“What do you do on the Fourth of July then?”
“I light them like any other daddy on the black. Can’t spoil the day for LiLi, Song, or Miki just because I’m jumpy, but I don’t buy the noisy kind. Not anymore. Had enough of the real ones.”
Kelsey lifted her steaming cup and took a sip. “You have sweet little girls. What about you, Gabe?”
He shrugged, the cup in his hand too hot to drink. “I still hit the dirt every time a car backfires. It’s normal. I think every other guy and gal who’s been in combat probably does too. No big deal. When you go through tough times, you get a little beat up in the process. Don’t feel like you’re all alone, Kelsey. Look around. You’re in danged good company even if I do say so myself.”
“I’m glad you’re both here. Shelby, too.”
Gabe glanced at the back of Nurse Sullivan’s head. Something was still up with her and he was fairly certain it had nothing to do with her control issues, not if that tear in her eye meant what he thought it meant. She’d connected with Kelsey’s heartbreak by the look on her face and Gabe empathized with her. The ripple of Alex’s death touched everyone, even hardcore Marines and nurses.
Whisper came to sit by Kelsey. Absentmindedly, she ruffled his furry face, but that wasn’t enough for the big dog. He put one huge paw on her knee, then the other.
Gabe lifted out of his seat. “Here. I’ll put them outside.”
“No. It’s okay. He’s trying to tell me something. Whisper can talk, you know.” Kelsey leaned into Whisper’s forehead. The black dog leaned against hers, growling softly in his gravelly voice as if he really were confiding a secret. “Tell me, Whisper. What do you know?”
He barked quietly once, spun around in a complete turn and went to the back door, pawing to be let out.
Kelsey followed him. “This reminds me of the game we used to play. Let me try something.” She knelt in front of Whisper, her hands in the ruffled mane at his neck. “Find him, Whisper. Find Alex.”
And blam. Whisper and Smoke went ballistic, howling, prancing, and filling the house with such a racket.
Gabe about choked, those plaster casts and the boot prints first thing on his mind. Shit. What if Whisper goes directly there?
The minute Kelsey opened the back door, they roared out with her right behind them. Gabe followed with Zack close on his heels.
Just as Gabe feared, Whisper and Smoke led Kelsey to the location of the boot tracks. They had been safely obliterated, but that didn’t stop the dogs from putting those vacuum cleaner snouts to the ground and doing what they did best—scenting. In seconds, both dropped to their haunches right where Gabe had poured the plaster castings, their bright eyes fixed on Kelsey and their mission accomplished.
He gulped. Damned if they hadn’t scented Alex like she’d asked them to, which meant nothing, not in the man’s own property. Of course they’d scent him. He’d lived there. But why only there? Why not anywhere else in the yard?
“What are you boys doing? There’s nothing here.” Kelsey looked thoughtfully around the swing.
Gabe followed her eyes. There was no place for a man to hide, not with the wisteria gone. He’d cleaned the mess after the plaster casts were poured and set. Nothing remained.
She peered up at him, concern etched on her crinkled brow. “I don’t understand. They’ve tracked you, Gabe. Why?”
Whisper bumped his shoulder against her leg and sat at her feet. Damn it to hell. Those big black eyes of his focused on Gabe as if the animal dared him to say anything but the truth, which at the moment, Gabe honestly did not know.
Zack shot him a stern look and Gabe meant to obey, but now he wondered. Whisper and Smoke were two of the best trackers around. Zack might not like it, but oh, well. Gabe couldn’t take any more meltdowns in the closet.
He cleared his throat. “Are you up for a ride, Kelsey?”
Zack frowned right on cue, his pursed lips twisted to the side and one brow lifted in a ‘Don’t you say one more word, Cartwright.’
“Where?” she asked wearily. Whisper’s bright eyes still stared at Gabe in that deadpanned way of a good dog that can see right through a man.
“To the river. Let’s go back to where it happened.”
The depth of her devastation stabbed him. “Why?”
“Because I heard you talking to your dogs before, and I think you’re right. There has to be a reason Alex can’t come home right now. If you believe he rescued you, then so do I.” Gabe crouched and steadied her with a hand to her shoulder, for the first time really meaning every word he said. Something was going on or the dogs wouldn’t have both scented their owner as quickly as they had. It was time to put an end to her confusion, once and for all. “Come on. Let’s prove he really was at that river. What do you say?”
Zack stood behind her, shaking his head with a definite negatory, but Gabe kept going. Call it insubordination or call it inspiration. This was what Kelsey needed, and she’d keep breaking down until she knew one way or the other.
She pulled Whisper into her arms, a desperate sob climbing up her throat. “But what if it wasn’t him?”
Ah. So that’s what’s really going on. Her poor heart was at war with logic.
“I don’t know,” he answered honestly.
She groaned, and the pain in her voice took him back to the wailing women in Afghanistan. All the mothers, wives, and daughters who’d lost children, husbands and fathers to a lifetime of war. Always the ones left behind, he was forever amazed at the strength of women to endure—and to suffer.
He squeezed her shoulder. “You know what? Never mind. You’re worn out. You take it easy while me and the dogs run the riverbank for you. I’ll take a video of the whole thing. We’ll pop popcorn when I get back and make a regular movie night of it. Sound good?”
“I don’t know.” Whisper pushed her to her butt and settled into her lap like a poodle instead of the lumbering moose he was.
“Zack?” Gabe asked brightly, despite the stink-eye he was getting from his agent in charge. “Well? Can you hold down the fort or not? I won’t be gone long.”
Zack had a way of making a guy think he could kill them just by looking at them. He’d arch his left brow in a damned sharp spike. But not now. He grunted all the way to his toes in definite disapproval, but Gabe saw the hesitation through the tough guy routine.
He pushed the limit. “You said it yourself. If anyone can track Alex, it’s his dogs. If we’d done this a few days ago, we wouldn’t be having this conversation now, would we?”
Zack stretched both arms behind his head, his forehead wrinkled up to his scalp. “What if they do? What then?”
“Then I’ll know he’s coming home someday,” Kelsey whispered. “And I can wait for him, Zack. You know Alex as well as I do. He’d never hurt me. He wouldn’t. He’ll come back for me.”
This gentle lady only wanted a shred of hope to hang onto. Zack didn’t seem too opposed to the idea, either, especially since the dogs had tracked their owner to those mysterious boot prints in record time. It didn’t hurt that Kelsey had just pinned him with her sad eyes, either. Who could resist?
He stalled.
Come on, big guy. Loosen up. Let me do this one little thing for her. Right damned now.
Finally, Zack offered her his arm. “Come on, Kels. You need to rest while he’s gone or you’ll be sick again.”
Gabe shot him a quick nod of thanks. One of these days he’d have to tell Zack about that revoked license. Not today. “Should we let Mark know what I’m doing?”
“I’ll take care of it. Just don’t take all day.”
Gabe winked at Kelsey. ”Remember? Movie tonight. My treat.”
Chapter Sixteen
In one day, this job had turned into one of her hardest.
Shelby couldn’t read the magazine articles in front of her nose. She wasn’t needed. And she certainly wasn’t in charge. Agent Lennox and Cartwright had made that clear. They seemed somehow in tune with Kelsey, an
d Shelby was the odd man out.
The nerve of Gabe to hug Kelsey while armed with those loaded guns of his. Yet he’d hugged her as if he’d never let her go. And she’d hugged him back and cried into his shirt, the last thing Shelby needed to watch. Everything she’d tried to do ended up being wrong or at least inadequate. Especially letting Kelsey look at all those old pictures.
Gah! I should’ve known better!
But that wasn’t what hurt the most. Listening to Kelsey explain how the simple act of breathing hurt—what should’ve been the automatic reflexive action of drawing air in and exhaling—brought the true nature of grief and loss home. Kelsey carried an invisible hole in her heart, still raw and weeping.
For that one moment, her pain was tangible, a wave of sorrow, and a wash of lost love that would never be again. If there were any way possible, Shelby would’ve reversed time and not pulled all those reminders of Mr. Stewart out of the closet. She would’ve come up with a diversion, anything to forestall dragging her kind patient through the anguish of missing her husband again.
And yet, what would it be like to love a man so deeply that your lungs didn’t want to take another breath without him? To be so smitten with your mate that you believed he surpassed all other males in the world, that you only had eyes for him even though he was gone? To ache so desperately, to need so intimately that you wanted to die instead of live without him?
Shelby set the stupid magazine aside. She’d worked hard to be independent, a strong woman in her own right and totally capable. She rented a comfortable apartment in a singles-only gated community in Silver Springs, drove the latest model, a new eco-friendly car, and had a good reputation as a home healthcare provider. True, it was a second chance after the debacle at the hospital, but she’d worked hard and she was good at it. Only—
Kelsey had so much more. She’d loved and been loved. No, make that adored. Any fool could see how much her dead husband had cherished her.
Shelby fingered the magazine cover, not seeing the glamorous starlet sprawled across the gossip rag. What would it feel like to be worshipped, loved so perfectly that living in this little cracker-box house with neighbors who didn’t take care of their yards or put their garbage receptacles away after garbage day, was—enough? Maybe more than enough? Maybe everything?
What had she said? There is no loved, only love?
Shelby stilled. Her heart pinched, constricting all she thought she knew about love right out of her.
The back door opened as the men and Kelsey trudged back in, the dogs, too. Shelby brushed her emotions off her face and lifted to her feet, prepared to get on with the business of doing what she did best. Putting on a happy face. Doing the best she could to make up for past mistakes. Trying harder.
She didn’t expect to run smack into the wall of Agent Cartwright’s muscled chest while Kelsey and Zack settled at the table behind him.
He and Agent Lennox were the epitome of respect. He dipped his head the way polite men did when they encountered a lady. “Sorry, ma’am. I didn’t mean to startle you, but when I asked you before what was wrong, I meant it sincerely. What’s going on, Shelby? You’re different today. Are you feeling okay?”
Her ears perked up. He said my name again. Wow. Twice in one day.
She cleared her throat and stabbed her glasses up high on the bridge of her nose, determined he not see any hesitation on her part. Nurses were decisive, in-charge types of people. She might be just a CNA, but she would be nothing less than the professional he was. “I’m fine. Did you get the omelet I made for you? Was it okay?”
He scrunched his lips, drawing her attention to his mouth and—every darn muscle below her waist clenched. What is it about this guy? He was nothing but a hick in combat boots, one of those backwoods folks from who knew where.
“Sorry. I got distracted when Kelsey went missing, only she wasn’t. Bet it was good,” he drawled. And that was another thing. Gabe Cartwright had a definite western twang to his rumbling bass, the very last thing she cared to hear. It made him sound uneducated. Lazy. Kind of sexy...
“I’ll make you another,” she offered to get her roaming mind off his tongue and mouth.
“No, that’s okay. I’ll grab something else. May I ask you something, ma’am? If it’s not too personal?”
Shelby shrugged. Nothing had stopped him from bugging her before.
He lowered his voice. “You thought this job would be easy, didn’t you?”
Okay, anything but that. Just because he was in tune with Kelsey didn’t give him the right to jump to conclusions about her. No one needed to think for a second that Shelby Sullivan couldn’t handle a grieving widow.
The self-told lie would’ve worked if the tenderest glimmer hadn’t lit those green eyes of his. There he was, all six-foot-plus tough guy blocking the doorway with broad shoulders, and he was kind and considerate after she’d been nothing but demanding. How could he?
“Yes,” she admitted quietly. “I don’t know what to say to her sometimes. I’ve never lost anyone.” And I feel so helpless when she starts crying. I never know what to do.
“All you can tell her is you’re sorry,” he said quietly, as if he’d read her mind. “Losing Alex is something we’re all trying to wrap our heads around. Death is a sucker punch we don’t often see coming. It knocks you down and stomps the hell out of you, but eventually you’ll get back on your feet. Kelsey needs a little more time. She’ll come around.” He paused, his chest expanding as he drew in a deep breath. “We all will.”
Shelby’s eyes filled. How did she not realize until now? Agent Cartwright was grieving as much as Kelsey. He’d lost Alex, too. So had Zack. Darn. The whole house was full of people with real problems, and she’d been awful to most of them.
“I don’t think I can do this.” Her inadequacy and arrogance slapped her down. Maybe all those drawling hicks weren’t as backward as she’d thought. Maybe she was just as bad and sad as those poor people who’d labeled themselves handicapped or divorced. Maybe she’d been the one doing the pigeonholing.
“You’ve all... I mean, you and Zack... I mean, Umm, I’m sorry for your loss, Gabe,” she offered pitifully, using his name the way he’d used hers. I’m sorry for everything.
“Hey.” He claimed her wrist with one big hand, and she was snared. His fingers circled her wrist with plenty of room to spare, but he didn’t hurt her. If anything, he was too gentle. As if he didn’t want to break her. Or scare her.
“Don’t worry about me. Kelsey’s our one and only mission, remember? We’re all here to keep her safe and help her get back on her feet, as long as it takes.”
Shelby nodded. Humility wasn’t her strong suit, but for once she and he were actually communicating. And that hand. He’d tightened his grip enough that she could feel the pad of his index finger placed precisely on the pulse at her wrist. Had he done that intentionally? Did he have any clue what his close proximity did to her heart rate?
“Listen, I need you to do something for me.” He cast a backward glance over his shoulder. His voice had already dipped to rumbling sexy. Any deeper and she’d melt, and darn it, why did he unsettle her? Guys with a redneck drawl and who played with guns weren’t her type, and she definitely had a type. Suave. Educated. Upwardly mobile. Tuxedo dapper. Never military. Or blue collar. Or dog lovers. Or—
God, I am prejudiced.
“I’m taking the dogs back to the river where this all started. Can you keep Kelsey upbeat while I’m gone? Don’t let her look at any more old photos though, okay? Play Monopoly or UNO or something. Bake her a cake. Just don’t let her do anything that will make her any sadder.”
An ember that Shelby had ignored for years flamed into a wildfire. She took a step closer to him, trying to see beyond the light in his eyes. Was he toying with her or was he—just. That. Kind?
“I didn’t mean to make her sad,” she told him honestly, the heat from his body noticeable and—hot. Enticingly hot. Temptingly hot. A whiff of musky men�
�s shaving lotion struck her nostrils. She nearly lost her train of thought. “I, umm, didn’t mean to make her cry.”
He loomed over her, blocking the view of the kitchen behind him. “Oh, I know. You only meant to help, but it’s unavoidable. Kelsey’s heart is broken. It’ll take time to heal. Might never.”
“Why are you leaving?” She bit her tongue for that stupid question. Let him leave. What do I care?
“Because if Alex is the one who pulled her out of the river, his scent will still be on the riverbank. His dogs will track him. Do this one thing for me? Please?”
Gah! If he hadn’t cocked his head like a little boy pleading for another chocolate chip cookie, she’d have been safe, but no. He blinked those deep greens at her as if he knew it would work, and darn it. It did. Not like she would’ve refused anyway, but this little game they had going on was working on her last line of defense against this guy.
And those eyes. Gabe had a fringe of eyelashes that deepened the mossy hue of his irises. Pure, clear green, the color of river rocks on the north bank where sunlight didn’t shine. The kind of green that made a woman wonder what it might feel like to rest within their serenity for a moment. Or two.
She couldn’t resist him, much less his request to keep Kelsey happy. That was the only reason she was there, after all. For Kelsey. Only Kelsey.
But then he made it worse, the tease. He pursed his lips, as if he’d pout to get his way if he thought it would make her smile. The man had some serious charm, but he was one of those types of guys she’d never be attracted to in a million years only—she was.
The darn flirt.
Shelby stabbed at her glasses, not that they’d moved since the last time she’d stabbed them. A knot stuck in her throat. Had to be nerves. Couldn’t be anything else.
“Be careful,” her hoarse voice croaked out.
“Yes, ma’am, for you, I will.” A warm glint flickered to life in those sexy eyes. He reached his index finger to brush her bangs off of her glasses. He only touched the frames, not her skin, but the jolt to her senses frightened her. The guy had his nerve, but—
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