Mistletoe Hero

Chapter Nine

Gabe’s instinct was to cross the lot at a run, but he didn’t want to startle the kid into falling. The ladder was merely resting there, not safely grounded on the uneven gravel for actual use. Cold fear gripped Gabe. He could break his neck.

He and Tanner exchanged stricken looks.

“Go get help,” Gabe instructed, not caring what form that help took as long as they got this kid down safely. Were there still firemen at the bingo tent, or had they gone to lunch? Did they have nets and safety equipment with them, or were they stored at the fire station?

He walked purposefully toward the kid, noticing as he went that the ladder was shaking. The little boy, who’d nearly reached the top, was crying.

“Ben?” Gabe called softly. “You’re okay, buddy.”

“No, I’m n-not. I’m afraid just I-like my br-br-”

They could address phobias and self-esteem and not climbing ladders unsupervised later. Right now,

Gabe needed to reach the kid before the whole damn thing fell over.

“Hold on.”

But the child wasn’t listening. His pitiful little howls were gathering strength, and Gabe heard Arianne’s sharp intake of breath behind him as Ben reflexively lifted a hand to wipe his nose. Gabe dived for the tilting ladder as it scraped against the side of the building. Ben shrieked.

Gabe didn’t have time to steady it, not with Ben’s shaky weight working against him. “Just let go, buddy. I’ll catch you.” Please, God, let his words be true.

Instead, Ben panicked and scrambled to get down, further upsetting the ladder. As it started to topple, he either decided to trust Gabe or just plain lost his grip. He smashed down into Gabe’s chest. Gabe staggered back, tightening his hold to keep the kid safe, barely able to register the discomfort in his rib cage before a much more powerful blow struck him across the skull.

Tanner tried to help him into a sitting position as Arianne pulled Ben into her waiting arms. There was a ringing so intense in Gabe’s ears that the sound nauseated him, but somewhere beyond it, he focused on Arianne’s low, soothing voice. He thought he heard her say that Lilah had gone to find Ben’s mom.

“Sh-she’ll be mad,” the boy fretted. “I was supposed to stay with Toby, but I wanted to prove I was brave. Like m-my daddy.” The last word ended on a wail that was like a machete to Gabe’s temple.

“Benjamin August Harris!”

Gabe’s stomach lurched. Must everyone yell? Suddenly Arianne appeared in the halo of his blurred vision.

“Are you all right? How many fingers am I holding up?”

He tried to focus on her hand. Eleven? That couldn’t be right. “Don’t worry. Hardheaded. Like you.” To prove his point and erase the fear pinching her face, he lurched to his feet.

And the world went temporarily dark.

GABE WAS OUT ONLY a moment, but apparently when you were dealing with women, that was more than enough time for them to conclude you had to go to the hospital.

“You blacked out!” Arianne said, blessedly keeping her voice soft despite her vehemence.

“Just stood too fast,” he mumbled. “Aspirin, bed, be fine.” Aspirin, a few hours rest and plenty of time in bed with her, he’d be even better. But he lacked the energy to invite her to kiss and make it better.

Meanwhile, Fawne Harris was gushing to the rapidly gathering crowd that Gabe had saved her son. Everyone parted to make way for the red truck. Tanner had taken Gabe’s keys and gone to get his vehicle so that he didn’t have to walk all the way between buildings and across lots to where he’d parked.

Tanner stepped out of the truck and tossed the keys to Arianne.

“You want Lilah and me to come with you?” her brother asked.

“I’ve got it from here,” Arianne said. She sounded almost like a protective mama bear.

It made Gabe smile, the crazy idea of the tiny woman shielding him from danger, but moving his facial muscles only added to the agony in his head. So he gave up arguing and let Lilah and Tanner help him into the passenger seat of his truck.

Once he was buckled, he told Arianne, “Never let a woman drive it before.”

“Don’t worry, David taught me to drive stick when I was still in high school. Close your eyes and leave the ride to me.”

Luckily, business in the E.R. was slow this afternoon, and the doctor saw Gabe pretty quickly. He asked him some questions and did a rudimentary exam before concluding, “MTBI.”

“What’s that?” Arianne asked, sounding alarmed. Gabe wanted to hug her, to reassure her that he was all right, but it was difficult to portray unharmed strength when the room tilted every time he moved.

“A concussion,” the doctor explained.

Well, duh. Gabe figured everyone who’d been in town square with them, right down to little Ben, could have made that diagnosis and spared him the extra stop at the hospital with all its painfully bright fluorescent lights overhead.

He swallowed, squinting at the doctor. “Can I have some aspirin?”

“Not for a concussion! Acetaminophen would be better. I’ll get you some of that.” The man turned to Arianne. “Can you or someone else keep an eye on him for the next twenty-four hours? He should make a follow-up appointment for Monday, but in the meantime, if he gets worse, you should bring him back in.” He gave her some symptoms to watch for, like vomiting and growing confusion.

Earlier that afternoon, the idea of Arianne spending the night with him would have sounded like paradise, but not in his current condition. Gabe felt woozy and vulnerable and not a little foolish, getting conked on the head with his own damn ladder.

“Feeling better,” he lied to her as she navigated the labyrinth of the hospital’s parking garage to get them back out on the main road. “You don’t have to stay once you drop me off.”

“I don’t mind,” she said firmly.

I do.

She slanted him a sidelong look. “All right, how about I call your father?”

“What?” He hadn’t meant to yell. Damn, that hurt.

“You were just in the hospital. Even if you don’t ask him to come over, shouldn’t we at least call your dad to notify him?”

“At the hospital, not in,” Gabe differentiated. “And, no.”

“I thought maybe you’d be more comfortable with a parent taking care of you instead of me.”

Throughout Gabe’s life, his father had made him feel guilty, had made him feel unloved and had made him itch to leave home. But made him comfortable? No. That was not in Jeremy’s repertoire.

“Is there…” She hesitated. “Is there anyone else you’d like me to call, then? To watch over you?”

Either the acetaminophen was kicking in or his body was simply shutting down as a defense mechanism against the throbbing pain, because the earlier excruciating agony was giving way to a duller, achy sleepiness. Was there anyone else he’d rather be with than Arianne, anyone else he trusted more in this situation?

“Stay.” His eyes closed. “Stay with me.”

EVEN ASLEEP, GABE DIDN’T look at peace. Arianne parked the truck beneath the carport outside the old Mitchell barn. It was no secret Gabe had bought the place and had been slowly fixing it up; she’d wondered several times over the past few weeks what the interior of his home looked like. Now she’d get an insider’s view. She felt a dash of shame over her curiosity-the man was hurt! This was no time to be thinking of herself. But then she forgave herself. After all, who could blame a girl for wanting to learn more about the man she was…

Falling for? Lusting after? Thinking about on an hourly basis?

“Gabe.” She nudged his shoulder. Not being able to wake a person up could be a sign that the concussion was more severe than first realized. But she had no frame of reference. How difficult was Gabe to wake up normally? What if he was like Tanner, who slept like the dead?

At least Gabe mumbled something, so she knew he’d heard her.

She gave it another shot. “C’mon, big guy. We’re home, and I need your help. I can shoot pool with the boys, drive a stick shift and occasionally cuss like a sailor, but lifting you is beyond even my capabilities.”

Though he groused incoherently the entire time, he managed to slide out of the truck. She put her arm around his waist and looped his arm around her neck. Was she a terrible person for noticing the sculpted definition of his muscles at a time like this?

She found the house key on the ring in her hand and unlocked the door. There weren’t an abundance of windows, and she reached automatically for a light switch, but Gabe emitted a low whimpering sound that made her rethink that. Was there enough illumination that she could help him down the hall to his room without walking into a wall or tripping over something?

“Can you make it to the bed?” she asked.

He glanced at her and, despite the pain etched around his eyes, smiled. “Dare you to ask me that another time.”

Desire pierced her. He’d sustained a concussion saving a little boy and still had the stamina to flirt with her? At this rate, he’d ruin her for other men.

She stiffened at the thought. Even though it had been partially flippant, there was a kernel of actual risk there. Every man she’d ever dated had been from Mistletoe and she couldn’t imagine getting swept away with any of them the way she had with Gabe on that bench.

Either because he was feeling better now that he was in dimmer surroundings or because sheer masculine pride forbade him from continuing to lean on her, Gabe led the way to his room. Her passing impression was that the former barn was sectioned into thirds, with a high-ceilinged living room in the middle and a kitchen and bedroom on the ends.

She found his bed in the same state as hers-sloppily made. It made Arianne feel like too much of a slob to leave her sheets and blankets twisted any which way when she left home for the day, but she didn’t bother with a lot of tucking and creasing or pillow arranging. She sidestepped him and pulled down the corner of a forest-green comforter. There was a large picture window in here, but the shade was drawn behind tan-and-green curtains.

He sat on the edge of the bed, his eyes at half-mast.

Arianne knew that if she offered her help, he’d turn it down, so instead of asking, she simply knelt and pulled off the hiking boots he wore. “You lie down,” she instructed in her best no-nonsense tone. “Is there anything I can get you?” It was too soon for any more medicine. She tried to think what would possibly make her feel better if she’d had a seventy-pound kid fall into her, followed by a ladder hurtling down on her head.

She shook her head, trying to dislodge the morbid what-ifs. “You really were quite the hero today.” Ben could easily have ended his day with broken bones, or worse if he’d fallen at the wrong angle. Then there was the possibility that he could have been injured in a fall and again when the ladder crashed atop him.

Gabe closed his eyes, his voice a tired slur. “Had to. Can’t take a fourth death on my head.”

Fourth? Arianne recoiled in surprise. Who, besides the Templetons, did he obviously blame himself for? Now didn’t seem like an appropriate time to ask.

“Arianne? Could you bring an ice pack?”

“Of course.” Arianne was a doer by nature. She was relieved to have a specific and helpful task.

In the kitchen, she flipped on the light and saw a suite of silver appliances, including a flat-range stove and a trash compactor. Crossing to the three-door refrigerator, she decided that the freezer compartment was probably the one with the ice dispenser. She opened the door and stared.

“Good Lord, it looks like he robbed the Breckfield Creamery.”

She’d never seen so much ice cream in one person’s kitchen. Individual servings and pints of exotic flavors inside the door, half gallons of country-style vanilla and mint-chocolate chip sharing a shelf, and boxes of individually wrapped ice-cream sandwiches. He must exert a lot of physical effort on the job to maintain a body that looked like his. Even though she knew there was no valid logic to her impromptu reasoning, she wished the more suspicious-minded citizens of Mistletoe could see the contents of his freezer. The man owned a tiny pink carton of Bubble Gum Bliss, for crying out loud-how evil could he be?

Realizing that she was taking her time snooping while the hero of the day was still lying in agony, she jerked her attention away from all the frozen dairy goodness and found a blue gel pack. The sudden ring of a phone splintering the silence nearly made her jump. After only two rings-Arianne had programmed hers to five in case she had trouble finding the cordless-Gabe’s voice rumbled from the answering machine on the tiled kitchen counter.

“You’ve reached Sloan Carpentry and Odd Jobs. Leave a message at the beep or, in case of emergency, page my cell.”

Right after he gave the number for that, a woman spoke. “It’s Nicole. I may have an idea for a job possibility if you’re willing to move to Kennesaw. Give me a call if you want more details-it was great to hear from you the other day.”

Nicole? Against her will, Arianne recalled what Shane had told her. Kitchen tile wasn’t all he laid for Nicole Jones.

Even if Shane was right, what business was it of Arianne’s? Every adult had a romantic past. No, the pang she suffered probably wasn’t jealousy over a woman with whom Gabe may have once been involved, a woman who no longer even lived in Mistletoe. Instead, Arianne suspected that the reason it temporarily hurt to breathe was because even though Gabe had told her point-blank that he planned to leave, she’d harbored the subconscious hope that he’d change his mind.

She shot the answering machine a malevolent glare. Good thing she wasn’t a selfish, devious person or that message might accidentally get erased before Gabe was fully recovered. Pretending she was too noble to have even had such a thought, she left the kitchen and hurried down the hall.

Gabe wasn’t snoring, but his breathing was audible, deep and even. She crept forward, figuring she could leave the ice pack on the nightstand in case his headache woke him up in the immediate future. Unable to resist the temptation of studying him at her leisure, she sat gently on the edge of the bed. Gabriel. It was a fitting name for him. He was formed beautifully enough to look like an angel, albeit one with the weight of the world on his broad shoulders.

As she gazed down at him-this six-foot loner with surprise dimples and a secret love for ice cream-tenderness swamped her.

She bent to graze his forehead with a featherlight kiss. Unexpectedly, the arm at his side clamped around her, drawing her inexorably to him. He never even opened his eyes.

“Gabe?” she whispered.

Nothing.

She was squashed into his torso and had to wiggle around so she could breathe easier and so that she wasn’t lying in such a way that pulled her long hair. His breathing was still relaxed, but his arm was like an iron band around her. She debated the best way to slip loose without disturbing his well-earned rest. Oh, heck with it. Despite his teasing remark about taking her to bed earlier, who knew if she’d ever have this chance again?

Deciding to enjoy it while she was here, she tucked her chin against his chest and succumbed to the luxury of being in Gabe’s arms.