He didn't need it from his friends as well. "And this is important to you because?"
"Because you're my friend, and I care about your emotional well being."
"I'd almost believe that if it wasn't for the insincerity in your voice."
Karl chuckled. "Well, let's just say that a man your age needs a good woman to look after him."
Gabriel raised his eyebrows. "A man my age? You make it sound like I'm an old man."
"Well, you are rolling rapidly toward the big four-o."
"Which is barely a baby in shapechanger terms, and you know it."
"I know it, but you try explaining it to my good wife."
Gabriel groaned. "Don't tell me she's plotting another matchmaking session?"
"Well, it seems she has this second cousin who would be perfect—"
"Tell her I have a girlfriend I'm perfectly happy with."
Karl raised his eyebrows. "Really? You with a girlfriend?
I'm just not seeing that."
"Depends on how you define the term 'girlfriend.'"
"Ah. A bed buddy." Karl nodded. "Not as good as the real thing, but a suitable decoy for determined matchmakers. She won't be put off for long, though. You know that, don't you?"
He opened his mouth to reply, but it was lost to a sudden buzz of awareness. Though perhaps buzz was the wrong word to use—it was more a flash fire that ran across his senses and then slid deep inside, seeming to warm his very soul. He glanced at the door as it opened. Sam stepped in, nodding a brief acknowledgment Finley's way before her gaze met his.
The awareness that burned his mind was more than one way now. He could see the flame of it in her eyes.
She stopped in the doorway and said, "What the hell are you doing here?"
He shrugged. "Karl asked me to come."
Her angry gaze switched to Karl. "Why?"
"Because you both need to hear what I have to say." He hesitated. "And I don't think either of you will like it."
Gabriel met Karl's gaze again and saw the compassion mingled with excitement in the brown depths. Something clenched in his gut. Whatever Karl had to say, it boded no good for his future.
"Fine. But that doesn't mean he comes into that room with me." She thrust a finger in the direction of O'Hearn's office.
"My business is not his business."
"I'm afraid," Karl said heavily, "that in this case, it is."
Karl's comment left her looking more disgruntled than before. If that was possible.
Not that Gabriel could really blame her. Hell, the last few months hadn't exactly been easy for her, and here he was, the creator of many of those problems, sitting in on her medical reports.
It was a wonder she wasn't ranting and raving about the injustice of it all. He would have been doing so.
The door leading to the office opened and O'Hearn's matronly figure appeared. "We all here? Good. Why don't you come in and get yourselves something to drink?"
Sam walked straight to the autobar and ordered a double scotch. Gabriel did likewise. She raised her glass in a brief salute, and then downed half its contents before sitting on the chair nearest the window. Her hair gleamed like fire against the darkness gathering outside, but the rest of her seemed cloaked in shadows.