Guarding Gaby Read online

  Gabriela Navarro believed she and Eli Wolverton would always be together…until he abandoned her.

  Years later, Gaby has made a new life in the big city. Her future is bright, and Eli is her past. When she returns to bury her father and learns that Eli is accused of his murder, she is stunned, but she no longer knows the man who’s replaced the boy she loved.

  Then their paths cross again, and though the longing between them is more powerful than ever, Eli refuses to defend himself and pushes her to go. Does Gaby believe the charges against him, or the urgings of her heart?

  There is so much more at stake than Gaby can imagine. With his freedom and his life on the line, only one thing would draw Eli away from his search for the truth: Gaby’s safety.

  Even if that means he’ll lose her forever.

  “Jean Brashear’s distinctive storytelling voice instantly draws in the reader. She writes with warmth and emotional truth.”

  ~ #1 NY Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber

  Guarding Gaby

  Second Chances, Book 1

  Jean Brashear

  Copyright © 2019 Jean Brashear

  EPUB Edition

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  Table of Contents

  Cover

  About Guarding Gaby

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Excerpt from Bringing Bella Back

  Books by Jean Brashear

  About the Author

  Connect With Jean

  Chapter One

  “You did it, girlfriend! I’m so proud of you.”

  Gaby Navarro accepted a hug from her ebullient friend Beth Thom. “I keep wanting to pinch myself.” Though, truth was, she’d burned a lot of midnight oil to get this promotion to style editor at Bijou magazine.

  “It’s real, hot stuff,” Beth advised. “The boss better watch out or you’ll have her job.”

  “I think she’s safe for a day or two.” Gaby wondered why, now that she had what she’d battled so hard to obtain, she didn’t feel more jubilant. From the day she’d left college and arrived in Manhattan, she’d been focused on exactly this climb. She was only tired, that was all.

  “We have to celebrate tonight. I’m making reservations.” Beth’s cheer was impossible to resist. “Put yourself in my hands, girl. We will have a rip-roaring time.”

  Gaby found herself smiling. Letting the sense of accomplishment sink in. “Thank you.”

  “Hey, I’m selfish. Editorial board meetings are a pain in the you-know-what. I need a partner in crime.”

  Gaby laughed.

  The phone on her desk buzzed. She glanced at it, then at Beth. Sighed. “Back to the real world.”

  Beth grinned. “No rest for the wicked.” With a wink, she departed.

  Gaby picked up the receiver. “Yes?”

  “There’s a call for you from Texas,” the receptionist said. “A Sheriff Anderson. He refuses to leave a message. Congratulations, by the way.”

  Sheriff Anderson? It had been nine years since she’d had contact with anyone back there.

  “Okay, I’ll take the call. And thanks.”

  She punched the flickering button. “Gaby Navarro.”

  “Gabriela?” So strange to be called Gabriela once more. And the voice was not the older one she expected. This was his son, Chad. Her former boyfriend.

  “Chad? You’re…the sheriff?”

  He chuckled. “Amazing, huh? My dad passed away two years ago, and the voters saw fit to give me the job.” Memories crashed in on her…Chad, the golden boy, literally. Blond, tall and handsome. Quarterback of the football team, student body president. All that a girl could dream.

  Until Eli changed everything.

  “Gabriela, I’m sorry, but this isn’t a social call. I’m afraid I have bad news.”

  The past vanished with the warning in his tone. “Papa is all right, isn’t he?”

  A long silence. “That’s why I’m calling. You need to come home.”

  “Is he sick? Hurt?” Papa had always seemed invincible.

  “I wish I didn’t have to do this on the phone. No easy way to break it: your father is gone, Gabriela.”

  “Gone?” she echoed. Dropped into her chair and opened the middle desk drawer, groping for the picture she kept there.

  “There was a fire in one of the barns. He was alone.”

  “Where was Ramon?” The foreman had been with her father as long as she could remember.

  A pause. “Your father had to let Ramon go several months back, so there was no one—” He cleared his throat. “By the time a passerby noticed the smoke, it was too late.”

  She hunched over her desk, clutching the photograph. She’d left in a fury. Thrown ugly words in her father’s face, and now they would never—

  She barely registered what Chad was saying. “—good man, but in the last few years, his health had deteriorated.”

  The knife slid in a little deeper. “I’ll be on the first plane.”

  “Let me know which flight, and I’ll pick you up.”

  “No, I—”

  “Gabriela, please. I want to help you.”

  “I have to go now. I’ll take care of it.” She hung up before he could tell her anything else.

  Before she had to hear more recrimination in his voice. Her father had wanted her to marry Chad and unite their adjoining ranches.

  But she’d had other dreams, even before—

  Eli. Outcast Eli Wolverton had been her dark secret.

  Her one true love.

  Or so she’d believed until he’d abandoned her. Vanished under a cloud of suspicion.

  Eli was old history now, not worth a second’s thought, but Papa…

  What have I done?

  She stroked one finger across the photo of Papa and herself on her seventh birthday, a dignified man smiling at the girl in the pink organdy dress. Ruthlessly, she pushed back the black demon that would devour her if she thought about never being able to make up for what she’d done to her father—

  Stop it. Focus on the details. Get online and find a plane ticket. With a leaden heart, she reached for her keyboard drawer.

  “Hey, girl, I got us—What’s wrong?” Beth at the door.

  Gaby couldn’t figure out how to answer her. She’d never told a soul how she and her father had parted. She’d left her past behind in Texas.

  “I just—” She crumpled. “My—my father—he’s—” She lifted stinging eyes. “He’s dead.”

  “Oh, honey…” In minutes, Beth had the whole story and, in her inimitable mode, had swung into action. Before Gaby could blink, she was booked on a flight leaving in three hours and tucked into a cab, headed to pack
her things and return home.

  Except it hadn’t been home for nine years.

  And now it never would.

  Eli Wolverton made certain he’d left no tracks leading to the cave where he’d taken up residence. He knelt before the scarred and emaciated dog who seemed to have adopted him and untied the rope he used to restrain the healing animal while he was out making his rounds in the darkness.

  With a practiced eye, he scanned the wounds the dog had suffered at the hands of the worst of predators: Eli’s fellow man. As he’d traveled the globe the last nine years, Eli had learned that human nature was the same the world over: rich or poverty-stricken, educated or illiterate, there was cruelty in mankind, but there was also astonishing courage and kindness.

  He’d also acquired critical survival lessons to add to those he’d learned the hard way as a child dodging his mother’s boyfriend’s fists. He could forage for food from jungle to desert, collect water from the dew or the underside of leaves, even perform basic medical care, if needed. Though he’d experienced enough violence to last him a lifetime, he knew how to take a punch and throw one. He was a fair shot and could use a knife, though he preferred to wield his laptop and camera as he circled the planet, telling the stories of people without voices. Making their plights heard on his internet report, The Hot Spot Journal.

  The wandering life suited him fine. He was happiest alone. Relying on no one.

  The only person he’d truly trusted, besides the mother he hadn’t been able to help when it counted, was Gaby Navarro.

  And she’d abandoned him when he needed her most.

  The dog licked his hand.

  Eli stroked him as he eyed the empty dish. “Your appetite’s improving. You ready for a trip outside?”

  As if he understood, the dog rose and stretched. Wagged the stub of tail.

  Eli smiled. “It’s hotter than Hades out there already. Don’t guess you want to wait for evening?”

  The animal, an odd mix of a boxer’s muscular frame, however malnourished, and beagle ears and coloring, whimpered.

  Eli headed toward the slit that was the well-disguised mouth of the cave. “All right, let’s go.”

  The dog he had yet to name because he had no intention of keeping him made surprisingly good time, beating him outside. Eli could almost hear the sigh of relief as the hound lifted his leg on a creosote bush. “You’re nearly ready, fella. If only I knew what to do with you.”

  A pet was not in his plans. Nor was any sort of permanence.

  As the dog followed his nose, Eli settled into the cool, welcome shade and stared out at the blistering heat shimmering over a landscape some would term barren.

  He had once called it home, a place he’d missed more than he would ever have imagined at eighteen. It had its own beauty, sere and harsh as it was. The scent of creosote bush and mesquite, the endless vista, the foothills topped by a sky big and blue, with only the faintest vein of cloud white to marble it.

  This land demanded much of those who would inhabit it. The faint of heart moved on—east to the hill country, north to the cool green mountains of southern New Mexico—or traversed the thousand miles of more desert to reach the Pacific Ocean.

  As he had, nine years ago. Hitchhiked and camped out, worked a series of menial jobs with an eye to making it to California. Gotten a ride from a television reporter, Bob Collier, who was driving cross-country, collecting the stories of ordinary people. Their pace had been slow, and as they traveled, he and Bob had talked about all the places Bob had been, what he’d seen through thirty years of globetrotting, how the business of news had changed. Bob had opened up the world to Eli, though neither he nor Bob had realized it at the time.

  Since then, he’d ranged far and wide to escape the death sentence waiting for him here, however unofficially.

  Because he’d known too much. Seen too much.

  And been powerless to save Gaby except by leaving her behind.

  But he’d left her a note, after everything went wrong that last night. He’d needed to see her just once more, before he vanished. Be sure she knew that he was innocent.

  But Gaby had never shown. She’d obviously figured out what he’d understood from the first, that they had no future. She’d had plans, big ones, and he was all too aware that, whatever she’d said back then, he did not fit in them.

  At first, the pain of losing her had nearly killed him. If you could die from missing the other half of yourself, he’d have been a goner.

  Anger had saved him. Brick by brick, he’d rebuilt the walls only Gaby had breached.

  Life went on, and so had he.

  And almost managed to forget Gaby—though she wasn’t called Gaby now, he was sure. That had been his name for her, while everyone else used Gabriela, a graceful, dignified choice for a girl everyone expected to go far.

  His jaw cracked in a yawn as the long, strenuous night caught up with him. He whistled for the dog, who came running. Eli poured more water in the animal’s makeshift dish and briefly contemplated eating something himself.

  But in the end, he simply drank water, too, checked his sleeping bag for unwelcome visitors, and stretched out.

  The dog padded toward the mouth of the cave as if to keep watch. Still musing over what might have become of the young girl who’d been the only one to see something worthwhile in a hellion, Eli let himself slip away into slumber.

  Gaby walked through the jetway and felt the press of dry West Texas heat. She proceeded to baggage claim, hearing around her soft-spoken Spanish and West Texas twang. The faces, so many a dusky gold like her own, brought a lump to her throat.

  Chiles. Here, even in the airport, she smelled their tang, underlain by the sweet, floury scent of tortillas on the griddle, the rich aroma of frijoles and garlic and onion. Her mouth watered, and she had an urge to stop at the little kiosk and stuff herself with the flavors of home.

  After nine years on the East Coast, she’d forgotten so much. She moved through the crowds with a smile creasing her face.

  Until the thought, never far away, reappeared.

  Oh, Papa.

  “Gabriela?” The baritone voice, richer than she’d registered in those shocked minutes on the phone.

  “Chad.” He was no longer the boy every girl in her school had wanted; now he was a man, fully-grown. Jeans and boots and starched khaki shirt, a Stetson, quickly removed from his head as all true cowboys were raised to do. His bright gold hair had darkened to honey. “How did you know when I’d arrive?”

  “I have my sources.” He smiled.

  “I can’t ask you to—”

  “You don’t need to. I’m here, Gabriela. Just lean on me for a bit.”

  His shoulders certainly looked wide enough.

  But she wasn’t into leaning. She picked up her bag before he could and followed him outside to the big, shiny black extended-cab pickup.

  “You always owned a sports car.” Why had she remembered that now? He’d picked her up for dates in a never-ending series of slick racers.

  And tried to seduce her in every one.

  Chad laughed. “I still like them. Got one in the garage, in fact—a Corvette. But this is more practical for my job.”

  She flicked a glance toward his shirt pocket. “No badge?”

  “Not to pick up a pretty lady.” He grinned as he helped her into the seat.

  “I’m amazed, Chad. I never knew you wanted to follow in your dad’s footsteps.”

  A faint shadow darkened his blue eyes briefly. “I didn’t, but—” He shrugged. “Things change.” He closed her door and rounded the hood.

  They rode in silence for a few minutes. “Hungry? We could stop at Seis Salsas.”

  Wistfully, she considered the legendary restaurant. Wondered if sharing a meal with an attractive man was disrespectful to her father’s memory.

  Given that it was this particular man, she guessed her father would be smiling.

  But despite the moment of temptation back at the term
inal, she wasn’t really hungry, even having had no lunch. Wasn’t sure she ever would be.

  “Thanks, but I’d rather get this over with.”

  “No sweat.” He hooked one wrist over the steering wheel and hit the accelerator, driving fast and confidently as he always had. “Why don’t you just settle back and see if you can catch a nap.” Chamizal was nearly two hours away.

  “I look that bad?”

  He glanced over at her. “Men in New York too blind to tell you you’re more beautiful than ever?”

  She found a smile at that. “It’s not that easy to find a straight man who’s not married, whether to a woman or to his work. Or both.” She lifted a shoulder. “But that’s okay. I’m focused on my own career.”

  “So no one for me to tussle with over you?”

  Tussle. The word provoked a chuckle. “Nope.” When was the last time she said nope? “But I won’t be here long enough, anyway.”

  “I might want to change your mind on that topic.”

  “You can’t. There’s nothing for me here. I just have to figure out how to dispose of—” Everything her father had spent a lifetime building. Anguish flooded her. That land had been in her family for decades. After her brother died in infancy, her father’s dream had been for her to carry on the legacy.

  Oh, Papa, I can’t.

  Chad squeezed her shoulder. “We’ll talk about all that later. You can count on me, I hope you know that. But for now, just close your eyes and let me get you home.”

  Home. That word again.

  Exhausted, Gaby merely nodded and complied.

  Only seconds had passed, she would swear, when the truck stopped.

  “Gabriela.” Chad touched her arm.

  Dread rose as she resisted opening her eyes.

  “We’re at your house, honey, but you don’t have to sleep here. You could stay with me.”

  The warm invitation in his eyes was tempting, but she didn’t allow herself cowardice.

  She forced her eyelids open. Felt the tears gather.

  Ruthlessly, she blinked them back and examined the place where she’d spent her childhood. The stucco, once a pristine white her father repainted every couple of years to keep it as her mother had loved it, was chipped and the color of sand. Even her inexperienced eye could detect a dip in the roof and missing shingles. Everywhere she looked, she spotted signs of decay Frank Navarro would never have allowed.