"What do you need today?"
She answered after a pause.
"A ride to court."
"I'll be there."
Travis's preliminary hearing drew more attention than Elena wanted.
The charges included unlawful restraint, assault and interference with communications.
Gabriel sat three rows behind her.
Not beside her.
Elena had asked for space.
So he gave it.
Emma stayed with Claire.
Travis entered wearing a gray suit.
Clean-shaven.
Calm.
A stranger might have mistaken him for an accountant.
When he saw Gabriel, hatred flashed across his face.
Then he looked away.
During a recess, Travis's attorney approached Elena.
Gabriel could not hear everything.
He saw Elena stiffen.
Then Travis himself stepped closer while a deputy stood nearby.
"Elena."
She ignored him.
"I never wanted any of this."
Still nothing.
"You know I love Emma."
Elena turned.
"Don't use her."
"She's practically my daughter."
"No."
"I raised her."
"You scared her."
Travis's jaw moved.
"I made mistakes."
Elena stared.
"Mistakes are forgetting milk."
Gabriel felt Wade touch his shoulder.
Stay seated.
Travis lowered his voice.
"This biker shows up and suddenly I'm evil?"
Gabriel remained still.
Elena answered.
"He didn't make you anything."
Travis looked toward Gabriel.
"You think he's going to save you?"
"No."
Elena's voice became stronger.
"I'm saving myself."
Gabriel felt something inside him loosen.
That was what she needed.
Not a rescuer.
Witnesses.
Support.
Choice.
After the hearing, Travis was ordered to remain away from Elena and Emma pending trial.
Outside, reporters waited because one of the local stations had learned about the child who had run into a biker-filled diner.
Elena refused interviews.
Gabriel followed her toward the parking lot.
A reporter shouted, "Mr. Kane, did you threaten Mr. Cole?"
Gabriel stopped.
Elena looked worried.
He answered simply.
"No."
"Would you?"
"No."
"Why not?"
Gabriel glanced toward Elena.
"Because helping somebody escape one controlling man isn't much use if you become another angry man making decisions for her."
The reporter went quiet.
Elena stared at him.
Then they continued walking.
At the car she said, "That was surprisingly intelligent."
"Don't tell Wade."
"I heard that."
Wade stood thirty feet away.
Emma spent the afternoon at the clubhouse picnic with Elena's permission.
The Road Wolves treated her like visiting royalty.
Ruth taught her to play dominoes.
Wade gave her a stuffed wolf.
Emma named it Fang.
"No," Elena said.
"Why?"
"Because that's obvious."
Emma thought.
"Gary."
Gabriel stared.
"Gary?"
"Yes."
"That wolf has no dignity."
"He has emotional stability."
Wade nearly fell from his chair laughing.
Gabriel looked around the yard.
For decades, he had interpreted the wolf patch as solitude.
Survive alone.
Need nobody.
Trust carefully.
Watching twenty riders argue over burgers while Emma carried a stuffed wolf named Gary around the clubhouse, Gabriel realized wolves weren't actually symbols of loneliness.
Real wolves lived in packs.
Maybe he had misunderstood his own patch all along.
Emma eventually delivered on the hidden photograph.
She found it inside an old cookbook Elena had recovered from storage.
Gabriel was twenty-nine in the picture.
Black hair.
No gray.
Elena stood beside him wearing his oversized denim jacket.
Gabriel's motorcycle was behind them.
They looked ridiculously happy.
Emma stared.
"You smiled more."
"I was younger."
"That's not why."
Gabriel looked at her.
"Children shouldn't make observations like that."
"Why?"
"Makes adults uncomfortable."
Emma handed him the photograph.
"Mom kept it even when Travis told her to throw everything away."
Gabriel traced Elena's face.
"Why did she tell you about me?"
"Sometimes when Travis yelled, she'd tell me stories after."
"What stories?"
"About people helping other people."
Emma began listing them.
A biker stopping during a snowstorm.
A man repairing an old woman's tire.
Someone sleeping outside an animal hospital because a friend's dog was dying.
Gabriel remembered each event.
Small things.
Events he had forgotten.
To Elena, apparently, they had mattered.
Emma continued.
"Mom said scary-looking people can be kind and nice-looking people can be scary."
"That's pretty accurate."
"She said the wolf wasn't afraid of dark roads."
Gabriel looked away.
He had been afraid of plenty.
Just different things.
He was afraid of attachments.
Hospitals.
Phone calls after midnight.
People he loved disappearing.
One evening Elena joined him on the porch at Claire's house.
Emma slept inside.
"I owe you something," Elena said.
"No."
"You don't know what."
"Still no."
She smiled.
"An explanation."
Gabriel waited.
"Why I stopped searching."
He almost said she didn't need to explain.
Then remembered she had chosen to.
So he listened.
"After Sophie died, I stopped functioning. Travis handled everything."
Elena stared into the yard.
"He knew I'd tried contacting your old club. He told me you knew about the pregnancy."
Gabriel's head turned.
"What?"
"He said someone had told you."
"That's impossible."
"I know."
"He said I didn't want Sophie?"
"He said you thought the baby might not be yours."
Gabriel closed his eyes.
Of all the lies Travis could have chosen, that one hurt most.
"I believed him because I was angry."
Elena's voice trembled.
"And grief makes cruel explanations feel believable."
Gabriel nodded.
"I believed you chose him."
"We both believed the worst thing because nobody was there to contradict it."
For a while neither spoke.
Then Gabriel said, "We lost nineteen years."
"Yes."
"No inspirational sentence fixes that."
"No."
"I hate when people say everything happens for a reason."
"So do I."
"Sometimes terrible things just happen."
Elena nodded.
"And sometimes people do terrible things."
"Yes."
Gabriel looked at her.
"What do we do with that?"
Elena thought.
"We don't let it take year twenty."
He stared at her.
Not forgiveness.
Not romance.
Not yet.
Something more honest.
A decision not to surrender additional time.
Gabriel held out his hand.
Elena took it.
Gabriel had assumed rebuilding a relationship would require grand gestures.
He was wrong.
It required rules.
Elena created most of them.
Rule one: Do not arrive without calling.
Gabriel failed twice.
Rule two: Never ask Emma for information about Elena's feelings.
He never failed that one.
Rule three: Do not threaten Travis, even jokingly.
Wade failed repeatedly.
Rule four: Elena decided when and how much of the past they discussed.
Rule five: Gabriel did not confuse protection with permission to control.
That one was hardest.
One Saturday, Elena mentioned she planned to return alone to the old cabin with police supervision to collect belongings.
Gabriel immediately said, "I'm going."
"No."
"Elena."
"There'll be deputies."
"I don't trust him."
"Travis is under an order."
"Orders are paper."
Elena's face changed.
Gabriel heard himself.
Not the words.
The tone.
Decision already made.
He stopped.
"I'm doing it."
"Doing what?"
"Acting like I decide."
Elena nodded.
"You are."
He breathed.
"Do you want me there?"
"No."
"Okay."
The word physically hurt.
Elena studied him.
"That was difficult."
"Extremely."
A small smile appeared.
"Thank you."
The next afternoon she returned safely.
Gabriel didn't ask why his presence hadn't been necessary.
He was learning.
Emma also had rules.
No motorcycle rides without Elena's permission.
No scary movies.
No saying words Wade taught her.
No buying expensive gifts because "Mom says guilt is not a shopping strategy."
Gabriel stared at Emma.
"Your mother is ruining everything."
Emma grinned.
Instead, he taught her to repair bicycles.
She taught him that ten-year-olds could talk continuously for forty-seven minutes.
Their friendship developed without needing a title.
Emma never called him Dad.
Gabriel never asked her to.
One evening while they replaced a bicycle chain, she asked, "If Sophie lived, would she be my sister?"
"Yes."
"Would she like me?"
Gabriel paused.
"I think so."
"Mom says she had dark hair."