Saint by T.L. Gray Page B

scream.
    The huskily built guy with green eyes
continued to stand there in front of the fridge, staring at her. “That’s one
hell of way to wake up the chickens.”
    “Francis!” She turned and slammed face
first into the preacher’s tattooed chest.
    “Whoa.” Francis steadied her. “No need to
panic, Angelface. Gabe, you shouldn’t sneak up on a woman like that. It’s bad
for the nerves.”
    And he wasn’t kidding. Her heart was
racing, thumping heavily in her chest. “You know him?”
    “He wouldn’t have made it to the porch if I
didn’t, darling. This is Gabriel. I heard you coming up the hill, Gabe. You and
those big-ass boots.”
    “Pleased to meet you, ma’am.” Gabriel
crossed the room and offered his hand. His hair was a sunny color, almost like
a…halo.
    She shook his hand briefly. “I’m Maria.”
    “Have a seat, Gabe, grub’s almost ready. I
was gonna give you ’til noon before chalking you up as a dry well.”
    “I’ve never hit a dry well in my life.”
Gabriel pulled out the chair next to where she was standing and sat down.
    Maria took her usual chair. “Are you an
offshoreman?”
    “No, ma’am. I pay the
offshoremen.”
    “Gabe owns Texas,” Francis said over his
shoulder as he threw ingredients into the frying pan haphazardly.
    Texas. Well. “Sorry I screamed like a
schoolgirl.” She glanced pointedly in Francis’ direction. “But I didn’t know we
were expecting company.”
    “Gabe likes schoolgirls, don’t you, Gabe?”
    “Can it, Francis.”
    “So, Gabriel, not your real name I’m
assuming.” It was a shot in the dark, but there seemed to be some sort of weirdly
disturbing theme emerging.
    “It is for now,” Gabriel replied.
    “Who’s next, Francis? The Pope or another
saint?”
    “Saint’s here?” Gabriel looked up at
Francis just as the preacher slapped a plate in front of him.
    “No. But thanks for stirring up her
curiosity, Gabe.”
    She glanced from one to the other. “Who’s
Saint?”
    Francis shrugged lightly, sitting down to
attack his own breakfast. “Some say he’s a myth, some a legend.”
    “And what does this saint do?”
    “He reaches through the veil of death and
snatches its victims back into the light.”
    Lovely. “Is this, er, Saint, joining the
party?”
    “Maybe.”
    And neither one of them was offering to fill
her in on the details. She was getting tired of being kept in the dark. “Francis,
what’s going on?”
    “You can ask the colonel when he gets back.”
    “I’m asking you,” she said flatly.
    “Can’t tell you what I don’t know. Gabe,
you know anything?”
    “Nope.” Gabriel continued to eat as if it
were normal for him to show up on a moment’s notice, dressed for war in the
outback.
    “You show up here, on some Godforsaken
mountain in the middle of…” She’d forgotten where she was… “Nowhere, and you
don’t know why you’re here?”
    “I’m on vacation,” Gabe said.
    She threw her napkin on the table. Her
chair screeched backward as she came to her feet. “Vacation my ass. I want to
know what’s going on and I want to know now.”
    “You always could charm the skirt off a
woman, Gabe,” Francis quipped dryly. “Now, honey, calm down. Sit down and
finish your breakfast.”
    “My name is Maria,” she snapped out in precise tones. “And don’t you dare
take that condescending tone with me. Will dumped me on this mountain with a
bunch of…of…thugs for hire, and I’m not jogging one more step, climbing one
more tree or rolling my sorry female ass out of bed before dawn one more day
until you tell me what the hell is going on. And don’t you dare say it’s Colonel’s
orders!”
    “Well now, that’s a fine temper,” Gabriel
drawled, smiling for the first time to reveal perfect white teeth. “Almost as
hot as some of the gals back home. Will’s the reason for all this ruckus, eh?”
He and Francis exchanged a look.
    Francis helped himself to a toothpick,
leaning his chair back