My little lie of omission was all of a sudden getting worse and the longer I left it untold the more likely he would hear it from the wrong person.
My brothers came immediately to mind. I put my phone on silent the minute I got on the bus three and a half days ago. I checked it now and again and the screen was full of notifications of texts and missed calls from them. I did notice that dad had not called, not that that surprised me. When he went fishing with his buddies he normally left his phone locked in his car.
“I know it seems unfair to hide your true feelings, but for the sake of his life, and those of the men he leads it is a necessary sacrifice,” Stella said, her over-protective mamma bear showing firmly.
“I get it Stella I do. He means a lot to me, I want him home and safe as much as you do,” I agreed softly.
“I am glad my boy found you Devon. You fit together, like his dad and I do.”
“I hope so Stella, oh, I hope so,” I replied, fisting my hand and knocking on the wood on the arm of the couch. Stella narrowed her eyes at my silly superstitious action but considering what I was hiding, I needed all the help I could get.
Oh, what a tangled web…
Come on Dev, worrying isn’t going to help. You have him for now, and hopefully he will forgive you for not telling him you had cancer. Twice! Lying by omission is still lying.
Oh, marvellous pep talk Devon, truly well done.
I was so stuck in my head, I didn’t even notice that Stella had walked off and Gabriel had taken her seat next to me.
“Oh hey,” I said, suddenly flustered. Only a short time ago Gabriel gave me two of the most amazing orgasms of my life. Our lovemaking the beginning of something very special, and we should still be in bed, or the shower. Oh, shower sex, that is definitely on my bucket list. Gabriel’s hands slipping down my wet body, soapy, slippery, breaching places never been breached before.
Heat flamed across my face when I looked at Gabriel and saw his knowing and indulgent smirk.
“Good daydream baby?” he asked with a chuckle.
Man is too smart for his own good.
“Pleasant enough,” I huffed good-naturally. “You leaving now?” I asked, the lump in my throat barely letting me get the question out.
“Yeah, baby. I am sorry I can’t get you home first, but we are heading straight to Melbourne to catch a transport to Holsworthy. We get off one plane and get straight onto another,” Gabriel shared, and I was guessing it was more than he shared with his mum.
It wasn’t much, but it was enough that it made the guilt I was carrying feel heavier than I could handle.
“Gabriel, there is something—”
“Tank, our car is here,” Bastian called out, making me want to hit the massive man right in his balls.
“Damn that man is getting on my nerves,” I muttered, taking Gabriel’s offered hand and ignoring his booming laugh.
“He grows on you, but it takes a good few years,” he joked, his face going from jovial to serious.
Pulling me into his arms, Gabriel wrapped me tightly in his warmth. My arms winding around his back, my fists grabbing hold of his shirt tightly.
“Shiloh is going to drive you back to Queenscliff.” My mouth opened to argue with him but Gabriel stopped me with a pinch to my arse.
“No discussions Devon. I can’t see you home safe, so this is the only way I won’t worry. Shiloh was happy to volunteer, just be warned she may be the president but she is also part of the Flock, so be ready for questions. Lots and lots of questions.”
“Wonderful,” I muttered against his chest. Just what I need, a friendly interrogation. Plus, the added complication that one or more of my brothers could be home when Shiloh and I arrived.
Mistaking my apprehension for something totally different, Gabriel moved so his hands were cupping my face, his grey eyes boring into mine.
“Tonight was the most amazing night of my life Devon. I might be going away for now, but I am not leaving you Pixie,” Gabriel murmured to me, his lips hovering over mine.
“We are a couple now; we are an us. I promise I will always come home to you, sweetheart,” Gabriel said firmly, leaving no room for arguments, not that I was going to, I agreed, completely and totally. He was mine, and I was his, the rest would all slip into place.
Warm lips met mine, no tongue, no heat, no frenzy just a kiss full of promise.
“One taste of you will never be enough for me Devon. It is going to take a lifetime together to even to get close,” he whispered fiercely against my lips.
Tears threatened but I gulped them back, Gabriel needed to focus on why he was leaving and what he had to do when he got to… wherever. My focus had to be on learning how to make this easier on him so he would come home safe to me.
“I think maybe two lifetimes might see it done, don’t you?” I sassed at him, my smile not forced, but inside my heart was cracking at the thought I was going to have to go home and continue life without him, for now.
Gabriel pressed his lips to mine in a hard kiss, his hands fisting in my hair.
“See ya soon Pixie,” he clipped, then released me, turned on his heels and walked away. His body rigid as he walked back to his team. I watched him take a green beret out of his back pocket and right it into position on his head, a symbol of a dagger on a patch sewn on the middle. All of the men then did the same, all of them stood ramrod straight in a tight circle. Gabriel in the middle, facing me his head lowered.
As if he could feel my eyes on him, his head lifted and my breath caught in my throat. The man looking back at me; his grey eyes the colour of steel, his handsome face a mask of control and determination. That was not the man who made love to me, who just told me how much I meant to him a few seconds ago.
The man to whom I was lying.
Standing in there was the soldier, the commando.
And damn if I didn’t love him.
“I know it must be hard to see him go off for the first time and not know the why, where or when of the situation,” Shiloh said from the driver’s seat. The drive had been uneventful and mainly traffic free for the most part. Heading into Geelong we hit a few traffic snarls but ten minutes out of Queenscliff, it was plain sailing.
Shiloh was a great woman; friendly, kind and full of spunk, which was her husband’s pet name for her not surprisingly.
I considered what she was saying about Gabriel and his job. She wasn’t wrong, the minute Gabriel left in the army issued van with his team and he disappeared down the road and I couldn’t see his face looking out the back window any longer, I broke down and bawled like a baby.
Booth, had been the one to comfort me first. His big arms came around me from behind, pulled me into a hug and held me while I cried. Crooning to me the whole time how proud he was of me, making Gabriel’s leaving easier on him by not playing the damsel, or throwing a tantrum. He explained how that kind of reaction could and does mess with a soldier’s mind when he needed to be clear and focused.
The last thing I wanted was to be the reason Gabriel was not on his game, thinking of me instead of his mission.
Impulsive behaviour caused bad decisions, Booth said, which caused injuries or worse.
“Stella said it gets easier with each time, and I find comfort in the fact he is based so close to me. What worries me the most is the not being allowed to know where he is. I don’t want to know the job, that I could not handle, but—”
“At least you can watch the news, maybe see him on it?” Shiloh finished for me. “But I doubt that anything the commandos do would be reported hon, so best not, or you just might drive yourself insane glued to the TV.”
I glared at Shiloh, “You Souls are too perceptive, you know that,” I growled at her.
Shiloh let out a giggle. “Yes, I know. All of us kids have our fathers’ annoying traits, much to our mothers’ annoyance.”
I looked at where we were and noticed that my turn off was fast approaching. For most of the trip, I had managed to tamp
down my anxiety of returning home after more than four days away without a single word of my whereabouts to anyone in my family. Mrs Walters knew where I had gone, but she wouldn’t rat me out, she knew what side her bread was buttered. Her dog freaking loved me, and on top of that, I was the only one she liked talking to daily.
“Take the next left, then the second right, it’s fourth on your side,” I directed Shiloh. My hands were in my lap and I was wringing the life out of my fingers, as she took the turns and my house came into view, with three cars in the driveway.
“Bloody unbelievable,” I muttered angrily under my breath. All three of them! How the hell was I going to get Shiloh to leave without hurting her feelings.
“Dev?”
Shiloh pulled the car against the curb across from the house, putting the car into first gear she turned off the engine.
Crap.
“My brothers,” I said resignedly, “they are all here.” I pointed to the cars parked one after the other. Kyle’s sedan then Andrew and Mitchell’s.
“And that is unusual?” she asked looking from them to me with confusion.
“Yeah,” I sighed. “ See I kind of left without telling them where I was going, actually I didn’t tell them I was leaving in the first place,” I admitted with a flourish of my hands, a nervous giggle escaping my lips.
“Devon, what is going on?” Shiloh asked quietly, her blue eyes narrowed as she studied me. However, before I could attempt to explain my anxiousness, Mitchell and Andrew came storming out of the front door. Both of them with furious expressions plastered on their faces as they made their way down the driveway towards the car.
“Shiloh if I ask you to go now without asking any more questions, would you?” I asked her hopefully.
Shiloh took in the two angry men coming towards us, Mitchell was yelling something I couldn’t quite make out with the windows up, and Andrew was just glaring at me. I noticed Kyle standing on the porch with a cigarette dangling from his fingers. He wasn’t a full-time smoker, not with me in the house. It annoyed him that he had to indulge only when he wasn’t at home, my immune system could not cope with many things, second hand smoke top of the list.
With a jerky movement, Shiloh yanked the keys out of the ignition then dealt with her seatbelt.
“No,” she answered me, flinging open her door.
“Thought not,” I groaned heavily, removing my own belt and scrambling out of the car. I had to reach the boys first before her and do something to defuse the situation.
“Devon where the fuck have you been?”
“Who the hell do you think you are taking off without a word to anyone?”
Both angry men yelled at the same time pissing me off and by the look of Shiloh’s tense posture, her too.
“And who the hell is this?” Mitchell barked rudely pointing his finger at Shiloh.
“You better start talking little girl, I want answers as to why you think you can just take off without permission,” Andrew snarled at me, but his eyes were firmly and suspiciously on Shiloh.
“Get back in the car Devon. You are not staying here with these arseholes,” Shiloh declared, standing in front of me in a protective gesture.
Hiding my smile from my brothers, loving that Shiloh, a person who had only known me for four days, liked and cared about me more than my own family. This display from Andrew and Mitchell could never be mistaken for caring. They were pissed because of the time they had to take out of their lives for the past few days. Pure and simple.
“I beg your pardon?” Mitchell hissed angrily.
“No, you should be begging Devon’s forgiveness. She is a grown woman, and the last time I checked this is a free country where an adult can come and go as they please,” Shiloh tossed back, full of sass and not in the slightest worried she was going up against two grown men. Panic started to set inside me, not just because of my secret, but because Shiloh was an honourable person, the qualities that made her a good president and leader could very well get her in trouble. Zander and Deck would not take it well if she got into an altercation in my driveway.
Stepping out from behind my human shield, I placed my hand on her arm and squeezed.
“It’s okay Shiloh, you can go home now. Thanks for the ride, I appreciate it but I better deal with this from here,” I told her, lifting my chin defiantly at my brothers.
Kyle was still in the same position, hanging back from the ruckus just watching, smoking and smirking. Kyle was the one who loathed his responsibility the most, he spent more time with me, ferrying me around, staying behind to look after me. My father paid him to do it, they had no idea I was aware of the payment system they cooked up between them. Dad only too happy to part with five hundred dollars a month so his conscious allowed him to justify his absence in my life.
“And leave you here with them? Gabriel will shoot me if he knew I left you alone with them speaking to you like this,” Shiloh argued, her expression serious.
Gabriel.
I missed him already. I missed him the second he pulled away from me after his beautiful declaration back at the compound.
If only I had the time to tell him…
Mitchell glared daggers at Shiloh, his distaste for her audacity to speak to him like she was evident. I really couldn’t tell if Mitchell actually liked women, his closed-off demeanour aimed not only at me but his wife as well. Maybe looking after me for as long as he had, with little to no help from our father, caused such resentment. Losing mum so suddenly and so tragically then my health problems, I don’t think he had time to grieve her passing. Was I to blame for that too? So, lost in my silent conundrum, I forgot why I was trying to get Shiloh to leave quickly. Mitchell took that lapse in my concentration to out me good and proper.
“Who the hell is Gabriel? And who the fuck do you think looked after her all the years she had cancer? Her remission, then when the cancer came back, it was us that put our lives on hold. Every minute of every day was always about her,” he spat out, his eyes full of so much hate when he turned on me, I could hardly care that he blurted out the C word. Coldness crept into my bloodstream, but Mitchell wasn’t finished.
“Mum died that day, we lost her and our childhood all because of you!” he screamed furiously. “If you’d had your belt on, she wouldn’t have needed to stop the car, and then she would’ve been here to take care of you, not us! Dad would have stayed home and done normal father-son things with us, but instead, he couldn’t cope with a sick kid and no wife to hold his hand to do the simplest tasks. That was left up to us!” He finished with an angry roar and a thump to his chest with his fist.
I literally staggered backwards at the harsh tirade from my eldest brother, tripping on the concrete curb, falling to my arse. I didn’t feel the impact of the fall, my mind overloaded with the pure venom and hatred with which Mitchell regarded me.
Tears clogged my throat and burned at my eyes, staring opened mouthed at my brothers, I could not fathom the truth I saw on their faces.
All three of them hated me, not just resented me, which I knew already, but seriously hated me. Blamed me for mum’s death.
“Oh my god,” I sobbed, the tears falling fast down my cheeks. I was powerless to stop them. With his harsh words, Mitchell managed to shatter me worse than any cancer or death could have ever hoped to. I survived those two disasters, barely. But the guilt and pain just delivered on my shoulders, I wasn’t so sure.
“Dev, honey?” Shiloh croaked out, getting my attention. Looking up at her, I cringed slightly at her obvious shock and the lone tear that was tracking down her cheek. I saw the questions, the hurt and… the sympathy in her sapphire eyes. I couldn’t answer her, I couldn’t say the words she wanted me to say.
Shaking my head, I dropped my chin to my chest and took in a shuddering breath.
“I was going to tell him,” I rasped quietly, “I wanted to tell him, but he treated me like I was normal, he saw me, the real me, not the sick helpless person I used to be,” I sobbe
d desperately.
Thrusting my hand out, I grabbed hold of Shiloh’s out-stretched one. Clinging to it I continued to pour out my heart.
“My… my own family blames me for mu… mum’s death. They saw my illness as their prison. What if Gabriel sees it that way too? I am enough of a burden already Shiloh, I… I won’t be one to him too,” I cried in dismay. Never had I felt so hurt, so raw… so alone. I couldn’t stay with my brothers, in this house ever again. Sit at a table with them, share in the pretence that they cared, their true feelings were well and truly out in the open now and nothing could ever take away the ache of hearing it.
Shiloh crouched down next to me, her hand holding mine tight.
“You are coming back with me, Devon, back to the Wounded Souls’ compound where you will find all the answers you need to that asinine question you just asked me.” Shiloh’s voice was harsh- stunning me, but the soft way her hands rubbed at my back took some of the sting out of her words.
“My cousin is a caring and compassionate man, he was raised by a man who helped raise me. Seven men who instilled their values, their loyalty, their respect in not only me, but every one of their kids. I get that you haven’t had that growing up, but those days are over. Starting right now!” Shiloh said firmly, pulling me to my feet then walking back to her car. Both of us ignoring the shouted protests from Mitchell and Andrew, as she helped me into the passenger seat.
I watched Mitchell move two steps forward, his large hand reaching out stopping her from closing my door.
“Who the fuck are you? You have no right getting into this family’s business,” he growled menacingly.
Shiloh surprised me by literally laughing in his face, her daring knew no limits.
“Shiloh Stephens, president of the Wounded Souls. I am a wife and a mother and completely disgusted by you and your pathetic brother’s treatment of your own sister. You have a problem with that, then by all means come at me, but I am taking Devon home to a family that wants her and loves her.” With that she slammed the door, Mitchell just moving his hand in time before it could get smashed in the door.
Gabriel (The Wounded Sons Book 1) Page 11
