AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Dallas peers carefully over her shoulder, the hint of a smile playing at the corners of his lips. “It seems like she dodged a bullet and got her mom’s good looks rather than your ugly mug,” he says, glancing up to sneer at Gabe.
“Don’t make me punch you,” Gabe growls, though his own lips twitch with humor.
“No violence,” Starla scolds. “Neither of you boys can handle it right now, and I refuse to nurse you back to health over someone getting punched in the head again.”
“Don’t even say the words ‘punch’ and ‘head’ in the same sentence,” Gabriel groans as he holds the door open to the ice cream shop. “You’re making my ears ring.”
“Okay, I could definitely get used to this,” Starla says, her eyes growing wide as she takes in the beautiful display of sugary confections.
“Afternoon,” Isabel says brightly, her ever-frizzy hair poking out from beneath her cap.
We each order a cone and head outside to stroll down the street. Turning down one of the main cross-sections to Mainstreet, we choose to wander a new way today so Starla might see a few new shops, and we admire the contents through the windows as we eat our gelato.
“Oh, Winter, we need to stop in here sometime this week,” Starla insists, slowing in front of a bridal store with beautiful white dresses on display.
My cheeks start to warm as I think about the wedding. We really do need to get a move on if it’s going to happen before the baby comes.
“Maybe this weekend?” I suggest.
“Deal.”
At the end of the block is a tiny park with a jungle gym where kids can play. Seeing as it’s a weekday, the park is quiet, and we choose to settle on a picnic bench near the sidewalk to finish eating our ice cream cones.
Dallas keeps up a steady stream of humor, poking fun at Gabe and commenting on the life of a lonely bachelor in a small town like Whitfield in a self-deprecating kind of way. I study his face as we all laugh. It’s good to see the dark-purple bruises that had once covered his face have mostly faded to a motley greenish yellow. While the bruising around his black eye and the bridge of his nose is still more bluish, I’m so grateful he and Gabe are healing.
Gabe’s bruise running from his left eyebrow and temple all the way back into his thick head of hair is fading more slowly. The doctor said that would be true, seeing as his skull was actually fractured compared to Dallas’s more surface-level bruising. It’s Dallas’s forearm that will take the longest to heal for him. But under Starla’s watchful eye, I can see him improving every day.
“So, what’s for dinner tonight, sweet nurse o’ mine?” Dallas asks, turning mooning eyes on Starla, who simply laughs as she rolls her eyes.
“I thought it was boys’ night to cook,” I jump in, raising an eyebrow in challenge.
“With only one good arm?” Dallas asks in mock horror as he raises his cast. “Cereal it is.”
Gabriel groans. “Step it up, man. At least offer the ladies ramen.”
After the stress of the past few weeks, it feels so good to laugh. And with Dallas around, it seems impossible to do anything but that. The first few days were hard to watch with him and Gabriel twinging every time the gesture put pressure on their injured ribs. But that never seemed to slow Dallas down. His humor is unquenchable, and while I wouldn’t dare mention it out loud, I’ve started to wonder if his constant good mood has something to do with Starla’s presence.
But when I hinted at the possibility of something between the two to Starla the other day, she’d simply laughed it off, saying that Dallas flirts with every girl that way. The only reason he doesn’t try anything with me is because he knows Gabriel would wring his neck.
Rising from our picnic bench, we slowly make our way back to the cars. I have to admit, I’m more than ready for an easy night as the exhaustion of the day seems to sink into my bones. Sliding my arm around Gabe’s elbow, I rest my head on his shoulder, careful not to jostle his ribs as we walk along the sidewalk.
As if in a perfect mirror image of the other day, the hair on the back of my neck rises as we round the corner toward the cars, giving me a gut-wrenching sense of foreboding. Lifting my head from Gabe’s shoulder, I glance around nervously, but nothing looks out of the ordinary.
Gabriel’s arm tenses beneath my hands, and I wonder if he feels it, too, the creepy sense that someone is watching us. But the rest of our party comes to a sudden stop as Starla gasps.
A stream of curses pours from Gabriel’s mouth as he strides with purpose toward Ruby, his hands balled into fists as his shoulders raise defensively. I follow tentatively, my heart constricting at the sight of Ruby’s smashed passenger-side window. Snatching the slip of white paper stuck beneath her windshield wiper, Gabriel reads whatever the note says before peering through the shattered window into the car.
“What is it?” I ask, my heart in my throat.
A deep scowl marrs Gabriel’s tan face, and I follow his eyes until they land on the crowbar lying across my front passenger seat. Deep red smears coat the handle, looking horrifyingly similar to dried blood.
“What does the note say?” I demand as Dallas starts to cuss emphatically behind me.
Taking the slip of paper from Gabriel’s fisted hand, I smooth it so I can read.
We know what you did. And this is only the beginning. We won’t stop until you’ve paid for your crime in blood.
There’sno indication of who wrote the note. It’s scrawled in fairly neat handwriting, and the sight of the words written in red ink makes my stomach turn. I can’t help it. Folding in half at the waist, I place a hand on the hood of my car as I empty the contents of my stomach onto the pavement.
