Excerpt: Gabriel’s Angel

 

Gabriel’s Angel is a New Jersey Romance Writers’ Put Your Heart in a Book contest finalist in the Single Title Contemporary category!  (My second consecutive year as a PYHIAB finalist; last year it was Release Point.)  Results in October 2009.

 

At last!  An excerpt (albeit, not from the beginning):

            Gabe went on a seek-and-destroy mission at the shoe store, practically throwing a pair of sable-brown pumps at Liz for her to try on.  He didn’t even know if they were her size, but they looked about right, and at the moment, he was too pissed off to think about her feet. 

            “Look, I’m sorry,” she said, clutching the shoe box to her chest like a life preserver.  “I guess I had a mistaken impression or something.”

            “Or something,” he shot back, still trying to level his heartbeat back to something normal.  He’d known for a long time that a man writing romance novels would be accused of a lot of things, homosexuality among them.  It was hard enough just defending the genre to literary purists within the industry.  Because he’d hidden behind the April Morgan name, he hadn’t had to face a whole lot of disdain directly.  Until then.  And to hear it from Liz was the icing on the cake.  Having a woman you’re just becoming attracted to tell you she doubted your masculinity was quite the kick in the nuts, wasn’t it.  “Tell me.  If I wrote action adventure with sex scenes in it, would you still have thought that?”

            She blinked at him, wide green doe-eyes.  “I don’t know.  Maybe.  I’ll tell you the truth, I’m not used to guys who…how do I say this?  Who don’t work with their hands, you know what I mean?”

            The sound he made didn’t exactly resemble a laugh.  “What, you never had lawyers come into the Four Seasons for a beer now and then?  No teachers, executives, MBAs?”

            She sat on the shoe store bench, putting the box beside her.  “I probably wouldn’t know, but I doubt it.  It wasn’t that kind of place.  The whole area is very working-class, blue collar.  The kind of people who might order a glass of wine with their meal went to Paoli or Gladwynne, not Norristown.  They didn’t come looking for bar food.”

            Did he just hear himself sneer?  “Funny.  I never would’ve taken you for a snob.”

            Anger flashed in her eyes for a second, along with a trace of guilt.  “Just goes to show how wrong your impressions of people can be, then.  I guess we both have some false illusions, don’t we?”  She yanked one of the shoes out of the box and looked at it like it smelled bad.  “This is ugly.  I’m not wearing this.”

            “Find something else, then.  So tell me, since you’re such a good judge of character.  What do you think of the heroine in Destiny?”

            She scanned the racks of shoes, hopping around, half-shoeless.  It pinged Gabe’s heart, it was so cute to watch, and it cut down his anger by half.  “I dunno.  She seems kind of wimpy to me.”

            He froze, blinking.  “Wimpy?” 

            She shrugged.  “Yeah, you know.  Like she’s lucky she can tie her shoes by herself.”  She pulled out a shapely Victorian boot with a stiletto heel and laces up to the knee.  Her brows very nearly met.  “Who the hell wears these things?”

            “They’d look great with the suit,” he shot back with a cocky grin. 

            “They’re stilts.  Forget it,” she said, putting the boot back.  “Please tell me she grows a backbone by the end of the book.”

            He stood between her and the next row of shoes.  He felt her heat radiating into him, so he gave back as good as he got, standing as close to her as she’d let him.  Even though he wanted to get closer.  He relished the flicker of fear in her eyes.  The chase was on.  “She does, and then some.  But so does he.”

            Liz stood facing him, though he read in her body language, her arms crossed over her chest and the entreating look in her eyes, she’d like to move on and put some distance between them too.  “He has more than his share.  He’s actually kind of a chauvinist, when you think about it.”

            “He is not,” Gabe said.  “He’s a man.  He’s supposed to be a man.  An alpha hero.  He knows what he wants and he’s not afraid to fight for it.”

            She leaned her shoulder against the rack of shoes.  “Oh please.  That’s so twenty years ago.  Real relationships aren’t like that anymore.  It’s supposed to be a give-and-take.  Share and share alike.  Fair and square.  That Neanderthal stuff…ugh.”  She rolled her eyes, side-stepping around him.  He caught her arm, turning them both until they were nose to nose. 

            He kept his eyes on hers, unwilling to flinch.  “That’s romance.”

            He heard the nerves in her laughter.  “No it’s not.  It’s dominance.  It’s one person taking control over someone else.  It’s not fifty-fifty.”

            “Real life isn’t fifty-fifty,” he said evenly, unflinching.  His blood jumped to a low simmer when he could taste her breath in his mouth.  Because he wanted to taste more than that, his gaze slid down to her flushing lips.  “Sometimes it’s ninety-ten.  Sometimes it’s even one hundred-to-zero.”

            Her own breathing went shallow; he felt it in the way it warmed his face.  She blinked a few times, as if gathering her wits.  It only sharpened his senses where she was concerned.  He felt like a wolf with an unsuspecting deer in sight.  Her voice was little more than a whisper.  “No, that’s just what sells your romance novels.”

            “Art mirrors life, Liz.  You can’t always be in control.  I’ve seen the way you drive.  Haven’t you ever let someone else take the wheel for you?”  Looking in her eyes, he knew the answer to that question.  That bit of information curved the corner of his lips.  Chalk up one more piece of info for the section of his mental library titled, “Who Liz Hale Really Is.” 

            “It’s a partnership,” she said with a tiny shake of the head.  “Otherwise it’s not fair.”
            He stared at her lips until she shivered.  Victory raced through him, but it wasn’t enough.  Sure, he wanted her, but he wanted her to want him too.  “Life’s not always fair,” he said.  “You should know that as well as anyone.  But we keep on living, don’t we?”

            She swallowed hard and looked away, behind him, over his shoulder.  He might’ve moved in for that kiss he wanted so desperately if he hadn’t looked to her eyes.  Instead of the sign to go ahead, move in, kiss her, he saw tears welling.  It shattered every urge he’d just known, the ones that craved the chance to kiss her breathless, to show her what true romance was really all about.  To feast on the challenge she presented.

            He took a breath and stepped back, looking away too, hating the feeling of cold that cloaked him when she wasn’t close.  It was like the whole world dropped ten degrees.  Calmer now, he looked at her again.  The tears were gone, sucked back in by her steadfast resolve, no doubt, but the sadness still lingered in the downturn of her eyes.  He lifted her chin until she faced him, all the heat gone from the way he looked at her.  If only for her own sake.  “To a degree, you’re right.  Romance novels are fantasy.  People read them to escape.  But romance, Liz?  That’s not fantasy.  That’s real, if you find the right person.”  He looked behind her, reaching across her shoulder to a plain pair of leather pumps, soaking in one more delicious taste of her warmth.  “Here.  Try these.”

            She looked at the shoe in his hand as if she’d forgotten where they were.  He stepped back, giving her some space, giving himself some as well.  Liz Hale was not going to be an easy convert, he knew.  He’d probably had an easier time convincing Nancy to buy a romance novel written by a man, than he would convincing Liz that romance wasn’t just a made up marketing illusion. 

            But he also knew he and Liz had one thing in common.  With him and books and her with broken engines, they both loved putting things together to make the object in front of them whole again.