“Good even … ing.” His excited welcome drifted to a whisper when he realized it wasn’t Rachel at the door but Mrs. Miles. “Uh … Mrs. Miles. Is there something I can help you with?”
Eloise Miles smiled kindly at the preacher. She was getting up there in terms of age, but she was still as spry as a bird. Her cheeks were wrinkled in a permanent smile, and her faded blue eyes always twinkled.
“I’m here to cook for you. Prudence came to see me this morning and told me Rachel had decided this was too much for her, what with working at the store and all, so they asked me if I could take over. Told ’em I’d be right happy to oblige.”
A feeling of dread ran through Caleb as he stepped back to let the lady inside. He numbly showed her to the kitchen, then left her to her work.
“Miss Rachel’s not coming, Papa Caleb?” Emmy asked, looking around for her.
He glanced down at the child, then over to the window. “I don’t know, Em. It doesn’t look like it.” What had happened? It didn’t make sense. He’d seen Rachel just this morning, and she’d said nothing about the work being too hard for her to handle or that she was thinking about quitting.
He had a bad feeling about this, a feeling that frightened him.
“Mrs. Miles, I’ll be right back,” he called to her, then ran out of the house.
When Rachel wasn’t at the store, he looked for and found her right where he thought she’d be—behind the store by the stream.
“I thought I’d find you here.”
Startled, Rachel whirled around, placing a hand over her chest. “Oh! Caleb. How … how did you find me here?” she asked lamely.
“The question is, darlin’, what are you doing here?”
Rachel stared into his confused, hurting face for a moment, then looked away. She couldn’t look at him and tell him straight to his face what she needed to say. “I … I don’t think I’d better cook for you and the children anymore.”
“Was this before or after you had a little chat with Prudence Primrose?”
Rachel closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Caleb wasn’t going to make this easy. “She has nothing to do with this.”
With what sounded like a growl, Caleb grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. “Don’t lie to me, Rachel. Mrs. Primrose talked to you today, didn’t she?”
“Caleb …”
“Didn’t she?” he demanded.
Rachel hated the anger and the hurt she saw in his eyes. “Yes, but everything she told me was true.”
He let out an exasperated breath. “What do you mean?”
She pushed away from him and wrapped her arms around her middle. “This town is never going to accept me as your wife, Caleb. They are starting to talk. Already they think that I’m trying to lead you into sin!”
He reached for her, but she backed away. The rejection cut him like a knife. “Then we will go someplace else,” he told her. “A place where no one will know what happened to you three years ago.” He knew he sounded desperate, but he didn’t care.
“We can’t run away, Caleb!” she cried. “And you can’t walk away from a work that you haven’t finished yet, a work that you said yourself God brought you here to do.”
He was the one who turned away this time. He stared blindly at the trees across the creek. The ache in his chest was becoming hard to bear. Rachel was right on one point—he couldn’t leave his job unfinished. But that didn’t mean she was right on everything. “No,” he finally answered in a strained voice. He turned back to her and caught her face between his rough palms. “But I can’t lose you either, Rachel. I can’t.”
Tears filled Rachel’s eyes and rolled down her cheeks, wetting his fingers. “Don’t you understand, Caleb?” she whispered sadly. “If you marry me, you’ll lose their respect. Then your work here will be over. I can’t let that happen.”
“You’re wrong, sweetheart. They’ve already begun to soften their attitude toward you. Given time, they’ll know that you’re a godly woman. They won’t care one way or the other if we marry,” he argued.
She reached up and pulled his hands from her face, trying to break free of him. But he grasped her hand tightly. She sighed and went on. “The only way they’d ever accept me in this town would be if they had proof. And that could only happen if Milton confessed to what he did to me. That isn’t going to happen, Caleb.”
“But it could, Rachel!” he insisted. “If Lee can prove that Milton is running with the Jenkins gang, maybe he can be bribed into telling the truth.”
“No,” she stated, successfully pulling her hands free and backing away. “We can’t wait for that or believe that the sheriff will catch him. It’s over.”
He felt his body turn to stone. “What do you mean by that?”
A sob rose in her throat, and she swallowed hard to keep it down. “I can’t … see you … anymore,” she stammered between sob-filled breaths.
Disbelief radiated through his every pore as Caleb stared at her. “You don’t mean that. You can’t mean that.”
“I do,” she whispered. “I’m sorry….”
“You’re sorry?” he asked incredulously. “I love you, Rachel. You love me. You’re going to just throw that away?” He shook his head fiercely. “I won’t let you do this!”
“You don’t have a choice, Caleb,” she insisted. “It’s the only way.”
Caleb could only stare at her while his eyes filled with tears. He turned his head and wiped them away in an angry motion.
He felt as though a piece of himself was being ripped away. After a long moment, he spoke in a whisper, “I can’t believe this is happening.”
She blinked back a fresh load of tears. “Caleb. Please …”
“Don’t stop coming to church because of this, Rachel,” he said, and she had to think about what he meant. She hadn’t expected him to think about that.
“No … I will … come.”
She saw him wipe his eyes again. “And … I won’t be coming by the mercantile anymore. Sundays will be difficult enough.”
She sniffed and wiped her face on her sleeve. “All right,” she answered. For what seemed like an eternity, they just stood there. An oppressive silence hung thick between them. She was the one who broke it.
“Good-bye, Caleb,” she sobbed as she started to flee past him.
But as she passed by him, he grabbed her arm, and she finally got a good look at his face. His eyes were red, his face ravaged with grief. “I’m not going to tell you good-bye, Rachel. I love you now and I’ll love you when I’m eighty. I’ll go along with what you want. For now. But know this—I’m not giving up. I’ll never give up.” With that, he let her go.
And before she threw herself in his arms and begged him to forget everything she’d just said, she stepped away from him, gathered up her skirts, and with a heart-wrenching sob, ran back to the store.
Caleb watched with eyes that were now dry as the woman he loved more than anything walked out of his life. What he felt now went beyond tears. It went beyond any hurt he’d ever known.
But he’d told her the truth. If it took until his dying breath, he’d find a way to make Rachel Branigan his wife.
He’d never give up.
Never.
Chapter 15
The next morning, Lee eyed his friend across the dining table with concern mixed with curiosity. This was the first time they’d eaten together since the children had come to live with Caleb, and Caleb knew he was putting a real damper on the meal.
“Well, aren’t you just a joy to behold this morning!” Lee finally commented.
Caleb pushed his half-eaten food back and threw down his fork. “It’s Rachel,” he admitted.
Lee just nodded. “What’s the matter? Thought things were going good for ya’ll,” he drawled.
Caleb ran his hand through his hair, making a mess of it. “I did, too. I mean, I knew there were obstacles that we still needed to work through, but I never dreamed that she’d just give up!”<
br />
Lee’s brows shot up in surprise. “She jilted you?”
He nodded grimly. “That’s what it amounts to. She apparently had a conversation with Prudence Primrose. I don’t know what was said, but it was enough to convince Rachel that I’d be better off without her.”
Caleb took a sip of his coffee and leaned his elbows on the table. “I have to tell you, Lee. I don’t know what I’m going to do if I can’t figure out a way to get her back. If I could find a way to get to Milton, I’d get a confession out of him, you can be sure of that!”
The waitress came by at that moment and gave them a refill on their coffees. Lee waited for her to leave and then he told Caleb, “Well, I may just have some good news for you.”
“I could sure use some.”
Lee pulled out a piece of paper. On the paper was a crude drawing of a young man. “This came by courier today. The deputy in Red Town managed to shoot him in the arm when they interrupted a stage robbery. He got away, but I think this is the man you’re most interested in.”
Caleb looked down at the drawing and knew that he was looking at the face of Milton Pierce, although he’d never met him. His hand shook as he picked up the paper. “Do you have a plan?”
Lee nodded. “Already working on it. I’m betting that he’ll head home to the Pierce ranch. If that’s true, Jebediah ain’t goin’ to let us waltz in there and arrest his son. I think we’ve both seen that he’s blind where Milton is concerned. If he’s there, I’m going to take a group of temporary deputies and make Jebediah hand him over. I’m hoping Milton’s ready to bargain for his life, both for Rachel’s sake and for Jenkins’s downfall.”
Excitement shot through Caleb. If they could get Milton to talk … a future with Rachel might not be so far off after all.
He leaned forward and looked Lee in the eye. “I want to ride with you when you go out there to bring him in.”
Lee sat quietly in contemplation, then nodded. “Consider it done.”
Caleb relaxed then and leaned back in his chair. “In the meantime, I’m going to do a lot of praying.”
“We both will,” Lee agreed.
With hope looming on the horizon, Caleb suddenly regained his appetite. He pulled his plate back to him and dug in. The food was cold, but he hardly noticed.
One minute Rachel was dusting with a small soft cloth, the next minute she was crying in it. It happened every time she glanced at the stack of writing tablets from which Caleb had made numerous purchases when he’d first come to Springton.
It was the same with anything else that she associated in her mind with the preacher. Sitting through a church service without so much as shedding a tear was a huge accomplishment for her. But it hurt to look at his face and see the sadness lurking in his eyes. And she felt his pain when his gaze would collide with hers and then he’d quickly look away.
He was hurting and it was all her fault.
She started crying again.
Addie found her in this state when she came back into the store. With a sad shake of her head and a cluck of her tongue, she walked over to Rachel and handed her a clean hankie from her pocket (she now kept an ample supply on hand, since Rachel was in this condition so frequently).
“Honey child, you can’t keep going on this way,” she scolded gently as she patted the weeping woman on the back. “You’re going to make yourself sick.”
“I know,” she conceded in a shaky voice. Rachel made an effort to wipe away her tears but more fell to replace them.
“Land sakes, you both are a pitiful pair. The preacher walks around here thinking he’s foolin’ everybody with his false cheerfulness. But anybody can see that his eyes are red from sleepless nights and that he’s lost more than a pound or two in the last three weeks. You cry at the drop of a hat and walk around here like you don’t care if you live or die. Ya’ll can’t even look at each other! You’re miserable! And for what?” Rachel sniffled and opened up her mouth to answer, but Addie did it for her. “I’ll tell you what for! It’s because of your stubbornness, Rachel Branigan!”
Rachel gasped. Addie had never talked to her this way.
“I figure you think you’re being some sort of martyr by giving him up. But I think you’re just too scared to take the risk of admitting you love each other!”
“That’s not true!”
Addie ignored her comment. “You let one person convince you that you’d never be accepted as his wife! Did you ask anybody else their opinion? Oh no. You just took Prudence’s word for it! Don’t you know that the people of this town love Caleb? They can see that he lives what he preaches. Don’t you suppose that even though they may have some worries about you being a preacher’s wife, they’d accept you because they trust him?”
Rachel’s tears were fully dried on her face now. She didn’t like what Addie was insinuating. “I want them to accept me because they believe the truth about what happened—that I was raped and not a ‘woman of ill repute’ as I’ve been called.”
“You’re breaking his heart because you’re too proud to accept a compromise?” Addie asked in disbelief.
Rachel wanted to cover her ears. She didn’t want to hear the truth in Addie’s words. “You don’t understand….”
Addie shook her head sadly. “You’re right. I don’t understand.”
Rachel watched as Addie turned away but not before she saw the disappointment in the woman’s eyes. “I’m doing this for Caleb!” she tried to explain, but Addie said nothing.
Rachel felt panic rise in her chest. Was Addie right? Was it just her pride that she was trying to protect?
Prudence’s threat rose in her mind. No. She couldn’t allow Prudence to tell about them being at the stream. Folks would get the wrong idea.
She was doing the right thing. She had to believe that.
Caleb walked out of Lee’s office, closing the door behind him. He’d just gotten word that Milton had gone back to the ranch. And because there were now wanted posters bearing Milton’s likeness posted all over the area, Jebediah had given most of the ranch hands time off, keeping around only the few that he trusted most. So it just made their plan easier.
Lee believed that Milton, if captured, would turn in his own grandmother for a deal enabling him to skip the hangman’s noose. So not only did he think that he could get him to testify against the Jenkins gang and get him to divulge information about the gang’s whereabouts, he also believed they could get a confession out of him about the attack on Rachel.
Caleb dearly prayed that would happen as he walked away from the sheriff’s office and headed for the parsonage.
He was aware that someone was about to pass him on the boardwalk and reached up to tip his hat. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw that it was Rachel.
“Rachel, wait,” he said, taking her by the arm.
“Hello, Caleb,” she said, not looking at him.
He thought about how he’d missed this woman, about how lonely he’d been this past week. He thought about how much he loved her and that he wanted to bend down and kiss her until he’d driven all her doubts and fears about them from her mind.
She glanced around at the people nearby, noticing that some were beginning to stare. She pulled at her arm. “Caleb, please … people will see us!”
That was it! He’d had enough. He’d listened to all her paltry reasons and gallantly stepped away when she’d insisted. And how did that leave him? Feeling ten kinds of miserable. Well, it was about time Miss Branigan listened to what he had to say!
With little strain, he bent down and scooped her up in his arms. She tried not to squeal when he whisked her away into the alley between the sheriff’s office and the doctor’s office and out of public view. He then carefully set her down on a dusty crate and pulled up another for himself.
Shocked by his actions, Rachel struggled to regain her voice. “What … do y–you … think—”
He laid a hand over her lips and knelt down in front of her. “I think it’s high ti
me that you stop being so noble and listen to what I have to say for once! And I mean it, Rachel. Really listen.”
Taken aback by his authoritative, even aggressive tone, she gave him a small nod and said nothing. To be honest, she was a bit afraid to speak. He looked so angry! And it was directed at her.
He took a deep breath. “I can’t live like this anymore, Rachel. I don’t care what Mrs. Primrose threatened you with. I don’t care anymore about what anyone thinks about you or me or us. I just want you to think about what you are throwing away.” He shifted and took her hand. “Not many people find what we have. It’s a gift. And I think we would be just throwing our love back in God’s face if we let this town tear us apart.”
He brought her hand to his lips. “I’ve missed you, sweetheart,” he said sadly.
“Oh Caleb,” she whispered tearfully. “I’ve missed you, too. So much.”
Before he could register the meaning of her words, Rachel launched herself at him, winding her arms around his neck so tight that he had a hard time breathing.
What did a little breathing matter, though? He was holding his woman in his arms! That was the important thing. His own arms came around her and held her close. How many nights had he stared out into the night, remembering what it felt like to hold her? How many times had he caught the smell of honeysuckle and remembered the sweet smell of her hair? How many times had he looked anxiously toward his front door before remembering that she wouldn’t be coming anymore? He loved her and he missed her. She was his heartbeat. How was he supposed to live without that?
They finally broke apart, and she wiped her cheeks dry.
“I’m sorry, Caleb. Addie told me that I was being selfish and proud, but I didn’t want to believe her. I’m just so scared, though. Things are so uncertain. And then Prudence says that she’ll tell everyone that she saw us at the stream kissing. You know what people will think about that!” she gushed.
Caleb sighed grimly. “So that’s what she did. She blackmailed you.”
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