His Answered Prayer

“I came to ask you something,” he murmured at last.

“Go ahead. I reserve the right to refuse an answer.” She wouldn’t let him see her fear. Please help me, God. Don’t let him take Daniel.

“Will you marry me?”

Blair wanted to laugh. Or cry. Something. Her eyes studied him, shocked by his quiet words. “Marry you? Why, for goodness sake?”

He looked innocent enough, his hands hanging at his sides, his feet crossed at the ankles as he leaned against the workbench in his natty designer clothes. Blair knew the pose was a disguise to conceal his thoughts. What was he planning?

“Why? Hmm.” He frowned for a few minutes, then smiled at her, his eyes lighting up in the teasing glint she’d almost forgotten. “To keep a promise I made once, over six years ago.”

“What promise?” She kept her gaze trained on him, refusing to fall for the diversion. “You never actually proposed. I did that, I think. You said okay.” She looked away from his eyes, noticed the wax hardening on the floor. She bent to scrape it off the tiles, glad to avoid the speculation in his curious stare as the heat of a blush burned her cheeks.

“Maybe I didn’t actually say the words, but I led you to believe that’s what I wanted, too. Now it’s pay-up time. So will you please marry me?” He waited till she’d straightened, then held out a black velvet box, and when Blair didn’t take it, snapped it open to reveal a glittering marquise diamond set on a narrow gold band.

“Please, Blair?”

Blair’s breath got tangled up in her throat, and she couldn’t draw fresh air into her lungs. She stared at the gorgeous ring and wondered how he’d known she had always loved that particular setting. It wasn’t what he’d chosen last time.

“I’m building a house, a home. That’s why I bought that land from your grandfather. I’d planned to move here anyway. I’m leaving Los Angeles. For a while, at least.”

“Why?” Her voiced croaked, her disbelief echoing around the room.

Gabe shrugged, but she could see him closing up against her probing, hiding his thoughts away, just as he’d always done. “Because I need to regroup, get a new game plan, figure out where I’m going from here.”

She snickered, tossing the lump of misshapen wax into the garbage. “Yeah, right! You’ve always known that, Gabriel. Straight to the top. Business first. The biggest, the best, the brightest. That’s always been your focus.”

“It was,” he admitted quietly. “But lately, it just doesn’t mean as much. I feel like I’m missing something.”

“So by marrying me, latching onto my son, you’ll fill in some piece of your life that you didn’t know existed seven years ago?” She shook her head, her ponytail flopping from side to side. “I don’t think so. Thanks anyway, but we don’t need your pity.”

“It isn’t like that.” He sighed, leaning his narrow hips against her counter. He set the ring on the workbench as if it didn’t matter a whit to him whether it got lost in the wax kettle or not. “Besides, he’s my son, too. Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

There was something in his voice, some plaintive yearning that made her stop fiddling with the wax and look at him.

“Would you have believed me?” she murmured. She could have wept at the hurt that darkened his eyes and made his lips pinch together. But it couldn’t stop the questions.

“Can you guarantee that you wouldn’t have tried to take him away or talk me into giving him up for adoption?” She made herself continue in spite of the torture contorting his handsome features. “You said you never wanted a child.”

“That was before I knew, before I realized….” He stopped, brushed a hand across his eyes, scuffed a polished toe against the floor. “Maybe I’m just not saying this right.”

Unreasoning anger flooded her.

“You’ve said everything you need to say. You’ve done your duty, Gabe. Don’t worry, I’ll tell Mac you offered. But no, I won’t marry you so you can try out your hand at playing father.” She saw his mouth tighten and hurried on.

“Daniel is the most important thing in the world to me. I love him, and I won’t let you hurt him. You don’t want a gold digger for a wife, or the encumbrance of a child in your life. Remember?”

When he winced at the repetition of his own words, Blair felt a stab of shame. But she wouldn’t take them back. Daniel was too important to be used as a pawn, no matter how much she’d once cared for this man. She would not weaken, wouldn’t let him see that she’d never given up the dream of a husband, and a home where she was the most important person in her husband’s world.

“You’re turning this around, Blair. Making it ugly. And that’s not what I’m saying. I want us to be a…a family.”

“Why?” She pressed him for an answer, knowing he wouldn’t have one. Gabriel Sloan had never wanted any encumbrances in his solitary life. Things couldn’t have changed that much.

“Because he’s my son and I owe it to him,” he said, exploding, mouth tight, eyes hard as emeralds. “And because you’re his mother and I owe you, too. I should never have…never mind that.” His cheeks darkened.

So he felt guilty for that one night of indiscretion? Blair smiled bitterly. Well, it was as good a reason as any to suggest marriage, she supposed. It just wasn’t her reason, not the one she’d dreamed of, anyway. Not when she remembered her grandparents’ marriage, and from what Mac said, her parents had been happy, too.

“So tell me, Gabe, just how would this marriage work?” She’d string him along, pretend she would go along with it. For a while. It would be interesting to note just how far the great Gabriel Sloan was willing to go with this experiment at nobility.

But in the end she would turn him down cold. Daniel was her son, and she intended him to feel the love in his life. Gabe didn’t believe in love, and she couldn’t forget that.

“Blair?”

She glanced up, then at his hand on her arm. Though he moved it immediately, Blair was only too aware of his touch and her reaction to it. How could she still feel this way? Especially now.

“I want the very best for Daniel,” she began, trying to focus the conversation and direct it where she wanted it to go. “I know how much he’s wanted a father. Especially lately. He keeps asking me about you, where you are, what you do, what you’re like.”

Gabe’s face whitened. “He knows I’m his father?” His eyes were huge, his hands tight with tension as they clenched and unclenched at his side. “What have you told him?”

“He doesn’t know you are his father.” Blair fiddled with a tray of glitter that would accent the Christmas candles. “He doesn’t know anything about his father. I’ve never said a thing.”

“Then how—”

“They’ve been doing a series of projects at school about families.” Blair shrugged at his frown. “This is a little community. Daniel knows the families of the kids in his class. He’s seen two parents, a happy home, siblings. Some of the kids like to brag about their fathers.” She shrugged. “I don’t suppose his teacher thought of him as any different when they started on their family study unit.”

“Which is exactly the scene you always wanted,” Gabe muttered, peering at her. “Your ideal was always this happy home scenario, wasn’t it? I can still hear you talking about how wonderful families were. I thought it was just a line.”

And I can still feel how much you didn’t want that. Blair searched for some underlying meaning to his words, but could find nothing to show he was goading her.

“Yes, well, we all have to grow up sometime. That isn’t going to happen for me. I’ve got Mac, Willie, Albert and Daniel to look after. I’ve learned to deal with my reality. The truth is, raising a child takes a lot out of you. I’m not sure I could handle any more of them.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier if there were two of us parenting? I could take over sometimes when you needed a break. Or vice versa. We could share our son.”

It felt funny to hear him call Daniel that. And yet, Gabe was his father. He owed Daniel.

“We don’t have to be married for you to be involved in his life,” she offered, turning her back as she clicked off the switch controlling the wax warmer and began boxing already completed sets of candles. Surely she couldn’t mess that up. “If you’re so determined to stay here, fine. Build your house. Live in it. You can see Daniel, be around for him. But his home will always be with me.”

“Why are you so dead set against marriage? Once you would have jumped at the chance.” He stood opposite her, his hands mimicking her movements as he, too, boxed candles.

“I’m not against marriage, when it happens for the right reasons. You’re mixing those reasons up just like you’re mixing these orders up. You don’t know the formula.” She quickly redid the boxes he’d finished.

She wouldn’t give in to the anger, wouldn’t talk about the burn of distrust inside that still, after all these years, ate away at her. Let him think what he liked, she wasn’t going to drag herself through it all again. She’d learned her lesson, learned it well.

Forgive and forget, Mac said. Very well. It had cost her dearly, but she’d forgiven Gabe. She had! But Blair Delaney wasn’t so stupid that she would ever forget the shame or the sense of betrayal he’d left her with. Not ever.

Gabe stood, staring at her with an odd questioning look.

“Sorry. Did you say something?”