Gabriel's Lady (Leisure Historical Romance)

by Charlotte Hubbard

  Asa’s fingers felt like delicate twigs in Gabe’s grip, yet the old man sounded as robust as ever. As delighted as he’d always been, no matter what life brought his way.

  The door opened again and the object of Asa’s teasing affections stepped outside. Beulah Mae held a little girl on her hip and wiped a floury hand on her sackcloth apron while she beamed at him. “Mister Gabe, it’s mighty nice to see you again—and there’s our Miss Gracie, too!” She planted a noisy kiss on the little girl’s cheek, pointing and nodding with unabashed glee. “Bernadette, this here’s your new teacher, baby doll!”

  The little girl’s red ringlets bobbed brightly as she followed the old cook’s finger. Her impish grin stole Gabe’s heart as though she’d grabbed it from his chest with her chubby hands. Bernadette was another redheaded Bristol with crystal blue eyes, and she threw her arms wide to jump into Billy’s open arms when he hurried over to her.

  The love between father and daughter burned so brightly, Gabe’s heart clutched again. Envy, this time. He himself might have been favored with such a love, if only Letitia had…

  That’s behind you. These friends want to give you a fresh start.

  He nodded, although the voice was in his head, unheard by anyone else.

  “We’s been keepin’ dinner warm ’til you folks got home,” Beulah Mae announced, “so I’ll go put it on the table whilst you freshen up. Plenty of time to unload the buckboard later—after you fortify yourselves!” the old cook added playfully. “Mercy, but you’s brought a lot of trunks, Miss Grace!”

  Miss Malloy still sat demurely on the wagon seat. “Some of them belong to Gabe, you know,” she pointed out. “And what sort of governess doesn’t bring books, and materials for teaching the children, and—”

  “You’ll be a governess like no other.” Gabe returned to the wagon to help her down, winking to reassure her. “These Bristols are an ornery lot, but their hearts are big enough to hold us all. We’re both lucky to be here.”

  “You’s said a mouthful there, Mister Gabe. Lemme show you to your rooms now, so’s you can splash your face, if you’ve a mind to,” Asa drawled. “Beulah Mae, she’s cooked us up a feast.”

  “Is her food as good as yours?” he teased back. “I’ve never tasted pies like you made when Billy and I were kids.”

  “Still got my touch, yessir. As I recall, cherry was always your favorite, Mister Gabe.” Asa’s grin got sly as his ample wife caught the door with her backside to keep it from slamming. “Every now and again I tell her she’s got me beat at the cookin’, just so’s I can live under the same roof with her. If Beulah Mae ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy!”

  There it was again, that wedded bliss that had eluded him…the give-and-take between two people who could laugh and make their way despite life’s pitfalls. Gabe offered his arm to Grace, so she could climb the porch steps with the same determined daintiness his wife had always displayed. Why did everything either remind him of Letitia or call to mind his dismal failure to please her?

  He forgot his despondent thoughts, however, when he stepped inside the house. Although the rooms and furnishings were the same as he recalled from Billy’s wedding, the front parlor was now littered with doll babies. The doilies from the chairs had been arranged along the edge of the low table, and tiny teacups and saucers were set upon them. Heavenly scents of ham and hot biscuits wafted out from the kitchen, and Gabe was again transported back to meals with the Monroes and Malloys. Food had never smelled this good when Mrs. Kirby cooked for them in St. Louis, maybe because she was a finicky little widow who despised getting the kitchen messy.

  Gabe stood in the front entryway, soaking up the aromas and the evidence of children…gazed at a portrait of those three little redheads, which Eve had painted when Bernadette was a baby seated in her big sister’s lap. Asa and Beulah Mae—more family than hired help—carried the steaming bowls to an extended table set for ten. Ten! Letitia would have swooned had she been expected to accommodate so many.

  A whoop made him jump aside. Here came Owen down the walnut bannister, sliding on one hip. At the large, knobby newel post, he hopped to the floor to flash Gabe a grin with a double gap in the front.

  “Ya gotta sit by me!” the boy declared. “Too many danged girls in this house, so we gotta stick together!”

  “Dang right we do!” Gabe replied as he grinned into that fresh, freckled face.

  Where had that come from? He couldn’t recall ever saying “dang,” even when he was Owen’s age. He refrained from rumpling that mop of russet hair, again transported back to happier times, when Billy Bristol had looked like this—and had invited him to be his best friend in the same exuberant way.

  Dang! It was good to be home.

  Chapter Five

  Solace slid into the last empty chair at the table, between Billy and Gabe. Owen had already corralled their tall, lanky guest and sat grinning up at Gabe, idolizing him. Olivia, across the table, had commanded Grace’s attention—no doubt to win her new teacher’s favor before her brother could.

  This is fine, Solace thought. Billy has Eve, Asa has Beulah Mae, so Bernadette can be my special friend.

  Why she felt the need to pair everyone up was a mystery to her, as most things were these days. Now that she’d turned eighteen, it seemed important to have someone she considered her own special companion—aside from Rex and her two geldings, of course.

  “Will you ask our grace today, Olivia?” Billy smiled at his daughter from the head of the table.

  “Of course, Papa. Let us bow our heads,” she said primly. Her shiny ringlets fell forward like a curtain of fiery curls as she pressed her hands together.

  Solace smiled with her eyes closed. Miss Olivia was in top form, showing off for Grace—who would soon learn what sort of chaos reigned when this ten-year-old paragon antagonized her brother.

  “Dear Lord, we ask Your blessings upon this food,” the little girl began, “and we thank You for our new teacher, Miss Malloy—”

  “Nuh-uh,” Owen mumbled into his hands.

  “—and we thank You for bringing Mr. Getty to stay in Owen’s room so he won’t torment me so much—”

  Beside her, Gabe was shaking with the effort it took not to laugh, while Billy sat straighter, preparing to give his daughter some prayerful assistance.

  “—and we ask You to fix Bernadette so she can talk to us, because we all love her so. Please and thank you, Jesus. Amen.”

  Solace blinked. Once again Olivia had circumvented a lecture about proper prayer requests. Everyone silently affirmed her wish when they smiled at the little girl who sat in a high chair beside her mother. Bernadette beamed back, delighted with their attention.

  “I sure do want a big ole piece of that ham!” Owen piped up. Then he flashed his gap-toothed grin across the table at Grace. “After you help yourself, of course, Miss Malloy.”

  Grace smiled brightly. “What a pleasure to eat with children who pray so sweetly and have such commendable table manners,” she replied as she reached for the meat platter. “I hope you children and I will—oh! Oh, my stars, that’s a—”

  Grace dropped the plate and lunged backward, nearly toppling her chair. She was pointing, breathing so hard she couldn’t speak.

  Beulah Mae moved faster than any of them had ever seen, desperate to get away from the table—but with the presence of mind to glare at the redheaded culprit. “Mister Owen, you is askin’ for a smack across the backside for—”

  Asa plucked up the little garter snake that had darted to safety under his wife’s plate. As he held its tiny head between his thumb and forefinger, Gracie looked ready to have a seizure. Her eyes went huge and glassy. She grabbed for Olivia, who was entering the same sort of hysterical state.

  “Mister Owen, I b’lieve you owes Miss Malloy—and the rest of us—an apology for disruptin’ our dinner,” the old man said sternly. The arm holding the snake shook, but his solemn gaze didn’t waver.

  “And when we’ve f
inished eatin’, you and I will have a chat behind the barn, son.” Billy stood up to give his boy a no-nonsense look that wiped the snicker from his lips. “It’s one thing to play with snakes outside, but your mother’s warned you time and again about bringin’ ’em in the house.”

  “Oh, all right.” Owen leveled his gaze at the three jittery females. “I’m real dang sorry my snake got loose durin’ the prayer. He heard us blessin’ the food and prob’ly figgered he could share it. He’s one of God’s creatures, ya know.”

  Two spots of color stained Eve’s cheeks as she, too, glared at her son. She’d gathered Bernadette into her lap, ready to spring out of her chair if Asa dropped the snake. “This is inexcusable, Owen,” she said. “You’ll go to your room now, without dinner, and await your father’s call for the rest of your punishment.”

  Owen sighed loudly, as though one measly snake wasn’t worth all this fuss. As he clomped up the stairway, Solace sensed he was more upset about missing out on Asa’s pie than he was about the whipping that awaited him—just as she realized Grace had left herself wide open for more of Owen’s shenanigans. He wasn’t a mean boy, really. Just ornery.

  And a pretty good judge of what sends people into a conniption.

  Solace saw the grin flirting with Gabe’s face, and as Gracie and Olivia assured each other it was safe to sit down again, she leaned toward him. “You can see how things get pretty lively around here,” she murmured.

  “Yes, but how we cope with surprises—how we deal with unexpected disasters—says a lot about us, doesn’t it?”

  Solace met his brown-eyed gaze and felt momentarily stunned, not just by his provocative statement, but because his bottomless eyes looked into hers as though he could read the answer written on her heart. As though he really cared what she thought. And Lord knows, he’s endured his share of unexpected disasters.

  She swallowed and so did he.

  “At any rate, Gracie, I’m really sorry Owen’s started off on the wrong foot,” Billy said as he resumed his seat. “It won’t happen again.”

  After Asa took the snake outdoors, her sister sat back down, as did the cook and Olivia. They glanced warily under their plates and the serving bowls, until Bernadette clapped her hands together, crowing with a delight that put everyone in a better mood.

  “Owen’s a Bristol, through and through. All boy, just like you were, Billy,” Solace remarked. As she reached for a steaming bowl of greens, she grinned pointedly at his younger daughter. “Takes more than a little ole snake to scare us. Right, sweetie?”

  Bernadette shrieked with laughter, which made Solace wonder again how the little girl could make such a joyful noise when she didn’t form words despite everyone’s coaxing. It was good to see Eve’s smile return, too, because this dear child’s condition had aged her visibly. Billy’s wife still appeared gracious and pretty—when she wasn’t wearing her paint-streaked smock, anyway—yet she blamed her daughter’s silence on the measles she’d contracted during her pregnancy. Blamed herself, in other words.

  “Well, it weren’t Mister Billy who pulled such stunts as a young un,” Beulah Mae replied with a chuckle. “His brother Wesley—Lord rest his soul—had enough spitfire for the both of ’em. I tanned that boy’s behind more than once for trappin’ mice in my mixin’ bowls, so’s they’d jump out when I took ’em down from the shelf.”

  Olivia rolled her blue eyes and took a biscuit. “That was Papa’s twin brother, Miss Malloy. Did you know my Uncle Wesley was an outlaw like Jesse and Frank James? And that Aunt Solace gunned him down before he could shoot Papa? And she was only Owen’s age! Can you imagine?”

  “I shot his horse out from under him, Olivia. I would never aim at a person,” Solace corrected firmly.

  The tense expressions around the table warned her that Olivia didn’t know the whole story about Wesley Bristol…or which twin had actually fathered her. It wasn’t a topic to bring up over dinner—nor was it her place to put Billy and Eve on the spot—so she gazed pointedly at Grace. “And you realize, of course, that Miss Malloy is my sister, just a year and half younger than I am. She was there that night, too.”

  “I only remember what people have told me about it,” Grace chimed in carefully. “I was sleeping when all that commotion woke me up, but I recall how shocked and scared…and very sad for Billy everyone was, when his twin brother went on that rampage. He’d already set fire to a neighbor’s new house and our barn, and scared away the horses my daddy raised for his living.”

  Grace reached for Olivia’s hand beneath the table. “Sometimes I act appalled at how well Solace shoots and rides, but we’re very thankful she saved your papa’s life. He’d been living with our parents, you see. He held us when we were babies and treated us like his own little sisters, so we’d have missed him terribly.”

  “And we wouldn’t have me!” Olivia said smugly. “And then you wouldn’t have come here to be my teacher, and Mr. Getty wouldn’t have Papa for his best friend. So God just worked things out for everybody that night, didn’t He?”

  “Yes, dear, He certainly did,” her mother put in. “And with all this chatter, poor Grace—Miss Malloy, we should call her—hasn’t had a chance to eat a bite of her dinner.”

  “Yes, Mama. I’ll be quiet now.” Beaming up at her new governess, Olivia imitated Grace’s perfect posture by lifting her back away from the chair. Then she took a big forkful of her corn pudding.

  The meal proceeded quietly then, until Asa’s cherry and apple pies reminded Billy and Gabe of the old cook’s desserts from their boyhood. “I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed this,” the slender lawyer said with a shine in his eyes. “Not just Mercy and Asa’s wonderful food, but all the…the love it was served with. You couldn’t go into that home without knowing you belonged. And I feel the same way here.”

  Billy flashed his friend a misty-eyed smile. “I’ll show you around the place after I set my son straight, Gabe. We’ve got a lot of catchin’ up to do. Lots to talk about from the past six years.”

  And secrets. Lots of secrets. Solace watched the two men leave the dining room, chatting as only boyhood friends knew how. Though she believed it was time for the Bristols to tell Olivia the circumstances of her birth, before someone around town let it slip, she also sensed Gabriel Getty was a man of sorrows they had no idea about…that he harbored pain and regrets he might keep to himself, even if it wasn’t the best thing for his grieving soul. Men weren’t much good at letting loose of such things.

  But then, who was she to speculate about other people’s secrets?

  After the dishes were washed, Solace went upstairs to the room she shared with the girls. From the valise under her narrow bed she took her portfolio, her pen, and some ink, and then slipped down the service stairway at the back of the house. Olivia, Eve, and Bernadette were getting acquainted with their new governess, so it was a perfect time to go outside.

  She’d found a swing beneath the huge old lilac bushes, which hid her from the house: a place to think and read and write, because sharing a room with two little girls didn’t allow Aunt Solace much time to herself. When she stepped outside, Rex joined her immediately, his eyes bright with anticipation. Gabe and Billy were walking toward the barn, with a very somber Owen in tow, so she settled herself on the slatted seat.

  The white paint needed freshening, but the chains made a homey creak with her weight…the swing curved to fit her backside…her dog posted himself proudly at her feet as though he’d been the one to introduce her to this hideaway. As the evening breeze stirred the lilacs’ perfume, Solace inhaled deeply, grateful for these moments alone.

  Then, with a huge grin, she slipped an envelope from behind her supply of fresh paper. She’d read the letter’s angular script a dozen times, but it still made her blood race:

  Dear Sol Juddson,

  We here at Beadle and Adams have read the adventurous stories you submitted to us, and we believe our readers will relish them every bit as much as we have.
<
br />   Please find your check enclosed for all three titles, which we will publish as full-length novels. Your “Smoky Hill Hide-Out” will appear in our Dime Library collection, while our younger readers of the Work and Win series will enjoy both “Captured by the Comanches” and “She Ran Her Daddy’s Ranch.”

  Thank you so much for stories that captivate the imagination and require very little correction. We would welcome any further tales you care to send our way, Mr. Juddson.

  Yours very sincerely,

  Horatio P. McElroy

  Solace sighed blissfully and tucked the letter behind her paper supply again. She set the ink bottle beside her on the seat and dipped her nib in it.

  “Daddy Was a Desperado” by Sol Juddson, she wrote across the top of a clean page. She closed her eyes and squeezed the pen, and in that magic land of her imagination she was seven again….

  The memory of Wesley Bristol charging from the barn on a huge palomino, his sawed-off shotgun aimed at Billy’s chest, sent her mind into a full gallop. Vividly recalling the taste of fear and adrenaline that night…the weight of that forbidden pistol in her grip…the thunder of hoofbeats and the scents of leather and sweat and hot horse flesh, Solace lost herself in the sheer, solitary joy of blending fact with fiction.

  As the words poured out of her pen, she chuckled smugly. Lily might be a princess and Gracie a saint, but she was a writer!

  Chapter Six

  “What a beautiful sight.” Gabe gazed out over the pasture nearest the house, where sturdy Morgan horses grazed alongside sleek, slender bays with black manes and tails. Frisky Thoroughbred yearlings stopped romping to watch him, their fine, slender ears pointed skyward. The grass was coming in lush and green this spring, and when the afternoon sun struck the new leaves on the trees, he had to squint to look at them.

  “Everything here is about new life. Fresh and hopeful…ready to go on,” he remarked sadly. “I hope I’ll feel that way, too, someday. But meanwhile it’s good to be here, Billy. Good to see how you and Eve have made such a fine life for yourselves and your children.”