The Getaway Bride

He couldn’t keep a hint of pride out of his voice. “Very well,” he said. “I’ve got four crews working now, and enough jobs lined up to keep them busy for some time. And there are five full-time employees working in the office.”

He didn’t add that the business could have grown even more had he not spent so much effort and so much money hunting for her. As it was, he’d spent long hours at work, often making his calls about Page from the office. Even if he’d wanted a normal social life, there wouldn’t have been time between his commitment to his business and his obsession with finding Page.

He’d spent more than a few nights sleeping on the couch in his office. Sometimes because he’d just been too tired to drive home. Many times because he simply hadn’t been able to face going home alone again.

“I’m happy for you,” Page said, looking at him fully for the first time all morning. “I know it was your dream to make your construction business successful.”

“It was our dream for a while.” He couldn’t resist pointing that out.

She bit her lip. “Yes,” she said after a moment. “It was.”

They stoo

d for a moment looking at each other, memories hovering in the air between them. An undercurrent of grief swirled around them. Regrets. Unspoken wishes.

Gabe broke the spell by turning abruptly and stalking into the living room where he’d left the cellular phone.

He made his calls quickly. Without giving details, he told his secretary that he would probably be out of the office for the rest of the week and that she was to call him on his cell phone only in case of emergency. He would be checking in several times a day, he added.

“Your mother called this morning, Gabe,” the secretary, Angela, informed him. “She wanted to know where you are, in case she needs to reach you.”

Gabe exhaled and pinched the skin above his nose.

He wasn’t quite ready to tell his family that he’d found Page. Especially since he had no idea at this point whether she’d be with him when he returned.

“Tell her I’m going to be tied up for a few days but I’ll give her a call when I can,” he said inadequately.

His mother would give him hell when she found out what he’d been up to, of course, but he would deal with that when the time came. He could only handle one difficult woman at a time, he thought as Page wandered into the room.

He set the phone aside. “Blake should be checking in soon.”

Page perched on the edge of a chair. “And what do we do in the meantime?”

“We wait.”

She twisted her fingers in her lap. “Oh.”

The photographs were still lying on the coffee table. Needing something to do, Gabe reached out to put them back in the manila envelope in which Page had kept them. The shot of him leaving a restaurant with the attractive brunette was on top of the stack.

He looked up and met Page’s eyes.

Gabe cleared his throat “This, er, this was taken last year. It was a dinner date my sister coerced me into. I’d been working pretty hard, not taking much time off, and Annie thought it would be good for me to get out. She had a friend who’d been through a recent divorce and she thought the two of us would, er, have something in common. I didn’t enjoy the evening much. I didn’t see her again.”

“You, um, must have wondered who I was with.”

Page looked away. “I assumed you were getting on with your life.”

The lack of emotion in her voice annoyed him, particularly now, after that spectacular predawn interlude. “And that didn’t bother you?”

“I didn’t expect you to become a monk, Gabe.”

Her voice had become a bit strained, as if she were having some difficulty in staying so detached.

He shook his head. “I still can’t believe you thought so little of me. That you had so little faith in our marriage.”

“You don’t understand,” she said, sounding suddenly weary. Dejected. “Why can’t you accept that I only wanted what was best for you?”

They kept coming back to this same point, Gabe mused, rubbing his jaw. She insisted she’d had no other choice but to leave, and he kept asking himself if she had loved him as much as he’d once believed. As much as he had loved her.