Guarding Gaby

by Jean Brashear

  Eli grabbed a wheelbarrow, rake and shovel and cleaned out the stall, then filled the water trough and replenished the feed.

  Next he moved to the tack room and selected a curry comb, a hoof pick, and a soft brush. When he came back out, horse and dog seemed to have reached a truce. Paco ignored the dog, and the dog stayed out of Paco’s way, perhaps instinctively understanding the danger of those hooves.

  Eli set the tools on a hay bale nearby. He chose to start with the curry comb, working out a few burrs and bits of mud that had collected in the horse’s coat.

  Paco shifted occasionally but remained impressively still. The dog finally settled and, with a deep exhalation, laid his head on his paws and closed his eyes.

  Eli moved on to the hoof pick, talking quietly to the horse as he bent over each leg. Paco was not so sanguine about this stage, but he accepted Eli’s touch fairly well. Once finished, Eli began brushing the horse’s coat, and Paco grew so still he almost seemed asleep, his head lowered. The rhythmic motions and the scents soothed Eli, too. He listened to the horse’s slow breaths, and heard the birds chirping outside. The dog snored softly.

  Eli couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this relaxed.

  Then he heard the sound of an engine and knew time was up. He’d let himself lose track. He had to get out of here before his presence was discovered.

  Quickly he returned Paco to his stall, then withdrew into the shadows of the barn to watch for his chance to escape.

  When the big black Ford spun its tires on the caliche, Eli’s lip curled at the sight of Chad Anderson.

  Once the sheriff was gone, Eli approached the door. Poised to slip around to the side and make himself scarce, Eli nearly missed the slender figure in black, her frame a study in dejection.

  Gaby. There she was, after nine long years.

  Funny, when he should remember only her desertion, that apparently the boy who had loved her so foolishly and fully still lived inside him. Craved to see her face again, just one time.

  Damn it.

  He pulled the length of rope from his rear pocket and tied the dog to one slat of the nearest stall, murmuring the nightly order that had, thus far, kept the canine quiet and safe.

  He wouldn’t speak to her. There was nothing to say, anyhow. They’d been kids. He only wanted one good glimpse of her, then he would fade away as quickly as he’d come.

  He eased through the barn door and made his way toward the woman who had once been the one bright light in his life.

  Chapter Three

  Her slender back was bowed as he spotted her through the pale greenery of the few struggling tomato plants doomed to die when the first frost hit any day now. Her black dress was streaked with dirt, her sable hair glinted red in the sunlight.

  Against the sound of the breeze, Eli heard the gurgle of the hose two rows over. Thirsty soil slowed the path of the restorative water, yet the dark ribbon lengthened, moment by moment.

  Strong, graceful fingers struggled with a stubborn weed. Tears streamed, as though endless, down her face.

  His heart clenched at the sight of the smooth, tawny curve of her jaw, glistening with its patina of sorrow. The moment was so private and filled with pain that he hesitated. Thought to disappear.

  Yet however much she’d betrayed what they’d once meant to each other, something within him balked at leaving her this alone.

  The weed broke at the stalk, and she grappled for balance, crouched as she was on black high-heeled sandals. She stood up quickly, her shiny dark hair swinging, the sleek curving ends barely kissing the slope of her shoulders.

  The green stalk clutched in her hand oozed milky-white fluid from its torn body, and there was a tearing ache in those beautiful, haunting eyes. Despite all that had passed, he found himself wanting to pluck out her pain. Wished for the power to make those caramel eyes sparkle again.

  To protect her.

  Her body swayed to a dirge he could almost hear. To remain where he was required everything in him.

  But when she began to crumple—

  He bolted into action. Caught her before she fell. “Gaby—”

  Her lids fluttered. “Eli?” The last of the color in her face drained away. Her body collapsed like a doll with the stuffing yanked out.

  He swept her into his arms and made for the house as the dying plant dropped from nerveless fingers. Once inside, he spared no time for a survey of the place he’d never been allowed to enter. Instead, he headed for the room he calculated to be the one she’d been in last night. He laid her out on the bed that clearly belonged to a young girl, elevated her feet, removed her shoes and loosened her clothing with fingers that were shaking.

  He left her only long enough to pour water into a bowl and snag a cloth, then dipped it, wrung it out and stroked the cooling moisture over her skin.

  Not until her color began to improve did he draw a steady breath. He set a chair beside the bed and poised there, elbows on thighs, hands clenched together, propping his chin.

  He devoured the details of her appearance, this woman who had been formed from the raw clay of a naïve, headstrong girl.

  She was too thin.

  He smiled at that; few women today believed such a state possible, but he remembered a girl who was more rounded. Softer. Optimistic and determined.

  The face that had emerged was equally intent. Prominent cheekbones, lashes as thick as ever, though elegant brows had been honed from ones he recalled as less structured. The chin that had jutted in his direction many a time was still ready to declare her independence.

  And the mouth…oh, that glorious mouth, framed now by a face that was noble and proud.

  Her dress, sleek and beautifully tailored, clung to a figure better left unnoticed.

  As if that were possible. His fingers flexed with the urge to touch.

  He reminded himself that he’d always understood that she wasn’t for him, even before the night she’d failed to show at their rendezvous spot. If she hadn’t possessed such grand ambitions and the skills to accomplish them, he still would never have entangled her in the coil that was his life. Gaby was the light to his darkness, the ray of hope he’d never truly believed in.

  But from the day she walked into his hospital room after she’d saved his life on a deserted country road, Eli’s soul had belonged to her for as long as she’d wanted it. Others had had different plans for her, but for sweet, stolen months, they had shared a love that could only survive in the darkness…and for a time, he had forgotten that sooner or later, daylight exposes everything the night disguises.

  Gaby stirred. He urged her to drink, but she never fully rose to consciousness. Eli and held his breath, as eager for her to awaken as he was praying she would not.

  When she settled again, he refilled the glass on the bedside table and watched her a little longer. Checked her pulse and color once more.

  Then, with quiet steps, he left.

  Before temptation placed her life in danger. Again.

  Gabriela awoke in her childhood bed, the walls still covered with the tiny yellow rosebuds that had seen her through childhood and her first kiss. For a moment, she drank in the cool, clean air, the feeling of rightness.

  And then she remembered the voice she’d heard. The blurred form.

  Jolted up straight. “Eli?”

  Only silence greeted her. She sat on the edge of the double bed handed down from her grandmother, her head achy, her eyes tired from weeping. She longed to seek oblivion in sleep again.

  She realized the buttons were opened at the neck of the dress she’d worn to her father’s funeral. Spotted the glass of water on the bedside table.

  Could it possibly have been him? She drank in greedy gulps, then rolled her wrist inward. Tucked the glass against her chest as if she could capture the phantom who’d left it for her.

  Eli was seen right here, arguing with your father. He’ll be charged with your father’s murder.

  How to square the boy who’d loved
her with the one suspected of his mother’s death? The subject of a manhunt with a man who would put her to bed and leave her a glass of water?

  Why had he returned?

  She thought of the day, her junior year of high school, when she and Chad had encountered Eli on the side of the road, unconscious. They had hauled him to a doctor in Alpine, a hundred miles away, but Eli had refused to reveal who’d beaten him so badly, and he’d hadn’t welcomed her interference as he’d begun to heal.

  She’d persisted, however. His mother had no car and came only sporadically; no one else bothered. Gaby had paid him daily visits until his release, when her father had found out and lowered the boom. He’d been no happier than Chad about her interest in the boy everyone considered little better than a wild animal.

  Then had begun the sweetest months of her life, meeting Eli in secret in the depths of night. Letting him show her the outdoors he’d learned to inhabit to escape life at home and horrors he would not explain.

  He changed the topic every time she wanted to discuss why he chose to camp out rather than go home, why he attended school barely enough to pass and cared nothing at all about grades or achievement. He would listen for hours to her plans and her dreams, but he never revealed his.

  Except one that shone from his eyes without his ever saying a word.

  Eli wanted Gaby for his own, but he would never claim her. Just the opposite, in fact, no matter how hungry his gaze on her or how a fever shimmered in the air between them; Eli would not touch her beyond a kiss now and then.

  Yet kisses she now understood as relatively chaste still shone more brightly in her memory than any she’d experienced since.

  He was willing to teach her fieldcraft and desert lore, would encourage even her highest aspirations, but he kept an iron grip on the urges raging inside him.

  Too naïve to realize how remarkable his control was for a teenage boy, she had teased him without mercy, desperate to use any means possible, however untutored her efforts, to grasp onto a promise of a future he refused to envision. With all the passion of a young girl’s heart, she painted dreams for him he would never claim. She invaded his physical space at every opportunity, sensing, untried as she was, the leverage she could gain to anchor him to her.

  With each meeting, they’d edged closer to crossing that line, and that last night, she’d been certain would be The One.

  Instead, she’d been locked in her room by her father, while Eli’s mother was trapped inside another one that was burning.

  And Gaby had never seen Eli again.

  Until today.

  She might have dreamed him. Chad could have been the one who’d put her to bed.

  But even as she considered those options, she discarded them.

  Not that it could matter. If Eli wanted her, he would have stayed. She had plenty to do. A house to pack up, memories to shed before she returned to New York.

  If only she didn’t feel a hundred years old.

  Coffee was probably the last thing she needed when her stomach ached from everything trapped within her, but she managed to shower and dress, then padded toward the kitchen.

  Every step of the way, a plan forming. She could find him. She knew his haunts as no one else did.

  But Chad was the sheriff. Eli was his business. She had an important job waiting, and she had to prove she could handle it.

  In the kitchen, she drew another big glass of water while she waited for the coffee to percolate. She drank half without stopping, thinking that bottled water had never tasted nearly as good.

  Her gaze skidded over the door to her father’s room.

  How much longer do you plan to delay? She hadn’t yet been able to consider going inside, but she would have to deal with the room—with the whole house—if she were to get back to New York quickly.

  Just a quick peek, while the coffee’s making. Squaring her shoulders, she walked down the hall and pushed the door open.

  The old blue chenille bedspread her mother had loved still covered the bed, now threadbare in spots, the tufts worn off like the fur on Gaby’s childhood teddy bear. She glanced up to the ceiling and swallowed back tears.

  Too many memories.

  Gripping the knob, she glanced around the room. Her father might have just walked out and would return any moment. She felt like an interloper.

  In truth, that’s all she was. A stranger who’d seen these rooms before. In another existence.

  Her gaze halted at the corner altar he’d kept even after her mother died. Gaby ventured one cautious step closer, then another.

  The statue of the Virgin that had been handed down from her mother’s mother stood beside the candle to Santa Lucia, Gaby’s saint name. Draped over the Virgin was her mother’s rosary. Even now, she could remember the pride of helping her father pick it out. Gaby had thought the glass beads, with their lavender glow, were the most beautiful things she’d ever seen—perfect for her stunning mother, gone so many years now that she no longer seemed real.

  The same old wooden crucifix hung on the wall behind, the gilt all but powder. Plastic flowers nearby were laden with the same layer of dust covering every surface in this house. Her father had been neat by nature, but blowing dirt was a constant problem in this dry country.

  She blew off the thick film from the glass top—and faltered. Picture after picture, pressed between glass and table. Gaby with her mother. Gaby in second grade. At her confirmation. She strangled on the torrent of emotion.

  Then she spotted the program from her college graduation, with her name as summa cum laude.

  And ran from the room as though chased by demons.

  He never answered my invitation. I had no idea whether he got it. I thought he didn’t care. Shaken to her soul, Gaby dug nails into her arms to keep from screaming out her anger. Crying out her wrenching, terrible sadness. Why wouldn’t you tell me you were there? Would it have been so hard, Papa?

  I believed I could never come home.

  Panting from the effort to hold in the anguish, she forced herself away from the wall and into the kitchen to pour coffee. With steps she never registered, she found her way out to the porch. Made it to the top step, set the cup of hot liquid down.

  The salty sobs would be swallowed back no more. Oblivious to everything but the agony clawing to get out, Gaby dropped her head to her knees, rocked by agonizing surges of a grief too ugly to heal.

  Then there was a snuffle at her ear.

  A wet tongue on her arm.

  Gaby recoiled. A big head nudged at her, a soft whine. Sad brown eyes.

  “Where did you come from?”

  Thin and scarred, the dog whimpered again.

  She didn’t really care; for that moment, her terrible loneliness eased. When he wiggled nearer and butted her hand gently for more petting, she even managed a tiny smile. Scratched behind his ears and rubbed her forehead against his as soft pants bathed her face.

  Merely petting him quieted her turmoil. “I don’t know where you came from, but thank you.”

  His only answer was a wag of his tail, but somehow he’d managed to bring sunshine into her despair.

  “I’m hungry. How about you? Want to come inside?” She rose and went to the door, waiting to see if he’d go or stay, hoping desperately that he’d choose the latter.

  To invite him in made no sense, as she would only be here a few days. She’d search for his owner before she left, though she doubted he had one. His ribs showed, and he bore the scars of recent injury.

  Perhaps Ramon would help her find a good home for him.

  For now, though, she welcomed company that wouldn’t ask questions or talk about the past.

  After a moment’s hesitation, he followed her.

  And Gaby found her first honest smile since she’d picked up the phone in New York.

  From a distance, Eli watched them.

  But soon he turned away, weary from a fruitless night of searching, and left to return to the cave.

  Alon
e.

  Chapter Four

  Gaby made herself breakfast from the pitiful contents of her father’s refrigerator, a lone egg, a forlorn sliver of longhorn cheese, a withered onion. The half-loaf of bread bore a faint blue shadow, so into the trash it went. She rummaged through the cabinets and found a packet of saltines that would have to suffice.

  What she wouldn’t give for a fresh tortilla.

  She hardly ever cooked anymore, but all at once, she could feel the dough soft and giving beneath her hand. Picture a ball of it lying on the bread board extending from its hiding place beneath the counter, the small rolling pin flattening, then spreading the dough until it was thin just this side of tearing. Smell the nutty fragrance as it browned on the griddle.

  She would make tortillas once, here in this kitchen where she had made hundreds.

  Her own ceremony of parting, since she would never return.

  Having one concrete plan steadied her. She finished the omelet and halved it with the dog. While she ate, she began a grocery list. Between bites, she checked the cabinets for flour and lard. Opened a drawer and felt the prick of tears at the sight of the rolling pin that had been her mother’s and before her, Gaby’s grandmother’s.

  “Chica,” she could hear her mother say, “Someday you will teach your niña, and the line of women will link, past to future. That is what we do, our people, we plant our roots in the soil, we endure whatever life hands us and we go on.”

  Oh, Mama. In that moment, Gaby’s mother Celia was alive again, small and curvy and fierce. I can’t stay. I’m sorry. I’m not like you, however much Papa wished for that.

  Gaby shoved away from the counter. The house closed in around her like a coffin. She would have withered here, but sometimes—

  I have the life I wanted. I’m going to be someone to reckon with, Papa, just you wait and—

  But Papa would never see. She had been without family for several years, but now that state was permanent. Final.

  She was completely alone.