Gabriel's Lady (Leisure Historical Romance)

by Charlotte Hubbard

  “Where’s your Aunt Solace?” Gabe asked as he peered toward the house. “Charlie’s come to meet her and—”

  Rex’s barking made Gabe turn his head in her direction, but it was the boy she watched; he didn’t look very old or very strong, yet he had no trouble clambering down from the buckboard to greet her dog. And he knew enough to approach slowly, instead of running at him. Then he crouched and opened his arms.

  Her loyal Rex ran at him, so excited and exuberant he knocked the boy back onto his haunches. Then he began licking his face!

  Charlie’s high, childlike laughter called to her heart as nothing ever had: it invited her soul out to play, as though he knew how desperately she needed to have some fun. Rex licked his face and nudged him up to play and…

  Though she adored being among Billy’s kids, playing their games and settling their squabbles as only a tomboy aunt can do, this little boy’s husky voice suggested a deep sadness bubbling up within him. His laughter sounded out of practice, as though he longed for the kind of unquestioning love only a dog could provide.

  Only a dog? You know better, Solace.

  She blinked. She should go up there and meet this little boy, yet she hesitated. “What’s happening, Daddy?” she whispered. “Gabe’s got something up his sleeve—”

  An arm to hold you, and another one to hold this boy. How do you think your own patchwork family got pieced together, honey?

  As though she’d heard Judd Monroe’s voice, her mother stepped outside, followed by Papa and Temple. Soon everyone in the house would be finding out about Gabe’s guest, wondering where she was hiding herself.

  Hiding has never been your way. The boy’s mother and I had a hand in getting him here, so don’t mess with heavenly intervention!

  Now there was no way out! No way to deny that this mystery child already tugged at her. Solace folded her sister’s letter and grabbed her shoes. Despite her attempt to remain dignified—to make a somewhat ladylike first impression—her legs insisted on long, urgent strides and her free hand lifted her calico skirt so she could move faster. By the time she reached the yard, the little boy had gotten up to politely shake hands with Papa.

  “Charlie Carpenter? That’s a fine name, son,” he said. He crouched, so he could gaze up into the boy’s face with an unabashed grin. “Jesus was a carpenter, you know. Can’t go wrong there.”

  “Yeah!” Bernadette crowed. “Carpenters build peoples’ houses.”

  “Yes, sugar, they surely do.” Beulah Mae sidled up beside Papa to flash their guest her finest grin. “And I b’lieve this little fella’s already started him a new home.”

  Solace’s heart stopped at the old cook’s declaration. How long could Gabe have been keeping—? Where would he have found—?

  And why does everyone else already know how this’ll turn out? Somehow, she kept a smile on her face. It wasn’t Charlie’s doing that the Malloy family took in lost kids like some families latched on to stray cats.

  “And this is Olivia, and Owen, and Bernadette—and their daddy, Billy Bristol,” Mama said as she gestured to their smiling, expectant faces. “And this is my daughter, Solace.”

  Charlie’s head swiveled. His eyes drank her in, starting with the short curls she hadn’t combed yet…following the faded red calico sleeves she’d rolled to her elbows, to the old shoes she gripped. He gazed at her bare ankles and feet, and then at Rex, who sat beside her and leaned into her leg.

  How long did she have to hold her breath before he said something?

  But then, she was the adult. It was her place to…

  “Solace?” He lingered over her name, as though rolling it around his tongue to get the taste and texture of it. “I’ve heard that somewhere…in a song! A song ’bout Jesus bein’ our friend,” he said in a rising, excited voice. “Mama used to sing that while she played the piano! Do you sing and play the piano, Solace?”

  Dear Lord, how his brown eyes sparkled! As if he already knew her well enough to tease her. How she wished she’d practiced the way Lily and Grace had! “Not very well, I’m afraid,” she admitted with a sigh.

  “Me, neither! Mama tried to teach me, but every time she left me to practice, I snuck off.”

  “Me, too,” Owen chimed in. “Piano playin’ is for girls! Or sissies!”

  “That ain’t me! I’m no sissy!” Charlie gawked happily at the Bristol kids then, as though he’d found a whole new world in their coppery hair and twinkling blue eyes.

  “You like caves? And catchin’ frogs?” Billy’s son asked with a conspiratorial lift of an eyebrow. When he leaned over and whispered something in Charlie’s ear, Solace caught the words “ice cream in the spring house.” The little boy’s face lit up with the joy of finding this new friend…and maybe something else, as well.

  “Excuse me. I’ll be right back.” Pausing only to widen her eyes at Gabe Getty, Solace strode toward the house. She felt the weight of the questioning gazes that followed her, but by golly, she’d show those boys a little something about…how she couldn’t help loving them.

  By the time she came out of the kitchen again, a redhead and a blond were walking toward the river with a quick gait, glancing back to see if anyone noticed they were about to take a detour.

  Mama was a-flutter with anticipation, as excited as she’d been when the Bristol household had arrived at the trial. “Well, Gabe, this is certainly a fine surprise.”

  “Owen Bristol! I need a word with you, young man!” Solace called after him. She took off across the yard, doing her best to keep a straight face. She longed to follow the boys to the spring house, but Billy’s son was providing a diversion for the adult business that needed tending.

  Owen stopped short, his expression wary. “What’d I do now? You surely won’t make me cut a switch for takin’ Charlie to catch frogs? We were just—”

  When they met in the middle of the yard, Solace turned her back toward the group who stood near the buckboard. She slipped two spoons from her skirt pocket. “A little something to uh, catch those frogs with,” she whispered. “But if you don’t bring these back, you’re in deep trouble, understand me?”

  Owen grinned at Charlie. “Keep the girls away, willya, Aunt Solace? They’ll ruin everything and tattle on us for—”

  “Scoot! Be sure to wipe your mouths good, or there’ll be no living with your sisters.”

  Charlie’s giggle made her heart tip sideways. When he looked into her eyes again, the sky lit up around her. Then he took off toward the river. “C’mon, Owen! C’mon Rex!” he called. “I betcha there’s Injuns—or pirates!—in that cave you’s talkin’ about! Who knows what kinda trea sure we might find?”

  What was it about the sight of two boys skedaddling across the lawn with a dog trotting between them? As she turned toward the others, a big, silly grin lit her face but she didn’t fight it. That smile belonged there—just like the one that was slowly curving Gabe’s lips. He adjusted his eyeglasses, a move she’d seen a hundred times, yet now it hinted at more secrets. Maybe some answers.

  And maybe one very important question.

  “Is there something you’d like to talk about, Mr. Getty?” she asked.

  Chapter Thirty

  “What on earth did you tell those boys? They looked like you handed them the keys to—”

  “Nope. Just spoons.” As they reached the road, Solace scooted toward the center of the buckboard seat so she could command Gabe’s full attention. “But we’re not talking about two boys sneaking ice cream here, Mr. Getty. We’re going to discuss Charlie Carpenter. And then you’re going to tell me—”

  Like lightning his arm slipped around her shoulders, and then his lips found hers. Gabe kissed her with everything he had: all the wonder and joy and anticipation of her reaction. He turned it loose, now that they were finally alone. She tasted like spring and fresh promises he longed to keep with her. She felt like hope, and all the answers he’d been seeking suddenly fell into place. Effortlessly.

  Solace
slipped her hand behind his head, into those thick, warm curls, so he couldn’t pull away until she was good and ready. Her eyes fluttered shut and she marveled at how their mouths could say so much without uttering a word— even if Gabe had interrupted an important…topic of…conversation….

  But what could possibly be more important—or more revealing—than this kiss? She relaxed into it…allowed Gabe’s lips to teach her what she’d never known. A few fellows had caught her in a clinch, but she’d failed to see the attraction—the whole point of kissing—until Gabe Getty gave himself over to the emotion of the moment.

  Best of all, he gave himself without reservation. No hint of past sadness lingered on his lips. Something had finally freed this man from a marriage he’d endured rather than enjoyed, and Solace sensed Letitia would no longer haunt them. When their lips finally parted, they shared a sigh.

  “I love you, Solace,” he whispered. “I—”

  “High time!” she teased—and then immediately regretted it. Gabriel Getty deserved a woman who would do him proud and build him up. A lady who would take him seriously. “I’m sorry. That was a rude—”

  “Sorry I love you?” Gabe’s eyes glimmered like dark, strong coffee.

  Solace sighed, impatient with herself. Now that he was saying all the right things, she was not! “I could never be sorry about that, Gabe! But maybe we should talk about Charlie—”

  “Maybe.” He clapped the reins against the horse’s back again, smiling, eager to see her reaction to so many things, now that this miraculous day had cleared the right path for him. “You’ll never guess whom I saw in town this morning.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Your diversionary tactics might work in the courtroom, Gabe, but this is me you’re talking to! And if you think you can just show up at my parents’ ranch with—if you think Charlie Carpenter’s big brown eyes will win me over for you—”

  He chuckled and reached beneath the seat. “Took me all of two seconds to fall for that forlorn little face, sweetheart. Don’t let his appearance deceive you, though. Charlie’s advanced for his age and more capable than his size suggests. He thinks Sol Juddson writes a fine Injun story, too.”

  With quaking hands, Solace reached into the flat sack he’d handed her. The sight of these dime novels from the mercantile was nothing out of the ordinary, because she’d bought stacks of them over the years, but…

  “Oh, my—oh, my Lord, it’s—these are my stories!” she gasped. Her eyes couldn’t get enough of the Work and Win banner, and the Beadle Dime Novel masthead she’d seen dozens of times—except there she was! Sol Juddson! Right on the front, beneath the bold black titles, “She Ran Her Daddy’s Ranch,” “Smoky Hill Hide-Out,” and “Captured By the Comanches.”

  She flipped open the front covers, breathless at the sight of her own words set in type on the pulpy pages. “Gabe, I can’t thank you enough for—where’d you find these?”

  Her change in tone told him the consequences of writing these might be sinking in. “Right there in front of God and everybody, on the mercantile’s magazine shelves!” he said lightly. “So I bought every copy. I figured you might want to show them to your family before someone else did.”

  Her mouth fell open. “I…thank you,” she breathed.

  “You’re welcome, Solace.” He smiled, finally letting his eyes linger on those tousled curls and her distinctive face for as long as he wanted to. “Not only are you astute and intelligent in so many ways, my dear, but you’re now Charlie Carpenter’s favorite author. He read the story about the Comanches to me on our way to the Triple M.”

  “Really? He doesn’t look old enough to—”

  “I was an early bookworm, too. A good story was my way to live other lives…to escape the nightmare of my family’s massacre, when I was too lost inside myself to talk about it.” Gabe gazed thoughtfully at the road, amazed at how comfortable he felt with the sorrows in his past now…possibly because he felt so absolutely happy with the woman beside him. “Never underestimate the power of your pen, Solace. Not only do you entertain, you…you change lives.”

  Solace swallowed hard. Maybe she shouldn’t have slipped the prairie lawyer story into his valise. She’d presumed to tell Gabe how to mend his broken heart, when she’d had no idea how to fix her own.

  “I was impressed with your rendering of the Comanche attack…the details of setting and character,” he continued softly. “You wrote the scenes so vividly, I saw them in my mind as Charlie read to me. You were born to write.”

  An odd flutter tickled her stomach. “That’s probably good, since my career as a trick-shot artist is over, and—”

  “Maybe not,” he asserted, grabbing her hand. “You’re a natural teacher, too. You’d train riders as well as you’ve trained your horses and dogs, I bet. When I told Charlie about your riding and shooting in the Wild West show, he got so excited! He wants a horse, and to learn to ride. The main reason he agreed to come along with me was that I told him about Rex, and…promised him Rex could sleep in his room. In his bed.”

  Gabe’s sheepish grin made her giggle. “You two gentlemen must’ve had quite a talk. So is that where you’re taking me?”

  “To his room. And his bed?” His smile turned downright dev ilish. “Before we go down that road, I have to clear away some details about Letitia.”

  “Ah. I’m not surprised,” she breathed. “It-it really hasn’t been all that long since she—if you need more time to—”

  “Solace.” Gabe stopped the wagon. Wrapped the reins around the brake so he could take her hands in his. “When I found your story early this morning, I-I got so upset I had to leave my room. I took a walk, not knowing or caring where. And yet, as I passed houses I’d never seen, I felt as though I were being led. Steered is more like it.”

  She gripped his fingers, remaining silent so he’d finish his story.

  “And when I passed beside a fenced yard with a garden in the back and a wooden swing among the lilac bushes, like the ones at Billy’s, I-I saw you there so clearly, Solace.”

  Gabe paused for breath. He couldn’t stop gazing at her face. He’d made some monumental decisions today in a very short time—without consulting the woman he wanted to share them with. “Next thing I knew, I spotted a lonely little boy sitting on the front steps, and I was going through the gate to sit by him. He-he asked me if I was from the orphanage, come to fetch him because he’d run away again, Solace. I-I just couldn’t leave him there.”

  He cleared his throat, moved again by the emotions of that moment…the timing that was too perfect to be coincidence. “Nor could I take him back to the orphanage when I learned the house had been his home. I hope you don’t feel I’ve been misguided or presumptuous.”

  Her arms flew around his neck. “You did exactly the right thing, Gabe! That’s the most incredible—”

  “No, what’s incredible is that his mama had promised to take care of him—and then I showed up! He waved to her spirit as we went to get some breakfast,” Gabe continued in a breathy voice. “He thanked her, and…said he’d be back.”

  Solace swiped at a tear, following every word with a heart that swelled in her chest. “And to think my story upset you enough to leave your room, and—”

  “Your story set things straight in no uncertain terms. Not only were you right, but I knew if I didn’t pay attention to the warning between those lines, I’d lose you,” he said hoarsely. “And I-I can’t imagine how bleak my world would be if that happened.”

  She hugged him hard. Felt him shudder as he held her close. “Want to hear the rest of this story, Gabe?”

  “You mean there’s more?”

  “Uh-huh. I heard Daddy telling me not to mess up what he and Charlie’s mama have brought about,” she murmured. “As though the decision to…to make him part of our family had already been made. By angels.”

  His sigh released the tightness in his body. Gabe looked at her, noting how her eyes had the same depth and sparkle Charlie Carpenter’
s did. He wanted to spend years sitting close to her, so he could gaze at her this way. “They’ve been working on you, too? Conspiring against us?”

  She laughed softly, and the sound warmed his soul. “Oh, it’s more than a conspiracy, dear man. It’s destiny,” she declared. “Papa and Asa would say God’s working His purpose out—and maybe Lily would, too. She—she wrote me a letter to apologize last week. I was reading it when you and Charlie arrived.”

  “I’m glad. I didn’t want to become a wedge between you two. I never intended to hurt her by rejecting her affections.”

  “She knows now that it wasn’t meant to be.” Solace considered this for a moment. “Could be Lily’s angels caught her before she wandered any farther down the wrong path. Maybe they even dictated that letter. In spite of her saintly ways, Lily can be…headstrong at times, unless someone higher up gives her backside a boot. If you know what I mean.”

  Chuckling, Gabe picked up the reins again. All this talk of spirit involvement was a bit beyond him, yet the Malloys and the Bristols accepted it as a part of their everyday lives. The faith in these two families certainly felt a lot warmer, a lot more welcoming and—right, than tiptoeing around Letitia’s addiction and her mother’s confrontations.

  “I’m a different man because of your story, Solace. And because you persisted in telling it.” He glanced over at her, noting the wet tracks on her cheeks. “Thank you, sweetheart. You saved my life.”

  “And you saved my backside in that courtroom!” she replied lightly. “So that makes us even, right? Starting out on level ground and ready to…gallop out of the valley of the shadow.”

  “I hope you’ll feel that way when you see the house. It…needs some work.”

  As he steered the horse down the street he’d followed this morning, he sensed that heavenly guidance again, like the rush of wings blowing him along on a gentle breeze. “Charlie told me his daddy died about five years ago, after an outbreak of smallpox at the factory where he worked. His mother took on cooking and cleaning for people, but it wasn’t enough and…she wore herself out, I suspect. He…he was holding her hand when she passed.”