Although he had been slumbering peacefully enough before Ava came in to wake him, Gabriel knew it would probably be quite a while before he felt calm enough to fall asleep again. He sat up in bed, the light on the table next to him still on as he stared at the framed painting of a market stall full of flowers on the wall opposite him and brooded on what she had come to tell him.
He wouldn’t have admitted it to Ava…and didn’t much like admitting such a thing to himself…but the constant tug of war with his emotions over the past two days had begun to wear on him. A hope offered, a hope taken away, over and over again. While he knew that she was only trying to help, he had to wonder if she understood how tiring this was. Some part of him — a cowardly part — wanted to say enough, that he woul
