Authors: Rochelle Alers
“What?”
“I want us to consider trying for a baby now.”
Her head came up, and she stared at him as if he were a stranger instead of someone with whom she had pledged her future. “A baby?”
Sitting up, he reached down, anchored his hands under her arms and pulled her up to lie flush on his body. “Yes, a baby.”
Her brow furrowed slightly. “Are you telling me to come off the Pill?”
He shook his head. “No, darling. I’d never tell you to do anything that has to do with your body. I’m
asking
, Summer.”
Her frown deepened. “What happened to us waiting until after we marry?”
“I’ve changed my mind.”
Summer registered the depth and quiet emphasis in his words. He’d changed his mind. He wanted a baby
now
. She also wanted a baby
now
, but the reality was that she did not want to carry a baby while still undercover.
Moving up, she pressed her mouth to Gabriel’s, feeling his breath feather over her lips. “Why now, Gabriel? I don’t want to be a bride walking down the aisle with a belly.”
“You won’t be the first pregnant Cole bride.” He chuckled when he heard her slight gasp. “My mother was at least three months along with me when she married my father. Alexandra was pregnant when she married Merrick. Regina waited until after she’d delivered Clay to marry Aaron. The one to take the rag off the brush was Uncle Martin. Regina was nine before he found out he had a daughter.”
“Who
wasn’t
pregnant?”
“Emily, Sara, and Arianna.”
“What about Jolene?”
“I forgot about her. She, too, had a little bun in the oven when she married Michael.”
Summer wanted to tell Gabriel that there was nothing she wanted more than to become his wife and the mother of his children, except for a little obstacle. She was playing a dangerous masquerade, one that she did not know how it would play out.
She and Merrick had argued during the return flight from Mississippi, both managing to keep their voices low and expressions impassive while she told him to back off. He had stubbornly refused saying that he would use his own methods to make certain nothing happened to his unborn daughter’s aunt.
“I can’t, Gabriel.” He stared at her so long that Summer felt as if his shimmering gold eyes were going to burn her face with their intensity. He was angry while she was resolute in her decision.
Without warning, she kissed him, her tongue pushing into his mouth. At first he resisted, then he parted his lips. She teased, tantalized until his hands moved down and cradled her hips. Within seconds, the T-shirt she wore slipped off the bed and onto the carpeted floor. She slid down his body, her mouth and tongue charting a determined path.
“No!” Gabriel bellowed when he felt her take him into her mouth. He collapsed to the mound of pillows on his side of the bed, breathing heavily through his open mouth as her hot mouth and tongue worked their magic.
He forgot his annoyance at her stubbornness to marry before the school year ended; he forgot about her reluctance to get pregnant, and once his flesh swelled between her teeth he even forgot his own name.
The women rule and the men serve
.
She had come to fully understand the family motto because she had found herself an equal with Gabriel out of the bed, while she had assumed control in bed. And she was not above using her body in the most skillful way possible to get him to agree to anything she wanted. And
this
moment she was in control and ruling with the absolute power of a despot.
“No, Sum-m-er!” He’d groaned her name out in three syllables instead of two. She was driving him crazy. Her hot mouth was doing things to him that threatened to strip him bare where he’d become more malleable than soft clay.
Tears of pleasure—pure and explosive—pricked the backs of his eyelids as he convulsed violently. His control shattered as a growl escaped his constricted throat and somewhere where sanity and insanity merged he found the strength to extract Summer’s mouth from his swollen flesh.
He picked her up like a small child, pressed her back to the mattress, lifted her legs over his shoulders and entered her like a heat-seeking missile striking its target.
This coupling, this joining was so passionate, intense, that Gabriel was certain he had experienced
le petit mort
for the first time as he and Summer climaxed simultaneously. He was dying, drowning in the pure and explosive pleasure of the woman writhing sensuously under him.
Head lowered, chest rising and falling heavily, he stared at the satisfied smile on her lush mouth. “I’ll wait,” he gasped.
Summer opened her eyes, and her smile widened.
I know you will
, she mused.
Gabriel’s refrain of “let it snow” had become a reality. And it did snow—for three days and two nights without stopping. The northeast had been hit with the storm of the new century with thirty-eight inches of snow, with drifts up to six feet.
Summer sat in the sitting room, staring at the thin television screen cradled on its own stand, unable to believe the flickering images. The snow had crippled the nation’s capitol. Blowing snow and drifts stretched from portions of West Virginia and up the east coast to portions of Maine.
This would become the first Christmas that the second generation of Coles, Kirklands, and Grayslakes would not celebrate Christmas and New Year’s in West Palm Beach, Florida. Merrick and Alexandra who were spending the weekend with Michael and Jolene, were now stranded in Georgetown.
The sound of popping embers and the smell of burning firewood filled the bedroom and several downstairs rooms as Gabriel lit fires in the fireplaces.
Gabriel sat across from her now, his sock-covered feet tucked under him in a yoga position. He bobbed his head in unison to the music coming through the
headset in his ears while he scribbled notes on a staff-lined paper.
Another image flashed across the screen, and Summer went completely still. “Gabriel, look!” She stared when he did not answer, and she jumped up and pulled the wire on the headset. His head came up quickly. “Come look at this!”
Shifting positions, Gabriel stood next to Summer as they listened to the news commentator’s voice reporting that the Boston police had found the frozen body of a young boy who had been identified as Omar Knight. His parents had reported that he and several other boys had gone out to shovel snow for several of their elderly neighbors. The boys had returned to their homes later that evening, but Omar had not come home.
Summer did not realize she was crying until the images on the television blurred. She couldn’t believe it. The frightened young boy whom Dumas had trapped against a bathroom wall was gone. She heard Gabriel mumbled an expletive, redirecting her attention to the news anchor’s voice.
“Police officials report that the boy, who was reported missing four days ago by his family, appears to have suffered a broken neck. An autopsy will determine the exact cause of death. Omar Knight, who is a junior at Weir Memorial High School, is reported to be well liked and a good student.” The picture shifted to an image of Omar’s mother sobbing in her husband’s arms.
“Turn it off, Gabriel. Now!” Summer shouted when he appeared transfixed by the report. He picked up the remote, pressed a button, and the screen went blank.
“Why?” she sobbed against Gabriel’s sweatshirt-covered chest. His arms tightened around her body.
“He was so young, so innocent. Why would anyone hurt him? Why? Why?” she sobbed over and over.
Closing his eyes, Gabriel rested his chin on the top of Summer’s head. “We don’t have any of the answers, baby.”
“They lost their baby, Gabriel. They had him for a very short time, then he was taken from them.”
Gabriel felt his self-control tested as he held the woman he loved in his arms to his heart. He knew Summer was reliving her own brother’s death. The grief-stricken faces of the Knights had become the Montgomerys all over again.
He held her until her sobbing subsided, then he picked her up and carried her to the bed. They lay together in the quiet silence that had become so much a part of who they had become.
Gabriel felt Summer slip out of bed early Christmas morning, but made no attempt to stop her. In that instant he cursed Nature, which demonstrated her power with delivering three feet of snow to the east coast. If the storm, which had developed in the Ohio Valley, had blown out to sea instead of turning north, he and Summer would be in Florida where the news of Omar Knight’s death would not have reached them until their return. He knew he was selfish and unrealistic, but he wanted to shelter Summer from the pain of reliving the loss of her brother.
Summer squinted through the lenses of her sunglasses as she jogged along the road. It had been plowed, the snow pushed to one side like a wall of pristine
white crystals. Because of its proximity to the ocean, the Cape did not have the monstrous accumulations that had occurred in-land.
She punched the programmed number for Lucas Shelby. It rang several times, then she heard his voice mail message. “Renegade. Call me.” Pressing a button, she ended the call.
Three minutes later, the cell phone rang, she answering before it rang again. “Yes?”
“I guess you heard about that poor kid.”
“His name was Omar, Lucas, not that poor kid.”
“I’m sorry, Renegade.”
“What do you know?”
“We’ve made inquiries, and the police said that the M.E. found traces of narcotics in his stomach.”
She frowned. It was apparent the DEA had uncovered information that had not been released to the press. “Did they identify the substance?”
“Preliminary tests are leaning toward MDMA.”
“Ecstasy? I thought you told me he was clean.”
“We didn’t find any evidence of him selling, but that did not mean he wasn’t abusing. We have to identify who was supplying him with the tablets.”
“School is closed for the week, but once it reopens there’s going to be a lot of grief counseling sessions for Weir’s student body. Remember, this is the third peer they’ve lost in three years.”
“Do whatever it is you have to do, Renegade. If you feel you need to lean on somebody, then do it. I want Omar Knight to be the last drug statistic at Weir.”
She slowed her pace, breathing heavily in the frigid air. “I hear you.”
“Renegade?”
“Yes, Lucas?”
“Merry Christmas.”
She smiled. “Merry Christmas to you, too.”
Summer hung up and reversed direction. Her boss had verbally given her the go ahead to become more aggressive in her search for Weir’s drug dealer.
Gabriel was waiting on the porch upon her return. She surveyed his tall figure as he stood up. It had become a habit for him to wait for her to come back from jogging. She had invited him to join her, but he said he preferred walking to jogging. Wherein she jogged three miles, he would walk the three miles. What he did do was pushups and sit-ups to keep his body toned.
Despite the frigid temperature, he wore a pair of jeans, T-shirt, and socks. The wind swept his unbound hair around his face. Their gazes met and fused as she mounted the stairs leading up to the porch.
Removing her gloves, she placed her palms against his cold cheeks. “What are doing out here half-dressed?”
He stared at her through his lashes. “Waiting for you.”
She kissed his cold mouth. “The next time you wait for me, put more clothes on.”
“Why? I’m not cold.”
“It’s fifteen degrees, Gabriel. That’s not cold?”
A hint of a smile played at the corners of his mouth. “No.”
“You’re kidding?”
“No. I’m always hot around you. There are not too many men who live in Massachusetts that can say they have summer every day of the year.” Reaching into the
back pocket of his jeans, he pulled out a silver-foil wrapped narrow flat package. “Merry Christmas.”
She took the gift, smiling. “Thank you, darling. Let me get yours and we’ll open them together.”
They went into the house and into the family room where a fire blazed behind a decorative wrought-iron screen. Summer removed several books lining a built-in bookcase and took out the gift she had hidden there.
“Now I’ll have to a find another hiding place,” she teased Gabriel, handing him his gift. They shared a smile. It was apparent they had given each other jewelry because the shape of the boxes were the same.
Summer peeled off the paper, gasping loudly when she raised the top on a blue velvet case cradling a bracelet with bezel-set diamonds lining a graceful scroll of vines and flowers and reminiscent of estate jewelry.
“It’s absolutely exquisite.”
Gabriel lifted an eyebrow. “I hope you like it.”
She held out her right arm. “I love it. I love you.”
Gabriel put the bracelet on her wrist, smiling when she kissed him. He wanted to tell her that he loved her, more than anything and anyone in his life. The item was perfect for her delicate wrist.
The bracelet was much heavier than it appeared, and Summer knew it had to be platinum. So much for her lover not knowing how to choose bling-bling.
Gabriel opened his gift, the lines around his eyes deepening when he stared at the sophisticated links. “I suppose we were thinking along the same lines.” It was an ideal match for the stainless steel and gold Rolex watch his father had given him after he’d earned an Oscar for his
Reflections in a Mirror
movie soundtrack.
He held out his right arm. “Please put it on.” The
deep yellow gold was a warm contrast against his brown wrist. Smiling, Gabriel nodded. “Very nice, Summer. You have exquisite taste.”
“I know,” she said without a hint of modesty. “I chose you, didn’t I?”
Reaching for her, Gabriel pulled her to sit on his lap. “Wrong, baby. I was the one who chased you.”
She affected an attractive moue. “Now you’re the one talking smickedy smack. If I hadn’t wanted you to catch me, then you still would be staring with your tongue hanging out.”
He winked at her. “My tongue only hangs out when you drop it like it’s hot for me.”
Looping her arms around his strong neck, she pulled his head down. The light from a table lamp reflected off the precious stones circling her wrist. “I’ll see if I can’t accommodate you later.”
He kissed the end of her nose. “I can’t wait.”
It was later that night when Gabriel and Summer celebrated their first Christmas together—their own special way—that Summer decided she did not want to wait for June to marry or have a child. She wanted it now. But more than that she wanted to rid herself of the dangerous masquerade.
As she lay in Gabriel’s embrace, savoring the aftermath of their passionate coupling, she redefined her role as Renegade because she no longer had six months to identify Weir’s drug dealer. She had given herself three months.
If she had brought down Richard Robertson who was indicted for money laundering conspiracy in only thirteen months, if she focused, really focused, then
there was no reason why she couldn’t stop the drug dealing at Weir.
And she knew Lucas was right when he accused her of spending more time in Gabriel Cole’s bed than she did collecting evidence. But all of that would change with the second day of January.
She would give Lucas Shelby what he wanted, Gabriel Cole what he wanted, and in turn she would get what she wanted most.