“Nice,” she conceded. “Definitely more comfortable than my five-year-old little hatchback.”
Forcing him to fold himself into her tiny econo car would be silly and pointless. In fact, fighting him every step of the way could be more telling than just going with the flow, pretending they were still simply friends.
He opened the back door and tossed in the diaper bag. “And does the infant seat meet with your approval?”
“Let me see… .” She checked the belt, making sure he’d installed it properly.
“The air force trusts me with a B-52. I think you can trust me to follow instructions.”
“It’s my child’s safety. I have to be sure.” And she found nothing wrong.
Wow. It had taken her three hours to figure one of these out. She eased Max from the sling, her son so small in her hands, so perfect. Love and protectiveness welled up inside her—along with gratitude that Hank had gone to such trouble to make sure her baby had everything he needed.
Hank had to be exhausted, just back from overseas, then immediately on the road to see her. No wonder he needed the coffee. Her mouth watered at the thought of having a taste of something she’d been denied since getting pregnant with Max… .
Uh, coffee. She missed coffee and chocolate and spicy foods, things she gave up while breastfeeding.
“Gabrielle?” Hank stood in the open door, her beautiful historic city behind him.
Her adventure. She’d started out here with such plans for taking the world by storm, launching a powerful career in international banking. Now she just wanted to help her child get healthy.
“Right, let’s go before we’re late.”
She clicked Max in securely and thought about staying in back with him. But he was already asleep again and Hank was holding the passenger door open for her. Without another thought, she shuffled into the front, and Hank pulled out into the early morning traffic.
His GPS spoke softly. Of course he’d already plugged in the address for the hospital where Max would have his pre-admission blood work. Outside the car, people walked to work in business clothes. A mom pushed her kid in a stroller, passing by a homeless guy sleeping in a doorway. New Orleans was such a mix of history and wealth, poverty and decay. The city had looked different to her before her son was born. Her plans had looked different.
Hank’s phone chimed from where he’d placed it on the dash. He glanced at the LED screen and let it go to voice mail. It was the same phone she’d seen him playing with earlier.
“I wouldn’t have pegged you as the video game type.”
He glanced over with barely a half smile, so serious for a guy who’d been blasting digital bugs on her steps. “I went to a military high school. One of my roommates was a computer geek.”
“He got you hooked on games?”
“You could say so. His computer access was limited in school—conditions of not going to jail for breaking into the Department of Defense mainframe.”
Her eyes zipped to his phone. “How did I never know you attended a military high school? Or that you’re into video games?”
“You and I spent most of our time together keeping things light.”
They had always avoided more serious subjects, like where they’d gone to school and their family histories. Until that day she’d poured her heart out over her fight with Kevin. How he’d wanted her to move in and she’d wanted the space to finish pursuing her dreams. Kevin had been living his. She just wanted the same chance.
She’d stopped short of telling Hank everything the fight had been about, unable to bring herself to share intimate details about a forgotten condom. How she’d been frustrated about Kevin’s partying. The very playful attitude she’d originally been drawn to was beginning to pall. She was tired of always having to be the responsible one.
But God, she couldn’t break up with Kevin right before a deployment, especially not when she wasn’t even sure what she wanted. Talking to Hank, the harder she’d cried, the more she’d gasped, the more each breath hauled in the scent of him. Before she could think, she’d been kissing him, stunned as hell over the desire combusting inside her. She’d been attracted to him—sure—but she’d thought she had that under control. She was focused. She and Kevin were a good match. They balanced each other out, his humor lightening her driven nature. She didn’t need more intensity in her life.
Except when Hank had focused all that intensity on her, she’d been damn near helpless to resist.
Her hands fisted until her gnawed-down nails bit into her palms. Their past time together was better left alone, especially today with everything he’d said last night still so fresh and raw. “Back to the DoD hacker high school roommate?”
“Once he turned twenty-one and got free of his cyber watchdog, he set up a small company that developed cutting-edge software. Computer games. Mostly save-the-world type of stuff.”
“What game were you playing this morning?” she asked, intrigued by this side of Hank she hadn’t guessed at before. Had he never seemed lighthearted around Kevin because Hank had been relegated to the role of mature grown-up? Had she lost some of her lightheartedness around her fiancé for the same reason, playing less rather than more around him? “Maybe I’ve heard of it.”
“It isn’t out yet.”
“How nice of your friend to let you test run his material.”
“I own part of the company.”
That caught her up short.
“Really? Yet another thing I didn’t know about you.” Did his influence stretch to every niche of the stratosphere—political, financial, military and now even the geek-squad world, as well?
“I’m a silent partner, and I prefer to keep it that way. I’ve got enough notoriety hanging around my neck thanks to my family.”
“Why this investment, though?” She wished she could see his eyes, read what he was thinking as her impression of him altered. “You’re not a games kind of guy.”
“But I’m a practical guy.” He stopped smoothly at a red light. “The venture made good business sense.”
The MBA part of her applauded him, although she suspected something else was at work here. “You’re all about the military, not business. You don’t care about money. You never have.” Her more frugal upbringing applauded that, as well. “You risked the money to help a friend, and it just turned out well for you.”
“When did you swap from a business major to psychology?” He slid his sunglasses down his nose, his eyes laser sharp as he looked over the top of the lenses at her.
What a time to remember a blue flame burned hottest.
“Hey, you inserted yourself into my life. Turnabout is fair play.”
And damned if he wasn’t doing it with complete ease.
* * *
This wasn’t as easy as it seemed.
Midday sun piercing his aviator shades, Hank slid into a parking spot two blocks away from Gabrielle’s apartment. He’d spent all morning helping through the pre-hospitalization blood work for her baby to have surgery tomorrow. There hadn’t been a chance to speak over lunch, not between juggling the kid back and forth. So the day was slipping away and he still hadn’t made any headway in finding an opening to persuade her to stay with him during the kid’s recovery. Every time he got close, something distracted him.
Like the way Max had cried when the lab technician stuck his tiny toe.
Hank had wanted to tuck the kid under his arm like a football and book it out of the hospital. Which was damn silly. They were just doing their jobs around here. This was all necessary to make the boy better.
Now, they were already back at her place again. It was just past lunchtime, but felt as if it were even later. The kid was getting cranky, so Hank just unsnapped the car seat fast and hefted it out for expediency’s sake. Gabrielle followed efficiently, the dark circles of worry under her eyes even darker. Damn it, she needed more help than just someone carrying the kid and supplying a meal.
Accordion zydeco music swelled from a street café, although, strangely, the antiques shop below her apartment sported a closed sign. He was going to have to just ask her to stay with him. And she would say no. Then he would have to get pushy, which would piss her off. Hell, it would piss him off. But he wasn’t wrong.
Being right didn’t comfort him much.
He pushed open the iron gate to let her through, prepping his words and his will for the fight ahead once she had her son fed and asleep again.
Gabrielle gasped and pulled up short. Instinctively, he looked around for a threat—a mugger? Another drunk like last night? How could he have forgotten they were in downtown New Orleans—an undeniably cool place to party but not the safest city on the planet?
Grabbing her around the waist with one arm, he tucked her against him. “Gabrielle?”
Ah, hell. Her bottom nestled right against him, close, intimate and too arousing. He took a breath and backed away. They had a cranky kid to take care of.
“Look,” she said, pointing up toward her apartment.
He barely had time to process the sight of water pouring out from under her door before the front entrance to the shop burst open. A woman—probably in her fifties—rushed toward them wearing a 1920s flapper get-up. Which would seem strange somewhere else. But New Orleans was an “anything goes” kind of place. A name tag pinned to her chest declared her Leonie, and the costume actually made sense for an antiques store employee.
Gabrielle brushed past him and clasped the woman’s hands. “Leonie, what’s going on?”
“A water pipe burst.” She peered around Gabrielle with undisguised curiosity chasing away her harried look for a moment. “But a more important question, who’s this?”
“Leonie, this is Hank, a friend of mine.” Gabrielle chewed her lip before continuing. “Hank, this is Leonie Lanier. She works part-time in the shop and helps me with Max.”
Interesting that she’d left off the Renshaw last name and hadn’t referred to him as Kevin’s friend. “Nice to meet you, ma’am.”
“You, too, Hank.” She finally peeled her gaze away and back onto Gabrielle. “The broken water pipe flooded all three floors. It’s horrible downstairs. Yours is mostly damage along the floors. Still, even if your place isn’t a mess, they had to turn off the water.”
Gabrielle pointed up at the flowing stream trickling under her door. “And what’s that if the water’s off?”
“Everything that happened before we turned off the main valve.” She pressed a hand to her forehead, right over the beaded band. “We’re not sure what caused it, but I’m sorry, sweetie. All the renters in the building have to find somewhere else to stay. The second I heard that, my heart just sank for you and this precious little guy. As if you don’t have enough to fret about now.”
For the first time in ten godforsaken months, life was cutting him a break. He wouldn’t have to fight or argue with Gabrielle. Persuading her to come to the house he’d rented would be a cakewalk now.