Reunion by Sharon Sala Page B

During dinner, she’d caught glimpses of the man he must have been before his world fell apart, and she knew that, in another situation, they might have been friends.
    She pictured his face and then sighed. He was almost beautiful, but in the masculine sense of the word. His features had strength; his gaze was unwavering. Well over six feet tall, his dark skin, black hair and green eyes a striking combination, Gabriel Connor was an enigma.
    The images she kept seeing when she thought of his name were confusing. The angel part of it she understood. Gabriel. Angel. The angel Gabriel. That made a strange sort of sense. But two faces? What did that mean? Was there another side to the man she couldn’t see? Did he have a split personality of which even he was unaware? Her shoulders slumped with weariness. This trip was probably going to prove her undoing. She should have stuck to her guns after all and told Mike Travers she couldn’t come. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d spent two straight weeks at home. There was only so much a human body could endure. It was no wonder she thought she heard voices when no one was there.
    The pulse at her temples was starting to pound in the way that it did just before the onset of one of her headaches. She frowned, hoping she’d packed her medicine, when she saw someone walking out of the trees that bordered the yard. He was bare to the waist and coming across the grounds toward the house in a slow, almost staggering walk.
    She never knew when she realized it was Gabriel, but even from where she was standing, she could feel his despair. With no thought for the danger she might be putting herself in, she reached for her robe and ran out the door.
     
    Something sharp pierced the bottom of Gabriel’s foot. Awakened by the sensation of pain, he stepped backward in reflex and went ankle deep into a large and widening puddle. The sensation of water on his feet and rain on his face made him stagger, and with cognizance came memory. The memory of blood and pain and death. Again.
    “God help me,” he moaned, and covered his face.
    Despair shattered his thoughts. There was mud on his clothes and skin, even in his hair. All he could think was to wonder where the hell he had been. And there at his feet, floating on the surface of the puddle, was a single long-stemmed rose. He stared at it for what seemed like forever and knew without picking it up that, just like before, every thorn on the stem had been removed.
    Lost. Help me.
    Gabriel covered his ears with the palms of his hands and then moaned.
    “Help you? I can’t even help myself.”
    “Gabriel.”
    His head came up, his eyes narrowing, and although he could see the woman standing before him, he wasn’t sure if she was real or part of the dream.
    “I’ll help you,” Laura said, and held out her hand.
    He stared at it—and at her—for what seemed like forever. He kept waiting for her to disappear, but her image never wavered.
    A frown creased Laura’s forehead as she reached for his arm. “Gabriel?”
    At her touch, he shuddered. “You’re real?”
    She took his hand as she would have a child and was staggered by what flooded her mind.
    Rain, pouring into wide, sightless eyes and hammering at the petals of a rose. A small white dog, tattered and muddy, licking away the blood from the corner of a man’s slack jaw.
    When she moaned, Gabriel knew that she’d plugged into his mind. Horrified that she’d seen his hell, he quickly pulled away from her touch.
    “Get out of my head,” he said harshly. “There’s already more in there than I can cope with. Besides, you can’t help. It’s too late. No one can help.”
    He tried to walk past her.
    “What happened?” she asked. “Did you have another episode? Do they always happen in your sleep?”
    His voice was harsh, laced with bitterness, as he stopped and turned.
    “You’re the psychic. You tell me.”
    “What did you see?” she asked.
    His expression stilled.