Gabriel's Angel by Nora Roberts

angel.”
    â€œHow?”
    As he spoke, he began to fuss with her hair, drawing it back, piling it up, letting it fall again. “We see angels as ethereal creatures, mystic, above human desires and flaws, but the fact is, they were human once.”
    His words appealed to her, made her smile. “Do you believe in angels?”
    His hand was still in her hair, but he’d forgotten, totally forgotten, the practical reason for it. “Life wouldn’t be worth much if you didn’t.” She had the hair of an angel, shimmery-blond, cloud-soft. Feeling suddenly awkward, he drew his hand away and tucked it in the pocket of his baggy corduroys.
    â€œWould you like to take a break?” she asked him. Her hands were balled in her lap again.
    â€œYeah. Rest for an hour. I need to think this through.” He stepped back automatically when she rose. When he wasn’t working, he took great care not to come into physical contact with her. It was disturbing how much he wanted to touch her. “Put your feet up.” When she lifted a brow at that, he shifted uncomfortably. “It recommended it in that book you leave lying around. I figured it wouldn’t hurt for me to glance through it, under the circumstances.”
    â€œYou’re very kind.”
    â€œSelf-preservation.” Things happened to him when she smiled like that. Things he recognized but didn’t want to acknowledge. “The more I make sure you take care of yourself, the less chance there is of you going into labor before the roads are clear.”
    â€œI’ve got more than a month,” she reminded him. “But I appreciate you worrying about me—about us.”
    â€œPut your feet up,” he repeated. “I’ll get you some milk.”
    â€œBut I—”
    â€œYou’ve only had one glass today.” With an impatient gesture, he motioned her to the sofa before he walked into the kitchen.
    With a little sigh of relief, Laura settled back against the cushions. Putting her feet up wasn’t as easy as it once had been, but she managed to prop them on the edge of the coffee table. The heat from the fire radiated toward her, making her wish she could curl up in front of it. If she did, she thought wryly, it would take a crane to haul her back up again.
    He was being so kind, Laura thought as she turned her head toward the sound of Gabe rummaging in the kitchen. He didn’t like her to remind him of it, but he was. No one had ever treated her quite like this—as an equal, yet as someone to be protected. As a friend, she thought, without tallying a list of obligations, a list of debts that had to be paid. Whether he listed them or not, someday, when she was able, she’d find a way to pay him back. Someday.
    She could see the future if she closed her eyes and thought calm thoughts. She’d have a little apartment somewhere in the city. Any city. There would be a room for the baby, something in sunny yellows and glossy whites, with fairy-tale prints on the walls. She’d have a rocking chair she could sit in with the baby during the long, quiet nights, when the rest of the world was asleep.
    And she wouldn’t be alone anymore.
    Opening her eyes, she saw Gabe standing over her. She wanted, badly, to reach up, to take his hands and draw in some of the strength and confidence she felt radiating from him. She wanted, more, for him to run his thumb along her lip again, slowly, gently, as though she were a woman, rather than a thing to be painted.
    Instead, she reached up to take the glass of milk he held. “After the baby’s born and I finish nursing, I’m never going to drink a drop of milk again.”
    â€œThis is the last of the fresh,” he told her. “Tomorrow you go on powdered and canned.”
    â€œOh, joy.” Grimacing, she downed half the contents of the glass. “I pretend it’s coffee, you know. Strong, black coffee.” She sipped