The Cliff House. RaeAnne Thayne

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       5

      GABE

      Somehow, by the grace of a God he assumed had forsaken him a long time ago, Gabe managed to walk out of the cozy, warm little sitting room he had found the day before without making a complete ass of himself.

      It was a close thing. He felt as weak as a damn day-old Bengal tiger cub. He wasn’t sure if it was from his lacerated liver, from the infection he was still fighting off or from the painkiller he had finally taken in desperation somewhere close to dawn after a mostly sleepless night.

      Whoever would have guessed he would come to this point?

      As an adventure documentary filmmaker, he might have expected to meet his fate on some bitterly cold mountain somewhere, in the midst of giant ocean swells, or while trudging across a vast, sun-parched desert.

      He never would have guessed the injury that would take him lower than he’d ever been and make him wonder if he would actually survive would happen in the tunnel of a football stadium prior to a concert for a pop star whose music he didn’t even particularly enjoy.

      It had all been a fluke, mere chance. He wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place but had been in Dallas meeting with some producers when he met Cruz Romero at a party. Cruz was apparently a fan of his work and had been a fan of Gabe’s father, which shouldn’t have surprised him but somehow did.

      Cruz had expressed interest in investing in Gabe’s next project, showing the extensive efforts under way to protect tiny indigenous tribes along the Amazon, and had invited him backstage for his show later that night to discuss it.

      He should have turned him down. But he hadn’t had plans that night and as a lifelong learner had been interested in what went on behind the scenes at a major concert venue, so he’d agreed.

      He shouldn’t have been there. Yet he was. He had been standing next to Cruz just after he came off stage when a huge linebacker of a man lunged at the performer with a wild look in his eyes and a massive, wicked-looking hunting knife in his hand.

      Gabe could have slipped away. It wasn’t his fight, after all, and the crazy dude wasn’t after him but the man he apparently blamed for the breakup of his marriage—Cruz.

      He hadn’t. Instead, his instincts kicked in, the instincts he had honed from a lifetime of living in dangerous situations.

      He had deflected the guy’s aim slightly, though not completely, but what would have been a gouge straight to Cruz’s heart had glanced off his arm instead.

      Unfortunately, this had only enraged the guy more and he turned his attention to Gabe, thrusting the knife into his gut hard before bodyguards had finally come to the rescue and taken him down.

      Turned out, the man’s wife had been a groupie who had actually slept with Cruz two years earlier after a previous concert in Dallas. She had been so certain he wrote one of his love songs for her that she’d left her husband and two kids to follow the pop star around the country.

      He couldn’t really blame the guy for wanting a little revenge. He just would have preferred he boycotted the concert, maybe walked outside holding a placard or something, instead of trying to even the score with a ten-inch hunting knife.

      In the days since the attack, Gabe had learned some interesting facts about knife wounds.

      He had learned livers were one of the most common organs injured by knife and gunshot wounds, largely because of their size and vulnerable position in the abdomen.

      He had learned that a damaged liver could heal on its own, one of the rare organs that could regenerate new cells instead of scar tissue.

      He’d also learned that any abdominal injury was prone to infection—and that recovering from one was a hell of a lot harder than he expected.

      He hadn’t died from blood loss, as he now knew the ER doctors had fully expected would happen. He had made it through the first twenty-four hours and then the week after and was well on the road to recovery now.

      He hadn’t wanted to come here to Cruz’s estate to recover, but with his only fixed address a third-floor walk-up in Manhattan Beach that he used as a home base, he hadn’t had many choices.

      Gabe still wasn’t sure he liked the guy’s music but had to admit Romero had stepped up to show his gratitude, insisting on staying with Gabe through those early days in the hospital and then arranging for him to fly here upon release.

      Cruz hadn’t listened to a single argument.

      There were far worse places to rest and recuperate.

      Gabe sank into a bench overlooking the ocean, enjoying the waves crashing against the rugged cliffs below.

      He would rest here for a minute, he told himself. Just long enough to avoid the prickly Daisy, whose last name he still didn’t know.

      She was lovely. He couldn’t deny that. At first glance she seemed almost forgettable but then a man looked closer and saw those stunning hazel eyes, full mouth, lush curves.

      He hadn’t been able to look away when he’d seen her in the grocery store the other day. He was rather embarrassed to remember that he might have stared. She had seemed familiar to him and now he knew why. In the hallway outside his room was a picture of Cruz and a little girl he assumed was his daughter. Also in the picture was a woman who looked a lot like the little girl, which he now figured was Cruz’s ex-wife, an older woman with short hair and glasses and the voluptuous Daisy.

      Those hazel eyes had gazed out of the picture, hypnotizing him.

      He would love to СКАЧАТЬ