Dark Refuge Read Free Page B

and she was very afraid.”
    Gabe sat silently beside her. Finally he turned, and she felt his heavy gaze. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say. I certainly didn’t expect anything like this. But you’re right. We need to find her. Whatever I can do, Emeline.”
    She noticed that he said her name in a much kinder tone this time. Without the snark. Then he softly added, “You know you can count on me.”
     
    • • •
     
    Em drove back to her apartment in the Sunset District so unnaturally aware of Gabe, who was sitting so close beside her in the small vehicle that it felt as if he took up all the air. They didn’t talk, beyond a few questions from him about her latest travels, and she was so relieved. She still wasn’t sure how to act around Gabe, almost as if she didn’t know how to be an adult around him.
    Their entire relationship had been more of a big brother–little sister sort of thing, and that wasn’t at all how she wanted him to think of her. She’d quit thinking of Gabe as her big brother by the time she was into her early teens. The fact he still treated her like a kid had made her crazy, but then he went away to college, and that was so much better, because she didn’t have to think about him at all.
    Except she did.
    Goddess help her, she hadn’t been able to put him out of her mind. She’d gone away to college herself and then straight into work at CGI, the same place where Gabe worked, except it was a huge company and she traveled a lot. They hadn’t run into each other since she’d started her job at CGI as an intern almost six years ago.
    She had been so certain she’d find peace when her job took her out of the country.
    So much for that idea, though maybe it was a good thing he was here. Maybe it was a chance to see if there ever could be anything between them, though she’d noticed his interest when she’d described the woman. She’d had him at tall and blonde, exactly what she wasn’t, but he was never going to notice her, not while he still saw her as “cute little EmyIzzy.”
    She turned off the 280 for Highway 1 and headed west to the Sunset District and the old refurbished mansion where she lived. It was the same building where the first members of Pack Dynamics had stayed before they moved headquarters to Montana. The building had been converted to separate apartments, and now it provided temporary housing for Chanku who worked for CGI or its subsidiaries here in San Francisco.
    Gabe stared with open curiosity at the three-story building as Em pulled into the underground garage. She shot him a quick glance after she parked. “Haven’t you ever been here before?”
    He shook his head. “No. I’ve heard about it. It was being renovated when I was looking for a place to stay, but that was years ago. I ended up sharing an apartment with Alex Aragat over in North Beach, but we gave that up last summer. He was hardly ever in the city after Anton put him to work as pack liaison with the Flathead County sheriff’s department, and I knew I’d be gone all summer with Jace Wolf on our annual survey of the wild wolf populations. Since we got back, I’ve been handling some of Alex’s work with the sheriff’s department and telecommuting. It’s good to get back to San Francisco, though. I’ve actually considered moving in here. Now that Alex and Annie are here and he’s taken over Lily’s work at Cheval International, they’re living in Lily’s house on Marina. Annie’s still programming for CGI, and Lily’s moved in with Sebastian in his house in Montana.”
    Em grinned at him. “That’s a lot to keep track of.” Then she laughed, finally beginning to feel a bit more comfortable with this overwhelmingly adult version of Gabe Cheval. He’d always been such a cutup, it was sort of nice to carry on an adult conversation with him. “I can’t believe all the matings that have taken place in the past few months. The party crowd is growing up.”
    Gabe smiled at her.