She could recount every moment of the day, but she had no memory of those moments happening to her. What she remembered, what she could feel, was horror.
It had been like this just after what her father had done, too, when she’d woken in the hospital to a life that would always be aftermath. Her mind had simply refused to play along.
Monday, and Tuesday, and Wednesday were the same. Gabe lived those days with Emma and Wes and the kids, she participated, but the things that happened on those days didn’t feel like her memories now. Even all the talking Emma had done, about Heath and what was going on—Gabe had heard every word, she could paraphrase or even quote, but it felt unreal. She’d been drowning in horror and shock, and her mind had found a corner to hide in. She couldn’t remember anything she’d thought about anything in particular for four days.
Until Thursday afternoon, when Morgan’s truck pulled up and Heath got out. Then full consciousness had slammed through her and become panic. In those four days, the Heath of her dream had taken on the heft of reality, and she’d almost expected a blood-soaked demon to come into Emma’s house.
But it had only been Heath, the loving, gentle, patient man she knew. Standing outside the door of Emma’s guest room, he’d seemed older than his years and weary beyond telling, with dark circles under his eyes and several days’ scruff on his cheeks. He’d seemed so deeply sad.
Nothing Emma had said over four days of trying to convince her of Heath’s innocence had torn through her vivid image—her memory—of his murderous red rage. Nothing had helped to weaken the power of the new version of her dream. For all the time that Heath had been away, Gabe had believed in his guilt, without ever fully understanding that she had. It had simply been a truth, cosmic in scope, over which she’d had no power.
Until he’d been standing before her, just the two of them, and she’d seen his love. Until he’d touched her, and she’d felt his care. Then, he was just Heath. She knew him. She loved him.
So she believed him.
And yet the dream had still come.
She sat up and looked at the man at her side. Her love. He lay on his back, his head turned away, the arm on that side cocked on the pillow above his head. He’d kicked a leg out from under the sheet and comforter, and they were wadded over him, covering only the other leg and hip, and barely more than that.
Sometimes—often—now—she could feel settled and steady only when their bodies were in contact. In his arms, she felt like she had found somewhere to be. Somewhere that was home. Even while the past and future were in turmoil, even as the present around them clashed and rattled, when she was in his arms, she was where she belonged.
They’d come to bed for something other than sleep and fallen into unconsciousness tangled and naked, so the light on his nightstand still lit the room with a soft glow. They hadn’t closed the curtains, either, and Gabe saw the scene—herself, Heath, the light at his side—reflected in the black glass. It made a melancholy image.
She turned back to Heath. The healed skin of arced scar on his chest had a sheen to it, and the light made it shimmer subtly. She reached over and traced the tip of her index finger over that smooth, taut mark. Her touch didn’t disturb his rest, and the warmth of his body—even at the tiny point of her fingertip—turned the last of the bad feelings left from the dream to vapor.
Shifting on the bed so that she sat facing his body, cross-legged, Gabe opened her hand and smoothed it over his chest. He was so strong, so firm. His broad shoulders could carry the world—and they often seemed to.
A frown danced over his brow and away, and he groaned lightly in his sleep—little more than a hum deep in his chest—and turned his head so that he faced the ceiling. But he didn’t wake. His chest lifted in a deep sigh, and then he was still. He was so very tired.
As her hand moved over his torso—chest, shoulders, belly, smoothing even circles with her fingers spread wide—Gabe studied his handsome face. The jaw so square it seemed hewn from the rocky side of a mountain. The straight nose and strong brow. The faint dip at the center of his angular chin. Soft, straight lips just barely pinker than his tanned skin. The faint lines in his cheeks—smooth again; he’d showered and shaved that afternoon—that deepened into long, perfect dimples when he smiled. The creases at the corners of his eyes.
The strands of grey at his temples. Gabe thought those were new.
In sleep, he was relaxed, and the sorrow that had hung on his face all day was gone. Even after they’d talked, even after she’d slid the lovely old ring on her finger—it fit as if it had been made for her—he’d still been clearly, deeply sad. Gabe understood. With her mind willing to face facts again, she understood that their love and faith in each other changed nothing about the reality that Heath was very likely going to spend the rest of his life in prison. When the trial was over and a verdict was read, he would very likely be found guilty. His innocence was irrelevant to that truth.
On October fifth, he would go to trial. In a matter of weeks thereafter, Gabe would very likely be living without him. But she, at least, would still have this—his family, the ranch, her freedom. Heath had seen to that. His life would be…God. From that thought, her mind skittered away.
Three months.
Blinking away tears, Gabe pulled the comforter and sheet from his body and let them slide to the floor at the end of the bed. Rolling to her knees, she picked up his cock, which had swelled to about half-mast as she’d stroked his chest. Pulling her hair over one shoulder, she bent her head and sucked him into her mouth.
At once, he filled out completely. She loved the way that felt—him filling her mouth, his foreskin seeming to roll back as his need surged forth.
When he grunted and his belly went taut, she knew without checking that he’d woken. She swirled her tongue over his tip, then around the rounded edge of his glans, stopping to flick lightly over the wedged skin at the underside. A single drop of wet emerged, and she licked it up, savoring the faint, salty taste.
“Gabe,” he rumbled in a voice made even huskier than usual by sleep and desire. “God. God.”
She felt his hand on her head, sliding into her hair, pushing it back—he wanted to watch. She hummed, and his hips tensed as he let out a rough groan.
Tightening her grip around his base, she took him deeper, beginning a pistoning rhythm, slow and steady, then cupped his balls in one hand, brushing her thumb back and forth over skin that was at first velvety soft but became rough and hard as it bunched and drew close to his body.
Lifting away from his cock, Gabe dipped lower and sucked his tight balls into her mouth, taking each one at a time.
“Fuck oh fuck,” he gasped.
Returning to her main mission, Gabe wrapped both hands around him and sucked him deep again, picking up a faster beat.
Heath’s breathing had become heavy and strained, each exhale a groan, and his body flexed and twisted under her. Both hands were now snarled in her hair, holding her head, and every now and then he would pull and push, trying for that moment to take over her tempo.
She always knew when he was nearing his finish, because his legs would turn to stone, the muscles in his thighs swelling, and he would stop breathing, each breath getting deeper and slower until it was simply held.
As he neared that peak this time, he gasped, “Gabe, Gabe, Gabe, wait. Wait.”
When he tugged sharply on her hair, she understood that he really wanted her to stop that close to completion.
She did, lifting away—his hips followed her, arching up as she raised her head and met his eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“I want to come inside you. I always want to come inside you.”
He wanted her pregnant. Even facing a future in prison, he wanted her pregnant. She might be already, but they couldn’t know yet, and he wanted to do all they could to make it happen.
She wanted that, too. A piece of him, and of her—a manifest proof of their love.
That evening, they had decided that
by October fifth they would be married, and she would, God willing, be pregnant.
Without shifting her eyes from his, she mounted him and felt him hold himself steady as she eased down, slowly, and accepted him into herself.
He came at once, bucking up with a shout before she had even settled on his thighs, and, rocking hard on him, she kept him coming, shouts bursting from his throat with each hard flex that brought him deep.
Feeling him so deep, feeling his need for her, the intensity of his climax, had Gabe close herself. He was still almost completely hard, and as he began to relax, she found a gentle, deep movement that kept him pressed exactly where she needed him. Her head dropped back and she began to moan.
With a swift, powerful surge, he sat up and grabbed her to his chest, stilling her, and then they stayed like that, clutching each other, as he struggled to catch his breath.
Every time she tried to move and find that perfect spot again, he tightened his hold and stopped her.
“Heath, please.”
Another sudden, strong move, and she was on her back, and empty of him. He’d pulled out and was hovering over her. This time, she outright whined. “Heath!”
“Shhh, little one. I’m here.”
He dipped his head and sucked her breast into his mouth, flicking his tongue over the point of her nipple. As he did so, his hand skimmed down her side, over her belly, and between her legs. His rough fingers pushed into her and found that perfect point, and his mouth drew hard on her nipple. His other hand slid under her and took hold of her ass. He had encompassed her. Engulfed her.
As she came, she arched high and threw her arms wide, knocking the light off the nightstand with a crash.
He stayed on her until her body was a twitching, nerveless mass and she had to grab his hand and stop him before she passed out. He rolled to his side and tucked her close, hooking his leg over hers.
As the orgasm subsided and let her mind and body work again, she had a moment of cozy bliss, so surrounded by his love, all of her senses full of nothing but him—the scent of his sweat, the sound of his heartbeat, the touch of his skin, the sight of his arm around her, the lingering taste of his need.
Knowing this feeling, this love, this belonging, how would she ever live without it?
A torrent of emotion followed on that thought, and Gabe was sobbing before she’d realized she was sad. She clenched her arms around him, pushed her face against his strong chest, and wept.
His hold tightened at once. “It’s okay, little one. It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay. It’s gonna be okay.”
He said the sentence over and over and over again, as if repetition would give it the power to be true.
Gabe held him and was held by him and wished it so.
*****
“What do you think of her?” Emma asked, stirring a glass pitcher of lemonade with a wooden spoon.
Gabe stabbed cellophane-topped toothpicks into the wee, twee sandwiches Emma had insisted on making and arranged them in a circle on the stoneware platter. “I don’t know. If she’s as good as they say, then I like her. If she makes it so he can stay home, then I adore her.”
Emma stopped stirring and frowned at the side door, as if she could see around the corner to where Heath, Logan, and Morgan sat on the wide flagstone patio with Heath’s lawyer. Wes had taken the kids out for a ride; nobody wanted them around when Honor Babinot came to the house.
Heath had been home just more than a week, and this was Honor’s third visit to the ranch. They’d somehow convinced her that the big house should be the base of operations for Heath’s case, and that she should come to them, rather than the other way around. The other two times, she’d brought Melina, her investigator, but on this Friday afternoon, she’d come alone, and she was dressed casually, in jeans and a sleeveless top, with her long blonde hair loose—almost as if it had been a social call.
It hadn’t. She’d brought a banker’s box full of new files, and everybody seemed somber. Now, they were taking a break.
“Don’t you think she’s too pretty to be a lawyer?”
Gabe laughed, then realized that Emma was serious. “What are you talking about? Did you just fall through a wormhole and land in 1955 or something?”
Emma blushed, then got back to work on the lemonade. “I don’t think it’s such a bad thing for men and women to be good at different things.”
“Well, okay. Like lifting heavy things and reaching the top shelf. Opening the pickle jar. But not lawyering. I don’t think good looks or boobs makes her less capable of arguing a case. Heath says she’s the best in Idaho.”
During her father’s trial, the prosecutor, also a woman, had taken Gabe under her wing. For a time, she’d been the closest thing Gabe had had to a friend. It was strange now to be on the other side, to think of the prosecutor as an enemy. Gabe was pretty glad Heath’s lawyer was a woman. It gave her a bridge over that cognitive dissonance.
“I sure hope so. I just wish…I don’t know. Never mind.” She set the wooden spoon on the cutting board where the remains of the lemons sat, looking squished and forlorn now. “Will you taste this for me? Everybody always says I make it too sweet.”
Gabe went over and poured a splash of lemonade into a little juice glass. She took a sip, then made a face when it seemed to curdle in her mouth. “No, it’s not too sweet. Barely tastes like there’s any sugar.”
“You sure? I put a whole cup in.”
“Yeah. Wow. The lemons must be extra strong, then. It needs more.”
“Okay.” She added another half cup and stirred it in. “You ready?”
Gabe hooked a basket full of cutlery and napkins over her arm and picked up the stoneware platter. “Let’s go.”
*****
The enormous patio stretched across the back of the big house and around the western side and extended about twenty feet into the grounds around the house. Heath’s parents had entertained often when Heath’s mother was alive, so it was set up to hold at least a hundred guests comfortably.
Morgan didn’t entertain, and his wife had been dead for more than ten years, so most of the patio was empty these days. But at the corner, dead center, stood a big stone fireplace, with an arrangement of furniture before it that could accommodate a cozy family gathering of ten or so. When the discussion had gotten heavy and tense inside, Morgan had suggested they all enjoy the unexpected cool of the mid-July afternoon.
When Emma and Gabe carried out the snacks, the people around the low table were sitting quietly, their expressions uniformly glum. Gabe swallowed down the foul taste of panic. The lawyer never came with good news. Every visit, she’d shown how the prosecution’s case was getting stronger.
She set the tray in the middle of the table, and Emma handled pouring out glasses of lemonade. Heath held out his hand to her, and she let him pull her onto his lap.
“What’s wrong?”
He sighed. “I love you. We’re gonna be okay. No matter what.”
Now she felt sick with panic, and she grabbed his hand in both of hers. “I love you, too. What happened?”
“DNA came back.”
“Well, but everybody already knew it was his blood all over your clothes.”
Heath shook his head. “My DNA in his mouth.”
Though they’d been talking only to each other, they’d been speaking at nearly normal volume, so everyone had heard. The lawyer, Honor, cut in. “They found traces of Heath’s skin in the victim’s teeth.”
“But Heath punched him in the mouth. A lot. His hands were all torn up. Couldn’t it have happened then?”
“Hours before time of death. It’s possible that the flesh could have stayed in place all that time, especially if we can prove that the victim didn’t eat or drink or brush his teeth.”
Honor never seemed to use Brandon Black’s name. She always called him ‘the victim.’ Gabe wondered why.
Logan slammed his fists down on his thighs. “Yeah, it’s possible! That’s what happened. He didn
’t do this! Jesus, woman. Watch how you talk.”
Honor frowned but didn’t react otherwise to Logan’s outburst. “I should have phrased that more carefully, but—”
“Isn’t phrasing things your fuckin’ job?” Logan snarled.
“Logan! You will show respect, or you will leave this meeting.” Morgan took a glass of lemonade from Emma’s shaking hand. “Thank you, darlin’.” To Honor, he said, “Go on.”
“The problem is that Hayes can argue it is unlikely that the victim didn’t do any of those things in the seven to twelve hours between your attack and his death, and that it is much more likely that Heath’s skin got caught in the victim’s teeth during the murder. We don’t need the prosecution getting more color for an already colorful story.”
Gabe stared at Honor, trying to comprehend the notion that Heath’s bleak chances had grown bleaker.
“I hate you calling it an attack,” Logan muttered.
“What else would you call it, Loge?” Heath asked.
“A damn public service. He was about to put his drunk ass behind the wheel.”
“Ugh!” Morgan complained and leaned forward to set his glass on the table. “Emma, darlin’, you got to let up on the damn sugar! That there is undrinkable. It’s practically sugar cane itself.”
“Sorry, Daddy.”
Glad for something, anything, else to focus on, Gabe said, “It’s my fault, Morgan. I told her to add more.” She picked up the glass Emma had set on the table for her and took a sip. “Huh. It still tastes sour to me.”
Heath twitched. He caught her chin in his hand and turned her head to face him. “You okay?”
His eyes blazed green heat at her, and she tried to understand what had him so intense about the dumb lemonade. There were much more important things to be focused on. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just don’t like these lemons, I guess.”
Somewhere (Sawtooth Mountains Stories Book 1) Page 23