by Linda Howard
Then Gabriel was there, fast and silent on his bare feet, looming out of the darkness. He hit Niki from behind, the impact sending her crashing into the cabinets. She screamed with pain, tumbled to the floor. Gabriel pounced, grabbed the hand that held the knife, and slammed it against the floor over and over again until she lost her grip and the knife clattered to the floor.
Immediately, Niki began to wail. “Stop! I’m hurt! My arm … I think my arm is broken.” She began to sob. “What was I supposed to do? You killed Darwin and then you left me out in the cold to die. How could you?”
Easy, thought Lolly. She didn’t feel sorry for the woman at all, even though dried blood caked her face, her clothes. But Niki continued to whine; just like Darwin, she went from enraged attacker to pathetic beggar in a heartbeat. How many times had that act worked for them? Gabriel didn’t buy it, though, and neither did Lolly.
“Shut up,” he said brusquely, and reached for her other wrist to secure it.
Infuriated that her tactic hadn’t worked, Niki screamed and swung the empty pistol that she’d pulled from her coat. Gabriel jerked his head back but the barrel caught him on the outside corner of his right eye and whipped his head around. She surged up, shoving him back, and the blow had stunned him enough that for a second he couldn’t react fast enough. Niki scrambled up and away, scooping up the fallen knife and lunging for the back door.
Gabriel gave a quick shake of his head and launched himself in pursuit.
Her heart beating so hard she could barely breathe, Lolly jerked open the cabinet door under the sink, grabbed the hammer from the small open toolbox that had been there as long as she could remember, and followed them both.
Chapter Twelve
Gabriel caught up with Niki on the back porch. The cold seared his bare skin. He had on nothing but a pair of wet jeans, not even a shirt he could pull off and use to snag the knife away from her. She whirled, lashing out with the knife, and he leapt back. She was nothing but a shadow in the darkness; only instinct, and experience gained by fighting with men who had been trained for combat, helped him avoid the blade. She was drug-crazed, unpredictable, and lethal as hell.
He wished he’d had time to grab something, anything, he could use as a weapon, or to block the slashing knife, but when Lolly had screamed his name he’d reacted instantly, without pausing to look around. He’d known, known without doubt, that somehow the homicidal bitch had not only survived the slide off the side of the mountain, but had managed to get out and make it back to the house. All he’d thought about was getting to Lolly before Niki could.
Niki darted in, slashed at him, darted back. She missed, but not by much. She came at him again, and he saw the glint of the blade swiping at his stomach. He jerked back, grabbed for her arm, missed. From the corner of his eye he saw more movement at the door, and his heart almost stopped. Lolly!
“No!” he yelled. The last thing he wanted was her out here in the dark, where he wouldn’t be able to tell her from Niki, but Niki would know exactly who Lolly was. Niki whirled toward the new threat and he heard her laugh as she surged forward. He knew he couldn’t get to her in time to grab her arm, knew he couldn’t move fast enough to knock Lolly out of the way, but he tried anyway, leaping for her even as his heart whispered that he was too late, too late …
Lolly swung the hammer. She could barely make out a dark shadow coming toward her, but Gabriel yelled from somewhere to the left and she knew it wasn’t him. It was so dark she had no real way to judge distance, but she swung as hard as she could and was almost astonished when the hammer struck something with a sickening sound that was both a solid thunk and yet somehow squishy.
Then Gabriel was there, enveloping her in a body-slam of a rush that knocked her back into the mud room. She knew it was him, knew his scent, felt the bareness of his arms and chest. They crashed to the floor and the impact knocked the hammer free from her grip. He rolled off immediately, leaping to his feet and whirling to meet Niki’s next attack, but … nothing happened. No drugged-out maniac came through the door. There was nothing but silence from the back porch.
“Get my flashlight,” Gabriel said, breathing hard, and Lolly scrambled to her feet. The blanket … somehow she’d lost the blanket and she was completely naked, but she’d worry about that later. Frigid air swept through the open door, stinging her flesh as she raced to the stairs where Gabriel had dropped his coat when they first came in. The fireplace in the living room was lit, providing enough light that she found the coat with no problem, fumbled in the pocket, pulled out the big foot-long flashlight, turned it on, then ran out to the back porch again.
Gabriel took the flashlight from her and shone it on the heap that lay on the floor. Niki was collapsed on her stomach, breathing shallowly, her face turned away from them. The knife lay on the floor beside her hand. Gabriel moved forward, kicked the knife well out of her reach, and only then did he stoop to pick it up. The beam of the flashlight plainly showed the damage the hammer had done to her head.
And even as they watched, she tried to heave herself to her knees. What was she, the fucking Terminator?
“Why won’t she die?” Lolly whispered, evidently thinking along the same lines. “What do we have to do, put her in a vat of molten steel?”
And then Niki died, after all, very quietly. The shallow breathing stopped.
Gabriel caught Lolly’s arm, steered her back into the house. Bending down, he snapped up the blanket and wrapped it around her. She was trembling like a leaf, and though there was a lot he needed to do, at the moment holding Lolly was more important than anything else on that list. “Are you okay?”
“Peachy,” she whispered.
“Seriously, look at me.”
She looked up at him, and what he saw assured him that she was indeed okay, or at least as much as someone unaccustomed to violence could be in such a situation. She wasn’t happy, but neither was she collapsing under a ton of misplaced guilt. She’d done what she had to do, and she accepted that.
He kissed her, then left her standing in the middle of the kitchen hugging the blanket to her shivering body, and went back out on the porch. He crouched beside Niki, reached out and touched her throat in search of a pulse. Nothing. He blew out a sigh of relief.
Some of the freezing rain blew onto the porch, settling on Niki’s body and on his bare skin. His feet felt almost as frozen as they had been an hour ago. He wasn’t dressed for this shit, so he left Niki where she was, and went back into the house.
When he closed the back door he took a moment to lock it. Couldn’t hurt.
The seconds dragged on, and Lolly listened hard. She should move, do something, follow Gabriel or run away. She found she could do nothing but stand there, hold tightly on to the blanket, and listen to her own heartbeat as she waited. Was it over? Was Niki going to somehow get up again, ignoring death? Lolly wanted peace; she wanted this night to be over.
She heard the back door close, and her heart matched its thud. A moment later Gabriel walked into the kitchen, blessedly alone and unharmed.
“Is it really over?” Her voice shook.
“It’s over. She’s dead,” Gabriel said as he came to her, tightened the blanket around her cold body, held her close.
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Lolly hadn’t thought she’d ever be glad to hear that anyone was dead, but pure relief washed through her. She rested her head on Gabriel’s shoulder, wallowing in the strength and warmth of it. “I killed her,” she whispered.
Gabriel stepped back, made her look him in the eye. How could he be so calm? So steady? The flame on the stove flickered, casting strange shadows over his face. “Good job,” he said briefly, paying a very subtle compliment to her strength by not sugarcoating anything.
Lolly squared her shoulders. “I’m not sorry,” she said. “She was coming after you with a knife. She would’ve killed us both.”
Lolly took the few steps that separated her from the s
tove and turned the knob that killed the flame, plunging the room into darkness. “I don’t want soup, I don’t want anything that comes out of this damned kitchen,” she muttered.
“We need to eat,” he argued.
“I have breakfast bars,” she said, hugging the blanket to her cold body and walking away. If she never set foot in this kitchen again she’d be perfectly happy.
Gabriel followed her out of the kitchen, so when she stumbled on the end of the blanket—halfway through the dining room—he was there to catch her, to keep her from falling on her face. After everything that had happened, to trip over the trailing end of a blanket shouldn’t be traumatic, but tears welled up in her eyes. Gabriel heard them, saw them, maybe felt them, and lifted her into his arms. She let him, without a word of protest that she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself. At the moment she didn’t feel capable at all. He whispered soothing words. She didn’t pay any attention to what those words were, but she felt the intent, the comfort, to the pit of her soul.
The living room was like another world: warm, lit by the fire, quiet. What was left of the storm raged on the other side of the window, beyond the sturdy walls, but for the first time tonight that storm was separate and unimportant. They were alive. They had survived a threat that was greater than the storm.
Gabriel lowered her to the sofa and sat beside her, continuing to hold her close. Lolly wanted to stop shaking, but couldn’t. It wasn’t the cold that made her tremble, not this time.
“I think I’ll hire someone to come in and pack up everything that’s left,” she said, her gaze on the fire, her body fitting nicely against Gabriel’s.
“Probably not a bad idea.”
“If I thought we could make it safely to town tonight, I’d be out that door in five minutes. I can’t come back here after this. I don’t ever want to see this house again.”
“Too bad.” His voice was a rumbling whisper, as if he were simply thinking out loud.
Lolly lifted her head and looked at him. “What?” Surely she hadn’t heard him correctly. “Seriously?” How could he think she could ever look at this house as home again? Why would anyone in their right mind want to return after a night like this one?
“Wilson Creek won’t be the same without a Helton around, even if just part-time.”
“Wilson Creek will survive,” she argued.
Gabriel sighed. “I guess so, but how am I supposed to ask you out whenever I come back to visit if you’re in Portland instead of here?”
She didn’t know what shocked her most, that he’d consider asking her out, or that he knew details of her current living situation. “How do you know I live in Portland?”
He shrugged broad shoulders. “I must’ve heard someone mention it. Mom, probably. Which reminds me, you’re invited to stay at the house until the roads are clear.”
“That’s very nice,” she said, knowing without a doubt that the invitation had been Valerie McQueen’s idea.
She turned toward the fire, finding Gabriel’s solemn face somehow disturbing, and her gaze fell on the drugs and needles sitting on the coffee table. She all but jumped from the couch, reaching for the plastic bags, intending to toss everything into the fire. Gabriel grabbed her hand before she could touch anything.
“Evidence,” he said simply. “Leave everything right where it is.”
She turned on him, irrationally angry. “I’m supposed to leave this crap sitting on my mother’s coffee table all night?”
“Yes.”
“That’s ridiculous. It’s … it’s obscene! If Niki had died in the kitchen, would you have just left her there all night?”
“Yep. I’m a cop, honey—a military cop, but still a cop. You don’t disturb a scene until the investigation is finished.”
It was good to feel something besides fear, so she fully embraced her annoyance. “So Niki and Darwin are both dead, and yet somehow they’re still in charge.”
Gabriel snorted, completely unflustered. “No, I’m in charge, and my dad will have my hide and yours if I fuck around with the evidence.”
“So I have to sit here and look at this all night.” She pointed to the coffee table, silently thanking her lucky stars that Niki had had the grace to die outside. If the body was in the kitchen, under her roof, she’d be trekking down the mountain tonight, ice or no ice.
Gabriel got to his feet. She expected him to take her in his arms again, but he didn’t. He placed two steady hands on her shoulders and looked her directly in the eye. “I’m going upstairs to collect a sheet to cover the coffee table and a couple of blankets and pillows for us. You’re going to pick out some dry clothes and get dressed. Then I’m going to heat up some soup …”
“I’m not going back in that kitchen …” Lolly said forcefully.
“… and bring a couple of bowls in here,” he continued without pausing, “so we can get something hot into our bellies. We’ll save the breakfast bars for the trip down the mountain.”
“How can you be so calm?” she asked, annoyed and grateful and mad at herself because a part of her was still scared.
“What choice do I have?” he responded.
Lolly felt a wave of release wash through her. Naturally, he was right. If they both panicked they’d simply create yet another disaster, and God knows she’d had enough disaster for one night.
“I’ll get dressed,” she said in a more controlled voice. “You do what you have to do.”
Gabriel leaned in then, and did what he’d neglected to do earlier. He kissed her. This wasn’t a “let’s get busy” kiss, it was a reassuring, warm, very pleasant connection that served to remind her that she was not alone, and at the same time very effectively took her mind off the night’s horrors—for a few precious seconds.
She felt the kiss in her gut. Her earlier panic, which had fluttered inside her as if it were a physical thing trying to escape, faded.
She could do this. They could do this.
The kiss didn’t last long enough, but it did the trick. She laid her hand on Gabriel’s cheek, felt the rough stubble there. “All right,” she said softly. “I’m okay now.”
She turned to the fireplace and its welcome flame, listened as Gabriel rushed up the stairs.
Realistically, this adventure was far from over. The walk into town tomorrow would be dangerous and difficult. But it wasn’t tomorrow yet, and tonight she was safe, warm, and sheltered.
She felt a bit Scarlett O’Hara-ish. She’d deal with tomorrow when it arrived.
Chapter Thirteen
Gabriel leaned his head back against the couch and closed his eyes. Chicken noodle soup out of a can had never tasted so good. The simple pleasure of not being out in the cold, of having a fire, of knowing he and Lolly were safe for the night—it was a fine feeling, one to be treasured even if just for a while.
The gas fireplace didn’t crackle like a wood-burning stove, but he didn’t have to worry about feeding it logs so that was a fair tradeoff. Lolly didn’t know exactly how much propane was left in the tank, but she did tell him it hadn’t been serviced for a while. She’d estimated that there would be enough for her stay, so they should be good for the night. A few hours more, that was all they needed.
“Tell me about your son.” Lolly leaned against him, as she had since finishing her soup. Her body was finally warm—and clothed. The shared body heat was kind of a cliché, he supposed, but it was nice. With a dead meth freak on the back porch and another in the woods, and an arduous walk ahead of them, nice was a good thing. He might as well enjoy it while he could.
“What do you want to know?”
“Does he look like you or like his mother? Is he into baseball or art or music? Is he loud or quiet?” Her head rested comfortably against his shoulder. “Is it hard for you, having him live so far away?” This last question was delivered with a hesitation in her voice, as if she wasn’t certain it was a question that should be asked.
Gabriel never minded talking about Sam. There
were times when he’d realized that he’d said too much, that he was boring whoever was listening—though they were usually too polite to say so. Since she’d asked, he was glad to answer. “Sam looks like me, but he has Mariane’s eyes. He’s not big for his age but he’s not too small, either. He’s into baseball, definitely, and basketball. Believe it or not, he’s also a whiz at math. Well, a whiz for a seven-year-old. I’m not sure where he got that from, since math was not my best subject in school, and it drove Mariane nuts to have to balance the checkbook.” It was strange to talk about his late wife without the usual rush of grief. Strange, but right. “He’s definitely not quiet. Have you ever spent any significant time with a seven-year-old?”
“No,” she said softly.
“Well, they’re bundles of energy, and Sam is no exception. He’s either going full speed ahead or he’s asleep.” He took a deep breath before continuing. “And having him live so far away is more than hard, it’s torture.” He found himself explaining how Mariane’s parents had stepped up to help after her death, how his father-in-law had been transferred to Texas, and though he’d tried to find another job, one that would keep him and his wife near to their grandson, in the end he’d had no choice but to move. It was that or be unemployed. Gabriel told Lolly how he’d tried to make the single dad thing work, something he’d never really talked about before in any but the simplest way, not even with his own parents.
“Babysitters, neighbors, Mariane’s friends, my friends’ wives … everyone did what they could to help, but in the end my schedule was so erratic it became a problem. Sam had no continuity. He never knew where he’d be, who would keep him when I was working night shift or was called away suddenly. Here he has stability. He knows where he’s going to sleep at night.”
“It’s a high price to pay,” Lolly said. “For both of you.”
He’d been telling himself the situation was temporary, that he’d find a nanny he could afford so his son could be home at night, but with every week that passed there was a growing fear that he’d never be able to make the proper arrangements. He was a sergeant in the army, and though he made a decent living, he didn’t make enough to pay someone twenty grand a year, which was the bare minimum for fulltime child care.
