Gabriel's Angel by Nora Roberts Page B

wanted to weep. That was natural, she told herself. Pregnant women wept easily. Their emotions ran on the surface, to be bruised and battered without effort, and often without cause.
    â€œI’ve got something in mind. Hold on a minute.”
    She waited, still sitting, while he went into the spare room. Moments later he came back holding a navy blue shirt.
    â€œPut this on. I think the contrast between the man’s shirt and your face might be the answer.”
    â€œAll right.” Laura went into the bedroom and stripped off the big pink sweater. She started to draw an arm through the sleeve and then she caught his scent. It was there, clinging to the heavy cotton. Tough, and unapologetically sexual. Man. Unable to resist, she rubbed her cheek over it. The material was soft. The scent was not, but somehow even the scent of him made her feel safe. And yet, foolish as it seemed, it made her feel a dull, deep tremor of desire.
    Wasn’t it wrong to want as a woman, to want Gabe as a man, when she carried such a responsibility? But it didn’t seem wrong when she felt so close to him. He had sorrows, too. She could see them, sense them. Perhaps it was that common ground, and their isolation, that made her feel as though she’d known him, cared about him, for so long.
    With a sigh, she slipped into the shirt. What did she know about her own feelings? The first, the only, time she’d trusted them completely had brought misery. Whatever emotions Gabe stirred in her, she would be wise to keep gratitude in the forefront.
    When she stepped back into the main cabin, he was going through his sketches, rejecting, considering, accepting. He glanced up and realized that his conception of Laura fell far, far short of the mark.
    She looked like the angel he’d spoken of, illusory, golden, yet tied now to the earth. He preferred to think of her as an illusion rather than as a woman, one who stirred him.
    â€œThat’s more of the look I want,” he said, managing to keep his voice steady. “The color’s good on you, and the straight-line masculine style is a nice contrast.”
    â€œYou may not get it back anytime soon. It’s wonderfully comfortable.”
    â€œConsider it a loan.”
    He walked over to the chair as she sat and shifted into the precise pose she’d been in before the break. Not for the first time, Gabe wondered if she’d modeled before. That was another question, for another time.
    â€œLet’s try something else.” He shifted her, mere inches, muttering to himself. Laura nearly smiled. She was back to being a bowl of fruit.
    â€œDamn, I wish we had some flowers. A rose. Just one rose.”
    â€œYou could imagine one.”
    â€œI may.” He tilted her head a fraction to the left before he stood back. “This feels right, so I’m going to draw it on canvas. I’ve wasted enough time on rough sketches.”
    â€œThree whole days.”
    â€œI’ve completed paintings in half that time when things clicked.”
    She could see it, him sitting on a tall stool at an easel, working feverishly, brows lowered, eyes narrowed, those long, narrow hands creating. “There are some in here you haven’t finished at all.”
    â€œMood changed.” He was already making broad strokes on canvas with his pencil. “Do you finish everything you start?”
    She thought about that. “I suppose not, but people are always saying you should.”
    â€œWhen something’s not right, why drag it out to the bitter end?”
    â€œSometimes you promise,” she murmured, thinking of her marriage vows.
    Because he was watching her closely, he saw the swift look of regret. As always, though he tried to block it, her emotions touched a chord in him. “Sometimes promises can’t be kept.”
    â€œNo. But they should be,” she said quietly. Then she fell silent.
    He worked for nearly an hour, defining, refining,