Page 229 of Her Reluctant Hero
Gabe spun on the other man. Betrayal. That was all the man understood.
“Gabe,” Peyton said, but Gabe barely heard her over the roar in his ears. He pivoted and started down the mountain.
“I’d like us to be friends again.” Doug raised his voice to cover the distance.
Gabe slowed a bit but didn’t look back. “That can’t happen.”
“It’s been three years—”
“It could be twenty.” Gabe turned to face the man he’d once loved like a brother. “You made your choice. Live with it. Now if we all want to get back to camp in one piece, we better keep our mouths shut and walk.”
Peyton was more miserable on the short hike back to camp than she’d been crawling through the tunnels of the cavern, than running for her life up the mountain. Gabe walked apart from them, tension and anger clear in the line of his body. She hadn’t improved matters by asking Doug about the rift; worse, she’d lit a fuse with her damned question.
Gabe had almost died after Jen asked him for a divorce. What was it with alpha men wanting to prove themselves?
Doug tried to be nice, staying even with her, trying to distract her with conversation, but her gaze strayed again and again to Cooper. Her heart ached for hurting him, for bringing his pain to the surface. Where were her reporter instincts where he was concerned? Apparently she’d left them back on the mountain.
Those thoughts were pushed aside when camp came into view. Despite her aching feet and fatigue-numbed muscles, she wanted to run the rest of the way. She passed Gabe in her eagerness. He caught her arm and eased her back.
“Hold on there, Tex,” he said, a trace of humor in his voice. “It’s farther away than you think. You don’t want to give out so close to the goal.”
“You won’t carry me?” she teased, testing his mood.
He snorted, a good sign. “Fat chance.”
“Gabe, I’m sorry—”
“Don’t.” He jabbed a finger toward her. “Don’t say another word. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay, all right, I understand.” She sucked in a deep breath, then added in a rush, “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“Sounds to me like you’re still talking about it. Let’s just forget it.”
She nodded once, pressing her lips together in frustration, and hiked on.
A shout went up as they approached camp, and yellow-shirted firefighters swarmed out of tents and hurried toward them, cheering. They circled Gabe, everyone reaching for him, trying to touch him, whether to see if he was real or as a good luck charm, Peyton didn’t know. He accepted their greeting with tired grace, less the conquering hero than a guy who’d done his job.
The crowd parted and a little blonde ran forward and launched herself at his chest, tucked her head under his chin and wrapped her arms around his waist. Peyton saw the shock on his face, saw it was Jen just as he gave in and wrapped his arms around her.
“I thought I’d killed you,” Jen said, her voice muffled against his chest.
He held Jen in his arms. For the first time in three years everything he wanted was right here. She’d come to him, had worried about him, when her husband stood only ten feet away. He couldn’t stop himself from folding his arms about her, feeling her against his body one more time, bending his head to smell her hair.
Knowing she was no longer his.
One last time. He put his hands on her shoulders and set her away from him sadly.
“We’re fine. Tired, and Peyton needs something to eat.” He looked over Jen’s head at Peyton, who watched him with a mixture of horror and fascination. Behind him, Doug’s expression was probably the same. Before today, he would have been rejoicing for causing Doug pain. Today, revenge just felt pathetic and sad. Like he’d shed a skin on the mountain and come back ready for a new life.
“Go to your husband,” he said quietly to Jen, the woman he’d craved for three years, the woman he still thought of as his wife. “You sent him to get us. Make sure he knows he’s done good.”
The hurt on her face made him tighten his grip on her shoulders for just a minute as he resisted the desire to pull her into his arms. Then she stepped away, toward her husband, and Gabe turned, not quite man enough to watch their embrace.
He found himself face to face with Peyton, who watched the little scene behind him with avid interest. He took her arm firmly and steered her toward the mess tent.
“Let’s get something to eat and you can shower.”
“Cooper!”
