Angel's Rest(63)

“Gabe?”

“Okay. Yeah. Well, here’s the deal. Don’t hang up on me, Pam. Okay? Promise me you’ll hear me out?”

“You’re scaring me, Callahan.”

“Sorry. It’s just that this is hard. See, I’m ashamed.” Shame doesn’t even cover it.

“Is it another wreck? Did you hurt somebody else?”

He winced, taking it as a barb despite knowing she didn’t mean it the way it sounded. Yeah, I hurt someone else, but not in the way you think.

“No, no wreck. Listen, Pam, I’m not going to try to excuse what I did, but I do want to explain it. It happened Christmas Eve. I wasn’t thinking straight.” He told her about trimming the tree and the effects of seeing all the family decorations. “After you called to tell me you guys weren’t coming to Colorado, I went a little crazy. I started drinking. You know what it was like, how hard it was.”

Warily his sister-in-law said, “Yes.”

“I did something I should not have done, and now I have to face the consequences.”

After a beat, Pam asked, “Are you going to jail, Gabe?”

“Jail?” Gabe repeated, barking out an unamused laugh. “Not exactly, but then, there are all sorts of prisons, aren’t there?” He blew out a breath and ripped off the bandage. “I got a woman here in Eternity Springs pregnant on Christmas Eve. I’m getting married, Pam.”


Nic carried two lightweight but bulky shopping bags in her hands as she approached the back porch of Angel’s Rest, where Sarah and Sage waited for her the morning after the dance. She waved and saw both women do a double take. When she drew close, Sarah said, “Nicole, my friend, green is not your color. Not for your complexion, anyway. Are you okay?”

“I’m an idiot. I felt really good this morning and I decided to walk over. Remind me to tell Gabe and Celeste they need to consider building a footbridge for expectant mothers that crosses Angel Creek a little farther down from the hot springs.”

“Smell got to you?” Sage asked.

“Something got to me. I ordinarily have morning sickness in the afternoon, but I got one whiff of sulfur and my stomach started spinning like Bear’s mirror ball in the gym last night.”

Sarah shook her head. “I remember morning sickness. It’s too bad God didn’t give it to us as a precursor to sex instead of the result of it. There would be a lot fewer unplanned pregnancies that way.”

Sage and Sarah shared a look, then Sage asked, “So, are you ready to talk about it this morning?”

“Being nauseated?”

“Wedding plans.”

“Not really. No.” Gabe had taken his leave after their dance last night, and the moment he left the gym her friends had swooped down like hawks on a field mouse for details. Pleading exhaustion, Nic had shared only the fact that they had agreed to marry. “We’re here to decorate Celeste’s office for her birthday, and besides, I have no wedding plans to discuss.”

“You are no fun, Nic Sullivan,” Sarah groused.

“Deal with it. Now, we’d best get to work if we’re going to have everything ready before Celeste comes home from the beauty shop.” She opened the door, stepped into the kitchen, and set her bags down on the kitchen table. “I have streamers and balloons, fishing line, and some other sundry stuff. Could have done better if Celeste hadn’t been so stingy with information.”

Last night Celeste had mentioned in passing to Sage that today was her birthday, though she neglected to reveal just which birthday it was. Once Sarah learned the news, she’d decided the time had arrived to welcome Celeste into a tradition she and Nic had shared for years, one they’d introduced Sage to after she’d moved to Eternity Springs.

“I brought the bananas,” Sarah said.

“I have markers and paints—and a list of things I want to write. We don’t have time to be, uh, as creative as we were for your birthday, Sarah.”

“Besides, I can’t drink alcohol,” Nic added.

Sarah smirked. “I knew my bananagram had been done in an alcohol daze. Some of those messages were X-rated.”

The silly yet enjoyable tradition between the adult girlfriends had grown out of slumber-party activity for Lori and her friends when they were seven years old. “Bananagrams” back then were messages like “Happy Birthday” or “Congratulations” written in black marker on whole bananas. The bananas were then hung from trees in the honoree’s yard with fishing line—usually in the middle of the night.