Charity's Angel by Dallas Schulze Read Free Book Online Page B

twenty-four hours as easily as he could shut out the freeway.
    He didn't open his eyes again until he felt the car slow down for an off ramp. Opening his eyes, he realized she hadn't driven him to the station to get his car or to his own home in Pasadena. Instead they were in Glendale, heading for the house Annie shared with her husband.
    "I'm really not up for company tonight, Annie." It was an effort to speak. All he wanted was to be alone.
    "I'm not takin' you home, Gabriel. You'll just sit there and brood, playin' it over and over in your head, wonderin' what you should have done different."
    Since that was exactly what he'd had in mind, Gabe didn't even attempt to deny it.
    "Maybe that's what I need to do," he said shortly.
    "I ain't havin' it. Next thing you know, you'll be throwin' your badge off some freeway bridge like a character in a Clint Eastwood movie."
    Since he'd also considered doing something along those lines, Gabe was reduced to silence. The problem with Annie was that she knew him too damned well.
    "Look, I'm not going to be very good company." He made one last effort to dissuade her as she pulled into her driveway.
    "Well, and here I was expectin' you to teach me to polka," she said with heavy sarcasm. "You aren't stayin' alone tonight, Gabriel. What a body needs at a time like this is good friends and a medicinal drink or two."
    "Going to get me drunk?" He asked, half-smiling in spite of himself.
    "It wouldn't hurt."
    "Anyone ever tell you you're a pushy broad?" he asked as he pushed open the car door.
    "All the time, sugar. All the time."
    He followed her up the walkway to the comfortable home she shared with her husband, resigning himself to the fact that Annie was going to have her way. Maybe she was right. Maybe being alone wasn't the best idea tonight. But he doubted anything would make him forget what had happened.
    No matter how many good friends were around, or how many shots of whiskey Annie managed to pour down him, nothing could blot out the memory of those seconds when he'd seen the bullet—his bullet-hit Charity. And then the bright, accusing tint of blood spilling onto her dress.
    It was going to take more than company and alcohol to make him forget that.

Chapter 5

    T he hospital smelted just the same. That odd non-smell that was somehow more antiseptic than a whiff of pure ammonia.
    Gabe's fingers tightened over the bouquet of flowers. Now that he was here, he wondered if he was crazy to have come. The last person Charity would want to see was him. He was the reason she was here.
    He was determined to apologize—an empty gesture but it had to be made. Maybe he shouldn't have brought flowers. Maybe they were too frivolous. He frowned down at the bouquet of yellow roses. He'd stripped his neighbor's rose bush earlier this morning, wanting the kind of roses that had scent, rather than the hothouse sorts the florist carried. Jay would probably throttle him when he saw the denuded plant but he could worry about that later.
    He stepped out of the elevator, pausing to ask directions to Ms. Williams's room. It was really a delaying tactic. He knew where her room was from his last two visits. But those times he'd talked himself out of actually seeing her. This time he intended to go through with it. The least he owed her was an apology and a chance to tell him how much she hated him.
    Over a week since the shooting and still no sign of the feeling in her legs. The doctors insisted there was no reason to despair. The spine was a delicate area. It needed time to heal.
    Gabe's steps dragged as he walked down the hall to Charity's room. He didn't want to see those big green eyes look at him with cold anger. Didn't want to hear her vent the rage she surely felt toward him. But he owed her that much.
    He stopped outside her door, his hand so tight around the tissue-wrapped stems that his fingers ached. Like as not, she was going to throw his flowers back in his face and him out on his butt. Drawing