But she’d given up so much for Wes and she was, for all intents and purposes, his mother. She’d raised him right alongside Gabe. He wouldn’t have been able to do it without her. So why was he so aggravated with her?
Because Dawn had been a piece of work like nothing he’d ever seen before nor wanted to see, or be involved with, again. The last person he wanted messing up his comfortable life was her sister. It didn’t matter that they hadn’t grown up around each other; Dawn’s hurtful ways could have been genetic. It scared him to think there was a chance that Wes would take after his mother. It scared him to think there was nothing he could do to change the inevitable.
But he didn’t like to think that way. Wes was sweet, kind and loving…and as open and honest as they came, even at his early age. Surely that would remain. One thing was certain—Gabe planned to do whatever it took to keep his influences positive. He’d thought Georgetta was on the same page with him on that, but apparently he’d been wrong.
“Yor shor mad at somethin’,” Applegate Thornton said, striding out of the feed store, looking like he was on a mission. Gabe was used to seeing App down at Sam’s diner, sitting with his buddy battling it out on the checkerboard. Even as aggravated as Gabe was, it struck him as funny that the dour man would ask him if he was mad “or somethin’.”
“I’ve got something on my mind, App.” App was hard of hearing so Gabe spoke loudly.
“It looks serious, that’s for shor—it ain’t nothin’ bad about yor momma, is it?”
Well, it was, but he wasn’t sharing that with App. If he did, the whole county might hear about it. “I just have an unexpected houseguest,” he said instead. Everyone was going to know about Olivia and Trudy staying with them anyway.
“Yup, been wonderin’ when she was gonna get here.”
Gabe had been about to walk through the door into Pete’s, but now he stopped practically midstep. “What did you say?”
A bushy brow shot up. “Yor houseguest. We been wonderin’ when she was gonna show up.”
Storm clouds had receded a little just by putting distance between him and what was going on at home. But now they rolled in over him again with a vengeance. “You knew I was having visitors?”
“Shor we did. The women been yabberin’ about it down at the diner.”
About him? About Olivia? How did they know about them? His mother had not only invited Olivia and Trudy to the house, but she’d been telling “the women” about it behind his back. He knew App was talking about the three older ladies in town—Norma Sue, Esther Mae and Adela.
“Why was my mother discussing Olivia with them?” He asked the question before his good sense could kick back into gear.
“Oh, believe me, they had plenty ta discuss. They ain’t known as the matchmakin’ posse because they don’t talk. Or didn’t ya know that? I forget you ain’t been here all that long.”
Gabe groaned. Surely not. “What exactly did they discuss after my mother joined them?”
Enjoying this far more than Gabe was, App grinned mischievously, yanked his thin shoulders back and drawled, “Well, Gabe, that ain’t rocket science—they was discuss’n you.”
“This is Duke.” Wes sat down on the wooden steps on the side of the barn and tugged the cinnamon-splashed puppy into his arms. The dog was as tall as he was sitting down and filled his lap. He grinned over Duke’s shoulder. “He’s a doozy, ain’t he!”
“Yes, he is.” Olivia petted the puppy’s head. “He looks like a good doozy though.”
“Oh, he is.”
Trudy was standing over near the pen, watching the horse in the stall. Wes scrambled out from beneath Duke and hurried to stand beside her. “You wanna pet him? Here, see.” He reached inside the gate, and the horse instantly came to have his nose rubbed. “He likes it.”
Trudy stepped close and hesitated, then reached and petted the horse’s neck. Olivia smiled at the sight. Trudy loved books about horses, so this might be good for her, despite the fact that she hadn’t wanted to leave her friends to come here.
“Would you like to grab a glass of tea and talk for a minute?” Georgetta asked as Wes began chattering away to Trudy.
“I think that would be wonderful.” Olivia had been having fun getting to know Wes, but there was no denying that she needed to find out what was going on behind the scenes. “We’re going up to the house, Trudy. Will you watch Wes?”
Trudy cut uncertain eyes her way but nodded reluctantly. Trudy had good moments and bad ones. This wasn’t the best of moments, but it also wasn’t the worst.
Olivia followed Georgetta back to the house at a fast clip. Georgetta might be short, but she wasn’t slow. In any sense of the word.
“Wes is a great little boy. My sister would have been very pleased.”
Georgetta looked troubled. “One would hope she would be. But, I hate to say it—I honestly don’t know what your sister would have felt.”
This was too confusing. Olivia couldn’t fathom the picture being insinuated about her sister. Or their attitudes.
“What do you want to know?”
“I need an explanation. Something to help me understand all of this.”
Kind eyes met Olivia’s and she braced herself for what she might hear in the next few minutes.
“Start with Gabe. What is so bad that he didn’t want me here? Why did you tell me he knew I was coming when he didn’t know?”
Georgetta stopped at the door of the house. “First, he’ll get over being upset. He was wrong for not wanting you to come.”
“Yes, I think he was. Still, this is going to be awkward. It might be better if I get a room at that bed-and-breakfast we discussed when you first called me.”
“Oh, no, you will not! This is my home, too, and you are Wes’s aunt. You’ll stay here. Gabe is just, well, he’s just concerned for Wes. He’s afraid—” She halted and gave a caring smile. “He’s afraid you might be like your sister. I’m sorry, that sounds horrible. Come on into the kitchen.”
Her words shocked Olivia, but not so much today as they would have the day before.
“Have a seat. I’ll get the tea.” Georgetta indicated the large oak table in the corner.
It was a beautiful kitchen with tile floors and granite countertops. Bright sunshine glistened through the large windows. She could imagine lots of good meals shared by the family here in this kitchen. She was disappointed knowing that her sister hadn’t helped with any of the decorating. Even more disturbed by the picture she was piecing together of her sister. What had been wrong with Dawn? How could she have walked out of the hospital and never held her son?
Georgetta looked sympathetic. “I guess you’re realizing that things weren’t great between your sister and Gabe.” She set a glass of tea in front of Olivia and then sat across from her.
“It’s pretty apparent.”
“He was really hurt and angry… I take that back. I think he got over the hurt fairly early in the marriage. I don’t know everything, just that things were wrong.”
“Did she just get up and leave the hospital?” She still couldn’t fathom such a thing.
Georgetta nodded, her eyes growing sad. “I couldn’t believe it. I was there, and that day at the hospital when the baby was born, I realized things weren’t right. I’d gotten the feeling when talking to Gabe on the phone, but he wasn’t one to tell me much about his personal life. But when she left that next morning, took Lilly with her, it couldn’t be denied. I’m sorry for you to hear these things, especially since Dawn is dead. I know my son is no saint, but it’s safe to say Dawn had problems.”
Olivia took a sip of tea, hoping to ease the tightness in her throat. “I can’t understand all of this. I told Gabe that I hadn’t seen my sister since she was about Wes’s age. I’ve thought about her over the years so many times and wished I knew where she was. I prayed that both my sisters were safe and in good families like I was. God really blessed me with the beautiful family who adopted me. And then Maegan findi
ng me was such an unexpected gift.”
“I can’t imagine what you went through being separated from your sisters. And you’re a widow, too. You’ve had a hard life. But it seems you’ve been strong.”
Olivia smiled. “God has given me strength. And I mean that from the bottom of my heart. My mom and dad were such great Christian witnesses to me. Still are.” She didn’t add that they had a little trouble letting go before her wedding, and then also after Justin’s death. But she was fiercely independent and had become more so since losing Justin.
“I hope Gabe will relax. I’m sorry he’s been hurt.”
Georgetta reached across the table, laid her hand across Olivia’s arm and squeezed. “My prayer is that this works out for the best for all of you. Maybe you are here to help heal some open wounds in my son’s heart.”
“Wait, I’m hoping that things ease between us for the good of Wes, but I don’t know what I would do to help heal any wounds.” She wasn’t sure what exactly Georgetta was thinking, and she wasn’t ready to lay all the blame for the bad marriage on her sister. From what she’d seen of Gabe so far, he was a rude, hardheaded man with the basic manners of an adolescent—and that wasn’t being fair to adolescents.
For all she knew, her sister might have had a reason for her behavior. Not that Olivia could even begin to understand walking out on a child, but there could have been extenuating circumstances. And if there were, then while she was here Olivia planned to dig them out. And if at all possible, she would be able to see and share with Wes something good about his mother.
She hated to tell Georgetta, but she wasn’t here to heal Gabe’s heart; she was here for Wes. It was Wes’s heart she was concerned with. Not Gabe McKennon’s.
Chapter Four
“I think we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot,” Olivia said, coming to meet Gabe when he got out of his truck. The woman didn’t even give him time enough to set his boots on solid ground.
He tipped his hat back, his patience wearing thin. “I made myself clear when I talked to you on the phone. If there was any ‘getting off on the wrong foot,’ I’d say it didn’t come from misunderstanding my wishes.”
She bit her lip and stared at him. He got the feeling that biting her lip wasn’t from indecision or worry, but more to keep her mouth shut. Clearly she would love to expound on her reasons for being here, but she was thinking it wasn’t wise to do so.
“Oh, there you are,” his mother said, poking her head out the door. “Dinner is served. I’d begun to think you’d flown the country.”
He was going to have to sit down at the table with her. The idea sent an uneasiness coursing through him. “If this wasn’t my home, I might have thought about it.”
Georgetta stepped out onto the porch. “Gabe McKennon, I’m ashamed of you.”
“I think I’ll go check on the children and wash up,” Olivia said, not even glancing his way as she strode inside the house.
“I simply do not know what to do with you.” His mother’s exasperation rode shotgun as she glared at him. “I’ve taught you better than this. Yes, Dawn treated you badly, but that is no call for you to continue to behave in this manner. Up until this point I’ve been proud to call you my son, but this behavior is out of line and unacceptable.”
He’d never had his mother tell him she was disappointed in him. Even though she had instigated this entire bad situation, the idea stung. “There is nothing good that can come of this.”
“I believe there is a lot of good that can come out of it.”
“I heard down at the diner that you’ve been holed up in the corner with Norma Sue and her bunch.” He gave a warning hike of one of his brows. “I honest to goodness hope you haven’t got some misguided notion that she and I would come near being a matchup. If you’re stepping out on that limb, Mother, then we’re going to have real trouble.” His temperature escalated at the idea.
“Gabe. This is Dawn’s long-lost sister. There is no danger here. She is a nice woman who happens to have lost her very dear husband whom she loved very much. Olivia is not her sister.”
He didn’t tell his mother that he had other things to worry about besides whether she acted like her sister. It was the mother instinct that had her coming all the way out here to find Wes that had him worried. If she found out his secret, he was convinced more than ever that she would try to gain custody of his son. Nowadays who knew what the courts would do in a situation like this? Fear like nothing he’d ever known gripped him even as he told himself he was being irrational. But when it came to his son, he was taking no chances.
“You coming in?” Georgetta asked, holding the door. “Wes had a great afternoon, if that relieves any of those stress lines etched about your eyes. He’s crazy about Olivia.”
He couldn’t move as his mother let the door close behind her. What was she doing? Looking up at the blue May sky, he asked the Lord to give him some help. It wasn’t as though he’d done a lot of asking for anything over the past couple of years. He hadn’t wasted time praying for Dawn to come to her senses and return home. He’d seen the writing on the wall in her note. She’d used him with little remorse. He’d have been crazy to want her back after the way she’d behaved. Though he wouldn’t have wished her dead—no, never that—but he had wished her to stay away.
Stalking up the steps, he took a deep breath and pulled open the door. Laughter burst out from the dining area, and Olivia’s was unmistakable as it lifted above the others. The sound sent a shiver of awareness through him that took him by surprise, freezing him mid-step in the hallway. He didn’t have to see the scene to know what he would find when he rounded that corner. It was the sound of laughter followed by teasing banter about Wes being a pint-sized cowboy…it was the sound of family.
It angered him that he thought of it that way. He had a family, and it didn’t need to include a woman.
“Daddy, Daddy!” Wes shrieked, jumping from his chair to rush toward Gabe. He threw his arms around his dad’s legs, who immediately picked him up and gave him a bear hug.
Olivia couldn’t deny the hard tug at her heart as memories of Trudy doing the same thing to Justin hit the center of her heart. If she’d wondered at how loved her nephew was, she didn’t have to wonder any longer. For all his difficult ways, Gabe loved his son and wasn’t afraid to show it.
Burying his face in Wes’s chest, Gabe sniffed. “You smell like a turtle.”
“Is that good?” Wes giggled, squirming when Gabe tickled him. “I like um a lot.”
“I don’t have a problem with you smelling that way. Your grandmother is probably ready to get you into a bathtub as soon as dinner is over, though.”
“How’d you know she done told me that?”
Gabe chuckled. “She was my momma long before she was your grandmother. She stuck me in plenty of soapy bathwater when I was your age.”
“Oh, yeah. I forgot.” Wes looked at Trudy. “Trudy don’t smell like me. Why is that?”
Trudy looked indignant. “I’m not a boy. Girls don’t smell.”
At her daughter’s words Olivia had to laugh. “Girls like to take baths more. That may be the answer.”
Georgetta sat down beside Trudy. “Where Wes is concerned, everyone likes to take more baths than he does…but when Gabe was a boy, he was the same way.”
Setting Wes down, Gabe mumbled something about washing his hands and then left the room. Olivia found herself wondering what he was thinking. He was a mixture of unrelenting brick wall and caring father. There was more in between the lines that made up the man, but it was these first apparent aspects of him that intrigued her. He was his child’s protector, and for some unfathomable reason, he felt Wes needed protecting from her. This idea kept coming back to her. Georgetta had said he was afraid she might be like her sister. She wished she could understand that.
“Daddy smelled like a turtle, too.” Wes’s eyes were lit with admiration, as if smelling like a turtle was the ultimate.
“Me and you,
kid,” Gabe said, coming back into the room and pulling out his chair. He was sitting next to Wes and directly across the rectangular table from Olivia. He met her gaze with steady, unrelenting eyes. She got the gist—he and Wes were a team, locked together by an unbreakable bond. A bond that had far more than turtle smells connecting them.
“Gabe, will you say grace?”
Georgetta’s question broke the tense moment. Gabe hesitated, then nodded, bowed his head and thanked the Lord for their meal. After a moment’s hesitation he thanked Him for the people around the table and asked the Lord to bless them also. Olivia was certain he’d struggled with asking the Lord to bless her and Trudy when they were unwelcomed.
“Trudy don’t want to get on a horse,” Wes said the instant the prayer was over. He was looking seriously at his daddy. “I told her Pony Boy wouldn’t hurt her. Tell her, Dad.”
Olivia’s heart tugged at Wes’s concern for Trudy. He’d been trying to coax her onto that pretty blond horse all afternoon. Olivia knew in her heart that Trudy would love to get on the horse and ride. But she was reluctant to try. And since she didn’t know how to ride, it would be dangerous.
“Pony Boy is gentle if you’d like to ride him. I wouldn’t have a horse out there that could harm Wes or any other child.” Gabe’s expression was sincere as he placed a small portion of steak on Wes’s plate, then passed the platter to her.
Olivia gave him a grateful smile for the way he was speaking to Trudy. He might be a hard man, but he had a soft spot where children were concerned. And he had no idea the sorrow that was built up inside her child. As much as she’d tried to get through to Trudy, the grief she held locked inside her was growing. They’d seen a counselor for a while but she hated it, so they’d stopped. Olivia prayed that she would deal with it when the time was right for her. Until then, Olivia just had to wait.
It hurt deeply knowing her child was in pain and she couldn’t help her. But Olivia had dealt with Justin’s loss in her own way and in her own time. It wasn’t as if there was a timetable for grief.
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