Wolf Creek Homecoming

by Penny Richards

  It was hard, but the preacher had told him and Rachel that it was important to perform the outward acts of forgiveness while praying and waiting for God to make them feel it in their hearts. He’d explained that in his experience, only a rare few could be cut to the quick by another and immediately cede pardon to the person responsible for inflicting that pain.

  As a reminder to himself and his customers that everything said and done affected others in either a good or bad way, Gabe had bought a big framed slate and wrote a daily scripture on it. He also listed people in town who were in need of prayer for one reason or another.

  The day’s scripture from Proverbs read: “Pleasant words are a honeycomb sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.” As a reminder to do the right thing, he glanced at it often as his gaze followed Sarah’s meanderings through the store.

  “Hey, Gabe!” Danny called. “Mr. Jessup says I’m gonna make a whale of a chess player one of these days. He says I’m catchin’ on faster than anyone he’s ever tried to teach.”

  Before Gabe could respond, Sarah exclaimed, “Master Daniel Stone! I’m sure you know better than to call an adult by his first name. That is ‘Mr. Gentry’ to you.” She flashed a sly smile toward Gabe. “Or perhaps you should call Mr. Gentry Father.”

  Uncertain how to answer, Danny’s wide-eyed gaze sought Gabe’s. Literally grinding his teeth, he winked at the child and cast a quick look at the scripture on the wall. Please, dear Lord, give me the right words.

  “You know, Mrs. VanSickle, I do believe you’re right,” he acknowledged in as near-to-pleasant a tone as he could manage. He would love nothing better than for Danny to call him Dad, but before giving him permission to do so, he would have to get Rachel’s consent. “By the way, have you seen the new blouse patterns that came in?”

  Nonplussed that for once she had failed to draw blood, Sarah swished over to the rack holding the dress patterns. When she brought her purchases to the counter a bit later, Gabe cocked his head to the side and asked, “Did you notice my new sign?”

  “I did.” She said no more, and Gabe didn’t press the matter. He rang up her purchases, took her money and bade her good day, reminding her that he would have a new shipment of Saratoga chips on the next train. The Emersons had told him of Sarah’s penchant for the crunchy chip made from deep-frying thinly sliced potatoes, and he tried to keep them in stock for her. Secretly he thought her insatiable consumption of the chips was at least part of the reason for her tendency to portliness.

  Mollified somewhat by his remembering her preferences, Sarah left. Gabe heaved a sigh. Finally. He pulled his watch from his pocket and saw that it was almost time to shut down for the day. As he carried the empty crates to the back, he thought about her snide remarks. Something she’d said brought up another issue, albeit unintentionally. She’d called Danny by Stone, when in reality he was a Gentry. Would Rachel consent to Danny calling him Dad and taking the Gentry name?

  * * *

  “You can’t be serious!”

  She regarded Gabe with patent disbelief.

  He stood leaning against the parlor doorframe, dangerously attractive in a faded chambray shirt, denim Levis and a pair of boots that looked as if they had more than a brief acquaintance with work. His arms were folded across the impressive expanse of his chest.

  “I can’t be serious about what? Letting Danny call me Dad, wanting him to have the Gentry name, or you going fishing with us?”

  “All of them!” Rachel snapped, whirling toward the kitchen doorway to escape the teasing glint in his eyes. It had far too powerful an effect on her for her comfort.

  She never heard him cross the large braided rug covering the floor, but the weight of his hands on her shoulders stopped her midstride. She took a deep breath and wished she hadn’t when the scent of his spicy cologne began its subtle assault on her senses. Her eyes drifted shut.

  “Did anyone ever tell you that those little curls at the nape of your neck make it look extremely kissable?”

  She sucked in a shallow breath and stood very still, her hands fisted at her sides, fighting the impulse to tip her head forward the slightest bit.... Common sense returned in a flash. She’d taken that path once and look what had happened.

  “You’ve told me,” she said with feigned patience. “Often. And you promised me you wouldn’t say things like that.”

  “I promised not to say it if I didn’t mean it, and I do.” He blew out a frustrated breath. “Okay. Back to the problem at hand. What would it hurt for Danny to call me Dad? We’d both like it.”

  His voice held a gentle persuasion, and it sounded closer. She imagined she felt the soft whisper of his breath stirring loose tendrils of her hair. Had he leaned nearer?

  “Everyone would...” Determined to regain her composure, she turned to face him and made the mistake of looking into his eyes. She immediately forgot what it was she meant to say. Like Danny, he had the most outrageously long eyelashes.

  “Know?” Gabe said, picking up her thought. “Guess what, pretty girl, they already do. Let’s not try to hide anything else. By taking control and doing what we think is right for us and for Danny, we keep the busybodies from manipulating the situation. Let everyone think what they want. They will anyway.”

  It was true. “It’s just that we’d be confirming things.”

  “I can’t see how we can do anything else, can you?”

  The news was already out, so... “No. Not really.”

  One battle won, Gabe thought. “About the Gentry name. I don’t—”

  “Stop it, Gabe,” she commanded, glaring at him. “Don’t push your luck. I am not changing Danny’s name. He will be Danny Stone until such time as I marry, if I do. Then he can take that man’s name, if that’s what they both want.”

  He nodded, very serious. “I see,” he said with a nod. “Angling for a proposal, now, are you?”

  “What!” she cried, marveling at the sheer audacity of the man. Then, seeing the familiar teasing twinkle in his eyes, she narrowed her own to angry slits. “Wretched, wretched man!” She brushed past him.

  “But you still think I’m handsome.”

  She heard the laughter in his voice, and a dozen memories rushed through her mind, only to be squelched by reality. “I think you’re incredibly conceited and full of yourself,” she said over her shoulder and suppressed a shiver when she felt his fingers against her neck as he toyed with one of the errant curls.

  “Does that mean you won’t go fishing with us?”

  She stopped in her tracks. Heaven help her. There seemed no escape from his determination, and that, she admitted with a sigh, was what worried her. Gabe Gentry with a goal was hard to deny. Worse, the more time she spent with him, she was becoming less and less certain that she wanted to resist.

  I wonder what he’d have said if you’d told him that you were pressing for a proposal? How fast and how far do you think he’d have run? She shoved the thought aside and said over her shoulder, “It’s my night to cook. I have to fix dinner for Pops.”

  “I’ll have Ellie send over something from the café, and while I’m at it, she can make us up a picnic supper. And will you please turn around to talk to me. I’d much rather talk to your pretty face than your back. Besides, your neck is too much of a temptation to resist much longer.”

  That sent her whirling around. His smile was broad, mischievous and as endearing as Danny’s. He was very, very handsome. And charming. And he knew it.

  Which was extremely maddening.

  She gnawed at her bottom lip in indecision. It had been a terrible few days, and fishing was not her favorite pastime. She had agreed to let Danny spend time with Gabe, and even though she was convinced he loved Danny, she was still concerned about letting him spend too much time with him. So didn’t it make a strange sort of sense to go fishing with them and
see to it that Wolf Creek’s prodigal didn’t corrupt her son?

  Pushing aside the little voice that whispered she was lying to herself and that she was really going so she could spend time with Gabe herself, she said, “All right. I’ll go.”

  “Well, you don’t have to sound so thrilled about it,” Gabe said matter-of-factly. “You might turn my head.”

  * * *

  Wolf Creek was running high from all the spring rains. From the whoops of laughter and excited shouts, Danny and Gabe were having a marvelous time. Never a fan of threading worms on hooks just to watch them drown, Rachel lay on her stomach on a quilt she’d brought, reading the latest installment of a serial she’d been following in Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly.

  Finished with the story, she closed the magazine and set it aside, resting her chin on her palms and watching the two males connecting over the “manly” pursuit as sons and fathers had been doing since the beginning of time.

  As she watched, Danny jerked another fish, his third, onto the bank. Gabe helped put it on the forked stick they were using as a stringer, and Danny raked through the bucket with grimy hands, looking for another of the huge worms they’d found hiding in the fertile soil beneath the damp leaves.

  “Hey, Mom!” he cried. “You’re gonna cook these for me tomorrow, aren’t you?” They were small perch, and there wouldn’t be much left when they were cleaned, but he was so precious with his hair standing on end and his eyes alight with excitement over catching them, there was no way she could refuse. He was every bit as hard to resist as his father.

  “If you clean them, I’ll cook them,” she promised. Tossing Gabe an innocent look, she said, “Unless I’m mistaken, cleaning fish falls into the father department.”

  As soon as she spoke the words, she longed to call them back. Why had she deliberately made reference to the situation in a way that only reinforced it?

  “Yes, ma’am, it is,” he said with a pleased smile.

  Irritated with herself for being so susceptible to his magnetism, irritated with Danny for being so happy when she was so miserable, irritated with Gabe for...well, for being Gabe, she stifled a groan and rolled to her back, flinging her forearm across her eyes to block the late-afternoon sunlight that sifted through the canopy of new green leaves.

  Why was he still able to make her heart pound and her pulse race with nothing but that teasing smile of his? She’d hated him for so long, blamed him for everything, but once she’d seen him hurt and bleeding, her resentment had begun to dissipate. As if that weren’t bad enough, she found that the tender feelings she’d buried so painstakingly beneath layers of loathing and disgust were reemerging slowly, like the brave crocuses that pushed their tender heads up toward the sun despite the discouragement of being buried beneath layers of leaves and snow.

  Just because he’d explained why he’d walked away from her and she accepted and believed him didn’t mean that she was ready to give him a second chance. He had proved lethal to both her emotional and spiritual well-being. He’d hurt her so badly she hadn’t been certain she would ever recover. She’d known she would probably never find the courage to trust her heart to another man and doubted she would ever find one whose touch stirred her as Gabe’s did.

  But she’d had Danny, and through him she had a part of Gabe, maybe the best part. She was thankful for that. Even though he seemed a changed man, she could not let Gabe Gentry wear down her defenses again. To do so would be insanity. So why was the notion so very tempting?

  Chapter Eight

  Gabe was taking cash from the register to pay Claudia Fremont for a basket filled with dozens of large brown eggs he would resell when Artie Baker, one of his chess and checkers “regulars,” burst through the doors.

  “Slow down there, Artie,” Gabe said with a smile. “What are you in such an all-fired hurry about?”

  “I was just checkin’ to see if you’d heard the news. Figured if you hadn’t you ought to.”

  Willing to humor the old man, Gabe said, “I heard that Paul Gillespie’s milk cow died.”

  “Naw,” Artie said, with a shake of his grizzled head. “That’s old news.”

  “Guess I haven’t heard it, then.”

  “Joe Carpenter over at the telegraph station said yer mama’s comin’ in on the nine-o’clock train in the morning.”

  Gabe felt as if someone had landed a hard right to his gut. “My mother?” He wondered if the question was actually as stupid as it sounded.

  “If Libby Gentry is yer mama, then that’s who I’m talkin’ about,” Artie said as if Gabe was more than a bit dim. “Hattie’s all atwitter about it. Says she got a letter just yesterday from Libby saying she was coming and would need rooms for two other people she was bringing with her. Hattie figures they’re Libby’s kids.”

  Kids. His mother had other children. He wasn’t sure why that came as a shock. If she and Lucas had divorced, there was no reason she would not have married again and started another family. Still, that notion was as alien as the fact that the mother he’d resented most of his life was actually coming back after all these years and that he would have to face her.

  Another fact slammed into him. If the young couple were his mother’s children, they would be his and Caleb’s brothers or sisters. How would he and his new siblings react to each other? Half-formed visions of what might transpire the next few days began to race through his mind. What would he say to the woman who had birthed him? Even knowing that he’d been wrong about so much of their past, he wondered what she could possibly have to say to him and Caleb.

  Gabe’s stomach churned. He and Rachel were already the talk of the town, and Libby’s coming would only be more grist for the gossip mill. Between them, he and Caleb had contributed more than their fair share of natter for the rumormongers the past year or so. There was no doubt that his brother and Abby would be affected by the news. Danny, too. Coming on the heels of Sarah’s bombshell, it was too much.

  He was vaguely aware that Artie and Claudia were looking at him expectantly, waiting for him to make some sort of response. He wasn’t aware that he’d mumbled something under his breath until Artie cupped a hand around his ear and asked, “What’s that?”

  Knowing he was expected to treat this mind-boggling news with his usual easygoing composure, Gabe forced a smile. “It looks like the Gentry family will be providing some more chin-wag for the gossipmongers.”

  He wondered if Caleb had heard the news yet. As soon as he could close up, he’d ride out and tell him.

  Seeing that they weren’t likely to get much more response from Gabe, both Artie and Claudia took their leave, no doubt to spread the word that Wolf Creek’s most notorious resident was coming back for a visit.

  Gabe was sitting on a stool behind the counter, nursing a cup of rancid coffee and trying to figure out who he could get to watch the store so he could ride out to Caleb’s, when his brother walked through the door. His intense gaze zeroed in on Gabe.

  “You’ve heard.” They spoke the words almost in tandem.

  Gabe nodded and watched Caleb take a blue spatterware mug and pour himself a cup of the sludge from the coffeepot. Gabe raised his eyebrows and grimaced. “I can’t recommend that.”

  Caleb’s mouth quirked into something that, with a lot of stretching, might pass as a smile. “Since marrying Abby, I’ve discovered I like living dangerously. Besides, misery loves company, right?”

  “You bet.” Gabe joined his brother at the table where the old-timers played their games. He chose to postpone the serious talk for a bit and frowned at Caleb instead. “How can you imply that marriage to an angel like Abby is dangerous?”

  “You ever try shoeing a horse after spending most of the night walking the floor with a colicky baby? Or getting all dressed up for church and having an infant spew all over your clean shirt?”

&
nbsp; Gabe bit back a smile. “Can’t say I have.”

  No matter how much he grumbled, Gabe knew Caleb loved his life. They stared at their coffee in silence for a few moments before Caleb took a sip. He shuddered, got up and added three spoonfuls of sugar to his before taking another tentative sip. Frowning, he asked, “You got any of that condensed milk?”

  “I do.” The thick, sweetened milk was a favorite of his brother’s.

  “How about we break out a can? Add it to my bill.”

  Gabe got the milk and punched a couple of holes in the top with his pocketknife. They doctored their coffees and settled into the ladder-back chairs, their long legs stretched out in front of them.

  “How did you find out?” Gabe asked.

  “I was about to order lunch at the café when Pete Chalmers came in and asked if we’d heard the news. I canceled lunch and came straight over here.” His stomach growled.

  Without a word, Gabe got up, cut two small wedges of red rind cheese, ripped a length of brown paper off of a large roll and scooped a handful of crackers from the barrel. Then he snagged a jar of Mrs. Pritchard’s homemade sweet pickles from the shelf. They ate in silence for a while, chewing on more than their impromptu lunch. They were both aware that this was the first time in years—maybe ever—that they had shared a common problem.

  “Why do you suppose she’s coming back?” Gabe asked at last, taking a bite of cracker and cheese and washing it down with a swig of coffee.

  “Maybe because Abby wrote to her,” Caleb offered, concentrating on spearing a pickle.

  “She what!” Gabe yelled, jerking upright and sloshing coffee all over the checkerboard he’d neglected to move. “That interfering little brat!” he muttered, wiping at the spill with a pristine white hankie he fished from his pocket.

  Caleb cast him a mocking sideways look. “A minute ago, she was an angel.”

  “I’ve changed my mind,” Gabe grumbled. “She’s a menace. Worse than a dog with a bone when she gets one of her notions.”