Breaking Point

Nodding, Gabe said, “I saw that with my hill friends I grew up with.” He glanced at her. “And when you graduate from college, are you going back home?”

“I will. There’s a nearby hospital in the lowlands at Dunmore, and I’ll work there, but I intend to be home on weekends. That way, I can support Mama, who takes care of my sister, Eva-Jo. She’s two years younger than me.” Bay picked up her coffee mug and sipped from it.

“What’s your sister do?” Gabe asked, finishing off the hamburger and wiping his hands on a paper napkin.

“Oh,” Bay said softly, pain in her tone, “not much. My sister is mentally challenged. She has the mind and emotions of a ten-year-old.” Shrugging, her voice low, Bay added, “Eva-Jo is special, Gabe. I love her dearly. And Mama is able to take care of her at home. She helps Mama in the garden, hanging the herbs out to dry and things like that. She has trouble reading and writing. It’s sad....”

Hearing the concealed pain in Bay’s husky voice, Gabe started to reach out and hold her hand. He wanted to take away some of her pain. His reaction shocked him enough to keep his hands right where they were. There was something kind, soft and sensitive about Bay that deeply touched him. And even more disconcerting, he had no way to armor himself against her. “I’m sorry to hear that.” And he was. Her eyes widened slightly. “I don’t have any brothers or sisters. I was an only child.”

“I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I wasn’t surrounded by my family, my aunts, uncles and cousins, my grandparents,” Bay said, and smiled fondly. “Family means everything to me. When you’re together, you’re strong and you can weather life’s storms more easily. You have support.”

“The SEALs have a similar philosophy. If you consider one twig, it’s easy to break it between your hands. But if you wrap a bunch of twigs together, they can’t be broken. That’s why the teams are so tight—they’re like that bundle of sticks. The guys are close. We trust one another with our back out there and call each other brothers, and we are.”

“At least you have parents,” she pointed out.

Gabe shook his head. “My father’s dead. All I have left is my mother. Both sets of my grandparents lived in California and Oregon, so I rarely got to see them before they passed away.”

“A scattered, broken nuclear family,” Bay whispered, meeting his hooded look. “Maybe the SEALs have given you back the family you lost?”

“Maybe they have,” Gabe agreed. He wanted to share with Bay that he’d longed for a family of his own for a long time. He wanted children, knowing he’d raise them very differently from the way his father, Frank, had raised him. Gabe thought he’d found that dream coming true when he married Lily. As Bay said, he was part of a scattered, broken family in more ways than she would ever realize. Maybe that’s why he hadn’t accurately gauged Lily. He’d been driven to want family. Want that warm, loving support. Without having it as a child, how could he know which woman would be right for him to fulfill that dream with? For his vision of his future? Sometimes Gabe would feel panic in his chest, of having lost out on a very important part of life by not marrying. When he’d decided to try and capture that lost element, he’d met Lily. Marrying her five days later had been the worst decision he’d ever made. Gabe knew, without a doubt, he lacked something within himself to find the right woman who wanted to share his dream of love and having a family. A real family. Not dysfunctional like the one he’d grown up in.

To his consternation, Gabe found himself comparing Lily to Bay. There was a blinding difference. What if he’d met Bay first? God, he was so drawn to her that it scared the hell out of him. She was maternal and nurturing, unlike Lily, who was always in some kind of emotional drama. Bay was quiet and watched a lot and kept counsel to herself unless someone asked her for feedback. Lily was always telling him how she felt and usually it came out as a whining diatribe that about made him nuts.

Moving uncomfortably, Gabe was attracted to Bay’s quiet strength. It exuded from her like sunlight. What man wouldn’t want someone like her around him? And yet, he knew there wasn’t anything he could say or do about it. He wasn’t going to break Bay’s trust in him by coming on to her. Gabe had to keep everything professional. Or else.

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