Читать книгу Someone to Watch Over Me - Roz Fox Denny - Страница 2

She opened her eyes and raised them ever so slightly. If Gabe thought he’d been stabbed through the heart when they’d first met, seeing the pain-filled expression in her dark eyes this time was far worse. Her pain had risen to the surface and was stark and immediate.

Moments later, he realized her fingers were flexing almost madly in the woolly coat of the lamb she’d been trying to feed. The limp body of a now-dead lamb.

“Oh, Isabella,” Gabe murmured as he tried to remove the lifeless animal from her arms. “It’s not your fault. You did your best to save him.”

She snatched her hands back so fast, Gabe was left grasping air. Still without words, Isabella cradled the creature to her breast and began a distraught keening. It was a tortured, gut-wrenching sound. Gabe didn’t know how in God’s name to help her.

Instinct said that someone who hurt this badly needed holding. Considering the distance she always maintained between them, Gabe didn’t know if he should be the one to offer comfort. But right now there was no one else.

He wrapped her and the lamb in a gentle embrace. And he rocked her from side to side, crooning nonsensical words close to her ear, just loud enough for her to hear him over the sound of her distress.

She shivered violently, yet he knew it was warm enough in the barn to have dried his wet clothing. Clearly, Isabella’s coldness came from deep inside her. From the very depths of her soul.