And the Greatest of These Is Love: A Contemporary Christian Romance Novel (23 page)

When she reached the door, however, the scene before her stopped her in her tracks. Greg sat in the middle of the huge room with Antonio next to him. Andrew lay propped on one elbow next to the boys keeping a close eye on all the action. Each boy held a remote control, and it appeared they were having a very, very good time — such a good time in fact that none of them noticed Gabi’s entrance.

“Now, don’t go too fast, Antonio,” Greg instructed as if they were preforming brain surgery, “that’s a really sharp turn.”

“Okay,” Antonio replied as he watched the remote and the train as it rounded the corner.

Greg nodded his approval. “Very good.”

“Thanks.” Antonio continued to guide the train around the track. “This is fun. Isn’t it, Andrew?”

“It sure is, Antonio,” Andrew said as he rubbed his hand on the little boy’s back, and the amazement and pride in his voice came through loud and clear. Just then her movement at the door caught his eye, and he looked up. “Oh. Hey, Gabi. Pretty neat trains, don’t you think?”

“Terrific,” she said as he hopped up leaving the two boys watching the trains run through the forest and the railroad crossings. In a heartbeat he was next to her. So close, her throat constricted, and she struggled to stop her mind from spinning out of control. It wasn’t easy. How could he do this to her just by walking across the room? “I... I think it’s time for me to go.”

“Already?” He placed his hand on the side of the door frame beside her, and her gaze started searching for something to look at to avoid his eyes and his overwhelming presence. The soft musk of his cologne was making her woozy, but as far as she could see there was no escape from him.

“I had a nice time,” she forced herself to say through the lump in her throat. Breathing was becoming a real issue.

“I did, too,” he said, inching nearer to her. For one brief moment she thought he would kiss her, but he stopped as he gazed down at her. “There’s a soccer game tomorrow in the park, you want to come?”

“Oh. I don’t know,” she said willing herself not to lose control and simply pull him and his lips to hers. The memory of his last kiss heated its way through her, making every other thought vanish. Could he see what his presence was doing to her? Could he feel how impossible it was becoming to keep herself away?

“Antonio and I’ll be there, and we’d love for you to join us,” he said, his eyes boring into her.

She finally nodded. “I’ll think about it.” Oh, how she wanted him to come to her and yet her sanity was pushing him away. She dared a glance up at him and immediately regretted it. A girl could get lost in those eyes and never realize she was gone. Any second now, she would lose touch with reality and just be consumed with them. “I’d better go.”

“K.” His voice sounded deep and raspy. “I’ll walk you out.” He dropped his hand, and she breathed easier for that moment as he turned to give the kids instructions. “You two behave yourselves. I’ll be right back.”

Neither boy even glanced up, and Andrew looked back at her, shrugged, and turned to leave.

“Cool,” Antonio said at that moment, with no trace of fear or reservation. They both stopped at the sound of the boy’s voice. “Let’s switch trains.”

“Okay.”

Andrew looked at Gabi, and his smile could’ve lit up Manhattan. Quietly, they tiptoed down the hall and then down the winding staircase that led to the entryway.

“He’s so precious, Andrew,” Gabi whispered, not wanting to break the spell.

“Who would’ve thought, huh?”

“Not me,” she agreed as they reached the ground floor.

“Oh, Gabi, are you leaving so soon?” Pam asked, tugging Bryan along right behind her.

“Yeah, it’s been a really long day.” The tired sound in Gabi’s voice was no act.

“Well, don’t be a stranger,” Bryan said, smiling a million dollar smile at her.

“Come on, Bryan. Let’s go check on the boys so these two can say a proper goodnight,” Pam said, giving Andrew a behave-yourself look. Andrew ducked his head in embarrassment and dug his hands in his pockets as Bryan followed his wife up the stairs. He waited until they were good and gone.

“Sorry about that,” he said when they were safely out of earshot.

“They’re nice.” Gabi got a smile to her face but barely. Suddenly she was as nervous as Andrew looked. “I really had a nice time tonight.”

“Yeah, I did too.”

The second his eyes met hers, the heat in Andrew began to fill his entire being. He wanted to say so much — that he loved her, that she was the most wonderful person in the world, that he couldn’t live without her, that he would die to have her, but no words would form in his head much less on his lips. It was like he was drowning in her soft eyes, and he never wanted to breathe again.

“Well, I’d better get going,” she finally said, at first breaking the connection and then daring one final nervous glance at him before turning and reaching for the doorknob.

He couldn’t take it a second longer. The distance between them, the walls, the uncertainty. “Gabi.” he said softly as he reached for her arm, caught it, turned her, and pulled her mouth to his in one motion.

This was right. He knew it the second her lips touched his, soft, warm, alive. It was more right than anything he’d ever done in his life. Being with her, holding her in his arms, kissing her. It was all so very right. He felt the perfection of it searing down into the center of him, and he knew without question that she felt it, too. Confident that this was all he ever wanted again, he deepened the kiss, pressing her body closer to his with a tightening of his arm around her waist. Suddenly he felt as though he could never get enough of her, like even having all of her wouldn’t be enough.

Just then his mind caught up with his body, and he realized that she was pushing against him for freedom. With the strength of seventy wild horses, he tore himself free from her lips, his breath coming in ragged gasps as he fought to find reality back.

“Gabi,” he breathed haltingly as he struggled for control of the torrent of emotions the kiss had unleashed in him. It took all of his strength to find the surface back. “I need to tell you something.”

“No.” The word was choked and fearful. She seemed locked in her own battle with herself, and it wasn’t difficult to see she was losing.

Suddenly, unimaginably, he only wanted to make sure this was goodnight because it suddenly felt so much like good-bye.

She shook her head. “No, Andrew, don’t. Not now. Please.”

“Not now, or not ever?” He searched her face for some clue as to why she was suddenly pushing him away. “Please, Gabi. We need to talk about this, about us.”

“There is no us. There can’t be.”

“But…”

“I really have to go, Andrew.” And with that, she wrenched herself from his grasp and headed out the door. “Goodnight, Andrew.”

“Gabi,” he said, reaching out for her again, but his hands were filled with only air as he watched her flee down the sidewalk. “No, Gabi, come back, please. We need to talk. Gabi, please...”

She ran down the walk, fumbling for her keys and fighting the tears that were threatening to overtake her. She heard his pleas only dimly behind her, but only one thought managed to push through the jumble of messages flooding her brain.
Run
.

It took only a matter of seconds before the car engine was roaring underneath her, and she shoved the car in gear and pushed the accelerator to the floor. She wasn’t thinking, she was only reacting, and her instinct told her she needed to get away — fast.

The car tore its way down the now-deserted, quiet street and back out to the freeway. She didn’t slow down until she saw the sign directing her back to Collins.
Collins. Home. Safety.
Safety from him, from the frightening emotions he unleashed in her. Safety from her own treacherous body, and safety from the overwhelming desire to retrace steps she’d thought she’d left behind years before.

What was she doing? Andrew was just like all the others. No, he was worse than all the others. He’d already shown her that in a hundred ways. He always got what he wanted, he manipulated people and situations to fit his own personal game plan. He didn’t care about her — not really. It was a show, a farce, and she couldn’t let herself give in to him. She couldn’t fall into that trap again. She had been there once and almost didn’t make it out, and she had vowed then she would never go back. Never.

Her desperate need to flee didn’t lose steam until she had double dead bolted and chained the door of her apartment behind her. Andrew Clark was a dangerous man, and he, like all the others — no more than all the others — could not be trusted. She had to remember that, her very life depended on it.

Andrew was still standing on the sidewalk when Bryan ventured back down the steps.

“Andrew?” he asked concerned when he saw his brother. “It’s freezing out there. Why don’t you come in here before you catch pneumonia?”

But Andrew didn’t hear him. The only thing he could hear was the fear in her voice and the screech of her tires on the pavement. How had things gotten so totally out of control so fast?

“Andrew?” Bryan asked suddenly appearing at his elbow. “Hey. You okay?”

Slowly, Andrew looked over at him, and the shock and sadness were evident.

“Gabi left?”

Andrew nodded dumbfounded.

“Why don’t you come in here, and we’ll have a little talk about the illogical intricacies of the female mind?” Bryan tipped his head to his brother and led him back into the house.

*              *              *

By the time the sun came up Saturday morning, the sheer panic that had overcome her the night before had subsided leaving in its wake a dull ache in the pit of her stomach. It was true, she reasoned, as she buttered her piece of smoke-colored toast, that she hadn’t done anything to discourage his advances up until last night. In fact, she decided as she reflected on her life since Andrew Clarks’s arrival that if anything, she had encouraged them.

She had, after all gone out with him on three occasions as well as accompanying him to the hospital and the detention center. Worse still, she hadn’t resisted any of the kisses he had bestowed on her up until now either. But those, she tried to tell herself, were friendly kisses. One friend to another. No strings attached. But last night’s kiss far transcended friendship. And although it was exactly the direction one part of her wanted to go, another part of her knew it was dangerous with a capital D.

Sure, he was a nice guy, for the most part, but he had a control over her body that she couldn’t quite comprehend. It was a feeling she had felt only one other time in her life, and that time she had gotten burned — badly. No, getting involved with Andrew Clark was a thoroughly disastrous idea, and if she wanted to keep all she had fought so hard to gain, she needed to remember that.

As the boys skipped in front of them, Bryan and Andrew crossed the grass of the park in silence. Andrew’s eyes scanned the almost empty area for any trace of her, any signs of the butterfly, but he realized with a sigh that she hadn’t come.

What had she actually said when he asked her to come? That she would? That she might? That it was a possibility? He couldn’t remember. In fact remembering anything clearly was difficult — except for the pain in his heart when she ran away. What had he done that was so wrong? What was he supposed to do now?

“You okay?” Bryan asked with concern.

Andrew just sighed.

“It’s going to be all right, you know?” Bryan said with a confidence no one could actually feel after last night. “She’ll come around. Just give her a little time. Take it from me — the road to eternity is a very, very bumpy one.”

“But what if she doesn’t come back? What if I messed things up for good?”

“I seriously doubt that.” Bryan sat on the bench, and Andrew followed as the pre-game warm-up began on the field. “I saw the way she looks at you. She’s just scared. That’s all.”

“But why? What’d I do?”

His brother shrugged. “Maybe it’s not something
you
did. I think you’ll have to ask her that question to find out, but trust me, you haven’t lost the war, my friend. Don’t give up hope. It may take some time, but Gabi will come around. You have to trust that.” With that, he turned his attention to the field.

Antonio came over and sat next to Andrew on the bench, but Andrew barely noticed. Give her space. Give her time. That was so much easier said than done. He didn’t want to give her space, he wanted her with him now, but in his heart he knew that Bryan was right. Like it or not, he would have to stand where he was and let her come to him — even if that killed him in the process. He glanced around the park again, hoping against hope that he would see her. She had to come. She just had to.

It was all she could do to keep her mind occupied and off of the idea of the park. In her mind and heart, she could see the boys playing soccer, and Andrew sitting there watching them. He wanted her to come, but she knew going would be a mistake. It would give him the wrong impressions of her intentions in the matter. No, if she just kept busy and didn’t think too much, she would be much better off.