Walk On By (Passing Through Series Book 3)

by Sarah Hegger

  A fierce defensiveness rose in Kelly. “Not everybody feels the need to charge the gate. Some men have a more subtle and gentle approach.”

  “Ouch.” Gabe raised an eyebrow at her.

  Kelly knew she’d been a bitch. “I’m sorry. You’re right about Vince and me, and it’s driving me crazy. I had no idea this would be so hard.”

  Gabe shrugged off her bitchiness and smiled. “Don’t worry about it. You probably need to spend more time together.”

  “Probably.” But Kelly couldn’t muster much enthusiasm for the idea.

  Vince was skating circles around a laughing India. He took her hands and spun her with him. India looked happier than she had in weeks.

  Hannah and Jacob didn’t seem to have a problem with India and their dad. In fact, they looked downright chipper about it.

  Vince’s children aside, it was getting harder and harder to ignore the growing signs of trouble. She and Vince only had the past in common, and that’s all they were able to talk about comfortably. They definitely did not have the sort of flashfire attraction she had with Gabe.

  “Those are some heavy thoughts,” Gabe said.

  “Yeah.” Kelly didn’t want to think about it anymore. “I’ll get over myself.”

  “Sure?”

  “Sure.”

  They skated twice around the pond, and still Vince and the others stayed over on the far side.

  Gabe broke the silence. “I need to ask a favor.”

  Hopefully of the hot and sweaty variety. Dammit! Kelly really needed to stop that shit. Shut it down. The other evening she’d walked into his arms, and he’d promised her whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted it. Those same words hovered in her mind. “What do you need?”

  “Tomorrow is a difficult day for me.”

  Kelly tried to get a read on his face but failed. “What happens tomorrow?”

  “It’s what happened tomorrow.” The wind blew Gabe’s hair back as he skated. “It’s the tenth anniversary of my dad’s death.”

  “Oh!” Poppy had mentioned something about that the other day. “I’m sorry.”

  “Yup.” Gabe shrugged, but it looked too nonchalant. “I have this thing I usually do on that date. A kind of ritual.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ve done it in Australia for the past few years. It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to do it here, and I’d really like it if you came along with me,” he said.

  “Sure.” She’d be there with bells on, but just in case… “What are we doing?”

  “We’re going hiking.” Gabe tightened his hold on her and shuffled her out of another couple’s way.

  Okay, they needed to get this straight. “You remember what I said about running?”

  “Yup.” He chuckled.

  “That goes for hiking as well.”

  He tucked her arm through the crook of his. “Are you telling me you’re a coach potato?”

  “Hey!” She leaned back to look at him. “You don’t get curves like mine by being a gym rat or running around like a blue-assed fly.”

  Gabe laughed, the tension easing out of him. “I can think of one way you like to get sweaty.”

  “You had to go there, didn’t you?” She shook her head.

  Gabe shrugged. “I’m a guy.”

  “Why, yes.” She pressed into him. “Why, yes you are.”

  “Kelly.” He grumbled a low warning. “Don’t go there unless you want to go there.”

  She sighed, because wanting wasn’t the problem. “What time are we going”—the word damn near choked her—“hiking?”

  *

  Gabe would never have pegged Kelly as a whiner.

  “Are we nearly there yet?” She huffed and puffed in his wake.

  “Not long now.” Saying Kelly wasn’t much of a hiker was like saying a wolverine had a bit of a temper. She sucked at it as much as she hated it, and Gabe was hard pressed not to laugh.

  She made a noise suspiciously like a growl. “You said that an hour ago.”

  “And we would have been there sooner if you didn’t keep insisting we stop.” As it was, it took them an hour longer to get to where he wanted to go. He could feel her glare boring holes in his back every step of the way.

  “You are such an asshole,” she yelled at his back.

  Gabe turned and waited for her to catch up. She had been a hot, red-faced mess from about twenty minutes in.

  She glared at him, her eyes full of vitriol. “I told you I hated hiking.”

  “Yes, you did.” He couldn’t quite stop his grin. She was funny as hell, even when she wanted to hand him his balls. “But you came with me anyway.”

  “I’m only doing this because I feel sorry for you.” She simmered down.

  Gabe held out the water bottle. “Have some water.”

  “You should have filled this with chardonnay.” She took a giant slug.

  Gabe retrieved the bottle and took a sip. “I’ll remember that for next time.”

  “There won’t be a next time.” She scowled at him.

  If she was any other woman, he would have taken her back by now, but this was Kelly, and it felt right that she was there. Besides, putting up with Kelly’s tantrums took his mind off the day.

  Dad hadn’t been perfect, and none of them enshrined his memory, but his death had left a huge hole in all of their lives. Despite having five boys and being semi-Neanderthal in his outlook on marriage and raising children, Dad had always had a special time for each of his boys.

  It was Dad who had first put skates on Mark, collected stamps with Luke, driven to Math Olympiad with Rafe, and taught Ben how to read the night skies.

  With him and Dad, it had been hiking and exploring the wilderness around Twin Elks. When they could find time, he and Dad had packed a lunch and disappeared for the day. It was Dad who had fostered in him his love of wild things. No rock was too boring to examine, no plant mundane, and no animal too common for them to stop and watch.

  The falls were tucked away in the valley one over from Twin Elks, off the beaten path, and buried in a vast tract of preservation land. You had to know they were there to find them.

  Even Kelly was impressed as they clambered a huge set of boulders and came out beside the pool the falls disgorged into. “Oh.” She lost her murderous rage look for a moment. “This is so pretty.”

  “This is it.” He took pity on her. “And this is where we’re going.”

  “Thank you, Jesus.” She dropped her ass on a boulder and wriggled out of her backpack. One arm got stuck, and she flung the backpack away from her.

  Not a hiker. Not even a little.

  She took her coat off and scooped water into her hands. “Do you think it’s drinkable?”

  “It comes straight from the source deeper in the mountains. That’s about as pure as water gets.”

  She took a cautious sip from the water in her hand. “It’s cold enough.”

  He took off his backpack and crouched beside her.

  Once he’d refilled their water bottles, he took a moment to let the serenity of the place wash over him. “I used to come here with my dad.”

  Kelly studied the water, but she was listening.

  “We found it together one day. He says it was by accident, but I’m not sure it was.”

  She looked up with a smile. “No?”

  “Nah. Dad was a planner, like Ben. He would never have taken me somewhere he didn’t first plan how to get to and, most importantly, how to get back from.” That view was one of the last things Dad had seen.

  Kelly cocked her head and frowned. “Where did your head go?”

  “Nowhere.” After Dad’s death, Gabe had come here to talk to Dad about causing his heart attack and to beg his forgiveness. And he’d done the same thing for the last nine years.
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  “Right.” Kelly gave him a look that said she wasn’t buying for a hot minute but kept watching the waterfall.

  Gabe spoke his next thought aloud. “He’s been gone a long time, but I can always sense him when I come here.”

  “He died when you were still in veterinary school, right?”

  “Yeah. It was during summer break.”

  Her silence made him keep talking.

  “Ma was all excited because we were all home. Ben was on leave from the Army, and I was on summer break. Even Mark was in the off-season. She had all these plans for a great summer.”

  Kelly slid her arm through his and rested her head against his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Gabe. I remember he looked a lot like Ben.”

  “Yup.” A memory made him laugh. “Ma has photos of them when Ben was small, and they get that exact same face when something pisses them off.”

  She cuddled closer to him, and he liked having her there. It made the weight on his chest feel lighter. “Your mom must miss him.”

  “She does.” Even though Dad had not been the most romantic man. “He used to say that he loved her when he married her, and when that changed, he’d tell her.”

  “Dot once told Poppy that despite his faults, she always knew he had her back.”

  “Yeah.” A knot tightened his throat. “That’s for damn sure. If Dad said he would do something, he did it. He used to tell us a man was nothing if he couldn’t keep his word.”

  The memories crowded him, and he needed Kelly’s warmth closer. He positioned her in front of him and wrapped his arms around her. The floral scent of her shampoo surrounded him. Her back rested against his chest and kept the pain at bay.

  “He also handed out condoms and told us he’d beat the crap out of us if we got a girl pregnant.”

  Kelly twined her fingers with his. “He sounds a lot like Ben.”

  “Yeah.” But somehow none of them had felt jealous about that. “But he always had a part of himself that he gave to each of us.”

  “And this was yours?”

  “This was mine.”

  Stellar’s jays crashed around in the thinning treetops. A few house sparrows argued noisily in the bushes.

  Needing to move, Gabe disentangled them, stood and walked closer to the water’s edge. “We came here the last time I saw him alive.”

  “Yes?”

  “Uh-huh.” And the thing he swore he would never say aloud came out. “He didn’t want to, and I bugged him into hiking with me.”

  “I’m sure he enjoyed it.”

  “Yeah, he did. But he wasn’t feeling well, and I should have left him alone.” There it was. His guilt. His dirty secret. It hung like a festering wound over the beauty of the day.

  “Gabe?” Kelly stood and came to him. “He died of a heart attack, right?”

  “Yup. Brought on by overexertion.” He couldn’t look at her. “He had a heart defect and Doc Cooper had told him to take it easy. Of course, he didn’t tell Ma or any of us about that. It was his way. He didn’t want to worry us. We only found this out after.”

  “Gabe.” Kelly got her hands on his face and tilted his head down so their gazes met. “Please tell me you aren’t taking the blame for your father’s heart attack.”

  He tried to pull away, but she held him and made him look at her. “Not outright. I mean, I I wasn’t responsible for his heart condition. If he’d told us about it, I never would have forced him to hike that day.”

  “Oh, Gabe.” And she wrapped her arms around him in that way only a woman can. Her embrace brought with it all that was sweet and soft and warm, and it took a man’s hard edges and soothed them. And then she said the thing he’d never admitted to himself. “Is this why you don’t want to stay in Twin Elks?”

  “It’s part of it.” He should have moved out of her embrace, but he wanted to stay there and sink deep and never come up for air again. “I also like sharks.”

  She laughed, her silky flesh jiggling in his arms. “The liking sharks thing is weird, Gabe. You can be interested in them, even fascinated them, but these are not fluffy kittens or cute little puppy dogs.”

  “Nope, they’re merciless predators.” He let the mood lighten between them. “The perfect killing machines.”

  Her face grew serious again as she looked up at him. “Have you ever spoken to Dot about this?”

  “Nope.” He would hate to see the hurt and condemnation in Ma’s eyes. She’d hide it for sure, because that was Ma, and she loved them all, but even the possibility was too much of a risk.

  “You should speak to someone,” she said, just like a woman to suggest he talk his feelings out. “What about Ben?”

  “Ben?” Actually, that wasn’t an entirely bad idea. Except what would Ben do?

  “Because I think they would be horrified if they knew you were carrying this burden,” Kelly said.

  “It’s not a burden. It happened. I made Dad come for a hike, and then I pushed him the whole way by being a cocky bastard and challenging him. Three hours after we got back, he collapsed.” An image that was seared into all of their minds, along with the sound of Ma trying to stay calm, but with an edge of panic in her voice as she had told Ben to call 911.

  Kelly patted his chest. “Think about talking to Ben. All right?”

  “All right. Are we done with this conversation now?”

  “Hmm.” Kelly pursed her lips. “We are if you distract me with food.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  After their hike, Kelly followed Gabe to Dot’s house. It didn’t seem right to leave him, and she needed to check on India anyway. They hadn’t spent much time together in the last couple of days, and the guilt nagged at her.

  Whatever her romantic crisis, it paled in comparison to what India was dealing with.

  When she and Gabe walked into the kitchen—well, Gabe walked and she more staggered—India and Dot were making pies with Jacob sitting in a highchair beside them.

  Gabe kissed his Mom’s cheek and gave an appreciate sniff. “It smells great in here.”

  “India has some new recipes she’s showing me,” Dot said. “I tend to make the same things because that’s what I’m comfortable with.”

  As she smiled at him, Dot studied Gabe’s face.

  He smiled back and gave a small head shake.

  An entire conversation had taken place between them in those few seconds. A twinge of envy pinched. Kelly and India had missed out on that sort of mother. Mom had done a good job of ticking the mommy boxes when other people were around. She never missed a dance recital or a school concert, was first in line with her cookies for the bake sale and was a regular at parent-teacher conferences, but that all ended when the front door closed.

  There hadn’t been any abuse or neglect, more like a supreme disinterest in her and India as anything other than an extension of the image their parents worked so hard to portray.

  It had been a relief when they’d moved to Florida after dad’s retirement. They could all stop pretending. But what Gabe and the rest of her boys had with Dot was special.

  Dot patted Gabe’s cheek. “Why don’t you get showered?”

  “Are you trying to tell me something?” Gabe grinned at her.

  Dot wrinkled her nose. “You stink.”

  “Thanks, Ma.” He turned to Kelly. “You want to use the shower first?”

  “Kelly can use my shower.” Dot pushed him out the kitchen. Then she turned to Kelly, and it wasn’t a question. “You’re staying to dinner. Between India and me, we can find you something to wear.”

  India looked at her with a sweet smile. “Please stay, Kelly. It will be fun.”

  With India looking so peaceful and content, there was nothing else Kelly could say. It would be fun.

  Dot’s bathroom was a strictly no-boy zone with pink towels, scented soaps and
a clutter of beauty products on the counters.

  “I kept my boys out of here.” Dot handed her a clean towel and an unopened bar of a floral soap. “Or before you knew it, I would have had underpants on the floor and sweaty socks stinking up the place.”

  She wanted to say something to Dot about today being the anniversary of her husband’s death, but Dot had never spoken to Kelly about her husband’s death, and it seemed an intrusion to mention it.

  Dot hesitated before she left. “Is he doing okay?”

  “He’s okay.” Kelly didn’t pretend not to understand. “He finds today difficult.”

  “He does.” Dot sighed. “None of us love this day, but Gabe takes it harder than the other boys.”

  Kelly wished she could tell Dot what Gabe had confided in her, but it would betray his trust. If Gabe ever spoke to his family about it, that would have to be his decision. “It’s a sad day.”

  “Yes.” Dot’s head bowed for a moment. She looked up and met Kelly’s gaze. “Thank you for being with him today.”

  “It was my pleasure.” And she meant that.

  Dot gave her a quick hug. “You’re a good girl, Kelly. Be patient with him. All my sons have their father’s pig-headedness, and a woman needs to wait them out.”

  “It’s not like that with Gabe and me.” She didn’t want Dot getting the wrong impression. “We’re more friends than anything else.”

  “Right.” Dot smiled and patted her cheek. “Gabe needs a friend like you.”

  Dot left and Kelly stood there for a moment, not sure what had happened, but quite sure she and Dot had not reached the same conclusion.

  Dot saw her and Gabe as a couple, because that’s what she wanted to see. The last time Kelly had been part of a couple had been with Vince. She’d had relationships in the last fifteen years, and she hadn’t been a nun, but not like she’d had with Vince.

  Not like she and Gabe had been today. Kelly had never been friends with any of the men who had drifted in and then out of her life. None of them had been around long enough, or serious enough to leave a lasting impression.

  Kelly took her shower and changed into some yoga pants of India’s—thank God they were stretchy—and one of Dot’s sweatshirts. This one announced that she shot the sheriff.