Ready to Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

Chapter 19

“This is going to be awkward,” Alvarez said to her dog as she noticed a flash of light, the wash of headlight beams illuminate the room. Keyed up, she told herself to calm down, that everything would go smoothly, but that remained to be seen.

She was ready.

She could do this.

She could have an evening with the son she gave up for adoption a little over sixteen years ago.

Straightening the hem of her sweater, she drew in a deep breath. She’d been expecting O’Keefe and Gabriel Reeve, the boy who was her birth son, the teenager she’d just met recently and with whom she’d spent so little time. Her feelings for Gabriel were conflicted: mixed with the love that comes with birth was the guilt and anxiety of giving him away. And then there was the issue of his adoptive parents.

The last time she’d seen him, he’d been lying in a hospital bed recovering from wounds he’d received while with Alvarez, the birth mother he’d sought out while he was on the run for his part in an armed robbery.

“Oh, what a tangled web we weave,” she whispered.

Fortunately, Gabe had worked a deal with the D.A., in some part due to her efforts, and was now on probation and living at home with his parents, Dave and Aggie Reeve, instead of being incarcerated in the juvenile detention center that had been looming in his future.

She tried to calm herself, remind herself to take it slow. He was her son by blood only, and though he’d sought her out and wanted to have a connection to her, they were just getting to know each other, just beginning to find some footing in a tentative relationship. To complicate matters, Aggie was related to O’Keefe and, as Gabe’s mother, suspicious of Alvarez’s motives with her son.

Taking in a deep breath, she heard an engine die, then shortly thereafter, car doors slam. Here we go. She’d talked to Gabe several times since his release from the hospital and he’d insisted he was “fine” and “okay.” She’d dug a little deeper and it seemed through the miracles of modern medicine and the recuperative powers of youth, he was not only on his feet, but, according to O’Keefe, nearly a hundred percent, no longer under a doctor’s care.

“Thank God,” she whispered under her breath and hoped that the evening ahead wouldn’t be a train wreck.

Her dog, of course, didn’t care about any of the human drama that was about to unveil. The mottled, half-grown shepherd puppy wiggled his way to the front hallway, while Jane Doe, her cat, alerted by Roscoe’s antics that something out of the ordinary was afoot, slunk behind the couch and hid beneath it, peering cautiously toward the door.

Before anyone could ring the bell, she threw open the door just as O’Keefe and Gabe made their way to the porch. As expected, the sight of Dylan, dressed in a leather jacket and jeans, caused her heart to skip a beat. And seeing Gabe on his feet again was an incredible relief. With coppery skin, dark hair, and a gleam in his brown eyes, he seemed to have grown since the last time she’d seen him, even appeared broader in the shoulders, but, of course, that was impossible, all her perception.

“Hi,” she said, and before she could move out of the doorway to let them pass, O’Keefe unexpectedly reached into his pocket and placed a piece of greenery over her head. Then recognizing the mistletoe sprig for what it was, she said, “Hey, whoa. Wait a minute, it’s too late for—”

“Don’t think so.”

With a swift move, he wrapped his arms around her, swung her off her feet, and, while twirling her beneath the porch lamp, kissed her hard on the lips.

For a second, all of her worries melted into the night where snow was falling and the air was crisp and cold, and the man she loved was pressed warm against her.

Gabe whispered, “Oh, wow.”

“Oh, wow, is right,” she said, a little breathlessly when he finally set her on her feet again. “What was that all about?”

“You tell me.” His eyes were dark with the night, a smoldering gray she’d always found sexy as the devil. His jaw was square and rock hard, his beard shadow evident.

“In-ap-propriate.” She sent a glance at her son who stood down a step but was grinning ear to ear. “And downright corny and definitely waaaay past the season.”

O’Keefe said, “Gabe was in on it. I told him what I was going to do.”

She turned accusing eyes on her son. “You didn’t try to stop him?”

Shrugging, the kid grinned, his white teeth flashing. “He said you might be pissed.”

“No,” O’Keefe corrected. “I said I wanted to give her a thrill.”

“Yeah, and that she’d be really ticked.”

Alvarez glared at them both, even as a grin tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Mission accomplished. On both counts.” From inside, Roscoe barked impatiently, and as she stepped out of the doorway, he barreled through, galloping off the porch in his excitement, only to come bounding back to wiggle and whine at Gabe’s feet.

“Hey, boy.” Gabe’s attention immediately focused on the dog.