Chapter 28 Gabriel
Gabriel
The taste of Lucy still burns on my lips as I watch her walk away from the station, that sundress swaying around her hips like pure temptation.
Even through the window, I can see the confidence in her stride, the way she carries herself like a woman who knows exactly what she wants and isn't afraid to take it.
Christ. What she just did to me. What she's been doing to me since the moment she walked into my life.
I'm still trying to catch my breath, still hard as granite despite the fact she just blew my mind along with everything else. I should be disturbed by how easily she's unraveled years of discipline.
Should be worried about the man I'm becoming around her. The one who lets her drop to her knees in a government building like some horny teenager who can't control himself.
Instead, all I can think about is the next time I can get my hands on her. The next time I can watch her face as she comes apart for me.
I'm adjusting my uniform, trying to get my head back in the game, when something on my desk catches my eye. The file I'd been reading when she arrived with breakfast and scrambled every coherent thought in my skull.
The federal clearance file I'd forgotten I'd even requested.
My blood turns to ice water as the words swim back into focus.
Multiple psychiatric evaluations. Court-ordered institutionalization following violence incident. Drug possession (Class A substances). Resisting arrest.
"Jesus," I breathe, gripping the edge of my desk until my knuckles go white.
But even as my heart tries to hammer its way out of my chest, something feels wrong. I force myself to read more carefully, to look past the damning phrases to the details underneath.
Mathew Carter.
Not Lucy Reid. This isn't about my Lucy at all.
This is about the registered owner of her van. The name that came back when I ran her plates weeks ago. A name that had been sealed tighter than a steel trap, requiring federal clearance to access.
My old Army buddy Marcus Webb at Homeland Security had owed me enough favors to pull strings, but I'd completely forgotten about the request in all the chaos with the Cutters and Lucy's attack.
Now the file is here, and the picture it paints is dark as a Montana winter.
Mathew Carter. Twenty-three years old. A senator’s son, that justifies the sealed records.
History of psychiatric treatment starting in his teens.
Institutionalization for violent behavior.
Drug charges. Multiple arrests for resisting authority, disturbing the peace, assault on a corrections officer.
The kind of rap sheet that speaks of someone deeply troubled. Potentially dangerous.
Someone who owns the van Lucy's been living in.
I lean back in my chair, running both hands through my hair as possibilities race through my mind like spooked cattle.
Best case scenario, Lucy bought the van from this Mathew character through some under-the-table deal that explains why the paperwork never got transferred.
Maybe she had no idea about his history, just needed reliable transportation and found herself tangled up in his legal complications by accident.
Worst case scenario...
Don't go there, Maddox.
Because the worst case involves Lucy being connected to whatever violence put Mathew Carter behind locked doors. Maybe as a victim. Maybe as something else entirely.
I try to reconcile this information with the woman who just left my office. The woman who saved a dying dog without hesitation. Who works herself to exhaustion caring for animals. Who brings me breakfast because she's worried I'm not taking care of myself.
The woman who makes me want to throw away every principle I've ever held about duty and honor and doing things by the book.
Because that's what I've been doing, isn't it? Ever since Lucy walked into my life, I've been compromising. Small things at first.
Giving my personal information at the hospital instead of letting them run her through the system.
Keeping quiet about her obvious desire to stay under the radar during the Cutter investigation.
Looking the other way when it became clear she was keeping secrets any good law enforcement officer should be investigating.
And now this morning. Letting her perform oral sex in my office, in a government building, where anyone could have walked in.
Letting desire override every professional boundary I've ever maintained.
My chest tightens with something that feels like panic mixed with guilt. I've spent my entire adult life living by a code. Military discipline first, then law enforcement protocol. Black and white, right and wrong, no gray areas to muddy the waters.
It's what kept me sane after watching my mother choose my father and violence over freedom. What kept me functional after losing Katherine to pills I should have seen coming.
But Lucy is nothing but gray areas. Beautiful, complicated, impossible gray areas that make me question everything I thought I knew about myself.
The crazy thing is, I've never felt more alive.
When she looks at me with those brown eyes full of trust and desire, when she touches me like I'm something precious instead of just another authority figure to be wary of, I feel like the man I was always supposed to be.
Not Sheriff Maddox, not the guy who fixes problems and maintains order, but Gabriel. Just Gabriel, worthy of being wanted for who he is rather than what he represents.
I think about weeks ago, when I asked if she'd done anything illegal or was involved with drugs. The way she'd looked me straight in the eye and said no, with such conviction that I'd believed her completely.
I still believe her.
Whatever connection she has to Mathew Carter, whatever circumstances led her to be driving his van and living like a ghost, I don't think it's what this file makes it look like. Not my Lucy.
My Lucy.
The possessive thought hits me like a freight train, sudden and unavoidable.
I flip to the last page of the file, looking for any additional information that might help me understand how Lucy fits into this picture. Mathew Carter's last known contact information stares back at me: a phone number with a 518 area code. New York.
Before I can second-guess myself, I grab my office phone and dial.
Four rings, then voicemail. A young man's voice, careful and wary: "You've reached Matt. Leave a message if it's important."
I hesitate for a heartbeat, then go with my gut. "This is Sheriff Gabriel Maddox from Briarhaven, Montana. I need to speak with you about Lucy Reid. It's urgent. Call me back." I leave my direct number and hang up.
The silence that follows feels loaded with possibility and dread in equal measure.
I close the file and lock it in my desk drawer, then lean back in my chair and stare out the window at Main Street.
The smart thing would be to tell Colt and Beau what I've learned. Share the burden, let them help me figure out how to handle it. But the thought of seeing doubt creep into their eyes when they look at Lucy makes my chest tight with something that feels dangerously close to panic.
Maybe that's selfish. Maybe I'm putting my own desires ahead of their right to know what they're getting into.
But whatever she's running from, she's not ready to share it yet. And I'm not ready to force her hand.
Not when I think about how she felt in my arms this morning, warm and trusting and completely mine.
Not when I remember the way she said "yours too" with such fierce conviction, like she was claiming me as much as I was claiming her.
I've waited thirty-eight years to feel this kind of connection with someone. Thirty-eight years of keeping everyone at arm's length, of choosing duty over desire, of being the man who solves other people's problems while keeping his own heart locked away.
Lucy changed that. Lucy changed everything.
The radio crackles to life on my desk, dispatch calling about a fender-bender out on Highway 12. Real work, the kind of straightforward problem-solving that used to be enough to satisfy me.
Now it feels like an intrusion, pulling me away from thoughts of Lucy and the impossible situation we're all navigating.
I grab my hat and keys, but as I leave the office behind me, my eyes drift to the desk drawer. To the secrets hidden inside.
Whatever Lucy is hiding, whatever danger she might be running from, I'm in this now. All the way in, with both eyes open and my heart on the line.
The choice between duty and desire isn't really a choice at all. Not anymore.
Because in the end, it comes down to trust.
Trust Lucy, trust what I know about her character and her heart, or let fear and suspicion destroy something that feels more real than anything I've ever experienced.