He chuckled, the sound rumbling deep in his chest, vibrating beneath her ear. “Oh, I’m good. Better than good. Fantastic.”
“Thank you, Gabe,” she said softly. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me today. I’m so much happier to have these memories to associate with this day.”
“You say that like a woman prepared to move on,” he said, his tone suddenly stiff, guarded.
“That’s not how I meant it,” she assured him, but his tension didn’t ease. “I just don’t want to take anything for granted. Let’s just take things one day at a time and see what happens, okay? I have a habit of not thinking much about the future. Not since my family died.”
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then pressed another kiss to her hair. “I understand.”
“Do you?” she asked, rising up to peer down into his face, searching his eyes.
He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “Yeah, I do.” His brows drew together in a frown, as if he was struggling with a decision, then he said, “Did you know I almost got married once?”
For some reason, the thought of him married to someone else was a sucker punch to the gut that made her want to hurl. But she swallowed back the lump in her throat and shook her head. “No, I didn’t. I’m surprised Aunt Charlotte didn’t say anything about it.”
“Charlotte didn’t know,” he told her. “Most people didn’t. My brother Tom was the only one I told—and you know how tight-lipped Tom is. Only guy I know who can actually keep a secret.”
“Why was it a secret?” Elle asked.
He frowned. “Just wanted to wait for the right time to tell my dad and the rest of my brothers.”
“Who was she?”
“Her name was Audrey Evans. I dated her when you were away at law school. She was finishing up her senior year in grad school and then we were going to get married. She was planning to be a research chemist.” His arm around her tightened. “Guess I have a thing for brilliant women.”
Elle grinned at the compliment. “So what happened? You said she was planning to be a chemist.”
He shrugged. “Dunno. A couple of weeks after we got engaged, I came home a few hours later from my shift because I’d had a shit-ton of paperwork that night and we got into a huge argument. I wasn’t even entirely sure what she was so pissed about. But that was it. She finally called me a week or so later to tell me why she’d broken things off. Apparently, she’d decided she couldn’t be married to someone in law enforcement, couldn’t take all the worrying.”
“I’m so sorry, Gabe,” Elle told him, partly because she’d never thought him capable of ever committing to one woman, let alone being the one on the receiving end of a broken heart.
His expression grew solemn. “Can’t say I blame her.”
“Bullshit.”
He flinched and drew away, giving her a shocked look. “Sorry?”
“She was an idiot if she couldn’t see what she was passing up,” she told him.
His answering grin was brief, but then he shook his head. “Maybe she was smarter than I’d thought. I’ve had more than my share of fuckups, Elle.” He ran a hand over his hair, his expression twisting with emotion, and she realized this was about more than just one of his ex-girlfriends bailing. Her instinct was confirmed when he said, “I should’ve checked the battery in my radio before I went into Moe’s that day, Elle. I shouldn’t have been out in my vehicle when Chris was shot.”
She turned his face toward her. “You couldn’t have known Derrick Monroe was going to barge into the diner and shoot Chris any more than you could’ve known Mark Monroe was going to take a shot at me.”
His eyes closed, effectively shuttering his gaze from her, but she could sense the turmoil inside him, the survivor guilt that plagued him. Mostly because she’d been feeling it, too.
“I was supposed to have Chris’s back,” he said, his voice catching. “I should’ve been there.”
She touched his cheek, gently skimming along his chiseled jaw. “Look at me, Gabriel Dawson.”
He opened his eyes, his expression still guarded, angry—not with her, she could tell, but with himself.
“You can’t protect everyone,” she reminded him. “You just can’t. So you need to cut yourself some slack or it’s going to eat you alive. Trust me. I know.”
“And what if I hadn’t been able to protect you, Elle?” he asked softly. “What if another stupid coincidence had kept me from following you out to the courthouse steps that day?” He reached up, smoothing her hair away from her face, and grasped the nape of her neck, pulling her down so her forehead was pressed against his. “What if I’d lost you before I’d ever had the chance to hold you in my arms?”
God, he’s breaking my heart.