that packed the restaurant, Summer couldn’t have said who made the comment, but whoever it was obviously meant for Gavin to hear it. Standing tall and proud at the entrance, his expression stony, he surveyed the throng of diners through cold, black eyes. Holding her breath, Summer wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d turned and walked out, but he was made of sterner stuff than that. Silently daring anyone to stop him, he strode down the long length of the café to the only empty table in the place.
The silence engulfing the place like a shroud broke the second he turned his back on the rest of the room and pulled out a chair. Hushed whispers flew about the café like angry bees. There was no doubt that he was the main topic of conversation, but he didn’t acknowledge the gossip by so much as a twitch of an eyebrow.
Still, Summer couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. Everywhere he went, people no doubt treated him the same, as if he was some sort of social outcast with a horrible disease, and that had to hurt. Her heart breaking for him, she glanced over at him, noted the rigid set of his shoulders, and thought she had never seen such a lonely man in her life.
A wise woman would have left him alone, but Summer had never been particularly smart when it came to Gavin. There was just something about him that always drew her to him, and she couldn’t fight it now any more than she could at the hospital, where she wandered into the operating room observation area so she could watch him work. Without a thought to the consequences, she impulsively grabbed her iced tea and flatware and joined him at his table.
She couldn’t have shocked him—or herself—more if she’d appeared in front of him naked. Glancing up from the menu Janie Austin, the manager of the café, had handed him, he scowled at her as if she’d just lost her mind. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
At his low, angry growl, Summer asked herself the same thing. He obviously wanted to stew in his aloneness, and she’d invaded his space without bothering to ask his permission. He had every right to be irritated, but she didn’t intend to let him scare her off. “Joining you for lunch,” she said quietly. “You look like you could use a friend.”
If she expected gratitude, she didn’t get it. “I’m not the kind of man you want as a friend,” he said flatly, returning his attention to the menu. “If you don’t want to be tarred and feathered for associating with a murderer, I suggest you get your cute little butt up from this table and get away from me.”
Shocked—no man had ever mentioned her butt, cute or otherwise—she felt a blush climb into her cheeks and seriously considered leaving him in peace, just as he’d suggested. But when she looked around and saw the hostile looks she was receiving from the other diners just because she’d dared to befriend him, she knew she was doing the right thing.
Stubbornly staying right where she was, she settled back in her chair and watched him try to ignore her. “So,” she asked quietly, “how is Alyssa doing?”
That brought his head up, just as she’d known it would. The citizens of Whitehorn might not think much of Gavin as a man, but none of them could dispute the fact that he was crazy about his little girl. At the mere mention of her name, his face lit up with a love that couldn’t be denied.
“Rachel and Jack are taking good care of her,” he said gruffly. “I owe them for that.”
Rachel Montgomery Henderson, Alyssa’s aunt, was, in fact, devoted to the baby. After Rachel had launched an exhaustive search for Christina’s baby last winter, Gavin had removed the child from the home of Cheyenne elder Lettie Brownbear and left her anonymously on Rachel’s doorstep with a note to take care of Alyssa until he could come for her. When he was charged with Christina’s murder and the truth came out that he was Alyssa’s father, he’d arranged for the baby to continue to stay with Rachel and her husband, Jack. The decision had been a wise one. They loved her as if she was their own and saw that she had a loving, stable home.
Still, Summer knew that it had to be difficult for Gavin, knowing that someone else was raising his child. “Do you get to see her very often?”
“As much as my schedule allows,” he began. His mouth twisted into a grimace of a smile. “Of course, that was before the hospital staff decided they couldn’t work with an accused murderer.”
“You didn’t murder Christina,” she replied with quiet confidence. “Even if you didn’t love her, she was the mother of your little girl. You would have never hurt her, let alone killed her.”
No, he wouldn’t have, but he was surprised that she realized that about him. No one else seemed to. “Tell that to a jury of my peers,” he said bitterly. “If they’re anything like the clowns in here, I’m fried.”
He tried not to think about it because it tore him in two, but the closer the trial drew, the harder it was to ignore the fact that the evidence piling up against him was damning. Thanks to the generosity of Summer’s uncle, Garrett Kincaid, he had a good attorney in Elizabeth Gardener, but he had a grim feeling that not even Elizabeth was going to be able to pull his feet out of the fire on this one. Too many people wanted to see him burn.
“I can take whatever they dish out,” Gavin continued, his face carved in harsh lines, “but Alyssa’s the one I’m worried about. If I’m convicted, I’ll either spend the rest of my life in prison or face the death penalty. Either way, Alyssa’s going to grow up without a father, and that’s not fair to her, damn it! She’s just a baby—she didn’t ask for any of this. But she’s the one paying the price for whoever killed Christina, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.”
He looked sick at heart, and Summer couldn’t say she blamed him. His daughter’s fate hung in the balance as much as his did, and that was the real tragedy here. Summer knew from firsthand experience what it was like to grow up without a father, and she wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Her own father, Raven, had disappeared before she was born, leaving a hole in her life that had never been filled. To this day, whenever she looked in a mirror, she searched for him in her own features. Had his eyes been almond-shaped like hers? Had his hair been the same shiny black? Was he the one she had to thank for her wide, expressive mouth and quiet personality?
Because her mother, Blanche Kincaid, had died a week after she was born and no one knew Raven the way she had, Summer had been left with a legacy of questions about her father that she would never have the answers to. Her mother’s sisters, Yvette and Celeste, had raised her in a loving home and while they had never said a bad word against Raven, they had never been able to tell her why her father had left town when he’d known her mother was pregnant with her. Had he really been paid off by her uncle Jeremiah? Was Raven Hunter the type of man who would do such a thing to the woman he claimed to love and the baby they had created together?
Her aunts didn’t think so, and Summer wanted to believe them, but deep down inside, doubts lingered that she couldn’t banish. And her heart twisted at the idea of Alyssa growing up with those same kinds of doubts. She was an innocent child. She had a right to grow up knowing that her father was an honorable man who loved her—and the right to really know him. That wasn’t going to happen if he was convicted.
Her heart breaking for both Gavin and the baby, Summer wanted to tell him to have faith that the real killer would be caught soon, but he wouldn’t thank her for what would be little more than trite words to him. In the eyes of the police and D.A.’s office, they were satisfied that they had charged the right man with the crime. If the reaction of the other diners in the café was anything to go by, just about everyone else felt the same way. Which meant Gavin’s fate was doomed.
Seated three tables over from Gavin and Summer, Audra Westwood picked at the salad she’d ordered, pretending to eat, her green eyes sparkling with glee as she avidly listened to the heated comments flying around the café. All around her, people shot Gavin Nighthawk dirty looks and grumbled about the man’s audacity. He was nothing but a cold-blooded killer, and he had no business forcing himself on decent, law-abiding citizens. If he had any kind of conscience at all, he would confess to killing the Montgomery girl and save the county the expense of an extended trial.
Hardly able to contain the smile