Husband for a Year

by Rebecca Winters

  “I have to go, Mom. The limo is waiting. I told the P.I. to phone me at nine. I want to be home when the call comes through. It may take several days, even longer, before I know exactly where Gabe went. Then I can make my plans. In the meantime, I’m counting on you to pretend everything’s fine. That’s what Gabe wanted.”

  The senator pinned her with a withering gaze, the kind he used for intimidating people he didn’t like. He didn’t like her anymore. In placing her loyalty to Gabe above his father, she’d dropped from favor.

  It was very sad because there were qualities about him she’d grown to love by virtue of his being her father-in-law. He’d also done a great deal of humanitarian good in the world.

  “I’m expecting you to bring my son to his senses, Stefanie.” Though he didn’t add the words “or else,” his warning was unmistakable.

  Gabe’s father was afraid. So was she…

  Blowing everyone a kiss, she hurried through the club and out the front doors to the limo which was waiting for her.

  “Drive me to the Oyster Inn, please. I’m meeting friends there. They’ll take me home later.”

  “Very good, Mrs. Wainwright.”

  As soon as they reached the popular restaurant in downtown Newport, the chauffeur helped her out, then drove off. Left to her own devices, Stefanie walked to the end of the street and rounded the corner.

  Earlier in the day she’d paid cash for a used car, which sat parked at the curb. Her new cell phone was packed in one of the suitcases she’d stashed in the trunk. After retrieving it, plus a wig with short black curls styled like a Gypsy’s, she climbed in behind the wheel of the small blue compact.

  With her shoulder-length hair worn up, she could easily slip on the wig. Once it was in place she started the engine, anxious to put as many miles between her and Newport as possible.

  The senator might still be at the club with his wife and her parents, but she had no doubts he’d already excused himself long enough to order a surveillance team to set up a watch outside the fabulous Nantucket shingle house Gabe had given her for a wedding present.

  Before long there would be a tap on her home phone. Gabe’s father would have her every move scrutinized until she led him to his son.

  While she’d been married to Gabe, she’d learned a lot about the senator that hadn’t been apparent when she’d first gone to work for his reelection campaign two years earlier.

  Senator Wainwright was a dynasty builder. His sons were his possessions. His word, law. Though he adored his children, he would consider it unconscionable for one of them to defect from the family. Especially Gabe, whom he privately favored.

  What his youngest son had done today was tantamount to high treason. Unthinkable. Unforgivable. She’d seen it in his father’s eyes. He would stop at nothing to bring Gabe back to the fold, even if it meant spying on Stefanie in her own home.

  But she had the element of surprise on her side. By the time he realized she’d outsmarted him, she would be over state lines and impossible to trace.

  The call she’d been waiting for came at 9:00 p.m. exactly. Her heart hammered as she clicked on and said hello.

  “Ms. Dawson?”

  “Yes, Wes! What news do you have for me?”

  “Your ex-husband flew to Providence by shuttle, then left the airport in a half-ton pickup truck with Montana license plates.”

  Montana?

  She’d thought he might have been planning to fly overseas in a private jet. “W-was there someone with him?” Please don’t tell me it was a woman.

  “Not at first.”

  Oh, no.

  “But before he left the city, he stopped off at a very fancy military academy to pick up a boy and a woman.”

  She let out a gasp of surprise. “Did you get a good look at them?”

  “Yes. I’d say the boy is fourteen or fifteen years old, fairly tall for his age. On the lean side, dark-haired. The brunette woman looked anywhere from her mid-thirties to mid-forties. Attractive.”

  Dear God— Could the boy be Gabe’s son? Was that the great secret he’d been keeping from everyone? If so, was the woman his mother? Was Gabe taking them away? Did he love her?

  Stefanie was in so much pain, she could hardly breathe.

  “Ms. Dawson?”

  “Y-yes?”

  “Okay. I was just checking to make sure you were still on the line. Stan and I have tailed them to Erie, Pennsylvania, where they’ve pulled into a motel parking lot. I’m assuming they’ll stay here for the night.”

  Gabe was in Erie? That meant he’d been driving nonstop since he’d picked up his passengers. It was one thing to fear that he might have been seeing another women throughout their marriage. But the knowledge that he was actually with her at a motel right now almost destroyed Stefanie.

  “Stan is going to relieve me so I can get some sleep in the back of the van. You’ve got his cell phone number. Call him whenever you want an update.”

  “Thank you. I—I will,” she murmured, her voice shaking with fear that Gabe had been in love with the woman all these years. Someone his family wouldn’t have liked?

  If that was the case, then it was no wonder he’d never broken the terms of that wretched contract he’d made with Stefanie. He’d had no desire to make love to her when the mother of his son was out there waiting for him to be free.

  Stefanie stifled her moan, not knowing what to think. “Please—don’t lose sight of him,” she begged. “Right now I’m in my car following you.”

  “We’ve never lost a target yet.”

  “Whatever you do, don’t let him see you! You have to understand he doesn’t want to be found.”

  “I’m aware of that. At this point you’re going to have to trust us to get the job done. We always do.”

  She bit her lip. “I pray you’re right. I’ll make it worth your while.”

  “You already have. I promise he won’t get away from us.”

  “Then I guess I can’t ask for more than that.” Stefanie clicked off, terrified something could still go wrong and she’d never see Gabe again.

  Another hour and her eyelids started to droop. At the next sign for lodgings she pulled off the freeway and drove to a Cozy Inn for the night. Once settled, she climbed into bed and made another phone call. Gabe was still at the same motel. With her…

  After thanking Stan for the information, she buried her face in the pillow. It was wet by the time she fell into oblivion.

  “This is going to be so cool, Gabe.”

  “You think?”

  Gabe smiled as he eyed the fifteen-year-old seated in the cab of his truck. Every time he’d visited with Clay Talbot in the past, the troubled boy Gabe had influenced the court to send to the tightly enforced military academy rather than a state correctional facility, he had grown on him a little more.

  “Yeah. I can’t believe we’re almost there.”

  “You realize this is only an experiment.”

  “I know.”

  “You’ve been released to my custody. If you don’t obey the rules, my hands will be tied and the court will send you back to the academy.”

  “I hated that place. It might as well have been a prison.”

  “Take my word for it, the academy doesn’t come close to the real thing.”

  After a long silence, “I swear I’m not going to get into trouble again.”

  “I hope not, Clay. It would disappoint me and break your mom’s heart. But more importantly, you would be letting yourself down.”

  The boy nodded his dark head.

  At least there’d been some side benefits to this trip. For one thing, Clay and his mom had been able to share some precious time together before he’d dropped her off at the airport in Chicago for the flight back to Providence.

  Being an alcoholic, it was as far as she could travel without wanting a drink. Gabe had made it clear there would be no alcohol during the trip. He’d challenged her to handle it long enough to connect with the son she hadn
’t seen in months. Though she’d been unable to make it all the way to Montana, Clay seemed okay with it.

  As for Gabe, he’d had an opportunity to get inside Clay’s head. Enough time to establish a tentative rapport with the teen who’d been born of affluent parents who didn’t know the first thing about child rearing.

  Unfortunately the death of Clay’s father to cancer two years earlier had turned his world upside down. Unable to deal with his own pain, let alone that of his grieving alcoholic mother, he’d gotten into trouble with other kids from wealthy Providence homes who could afford drugs and were indiscriminately vandalizing their exclusive neighborhoods for the fun of it.

  In desperation, Clay’s mother had finally retained Gabe to defend her son in court. But sending the boy to military school had only been a stopgap. Now that Gabe was free to live his destiny, hopefully Clay would receive the emotional and psychological help he desperately needed.

  As they continued driving through old snow, a familiar road sign showed up on the right.

  Welcome To Marion, Montana. You’re In God’s Country Now.

  Gabe had passed it dozens of times over the last year. It meant their long drive across the U.S. was about to come to an end.

  Before this trip he’d always flown to Glacier Park International Airport where his foreman, Mack Whittaker, waited to take him back to the ranch in the station wagon.

  Not this time.

  It didn’t take a prophet to know that all hell had broken loose now that both families had received the letters Gabe had posted. Even though he’d told his parents he had gone abroad, there was still a chance his father would try and find him. Gabe had chosen to come by truck in order not to leave a trail.

  In a couple of months he would write another set of letters explaining that he and Stefanie had gone their separate ways.

  Thankfully she’d flown to Paris a few hours after he’d left the house and was enjoying herself with good friends as planned.

  Now that she’d been given her freedom, she was entitled to be with any man she chose. To Gabe’s chagrin, he found he loathed the idea. Her image, her husky voice, had refused to leave his mind or senses.

  He supposed she would haunt him for a long time to come. You didn’t live for a year in the same house with a wife like Stefanie and hope to walk away from her totally unaffected.

  On the other hand, he hadn’t realized how deeply she’d gotten beneath his skin. The drive through a lot of rain and some snow flurries would have been torture if he’d had to be alone with his thoughts.

  He figured it would probably take hearing that Stefanie was going to marry someone else’s favorite son headed for the White House to douse the sparks Gabe had determined not to acknowledge, let alone allow to catch fire.

  His face formed a grimace before he gunned the accelerator. Twenty minutes later he glimpsed something in the twilight that broke his torturous train of thought.

  Larch Tree Boys’ Ranch.

  When Gabe saw the newly erected sign at the gate, he let out a satisfied sigh and slowed down. Mack must have pulled some strings to make sure it had been put up in time to coincide with Gabe’s arrival.

  A special welcome home present.

  The best one he could have received to chase away feelings that were better left to die.

  When he and the Realtor from Kalispell had flown over this property eighteen months ago, everything about the ranch had felt right to him. Seventy-five thousand acres of lush green meadows dotted with cattle and statuesque pines.

  In the early-morning sunlight he’d glimpsed a ribbon of blue teeming with trout as it danced against a dense green forest backdrop. A couple of rustic log cabins nestled here and there in a fertile valley surrounded by snow-capped mountains completed a picture that spoke straight to Gabe’s restless soul.

  Always before, his needs, aspirations and desires had been fragmented, eluding him like some flirtatious breeze he couldn’t follow. Then he’d seen the ranch and suddenly everything had crystallized for him.

  It was here he would put down roots.

  The ranch was the one special spot on earth that called to him, and heaven knew he and his family had seen and traveled more of mother earth than most people.

  “This is it?” Clay cried out excitedly.

  “Yes. We’re home.”

  But with Stefanie no longer in the picture, the word had a hollow ring. That was a reality Gabe was going to have to live with.

  Shifting gears, he drove the truck onto his private property. Though it was early spring, the place looked like winter had still gotten in a few final licks.

  “How come you didn’t name the ranch after you?”

  “The larch trees were here first, not the Wainwrights. Now I hope you’re hungry because I can promise that Marva will have her famous homemade chili waiting for us.”

  “Is she your wife?”

  Gabe took a deep breath before he said, “No. She’s the cook for the main ranch house.”

  “Mom showed me a picture of Mrs. Wainwright from the newspaper. She’s really good looking!”

  “I agree.” Gabe’s voice grated. If the truth be known, Stefanie was probably the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in his life.

  “Is she already at the ranch?”

  His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “No.”

  “When’s she going to come?”

  “She’s not, Clay. Right now she’s on a trip around the world.”

  The boy frowned. “Why?”

  He rubbed the side of his unshaven jaw. “She needed time away on her own.”

  Clay looked at him with a solemn expression. “Are you two getting a divorce?”

  He’d been asked an honest question. To hedge it would only provoke more curiosity.

  “We are divorced.”

  “Didn’t she want to live on a ranch?”

  “It was more a case of her wanting to live the life she loves on the East Coast.”

  “Did she ever see your ranch?”

  Perspiration formed on Gabe’s brow. “No.”

  “But that’s crazy! She’d only have to get one look at this place, and she’d never want to go back!”

  Gabe shook his head. To be young again. To see life in such a simplistic way. “It’s never going to happen.”

  “That’s too bad.” The boy was still mourning his father’s death. Saying goodbye to Stefanie didn’t seem to be that much different for Gabe…

  “As you’ve already been made painfully aware, life doesn’t always go the way we want. What do you say we both put the past behind us and move forward from here?”

  The boy’s head was bowed. “That’s kind of hard to do, but I’ll try if you will.”

  Once more Gabe’s heart went out to Clay. He patted his shoulder. “It’s a deal.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  STEFANIE spent a restless night in Kalispell, Montana. Though the woman riding with Gabe had been dropped off at O’Hare airport in Chicago, Stefanie’s dreams were still haunted by the reality of her existence and the possibility that Gabe was in love with her.

  Heartsick, Stefanie drove on to the tiny hamlet of Marion where she’d been told to meet the P.I.s at the coffee shop of the Branding Iron motel.

  The rustic little café bar appeared deserted, no doubt because a weather report forecasting a storm before evening had prompted tourists to run for cover while they could.

  By now it was ten after three. After two hours of watching for Stan and Wes out of antler-trimmed windows, she was convinced something had gone wrong. To come this far only to lose Gabe’s trail was anathema to her.

  When she finally spotted their rental van, she left the booth and ran to the entrance to meet them.

  “You can relax,” Wes assured her as they walked back to her table. “The boys’ ranch where your ex-husband spent last night is his final destination.”

  The waitress took orders for hot coffee.

  Bewildered by the information, Stefanie
asked, “How do you know that for certain?”

  “I made a phone call, pretending to be a parent wanting information,” Stan explained. “According to the woman who answered, the combination ranch and accredited school for teenaged boys in trouble with the law is the brain child of a Mr. Wainwright, the owner and manager.”

  What?

  “To quote her words, ‘The structured environment of his working cattle ranch offers a viable alternative to the usual punitive reform school. The boys live, study and work on the ranch in family groups with trained counselors, teachers and surrogate parents. The result is a much higher rate of rehabilitated young men who will make positive contributions to society in the future.’”

  Stefanie shook her head trying to assimilate everything Stan had just told her, but she couldn’t fathom it.

  Gabe had turned his back on a political career, which could have taken him to the highest office in the land in order to live in this remote, savage wilderness surrounded by young criminals?

  Throughout the endless drive across the country, she’d become convinced that Gabe’s passenger was his son, that he and the boy’s mother were going to end up here together.

  Maybe that still held true. It was possible the woman he loved would be joining him later.

  Stefanie felt her heart splinter.

  Having learned this much, would it be unforgivable of her to show up at the ranch? While they’d been married, Gabe had had many months to tell her the truth, but she’d waited in vain for him to confide in her.

  While she struggled with these questions, Wes placed a Montana map in front of her. “This is the way to the Larch Tree Boys’ Ranch, Ms. Dawson. I’ve highlighted the route in blue. Weather permitting, it’s a twenty-minute drive from here.”

  “I’ll never be able to thank you enough for what you’ve done.” Stefanie handed them both a bonus check.

  “We were glad to be of help.” Stan smiled.

  “Good luck to you.”

  “To you, too.”

  “Thanks. Let us know if we can ever be of help again.”

  “You know I will.”

  The P.I.s had done their part to perfection. She’d been given the proof that Gabe wasn’t going anywhere. He wasn’t lost to her. But she’d been so focused on catching up to him, she hadn’t thought beyond this moment.