Wolf Creek Homecoming

by Penny Richards

  He was interested in almost everything and she was single-minded. He was curious and she was cautious. He was spontaneous; she was structured.

  Yet she’d been drawn to something else about him. She sensed there was a hunger gnawing at him, but she had not been able to pinpoint what it was. Only in the past few weeks had she realized that his happy-go-lucky persona was nothing but a veneer to hide his loneliness, and his years of defying convention had been a quest for some indefinable something to fill the void in his life and his heart.

  An emptiness left by a dearth of love.

  Lying immobile, trying to keep the noise of her crying as quiet as possible, her aching heart threatened to break as she tried to imagine what it must have been like to grow up with Lucas Gentry as a father in a house that was not a home. With no one to comfort, to encourage, to love. She could not reconcile the image with her own loving upbringing.

  She imagined what it must have been like to grow to young adulthood with Lucas setting the standard. There had been no one to teach Gabe and Caleb decent values, respect for women or the difference between love and desire. That he would grow up to be a scoundrel was not so surprising. The surprise was that he’d grown up to be decent in spite of his upbringing...or lack of it. Libby’s goodness and integrity surely ran through his veins.

  Rachel could almost imagine Gabe’s thoughts as he wandered aimlessly over the country seeking the next city, the next amusement, the next woman. Maybe here would be the place, this would be the diversion, she would be the woman, only to realize that they were not.

  She was positive of one thing now. He was not the same man she’d fallen for nine years ago. She couldn’t imagine that Gabe throwing himself between a bullet and a woman who had wronged him so badly. This Gabe had made great strides in becoming a different person. This Gabe was a man she could love and trust, and yet it had taken the prospect of losing him to make her realize it.

  If he did die—and that still was not outside the realm of possibility—he would never know she loved him or that she would say yes if he did ask her to marry him. Faced with the possibility of losing him, she was certain she wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of her life with him, teaching and showing him all about the love he’d never known.

  She would let him teach her about the things she lacked and so desperately needed—like spontaneity and seeing the unexpected humor in the commonplace and what it was that made him so fascinated with so many areas of life. She wanted to wade in the creek, to fly kites, to go off for a weekend without a plan....

  She prayed, asking God to spare Gabe, for her sake and Danny’s. Prayed for another chance to get things right. Even knowing that her requests might not be answered in the way she wished, when she whispered “Amen” she was at peace.

  She had done everything in her power to restore him to health. He was fine for the moment. It was enough. Like Libby, Rachel believed that God indeed had had a plan when He brought them all together again. They would just have to wait to see what it was.

  * * *

  The following morning dawned sunny and full of promise. Gabe had slept soundly through the night. If he was able, she would have him sit up today.

  After a quick breakfast and a single cup of coffee, she left her father in charge of the patient and headed across town to see how Sarah was doing. She hoped the woman was enough recovered to tell her exactly what had happened.

  She found Sheriff Garrett there with the same goal in mind. They exchanged smiles and greetings.

  Sarah was propped up in bed and was having a light breakfast, though she said she wasn’t the least bit hungry. She was still groggy from the laudanum and had trouble keeping her thoughts corralled, but she managed to give a reasonable account of what had happened on the Antoine road.

  “I’d gone out to the Allen place to take Nita some supplies. She’s been having a hard time of it since Yancy was killed.”

  Nita was an Indian who, to the consternation of many in town, had married an Irish logger some thirty-three years before. Not only had they held it against her, they’d looked down on her son, until he’d left to make his own way in the world.

  “The boy is back from prison now, you know,” Sarah said. “Though someone well over thirty isn’t a boy, is he? He’s quite a menacing-looking individual,” she said with a shudder. “Big and mean looking. He never said a word or cracked a smile while I was there. Nita said he—”

  “Begging your pardon, Sarah, but can you tell us what happened to you and Gabe yesterday evening?” Colt asked, sensing that a gossip session was about to begin. “You said you’d taken them some supplies.”

  “Yes, just basic things. It’s our Christian duty to help others, you know, even if they are savages.”

  Colt’s mouth tightened. “Right. So what happened on your way home?”

  “These two masked ruffians ambushed me! They came riding out of the woods and forced me to pull over. Then one of them dragged me from the buggy and ripped off my earrings. Thank the good Lord my ears aren’t pierced,” she exclaimed. “Ears bleed a lot, don’t they, Rachel?”

  Not waiting for her to answer, Sarah forged ahead. “About the time they demanded my reticule and other valuables, Gabe came along and told me to give them what they wanted. Well, I told him, told the others, too, that I had no intention of handing anything over. I like my jewelry, and Randolph worked hard to buy it for me. You understand, don’t you, Rachel? How a woman feels about her pretties?”

  “Of course,” she replied, eager for Sarah to move along with the story. She was more than a bit amazed by Sarah’s tenacity and willingness to fight.

  “Gabe and the other man wrestled around and his bandanna fell down, but I didn’t recognize him. I was trying to scratch out the other hooligan’s eyes, and he lost his mask, too. You can’t imagine how shocked I was to see that it was that no-good Thomerson scoundrel.”

  “So it was Meg’s husband?” Rachel asked, forgetting that she was not the one asking the questions.

  “I told you that last night,” Sarah complained. “You should pay better attention. At any rate, one of them said that we’d seen their faces. The other one pulled his gun, and I could see by the cold meanness in his eyes that he had every intention of using it. He swung it toward me and told Gabe to stay back. I flung myself into the gully, figuring any harm that might come of it would be better than being shot. As I was going over the edge, Gabe threw himself between me and Thomerson.

  “He could have been killed,” she said, dabbing at her eyes with a snowy-white napkin, “but he stepped between me and those bullets.”

  The sheriff and Rachel looked at each other, shocked by the display of emotion. Maybe Sarah had a heart after all.

  Colt asked her a few more questions and said if he needed to know anything more, he’d come back when she was feeling better.

  After he left, Rachel examined Sarah from head to toe. Satisfied that she, too, was doing well and cautioning her to stay in bed for the remainder of the day, Rachel promised to be back before supper and headed to Ellie’s.

  She stepped into the cozy café with its cheerful yellow gingham curtains and blue crockery displayed on the shelves. The air was redolent with the mingled scents of frying ham and fresh-brewed coffee, teasing her taste buds even though she’d eaten with her father.

  She was surprised to see Win sitting at a table near the window. Ellie was nowhere to be seen, probably in the kitchen. Bethany was standing at the pass-through to the kitchen, waiting for an order. Her hair, strawberry blond instead of dark auburn like her mother’s, rippled down her back in loose waves. She turned and recognized Rachel. The smile that bloomed on her face shone in her slanted brown eyes.

  “Coffee, Miss Doctor Rachel?”

  Her words were not enunciated clearly because of the extra length of her tongue, but you could still
understand what she was saying.

  “That’s right, Beth. And will you add some of that condensed milk if you have it?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Rachel took the seat across from Win. “Eating alone?”

  “Everyone else was still asleep, and I needed my coffee,” he told her with that easy smile of his. “Of course, the ham smelled so good I decided on breakfast, too. May I buy you some?”

  “Thank you, but I ate with Dad.”

  “How’s Gabe?”

  “He had a good night. Everything seems fine this morning. I don’t suppose you know if your mother rested or not.”

  “No. Have you found out anything else?”

  “Sheriff Garrett was at Sarah’s when I went to check on her.”

  Bethany arrived with the coffee and set it down carefully. “Thank you,” Rachel said, smiling at the young girl. “You look very pretty in that blue dress.”

  “Thank you, Miss Doctor Rachel.” She turned to go back to wait for the order.

  “What a shame,” Win said, watching her go. “If it weren’t for the Mongolism, she’d be a beautiful child.”

  Rachel speared him with a disapproving look. “She’s a beautiful child just as she is,” she informed him in a tart tone. “And actually very smart in her own way.”

  “Forgive me,” he said, seeing that he had ruffled Rachel’s feathers. “I mean no disrespect, merely that it is a sadness.”

  “I’m sure you didn’t, but please don’t waste any time on pity. Neither Bethany nor Ellie would appreciate it, I can assure you.”

  Ellie chose that moment to step through the swinging door, Win’s breakfast in her hands. His relief was palpable. Instead of handing it to her daughter, she said, “Will you please bring that little bowl with Mr. Granville’s gravy, Beth?”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  The smile Ellie bestowed on her daughter lingered as she turned back to Win. “Here you go,” she said, setting down the plate filled with fried ham, biscuits and three eggs over easy.

  Win looked at the spread with combined pleasure and dismay. “You wouldn’t want to marry me, would you?” he asked, his tawny-brown eyes gleaming with that wicked, teasing twinkle.

  Ellie’s face flooded with color, and Rachel thought she saw a bit of panic in her brown eyes. Though she could hold her own with the old-timers who often tormented her about one ridiculous thing or another, she was unaccustomed to casual banter from handsome strangers. Certainly the upright sheriff didn’t tease this way. He was far too serious.

  Quick to recognize that he’d overstepped some invisible boundary, Win held up a hand to stay whatever she was about to say. “Forget I asked,” he quipped with another of those ready grins. “You’d be the death of me.”

  “I beg your pardon,” Ellie said with a frown.

  “I’d weigh a ton if I ate like this every day,” he told her with a rueful smile. “Die of a heart attack.”

  The tension in Ellie’s shoulders eased, and she turned her attention to Rachel in an attempt to take the conversation another direction. “What did you find out from Sarah? I know Colt went out with a posse, but no one has heard who they’re looking for yet.”

  “Elton Thomerson,” Rachel said and proceeded to recount Sarah’s tale.

  “Too bad Colt didn’t get the information last night. He might have been able to arrest him before he left the country,” Ellie said.

  She was right, but there was no way Sarah would have been coherent enough to tell her story the night before. “Whether he’s picked up and tossed into prison or took off for parts unknown, Meg will be left to fend for herself,” Rachel said.

  They discussed Meg’s situation for a few more minutes. Rachel told them that Nita Allen’s son, Ace, was out of prison, and Win informed them that they planned to stay in Wolf Creek at least another week to monitor Gabe’s progress. Eventually, the conversation returned to the robbery and Sarah’s tearful championing of Gabe.

  “So Gabe took a bullet for her,” Win said, spearing up another bite of ham.

  “That’s what she said.”

  Three more customers came in, taking Ellie away from their benign gossip session. Rachel left Win to finish his breakfast and went back home to see about Gabe and tell her father what she’d learned about the robbery.

  * * *

  Consciousness returned with a stomach-churning wave of pain. Gabe gave a groan and tried to sit up, which only cranked up the anguish a notch. His hands went to his head, though it seemed as if he were moving them through molasses.

  Immediately, he felt cool fingers wrap around his wrists to force them back to his sides. He opened his eyes and saw Rachel standing there. She placed the back of her hand against his forehead and then his cheek.

  “Do you know who I am?”

  He frowned. “What kind of stupid question is that?” he asked, feeling as if he were speaking around a mouth full of cotton wool.

  Her lips twitched as she fought to suppress a smile.

  “Do you know who you are?”

  He squinted in irritation and pain. “A better question might be who are you and what did you do with the mother of my son?” he mumbled somewhat testily.

  Joy bubbled through her. Thank God there didn’t seem to be any damage to the brain. He would be fine if they could keep the infection and fever away. She did laugh then. His dry sense of humor was one of the things she loved about him.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You are.”

  He scowled. “May I have some water, please? My mouth feels like I’ve walked ten miles through the desert.”

  “Just a little,” she said, pouring an inch into a cup. “If you think your head hurts now, you don’t want to find out how it would feel if you start vomiting.”

  “What’s wrong with me this time?” he asked.

  She explained his injuries as she slipped her arm beneath his shoulders and eased him upright while he pushed against the mattress. She held the cup to his lips and he sipped slowly, savoring every drop. “Thank you.”

  “Do you feel like being propped up awhile? I’m going to give you something for the pain.”

  “Maybe for a while,” he said. “But no pain medication.”

  “We’ve been through this before, Gabriel,” she said in a firm tone as she placed a couple more pillows behind his upper torso. He groaned and grumbled the whole time she eased him to a sitting position.

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “I rest my case. Just let me give you enough to take off the edge during the day and help you sleep through the night. Please.”

  “You’re a tyrant.”

  “And you’re a hardhead. You’ll heal better if we can stay on top of the pain,” she wheedled.

  “Fine,” he said, his face gray with agony. “I do feel like I’ve been rowed up Salt River.”

  She measured a small amount of laudanum. “Well, you were in a fistfight, besides being shot. Can you tell me what happened?”

  “Rachel. Is there any possibility that you’ve been in Pete Chalmers’s hard cider?”

  “Humor me.”

  “Sarah was being robbed. I went to help. The guy, someone I should know but don’t remember, was going to shoot her, and I tried to stop him, so it seems I was the one who got shot.”

  “Very good,” she said, giving him an irritating, patronizing pat on the hand. She wet a cloth with cool water and began to bathe the perspiration from his face.

  “Is Sarah all right?” he asked.

  “It seems she bailed off into the ravine while you took the bullets. She has a sprained ankle.”

  “She’s lucky she didn’t break her neck. I remember her trying to help me stand up and us leaning against each other as we hobbled to the surrey. She was crying a
nd saying that I would not die. That she might have been responsible for my misery, but she absolutely refused to be responsible for my death.”

  “That sounds like Sarah,” Rachel said, putting the washcloth back into the basin of water. “Now go to sleep.”

  “Are you going to be this bossy when we get married?” he grumbled.

  “Probably.”

  * * *

  At the end of a week, Gabe was still suffering from headaches, but he was feeling well enough to sit out on the front porch with her father or Danny and enjoy the late-spring breeze. Thankfully, there had been no sign of infection. Rachel credited it to her thorough cleaning of the wounds.

  Sunday afternoon found him sitting with his eyes closed, and his head leaned against the tall back of a rocking chair while Danny played a game of checkers with Ben. Caleb and his family and all the Granvilles were there. They had shared a final meal together before Pip and the others headed back to Boston. Rachel knew his interaction with the company had tired him, but he refused to rest since it was their last time together for several months.

  A desultory breeze tickled the leaves of the rosebushes and sent the yellow heads of the coreopsis bouncing to an unheard rhythm. Stomachs filled, eyelids heavy, the conversation was as aimless as the gentle wind drifting over them.

  Rachel couldn’t recall when she’d felt so at peace. After she had foolishly replied to Gabe’s question about marriage with a facetious answer that could only be construed as a “yes,” she’d been waiting for him to bring up the subject again. So far, he’d said nothing. She wasn’t certain whether to be disappointed or relieved.

  Though it was almost every woman’s dream to find the right man and marry, the thought of committing to a lifetime with someone raised all sorts of worrisome questions for a woman set in her ways. She wondered where they would live and if Gabe would tire of her racing off into the night at the beck and call of the people in town. Would he really be happy in Wolf Creek, and perhaps most importantly, would he want to have more children? He doted on Danny, but what would he be like as they traveled through the ups and downs of a pregnancy together?