Gabriella tucked her head into the crook of his arm, savoring the feel of his biceps under her cheek and the musky male scent of him. Even there, she could feel his heart hammer away, slowing down by degrees while she tried to regulate her own breathing.
“Are you okay?” he asked finally, lifting his head to look down into her eyes and brush her hair from her cheek.
For a moment she could see him clearly, the moonlightslanting perfectly to illuminate his dark eyes and the tender concern in them.
“I sprinted past ‘okay’ about an hour ago,” she told him honestly. “I’m hovering somewhere between fantastic and the stratosphere.”
“Mighty glad to hear it.” Clay tugged the dislodged blankets over them, his sculpted chest brushing hers briefly and making her nerve endings dance.
Yet there was something in his answer that seemed…off. His tone was clipped, maybe. Or his movements a way of putting distance between them.
Then again, she could simply be overly sensitive. The day had sucked and there was a chance she was being too needy.
“How about you?” She tried to ask the question casually, infusing her voice with a lightness that belied her interest. “Everything okay?”
“Have you ever worried that things were going too well?” He laid his head on a nearby pillow. He didn’t look away as he spoke. “That life was just setting you up for a fall by giving you too many good things at once?”
“Never.” She couldn’t remember ever feeling like that. Closing her eyes, she resettled her temple against his biceps.
“This is a first for me, too. I’m not sure what to make of it.” A few more heartbeats passed. Then he folded his pillow under his head. “Are you certain you don’t want to skip out on the trial tomorrow, Gabby? You don’t need to subject yourself to that again.”
“I have to be there.” She’d almost talked herself out of it at the hospital when she made the bid to take Mia with her tonight. “If I don’t face him now, I might never have another opportunity.”
She needed to banish old ghosts to put the past behind her.
Clay nodded thoughtfully.
“I’m not sure I got any closure from confronting my father today.” His expression was shuttered.
A chill ran through her at the direction of a conversation she hadn’t expected after what they’d just shared. Sitting up, she hugged her knees to her chest and stared at the mirror over the bureau on the other side of the room, the shiny surface bouncing moonlight back toward her.
“Maybe you didn’t have enough time with him.” She realized his situation with Pete was far different from hers with Jeremy Covington. “Besides, your relationship is a lot more complex. It stands to reason you’d have a great deal to sort through. I just want the chance to tell that bastard what I think of him.”
“I don’t think I can ever forgive him,” Clay confided, a coldness in his voice that alerted her to the seriousness of the rift between him and his father—a rift that had only deepened since she’d known him a decade ago.
Shifting toward him on the bed, she pressed her hands to his bare chest. Awareness of him was automatic. Compelling. But right now it was more important to set those thoughts aside and focus on a need he might not even realize he had—a need to make some kind of peace with his past and with his father before the man died.
“Don’t think of it as forgiving him for his sake. It’s for your own.” She bit her lip. “At least—that’s what the counselors all seem to suggest. I’ve sat in enough psych classes to know that’s not necessarily an easy thing to do.”
“My brother will never have the chance to forgive that old man,” he reminded her bitterly. “It feels disloyal to his memory to just pretend it never happened.”
She drew the blanket closer, his words chilling her to her soul. “Have you ever asked Lorelei Hasting about it?” She knew how much Clay respected his foster mom.
“Lorelei?” He shook his head. “Hell, no. I try not to bring the drama of all that mess to her door. She’s worked too hard to create a peaceful environment for her kids.”
The admiring way he spoke about her told Gabriella that she’d been right to suggest they speak. With the reunion coming up, maybe there’d be a chance for Lorelei to help Clay one last time.
Eager to recapture some kind of closeness, she lay beside him again and tucked her head against his shoulder. “I’m looking forward to meeting her Saturday. Sam invited me, but maybe you and I could go together?”
“I’d like that. But keep in mind people are going to start talking if we’re spending so much time in one another’s company. Or have you forgotten what it’s like in a small town?” Clay relaxed a little and she wondered why he cared if people talked.
“I remember. But this week is going to be tough enough without robbing me of the best part.” She still had to face the ghosts of her childhood home. Confront her attacker.
Perhaps most important, find a way to regain Mia’s trust.
Yet right now, with Clay beside her, she thought she could find a way to simply enjoy the moment.
No doubt she was quickly developing feelings for him. And she trusted him. But she was still finding her own way, too. So she would take things one day at a time, hope for the best—and absolutely make the most of every moment.
