Guarding Gaby Read online

  His health was failing. She turned to Chad. “What was wrong with him?”

  Chad grimaced. “Lung cancer.”

  Gaby’s breath caught as she recalled the pipe that her father found such a pleasure. “Was he getting medical attention?”

  Chad shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  A desperate need to run jittered inside her. She grabbed the door handle.

  “Gabriela—”

  She didn’t wait for him. Couldn’t talk. Didn’t want to hear any more just now. As her feet settled onto the earth she’d once known like the back of her hand, she whipped her head around, searching for something, anything to ease her guilt at the shambles she faced.

  Her gaze caught on the garden. “It needs watering.” Her feet began to move before her thoughts could catch up. She had to find something constructive to do before she gave in and screamed out her grief and shame.

  “Gabriela, there’s something I have to tell you.”

  She kept walking.

  “Gabriela, wait. Don’t—”

  She rounded the corner of the house. Saw the blackened ruin in the distance.

  And fell to her knees with a moan.

  Chad reached her side and lifted her. Turned her around.

  She recoiled from the comfort. Forced herself to face the spot where her father died. For long seconds, she couldn’t muster a word as she stared at the horror of it. Then at last she did. “How?” she croaked.

  He was silent, too, then cleared his throat. “That’s what I was going to tell you.” He stepped closer. “There’s no easy way to say this. The fire was set; I just got confirmation before I picked you up.”

  She whirled. “Arson? But—but who would—”

  His look was grim. “I wish I didn’t have to cause you more pain, but you’ll hear soon enough.”

  “Hear what?”

  “Remember when Eli set the fire that killed his mother? Then escaped capture and vanished?”

  “No.” She covered her mouth. Shook her head violently. “You can’t mean—” She began to tremble.

  “Eli was seen right here, arguing with your father only days ago. He hated your dad for coming between you. But don’t you worry. If he’s still in the area, I’m going to find him, and when I do—” Chad gripped her arms.

  “—He’ll be charged with your father’s murder.”

  Chapter Two

  The bang of the screen door echoed against her already screaming nerves. At last, she’d convinced Chad to go, and she was alone.

  With the memory of the ambitions for which she’d turned her back on her father, on his grueling work, his hopes for her. He’d never forgiven her…and now he never would.

  Swallowing at the lump of congealed tears in her throat, Gaby looked around the simple, small country kitchen. The same old mid-century tubular metal table and chairs on which she’d eaten hundreds of meals sat behind the door. She walked to the cabinet beside the sink and took down a jelly glass she’d used a thousand times. She ran the faucet, smelling the cool, clear well water, suddenly eager to drink in its innocent purity.

  As she ran her hands across the multi-colored flecks of the Formica countertop, her gaze fastened on the brown circle left by a hot cast-iron skillet when she’d once caught the grease on fire, trying to cook a surprise birthday meal for Papa.

  She set the glass down, her drink untasted.

  Gaby escaped from the sharp ache of this room and its memories. Walked into the darkened living room, where the first thing she saw was her father’s chair.

  Empty.

  So many moments of him sitting there rushed up to meet her…after a long day, his head leaning back in exhaustion…holding her on his lap, letting her pretend to read the paper to him…carefully adding small, cramped figures on the back of a brown paper sack in the dim lamplight, his forehead wrinkled with worry.

  She made it to the chair before she fell to the floor and sobbed. Kneeling, arms still tight around her middle, she laid her cheek against the worn cushion and drew in the sweetish tang of the pipe tobacco he had loved.

  She caught the rich leather scent from his saddle and suddenly rode again before him like a princess, his arm gesturing wide across their kingdom. She breathed in the loamy garden and remembered following him down the rows, biting her cheek in concentration to be sure she dropped the tiny seeds precisely into the holes his big fingers made.

  “Oh, Papa, how you must have hated me.” Her stomach hurt from the twisting, sour regret. She couldn’t breathe around the black knot of her guilt.

  What had happened since she’d left?

  Her ears rang with the memory of the last summer she ever spent in this house.

  Her father’s rage, that night when he’d caught her sneaking out to meet Eli. Their bitter exchange when she told him about the scholarship that would be her ticket out of Chamizal.

  Then his silence. His refusal to see her dreams, to try to understand that she’d needed to be more than a mother at eighteen, old by thirty. That she’d never wanted to fight the wind, the heat, the poverty, attempting to pull a meager living from the soil of this harsh land.

  “How can you do this to me? Do you not see that I did all this for you?”

  “No, Papa, you did it for you. You wanted me to be your good little girl and go find a husband, have babies, give you grandsons. You never asked me what I wanted.”

  “Bastante! Enough—” he had roared, his face dark with rage.

  “You’re right, Papa. It is enough. I’ve seen the last of this desolate place. I’m going away where I can be somebody.”

  She’d barely heard his reply. “You are already somebody here, Gabriela Lucia. You are my daughter.” He’d locked her in her room and departed.

  When he’d returned, he’d sat up all night to be sure she didn’t leave to meet Eli.

  For hours, she’d watched at her window and waited, but Eli had never come. When day had broken and Papa had set her free, she’d searched for Eli everywhere, all the deserted places he’d made his refuge because he’d had nowhere else to go. She’d checked each spot where they’d ever hidden notes for each other, and she’d been frantic that he was waiting and wondering where she was.

  Then she’d heard about Eli’s mother and the fire that had claimed her life. About the manhunt going on for Eli as the prime suspect.

  He’d vanished without a word to her.

  Soon, it had been time for her to go, too. She nearly didn’t, but she kept remembering how Eli had encouraged her as she searched for scholarships and studied late into the night. He’d told her she could be so much more. That he was proud of her.

  So Gabriela became Gaby and left to follow the road she’d once hoped Eli would travel with her. In retrospect, she realized he’d never once spoken of a shared future as he’d spurred her on.

  With her father’s silence ringing in her ears nearly as loudly as her longing for Eli, Gaby had left.

  Gabriela Lucia Navarro had become, for all intents and purposes, an orphan.

  Now it was official.

  Gaby’s body rocked in misery, her face scraping against the rough fabric she wouldn’t let herself defile with much-too-late, useless tears. Finally, she rose, went into her room and undressed by the faint golden glow of one small lamp, then slipped between the sheets.

  She would bury her father tomorrow, but his heart had been buried many years before, lost when her mother died. When his dreams of a legacy dried to dust at the hands of his ambitious daughter.

  Eli focused the camera on the two men two hundred yards away. Their body language was too relaxed; tonight there would be no delivery, but he would capture their faces to add to his collection of evidence.

  He waited another hour, watching them smoke and murmur and grow somnolent, then he slipped away to make his rounds.

  When he got to Gaby’s house, he avoided the barn to prevent the horse from nickering in greeting. Tomorrow, during the funeral, he would check on Paco’s
feed and water, perhaps manage more than the cursory grooming he’d dared in daylight forays, since no one would be on the premises.

  Frank Navarro had gambled by summoning the man he’d despised, and lost his life in the process. There was no one left to set things aright, no other person who could clear Eli and give him back his life.

  He neared the house and made an unwarranted trip beneath her bedroom window, blaming curiosity.

  Then the light flicked on.

  Eli retreated into the shadows.

  But he didn’t leave. And when he heard her weeping, his hands clenched into fists.

  Once she would have turned to him for comfort, but that was light years ago. Back when Gaby had made her innocent’s view of the world seem sensible…and he, the wild boy who understood only the darker realities, had been too dazzled by the miracle of her to argue.

  Everything in him tensed as he felt her grief roll over him, but with the discipline that had been years in the making, he remained where he was.

  Keeping vigil.

  Untold moments passed, and Gaby’s sobs slowed to the occasional sniffle. The light went out and he heard, through the open window, the intimate sounds of her body shifting on the mattress.

  Eli remained motionless for a long time.

  Then he slipped away to continue his nightly patrol.

  The funeral mass was a blur.

  Facing these people she had once known so well had required every ounce of strength Gaby possessed. Their compassion was almost worse than the accusations she felt floating in the air.

  Only two people had stood out: Chad, who’d remained by her side every second.

  And Ramon, who’d taken her into his arms like a lost child.

  She couldn’t remember Ramon ever being young, but now he was ancient and bony. Frail but kind as ever. A man of few words, eyes dark with sorrow. “Dulcita.” Sweet One, his pet name for her. “I will help you with Paco tonight.”

  Paco. Her father’s horse. She hadn’t spared a thought for him the night before. What would become of him when she left?

  “No need. I’ll be taking care of her,” Chad said.

  The possessive tone grated at her. “I can do that for myself.”

  Chad’s jaw tightened, and she regretted her rudeness. “Thank you both, however.”

  Ramon glanced between them, gave her one last hug and murmured promises to assist her in any way he could, then backed away.

  At the graveside, Gaby remained long after everyone had left. Her eyes were dry; the body into which she hadn’t been able to put any food felt as empty and brittle as cornstalks gone brown in harsh sun.

  Her father’s body was reduced to mere ashes. She would never touch him again, never be held in those strong arms.

  She could think of no words to say, no way to write an ending she could live with.

  She swayed on her feet, and Chad was beside her in an instant. “That’s it,” he snapped. “I’m taking you to my place and putting you to bed. There’s no sense in this.”

  His presumption stiffened her spine. She jerked from his grip. “I’m not your problem, Chad.”

  “Someone needs to be there for you, Gabriela. You’re all alone now.”

  “I’ve been alone for years.” She forced herself to soften the harshness of her response and placed one hand on his forearm. “Chad, I appreciate very much everything you’ve done. This—” she gestured around them with a trembling hand. “Would have been so much more difficult without you. But you’re taking time away from the search for my father’s killer, and I can’t let you do it anymore.”

  “My men can handle the hunt. I stay in constant contact.”

  “I’m sure you do, but you’re wearing yourself out.”

  “I know my limits.”

  “You look exhausted. Take me home, then go get some rest.”

  “I have too much to do to—”

  She nodded in satisfaction. “Just as I guessed.” She let her weariness show. “I’ll be fine. I didn’t sleep well last night. I’ll make myself something to eat and then lie down.” She squeezed the firm muscle beneath her hand. “I can’t think anymore, Chad. It’s all too overwhelming. Let’s both get a good night’s sleep, and we can talk tomorrow.”

  His reluctance was clear, but he didn’t argue any longer. The trip back to the ranch was silent. Gaby jittered inside with the need to be alone.

  She mustered the strength to bid a polite farewell and thank him again. Then, with relief, she watched the wheels of his big truck spin on the caliche as, she hoped, he went home to seek his own reprieve.

  With one hand on the screen door, she prepared to go inside—

  And felt the darkness within steal over her, smothering her with its thick blanket of desolation. Instead of doing as she’d promised, Gaby dropped her purse on the concrete porch and fled into her father’s garden to tear at weeds.

  If only it were as easy to rip out the haunting echoes of all she and her father would never have the chance to mend.

  The flames roared high, merciless maws of destruction consuming everything in their path. “No—Mom! No, I’m coming—Let me go—”

  Eli jerked awake, heart pounding.

  Doggy breath hit his nose just before the wide, wet tongue lapped upward across his cheek.

  “What the—” He coiled to defend—

  The cave, not the house. Not the barn.

  And daylight outside.

  A furry head butted against his leg. Another lick. A whimper.

  “You okay?” He scanned the dog, noted nothing to alarm him. Scrubbed his face and remembered that he’d set his internal alarm clock to rise after only four hours of sleep so that he could care for the old man’s horse while Gaby was gone to bury her father.

  Gaby. Sobbing in her bed. Alone, as she shouldn’t have been, if only he’d been able to act more quickly on her father’s tip.

  He let his head fall into his palms, then rose and stretched.

  The dog wriggled with impatient glee. If the canine had had more than a stub of a tail on that boxer’s body, he’d have thumped the wall in his eagerness.

  “You are one ugly mutt, you know that?”

  The dog just lowered his head to the ground, sniffing ardently around the edges of the cave. After checking to be sure there was still water in the animal’s bowl, Eli topped it off, took a long drink for himself to empty one jug, then set that aside to replenish from the well at the homestead.

  He grabbed some jerky and entertained visions of crawling right back in that pallet.

  But the horse would be hungry, too.

  And Eli was tired of being solely a creature of the night.

  He laced up his boots, grabbed the jug and strode outside. The dog shot past him, then slowed his pace long enough to hike his leg here and there. He scented the morning breeze and was off to the next bush to warn off any males foolish enough to trespass. He followed his nose, sniffing so loudly Eli could hear every snort.

  Eli grinned. “That’s the way, fella. Mark and conquer. We males have simple needs.” He watched the animal race away on his first long jaunt since Eli had found him and admired how the dog was filling out and regaining strength.

  The dog’s head lifted suddenly.

  “Hear that?” Eli listened to Paco’s nicker coming from the barn. “You ever seen a horse, fella?” Patting his thigh, he signaled the dog to follow. The animal complied, trotting along at his side, tongue hanging out, panting eagerly.

  Eli chuckled. “If not, you’re about to meet the biggest dog you ever laid eyes on.”

  But with every step nearer the homestead, he thought about the sounds he’d heard from Gaby’s window last night. To ignore someone in that much torment went against the grain. Someone so alone.

  Eli shook his head as they entered the barn, snapping his attention back to the dog. He grabbed the collar he’d woven. How dogs and horses would react when they hadn’t grown up together was unpredictable.

  He a
pproached the stall and crouched beside the canine, who quivered, then barked. The horse stirred.

  “Easy, boy, he’s behind a big old stall door. He can’t hurt you.”

  The sorrel snuffled at the boards, shook his head and whinnied. The dog backed up.

  “Pretty huge, huh?” Eli smiled at the hound, head low in submission as he edged closer to the dreaded giant.

  When the big sorrel stamped his feet, the dog raced back to Eli and whimpered.

  Eli laughed. He approached the horse, palm out for the animal to sniff.

  The horse stepped back, then circled in the stall. He edged closer. “Yeah, it’s me.” He glanced over to be sure the horse still had feed. “I know it’s been a couple of days. Wish I could let you out to pasture, but the fence is down in one section, and I don’t have the supplies to repair it.”

  All the while Eli talked, the horse bobbed his head and circled again. Eli stood still and let him settle. He’d been through this drill before. You just had to give a horse time.

  The sorrel neared again, head lowered to sniff at Eli’s hand. The short hairs around the animal’s mouth tickled as they brushed across his palm. The horse lipped him and blew warm breath. Big brown eyes watched him carefully, ears back, then one forward.

  “Yeah, you remember me, right?” He could almost imagine that the horse missed his master, but Frank had admitted that with Ramon gone, Paco had existed with much less attention than in years past.

  Eli smoothed a stroke down the long nose, then reached to pat his neck and smiled. The horse leaned closer, as if seeking comfort—or food, more likely. “Sorry, nothing on me right now.”

  Eli opened the stall door and strode inside, keeping one hand on the horse at all times. The dog hovered outside and whimpered, but Eli focused his attention on Paco. He slipped a halter over Paco’s head and led him out, tying him near the barn door so he could see outside.