“See you around, babe,” Gabriel said from the doorway.

“Yeah, okay. Bye.” I was flustered. I couldn’t help it. He was a gorgeous bad boy. Who could resist that?

Guru Bob accompanied me to the front door and gave me a light hug. “You are not to worry about Gabriel, gracious. At his core, he is a good man and knows I am not someone to be taken advantage of.”

“Of course you’re not. And I don’t mean to tell you your own business, but are you sure you know him as well as you think? Don’t get me wrong. He’s helped me out of a few jams. But he’s also . . . well, I’m concerned that he might . . .”

“Your concern touches me, gracious,” he said, “but let me allay your fears.” He placed his hand on my shoulder, and instantly, waves of calm radiated from my shoulder into every muscle of my body. I took several deep breaths and leaned against the door as he told me a story.

“When I was a younger man,” he said, “I traveled to the Middle East, starting in Turkey and journeying northeastward to the Hindu Kush. My plan was to spend a year following in the footsteps of Mr. Gurdjieff, in search of the miraculous. I found it everywhere.”

George Gurdjieff was a Russian mystic whose teachings were among the many that Guru Bob encouraged the members of his fellowship to study. Gurdjieff’s idea of self-remembering was said to be a cornerstone of esoteric study.

“Then, five years ago,” he continued, “a number of my own fellowship men decided to make the same trip through the Hindu Kush. They were determined to go with or without me, so I agreed to accompany them. One of my goals for this trip was to track down my old friend Mushaf, a Yezidi holy man I had met on that earlier journey. He, too, had been in search of higher wisdom and had left his home in Kurdistan to traverse the Kush.”

“Did you find him?”

Guru Bob sighed. “We hired a reputable guide, but when we arrived in the village where I had last seen Mushaf, our guide asked too many questions and was thrown in jail. Within a day, an armed skirmish broke out among several tribes and we were trapped in the cross fire.”

“What did you do?”

He smiled ruefully. “I prayed. Several days before we arrived, there had been an American drone attack within a few miles of our location. I believe that the air strike, quickly followed by our presence in the area, is what stirred up the tribesmen.”

“I would’ve been scared silly.”

“It was a dangerous time. One of our group spoke French and a few words of Dari, and made some garbled attempts to bribe our guide out of jail.”

“Did it work?”

“No,” he said darkly, lost in the memory. “Things were about to come to a head and I was concerned for my men, as well as our jailed guide. On the third day, with gunshots ringing all around the small hut we inhabited, a light-skinned man appeared at the door. He wore the typical garb of the region and his head was wrapped in a keffiyeh, but he was different from the other men in the village. Tall. Brash. When he began to speak American English, I thought I was hallucinating.”

My eyes grew wide. “No way,” I whispered.

Guru Bob gave me one of his beatific smiles. “Yes. It was Gabriel. He had heard a rumor that there were Americans in trouble in the area and had traveled up the mountain to help us.”

“But what was he doing there?”

Guru Bob’s lips twisted in mild vexation. “I thought at the time that it was better not to ask.”

“Yeah, probably so.” But my mind was reeling with possibilities. Had Gabriel been a spy? A mercenary? A smuggler? It was all too coincidental that he happened to be in the same place as Guru Bob.

Guru Bob went on to explain that Gabriel spoke perfect Farsi as well as the various Pashto dialects. He was able to broker a deal to return their guide to them and quell the tribesmen long enough for Guru Bob and the men to escape down the mountain and find the nearest train station.

Guru Bob shook his head in wonder. “He saved our lives—of that, I have no doubt.”

“Wow, I guess so.”

“Perhaps it had been naive of me to assume we could pass through the region safely after so many years of war,” Guru Bob added with a sad sigh. “But people have done it for centuries and still do, today. And there are many trustworthy guides in the area. Added to that, the fellowship men are a stubborn lot and were determined to make the journey. I could not let them go by themselves.”

I frowned as something disturbing occurred to me. “Did my father go on that trip with you?”

“He did.”

“So he knows Gabriel?”

“He does.”

So Gabriel had saved not only Guru Bob’s life; he had also saved my dad’s life. I didn’t know how to react, except to feel grateful.

“Gabriel’s heroics do not end there,” he assured me. “Recently, once again, he saved the life of someone extremely dear to me. I owe him a great deal.”

“He’s got a strange habit of . . . Oh, you mean . . . ?”

“Yes, gracious,” he said softly. “I speak of you.”

I tried to swallow around the lump in my throat. The first time I met Gabriel was right after Abraham died. I was in a noodle shop on Fillmore Street when a lunatic kid with a gun threatened to kill me. Gabriel walked in and kicked the gun out of the kid’s hand. I’d thought at the time that he just happened to be in the neighborhood, but I’d found out later that he’d been following me.

“You knew he saved me that day?” I said.

Guru Bob tilted his head and stared at me. What was I thinking? Of course he knew. He knew everything.

“For these reasons,” Guru Bob said, “when Gabriel shows up at my door and requests sanctuary, I welcome him.”

As I walked back to the Lane, I considered, not for the first time, how very lucky I was to have grown up in Dharma. Most people laugh or look with suspicion when they hear someone was raised in a commune. Hippies, drugs, raggedy clothes, and marijuana-covered hillsides are just some of the images that come to mind. But my childhood was blissful. That’s the only word for it.

And if ever there was a place that could be considered sanctuary, Dharma was it. But why did Gabriel need sanctuary? I didn’t feel comfortable grilling Guru Bob about it, but I would be sure to ask Gabriel the next time I saw him.

I’d been gone for over an hour, so I wondered if Alice was finished with her treatment. Probably not. I wouldn’t be surprised if Tantra the healer kept her there all day.

I reached Annie’s shop and was amazed to see people out on the sidewalk, waiting to get inside. I greeted more old friends and eased my way through the door in search of Annie.

She found me first. “Brooklyn! You made it.”

She hugged me. I could tell she was thrilled with the way the day was going.

“Annie, the store’s beautiful.”

She looked around, taking in everything at once. “I know. I love it. I love this town. Your mom has been so great. And Austin and Jackson and your dad helped hang the racks and the shelves. Everybody’s been amazing.”

I was glad to hear that my brothers had warmed up to Annie. When my family first met her, they were concerned that she was lying about her connection to Abraham. My brothers had insisted she take a paternity test before I could write her into Abraham’s trust.

I looked around. They’d all done a great job setting up the place. The room was ultramodern in design with a high ceiling, industrial lighting, and exposed ducts that gave it an urban feel. Chrome wire shelving along the perimeter added to the clean, open feel of the space. In and among the shelves and rows of stock, round tables were decorated with place settings for dining, except every setting was different. It was a creative way to display all the different flatware, dishware, and accessories available in the store. Near the back, one full counter was a cooking station, and the chef in charge was handing out samples of the goodies he cooked using Annie’s pots and pans.