Gabriel was very clear on how much women talked. What he didn’t know was what had been said.

Justice pointed to the two men in similar cargo pants and black long-sleeved T-shirts who joined them. “My business partners. Angel Whittaker and Ford Hendrix. Of more importance to you, these are the two who rescued your brother from the Taliban.” He looked at his friends. “Gabriel is Gideon’s brother.”

Angel, a man with pale gray eyes and an interesting scar on his neck, moved forward. “Nice to meet you. Gideon’s a good guy.”

Gabriel shook his hand. He had so many questions, but at that moment he couldn’t think of any of them.

“Thank you,” he said, turning to Ford. “We’re glad we still have him around.”

Ford smiled. “Yeah, he’s not so bad.” The smile faded. “That was a good day for all of us. We were happy to help.”

Gabriel knew what they’d done was more than help. They’d risked their lives to save his brother from a horrible death. Gideon had been the last of his team left alive after nearly two years of captivity and daily torture.

Felicia hurried up to them. She walked to Gabriel and rested her forehead on his chest. “I’m struggling to keep control.”

He wrapped his arms around her. “You can’t have control. This is an out-of-control situation. The best you can do is mitigate fallout. You’re doing that.”

He felt her draw in a breath. She raised her head and looked at him. “Thank you,” she said, then turned and walked away.

Justice grinned. “Good to know her new family gets her.”

“She’s great,” Gabriel admitted. “The smartest person I know, and that’s saying something.”

“Come on,” Ford told Angel. “We’ll go get everyone coffee.”

“I’ll go with you,” Justice said, then looked at Gabriel. “How do you take yours?”

Gabriel chuckled. “You know I’m in the army, right?”

“You’re a doctor.” Justice held up both hands. “Okay, okay. Black it is.”

He was still chuckling when he walked away. Gabriel returned to the waiting room. He found a family with a young boy who had a bad cut on his forehead and arm. Gabriel went over to check the bandages, then secured them more tightly. Justice brought him his coffee and they chatted awhile. When Justice left, a pretty woman in her twenties walked up to him.

“I’m Madeline. I work with Isabel, who’s a friend of Noelle’s.” She bit her lower lip. “I’m really sorry to bother you but my niece is visiting me and she sprained her ankle. At least we think that’s what happened. We’re waiting to see a doctor, but they’re busy with the avalanche and...” She twisted her fingers together. “Could you maybe take a look at it? I know you’re a trauma specialist so this isn’t anything you would normally bother with, but I didn’t know who else to ask.”

Gabriel thought about pointing out he wasn’t with the hospital. Not that anyone seemed to care. It was the town, he thought, both frustrated and oddly comforted by the basic assumption that he was a decent guy who would step in where needed. Of course he would, but how did they know?

Another ambulance pulled up to the emergency room. Hospital personnel went running. If he didn’t help, Madeline and her niece would be here for hours.

“Show me where she is,” he said.

Thirty minutes later, the two women left. The ankle was slightly swollen, but not bad at all. A little ice, a compression bandage and she would be fine. Gabriel had sent them off with instructions, along with a promise that Madeline would take her niece to Madeline’s primary care doctor in the morning.

He started for the front desk to make notes in her chart only to remember there was no chart and he had no business practicing medicine here. Well, hell, he thought with a laugh.

“What’s so funny?” his father asked as he approached.

“Just wondering if I was going to lose my license.”

He expected Norm to chew him a new one, but his father only nodded. “You can practice in any army facility but you’re not technically licensed to practice in the state of California,” he said with a shrug. “Isn’t there something about helping out in an emergency?”

“Sure, but there are gray areas.”

He and his father walked to the rear of the emergency room, where it was less crowded. They took seats across from each other.

“Carter’s fine,” his father said. “That friend of his is okay, too.”

“Good. They were lucky.”

“Hell of a thing.” Norm leaned back in the chair. “All that snow. It’s not an unexpected event, I suppose. That Mayor Marsha person was very insistent that the town needs a search-and-rescue team. Sounds like interesting work.”

Gabriel raised his eyebrows.

His father chuckled. “Not for me. It’s a young man’s game.” He paused. “You know, your mother and I are thinking of settling here in Fool’s Gold.”

“I’d heard that.”

“Felicia swears Gideon is okay with it. Your mother and I want to be close to our grandchildren. Be a part of their lives.”

Gabriel nodded, not sure where this conversation was going.

“What are you going to do?” his father asked.

“You mean there’s a choice?”

He heard the bitterness in his voice and wanted to call it back. He wasn’t in the mood to fight with his father and challenging Norm was a sure way to get one started.

But his father surprised him. The older man seemed to get a little smaller as he sat quietly. “I can see why you think that,” he said at last. “Because of what I said before.”

“You mean what you say always. The Boylan men are put on this earth to serve.”

That phrase had been pounded into him from the time he was a kid. There’d never been a choice. Noelle had asked him what he would do instead and he had no way of answering that.

Norm leaned forward. He rested his forearms on his thighs and loosely laced his fingers together. “I deserve that,” he admitted. “I wanted—” He cleared his throat. “You know that damn dog of theirs is pretty smart. He likes to learn new commands and he’ll do about anything if he thinks he’s going to get to play catch at the end of the session.”

Gabriel frowned. They were talking about Webster?

“I’ve been working with him on basic commands. Sit, stay, that sort of thing. We’re working on some others. I want to get him off-leash trained. Carter and I have been talking about putting him through agility training. It would be good for the dog and for the boy. Plus, it gives him and me a good way to connect. Something for us to talk about.”

His father continued to stare at the ground as he spoke. “The thing is, if I yell at Webster, the session doesn’t go well. He tucks his tail and can’t look me in the eye. It’s like I break his spirit and he doesn’t trust me anymore. So I praise him when he does the right thing and stay calm when he doesn’t. He gets what ‘no’ means.”

His father straightened. There was pain in his eyes. Pain and maybe regret.

“You’re like that.”

“You’re comparing me to the dog?” Gabriel asked, wondering where on earth this ridiculous conversation was going. Anger built up inside of him. His father wanted something—as he always did.

“In a way. I treated you and Gideon the same, but you’re not the same. Gideon’s like me. He’d rather fight or leave than talk. When he was a kid, he solved problems with his fists. The army was the right place for him and he excelled. But you, you’re different.”

“You mean wrong.”

His father shook his head. “Your mother told me that’s what you thought. I guess because I’ve been telling you that you were wrong for as long as I can remember. I figured if I kept after you enough, you’d change.”

Gabriel hung on to his anger, because when he was pissed, it was easy to disconnect. He didn’t have to care about his father. He’d learned that lesson long ago. But it had been in the face of a vocal man who’d gone out of his way to make it clear his son was a disappointment. Norman Boylan didn’t apologize.

“You save people,” his father continued. “You save lives every day. You’re respected and honorable. Hell, a soldier like me can be found on every street corner, but not many people can do what you do. I never appreciated that before. I guess I couldn’t get past my expectations so I couldn’t see how proud I am of you, Gabriel.”

The anger faded and with it, his defenses. “Dad,” he began, only to stumble into unfamiliar territory. If his father wasn’t yelling at him about his piss-poor choices, what else was there?

His father straightened. “I’m not saying we’re going to always get on. We’re too different. But I want you to know that I have always loved you and I always will. I tell everyone about my son, the doctor.” He smiled slightly. “Then my friends all ask who your mom was sleeping with that night, because there’s no way some smart, successful doctor is my kid.”

Norm cleared his throat. “I won’t keep you. I know you’re still busy. I just wanted to stop by and say I’ve been watching Gideon with Carter. I raised you boys how I was raised, and how your grandfather was raised. Gideon’s doing it differently and I’m thinking maybe his way has some merit.”

With that his father rose and headed out the door. Gabriel sat in the chair, too stunned to absorb what had just happened. He told himself it didn’t mean anything, it didn’t change anything, but he had a feeling he was wrong.

Chapter 14

Noelle sat in Dellina’s living room. They were surrounded by three bowls of personalized wrapped chocolates and a stack of little cloth bags. Each bag got two of each of the chocolates as a wedding favor. Not an especially daunting task until Noelle thought about how many people were probably coming to the wedding. It would be a large portion of the town. Which meant lots and lots of bag filling.

Dellina had pulled her long hair back into a ponytail that sat on the top of her head. She had on jeans and a bright green holiday sweater.

“Thanks for helping me with this,” she said. “I know you’re busy at the store. It’s less than a week before Christmas.”

“No problem. We’re still closing at six.”

Gabriel had promised to spend some quality time with the cats before heading out to have dinner with his parents. He hadn’t said much but she’d noticed in the past couple of days he’d seemed more relaxed about them. She wondered if his work at the avalanche had made a difference. Something had, which was good.

She picked up two chocolates from each of the bowls, then dropped them into one bag and pulled the drawstring closed. After tying a little bow, she put the finished favor into a large white box and reached for more chocolates.

“How are the wedding plans coming?” she asked.

“We’re mostly there.” Dellina nodded toward the stack of papers on her kitchen table. “I’m at the going-crazy stage. A wedding is a lot to pull together, but this is all that times three, and it’s a secret. Plus, Mrs. Robson is threatening to retire.”

Noelle frowned, trying to place the name. “She owns Plants for the Planet?”

“Right. Our other florist moved to Hawaii, so now we’re down to one. I have no idea how old she is. I want to say 106, but I know that can’t be right. Still, one day she’ll mean it and then what will happen? I love her work. It’s fresh and beautiful and reasonably priced.”

Dellina drew in a breath. “Sorry. I get tense when I think about it. The town needs another florist.”

“We should put an ad in a national paper.”

“Don’t think I haven’t talked to Mayor Marsha about it.”

“Is everything else going okay?” Noelle asked.

Dellina sighed. “Yes. The menu is finalized. Ana Raquel and Greg were torturing me with all kinds of food from the Fool’s Gold cookbook they were writing. I’ve gained five pounds in the past month. They’ve suggested everything from baked wild mushroom risotto to white-and-dark chocolate chunk cookie pie.”

“That all sounds really delicious. Are you seriously complaining?”

“Sort of.” Dellina grinned. “Okay, not. But it’s been intense. Again, the issue is sheer volume. We’re talking six or seven hundred people. That’s a lot of food. I had to get permission to let a few more people in on the secret so we could get some help with the cooking and storage. A couple of the restaurant chefs are helping and a few of the really good cooks in town.”

She tossed a completed bag into the box. “Then there are the other logistics. It’s going to be late and a lot of the little kids will be tired and cranky. We’ve set up a quiet area with sleeping bags for parents who want their children to sleep but still want to go to the party. I’ve lined up teenagers to help with the babysitting, which means hiring them without telling them what it’s about. Let me just say the average sixteen-year-old girl wants details before she takes a job.”

She filled another bag. “There’s the live band and seating for that many people. It’s a logistics nightmare. I know everyone wants this to be a surprise, but I can’t help thinking the weddings are going to be the worst kept secret ever.”

“You’ve done your best,” Noelle told her. “Honestly, I can’t imagine how you’ve pulled this off. I would be curled up in the corner, whimpering.”