Fallen Read Free Page B

didn’t actually believe herself, was that she was okay.
    That she would ever be okay again.
    He wasn’t expecting her. It was obvious by the look of appalled impatience on his face as he stood in the doorway of the gated courtyard. And then there was the fact that he said flatly, “You’re not supposed to be here today.”
    Sara shifted, her eyes gritty, hands damp. She’d spent two days driving, and a sleepless night in her new temporary apartment, afraid to close her eyes. It had been a hot and humid walk from where she had parked her car to Gabriel St. John’s apartment in the French Quarter. She was exhausted, and she had a manila envelope full of e-mail correspondence in her handbag that reassured her she absolutely one hundred percent was supposed to be there at one o’clock on Thursday, which it was, and she refused to leave. Would not apologize or stammer or take responsibility for his error.
    “This was the time we arranged to meet,” she said, straining for politeness. She would not point out that he had contacted her initially. That he had suggested their collaboration on this project, at no expense or inconvenience to him. That she was the one who had traveled a thousand miles to assist him on his true crime investigation book.
    No, she wouldn’t point any of that out, even if she had to bite her lip until it bled.
    The sun streamed into the lush courtyard behind him, but he was in the shadow of the building in a bricked passageway, and it was difficult to see his face clearly from behind her sunglasses. But what she could see surprised her. She had assumed Gabriel was older, though she couldn’t pinpoint why she had come to that conclusion when they’d only been in contact through e-mail. Yet there had been something of his words that hinted at experience, a weariness.
    It was startling to see in person that he wasn’t much more than thirty. At first glance, he looked even younger than that, his face elegant and youthful, a rare true pretty man, with long cheekbones, rich brown eyes, and lustrous hair, streaked with multiple shades of color ranging from dirty blond to mahogany on the undersides, falling carelessly past his chin in baby-fine strands.
    “We’re supposed to meet tomorrow,” he said, his deep voice shattering the illusion that he was innocent and young. There was an edge there that spoke of hard times, disappointment. Stubbornness.
    Which almost made her laugh. God, it was like looking in a mirror. This was probably exactly what she looked like to most people right now. Haunted, remote, hovering toward bitter. She didn’t want that label, to descend into a perpetual discontent, not even as she felt herself clinging to the edge of control. So she forced a smile and said lightly, “I guess we have a misunderstanding then.”
    Reaching into her bag, she pulled out the e-mail from him that she had printed out before leaving Florida. “August 15, one p.m. That’s today.” She handed it to him so he could confirm with his own eyes what he’d written. “I guess it crept up on us.”
    Not really. Every day had been a gaping, long, endless fight for her sanity. But it was the socially correct response. Defuse the situation. She certainly knew how to do that. She’d spent her entire life walking on proverbial eggshells with her mother, tamping down the explosions before they could start.
    Gabriel didn’t seem to like what he was reading. His jaw clenched and he didn’t look up from the paper. “I’m not ready for you today.”
    Sara stifled a sigh, pulling off her sunglasses. She hadn’t expected a diva. From his e-mails Gabriel St. John had seemed like an efficient, clinical crime writer. Exactly what she wanted. Zero emotion. Yet he was scowling at her for no apparent reason whatsoever other than that he couldn’t look at the calendar or enter appointments into his computer correctly.
    “Since I drove in from Kenner, got lost downtown after getting off on the wrong exit, and