The Bride Wore Red Boots (11 page)

“Then thank you,” she replied, also in a near-whisper. “Gabe.”

“You also did a great job explaining the surgery to all of us. You're a good teacher. That should have been the first compliment, but I stumbled over the boots.”

“That's because they're lucky. I'll never get on a plane without them.”

She caught her lower lip in her teeth and flicked her eyes away as if hiding embarrassment . . . or a smile.

“It's been that way since she was four.” Bella leaned in from Amelia's other side.

“Mother!”

“Oh, it's a great story,” Bella countered despite Amelia's warning tone.

Amelia actually sought Gabe's eyes for camaraderie, rolling hers helplessly.

He grinned. “I'll tell her I don't want to hear if that's what you'd like me to do.”

“As if that would do any good.” She sat back, her arms crossed, her face resigned.

“It started at her very first barrel race at age four,” Bella said.

“Four?” He raised a brow.

“You ain't a ranch boy, are you?” Amelia asked, putting on a hokey accent. “We start young. Any two-year-old cain't rope and tie a calf is sent to remedial school. They start babies on barrels soon as their first teeth show through the gums.”

The girls all snorted in laughter and answered with a chorus of “amens” and “preach it, sisters.”

“Mia had a brand new pair of little red cowboy boots she'd picked out for the occasion,” Bella continued. “They were a titch big, but she wore them loud and proud. Well, around the second barrel, her pony, Chloe, went left, Mia went right, and her right foot slipped all the way through the stirrup. That's never supposed to happen with boots, but her foot was so little the heel of the boot didn't stop it. In her regular boots she might have been stuck, but since she'd insisted on the new ones that were a little too big, her foot came out of the boot, she popped out of that saddle, and landed flat on her feet. Her daddy told her so earnestly that red sure was her lucky color in boots—”

“That she's believed ever since red boots are her good luck charm,” Grace finished, and wrinkled her nose at Amelia.

“All right, all right.” Amelia had never looked so unlike her perfect, professional self, hunched forward on the edge of the cushion, hands playing with the blue-and-red patterned scarf she wore around her neck. “So I'm a big baby when it comes to flying.”

“And trail riding, and driving any kind of machinery,” Raquel teased.

“And I haven't died doing any of those things, have I?” Mia countered her sister's claim with a sneer, but she smiled and Gabe sat back, unsure what to make of this freer, far more sister-like Amelia. He liked her. A lot. He wasn't sure she was real.

“Which is why we
all
wear red boots for dangerous missions,” Raquel said, catching Gabe's eye with a nod and then a wink. “Not.”

Amelia shook her head, unfazed. “I'll be happy to give up each of your good luck charms. The only one who never believed me was you.” She turned to Harper. “You were always your own person.”

“Stubborn,” Harper agreed.

“She's right,” Raquel said. “I have a four-leaf clover Grandma Sadie had encased in a pendant for me. I won't leave home without it. Kelly has the ugliest teddy bear you've ever seen. Seriously, the thing was designed by gargoyle carvers in the caves of Creeplandia. She's terrified TSA agents with it.”

“Aw,” Harper started to laugh. “How can you say that about Mr. Beenie?”

“Because I have to live with him,” Raquel replied. “He's banned from any community spaces in our apartment.”

“He is,” Grace agreed.

Gabe chuckled at the growing silliness. “And what's yours, Grace?” he asked.

“Yes, Gracie.” Amelia crossed her arms again. “What
is
your lucky charm?”

“Praying for everyone else's lucky charm,” she said.

“I know you do actually do that, Mini Mother Theresa, but I happen to know—”

“That I only wear blue underpants when I fly?” Grace grinned directly at Gabe. “It's true.”

“Do you pray for them, too?” Raquel asked, and the whole group rocked back into their chairs, holding their bellies and gasping in laughter. Even Sadie covered her mouth and let her shoulders shake.

“Oh, cripes,” Harper said. “They're gonna confiscate our wine before it's even open. Man, I hope you pray for us, too, Gracie. We're certifiable.”

“Every day.” Grace choked on her laugher.

Gabe settled back into the sofa, taking in the rare sight. The mirth between the sisters was more genuine and relaxed than he'd ever seen before. He'd always sensed nothing but tension between Amelia and Harper. He'd never seen the three older girls treat the twenty-four-year-old triplets with as much equal standing as in this moment—they were usually the babies.

He had no moral authority or deep enough knowledge of the girls to speculate on why this moment galvanized them, but something had changed when Amelia had arrived. Whatever she'd brought from New York made her just what they all needed.

She'd changed something inside of him, too. In the short half hour since she'd appeared, he'd gone from shock over her presence to desiring a way to figure out all her layers—layers she'd kept tightly out of sight until now.

It was time to take a break and clear his head.

“Ladies,” he said when the laughter had calmed and they all started reaching for food. “I have some appointments, but I will check back in a couple of hours. If you need anything at all, please, you know how to page me.” He faced Amelia and found it easy to shoot her a friendly smile. “You, too. You have my direct number. Although I think you'll have all the access you need. I'm very glad you're here for everybody.”

“That's . . . nice of you to say.” She let one corner of her mouth quirk back into a half-smile of acquiescence. “Gabe.”

“Come sit down and tell us about yourself now. I want to hear all about that new job. Didn't you say it was all happening a couple of days ago?”

It happened again. Immediately and without question. Amelia's eyes blanked into an opaque shade of dull brown. She spun her gaze from his and pressed her lips together, swallowing as if to gain time.

“Oh, yes, my news,” she said. “I made a few changes to my plans,” she said. “It's all good. I'd just rather pursue a different path than I thought. Things weren't going to be quite as they'd advertised with the potential new job.”

For all the closeness and connectivity of moments before, the rest of the family caught nothing of what Amelia was really saying.

“Well it sounds exciting as usual,” Bella said. “But come and tell us what changed your mind. It's got to be something pretty big.”

Oh, it was, Gabriel thought as he studied Amelia's stoic shoulders and slow attempt to arrange her body into nonchalance. They might not have seen it, but he knew. This was it. This was her secret. She would not have willingly veered from her goal. That much he knew.

“See you in a bit,” she said, giving him one last carefully placed smile. “Thanks for your kindness to my family.”

He had no plausible reason to reverse his decision to leave. She would know in an instant that he only wanted in on her explanation. She'd spoken adamantly enough on the phone about her new job as chief resident in the pediatric department for him to know it was a means to a big end for her.

“Sure,” he said reluctantly, that tug toward her filling him again. He forced himself to turn, but then he spun back and touched her upper arm as lightly as he could. “Hey.”

The familiar defensive anger returned to her eyes. “What?”

“Whatever brought you here?”

She placed a palm against his chest and pushed him three steps farther from the group. Pressing forward until her mouth was just inches from his, she shocked him with the anger in her words. “Don't you dare say it happened for a reason.”

“I . . . wouldn't say that because I don't know what ‘it' is. I was going to say that I just saw a perfect example of why family is so powerful. They will support you.”

She dropped her hand, and her mouth relaxed enough to appear troubled instead of angry. “You might think so. But you have no idea what a person has to live up to in this family.”

With no further explanation she walked back to her family with the air of a condemned woman.

M
IA FILED OUT
of Joely's quiet room with her sisters, stopping to give her mother a kiss as they passed. “She's doing really well, I promise. She's almost asleep again, but you can talk to her for a minute.”

“I'm so grateful you're here,” her mother replied, and the gratitude helped keep the desolation in the pit of Mia's stomach at bay, as it had all day. The catch was, eventually she'd have to tell her grateful, proud family the truth about why she'd returned.

She shuffled into the ICU family lounge, which had grown far too familiar over the past two months, and tried to stave off the insidious tentacles of exhaustion slithering through her body, searching out every cell. Grandma Sadie looked up from a chair and smiled, and Gabriel was back, sitting beside Sadie, waiting. Relief soothed her inner turmoil. She was too tired to think about why he created that effect.

“Hi,” he said, and she offered a weak smile. “You look kind of done in.”

“Most of the time it's much easier on the other side of the OR doors,” she replied. “Waiting helplessly is draining.”

“As is flying across country for twelve hours.”

She had no idea where this solicitous and mind-reading male had come from. He'd been nothing but pig-headed and self-important whenever she'd tried to get information from him early on. She liked “Gabe.” But she was definitely more comfortable sparring with Lt. Gabriel Harrison.

“Raquel and I are going to take Grandma home,” Grace said. “It's nearly six thirty and we'll get something started for dinner.”

“I'll wait for Mom,” Mia said. “She wants to stay a little while. That's fine. She was a patient for so long herself that she wants to put in her time as caretaker.”

“Don't let her stay too long.” Grandma Sadie stood, resting one hand lightly on her distinctive cane—black lacquered wood decorated handle to tip with elegant red primroses and sweet lavender violets.

“I won't, Gran,” Mia promised. “You've been amazing today. Thanks for the fun.”

Her grandmother patted her cheek and nodded. “Come home soon.”

Once she'd shepherded her family to the elevators, Mia returned to find Gabriel engrossed in his cell phone. He'd spent most of the day away, since he did have an actual job to perform, but he'd stopped to check in multiple times during the five-plus hour surgery. Each time he'd brought treats or fresh reading material. Once he'd handed out warm, wet face cloths. He'd taken it upon himself to be their private butler, and despite all her efforts to remain unaffected, Mia had been won over. The man had gone far above and beyond his job description.

She had noticed one quirk, however, an obsession with his phone. He checked it often, lost himself texting in what looked like sheer, angry frustration, and only came back to himself once the phone was back in his pocket. Somehow the answer to the minor mystery didn't interest her. Instead she felt connected to him knowing he had secrets just as she did.

She sat without him noticing her return, and weariness engulfed her like ocean waves. She let her head fall back against the armchair's back cushion and tried to sink beneath the surf of beckoning sleep. For a few moments nothing disturbed the peacefulness.

“Son of a biscuitwhacker!” His noncurse carried across the empty space with all the invective of an actual profanity, and Mia startled upright in her chair.

“Gabriel? What's wrong?”

He spun in place and stared at her. “Oh, damn. I'm sorry. I had no idea you were back yet.”

She almost laughed at the incongruity of his swearing. Why “biscuitwhacker” if you were just going to damn it seconds later?

“You were so engrossed I didn't want to interrupt you.”

“Engrossed.” He scoffed. “More like incensed.”

“I can kind of see that.” She smiled, but he was back at his keyboard. “Do you need anything? Shall I leave you alone? Can I help?”

Genuine surprise crossed his features. “Amelia, you must be even more exhausted than you look. Help me?” His mouth relaxed into an easygoing smile, one that evoked genuine warmth. “Don't you remember? That isn't how it works. I antagonize you, you get mad at me, and then we just annoy each other.”

“Yeah, but I thought just this once I'd ask. Since I am so tired and all . . . ” She shrugged and studied him studying his phone once again. “Do I really annoy you?”

“Sure,” he said without hesitation and looked up. “But I kind of like it. I was thinking at the end of last week that I missed our recent phone chats.”

She was going to say something snarky—but despite their topic of conversation it didn't feel quite right. She shrugged again. “Yeah. What's that all about?”

“Don't ask. Better not to delve.”

“Agreed.”

His phone buzzed, and he looked down. Seconds later his mouth tensed, and hard furrows sank into the skin at its corners. “Idiots.” He whispered, but she heard him anyway.

“All right,” she said, “either spill the beans or take this little lover's quarrel to another part of the lobby.”

He snapped his gaze back to hers, honestly incredulous.

“I'm kidding. I'm kidding.” She held up her hands. “You're just making it impossible not to eavesdrop. At first I honestly didn't care, but I'm starting to change my mind.”

“You know? Now that I think about it, you might be just the person who could help me. At least since you're a doctor, you could tell me what I should do.”

“Seriously? Be still my heart.”

“Knock it off.” He grinned, and she grinned back. Weariness was starting ever-so-slightly to sluice away. “I'm serious. I have a group of pea-brained, infantile vets who can't seem to get their heads out of their you-know-whats, and I'm at a loss.”

“That needs explaining all right.”

H
E PERCHED ON
the edge of the chair at right angles to hers, and their knees brushed as he adjusted his seat. “Sorry,” he said, but he wasn't. There was nothing electric or sensual about the touch, but the proximity to her was reassuring.

“A dumb thing to be sorry about but, but okay, thanks.”

He wondered for a moment where to start and finally plunged in. It wasn't like he should bother trying to impress her—their relationship had already forged its trajectory.

“A year ago, after working with a number of veterans who were not just stymied by the VA's paperwork and frustrated with quality of benefit distribution, but who were also suffering from emotional injuries that literally took away their ability to cope with the stress, I came up with a program idea. It took some fast talking to get my bosses in the benefits department to agree and go after funding, but they did.”

“You got the government to give you money for something important?”

He laughed at her incredulity. “Truth is stranger than fiction. Thank you for assuming it's important just on faith.”

“I'm a patient woman.”

“You are not.”

She bit on a thumbnail and hid a smile. “No. I'm not. But I have nowhere else to go. Keep talking.”

“I gathered together eight men from three branches of the services, ranging in age from twenty-three to twenty-eight. Three have officially diagnosed PTSD, four have blast-induced TBI, and one lost an ear and his hearing in one side in an IED explosion—he's pretty messed up.”

“Wow,” she said, clearly sobered.

“They're all great guys. I hand-chose them because they have brains and potential. I also wanted men who'd originally refused psychiatric treatment, who claimed to have no problems they couldn't handle, and yet who weren't antisocial. I'm afraid I did too well on that last criteria.”

She laughed. “Okay put this into context for me. What's the program? What's the plan?”

He told her about the early weeks of the project, officially called “The Brother to Brother Small Group Community,” but which the guys called “Cluster Foxtrot House,” after the VA had found them individual, barebones apartments all in the same building where Gabe lived. They'd been given a small monthly stipend to cover food and necessities contingent on them all starting counseling and finding jobs within six months.

“They were told their task was to support each other through the job hunting process, through therapy, through hard times,” Gabe said. “For the first month they ate all dinners together, had weekends to themselves until Sunday nights, and were required to attend a group counseling session in addition to their individual therapy programs.”

“And?”

“It worked.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Once they believed that tough, brave guys from all branches of the service were not turned into blubbering fools or ostracized by their peers because they talked about their issues, they started to heal. It's a slow process, I admit, and what I didn't foresee was the streak of lunacy we'd all share. I meet with them Sunday nights, and we discuss our goals for the week. I told them humor had been the only way I could get a foothold once I got home was with humor.”

“You?” Her eyes shot their gold sparks again, and he scowled.

“You wound me.” His hand went theatrically to his heart. “I'll have you know I used to be very funny, according to my ancient year book. True, I'm old now and that was a long time ago. But still.”

“You're not so old. I've checked you out—you're only two years older than I am, and I'm a freaking thirty-two-year-old prodigy. Snort.”

Pure self-denigration spilled into her tone. Gabe considered for a fraction of a second but decided not to pursue it and ruin their easy conversation. Later . . .

“Seriously? You checked me out?”

“It's not flattery, I didn't stalk you.”

“That's too bad.”

Her mouth pursed into a cute little scowl that went along with an eye roll. He laughed.

“My guys are making great strides, but they aren't turning into the outwardly perfect specimens my bosses would like to see. They're learning to channel their anger but . . . ” He opened the picture gallery on his phone and found snaps of the three sabotaged cars. “These are their versions of letters of complaint. The director, deputy director, and head of the Department of VA Benefits were not amused.”

Amelia took the phone and slowly covered her mouth with one hand. “Oh my gosh.”

“Yeah.”

“Long story short, this wasn't their first prank, and they've run out of chances. The program ends with the next incident. On the other hand, if they can keep their noses clean, they'll have eight more months to settle in and integrate into a more normal civilian life with ongoing access to mental health services and job searches help as long as they need it.”

“So the phone messages.” She nodded as his hands. “They're in trouble.”

His heart lightened simply with her words. No censure, no criticism—she got it, and he suddenly wasn't alone.

“At least this time it was only three of them. They went to some acquaintance's farm between Jackson and Wolf Paw Pass with a stock trailer, and attempted to load a Guernsey cow with the intent of tying her in the lobby of the administration building. Something about a note around her neck to the effect of ‘the Veteran's Administration refuses to moo-ve.' ”

Saying it out loud made it all the more ridiculous.

“Did they make it?” She pressed her lips together and rubbed on her cheeks. He swore she was trying not to laugh.

“No. The ringleader got himself nailed in the thigh with a back hoof.”

“Oh crap.” Her laughter burst free. “Is he all right? Are they bringing him here?”

“No, although I told them in no uncertain terms they should. They're bringing him home. He says ‘upon reflection' it would be better if nobody knew they'd had something planned.”

“But a cow kick is extremely powerful. I know. I grew up around them. He could have a broken femur.”

“He says no. Says it's only bruised. And if he's right, it's true a hospital report would reach my bosses.”

“He could make up any number of stories about trading a . . . ” She lost it and laughter choked her words. “c . . . cow, for magic b . . . beans.” She dragged a deep, steadying breath. “Or that it ran . . . away, and he was returning it!”

“Dr. Crockett! I'm appalled. I didn't know you had a side like this.”

It took a minute more for her to control her paroxysms. “Whew!” she said at last. “This makes me think of the idiotic things my dorm mates did in medical school. Granted these guys are older and should know better, but still.” She wiped her eyes. “Is this for real? Or are you trying to keep me awake?”

“You have no idea how I wish I were making it up. I feel like the foster father to a group of octuplets from Jupiter.”

Her face grew thoughtful. “Foster father, huh?” she asked slowly. “It's kind of what you are, actually.”

“Whatever. I need to get back and see to Brewster.”

“That's his name?”

“Jason Brewster.”

“Well, Jason Brewster needs to see a doctor.”

His brain churned with a sudden, insane idea, and he spit it out before rational thought could temper it. “Like a doctor willing to think this a great joke, and tell him he should get to an ER?”

“What? Wait, me? Oh, no.”

She didn't look as horrified as she should have.

“Twenty minutes. I could have you back here to take your mother home in a flash, and I wouldn't have to have an argument with Jason.”

“Oh, good Lord.” She wiped her hands across her face again and took another deep breath. “You know, everything today has been so surreal, and your story is so completely nuts, I might just have to come and see this.”

He let himself savor the stunned, happy sensation her answer created. Surreal didn't begin to describe this day, and finding this side to Amelia Crockett that wasn't uptight and, even better, was slightly subversive, only made it more so. If someone had asked him to choose an accomplice for this ridiculousness, she would have come after everyone else on the planet who didn't have a rap sheet. Not for one second had he expected his silly request to lead to this.