Angel's Rest(32)
Gabe didn’t bother defending himself, but watched Nic for a long minute before asking, “And where might I find Dale Parker?”
“He owns the Fill-U-Up.”
“That grumpy old son of a gun? No wonder the mutt has taken to hiding out with me. Is he the best you could do?”
She watched it register on his face the moment he realized the mistake. Nic decided to take pity on him, mostly because her embarrassment lingered and she needed distance. “Where’s Tiger now?”
“Here, at the foot of the stairs.”
“He can stay with us.” She lifted her voice and called, “Tiger? Here, boy. C’mere, boy.”
Four paws’ worth of nails clicked against the wooden floor. The boxer paused in the doorway and rubbed up against Gabe’s legs. “Awww,” Sage crooned as Sarah said, “He’s so cute. Gabe is right. He’s too sweet to hang with Dale Parker.”
Nic dropped her hand and wiggled her fingers. Reluctantly the boxer approached. “You willing to take him home, Sarah?”
“I can’t. Daisy and Duke are all I can handle. You know that.” She referred to the three-year-old golden retrievers who refused to leave the puppy stage behind.
Nic scratched the boxer behind the ears and said, “What about you, big guy? Wanna watch the basketball game with us?”
When the boxer climbed up on her knees and licked her face, she smiled and looped a finger through his leather collar. “We’ve got him. Sorry for the trouble, Callahan.”
Gabe nodded, then glanced at the television and fired a parting shot. “You do know that Coach Romano has a twin brother who coaches at Southern Cal, don’t you?”
Seated at the lunch counter at the Blue Spruce Sandwich Shop, Gabe sipped his coffee and watched the weather report on the muted television hanging in one corner of the restaurant. “Looks like we might have some weather headed our way,” Hank Townsend said as he took the seat beside him. “Finally. Ski resorts need the snow. Other than that storm over Thanksgiving, this has been a scary-dry winter so far.”
“Maybe so, but it’s worked out for the Cavanaugh House project. We’re ahead of schedule.”
“You have motivated help. She’s paying her contractors top dollar. Folks are anxious to work for Mrs. Blessing.”
“That’s true.” Almost too true, in fact. Most days he had more help than he knew what to do with.
The mayor then asked Gabe’s opinion about a proposed park addition at Hummingbird Lake. By the time Hank Townsend’s lunch and Gabe’s own order of a turkey sandwich and fries arrived, three more business owners had joined them, and he’d somehow ended up seated at the center of a table for eight. He left the sandwich shop forty-five minutes later with one invitation to poker night, one to go ice fishing, three invites to dinner, two to church, and a sexual proposition from a seventy-two-year-old waitress with bold hands and a ready wink.
The temperature hovered in the twenties, and during lunch the snow the mayor had been waiting for had started to fall. Gabe looped the hand-knitted brown muffler Celeste Blessing had given him around the lower half of his face, shoved his hands in his coat pockets, and shivered his way up the street toward Cavanaugh House.
How in the world had a Texas boy ended up living in the tundra?
Gabe didn’t let himself think about the days of his youth very often. A couple of times when weakness got the better of him, he had Googled his brothers, but like the ancient mapmakers had written, that way there be dragons. Learning that they’d married and started families hurt more than it helped, and made the lonely hole in his heart grow bigger. John Callahan had “died” a long time ago.
Last winter, after the accident sent Gabe spiraling downward, Jack Davenport had attempted to help him by floating the idea of making contact with the Callahan family. As the CIA superspook responsible for the charade in which John Callahan had died, Davenport had the power to make the resurrection happen. He hadn’t gone into much detail other than to say that world players had changed and that it no longer served a useful purpose for John G. Callahan to remain dead. Once, Gabe would have jumped at the chance to reclaim his old life, but times had changed. He had changed. He’d refused his friend’s offer.
Gabe didn’t want the Callahans in his life. They would love him and expect his love in return. Well, he couldn’t do it. He wasn’t the same person who had grown up in a little hill-country town in Texas. The six months in an Eastern European prison had damaged him. Losing Jen and Matt had destroyed him.