One Night with her Bachelor(14)

Lily wasn’t her only guardian angel.

She reversed out of her driveway and let her mind wander to Gabriel. Though he would never know it, he’d been her constant companion on these long, lonely journeys. Sometimes her imagination put him in the passenger seat, and she poured out all her emotions while he silently listened, only occasionally speaking to tell her exactly what she’d wanted to hear. Sometimes her fantasies pulled her away from the empty stretch of highway in front of her and transported her somewhere else, somewhere exotic and far too warm for clothing. Never his cabin. Her brain couldn’t take her there. If it did, she remembered all the horror of that September day in mind-bleeding detail. The way Josh’s pale, broken body had hung against Gabriel’s as the angel-warrior climbed a rope out of hell. The sweat and focus on Gabriel’s face as he’d pulled Josh to safety along the tightrope. Her anguish as Gabriel laid Josh on the stretcher and stabilized him. Her helplessness as Gabriel had taken her cell phone and sped off on his dirt bike to get help. Her determination as he’d returned and told her they needed to carry Josh to a safe clearing where a helicopter could land.

No, the point of her fantasies was to help her cope with the tragedy, not relive it.

She had gone back to his place once. She didn’t know any other way to contact him, except for hoping she ran into him in town. But, other than filling up her truck overnight, he’d made himself scarce. So back in late October, before winter had set in, she’d driven to the trail head, hiked to his cabin and left him a letter. She’d had no idea what to say, so she’d extracted from her confused thoughts the only thing that made sense: Thank you for giving me back my son. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

She’d never heard back from him. Not in person or by letter. Nothing but a full tank of gas and one less bill to worry about. How he knew her travel routine, she had no idea. But she’d always known Gabriel Morales was a man of many hidden talents.

She talked to him off and on for the next ten hours, the one-sided conversation helping her express the scattered thoughts that festered inside if she didn’t get them out. She confessed her money worries, something she hadn’t felt comfortable telling anyone, not even Lily. And she brainstormed ways to dig her way out of debt.

Unfortunately, when she asked him for ideas, he was silent.

*

The whir of the circular saw filled Gabriel’s ears as he fed it a two-by-ten. The machine cut through the pressure-treated wood in a matter of seconds, and a few inches of unnecessary wood clattered to the floor. He set what would become a joist in a pile with the others and grabbed another uncut two-by-ten. He’d just laid it against the machine and felt the blade’s first bite into the wood when a movement in the doorway caught his eye and made him jump and reach for the phantom M4 that hadn’t been by his side for a year. “Holy shit!”

His sister leaped back, clutched her chest and said something. He couldn’t hear her, the saw still drowning out all other noise, so he flicked the machine off and Camila wilted dramatically against the door jamb. “What did you say?”

“Jesus, Gabriel. I said, don’t cut yourself.”

He glanced down at the machine and realized how close his hands must have come when she’d startled him. “Then don’t sneak up on me like that.”

“Sneak? Are you kidding? I’ve been shouting your name for minutes.”

He grunted and flicked the machine back on, yelling, “Let me just finish this one joist!”

She rolled her eyes and leaned against the doorway with her hands shoved in her pockets. Once the saw had done its job and he had a joist the size he needed, he turned the machine off. Its echo bounced against the walls and died.

“What are you working on?” she asked.

“A project.”

She cocked a brow.

“A big project.”

“Looks like it. Bigger than my cuckoo clock.”

He grinned. “How’d you like that?”

“I wish it worked, but otherwise it’s really cool.”

He held up the extra bit of wood he’d just cut off the joist. “I could carve you some batteries.”

She laughed. “Sounds like a great birthday present.”

“Nah, I have something else lined up for our birthday. I’m not telling you what, though.”

“Good. I don’t want to know.”

He gave her a mock-ferocious glare. “Stop that. You won’t get it out of me, no matter how hard you try.”

“Not gonna try.”

“Your torture techniques are no match for my resilience.”

“That’s why I’m not using them. I really don’t want to know.”

He sighed. “It’s a jewelry box.”

“Ha!” she cried, celebrating with a fist pump. “I knew I’d get it out of you!”

He glowered at her. “Damn you.”

“It’s a good thing you were never captured in battle.”

“And it’s a good thing for our enemies you never joined up.” He dropped the wood with a clatter and crossed the room. Ruffling her hair, he dodged her hands as she tried—and failed—to swat him away. He squeezed past her into the hall. “What are you doing here? California too warm for you?”

“I was lying there in my bikini, surrounded by snow, and then I remembered that I live in the mountains and it’s freaking cold in late January.”