by Jillian Hart
“I can see that.” She felt like she was strangling, but it was impossible to feel anything but sorrow for the woman. “I’m glad you were happy. Gabriel.”
“It didn’t come easy.” He cracked another egg. “I was a mess after you. You have to know that.”
“I’m sorry.” The words she’d saved up over the years, the truths she’d had to face, they all disappeared now that she was at the moment to talk about them. At a loss, she grabbed the sugar bowl. “I always regretted giving you back that ring.”
“I know that now.” Was that pity in his voice? She couldn’t tell. He’d seen her life, he’d seen the spinster she’d become. What did he think of her? Did he think she was deserving of pity? Her pride smarting, she dipped a teaspoon into the sugar and dumped it into his steaming cup.
“I take my coffee black these days.” He grabbed the spatula from the counter, holding it capably in one hand.
“Oh. I hadn’t even thought.” How foolish. She stared down at the teaspoon. “There’s no way to undo the sugar. Let me get you a new cup.”
“No, it’s okay.” He flipped the eggs one at a time. “I could use a little sweetening up.”
“No argument here. Maybe I’d better put in another teaspoon?”
“Funny.” Deep brackets outlined his smile, made from a lifetime of laughter.
She could see that too. “How did you meet Victoria?”
The question surprised her.
Gabriel looked surprised too as he poked the white of the cooking eggs with the tip of the spatula. “I sold the land I had back when we were courting, so I had cash to get my own place up in Deer Lake. Land was cheaper there, so I wound up with a bigger spread.”
“Good for you. I always knew you would do well ranching.”
He didn’t say anything for a second. A muscle in his jaw worked. “With more land to farm, I needed a second team. My hired hand knew of a good team for sale. I went to see about the horses and rather liked the owner’s daughter.”
“I see.” She concentrated very hard on putting the lid back on the sugar bowl. Did she really want to hear about Gabriel’s love for another woman?
“It was five years after you. Just so you know.” He turned his back to her as he scooped the eggs out of the pan and set it on a trivet. “Five long years. I didn’t know if I could risk trying to court anyone again. That’s how bad you broke my heart. Just so you know. I didn’t get over you easy.”
“But you did get over me.”
“Eventually.”
His admission felt like a fatal blow. She’d already known it, but it hurt anyway. She swallowed, forcing out the words that she meant from the bottom of her heart. “I’m glad you were happy, Gabe.”
“Me, too. I’ve had a good life. I got lucky.”
She read the gratitude in his eyes. “Yes, you did. I caught sight of your son, and I’ve met Leigh. What about your other sons?”
“The oldest is back East finishing up his medical schooling. Liam just joined him. Both of them are going to be doctors.”
“You must be proud.”
“I am proud of my family.” He gave a humble shrug. “They’ve made my life.”
“I can see. It is everything I’ve wanted for you.”
“I’m sorry you never found that for yourself.” He loaded her plate and carried it to the small oak table in the corner. “I heard you had your hands full with your mother. I’m sorry to hear she had a debilitating disease.”
“She required complete care for many years.” She sat in the chair he held out for her.
He breathed in the familiar, faint scent of roses from her hair and skin. “That had to have been hard.”
“Don’t you feel sorry for me, Gabriel Daniels. Don’t you do it.”
“As you wish.” He retreated to the counter where she’d left his coffee cup, a strategic distance away. “Why did you take care of her for all those years? She wasn’t a nice mother to you.”
“But she was my mother.” Aumaleigh stared down at her plate but didn’t touch the food he’d cooked for her.
Her hair had begun to dry, curling adorably in the dry heat from the stove. Those fragile curls reminded him of when she’d been his, with her hair down as she chased butterflies in the meadow.
That time seemed so long ago now, and farther away than it had been. Almost out of reach.
“She wasn’t always like that.” She sounded wistful as she picked up her fork. “It’s probably hard for you to imagine Mother any other way.”
“True.” He paced toward her, cradling the cup in one hand. “She gave me more than one tongue lashing. Remember when I proposed to you?”
“Yes. She came marching out of the house after you’d slipped the ring on my finger and ordered you off the property. That was the happiest day of my life.” Aumaleigh smiled, sad and sweet at the same time. “Why didn’t you answer my letter? Why didn’t you come to me?”
Gabriel blinked. He pulled out the chair across from her and sat down at the table. “What letter? I don’t know what you mean.”
“The one I wrote to you, asking you to marry me.” Aumaleigh poked her fork into one of the fried eggs. “I know it was years later, I know I was wrong to ask, but I had hoped you loved me as much as I had loved you.”
He shook his head, not registering. None of this made sense. It was news to him. What stuck out to him was her use of the past tense. She had loved him. Had, as in no more, as in it was over. As in she could sit across the table from him and feel nothing.
He cleared his throat. “I never received any letter, Aumaleigh. You handed me back my ring, told me you didn’t want to marry me anymore and didn’t want to see me again. I told you not to be such a doormat for your parents and we argued. When I left, that was the last I ever heard from you.”
“Oh.” A tear rolled down her cheek, hot and slow, the last piece of her heart breaking.
She sat there for a moment in silence, going back over the memory of that day. Of not being able to take the yearning in her heart for him or the pain of missing him. Mother had been particularly hard that morning, her father distant, and she’d sat down in her room and scratched out a quick letter. She’d taken the letter to town and slipped away to the post office when her mother wasn’t looking.
Or maybe her mother had noticed.
“Are you telling me you proposed to me?” Emotions worked across his angled, handsome face. “How long ago was this?”
“A couple years after you left town.” She set her fork on her plate.
She felt numb, in shock from the realization of what her mother must have done. Mother had been good friends with the postmaster’s wife. It would have been just like her to make sure that letter was never sent.
After all, the letter Gabriel had written to her when he fought in the War Between the States had been hidden away in Mother’s things. The depth of that betrayal hit her hard. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to keep that fresh wash of grief inside.
“Maureen intercepted that letter, didn’t she?” He sounded bitter. “It’s something she would do. I don’t know how many times she let me know I wasn’t good enough for her family. For you.”
“That was never true.” She opened her eyes, seeing nothing but the blur of him through her tears. They slid down her cheeks and dripped off her chin, and still they kept coming. “There was no one better for me than you.”
“Our lives would have turned out different if I’d gotten that letter.” Regret filled his voice. “I would have come back for you.”
“Good to know.” She clamored out of the chair, knocked her knee against the table leg and almost tripped over her own feet. She scrubbed the tears from her eyes but they blinded her, hampering her as she tried to get away from him.
She did not want him feeling sorry for being duped by her mother. She felt his gaze on her. Her pride got the best of her. She stood in the archway and tried to catch her breath. Tried to get her tears under control. “I guess it�
��s too late now.”
“I see.” His chair scraped against the floor. His measured steps came her way. “I guess our lives have gone in different directions. We’re strangers.”
“Strangers,” she agreed. A sob caught in her throat, and she hoped it sounded like a gasp. “It’s odd how you can know someone so well that they are like a song in your heart, and then here we are again and I hardly know you.”
“Strangers.” He repeated the word as if he was weighing it with care. “I guess the only question that remains is this. Do we want to stay strangers?”
“Yes.” She didn’t turn around, she couldn’t face him. “When I look at you, it’s the past I remember. But the past is gone, and so are what we were. There is no more Aumaleigh and Gabriel.”
“True. It’s a lot of water that’s gone under that bridge.”
“Yes. What we had is gone.”
“I know.” Gabriel held out his hands helplessly, at a loss because her gently-spoken confession was a fact.
At least now he knew the answer to his question. You couldn’t rekindle a love that had died. It had burned out, and those ashes had blown away, scattering to the wind long ago.
Love, once lost, could not be captured again.
He fisted his hands, wishing he had someone he could fight, something he could do to make things right. But at least he knew that she’d wanted him and had tried to reach him. That healed the ancient wounds in his heart.
The move here had been worth that.
“Thanks for fixing my leaky roof.” When she turned to him, her face was a tight mask. “I know your daughter is getting you settled in. That must be a big job.”
“She thinks so, but I don’t need as much settling as she thinks.” He gave a wry grin. “I don’t need much to get by.”
“I’ll bring your supper tonight.” She didn’t meet his gaze as she ushered him toward the door.
“Don’t go to any trouble, Aumaleigh. You’re trying to repay me for the roof, aren’t you? And you don’t need to. It was a couple of nails and a few bangs of a hammer.”
“Nonsense, it’s no trouble. Think of it as returning a favor. I’ll have the girls at the ranch’s kitchen whip up an extra casserole. All you’ll need to do is warm it. I’ll even throw in some dinner rolls from my niece’s bakery. They’re quite tasty.”
He wanted to argue with her, but she had that stubborn look to her. Not to mention he suspected she was holding on by a thread, the same way he was. The revelation that they could have been together, that she had taken a risk and wrote a proposal rocked him.
And he would have married her. He would have dropped everything, stole her away from her abusive parents and loved her with all he had for the rest of his days.
But that hadn’t happened. He took his hat from the hook and plopped it on his head. And if he had never married Victoria instead, then he wouldn’t have his sons and his daughter.
Yet that was a thought he could not bear. Not at all. Not for a second.
“Goodbye, Aumaleigh.” His voice cracked as he stepped out into the rain. “Let me know if you need help with that roof again. I want to be a good neighbor.”
“Yes. A good neighbor.” She lifted her chin, no longer that vulnerable, sheltered girl he’d once known. Life had changed her too. She’d grown up into a strong, mature lady who still seemed far too fine for the likes of him.
Sadness filled her eyes, as if the impact was not lost on her either. Neighbors, that’s what they were now. Strangers and neighbors.
That didn’t seem good enough, but it was simply the truth. A truth he couldn’t deny as he stuck his hands in his pocket and walked away from her.
Chapter Ten
Junior had troubles. Right now his biggest one was hunger. He sorely missed the big store of fine foods they’d had at Pa’s cabin, but that was gone now. So was the whiskey and the comfortable chairs and the wood crackling in the fireplace.
The sheriff and his men had taken care of that. They’d hauled away everything for evidence. Curses sat on his tongue and burned in his heart at those lawmen. They had no right to burst in and ruin things.
And just when life had been getting better. Just when he and Giddy were starting to live the way they deserved.
Now they were worse off than ever. He was crouching in the woods on the wet earth, hungry. It didn’t get much worse than that.
The tarp over his head was puddling with rain. He reached up to bat the water off. They were lucky to have stole it.
That newcomer’s curly-haired daughter had strolled into the barn without warning and almost caught them. She’d come to give the horses a few carrots.
Too bad they hadn’t taken the carrots too.
Footsteps rose above the steady tapping of the rain on the tarp. “Psst, Junior. It’s me.”
“Giddy. It’s about time.” He pushed out the side of the tarp. “Did you get anything to eat?”
“There was nothing to kill. No game is out in this weather.” Giddy crawled into the low-ceilinged shelter and pulled something out of his pocket. “I tried to chase the pigs from of the farmer’s trough, but he came back to check on the pigs and I had to run. But I got some old gunnysacks.”
“Great!” Junior grabbed the bundle, greedy. “These will feel pretty nice after sleeping without blankets.”
Giddy frowned, not looking pleased about the gunnysack blankets. He gestured toward the doorway. The pieces of tarp hadn’t properly come back together, giving them a view of the farm below.
“If we’re lucky,” he said, “those folks will finally leave their house and go into town. Then I can slip in and take just a few things so they wouldn’t notice ‘em missing. We’ll sit tight and keep watch.”
Junior bit his lip. He didn’t want to point out that so far Giddy’s plans hadn’t worked out so well. They’d been sitting here waiting for a long while already, which is why they were cold and hungry. To make matters worse, Giddy had a bad temper when he’d been drinking, and a worse one when he wasn’t.
Junior’s stomach rumbled again, squeezing tight like a fist and hurting. Just hurting. Food was all he could think about. Baked chicken, hot straight from the oven, slathered with Ma’s gravy. Hot, buttermilk biscuits all crumbly and flaky with melted butter dripping down the sides. Mashed potatoes, soft and fluffy, full of butter and cheese and onions. Green beans, tossed with bacon and more butter. All washed down with a cup of rich, fresh coffee.
Great. Now his stomach was hurting worse. He wanted those things more than ever.
“I can’t take it no more, Giddy. Maybe we can leave and come back. Go to Deer Springs and set up in a line shack on one of those ranches nearby. No one knows us there.”
“The sheriff, that Milo Gray, will have told them.” Giddy nodded knowledgably. “That’s how these things work, Junior. The lawmen are all connected. They’re buddies out to get folks like us. It’s enough to make you angry. They had no right comin’ after us. How did they find us? That’s what I want to know. Did you do it? Did you make a mistake and lead ‘em back?”
“I told you, it wasn’t me.” At least he hoped not. He’d been careful. And he was angry too. He missed his comfortable chair. He missed his fireplace. He hated being hungry.
His stomach growled again and he thought of Iris McPhee. He bet she would give him a gunnysack full of food if he asked her to. She was just that kind. His chest felt achy in a way it had never felt before.
Going to see Miss Iris was wrong. Of course, he couldn’t show his face in town. Giddy was right. The sheriff had figured out who they were by now. If the lawman spotted him, he’d arrest him for the things he’d done (through no real fault of his own). It wasn’t as if he’d done anything to hurt nobody. He’d taken things from people who could afford it. It hadn’t caused no harm.
But the stupid sheriff wouldn’t see it that way. That’s where the law was wrong. It didn’t take into account that sometimes life wasn’t fair and you had to even things up. Isn’t that
what Pa always said? Isn’t that what Pa was counting on them to do?
“Look, there.” Giddy’s voice had a strange sound to it.
Junior leaned forward, gazing out the crack in the tarp.
Two little boys ran into sight on the road, their lunch pails swinging. School must be out. The kids splashed through mud puddles and dashed into the yard, the faint call of their voices carried on the wind. “Pa!”
A man appeared from the barn. Something inside Junior tugged hard, making his chest ache. The father knelt down, the boys ran into his arms and he hugged them tight.
It was too far away to be sure, but Junior thought he saw love on the father’s face. The man held his sons for a long moment before loosening his hold. He stayed patiently down on one knee, listening intently to the boys as they chattered on. In fact he looked rapt.
Junior’s throat felt tight, longing for what he’d never had. He’d always wanted his own pa to look at him like that.
Maybe it wasn’t too late.
Giddy didn’t say anything either for a long while. When he cleared his throat and tried to speak, his voice came out gruff. “We can’t just sit here. Come on.”
“What are we gonna do, Giddy?” Junior had a bad feeling. He crawled out into the rain after his brother. “You can’t go off all het up and emotional. We gotta think things through.”
“We’ve been thinking for awhile, and doin’ too much of it.” Giddy charged again, plowing through the trees and knocking rainwater off branches. “Thinking don’t even up scores. Thinking don’t make people pay for what they’ve done.”
Neither did sitting around drinking, but Junior didn’t want to mention that. Giddy might not take that so well. He had to hurry to keep up. “What are we gonna do?”
“I’m finding something to eat. I can’t sit up on the hill and look at that Aumaleigh McPhee’s house anymore. I know she’s got food in there—” Giddy had reached the side of the road. He froze, fell silent and pulled his revolver from his gun belt. “Shh. Someone’s coming.”
“Don’t do anything, Giddy.” That bad feeling in his stomach grew. He wasn’t comfortable, and he didn’t know why. “We’d better go back.”