Avery offered no reply, mostly because she didn’t know what to say. She didn’t really agree with Carolina, but then again, she couldn’t deny she was warming up to Haven—and to Gabe.
Chapter Eight
Avery spied the number on her cell-phone screen two days later and a lump formed in her throat. Danny hardly ever called, and when he did it was never for anything good. He couldn’t have possibly heard her thoughts about what it would take for her to move to Haven—but she felt caught in the act just the same. She was glad Debbie and Dinah were helping Marlene make cookies in the kitchen so she could take the call in the privacy of Gabe’s library.
“Hello?”
“Where are you?” It would have been nice if Danny’s question held a tone of concern, but it rang far too much like an accusation in her ears.
“I’m in Texas, like I told you. The thing with my grandfather’s estate.”
“You said you’d only be a few days.”
Why did he care? She needed his consent to take them out of state, but it wasn’t as if he actually missed visits with his girls—she’d stopped trying to convince him to be part of their lives months ago. Danny’s concept of fatherhood no longer extended beyond his child support payments, and Avery tried to feel grateful that he was at least dependable with those. “It’s become more complicated. I’m going to need to stay here through the twentieth.”
“What did the old man leave you anyway?” Avery resented the newly interested tone of his question. Did he hope Cyrus left her enough to live on so she could decline further child support? Knowing Danny, he’d looked up the size of the Culpepper ranch and was salivating over what she might now own. This man bore so little resemblance to the man who’d stolen her heart six years ago.
“So far, one run-down cabin. He left the ranch to a charity in town—well, sort of. There are a lot of strings attached, and that’s part of the reason I need to stay here until the twentieth.”
“So who’s minding our house back in Tennessee while you’re on your extended trip to Texas?” He emphasized the our and made it sound like she’d doubled her vacation.
“I paid the son of a client to stop by twice a week and check on things.” He paid her alimony and child support, but little expenses like this and others necessitated that she keep up a steady stream of interior decorating jobs to ensure they weren’t living paycheck to paycheck. She was responsible with the house. She wrote the check for the mortgage payment every month. She did everything, and did it alone.
“Would you rather I shuttle the girls back and forth while I get things settled here? We’ve got a place to stay. This isn’t costing you extra, if that’s what you’re worried about.” She hated the sharp tone of her words, but some days Danny could raise her hackles so fast.
“In that cabin he left you? Have you got my girls living in some ramshackle old cabin?”
My girls. The words burned in her ears. “No, that place isn’t livable. I couldn’t even sell it in the state it is now.” Avery looked out the library window to see Gabe hauling something out of his truck. “One of the ranchers has let us use a wing of his place.”
“His?”
“He and his housekeeper and her husband have been very good to the girls. They’re helping us stay because I need to be here on March twentieth to find out what else Cyrus has left me. Like I said, Danny, it’s complicated. The girls are fine. I’m fine.” She tried not to sound exasperated as she added, “Is there a reason you called?”
“Do I need a reason?”
You never call without a reason. “I need to go soon. The girls are with Marlene baking cookies. Maybe you’d like to say hello?”
It saddened her how she knew that question would cut the call short. “No, don’t bother them. I just wanted to know why you hadn’t come back yet. Don’t you have to be back to register for school?”
Avery was surprised he’d paid that much attention. “Registration starts April first—I’ve already talked to them about it. We’ll be back in more than enough time to get all the paperwork done.” Her mind thought ahead to parents’ night, teacher conferences, school plays and everything else she would probably not be able to convince Danny to show up to. But I’ll be there. I’ll make sure I’m there.
“Don’t you need my permission to keep them out of state like this?”
It bothered her that he was quoting regulations like someone who cared whether his children were nearby. For as often as he saw them—which was next to never—they could live halfway around the world. “I’m not moving here,” she said, unsettled by everyone’s assumption that she was, and her own tiny curl of curiosity that was starting to expand. How sad was it that she felt more welcome in a place she’d never known than the Tennessee town she’d lived in for six years? “Please don’t make this more difficult than it already is. The girls and I are fine, we’re sorting things out, and I’ll be sure to let you know as soon as we’re on our way back.”
“You do that.” Again, his tone was more of a power display than any show of concern. As she looked out the window, Dinah came running up to Gabe holding a heart-shaped gingersnap in her flour-dusted fingers. He stopped what he was doing and hunched down to Dinah’s level to hear whatever she said as she presented him with the cookie. Debbie came right up behind Dinah with a cookie of her own, and Avery watched Gabe take the cookies with great ceremony, as if they were treasures. He smiled and talked with the girls as he bit into one cookie and tucked the other into his shirt pocket the same way he had done the day they moved in.
“Avery?”
She’d forgotten the phone still in her hand. “Sorry, I’m trying to keep an eye on the girls while they’re outside.”
“You’re not with them? They’re out there alone?” That was Danny—quick to criticize, but slow to offer help to fix whatever he deemed wrong.
“We’re not alone here,” Avery replied, the power of those words striking her even as she spoke them a bit harshly. “They went outside to bring cookies to our host, Gabriel Everett. I can see them from the window where I’m standing.” Watching Gabe’s reluctantly charming way with the girls, she assured him, “We’re fine, Danny.” Some small and bitter corner of her heart wanted to add “not that you care,” but she bit back the remark. Danny was still their father, even though things had gone so horribly sour between them. A dead marriage was such a sad and ugly thing. She was grateful the girls were young enough that she had managed to hide most of the ugliness from them. She was also deeply aware of how the girls had taken to Gabe like thirsty deer to water. They’ve taken to Jethro and Marlene, too, she reminded herself. And to lots of people here. Please, Lord, can’t You help me find people like this in Tennessee?
Danny was talking into her ear, going on about some business victory and his precious new truck. She used to love how he boasted, as if he could rule the world. As if they would have the grandest of lives together.
It all sounded like so much noise now. “I really do need to go, Danny. Is there anything else?”
“No. Just keep me posted.”
She wanted to ask why, but chided herself. As she clicked off the call, a startling truth struck her like a physical blow to the chest. Danny and Cyrus were alike. She felt abandoned by both. She’d felt abandoned by nearly everyone. How on earth do I fix that? How do You fix that, Lord?
As she stared at Gabe, now sitting on the ground conversing with the girls and eating the cookie from his pocket, Avery couldn’t help but wonder if God might have already begun that healing. Right under her nose in Haven, Texas.
* * *
Gabe walked outside Friday morning where the girls were “helping” Jethro fix some of Marlene’s flower boxes. They had on small denim overalls, and even he had to admit they were adorable. Avery had done up each girl’s hair in a set of bobbing pigtails topped with pink-and-blue bow
s—frilly compared to the overalls, but somehow cute as buttons nonetheless. Cute as buttons? When had he adopted phrases like that?
The day you invited all that tiny pinkness onto your ranch, he answered himself as he walked up to where the girls were tapping nails with little flowered hammers.
“Where’d those come from?”
“Marlene found ’em at the Haven Tractor and Supply. Sweet, ain’t they?”
Gabe wasn’t sure hammers ever needed to be sweet, but the girls held the pair of them up like trophies. “Mind your fingers, girls. It won’t feel so sweet if you miss that nail.”
“I know,” said Dinah with a pout, holding up one finger with a bright purple bandage. Now even his medicine cabinet had been invaded in girly colors? “Mom had to kiss it three times.”
Gabe made a mental note to never do any activity with the girls that might end up with the need to “kiss boo-boos” or any such thing.
Dinah must have caught his sour expression, for she wiggled the finger in question. “It’s better now.”
“But you should still be careful like Mr. Jethro said,” Avery said from behind him. She had on a pair of bib overalls, as well, but they didn’t look anything like the girls’. She looked like a slice of down-home sweetness, a bit rustic, a bit tough on the outside, but still 100 percent curvy female. The sight grabbed a hold of him in a way he wasn’t quite sure how to swallow. She smiled and shrugged, probably thinking he found the overalls amusing or silly, and the warmth of her grin slid under his skin in a very precarious way.
He coughed, scratched his chin and moved to the business at hand. “Avery, the Lone Star Cowboy League is meeting here this afternoon. I was thinking you might want to attend, if Jethro and Marlene can see to the girls for an hour or two.”
“The league meeting?” Avery asked. “Me?”
“I figure you’re mixed up in all of this, you might as well attend.”
“Am I allowed?”
“Seeing as I am the president, I can invite any guest I see fit. I see no reason why you can’t come and offer your views. Or at least get a better sense of what all this is about.”
“Mom’s meeting cowboys?” Dinah asked, clearly impressed.
“You’ve met a cowboy. You’ve met me.” He tipped his hat, the gesture casting his memory back to the silly top hat he’d endured at that insufferable tea party.
Dinah laughed, something Gabe rather took issue with—was it so hard to think of him, a rancher and the president of the Lone Star Cowboy League, as a cowboy? “You’re different,” she said through her giggles. “You’re Mr. Boots.”
He widened his stance, only half joking. “And Mr. Boots is not a cowboy? These are cowboy boots, mind you.” Gabe was glad to see the question stump the girls.
“Of course Mr. Boots is a cowboy,” Avery added. “And a very fine one at that. Isn’t he, girls?”
“S’pose,” Dinah added with a suspicious eye.
“S’pose nothin’,” Jethro said. “Why, Gabe here is one of the finest ranchers and cowboys I’ve ever known.”
“I’ll be glad to attend,” Avery agreed. She tucked a thumb under one of the overall straps. “But I think I’ll change into something a bit more meeting-like.”
“It’s casual,” Gabe offered. Something about the way Avery dressed had caught his eye from the first. Sure, the activities of motherhood often meant she had smears and stains, but her clothes had an intriguing sense of style. She always looked just a bit different than the other women of Haven, but he couldn’t put his finger on why. Was that a Tennessee thing? Or an Avery thing?
It shouldn’t be a Gabe thing. The warning felt futile. Already he’d caught himself staring at Avery too many times. And now he was munching cookies with little girls when he ought to be checking on livestock. Or tending to this afternoon’s league agenda. Or any number of tasks that had gone undone since Avery and the girls had begun to invade his days. Things are slipping out of your grasp, and that’s not good. Folks are depending on you, and Theodore Linley is still nowhere to be found. Mind you, don’t get distracted by what shouldn’t ever be yours.
“I’ve got some errands to attend to, but I’ll be back in time to welcome everyone for the three-o’clock meeting. That gives you four more than enough time to finish—” he waved his hands at the collection of dainty hammers, nails, benches and distracting females in overalls “—whatever it is y’all were doing.”
“Fixing,” Dinah proclaimed.
“Maybe we’ll just have to use the league meeting as an excuse for me and the missus to take you girls into town for pie at Lila’s Café.”
“Pie!” shouted the girls.
“Can we, Mama?” Debbie asked.
Avery sighed. “It’ll spoil your supper for sure, but I don’t see how I can say no to an offer like that.” She leaned down and tugged on Debbie’s pigtail, affection washing over her features in a way that made Gabe’s stomach do a flip. “I sure hope somebody remembers to bring me back a slice.”
“I will, Mama,” Dinah said. “You like cherry.”
“That I do,” Avery said, straightening up.
“Lila makes good cherry pie,” Gabe offered, feeling foolish for the heat he felt rising up his spine. He stopped just short of saying “I’ll take you there some time.”
* * *
Once the meeting started, Gabe questioned the wisdom of having Avery there. It wasn’t her behavior—she was friendly and offered up so many good ideas for the anniversary party decorations that she ended up not only on the party committee, but she also got an invitation from Bea to come out to the ranch again and give decor advice. No, his doubts stemmed from how he couldn’t stop looking at her. His brain kept overlaying the down-home girl in the overalls with the stylishly dressed woman spouting bright ideas across the table from him.
She fit in. Not just surprisingly, but effortlessly. As if she belonged here. Which made sense—she did belong here. She was a Culpepper and would own the cabin at the far end of the Triple C Ranch when this whole nonsense was finished.
No, it was the sense that she belonged right here. Debbie and Dinah belonged swinging under his tree out front, Avery belonged sitting on his porch watching the sun go down—a whole host of unreasonable images kept crowding his brain. Gabe had never seen himself as a family man. He was a leader, but he was also a loner. Relationships—the up-close and familial kind—never came easily to him. The few women he’d dated more than once or twice always ended up accusing him of emotional distance, and he couldn’t say they were wrong. Children needed to be held close, and life had taught Gabe to keep folks at a comfortable distance.
Now, a trio of females was getting in too close, invading his thoughts. Avery was a woman who’d been abandoned not once, but twice by the men in her life—three times if you counted John’s death. The men who ought to hold her close had mostly dismissed if not outright ignored her. She deserved a man who would dote on her, who would lavish her with attention—and that wasn’t him, not by a long stretch. That sort of romantic bent had never been his thing.
He could never spout off about how the tawny-colored sweater Avery wore set off a dozen colors in her eyes. Or tell her how the sunlight made her hair gleam. A woman like that ought to hear elegant pronouncements of affection, and all Gabe could tell her was how he constantly thought about how her lips pursed when she was thinking. She’d probably find that odd instead of romantic, and he couldn’t blame her one bit.
“So the new barn passed inspection with flying colors,” Flint Rawlings reported. “Everything’s up and running from after the fire.” The burning of the boys ranch’s old barn had been quite an ordeal, but some fund-raising by the loyal community and the sharp detective work of Texas Ranger Heath Grayson, who’d apprehended the arsonist, had put the matter behind them.
“I know that was
a tough time for Johnny Drake, as well,” Tanner offered. “He deserves some affirmation, which is why I’d like us to vote to offer him the scholarship we’ve been talking about.”
“That’s the boy who had the apprenticeship with Wyatt, isn’t it?” Lena Orwell, the treasurer, asked as she looked up from her notes. “Can Wyatt vouch for the young man after all that running-away business?” The boy had run off in the middle of some earlier acts of sabotage aimed at the ranch. It had been a tense time for everyone.
“Here, Lena, read this. I think it speaks for itself.” Gabe passed a letter Wyatt had written to him as president of the league. It was a heartfelt plea for scholarship funds so that the boy could continue his veterinary training. The letter was so compelling Gabe had already decided he’d write a check for the boy himself if the league somehow found a reason to decline him the scholarship. Someone with such obvious skills as Johnny shouldn’t be denied the chance to put them to good use.
“The sign for the new ranch will be ready to unveil at the anniversary celebration,” league fund-raising chairperson Katie Ellis said with obvious pleasure. “The sign maker donated half the cost, and I raised the rest in three phone calls.” She held up a drawing of a horseshoe-shaped sign that read The Lone Star Cowboy League Boys Ranch, founded 1947.
“That’s lovely. We should put it up the minute it’s ready,” Lena said.
“We should wait until the ranch is officially and irrevocably transferred,” Gabe cautioned, keenly feeling the weight of the property’s uncertainty. “None of this is set until we locate Theodore.”
“But we will, of course,” reassured Tanner. Gabe thought that was brave coming from Tanner, seeing as how the man hadn’t come up with any hint of Linley’s location and the whole matter had landed squarely back in Gabe’s lap. Everyone was trying—even the private investigators were trying—but the pressure of finding his own estranged grandfather was starting to mount. Folks said they wanted to help, but it was equally clear they looked to him, as both the living relative and the president of the league, to solve this problem.
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