Perfect Fit (34 page)

She turned around to face him. “I said that you don’t love me. You love what we share, but that doesn’t connect to me as an individual.”

Gabe crossed his arms over his chest. “So you think I made love to a nameless, faceless body all those times?”

“No, of course not, Gabe. It’s just that you can’t love me.”

“Can I ask why?”

Sage sighed, as though the question was too annoying to answer. “Because you can’t. We haven’t reached that level yet, and I never intended for us
to. I’ve loved one man in my lifetime and look what happened. And then, after what my father did, how do you expect me to believe in love?”

Gabe was beginning to feel frustrated and angry. “I expected you to believe in it because I’ve not given you a reason not to during the time we’ve been together. Do you think I was making love to you for the fun of it? Each time we made love, Sage, for me it was for love. The only reason I hadn’t told you how I felt before now was because I wanted to give you time to get yourself together after Erol.”

She whirled on him then, giving him a sharp look. “To get myself together?”

“Yes.”

She exhaled angrily. “Why is it that everyone thinks I didn’t have myself together after I broke up with Erol? I didn’t need any pining time. He betrayed my trust, and that was reason enough to walk away and not moan over it. So you’ve wasted your time with me if it was intended to get the heartbroken Sage through a difficult time.”

“I didn’t say that, and please don’t put words in my mouth, Sage.”

“Well, I don’t want to have this conversation, Gabe. I just got out of an involved relationship and don’t want to get into another one. I figured when your company was through here that that would be the end of it.”

“Of us?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you were wrong; we belong together.”

“No, Gabe, you’re wrong; we don’t belong together. You were also wrong for putting more stock into our relationship than what was there. We should
have talked about it. I would have saved you the trouble. I don’t want or need love in my life.”

After saying those words, she grabbed her overnight bag off the bed and left, slamming the door behind her.

“L
et me make sure I got this right. Gabe told you that he was in love with you, so you gave him hell?” Rose asked as she assisted Sage with her packing.

Sage raised her eyes to the ceiling as she folded a nightgown to put inside the luggage that was spread open on her bed. “I did not give him hell, Rose. I merely tried explaining why I thought he was wrong.”

“For loving you?”

Sage frowned. “No, for thinking he loves me.”

Rose strolled over to the bed and sat down. “Oh, so now he’s not old enough to know his own heart, is that it? Just how old is he anyway? Thirty? Thirty-one?”

“He’s thirty-two.”

Rose nodded and laughed lightly. “Oh, then that explains things. Everyone knows that a thirty-two-year-old man, a very successful one at that, would be confused about something as complicated as love.”

Sage stopped packing and drew in a long, deep
breath, then exhaled slowly. “You don’t understand, Rose.”

Rose stood and glared at her. “You’re right, Sage, I don’t understand. A good man, and I mean a really good one, is hard to find, so the way I see it, when you find one, you latch on to him and keep him forever. You certainly don’t throw the love he expresses to you back in his face.”

Sage’s heart thumped wildly in her chest. “I didn’t do that.”

“Yes, you did if you said to him all those things that you told me you said. Think about it, Sage.”

Sage placed her hand on her hips, angry and frustrated. “But I don’t want him to love me, Rose. Can’t you see that? And I don’t want to love him. I should never have let things go this far between us. I should have put an end to things when I saw how my need for him was becoming overwhelming, and when the thought of Eden being completed made me have stomach cramps because I knew everything between us would have to end then.”

Rose reached across the bed and grabbed Sage’s trembling hand. “Hey, nothing has to end, Sage,” she said softly. “People conduct long-distance relationships all the time. Just look at Malcolm and his wife. They didn’t break up because of the time and distance separating them.” She studied Sage intently. “There’s another reason for you not wanting Gabe to love you, and you know it.”

Sage pulled her hand free to wipe the tears from her eyes and to continue packing. “What other reason could there be?”

Rose crossed her arms over her chest. “One that’s connected to Erol. You don’t want Gabe to love you because the one man who you thought loved you the most let you down, so it stands to reason …
in your mind … that Gabe will eventually do likewise.”

Sage closed her luggage. Rose didn’t know the half of it. Actually, the
two
men she had loved the most had let her down. But in her mind that had nothing to do with Gabe. She just wasn’t ready to take their relationship to the level that he wanted to take it. “That’s not true.”

“Isn’t it? You need to think real hard on what you’re doing, Sage. You’re throwing away the love of a good man, a man who loves you to distraction; even I can see that. That night we had dinner at his place was definitely an eye-opener. He couldn’t look at you without wanting you with pure love shining in his eyes. Hell, even someone distrustful of love like me could see it.”

Rose sighed deeply before continuing. “And I would give anything to have a man love and want me that much, Sage. Your relationship with Erol sheltered you from what’s out there, sweetheart, what most women have to choose from. There’s a pool of die-hard players, baby-daddies and just plain old no-good jokers who want to spend their money, and yours, too, with the gall to think that it’s all right to have a different woman every damn day of the week. I know, Sage, because I’ve had to deal with them and you haven’t.”

Without saying anything else, Rose turned and walked out of the room.

When Sage arrived at the airport, a uniformed man who looked like a security guard met her. Then she recognized him as the security person for Landmark Industries.

“Ms. Dunbar?”

“Yes?”

“I’ll be glad to escort you to gate seven.”

Sage lifted a brow, not understanding. “Gate seven?”

“Yes. The plane has been fueled and is ready to go.”

Sage didn’t want to sound dense, but there was no help for it. “The plane?”

The man’s patience had to be admired. “Yes, the private plane that is scheduled to fly you to Charlotte, North Carolina. Mr. Blackwell made arrangements with Mr. Landmark to use the company’s jet for your trip. I understand an emergency has come up in your family.”

“Yes, my mother has taken ill.” She shifted her carry-on to another hand. “Is Mr. Blackwell the person who will be piloting the plane?”

“No. He’s made arrangements with Mr. Landmark for his personal pilot to take you home,” the man responded.

Sage nodded. After all the things she had said to Gabe, she could understand why he wouldn’t fly her home personally. But she couldn’t understand why he had gone out of his way to help her after everything she’d said to him. She would have thought he would not want to have anything to do with her.

“Ms. Dunbar?” The uniformed man’s voice forced her attention back to him.

“Yes?”

“Are you ready?”

She glanced around the airport terminal, wondering if Gabe was around anywhere. When she didn’t see him, she returned her attention to the man. “Yes, I’m ready.” She then followed him to their destination.

*  *  *

Gabe tossed the money for his coffee on the counter when he saw Sage walk off with the uniformed guard. He had to come to see her one last time before she left, just to make sure she was all right, even if it was from a distance. He had wanted to go to her, and talk to her, and assure her that everything would be all right with her mother. And he wanted to tell her again that he loved her.

A piercing pain shot through his chest upon remembering all she had said, and then how she had walked away from him and his love. A part of him had wanted to go after her and make her see reason, to make her realize that she was making the wrong decision regarding them. But he couldn’t.

He had taken Sage on with emotional baggage and all. He’d known the risk, but still his heart had fallen deep. It had fallen deeper than any heart should fall, and her words of rejection had cut him to the core. They had made it difficult to draw breath into his lungs.

And yet he still loved her.

For the second time in his life, a woman who couldn’t let go of the past had kicked him to the curb. A part of him wondered why he was torturing himself. A heart could only break so many times.

Gabe walked over to the window as the private jet carrying Sage home prepared for takeoff. He suddenly felt the most devastating loss of his life because that plane was carrying away the woman he loved, and he knew his world wouldn’t be back to normal until she told him that she loved him, too.

As Gabe walked out of the airport terminal, he thought he would be most happy when Sage could
walk into a room, any room, filled with people and know that she was the most loved person there, and openly, honestly and sincerely feel it and accept that love from him.

Sage settled back in her seat as everything became tiny objects out of the plane’s window.

Gabe had come.

She had seen him standing at the terminal window while the plane sat on the runway preparing to take off. Even after everything she’d said to him, he had come to see her off anyway.

A lump settled deep in her throat as emptiness consumed her. She suddenly felt alone as the finality of what she had done hit her hard. Rose had been right. Gabe had told her he loved her, and she had given him hell.

Sage closed her eyes. She had a lot to deal with: her mother’s illness, losing Gabe and seeing her father again. She wrapped her arms around her middle, not wanting to think about anything right now. She needed peace for just a little while.

As her eyes remained closed and her body began to relax, it was Gabe’s face she saw in the deep recesses of her mind. It was Gabe who was smiling at her, just moments before he leaned down to kiss her. Her mind filled with happy thoughts, and Gabe was a part of all of them.

A
fter renting a car at the airport, Sage drove directly to the hospital. Once she had checked in with Patient Services, she caught an elevator that would carry her up to the fifth floor, the intensive care unit.

She saw her father sitting in the waiting room as soon as she stepped off the elevator. She stopped suddenly. His face looked haggard, worn and torn. He resembled a man who had gone through pure hell over the past ten hours or so. She had never seen him so downtrodden, unkempt. Being in the business arena, he’d always taken pride in his dress; but at that moment, it was evident that he didn’t give a damn, that he was worried about something more important to him than his appearance.

Her throat felt too tight even for a word to slip through to let him know of her presence, so she just stood quietly, not letting him know she was there. He was staring into space as if he wasn’t even aware of his surroundings, a man battered, terrified and grasping on to the last ray of sanity
and prayer. He resembled a man who looked as though he felt totally useless as well as fearful of losing the most important thing in his life.

Sage wrapped her arms around her middle when it hit her then, just that quick, and just that hard, that her father
did
love her mother.

“Dad?”

He turned quickly upon hearing the sound of her voice. Her stomach dropped suddenly, and she shivered and gulped in a sharp breath when she saw tears in his eyes. The only other time she’d ever recalled seeing him cry was at her grandmother’s funeral.

He stood and walked over to her, and automatically, without words being exchanged, they embraced. When she felt him shudder, she tightened her hold around him. “It’s okay, Dad. Mom’s going to be all right. Come on, let’s sit over here and you can tell me just what the doctors said.”

One arm remained steady around his waist as she guided him over to a group of chairs. It took him a while to get his breath. Then he spoke. “The doctors still don’t know anything definite and are still running tests. For a while they thought it was some type of viral infection, possibly meningitis, but the results came back negative, thank God.”

Sage nodded. She thanked God for that, too. “When was the last time you spoke with a doctor?”

“Not since this morning. I was in your mother’s room when a nurse asked me to step out while they ran more tests.” His voice broke when he said, “I can’t stand seeing her lying there like that, Sage. If anything were to happen to her, I don’t know what I’d do.”

Sage swallowed. “Dad, Mom is going to be all right; we have to believe that. I don’t think I ever
remember her being sick, so that means she’s a fairly healthy person; and she’s under the best of care. We have to believe she will be all right.”

Sage knew she was convincing herself of that as well as him.

“Mr. Dunbar?”

Both Sage and her father turned at the sound of the masculine voice. It was the doctor. Both of them were on their feet in no time.

“How is she?” Sage asked before her father could form the words.

The tall, gray-hired man looked at Sage from under thick, bushy brows. “You’re Mrs. Dunbar’s daughter?” he asked, his expression friendly.

“Yes. I’m Sage Dunbar.”

He reached out his hand. “And I’m Doctor Connelly.” He then turned to address both her and her father. “We think we’ve located the root of Mrs. Dunbar’s problem. It seems that her appendix is about to burst and has begun leaking fluid into her system. We’re taking her to surgery immediately to remove it.”

“Her appendix?” Sage asked.

“Yes. Now that we know what’s causing the problem, it’s a fairly routine surgical procedure that shouldn’t take but a couple of hours. However, I need to be honest with you and let you know that due to her high blood pressure, it may complicate things.”