Christmas on 4th Street (Fool's Gold #12.5)(62)

Angel, a man with pale gray eyes and an interesting scar on his neck, moved forward. “Nice to meet you. Gideon’s a good guy.”

Gabriel shook his hand. He had so many questions, but at that moment he couldn’t think of any of them.

“Thank you,” he said, turning to Ford. “We’re glad we still have him around.”

Ford smiled. “Yeah, he’s not so bad.” The smile faded. “That was a good day for all of us. We were happy to help.”

Gabriel knew what they’d done was more than help. They’d risked their lives to save his brother from a horrible death. Gideon had been the last of his team left alive after nearly two years of captivity and daily torture.

Felicia hurried up to them. She walked to Gabriel and rested her forehead on his chest. “I’m struggling to keep control.”

He wrapped his arms around her. “You can’t have control. This is an out-of-control situation. The best you can do is mitigate fallout. You’re doing that.”

He felt her draw in a breath. She raised her head and looked at him. “Thank you,” she said, then turned and walked away.

Justice grinned. “Good to know her new family gets her.”

“She’s great,” Gabriel admitted. “The smartest person I know, and that’s saying something.”

“Come on,” Ford told Angel. “We’ll go get everyone coffee.”

“I’ll go with you,” Justice said, then looked at Gabriel. “How do you take yours?”

Gabriel chuckled. “You know I’m in the army, right?”

“You’re a doctor.” Justice held up both hands. “Okay, okay. Black it is.”

He was still chuckling when he walked away. Gabriel returned to the waiting room. He found a family with a young boy who had a bad cut on his forehead and arm. Gabriel went over to check the bandages, then secured them more tightly. Justice brought him his coffee and they chatted awhile. When Justice left, a pretty woman in her twenties walked up to him.

“I’m Madeline. I work with Isabel, who’s a friend of Noelle’s.” She bit her lower lip. “I’m really sorry to bother you but my niece is visiting me and she sprained her ankle. At least we think that’s what happened. We’re waiting to see a doctor, but they’re busy with the avalanche and...” She twisted her fingers together. “Could you maybe take a look at it? I know you’re a trauma specialist so this isn’t anything you would normally bother with, but I didn’t know who else to ask.”

Gabriel thought about pointing out he wasn’t with the hospital. Not that anyone seemed to care. It was the town, he thought, both frustrated and oddly comforted by the basic assumption that he was a decent guy who would step in where needed. Of course he would, but how did they know?

Another ambulance pulled up to the emergency room. Hospital personnel went running. If he didn’t help, Madeline and her niece would be here for hours.

“Show me where she is,” he said.

Thirty minutes later, the two women left. The ankle was slightly swollen, but not bad at all. A little ice, a compression bandage and she would be fine. Gabriel had sent them off with instructions, along with a promise that Madeline would take her niece to Madeline’s primary care doctor in the morning.

He started for the front desk to make notes in her chart only to remember there was no chart and he had no business practicing medicine here. Well, hell, he thought with a laugh.

“What’s so funny?” his father asked as he approached.

“Just wondering if I was going to lose my license.”

He expected Norm to chew him a new one, but his father only nodded. “You can practice in any army facility but you’re not technically licensed to practice in the state of California,” he said with a shrug. “Isn’t there something about helping out in an emergency?”

“Sure, but there are gray areas.”

He and his father walked to the rear of the emergency room, where it was less crowded. They took seats across from each other.

“Carter’s fine,” his father said. “That friend of his is okay, too.”

“Good. They were lucky.”

“Hell of a thing.” Norm leaned back in the chair. “All that snow. It’s not an unexpected event, I suppose. That Mayor Marsha person was very insistent that the town needs a search-and-rescue team. Sounds like interesting work.”

Gabriel raised his eyebrows.

His father chuckled. “Not for me. It’s a young man’s game.” He paused. “You know, your mother and I are thinking of settling here in Fool’s Gold.”

“I’d heard that.”

“Felicia swears Gideon is okay with it. Your mother and I want to be close to our grandchildren. Be a part of their lives.”

Gabriel nodded, not sure where this conversation was going.

“What are you going to do?” his father asked.

“You mean there’s a choice?”

He heard the bitterness in his voice and wanted to call it back. He wasn’t in the mood to fight with his father and challenging Norm was a sure way to get one started.

But his father surprised him. The older man seemed to get a little smaller as he sat quietly. “I can see why you think that,” he said at last. “Because of what I said before.”