Passion Ignited

She heard his soft chuckle. “Wow, you’re tough. I can see why you were out on the street going after the arsonist.”

“Good day, Mr. Ewing.”

As she closed her car door, she heard him say, “Omar. Call me Omar.”

She backed her car out of her parking space, and started to drive away. Just when she was about to turn onto the main street, she looked in the rearview mirror.

She saw Omar standing there, his arms on his hips and looking like a GQ model, watching her drive away.

She quickly turned right and slipped into traffic.

* * *

What the heck had just happened? Was it possible that Omar was losing his touch?

As he watched Gabrielle’s Mercedes turn onto the street, he couldn’t have been more surprised. He had gone to see Gabrielle to apologize, and to make amends. And she had reacted as if...

Well, she had reacted as if he had the plague.

He’d been nice, respectful. And she had treated him with disdain that he couldn’t comprehend. Was there something written on his forehead that said he was a jerk?

Despite her reaction to him, there was still something about her. Something about her that got his blood pumping.

It was proving to be a challenge even to get a moment of her time.

But Omar was nothing if not up for a challenge.

Chapter 4 (#ulink_b496b08a-f71c-5d2c-8a53-4ef130a3c0be)

Gabrielle drove as if the devil were chasing behind her. Why on earth had Omar Ewing come to see her?

Her stomach was tight. Her heart was pounding. And it was aggravating.

Good Lord, Omar was sexy. While looking at him, a part of her came alive. She didn’t understand this intense and idiotic attraction to a man like him.

“Forget him,” she told herself.

She turned up the music as she continued driving to her parents’ place. They still lived in the childhood home she had grown up in. It was a house overlooking the water, close to the beach. Her parents—Joe and Gina Leonard—had both worked two jobs when she’d been young, building the American dream for their children. Her mother used to work in a daycare during the day, while her father did construction. At night and on weekends, they cleaned office buildings. Their hard work had paid off.

Gabrielle had been ten when her parents had bought the house that ultimately became their home. It had been small, a split-level ranch house, with a huge backyard. The plan had always been to renovate the house and make it their own, something her father could do well because he worked in construction. The first order of business was to expand the house into the backyard. Her father had built his wife a dream kitchen. After that, the bedrooms had gotten bigger. An additional den had been added. Her parents had been able to renovate the house exactly to their liking. Because it had needed work and a lot of TLC, they had been able to purchase a house in a prime real estate location for an incredible price. But they had turned the house into something spectacular.

Gabrielle still remembered the celebration when the house had been finished. Her parents had been so proud. She and her sister, Grace, had been elated. And finally, her parents had stopped working quite as hard, allowing them to all spend more time together as a family.

Everything her parents had done had been for Gabrielle and Grace. She knew that. Joe and Gina had come from far more humble beginnings, and wanted their own children to have more.

Her parents had successfully conquered two goals. Raising two children, and having a house you could call a home. Now they wanted to spend their later years building another dream.

Just last year, her parents had decided to finally invest in something for themselves. For years, they had dreamed of opening a restaurant. Given that they had worked so hard to build a home for their children, her mother had not been able to follow her culinary passion when she’d been younger. Finally feeling financially secure, later in life, her parents took out some of the equity they had built up in their home to invest in opening a restaurant.

Gina’s Steakhouse.

Gabrielle smiled sadly as she remembered the day the doors had opened. Her mother had beamed with such pride. Her father had insisted that the restaurant be named after his wife. After all, she had given up going to culinary school to raise a family and work to make sure food stayed on the table. Her father had wanted to make sure that her mother finally fulfilled her lifelong dream. And seeing her name on the side of a building had brought her mother incredible joy.

As Gabrielle drove, tears misted her eyes. She had been moved to tears by her mother’s emotion on the day of the grand opening. Gabrielle knew that her whole life her mother had worked extra hard to make sure that she and Grace would have everything they needed in life. Finally, she had had something for herself.

But only six months after opening, the restaurant had gone up in flames.

Torched by the arsonist.

And two weeks after that, her father had his near fatal heart attack.

Gabrielle pulled into the driveway of her parents’ home. She looked at the house where she had spent her happiest years. And wiped the tears from her eyes.

As she made her way to the door, she looked at the wood exterior that her father had repainted just last year. A mix of blues and yellows gave the house a cheery feel. How ironic that inside, so much sadness existed.

Gabrielle rang the doorbell. A minute later, it opened, and her mother smiled at her. “Hello, sweetheart.”

“Hi, Mom,” Gabrielle said. She stepped into the house and put her arms around her mother. She held her tightly, noticing that her mother seemed to shake beneath her touch.

“How’s Daddy?” Gabrielle asked.

“He’s hanging in there, but he’s the same.”

Meaning he was depressed. Gabrielle didn’t know if he was more upset about the heart attack, or the restaurant burning down.

“He’s upstairs?”

“Yes,” her mother answered.

Ever since the heart attack, they had adjusted their master bedroom so that he could be comfortable in it and not have to move around too much. Before that, he used to love to spend time in his man cave. With her and Grace gone, her father had taken over the den. He had put a huge-screen TV in there so he could watch his favorite sports up close.

But since the heart attack, he had been spending more time in bed. Part of the reason was that he had an oxygen tank he had to use for several hours, and it was set up beside the bed. Due to his heart disease, the doctors believed his body was not getting enough oxygen, so he had been prescribed oxygen therapy.

Gabrielle had made sure that her parents had a bigger TV in the bedroom. She’d also helped her mother order a bed that could be adjusted so that her father could sit upright. Gabrielle hated to see him stay in bed all day, because to her it seemed as though he was giving up.

Gabrielle wandered through the house to the back that led up to the split-level. Her parents’ bedroom was the first one on the left. Gabrielle knocked softly, then pushed the door open.

“Daddy?” she called out.

“Come in, darling.”

Gabrielle stepped into the room, saw her father sitting upright in the bed. He looked exactly the same as he had the last time she had visited. A knit bedspread was thrown across his lap. His head rested on a pillow. The oxygen tubes connected to his nose.

Gabrielle’s heart ached. Her father looked so darn frail. His face was worn, and his eyes were glum. Gabrielle hated this.

She walked over to her father and leaned down to give him a hug and a kiss. “Hey, Daddy.”

He offered her a faint smile, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Hi, Gabby.”