Gabriel's Angel by Nora Roberts Page A

longest.”
    â€œYour parents?”
    â€œMy mother was very young when I was born. Unmarried. She . . . I went to live with my aunt until . . . until things became difficult for her, financially. There were foster homes after that. That isn’t really the point.”
    â€œIsn’t it?”
    She took a steadying breath. “I don’t want you to feel sorry for me. I’m not telling you this so that you’ll feel sorry for me.”
    The pride was evident in the tilt of her head, in the tone of her voice—the same quiet pride he was trying to capture on canvas. His fingers itched for his sketch pad, even as they itched to touch her face. “All right, I won’t.”
    With a nod, she continued. “From what I can gather, things were very hard on my mother. Even without the little I was told, it’s easy enough to imagine. She was only a child. It’s possible that she wanted to keep me, but it didn’t work out. My aunt was older, but she had children of her own. I was essentially another mouth to feed, and when it became difficult to do so, I went into foster care.”
    â€œHow old were you?”
    â€œSix the first time. For some reason it just never seemed to work out. I would stay in one place for a year, in another for two. I hated not belonging, never being a real part of what everyone else had. When I was about twelve I went back with my aunt for a short time, but her husband had problems of his own, and it didn’t last.”
    He caught something in her voice, something that made him tense. “What sort of problems?”
    â€œThey don’t matter.” She shook her head and started to rise, but Gabe put his hand firmly on hers.
    â€œYou started this, Laura, now finish it.”
    â€œHe drank,” she said quickly. “When he drank he got mean.”
    â€œMean? Do you mean violent?”
    â€œYes. When he was sober, he was discontented and critical. Drunk, he was—could be—vicious.” She rubbed a hand over her shoulder, as if she were soothing an old wound. “My aunt was his usual target, but he often went after the children.”
    â€œDid he hit you?”
    â€œUnless I was quick enough to get out of his way.” She managed a ghost of a smile. “And I learned to be quick. It sounds worse than it was.”
    He doubted it. “Go on.”
    â€œThe social services took me away again and placed me in another home. It was like being put on hold. I remember when I was sixteen, counting the days until I’d be of age and able to at least fend for myself. Make . . . I don’t know, make some of my own decisions. Then I was. I moved to Pennsylvania and got a job. I was working as a clerk in a department store in Philadelphia. I had a customer, a woman, who used to come in regularly. We got friendly, and one day she came in with a man. He was short and balding—looked like a bulldog. He nodded to the woman and told her she’d been absolutely right. Then he handed me a business card and told me to come to his studio the next day. Of course, I had no intention of going. I thought . . . That is, I’d gotten used to men . . .”
    â€œI imagine you did,” Gabe said dryly.
    It still embarrassed her, but since he seemed to take it in stride she didn’t dwell on it. “In any case, I set the card aside and would have forgotten about it, but one of the girls who worked with me picked it up later and went wild. She told me who he was. You might know the name. Geoffrey Wright.”
    Gabe lifted a brow. Wright was one of the most respected fashion photographers in the business—no,
the
most. Gabe might not know much about the fashion business, but a name like Geoffrey Wright’s crossed boundaries. “It rings a bell.”
    â€œWhen I found out he was a professional, a well-known photographer, I decided to take a chance and go to see