“I used to make my own breakfast. Cold cereal or peanut butter on toast.” He shook his head. “When we ran out of milk, which we did frequently, I’d use orange juice.”
“How was it?”
“Awful. It wasn’t even real orange juice—it was Tang.” He stroked her hair absentmindedly. “I’m sure a psychiatrist would have much to say about the connection between my childhood and my attachment to fine things.”
Impulsively, Julia turned and threw her arms around his neck, causing a great tidal wave of water to slosh over the sides of the tub.
“Hey, what’s all this?”
She buried her face into his shoulder. “Nothing. I just love you so much it hurts.”
He hugged her gently. “Those things happened thirty years ago. Grace was more of a mother to me. I regret not being with her when she died. I didn’t have the chance to say good-bye.”
“She knew, Gabriel. She knew how much you loved her.”
“I think your childhood was far more painful.”
She sniffled against his shoulder but said nothing.
“If meanness makes people ugly, your mother must have been hideous. My mother was neglectful and indifferent, but never cruel.”
He paused, wondering if he should broach the topic both of them had been avoiding since the advent of their vacation.
“Once I became acquainted with Christa Peterson, I thought that she was ugly. I owe you a debt for keeping me from sleeping with her. Although I’d like to think that even intoxicated I have better taste than that.”
Julia withdrew, sitting back slightly and toying with the end of a lock of her hair.
He lifted her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. “Talk to me.”
“I don’t like thinking about you and Christa together.”
“Then it’s a mercy you saved me from her.”
“She’s trying to end your career.”
“The truth will out. You said yourself that Paul heard her aspirations with respect to me. I’m hoping she’ll wash out of the program and we’ll both be rid of her.”
“I don’t want her to flunk,” Julia said quietly. “Then I’d be just as ugly as her, taking pleasure in her misfortune.”
Gabriel’s expression grew fierce. “She was mean to you on more than one occasion. You should have cursed her out when you had the chance.”
“I’m too old to call people names, whether they deserve it or not. We don’t live in a nursery school.”
Gabriel tapped the end of her nose gently with his finger. “And where does that wisdom come from? Sesame Street?”
“The benefits of a Catholic education,” she muttered. “Or maybe a little Lillian Hellman.”
His eyebrows crinkled. “What do you mean?”
“Lillian Hellman wrote a play called The Little Foxes. In it a young girl tells her mother that some people eat the earth, like locusts, and others stand around and watch them do it. She promises her mother she isn’t going to stand around and watch anymore. Instead of standing around and watching Christa’s ugliness, we need to fight her with something stronger, like charity.”
“People underestimate you, Julianne. Nevertheless, it pains me when people fail to give you the respect that you deserve.”
Julia shrugged. “There will always be Christas in this world. And sometimes, we become the Christas.”
He placed his chin on her shoulder. “I’ve changed my mind about you.”
“You have?”
“You aren’t a Dantean, you’re a Franciscan.”
She laughed. “I doubt the Franciscans would approve of me having sex, unmarried, outside, in a bathtub.”
He brought his mouth to her ear. “Is that a promise?”
Julia shook her head and stroked his eyebrows, one at a time. “I like to think of you as a little boy, sweet and inquisitive.”
He snorted. “I don’t know how sweet I was, but I was definitely inquisitive. Especially about girls.” He leaned over to kiss her, and when his lips left hers she smiled.
“See? Any boy who can kiss like that can’t be all bad. St. Francis would approve.”
“I hate to tell you, but your beloved Francis wasn’t always right. There’s a passage in the Inferno in which he argues with a demon over the soul of Guido da Montefeltro. Do you know it?”
Julia shook her head, so Gabriel recited the text for her in Italian.
“Francesco venne poi com’io fu’ morto,
(Francis came afterward, when I was dead,)
per me; ma un d’i neri cherubini
(for me; but one of the black Cherubim)
li disse: ‘Non portar: non mi far torto.
(said to him: “Take him not; do me no wrong.)Venir se ne dee giù tra ‘ miei meschini
(He must come down among my servitors,)
perché diede ‘l consiglio frodolente,
(because he gave the fraudulent advice,)
dal quale in qua stato li sono a’ crini;
(from which time forth I have been at his hair;)ch’assolver non si può chi non si pente,
(For who repents not cannot be absolved,)
né pentere e volere insieme puossi
(nor can one both repent and will at once,)
per la contradizion che nol consente’.”
(because of the contradiction which consents not”.) “So you see, Julia, even St. Francis was wrong about people on occasion. He thought Guido’s soul belonged in Paradise.”
“Yes, but it’s like Francis to think the best of someone—to think that Guido’s repentance was real and to fight for his soul,” she protested. “Even if in the end he was wrong.”
“St. Francis gave up too quickly.”
“Do you think so?”
Gabriel gazed at her intently. “If it were your soul I was after, all the dark Cherubim in Hell couldn’t keep me from you.”
A shiver snaked up and down Julia’s spine.
“I would have done whatever it took to save you.” His voice and his expression were grave. “Even if that meant I had to spend eternity in Hell.”
* * *
Gabriel and Julia spent their last full day of vacation in and out of the ocean. They sunned themselves, then relaxed in the shade with a beer and an umbrella drink. Julia nodded off in her lounge chair, her large floppy hat discarded on the sand.
Gabriel loved to watch her sleep—the way her chest rose and fell with her gentle breathing. The way her lips curled back with the occasional sigh. She looked so peaceful. Gabriel was convinced that Grace would have been delighted that he and Julianne were a couple. No doubt she would already be pressuring him to put a ring on her finger and pick out china patterns.
There had been so many moments during their Valentine’s weekend that he had wanted to bend his knee and ask her to marry him. But not only was he worried about enacting a cliché, he was worried about her future. It was likely they were about to be embroiled in a scandal that could jeopardize his career and her admission to Harvard.
Even if the complaint against her was investigated and dismissed, she would need to be able to complete her MA free of other distractions. He was sure that she’d want the full university experience at Harvard without the pressure of planning a wedding. And there was still the question of what he would do—whether he would be able to take a sabbatical. That is, if he survived Christa Peterson’s harassment complaint.
Despite the fact that he found the words marry me on his tongue on more than one occasion, he bit them back. There would be a time and a place for a proposal. That time and place should be in their orchard, sacred as it was to both of them. Not to mention the fact that it would be a polite gesture to alert Tom to his intentions before broaching the topic with Julianne. Without doubt, he wanted her to be his wife. And no matter what the next few months brought, he would make her his.
Later that evening, Gabriel found himself brimming with emotion, the fruit of much contemplation and the pleasure he always found in Julianne’s company. They’d just returned from the resort restaurant. Julia had planned on visiting the washroom to clean the makeup from her face, but he caught her wrist and wordlessly led her to the bed.
He kissed her softly and began to undress her, his eyes shining with worship and need. He took his time, adoring shoulders and arms and naked skin, his mouth beginning to make eager promises as she arched beneath his touch.
He pulled her astride him, gazing up with an expression of wonder mixed with desire. She moved her hips to taunt him a little, closing her eyes in order to let the feeling take center stage.
After a few minutes, Gabriel flipped her so she was on her back and he was kneeling between her legs. She let out a cry as he entered her.
He stilled. “Are you all right?”
“Mmhmmm,” she hummed. “You just surprised me.” She brought her hands to rest on his back, urging him forward.
Gabriel liked her on top, she knew it. He would gaze up at her adoringly and touch and tease. He would praise her sexiness, for he knew that even after these few months she was slightly self-conscious at being so exposed. Julia was surprised that he moved them so his body was covering hers, his lips at her neck, when they’d enjoyed that position several times already.
A few more kisses and he was pressing a hand to her face, his eyes dark and desperate.
“Gabriel?” She searched his expression.
He closed his eyes and shook his head before opening them again.
Julia gaped at what she saw—insecurity, passion, hope, want, and need. She threw back her head from time to time as groans of pleasure escaped her lips.
“I need you,” he whispered against her throat as his movements increased to a fevered pitch. “I can’t lose you.”
Julia’s response was lost in a series of pants as she grew closer and closer to her release.
“Ah—ah, hell.” Gabriel cursed as he climaxed, knowing that Julia had yet to do so. He tried to keep moving, hoping that she would follow him, but it was not to be.
“Damn it. I’m sorry.” He hid his face against her skin.
“It’s all right. I enjoyed myself.” She tangled her fingers in his hair, tugging playfully, before pressing a kiss to his face. “And I’m glad you came.”
A self-deprecating mumble escaped him. He moved to lie beside her and began to pet between her legs, but she pressed her knees together. “You don’t need to do that.”
His eyes darkened with determination. “Yes, I do. Let me.”
She stilled his hand. “You aren’t going to lose me if you fail to give me an orgasm now and then.”
Gabriel’s expression tightened. “It’s embarrassing.”
“It’s life.” She kissed his nose. “I don’t expect you to be perfect, in bed or out of it.”
“Bless you for that.” He kissed her slowly, sighing when she pulled away to nest in his arms. “But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try.”
“Well, if you insist, there is something you could do for me…”
Gabriel moved so quickly Julia was torn between shock and the urge to laugh. But as soon as he touched her, she stopped laughing.
