Angel's Rest (9 page)

He took a step toward the kitchen, then paused. “Here. Hand me the leash. The dog probably can use some water.”

Gabe detoured to the mud room, where he pulled a dog bowl and a box of treats from a storage closet. He filled the bowl with water and waited for the boxer to slake his thirst. Then he offered up a dog treat while saying, “Don’t get ideas. You are leaving when she does.”

When he returned to the great room moments later carrying two steaming mugs of coffee, the dog led the way and plopped down at Nic’s feet. She accepted her coffee with a smile. “Thanks. Have a brownie.”

“Maybe later,” he replied, eyeing the tin she’d opened and placed atop a magazine on a nearby table. He leaned his shoulder against the wall of windows and watched her, sipping his coffee, waiting for her to speak, and telling himself he didn’t notice the way the sunlight
seemed to dance in her hair. When the silence stretched, he finally said, “All right, Dr. Nic. Spill it.”

“The coffee?” She was the picture of innocence.

He leveled a chiding look, and she offered up an apologetic shrug. “I’m trying to decide the best way to do this.”

Gabe hoped she wasn’t working up the nerve to ask him for a date. While he recognized that neither one of them had intended it, the atmosphere surrounding last night’s dinner had ended up having too much intimacy for comfort. She was a nice woman, a beautiful woman, but he should have dropped the dog at the door and beat feet last night. “Nic—”

“Gabe,” she said at the same time, “I want to ask your advice about an idea Celeste has proposed to help Eternity Springs’ economic state.”

Oh. No romantic advances. Well, good
. Gabe relaxed and reached for a brownie. “My advice? That’s easy enough, I guess. I don’t know that you should put much stock in it, however.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Now, I think it might help if I set the scene a bit, first. Do you know anything about the history of this part of Colorado?”

“A little.” Gabe lifted a brownie from the plate. “When I was a boy I was fascinated by the Alfred Packer story.”

Nic grimaced at the reference to the only man in American history convicted of cannibalism. “Eew. What is it about boys? My friend Cam Murphy had that same fascination when we were growing up.”

Gabe grinned, then tasted the brownie, and forgot all about history. “Wow. Just wow. This is good.”

“Sarah Reese bakes the desserts for the Bristlecone Café. Her cheesecakes are even better.”

“I have to start eating in town.”

Nic sat back against the cushion, a smug smile fluttering
on her lips. “That’s an excellent idea, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Are you familiar with Eternity’s founding fathers or the legend of how the town got its name?”

“I recall that the name was derived from the local hot springs and the area’s isolation. Something about it taking an eternity for anyone to get here. I also know that Jack’s great-something-grandfather was a miner who discovered the rich vein of silver that provided the base of the family fortune.”

“That was Lucien Davenport. He and Daniel Murphy and Harry Cavanaugh opened the Silver Miracle mine.”

“So Celeste’s place—Cavanaugh House—belonged to Harry? That explains the silver bars we stumbled on last night.”

“Money and murder. The sheriff told us that they found bullets with the bones—but that’s not why I’m here. Gabe, has Jack Davenport shared details about how his family ended up with Murphy Mountain or the conditions of the family trust?”

“No.” Gabe helped himself to a second brownie.

“It’s an involved story and I won’t go into all of it. If you’re curious, you can read the town history that Sarah’s father wrote. It’s in the Davenport library in town. What’s pertinent to my business here today is that Lucien Davenport was an early conservationist. He put the Murphy land in a trust that has prevented road construction or development, which meant that growth occurred in other parts of Colorado. In many ways, Eternity Springs hasn’t changed in over a hundred years.”

“Colorado’s own version of Brigadoon,” he interjected. “You do know that Eternity’s isolation contributes to its charm.”

“Yes, but it’s both a blessing and a curse. The town is dying, Gabe. We’ve been looking for ways to save it, and that’s where you come in.”

He straightened and moved away from the window. “If you’re looking for a conduit to Jack Davenport in order to promote roads to ski resorts, you’re wasting your breath.”

“No, that’s not it at all.”

“You want an investor for a brownie business?”

“Actually, that’s not a bad idea, but it’s not why I’m here. Gabe, Celeste wants to hire you to help design the transformation of the Cavanaugh estate into a healing center.”

Gabe opened his mouth to explain that he no longer practiced his profession, but Nic forged ahead. Speaking rapidly and with enthusiasm, she explained the idea. Despite his best intentions, he listened, and for the first time in months his professional interest was engaged.

The plan had merit. With the right marketing and the right facilities, it just might work. Cavanaugh House could be a good foundation for such a facility. From what he’d seen last night, the house had good bones, which for the most part had survived the fire. The surrounding acreage offered plenty of space for what Nic had described. “The hot springs are on site?” he interrupted.

“They sure are. There are natural pools along the creek south of the house. Harry Cavanaugh picked the perfect spot to build because the breeze usually blows the odor from the pools away. The mineral springs stink.”

“But people love them.”

“True.”

He was tempted. He needed something to do. The work on the retaining wall had taught him that. But working again would mean interacting with people. Was he ready for that? He’d managed last night, but everyone’s focus had been on the fire. They’d accepted his help, and he’d been spared the questions. He couldn’t manage questions.

Nic Sullivan hadn’t asked him many personal questions. Yet. He saw them in her eyes, though.

Gabe turned to stare out the window and vaguely noted that the redhead had set up a tripod. Did he want to work again? Was his head in the right place for it? He rubbed the back of his neck. He guessed he was better than he’d been a month ago. He didn’t want to die anymore. But he wasn’t at all certain that he wanted to live, either. Taking on this project meant interacting, which meant living.

And yet the thought of those springs made his fingers itch to sketch.

He finished his coffee, then set the empty cup atop a coaster on the end table. “If I decide to do this, I would have some conditions.”

She brightened, and hope shined in the sky of her eyes. “I can’t imagine that being a problem. Celeste has already said you can name your price.”

“It’s not about money.” He folded his arms. “It’s about control.”

Standing, Nic reached out and touched his arm. “Don’t worry. I get creative people. Sage is an artist, a painter, and she—oh!”

He followed the path of her gaze and saw Sage Anderson down on all fours, her head hanging, her body trembling, the tripod and camera knocked to the ground beside her.

In an instant, both Gabe and Nic dashed for the door. She was fast, but his legs were longer and as he pulled away from her, he heard the note of fear in her voice as she called her friend’s name.

The woman on the ground shook like a tree in a gale. He saw no blood. No outward sign of trauma. Was she convulsing? “Ms. Anderson?” he called as he neared. He pulled up beside her. Touched her back. “Sage?”

Nic dropped down on her knees. “Sage? Honey, what is it? What’s wrong? Where are you hurting?”

“I’m okay,” she replied softly. Weakly. “I’m okay.”

“No, obviously you’re not,” Nic snapped. “Gabe, I keep a medical bag in the tool box of my truck. Would you get it for me?”

“No. I’m fine.” Sage lifted her head and rolled back on her heels. “Really.” Her pained gaze met Nic’s, then lifted to Gabe. He sucked in a breath. He recognized that look. It was a unique glaze of horror, agony, and guilt. He’d seen it in his brothers’ eyes the night over twenty years ago when they started the fire that almost destroyed a town and did destroy their family. He’d seen it in the eyes of the man who’d confessed the terrible truth about a planned attack on America that ultimately led to Gabe’s “death.”

For the past nine months, he’d seen it every time he looked in the mirror.

She cleared her throat. “I … uh … must have been another pesky acid flashback.”

“Yeah, right,” Nic replied. “This from Eternity Springs’ resident health nut. You tell me what happened right now or I’m loading you into the truck and laying rubber to a hospital.”

Gabe noted the long-distance lens on the camera as he reached out and took Sage Anderson’s hand, helping her to her feet. “You saw something in your viewfinder, didn’t you?”

She nodded. Shuddered. “It was … nature. A fox brought down a rabbit. I don’t know why it hit me that way. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

Nic gave her friend a relieved hug, and while the two women embraced, Sage looked over Nic’s shoulder and met Gabe’s gaze. Silent understanding passed between them.
Acid flashback, no. Flashback of a real experience triggered by violence, you bet
. “It’s survival of the fittest
out there,” he observed. “Laws of nature are seldom pretty.”

“They break your heart.”

“That they do, Ms. Anderson. That they do.”

Nic released Sage and stepped back, a considering look in her eyes as she studied them both. Nic Sullivan wasn’t a fool, and she recognized that something more had happened here. Gabe braced for an intrusive question, but she surprised him. “Guess what, Sage? While you were out here communing with nature, I was busy saving Eternity Springs.”

“Oh, yeah? And how did you manage that?”

“I used my charm and my persuasive abilities and my business acumen to convince Mr. Callahan here to design the cornerstone of our revitalization project.”

Sage arched a question brow toward Gabe. “Is that true?”

He rubbed the back of his neck and made a show of considering. After a long moment, he shook his head. “No. She’s wrong.”

He watched Nic’s face fall and stilled a grin. His expression serious, he added, “It was the brownies that did it.”

Over the next few weeks, the riot of fall colors disappeared from the mountains as aspens and cottonwoods dropped their leaves. Winter arrived in Eternity Springs with chilling winds and falling temperatures, but only a dusting of snow. The last seasonal stragglers departed town, and Nic and her fellow year-rounders settled into their winter routines.

Folks tended to congregate at the Mocha Moose, a coffee house and Internet café, and the Red Fox Pub, where they visited with their neighbors and fretted about the scarcity of snowfall in southern Colorado. A slow start to the ski season meant fewer people in the mountains, which meant fewer adventuresome, tired-of-the-lines people wandering into town to spend their precious tourist dollars. Luckily, Celeste Blessing’s repair and renovation dollars were taking up the slack. The amount of activity had caused one grateful business owner to wonder if the bars found in her cellar really had been gold bars painted silver as a disguise.

The Cellar Bride and her thirty pieces of silver fired the imaginations of Eternity Springs’ citizens. Speculation as to the circumstances that led to the bride’s entombment in Cavanaugh House’s root cellar was just the sort of mystery people loved to discuss on a cold and otherwise uneventful winter’s night.

Once Gabe had agreed to participate in Celeste’s healing
center plans, he and Celeste had held a series of meetings in Nic’s kitchen, where they discussed Celeste’s vision of the healing center and hammered out a work agreement that suited them both. Nic believed the final result had to be the strangest contract ever negotiated.

She understood keeping the plan under wraps until his design was complete and the concept ready to present. Asking him to work on-site rather than up at Eagle’s Way made sense, too. The more he interacted with townspeople the better he would understand the culture of Eternity Springs. That could have a positive influence on his work—or at least help avoid unforeseen problems.

His demands were more difficult to understand. Gabe Callahan agreed to design the landscape plan as long as he was allowed to lead the work crew doing renovations on the house, too. He wanted physical labor, all the brownies he could eat, and a home other than his own for the boxer. Plus he wanted Sage to create a work of art of her choice for Eagle’s Way.

That last request had caused Nic to suffer a brief and shameful bout of jealousy. After all, she’d “not dated” Gabe first. But something had passed between those two up on Murphy Mountain that day. They’d connected in some intangible way, and Nic had felt like a third wheel.

She talked about her reaction with her aunt when she and Nic’s mom visited for Thanksgiving. After dinner, while her mom took a nap, Nic and Aunt Janice bundled up and headed outside to walk off their meal. When Janice asked Nic about her love life, Nic spilled the beans about the new man in town.