She glanced up at him just as his stepbrother leaned toward him while keeping his arm draped around wife.
“Did they forget to tell you the whole family was invited to the photo shoot? They’re all staying in another house they rented two streets over.”
“You neglected to tell me,” Hank growled under his breath while his stepmother raved over one of the women’s gowns. “Don’t bother recycling that excuse about being putty in your wife’s hands. If I’d known, I wouldn’t be here subjecting myself to this zoo.”
“And you wonder why no one tells you anything.” Jonah’s wife laughed softly beside him. “In this case, however, I can honestly say I thought you already knew. Maybe Ginger thought the general told you and vice versa.”
“You don’t believe that any more than I do. This was a setup, clean and simple.”
Gabrielle gripped his arm tighter. “For what purpose?”
His guarded eyes met hers. “So you could see what you’re letting yourself in for, getting involved with this family.”
“That seems a little extreme.” She eyed the length of the table, her ears burning with the sense that everyone was talking about her.
Jonah shrugged. “Extreme? Maybe. But I’ve learned to go with the flow.”
Easier said than done with their fight hanging over her head. But Gabrielle went through the motions all the same, answering questions from the mass of family by rote. They were wonderful people who at any other time she would have enjoyed. But allowing herself to form an attachment to any of them would only set her up for more heartache.
She hardly tasted the tapas or rich cabernet that was served with them. All through the five-course dinner, she could only think of Hank. His proposal. And how differently that offer could have played out six months from now when they’d both gained more distance from the deployment, her son’s health scare and Kevin’s death.
By dessert, she was ready to shatter from holding her feelings in check for fear the photographer would capture a shot of her heart in her eyes as she stared at Hank. So she kept right on smiling at stories about all the cute nieces and nephews until the candles burned low.
The doorbell pierced the mingled sounds of classical music, clanking dishes and laughter. One of the three wait staff peeled away from the sideboard and into the hall to answer the door. Ginger’s face creased with worry, although no one would have gotten by the security outdoors without decent identification.
Soft voices from the hall carried into the dining room.
Familiar voices.
Gabrielle gaped in disbelief at Ginger. “You invited my parents, too?”
Ginger’s eyes went wide with surprise. “Your parents?” Then her features smoothed, and she sent a pointed glance toward the photographer as she stood. “What a pleasant surprise.”
Jonah brought his napkin to his lips and said out of the corner of his mouth. “We’re gonna need a bigger house.”
“Gabrielle?” Her mother’s voice grew louder, closer, her German accent light after so many years of living around the world. “Where’s the baby? Where’s my grandson?”
Chairs scraped back. The general pivoted toward the cameraman, his looming frame and military command blocking the photographer. Her parents stood in the archway between the foyer and dining room—her mother looking travel-worn from the transcontinental journey. They weren’t dressed with the glitz of Hank’s family, but her parents had worked hard to build a life for their kids, even if those hopes sometimes pushed her mother into micro-managing their lives.
Ginger swept up beside them. “Sergeant and Mrs. Ballard—Christine and Edward—” of course Hank’s well-briefed, savvy stepmom already knew her parents’ names “—welcome!”
Gabrielle skirted around the table and to her parents, ever aware of silent, brooding Hank only a step behind her. Not that she would have expected otherwise. Hank might be angry at her, frustrated with her, even irreconcilably so, but he would always do the honorable thing. He wouldn’t embarrass her in front of his family or hers.
She hugged her burly dad, then her mother. The familiarity of her mom’s arms and familiar gardenia cologne comforted her in spite of all the tension and heartache threatening to floor her.
She took her mother’s hands and whispered. “Mom, what are you and Dad doing here?”
“I’m so sorry to have disrupted your big event.” Her mother eyed her gown and jewels with a hint of disapproval. “I didn’t know there would be so many people… .”
Hank thrust his hand out. “Mrs. Ballard, Sergeant Ballard, I’m Hank Renshaw. It’s a pleasure to have you here. Let’s go across to the library and talk for a moment while the staff sets a place for you both.”
And while Hank’s stepmom likely booted out the photographer.
Jonah’s wife reached out to Gabrielle, as the other wives clustered in a semicircle, creating a wall of privacy between her and the prying lens. The family moved in seamless sync, having made a science out of handling the media.
Hank ushered her parents across the hall into the library to give them privacy, and Gabrielle couldn’t help but think how only yesterday morning she’d come in here to find him asleep with her son on his chest. The world was moving at warp speed.
The doors closed, sealing them in the cavernous room that hadn’t been staged for the photo shoot. Empty shelves climbed to the ceiling, as hollow as her heart.
Her mother’s face relaxed, and she grabbed her daughter’s hands. “We’re here to check on you and help. Although it appears you have plenty of helping hands.” Her eyes zipped back and forth from her to Hank, curiosity crackling, even as she continued to ramble, “You said you just had Hank’s help, and I know it’s not P.C. to say so, but a man’s help with a baby isn’t the same as a woman’s help.”
An image popped to mind of Hank asleep with Max on his chest, and she almost burst into tears, which would be absolutely the worst thing to do around her parents now. Yet, something inside her felt about five years old, and she wanted nothing more than to pour out her heart to her mom while drinking a cup of hot cocoa.
What in the world was Hank saying to her father over in the corner?
Her mother wrapped her arm around her shoulders. “We’re staying at a lovely little bed-and-breakfast just down the road. We would have come earlier, but we had to wait for the Mardi Gras travelers to leave town. We’re comfortable there with plenty of room. We got a suite, in case you needed somewhere to stay while your apartment’s being fixed. We weren’t sure exactly what you had set up here with your gentleman friend.”
Because Gabrielle hadn’t told her. She’d closed herself off from her parents, more intensely than before over these past ten months for fear they would judge her life, her decision to have a child alone.
For fear she would become a child again around them and just let her mother take control.
But she couldn’t stay here after the fight with Hank.
These were her parents. Her heart was breaking, and yes, she needed a soft place to land tonight. She wasn’t running away from Hank. She just wanted room to clear her head, something she couldn’t do with an audience of nearly twenty relatives.
Besides, she owed her parents that much. They’d flown all this way to see her baby, her dear son that had anchored her in spite of all the hurt clawing at her heart.
“Mom,” she blurted out, the last thing she would have expected to ever come out of her mouth. “Max and I would love to spend some time with you and Dad. Give me ten minutes to change and toss some things in a suitcase.”
* * *
“Don’t you think it’s a little early in the day for alcohol?”
Parked on the lanai, Hank ignored his father and tipped back the imported beer. His dad did always have the good stuff on hand. As he sat here, looking out at the yard, tormenting the hell out of himself with memories of dancing with Gabrielle under the stars, he couldn’t think of a better time to get falling-down drunk.
She’d just up and left with her parents last night, gathered her son and headed out the door, only pausing long enough to hug his mother. Holding Max for all of ten seconds to say goodbye had damn near torn his already bruised heart from his chest. He’d thought he heard Gabrielle murmur a tearful thanks before she booked it out of his life. But what the hell was he supposed to do?
The morning sure hadn’t brought any answers so by noon he’d moved his moody self outside away from his hovering family.
He looked up at his father. “Want a beer anyway?”
“Sure.” His dad dropped into a chair beside him, and pulled a bottle from the crystal ice bucket Hank had brought outside. “But only so you aren’t drinking alone.”
“Damn nice of you.”
“Count yourself lucky. I’m the only one of the family willing to put up with your bad mood.”
Hank set his bottle down with controlled precision, anger pumping through him. “With all due respect, sir, I didn’t ask you to come here. I didn’t ask for your help, which sucked by the way.”
His father cocked his head to the side. “How so?”
“You’re the one who said she needed time to grieve for her dead fiancé. I don’t think the Landis-Renshaw clan gave her much time by sweeping in here unannounced. Do you?”
“So you love her?”
Hank reached for the bottle and clammed up again.
The general reclined in the chair, eyes too astute. “That had to have made things tough for you, having feelings for Gabrielle while they were dating.”
“What makes you think I had feelings for her back then?” he asked evasively.
“You haven’t even been home from your deployment for two weeks and you’re not the type to fall for someone fast.”
“You would be wrong about that.” He’d fallen for Gabrielle the first time her saw her.
His father lifted and eyebrow and his beer. “Oh, really?”
“Wow, I stepped right into that, didn’t I?”
“It helps that I know you.”
Hell, might as well quit pretending. He sank back into his chair. A strange—and uncomfortable—suspicion drifted through his head. “Did you have feelings for Ginger when Mom was alive?”
“Ginger and I were both married, both in love with our spouses. Then we were both busy as hell bringing up kids.” His face creased with…pain? “I can honestly say the feelings came to us later. We wasted a lot of years avoiding it. Tough for a guy like me to admit he was afraid, but I was a big coward. Scared of losing a woman I loved again.”
He looked at his big, invincible three-star father through different eyes. “What helped Ginger get over the fear?”
And could that be helpful to Gabrielle?
“You would have to ask Ginger yourself.”
“Really?” He shook his head. “Sorry, Dad, but that sounds like a damn awkward conversation.”
Ginger had been a part of his life for as long as he could remember, but he didn’t exactly excel at the warm, fuzzy parts of family relationships.