A flush crept up the spaces between Gabe’s fingers. That and a working of his jaw.
What the hell was Blaze supposed to make of that? All his life he’d been taught to read people’s signals, and he was pretty good at it, too.
Most of the signals Gabe was giving off seemed to say the obvious, that Gabe liked looking at Blaze at the very least. That Gabe might have feelings for Blaze that went beyond his duties of being team leader. That if Blaze pushed some more, he could get Gabe to be more preferential to Blaze. Except he already was. Had been almost from the very beginning.
Rocking on his heels as his body tested the balance of the cowboy boots and their stacked heels, Blaze couldn’t figure out for the life of him why Gabe might actually like him. But he did. At least he seemed to.
Maybe Gabe felt sorry for Blaze and had a thing for down-and-out guys. Or maybe there was another reason, one beyond the scope of Blaze’s ability to read another human being.
It couldn’t be as simple as the fact that Gabe liked him. It could not be.
He was going to find out. He was.
Chapter14
Gabe
Sunday morning, just before 10 o’clock, Gabe and his team were lined up along the edge of the gravel parking lot, waiting as if at attention for a grand parade where a pope or a king might be passing by them. They’d all showered and shaved like they were going on a date with someone special.
Tom, especially, had showered and shaved twice, and had only been kept back from a third go-round by the fact that his girlfriend Joanna was due any minute. She was supposed to be bringing the baby, Barbara Lynn, with her, and his excitement could have generated electricity for the whole state of Wyoming.
Wayne was less enthused, but no less showered and shaved and ready, as was Blaze. Who, at the end of the line, closest to Gabe, seemed to be looking at the whole ceremony of it as just that, a ceremony for something that did not involve him, but he couldn’t help but stare just the same.
Gabe was beginning to wonder if he might ask the cooks to keep the coffee warm, when he heard the crackle of rubber on the gravel of a car coming a bit too fast down the switchback slope, and then slowing. It was easy to hear the low rumble of an engine through the still morning air, the pine trees tall and barely rustling, a cape of green between the valley and the rest of the world.
When the car, a dark green Subaru wagon, appeared along the last bit of road leading up to the parking lot, Tom let out a shout, a bark of joy, and he all but raced up to the car, standing back until Joanna, at the wheel, turned off the engine.
Gabe and Wayne and Blaze looked at each other, a silent message passing through the air that they would give Tom a bit of time alone with Joanna, though they all leaned forward when Joanna got out, pretty as a picture in a flower print dress and low heels, her dark hair glistening in the sunlight.
After a pause, as if asking for permission, Tom finally hugged her, and she hugged him back, and then gestured to the back seat of the station wagon, from where she pulled a sturdy baby seat, complete with a baby inside of it.
When Joanna looked up, she was even more beautiful than Tom had described her through his eyes of love. She had creamy dark skin and darker eyes as she appraised them all.
Gabe could sense that her desire to share any of this moment, or her baby, with a bunch of ex-cons was just about non-existent, but Tom gestured toward Gabe and the team. Perhaps her sense of politeness kicked in, for she approached slowly, carrying the baby seat with two hands. She should know that neither Gabe nor Tom would let anything happen to the baby, but he couldn’t blame her for being apprehensive.
“Guys,” said Tom, his smile broad. “This is Joanna, and this is—” He paused, his jaw working, as though to contain a rush of feelings he didn’t quite know what to do with. “This is Barbara Lynn, my daughter.”
Gabe leaned forward to look at the baby, because who didn’t want to look at a beautiful baby, so loved that she wore a sparkling white and pink little outfit with matching booties and a matching bonnet with tiny pink ribbons. The baby, Barbara Lynn, scowled at Gabe. But maybe that was because he was too close or too serious, or maybe it was the strength of the sun.
“Would you like to step inside some shade, ma’am?” he asked Joanna, gesturing to the mess tent, which the cooks had helped set up with coffee and iced tea and snacks, and which was as clean as a whistle.
Joanna hesitated and then looked up at Tom.
“It’s nice, I promise,” said Tom. “There’s a little breeze that comes through and we can sit at one of the tables and visit.”
With a nod, Joanna let herself be led, carrying the baby seat close to her until she sat down. Then she placed it on the table just about in front of her, touching the baby’s booted feet as though to make sure of her. Tom hopped around, getting her a glass of iced tea, which she said she preferred to coffee, and she shook her head at any cookies.
“I’m still trying to watch my sugar,” she said, and while her voice was soft and sweet, there was a firmness to it at the same time.
“Joanna,” said Tom as he sat beside her. “This is Gabe, our team lead, and this is Wayne and this is Blaze.” He pointed to each man in turn. “We used to have a guy named Kurt, but he tried to kill Blaze in the wood chipper, so he got his ass kicked right on out of here.”
Tom paused as Joanna’s face looked a little pinched. And of course, now she knew which was the team lead and which were the ex-cons, and though she looked like she very much wanted to move away from Wayne and Blaze, she stayed seated.
“It was really just an accident,” said Blaze, suddenly, his voice quite low and, as Gabe imagined, as non-threatening as he could make it. “I’m sure he didn’t mean it. We were just horsing around, you know? And now he’s doing house construction or something, working out his parole that way.”
Gabe did his best not to make an objection to this, because nobody knew what Kurt was up to, though he imagined if he asked Leland, he could find out. But why had Blaze lied like that, seeing as he had no real idea what Kurt was up to? In spite of that, the lie seemed to come to him as easily as breathing, and perhaps Blaze had been doing his best to keep Joanna from worrying about Tom.
“What do you mean, working out his parole doing construction?” asked Joanna, her dark eyebrows lowering.
