“We can go tomorrow, Drew. It’d be safe—if you were with me.”
Gabrielle waited for his response, a sweet smile curving her lovely lips.
She had come back to him. What more proof did he need that God had answered his plea?
“I dunno, Gabby. Doc said—”
“I’m not a baby, Drew,” she snapped, snatching back her hands. “I don’t need to be coddled.”
The truth came spilling out, like the rapids spilling over timeworn rocks in the bend of a river. “Gabby, sweetie,” he said, reaching for her, “I’m sorry if it sounds like that. I don’t mean it to, honest. It’s just that I love you and I’m worried about you. I know how you push yourself. I’ve had a concussion, myself, so I know you can feel terrific one minute, dizzy as a drunkard the next.”
She gave him a halfhearted grin. “Do I smell a compromise in the air?”
Drew hung his head and chuckled softly. Leave it to Gabby to put her own spin on it. “Okay. Okay. I know when I’m licked,” he admitted, grinning. And crouching beside her chair, he wrapped her in a hearty hug. “But honest, Gabby, if anything ever happened to you,” he whispered against her freckled cheek, “I don’t know what I’d do.”
Gabrielle turned to face him, putting her lips no more than an inch from his. And bracketing his face in her warm hands, she gazed lovingly into his eyes. “Nothing is going to happen to me,” she stated matter-of-factly. “You’re forgetting that I’m a Lafayette!”
“You were a Lafayette,” he corrected, praying his words wouldn’t jog her memory.
She kissed him then, not the way friend kisses friend, or parent kisses child, but the way a woman kisses the man she loves. “You’re absolutely right,” she said on a sigh. “I’m a Cunningham now, and mighty proud of it.”
Her mouth was soft and searching, her breath whisper-sweet. Drew’s heart pounded as she leaned back and combed her fingers through his hair, and he was shocked at his eager response to her scrutiny.
“You know what I’ve been thinking?”
He cleared his throat. The more things change, he quoted silently, the more they stay the same. Why did she always pick times like these to get chatty? But God help him, he loved her with everything in him. If talking’s what she wanted, then talking’s what she’d get. Despite himself, he smiled. “What’ve you been thinking?”
Her delicate forefinger traced the contour of his upper lip, the angle of his jaw, the slope of his nose. Raising one well-arched brow and grinning mischievously, she began in a breathy voice, “That it’d be awfully nice to hear the pitter-patter of little feet around this big, old, empty ranch house.”
Drew blinked, stunned into openmouthed silence at her suggestion. Was she kidding? Was this part of some cruel, vengeful joke? Or had he misunderstood her entirely?
“Y-you…you want to—”
Gabrielle tilted her head, her smile broadening slightly as she looked over his left shoulder and focused on some spot near the ceiling. “I’ve been experiencing some very strange sensations the last couple of days…” She snuggled closer, rested her cheek against his chest.
He held his breath for a moment before saying, “It’s the concussion.” Nodding, Drew added, “Normal. Very normal. Dizziness and—” He cleared his throat. “Is your stomach queasy?”
She tilted her head back, sending that gleaming, luxurious hair cascading over one shoulder like a fiery waterfall. “Well, no-o,” she singsonged, “but it co-o-ould be, if you’ll just cooperate a little.”
Much as he wanted to take her upstairs—and he wanted that a lot—Drew couldn’t let himself give in to the temptation. Wouldn’t be fair to Gabby, he told himself. It’d be like using her. And as he stared into her loving eyes, he admitted it wouldn’t be like using her, it would be using her. She was vulnerable right now, weakened physically and psychologically by the concussion, and certainly in no emotional condition to be making decisions as life-altering as having a baby!
He remembered the times she’d asked that question, on their wedding night, and weeks after the honeymoon, and every other day, it seemed. “Not yet,” he’d said each time, citing their small savings account and everything that needed doing around the ranch as reasons to wait.
Besides, if her “strange sensations” managed to produce the results she seemed to want them to, it wouldn’t be fair to the child, wouldn’t be fair to Drew, because if she got her memory back and changed her mind again after they were sure a baby was on the way—
“Drew? Honey?” she crooned, fingers playing in his hair.
He cleared his throat again.
“You love me, don’t you?”
“’Course I do,” he said, a little rougher than he’d intended. “You know I do,” he added more gently.
“When you proposed to me, you said you wanted us to have a family. A big one. You meant it, didn’t you?”
The idea of Gabrielle bearing his children, of having little Gabby and Drew look-alikes running around the house, appealed to him more than he cared to admit. But he wanted to be sure. Sure of a lot of things before they started having kids. For one thing, he wanted to know there’d always be enough money in the bank to keep a tight roof over their heads, plenty of food in the pantry. But more than that, he wanted—needed—proof that Gabrielle wouldn’t up and leave when some good-looking musician came to town, the way his mother had.
He had nothing to go on now but blind faith, because she’d already left him. And if not for the concussion, Gabrielle wouldn’t be here now, in his arms, asking him to help her make a baby.
Blind faith.
Lord, he prayed silently, You’ve got to help me out here, ’cause I’m skatin’ on thin ice.
“Yes, Gabrielle. I want to have a family with you. I want that more than you’ll ever know,” he answered at last.
Gabrielle stood, held out her hand to him and smiled sweetly. Drew didn’t know what possessed him to put his hand into hers, or why he so willingly let her lead him down the long, narrow hall into the foyer, or why he followed her up the curved mahogany staircase.
But he did.
He wanted nothing but good things for her—happiness, fulfillment, robust health. It was only because he believed with everything in him that he was good for her that Drew prayed, Lord, if it means she’ll leave me again, don’t ever let Gabby get her memory back.
Even as the words formed in his mind, he admitted the selfishness of them. But he needed her every bit as much as he loved her; he’d make it up to her in a thousand ways, for the rest of his days.
“I hope I won’t be sorry in the morning,” she whispered, her voice husky and trembly as she back-stepped into their room.
Sorry?
His heart thundered against his ribs. Sorry about what?
“For letting the dishes wait. Mozzarella cheese gets like concrete when it sits.”
His earlier concerns that this might be a mistake—a big one—were blotted out by velvet sighs and fluttering hands that caressed his face, his shoulders, his back. Pulse pounding and heart hammering, he gave in to the moment, but not so completely that he didn’t hear those words ringing in his ears: “I hope I won’t be sorry in the morning.”
Chapter Three
Sleep—what there had been of it—came that night in fits and starts,