Stranger in Town (Dundee, Idaho #5)(2)
Author: Brenda Novak

At least Mike hadn’t brought his wife. Gabe wasn’t ready to deal with Lucky….

As always, the heavy pile of the carpet made it difficult to maneuver. Turning too soon, he accidentally clipped the corner of the kitchen table. Because he’d made that table out of metal and hadn’t yet finished off the edges, it cut his shoulder. Irritated that his preoccupation had caused him to be careless, he cursed, and Lazarus whined as he opened the door.

Mike’s somber expression turned to concern as soon as he saw Gabe’s arm. “You’re bleeding.”

“It’s just a scratch.” He moved back and whistled for Lazarus to do the same. “You wanna come in?”

Tall and lean, with close-clipped brown hair and hazel eyes, Mike doffed his cowboy hat and stepped inside. “How’d you cut yourself?”

Gabe glanced at his biceps. He’d been lifting weights when he heard Mike’s car pull into the drive. Had he been wearing anything more significant than a muscle shirt, he probably wouldn’t have been hurt. “It’s the damn carpet,” he said with a shrug.

“So why don’t you tear it out and put in a hardwood floor? Make life a little easier?”

Because Gabe permitted only the most necessary concessions to his handicap. Special allowances made him feel weak, feeble…useless. Besides, he wasn’t planning to be in a wheelchair much longer. He was going to walk again.

He didn’t say so, though. He knew Mike would only give him a patronizing smile. No one believed him.

Absently petting his dog, a gift from a guy he used to play football with, given to him as a puppy just after the accident, Gabe curved his lips into the good ol’ boy smile he used to deflect certain questions. “You kiddin’? It’s real wool. Cost me a fortune.”

His hayseed charm didn’t work as well on Mike as it did on other people. The way Mike’s eyebrows lifted indicated he knew Gabe had sidestepped the real issue. “You can afford it.”

Gabe wasn’t particularly eager to bring Mike to the reason for his visit. But neither did he want his friend to start harassing him like he had for the past year. When are you going to quit holing up in that cabin of yours and get back to the business of living?

Gabe couldn’t exactly call what he was doing living. It certainly wasn’t life as he’d always known it. He avoided people, even his family, and attended few events. But he was meditating, training, growing his own food and working. Mike just didn’t understand. Mike hadn’t lost his ability to walk, and with it his life’s dream, right before the play-offs. He hadn’t been forced to sit back and watch his team lose the Super Bowl because their starting quarterback had nearly severed his spinal cord. The site of the injury was Gabe’s lower back, which meant he could do more than a lot of paraplegics, but it was still something the doctors couldn’t fix. They pointed to stem cell research as a possibility for the future, but Gabe couldn’t count on anything so uncertain and far away. He had to take matters into his own hands, overcome the effects of the accident with hard work and positive thinking. That’s how he’d always handled everything else.

“I’m sure you didn’t come all the way out here just to talk about my carpet,” he said.

Mike fidgeted with his hat, bending the rim and sliding it through his curled fingers in a circular motion. “No.”

Again, their eyes met and Gabe had the uncomfortable feeling that Mike was about to ask for something he couldn’t give. But they’d been friends too long. Gabe couldn’t see any way to avoid hearing Mike out.

“Have a seat.” He motioned to the couch, which was about the only piece of furniture in the cabin Gabe hadn’t made. Working with wood—and recently experimenting with other materials like metal—gave him purpose beyond his therapy. But spending so much time at it made for an odd collection of furnishings. Not that he particularly cared. Very few people came to visit. His old football buddies used to call and want to drop by, but he’d turned them away so consistently that most eventually gave up. They didn’t like seeing the league’s MVP reduced to half a man, and Gabe hated how uncomfortable they felt in his presence. He couldn’t help resenting their pity.

“What’s with the table?” Mike asked as Gabe wheeled over and grabbed a paper towel to wipe the blood off his arm.

Gabe considered the piece he was currently creating. Eight feet by six feet, it was made in mission style, but the sheen of the metal and the large rivets gave it a very urban feel. Gabe had seen something similar in a magazine once. “I’m branching out.”

“It’s unusual, but…nice. In a creative sort of way.”

Gabe chuckled at Mike’s diplomacy. He missed the old days when they’d been close. Before the NFL. Before the accident. Before Mike had married Lucky.

“We’ll see how it turns out.” Pushing himself back into the living room, he studied his friend’s face. He could tell by the lines of fatigue around Mike’s eyes and mouth that the past ten days had been hard on him. It was nothing more than Gabe had expected. Coach Hill’s heart attack had come out of nowhere.

“I’m sorry about your dad,” he said, and meant it. Coach Hill had been like a second father to him. Because Gabe had skipped both fifth and eighth grade, he’d been two years younger than the other boys in his class, which put him at a disadvantage athletically. It was Coach Hill who recognized his talent and refused to let the other coaches cut him from the team when he went out for football his freshman year. It was Coach Hill who dared to start him as a senior. Without Mike’s father’s influence, Gabe never would have played for UCLA, which was where he really matured and began to excel.

A muscle flexed in Mike’s cheek, revealing his deep emotion. “Thanks for coming to the funeral. It was the first most folks have seen of you in a long time.”

Gabe didn’t respond to Mike’s subtle jab. He was too busy wondering how he’d feel if it had been his dad who died. He’d barely spoken to his father since last year, when Senator Garth Holbrook had ruined his bid for Congress by announcing something he’d managed to keep secret for twenty-four years….

“I’ve been busy,” he said, yanking his thoughts away from that dark moment. “So…what can I do for you?”

“I think you know why I’m here.”

Gabe combed his fingers through his hair, which fell in layered waves almost to his shoulders. He rarely bothered to have it cut anymore—having it cut required a trip into town, a trip that wasn’t rewarded with food or the prospect of seeing a football game. “And I think you know what kind of answer you’re going to get.”