“That seems very good of you.” She smiled for real then and he was transported right back to his teenage years when he was trying so damned hard to win her approval with his math homework. Or with anything.
Making serious Gabriella Chance smile was special.
“I like working with decent people sometimes.” He needed to mix it up a bit in his line of work. And yes, that part of his job spoke to him on another level by giving him a way to pay things forward as thanks to the foster family that had saved his life, made his successful adulthood possible. “Too often I’m tracking down white collar thieves for their employers or finding scam artists who operate under multiple names online—stuff that makes you forget there are a lot of good people in the world. Reuniting the families is a welcome change from that.”
“And now you’re reuniting your own foster family,” she observed, squeezing his hand. “Sam Reyes is organizing theHastings fosters’ get-together on Saturday. Plus, today you saw your biological father for the first time in…how long?”
He sure as hell hadn’t viewed his visit to Pete as a reunion, but he wasn’t ready to leap into that discussion right now. He stared into the orange-yellow flicker in the fireplace, channeling his restlessness into messing with the remote to adjust the height of the flames.
“Three years. I saw him a few times after I finished high school, back when I was trying to find all my half siblings.” Their conversations were usually conducted when Pete was already halfway through his bottle of bargain bin whiskey.
Clay turned the remote on the gas fireplace again. This conversation was making him twitchy. Recognizing as much, he forced himself to set the device down.
“And he helped you?” Gabriella leaned forward to grab her water, sliding her hand free from his to lift it from the tray. Her pale hair brushed against the shoulders of the buttery-yellow sweater she wore.
He already missed her touch, but he needed to let her make the first move if anything was going to happen between them. Seeing how nervous she’d been in court today gave him a good idea of how far she’d come to put the past behind her. How much effort she’d put into making peace with the man who’d hurt her. The parent who’d abandoned her. It made him realize how tightly he’d held on to his old resentments.
“Not necessarily by choice.” Clay didn’t talk about the man who’d fathered him much, but he understood that sometimes you had to open up to someone to get the same in return. He was willing to try for the sake of getting closer to Gabriella. “Pete has always been bad tempered, and he never had any use for me. But over the years I got pretty good at knowing the right time in the drinking cycle to ask himquestions about his past to gather some leads on possible kids. Pete needed enough alcohol to get his brain working and his mood relaxed, but if he had too much he turned angry.”
“That sounds awful.” Gabby set down the glass on a coaster and then tucked one foot under her on the couch, the firelight casting a golden glow on her face. “And time-consuming.”
“It took months of impromptu drop-ins since I didn’t want him to know how hard I was digging for information. And considering the narrow window of time in a day when he was coherent and amenable to talking, it ended up being a hell of a lot of visits.”
Cementing his decision to cut the guy out of his life completely.
“But you kept going for the sake of your family. The brothers and sisters you hadn’t found yet.” Gabriella looked at him with a warmth and admiration in her eyes that he definitely didn’t deserve.
But for a minute he wondered what it would be like to feel that warmth in her gaze and savor it. To be truly worthy of that generous heart of hers.
“Because I quit too soon, Mia grew up not knowing she had family.” He hadn’t pushed Pete hard enough and Clay regretted that with every fiber of his being. He should have known better, damn it. “I couldn’t wait to be done with those visits and put the old man in the past. Thanks to that chip on my shoulder, the most vulnerable of my siblings—the youngest—was hung out to dry with an unfit mother.”
Restless with the weight of that guilt on his shoulders—a weight that had been growing every damn day since he found out about the teen—Clay shoved to his feet.
“I should go.” He hadn’t meant to venture so far downthis road, his need to be close to Gabby clouding his judgment. “It’s been a long day and I know you’ve got a lot on your mind with the trial tomorrow.”
He paced toward the door to grab his coat, but paused by the window that looked across the courtyard toward the main house. The outdoor lights he’d left on illuminated the cedar home.
“Will you go to court with me?” Gabriella asked as she padded softly across the hardwood floor in bare feet.
Her tentative question slid right past his guard, bypassing all his better intentions. He ought to tell her he wasn’t the right man to sit beside her. That she deserved more. But when he turned and peered down into those liquid blue eyes, he didn’t have a chance of denying her.
“If you want me to be there.” He skimmed a thumb along her cheek. Watched her eyelids flutter at his touch. “I wouldn’t dream of being anywhere else.”
“Thank you.” Her hands landed on his chest. Her palms landed on his chest in a gesture of trust that was only going to lead to trouble
And heaven.
“Gabriella.” He forced himself to stay still. To think about what happened next before he did something she would regret. “I should probably go.”
She bit her lip for a moment. No doubt recognizing the wisdom of taking a step back. But then she brushed a light caress up his chest to curve her palms around his shoulders. Drawing herself closer.
So close the floral scent of her skin drifted his way, making him hungry for a taste of her.
“You just said if I want you with me, you wouldn’t dream of being anywhere else.” Her words were so close tohis mouth they puffed along his lips with a teasing caress all their own.
“I meant about the trial.” He ground out the words through gritted teeth, his whole body aching to be with her.
Her fingers gripped his shoulders with surprising strength.
