Gabe (In the Company of Snipers, #8)(51)

Kelsey lifted her steaming cup and took a sip. “You have sweet little girls. What about you, Gabe?”

He shrugged, the cup in his hand too hot to drink. “I still hit the dirt every time a car backfires. It’s normal. I think every other guy and gal who’s been in combat probably does too. No big deal. When you go through tough times, you get a little beat up in the process. Don’t feel like you’re all alone, Kelsey. Look around. You’re in danged good company even if I do say so myself.”

“I’m glad you’re both here. Shelby, too.”

Gabe glanced at the back of Nurse Sullivan’s head. Something was still up with her and he was fairly certain it had nothing to do with her control issues, not if that tear in her eye meant what he thought it meant. She’d connected with Kelsey’s heartbreak by the look on her face and Gabe empathized with her. The ripple of Alex’s death touched everyone, even hardcore Marines and nurses.

Whisper came to sit by Kelsey. Absentmindedly, she ruffled his furry face, but that wasn’t enough for the big dog. He put one huge paw on her knee, then the other.

Gabe lifted out of his seat. “Here. I’ll put them outside.”

“No. It’s okay. He’s trying to tell me something. Whisper can talk, you know.” Kelsey leaned into Whisper’s forehead. The black dog leaned against hers, growling softly in his gravelly voice as if he really were confiding a secret. “Tell me, Whisper. What do you know?”

He barked quietly once, spun around in a complete turn and went to the back door, pawing to be let out.

Kelsey followed him. “This reminds me of the game we used to play. Let me try something.” She knelt in front of Whisper, her hands in the ruffled mane at his neck. “Find him, Whisper. Find Alex.”

And blam. Whisper and Smoke went ballistic, howling, prancing, and filling the house with such a racket.

Gabe about choked, those plaster casts and the boot prints first thing on his mind. Shit. What if Whisper goes directly there?

The minute Kelsey opened the back door, they roared out with her right behind them. Gabe followed with Zack close on his heels.

Just as Gabe feared, Whisper and Smoke led Kelsey to the location of the boot tracks. They had been safely obliterated, but that didn’t stop the dogs from putting those vacuum cleaner snouts to the ground and doing what they did best—scenting. In seconds, both dropped to their haunches right where Gabe had poured the plaster castings, their bright eyes fixed on Kelsey and their mission accomplished.

He gulped. Damned if they hadn’t scented Alex like she’d asked them to, which meant nothing, not in the man’s own property. Of course they’d scent him. He’d lived there. But why only there? Why not anywhere else in the yard?

“What are you boys doing? There’s nothing here.” Kelsey looked thoughtfully around the swing.

Gabe followed her eyes. There was no place for a man to hide, not with the wisteria gone. He’d cleaned the mess after the plaster casts were poured and set. Nothing remained.

She peered up at him, concern etched on her crinkled brow. “I don’t understand. They’ve tracked you, Gabe. Why?”

Whisper bumped his shoulder against her leg and sat at her feet. Damn it to hell. Those big black eyes of his focused on Gabe as if the animal dared him to say anything but the truth, which at the moment, Gabe honestly did not know.

Zack shot him a stern look and Gabe meant to obey, but now he wondered. Whisper and Smoke were two of the best trackers around. Zack might not like it, but oh, well. Gabe couldn’t take any more meltdowns in the closet.

He cleared his throat. “Are you up for a ride, Kelsey?”

Zack frowned right on cue, his pursed lips twisted to the side and one brow lifted in a ‘Don’t you say one more word, Cartwright.’

“Where?” she asked wearily. Whisper’s bright eyes still stared at Gabe in that deadpanned way of a good dog that can see right through a man.

“To the river. Let’s go back to where it happened.”


The depth of her devastation stabbed him. “Why?”

“Because I heard you talking to your dogs before, and I think you’re right. There has to be a reason Alex can’t come home right now. If you believe he rescued you, then so do I.” Gabe crouched and steadied her with a hand to her shoulder, for the first time really meaning every word he said. Something was going on or the dogs wouldn’t have both scented their owner as quickly as they had. It was time to put an end to her confusion, once and for all. “Come on. Let’s prove he really was at that river. What do you say?”

Zack stood behind her, shaking his head with a definite negatory, but Gabe kept going. Call it insubordination or call it inspiration. This was what Kelsey needed, and she’d keep breaking down until she knew one way or the other.

She pulled Whisper into her arms, a desperate sob climbing up her throat. “But what if it wasn’t him?”

Ah. So that’s what’s really going on. Her poor heart was at war with logic.

“I don’t know,” he answered honestly.

She groaned, and the pain in her voice took him back to the wailing women in Afghanistan. All the mothers, wives, and daughters who’d lost children, husbands and fathers to a lifetime of war. Always the ones left behind, he was forever amazed at the strength of women to endure—and to suffer.