Gabriel (Guardian Defenders Book 1)

by Kris Michaels

  Chapter 34

  It was surprising how quickly her world became the same old routine after the whirlwind of Gabriel swept out of her life. Rather, was swept out of her life. For three months she managed to put one foot in front of the other. She no longer went to Shooter’s on Friday night, the comfort of her own home and the memories she created with Gabriel were what soothed her now.

  The diversion the bar had offered waned as did her energy. She was tired, although she admitted the exhaustion could be attributed to a mild case of depression. Self diagnosis, the bane of medical professionals, but she knew she was depressed and watching the news every night in hopes of seeing Gabriel only fed into a cycle from which she couldn't break free. Her stomach lurched each time another bombing in the Middle East was dissected by the anchors and reporters. The stress of living each day glued to the horrendous news nauseated her. With the hope of Gabriel coming back to her somewhere in the future, Anna trudged through life one day at a time.

  This day, however, taxed her resolve. The afternoon’s influx of trauma cases was intense. She and her team dealt with the flow of patients whose injuries ranged from multiple gunshot wounds to car wrecks. The constant flow to the trauma unit was in addition to the normal emergency room caseload—sliced hands, nails through feet, broken bones and extreme cases of flu that the team was required to help with as time permitted.

  As usual, Don and Kathy directed the nurses in the flawlessly executed ballet of triage and lifesaving medical treatments choreographed in perfect harmony. Most patients left trauma stable and ready for the operating suite, off to the ward, or up to radiology. The ones who didn't were the souls that haunted her. Some patients required miracles, and some were called as soon as they arrived. Anna stood in the middle of trauma two. The room spun, suddenly tipping sideways. Her stomach lurched, and she grasped into the air looking for something to hang on to. A warm arm found hers, and she gripped onto it like it was her lifeline.

  “Sweetheart, we need to do some tests.” Don helped her to a small chair.

  “What? Tests for what? I’ll be fine. I just haven’t been eating like I should. It’s probably low blood sugar. I’m good. Help me up, and I'll go grab something.”

  Kathy stood by Don. “Is there any chance you may be pregnant? Have you missed a period?”

  Anna flicked her an annoyed look. Kathy had her no-bullshit professional glower in place. Whatever. Anna shook her head. “I’ve never been really regular. The birth control I’m on is supposed to be regulating my cycle, but it hasn’t helped.”

  “Well, it would ease our minds if you let us do some blood tests. Quick and simple. We can put the tests under a Jane Doe, so all the busybodies out there won’t have a clue what’s going on.”

  Anna glared at her friend. “I'm not pregnant.” She'd been religious about taking her pills.

  “Perfect, then let me do some other tests. Seriously, I'm worried about you. Come on. For me? You can rub in how right you were after we get the negative results back.”

  Don spoke as he squatted in front of her. “You have lost a lot of weight. Okay, so you’re not eating right, but the doctor in me is going crazy. Give me some peace tonight. Deal?”

  Anna nodded. She’d go along with her friends, but just to appease them. The nausea was from stress. Plain and simple.

  Or not. “No.” Anna shook her head, but Don had run the pregnancy tests twice. The reality of her situation was unavoidable. She dropped her head to her hands and tried to stop herself from hyperventilating.

  She was pregnant. She could count the times they were together when he was last home, so she knew for a fact she was three months pregnant.

  A wave of nausea rolled through her as every hateful word Craig had spouted coiled and twisted her guts in a painful cramp. The one person she wanted to tell, she couldn't contact. Craig’s attack and threats eliminated any possibility of reaching out to Gabriel.

  Oh, God! If she tried to call Gabriel and tell him… What if Craig showed up while she was pregnant? She shuddered at the thought of the damage he could inflict on a pregnant woman and an unborn baby. Anna breathed in and out, trying to outrun her terror. Craig’s tormenting words spun in her mind. He’d said something about kidnapping her baby to keep it safe… She tried to recall what was said. Would Gabriel take the baby away from her? To protect his own child? “Kidnap my baby? No, Gabriel wouldn’t, but Craig...” she whispered the words and sat up. She glanced across the room to where Don and Kathy were talking quietly in the corner. They were giving her space to deal with the test results.

  In a moment of clarity, a simple realization came to Anna. Craig couldn’t touch her if he couldn’t find her. She knew she was being watched from the vehicles that trailed her, the faces she’d see seconds before they disappeared.

  She swallowed hard. If Craig couldn’t find her, he couldn’t hurt her or her baby, but disappearing, and doing so in a way that would escape Craig’s attention, meant Gabriel wouldn’t be able to find her either. She shook her head. No, there was no question about what she needed to do. She could and would do anything to keep her baby safe, and she wouldn't force Gabriel to make decisions he didn’t need to make.

  Her only option was to escape Craig and his people. It was a fact of human physiology that the men that followed her constantly would soon know she was pregnant. With oversized clothes, she had a couple months, but she would not be able to camouflage the truth for long. She was so thin her pregnancy would show soon.

  “Hey. How are you doing?” Don was in front of her.

  Startled, she blinked up at him. “As well as can be expected. I think I’m in a bit of shock.”

  “That’s understandable.” He held out a big white plastic bottle and extended it toward her. “These are prenatal vitamins. You need to take them as directed on the label, and you need to eat. The baby can survive off your reserves for a bit, but you’re so thin, sooner or later it is going to impact both of you.”

  Anna nodded and took the pills. “I think I’m going to head home now.” They'd been off shift for over an hour.

  “Good call. I’ll talk to the nursing supervisor if you want to take a couple of days off to decide what you're going to do.”

  Excellent suggestion. Her situation required clear thought and detailed planning. “Yeah, that’s… yeah. Could you ask her for the rest of the week?”

  “You got it.” Don held up a hand. “And before you say a word, no one is going to learn this from Kathy or me. This is covered under doctor-patient privilege. Not a word from either of us. You tell people when you’re ready to tell them.”

  Anna nodded and stood up. She needed to eat, and then she needed to think.

  She watched the dark-colored truck turn down the street as it always did. Parking in her driveway, she locked her truck and made her way inside. She headed to the shower to wash the day off her.

  With hair wet from her shower and a plate containing the remnants of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, carrot sticks and an apple, she stared at the blank sheet of paper in front of her. She tapped the tabletop with a pen. How could she disappear without alerting Craig's men?

  Gabriel had told her he couldn’t track the monster who was trying to hurt Jackie in part because there was no way to track him. No credit cards to run, no identity to tie to specific actions. So, she needed to make sure nobody could track her movements. That meant getting money, cash-type-money, and a lot of it.

  She pushed away from the table and went to the drawer of her desk. Her passbook for her savings account was under her checkbook. She grabbed both. She had a little bit of money, but if she wanted to disappear, she’d need more.

  First things first, she needed to find a place to live. A place to go where no one would think to look for her. A small place, with no neighbors, and no meddling. She grabbed an envelope and her address book. Determination etched her brow as she bent over the blank sheets of paper in front of her. The plan solidified in her mind, and her ballpoi
nt pen scratched out her course of action.

  Jacqueline Long set the phone down. Her face was ashen as she gazed at Deacon.

  He hurried over to her. “What is it? What happened?” Jackie’s sky-blue eyes looked at Deacon as she started to cry. “Was that the doctor? Is there a problem with the baby?”

  “No. I’m sorry, no. It’s Anna. She’s in trouble, and she needs help. Deacon, I need twenty thousand dollars in cash. Can you get that type of money, in cash?”

  “What the hell is going on? You need to tell me what’s she’s involved in. I won’t be involved in a crime.”

  “Anna is pregnant.”

  “Gabriel’s?”

  Jackie nodded her head. “She won’t tell me why, but she insists he can’t know. She said if anyone tries to tell him, she and the baby would be in danger. She wants to disappear. Can I have the money?”

  “Twenty thousand is petty cash, but are you sure Gabriel can’t be told? He seemed to be in love with her before he left.”

  “From what Anna told me, she can't contact him with this information. Babe, she is terrified. She wants to disappear, but she promised after the baby was born, she’d try to get word to Gabriel. It isn’t my place to tell her what to do. I know you’re friends with Gabriel. Please trust me enough to let me help my best friend, and please, you can't say anything.”

  Deacon held her with his hand on her belly, feeling their own baby move. “I don’t like it. Gabriel needs to know. To keep his child away from him is wrong.”

  “I understand if you won’t help. I have money of my own from when I worked for you, I’ll send that.”

  “No, I’ll get the money, but if Gabriel asks me a direct question, I will tell him what I know.”

  “As will I. I won’t keep this from him if he asks, but we can’t volunteer the information. I have to extend Anna that amount of trust.”

  Anna withdrew all but ten dollars from her personal savings account. She didn't want to close the account just in case someone was monitoring her activity. With his contacts, she assumed it was possible to monitor the amount of money in her account without her permission, but she didn't know.

  The savings she had, plus the twenty thousand dollars Jackie had given her, was a good start, and if she was cautious, it could be enough for a couple years.

  She also figured out how to get money from Jackie without raising suspicions. She asked Jackie to send it to her in a series of small packages. She received packages from her leather supply company for her leather crafting, so if the people watching her noticed anything, they’d assume it was her leather supplies.

  As soon as she decided to leave, she started carrying a backpack everywhere, just to get the people Craig had following her used to seeing her with it. The house would be all right. Don said he would take care of everything since it was his house anyway. She'd lied to Don, told him she was going to go stay with her parents until the baby was born. She begged him not to tell the team she was leaving because she'd be mortified at the reason. He bought it. Thank God.

  On a Monday morning, she put the money in a backpack with a couple changes of clothes, along with her leather tools, and went to work. Don let her borrow his beater El Camino, and he parked it out back in a different parking lot, far away from where she normally parked. She walked in one door of the hospital, straight through the building and out the back door, leaving work at the beginning of what was supposed to be her first twelve-hour shift of the week.

  She tossed her backpack into the little truck and traveled west for four hours. There was no sign of the black vehicles that normally tailed her. The more miles she put between them, the more she relaxed.

  As she'd arranged with Don, she left the El Camino in the parking lot in front of a Piggly Wiggly. Anna walked across town and purchased a used Cutlass from a local dealer, with cash. She filled it with gas and continued to travel west. A day and a half later she reached the border of California and bought five bus tickets at the small Greyhound ticket kiosk. Each ticket was on a bus going in a different direction. The bored ticket clerk raised an eyebrow at her.

  “My sisters and I are doing road trips. It's an adventure on a dare.” She shrugged and smiled at the man.

  The man stared at her for a minute before he pushed the tickets toward her without comment. She took the tickets and went outside, out of the view of the attendant. Anna watched the area for an hour. Satisfied there were no cameras to see which bus she got on, she waited until the clerk was busy and got on the bus she needed. She moved to the back of the bus and flopped into the corner seat of the back row.

  A ball cap pulled down over her face shielded her from any unwanted scrutiny, and she snuggled into an oversized hoodie as she settled in the eastbound bus. Her backpack and a bag of nutritious snacks were her only luggage. Anna allowed herself to shed silent tears for what seemed like a hundred miles. She stared sightlessly out of the bus window. She'd made it. She no longer had a life in Colorado. Still terrified and now absolutely alone, she shivered. She'd called Nathan and her parents and told them she was starting a new job as a traveling nurse and that she'd have a difficult time checking in for the first couple months. She'd figure something out after that. Some way to ensure they didn't worry. Somehow.

  The bus traveled through the night, stopping for meals and comfort breaks. Anna grabbed her backpack when the bus stopped for a bathroom and lunch break at Mule Creek Junction, Wyoming. It was just a truck stop at a crossroad in the middle of nowhere. Southbound travelers ended up in Hot Springs, South Dakota. Eastbound travelers usually stopped in New Castle, Wyoming. Westbound travelers just kept on going. North of the interstate was filled with massive cattle ranches. There were more cattle than people, more antelope than cattle, and no one to care about a too thin, anonymous woman with a backpack.

  She watched the bus pull out of the parking lot, heading on to Indianapolis. Her best friend in middle school had moved to this area, and Anna had sent her a snail mail letter asking if she knew of a small place she could live, explaining to her she was looking for a place where she could write the book she’d always wanted to pen. Yeah, that was a whopper of a lie, but she was starting to get very good at that. With Brandi’s help, she’d rented a small house eighty-five miles west of New Castle, Wyoming. It was a small ranch house that had once belonged to the ranch owner, but his family had outgrown the modest homestead, and a new ranch house had been built, leaving the small home vacant for many years. The electricity was in the landlord’s name, and she’d paid the rent and utilities a year in advance, in cash.

  A huge Ford 4x4 truck rumbled up. “Hey, have you seen my best friend? She’s trying to become an author, which is stupid funny because she sucks at English!”

  “I don't suck at English. Grammar is what I suck at.” Anna pulled open the passenger side door and lifted herself up into the gigantic truck. She wrapped an arm around her best friend and hugged her tightly.

  “Where's your luggage?”

  She lifted her backpack. “Here. The rest I'm having shipped. I didn't want to deal with suitcases.”

  “Well, all righty then. Let's get you to the little place you rented. I went over last week and chased the critters out.”

  “What?”

  Brandi threw back her head and laughed. “Nah, it was closed up, and there aren't any critters, but I aired it out for you.”

  “You didn't have to do that.”

  “It wasn't a problem. I left my truck there. This is the one you'll be driving, and I'm still not happy about taking your money.”

  “But I'm renting it from you. Seriously, I'm not in the market for a vehicle. You have to register and insure it, so it is only right that I pay you to rent it.”

  “The damn thing sits in the barn. Since Rex bought me my new truck, old Bennie here has been doing nothing.”

  “Bennie?”

  “I name all my vehicles. Don't you?”

  “Ah, no.”

  “Girl, what happened to you?�
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  Anna laughed at the wide-eyed stare Brandi threw her way. “I must have lost my mind.”

  “I agree. So, tell me all about you, Nathan, and your parents. Is Nathan married? He was so damn cute.”

  “Eww! That's my brother you're talking about.” She laughed and leaned back against the old truck's seat. The stress she'd been carrying floated away in the dust cloud kicked up behind them. She was going to be okay. It was going to work out.

  They bounced onto the interstate from the parking lot and headed east before Brandi turned north on a gravel road. The house was a two-bedroom home with no cable, internet, or access to either. She'd buy a TV and use rabbit ear antennas to watch the three network channels that Brandi said most everyone could pull in, except during snowstorms.

  “Remember, you go south until the interstate, then a left will take you to New Castle. That's the closest big town. If you are doing a major shopping run, I'd say take a day and go over to South Dakota to Rapid City. Buy some coolers and stock up. There is a deep freeze in the small barn. I plugged that in for you and made sure it was working. There is a guy who sells cut wood. All you have here for heat is that pot-belly stove. Dan, your landlord, recommended you lay in thirty cords, minimum. The guy will deliver in the winter if you run low, but it will cost you more. If you have the money, buy more. The wood will sit over next summer, and if you're still here, you can burn it the following winter.”

  Anna nodded and stared across the vista. There was nothing but a smattering of fences as far as she could see. “This is perfect.” She smiled at her friend because it was perfect. She'd need to make a run to Rapid City tomorrow and buy necessities. With the truck, it would be one trip and then she could restock once a month or so.