Gabriel's Gift

by London, Cait

  This morning was bright and Miranda awoke to the scent of freshly baked biscuits. Gabriel and Fletcher had already gone, and she had the house to herself—except for Jessica who lay sleeping on the couch.

  Miranda had enough of sleeping. She forced herself to dress in jeans, a sweatshirt and socks. Bracing herself, she sat her morning cup of tea on the floor beside her hope chest. Gabriel had taken more than the chest from her mother’s house. Inside were her mother’s crochet basket, that hook stuck through the loop of thread, sunk into the spool, as if waiting for completion. The doily was delicate, a pattern Anna had long ago tried to teach Miranda. Colorful lengths of embroidery floss, needles, and a small metal hoop seemed too familiar.

  Firmly placing the basket aside, Miranda saw the framed pictures of her family, also taken by Gabriel. She was a part of them still and they a part of her, and she stood to place the frames on the shelf next to Gabriel’s family. The box he’d placed in the chest was filled with her old drawing pads and pencils and then her teenage handwork and memories filled the rest of the chest.

  An hour later, Gabriel pushed into the house with Fletcher, his boyish grin proof of their play. He stopped and stared at Miranda in the kitchen. “What are you doing?”

  She licked the frosting from her finger. To accomplish anything now was to reclaim a small part of herself. “Cooking. Baking a cake and making a casserole for tonight.”

  He whipped off his knitted cap and jerked off his jacket, sitting down on the chair to unlace his boots. He placed them neatly beside hers. Everything about Gabriel was studied and concise, very controlled. One dark look seared the house, her family pictures near his, the afghan folded on the couch, his box of patching thread and needles lying next to a pile of his jeans and shirts. In the kitchen, his washer was chugging away, working on a load of brown nubby curtains. On the ironing board, a basket of rolled and dampened laundry waited. Then Gabriel’s gaze traveled the length of fishing line, strung near the heating stove and draped with her panties and bras.

  Sweeping his hands through his hair, Gabriel frowned. “I don’t want you to work.”

  He seemed too rawly masculine, the frigid air clinging to him, his black hair rumpled and shaggy. The worn, thick flannel shirt and jeans and his thermal socks completed the picture. The frosting spatula seemed to tremble in her hand—or was that the shaking of her heart? “You said to make myself at home. I have to do something.”

  He crossed into the kitchen, towering over her. His tone was low and commanding, and for the first time a fierce anger leaped from him, trembling in the large room. “You are doing something. You’re healing. That’s enough. I don’t want you cooking or cleaning my house. Tell me what you want done and I will do it.”

  “Grump,” she said lightly and on impulse slashed her finger through the frosting bowl and reached to swipe it across his lips. They opened and caught her fingertip, and a jolt of electricity skittered over her skin. The lick of his tongue followed her finger as she drew it away.

  She tried to breathe and couldn’t, her senses too filled with Gabriel, the heat coming from him and trembling, snagging her own body. She couldn’t turn away from that warm dark gaze, stunned by the intimacy of it. Then his head lowered and slanted and his lips brushed hers. The taste was familiar, and yet new and exciting. She stood very still, uncertain she hadn’t dreamed the kiss. Gabriel straightened, studying the heat moving up her cheeks. “Your cheeks are turning pink, the color of a wild rose.”

  “We were compatible. Scott and I were friends,” she said breathlessly, the haunting thought bursting into words. She needed Gabriel to understand. With him—the man who knew everything about her—parts of her life unexpectedly erupted, needing explanation. The absolute clarity startled her, and sprung from a need to clear her mind aloud. Her emotions felt as if they had been stored too long, passing through a narrow bottleneck where she dissected them ruthlessly. Why was she shaking so badly, her pulse pounding through her?

  “But this is between you and me, isn’t it?” he underlined coolly.

  But this is between you and me… Miranda slept restlessly, too aware of Gabriel in the next room. The next morning, dressed in a heavy woolen sweater and jeans, he sat in his chair cleaning his camera lenses. Whatever bothered him hummed violently in the wood-smoke-scented air and bounced off the white chinking layered between the logs. Almost palpable, his tension ricocheted off the wooden beams, circling her. The morning shadows caught his taut expression, that rhythmic hardening of his jaw. He suddenly launched himself to his feet and began packing his canvas camera bag. “I’m going out.”

  “Where?”

  “To take some pictures.” His usually liquid deep voice held a frustrated, ragged edge she hadn’t known. He was impatient, hurrying now to be rid of her, just as he and her brother had done long ago.

  “I want to go.” Her demand startled her. She wanted to walk and feel the cold, see the glittering sunshine on the pristine snow.

  His black eyes ripped down and then up her body. “I’m hiking on snowshoes. You’re not up to it.”

  “Try me. I’ve been exercising and taking my vitamins. I’m tired of sleeping.” Whatever her biorhythms had been, they were spiking now. It was as if she were coming out of hibernation. Miranda felt like layers of darkness were being peeled from her and she wanted to reach out for life. Nettling Gabriel had always been very enjoyable, seeing just how far she could push him. She recognized that dark gleam now, the taunting challenge of a younger, carefree Gabriel. She smiled up at him, feeling warm and young, as if the past had just dropped from her. “Just don’t call me a ‘tagalong.”’

  The nickname brought a smile, so brief she wondered if she had imagined the warm humor in his eyes. There was that lingering look, Gabriel searching her face as if trying to see within her. Why was her heart trembling and her body heating?

  An hour later, Miranda trudged behind him in the snowshoes he’d made smaller than his own. Strapped to her boots, they’d been his sister’s. Gabriel had insisted on bundling her, until only her eyes were to be seen. She’d had to wear sunglasses, while Gabriel moved easily without the confinement of heavy clothing, his face hard and angular in the brilliant light. He seemed so strong, so complete within himself. He spoke little, but those quick penetrating glances back at her told of his concern. “You haven’t taken many pictures,” she said, breathing heavily and disliking her weakness.

  The blinding snowscape swept around her, the air crisp and fresh as though the slate had been wiped clean. Miranda felt life stirring within her, the excitement of being freed from indoors into this bright new world. Despite the weakness of her body, she felt wonderful. Had it only been a month since she’d lost her baby? Was that life calling to her? Had she come so far?

  Gabriel’s black, glossy hair escaped his knitted cap, the shearling jacket’s collar turned up at his throat. He pointed to a winter rabbit, bounding along the snow then huddling beneath brush, sending off a flock of snowbirds into flight. Then he turned, eased off his gloves and lifted his camera to frame her face.

  Following an impulse, Miranda didn’t hesitate. She reached for snow, formed a ball and hurled it at him. The pleasure came from her childhood, when Freedom Valley children built forts and battled each other with snowballs, most frequently girls against the boys. Gabriel lifted a shoulder, protecting his camera and the snowball glanced off. He packed his camera into the bag, shielding it with his back, which Miranda hit with another snowball. She hit him twice more as he back-walked to her.

  Suddenly he turned, placed his snowshoe over hers, trapping her immobile, and grinned boyishly. Miranda struggled to pull her snowshoes free and couldn’t. Off balance, she grabbed for his coat and held him tightly; Gabriel reached to the snow-covered pine branch over her head and tugged. A tiny avalanche of snow fell on her. It was an old familiar game, played as teenagers and Miranda laughed aloud. “That’s not fair!”

  Gabriel brushed the snow from her cap, propping her
sunglasses over it. Then that quiet searching tenseness danced on the brilliant sunlight and he slowly tugged down the scarf protecting her face. Emotions tangled and warmed as he studied her. Then in an uncharacteristic show of affection for Gabriel Deerhorn, he bent to place his cheek against hers. Held in place by the magic of that brief endearment he’d given her long ago as she grieved for her father, Miranda couldn’t breathe. She turned her head slightly, resting her face within the warmth of his throat and collar.

  The moment was brief and treasured, glittering in her like the life she was beginning to feel.

  He turned slightly toward her, just as she was moving away and those deep dark eyes caught her reflection, his breath warm on her face. “Miranda,” he whispered so quietly the sound seemed to slip into the glittering day.

  His lips were cool and firm against hers, the brush light as a feather before drawing away. Shaken by the kiss, Miranda stared up at him. Gabriel’s expression was kind, that of a friend, nothing more. She released the timid smile, uncertain that she had tasted the hunger of long ago in that brief moment. Gabriel gently adjusted her shawl around her throat and lowered her sunglasses into place. Did she imagine the tenderness of his expression?

  She reminded herself that he was only a friend, trying to help. She couldn’t misread his caring actions. He’d always been her brother’s friend, sometimes tormenting her. He was the teenage boyfriend she’d adored and later hated bitterly. He was the man who knew more of her life than anyone. “I don’t want your sympathy,” she stated quietly.

  “You haven’t got it.”

  “Maybe I’ll stay up here forever, in this fairyland, and not face my life. That would serve you right for this idiotic plan.”

  “Think of how boring my life was, how much you can make me suffer and how much gossip we’re stirring up.” That old charming smile was there, that fascinating roguish tilt to his head. “Feeling better?”

  He’d looked like that years ago when he’d asked her to trust him, to jump from the top of an embankment down into his arms. He’d held her tight and safe then, and her instincts said that he was just as safe now. “Yes, thanks. I needed to get out.”

  Her first visit to the large weathered barn was later that day. She hadn’t wanted to intrude upon him more than necessary and accepted his absence as the time he needed away from sharing his home. A heavy-duty, battered farm pickup was parked inside, an aged tractor, a small hay baler, a plow and field mower. The barn smelled of hay, bales stacked in the loft above and on the north wall, buffering the penetrating cold wind.

  Gabriel was moving around his horses, talking to them in the airy cold space. They nudged him for the grain held in his hand, and he rubbed their ears. The mottled Appaloosa coats shifted in the dim light, churning slowly around the man standing tall and proud amid them, his deep voice like liquid magic. Gabriel seemed to be a part of them as those dark eyes found her in the shadows. “They’re missing the rest of the herd. They’re staying at my father’s during the winter. It’s warmer at his ranch.”

  “Do you ever get lonely, Gabriel?” she asked, wondering how being with him could be so natural and yet new—except when those long slow appraisals crossed too deep within her and she had to shield herself against him.

  He shook his head and glanced at the pigeons entering their barn coop. He’d explained they were carrier pigeons, used to carry messages for the teen members of his extended family. “I have what I want now.”

  There was that look, that “seeing inside her” look. “What do you want, Miranda?”

  As the pigeons cooed and settled for the night, she considered her thoughts. “Peace, I think. Most of all, peace. I hadn’t realized how tired I was. Even before I lost the baby.”

  “You’re a strong woman. You’re getting better.”

  She leaned against the mottled throat of the Appaloosa near her. “I know I can’t afford a second mistake like the first—assuming too much, wanting something that just wasn’t there, wasn’t real. This isn’t real, either. It’s only a resting place, for which I’m grateful.”

  In Freedom Valley, Tanner’s wife would be rounding with his child, due the first part of June. Kylie, Miranda’s sister, would likely be pregnant from her January honeymoon, because Kylie never waited for anything she wanted. Miranda had wanted her child to grow up within her family’s love, the cousins playing together…. “I can’t stay here forever, Gabriel. We’ll have to call the Women’s Council and tell them this isn’t working out. Or better yet, we should just tell them the truth and be done with it.”

  “Can’t. No phone. You’re either here, or I’ll take you back. The rest of it, you can handle as you wish. Your choice.”

  She studied him. At times, Gabriel could nudge her emotions, firing them. “You don’t think I’m suited for this—the frontier lifestyle, do you?”

  “Nope. Can’t see you gardening or canning beans, or—”

  “I did all that with Mother, when I lived at home.”

  His look was too innocent. “You’re ‘city’ now.”

  “I haven’t changed that much. Neither have you.”

  He didn’t answer and she knew that he’d slid into that protective shield where she could not reach him. A shadow crossed his face before he turned away, walking to the pigeons and reaching for one. He untied the band from its leg and frowned. “My mother and father are coming one day soon.”

  Miranda hadn’t wanted to see anyone and yet Juanita and Carl would want to visit with their son. “Do they know of our arrangement? How kind you’ve been to me?”

  Gabriel cradled the gray bird against him, stroking its blue-green iridescent head. “They know.”

  She didn’t trust the dark, ominous tone as if he were dreading the visit. She knew she was. The Deerhorns were likely to ask questions she might not want to answer.

  Miranda had taken to studying her mother’s doily, trying to finish it as though she were trying to see the pattern of her life. She’d begun drawing Celtic patterns, comparing the eternal winding and strength to the doily. The graceful movement of her hands, the way she concentrated on the designs, fascinated Gabriel. Miranda was working her way through her emotions and he had no right to touch her, to kiss her on the mountain. She’d seemed so fresh and young then, her face pink with cold and her eyes lighting with pleasure as she threw snowballs at him.

  Give her the peace she needs, he thought and added a reminder to himself, you have no right to think of holding her, kissing her. Miranda seemed so soft and fragile; she would turn into smoke if he touched her. Yet she was real, the scent of her clung to him, haunted him. Did she still think of him? The man who had run from her?

  During the evenings, she often sat on the floor, the firelight playing on her glossy hair. It shifted like a silky wave around her face as she leaned into her work. She looked up at him and smiled as though just remembering he was in the same room. It was enough, he told himself, even as he clenched his hands to keep from reaching for her.

  She turned to him that night, saw what was within him before he could shield himself. “You’re brooding again, Gabriel. Why?”

  He shrugged and began cleaning his tackle box, one she had thoroughly messed when they went ice fishing. He began straightening the fouled lines methodically as was his way, while he tried to place his thoughts in neat order. With Miranda nearby, his thinking wasn’t that clear—it ran more to placing himself over that smooth graceful body and kissing that incredibly soft mouth. She still tasted sweet and innocent as she had long ago. Now with her green eyes dark and mysterious on him, the sharp clench of desire hit him. He could not love her, tell her of his heart, nor could he lie. Instead Gabriel left the cabin and the seduction that was Miranda.

  It was mid-February now and Miranda had slept for the most part of that time. She seemed suddenly restless, and when he returned to the house, he found her on the floor, staring at the firelight. He watched her from the shadows and Miranda turned to him in one of those lightning
quick moods that startled him. “You really didn’t think we were suited, did you?”

  “No, I didn’t. I thought you should have better.” He saw her again, a teenage girl with her future ahead of her, colleges calling her, scholarships waiting.

  “You broke my heart, Gabriel Deerhorn. That was a terribly arrogant thing for you to do, to make my decisions for me.” Then while he was struggling for words, she turned back to the firelight. Her words came back to him, quiet and firm. “I’m a woman now. Never do that again. Never take away my choices.”

  Gabriel held very still, aware that the kitten was showing her claws. He hadn’t expected the sudden attack, the fierceness of it. “I will try to be very careful of you,” he said, meaning it.

  “That’s just it. You’re very careful of me, tiptoeing around any subject you think might upset me. What subjects upset you, Gabriel? Why do you lock so much inside yourself, your feelings? Do you think it’s fair that you know so much of me, and I know so little of you?”

  “This isn’t about me,” he stated cautiously.

  “No, it’s about me, isn’t it?” she asked sharply, clearly set to battle with him.

  Uncomfortable with the confrontation, Gabriel stared at her. He couldn’t tell her of his heart, how much she pleasured him, just by living with him. He couldn’t tell her how much he feared she would leave one day, and his life would be cold and empty again. Instead he rose and left the house.