Under any other circumstances, she would have felt like a lady from a far-away time.
And under any other circumstances, Sommer thought she might have enjoyed that immensely.
But there was still the question of who this guy was and how he’d landed on her trail.
Chapter Thirty-One
Gabriel
Friday, Late Afternoon
“Across the stream, safe and sound,” Sommer said as Whiskey snuffled the ground then turned them back to rejoin the trail, following Sommer’s scent from the day before at a fast clip. “Let me put you back in our conversation.” There was an edge to her voice. “You were going to tell me the origin story of how you met my sister.”
“I’m not sure where to start.”
“Couldn’t have been that long ago,” Sommer said. “You met her this morning. Start there.”
“Actually, this story started in March.”
“March,” Sommer said as her voice wandered off.
“In March, I found out that my brother Daniel left Whiskey to me in his will. No,” Gabriel paused. “Let me start at a different place. I told you that I grew up around the corner from your house. As an adult, I moved back to my childhood home after my parents died.”
Sommer came to an abrupt halt. “Stop it.”
Gabriel waited for her to figure this out. Time to think would be what he’d want under such circumstances.
“It was you.” Her face flamed red, and Gabriel wasn’t sure how to interpret the change.
Sommer looked up at the sky where the sun was, looked up the trail, and started walking again.
“So the story, from my perspective, of Whiskey singing by the graveyard goes like this—I inherited Whiskey from my brother. After I left the lawyer’s office, I had to go in to work,because there was an emergency case. I came home pretty late, but because there was a full moon, and Whiskey was pulling on her lead, I decided to let her go for a walk and sniff her new neighborhood. She walked straight to the graveyard. That church across from you is where I went as a kid. And my family, including Mom and Dad, are buried there with my brother Daniel.”
“In the graveyard, across from my house,” Sommer whispered.
“I thought Whiskey might remember the smells from Daniel’s funeral, and maybe she thought if she went to the graveyard, my brother would be there waiting for her.”
“Oh no,” she whispered, then reached for his hand and gripped it tightly.
The trail was too thin for them to walk side by side, so Gabriel let his elbow rest on his pack pocket so he could keep a grip on her hand. He wasn’t sure how to interpret the gesture but decided that Sommer was exhausted and probably holding on by a thread. Maybe a little human touch was important here.
Gabriel would admit that he liked that she’d reached for him. This wasn’t the easiest story to tell. And his instinct said it was important, in this moment, to share all of it.
He hoped he was right.
“And you walk up there all the time?” she asked.
“Whiskey does. For the longest time, up until Tuesday, to be exact, I thought that Whiskey remembered us burying Daniel and that she went there because she was mourning him.” He looked back.
“Crap.” She clapped her hands over her mouth. “Sorry. Keep going.”
Gabriel turned back to the trail.
“You were following Whiskey to the graveyard; you were going to be near your brother, and she’d stop and howl.” Shesqueezed his hand. “Goose flesh, hair prickling. I’m trying to imagine what that was like for you when Whiskey howled.”
“She didn’t just howl. She sang opera.”
“Ish.” Sommer countered.
