Wolf Creek Homecoming

by Penny Richards

  “And Caleb?”

  “You know Caleb. He doesn’t give away much about what he’s feeling.”

  “Will you tell her about...Danny?”

  Gabe turned toward her, completely blocking out the sun. He studied her face before answering. “Yes, Rachel, I’ll tell her about Danny. And you. And how I managed to mess up the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  Rachel ducked her head and started walking again, before he noticed the tears that sprang into her eyes. The frankness of the statement tugged at her heart in a way that threatened to set her bawling her eyes out. Of all the things he’d said to her about their past...explanations, apologies or whatever else, there was no doubt that those simply spoken words and the emotions driving them were genuine.

  They’d reached the whitewashed arbor that sat at the end of the path leading to the front of her house. Covered with clusters of pale yellow roses, it stood near the road, its delicate curve inviting people in. As she started to step through, he grasped her arm in a gentle grip.

  Releasing his hold on her, he framed her face with his hands, the pads of his thumbs riding the crests of her cheekbones, his spread fingers cradling her head. She didn’t try to pull free, wasn’t sure she could have if she wanted to. Tipping back her head, he met her troubled gaze.

  “You’re worried about Danny meeting her.”

  She nodded.

  “Danny is her grandson. They have the right to meet each other. What happens beyond that is up to them, just as what happens between me and Danny is up to us. That’s fair, don’t you think?”

  “Yes,” she said with reluctant acquiescence.

  Leaning forward a bit, he rested his forehead against hers. Their noses bumped. The scent of the ever-present peppermint he seemed so attached to mingled with the masculine aroma of his aftershave, something that reminded her of far-off lands.

  Her eyes drifted shut.

  He took a deep breath and straightened. His hands slid to her shoulders. “What else?” he asked, showing an astonishing insight into her thoughts and emotions, an insight she’d noticed during their time in St. Louis.

  “Ah,” he said after a moment. “You’re worried about what she’ll think of you, right?”

  “Yes,” she admitted, allowing him access to even more of her feelings.

  Holding herself very still, she breathed in the scent of him and fought the onslaught of memories that swept through her. It would be so easy to let her arms slide around his hard middle and lean into him. So tempting to rest her head against that broad chest and let him support her for a while.

  “The whole town has believed for twenty-plus years that she was unfaithful to my father. I have no idea what really happened, but whether she’s a vamp or a victim, I can’t picture her as the kind of person to judge others.”

  Rachel stepped back. There was no teasing about him now, nothing but the intensity she remembered. Never mind that he had been irresponsible, thoughtless and selfish nine years ago. At that moment, all that mattered was that he understood exactly how she felt and was doing his best to ease her mind.

  It worked until he lowered his head and kissed her.

  Chapter Nine

  The kiss was the softest whisper of his lips against hers, as delicate as the brush of a butterfly wing, as insubstantial as the beat of a hummingbird heart. There was no persuasive technique involved. No insistence or demand. Instead there was hesitation and promise. It was nothing at all how she remembered his kisses.

  If there was any last lingering resentment, it faded to nothingness, and the last remnant of her resolve melted away. She knew there would be no more manipulating her feelings, no pretending or trying to deny them by pushing them aside. She gave in and gave up to the love she felt, and it felt so very good. And scary.

  Just when she feared she might somehow give herself away, he stepped back with a last almost-as-if-he-couldn’t-help-himself stroke of his thumb against her lower lip, a tender gesture that was fast becoming familiar.

  “Why did you do that?” she asked, hearing the breathlessness in her voice.

  That he was dead serious at that moment was undeniable. He was not teasing or testing her. She did see a hint of remorse, as if he were torn between wanting to kiss her and being sorry he had.

  He lifted his shoulders in a halfhearted shrug. “I couldn’t seem to help myself. I’m sorry if I offended you.”

  “You didn’t.” Was it her imagination, or did her denial surprise him? He might have said something else, but Danny burst through the front door, raced down the steps and launched himself at Gabe, who knelt and caught the child up in a tight embrace. Rachel felt her heart constrict in sudden painful perception. Danny adored Gabe. Gabe adored Danny.

  “Is it true?” Danny asked, resting his hands on his father’s shoulders and leaning back to look at him. “Do I really have a grandma?”

  “It seems you do,” Gabe said, smiling.

  “Tell me all about her.”

  “I don’t know much about her,” Gabe confessed. “She...left when I was just a little boy, younger than you.”

  Danny stared at Gabe for long moments, giving the statement serious thought. Then Gabe stood, and Danny moved between his parents. He turned to face them, grabbed one of Gabe’s hands and one of Rachel’s in his and tugged them along the path to the house, confident that even though he could not see where he was going, they would not let him fall.

  “It’ll be okay, Dad,” he said with a tone of grave certainty. “I ’spect she left because she just wasn’t ready for the responsibility of a family, the way you weren’t ready back then.”

  Rachel’s face flamed at hearing the words she’d spoken to Danny repeated to Gabe. She glanced at him and saw him looking at her with a thoughtful expression that soon turned to one of gratitude. At that moment she knew that he realized what she’d done and appreciated the fact that she had not painted him the villain of their particular story.

  “She’s been gone a long time and growed up a bunch I’ll bet,” Danny said, offering a child’s simplistic reasoning to the situation. “I ’spect that once she gets to know and love you, she’ll be ready to settle down and be a mom. I just hope she likes me, too.”

  “How could she not?” Gabe said with a laugh, delighted with his son’s logic. The joyous sound and Danny’s answering smile filled Rachel’s heart with joy. An image of them together around the table—a family—slipped like a will-o’-the-wisp into her mind.

  Pipe dreams.

  Though she admitted to loving him, she was no longer the shy innocent of her youth, and she was certainly no worldly sophisticate, nothing like the kind of woman Gabe was accustomed to. She was not charming, playful or clever. On the contrary, she was often considered too plainspoken and stuffy, and she had the added disadvantage of possessing above-average intelligence, something most men did not appreciate in a woman.

  She was just Dr. Rachel, pretty enough she supposed, but still a small-town girl whose biggest goal was to heal those she could, and to be the best person she could be. No matter how much Gabe might have changed, she was just too afraid of disappointing him, too afraid of being hurt a second time to trust him with her heart. If that happened, she knew that she would never recover.

  * * *

  After a supper of ham, boiled potatoes with butter, buttermilk biscuits and fresh green beans, everyone pitched in to clean the kitchen.

  Afterward, Edward challenged Danny to a game of dominoes while Rachel and Gabe retired to the front porch. They sat side by side in matching rockers that overlooked the front yard and the buildings across the railroad tracks. The corner of the hotel was in plain view, and beyond that, they could hear the occasional rattle of a wagon on Antioch Street.

  Neither spoke, content to sit and listen to the serenade of tree frogs and
insect songs that were punctuated by the strident, plagiarized melodies of a mockingbird ensconced on the rose trellis.

  “I hear the box lunch is coming up next weekend,” Gabe said at last. “Are you taking part?”

  “I always do. It’s more or less expected that everyone do something. It’s mandatory if you’re an unattached woman.” She offered an ironic smile. “It’s supposed to be an unobtrusive way to bring unmarried folk together. Not that it works very often.”

  “I imagine the bids on your boxes are high,” he commented with a questioning lift of his eyebrows.

  “I do all right.”

  “You’re bound to be the prettiest single lady in town.”

  She laughed. “Actually, Ellie and I are considered the town’s spinsters, even though everyone says we’re pretty enough for mature ladies.”

  “Mature, hmm?”

  “Yes.” She actually laughed, a sound that sounded awfully close to a giggle. “I believe that’s a creative way of saying we’re over the hill.”

  Gabe threw back his head and laughed, too, amused at the thought that two of the prettiest women in town were considered past their prime.

  “Believe me, it’s no laughing matter. The men who bid on my boxes are usually the more mature gentlemen.” This was said with a definite hint of amusement in her brown eyes. “Most of them are widowers looking for someone to take care of them in their old age. Who better than the town doctor?”

  Gabe chuckled again. “Well, I’ll be sure to give them a run for their money this year.”

  It sounded like a promise. Her mind moved ahead to that day and the possibilities it might bring. Quiet between them returned. She recalled that even in St. Louis, when he was taking her around to show her the many sights, they’d had the ability to share time together with no need to fill the silence with meaningless conversation. It had surprised her then, and still did.

  “I’d like to thank you for what you told Danny.”

  Even though they were attuned at the moment, she was so lost in thought that she didn’t immediately grasp what he was referring to.

  “What he said about my mother not being ready to take on a family,” he explained. “I know you must have said the exact thing to him about me.”

  She answered with her customary directness. “I told him what I felt was the truth.”

  That took him by surprise. “Well, I appreciate it, especially since it’s clear that you held a lot of resentment toward me. You could have said a lot of things to prejudice him against me.”

  “I would never do that, no matter how I felt. As you reminded me, I’m hardly without fault in the matter, and as you also said, whatever develops between two people should be just that—between them. It’s not my way to force my opinion on someone else.”

  “Has it changed?” he asked, his voice as soft as the gathering shadows.

  “What?”

  “Your opinion of me.”

  Instead of answering, she stared at him for long seconds. “I’m still observing,” she said at last.

  “Fair enough.” He looked at the buildings across the way, their edges softened by the gathering shadows. “I’d best get back before it gets too dark to put one foot in front of the other.”

  She stood, and he followed suit. “Thank you for the supper. It was delicious.”

  “You’re welcome.” She wondered if he would try to kiss her again and wondered what she would do if he did. Instead, he reached out and trailed a finger down her cheek, smiled a bit ruefully and went down the steps.

  She watched him go through the rose arbor. “Gabe!” she called.

  He turned.

  “Will you let me know how things go...with Libby, so I’ll know what to expect for Danny?”

  He gave her a wave of acknowledgment she could barely make out and strode toward buildings across the way.

  * * *

  Libby Gentry Granville had arrived.

  According to the gossip—and there were plenty of folks eager to keep Gabe in the loop—The Southwest Arkansas and Indian Territory train chugged into town from Gurdon at precisely nine o’clock, belching black smoke and spitting sparks as the wheels ground to a stop.

  Moments later, a magnificently dressed older woman had descended the train, followed by a younger woman who looked to be in her early twenties and a man whose age was somewhere in between. At exactly 9:05, two people burst through the door of the mercantile, almost knocking each other over in their haste to deliver the news.

  Gabe thanked them and sent them on their way. He was certain that his seeming disinterest would be added to the mix of reports as word spread around town.

  He wondered who the man could be. Rumor had it he looked about Caleb’s age, so he couldn’t be another brother, though the young woman must be his sister. Funny. He was just getting used to having a relationship with his estranged brother and now there would be another sibling to get to know...if he were so inclined.

  A grim smile hiked one corner of his mouth. It was highly unlikely that Libby would come all this way and not insist on spending some time together. The reality was that his mother’s unannounced visit could not have come at a worse time. He was still adjusting to meeting Rachel after so many years and reeling from the knowledge that he had a child. All that while learning how to establish a new business and trying to carve out a place in a town that considered him a dissolute wastrel.

  Caleb, bowing to the wishes of his headstrong and tenderhearted wife, had come by earlier to see if Gabe would like to go to the station to meet the train with him and his family.

  “I don’t think so,” Gabe told him, still uncertain how he felt about the whole thing and what he could possibly say to the visitors, knowing there would be dozens of pairs of eyes watching the whole shebang. “I don’t think I can find anyone to run the store on such short notice.”

  “I understand,” Caleb said. “I’ve been fighting Abby on this since yesterday, but she finally wore me down.”

  Abby wins again, Gabe thought with a smile. She was doing a bang-up job of transforming her husband into a more social human being.

  “You’re not getting cold feet, are you?”

  Drat it! Caleb was far too astute to fool for long. “I suppose you could call it that,” Gabe hedged. “It’s just that I’ve had more than my share of notoriety, and I have no desire for more. I don’t want our first meeting to be discussed over the dinner table. Whatever happens between us at our first meeting should be relatively private.”

  “Then at least come out to the farm for dinner,” Caleb pressed. “Abby is planning a huge family feast.”

  Seeing the familiar tightening of his brother’s jaw, Gabe figured he’d better accept.

  “Sure,” he said. “That would be great. You know I never turn down Abby’s cooking.”

  “Wonderful!” Caleb’s rare smile made a brief appearance. “Make sure you rent a nicely sprung buggy so they’ll be comfortable for the drive out.”

  “Whoa! What do you mean ‘they’?” Gabe asked, though the question was completely unnecessary.

  Caleb gave a nonchalant lift of his shoulders. “Since you’re coming, it seems logical for you to collect everyone and drive them to the farm, since they have no idea how to get there.” He portrayed an excellent impression of innocence.

  Duped and manipulated and no way out of the situation! “Fine,” he told Caleb ungraciously. “I’ll do that.” Gabe pointed a finger at Caleb. “But you owe me, big brother, and don’t you forget it.”

  Caleb had only laughed and left.

  Now, as he worked about the store, he wondered how the reunion was going. Caleb claimed he no longer harbored any hard feelings toward their mother, but as mellow as he’d become, good Christian that he was trying to be, and as much as he claimed to have fo
rgiven her, Gabe couldn’t see his brother welcoming Libby with open arms.

  At least he had guts enough to go meet her, while you’re here hiding behind a pitiful excuse.

  True.

  He supposed that Libby would want to meet before he picked them up to go to the country, but he never dreamed she would walk through the doors of the mercantile.

  His back was to the door and he was arranging a new shipment of chambray shirts by size when he heard a woman speak his name.

  As soon as the weather permitted, he’d started opening both doors to let in the springtime breeze, which meant there was no jangle of bells to announce a customer. He’d compensated by adding a bell on the counter, like the one Hattie had at the hotel, so that he would know someone needed help if he was working in the storeroom.

  Hearing his name, he froze, his hands smoothing a collar. Though it seemed inconceivable, he immediately recognized the soft, melodious voice. He remembered hearing her laugh—though rarely, it seemed now. A hazy recollection of her crooning a lullaby to him and Caleb as she sat on the edge of their bed at night swirled through his mind like a wisp of smoke. He recalled that clear sweet voice explaining that his father wasn’t angry at him; he was just angry...or worried, or whatever feeble reason she could think of to distract him from his tears and Caleb from his gradual retreat into stoic solitude.

  Wondering if the rest of her was as he remembered, Gabe turned. She stood just inside the door, flanked on either side by her companions. The young woman wore a celery-green dress with a tiered lace overlay and three-quarter-length sleeves ending with a double lace frill.

  The man was clad in the latest fashion—charcoal flannel trousers topped with a burgundy waistcoat beneath a casual jacket of muted black, gray and burgundy plaid. The girl was looking at Gabe with wide, uncertain eyes while the man regarded him with a careful scrutiny, almost as if Gabe were a prime example of horseflesh he was thinking to purchase.