Page 53 of Vipers & Roses

“What happened to the man who fell?” I ask him, wondering if he’ll give me an honest answer or a ‘protective dad’ type answer.

Gabe turns and leans against the railing, folding his arms across his chest, and glances down at my cherry tomato plant before saying, “He died.”

“I know. I could tell.” The cracking sound of him landing on the car roof replays in my mind, and a shiver runs down my spine. “I mean, did he slip?”

“He let go,” he states firmly, and I wrestle internally with what I thought I saw: Gabe letting the man go.

“Oh,” I decide not to dwell on that part of the conversation. “What did he do to be arrested?”

“He’s not a nice man,” he says, and I know this is code language for a sexual predator.

“And is the old lady okay?” I’m eager to know this.

“Yeah, she was medically assessed and given a clean bill of health and moved in with her daughter for a few days.” His hand finds the back of his neck as those wise eyes lock onto my tomato plant. “She’s a tough woman, but the shock from trauma strikes after the dust settles.” He lifts his eyes to meet mine and twinkles from the light inside. “As you know.”

I don’t want to talk about that, and I don’t want Gabe to remind me of the worst time of my life. “Do you still work in the Sex Crimes Unit?” I ask curiously since that’s how I met him.

“Yep,” he answers with a sigh and glances at my bare legs again, placing his hands on the rail on either side of his fit body.

“Must be horrible?” I’m trying to console him to open him up, but he’s not so easily fooled.

“Someone has got to do it, or else…” he shrugs. “How have you been, Rae?”

I smile, loving how he utters my name in that smooth, deep voice. “Really good. I love living here, and schooling is good, and everything is good.” I just said the word ‘good’ three times because my vocabulary had shrunk by 90% in the presence of this fine man.

He nods slowly, holding his gaze, before speaking, “I wanted to make sure you weren’t upset by what took place last night.”

“Um, well, I did think a lot about it during the night, but if you say he was a bad man, then maybe it was a good thing he fell to his death,” I speak breathlessly as his direct, assessing stare is making me shaky and if only I could read his mind.

He shifts his stare to the tomato plant again, still showing little reaction to my comment. Now, I wonder if he thinks I’m soiled, permanently marred, and never to be clean again. “You’ve grown up,” he finally says after several long seconds, and I know his words have more than one meaning.

“Yeah, I have,” I answer awkwardly. “I spent two years on my aunt’s ranch in the middle of nowhere where there are more cattle beasts than people by a country mile. I learned to ride pretty well, too.” I laugh nervously, grasping my hands together to stop them from shaking. “And I have a cowboy hat.” Why did I just say that? I’m acting like a twelve-year-old.

His handsome, chiseled face creases into a proud smile, and my heart drops slightly when I suspect his fondness of me is because he views me as a daughter figure. “I’d like to see you in a cowboy hat,” he states evenly, but I’m unsure how to interpret that. “Anyway, I’m holding you up.” He narrows the space between us with one step so our faces are only a couple of inches apart, and a sigh escapes my lips from the intensity. “Don’t you have to be somewhere?”

“Huh?”

He points to the bag, still over my shoulder. “Don’t you have to be somewhere?”

“Oh yes,” I gasp in embarrassment, then realize like a stupid fool that he stepped up to me because I’m blocking the way. I stumble backward so he can sweep past, and he does so with a hint of curiosity in those eyes. I’m acting like a dithering fool, and I need to get my shit together.

It only takes a couple of strides for him to be at my door about to leave. “So, that was the reason for your visit? To check on me?”

“Yes,” he smiles, “since you were a witness to a grisly death.”

“I’m not weak,” I snap with the urge to start an argument because I don’t want him to leave. Can the real Rae Haines please stand up? “You’re expecting me to crumble like a child.”

Pausing with his hand on the door handle, he turns to look at me squarely. “I know you’re not weak,” he agrees. “And I can see that you’re not a child. But you are young, what, nineteen or twenty?”

I nod as self-loathing rears its slimy head at the assumption that he sees me as a child but is being nice.

“It’s not something I would want anyone of any age to witness, Rae,” he explains in a mature tone that nails me to the floor.

I wonder how old he is. Maybe forty, twice my age. I’m acting like a stupid kid with a dumb, unrealistic crush. There’s no way in hell he’d consider me for anything but a daughter. Why am I even thinking like this? I need to concentrate on more important things than hot older men.

My cheeks blush to piss me off, and now I want to hurry up and leave so I can catch my breath. “Well,” my voice catches in my throat, and I clear it, patting my chest, “thank you for coming over to see if I’m okay. I appreciate it.”

He turns away from me to open the door and stalls, returning to me again. That gaze examines my face, and I’m confused by the vibe he’s giving off and the force behind his eyes.

---