CHAPTER SIX

      He didn't realize she was Robin's wife, until after Gabriel volunteered to drive Nicole home.  She refused at first, insisting she was fine, she didn't need a doctor, she didn't need to file a police report, she just needed to be left alone.  But, once Gabriel got her to admit that she didn't have a car and she didn't have the money for a taxi and, alright, she didn't really feel up to taking the bus, Nicole broke and agreed to let him give her a lift.  She fell asleep in the car, and Gabriel let her rest, watching her out the corner of his eye.  Nicole was, without a doubt, the loveliest creature he'd ever seen, a classic beauty not because of the layers of make-up applied to her face, but in spite of it.  It was all he could do not to give into temptation, reach out his arm, and brush her cheek with his fingers, just to check if she was real.
      She stirred when he pulled up to her motel, eyes snapping open in fear as she momentarily struggled to remember where she was, and what had just happened, and who the hell Gabriel was.
      "It's okay," he reassured.  "You're safe."
      She nodded slowly, her eyes dazed as if drugged.  "Thank-you.  I think I can -- I can make it from here."
      "Let me be the judge of that."  He helped her out of the car, steadying Nicole and letting her clutch his arm as he escorted her to the elevator.  Nicole's face had blanched white, and she swayed as she walked.  He let her into the motel room, astonished by the sight of a small child sitting on one of the beds, watching TV and chewing on a chocolate wafer from a half-empty package.
      She stared at Gabriel with a minimum of curiosity, and barely accorded Nicole a second glance before turning back to the wafers.  Her mother returned the favor by ignoring Eve completely.  She sank down on the free bed, dropping her head into her hands, and letting out a pained groan.
      Gabriel squatted to her eye level.  "Does your head hurt?  Can you focus your eyes?"
      She nodded.  "I'm fine.  Really.  You can go now.  All I need is a bath and some sleep, and -- "
      "A bath can wait."  He helped her lie down, despite Nicole's feeble protests, "Sleep, however, is a wonderful idea."
      "You can't stay," Nicole insisted, even as she hunted for the strength to keep her eyes open.  "My husband, Robin, if he finds out I had a strange man up here, you don't understand, you could ruin everything for me.... Please, you can't stay."
      Gabriel covered Nicole with the spread.  She fell asleep.

      Nicole woke up because of a sound so unfamiliar, it burrowed through to her subconscious.  Despite the pounding in her head, she forced her eyes open so that she could confirm for herself what she thought she was hearing.  Her daughter.  Laughing.  Nicole blinked several times before recognizing Eve, wearing an oversized apron wrapped twice around her skinny body, and -- oh, no -- Dr. Gabriel Scott, both up to their elbows in flour, pouring an egg concoction into a frying pan balanced atop the hot-plate on their counter.
      "Good-morning," Gabriel looked up, playfully blowing a dab of flour from Eve's nose while she giggled.  "We thought we'd prepare supper while you rested."
      "Gabriel made omelettes," Eve announced.  "With sugar."
      Nicole sat up, she rubbed her eyes with both hands, and stared at Gabriel suspiciously.  "Why are you still here, Dr. Scott?"
      "I wanted to check on you when you woke up.  And I didn't want to leave Eve unsupervised."  She thought she heard censure in his voice about how she'd left Eve alone earlier.
      "Well, that's... nice.  But, you have to go.  Now."
      "Right.  Your husband...."
      "He's trying to divorce me."  It was the first time Nicole had allowed herself to speak those words out loud.  She wasn't sure why she'd chosen a total stranger to confess to.  Then she remembered.  She didn't have any friends.  "If he finds out you were here, he'll have grounds.  You understand, don't you?"
      "Sure."  Gabriel reached for his jacket, heading for the door.  He told Eve, "I'll see you tomorrow at noon, kiddo."
      Nicole raised her arm, as if asking a question in a classroom.  "Excuse me?  What?"
      Nonplussed, he explained, "I promised your daughter a visit to the mechanical museum at the beach.  You're welcome to come along."
      She shook her head.  "Didn't you hear what I said?"
      Gabriel crossed his arms.  "Uh-ha.  You're afraid your husband will divorce you if he finds out a man, me, was in your room.  But, I didn't realize a museum trip chaperoned by your five-year-old was grounds for divorce.  Eve tells me you've been here for weeks, and you've barely left this room.  San Francisco is a superb city.  You should both be out there enjoying it."

      Nicole told herself he wouldn't show up.  She'd known plenty of men in her life, and if there was one truth she knew it was that you could tell a man was lying whenever his lips started flapping.  She didn't know what Dr. Gabriel Scott's game was; maybe he saw her in the garage and figured that, after saving her life, Nicole would be an easy touch.  He'd probably made that promise to Eve about the museum so he had an excuse to come by and try picking up on Nicole again.  But -- no way, no how, not in this lifetime.  Here she was, living in this dive, ignoring her credit cards and pawning the last of her jewelry so she could pay their rent and buy enough food to keep going until Robin came to his senses and got over his divorce notion.  She'd sacrificed too much to save her marriage, to risk it for a stranger in a cheap suede jacket.  Even if that stranger was the first person to offer Nicole anything resembling kindness in a very long time.  And he was sort of attractive.  Not like Robin, of course.  But, in a working-class kind of way.
      Nicole shook her head, wondering how she'd stumbled into this train of thought and chiding herself for being so hard up for a man -- any man.  It's not like she would ever see Dr. Scott again.  If there was one other truth Nicole knew, it was that once she made it clear he wouldn't be welcome in her bed, there really was no reason left for any guy to come around again.
      And yet, at the prearranged time, there he was.  Second-hand suede jacket and all.
      Gabriel stood in the doorway, hands tucked into the pockets of his blue-jeans, peering over Nicole's shoulder.  He smiled when he saw Eve, dressed and ready to leave since, by Nicole's count, about five-thirty in the morning.
      "All set?"  He held out his arms and allowed Eve to jump into them, lifting the little girl over his head and spinning her around while she laughed and clapped her hands.  Nicole, who had A) Never seen her child run with enthusiasm to anyone, B) Hadn't known that Eve was capable of laughing until the previous afternoon, and C) Hadn't realized that when a man said "I'll be there at noon," he meant, come the big hand and the little hand meeting at the twelve, he would actually be knocking on the door... Could only stare in wonder at the spectacle.
      "Will you be coming with us, Miss Simonge?"  Gabriel settled Eve on his hip, and grinned at Nicole with the same enthusiasm he'd previously lavished on her daughter.
      She hadn't expected to.  But, then again, she hadn't expected him even to be here.  And she certainly hadn't expected his smile to pierce her like flame through a candle -- she wasn't that hard up, after all.  For the briefest moment, Nicole forgot about Robin.  She forgot why she was living in a hell-hole, and why she'd spent yesterday in a rancid taxi.  All she knew was, she very much wanted for Dr. Gabriel Scott to make her laugh as hard as he had Eve.
      And so she said nonchalantly, wondering if twenty years in was a little late in the game to start playing hard to get.  "Okay.  I guess I can come with you."
      Gabriel smiled again, and, shifting Eve fully against his left arm, extended his right one to Nicole.  She accepted it hesitantly, following Gabriel downstairs to his car.
      He and Eve chatted like old friends during their drive to the museum, and, once there, Gabriel played tour-guide, sitting Eve on his shoulders so she could get a better view of each glass-encased, wind-up, miniature, turn-of-the-century hamlet.  While Eve watched, as, with the plunk of Gabriel's quarter, lilliputian ferris-wheels and farm houses came to squeaky life, Nicole lagged a step behind, envying the ease with which Gabriel was relating to her child.
      After the museum, Gabriel led Nicole and Eve out to the beach, holding Eve's hand tightly as she stretched out her arms and tried to balance along the stone, waist-high barrier that kept the ocean from spilling into the city.  Tongue squeezed against her teeth in concentration, Eve clutched Gabriel's fingers, and dutifully placed one patent-leather shoe in front of the other as she wobbled across her rocky balance beam.  Nicole walked alongside Gabriel, wondering why he wasn't as bored with this monotonous up and down as she was, and guessing that it was the boredom which provoked her, when he asked what brought them to the city, to confess her life story.
      He was incredibly easy to talk to, and not the slightest bit judgmental, even when she told him how, at age thirteen, her mind filled with magazine stories about lifestyles of the rich along the French Riviera, Nicole traded her virginity for a passport -- with a new name she made up for herself -- and a ticket to Monte Carlo.  His expression didn't change when Nicole, savoring the relief that came with finally telling somebody, relayed the various ways she'd supported herself once settled in the principality.
      "I never walked the streets, though," she stressed, desperate that he believe her.  "I never sunk that low, I never had to.  Men just came up to me, you know?  But, I never took money.  It was one thing if they wanted to give me gifts.  Clothes and jewelry.  But, I never took money.  So, I was never a common whore.  Not really."
      She told him about meeting Robin, and their wedding, and how, after Eve was born, she'd tracked Robin to the Elizabeth Fund Gala, because she knew it was the one place he'd definitely be each year, and how she'd waited outside for Robin to walk out with his father, Douglas, before confronting them with Eve.  She'd gambled that even if Robin turned his back on her, Douglas was too honorable of a man to abandon his grandchild, and she proved correct.  Douglas refused to buy Robin out of his marriage, lecturing his son that he'd made his bed, now he had to lie in it and face the consequences.
      Nicole told Gabriel about her atypical marriage, and why she was certain that, despite his claims to the contrary, Robin would eventually find his way back to her.
      "I'm the only one who can put up with him," Nicole explained.  "See, Robin, he's almost two different people.  When you first meet him, he's this lost little boy looking for someone to cheer him up.  And he acts like you're it -- you're who he's been looking for his whole life, you're the answer to all his problems.  He goes berserk to get you to like him.  He does things like buying a sail-boat and naming it after me.  When I told him I like to draw, he had my room filled, I mean filled -- from floor to ceiling, so there's no space to sit -- with charcoal, brushes, paint, canvas.  And it's fabulous and you can't help it, and you fall in love with him.  That's when he turns on you.  It's like, you fall in love with him, and now he hates you for it.  He can't get rid of you quickly enough.  That's when he gets malicious.  Before, you were the answer to all of his problems.  Now, you're the reason for them all.  You're the reason he's so unhappy, you're the reason he pulls self-destructive stunts like diving off cliffs, and climbing on the roof and trying to walk the edge blind-folded.  The harder you try snapping him out of it, the meaner he gets.  Most women, they can't take it for very long, so they split.  That's when Robin comes back to me."
      "Because," Gabriel asked carefully.  "You can take it."
      "Oh, yes, sure.  Sure, I can.  Because, see,"  Nicole told him unselfconsciously,  "I deserve it."

      Robin announced, "Your brother called."
      He sat on the couch in Victoria's apartment, leafing through, of all things, a cookbook, feigning marvel at the realization that food involved raw material, rather than arriving already garnished with a price-tag attached.  Victoria stepped out of the bathroom, barefoot, dressed in a white, terry-cloth robe and rubbing her damp hair with a matching towel.
      Robin smiled.  "I told him you were in the shower."
      She dropped the towel, looking at him censoriously.  "Did you mention that I was in there because you kidnapped me to build sand castles on the beach, and I was washing the salt out of my hair?"
      "Nope."  He propped both legs on her coffee table.  "I didn't think it was relevant."
      "Great," Victoria said.  "Now, he probably thinks we're -- "
      "Well, we're not."  Robin's eyes danced.  "I assume I'd be the first to know if we were."
      He grinned at her, shifting slightly along the couch, and patting the now empty spot beside him, inviting her to join him.  She did so absently, her mind obviously on something else.  When Robin slid his arm around her shoulder, Victoria appeared not to notice.  She ran her fingers through her drying hair, dreamily loosening the tangles missed by her conditioner, and confessed, "It does make me wonder, though..."
      "What?"
 She hesitated, unsure of the foremost way to phrase her qualm without insulting Robin or making herself sound even more insecure that she actually was about the issue.  Victoria linked her palms, kneading the thumb of her left one against her right one with such force, she might have been trying to erase its lifeline.  "Robin?"
      "I'm listening, love."
      She took a deep breath, gathering her courage.  He looked at her expectantly.  She had no choice, it was now or never.  Victoria said, "Sometimes I wonder if the only reason you're still coming to see me, and making such an effort, and buying me horses and taking me to the beach and flying me to British Columbia, is because well, I'm the first woman who's ever said no to you so many times.  And I've become, like, a challenge.  You know the impregnable fortress every soldier has to try and seize.  I'm scared that, when we do finally make love, and you'll have what you wanted all along, I'll never see you, again."  She turned her head to meet his eyes.  "And the biggest joke of that is, in the last few weeks, I feel like we really have become friends.  And, if you go, I'll miss you."
      Victoria ducked her glance, afraid to see Robin's reaction to her confession.  For a moment he didn't say a word.       All she heard was the uniform, even in/out of his breathing.  The arm around her shoulder didn't budge.  Robin only shifted his weight, crossing his legs, and clearing his throat.
      At long last, he said, "Victoria, look at me."
      She did as he requested, raising her head, afraid of what she might discover in his eyes.
      "Victoria, I'm not going to lie to you.  I like women.  I've always liked women, especially beautiful ones.  And you -- whether you believe it or not -- are a beautiful woman.  I would like very much to make love to you.  In fact, I have no qualms admitting, I have fantasized about it on numerous occasions.  And you're right; not that many women say no to me.  I'd like to chalk that up to my charm, wit, and God given good looks, but the cynic in me tends to believe my irresistibility has more to do with the size of my trust fund.  To continue with this honesty trend you started -- and, take my word for it, this is not a venture I engage in daily -- yes, at the start, my extravagance did stem from a desire to charm you into bed as soon as possible, and your unprecedented resistance did toss down, in a matter of speaking, the gauntlet for me."
      "Oh," Victoria swallowed hard.  "I see."
      "No, you don't.  I said -- in the beginning.  We're way past the beginning now, and yet, I still seem to be coming around here.  Now, why do you think that's so, love?"
      "I don't know."  She shrugged.  "Inertia?"
      The right side of his mouth twitched upwards.  "It's because, Victoria, you make me happy.  When I think of you, I smile.  And I never smile.  Well, not and mean it, anyway."
      She supposed he was paying her a compliment.  But, she still needed to clarify, "What are you saying, Robin?'
      "I'm saying," he stroked her cheek gently with the back of his hand.  "That, while over the years I may have told many women, many times that I loved them; you, Victoria Morgan, are the first woman I've ever actually... liked."
       Victoria knew she should be feeling reassured by his tribute, even flattered.  But, there was nevertheless another issue plaguing her.  She hadn't intended to tell him, it was too intimate, and too potentially humiliating.  But, Robin had been so truthful with her, she felt she owed him the same truthfulness in return.
      Victoria said, "Robin, I'm scared."
      "Scared?"  His eyes widened in genuine confusion.  "Not of me, I hope."
      He looked so devastated at the prospect, it was all Victoria could do not to reach out and hug him, the way she would comfort a child.  But, Robin Cooper was no child.  He was a man, a man of the world, as a matter of fact.  And therein lay the problem.
      Victoria told Robin, "The last thing I want to be is a tease.  Especially when I'm not sure I'll be able to deliver."
      He cocked his head to one side.  "I beg your pardon?"
      She struggled to explain, "You know how, when something gets a really huge build up and you've been looking forward to it for so long that it's all you can think about?"
      "Anticipation," he said.  "It makes the final event sweeter."
      "Or sets you up for massive disappointment."  Victoria sighed.  "Robin, I -- I'm not very sure of myself.  When the lights go out."
      "No problem.  We can leave them on."
      "God, no."
      He smiled, reassuring, "We'll do anything you like, Victoria."
      "That's just the thing, though.  I don't... I'm not... I'm not very responsive.  Men have told me this, and I don't know why it is -- maybe they're right, maybe I'm too uptight.  But, after the fuss I made about our waiting until after your divorce, I'm afraid I'm building too high expectations.  You're so... experienced.  I don't want to disappoint you."
      He considered her words.  Then, slowly, Robin asked, "Who told you you were unresponsive, Victoria?"
      "I -- the last man I went out with, back in Texas."
      "He," Robin pronounced, "Was an imbecile.  Or, more likely, an incompetent.  Here.  I'll prove it to you."
      Robin raised his left hand and, eyes locked with Victoria's so she could tell him to stop at any moment, slipped it past the open V of her robe, gently cupping her breast in his palm.
      "May I?" he asked.
      She inhaled sharply, knowing she should pull away.  Yet, his hand felt so cool against her suddenly flushed skin.  It felt so good, so... right.  She caught herself nodding.
      Robin smiled.
      The smoothness of his thumbnail skimmed her nipple, sketching its contour in gradually tightening circles, until she stiffened to a rigid peak just perfect for Robin to wrap his tongue around.
      "May I?" he repeated.
      Another gasp.  Another nod.
      She expected him to take her fully in his mouth, in fact, she ached for him to do just that.  But, Robin had apparently decided to bide his time with her.
      He lowered his head and, instead of enveloping her, dabbed the softest of kisses against the very tip of her swollen nipple.  Her body scorched at his touch.  Without being fully alert to what she was doing, she rested her palm on the back of Robin's head, urging him to go further, to take more, to please, please, go on.
      He obeyed her summons, his tongue caressing her as it flicked in and out of his mouth and back and forth on her breast in a beat so primal it ignited every impulse in Victoria's body.  He dampened her nipple, then blew on it softly, creating a wintergreen draft to simultaneously chill and inflame her.  Victoria arched her back to greet him, and, when his hand dipped lower, she parted her thighs for him, no longer thinking, only feeling.
      His lips finally captured her swollen nipple, sucking hungrily at the same time as his fingers tangled in the fragile curls at the crest of her legs.  He stroked her with tantalizing care, coming so close, then pulling away.
      "Robin... please..." Victoria rose up to press herself against him, offering access to the very essence of her.  She was trembling now, trembling with a desire never previously felt.  She squeezed her thighs, she ground against his palm, begging Robin to -- yes, there, touch her there.
      He parted her, and, in rhythm with the feverish nuzzle of his mouth on her breast, began to caress her from the inside out, his fingers skillfully locating every concealed, sensitive spot, until Victoria heard herself sobbing with pleasure.
 He raised his head from her breast, burrowing his face in her neck, kissing Victoria's shoulder, her throat, her jaw, suckling on her earlobe as he whispered, "Still think that dimwit in Texas was right about your being unresponsive, love?"
      She knew he was trying to be kind, and, in fact, Robin's words did flush her with a happiness almost as great as the one triggered by his touch.  But, they also reminded her of who she was and where she was and why, no matter how exquisite it felt, she had no right to be doing what she was doing.
      "Robin."  Victoria's voice sounded husky and unfamiliar to her ears.  "Please.  Stop.  I can't -- we can't go through with this."
      She wouldn't have blamed him if, right then and there, he had decided she was totally insane; what with Victoria entreating him to go on, then, in the same breath, commanding him to stop.  She wouldn't have blamed him if he decided that no woman was worth this kind of aggravation, and dropped Victoria on the spot.
      Yet, Robin did none of those things.  Instead, he pulled back just a fraction, studying Victoria with a practiced eye, noting the way she struggled to catch her breath, the way minor shudders still assaulted her body, and the way she continued to press against him. He realized that, despite Victoria's pleas, she wasn't quite done.
      He whispered, "I can't leave you like this, love."
      She shook her head.  "Robin -- "
      "No, it's alright.  I promise, we won't go any further.  But," he stroked her hair.  "I like to finish what I start."