Small-Town Moms

by Tronstad, Janet

  “Thank you,” she murmured, then dug the bucket into the vat of feed.

  “Why are you so sure I’m not selfish?”

  “Because you love your son too much.”

  “And how do you know that?”

  Instead of answering him, she carried the bucket to the stall and dumped it. He watched from the gate, waiting.

  “Are you telling me you don’t?”

  “No! Of course I love my son.”

  She came to stand in front of him. “See, there you go. I rest my case. Even though I’m not at all certain why you weren’t saying that from the very beginning. Was it some sort of test?”

  He propped a boot on the stall’s lower rung. “Maybe. I wanted to see what you’d say. Find out how your mind works.”

  She chuckled. “Or if I have a mind.”

  “You do.”

  “Did my sister?”

  Like a thunderous storm, his mood darkened. “If you’re going to bring her into this conversation, then we’re done. I’ve told you I don’t want to talk about her.”

  “I never took you for a coward.”

  Anger flashed through him. “Look, lady, who died and made you the smart one?” The instant the words came out he regretted them. Olivia went white as a sheet before stalking from the stall.

  “Aw, no,” he muttered, looking up at the rafters as he raked his hand across the back of his neck. Knowing he had to fix this, he strode after her.

  “Olivia.” He caught her before she made it out of the barn. “I’m sorry.” He reached and took her arm, hoping to halt her. She stopped but didn’t turn around. “I’m an idiot,” he said, sick about the whole thing. Her shoulders sagged as he pulled her around to face him. The moisture on her dark lashes made him feel even lower. “Honestly, I didn’t mean that. It was unsympathetic.”

  “You were right, though. I’m not the smart one,” she said softly. “He died. I’m just the survivor. Taking one day at a time.”

  “And I’m the selfish jerk.” Not sure what to do, he did the only thing that felt right—he drew her into his arms, offering comfort even though she might not want it from the likes of him. She came despite herself and for a moment seemed to wilt against him. Her hair was soft against his chin, and she smelled of that same soft scent that he’d been unable to get off his mind. “Are you doing okay?” He felt clumsy and awkward. “I mean, have you made it through your husband’s death okay? It sounds like the total wrong thing to ask. I know it was horribly hard on my mom when she lost my dad. It was callous of me to say such a thing when I’ve been so close to the fire.”

  She dragged in a long, shuddering breath and trembled in his arms. “Most of the time. I just get caught off guard sometimes. Like now. I’m sorry.” Her words were muffled against his chest.

  “Don’t apologize.” He tightened his hold, hearing the trace of pain in her words. He understood, though he didn’t want to. He’d rather that Dawn’s betrayal hadn’t hurt. He’d rather that he hadn’t fallen for her. But there it was. He wouldn’t have married her if he hadn’t cared…at least a little.

  Olivia drew away, looking up at him. Her lashes were dark and fringed rich, amber eyes. He’d thought they were Dawn’s eyes but now realized that they were lighter, and her lips were shaped much fuller with a tiny indent at the edge. Funny how she didn’t really look as much like Dawn as he’d thought. “You look like you’ve made it. You’re strong.”

  “I had to be.” She blinked hard and turned her head to hide the tear that slipped from the edge of her eye.

  He lifted his hand and gently touched her cheek, turning her back to look at him. “You loved him very much?”

  Olivia nodded. “He was a good man, the best. Funny. Sweet. Strong. Ever my protector. A wonderful Christian man.”

  Gabe wondered suddenly what words someone who loved him would use to describe him. Funny and sweet certainly wouldn’t make the cut. Strong might not even be used. Protector—he could fill that role and feel comfortable doing it. A Christian man. He was, but these past three years had changed him. He’d grown more distant from God than he’d ever been.

  Looking at Olivia, he felt totally helpless as the tear ran slowly down her cheek. He brushed it away. “I’m sorry you lost him.” He offered the only thing that felt right to say.

  Blinking away the last of the dampness lingering on her lashes, her eyes searched his. “Thank you.”

  Time seemed to stop as he stood there. It was like everything came into focus looking into her eyes. It was as if he looked into twin pools and saw the future. Crazy.

  He wanted to pull back but found himself stuck where he was, holding on to her. Drawn to her like nothing he’d ever felt before. His gaze dropped to her lips.

  She stiffened in his arms, drawing his eyes back to hers, and they were as startled as his were. Propelled to action, they both stepped away from each other.

  “I—I—” she stuttered, turning to go but walking the wrong way before turning back. “I have to go. I have to—” She froze a few steps away from him, and her words broke off as she turned around and met his eyes with her own beautiful uncertain ones.

  He stepped back. “I, um, I’m sorry,” he managed before stalking out the back of the barn into the pasture behind him. He didn’t stop until he was at the edge of the stand of trees fifty yards from the barn. His head was drumming, and his heart was pounding like an angry bull out for revenge. He couldn’t focus. What had he been thinking?

  He’d wanted to kiss Olivia Dancer.

  But it wasn’t that thought that had him weak in the knees and on the run. He’d seen a life with her in her eyes. And it scared him.

  Chapter Seven

  She’d wanted to kiss him. Olivia was still shaken by this when she woke the next morning. Wanting to kiss him—and after he’d comforted her about Justin! How could she have spoken her husband’s name and, almost in the same breath, been thinking of kissing another man?

  The very thought confused her as she’d hurried out of the barn. Lying still in her bed, listening to the quietness of the house, she closed her eyes and immediately saw the sunset from the night before when she’d hurried to the back of the house to think. She’d stopped at the edge of the yard, her head, heart and stomach in turmoil as she watched the sun setting in the sky. It was a beautiful orange and pink mixture, brilliant with golden light. God was outdoing Himself with the sunset…but what was He doing with her heart?

  Ugh! She flipped onto her stomach and yanked her pillow over her head. What are you thinking, Olivia? The best thing she could do was to remember that she was here for her sister’s son. She was not here for…for… this! Whatever a person called it when they suddenly went off the deep end.

  And now you’re going to have to face him.

  “It’s about time y’all came in here ta eat together,” Sam said Thursday night when they walked into the diner.

  To Gabe’s dismay, his mother had insisted they all go out for Sam’s all-you-could-eat fish night. Reluctant didn’t begin to describe Gabe as he drove them into town. Wes loved fish night, and though Gabe wanted to say no, he’d given in when Wes had begged to go. It was easy to see that Olivia didn’t want to come, either, but she agreed.

  Like two sparring partners in neutral corners, they squared off before getting into the truck. She was just as leery of him as he was of her. The idea didn’t sit well with him.

  “We’re here now,” he said, shaking Sam’s hand with an iron grip to match the older man’s.

  “You sure are purdy,” Stanley Orr said from his seat at the front of the diner. “Anyone tell you you look like yor sister?”

  Gabe wanted to tell Stanley to get back to playing checkers and mind his own business, but he and his buddy App were here eating catfish, not playing checkers. Still, he wished people wouldn’t bring up Dawn. Especially in front of Wes.

  “Yup, you do look like her some,” Applegate grunted, grinning.

  “Thank you,” Olivia said. “
Georgetta showed me some photos of Dawn, and I think she was beautiful. I’m nowhere near that.”

  “You most certainly are,” Esther Mae piped up indignantly as she came over to welcome them. “You are beautiful.”

  Everyone else who gathered around them joined in on the praise. Gabe caught his mother watching him with interest, and he set his expression to neutral. Or so he thought, but the gleam in Georgetta’s eyes hinted in a big way that she’d seen something of interest. “Y’all want to find a table?” he asked gruffly.

  “I wanna sit in a booth.” Wes grabbed Trudy’s hand and led her off in the direction of the booths with his grandmother trailing them. It took a few more seconds of conversation before Gabe and Olivia could follow them. When they reached the booth, it was to find that Sam had brought a child’s chair to the end of the booth for Wes. But it was the empty booth seat that had him sweating bullets. To his dismay, Georgetta and Trudy were sitting on one side of the booth, leaving the other one empty for him and Olivia. There was no way he could get out of sitting beside her without making a big deal out of it. He was stuck.

  Olivia had been walking in front of him, weaving her way through the visiting crowd. Sam’s on Thursday nights was more like a family gathering. Folks wandered about, socializing before settling down to their own tables to enjoy their fried fish. So, being taller, he spotted their predicament before she did. When she broke through the crowd and spotted the seating arrangement, Olivia stopped dead in her tracks, and he bumped into her.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  She glared at him over her shoulder.

  He didn’t blame her. He was in exactly the same boat.

  Sinking. And sinking fast.

  “Don’t you just love this place?” Georgetta said from across the table as Olivia and Gabe settled into the booth seat.

  Olivia tried to seem undisturbed by being forced to sit beside Gabe. She hadn’t expected this. Nor all the attention they’d drawn. Okay, so maybe she’d thought a smidge that they would draw attention. After all, Georgetta had said they were being asked about. But there was something else she’d seen in the eyes of Georgetta’s friends, Norma Sue, Esther Mae and Adela. Speculation? Joy?

  Something…something that said they knew something she didn’t know? But what? Or was it just her imagination? After all, she’d been thinking about kissing Gabe.

  And thinking about it a lot since yesterday.

  “I do.” Wes scrunched his little face up and looked thoughtful. “I been comin’ here since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. I think that’s what Mr. App teld me. You heard him, Grandma. Is that what he said?”

  “Yes, Wes, that’s exactly what he said.” Georgetta ruffled his hair affectionately. “That means you were really small.”

  “Was I a baby, Daddy?”

  “You were,” Gabe grunted.

  Olivia was trying to ignore the way his leg was bouncing in a nervous manner, causing the bench to move. It shocked her that he was nervous. Or agitated. That was probably closer to the truth.

  They managed to make it through the meal. Trudy was a bit sullen, Wes was excited and Georgetta was talkative. Olivia found out that Georgetta wanted to travel some day.

  “How about you, Olivia? What are your plans?” Georgetta asked.

  “My plans? Well, Trudy and I are keeping busy. Like I said before, we like to stay busy. Getting her through school and college is my goal.”

  “Have you ever thought of moving?”

  What a funny question. “Not really. Trudy has her friends. The idea did cross my mind not long after Justin died. But that seemed unfair to my parents.” She didn’t say that they had had a hard time with her coming here. “I had to work at maintaining my independence after Justin’s death. My dad, whom I love with all my heart, would have tried to run our lives.” She smiled at Trudy. “Gramps means well, but he is pretty headstrong and thankfully, I developed some of his personality after being raised by him all those years. If not for that, he’d have been directing my every move—believing, of course, that he was doing what was best for us.”

  “So you think you developed traits from your adoptive parents?” Gabe asked, wiping his hands on his napkin and turning slightly to give her his attention. His knee touched hers as he did. She pulled away, despite the surge of attraction buzzing through her. “Not think—I know I did. I’m too much like my dad for it to be a coincidence.”

  Gabe’s brows flattened as he thought about her statement. “What about traits from your biological parents?”

  “I really don’t know. I was a little older than Wes when they were killed in a car accident, and I entered the foster care program. I can hardly remember them.”

  “I don’t ’member my mommy.”

  Wes’s statement took them all by surprise. He blinked innocently as only a young child can do. Olivia would have hugged him if she’d been able to, but Gabe was between them at the table. “I wish we could both know her.”

  Beside her Gabe tensed. Olivia wished she knew more about Dawn. The picture she’d pieced together hadn’t grown better over the past week. She decided that when they got home, she might need to put aside this attraction she was letting sidetrack her from her goal and question Gabe. It was time for answers. There surely had to be something good about Dawn that he could share with her and with Wes. Wes needed to know about his mom.

  “You want to be my mommy?” Wes’s question rang out unexpectedly, startling everyone. Smiling broadly as if a light had just gone on in his little head, he continued, speaking loudly and enthusiastically. “You can be Trudy’s mommy and my mommy too!”

  Chapter Eight

  It bothered Olivia over the next few days about Wes wanting a mother. Wanting her to be his mother. After he’d made the statement in Sam’s, everyone at their table had grown silent for a minute, at a loss for words. It was a good thing Sam brought their food when he did, and they were able to dig in.

  It wasn’t for her to tell him that one day maybe he would have a new mother. Or to tell him that it wouldn’t be her. She did tell him that she was his aunt. His mother’s sister, she had to explain again. But he’d said she could be his momma if she wanted to. It was almost like it was a game to him. The sweet boy just smiled the whole time. One day he’d be old enough to understand.

  She’d wanted to speak to Gabe in private, but when they got home Trudy asked her to play a board game with her, was insistent about it. In the restaurant Trudy had seemed bothered by Wes’s declaration, and so Olivia couldn’t pass up the chance to have some one-on-one time with her.

  As it turned out, she didn’t get to speak to Gabe until the following day. Especially since he disappeared soon after they arrived home. But on Friday, to her surprise, Georgetta took both kids with her to town to buy groceries. She’d also noticed that Trudy was getting a bit bored, and Georgetta wanted to show her Ranger, the larger town about seventy miles away.

  Instead of Olivia being asked to go along as she’d expected, Georgetta suggested that it might be good for Trudy to spend time with Wes without her mother there. Olivia agreed, and so here she was. It was the perfect opportunity to speak to Gabe about Wes. She told herself that she was not looking forward to spending time alone with Gabe—that she just needed to discuss all these issues. Nope, it had absolutely nothing to do with wanting to be around him…

  She was lying, and she knew it.

  Gabe McKennon caused something inside of her to come alive that she hadn’t felt in so very long. When he looked at her, she felt like a woman. Even when he scowled at her. And boy, was he ever doing plenty of that.

  It was apparent that he was as disturbed by the attraction as she was…and she could tell he was attracted to her. A woman knew these things. Even a woman as rusty at this sort of thing as her.

  But did he still believe she shouldn’t be here?

  The day was cool, and she was sitting on the porch swing when he drove up the drive and parked his big truck. Duke raced to meet him, and
he bent to pet the pup as soon as his boots hit the gravel. Long, lean and dangerous—the description took her by surprise, but that was exactly what he appeared to her. If she’d always felt protected by Justin, she knew the woman who fell for Gabe would feel the same way.

  Then again, if that was so, why had Dawn left? The question that had begun to plague Olivia was why would a woman in her right mind walk away from a man like him?

  It was incomprehensible to her. But then, she still didn’t know the facts. Could there have been something in the way Gabe treated her that made her leave?

  But if so, then why leave her baby?

  Oh, goodness. Her mind shut down, stopped rolling, locked down as he strode up the walk toward her. Her breath stuck in her chest. He wore a thin film of dust over his T-shirt and jeans, and his boots were outfitted with spurs so they jingled as he walked. Her throat was as dry as parched sand as he came to a stop just outside the shade of the porch.

  “Hi.” He pulled his straw cowboy hat from his head and slapped it against his knee. He glanced around. “Where is everyone?”

  Her pulse was threatening to send her into a blackout, it was so erratic. “They’ve gone to town.” Really, Olivia, get your head back on straight.

  “Mule Hollow?”

  “Ranger. Your mother wanted to spend some time with them alone.”

  His brows dipped, and she knew he was thinking the exact same thing that had crossed her mind as she was sitting here. Had they been set up?

  “Yes,” she said, looking at him. “There is a very good chance that we were set up.”

  He hadn’t expected her to say that. She hadn’t expected to say it, but she was nervous. Her stomach was rolling with a thousand butterflies. She kept reminding herself that she had to talk to him about Wes needing to know about his mother. So why was she thinking about how nice it would be to get to spend some time with him on the porch swing? The very idea shocked her. But it was the truth.

  It had been a long time since she’d sat on a porch swing and talked with a man…Justin, to be exact. They’d enjoyed their talks. Their time together.