by Nicole Helm
“No.”
“You sure look it.”
Some of Alex’s blank stoicism firmed into irritation, which may have been Gabe’s plan. If Alex was irritated, he wouldn’t be overthinking the next fifteen minutes or planning for every possible disaster as he often did.
But the doors began to open, Hick doing the honors, looking like a completely different person in his suit. The grizzled ranch hand Alex’s father had employed for years was now a suave, well-dressed gentleman.
The doors opened. Christmas lights and luminaries had been put along the aisle runner and now lit up the outdoors.
Becca had said something about their entrance being like White Christmas and the reference had gone way over Gabe’s head, but snow was softly falling outside. Gabe knew that would give Becca a thrill.
He might hate weddings, but this one wasn’t so bad.
A sleigh appeared, pulled by Pal. The horse was decked out in a big wreath of flowers around his neck, all dark reds and bright whites with evergreen holding it all together.
“Maybe a little nervous,” Alex muttered as Hick helped Colin out of the sleigh and handed him a leash decorated with greenery and pinecones. Colin was in a suit and looked quite proud to be doing his job of leading the flower goat down the aisle.
Colin made it to the end and handed the leash to Jack. Because yes, Ron Swanson the goat was going to stand up at the front of the wedding with the groomsmen.
Rose was next, wearing a long, flowing, red dress with a fluffy, white wrap. She held a bouquet that matched all the rest of the floral stuff that was about. She smiled at Alex and gave him a wink, but then her gaze was all for Jack.
Monica slid out of the sleigh, tall and willowy in some dark-green contraption that looked soft and silky. Her blond hair was all pulled back in intricate braid things and her lips were a deep, fantasy-worthy red.
Gabe looked down at the goat. It was a better focus, all in all. Besides, Ron might start chewing shoelaces if someone wasn’t diligent. But the goat stood there, happily creepy as all get out in his Christmas-themed sweater.
Next to Gabe, Alex swallowed. Very audibly.
“You’ll be fine,” Gabe said quietly, glancing up. Becca was now stepping out of the sleigh, pretty as a picture and sweet as candy all dolled up in her simple, white dress, something like holly tangled up in her fancy hairdo. She flashed the widest, brightest smile down the aisle, and even Gabe had to admit it gave his cold, black heart a little spark of warmth.
“Yeah. Sure.” Alex took a deep breath and let it out. “We’ve been through worse.”
“You sure as hell haven’t been through better,” Gabe said in a moment of emotional honesty he couldn’t say he was comfortable with.
Becca hugged Hick as the music for her procession began to drift through the barn. Sandra met her at the beginning of the aisle runner and began to walk her daughter down it.
Gabe felt the goat brush his pants leg, Ron’s mouth getting perilously close to his shoes. “God, we could do without the goat.” He nudged the thing away.
“I’d take a million goats,” Alex said, his voice suspiciously hoarse, his eyes on nothing and no one but Becca.
“Don’t let her know you said that,” Gabe replied, but he had no more smart quips after that because she looked beautiful. Perfect. So damn happy it hurt.
Alex had been through hell, before and after war. Seen the worst humanity had to offer, and sometimes the best in the face of it. Together, they had lost friends, good men, honorable men who’d left families behind.
In this moment, there was nothing but joy and love and hope. A universe-deep goodness as Sandra handed Becca to Alex. As Alex and Becca grinned at each other, shiny-eyed. As they pledged to love each other for the rest of their lives, scratchy-voiced and committed. To each other. To love and hope.
They said I do. The small crowd cheered, and they kissed an inappropriately long time that had a few of Sandra’s friends whispering behind their hands.
Gabe’s heart did not grow three sizes, as he’d assured Jack and Alex it never would.
But in that moment, it might have grown one.
* * *
Monica sat on a long wooden bench, very happy the snow hadn’t gotten bad enough that the cake hadn’t made it. Because real wedding cake was hard to beat, especially when the alternative was Twinkies.
Most of the couples in attendance were dancing. Alex and Becca, happy and oblivious. Rose’s sweet little baby bump between her and Jack reminded Monica a little too much what that was like. So much promise in the spark of a tiny life inside you, and a man who looked at you like you were carrying the world.
Almost ten years had dulled that sharp pang of loss, so these days it was just a dull ache. More generic than specific to Dex. But it still made her a little misty, and mostly she wanted to be happy. Happy for her friends and happy she got to witness it.
Besides, she had Colin. He was in the corner playing with his handheld video game since there was no one even near his age to talk to, and he’d behaved so well. He’d talked with people—mostly Gabe—but had been sociable and polite with other adults for the duration of the wedding and half the reception before she’d given him the video game go-ahead.
Monica finished her cake, looking around the room. It was only when her gaze landed on Gabe that she realized she’d been searching for him.
Her stomach did that obnoxious swoop that reminded her of being an innocent, clueless teenager. She had given herself quite the inner lecture when it had done that as she’d glanced at him as she’d walked up the aisle, but apparently, the lecture hadn’t taken root.
She felt shaky and like she didn’t know what to do with her hands. She looked away, knowing her cheeks were getting warm. Could she be any more of a doofus?
She pushed the plate onto the table, trying to casually look back over the room around her. She should focus on Colin. Remind herself she was a grown up. An in-charge, adult woman. Who could flirtatiously banter with an all-too-attractive former SEAL and come out on top.
Except, on top only sounded sexual, and God, sex was one thing she was definitely not on top of.
Get yourself together.
She felt someone approach her, but she faked interest in the last vestiges of frosting on her plate. Then a hand thrust into her vision. A very large hand with a white scar across the knuckles.
“Come on,” Gabe said gruffly.
She frowned at his outstretched hand, then up at him, steeling herself against the swoony-stomach feeling. “Come on what?”
“We’re going to dance.”
She laughed, but he didn’t drop his hand or laugh along with her.
“You’re joking,” she said. Not a question. He had to be joking. She couldn’t…she couldn’t dance with him. Dancing was intimate. It meant bodies touching and moving together. She was smart enough to know where her brain would go and how much that would be written all over her face.
A woman did not win a challenge when lust was written all over her face. She had to apply some tactical advantage here and there. Gabe in a suit and that obnoxious dimple she could see so clearly on his completely clean-shaven face had the tactical advantage.
“Not joking. Dance with me.”
“Why?” She just didn’t trust that. Besides, he wasn’t asking. He was demanding, and she was not prone to following other people’s demands.
“Want to know the truth?”
“Pretty much always.”
Gabe nodded toward Colin. “Put me up to it.”
She frowned at that, glancing at where Colin was face down in his video game. “Why would he do that?”
“He said, and I quote, ‘I don’t want my mom to be the loser who didn’t dance at all.’”
Her jaw dropped. “He did not say that!”
“Okay, he didn’t s
ay that, but it was the gist. Him worried you were…” He shifted a little bit, that apathetic charm slipping for just a second. “Lonely,” he finished, not meeting her gaze.
Something sharp and sad wound around her chest. Lonely. Such a strange word. She didn’t feel lonely. She had friends. Family. A job she valued and a son to care for. Her days were filled with human interaction.
But lonely wrapped around her, a truth she’d been refusing to acknowledge. Lonely. Yes, she was. A part of her anyway. The Monica part of her she wasn’t so sure existed anymore. Except, that little pang seemed to suggest it did.
“Come on.” This time, he took her hand. Just took it like it was his to take and pulled her to her feet. She could have stopped him. It wasn’t like he was dragging her, but her feet were moving along at the pace he set toward the dance floor.
Then he just pulled her into him, like it was natural or normal to feel his body brush hers. To have the hand not holding hers on the small of her back while an instrumental version of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” filled the barn.
She wasn’t a tiny woman by any means. She’d inherited her father’s height and breadth, but somehow Gabe’s hand still seemed to take up the entirety of the small of her back. Somehow, he still had some inches on her even though she was in low heels.
But the mix of Gabe and the pretty, silky, feminine dress she was wearing reminded every last cell of her body that she was a woman, and she hadn’t been touched like this in quite a long time.
“I hate Christmas music,” he muttered.
It steadied her some. That grumpy complaint. So him. She might find him attractive, but she had for months, and she’d kept a certain professional distance. But you couldn’t exactly be a therapist to a guy you’d pictured naked. It didn’t mean she had to give in to the nerves and flutters though.
Even if she was slowly opening herself up to the possibility… Well, it was a possibility, wasn’t it? If he could get over his hatred of her profession, and she could learn to treat someone like a person, not a patient.
Talk about your slim possibilities.
She shook away that pessimistic thought and smiled sweetly up at him. “You know what I’d love to know, Gabe. What is something you like?”
“What do I like?” he said as if considering all the possible things he might like. He didn’t say anything more than that, but his body was just a centimeter closer to hers, so that her breasts brushed against his chest. So that she could feel his breath on her neck, so that his cheek glanced hers.
Something like a shudder wound through her, then held deep in her belly. Everywhere they touched felt like something between a featherlight caress and static electricity.
There was nothing unintentional about any of it, she realized. The pause, the closeness. Suddenly she could imagine all the things he might like, and she had no doubt that was his intention.
“I like whiskey,” he offered, his voice so low she involuntarily leaned her ear closer to his mouth to hear it better. “I like baseball. Go Yankees.”
“Ew.”
“Oh, don’t be one of those obnoxious Yankee haters.”
“Don’t be one of those obnoxious Yankee fans,” she retorted. It was odd. Feeling like an out-of-control, hormone-driven teenager and then moments of adulthood clarity was…weird. But not off-putting. In fact, there was something oddly exhilarating about it.
“Why are you a Yankees fan?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You’re very good at deflecting questions. When you deflect innocuous ones, it only makes me wonder what you’re trying to hide.”
“That the therapist in you?”
She tensed, the fluttery warmth evaporating. This was what he thought of her. Therapist only.
She wanted to be mad or even irritated, but it merely deflated her. It was how she’d thought of herself for so long—therapist and mom. She couldn’t expect people to view her differently than she viewed herself.
But if she wanted to change, if she wanted to explore this unknown part of her that might not exist under any label except Monica, then she had to start making strides. Not just beating herself up about it.
“Do you believe in New Year’s resolutions?”
“No.”
She smiled a little at that. She did appreciate Gabe’s straightforward answers that he never attempted to explain away or apologize for. She wanted to find some of that for herself. “That doesn’t surprise me. You don’t seem like the type. But I do believe in them—in setting goals for yourself. It’s never occurred to me to try and just be me. I think I’m going to change that.”
“We are what we are. Sometimes the things we do define us, and that isn’t a bad thing.”
“Sometimes,” she acknowledged, intrigued by the way his body tensed. “But these are things that won’t last forever. Oh, I’ll always be Colin’s mother, but he won’t always need me the way he does now. At some point, I’ll retire from being a therapist. So, what’s left when those things are gone?” She looked up at him, but he was staring hard at the closed barn doors. Jaw tight and eyes blank.
“I know you’ve had to deal with that,” she said gently.
His gaze flicked to hers. He opened his mouth and she just knew it was going to be some scathing thing about being a shrink, so she released his hand and placed hers over his mouth. “Whatever nasty thing you have to say, I don’t want to hear it. I wasn’t speaking as a shrink. I was speaking as a person who understands how hard it must be to lose the things that defined you. Which you brought up, I might add.”
His dark eyes held hers, and he lifted an eyebrow. Belatedly, she realized her hand was still over his mouth. It was like a match striking, realizing she was touching him now, not just shushing him. His lips were against her palm, and her fingers were pressed to the firm line of his smooth jaw.
She jerked her hand away, then felt like an idiot for having such an overreaction.
“Maybe you’ll consider some advice from me then,” he said, back to soft and smirky, like he knew some deep secret about her.
That mask, because he expected her to argue. To scoff at his advice. She didn’t think Gabe suffered from any low opinion of himself, but he did think the worst of people sometimes. It shouldn’t hurt. It probably stemmed from the horrible things he’d seen.
“What you don’t understand is that being a therapist doesn’t mean I think my patients are less. I don’t think I’m above them, morally or psychologically. My job is to help, not think they don’t know what they’re doing. So, yes, I’d love to hear some advice from you.”
“I’m not your patient.”
“And I’m not your therapist, so the belligerent act is getting old.”
His mouth quirked at that. “All right. Don’t wait for New Year’s.”
“But it’s only a few weeks away.”
“And in those few weeks, you’re going to be alone in a cabin without your son and probably without your work. Why wait some arbitrary number of weeks? Seize the moment because you never know when you’ll have another one.”
She thought about that in a few different ways. One being that she would be alone. Colin would be gone, and she wouldn’t have any sessions with Alex or Jack. She wouldn’t be working with Becca, because Becca and Alex were taking a week off foundation work for their stay-at-home honeymoon.
It would just be her. No masks and no protections. Nothing to distract her from herself.
She’d known that, and yet she hadn’t really let it sink in. “What do you do with all the time?” she asked, something like panic making her throat feel too tight.
“What time?” Gabe replied gruffly.
She swallowed, looking up at him imploringly, hoping he understood why she needed to know. Hoping he would take this question seriously when he took so little seriously. “What do you do in the in-b
etween times? When there’s no work to do and you’re in that bunkhouse by yourself? What do you do?”
He stared at her for the longest time. She couldn’t read that expression, except she was pretty sure there was at least a moderate amount of compassion hidden there. If that compassion was a figment of her own imagination, well, so be it.
“I work. I sleep. It’s not that complicated. Not that different from the navy, all in all, except I don’t have to worry about explosives anymore.”
“Isn’t it lonely?”
He hardened. “Sometimes it’s better to be lonely.”
“Why?”
“Because people aren’t predictable. Life isn’t. You never know who or what you’ll lose. What will change.”
“Yes, I am intimately acquainted with that. But if I’d embraced lonely, I wouldn’t be here. Not standing up as a friend’s maid of honor. Not laughing at Hick’s corny jokes or giving Rose advice on labor. And you’re no different than me. You’re in the thick of things too. They’re your friends. They’re part of your life.”
His gaze slid to where Becca and Alex were dancing, if one could call it that. It was really more like a swaying tangle at this point.
“For now,” Gabe said, so flat and final, it felt like a crack in her own heart. Where did all that bitterness stem from? That lack of trust in people? It had to come from something.
And as you said yourself, you’re not his therapist, so maybe it’s none of your business.
Maybe, but she was desperately curious. Desperately fascinated by this man in front of her who had such a hard shell, and yet there were pockets of all this warmth. How good he was with Colin. Gentle with the horses. Kind and honorable in all his actions.
But he fixed that blank, charming smile on his face and looked down at her. “Well, duty’s done. I’m going to go get myself a drink.” He dropped his hand from her back and walked off the dance floor.
Chapter 10
Gabe poured a single shot of whiskey into a plastic cup and sipped. Gabe had been in charge of stocking the self-serve area this afternoon, so it offered one of those rare things he liked. Whiskey.