Someone to Watch Over Me

They unloaded in silence until the van stood empty. Once the last boxed lunch had been deposited inside the conference room, Isabella returned to the sunshine and, with a shade less reticence, thanked Gabe for his assistance.

He shrugged, dropping his sunglasses over his eyes. He casually tucked his thumbs under the leather belt circling his narrow hips as he said, “It’s straight-up noon. Even shopkeepers have to eat. Let me buy you lunch?”

“Why?” Isabella pulled her head out of the van. She’d reached inside to the passenger seat to rearrange the flowers Trini had bought. They were belted in to steady the cans.

“Because we both have to eat.”

“I can’t. I have…an important…ah, errand.” Her gaze veered again to the bouquets. Unconsciously she fingered the points on a pinwheel.

“To the cemetery? I’ll ride along and keep the flowers from tipping over.”

Isabella licked her dry lips and dug in her purse for her sunglasses. She put them on, then raised them again to study this man—a near-stranger who offered to do what even her family shied away from. There was still no sign of pity on his face, nor any in his tone.

“I promise I won’t crowd you once we get there,” he said softly. “It’s not a journey anyone should have to make alone.”

Unable to get a word past the sudden lump in her throat, Isabella tried three times to step up into the van. It wasn’t until she felt Gabe’s cool fingers latch firmly onto her elbow that she felt a hairline crack in her tightly banded control. She managed a simple nod. If he saw her response, fine. If not, she’d make the trip on her own.

But Gabe did see. And he noticed how ragged her nerves were. Quickly rounding the vehicle, he unbuckled and lifted the cans. He sat and closed the door. If asked, he couldn’t have said why he was sticking his neck out. Any moment he expected to have his head lopped off.

CHAPTER FOUR

AT FIRST, Gabe Poston’s presence in the van set Isabella’s teeth on edge. She’d made the drive to the cemetery so often over the past ten months that each winding turn in the road was indelibly stamped on her brain. Normally, she drove in silence, needing the time to prepare herself for a visit that never got any easier.

Isabella especially didn’t feel like chitchatting with a man she barely knew.

But they’d driven a mile and Gabe hadn’t spoken a word. He didn’t toy with the flowers he held on his lap, nor did he fidget like Isabella’s brothers were prone to do. Up until a few weeks ago, by tacit agreement forged out of her hearing, the family always discreetly freed up one member to make this trip with her. Today, even before Trini had backed out, she’d been determined to go alone.

But, if truth be known, she wasn’t ready. It was comforting to have someone with her, sharing the lonely journey.

“Less than a handful of people would do what you’re doing,” she said unexpectedly, her voice hoarse.

“Holding flowers doesn’t seem like such a hard job.”

“You know what I meant. It’s fairly obvious you know a whole lot more about me than I do about you.”

Gabe turned slightly, resting his back against the door. “I’m thirty-eight. Just,” he felt compelled to add. “At the moment, I handle closings on land acquisitions for a non-governmental agency, Save Open Spaces. I have no family to speak of. I find this area…” He paused, as if unable to find the proper word.

“Interesting? Picturesque?”

“Partly. It’s difficult to put into words.”

“Try harsh, moody or erratic. Unless you’ve never spent a winter here.”

“I came last winter to wind up the custodial deal on Summer’s ranch. But winter storms aren’t new to me. I own a condo in Sun Valley.”

“Oh. Then why aren’t you there? Why are you here? And don’t say again that it’s to hold my flowers.”

Gabe twisted his lips to the side, chewing absently on the inside of his cheek. “Honestly? I don’t know,” he said after a lapse.

His answer threw Isabella for a moment. “You told Rollie Danville you’d made an offer on land. Is your agency fighting off another developer?”

“In other states. Not here. Now, enough about me. Tell me about you.”

Isabella immediately clammed up.

Gabe saw how fast her interest had fled. He watched her slender fingers flex repeatedly as she tightened her grip on the steering wheel. A private person himself, Gabe respected that right in others.

Shifting in his seat, he again gazed out on the landscape that slid rapidly past. It had been an unusually long, cold winter according to Colt’s wife, who’d lived in the area all her life. Now spring seemed ready to erase the last traces of snow. The deciduous trees were sprouting new growth. Tender, lime-colored tufts of needles formed on struggling young pines. But a cold wind still blew out of the north.

Isabella rounded a bend in the climbing road, and buttercups lent a splash of color to a meadow off to Gabe’s right. He barely had time to appreciate the dappling of afternoon sunshine when Isabella made a hard left and braked the van. An underlying tension raised the fine hairs on his neck.

“We’re almost there,” she informed him.

He’d visited a few cemeteries in his thirty-eight years. After his mom’s, most were military burials. Arlington, Calverton in New York, and Hawaii’s so-called Punch Bowl. All were rolling green hills intersected with rows of white crosses as far as the eye could see. Very formal, but gut-twisting all the same. Gabe didn’t know what to expect of the spot he was about to see. Nor did he know what to expect of the woman seated next to him. He’d comforted a few widows. Wives of buddies lost in the Gulf War. He liked to think he’d understood their grief and their need to grieve in different ways. At the very least, he thought Isabella would get teary simply being here.

She didn’t. He watched her slowly steel herself before she climbed down from the van.

Gabe started to open his door.

“Stay,” she said, reaching across her seat for the two bouquets he held. He felt the cans leave his nerveless fingers.

“Let me carry them for you.”

“I’ve got them.” She bent and picked up a trowel and another sack. “If you’d care to grab some fresh air, it’s a short walk to a stream that follows the base of this hill. It flows through that stand of cottonwoods.” She inclined her head ever so slightly to the south.

Gabe remained focused on her stark white face. If it had crossed his mind a moment ago to accompany her regardless of her protests, that thought died. She was hanging on to a fragile composure. But she was hanging on.

He released his breath. His fumbling fingers found the door latch, and he felt it give way. The next time he was in a position to see Isabella, it was only a view of her too-thin frame as she trudged up a grassy knoll. At the very top stood a pine tree whose bottom branches spread wide. Gabe figured the tree had to be a century old. Who knew, really, how long it had stood guard over the loved ones entrusted to its care?

From the hodgepodge of headstones, this looked to be an old cemetery. The pine served as a focal point. A solid, reassuring sentinel.

Suddenly feeling every bit the outsider he was, Gabe jammed his hands in his pockets and meandered in the direction of the stream.

The minute he crossed the gravel road and stepped into the shade afforded by willowy cottonwoods, his breath caught in his throat. Standing opposite him, across the stream, two elk lifted dripping muzzles and froze in place. Man and wild beasts gaped at one another for what seemed to Gabe like longer than the split second it probably was. The larger of the two elk blinked, then of one accord their hindquarters bunched, and both disappeared upstream into thick underbrush.

Rarely had Gabe been treated to such a heart-stopping sight. It struck him hard then. This was where he belonged. He’d done the right thing tendering an offer on a very overpriced property within ten miles of this stream.

Time drifted as Gabe absorbed the sights, sounds and odors around him. His training in military special ops had helped cultivate senses the vast majority of people no longer relied on for survival. Those same keen senses let him appreciate nature’s bounty—and had him crouching and spinning almost before Isabella set foot in the copse of trees.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” she said, her voice husky, possibly because Gabe’s fierce expression alarmed her.

He relaxed instantly, all sign of his panther-like stealth dissolved. “I saw two elk. One with fuzzy antlers, one without.” His joy was reflected in his wide smile.

“Elk? Probably not, city boy. Not this low in the hills. It’s too late in the season. Any elk herds would’ve moved on to higher feeding grounds by now. It was probably someone’s range cattle gone astray.”

“Who are you calling city boy? I can tell an elk from a cow, I’ll have you know.”

Tilting her head to one side, Isabella let herself really look at him for the first time. Oh, she’d given him a fast inspection at Summer’s reception. Now she studied him feature by feature. Broad shoulders. Solid chest. Flat stomach hidden by a knit, short-sleeved shirt. Narrow hips still encased in slacks rather than blue jeans. And polished loafers, mud-spattered from his recent trek.