A Puppy for Christmas Page 20

  Later, it had burned him to realise she probably would have slunk away if she’d had any choice, but at the time he’d thanked whatever angels looked over him for the opportunity, and he’d stepped up to her and started their first conversation.

  Four hours later they’d been in each other’s arms at the gate that led to his car.

  And he’d been the happiest he could remember being. Something had clicked inside him that night, and he’d not managed to unclick it since. A kind of...rightness. Almost as though Ingrid Rose had come into his life to show him how right felt. What was possible.

  In life.

  But not with her, apparently.

  He shook his head to stay awake and to rattle the uncomfortable sensation loose. The last thing he wanted was for Ingrid to return and find him asleep on the job. Wouldn’t that just confirm for her everything she already suspected about his worth?

  A woman like Ingrid set a high bar—personally and professionally. She might have made a concession that night because she’d thought he was just passing through, but she’d corrected it the moment he’d told her he was staying. Literally the moment.

  Message received.

  He’d done his best to push her rejection aside and focus on the opportunity the universe had provided. He’d get to stay in Australia—across the globe from the expectations of his easily disappointed family—to make his name in this job and make a difference to the conservation outcomes this zoo delivered.

  Make the best of a bad situation, in other words.

  Another Marque trait. He was the king of that one.

  He’d taken a basic science degree and was turning it into something unique. Something he could be passionate about. Something that mattered. He’d worked multiple jobs and collectively they’d given him a breadth of experience he could never have gleaned from textbooks.

  His parents might not be able to confess publicly what he did for a living, but what he did was making a difference. Slowly but surely.

  Not bad for l’imbécile.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  December 28th

  THE STROKING HANDS and breathless voice of his dreams resolved into Ingrid’s gentle shake and whispered voice.

  ‘Gabe...’

  He pushed up onto his elbows—not easy in the tiny camp bed—and stared at her, still struggling to shake the images of his subconscious.

  Light streamed in the open doorway.

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘I’m getting ready to go.’

  Go? But her shift had ended at... His watch told the shameful truth. ‘Why didn’t you wake me?’

  She was trying hard not to smile. ‘I am waking you.’

  ‘Why did you let me sleep?’

  ‘Because you were exhausted. I came back from my shower and you were practically unconscious.’ She extended her hand to help him from the low-slung bed. ‘I played back the CCTV. You didn’t miss anything.’

  Lucky, considering what a dumb thing falling asleep was. It pained him to take her hand, but it would gall him more to flail around in front of her trying to get out of what was effectively a hammock two feet off the ground. His cool fingers closed around her warm ones as she loaned him her strength until he found his feet. He remembered that about her. She pumped off heat like a furnace.

  ‘Thanks.’ He righted himself and they stood toe to toe.

  She stepped back. ‘No problem.’

  Well, weren’t they being terribly civil? ‘You’re going home?’

  ‘That’s generally where I do my sleeping,’ she breathed.

  ‘Funny girl. What about the tunnel?’

  ‘I’ll finish it tonight.’

  ‘What if the pups emerge?’ Two seconds ago he’d been mortified that she’d watched him sleep. Now he was guilting her into staying.

  ‘Then I’ll miss it.’

  He brought out his big gun. ‘I could use your help.’

  The earnest wide-eyed appeal. It always worked with his mother. His sisters-in-law. Pretty much every other female he’d ever known.

  She stared at him. ‘No, you couldn’t. You’d love nothing more than to do this all by yourself and be the hero.’

  Was she seeing completely through him or just partly? ‘I’ll need you if Mjawi moves the pups.’

  ‘She can’t move them. We’ve blocked the entrance to A-den until I’m done digging.’

  Suddenly he had a blazing desire to play chess with this woman. Her brain and her insight would make her a formidable opponent.

  She lifted her chin. ‘You want me to sleep here? Why?’

  ‘It’s surprisingly comfortable.’ He avoided the second part of her question entirely.

  ‘I know. I’ve slept on one in the vet hospital.’

  ‘I’ll be quiet.’

  ‘I’m sure you will.’ Her hands slid to her hips. ‘I’m still waiting for an answer.’

  Why? The million-dollar question. He searched deep inside himself, then sighed. ‘I don’t want you to miss it.’

  Her eyes narrowed, but the sudden appearance of several creases between her brows told him it was confusion, not suspicion. ‘Isn’t that my decision?’ she said.

  He took a deep breath and shoved his hands into his pockets. ‘I don’t want you to miss it...because of me.’

  That startled her. Her blue eyes darted away.

  ‘If I was anyone else,’ he rushed on, ‘would you be leaving? Or would you be staying to get this once-in-a-lifetime experience?’

  Her answer took an age. ‘You think she’s going to let them out today?’

  He had no idea. He only knew he didn’t want to be responsible for Ingrid missing the best part of their job. ‘C’est possible. Do you want to take that chance?’

  She chewed her lip. ‘It would be typical. After I spent half the night digging.’

  He smiled. ‘Maybe she’ll wait until you’ve dug the whole thing.’

  She rubbed her eyes with the back of one hand. ‘Ugh. She would, too.’

  ‘Stay, Ingrid. You’re tired. I’ll wake you the moment there’s something to see.’

  The cogs in her mind practically groaned as they went around, weighing up her options.

  ‘Okay. I’ll stay. But the moment you turn into a chatty Cathy I’m out of here.’

  Silence was good for him. He’d rather have peace with Ingrid than a dozen conversations with others. ‘I’ll just grab a shower and some breakfast before my shift starts. Give me fifteen minutes.’

  She frowned. ‘You have thirty before I clock off.’

  If he only had a half-hour in her conscious company he wasn’t about to waste more than half of it on himself. He reached for his bag.

  ‘Fifteen.’

  * * *

  SLEEP WAS SIMPLE in theory but not so much in practice.

  The time to force herself to nod off was when Gabe left for his shower, but Ingrid’s body was too keyed-up to sleep yet. As far as it was concerned it had a few hours between work and sleep—regardless of the real time. Or all the good reasons it shouldn’t stay awake.

  So he’d walked back in, damp and freshly shaven from his shower, smelling like French soap and carrying an obscene amount of food for one person. As if he’d known he’d find her awake.

  And they’d shared their first meal together. His breakfast, her dinner. Just breaking bread with Gabe—something she’d given up on ever achieving—had her feeling light-headed.

  ‘Does your family approve of what you do?’ Her subconscious thrust its curiosity up into the light.

  He gave no sign of having heard her as he finished up the last bites of his meal and watched the monitor.

  ‘They know,’ he finally said.

  Not what she’d asked. �
�What do they think?’

  He looked at her sideways. ‘Is that a loaded question?’

  It was certainly more personal than she had a right to ask, despite how much more personal they’d been once.

  Once.

  ‘My parents’ kids are just getting old enough to think having a big sister who works at the zoo is pretty cool. I just wondered how yours felt.’

  He stared at her for a long time before answering. ‘My father tells people I work in a circus. Mother doesn’t speak of it at all.’

  The pain in that statement reached out to her. She paused with a bit of ham and cheese croissant halfway to her lips. ‘A circus? Are you serious?’

  ‘I am. So is he.’

  Her brows lifted. ‘He doesn’t value what you do?’

  ‘He does not.’

  A circus? ‘That’s pretty harsh.’

  ‘Welcome to the Marque family.’

  ‘And your brothers?’

  His dark brow dropped marginally. ‘They are accepting. It suits them.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘My failings only make them look better.’

  ‘What failings? When have you ever failed?’

  He looked as if he wanted to say something, but had thought better of it. ‘It matters little to my father if I achieve every objective I have if the goals are insufficient in his eyes.’

  ‘Wow.’ Suddenly her own parents—all four of them—were looking much less unbearable. ‘You don’t deserve that. I’m really sorry.’

  ‘It’s not your fault.’

  ‘No. But I’m still sorry.’

  He stared at her. ‘Are you pitying me now?’

  As if a man like Gabe needed anyone’s pity. ‘Understanding you better, maybe?’

  He paused. ‘Then, thank you.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  Silence settled again. Then it was his turn with the questions.

  ‘You really dislike Christmas so much?’

  She licked a finger and tapped it into the flakes of croissant pastry still on her plate, then brought each one to her mouth in turn. He watched her closely, waiting for an answer.

  ‘It’s not Christmas. It’s just...’ she sighed ‘...awkward.’

  ‘Awkward?’

  ‘It seems ridiculous in light of what you just shared. But, yes.’

  ‘Because of their divorce?’

  ‘Because I’m not sure where I fit.’ Or if I fit.

  ‘You’re their daughter.’

  ‘One of several now.’

  A knowing light blinked to life in his expression. ‘Ah.’

  She narrowed the eyes she lifted to him. ‘What “ah”?’

  ‘You were the only child.’

  Just herself and her parents for twenty years. She nodded.

  ‘And now you have to share.’

  Tension pulled like a loose thread up her spine. Because it was true and not true at the same time. For her entire life her parents had focussed their love and attention on her, but it was only very recently she’d realised that had been symptomatic of a fatal flaw in their relationship. They’d both used her to avoid looking too closely at their changing feelings for each other. No surprises that they’d divorced almost the moment she left home.

  ‘I’m twenty-five years old, Gabe. You make it sound so juvenile.’

  ‘It’s not about sharing?’

  ‘It’s about...’ But her words evaporated just when she needed them. She stopped and tried again. ‘It’s about certainty, you know? Like my first twenty years were as invalid as their marriage.’

  She glanced at her watch, glad of the excuse to change the subject. That was more than she’d ever imagined herself sharing with him. With anyone. ‘It’s eight o’clock. You’re officially on. I’m going to try and get some sleep.’

  And without waiting for an answer she rolled over and gave him her back, fairly sure there would be no sleep for a long time.

  Gabe was as good as his word, and was silent for long, thoughtful minutes. But it couldn’t last. His voice spoke softly from behind her.

  ‘Why are you so angry with me, Ingrid? Is it about that night?’

  She stared at the back wall of the converted night quarters and considered pretending to be asleep. Her breathing was regular enough to pull that off.

  ‘No. It’s not. It’s not about you at all.’ It’s about me.

  And it was—though she’d not even realised that until the words had trembled unspoken on her lips. There had been six other applicants for the zookeeping vacancy. Would she have been this bitter and twisted if one of them had been successful in Gabe’s place?

  Probably not.

  Disappointed, certainly. She’d been raised to work hard and expect the fruits of her efforts. But, no, this extra level of blame was solely for Gabe. It was personal.

  Not that she had the vaguest clue as to why.

  She wasn’t brave enough to look him in the eye as she said it, so she just stared at the wall harder. ‘I wanted this job,’ she whispered.

  ‘The dog-watch?’

  ‘This job. Your job. I was an applicant.’ The name right under his in the preferred candidates column.

  She could practically feel him thinking through that day twelve months ago, when he’d tracked her down at work and broken the confidential news so excitedly. He had the job. He was staying. The flatness of her reaction.

  ‘I didn’t know I’d been unsuccessful until you told me you’d been offered the job,’ she finished.

  His breathing was the only sound in the room. ‘Ingrid, I’m sorry. I had no idea.’

  Of course he hadn’t. She wouldn’t have even been on his radar as a possible candidate. She was a vet nurse, not a zookeeper. She blinked at the wall.

  ‘I just...’ His voice dropped. ‘I wanted you to know. I wanted you to be excited for me.’

  Instead she’d broken off their twelve-hours-old romance. Suddenly she saw the whole incident from his perspective. And everything since. Discomfort curdled in her belly.

  ‘I’m sorry if I’ve been rude, Gabe,’ she said finally, and meant it. ‘I’ll try harder.’

  Again a long, contemplative silence behind her.

  ‘Maybe we both can.’

  Maybe. The idea of a truce with Gabriel Marque after all this time... It bothered and excited her in equal measures. Because her feelings of a year ago were only barely beneath her skin, and it wouldn’t take much to have them pushing through and declaring themselves openly. They’d not gone away that day when he’d come to share his excitement with her. They’d only lain dormant.

  And that was not something she was comfortable with.

  At all.

  * * *

  SHE WOKE QUIETLY that evening and spent a few minutes watching Gabe without him knowing. He was halfway through a thick thriller, lit by a book-light and the glow from the monitors he glanced at repeatedly.

  It was luxury time—just for her. As if it didn’t really exist if he was unaware. As if she was still in some dream.

  She found herself fixated on the tattoo that ran down the left side of his throat from just under his jaw to under the collar of his T-shirt and which—she knew from personal experience—splayed out over his left shoulder blade. It was an intriguing tattoo, tribal in nature, but in fact it spelled out a word if you looked at it just the right way.

  Jamais.

  Never.

  She’d looked it up. And she’d never stopped wondering what it was he’d pledged in living ink never to do.

  ‘When did you get the tattoo?’

  If he was surprised she was awake he didn’t show it at all. He slid a battered bookmark into place, closed his novel and turned to her. ‘Ju
st before Africa.’

  Five years ago. He must have been only a bit younger than she was now. ‘I think I expected it to be in Africa.’

  He smiled. ‘No. But it facilitated me going there.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘My parents were less than happy when they discovered it.’

  And it would have taken all of one day, the way the ink reached out from the secrecy of his shirt and flexed its dark tendrils in full view on his neck.

  Still, he didn’t strike her as mindlessly rebellious. ‘Why “jamais”?’

  The smile flickered but his eyes remained steady. ‘My father had arranged an internship for me.’

  She frowned. ‘But you were...what? Twenty-three?’

  ‘Twenty-four. He didn’t like the direction I was taking my life in. The firm was one of Paris’s oldest financial institutions.’

  ‘Why didn’t you just say no?’

  ‘Noncompliance is not an option in my family.’ He turned more fully towards her. ‘I learned early to be smart. I went to the interview in my best suit, with my hair cut short and banker-neat, and put my best foot forward. I did my family name justice.’ His lips twitched. ‘He had nothing to fault me on.’

  Suddenly the decision to bring that tattoo out into the open made perfect sense. She could well imagine the gasped breath as the interviewer’s eye fell on it, flexing out from under his stiff designer collar. ‘They wouldn’t take you?’

  ‘No. They would not.’

  ‘Did they tell him why?’

  ‘No. They did not. But he knew. We all knew.’

  She pushed up into a sitting position. ‘Permanent marking. That’s quite a statement.’ It was hard not to admire such dramatic resolve. And suddenly the choice of never made complete sense.

  He returned her favour of just hours before and stepped over to the edge of the camp bed, lowering a large hand to her. ‘But effective. He’s never tried to manipulate me since.’

  She slipped her fingers into his and pulled herself up, then lifted her eyes to his. His thick lashes swept his cheeks as he peered down at her. She stopped herself—barely—from bracing herself against the hard wall of his chest, and had to concentrate not to betray the pattering of her heart in the breathlessness of her speech.