Elle grasped the edge of the door. “Before she was killed.”
He sighed and briefly massaged the back of his neck. “Apparently, she’d been planning to leave me, Elle. I was served with divorce papers two days after her death. Losing her was devastating enough, but finding out she hadn’t been in love with me anymore when I’d been trying so hard to fix things…”
Elle gave Tom a sympathetic look. “Then what’s the harm in spending a little time with a certain doctor who clearly has a crush on you? It’s been three years, Tom.”
He looked down, avoiding her gaze, waiting for her to get in so he could close her door. Obviously, he had said all he was going to on the matter. Taking the hint, Elle climbed inside and turned her thoughts back to what had nearly happened in the hospital room with Gabe—and began to feel like a complete hypocrite. Here she was, urging Tom to take advantage of a little companionship to stave off the loneliness, and yet she was fighting the sexual tension between her and Gabe at every turn.
But she shook her head, pushing away that kind of rationalizing. No, it was better if she and Gabe kept things completely professional, completely platonic. Any other possibility, as enticing as it might be—as enticing as she knew from experience it would be—wasn’t an option.
Chapter 7
“You okay?”
Gabe hobbled toward his living room on his crutches, taking a moment to navigate between the brown leather recliner and end table to get to his comfy-as-hell overstuffed couch before answering his brother. “Yeah, I’m good.”
Joe followed him into the room, hovering and fussing like a goddamned mother hen, plumping pillows, lining up all the remotes on the coffee table so they’d be within easy reach. It was driving Gabe fucking crazy. All he wanted to do was just stretch out on the couch and doze off while watching ESPN, but his younger brother had insisted on hanging out with him on his first day back home.
“You sure?” Joe pressed as Gabe eased down onto the couch, wincing with the pain.
Gabe gave Joe an irritated look. “Dude. I’m fine. How many times I gotta say it?”
Joe folded his arms over his chest and stared down his nose at him from where he stood. “Until I’m sure you’re not lying out your ass.”
Gabe’s brows lifted. “Okay, then. Truth? I’m irritated as fuck with you at the moment, but other than that, I’m good.”
Joe grunted. “Yeah? How’d you sleep last night?”
Gabe looked away, clenching his jaw so tightly he could feel the muscle ticking with the strain.
“That’s what I thought,” Joe replied as he sat in the recliner and eased it back, the smug little shit.
After the silence had stretched on for several seconds, Gabe finally heaved a harsh sigh and turned his gaze back to his brother, not surprised at all to see Joe studying him. “It’s not like what you went through in Afghanistan,” Gabe assured him. “This is totally different, Joey.”
“You were shot, Gabe,” Joe reminded him—as if he needed it. “You could’ve died. A guy doesn’t go through something like that without it affecting him.”
Gabe reached forward and snatched the remote from the coffee table, turning on the TV and upping the volume, hoping his brother might take the hint. But Joe didn’t budge.
“Didn’t say it didn’t affect me,” he admitted after a moment. “I’m pissed as hell at that fucker Monroe. I’m pissed Tom had to pull his weapon and use it for the first time in his entire career. I’m pissed Elle was half an inch away from getting her fucking head blown off. And I’m pissed I took three to the chest and one to the leg and could’ve ended up like my best friend did a year ago.” He turned and pegged Joe with a hard look. “So, yeah, Joey, getting shot by some son of a bitch with an ax to grind about us locking up his cop-murdering bastard of a brother has affected me. But I’ll deal. And it’d be a hell of a lot easier if I didn’t have you talking over SportsCenter.”
Joe shook his head with a bitter laugh and slammed the recliner’s foot rest back down. “You know what? Fuck you, Gabe. I’m just trying to help you get through this. But, hey—you don’t want my help? Fine.” He shoved to his feet. “I’m outta here.”
Gabe pulled a hand down his face, immediately feeling like a total piece of shit. Maybe Elle had been right. Maybe he was an irredeemable jackass. “Joe!” he called after his brother as Joe strode toward the door. “Joey! Dude, I’m sorry! I just—”
The front door slammed, cutting him off.
He let his head drop back against the sofa cushions and closed his eyes. Awesome. His brother the war hero had tried to be there for him, had tried to let him know he understood what Gabe might be going through, and Gabe had pretty much just told him to go fuck himself.
Yeah, Elle was definitely onto something with the whole jackass thing…
Speaking of Elle, he wondered how she was doing. He’d never seen her so rattled as when he’d come to visit him in the hospital. The look in her eyes when she’d voiced the truth—that she’d almost died—had sent a chill through his entire body, and not just because of the calm accuracy of her observation. The hollow look in her eyes, the recognition of her own fleeting mortality, concerned him.
If there was anyone Joe should’ve been following around like a freaking puppy and attempting to psychoanalyze, it was Elle.
Gabe put his life on the line every day. He assumed a certain amount of risk. He knew one day he might not come home. That day could be thirty years from now. It could be tomorrow. But it was different for Elle. Even though she dealt with criminals on a daily basis, saw the effects of their crimes on their lives and the lives of others, and was no doubt jaded by her experiences, it wasn’t the same. There was no way it could be the same. Not really. At least, that’s how it was supposed to be. She was supposed to be one of the blissfully ignorant citizens he was sworn to protect from those kinds of attacks.
But he’d failed. That son of a bitch had come way too close to killing Elle on Gabe’s watch—and it was that truth more than his own close call that he was having a hard time dealing with. Because his focus had been on getting into Elle’s pants instead of what was going on around him. So when he looked into her eyes and saw that empty, hollow fear, he had to accept that he was just as much to blame for putting it there as Mark Monroe was.
He pulled his hands down his face, then groaned a string of curses before reaching for his phone and dialing his brother.
