Portia’s heart twisted a little more. “You loved her, and now she’s gone,” she said, her voice coming out a near whisper. “It’s okay to want to avoid the pain.”

He hesitated. “It’s not that.” He ran his hands over his face. “How am I supposed to know what’s right or wrong? For the girls? They don’t come with an instruction manual.”

Portia gave him a faint smile. “You just have to keep trying. That’s all they want.”

He swallowed, nodded at her. “Get the girls, will you? I have an idea.”

Portia found Miranda lying on her bed, curled on her side, eyes squeezed shut, earbuds in her ears. Portia knocked, then knocked more loudly, but there was no answer. With no help for it, Portia walked through the open door and sat on the bed. In for a penny, in for a pound. “Hey, kiddo.”

Miranda rolled her eyes. “Who calls people ‘kiddo’?” Her voice rasped a little from all the tears.

Portia knew Miranda was lashing out because she was hurting. “Your dad wants you and Ariel to go upstairs.”

“What’s he going to do, lock us in the attic?”

“Oh, honey, he’s figuring things out as he goes. He’s bound to make some mistakes along the way.”

The girl snorted. “You think?”

“He’s trying right now. Give him a chance.”

“What? You’re telling me that he’s planning to sing Happy Birthday? Dive into the cake?” But Miranda sat up and scooted off the bed.

Portia didn’t have the faintest idea what Gabriel had in mind, so she just said, “Let’s get Ariel.”

They walked down the hall. Ariel’s bedroom was empty.

“Where is she?” Portia asked, frowning.

Miranda gave her a funny look, walked into the room, and knocked on the closet. “Hey, A, you in there?”

“No,” came the muffled reply.

Miranda pulled open the door. Portia could just make out Ariel sitting cross-legged in the corner, writing in a journal.

“What part of no didn’t you understand?” she snapped.

“The part where Dad doesn’t take no for an answer when he wants us upstairs.”

Ariel scowled.

“Supposedly, he sent Portia down for us,” Miranda added.

Ariel glanced between Miranda and Portia, then closed the journal and started to put it away, only to stop. “Turn around,” she instructed them.

Once the book was hidden, Portia, Miranda, and Ariel headed up the stairs to the top floor and found Gabriel standing in front of a television set.

Miranda glared at him, not making it easy.

“I thought we could watch some DVDs.”

“You made us come up here to watch TV?” Miranda demanded.

Gabriel didn’t let the sarcasm deter him. “Not TV. Home movies. Ones of you girls and … Mom.”

Ariel flew forward. Miranda just stayed by Portia in the doorway, visibly tense.

Gabriel looked at her. “There’s that great one of you and Mom dressed in matching clothes for Easter.”

Miranda bit her lip, and then came forward reluctantly. As she got close, Gabriel pulled her into a hug and then pulled Ariel in with them. “I’m sorry,” he said.

Portia felt tears backing up in her throat. She began to turn away.

“Where’re you going?” Gabriel blurted.

“It’s time for me to get home,” Portia said, summoning a smile.

“No!” Gabriel and Ariel said. Even Miranda gave Portia a half smile. Ariel raced over and pulled her into the room.

In addition to the DVDs, Gabriel had gotten four slices of cake and a tray full of the party sandwiches. The four of them sank down onto the floor to eat and watch.

Victoria Kane had been a beauty. Dark hair, deep blue eyes, and the sort of rosebud mouth that made men go wild. She seemed about twenty-five in the first DVD. She danced for the camera and winked before pulling Gabriel close and kissing him. The kiss was deeply intimate, like a movie kiss between two characters in love. Portia had to swallow hard.

But both girls were smiling. “Mom was beautiful,” Miranda breathed.

Gabriel took a deep breath as he stared at the screen.

They watched Miranda’s third birthday, an elegant Christmas party, and Ariel’s sixth birthday before they were finally done. At the end, Ariel threw her arms around her dad’s neck, and he hugged her fiercely. Miranda conceded a nod, and he nodded back, though Portia could see that he wanted more.

The girls trooped downstairs to go to bed. Gabriel sat quietly, staring without seeing. Portia went over and slipped down next to him on the floor, their backs against the wall.

“That was a lovely thing to do for the girls. But obviously painful for you.”

“Painful?”

“It’s not just the girls who are grieving,” Portia said, stumbling over what to say. “You have to remember that you’re in pain, too. I could see how much you loved her.”

Gabriel reached over and took Portia’s hand, running his thumb over her knuckles. Then he said, in an absolutely even tone, “I never loved her at all.”

She barely understood the words. “What?”

He heaved a sigh, dropping his head back against the wall. “We never should have married. She loved partying, just like Anthony. We wouldn’t have gotten married, but she got pregnant.”

Portia was stunned. Gabriel didn’t seem like the kind of man who got anyone pregnant by accident. “So you married her?”

“I figured I wouldn’t be the greatest father, but I couldn’t allow a child of mine to be raised by a woman who liked partying as much as Victoria did. The only way I could make sure that my child was taken care of was if I married the mother.” He sat quietly for a moment, then added, “Victoria wasn’t very maternal, but she did her best. And she loved the girls. You can see that.”

Portia leaned her head on his shoulder. Gabriel had intrigued her, maddened her, filled her with desire. But now all that swirled together into something stronger. She thought of how he had handled Cordelia’s confession. How he struggled to be a good father. “You’re a good man, Gabriel Kane.”

There was a long pause. “Tell that to Miranda.”

“She’ll come around.”

He sighed, then stood, taking her hand and drawing her to her feet. “Will she?”

He looked exhausted and ravaged, as if his young daughters could bring him down in a way that multinational conglomerates couldn’t. He might have been ruthless when it came to business, but this man was anything but when it came to Miranda and Ariel. This man loved his girls, but he didn’t know the first thing about how to manage his way through their lives.

Portia reached up and wrapped her arms around him. He leaned over, pulling her into him, burying his face in the crook of her neck. Seconds ticked by before she felt his body ease.

“Thank you,” he whispered into her hair. “Thank you for tonight.”

Finally, he let her go, and together they cleaned up the mess. Downstairs in his kitchen, they worked like two cogs in a wheel. When they finished up in there, she realized that finger sandwiches and cake couldn’t possibly be enough for him to eat.

“Sit,” she told him softly, gently pulling him over to the table. When he tried to pull her to him, take control, she spun away.

He watched her with greedy eyes, greedy for her, greedy for the food, as she made an omelet gooey with melted cheese, bacon on the side, along with thick slices of homemade bread slathered in butter and jam. It was the kind of meal her mother used to make for Daddy when he came home late and exhausted from one of the manual jobs he had managed to drum up. Food that comforted as much as it sustained.

Portia set the plate in front of Gabriel. He looked from the food to her, something deep and nearly overwhelming in his eyes.

“Thank you,” he whispered to her again.

When he picked up the fork and took a bite, she knew that the emotion in his face was about a great deal more than how delicious it tasted. And she realized then that with his mother, his brother, and even his wife, this was a man who had always taken care of everyone else. No one had ever taken care of him.

She remembered the way he had taken her the night before, holding her down, kissing her so intimately. She had expected to feel awkward afterward. Instead, she felt only a flare of slow carnal desire at the memory. And rightness.

She realized something that had been there for a while, but she had been reluctant to admit it, even to herself. She wanted more from him than a secret love affair.

At the thought, she sucked in her breath when images of food hit her. The fried chicken, the sweet jalapeño mustard—the same images that had hit her the first time when he walked toward her on the sidewalk, then again after the first time they made love. Gabriel’s Meal.

Every day it had shimmered just beyond her thoughts, like a heavy pan of sauce simmering on a back burner. The more they made love, she realized, the stronger the image of the meal became. That was what she had been trying so hard not to think about.

Was it a gift? Or a warning? Good news or bad?

She didn’t know.

But if she wanted more from him, more for them, then she would have to find out. She would have to make Gabriel’s Meal.

Twenty-eight

LIFE, ARIEL KNEW, often made no sense, a fact that could make even a smart girl want to trade in her brain for an obsession with acne cures and makeup tips. Almost.

Life didn’t hand out easy equations with perfect answers. Instead, there were things like one minute your mom was there, and the next she was gone. One minute your sister was awful, and the next she was nice. But how long before Miranda turned mean again?