by London, Cait
She shook her head, fighting against reality and pain. Tears burned her eyes and she remembered how cold she’d been, how the baby—The fall was her fault. Her baby would have lived except for her need to start a daily routine, to feed the birds. Her voice was rusty, thin and seemed to come from someone else. “They decided to spend the night in a resort hotel.”
It wasn’t true. Her baby was still…The pain slapped at her, no worse than her grief, her heart and body crying for that little, precious life.
“Tell me what to do,” Gabriel repeated softly, firmly. “You need attention.”
Tiredly, without emotion, her voice coming from far away, she instructed Gabriel how to help her. He drew off her soiled clothing, replacing her pajamas with a warm soft flannel shirt and nothing else. In her grief, she felt no shame. Gabriel spoke to her softly, soothingly, his manner impersonal as he changed her toweling and lifted her hips. His callused hand laid on her forehead, anchoring her as she grieved. “I will bring your son to you. Do you want to see him?”
“Yes,” she whispered, the emptiness of her womb aching. She wanted just one moment before the doctor arrived and officially declared the medical reality. How could this tiny, perfect life be torn from her? Oh, my little baby—
Gabriel had cleansed her baby, holding the tiny body close against him. “His father will want to know. Do you want me to call him?”
“No! My baby is mine alone.” She couldn’t bear to share anything of her baby with the man who didn’t want him. She met Gabriel’s frown and the truth tore from her. “I’m not married. Scott couldn’t bear the thought of marriage or children. The changes in my body repulsed him. He tried not to show it, but he couldn’t bear to touch me. I couldn’t bear the thought of a baby raised by a father who resented being trapped. I came home to Freedom Valley to keep my baby safe—”
She tugged the wedding band she’d purchased from her finger, hurling it against the wall. It bounced and fell, rolling across the floor as empty as her life now.
She tensed as Gabriel sat, holding the tiny baby close and safe against him. “He’s a fine son. A man would be honored to know that you carried his child.”
Miranda turned her face away from the tender sight. Gabriel was a man meant to hold and love children; he wouldn’t understand Scott’s fear.
“A fine son…For a man’s blood to continue gives him greatness. To have a woman give him such a child is a treasure most men would honor. I have longed for a son, or a daughter,” he added as a gentle afterthought. “My arms need a child in them. I know this in my heart, but yet I cannot—”
She turned suddenly to him, rage and pain searing her. She didn’t hide her torment from Gabriel, a man she’d known all her life. Tossed by her emotions, she was angry with him, for tearing them apart. Gabriel would have been a perfect father and yet he hadn’t wanted her, either. “Did you hear me? Scott did not want me, or my baby.”
“Who do you grieve for—yourself, or your child?” The quiet, thoughtful challenge took her back and she turned away again. “A woman carrying a child is beautiful. I thought at the wedding how you glowed, how you seemed to have the sunlight inside you.”
Gabriel pushed away the rage within him. How could any man not be at the side of the woman carrying his child? Yet he forced himself to calm, for Miranda was too pale and vulnerable now. Her eyes were shadowed, dark circles beneath them. Her mouth quivered, those beautiful eyes brimming with tears and the pulse in her throat beating heavily with emotion. She held her child for a while, and then he eased it away.
She looked outside at the snowstorm, too silent, her grief etched in her pale features, the tears dripping from her cheeks. “I don’t blame Scott. He was as surprised at his reaction as I was.”
Gabriel damned the weakness of her lover. Holding him blameless, she must still love him. Perhaps she wanted him still, wishing for him to come claim her. Gabriel pushed away that slight, unexpected burn of jealousy; Miranda needed his strength now. “Your mother would want you here, Miranda. Can you feel her?”
“Yes,” she said tiredly. “I can. I hurt, Gabriel. Every part of me and I feel so empty and so cold.”
“You’re badly bruised, Miranda. You must have fallen from the top step, and you were lying in the snow for a time. The cold probably slowed the loss of blood.” Gabriel inhaled sharply. He placed his hand over her forehead, testing its warmth, and then he took her pulse. “I’m going to call the doctor to see what else I can do. Then would you like me to lie with you, to hold you?”
In her pain, she’d lost all sense of modesty and she was feeling too weak, too vulnerable now. Where was the strong controlled woman she’d always been, always—? Now she only felt the need for life. “Just for a little bit. I need to feel—a heartbeat other than mine.”
Miranda gave herself to the warmth of Gabriel’s gentle hands and voice and when he settled beside her, she slid off into a welcoming darkness. Then someone was shaking her lightly, and Gabriel was bending over her, cupping her face with his big, callused hands. His voice was low and urgent. “Miranda, listen to me. The doctor is almost here. Will you trust me? I am only thinking of you now and your baby and of your mother. I want to smooth this road for you.”
She shook her head, unwilling to agree to anything but the truth. Then Gabriel took her hand, wrapping it in his warm, strong one. “It is in my heart to protect you and your baby. Do you trust me?”
His eyes were kind and concerned and she had nowhere else to go, nothing—She gripped his hand, nodded slowly and slid back into sleep.
Gabriel. Through a window in her mother’s house, Miranda watched the birds feed outside, gay in the dazzling midmorning light. Gabriel had been in the ambulance with her, staying in the small room at Freedom’s clinic with her. “She carried my baby,” she’d heard him say. “A fine son…. We had an argument and were working on our problems….”
The elderly nurse, Sarah, had been a friend of Anna’s and hadn’t spared Gabriel in her searing denouncement of “irresponsible males.” He’d nodded solemnly, taking the tongue-lashing without comment. “I see she’s not wearing her ring. She probably only purchased it to prevent gossip about her baby. Women have a sense of honor, even if some men do not,” Sarah had stated pointedly.
Gabriel’s plan was so old-fashioned, Miranda mused, giving his protection to her. Yet just then, she’d needed someone to lean on, the months of struggling with her failure—her misplaced trust in a man frightened so badly by marriage and children—and it was only too easy to let Gabriel handle everything. While the Bennetts were well respected in Freedom, Miranda didn’t feel like explaining her past life, or the reason she was in Freedom now, without a husband. With Gabriel, Tanner and Kylie’s solid fronts, she was well insulated against those who would gossip.
As the birds outside flitted around the feeders, swooping to the snow to pick at the fallen seeds, she pushed away the teardrop on her cheek. She was weak and uncomfortable and grieving and she didn’t like herself now.
How could she have been so wrong about Scott? He’d been the perfect companion, a friend.
Why hadn’t she been more careful that morning?
Miranda traced the window, mid-January’s temperatures icy upon her fingertip. How strange that Tanner and Kylie would agree that Gabriel’s plan was good for her. She shook her head. She was usually so strong and in control and now she seemed without an anchor. Miranda ran her cold fingertip across the tiny fresh scar on her forehead. The doctor’s words of two weeks ago kept running through her mind. “A slight concussion…A premature delivery…”
She scrubbed her hands across her face and knew that she had to do something, anything to reclaim herself. Miranda suddenly closed her eyes. How could she reclaim herself when every time she saw Gwyneth’s softly rounded body, she thought of…?
Her mother’s house seemed so empty now, her crocheting basket just as she left it. A smoothly worn hook was still poised in the loop of white thread and anchored in
to the large spool. The image seemed symbolic, for Miranda was held in a moment of her life, unable to move on. She placed her hand over the spool of crochet thread, the hook and the half-finished doily. Her hand drifted across her body and she forced it to lift away from the emptiness. She had to go on, to make a life, and stop worrying Tanner and Kylie. Miranda inhaled the scent of her mother’s lemon and beeswax furniture oil, and knew it was time to get to work. Her mother’s pantry was a perfect place to start.
Kylie and Gwyneth could not empty Anna’s canning jars, the green beans lined carefully on the shelf. After the thin years of widowhood and bringing up three children alone, Anna wouldn’t have liked the waste. But she’d kept a tight eye on dated foodstuffs and the labels proved that the filled jars were past due. Tying on Anna’s big work apron over her sweater and jeans, Miranda set out to clean her mother’s pantry.
Tanner and Kylie and she had agreed months after Anna’s accident that they would return to separate her things. Yet everything, except for the absence of Kylie’s hope chest, was the same. Miranda inhaled slowly; the house couldn’t remain as it was forever. Nothing was forever…. Kylie and Tanner were deep in their own lives, in the families that would come. She had to have a purpose—she’d always had goals, living her life by fulfilling them—and now she had nothing but her mother’s pantry.
Gabriel shoveled the new snow in the driveway and then worked his way up Anna’s walkway. He carefully cleaned the front steps and then circled the house, noting the light in the kitchen. After Miranda’s family returned, he had eased away, letting them comfort her. But her eyes filled with pain at the sight of Gwyneth’s rounded belly, and he knew that the healing would be long and painful. From others, he knew that Miranda hadn’t left her mother’s house.
Perhaps she mourned the man who couldn’t bear the shackles of marriage or children. Perhaps she waited for him to come to her. It wasn’t Gabriel’s place to stay with her, but he came down from the mountains every two days, trekking the first bit with his snowshoes to shovel snow and tidy the limbs broken by the snow’s weight. Miranda’s car, a compact hatchback wagon, hadn’t left Anna’s driveway. The only marks were those by the Boat Shop, the building near Anna’s house where Tanner fashioned custom-made wooden boats. Emotionally stripped, Miranda hadn’t changed from the silent shadow of herself, and Gabriel wondered how she would react to his offer.
Was it for her welfare, or his own? Was he being selfish? Wanting to care for her, to be with her a little longer, before she left again?
To be truthful, Gabriel admitted to himself, the offer he would propose to Miranda suited his own needs to be close to her, to cherish her.
She didn’t want to answer the quiet firm knock at the back porch door. One look through the window and she recognized Gabriel’s height and broad shoulders. He’d come to shovel snow before, leaving as silently as he came. Wearily she opened the door to him. He’d seen everything, knew the ugly truth about a man who couldn’t bear to look at her. But courtesy in her mother’s house had always been observed. Those watchful black eyes traced the circles beneath her eyes, her pale coloring, and the large dampened apron. He knew too much for her to deny her mental state; she felt as if he could see into her mind, the storms battering and draining her. “So I’m depressed. It happens. I’ll deal with it. Come in.”
Gabriel stamped the snow from his boots and stepped into the back porch. Careful of Anna’s floors, he sat on an old chair and unlaced his boots, removing them. In the kitchen, he eased off his coat and draped it methodically, thoughtfully, over the back of a chair. He took in the empty jars on the table, the contents dumped into a five-gallon bucket, the jars in the soapy water and ranging across the counters. Without speaking, he lifted the bucket and carried it to the back. He replaced his boots and carried the bucket outside. Miranda returned to washing jars, meticulously scrubbing them, holding them up to the kitchen window and inspecting them. If she could, she’d wash away the past as easily.
Gabriel returned with the empty bucket and stood watching her. Empty, she thought, comparing the bucket to how she felt. She avoided his gaze; he’d already seen too much of her life. Struggling against crying, Miranda turned to him. “It’s an ordinary thing to do, isn’t it? Cleaning jars? I have to do something…Gabriel, there was no need for you to feel you had to protect me.”
She was angry now, with herself, with Scott, with Gabriel, with life. Her emotions swung from grief, to frustration, to self-pity, and back to anger. “I’ve always managed. I want to return something to you. Your mother made it for me years ago.”
Hurrying upstairs, Miranda tore into her old hope chest, retrieving the baby blanket Juanita had made. She returned and handed it to Gabriel. She wanted him and everything about him stripped from her. “You should have this.”
“Is it so hard to give yourself into the care of another?” he asked quietly, smoothing his large, strong fingers across the delicate stitching.
“She isn’t here, Gabriel. My mother was always here, and now she isn’t.” Illogical and grieving and emotional, Miranda served him the truth.
“She has done her work. Let her rest.” Gabriel’s voice was deep and soothing, that slight lilt unique and magical. “Have you eaten?”
“Does it matter?” She was bitter and alone and detested herself now, for lashing out at a man who had helped her.
“Come with me to the café, Miranda. Eat with me. Let people see you are a woman of pride and strength, for Anna.”
“That would only reinforce your lie, that you were the father of my baby, trying to reclaim me.”
“You can tell them it is a lie, if you wish. I wanted to protect you then. I still do.” He smiled softly, his hand smoothing her rumpled hair. She moved away, wary of Gabriel, who overpowered her mother’s sunlit kitchen. “Because if you will allow me, I would like to ask for you at the Women’s Council.”
Miranda closed her eyes, his offer echoing in her head. She gripped the kitchen counter for an anchor. “I didn’t hear that.”
He placed his hand on her head and shook it lightly. The gesture was familiar, one her brother and his friends had used for a younger sister. “Open your eyes, little Miranda. It is a logical plan.”
Little Miranda. He’d called her that so long ago….
She stared up at him, trying to mentally jump from a man who’d run from responsibility to the man wanting it. What did Gabriel stand to gain? Why would he want to protect her so dramatically, creating a lie that damaged his honor in Freedom Valley? “Tanner put you up to this. He was always—”
“He’s worried. You are only human, Miranda, and dealing with too much all at once. You need a place apart from here to heal. I am offering my home. It is quiet and you would have time to adjust.”
Adjust? How? She shook her head. “No.”
His body stiffened. “Because you do not trust me?”
She met his eyes, fierce and black now with pride, the scowl darkening his hard face, the gleaming skin taut across those sharp, high cheekbones. “I have always trusted you, even when you were such a rat and broke up with me. I could visit you, Gabriel. I would like that. But the Women’s Council is for marriage offers and I see no reason to deceive anyone any longer.”
“I do. Let me share your burden. Let me give you shelter in all ways while you heal. For the most part, Freedom Valley has kind hearts, but there are tongues who would slice and hurt. Anna would not like that.”
Miranda’s head began to throb, part of her wanting to leap into Gabriel’s offer to let someone else deal with her own affairs. But reality said that she was a woman who could and should manage her life. “The idea is tempting, but I couldn’t let you offer for marriage. I have to handle this on my own.”
“But my pride will not let me do less. It is only a temporary means to help us both. The custom allows you my protection and my honor would not allow me to do less. I will only live with a woman under the custom of Freedom Valley—the trial marriage gives me
a bit of company until spring, and hopefully, you’ll relax and think and heal.”
Gabriel ruffled her hair slightly, his fingers drawing away a strand before leaving her. A smile lurked around his eyes and lips. “With you in my home, my sister Clarissa would stop nagging me to get married. You’d be my protection.”
“You’re offering me a distraction, Gabriel. I’ll have to face life sometime.” Yet his idea warmed her, a temporary reprieve.
“True. While you’re thinking about it, let’s go down to the Wagon Wheel and eat.”
Three
Even the most levelheaded woman will be shaken by a man’s honorable and sweet intentions to claim her. I long for the day my Miranda sees such a man coming for her in the old traditional ways of my mother and her mother before her. She guards her heart well, now that Gabriel is not in her wedding sights. His ancestor would not court Cynthia Whitehall of the Founding Mothers all those years ago. Though they married others, Cynthia was said never to glow again as she had when she looked at Mr. Deerhorn. I want my Miranda to glow and to dream as is any woman’s right. It seems that now she has sealed her heart away. I wonder what can bring her back to life and love.
Anna Bennett’s Journal
“I’d like to handle my own problems,” Miranda whispered fiercely as she sat across from Gabriel at the Wagon Wheel Café. Her edges were showing now to a man who already knew too much about her. The falsely admitted father of her baby, Gabriel had stoically taken an amount of verbal battering from the traditional community. Though he seemed undisturbed, Miranda felt guilty, another emotion she couldn’t afford. She hated her weakness now, feeling as though one more blow would shatter her like glass. “I know I’m not myself now, but I will be. I don’t need your sympathy. You’re asking me to live with you and let everyone think that we’re trying to work out a nonexistent relationship. This is today, Gabriel, not a century and a half ago. Women have children—and lose them, and tend their own lives. I will…I will when I’m good and ready.”
