Bound By Marriage(14)

"Why?" she challenged, refusing to be bullied. "Don't you like hearing the truth?"

He released her so suddenly she almost her balance. "What do you know  about the truth?" The words were razor-sharp, edged by blades of  contained rage.

"I know your father changed the name of Dumont Station to Angel Station  because your mother loved angels and he loved her." Everyone in Kowhai  knew that story.

He swore, harsh and bullet-fast. "Yeah, the great Dumont romance."

His flippant response bruised her and she didn't quite understand why.  "Just because you're made of stone doesn't mean you have the right to  mock their love!"

"I have every right!" His voice rose for the first time and he shoved up  a shirt-sleeve to bare the faded burn scars on his arm. "I earned that  right."

Shocked out of her self-absorption by the sheer depth of his anger, she frowned.

"What are you talking about?" Her eyes fell to his scars. "What do your burns have to do with your parents?"

"Everything." A grim statement.

"But, the fire was an accident."

His entire demeanor changed in a millisecond. It was like watching a  wall descend over his face. Pushing down the sleeve, he jerked his head  toward the cars. "Get in. We have to drive back before the rain hits."

She gripped his arm. "Gabe? What did you mean?" He'd come close to telling her something important.

His answer was to remove her hand and say, "I'll go in front. Follow as  close as you can-the tracks can be difficult at night." None of his  earlier fury was now evident but she'd felt the tension thrumming  beneath the surface of his skin.

"You can't do this," she protested. "I'm your wife. I have a right to know about your past."

"Why do you keep making me remind you of the terms of our marriage?" he  asked almost conversationally, eyes black in the darkness. "The only  thing you have a right to know is that I can provide a good home for you  and the child you agreed to bear me. If you have any doubts about that,  I'll show you the accounts tomorrow."                       
       
           



       

She knew he was being purposefully cruel in order to block her questions  but that didn't make it hurt any less. What she didn't stop to consider  was why it hurt. "You're calling me a gold-digger?"

"No, Jess. I always thought it a fair deal. How else could I have found a  woman willing to agree to never make any waves in my life?" He opened  the door of the Jeep. "So concentrate on doing a better job of keeping  up your end of the bargain. I don't want anything else from you."

That night, Jess lay awake in her bed, waiting for Gabe to come for her  as he always did. But the hours passed and the door between their rooms  remained shut.

An odd feeling clawed through her veins. Surely she wasn't disappointed?  No, of course not. It was simply that she'd wanted a chance to push  Gabriel into talking about what he'd alluded to earlier.

"Stop lying to yourself," she whispered out loud. "Talking is hardly  what you do best in bed." And though it was tempting to place the  responsibility for the heavily sexual nature of their marriage on Gabe,  she knew she was as much to blame. If she hadn't been so eager a lover,  would he have become as demanding?

Kicking off the blankets in a burst of frustration, she folded her arms  behind her head. It was obvious that Gabe was very angry over what she'd  said tonight.

But his wrath had never before stopped him from claiming her. It would  seem she'd touched a raw nerve. What she couldn't understand was how.

There was no mystery around the fire-it had been ruled an accident. Then  she remembered that it had been the mention of his parents' love that  had first set him off. She'd grown up hearing stories of how Stephen  Dumont had wed Mary Hannah the day of her high school graduation. Though  he'd been fifteen years her senior, they'd become inseparable from day  one, and had had four children in quick succession.

Why would the reminder of such a bright love enrage Gabe?

"Stop thinking and start doing, Jess." Getting up, she pulled on a robe.  Gabe might think he'd silenced her with his cruel reference to the  terms of their marriage, but she wasn't so easily distracted. Maybe, she  thought, remembering his nightmare, she'd come too close to whatever it  was that haunted him … hurt him. It was time to find out for certain.

However the master bedroom proved to be empty. Guessing that Gabe hadn't  yet come up from his study, she padded downstairs and along the  corridor. The light spilling out from the half-open door at the end  confirmed her guess.

She placed her fingers on the wood, ready to push it open. Then Gabriel spoke and what he said made her turn to stone.

"She knows nothing about it and it's going to stay that way." A short silence.

"How I handle my wife is my concern." Another short pause. "No, Sylvie won't say anything. I've already spoken to her."

Jess stuffed a fist into her mouth to stifle her cry. Gabe had told his  secrets to his one-time lover, but he wouldn't even consider telling his  wife?

"There won't be a problem. Jess won't rock the boat."

She began to back away from the door, trying to not make a sound. God,  she was stupid. If Gabriel's earlier statements hadn't made it perfectly  clear, it was obvious from the way he'd just spoken that he really did  consider her nothing more than a convenience. A wife who'd give him a  child and otherwise stay out of his life. A wife who'd never rock the  boat. And here she'd come down with some half-baked notion of helping  him face his demons.

"So concentrate on doing a better job of keeping up your end of the bargain. I don't want anything else from you."

Why had she rationalized away that statement? The question tormented  Jess as she made her way to her studio. Once inside, she turned on the  light and shut the door but refused to give in to the urge to cry,  though it thrust a knife through her to think of Gabe sharing his  secrets with Sylvie. That was a reaction she didn't want to examine too  closely.

Because it could not be allowed to continue. At least tonight's  humiliation had finally screwed her head on straight, crushing the  fragile dreams she'd unconsciously begun to build despite everything  she'd told herself to the contrary. The only way she was going to  survive this marriage was to do as Gabe had done and bury her emotions  so deep, nothing and no one could ever reach her.

Picking up a brush almost automatically, she began to put the final  touches on Damon's portrait. Minutes, maybe longer passed. She was  composed enough to not betray anything when the door snicked open and  Gabe walked in.                       
       
           



       

"I thought you were asleep."

She made no effort to hide the portrait as he came around to stand beside her.

He stared at it without speaking as she made the last stroke and stepped back.

"Finished."

"Yes," Gabe agreed, a tightness to his tone she had no trouble reading. "That part of your life is over."

Putting away the palette and brush, she checked her hands and found not a  speck of paint on them. "As your relationship with Sylvie is over?" She  regretted the words the second they were out-obviously, she wasn't as  good as Gabriel at shutting off her emotions. "Forget it."

"I'm not sleeping with anyone but you," was his blunt rejoinder.

"I said forget it." Having tidied up, she was ready to leave but Gabe blocked her way.

Leaning in, he curled a strand of her hair around his fingers, then released it.

"I don't think I want to. Are you jealous, Jess?" He almost sounded  amused but there was an intensity to his eyes that held not laughter but  a wealth of unrelenting hunger.

That quickly, the atmosphere shifted from edgy to lushly sensual. When  he bent his head to hers, she stood her ground with a sense of fatalism.  He'd hurt her with the way he'd dismissed her so easily, hurt her so  much. But at this moment, she couldn't move away and part of her  despised herself for it. The rest of her ached for his touch.

If the harsh jangle of the phone hadn't torn the passionate web to  pieces, she might yet have surrendered the remaining tatters of her  pride.

Swearing under his breath, Gabe picked up the portable handset she'd  appropriated for this room and barked out a rough, "Hello." His face  froze over almost instantly. "It's one in the morning."

Jess didn't know how she knew it was Damon calling, but when she held out her

hand, Gabriel slammed the receiver into her palm. "Get rid of him," was his terse instruction.

Thankful he'd at least passed her the phone, she didn't get in much more  than a word before Damon began to speak. Gabe gave her a disgusted look  when she didn't immediately hang up, and started to leave. She grabbed  the front of his shirt.