Safe from Harm (Protect & Serve #2)(43)

Gabe had never been particularly devout and hadn’t been to Mass in years—in fact, the last time he’d gone had probably been Kyle’s confirmation. But after the close call on the courthouse steps, he couldn’t shake the feeling that his mother had been watching over him—just as she’d promised she would. And it was time he’d kept his promise to her to get his ass to church now and then.

As he knelt there, offering up a prayer of thanks that was long overdue, he tried not to remember the day she’d made her promise, tried to keep her voice from invading his head and bringing back all the pain he’d tried to suppress for years. Too bad it didn’t work.

It was almost as if she were there beside him, smoothing his hair, the lilac-scented perfume she’d worn wrapping around him, a sensory hug that was a poor substitute for the real thing but was comforting nonetheless. He felt someone join him on the bench and the scent grew stronger. Startled, half expecting to see the ghost of his mother there beside him, his head snapped up.

But it wasn’t Theresa Dawson kneeling beside him.

“Dad?” he whispered. “What are you doing here?”

His father sent a glance his way but then returned his gaze to the crucifix at the front of the church. “Promised your mother I would come to pray for you boys every week,” he murmured. “And I have.”

It was then that Gabe noticed that his father gently grasped one of his mother’s old handkerchiefs in his fingers instead of a rosary. The delicate cloth still held the scent of her perfume.

“I didn’t know,” Gabe said softly.

His father took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Well, it was between her and me. Didn’t see the need to talk to you boys about it.”

That Gabe could believe. The Old Man didn’t talk much about anything, let alone the wife he’d buried years before. Maybe if Mac had been a little more open about what he’d gone through in the years since, the relationship between him and Kyle might not have been pretty much nonexistent until Kyle had returned to town and they’d been forced to deal with shit. They still had a way to go toward repairing things, but Gabe was relieved as hell to finally see the Old Man making an effort.

“What?” Mac grumbled.

Realizing he was staring, Gabe looked away. “Nothing. Sorry, sir.”

They knelt in silence for several minutes more before Mac reached over and clasped Gabe on the shoulder in the closest thing to a hug Gabe had received from him since he was a teenager. Then, in a move that would’ve made Gabe keel over in shock had he not been kneeling, his father put his hand on the side of Gabe’s head and pulled him close to press a kiss to his hair. Without a word, he rose and left the pew, leaving Gabe kneeling there with his mouth agape.

But Gabe didn’t have any time to mull over what the hell had just happened before his phone began to vibrate. He glanced down to see Tom’s number. He instinctively started to answer it, but the many lectures they’d received from their father every Sunday before Mass, including a very specific outline of what would happen to each and every one of Mac Dawson’s sons if they dared to be disruptive in church and disrespect their mother, the priest, and God himself made Gabe send it to voice mail. He resumed his prayer, but a few seconds later, the phone began vibrating again. With a sigh, Gabe crossed himself, rose, and left the church before answering the phone so as not to disturb any of the other parishioners who were still praying.

“Hey, Bro, what’s up?” Before Tom could answer, he went on in a rush, “You’ll never guess who I just bumped into at the church. The Old Man. I guess he goes every week—”

“I’m coming to pick you up,” Tom interrupted.

“I’m fine,” Gabe assured him. “Doc Morales cleared me to drive yesterday during my follow-up visit.”

“Then meet me at Elle’s house.”

Panic squeezed Gabe’s lungs and he picked up the pace, damning his leg for not fully cooperating with his need for haste. “Why? What’s wrong? Is she okay?”

“That’s what I want to make sure of,” Tom told him. “I can’t get in touch with her. I already have a car in route. How far are you from her house?”

“Five minutes, tops,” he said, suppressing a groan as he jumped behind the wheel of his 1970 Dodge Charger that he and his brothers had lovingly restored when they were teenagers. He normally used his beat-up pickup truck when he was tooling around town while off-duty, but the truck’s clutch was tricky and would’ve been hell on his leg, but he was damned glad to have the extra horsepower at the moment. “Just so you know, I don’t plan on sticking to the speed limit.”

“No worries,” Tom assured him. “You might even get there before the cars that’ve already been dispatched.”

“So you gonna tell me what the hell happened?” Gabe demanded over the growl of the Charger’s engine as he started her up.

“Billy Monroe is dead,” Tom informed him.

Gabe’s stomach sank. His mouth was dry when he asked, “What? How?”

He heard Tom’s muffled curse and something about a turn signal. Apparently, he was en route to Elle’s house as well. A moment later, his brother replied, “Explosion this morning. Took out his house and part of the neighbor’s. The neighbors weren’t home, but Billy wasn’t so lucky.”