The Grave - Part 4

Desperate, he escaped the room. He bolted through the back door and the cold, fresh air slapped him in the face. He sucked in a deep breath, thankful for air free of tears and pain, and dropped to the top step of the back porch.

Tears burned his eyes. Fear surged up in his chest and he blinked furiously. If he started crying he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to stop. With a sigh, he scrubbed his palms over his face, pressing them to his gritty, burning eyes. It had been forty-eight hours since he’d last slept. But it had also been forty-eight hours since the nightmares had plagued him. Forty-eight hours since he’d jerked awake, a hoarse cry razing his throat.

If only he hadn’t suggested they drive separate cars to the Christmas party. If only he’d driven in front of Maura instead of following her and Ian. If only, if only…so many damn “if only”s. Even now he could hear the squeal of rubber tires. The screech of metal colliding with metal. Maura’s whispered pleas to save Ian first…Ian’s terrible silence. The acrid scent of burning gasoline invaded the cold, crisp breeze, and Gabriel sucked in several breaths, his heart working double time to keep up. Gold dots appeared in his suddenly dim vision and black streaks encroached on his vision, threatening to drag him under …

The gentle touch on his back was a length of rope he grasped and clung to with frantic hands. The length of thigh pressed to his drew him back over the ledge. The delicate, familiar vanilla and peppermint shoved back the dark.

Leah rested her head against his shoulder and wrapped her arms around his back and waist. She didn’t speak; she didn’t ask him how he was doing or offer condolences for his loss. She just held him. Unlike Ana, Gabriel didn’t have the urge to shove her away. As always, the woman with the bewitching green eyes, quiet strength and gentleness slipped under his guard. Since she’d been a child Leah had commandeered a piece of his heart, and where his best friends couldn’t offer him the comfort of holding him, touching him, she could. The warmth of her arms and body melted the chill encasing him.

How long they sat there, he didn’t know. When the tears came, he had no idea. He wasn’t aware of dragging Leah into his lap, clutching her to him, and sobbing out his grief into her neck.

Through it all Leah bore him up so he didn’t plummet into the abyss of insanity that clawed at him.

She was his…sanctuary.

***

To read Part 3, click here.

To read Part 2, click here.

To read Part 1, click here.

 

Twenty years ago, Leah Bannon’s beloved Uncle Richard vanished without a trace. Leah, now a private investigator, begins to suspect it was murder. When she reopens the cold case, Gabriel Devlin—-the man she loves but can never have—-inexplicably stands in her way.
          Only four people know the truth about Richard’s mysterious disappearance—-Gabriel and three childhood friends...who have all sworn to take that secret to the grave. But a hidden enemy wants those shocking secrets brought to light...even if he has to kill to make it happen.
          After experiencing an unimaginable loss two years ago, Gabriel refuses to put himself through the pain of loving someone who could be gone in an instant. But as he thwarts Leah’s investigation at every turn—-both to keep his friends’ pact, and to keep her safe from danger—-the sexy PI makes it impossible for him to protect his secrets. Or his heart...

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The Grave - Part 3

Hours later Gabriel threaded through his in-laws’ living room packed with mourners and well-wishers. He moved like a wraith, insubstantial, barely grounded to the floor. He dimly heard the murmured condolences, hardly felt the consoling touches. A dense, invisible wall had erected around him five days ago. A wall that didn’t permit compassion or kindness. If he allowed even the tiniest bit of emotion to filter through, than the grief—the horrible, clawing grief—would rip pass his defenses and splinter his mind into so many shards he wouldn’t be able to assemble them together again.

“Would that be so bad?” a dark, seductive voice whispered.

How many times in the past week had he pleaded with God to take him too? Let him go into a sweet sleep and never wake from it? Then he would join Maura and Ian in eternity; they would be a family once more.

But each morning he woke, alone and hurting so much he couldn’t comprehend how he continued to function. How a heart that didn’t exist could still pump blood to his organs, forcing him to live. And each morning, he hated God a little more. His very Catholic mother would gasp at that admission and perform the sign of the cross for her son’s blasphemy.

But it was true.

 “Gabe.” The hoarse cry echoed the depths of pain buried beneath the layers and layers of ice in his chest. “She’s really gone. My baby is gone.” Janie O’Keefe, Maura’s mother, lumbered forward, her gait unsteady and reeling. Before he could guess her intention, she threw herself against his chest. She enfolded him in her arms and wept, her body shaking with jagged sobs.

On reflex, Gabriel clutched her arms, prepared to wrench away. The shock of her touch and overwhelming display of emotion threatened the protective barrier around his own feelings. And perversely, a small part of him envied Janie her freedom to surrender to the pain.

“Come on, Mrs. O’Keefe.” Chay appeared out of nowhere, his quiet murmur both gentle and firm. His friend wrapped an arm around her shuddering shoulders and loosened her desperate hold. With low, soothing words, Chay guided the sobbing woman toward the brightly lit kitchen. Gabriel remained frozen, aware of the pitying glances cast between him and Janie.

It proved too damn much.

***

To read Part 2 click here.

To read Part 1 click here.

Part 4 of The Grave concluded on June 10th...

The Grave - Part 2

Leah.

His best friend. His mother had worked as housekeeper in her family’s home for years, and her father had been a father figure to him since his own had disappeared long before Gabe was born. Leah and James Bannon were as much family as the three men standing next to him.

“Gabe.”

He started, tore his gaze away from Leah and met blue eyes as familiar to him as his face. Ana Devlin, his mother, squeezed his hand, grief heavy on her face.

“It’s over, Gabe,” she whispered. “Are you ready to go?”

Panicked, he jerked his head back to the casket. Already employees of the funeral home were removing the flowers, and people headed across the cemetery to their waiting cars. No, his mind screamed. Terror and agony shredded him, and he wondered why his blood didn’t seep into the withered grass at his feet. Nothing should hurt this bad and not bleed.

He must have released a bit of that animal-like howl because Chay shifted closer and grasped his shoulder in a hard grip, as if bracing him. Or prevent him from leaping in the earth with Maura and Ian.

“You go ahead, Aunt Ana,” Malachim murmured. “We’ll stay with Gabe and bring him with us.”

“If you’re sure,” his mother stammered. “I can wait, too.”

“No,” Rafe assured her, his voice low, soothing. “We have him.”

Gabriel couldn’t rip his eyes from the white, large box that a crane slowly lowered into the ground with an eerie creak reminiscent of a raven’s caw.

He couldn’t leave, couldn’t force his feet to move from this place where his wife and son would find eternal rest. God help him, he couldn’t leave them behind.

***

To read Part 1 of The Grave, click here.

Part 3 of The Grave continued on July 8th...

The Grave - Part 1

When Gabriel Devlin's story begins in Secrets and Sins: Gabriel, two years have passed since the deaths of his wife and son. Below is the prequel to his story...where it really begins...

***

The grave gaped wide like a dark maw in the earth, eager to swallow up the casket that perched above it. Bouquets of colorful flowers draped the closed lid, seeming incongruous with the priest’s solemn prayer and the overcast, grey sky, heavy with the promise of snow.

Gabriel Devlin stared at the white casket, large enough for the wife and son that rested within its depths. Grief squeezed his heart in its icy grip. He shivered and wondered if he would ever be warm again. His gaze returned to the scarred earth and received his answer.

No, he would never know the warmth of love again.

His breath hitched and his throat burned with the tears he refused to shed. Though his mother flanked one side of him and his best friends, Malachim Jerrod, Raphael Marcel, and Chayot Grey positioned themselves on the other like tall, silent sentinels, he was alone, separated from everyone and everything else but his grief.

The priest’s monotone offered up a prayer, commending Maura and Ian’s spirits into God’s keeping. Rage clawed at his chest. God had entrusted them into Gabriel’s hands, why had He chosen to take them from him? Had he done such a horrible job?

He squeezed his eyes shut, guilt flaying the skin from his soul. When he reopened them, he stared off into the distance, needing to look at anything but the casket that contained his family’s remains.

As his gaze skimmed the crowds, only a few met his eyes, most skittering away as if unable to stare into the face of sorrow. Hell, he knew what he looked like. A gaunt, empty-eyed caricature of the man he’d been.

His gaze settled on a tall, slim figure. As he stared the woman lifted her dark head and eyes as green as the leaves on top of the casket met his. Unlike the others, she didn’t avoid his stare, but held it. Sympathy, sorrow, and love glistened, along with her tears.

Leah.

***

Part 2 of The Grave continues on Wednesday, July 3rd...

 

Twenty years ago, Leah Bannon’s beloved Uncle Richard vanished without a trace. Leah, now a private investigator, begins to suspect it was murder. When she reopens the cold case, Gabriel Devlin—-the man she loves but can never have—-inexplicably stands in her way.
          Only four people know the truth about Richard’s mysterious disappearance—-Gabriel and three childhood friends...who have all sworn to take that secret to the grave. But a hidden enemy wants those shocking secrets brought to light...even if he has to kill to make it happen.
          After experiencing an unimaginable loss two years ago, Gabriel refuses to put himself through the pain of loving someone who could be gone in an instant. But as he thwarts Leah’s investigation at every turn—-both to keep his friends’ pact, and to keep her safe from danger—-the sexy PI makes it impossible for him to protect his secrets. Or his heart...