Healing Gabriel Read Online Free Page B

leg.
    “What are you doing up so late puppy?”  She rubbed his head
and then started walking again.  Vincent was weaving around her feet and as she
disappeared into the darkness towards the carriage house, Gabe took another
drink of beer.
    Tomorrow would be a week since she had moved in.  He had
stayed away from her but she had sought him out a few times when he had been
working in the garden, chatting politely to him as he weeded and trimmed.  He
had kept his replies short and used his body language to tell her he wasn’t interested
in talking.  She ignored his silent hints, and finally he had started to work
in the garden during the day when she was at work.
    There was a muffled thump and Morgan groaned loudly. 
Vincent started barking and she hushed him hurriedly.  Gabe hesitated and then
stood and started down the steps, Delilah trailing after him, as Morgan groaned
again.
    “Ouch!  Son of a biscuit!”
    He hurried down the path and stared in disbelief.  Morgan
was lying tangled in the large rose bushes planted along the stone pathway.
    “What the hell?”  He said loudly and she gave a short
scream.
    “How the hell did you end up in the rose bushes?”  He stared
down at her.
    “Your dog tripped me.”  She glared at him as she started to
struggle out of the bushes.  She hissed in pain as thorns scraped across her
bare arm.
    “Oh for God’s sake.”  He reached down, ignoring the thorns
that caught on the sleeves of his shirt, and helped her out of the bushes.
    “Can you walk twenty feet without falling down?”  He
muttered.
    “It was dark okay?  Besides, I told you I was clumsy.”  She
snapped.  She picked a thorn out of her arm and winced. 
    He sighed.  Even in the dark he could see the blood
streaming down her arms, and he took her wrist and led her towards the
farmhouse.
    “Come on.”
    She didn’t argue and allowed him to lead her back down the
path and up the steps of the back porch.  He opened the screen door, and she
followed him into the kitchen of the farmhouse.
    “Sit down.”  He pointed to one of the kitchen chairs and she
sat as he opened a cupboard and pulled out a first-aid kit.
    She stared at her arms.  Blood was trickling in thin streams
down her arms, and they were covered in scratches from the thorns.  Her face
was stinging and she touched her cheek gingerly, not surprised when her fingers
came away bloody.
    Gabe pulled up a chair and sat across from her, their knees
nearly touching.  He examined her left arm, pulling out a few small thorns and
dropping them on the table as Vincent, joined by Delilah, put his head on Morgan’s
lap.  Gabe ran his fingers over her right arm and she shivered a little at his
warm touch.  Mistaking it for a shiver of pain, he apologized quietly.
    “It’s fine.”  She cleared her throat.  “Thank you for
rescuing me from the roses.  I’m sorry I crushed them.”
    He shrugged.  “I was thinking of taking them out anyway.” 
He opened a bottle of peroxide and ripped open a package of gauze.
    “Really?  But roses are so pretty, why would you rip them
out?”  She frowned.
    “I’d think you’d want them gone.  Odds are you’ll fall into
them again sooner or later.”
    She laughed.  “Good point.  Maybe I should start wrapping
myself in bubble wrap?”
    He grunted and she grinned again.  “The fourth time I fell
off the jungle gym, my mom threatened to send me to school in a helmet and
protective padding.  I could only convince her not to by promising to never set
foot on the jungle gym again.”
    He poured a bit of peroxide onto the gauze.  “Maybe you
should just try turning the porch light on so you can see when you’re walking
down the path.”
    “The light’s burned out.”  She said cheerfully.  “I would
have changed it but I’m too short to reach it, and I tend to avoid stepping on
to chairs or stools.”
    “Probably a wise idea.”  He said dryly.  “This is going to
hurt.”
    He dabbed