Gabe attacked her from behind, simultaneously grabbing an elbow and the hand holding her drink. He managed to haul her off the hay bale without splashing either of them with beer.
"What are you doing?" she demanded.
"Taking you to Mom's terrace."
"Why?"
"To talk."
"Don't need to." They passed a werewolf, a scrawny Arnold Schwarzenegger and the impaled witch.
"Going to." Gabe released Josie's hand outside the barn but kept hold of her elbow until they were rounding the corner to the terrace. After nudging her onto a cushioned lounge chair, he sat at its foot and studied her face under the glow of some ghost string lights.
She'd pulled off her mustache sometime between their arrival and now. With her hair slicked away from her face, she appeared young. Even in the faint light, those big hazel eyes registered melancholy.
She looked different. Older, maybe. Surely less bubbly and fun.
Infinitely more vulnerable.
Some Halloween magic must be in the air tonight. Happy souls had twisted into mournful ones and convivial feelings had slid toward the erotic.
Gabe wanted to pull Josie into his arms, kiss her, then whisper her worries away.
Instead, he got up to locate the switch near the back door. He flipped it to add more light to the terrace and scare away those thoughts.
Returning to the end of the chaise lounge, he sat down far enough from Josie to maintain a distance he'd appreciate tomorrow, but close enough that she'd have to force him off the chair to escape.
"Come on kid. Spill."
Josie blinked at Gabe. "What?"
"You left your sister's house without giving your nephew his bag of treats, and now you're sitting around on a hay bale when you could be schmoozing. What's going on?"
She wasn't prepared to talk about her visit to Woodbine. Especially not to take-charge Gabe. First, he'd be perturbed that she'd snuck out without him. Then he'd tell her how she should have handled things.
That'd make her feel worse. So why bother?
Drinking a beer and a quarter without moving around must have affected Josie, or perhaps she needed an ear more than she'd realized, because she blurted out, "I met my father this weekend."
Gabe stared at her. "You ... Already? Where is he?"
"Up in Woodbine." She chuckled, but her throat was tight and the sound came out rough.
Gabe settled a hand on her ankle. "Where is that, Josie? I've never heard of it. Is it in Kansas?"
"It's near Abilene." Josie held his gaze. He'd have to guide this conversation, because she sure couldn't. In a house full of women who'd ranted and talked and cried out their pain, Josie had been content to escape hers. She ate some chocolate or repaired the faucet drip or shot a game of pool with a buddy.
Why this compulsion to tell Gabe her stupid, insecure thoughts? She told him a lot, but not everything. Not her deepest worries. Heck, she was a party girl. She rarely had any deepest worries.
"What happened to upset you so much?"
Josie couldn't shake her disappointment, or her feeling that she'd opened Pandora's box. She took a long swallow of beeer to dislodge the lump and send it on down her throat. "He didn't know me," she said.
Copyright © 2006 by Harlequin Enterprises Limited.
® and TM are trademarks of the publisher.
Harlequin American Romance 1119, June 2006, ISBN 0373751230. Copyright 2006 by Kathy Hagan