Visions (Cainsville 2) - Page 141

If she went into his kitchen and dug into the cupboards, she'd find stacks of other canned goods, mostly beef stew. She'd joke that he should stop shopping at Costco, or that he must really like Coke and canned stew.

The truth? He could live happily if he never drank another Coke or ate another bowl of canned stew. Living on the streets, those had been his staples. Coke was cheap energy. Beef stew was protein and vitamins.

He could say that he kept caseloads of both as a reminder of how far he'd come. That was bullshit.

He had other stashes, too. Money, for one. A hundred thousand dollars in cash, secreted in various locations throughout the apartment. Other valuables as well, just in case. Then there were weapons. Guns, knives, a baseball bat . . . Olivia's gun had come from here. He wouldn't miss it. He never carried a weapon. He just had them. In case.

In case of what?

The apocalypse? Nuclear war? Biological attack?

At least those would make some measure of sense. His reasons had no basis in rational thought. He had these things because some deep-rooted, impossible-to-uproot part of his psyche required them, like a child with a security blanket.

He'd spent years on the streets. Years when he'd guzzle Coke and eat cold stew from a can. While other street kids dreamed of hot meals and warm beds, his fantasies were simple. He wanted enough to eat. In a cruel twist of irony, his body decided it needed its tremendous growth spurt at a time when he could least afford it. There'd been months when hunger seemed to be the driving force in his life.

Money solved the food problem, obviously, and it could also provide that more elusive of creature comforts: shelter. He could usually scrape together enough to rent a place in the worst of winter, but he spent the summers wherever he could find a safe haven. He had to save for college. That was the only way out of the situation. His golden ticket. With a degree, he could have a legitimate, steady source of income, not spend his life looking over his shoulder for the law, like most Walshes. To get to college, though, meant going through high school, which meant conning his way in with a false address and then showing up every day in decent clothing, with decent supplies, so teachers wouldn't question his home situation. It also meant squirreling away money for college. So there was never enough for food, and he'd dreamed of a day when there would be.

As for the weapons, that was another problem altogether. Before those growth spurts made him an unpalatable target, he'd woken too often to a knife at his throat. He'd stolen a blade of his own only to have it turned against him. After that, he settled for hiding the bulk of his money and keeping only a few small bills on him. Then he started growing, and they mostly left him alone. Mostly. No matter how big he was, he couldn't fight three armed punks who really wanted the twenty bucks in his wallet.

There were other dangers in the world, too, ones his size offered no defense against. There'd been a girl. His first. Just a

street kid. She traded sex for protection. Nowadays, he'd never take advantage of a woman that way, but at seventeen, if a girl was offering it . . . yes, he'd taken it. Right up until the night he woke with a knife poised a lot lower than his throat, as her real boyfriend helped her steal a thousand dollars of his college savings--and all of his pride.

It was a mistake he never made again. Sex was an instinct, like hunger or thirst, one to be dealt with but controlled, so it would never again pose a threat to the pursuit of his goals. Keep his eyes on the future. Don't get distracted. Slow down to admire the scenery and the world will overtake you. Or devour you.

So he had the Coke and the stew and the money and the weapons. And it all added up to one thing: fear. It didn't matter how old he was or how big he'd grown or how successful he'd become. He was safely up here, above the city, behind locks and a security system, and there were still nights when he bolted awake, heart pounding so hard he could barely breathe. The only thing that helped was knowing everything he needed was here, everything he hadn't had half a lifetime ago.

Olivia admired him for overcoming his past. He could see it in her face when the subject arose. It had taken him to a level in her estimation that "Gabriel Walsh, attorney-at-law" could never reach. He'd come from the streets and had a million-dollar condo before the age of thirty. That spoke to her of strength. Of victory.

And this? The Coke and the stew and the money and the weapons? They told a very different story. They said that Gabriel Walsh hadn't sailed out of that life unscathed. The frightened and hungry kid who'd lived on the streets wasn't gone. He was hiding up here, with his security blankets.

There was no reason for Olivia to know that. What he presented to her wasn't a false front. She was happy with the ninety percent of him that she saw, and that's what he wanted. Olivia to be happy.

Except, right now, Olivia was not happy. He should have gone after her. That was the proper procedure. He'd behaved poorly, and she was hurt. She'd stormed off. He should have followed. Except he couldn't. She'd left him. He would not follow. He knew well what a psychiatrist would say about that, tracing it back to Seanna's abandonment. He didn't care. It was what it was.

He could rectify that now. Send a text. I'm sorry. I behaved badly.

Please come back.

Gabriel made a noise in his throat and turned on his heel, shoe squeaking on the polished floor.

He would not say that last part, of course. He would never say that. But it was what he wanted--for Olivia to read his apology and understand how hard it was to make it, and even if she was lying beside Ricky, for her to leave his bed and come back. To give him another chance.

Which was pathetic. Weak and pathetic and desperate. He'd made a mistake, a relatively small one. By tomorrow, he wouldn't even need to apologize.

But he should.

When his cell phone rang, he jumped, then cursed himself for startling like a spooked cat. It rang again, and the surprise and the annoyance fell away as he thought, It's her. Olivia. Calling to tell him what a jerk he was. He didn't care. She was calling.

He hit the button so fast that it wasn't until he'd already pressed it that he actually saw the name: James Morgan.

He almost hung up as the line connected. He would have, if it couldn't be seen as a sign of cowardice. He almost swore, too. That wasn't quite as great a faux pas, but it was a personal line he preferred not to cross. The world liked to paint him as a thug. His size, his choice of clients, his moral ambiguity--it all added up to that conclusion. Gabriel Walsh was an ill-bred, uncouth thug. He would not give them the satisfaction of hearing him speak like one. He would watch his word choice and his diction, and not be what they expected.

So he didn't curse when the line connected.

"Olivia isn't here," he snapped in greeting.

A pause. Then, "I should hope not. It's ten at night. Whatever mistakes she's making, that's not going to be one of them."

Tags: Kelley Armstrong Cainsville Fantasy
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