Page 18 of If This is Love

This man wasnice. Felt nice. Smelled nice. I hadn’t been held by a man like this since Michael was here, and I didn’t even realize how much I’d missed it.

He gave me an easy bounce and turned his face toward mine. “You good?”

His face was right there, only an inch or two from mine, and something in my chest lurched forward with such intensity that I leaned into him. It was such an odd sensation, and I’d only felt it once before—right after the chapel doors opened and I saw Michael smiling at me from the altar. Like my heart was stretching forward and reaching for him.

It was even more odd to feel such a thing right now, but it was best to just ignore it.

“Yeah, I’m good.”

* * *

The extremely handsome,extremely kind man whose name I completely forgot—ugh, ugh, ugh all over the place—carried me to a small, adorable yellow house with a beautifully-tended flowerbed and white fence around the perimeter of the lush green yard. He also opened his front door withone handwhile still effortlessly holding me.

“Hang tight,” he said after entering the house and setting me down on a large, squishy sofa. “I’m going to go grab supplies to fix all that for you.” He stepped away and snapped his fingers in a loudPOPas he pointed at the rug, and both dogs immediately lay down.

I cast an incredulous glance at him as he disappeared around a corner and then looked back at the dogs. “Goodheavens,” I said under my breath, marveling at how Jax complied effortlessly with this man’s instructions. Maybe the young lady from the animal shelter was right, and I was the one who needed to go to obedience school.

I didn’t have my phone on me, so I did everything in my power to burn into my brain that I needed to call Skyeimmediatelyafter I got home to ask this man’s name. In the meantime, I skimmed my gaze around the living room, looking for magazines on the coffee table or something else that might have his name on it.

There were large, cherry wood shelves lining one wall, filled with books, but also framed certificates, shadow boxes of medals, and framed photos of uniformed military people. A triangularly folded American flag sat proudly in the center of one shelf along with a framed photo of my kind, handsome, good Samaritan wearing a formal uniform and a serious expression, sans beard. On the opposite side of the flag was a framed photo of Chloe Laurent’s boyfriend—who had also been at the meeting and whose namealsoescaped me—wearing the same uniform.

Ohhh that’s right.Skye or Liza or maybe Chloe said they were brothers.

The two men were handsome. They had the same silvery, pewter-hued eyes, high, chiseled cheekbones, and sharp, distinguished jaws, but the brother was a bit fairer in his coloring and hair.

The sight of the shelves sobered me pretty quickly. I hadn’t realized they were military veterans. And right there next to the flag and photos was evidence that my good Samaritan was also a wounded warrior.

A framed certificate declaredPurple Heartin large letters, and just below that was his elusive name.

Sergeant Gabriel C. Martinelli

“Oh my heavens,” I breathed, “Gabriel.”

So he wasn’t one of the Lord’s mighty archangels, he was just named after one.

A chill shot down my spine, and I shuddered trying to process the coincidence that I was already reading into way too much.

The Bible was packed with stories about angels, but I’d only ever known the names of two.

Gabriel and Michael.

What did that mean? Did that mean something? That their names had that in common? That he had such a name, andIfelt that same strange pull in my heart that I felt only one time before when I was about to marry my soulmate?

Thathadto mean something.

I looked away from the shelves and down at the wreckage of my hands and legs. “Honestly, Ruth,” I mumbled. “Get it together, girl.”

Loud footsteps approached from the hall, and Gabriel emerged with an industrial sized first aid kit. Long, assertive strides carried him back into the living room, and he dropped himself to sit on the coffee table right in front of me.

“Okay, Ruth, let’s see that ankle.” He leaned forward to gently place his hand on the back of my calf and then lifted my foot onto his knee. He untied my sneaker, loosened the laces, and then gingerly slid off my shoe, setting it down on the rug next to his feet. When he started to pull off my sock, I recoiled, and a nervous giggle eked out of me.

Gabriel cut his silver eyes up to mine, looking at me below a creased brow. “You okay?”

“Yes, I’m sorry.” I sheepishly closed my hands into fists and immediately regretted it. The road rash on my palms was no joke, and the smarting, stinging pain distracted me from my childish outburst. “It’s just been a long time since a handsome man touched my leg.”

Okay, so the road rash was more than justdistractingand had stripped my mouth of its filter.

Oh. My. Lord. I really just said that out loud.

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