LITMIR.BIZ

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could be with their families. This time he hadn’t had a choice.

      “I’m sorry you got hurt, but I’m glad you’re here,” Gideon told him.

      “You want someone to take the pressure off with Dad around.”

      “That, too. Although I figure we can throw Carter in his direction. From what everyone tells me, grandparents can’t resist grandkids.”

      An interesting plan. “You’re not worried about what the old man might do to your kid?”

      Gideon smiled. “Nope. Felicia will protect him. She’s tough and fierce. I wouldn’t want to go up against her.”

      “Good to know. Then I’ll stay out of her way.”

      “Just don’t threaten Carter and me and you’ll be fine. Oh, I guess the dog falls under that umbrella now.”

      Gabriel started to say something, but the word umbrella reminded him of the woman he’d met earlier. Noelle, who’d been willing to defend her friend’s house with nothing more than bravado and an umbrella.

      He was glad she’d seen the error of her attack. Had there been a real intruder, she would have been in trouble. But he’d been no threat and he had to admit she’d been an unexpected distraction.

      For a moment he allowed himself to wonder how his evening would have been different if she’d been the one sitting out here with him instead of his brother. He grinned. For one thing, they wouldn’t be so far apart. And they sure wouldn’t be talking.

      “What are your plans for after the holidays?” Gideon asked. “Staying in?”

      By in his brother meant the army. His smile faded.

      “I don’t know,” he admitted.

      He’d always planned to stick around long enough to get his twenty years. He would still be young enough to move into a regular job at a hospital. But lately, he wasn’t sure he wanted to. Or could.

      It was the flights, he thought grimly. Those years of shepherding injured soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan. They were in no position to be moved, but needed the more intense care only a permanent military hospital could provide. So they were patched up and flown out. He and his team spent the hours dealing with one crisis after another. The conditions were cramped, the patients critical. Space and weight limited the equipment.

      When he hadn’t been on the flights, he’d been working in field hospitals. Those on the front line suffered from PTSD, while those who cared for them battled compassion fatigue. Watching the endless parade of injured, continually fighting against impossible odds without ever knowing who lived and who died, left a person drained. Even his rotations to the hospital in Germany didn’t provide much relief.

      Gabriel knew that was where he was now. Exhausted and empty. Which increased the likelihood that a person made mistakes and he had the hand injury to prove it. He needed to get away. His brother’s invitation had provided a place. Going to spend time with the family at the holidays required no explanation.

      The door to the house slid open. Felicia stepped out into the night. She crossed to Gideon and placed her hand on his shoulder. He put his fingers on hers.

      “I’m sorry to interrupt,” she said, her voice quiet. “I wanted to give the two of you plenty of time to connect. A strong relationship between brothers would be beneficial to each of you and it would provide Carter with a view of how siblings interact.”

      Gideon smiled. “How could I have resisted you?”

      Felicia smiled. “You didn’t—at least not physically. It was your resistance at giving your heart that was the cause of your delay in admitting your feelings. I’m glad you’re more open now We’re going to have children and I want Carter to be comfortable as a brother, but also a member of the family. I don’t want him to worry he’s being pushed out.”

      “Which is not what you came out to tell us.”

      “No. Your parents just called.”

      Gabriel felt the tension in his shoulders. “Giving us an ETA?”

      Felicia looked at him. “Yes. They’re so excited about meeting me and Carter that they decided to drive straight through. They’re only an hour or so outside of town.” She returned her attention to her husband. “I knew you’d want to mentally prepare for their arrival.”

      Gideon’s humor faded. He was on his feet in a second, already moving toward the far end of the deck. About fifteen yards away, he stopped and turned back.

      Gabriel recognized the need to bolt. He was feeling it, too. Unfortunately he didn’t have anywhere to go. Although he remembered seeing a couple of hotels in town.

      No, he told himself. He wouldn’t leave tonight. But the morning was a whole other matter.

      * * *

      The Boylan family could trace their service roots back to the Civil War. Each generation of Boylan men enlisted. They weren’t officers, they were never famous for their exploits, but they gave to their country and had the medals to show for their courage.

      Gideon had wanted to be a soldier from the time he was little, but Gabriel had wanted something else. As a boy he’d dreamed of seeing the world, of visiting great museums and studying other cultures. Gideon had been loud and athletic. Gabriel had preferred reading to playing in the tree-house fort their father had built in one of their many backyards. He’d preferred theater to baseball and debate to football.

      The summer he and his brother turned fifteen, his father had taken him for a long hike. When they were alone in the woods, the older Boylan had demanded to know if Gabriel was gay.

      Gabriel knew he was different from his brother and his father, but there were other guys like him. Guys who wanted more than hitting a ball. And it had nothing to do with whether or not he liked girls.

      He’d said he wasn’t and had known his father didn’t believe him. On the bright side, when Gideon got caught with a cheerleader in the back of the family car, he’d been grounded for a month. When Gabriel had been found with the pastor’s daughter in a very compromising situation, he’d gotten a slap on the back and unexpected praise. So there had been compensations.

      But on the whole, it hadn’t been easy being his father’s son. Now, all these years later, as he waited in the cold for his parents to arrive, Gabriel told himself there was no need to head for the hills. Or in this case, the mountains. He might not have his brother’s Special Forces training, but he figured he could make a run at surviving for a few weeks on his own. Not that disappearing that way was an option.

      They were all lined up on the porch. Even Webster, who had no idea why the pack was shivering in the cold but happy to be a part of things.

      An aging Ford Explorer pulled up in front of the house and parked. Gabriel watched the couple that stepped out.

      His first thought was that they were older than he remembered. It had been years and the time showed—more on his father than his mother. His second thought was that his father seemed smaller somehow. Not the imposing figure he’d always been.

      It wasn’t easy to grow up with a drill sergeant for a father. There were expectations for behavior in the community that other kids didn’t have. Norman Boylan had always been more bogeyman than parent, at least when Gabriel had been young. Now, looking at the man, he realized that he was at least two inches taller. His father wasn’t a threat anymore—he was little more than a man close to sixty who had once been the center of his sons’ small world.

      Gabriel’s mother, Karen, was still pretty. There’d always been a softness to her and he saw that now as she took in the sight of both her boys. Then her gaze shifted to Carter and tears filled her blue eyes.

      She’d been the one who comforted, the one who tried to explain why their father had made the rules he had and enforced them with an iron fist. Gideon had accepted her hugs and kisses, then run off, healed. But Gabriel had resisted,

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