“No, pet. I promised Angie I’d stop by for a coffee and I want to be home before it’s too late.”
“Oh.” Abby’s face fell. “Tell her I said ‘hi’.”
Gray frowned. “Why don’t you go with your mother?”
Abby’s eyes met his. There was no light in them. “I can’t.” Her lower lip trembled. What the hell was going on? What had he missed?
Winona reached out, squeezing Abby’s hand. “She’d love to see you.”
Abby’s expression showed cynicism. “I’ll call her next week.”
“Okay.” Winona reached into her bag and pulled out a twenty. “Thank you for the invitation to lunch.” She placed the bill onto the table, then came around to hug Abby, who stood, folding herself into her mother’s embrace. It was a hug that spoke of love – as if he didn’t have enough evidence of that.
He didn’t bother waving away the twenty dollars. He knew enough of Abby’s independence and understood where she’d got it from.
As Winona left the restaurant, he turned back to Abby, who looked slightly traumatized.
“That went even worse than I thought it would.”
“Yes,” he agreed, still ruminating on Winona’s words, so he knew only one thing for certain. He needed to get out of there. “I have to get to the office.”
“The office?” She frowned. “On a Saturday?”
“I just need to check a few documents. It won’t take long.”
Chapter15
AT TWO O’CLOCK THE next morning, and approximately eight scotches in, Gray thought about going home. To ‘the apartment’. And he scowled, shaking his head, trying to make sense of the tangle of feelings writhing inside his chest.
He’d suspected Abby had loved him. Even after one week, there’d been something in her eyes, and her smile, and the artless, breathless way she’d clung to him after they’d made love, that had told him it had never just been about sex for her. He should have ended it then, but he’d become addicted to how good that felt. How good being with her was, how much he loved her smile and laugh, her stories and wisdom. Her company.
With any other woman, it had been about flirtation and triumph. Seeing someone he desired, enjoying the spark of attraction then possession. As soon as he’d triumphed, the appeal passed. He was no longer interested.
Except with Abby. The spark hadn’t faded. Not ever.
But she’d wanted what he couldn’t give.
Even before Iraq, Gray had seen enough of humanity’s darkness to know that people were capable of inflicting too much pain on those they loved. He’d known he’d never willingly sign up for the kind of relationship so many seemed to tout as the holy grail.
And then, Iraq had shown him death and loss on an unprecedented scale, so that he came back questioning everything. Even, at times, the point of life. Strange how, at those lowest ebbs, he’d see her face and her eyes and feel a sort of inner strength. As though knowing that someone had loved him once made him feel that he could at least like himself enough to keep going. Even when he had no intention of loving Abby back again.
So what now? What if she fell in love with him again? She wouldn’t. She couldn’t.
Except, this was Abby, and her heart. Her damned heart. It was too big, too kind, too forgiving.
How could he protect her heart, love their daughter, build a family, and keep Abby safe? He didn’t want to hurt her again.
He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. It was the only thing that he knew for certain, and he clung to that thought as he stepped outside, a little unsteadily, and hailed a cab.
“Oh, thank God you’re home.”
“Abby?” His voice was a little slurred, his body language different to normal, so she knew straight away that he’d been drinking. A lot.
“Where have you been?”
“Nowhere.”
He began to unbutton his shirt, removing it and dropping it to the floor in a gesture that was so unlike Gray she almost laughed. But she didn’t. It was three o’clock in the morning and she’d been worrying like crazy.