Kitabı oku: «Marry Me», sayfa 4

CHAPTER FOUR

‘SO YOU went clothes shopping with a woman, what, have you lost your mind?’

Gabriel slung a towel round his neck and took a swig from his water bottle. Playing a couple of games of squash with Joe, a work colleague, he intended to beat the tension out of himself with physical exertion. So far it wasn’t working.

He hadn’t been able to focus now for two days. Whenever he tried, his mind was invaded by Lucy: how she’d looked, how she smelled, how her skin felt when she held his arm. He couldn’t remember a woman making him feel like this since Alison, and even she was now beginning to become a blur. To his dismay it was beginning to dawn on him that the reason he didn’t want Lucy to get married had less to do with the impact on their friendship and more to do with the fact she was marrying someone else.

You want her for yourself, his mind whispered, and it seemed he was powerless to crush that thought. When he remembered Alison now his mind seemed to have sideslipped into comparison mode, where her smile was lovely but Lucy’s smile made every cell in his body tingle. Alison’s blonde hair had been silky and pretty but Lucy’s insane curls made him want to tangle his hands in them and never let go.

‘Not in the sense you think,’ he panted in reply. He leaned against the wall and towelled the sweat from his face. ‘She’s going to propose to her boyfriend. There’s some kind of leap year thing where women are supposed to be allowed to propose marriage instead of men. I was helping her pick some clothes out.’

To his surprise, Joe nodded. ‘My sister did it. She asked her husband to marry her eight years ago on February twenty-ninth. Poor guy didn’t stand a chance.’

Gabriel ran his hands distractedly through his hair. ‘Thing is, Lucy’s a friend. More of a sister really—we grew up together. But watching her showing off in these clothes… I never really noticed before just how stunning she is. Now I can’t stop thinking about her. And I’m meant to be helping her plan this proposal to the guy in less than two weeks’ time. Right now I feel like I want to knock his head off if he goes anywhere near her.’

Joe stared at him as if he were mad. ‘You are kidding me, right? You need to see the new girl in the office. That’ll soon get your mind back on track.’

Gabriel buried his face for a moment in the towel. He felt no spark of interest whatsoever in the new girl in the typing pool. But two weeks ago he would have already been dating her. He felt as if his life had been turned upside down.

‘Maybe you’re right,’ he said, more to placate Joe than anything. ‘I haven’t dated for a few weeks. Every waking moment’s been taken up with the Pryor case and this thing with Lucy.’

‘Course I am.’ Joe clapped him encouragingly on the shoulder as they walked back onto the court. ‘Get the proposal out of the way and things will get back to normal. She’ll have a wedding to plan and, trust me, you don’t want to get within a hundred miles of a woman doing that.’

Gabriel picked up his racket and smacked the squash ball with every ounce of strength he had. The thought of Lucy marrying Ed was beginning to make him feel ill.

‘Lucy, darling, you look as beautiful as ever. It’s so good to see you.’ Gabriel’s mother Elizabeth swept Lucy into a tight warm hug, and Lucy momentarily closed her eyes so as to soak up every drop of love in it. She thought for the hundredth time what a lovely person Elizabeth was and felt that age-old pang of childhood jealousy against Gabriel for having such a supportive close family when her own home life had been such a shambles.

‘These are for you.’ Lucy handed over the white cardboard box she had brought with her. Elizabeth lifted the lid and exclaimed delightedly at the sight of the cake selection inside. Billowing swirls of jewel-coloured meringue nestled alongside delicately decorated cupcakes.

‘Lucy, they’re marvellous. Although just one of them is more pudding than I normally eat in a week! You are kind. Gabriel’s told me all about how well you are doing. We love hearing about the shop—I’m so pleased it’s such a success.’

Lucy followed her as she led the way through the cool hallway to the large kitchen at the back of the manor. She met Gabriel’s eyes behind his mother’s back. He shrugged apologetically but she shook her head at him and smiled. She adored Elizabeth, and thought it was wonderful to have a mother to whom you could entrust all the tiny details of your life. Her own mother had been totally preoccupied by her own life and problems and Lucy had never been able to confide in her. The kitchen was warm from the Aga with a huge scrubbed wooden table and a kind-faced woman of about fifty preparing the lunch.

‘This is Angela,’ Elizabeth said. The woman turned from peeling vegetables at the sink and smiled at them. ‘Angela’s an absolute treasure,’ she confided to Lucy as they returned to the sitting room, having deposited the cakes in the kitchen. ‘Keeps the house perfect and cooks for us when we need her to. Like today. I’m more than capable of rustling up scrambled eggs for Gordon and myself, but it’s such a joy to have someone else cook the more demanding meals now.’

The lunch proved to be delicious, the multitasking Angela serving them all as effortlessly as she had apparently cooked the meal. Lucy realised she was having a wonderful time; she really did feel as if she’d come home. She supposed Gabe must feel like this every time he came—how lucky he was.

‘How are your parents, Lucy dear? Do you see much of them?’ Lucy felt a stab of embarrassment that Elizabeth knew what a nightmare her mother and father were.

‘Not really. Christmas and birthday cards, you know. The occasional phone call.’ Exactly the way she wanted it. She had total control now over her own life, the polar opposite to her awful childhood years. ‘My mother’s in Las Vegas now with her latest husband. Number three. And my father’s up in Birmingham. A friend of his offered him a job. Nothing like the work he did for you, of course.’

Elizabeth nodded politely.

‘Hospital porter, I think he is now,’ Lucy added vaguely. ‘It suits me, to be honest, that they’ve both moved away. I have my own life now and that’s the way I want it.’ She smiled at Elizabeth. ‘It’s lovely coming here, though. Reminds me of the fun Gabriel and I had as kids.’ She’d changed the subject swiftly and effortlessly. God knew she’d had enough practice at avoiding discussing her parents.

After lunch, Gabriel and his father had coffee in the drawing room, and Elizabeth asked Lucy to accompany her on a walk in the gardens. They strolled arm in arm.

‘It’s looking lovely.’ Lucy admired the beds and the well-kept lawn. She could almost see herself and Gabriel kicking the old football around here when they were little. There were some fantastic trees to climb on the estate too. She smiled to herself. She’d been such a tomboy.

‘How kind of you to say so, dear. I don’t do so much of it myself these days, of course. Gordon has a man come in a few times a week in the spring and summer. Keeps it up together. Less to do in the winter of course.’

They walked on in silence for a moment. Elizabeth seemed faintly tense and Lucy couldn’t help thinking she’d asked her to come for a walk deliberately so that they could talk privately. She had no idea why that might be.

‘Is something wrong?’ she asked curiously.

Elizabeth smiled at her. ‘Not especially, dear. I just wondered how Gabriel is. I know he tells us he’s fine but I can never really get any information out of him. I was hoping you could give me some insight. Do you think he’s happy?’ She sighed. ‘We don’t see as much of him as we’d like these days.’

Lucy looked at her in surprise. She’d always thought of Gabriel as very close to his parents.

‘Yes, of course he is. He’s done so brilliantly at work, you know. He’s ahead of his time. He’s quite well known in legal circles, I think. And he has an incredibly busy social life.’

Elizabeth didn’t miss the implication. ‘Still no one special, then.’ She sighed again. ‘I do worry about him so. When he lost Alison he was still very young. Young enough to start again. She was such a lovely girl, I knew it would take him some time to get over it. But he’s never even once brought a girlfriend to meet us since.’

Lucy patted her hand reassuringly, thinking that the word ‘lost’ just didn’t really cover it. It was Elizabeth’s shorthand for the fact that Gabriel’s first love, his college sweetheart, had died in a car accident the year after they left university. She knew he’d been devastated at the time. But as the years had passed he had never opened up about it beyond the bare facts, not even to her. Eventually he had stopped talking about it altogether and Lucy had taken her cue from him and avoided the subject like the plague for fear of upsetting him. Gabriel behaved as though Alison had never existed at all. Until you took a closer look and realised that he’d simply spent every relationship since making sure nothing like it could ever happen to him again. None of his girlfriends were ever allowed to get close enough for them to mean anything to him. Elizabeth was right: after ten years he really hadn’t moved on.

She did her best to be reassuring. ‘He’ll settle down one day, Elizabeth. I’m sure of it. He just seems… I don’t know… happy with the way things are at the moment.’

‘You know, Gordon and I always hoped you and he might end up…’ Elizabeth spoke wistfully, then quickly pulled herself up short.

Lucy jumped a little, as if she’d taken a whiff of smelling salts. She felt the heat of an unexpected blush creep slowly upwards from her collar and was momentarily flustered. A long-buried memory surfaced and she tried her best to push it back to the depths of her mind from where it had come. The very idea of her having a relationship with Gabriel should be laughable. She was sure Gabe would laugh out loud at the suggestion. She certainly shouldn’t be having this reaction. Heart rate increasing, temperature rising. She felt embarrassed and hoped fervently that Elizabeth wouldn’t pick up on how agitated she was.

The truth was there had been a time, long ago, when her feelings of friendship for Gabriel had become something more. Only in her mind, of course, never his. She pondered for a moment that you never realised the true value of something until it had gone. She had learned that when Gabriel left for university all those years ago. Up until then he’d been hers. Two years older. Protector. Brother. His mother had a dislike of boarding school, instead sending Gabe to a nearby prep school. Lucy, of course, had gone to the local primary school. Their education was a world apart, just like their houses, their parents, their backgrounds, but none of it had mattered to them. They had remained close despite and, she thought now, perhaps because of their differences. Each was everything the other needed. She had been an antidote to his stuffy school atmosphere and her sense of fun had brought him respite from the intense studying it had demanded. He had been her port in a storm. The rows and upheaval at home had gradually worsened through her teens and she’d found herself relying on him more and more. His reasoned thinking had encouraged her to consider the long term, to believe that it wouldn’t be like this for ever, stuck in a village in the middle of nowhere with her warring parents and no means of escape. One day she would have her own life and she would be free.

Gabriel had never been taken away from her until he’d accepted a place to study law at Oxford. Her initial delight for him had given way to a growing, gnawing dread as the day had approached when he would start his first term. She hadn’t realised how heavily she’d come to depend on him. She was used to barely a day going by without speaking to him.

She’d missed him painfully, dreadfully, and she’d imagined he must be feeling the same way. Her sense of embarrassment now was rooted in the memory of how in his absence he’d begun to take on more than just the role of friend in her mind. She’d begun to fantasise about them being together as a couple, falling in love, having a future together. On his brief weekend visits home his touch had begun to make her skin tingle and her heart had begun to race when he entered a room. Greedy for his time and attention, she’d hung on his every word.

‘I’m sorry, dear.’ Elizabeth spoke apologetically, bringing Lucy sharply back to the present. ‘It’s nothing to do with us, of course. It’s simply that, well, I remember the first time he met you, knocking on the front door, only about six you were, looking for your lost kitten. Gabriel must have been about nine. It was that really hot summer.’

She was relieved at the change of subject. This part of memory lane she could cope with. ‘Sooty,’ she remembered. ‘I was beside myself. We’d only just moved in and my mother had let him out before he’d had a chance to get used to the house.’

‘Gabriel spent the entire afternoon searching with you, until you found him, remember?’

‘He’d just got shut inside one of the outbuildings.’ She smiled at the memory. ‘I was frantic.’

‘All Gabriel wanted to do from that moment on was look after you and make you happy. I’ve watched him over the years and he’s never changed. You’ve always been so close, I suppose I hoped it might one day become more than just a friendship.’

‘We’re more like brother and sister really,’ Lucy said, firmly, for her own benefit as much as Elizabeth’s. She cuddled closer to the old lady. ‘I was always so jealous of him when I was little. I wanted to be part of your family, too. I was so happy up here at the big house. And he’s always been there for me. He’s never once let me down.’

Elizabeth smiled at her. ‘How is your young man, dear?’ she asked politely. Lucy felt a rush of sudden guilt. Her mind had been full of Gabriel and talking about their shared past had made her feel happy and nostalgic, but also unsettled. She could kick herself for feeling so girly and flustered at the suggestion of them ever being a couple. She hadn’t spared a thought for Ed all day. But that didn’t necessarily mean she was betraying him, did it? It was just this place, nothing more. Being here was bound to stir up her feelings. Her past here had been so turbulent, it would surely be strange if it didn’t evoke strong emotions.

‘Ed? He’s well, thank you.’ She felt a sudden desire to confide in Elizabeth, to affirm to her, and perhaps also to herself, that romantic thoughts in her head were linked only to him and not for a second to Gabriel. ‘Between you and me I was hoping we might settle down and get married, but he doesn’t seem to take the hint. Gabriel thinks he’s lazy and doesn’t do enough to look after me, but you know how overprotective he can be.’

Elizabeth sighed. She was quiet for a moment before saying, ‘Relationships, Lucy, good relationships, don’t come along by accident in my experience. You have to work at them. Both of you. One of you doing everything just isn’t enough—it has to be a partnership. Gordon and I have had our ups and downs—goodness, we’ve been married a long time now. But we’ve always pulled together. He’s a pain sometimes but I wouldn’t be without him, not for anything.’

Lucy grinned.

‘Only you can say if this Ed puts enough effort in. You make sure he’s the right one for you. You deserve nothing less.’

Shortly afterwards they returned to the house and Lucy was glad when she and Gabriel left for Bath. Talking to Elizabeth had stirred her mind up far too much for her to relax on the journey home. She sat in silence in the car next to Gabriel, the memory coming unbidden to her in all its clarity of the first time she’d met Alison, and her face flushed with mortification as she remembered the circumstances of that meeting.

If Gabriel had guessed how she was feeling after he left for uni, he never let on, just behaving the way he always did, full of news about his course, his new life and his new friends. Yet her delusions had grown until she’d believed herself to be in love with him. The brotherly hugs he gave her and the occasional holding of her hand she’d begun to construe as reciprocation of her fledgling feelings, and she would lay awake at night thinking about him.

She blushed as she remembered her behaviour. A typical stupid teenage crush, that was what it had been. And she’d come so close to Gabe finding out about it that the memory alone still made her heart hammer and her cheeks burn.

Shortly into Gabriel’s second term, his visits home began to dwindle and he was useless at keeping in touch. Lucy phoned him so often that she later realised she must have been becoming a pest. She recalled now that there were many occasions when his housemates had told her he was out. With the benefit of age and maturity she now saw that he was probably fed up with her constant contact and was trying, albeit gently, to avoid her.

Convinced Gabriel would feel the same about her if she could just see him and declare her feelings, she’d decided on impulse to visit him one day, when missing him had all become too much. She remembered gazing out of the window of the bus from the train station and thinking to herself how busy and vibrant Oxford seemed compared to the Cotswold villages she was used to. She remembered the butterflies in her stomach on the bus to his digs as the miles between them fell away…

She grinned as she climbed the steps to his front door, thinking how pleased he would be to see her. She was wearing a new sea-green top, which she knew brought out the colour of her eyes, and she ’d spent ages trying to get her hair to behave itself. But the broad smile she’d been unable to keep off her face dwindled as the door opened. Not Gabriel but a slender and impossibly pretty blonde girl.

The girl smiled kindly at Lucy. ‘Can I help you? ‘

Lucy craned to see behind her into the hallway. Maybe she’d got the wrong house. But before she had time to say anything Gabriel himself appeared. He came to the door and suddenly she felt light-headed. She didn’t look up into the gorgeous slate-grey eyes and walk into his embrace, the way she’d planned to all the way here. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from his arm, which slid easily around the blonde girl’s waist as he nestled close enough to her to enable him to see around the door.

‘Lucy!’ he exclaimed, in obvious surprise. She noticed he didn’t let go of the girl as he opened the door wider. Instead he slipped his hand into hers and they surveyed her together. Lucy felt her heart twist in her chest and she swallowed hard to stop the burning sensation that began at the back of her throat. She had to find a way out of this.

‘Surprise!’ she said on impulse, weakly shrugging her shoulders. She was agonisingly aware suddenly of how idiotic she must seem to Gabriel just turning up like this unannounced, like some runaway.

‘Lucy, this is a lovely surprise, but does your dad know you’re here?’ His unintended patronising concern made her face flame with humiliation. She was sixteen after all, not a child.

Before she could speak, he addressed the blonde girl. ‘Ali, this is Lucy.’ Lucy couldn’t seem to look away from the entwined hands. ‘I told you about her. Kind of like my baby sister from back home. ‘

Alison smiled at her. ‘Hi, Lucy,’ she said warmly. ‘It’s good to meet you. Gabriel’s mentioned you a few times. It’s nice to put a face to a name. ‘

A few times. Gabriel hadn’t been out of her thoughts for longer than a few minutes these past weeks, but he clearly hadn’t been dwelling on her in the same way.

She was snatched back from her thoughts of the past when Gabriel touched her hand briefly before replacing his on the steering wheel. ‘You’re quiet, Lu. Everything all right?’

‘Fine. I’m just tired.’ Her hand tingled at his touch and she stared down at it. Oh, what is happening here? She felt the blush creep up her face, as if Oxford had happened yesterday, and she was grateful that his attention was focused on the road so he wouldn’t notice. She remembered that she only managed to stomach an hour or so of seeing the two of them together. Alison was studying medicine and they both had rooms in the shared house. She could see they were besotted with each other. Lucy had been so full of excitement at seeing him, believing him to be unknowingly in love with her, expecting to fall into his arms as it all became clear to him. Well, she’d certainly found him in love, just not with her.

She’d managed to hold it together at the house but she’d sobbed her heart out all the way back to Gloucestershire on the bus and then the train. The only comfort she’d had was that she’d stopped short of making a fool of herself by exposing her feelings to him. His baby sister. It stung. She was so hurt and humiliated that her first instinct had been to avoid him completely. She stopped calling him after that. But she quickly realised how stupid she was to think she could cut him from her life. She needed him far too much for that.

So when he’d brought Alison back to the manor she hadn’t stayed away. It had crushed her to see how happy he was. It became clear that their relationship was not going to be over quickly. That it was a proper, adult relationship. Alison completed him in a way Lucy never had. They’d been all things to each other for so long and now she wasn’t enough for him any more. And she began to see with growing, frightening clarity that there could very easily be no place for her at all in all this. She was totally dispensable in the face of his perfect future with Alison. And under threat of losing him altogether, she’d made a decision. Better to keep him as a friend than to lose him completely from her life because of her own stupid pride.

And so it was that she had played the part of childhood best friend until it became no longer an act and was second nature to her. In the years since she had managed to convince herself that her behaviour had been nothing more than a ridiculous teenage crush, brought on by the sudden gap he had left in her life when he went to university, combined with the worsening hell that was her inescapable home life.

Since that awful moment at sixteen she’d never again allowed herself to consider Gabriel as more than a friend, a brother, but that apparently hadn’t stopped his parents doing just that. Thinking about it now made her feel suddenly hot, as if she’d walked into a sauna. Before she could stop herself she was trying the idea for size in her head. Her stomach fluttered and she covered it angrily with her hands. It had been a crush. Nothing more.

Then why did you blush when his mother mentioned it? She fought that thought with all her might. She couldn’t imagine a circumstance in which she would lay their friendship on the line. Gabriel was useless at relationships; they rarely lasted longer than a month. He just didn’t seem to have it in him since Alison died. Lucy’s talk today with his mother had highlighted that more strongly than ever. What if they got together and it didn’t work out? For the first time since she was sixteen she considered what it would be like to have a life without Gabe in it, and it shocked her to the core now as it had then. She would never allow that to happen.

‘Come on up.’

The moment the buzzer sounded as Lucy unlocked the outer door of her building, Gabriel shoved the door open and leapt up the stairs two at a time. The door of her flat was shut, which struck him as a little unusual because she usually left it ajar for him when she buzzed him up. The reason became clear when he gave it a brief double tap.

‘You can’t come in!’ a determined but high voice called out. It was followed by fumbling sounds as the door was opened and Lucy appeared in the gap with an apologetic expression.

‘Sorry, Gabe. This one thinks he’s Spiderman. I had to keep the door shut in case he wandered out looking for Dr Octopus.’

Opening the door wider, Gabriel saw a small figure dressed in a Spiderman costume standing behind Lucy, who was looking red and flustered. Her unruly hair was even more uncontrollably curly than ever. Unable to stop himself grinning, Gabriel knelt down to one knee so his eyes were level with the mask on the child’s face. A pair of alert brown eyes blinked at him through the eyeholes.

‘Hello, Spiderman,’ he said. ‘I’m Lucy’s friend, Gabriel.’ He held out his hand and the child shook it solemnly.

‘Shall we go into the living room?’ Lucy said impatiently from above them, and led the way without waiting for a response. ‘Steven, I’ll put your Fireman Sam DVD on.’ As Gabriel caught up with her she added over her shoulder, ‘Thank goodness you’ve arrived. Back-up at last!’

It was Monday night. The day after their lunch in Gloucestershire. Gabriel had taken advantage of the car journey home to organise yet another opportunity to spend time with Lucy. At this rate she and Ed would grow apart through lack of contact without his having to do or say anything at all. When Steven was settled in front of the television with a cup of milk, Gabriel joined Lucy in the kitchen. She made them each a mug of coffee and they watched Steven through the open door as he sat perfectly still, his attention focused on the TV screen.

‘He’s Sophie’s boy,’ Lucy said. ‘You know, she works part-time in the shop?’

Gabriel nodded, continuing to watch the child. ‘What’s he doing here?’

‘Sophie’s mum was rushed to hospital this afternoon with chest pains. I think there’s some kind of history of heart problems. Sophie is her only family, so I said I’d have Steven overnight while she’s at the hospital. He’s been here since six.’

‘Where’s Ed?’

She made an impatient noise and Gabriel glanced at her in surprise. ‘He made an early exit to go for extra football training. To be honest he looked pleased to be going. I don’t think the prospect of entertaining Steven was his idea of a good time.’ She ran a flustered hand through her hair. ‘It doesn’t matter what I say, he refuses to take the Spiderman suit off. He’s going to have to sleep in it at this rate.’

As they watched Steven lifted the mask off his face just enough to fit the rim of his cup of milk underneath it.

‘I mean, he’s only four,’ Lucy said, almost to herself. ‘How hard can it be?’

Gabriel burst out laughing. ‘For goodness’ sake, Lu, lighten up. Remember when we were kids and you practically lived in that tutu one summer? All kids like dressing up. Just let him get on with it.’

She looked at him crossly. ‘I don’t mean that, you idiot. I admit it’s a bit weird not seeing his face but I actually think the superhero outfit is quite cute. I mean he keeps asking me about his gran and I don’t know what to tell him.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I got the impression it was touch and go and I don’t want to give Steven false hope.’

She looked up at him worriedly and he put an arm around her and gave her a reassuring squeeze.

‘Don’t worry. It’ll be OK. We can sit with him together and I’ll distract him until bedtime. Then tomorrow Sophie can take over and talk to him.’

She smiled up at him, relieved, and he realised how happy it made him just to help her out with the slightest thing. It always had done, no matter how old they were. He felt protective of her in a way he never had about anyone else.

An hour later Lucy watched from the doorway, her empty coffee mug held against her chest unnoticed. She was totally absorbed by the sight of Gabriel playing with Steven and she couldn’t stop herself comparing it with Ed’s sharp disappearance when she’d told him Steven would be staying. It hadn’t occurred to him that she might need a hand, had it? But Gabriel hadn’t batted an eyelid. She realised, in all the years she’d known Gabe, she’d never watched him interact with children before. Not so surprising, she supposed. He was an only child like her, so there were no nieces or nephews to get involved with, and his friends were very much like him. Generally they were single sports-obsessed professionals with no fixed girlfriend. Yet to see him now you’d think Gabriel came into contact with four-year-olds every day of the week. She felt a tug at her heart and shook herself. She had deliberately banished those ridiculous feelings from yesterday’s lunch. It was just cold feet about making things permanent with Ed, that was all.

‘I’m not really just Lucy’s friend, Gabriel, you know,’ she heard him telling the child. ‘I just let Lucy think that—it’s part of my cover. I’m really Sonic Man. I can hear things that happen miles and miles away. That’s my super power, just like you can climb walls and spin webs.’

Lucy watched the small dark head looking up at Gabriel. ‘My nana’s in the hospital,’ she heard Steven say in a small voice. ‘She got taken away in an ambulance.’

‘I know she did,’ Gabriel said. ‘Lucy told me. Your nana’s very ill, Steven, but they’re going to do the best they can to make her better. And she’s in the best place she possibly could be. There are lots of brilliant doctors there. I’m sure your mum will call soon, so try not to worry, OK?’ He smiled at Steven. ‘Shall we ask Lucy for a biscuit before you go up to bed?’

Lucy stepped back from the door in the nick of time as Steven pelted through to the kitchen looking less agitated than he had done since he’d arrived. Gabriel followed him and she shot him a grateful smile over Steven’s head. He’d made more progress with the child in ten minutes than she’d made in three hours. Steven had refused to say anything to her about his grandmother, however hard she’d tried. She itched to talk to Gabriel about it but made herself wait until Steven was settled in bed. Steven insisted on Gabriel tucking him in, and she made more coffee while she waited for him.