Stranger in Town - Brenda Novak

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there was no use wallowing in regret. She’d made a colossal mistake, but she’d been young and naïve. And once she’d become pregnant, she’d felt she had no choice.

      …Follow me in merry measure…

      Brent and Kenny. Her sons were all that mattered now. She couldn’t let Russ get too far ahead. She didn’t know where the cabin was located.

      Hannah floated to the left again, her eyes boring holes in the thickly falling snow as she tried to see around the next bend.

      It was no use. She couldn’t pass.

      …Heedless of the wind and weather…

      Easing back into her own lane, she laid her hand on her horn, hoping the truck would pull over or at least speed up.

      Brake lights flashed as the driver slowed even more—she’d only succeeded in rattling him.

      They wouldn’t be out of the mountains for another twenty miles…. Hannah wanted to bang her head on the steering wheel in frustration. She had to pass. It’d only take her a moment. A quick dash around, then she’d be on her way.

      …Fa la la la la, la la la la.

      Once again, she checked for oncoming traffic. A car rumbled past, then nothing. There was another curve not far ahead, but she felt fairly confident she could get around the truck if she didn’t hesitate.

      Another carol, Hannah’s favorite, came on as she pushed the pedal to the floor. The engine shifted and the van lurched forward.

      Silent night, holy night…

      Moving into the other lane, she came even with the truck, but a pair of oncoming headlights suddenly appeared, seemingly out of nowhere.

      …All is calm, all is bright…

      Hannah slammed on her brakes and tried to swerve to safety, but her tires couldn’t grip the ice-covered road. The van swayed sharply and began to fishtail; headlights rushed toward her, blinding in their brightness.

      …Sleep in heavenly peace…

      She screamed as a sudden, gut-wrenching jolt threw her chest into the steering wheel. The unforgiving crunch of metal on metal clanged in her ears. Then she tasted blood, and everything began to spin around and around as her van shot over the edge and tumbled toward the bottom of the ravine.

      …Sleep in heavenly peace.

      CHAPTER ONE

      August, nearly three years later

      GABRIEL HOLBROOK FROWNED as he saw Mike Hill get out of his SUV and walk through the dappled sunshine toward the cabin. He’d known Mike would be paying him a visit. He’d been expecting it for more than a week, ever since he’d heard the Hill family’s sad news and attended the funeral. But he still wasn’t prepared. What was he going to say?

      Mike’s knock sounded—as solid, decisive and determined as Mike himself.

      Lazarus, Gabe’s Alaskan malamute, dashed expectantly to the door.

      With a sigh, Gabe let the blind fall back into place at the front window and wheeled himself across the living room. It wasn’t as if he could pretend he wasn’t home. Mike knew, since the accident three years ago, Gabe hardly went anywhere.

      At least Mike hadn’t brought his wife. Gabe wasn’t ready to deal with Lucky….

      As always, the heavy pile of the carpet made it difficult to maneuver. Turning too soon, he accidentally clipped the corner of the kitchen table. Because he’d made that table out of metal and hadn’t yet finished off the edges, it cut his shoulder. Irritated that his preoccupation had caused him to be careless, he cursed, and Lazarus whined as he opened the door.

      Mike’s somber expression turned to concern as soon as he saw Gabe’s arm. “You’re bleeding.”

      “It’s just a scratch.” He moved back and whistled for Lazarus to do the same. “You wanna come in?”

      Tall and lean, with close-clipped brown hair and hazel eyes, Mike doffed his cowboy hat and stepped inside. “How’d you cut yourself?”

      Gabe glanced at his biceps. He’d been lifting weights when he heard Mike’s car pull into the drive. Had he been wearing anything more significant than a muscle shirt, he probably wouldn’t have been hurt. “It’s the damn carpet,” he said with a shrug.

      “So why don’t you tear it out and put in a hardwood floor? Make life a little easier?”

      Because Gabe permitted only the most necessary concessions to his handicap. Special allowances made him feel weak, feeble…useless. Besides, he wasn’t planning to be in a wheelchair much longer. He was going to walk again.

      He didn’t say so, though. He knew Mike would only give him a patronizing smile. No one believed him.

      Absently petting his dog, a gift from a guy he used to play football with, given to him as a puppy just after the accident, Gabe curved his lips into the good ol’ boy smile he used to deflect certain questions. “You kiddin’? It’s real wool. Cost me a fortune.”

      His hayseed charm didn’t work as well on Mike as it did on other people. The way Mike’s eyebrows lifted indicated he knew Gabe had sidestepped the real issue. “You can afford it.”

      Gabe wasn’t particularly eager to bring Mike to the reason for his visit. But neither did he want his friend to start harassing him like he had for the past year. When are you going to quit holing up in that cabin of yours and get back to the business of living?

      Gabe couldn’t exactly call what he was doing living. It certainly wasn’t life as he’d always known it. He avoided people, even his family, and attended few events. But he was meditating, training, growing his own food and working. Mike just didn’t understand. Mike hadn’t lost his ability to walk, and with it his life’s dream, right before the play-offs. He hadn’t been forced to sit back and watch his team lose the Super Bowl because their starting quarterback had nearly severed his spinal cord. The site of the injury was Gabe’s lower back, which meant he could do more than a lot of paraplegics, but it was still something the doctors couldn’t fix. They pointed to stem cell research as a possibility for the future, but Gabe couldn’t count on anything so uncertain and far away. He had to take matters into his own hands, overcome the effects of the accident with hard work and positive thinking. That’s how he’d always handled everything else.

      “I’m sure you didn’t come all the way out here just to talk about my carpet,” he said.

      Mike fidgeted with his hat, bending the rim and sliding it through his curled fingers in a circular motion. “No.”

      Again, their eyes met and Gabe had the uncomfortable feeling that Mike was about to ask for something he couldn’t give. But they’d been friends too long. Gabe couldn’t see any way to avoid hearing Mike out.

      “Have a seat.” He motioned to the couch, which was about the only piece of furniture in the cabin Gabe hadn’t made. Working with wood—and recently experimenting with other materials like metal—gave him purpose beyond his therapy. But spending so much time at it made for an odd collection of furnishings. Not that he particularly cared. Very few people came to visit. His old football buddies used to call and want to drop by, but he’d turned them away so consistently that most eventually gave up. They didn’t like seeing the league’s MVP reduced to half a man, and Gabe hated how uncomfortable they felt in his presence. He couldn’t help resenting their pity.

      “What’s with the table?” Mike asked as Gabe wheeled over and grabbed a paper towel to wipe the blood off his arm.

      Gabe considered the piece he was currently creating. Eight feet by six feet, it was made in mission style, but the sheen of the metal and the large rivets gave it a very urban feel. Gabe had seen something similar in a magazine once. “I’m branching out.”

      “It’s unusual, but…nice. In a creative sort

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