Getting Gabriel Read Online Free PDF Page A

bank, or your portfolio, or wherever."
    "Maybe life isn’t meant to be comfortable. Maybe it’s time I found that out."
    "What do your parents think about this?"
    Gabriel shrugged. He wasn’t ready to put his family’s skeletons on display. They were particularly dusty these days. "It’s my life, as you just said."
    She smiled, rubbing her finger-combed hair with the towel one last time before looping it around his neck and dropping a quick kiss on his chin. It was the farthest she could reach standing on tip-toe, and had been her substitute for a kiss on the cheek since she was a kid.
    Unfortunately, his chin had been threatening to turn into an erogenous zone. Damnit. "In that case, I hope you enjoy your icicle shower." She waved. "Bye, Gabriel. See you later."
    "Bye," he said, as the door swung shut, staring after her.
    She did have a lovely back. Goose-bumps and all. Those goose-bumps would make it difficult for a while to remember she was off-limits. And she was. Even if he hurt and alienated every other woman in the world, he wouldn’t do that to Alice. He cared too much about her to take any such risks.
    But then she’d just had to get naked in front of him, to show him quite a lot of what he had diligently been refusing himself to even fantasize about.
    It was a tough job to be a gentleman.
    And he’d been doing such a good job repressing that annoying lust. Sometimes he’d almost managed to convince himself she was nothing but a surrogate sister to him.
    Hah!
    Cursing he turned back to the – normally – leaking faucet. The sound it made, the continuous drip-drip-drip he’d been listening to now for days and days, made it his number one priority – after the warm water was back on, of course. He’d need more tools. The question was, which tools?
    He wasn’t very familiar with tools, their names or their functions, but he’d learn. He’d bought a whole pile of DIY books, even videos for good measure. Of course, he thought, kicking a loose door on a cabinet closed, he didn’t have a VCR yet. He was going to buy one to reward himself for fixing the television antenna.
    He’d intended to attack the problems one by one, but for every one he managed to fix, several others popped up on its place. Becoming a handyman was more work than he’d anticipated and his late aunt’s house was in a lot worse shape then he’d originally thought. The combination was daunting.
    He was already inside his pickup when he realized he’d forgotten something important. He groaned.
    Alice would return.
    At any time, night or day, she could return, and there would be no escape.
    He’d forgotten to ask for his house key back.
    Chapter 3
    Three days later Alice returned to Gabriel’s house after work. She parked next to his pickup and climbed out of her car, shading her eyes with her hand as she peered up on the roof.
    "How’s your hot water?" she called.
    "Nonexistent." Gabriel waved, straddling the roof. He was holding something – a book. Alice frowned in surprise. He was reading up on the roof?
    She noticed tools strewn randomly on the ground, some hidden in the tall grass, others – the sharp ones — sticking out of it in a manner that suggested they would be sticking at the same angle out of someone’s skull, had anyone happened to be standing there. She stepped further away and took refuge behind Gabriel’s pick-up. Clearly, this was a danger zone.
    "So you’re taking cold showers?"
    "’Fraid so. Since you’re here, could you hop inside and check the TV reception for me?"
    "I would, but it looks like you’re throwing your tools left and right. Am I safe?"
    He grunted. "Yeah. I just lost my grip on the toolbox and it opened in the fall."
    Alice grinned up at him. "I would prefer to wear a hardhat, but I’ll trust you." She entered the house without mishap and dashed to the living room to turn on the television. She flipped through a few channels, then opened a window and leaned out. "Looks great," she