The Cliff House. RaeAnne Thayne
now,” he said with an enigmatic look. “Divorce or not, you’ll always be my baby girl’s aunt, which means we’re connected forever.”
“Not to mention the fact that I handle a significant portion of your assets.”
He laughed and turned to the other man in the room. “I see you’ve met Gabriel.”
How inappropriately named. He wasn’t at all angelic. “He was just leaving, I believe. And taking his booze with him.”
“Just water, babe,” Cruz said. “The man is boring enough to be a preacher. His body is a temple, apparently.”
She hated having to agree with Cruz on that point.
“It’s worked out well for me so far,” the unworthily named Gabriel said with a smile. As he rose, his smile turned into a wince that had Cruz taking a step forward.
“You okay, man?”
Daisy raised an eyebrow at the genuine concern in Cruz’s voice.
“Fine. Just a little stiff. I’m going to take a walk.”
Now her ex-brother-in-law looked anxious. “Be careful. You know you’re not supposed to go far.”
“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry. I’ll just walk around the pool and back. You know you don’t have to babysit me every moment, right?”
“I promised the doctors I would make sure you take it easy,” Cruz said, confirming Daisy’s growing suspicions. “That’s the only way they let you out of the hospital.”
“In case it’s escaped your attention, I’m not hooked up to monitors anymore. Nobody has to know that I dared walk a hundred yards.”
“I know. Now Daisy does, too. You’re a miserable patient, Ellison.”
Gabriel Ellison. She knew that name. She frowned, trying and failing to place exactly how. He wasn’t a celebrity, she was sure of it.
She was also sure that she owed this man an apology for her attitude toward him. Gabriel was the person she had seen in the grainy, out-of-focus picture in that tabloid, the one who had been slumped against a wall holding his hands to a knife wound.
This was the man who had saved Cruz’s life. And she had been treating him with contempt and disdain, as if he was some druggie parasite.
Shame twisted through her. When would she ever learn not to jump to conclusions?
“I’m a miserable patient and you’re a mother hen. You’re not responsible for me.”
“I beg to differ. You lost half of your liver saving my sorry ass, which means I’m responsible for making sure you listen to the doctors.”
Gabriel Ellison made a face. “Exaggerate much? It was a small section of my liver. Barely even a few centimeters. I’ll be perfectly fine once it heals. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take a walk and find another comfortable and quiet spot to read my book.”
He picked up the glass and the book she hadn’t noticed before and moved past her. She had to say something, before things became even more awkward between them.
Daisy cleared her throat. “I...I feel like I owe you an apology, Mr. Ellison.”
Why was that name so familiar?
“For what? Having a difference of opinion? I enjoyed the conversation. It was a pleasure meeting you, Daisy.”
He moved past her a little unsteadily. She frowned after him.
“Will he be okay on his own?”
“Give me a minute and I’ll make sure my security people keep an eye on him.”
He called a number, spoke a few murmured words, then hung up. “Now. Tell me again how much money you’ve made for me while I’ve been gone.”
With a sigh, she turned her attention from the mystery of Gabriel Ellison to business, something she knew and understood.
GABE
Somehow, by the grace of a God he assumed had forsaken him a long time ago, Gabe managed to walk out of the cozy, warm little sitting room he had found the day before without making a complete ass of himself.
It was a close thing. He felt as weak as a damn day-old Bengal tiger cub. He wasn’t sure if it was from his lacerated liver, from the infection he was still fighting off or from the painkiller he had finally taken in desperation somewhere close to dawn after a mostly sleepless night.
Whoever would have guessed he would come to this point?
As an adventure documentary filmmaker, he might have expected to meet his fate on some bitterly cold mountain somewhere, in the midst of giant ocean swells, or while trudging across a vast, sun-parched desert.
He never would have guessed the injury that would take him lower than he’d ever been and make him wonder if he would actually survive would happen in the tunnel of a football stadium prior to a concert for a pop star whose music he didn’t even particularly enjoy.
It had all been a fluke, mere chance. He wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place but had been in Dallas meeting with some producers when he met Cruz Romero at a party. Cruz was apparently a fan of his work and had been a fan of Gabe’s father, which shouldn’t have surprised him but somehow did.
Cruz had expressed interest in investing in Gabe’s next project, showing the extensive efforts under way to protect tiny indigenous tribes along the Amazon, and had invited him backstage for his show later that night to discuss it.
He should have turned him down. But he hadn’t had plans that night and as a lifelong learner had been interested in what went on behind the scenes at a major concert venue, so he’d agreed.
He shouldn’t have been there. Yet he was. He had been standing next to Cruz just after he came off stage when a huge linebacker of a man lunged at the performer with a wild look in his eyes and a massive, wicked-looking hunting knife in his hand.
Gabe could have slipped away. It wasn’t his fight, after all, and the crazy dude wasn’t after him but the man he apparently blamed for the breakup of his marriage—Cruz.
He hadn’t. Instead, his instincts kicked in, the instincts he had honed from a lifetime of living in dangerous situations.
He had deflected the guy’s aim slightly, though not completely, but what would have been a gouge straight to Cruz’s heart had glanced off his arm instead.
Unfortunately, this had only enraged the guy more and he turned his attention to Gabe, thrusting the knife into his gut hard before bodyguards had finally come to the rescue and taken him down.
Turned out, the man’s wife had been a groupie who had actually slept with Cruz two years earlier after a previous concert in Dallas. She had been so certain he wrote one of his love songs for her that she’d left her husband and two kids to follow the pop star around the country.
He couldn’t really blame the guy for wanting a little revenge. He just would have preferred he boycotted the concert, maybe walked outside holding a placard or something, instead of trying to even the score with a ten-inch hunting knife.
In the days since the attack, Gabe had learned some interesting facts about knife wounds.
He had learned livers were one of the most common organs injured by knife and gunshot wounds, largely because of their size and vulnerable position in the abdomen.
He had learned that a damaged liver could heal on its own, one of the rare organs that could regenerate new cells instead of scar tissue.
He’d also learned that any abdominal injury was prone to infection—and that recovering