More Than Neighbors (23 page)

I am,
he realized. More completely at this moment than he had been in five long, empty years.

He rolled onto his back, tilting his head to see Ciara’s face as he smoothed her hair back from it. “Bubinga,” he murmured.

“What?” She tried to lift her head from his shoulder and apparently failed, a weakness he found amazingly satisfying.

“Bubinga,” he repeated. “It’s a hardwood from West Africa. The first time I met you, that’s what I thought. Your hair is the color of bubinga. Beautiful.”

“Oh.” She laid a hand on his chest, her fingers flexing into the mat of hair there. The curve of her cheek told him she was smiling. “You didn’t look like you thought I was beautiful. I was sure you thought I was annoying.”

“Uh...that crossed my mind, too,” he admitted, feeling amusement at how far he’d come. “I liked having Ephraim’s house empty. Quiet, instead of kids, dogs, noise, people who wanted to be too friendly...” He moved his shoulders.

“And then Mark and I showed up.”

“Yep.” He lifted his head so he could really see her. “Took me a few weeks to know how glad I was you had.”

“Really?” Her expression vulnerable, she searched his face. “Do you mean that?”

“Do you doubt it?”

She looked deep. Finally, she shook her head, her smile tremulous. “You do like my cooking.”

He laughed. “And a few other things.” His hand squeezed her butt.

Ciara wriggled. “Mark would be shocked.” But she didn’t sound too concerned about that.

“Is he thinking about sex yet?”

“If he is, I haven’t noticed.”

“No.”

She rubbed her cheek against him, raising goose bumps of pleasure. He stroked her hair the way he did fine woods, savoring the texture, and loving that he
could
touch her.

“Did you ever think we’d end up, well,
here
?” she asked suddenly.

“In bed?”

Her head bobbed.

“Part of me wanted to from the beginning.”

She giggled. He guessed she could probably see the part of him that had been enthusiastic from the get-go and was already stirring.

“In my head, though...” He wasn’t sure whether he was actually talking about his head or his heart, but guessed it didn’t matter. “I’d decided never again.”

“Really?” Sounding surprised, she wriggled again so she could see his face.

He knew his smile was rueful. “What was I supposed to do? Go to singles bars in Spokane? Here in Goodwater...” He shrugged. “Women have expectations. Not the same as mine.”

He couldn’t tell what she was thinking. She sounded merely curious when she asked, “You think I’m an urban woman who won’t have any?”

She had to be insulted. Didn’t she?

“I guess I’m starting to have my own,” he said simply.

“About...
me
?” The
me
came out as a squeak.

He chuckled. “Who else is here?”

She tucked her head back down so he couldn’t see her face. She was quiet for a long time. Gabe only waited, feeling her tension, not understanding it. Bracing himself for something unwelcome.

“Can we...take this slowly?” she said at last. “I swore—”

“I did, too,” he admitted.

“I didn’t expect
you
.”

At that moment, hearing her bemusement, he relaxed. He smiled a little, thinking it would be all right. She’d been burned by her divorce, but she’d get past it. She’d been as miserable as he had been after that fight. What’s more, she wanted what was good for Mark, and Gabe knew he was. He’d have been offended if she’d decided to hook up with him for that reason, but her face was expressive, betraying more of what she felt than he suspected she’d like. Plus, he couldn’t mistake her response to him tonight. In fact...

He let his hand stroke lower, down the delicate chain of vertebrae to the point where her hips flared. Her quick shiver encouraged him. With his other hand, he tugged at her hair until she lifted her face to him. Their mouths met in a slow, sweet kiss that gradually heated.

“How long do we have?” he mumbled.

She looked blank for long enough to gratify his ego. Then remembrance that she had a son spread across her face. “Oh!” She turned her head until she saw the bedside clock. “Um...I don’t have to pick him up until nine-thirty.”

He calculated. “An hour.” He gently squeezed her nape. “Plenty of time.”

“Plenty,” she whispered, and kissed him.

* * *

I
F THIS WASN’T
June and they weren’t in the last couple weeks of the school year, Ciara might have been desperate enough to enroll Mark in the Goodwater Middle School. She knew she didn’t really mean that, but...how else were she and Gabe ever going to have any real privacy?

If her son wasn’t with her, he was with Gabe.

When the next weekend came and Gabe invited her on another shopping expedition to Spokane, she crossed her fingers before asking Mark. Not that they could exactly pull off onto a deserted road and count on no one coming by, but—a motel room by the hour was sounding better and better. When Mark said, “Can we go out to lunch, too?” she almost groaned.

From Gabe’s expression when he came to pick her up and they both popped out the front door, she suspected he’d been having similar thoughts. Stealing kisses on the porch at night wasn’t enough.

This time, they did Costco again and then, after lunch, The Home Depot, before starting home with the bed of Gabe’s pickup packed with a surprising number of purchases.

Before they reached her driveway, Gabe suddenly put on his turn signal. “You haven’t met the Ohlers yet, have you?”

“No, but...”

He turned up a driveway she’d noted. “They have two kids. Horses, too.”

“Really?” Mark hung eagerly forward between the seats.

“Might be good to get to know them.”

She had caught only a glimpse of this house, the same era as hers and Gabe’s, and also painted white, but shielded from the roads by a stand of evergreen trees. Their pasture was behind the house, sloping toward another loop of the shallow creek.

A skinny, gaping kid accompanied by two dogs appeared before they had even rolled to a stop. Gabe set the brake. “Let me introduce you.”

Mrs. Ohler came out the front door, drying her hands on a dish towel, but beaming when she saw Gabe. She was a wiry, tiny woman with curly dark hair bundled at the back of her head and bright dark eyes.

“Well, who have we here?” she asked, clearly friendly. Once Gabe performed introductions, she apologized for not having come over to welcome them. “Truth is,” she said, “Mason put his back out, and it’s been all I could do to keep up with the store and the kids.”

She and her husband, she explained, owned the sporting-goods store in town, which Ciara had yet to enter. Mason had been lifting their older son to dunk a basketball when he’d herniated a disk. She shook her head in exasperation and obvious fondness at the same time.

Gabe chided her for not letting him know. “I could have mowed your lawn or taken care of the animals for you.”

She smiled at him. “That’s what I have two boys for. In fact, my oldest is back feeding the horses right now.”

It was the magic word.

Mark’s expression lit. “Can I see the horses?”

“Can he, Mama?” asked the younger boy, Will, who she’d said was seven.

“Of course he can.”

The two boys took off around behind the house. After watching them go, she grimaced. “As you might have guessed, I’m expecting another. Just got over the morning-sick phase.”

Ciara had wondered. The swelling wouldn’t have been as obvious on a woman with more generous proportions, but Sabine Ohler didn’t look big enough to carry a baby to term.

Appearing mildly alarmed, Gabe decided to follow the boys, leaving the two women to talk pregnancy and childbirth. Yes, Sabine said, she’d been half hoping for a girl this time, but she’d had an ultrasound, and, plain as day, this would be another boy.

“Do you plan to keep trying...?” Ciara asked delicately, and the other woman snorted.

“Wasn’t trying this time. This is an oops baby. Not that I’m letting any of the kids hear me say that.”

Ciara nodded her understanding.

Mason, Sabine finally said, had returned to work just last week, but wearing a back brace. He’d had some injections, and the doctors were hoping not to have to do surgery.

“Never rains but it pours,” she complained, but good-humoredly.

The two women wandered back to the barn and pasture, too, where she introduced her oldest boy, Jacob. Jacob was only nine, but he and Mark were chattering away.

Even Ciara could tell the Ohlers’ two horses were nowhere near the quality of Gabe’s. But unless he’d already blurted out something tactless, Mark was making only admiring sounds. Jacob asked if Mark could come and ride with him, and his mother said friends were always welcome.

“Mason or I keep a good eye on them when they’re on the horses,” she said as an aside to Ciara. “They’re placid as can be anyway. Ours will be like rocking horses compared to either of Gabe’s.”

“Can I, Mom?” Mark begged.

Gabe caught Ciara’s eye and nodded with a faint smile. An intent gleam, too, that told her he’d set this meeting up for a good reason.

Excitement quivered in her belly as she agreed that she was sure Mark would enjoy that.

Monday after school, they agreed, since the Ohlers would be tied up with grandparents tomorrow. Sabine would be home to supervise since Mason was back at work. Once Ciara heard the school bus go by, she could send Mark on down. She seemed to take it for granted that Ciara would let him ride his bike on their deserted country road.

She expressed some surprise that Mark wasn’t already enrolled at Goodwater Middle School, but obviously assumed he would be come fall. Ciara didn’t correct her.

They departed on a wave of good feelings and expectations. Ciara had no doubt they’d made more friends. Once more, thanks to Gabe. She didn’t let herself acknowledge the tiny flicker of resentment that accompanied the gratitude.

The two boys didn’t really know Mark yet, but they seemed to like him. Horses made all the difference, she was starting to believe. Mark chattered the rest of the way home about Jacob and Will and how they’d said their bay was half Morgan and did Gabe think he really was?

Only as Gabe helped them unload and carry their purchases in did he and she exchange a look.

A promise.

Three o’clock the day after tomorrow?

Yes
.

CHAPTER TWELVE

“
C
AN
W
ATSON GO
with me?” Mark yelled up the stairs.

Ciara had her cell phone in her hand. She’d been standing by the window, waiting to see Mark pedaling down the driveway. “Well...” She set down the phone and went out into the hall, where she could see her son poised at the bottom of the staircase. “The Ohlers’ dogs might not like him. What if there’s a fight?”

“I asked. Jacob says they like other dogs.”

“Call back. Ask Jacob’s mother.”

“Mo-om!” he protested, but disappeared into the kitchen. She almost slipped back into her workroom to phone Gabe, but refrained. Instead, she assumed a pose of complete relaxation, propping a shoulder against the wall.

The kitchen door banged as it swung back and forth. Jittering with impatience, Mark reappeared. “Mrs. Ohler says fine.”

“Then fine. But take the leash just in case—”

He and Watson raced out, Ciara calling after him, “Watch him on the road—”

Slam. They were gone.

Pulse jumping, she hurried back into her workroom, where she could see her son tearing down the driveway on his bike, his dog loping beside him. Such a normal sight, she thought with a funny squeeze, before she remembered and snatched up the phone.

To her relief, Gabe answered right away.

“Mark just went to the Ohlers’.”

“On his bike?” When she assented, he said, “Why don’t you come down here? That way he can’t surprise us.”

“On my way.”

This was downright pathetic, she thought, as she detoured to the bathroom to brush her teeth and stare anxiously at herself in the mirror. No makeup, her hair could use something—but the clock was ticking. And Gabe would be mussing up her hair the minute he got his hands on her anyway.

As she drove the short distance, she couldn’t decide whether there was an illicit thrill in sneaking around to have amazing, fabulous sex, or whether she should be ashamed of herself.

Not that there was a choice. Of course she had to sneak around! She was the single mother of a twelve-year-old boy. She’d had a few clumsy talks about puberty and sexuality with Mark, but she wasn’t about to let him know she was having extramarital sex, and with their neighbor, who happened to be his idol, besides.

Gabe was outside when she pulled up in front of his barn. He hustled her into his house and upstairs so fast, she was breathless and laughing when they got there.

This was her third visit there. In the two weeks since the first time they’d made love, Mark had once gone to the Weekses’, and once to ride horses with the Ohler brothers. Unfortunately, he wasn’t likely to stay at the Ohlers’ more than a couple of hours, tops. And she didn’t want him to come home and not find her there.

She’d speculated before about the bedroom, which was really cramped, even though all that was in it was Gabe’s big bed and a truly gorgeous chest of drawers with contrasting woods in an Arts-and-Crafts style. No rocking chair. No room for a rocking chair.

No time to think about it today. Gabe stripped her with record speed, and her own urgency was such that she was ready for him before he shed his own clothes and donned the condom. He hardly had to touch her or kiss her before her body was on fire for his possession.

This time she pushed him back and slung her leg over him. Face flushed and intent, he watched her even as his hands engulfed her breasts and rubbed and squeezed and stroked. She teased him with her body until she couldn’t stand it any longer and changed the angle, pressing herself down on him, groaning as he filled her.

At first she tried to go too fast, but Gabe’s body helped her set a pace that had them rocking, him groaning...and her coming with record speed. As usual, her orgasm triggered his. He gripped her hips hard. She loved the feel of his muscles locking as he drove himself into her harder, deeper, even as he swelled and pulsed inside her.