“The work was good. Nice to see family.”
“But you’re back here.”
He lifted his own fork and knife, cutting into the juicy chicken breast. “For now.”
That seemed to be enough for Zayne. They talked about which therapist had a stash of candy, how Navy, the therapy baby, babbled about neigh-neighs for half the session. And how Crew and Vander were battling for top spot in the lodge for most hands won at the poker table.
They chuckled over the stupid topics that sounded like nothing to anyone else but stitched together a group of men who’d lost a lot of themselves before they came here.
Then conversation turned to the new guys. Gabe looked around the tables. Even though he didn’t know a single one of their names, he knew what they were all going through.
One bite later, he heard a different kind of murmur run through the group. Usually the sound that meant Willow Malone had walked in, since everyone loved her sweet nature.
But when he looked up and saw Felicity in the doorway—hair loose, book tucked under her arm, looking a little careworn from the day but still bright in a way men couldn’t help staring at—he understood. Every guy in the room had turned toward the pretty woman without even thinking about it.
She crossed the hall, tossing waves and smiles at everyone she saw. She set down the paperbacks she was carrying and turned toward the long buffet.
Honor joined her, and they began filling trays with food. Turning his attention to his own dinner, he listened to the talk around him. He didn’t tune in to the topics, only registered the rise and fall of voices.
When he looked up from his plate, his gaze landed on Felicity.
Who was looking at him.
His chest tightened with a sensation he couldn’t put a name on, only knew he felt it a few times throughout the course of the day—when he stood on that ladder looking down at her, and later when she tested him about the book content.
Even though Felicity had a terrible day, being with her was easy in a way he hadn’t known for a long time. He only wished he could do more to help, to smooth that worried furrow above her brow.
An image filled his mind, of leaning close to her, breathing in the sweet perfume he caught several times today, and brushing his lips over her brow.
He tore his gaze away from her, scraping back his chair. He grabbed his tray and crossed the room to empty it into the trash. Soon everyone was getting up. Honor rolled in a small podium to the front of the room near the stone fireplace.
“Here we go.” Zayne nudged him. “Story time.”
Felicity took her position behind the podium and opened a book on the surface.
Chairs scraped in unison, and he turned his with the rest of the men to face her. She straightened her shoulders and scanned the group, her stare landing on a man here and there. She smiled, a little tired around the edges, but real.
“Tonight, we’re doing something new. This one’s not a thriller. No car chases.” She grinned along with several in the group. “I thought we might go easy on the blood pressure.”
A few chuckled at her joke.
“This is fromThe Spring Below Timberline. It’s about a mountain valley and the water that runs through it.”
She glanced down at the page and began to read.
Her voice shifted to a stronger version as she found a rhythm. The words painted a picture so vivid he could almost see it.
A narrow path winding through tall pines. Rocks warmed by the sun. A clear spring sliding out of the earth and running cool and cold over mossy stones. The air on the ridge thin and crisp, smelling of wet granite and new growth. The ground soft underfoot where moss grew and sunlight twinkled on the water, casting patterns over the bottom.
She read the line about the way a man could kneel there, cup his hand and drink, and feel the chill shoot up his arm and into his chest in one long, bright streak.
Gabe noticed how his shoulders dropped. And his jaw unclenched. That, for the first time in a long time, his mind wasn’t racing, but calmed by the cold and the sound of water babbling over stone.
He sat transfixed. His hands rested loose on his thighs, gaze on Felicity, the room fading until he felt like he was the only person in the room listening to that sweet voice.
He wished the reading sessions existed when he was here as a resident. Back then, nights stretched into long, restless torture. If he’d been able to listen to her voice wrap around the quiet story about a spring in the mountains—or even the car chase from the thriller she mentioned—he might’ve slept more than two hours at a time in those early days.
And her voice…that rasp, low and feminine, like she’d talked all day and kept reading anyway. That voice made him think of her perfume, sweet and light but not sugary. It fit her.
