appeared on his forehead. 'I've never really fallen in love before. I mean, I thought I was in love several years ago with Fletcher Wiseweaver, but what I felt for him doesn't compare with my feelings for you. I've never felt anything like this.'
He took off his sunglasses and massaged his temples and forehead. 'You've had a real bad day, and I think you're confused.'
Gabrielle looked into his tired eyes, the brown irises like rich, dark chocolate. 'Don't treat me like I don't know what I'm feeling. I'm an adult, I don't confuse sex and love. There's only one explanation for what happened today. I'm in love with you.'
He dropped his hand, his features turned blank, and an awkward silence filled the air.
'I just told you I'm in love with you. Do you have any reaction to that at all?'
'Yes, but none I think you want to hear.'
'Try me.'
'There's one more explanation that makes more sense.' He rubbed the back of his neck and said, 'We had to pretend to be boyfriend and girlfriend. Things got real hot, real fast, and we got all wrapped up in it. The lines got blurred and confused and we started to believe it. We took things too far.'
'Maybe you're confused, but I'm not.' She shook her head. 'You're my yang.'
'Pardon?'
'You're my yang.'
He took a step backward down the stairs of her porch. 'Your what?'
'The other half of my soul.'
He shoved his glasses back on his face and covered his eyes once more. 'I'm not.'
'Don't tell me you don't feel the connection between us. You have to feel it.'
He shook his head. 'No. I don't believe in all of that entwining of souls stuff, or seeing big red auras.' Taking another step back, he stood on the sidewalk below her. 'In a few days you're going to be real glad I'm out of your life.' He drew a deep breath into his lungs and let it out slowly. 'Take care of yourself, Gabrielle Breedlove,' he said and turned away.
She opened her mouth to call to him, to tell him not to leave her, but in the end she held on to the last shred of pride and self-respect she had and stepped into her house, closing the door on the image of his broad shoulders walking away from her and out of her life. Her chest felt as if it were caving in on her heart, and the first sob broke from her throat as she grasped the T-shirt over her left breast. This wasn't supposed to happen. Once she found her yang, he was supposed to know her, recognize her. But he didn't, and she'd never imagined her soul mate wouldn't return her love. She'd never imagined how bad it would hurt.
Her vision blurred, and she leaned her back against the door. She'd been wrong. Not knowing had been better than knowing he didn't love her.
What was she supposed to do now? Her life was in total chaos-real upheaval. Her business was a wreck, her partner was in jail, and her soul mate didn't know he was her soul mate. How was she supposed to go on living her life as if she weren't dying inside? How was she supposed to live in the same city, and know he was out there somewhere and didn't want her?
She'd been wrong about something else too; uncertainty wasn't the worst thing she'd ever felt in her life.
The telephone rang, and she picked it up on the fourth ring. 'Hello,' she said, her voice sounding hollow and distant in her ears.
There was a short pause before her mother spoke. 'What's happened since we spoke last?'
'You're psychic, you tell m-me.' Her voice broke, and she sobbed, 'When you told me I would ha-have a passionate dark ha-haired lover, why didn't you tell m-me he would break my heart?'
'I'm on my way to pick you up. Throw some things in a suitcase, and I'll drive you up to stay with Franklin. He could use your company.'
Gabrielle was twenty-eight, would be twenty-nine in January, but running home to her grandfather had never sounded so good.
Chapter Sixteen
Gabrielle knelt beside her grandfather's old leather recliner and rubbed warm ginger oil into his aching hands. Franklin Breedlove's knuckles were inflamed, his fingers gnarled from arthritis. The gentle daily massages seemed to bring him a measure of relief.
'How's that, Grandad?' she asked, looking up into his heavily lined face, pale green eyes, and bushy white brows.
He slowly flexed his fingers as best he could. 'Better,' he pronounced and patted Gabrielle on the head as if she were his old bow-legged beagle, Molly. 'You're a good girl.' His hand slid down her shoulder to the armrest, and his eyes drifted shut. He did that more and more often. Last night he'd fallen asleep in the middle of dinner, his fork poised before his lips. He was seventy-eight, and his narcolepsy was getting so bad that he only wore his pajamas. Every morning he changed into a clean pair before he headed down the hall to his study. The only concession he made to the day were the wingtips on his feet.
For as long as Gabrielle could remember, her grandfather had worked in his study until noon, then again late at night, doing what she'd never been quite sure, until recently. As a child she'd been led to believe he was a venture capitalist. But since she'd been home, she'd intercepted calls from men wanting to place five hundred or two thousand on such favorites as Eddie 'The Shark' Sharkey or Greasy Dan Muldoon. Now she suspected him of bookmaking.
Sitting back on her heels, Gabrielle lightly squeezed his bony hand. For most of her life, he'd been her father figure. He'd always been abrupt and cantankerous, and he didn't care for other people, children, or pets. But if you belonged to him, he would move the heavens and earth to make you happy.
Gabrielle stood and walked from the room that had always smelled of books, leather, and decades of pipe tobacco-comforting and familiar smells that helped promote healing in her mind-body-spirit since the night a month ago when her mother and Aunt Yolanda had picked her up on the back porch of her house and driven north for four straight hours to her grandfather's home. That night seemed so long ago now, and yet she could remember it as if it had happened yesterday. She could recall the color of Joe's T-shirt and the blank look on his face. She could remember the scent of roses in her backyard, and the cool rush of air blowing across her wet cheeks as she'd sat in the passenger seat of her mother's Toyota. She remembered Beezer's soft fur in her fingers, the cafs steady purr in her ears, the sound of her mother's voice, telling her her heart would mend and her life would get better in time.
She moved down the long hallway to the parlor she'd turned into her studio. Boxes and crates of essential oils and aromatherapies were stacked against the walls, blocking out the September morning sun. She'd kept herself occupied since the day she'd arrived with little more than a bag of domes and her oils. She'd thrown herself into work, keeping her mind busy, letting herself forget sometimes that her heart was broken.
Since she'd come to stay with her grandfather, she'd traveled to Boise only once to sign papers offering Anomaly for sale. She'd visited Francis, and made sure her lawn was mowed. She'd set her sprinkler system to come to life every morning at four, so she didn't need to worry about her grass dying, but she'd needed to hire a lawn service to mow. The time she'd been in town, she'd gathered her mail, mopped the layers of dust off her furniture, and checked messages on her answering machine.
There hadn't been any word from the one person she wanted to hear from most. Once she'd thought she'd heard the squawk of a parrot, but then the tape had filled with the sound of a telephone ringing in the distance and she'd dismissed it as a prank or a telemarketer.
She hadn't heard from Joe or seen him since the night he'd stood on her porch and told her she'd mistaken sex for love. The night she'd told him she loved him and he'd backed away from her as if she had had an airborne illness. The ache in her heart was a continuous thing, with her when she woke in the morning and when she went to bed at night. Even in her sleep, she couldn't get away from his memory. He came to her in her dreams, as he always had. But now when she awoke, she felt hollow and lonely and without the urge to paint him. She hadn't picked up a brush since the day he'd barged into her house looking for Mr. Hillard's Monet.
