Embrace the Night

Page 11



"I've seen you before, haven't I?" she mused. "Before last night, I mean?" She studied his face, the deep gray eyes, the sharp planes and angles, the strong square jaw. "I remember you."

Gabriel shook his head. She couldn't remember him. It was impossible.
"You're the one who brought me to the orphanage."

"How can you possibly remember that? You were only a child."

"So it was you!" She smiled triumphantly. "How could I ever forget the face of my guardian angel?"

A muscle worked in Gabriel's jaw as guilt and self-loathing rose up within him. He was an angel, all right, he thought bitterly, the angel of death.

"And you've been watching over me ever since? Why?"

Why, indeed? he thought. He couldn't tell her she represented everything he had lost, that her innocence drew him like a light in the darkness, that he had watched her grow from a beautiful child into a beautiful woman, and that his lust had grown with her. No, never that! He shoved his hands into his pockets and curled them into tight fists. She must never know that.

"Why?" He forced a smile. "Curiosity, of course."

"I see," Sara said dryly. "Since you saved my life, you wanted to see how I turned out?" "You could put it that way."

"And how have I turned out?" "Beautifully," he murmured.
"Beautiful but useless."

"Sara!" He was at her side in a heartbeat. "Never say that. Never feel that." "Why not? It's true. I'm no good to anyone."

"You are. You are good for me."

"Really?" she asked skeptically. "How?"

How, he thought. How could he explain what she meant to him? "You can't think of anything, can you?"

"I have no family," Gabriel said quietly. "No close friends. After I found you, you became my family. Sometimes I pretended that you were my daughter…"

"And you left me gifts, didn't you?" Sara glanced at the ballerina on her bedside table. "You brought me presents on my birthday, and at Christmas."