No job. He’d resigned.
No home. He’d come here instead, to this spartan hotel.
No life. No…
If you didn’t say no to the invitation in Solace’s eyes, you’d be sharing a happiness like you can’t imagine.
His heart knew this, and his head knew it. So why couldn’t he believe?
When Bernadette Bristol threw her arms around Solace in the courtroom yesterday…rumpled her hair with that childlike glee, he’d lost his heart again to the woman in the simple blue dress and boy-short curls. Somehow, her bobbed-off hair only made her more endearing. More genuine. With Solace Monroe, the goodness so visible on the outside was amplified by the radiance of a simple soul. A soul born to love and serve and give.
Letitia would’ve dropped that child and escaped to the nearest powder room. Her mother would’ve followed, with the smelling salts, and it would’ve taken them an hour to make your wife presentable again.
Thoughts of his tormented wife made Gabe rake his uncombed hair with desperate fingers. The disappointment on Solace’s face last night—even though he’d won her case in a grand way—spoke volumes about how he’d let her down when it counted…how he’d used her family’s presence as an excuse not to address her needs. Her feelings.
Your needs. Your feelings. It’s you who has trouble loving, not Solace.
Desperate for something—anything—to occupy his thoughts, Gabe reached for his leather satchel. Perhaps the notes he’d scribbled to prepare Solace’s defense would provide a lead, an idea…a guide to what he’d done best, so he’d know what sort of job to search for, or where to…
Gabe pulled out an unfamiliar sheaf of pages and stared at it. Her Shadow, by Solace Monroe, was written in two lines across the top, and he knew immediately that he was in no mood to read this story. Yet the simple script and unpretentious language drew him in…led him quickly along every line, down the entire first page.
How had she done this? How had Solace recounted his life story—the one he’d been so careful not to reveal to anyone else—in a tale about a frontier lawyer and a forthright young woman who loved him, but couldn’t compete with his deceased wife’s shadow? He read faster, his eyes blurring during the second page…the third…until a huge teardrop splattered on the paper and the ink ran.
“This is not…fair!” He threw the pages against the wall. What did Solace know about guilt? Addiction? About watching someone he’d loved wither away and hide behind excuses? The nerve of that girl, saying Letitia had made her choices—had put the flask to her own lips and…
His reflection in the shaving mirror scared him. Gabe blinked, and then stared hard at the man who’d done exactly as the story said…the man who’d blamed himself for whatever had been lacking in his wife’s makeup. The husband who believed himself responsible for a failed marriage, even though he’d never really felt married.
Were these red-rimmed eyes to be his future? Were torment and shame and unrealized dreams to be his life partners?
Has Solace sent this to her publisher? What if this story shows up on every magazine rack in the country?
While few readers would recognize his life’s fictionalized circumstances, and fewer would associate Solace’s characters with the real people involved, Gabe suddenly had to know if she’d shown this piece to anyone else.
But he couldn’t go to the Triple M looking so…shipwrecked. It wouldn’t benefit either one of them, if—
Gabe let out a ragged breath and turned from the washstand. If he let her, Solace could set him free—just as he’d acquitted her of murder. She was telling him, in no uncertain terms, that his guilt had to go. Or she would.
Despite the rain, he hurried out of the room and down the stairs, wiping his face on his sleeve before anyone could see him.
“Good morning, Mr. Getty!” said the young fellow at the desk.
“Same to you, sir!”
“And congratulations on your monumental success in court. It’s all over town, how you outfoxed that fortune-teller.”
Gabe stopped and turned in the hotel doorway. The clerk wasn’t old enough to understand it was he who’d been outfoxed, by Solace Monroe’s big brown eyes and bigger heart. “Thank you,” he replied in a more thoughtful tone. “The pleasure comes from a job well done. From knowing one’s life purpose and pursuing it.”
It sounded like something Solace would say. Her words and gestures during the trial came back to him…her gentle but direct voice filled his head as he strode along Abilene’s streets. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but he had to follow his gut. Had to seek until he found…
“Mornin’, Mr. Getty, sir! Fine job yesterday!” someone called from the mercantile.
Not two doors farther down, a woman hailed him with a wave of her handkerchief. “Oh, Mr. Getty, you were brilliant!” she gushed. “As I watched you present your case, why—I just knew you’d be the man to untangle some unfortunate financial affairs my nephew’s gotten me into!”
“Thank you, ma’am. When I’ve opened my law office, I hope you’ll come in.”
Law office? Where had that come from?
Gabe shook his head and followed his feet away from the business district, toward streets lined with trees and neat picket fences…modest, but tidy homes he hadn’t noticed before. Why was he feeling so urgent? So driven to gaze at white houses with lace curtains and lamps in the windows…as though he were being guided by unseen hands?
Or the beating of wings…
He slowed down, paying closer attention to the sensations that prodded him along. Gabe had no idea where he was—except, of course, that he’d followed a side street into this residential area. Now that the homes were two stories, with larger yards, his heart beat faster. The last thing he wanted was another mausoleum of a mansion like…
Step away from your past. Find your heart’s desire.
Who would be talking to him this way? The voice in his head was perfectly clear, yet he’d never conversed with angels or invited their presence. He slowed his pace, spying into the garden behind a red brick home with a gallery porch across the back. Its iron fence needed blacking. The trumpet vines and morning glories had run amok, and the place had a sad air of neglect that…reminded him of himself.
Then he spotted the white wooden swing, secluded among lilac bushes that were in full bloom.
Gabe inhaled their fragrance on the breeze that caressed his cheek. For several moments he stood at the fence, gazing at the overgrown yard, yet always returning to the swing…so much like the one at Billy’s, where Solace had slipped away to write her stories…where he’d first realized she was a writer, and a woman who made his heart beat hard, the way it hammered now.
“Why are you showing me this?” he murmured.
Figure it out.
Slowly he walked to the corner, and then turned to pass in front of the house. Here he saw pillars that needed paint…symmetrical front windows on the second story that peered at him like eyes. Empty, forlorn eyes. Then he noticed the little boy on the front steps, sitting with his elbows on his knees and his chin between his fists.
“You from the orphanage, mister? Come to fetch me back?”
Gabe’s chest tightened. Somehow his hand had found the latch on the gate and he was stepping through it. “No. Why would I do that?” he asked carefully.
“ ’Cause I runned away again.’ Cause my mama and daddy, they went to heaven awhile back and they didn’t take me.”
He stopped on the walk, blinking rapidly. That little voice, so lonely…that small heart-shaped face with the huge brown eyes that studied him so intently…the ache in that pint-size heart that took him back to Colorado, to the log house the Indians had set afire after they’d butchered his parents and sisters….
“This is your house, isn’t it?” he asked quietly.
“Yup. That’s my room, right up there.” He pointed to the window at his left, above the porch roof. “ ’Cept I can’t get in ’cause they locked the do
or.”
In two long strides Gabe reached the top of the wooden stairs to sit beside the boy, whose blond hair framed his face as though someone had put a bowl on his head to cut it. “My name’s Gabe. What’s yours?”
“Charlie.”
He offered his hand, and felt a distinct jolt when Charlie’s small palm met his own. “Does anyone live here now, Charlie?”
“Don’t think so. Don’t look like it to me, does it to you?”
“Nope. Not that I can tell.”
What was going on here? Why was his breathing so shallow, and why did it feel as if he’d been sent on this walk at this exact time to end up on this porch with runaway Charlie? And why did it feel so right to be sitting here—as though this was already home?
And when had it stopped raining? When he’d left his room, the drizzle was soaking his shirt, yet now the sky shone bright blue. The whole world felt fresh and new again. Washed clean.
Figure it out.
He cleared his throat, realized the boy was still hanging on to him. The sight of that small hand on top of his did crazy things to him. For a moment he swore he saw Solace sitting on the other side of Charlie, and imagined they all lived here in this cozy house and…
Had he just found his heart’s desire?
“Was you gonna say somethin’, Gabe?”
Charlie’s expectant expression left him no excuses and nowhere to hide. “What do you say we walk into town and find some breakfast?” he suggested. “If it’s all right with you, we can let the orphanage know you won’t be going back there—”
Oh, those eyes got wide! And something made Gabe want to keep this look on Charlie’s precious face forever—or at least until they worked out a plan and the reality of the details settled in. Then it would be Solace’s turn to make him smile.
“—and we can see about getting a key. I know a lady who would love to live here—if you’d be willing to share your house with us.”
“Can I have a dog?”
Gabe blinked. The solemnity of the question made it sound like a no might negate the entire plan—the future—that had just fallen so neatly into place. “Matter of fact, this lady has a dog named Rex. And he rides horses!”
Charlie hopped to his feet, bringing Gabe with him. “Can he sleep in my room with me? In my bed?”
The images were streaming through his mind so fast Gabe couldn’t keep up with them. Charlie was leading him down the walk, gazing up at him as though the whole world depended on the answer to those two simple questions. He chuckled so hard he could barely talk. “I think Rex will be real glad I came past your house today, young man. Rex’s mama, too.”
As they swung the gate open, the boy turned and looked up at the window—his window—and waved. “Bye, Mama! I’ll be back. You did real good today!”
Gabe’s gaze followed Charlie’s, to where the ivy and trumpet vine, entwined on the downspout, fluttered in the spring breeze. Try as he might, he couldn’t see anybody in the bedroom window, or any sign of whom this boy might be talking to.
“She’s an angel, ya know,” Charlie said matter-of-factly. “She promised to find me a family, and Mama always keeps her promises.”
Had there ever been a morning like this one? Gabe had orchestrated many a dazzling courtroom defense, but never had the details fallen into place with such ease. Such grace.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life….
In the time it took to order and eat their pancakes and eggs, he found out whom to contact at the orphanage—a Miss Wilkes, who also had the key to Charlie’s house. And the woman who’d waved her handkerchief at him knew of a storefront office for rent. Then, when they went to the dry goods emporium to buy Charlie some longer pants and a clean shirt, Gabe spotted three unexpected treats on the magazine rack.
On the higher shelf sat a dime novel with a drawing of two masked men peering out of a cave, entitled “Smoky Hill Hide-Out.” On a row beneath it, with red-bannered mastheads that said Work and Win, An Interesting Weekly for Young America, he saw “Captured by the Comanches” and “She Ran Her Daddy’s Ranch.” But it was the very small, very discreet byline that made his lips quiver in a grin. Sol Juddson! Right there for the whole world to see.
Gabe glanced around, and then snatched up all the copies of all three publications. It seemed fitting that he should present these to the author, before word got around that Juddson was more than just a Wild West performer who’d gained notoriety in court. It would give Solace a chance to explain these stories to her parents before anyone else asked about them.
“You gonna read alla those dimers, Gabe?” Charlie asked as they left the store. He had a hint of a swagger now. Nearly ran into somebody because he was gazing down at his stiff new pants.
Gabe considered his response. Decided to take a chance, and see what the kid was made of. “Can you keep a big, huge secret, Charlie?”
His blond hair fell softly back from his eyes as he looked up. “What? You don’t want your mama to know you read them dimers, neither? My favorites are the ones about Buffalo Bill.”
Gabe swallowed hard, because his heart was in his throat. When his hand landed on the boy’s head, he marveled at the warm silk of that straw-colored hair…at the way Charlie pressed against his palm instead of pulling away.
“The lady I told you about, who has the dog named Rex?” he asked tentatively. “She wrote these stories! But you can’t tell a soul. It’ll be a surprise to everybody there at the ranch, so I want her to break the news. All right?”
Charlie’s eyes widened as he thought about all those details. Then he grinned, revealing a dimple at one side of his mouth. “Cross my heart, I won’t tell a soul,” he said, making an X on his chest with his fingertip. “But only if ya let me read the one about the Injuns while we’re ridin’ out there.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
Dear Solace, dearest sister,Though I wouldn’t blame you for not wanting to read anything I write to you, I hope you’ll understand my need to apologize…my need for your forgiveness.
“Well, here’s a surprise! Princess Lily—Princess Perfect—baring her soul to me!” Solace murmured. She stroked the soft hair at Rex’s ear as he pressed his head against her hand. “I sure hope she’s not up to something sneaky. I’ve had enough of that.”
Solace held the pages of pretty stationery in both hands to keep them from quivering. A glance toward the house told her she had a little more time before Billy’s kids came looking for her, so she settled back against the cottonwood tree. Kicked off her shoes to fully enjoy the cool seclusion of the shady riverbank.
The way I’ve treated you—my callous disregard for your feelings—is inexcusable. It’s a perfect example of what goes awry when I listen to my own wants, my own selfish desires, rather than following God’s voice and His will for me.
I realize now that your love for Gabriel Getty is sincere—as his is for you—and that I was just plain jealous. I’d helped him first, after Letitia passed, and I assumed that gave me more reason—more right—to love him than to let him follow his own course. I was too arrogant to believe you could be the answer to his prayers.
I was sadly mistaken.
“Oh, Rex, can you believe this?” Solace said between sniffles. “I was calling Lily a holier-than-thou, but bless her frilly pink frocks, last night’s celebration just wasn’t the same without her.”
The Border collie fixed his bright brown eyes on her, following every word.
Solace sighed, picturing her older sister’s elegant blond upsweep and her soft, glowing smile. “Can’t blame her for setting her heart on Gabe, though, can we? I-I sure hope she won’t end up an old maid school marm like Aunt Agatha. Lily’s—well, Lily’s just too special for that.”
It was horrid of me to make you move your things to the barn, as well. And when I heard about the upcoming trial—how those underhanded Wild West people have treated you so badly—I realized I haven’t beh
aved much better. I was so relieved when Papa sent word to say Gabe would be helping with your defense, if only from the sidelines.
Can you forgive me, dear Solace? You’re the last person in this world I ever intended to hurt. I feel horrible that I’ve been so blind to your unique radiance and spirit. In a world of darkness and despair like Gabe has known, you’re the perfect antidote to his grief.
“I wish somebody’d tell him that,” she murmured. Yet she was chuckling as she swiped at her eyes. “Real nice of everybody to point out how perfect we are for each other…like I needed their permission to have feelings for him!”
Rex rolled over to wiggle and twist in the grass. He was scratching his back, but with his tongue lolling out and the low, blissful grunts that escaped him, he appeared to be laughing. Probably at her!
Again, please accept my apologies on paper until we can be together. My prayers are with you as you go to trial—and prevail!—Solace. How wonderfully you’ve lived up to your name! What a comfort and joy you are to all who know you! The next time I come home …
The clatter of wagon wheels brought Rex to his feet with a protective woof, prompting Solace to gaze around the trunk of the tree. “Who is it, fella?”
The dog’s tail wagged happily and he sprinted toward the yard—until he saw she wasn’t following him. Then he gave her the what-for, an unmistakable lecture in bark-talk that brought three redheaded kids out the kitchen door. Owen and Bernadette dashed into the yard, because greeting a guest was the high point of their day, while Olivia followed more sedately, like the ten-year-old model of decorum she was.
“Gabe! Gabe!” Owen crowed as they ran. “We thought you’d be—”
“Who’s that?”
Bernadette stopped to point at a smaller figure on the buckboard seat, perfectly expressing Solace’s own curiosity. She remained behind a tree, watching the scene in the yard. Her pulse pounded. Her entire body had gone tight. It was good that Gabe had come back sooner than she’d anticipated, but where had he come up with a little boy? And why?
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