Bound By Marriage(21)

She found Gabe near the smoldering ruins. The stables had been gutted,  but none of the other buildings had suffered any damage due to the quick  action of the men and women on the station. "They did good," she said,  walking up to stand beside him.

"What are you doing up?" He scowled, the brim of his hat shadowing the  expression to dark intensity. "You were supposed to rest."

"Dr. Mackey said nothing about that." She coughed to clear a slightly  husky throat. "You're the one who decided I should play invalid."                       
       
           



       

"What happened in there?" He turned to face her, hands on his hips.

Paradoxically, the aggressive posture calmed her. She'd worried the fire  might have awakened bad memories, but from what she could see, he was  his usual abrasive self. "I don't know. I fell asleep."

"You what?" It was almost a growl.

"I spent the night throwing up," she told him in case he hadn't heard her lurching about.

"So you fell asleep in the stables?"

She scowled. "What's wrong with you? No one got hurt, the horses are okay."

He took a long, deep breath, as if trying to calm himself. "Where did you fall asleep?"

"What does it matter?" She really couldn't see why he was getting so worked up about this.

"Where?" he snapped.

"Where do you think? On one of the haybales. It was there and I was  getting drowsy so I just laid down." Nothing out of the extraordinary.

"You were on hay." He sounded so in control, it told her exactly how angry he was. "You could've been killed."

"I woke up when the horses started kicking the walls. There was time for me to open up the stalls, but Starr wouldn't leave."

"So you decided to risk your neck to save hers."

"I couldn't leave her there." She could not believe he was arguing with  her over this. She'd seen the way he cared for the station animals. "She  was completely panicked."

"You should've got the hell out the second you knew something had gone wrong."

"Why?"

"Why?" He looked as though he wanted to strangle her. "Because you know  how fast hay burns and the building was wood for crissakes!"

A twinge of conscience pinched her because he was right. If he hadn't  come in after her, she could have been in serious trouble. But something  in her wouldn't let her admit that. "I had to get the horses out." She  had a sudden thought.

"I'm fine, Gabe. Really. And the baby will be, too."

"I have trained men for emergencies. They could've rescued Starr and with less fuss."

The ice in his eyes put paid to her silly notion that he was acting this  way because he'd been frightened for her safety. "Pardon me for having a  heart.

Maybe if I was like you," she said without thinking, "I would have been able to leave that poor horse in there!"

He'd opened his mouth to respond when Jim walked up and spoke in his  ear. His entire face went so dangerously quiet that she knew they'd  located the person responsible for the fire.

"Send him to my office." The words were ground out.

Jess waited until the foreman had left before asking, "What happened?"

"I'll deal with it."

She fell in step with him as he strode toward the house. "Then you won't mind if I watch."

"This is station business." He walked in the door.

"Wives help with station business."

"You're not that sort of wife." It was a cutting declaration. "I don't want or need your interference."

She narrowed her eyes. The man was deliberately attempting to make her  angry so she'd leave. It made her wonder how many other times she'd  fallen for the same act. "Too bad."

"Suit yourself. Don't get in the way." Throwing his hat onto the study  desk, he thrust a hand through his hair and remained in a standing  position.

A young man appeared in the doorway a bare minute later. Jess had never  seen anyone look more terrified. She knew him. Corey had been in the  stables earlier and had admired her sketches. She couldn't imagine how  he was involved.

"Close the door."

Corey did as asked but stayed as far from Gabe as physically possible.  She didn't blame him-Gabe's calm was so deadly, even she was scared. And  she knew he'd never harm a hair on her head.

"You have a minute to convince me I shouldn't call the police."

Corey's face threatened to crumple for a second. But to his credit, he  squared his shoulders and looked Gabe straight in the eye. "It wasn't  intentional, sir."

He swallowed. "I was smoking. I dropped a stub and thought I'd crushed it out.

But-but that's where they say the fire started so it must not have been out."

Jess saw Gabe's hands turn into fists. Her stomach dropped. Then they  opened and she breathed a sigh of relief, belatedly realizing that she'd  been way off base about how badly the fire had affected him. She'd  never seen him like this, so close to the edge it was frightening.                       
       
           



       

"How long have you worked here?" he asked and his voice was a whip.

"A year, sir."

"And in that year, did you learn the rules?"

Corey's head dropped. "Yes, sir."

"Maybe you'd like to tell me what the first rule is."

"No smoking on Angel. Anywhere on Angel."

Jess hadn't known that, but now that she thought about it, she'd never  seen a single hand with a cigarette hanging from his lips. And that was  unusual. Around here, a lot of the men didn't care about lung cancer or  second-hand smoke. They had far more to fear from the land itself.

"You're fired." Gabe's jaw was granite. "Get the hell off the property and don't show your face ever again."

She'd expected Corey to bolt, but to her surprise, he held his ground.  "I'm sorry, sir." He looked toward her. "Mrs. Dumont, I never meant to  hurt you."

"I know you didn't," Jess said but knew she couldn't intervene.

"Sir, if you-" Corey broke off as Gabe's expression seemed to harden even more.

Taking a halting breath, he restarted. "If you kick me off Angel, no one else will hire me."

Jess knew the boy wasn't lying. The station owners around here might not  always agree with each other, but on certain things they were a wall.

Gabe didn't respond to the plea.

Corey rubbed his hands on his thighs. "I need the work."

"Get out. I won't ask again."

Shoulders slumped, Corey left the room.

Jess waited until he was gone to walk over and put a hand on Gabe's arm. "Gabe, I want-"

"I said no interference, Jess. Don't you dare plead his case."

She straightened her spine. "Why not? Because you're too blinded by the past to listen?"

White lines bracketed his mouth. "How I run this station is my business."

"Yeah, well you made it mine, too, when you married me. And you'll listen to what I have to say."

"Or what?" he said, quiet and dangerous. "You won't sleep with me?"





Chapter 13





That was one place she wasn't going to go. "He has a three-year-old  girl. Her mother ran off leaving him with the baby when Corey was  sixteen."

Finally, a hint of something other than anger appeared in Gabe's eyes. "And you know this because?"

"Because he showed me her picture and asked if I could do a sketch of  her sometime." It had broken her heart to see the love in his eyes. "He  took responsibility for his child but he dropped out of school to do it.  Station work is all he knows. You cut him off and he's got no other  options."

Gabe's expression closed down again. "He knew the rules and he broke them. He's lucky I didn't have him charged."

"But-" She tightened her grip on his arm.

"Leave, Jess. I need to start the insurance paperwork." And that coldly,  he shook off her hand and went around the desk to his chair.

Jess felt something fragile inside her break, something tender and newly formed.

"I thought you were … . But you've got no more heart than a block of stone."

Gabe heard the door slam behind Jess. It reverberated through his bones.

 … no more heart than a block of stone.

She was right. He'd been ten years old when emotion had been seared out  of him by the brutal deaths of his family and he had no intention of  ever letting it back in. Not for Jess. Not for anyone. She'd known that  when she married him, so why did she seem so damn surprised?

Refusing to give in to the urge to punch something or someone, he picked  up the phone and dialed a familiar number. "Sam?" He silenced the part  of his mind that asked him why he was doing this.

"Hi, Gabe." Sam's voice was without pretension, though he owned one of the most lucrative vineyards in Marlborough. "What's up?"