The wind had picked up, too, tossing the trees and whistling around the truck. Wind was bad; it would make the limbs and trees begin coming down just that much sooner. He would much rather have been with Sam, but he never once thought of turning around and simply telling his dad that he hadn’t been able to make it up the mountain. Giving up wasn’t in his DNA; he’d fetch Lolly off the mountain if he had to drag her down by the hair, which probably wasn’t what his father had had in mind when he sent Gabriel on this mission, but then the sheriff didn’t know Lolly the way Gabriel knew Lolly. She’d always been a spoiled brat, nose in the air, convinced she was better than anyone else. Some kids took teasing well; Lolly wasn’t one of them. Hostility had rolled off her in waves. Once she’d looked at him with complete disdain and said, “Worm!” He’d hidden his reaction, but inside he’d been furious that she’d dismissed him so completely with that one word. He was the sheriff’s son, he was popular and athletic and invited everywhere, and she thought he was a worm?
