Gabriel's Bride

“Let that be a warning, Sarah Ann. Little girls shouldn’t play with fire. Every assignment gets my full attention. And real or not, you wouldn’t like what I’d expect of a wife.”

* * *

“What do you mean you turned it down?” Mike Hennesey wrinkled his sunburned nose and scrubbed at his russet curls in pure exasperation.

Rafe Okee sat across the dining table. Darkly bronzed and wiry, in jogging shorts, he pulled the bandana securing his long hair off his brow and snorted his agreement. “Hell, Cap’n! If this place is ever going to pay off, we need that frontage—bad.”

Freshly showered and looking forward to a quiet meal, Gabe scowled at his partners’ attack, then turned a fierce glare at the true author of this situation. “Been spilling the beans again, Beulah?”

“All I said was, it’s a damn fool who cuts off his nose to spite his face.”

With a graceful agility belied by her size and bulk, she slid the three plates she held balanced on one arm onto the table in front of the three men. Somehow she even managed to accomplish this feat without dripping any cigarette ashes in the dishes.

Grilled jumbo shrimp sizzled on the gargantuan platters, filling the evening air with a tantalizing aroma, but Gabe was in no mood to be placated by Beulah’s culinary skills, not when she’d obviously been indulging in her favorite hobby—troublemaking.

“You got a long nose, Beulah. That was a private conversation.”

She gave a laugh that sounded like a caw. “Cat fight was more like it. Heard you all the way to Tampa, I’ll bet. That gal sure left out of here steamed up.”

“Oh, hell, Gabe!” Mike groaned. “What’d you do to her?”

“You don’t want to know,” Beulah said, smirking. “It wasn’t pretty.”

“Don’t you have something better to do?” Gabe demanded.

“Don’t take that tone with me, mister.” Growling under her breath, she stomped toward the kitchen.

“Jeez, did you have to tick her off again?” Rafe asked in disgust. “We’ll be eating kibbles for a week.”

“I don’t know why we put up with that Medusa.” Gabe swung a leg over his chair.

“Yes, you do.” Mike bit into a shrimp and gave a long, appreciative sigh. “And this is it.”

Rafe eyed his former commanding officer belligerently. “What I want to know is, if old man Dempsey was so willing to deal on that property that he sent his own granddaughter over to talk to you, why didn’t you latch it down, pronto?”

Gabe shifted in his seat. “The, uh, price was too high.”

Miracle of miracles, apparently Beulah hadn’t overheard Sarah Ann’s outlandish proposal and passed that on, too. At least the poor girl would be spared that kind of ridicule and embarrassment. That he would take an unmerciful ribbing from his partners didn’t even enter into it, of course.

“Heck, Gabe, we need that frontage at any price,” Mike said. “I didn’t invest in this joint just to go bankrupt.”

“We’re far from that,” he protested, picking up his fork. “Besides, what are you complaining about? You’re hardly around a week per month these days.”

Mike grimaced. “Yeah, finding missing persons turns out to be a booming business.”

“Well, that last search-and-rescue nearly killed me. I’m getting too old for the Special Ops game,” Rafe groused.

“You got a better idea?”

“Sure. Improve access to Angel’s Landing, advertise and put up that RV park like we talked about, so we can make this place pay for itself and all retire.”

Mike pushed his empty plate aside and grinned. “I thought we’d done that already.”

“Mothballing the uniforms was only part of it,” Gabe pointed out.

The Fallen Angels team had served well together through dangerous times, in situations no government would even admit to knowing about. But a man’s psyche could only take so much. One by one, they’d reached a saturation point when they’d each seen and done too much to stay any longer.

When Rafe found this place and offered a third interest to his closest buddies, Gabe immediately came aboard. He’d been drifting aimlessly—South America, the Far East, it didn’t matter—too soul weary to go home to Texas, too battle-scarred to fit in anywhere else. The partnership was a godsend, a chance to reconnect to life. And it was working. There was healing in the hard physical work, the goals, the friendship. The three of them were bound by bonds of blood, camaraderie and loyalty. They didn’t let each other down.

Gabe grimaced. Only he had, by letting his temper get the best of him and scaring off Miss Sarah Ann Dempsey and their best chance at that property.

“Can’t say that I miss those fatigues, you know. I still break out in hives whenever I see khaki.” Joking, Mike’s grin grew even wider. “And at least we don’t have to salute Gabe anymore.”

“No, we can give him orders now,” Rafe said.

Gabe’s mouth twitched. “Mutiny, is it?”

“Since you obviously screwed up earlier, you get to repeat the assignment.” Rafe jabbed a finger at him. “Get in touch with Miss Dempsey and open negotiations again. Sir.”

Gabe’s belly clenched, and he frowned. “Waste of time.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Hey, Mike’s the ladies’ man in the outfit, remember?”

The Irishman laughed. “You’re saying you didn’t handle things with your usual finesse and flair?”

“Something like that.”

Rafe shrugged. “Tough. Get back in that ring and start swinging. A Ranger never admits defeat.”

“I really blew it,” Gabe admitted. “One look at me, and she’ll spit in my eye.”

Mike and Rafe glanced at each other. Grinned.

“So, duck, sir.”

Two

Little girl…

Sarah Ann folded Gramps’s pajama top with a savage snap of her wrists.

Out of your league…

Her face burned. The arrogance. The utter gall!

Try this…

Teeth gritted, she slapped the pj’s onto the bureau, then cast an anxious look at the wizened man asleep in the hospital bed. The window blinds were closed against the glare of a lingering sunset and the room was dim, illuminated only by the pale light of the fluorescent fixture above the narrow bed. Silver stubble sprouted on Harlan Dempsey’s weathered cheeks, and the IV tube dripped quietly into a thin arm, but he didn’t stir.

Sarah Ann drew a deep breath, wrinkling her nose at the familiar scents of disinfectant and alcohol, but nothing calmed her rankled feelings. Her stomach hadn’t stopped churning since the previous afternoon’s debacle. Damn Gabriel Thornton! Just who did he think he was?

Well, she wasn’t some simpleminded schoolgirl, easily intimidated by a mere kiss! Her thoughts balked at the word mere, then skittered away from the toe-curling memory of masterful lips and raw male power. Granted, he’d taken her completely off guard, but that’s because she’d been under the impression that the days of Neanderthal men were over and that a Texas drawl bespoke some old standard of Southern chivalry.

Wrong on both accounts.

Well, she wouldn’t make the mistake of underestimating him again. And there would be a next time. Someday, somewhere, Gabe Thornton would get his comeuppance, she guaranteed it. In the meantime, she still had to do her best for Gramps, and she was fresh out of ideas.

The bedside phone jangled, and she jumped to catch it on the first ring. Gramps murmured something indistinguishable and fitful, then subsided, snoring softly again.

“Sarah Ann, is that you?”

Suppressing a grimace of irritation, she tugged the phone cord to its length and stepped to the window to peer out between the slats. Her voice was low. “Hello, Douglas.”

Douglas Ritchie’s well-modulated words rumbled over the line. “Can you speak up? I can hardly hear you.”

“Gramps is sleeping.” Absently, she untucked her plain knit shirt from the waistband of her denim shorts and pulled her ponytail loose, getting more comfortable for the evening visiting hours still ahead of her.

“How is he today?”

“About the same.” She combed tired fingers through the mass of her hair, sighing at the sensation. “Weak.”

“And the doctors still don’t have any answers? That’s unacceptable. If I were you, I’d start thinking about malpractice—”

She stiffened. “Not now, Douglas, please.”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. That was thoughtless. You know I’d never do anything to upset you.”

“Yes, I know.”

That was the whole problem, Sarah Ann thought. How did you tell a nice guy and successful Realtor like Douglas Ritchie that you just weren’t interested?

Gabe’s blunt question “Don’t you have a boyfriend…?” rang in her ears again, staining her cheeks with chagrin.

While she wouldn’t exactly call herself experienced, she’d had several, thank you very much, including one serious beau she’d almost married before she’d dropped out of college to help Gramps. Her almost-fiancé had opted out at that point, unwilling to take on a wife with responsibilities.

After that disappointment she’d been much too busy to worry about her social life. It was hard to cultivate those kinds of friendships when you were up at dawn running a struggling tomato farm and orange groves, keeping up with the bookkeeping, taking up the slack in the warehouse, even doing some of the tractor driving, then falling into bed exhausted every night.

Lately, however, there was a difference of opinion on the boyfriend question, at least in Lostman’s Island. But just because you’d been going out occasionally for the past year with the only guy who asked, and the whole town had begun to assume you were a couple, did that have to make it so?

Tall and bespectacled, Douglas was a soft-spoken teddy bear who’d been so solicitous during Gramps’s illness Sarah Ann would have felt like the most ungrateful wretch in the world to break things off. And she’d found it flattering to have a man pursue her, even though his conversation bored her to tears and his kisses were lackluster. But she felt guilty taking advantage of his good nature and had decided that the only honorable course of action was to gently, but firmly, decline any further invitations.

Unfortunately Douglas didn’t seem to be getting the message. And to ask him to pretend to be her fiancé to ease Gramps’s worries would only encourage him unnecessarily just when she most wanted to disentangle herself.

“Why don’t you let me take you out for dinner tonight?” he asked. “I hear the Cotton Patch has great chicken-fried steak.”

The thought of a greasy, crusty mass of beef in a plastic basket of fries held even less appeal than making conversation with Douglas. “Thanks, but I really can’t.”

“You’re swamped taking care of the farm and staying at the hospital, too, aren’t you? Sure, sweetheart, I understand.” His words were full of kindness and concern and made Sarah Ann feel guiltier than ever.

“You try to do too much,” he said. “One of these days you’re going to have to let me help you out from under all that responsibility. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“That’s not nec—” The dial tone buzzed in her ear. Chewing her lip, she turned to hang up the receiver.

“You ought not to turn the boy down. He’ll get discouraged.”

Smiling into a pair of surprisingly bright blue eyes, Sarah Ann bent over the bed and squeezed her grandfather’s hand. His deeply tanned skin was wrinkled from a lifetime of outdoor work, but his halo of wispy gray hair gave him a gnomish charm.

“Hey, there, sleepyhead. How was your nap?”

“Don’t change the subject, girlie. That Douglas would marry you in a minute if you’d give him the least bit of encouragement.”

She kept her voice light. “I’m not in love with Douglas.”

“Pshaw.” Harlan’s face was drawn with fatigue, but his spirit was as cantankerous as ever. “What do young.folks know about that? Time was when two people—”

“Did I tell you Charlie came by with the ‘dozer bid?” Sarah Ann interrupted. “If we get those damaged orchards cleared, we can replant right away.”

“Damn hurricanes. Always causing trouble,” he grumbled, sidetracked for the moment. “What about the roof on the tractor shed?”

“That’s next on the list.” She mentally counted all the other things that needed doing, too. The thought of climbing a ladder and hammering tin filled her with dread, but she’d do what she had to do. She always did. Keeping her tone cheerful, she added, “Oh, and we got next season’s contracts from the farmers co-op.”

“Those orange-eating buzzards! Until some other outfit puts in a new processing plant and gives them some competition, they’ll try to steal us blind.”

“I can handle it, Gramps.”

“No, dad-blame it, you can’t!” In the blink of an eye, Harlan worked himself into a state, harping back over ground they’d covered time and again. “And I won’t be around to tend to things for you.”

“Don’t say that, Gramps.” She tried vainly to keep the distress out of her voice. “You’re going to get well and come home very soon.”

“Time to face facts, girlie.” He wheezed painfully, and his gnarled, work-worn hands made restless circles across the white sheets. “Looks like I’ve run out of aces. Damnation, but I thought you’d be settled with a good man and a passel of babies by now. If you and Douglas—”

“Forget about him.”

He slapped a shaky fist against the bed rail, his voice quivering with both anger and physical weakness. “If you aren’t going to marry the boy, then I’m going to take him up on his offer.”

“What offer?”

“To buy the whole place, lock, stock and barrel.”

Shock widened her eyes. “What!”

Harlan nodded. “He said he’d be glad to help out, and that’ll give you a nest egg. If you’re set on being an old maid, the least I can do is leave you the money to go back to college and finish out that teacher’s degree.”

“I don’t want that. And I can’t believe you’d sacrifice everything we’ve built for this crazy notion!”

“Crazy, am I?” Mounting agitation mottled his pallid skin, and his chest heaved. “Pass me that there phone, and I’ll show you what’s what!”

The look on his face alarmed her, as did the racking cough that shook his wiry frame.

“That’s all right, Gramps. Let’s talk calmly about it, okay?” She tried to placate him with a smile and reached for the plastic pitcher and glass on the bedside table. “Here, have some water.”

“Hand me the dad-blamed phone!” He shoved the water glass aside, slopping icy liquid down the front of Sarah Ann’s shirt. “I’m gonna see you’re taken care of one way or t’other.”

“Gramps, please—”

He scrabbled for the receiver, swinging IV tubing and coughing harshly. Someone knocked on the door. Nearly frantic with concern now, Sarah Ann rushed to admit the nurse.

Her hands froze on the door handle, and her mouth dropped open. She took in cowboy boots, long jeanclad legs and a white T-shirt stretched over broad shoulders. A pair of aviator sunglasses were hooked to the crew neck.

“What do you want?”

Gabe Thornton’s jaw worked at that hostile demand, but his manner was diffident, even deferential. “Miss Dempsey. I hate to bother you here, but if you could spare a moment, I’d like a word.”

“About what?” Fingers clutching the edge of the door, she cast an anxious glance over her shoulder, unnerved by Gramps’s continued hacking.

Gabe’s tawny gaze touched her, focused briefly on the damp knit clinging to her bosom, then hastily moved on. “My partners and I are very interested in that frontage property.”

Her teeth snapped together. “You’ve got your nerve. Go away.”

“If you’ll just hear me out—”

“Sarah…”

At Gramps’s strangled call, she forgot Gabe and rushed back to the bedside. Her grandfather’s pallor had turned a dull bluish tint. “Oh, my God—Gramps!”

Helplessness and fear paralyzed her, but then Gabe Thornton was beside her, taking in the situation, moving quickly, efficiently, lifting Harlan to a more upright position as easily as if he were a child and stuffing pillows behind his back.

“Take it easy, old-timer.” Gabe’s husky drawl was reassuringly matter-of-fact and held nothing of Sarah Ann’s panic. Balancing Harlan with one brawny arm, he slapped the call button on the wall, spoke quietly at the nurse’s buzz. “Respiratory distress. Get in here. Now.”

To Sarah Ann’s infinite gratitude, the imperative in his tone had a pair of nurses bursting through the door within seconds. Gabe transferred the patient to their capable ministrations. Terrified, Sarah Ann watched them work in a flurry of IV injections, blood pressure cuffs and oxygen tubing. Gabe took her elbow and gently tugged her out of the way.

“He’ll be all right,” he murmured.

She couldn’t answer and was only vaguely aware that she’d clenched a fist into Gabe’s shirt and was holding on to that anchor for dear life. He humored her, allowing the liberty, placing an arm across her back so that she was halfsupported against the bulk of his chest. She didn’t question the arrangement, merely soaked up the strength that seemed to emanate from him along with the warm scent of his skin, a mixture of male musk and soap.

Although it seemed an eternity, within just a few minutes Harlan’s breathing was less labored.

“That’s a lot better, isn’t it, Mr. Dempsey?” the head nurse asked cheerfully. Fifty and stout, Lillian Cannon was no-nonsense, performing her duties and directing her younger companion with absolute control and competency. Over the bed she caught Sarah Ann’s eye and mouthed, “He’s okay now.”

Sarah Ann slumped with relief, bowing her head and resting it for the briefest of seconds against Gabe’s chest. Her heart cried out with the sure foreknowledge of grief to come. “Okay” for now, she thought. But for how much longer?

She had the fleeting sensation of sympathetic fingers stroking her hair. Before she could decide if she was mistaken, embarrassment slammed into her. Cheeks heating, she tried to pull away, too chagrined to even look at Gabe. He let her retreat a bit, but only to guide her with a hand in the small of her back to her grandfather’s bedside. Gramps watched them approach, his blue eyes tired over the clear plastic oxygen mask covering his nose.

“You rest now, Mr. Dempsey,” Lillian said, patting his hand. Then, to Sarah Ann, “Do you know what broughtthis on?”

Guiltily, she swallowed hard and nodded. “A difference of opinion.”

The head nurse gave her a stern look, the kind that said disturbing seriously ill patients in this manner was beneath contempt. “Dr. Stephens said we’ve got to avoid this kind of upset at any cost, you know that.”

“Yes.”

“As long as we understand each other. At any cost.”

Nodding, Lillian signaled her companion and they left. For all that he’d been a great help, Sarah Ann wished fervently Gabe would do the same. Instead, he stood behind her with his arms crossed over his broad chest, a slight frown puckering his brow. Ignoring him, she leaned over the bed rail, trying to make her smile both teasing and encouraging.

“Whew, that was something. But you always like to be the life of the party, don’t you, Gramps?”

Harlan scowled, noticed Gabe then, and managed a croak. “Who—?”

“This is our new neighbor, Gabe Thornton,” Sarah Ann said stiffly, remembering why Gabe was here.

The old man looked blank.

“We talked a while back about a piece of frontage property, Mr. Dempsey,” Gabe explained.

At the mention of property, Harlan’s regard snapped back to Sarah Ann. Behind the mask his words were muffled, but clear. “Call Douglas.”

Dismay chilled her. Even after what he’d just been through, he still wouldn’t give up. “We don’t need him.”

Agitation returning, he struggled to sit up. “Dad-blame it, girlie, I said do it!”

She knew with a certainty that he’d kill himself over this—right before her eyes, here, this minute—if she didn’t do something. Something drastic. Something desperate. Something outrageous.

“I’ve been trying to tell you, Gramps. I’ve got wonderful news.” Turning, Sarah Ann caught Gabe’s hand. Laying it lovingly on the damp spot between her breasts, she beamed up into his stunned face. “Gabriel asked me to marry him—and I said yes!”

“You can’t tell him the truth. Do you want to kill him outright?”

Floating on the evening twilight, Gabe’s voice was savage. “No, it’s you I’m liable to murder, lady! Get in.”

Hauling Sarah Ann around by the arm, he reached for the driver’s door of his army green Jeep. Balking, she tried to dig her heels into the sun-warmed asphalt of the hospital parking lot

“Hold it, buster! I’m not going anywhere with you!”

“The way I see it, you got no choice.” He thrust her into the vehicle, shoving her over into the passenger side as he slid under the wheel. She made a grab for the opposite door handle, but he dragged her back with a jerk. “Sit still.”

“Listen, you—”

“Can it, sister. We’re going to talk, that’s all, and I want the shouting to take place out of earshot.”

She quit struggling. “Oh.”

He waited a moment more, then released her arm. “That’s more like it.”

Scooting into the corner as far away from him as she could, she sent him a resentful look. “I’m sick of your caveman tactics. You manhandle me again and you’ll be walking funny.”

Propping his forearm on the steering wheel, Gabe inspected her from her flowing mane to the slender but shapely turn of her ankles. Her legs weren’t half-bad, actually, he thought, and she blushed at his perusal and tugged uncomfortably at the hem of her shorts. Enjoying her squirming, he blessed her with a sour smile.

“Big talk from a gal your size. Want to try best-two-outof-three falls and see who wins?”

“That’s right, resort to brute strength when all else fails,” she said with a disdainful sniff. “It’s no more than I’d expect from your type.”

“Me? I’ve seen less ruthless behavior from a cobra! You want to tell me why the hell you told your grandpa that bald-faced lie?”

“You know why. You saw how he was,” she muttered. Then her eyes flashed blue-violet in the dusky light. “And you’re the biggest whiner I ever saw. I told you I’d give you the frontage property for doing this one little favor. What more do you want?”

Gabe rubbed his palms down his jaws and contemplated various forms of mayhem. “Not to be involved at all would be nice.”

“Why don’t you accept this gracefully?” She heaved a sigh at the glower he shot at her. “All right, I know I’ve taken advantage, but for a few hours of playacting, you get what you want as well as the satisfaction of sparing an old man needless suffering.”

“Don’t kid me that this is a selfless act. You’re getting something out of it, too.”

“I love my grandfather, not that you’d understand anything as simple as that!” she snapped. “You’re just mad because you’ve been outmaneuvered by a female.”

Gabe felt himself bristling. “Look, lady, I don’t know you or your grandpa from Adam. What if I’m the kind of guy who can say the hell with you and him, too?”

She was silent for a long moment, then spoke slowly, her voice husky. “I guess I’m betting you aren’t.”

That took the wind out of his sails. “Oh, hell.”

She spread her hands in appeal. “Please, Gabriel. I’m really desperate. You saw how happy the news made Gramps, how relieved he was. If I can give him that much before…”

She choked to a stop, pressing her knuckles to her lips. Gabe felt his anger slipping away, along with his resolve. Whatever he felt about this crazy scheme, it was clear she genuinely adored her grandfather. He felt a pang of envy. A woman who cared this deeply would be a prize to anyone she loved.

Rather desperately, he said, “But he wants to witness ‘our’ wedding. You heard him. Have the ceremony in his room, for God’s sake!”

Sarah Ann licked her lips. “We could fake it.”