looks like something a princess would sleep in, and I thought it would be an uplifting change of scenery for Avery to take her nap in that room.”
“And you really think she’s supposed to notice the difference?” he asked incredulously. “At three months?” Trevor pressed, emphasizing the ludicrousness of her thought process.
Gabby refused to back down. “Maybe,” she countered, adding, “Subconsciously.”
“Yeah, right,” he all but jeered.
And then Trevor stopped abruptly, taking stock of what he was saying. He supposed, in her own way, the Colton woman meant no harm and probably thought she was doing a good deed. From what he knew of her—and had heard—it wasn’t in the youngest of the Colton women to thumb her nose at the difference in their stations in life.
Handing over her niece, he murmured, “I didn’t mean to go off on you like that. I grew up not having much. There were those who liked to rub my nose in it. I guess that made me kind of thin-skinned when it comes to certain things.”
Her heart instantly ached for the boy he had once been.
“Well, I was not trying to rub your nose in anything,” she told him in a voice that all but throbbed with compassion, even as Gabby stated her case assertively.
“Yeah, I know,” he told her in a low voice that was utterly devoid of any indications of emotion. “And if the kid could notice her surroundings, she’d probably not want to come back to the room she has,” he acknowledged. “Most likely it definitely isn’t anywhere near as fancy as your niece’s.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Gabby said in a firm voice he couldn’t remember ever hearing come out of her mouth. “There are a lot more important things in life than pretty bedrooms and fancy cribs. They certainly don’t make up for the lack of a parent’s love,” she maintained.
Gabby was admittedly thinking of her own situation. Her mother had just taken off one day, abandoning her and her sisters without so much as a backward glance while her father, whom she stubbornly loved even though at times the man definitely did not deserve it, had a very hard time showing any of them so much as a thin sliver of affection.
And while she, Catherine and Amanda didn’t lack for anything material, emotional connection with a parent was a whole different story. There were times when she felt almost starved for a display, no matter how small, of parental approval. It was, she felt, what a lot of kids strove for—and what they grew up missing. It was what made her so eager to help underprivileged kids.
Belatedly, Gabby read between the lines. “Does this mean you’ve made up your mind to keep her?” she wondered out loud, asking the question with a degree of excitement that unsettled him.
There she went, off on another tangent, he thought in barely restrained annoyance. Why couldn’t the woman just take things at face value instead of making mountains out of molehills?
“It doesn’t mean anything at all,” he told her in a flat, distant voice. “I was trying to be polite and apologize. Don’t look for any hidden meanings in that—because there aren’t any. Why are you grinning?” he asked. Was she laughing at him?
Her grin only grew wider, as if she were harboring a secret and he didn’t have the first clue what it was. “You come on all mean and tough,” she told him, “but deep down inside, there’s this other layer—”
“—that’s just as mean and just as tough,” he concluded with finality. Placing a wide palm on each armrest, he pushed himself out of his chair and to his feet. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got rounds to make. With the ranch this empty, it would be a perfect time for some yahoos to come barging in and try to steal something or do something they shouldn’t.”
Holding the sleeping infant to her cheast, Gabby put a protective hand around Cheyenne and looked at him, a little of her smile fading. Up until now, she’d felt incredibly safe here at home. Now he was giving her cause if not for alarm, then at least for concern.
“You really think there’s something to worry about?” she asked.
He shrugged, his wide shoulders rising and falling in an asymmetrical movement. “Better safe than sorry, I always say. The guy next door isn’t looking to ‘love his neighbor.’ He’s looking to take advantage of his neighbor, maybe steal from him if that neighbor happens to be rich—like you and your family,” he added pointedly.
The expression on his face left no room for argument.
She did anyway. It had never been in her nature to accept pessimism at face value. “That’s a horrible way to look at life,” she protested.
“Horrible?” He pretended to consider the word, then dismissed it with a “Maybe.” Trevor said the word for her sake. He didn’t consider it horrible at all. To him, it was just the way life was. “But realistic?” he continued. “You bet. The sooner you wrap your head around that, Miss Colton, the sooner you’ll be able to come face-to-face with reality.”
Gabby raised her chin. “I don’t like your reality, Mr. Garth.”
He surprised her by saying, “Me neither. But that doesn’t change the facts as I see them,” he told her.
“If that’s what you think, then it’s no wonder you’re always scowling,” she told him.
“Wasn’t aware that I was,” he lied. “Now, you got anything else you want to tell me, or can I go on my rounds?”
“Only that it wouldn’t hurt you to try to change your attitude a little, look on the bright side once in a while.”
“I will when they get a little brighter,” he answered, picking up his Stetson from his desk.
“They?” she questioned.
“The bad guys,” he clarified, then added, “The ones I’m providing your family security against. Your rosy world would be real to me if these guys went away.” He brought the irony full circle.
Gabby sighed and tried one more time, feeling as if there were more at stake here than just winning a philosophical argument. She had the distinct impression that the state of his soul was in play here.
Trevor just couldn’t be satisfied being this disgruntled, this dark in his outlook, in his take on life, she thought. Could he?
There had to be a way to get through to him, to get him to come around, even if only a little, to her mindset. There just had to be.
To that end, Gabby began racking her brain to find it.
“Maybe there aren’t as many bad guys as you think,” she told him, adding that she needed just a little more time to get this right and convince him, bring him around to her way of thinking—or at the very least, a little closer to her way of thinking.
“And maybe there are a lot more of them than you think,” he countered. His eyes seemed to pin her in place for a moment, leaving her nowhere to turn away. “Did you ever consider that?”
Rather than cave, she answered firmly, “No,” as she tossed her head for emphasis.
“Didn’t
