Where the Heart Leads

by Jillian Hart

  Yeah, he knew how that felt too. Knowing your loved one was hurting, knowing there was nothing you could do. Wanting them out of pain and whole again and ready to trade your life so that could happen.

  “Gabriel.” Aumaleigh’s pinched face was pale with worry. “I heard what you said. I was afraid about his head wound.”

  “I know the doc’s worried, but he’s lucid. That’s important. Not that I know much about medicine, I’ve just been an observer.”

  “You’re right. I’ve seen it too. Cowboys tend to get thrown when they’re breaking horses and hit their heads now and again.” She wrapped her arms around her middle, looking uncomfortable with being alone with him.

  Remembering their last, pivotal conversation, he could see why. She thought they were strangers—and in a way, they were. But in another way, he knew her like no one had—or maybe ever would.

  “You were pretty calm when I found you with Milo.” He pushed away from the wall, moving slow, hoping she would come along with him. “You did a good job keeping pressure on his bullet wound on the ride here. It was pretty jostling.”

  “The cowboys have wound up with a few of those over the years too.”

  “Your voice warms when you mention them. The cowboys.” He remembered every sparse but important detail he’d been able to wring out of Seth and Josslyn. “I hear you’ve known some of them for decades.”

  “Yes. John came with us from Ohio.” Aumaleigh shuffled forward, coming with him as if reluctantly. Her dark hair had slipped down from its bun, and his finger itched from wanting to push it out of her eyes.

  Old habit, he realized.

  “They were my parent’s employees first, so I got to know them from cooking for them.”

  “I guess some things never changed for you. You never got out of your mother’s kitchen.”

  Her face fell. She came to a stop in the hallway. “I always hoped to. Anyway, the cowboys were friends. Some of them feel like brothers, others like sons. I’m terribly fond of them all. I don’t know what I’d do without them.”

  “They’re lucky to have you. You must feel more responsible for them now that you own the ranch.”

  “True. What about you?” She eyed him assessingly. “You knew exactly how to lift and carry Milo without hurting him. You’ve done a lot of home care, haven’t you?”

  “I took care of Victoria for years.” His voice cracked. He didn’t like the show of emotion, not when it was overwhelming. “I worked hard all my life, trying to make something of myself. Long hours, longer days, day in and day out. I was in the dirt, in the barn, working with the animals, raising crops. And when a crop failed, I was in town working a night job to make sure my family was provided for.”

  “I’m not surprised to hear that. I always knew you would be a successful rancher.” Her voice thinned and she stared out the window again. “I always believed in you, Gabriel.”

  “Good to know.” He ignored the ache in his chest. It mattered. A lot. “Yet all that meant nothing when Victoria fell ill.”

  “You did everything you could for her.”

  “Yes.” It mattered too, that she could see that. “I found the best doctors. I hired the kindest and most competent nurses. But the one thing I could not do was leave her side.”

  Aumaleigh said nothing. She turned away from him. She took as long as she needed to blink the tears from her eyes. “That’s the kind of man you are, Gabriel. I’m not surprised. You took care of her through everything.”

  “Until the end.”

  “I’m glad she had you.” Emotion made her words thick.

  He knew how she felt. “Even now, grief can still bring me to my knees. I was better until I stepped foot inside this place. Doctors make me remember.”

  “It’s not something you should forget.” It was illuminating to see this side of Gabriel. His tender, tender heart hidden inside that iron-tough man. “I wish I’d been able to love like that.”

  He looked like a man who didn’t know what to say.

  Not that she could blame him. She didn’t know what to say after that either. An uncomfortable silence settled between them. She stared out at the waning daylight, wishing she could take back the words. She’d confessed too much.

  The front door burst open and Hazel Gray blew in with the wind. “Where’s my son? Where’s Milo?”

  “He’s in the back. I’ll show you.” Aumaleigh jumped at the opportunity to leave. Wanting to help Hazel, she escorted her down the hallway and into back room.

  “Milo? I feared the worst.” Hazel buried her face in her hands. “Your deputy said you’d be all right, but I had to see it with my own eyes. Oh, Iris. You must be feeling this too.”

  “Exactly.” Sweet Iris slipped an arm around her future mother-in-law. “A part of me died when Fred came into the bakery and said he saw Milo bleeding in the back of Gabriel’s buckboard, that he’d been shot. All I thought was, he’s dead. Even now, I can’t stop shaking.”

  “I’m not worth all this carrying on.” Milo tried to grin but wound up grimacing as the doctor stitched up his wound. Stretched out on the treatment bed with his shirt off and a bandage over his head, he looked worse off than he was. “It’s just a little gunshot wound.”

  “A little gunshot wound?” Iris looked faint. So did poor Hazel.

  I don’t belong here. This was family business. Aumaleigh backtracked into the hall and nearly bumped into Gabriel.

  “C’mon.” He gave a chin-jut toward the back door. “I’ll give you a ride back to your horse and buggy.”

  “No, need. I’ll get a ride with one of my nieces.”

  “I’m going that way anyway. You might as well go with me. If it’s adding fuel to those rumors about us, you can lay down in the back and we’ll cover you with a blanket. No one will even know you’re there.”

  She smiled. Then she chuckled. Then she laughed. “I’d feel better if I drove and we covered you with the blanket.”

  “Sorry, can’t be done. My feet will stick out. It’s a short blanket.” He unhooked her coat from the wall peg and shook it open for her.

  “Excuses. I expected more from you, Gabriel. You could bend your knees.”

  “True, but then my bent knees would stick out. I have long legs.” He moved in behind her, and his nearness buzzed through her, sending little tingles into her bloodstream. He held the sleeve for her as she slipped her arms in and settled the garment on her shoulders. “Maybe I was wrong about the blanket. It’s exactly five o’clock. Fred is off duty. We’re safe.”

  She rolled her eyes as the mantel clock struck five. “Fred is never off duty when it comes to gossip.”

  “Maybe we can wait ten minutes and he’ll be at home?”

  “We’d be smarter to take the back way and stay out of town completely.”

  “Come to think of it, it’s almost dark, so that will work.” He opened the door. “The good news is, you won’t have to hide under the blanket for long.”

  “Me?” She rolled her eyes, not able to say exactly why she was laughing. She crossed the porch. “Why do I remember that time we fell asleep in the back of your wagon?”

  “We were stretched out, looking up, watching the clouds float by.”

  “And the horses startled, the wagon jerked and you rolled out all tangled up in the blanket. You hit the ground and rolled downhill. Snoring.”

  “You would have thought the impact would have jolted me awake.”

  “No, but the cold water did when you rolled into the pond.”

  “That was a shock,” he agreed, and then they were laughing, and his hand found hers and he helped her up into the buckboard as naturally as if he’d been doing it for the last twenty years.

  She gazed down at him from the seat, laughing, before she realized what they’d done. The humor died from her lips and the amusement faded from his eyes and in the faint light from the house’s window, they let the silence—and the distance—settle back between them.

  Gabriel strode a
way, circling around the vehicle. He stopped to talk with someone (Walt the deputy who’d come to check on his boss). By the time he joined her on the front seat, things were back to normal. Or, at least, they could pretend they were.

  “Do you like running a ranch?” he asked when they were on the road.

  “It’s in my blood.” That was all she said. Did she want to share the truth with him? Not exactly. That would make Gabriel her confidante and honestly, she would rather pick someone else for that. “How about you?”

  “Oh, I’m done with all that. I’m retired. I bought this acreage to raise horses and a few cattle. I figure I’ll raise and train horses to fill my time.”

  “You love animals so much.” She ignored the image of him in the corral with his horses, and the memories from the past of him with his animals. “You’ve always had a gift with them.”

  “A gift I’ve been grateful for.” He reined his team through the twilight. “I remember you had a way with them too.”

  “It’s been a while. Mostly I spend my time with Buttons. She’s my only animal contact these days.” The cool air breezed across her face, tangling her hair, and she remembered the days before Mother began to keep her assigned to work in the kitchen. As a young girl, she’d been her happiest—running around the barn, tending the animals, sneaking in a few snuggles and kisses. She shrugged, coming back to the present. “There’s so much kitchen work to do.”

  “How long have you been stuck in the kitchen?” He arched a brow, watching her intently, almost eerily, as if he could look too deep into her.

  And see too much. See more than she was willing to share. She pushed a strand of dark hair out of her eyes. “All of my adult life, that’s for sure. Mother banished me to the kitchen when I was fourteen and the neighbors criticized her for letting a girl do a boy’s work in the barn and fields.”

  “Frankly, the neighbors should have criticized her before that.” A harsh tone rumbled in Gabriel’s words, and as they slid past a thick copse of trees and fell into full shadow, she lost sight of him.

  But she felt his disapproval and contempt of her mother. A feeling she knew all too well. “I’ve left that behind me. Mother’s dead. Whatever she’s done, I’ve just had to let go.”

  “It’s that easy?”

  “N-no.” She stared down at her hands. They’d rounded a corner and the weak daylight was waning, slipping behind the high, close peaks of the Rockies, painting the world in a faint dusty-rose light. “There’s simply no way to fix it. I’m not going to carry it around anymore.”

  “That’s why you said no to me, wasn’t it? Why you gave me back my ring? Because she was pressuring you so hard not to leave her.” Understanding, no accusation lined his face, gave life and heart to his words.

  That was worse. His anger or disapproval would be much easier to face. Instead, she felt his spirit tugging at her, his empathy drawing her closer. Miserably, she stared out at the thickening shadows in the road ahead. “No. I mean, yes, Mother and Father were pressuring me. You weren’t the right man, you didn’t make enough, what would people think if I married beneath my means. They needed me, I was wrong to leave them.”

  “I should have been there for you, understanding they might be doing that. I should have helped you, Aumaleigh, even if you hadn’t said a word.”

  Oh, he was killing her, breaking her apart into tiny, inconsolable pieces. Why did Gabriel have to be such a good man? A man of her wildest dreams—still? “There was nothing you could have done or said. It was the other things that got to me.”

  “Like what?”

  “Hearing over and over again from them that you were too handsome for me. That I was too homely to hold you. That I wasn’t good enough inside, that I wasn’t lovable. That I would run off and hurt the family who did love me only to find out that you didn’t love me at all. That you were just u-using me, trying to get to their money.” She bit her lip, mad at herself. She’d said too much.

  The problem was that she’d gotten confused in space and time. This wasn’t Ohio. And Gabriel wasn’t her intended.

  “There’s Buttons, poor girl.” She hopped down before the buckboard stopped rolling, rushing toward her woebegone old mare who looked confused, not understanding what she’d done to be left beside the road in the dark.

  In truth, she just needed to escape Gabriel. To stay far, far away from him. After how honest she’d been, how could she ever look him in the eyes again?

  She fumbled with the reins, breaking a bunch of needles off the cedar bough in her haste. Once she had the leather straps free, she darted around into the buggy, pushed back the rain curtains and the aroma of chicken and dumpling hit her. Gabriel’s supper! How was she going to find the courage to go back and give this to him?

  His boots splashed on the road behind her. “I’ll take Milo’s horse back to his place and tuck him in for the night.”

  She wasn’t surprised by that. Not at all. That was Gabriel, doing what he could for others. That had never changed. The backs of her eyes burned as she scooped the baking dish off the floor of her buggy. It was carefully wrapped in towels to keep the heat in, and the lid clanked as she handed it over to him.

  “That smells good.” His fingers brushed hers as he took the dish.

  She closed her eyes at the snap that zapped through her system—both physical and emotional. Longing filled her with a bitter sweetness she did not examine. She took a step back, climbing into the buggy. “It’s your favorite.”

  “It’s nice you remembered after all this time.” That was all he said—but in his tone, in the layers of warmth in his words, she heard something else.

  That he knew she’d told him the ranch cooks would make the dish, but she’d been the one to do it. That she’d made this with her own hands for him, the way she used to. The way a part of her wished she could again.

  She hated that about herself, that she was that weak. And it wasn’t easy knowing he understood.

  “Good night, Gabriel.” She lifted the reins and snapped them, sending Buttons on her way.

  “Good night, Aumaleigh,” his voice called after her, carried by a temperate wind.

  Chapter Twelve

  “It’s Aumaleigh!” Verbena opened the door. “You’re late. We were just starting to worry, after what happened to Milo.”

  “I know. I’m grateful he’s going to be fine.” Aumaleigh crossed the threshold, her arms full of gifts. “Once he heals up, that is.”

  “Fred told us all he knew, but he didn’t know much.” Daisy rose from a chair by the fire and waved Aumaleigh over. “Does Milo know who shot him?”

  “He didn’t say.” Aumaleigh shrugged off her coat. Magnolia bounced up to grab it and hang it up. Verbena took her gifts to the pile next to Maebry, and a couple dozen people tucked in the cozy and comfortable parlor smiled and called out welcomes as she made her way to the chair by the fire.

  Oh, the heat felt good. Real good. Aumaleigh held her hands to the leaping flames, but the radiant warmth couldn’t begin to touch the cold places inside her.

  “Miss Aumaleigh?” Little Sally Gray, Milo’s youngest girl, sidled up to her. What a cutie with her light blond hair and button face, not to mention that touch of mischief sparkling in her eyes. “Is it true you’re gonna be my new grandma when Iris marries Pa? Is it? Cuz I like grandmas.”

  “Well, I can be exactly like a grandma.” She knelt down, unable to resist brushing a loving hand against that sweet, sweet face. “Would that make you happy?”

  “Oh, yes! Mitsy too. We especially love frosting on our cookies. Oh, and we love presents.” Sally held up her hands, which sported a fetching pair of colorful knit gloves.

  “I like how the fingers are bright pink and the rest is purple.” Aumaleigh took note of the yarn, remembering seeing the exact skeins in the mercantile. “Do you know what you need? A hat to go with those gloves.”

  “I do!” Sally agreed, eyes bright as she gave a little hop. “That’s what I need, Grandma
Aumaleigh!”

  Laughter rang out. Several of the party guests had been watching. Annie rose from her seat, made her way around the coffee table. “I’m watching the girls tonight while Hazel is with Milo. Sally, how did you get so cute?”

  “I was made this way.” Her hands shot in the air. “Oh no! Mitsy’s stuck on the ceiling again. She’s just a baby, you know. She needs help.”

  And off Sally went, dashing around the room and disappearing into the kitchen. Judging by the ruckus in there, she wasn’t alone with her Mitsy problem. Daisy’s stepdaughter Hailie, and Rhoda’s youngest, Ida, could be spotted through the doorway, pointing dramatically to the ceiling. Apparently there was a lot of imaginary baby dragon trouble tonight.

  “Are you all settled into your house?” Annie asked. “I’ve been meaning to come over and pay you a visit, maybe lend a hand, but I’ve been babysitting Sally and Sadie. Just until the wedding. But are they going to have to postpone?”

  Worry for Milo dug into Annie’s pretty face. She was such a dear thing, and Aumaleigh couldn’t help giving her a little hug. Love for her niece warmed her right up. “Something tells me Milo is so determined to marry Iris, nothing will stop him.”

  “Good. We just don’t know a lot about what happened, so it’s easy to fear the worst.” Annie shrugged, looking relieved. “There is a good side to living in a small town. If Fred had been on the ball, we wouldn’t all have been worrying.”

  “Yes, good old Fred.” Aumaleigh laughed, just so glad to see Annie relaxed and at peace, being loved the way she deserved to be by her good, wonderful Adam. “Bea must be here. Is she in the kitchen?”

  “She’s somewhere. Her friend Clarissa is here too.”

  “Everyone is here.” And it made Aumaleigh’s heart full. After what had happened to Milo, both the fear and the relief, it felt important to be reminded of the good things in life, of what mattered most.

  You could have had this too, a small, forgotten voice whispered deep inside her, but she shut it down, not wanting to hear more.

  “Annie! Aumaleigh!” Penelope Shalvis Denby swept up, looking radiant with happiness. “Aumaleigh, so glad you made it. You should have seen the surprise on Maebry’s face when Gil brought her back from shopping. He gave us the key, you know and we had everything all set up and were waiting. Oh, it’s good to see that kind of happiness.”