had been two things that made the trip cross-country bearable. Though if she never heard that Barney song again in her life, that would be just fine with her.

      She rinsed the pan and drained the sink, then wiped her hands on a dish towel. Gabe’s cell phone still lay on the table where he’d left it for her. She hadn’t asked, but he’d known that she’d wanted to use it. She hated that she’d been so visible, that he knew what she was thinking, what she needed. What else did he see? she wondered, and the thought frightened her.

      Almost as much as his insistence at buying and installing a battery for her car frustrated her.

      She’d never met a man like him in her entire life, she thought with a sigh.

      “Mommy’s going to make a phone call,” she said to Kevin, and he merely bobbed his head in response. Melanie picked up the phone, heard the clink of pipes overhead and glanced up at the ceiling before she moved into the laundry room connected to the kitchen, left the door ajar so she could keep an eye on her son.

      She dialed, waited three rings.

      “Hello.”

      Just the sound of her friend’s voice brought tears to her eyes. “Rae, it’s me.”

      “Melissa! Thank God, I’ve been so worried about you. Are you all right?”

      “I’m fine,” she said through the thickness in her throat. “But the battery in my car died, and it’s being replaced today. I may not get there until tomorrow.”

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