A shadow passed over his features.
He stood in front of her, reaching out to grasp the necklace she was wearing. He ran his thumb over the suspended heart.
“You are always lovely. I could hold you in my arms and make love to you all day, but that wouldn’t solve my problems.”
Julia placed her hand over his. “Then tell me you love me.”
His eyes met hers. “I love you.”
She breathed out a heavy sigh. “Go find your solution. But don’t forget that you aren’t the only person in the house. I don’t want to live with a ghost.”
Gabriel’s eyes grew pained. He kissed her chastely, then exited the enclosed pool area.
True to his word, Gabriel spent the afternoon in his study, behind a closed door.
Julia had no idea what he was doing, although she hoped he was solving whatever problem it was that troubled him so deeply.
Several different scenarios flew through her head. Perhaps Paulina had contacted him, hurling him into a tailspin. Perhaps the revelation of her brother’s illness had caused him to rethink his own desire for a child. Perhaps he was realizing that married life was not what he’d hoped it would be—that the thought of being tied to one woman, to her, was stifling.
Julia’s anxiety increased. She could handle anything, she thought, but Gabriel’s coldness. She’d seen contempt in his eyes before. She’d been dismissed from his presence. She’d survived it once, but the mere thought of him leaving her again was crippling.
In an effort to turn her attention elsewhere, she sat at her computer, investigating the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and hypoplastic left heart syndrome.
The hospital’s website gave her some hope. It described several patients who’d received the surgery her little brother would have to have. But each patient testimonial included the caveat that no one, not even the specialists at the hospital, could predict how healthy the patients would be when they became children, teenagers, or adults.
She said a silent prayer for her father and Diane, and, lastly, for her brother. She asked God to help him and to give him health.
Then her thoughts turned to her husband.
She prayed for him. She prayed for their marriage. She’d thought their sexual activities the night before had brought them closer together and that they would free him to communicate with her.
Now she worried they’d had the opposite effect. If Gabriel could communicate to her with his body, perhaps he failed to see the need to communicate with words.
With such thoughts in mind, she returned to her pediatric cardiology research, reading article after article, until the words blurred before her eyes and her head sank down against the chair’s armrest.
Julia awoke to the sensation that someone was watching her.
She was lying in bed. Seated next to her, his arms around his bent legs, was Gabriel. He regarded her from behind his glasses.
“It’s late,” he whispered. “Go back to sleep.”
She squinted at the clock that sat on the bedside table. It was past midnight.
“I missed dinner.”
“You were exhausted. I kept you up too late last night.”
She yawned. “Come here.”
He avoided her outstretched hand.
“Hey,” she whispered. “Don’t I get a kiss?”
He brushed his lips against hers in a manner that could only be described as perfunctory.
“That’s not a very good kiss,” she pouted. “You’re perched on the edge of the bed like a gargoyle, glowering at me. What’s the matter?”
“I am not glowering.”
She sat up and placed her arms around his shoulders.
“Then kiss me like you mean it, non-glowering-gargoyle-like husband of mine.”
His dark brows knitted together. “A gargoyle? You’re hell on a man’s ego, Mrs. Emerson.”
“You’re far more beautiful than me, Professor. But I’m fine with that.”
“Don’t blaspheme.” His expression darkened.
She sank back against the mattress, groaning in frustration.
“I love you, Gabriel. That means I’ll put up with a hell of a lot from you. But I won’t let you shut me out. Either talk to me or I’m going home.”
She felt his eyes before she met them—two glowing and angry sapphires in the nether darkness.
“What?” he growled.
“If I go and stay with my dad, he’ll talk to me. I can take care of him and Diane when they get home from the hospital. You’re acting as if you can’t stand the sight of me.” She rolled to her back, staring up at the canopy.
“Beatrice.” His voice was pained. “If you need to see your dad, we’ll go together. But I would never let you make that trip alone. I’ll be damned if you go home without me.”
She hazarded a small smile.
“Now there’s the Gabriel I married. I thought I’d lost you.” She removed his glasses, placing them on the side table. Then she pulled him under the covers with her.