Gabe nodded. “Judge Murray’s not gonna let Monroe get away with this.”
Tom sat down on the corner of his desk. “Gabe, even if that’s the case, this is going to come out. Even the allegation of something of this nature is going to affect you and Elle. There’ll have to be an investigation.”
“We need to get Sandra Monroe in here somehow, get her side of the story,” Gabe muttered. “She can set the record straight.”
“Her father’s bringing her in later today to make her statement against you,” Tom told him. “And he’s bringing her brother as a witness.”
Gabe stared at Tom for a long moment, suddenly numb.
He was done. Tom was right. This story was going to hit the media and even though it was patently false, it wouldn’t matter. He’d be convicted by public opinion even when it was later proven to be just a fabrication of Jeb Monroe’s deranged mind. Gabe’s dream of someday taking over as sheriff was over. Everything he’d worked for all these years, all the good he’d done for the community…it was now tainted, sullied.
“I’m going to have to put you on paid leave until after an investigation has been conducted,” Tom told him, his voice strained. “You know that, right?”
Gabe nodded, still in a daze. “Yeah. I know.”
Tom’s expression was pained as he said, “If there was anything else I could do…”
Gabe stood and glanced around the room, momentarily forgetting where the door was. “Yeah.”
The next thing he knew, his brother was hugging him. “We’re not going to let this son of a bitch get away with this, Gabe,” he ground out, an edge in his voice Gabe had never heard before. “I swear it.”
The grim determination in his brother’s voice snapped Gabe out of his stupor. He returned the hug for a moment, but when his throat grew tight with emotion, he tapped out and strode from Tom’s office, keeping his eyes forward, not daring to meet any of the questioning stares he felt trained on him.
Right then, his only concern was getting to Elle. He’d be damned if he’d let her go down for his mistakes. He’d take the fight to Monroe personally before he’d let that happen. Fuck protocol. This shit was about to get real.
Chapter 21
Elle sat in a daze behind her desk, still unable to believe what she’d heard. There was no way Gabe had done what he’d been accused of. It simply wasn’t possible. Even if she’d heard the ludicrous allegations before she’d known him—before she’d fallen in love with him—she wouldn’t have believed it for a moment. Now that she knew him like she did, had seen the depth of his heart, the limitlessness of his kindness and compassion, the mere thought of someone making an accusation like this infuriated her.
But what she couldn’t understand was why he’d not told her about Sandra Monroe. She’d been unable to completely refute Monroe’s allegation of assault against his daughter because she hadn’t known anything at all about the encounter. Why the hell hadn’t Gabe thought to mention it? Why had he withheld that information?
“Elle?”
She glanced up to her office doorway to see Gabe standing there, his expression so forlorn and haggard he looked far older than his thirty-six years. “Looks like I might be reconsidering that job at the foundation after all.”
He closed the door and came toward her, his hands balled into fists at his side. “They fired you?”
She shook her head, still trying to process it all. “No. Well, not yet anyway. I’m being put on paid administrative leave and have been given the option of resigning in order to save face. But odds are good that even if we’re cleared of any wrongdoing, this will follow me wherever I go.”
Gabe ran a hand over his hair in agitation, his frustration and anger at the situation a palpable force in the air around him. She hadn’t asked what he’d encountered when he’d arrived at the department, but the fact that his strong, proud shoulders had bowed under the weight of the situation was a pretty good indication his morning had been as sucktacular as her own.
She wanted to go to him, put her arms around him and comfort him, feel his arms around her and know a little comfort of her own, but her shock was quickly edging toward anger. “God, Gabe,” she said on a dejected sigh. “Why didn’t you tell me you ran into Sandra Monroe last night? When confronted about it, I’m sure I looked like a deer in headlights. I couldn’t defend you against something I had no knowledge of. The only thing I could give my boss was the truth about us being together all night. And let me tell ya, that led to quite the interrogation!”
“I’m so sorry, honey,” he said, coming around the desk and reaching out to her, but she held up her hands, avoiding his touch. His face fell at her reaction. “I fucked up, Elle. I get that. But I was trying to protect Sandra, protect you.”
“Protect me?” she repeated, pushing back from her desk and getting to her feet. “How is keeping me in the dark protecting me? We had a deal, Dawson! We were supposed to be in this together. You were supposed to keep me in the loop on everything. And yet you decided this would be a good little tidbit to keep from me? Great idea!”
Gabe clenched his jaw, averting his eyes. Then his shook his head before turning his gaze back to hers. “Yeah, Elle, I decided to keep this one from you. Sandra is convinced that you’re in danger, and that little ‘tidbit’ has me scared shitless, okay? The thought of anything happening to you…” His words trailed off, and he abruptly looked away again, his jaw clenched so hard she could see the muscle twitching in his cheek.
“Well,” she said quietly, “I guess you were right about Monroe making a move. I’d say this certainly qualifies.”
“I don’t think this is the end of it,” Gabe told her. “Something tells me that trying to ruin our careers, our reputations, by claiming I assaulted his daughter wasn’t part of the plan.”
“Jeremy was following me. He saw us together at the fair,” Elle reminded him. “You don’t think he told his father?”
Gabe shook his head. “He might’ve had something up his sleeve regarding our relationship, but Sandra running into me was a coincidence. It wasn’t planned—she was at the pharmacy buying condoms from what I could see in the bag she had. She had no idea I’d happen to be walking by just then. I think he pounced on our encounter and used it to cover his own ass.”
“He beat his own daughter just to pin it on you?” Elle said, not bothering to hide her doubt. Any decent prosecutor would shoot that theory full of holes in an instant. “Seems a bit extreme even for Monroe.”
