“Because she always leaves her hiking plan on the kitchen counter. She’s—” The woman pressed to her knees. “Who are you?”
“Her neighbor, Gabriel Atworth.”
The woman dumped onto her hip, wrapping her arms around her enormous pregnant belly. She was such a tiny woman and, in the position she was sitting, it looked like her stomach was trying to swallow her.
“Sommer’s my identical twin. So I can understand how you’d get us confused.”
“Ma’am—”
“Not ma’am, Sloane. I’m Sloane.”
“Sloane, it’s obviously difficult for you to be crawling around on the ground. Please let me help you up, and from there, I’ll figure out a way to get Sommer’s hiking plan.”
Sloane lifted one hand from her belly and waved him through the gate. Once he got there, he had no idea what to do. It wasn’t like she could bend at the waist.
Whiskey made her way to the end of her leash so she could snuffle the woman, then lick her cheek.
Gabriel snapped his fingers. “Down, stay.” Gabriel was always astonished at the immediate response. And in this instance, Gabriel thought the lady would appreciate not getting pushed by his dog; she looked like a breeze could roll her like a ball.
Sloane pointed over her shoulder. “Go around back and get me under the arms. Then, I’ll get my feet under me, and you’ll need to walk forward as you lift. Sorry about this.”
Gabriel did as requested and found she wasn’t nearly as heavy as he’d anticipated. “How would you have gotten to your feet if I hadn’t come around?”
“I turn over onto all fours, then I’d crawl to the stairs, sit, and bump my butt up to the third step. Then I could use the rail to get myself the rest of the way to my feet.” She turned and shook his hand. “Thank you.”
“So you’ve done this before?”
“Crawled in Sommer’s garden? This is a first. But she’s never been in danger like this before.” She grabbed her belly with both hands and let her jaw go slack as she panted.
“Sommer’s in danger?” The visceral reaction he had to that sentence threw Gabriel. There was an intensity that gripped him. It was as if he expanded, shapeshifting into a mythical hero facing the monster. It was a sensation he’d never experienced before and one that might come in handy if there were actual dragons to be slain, villains to vanquish—or in real life, the many times out on the battlefield when the enemy encircled his team, when this sensation would have been appreciated.
Yet this was new to him.
Yeah, this sensation belonged between the pages of an epic novel, perhaps on a movie screen.
But here?
Now?
He didn’t understand it.
Gabriel looked over to Whiskey. She, too, seemed primed if he focused on her eyes and not her face that always looked like she’d been set too close to a heat source and was melting. And he thought that in the most loving way imaginable.
Whiskey was on his team, and they’d handle this together.
Gabriel took Sloane’s elbow. “You should sit on a chair. Are you okay? Should I call someone?”
She pursed her lips and blew out like Gabriel had seen women do on TV when they were dealing with a contraction. “Are you in labor?” he asked, helping her up the stairs and over to a chair. Gabriel knelt so they were eye to eye.
She swatted her hand through the air as if to deny that was the case.
“Sommer’s in danger?”
“She was supposed to be home from her backpacking hike last night.”
“Maybe she wanted to catch a last sunset or went skinny dipping,” he said, though in his gut he knew it was a lie. Maybe it was the energy Sloane was putting out, but Gabriel felt like Sommer was in terrible danger.
“You don’t know her,” Sloane said.
