He’d wished he knew what to do to erase the anxiety from her eyes, wished that haunted look was not working its way into his heart and causing it to ache for something he couldn’t put a name to and understood less. He’d stared down into her eyes. Large, bewildered and no less blue than the brilliant autumn sky, they were surrounded by thick dark lashes, totally at odds with her fair hair. He’d had to fight the urge to pull her into his arms and promise her that everything would be all right, that they would work through their uncertain future. Together.
Then someone had called his name and he’d snapped out of his crazy imaginings. His gaze had roamed the room, settling on Betsy, asleep in her grandmother’s arms, and then moved to Laura sitting in total contentment on Rachel’s lap, and finally to Ben who, standing alongside Daniel Stone, was poking a little girl standing in front of them with a stick they’d smuggled inside. The girl gave a whimper of frustration. Ben looked toward Caleb, the expression in his eyes daring him to say anything in a room full of guests.
Reality had kicked in with a vengeance. So much for the progress he thought they’d made. Nothing had changed. Ben did not like him or the idea of Caleb becoming a father figure. Abby still loved her husband. She didn’t want this marriage of convenience any more than he did. As consoling as it might be to imagine a happily ever after, common sense told him it would be folly to even contemplate such a future.
Chapter Seven
It wasn’t working, Caleb thought, standing another piece of firewood in place and swinging the ax downward. The piece of oak split beneath the satisfying show of strength. He’d been married to Abby for three weeks now, and November was more than a week old, but the tactics he’d decided to utilize in his marriage weren’t working out as planned, or as he’d expected.
After realizing there was no real future for him and Abby, he’d decided to go about his life as he always had and treat her and her children as he had Emily—with polite civility. He’d count on them to hold up their side of the bargain while he did the same. That was the plan, but somehow it wasn’t working out as he’d imagined.
They’d fallen into a routine, and inevitably, as he should have known it would, he saw their lives meshing in dozens of ways that demanded personal interaction.
Abby kept the house clean and tidy. She cooked the meals and cared for the children, teaching Ben spelling and numbers and reading. Though he usually escaped to his study after dinner, more than once, Caleb had heard her reading to Ben from books on history and farming principles and then explaining what she read. She continued the word of the day and the nightly devotionals. Several times, he’d come to get a book from the shelf and caught himself listening with more interest than he would admit as she explained certain Bible verses to Ben. Caleb was amazed at her ability to reduce the most complicated passages into something a six-year-old could understand.
Her smile intrigued him, as did the lilting laughter in her voice as she played with Laura. Ah, Laura! He was finding it impossible to resist Abby’s baby girl, who offered him a smile when he came through the door in the evenings, and tugged on his pants legs and jabbered until he reached down and picked her up.
He marveled at Abby’s patience as she walked the floor with Betsy when she had a belly ache. A time or two, he’d even taken a turn himself, rocking and walking so that Abby could snatch a couple of hours’ sleep. There was no denying that he was fascinated and amazed by his new bride, or that he found a certain enjoyment at seeing the fire in her eyes when she was angry. No doubt about it, the keep-them-at-arm’s-length approach to marriage was far easier to assume than execute.
Except with Ben.
So far, nothing Caleb had done had made any real inroads with the obstinate boy who resisted any and all overtures of friendship. But he kept trying, giving Ben light chores to get him out of the house and also so that he could spend time with the men and his new stepfather. Though he’d missed a lot by not having a mother’s influence, Caleb reasoned that no boy should spend all of every day with females. Still, Ben was proving to be a hard nut to crack. Caleb set up another log and gave it a satisfying whack. Like the other one, it split down the middle. It would take time, but he was determined to get on an easier footing with the boy.
* * *
That evening after their Bible study, Abby tucked Ben in and checked on the girls. When she closed the bedroom door behind her she found Caleb sitting in front of the fireplace, his long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. It was a purely masculine pose, one she’d seen often in the years of her marriage to William.
She was surprised to see Caleb sitting there, since he usually went to his office to do bookwork after helping her in the kitchen, something he still insisted on, though she’d told him it was not necessary. It had become a comfortable routine, one that seldom varied.
“No bookwork?” she asked, turning toward the veritable smorgasbord of literary offerings lining the floor-to-ceiling shelves on either side of the fireplace.
“Nothing that won’t wait until tomorrow,” he said. He held up a new volume. “I was anxious to get started on my new Henry James book.”
“The American?” she asked.
“Yes. You’ve heard of it?”
“A bit. You have a wonderful collection,” she said on a sigh.
“Necessity.”
She shot him a questioning glance over her shoulder. “Necessity?”
Caleb shrugged. “Lucas expected me to learn how to run things, so there was no way I could go away to school. I had to educate myself the best way I could.”
Abby didn’t miss the tightening of his jaw when he mentioned his late father.
“Well, you have a very eclectic collection,” she said. Besides The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon and Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, there were books on gold mining, meteorology, manners and birding. The shelves also held dozens of novels as well as several issues of popular magazines, including sporting journals and ladies’ publications.
He gave a negligent shrug. “Lots of things interest me, so I send for whatever books are available.” His tone was desert-dry, and he lifted one eyebrow and a corner of his mouth in a sardonic expression. “It’s one of the advantages of having a lot of money.”
Abby chose to ignore both. Ignoring the utterly masculine picture he made sprawled in the chair was not so easy. “You have quite a collection of fiction, as well,” she said, appalled at how breathless she sounded.
His mockery was replaced by a fleeting, guilty smile. “It’s one of my many failings. I’m quite a fan of fiction, and I even admit to enjoying a rip-roaring dime novel, as well. I’m a huge Allan Pinkerton admirer.”
“Really?” she said, wide-eyed. “I like him, too.” Then with an arch look, she pulled a volume from the shelf and said in a pseudo-serious tone, “I particularly like Alcott, Brontë and Stowe, as it seems you do.”
“Those are Emily’s,” he said with a wounded expression.
“You haven’t read them, then?” she asked. “Not manly enough for you?”
“Hardly.”
“Well, perhaps you should read some of them. I’m a firm believer that all men should read some women’s fiction.”
“And why is that?” he asked, his rare foray into lightheartedness giving way to sudden gravity.
“So that they might gain a better perspective into the ways and thoughts of women, of course.”
“And you think it’s important for a man to understand women?”
“Not only do I think it’s important, I think it’s imperative if the two sexes even hope to live together in a semblance of harmony.”
He frowned.
She laughed. “If it will soothe your ruffled masculine feathers, I believe it’s equally important for women to attempt to understand the men in their life.”
“Attempt?”
“Well, you are strange creatures,” she said with raised eyebrows and a slight shrug.
“And women aren’t?”
“Why, no,” she told him with artificial sincerity. “Women are the soul of kindness, thrift, honor and decency.”
Coldness molded his rugged features. “Begging your pardon, ma’am, but that has not always been my experience. I offer Sarah VanSickle as an example.”
“Oh. Well, I think most people would agree that Sarah is in a class all her own. But don’t you find that I exhibit those qualities?” she asked with mock-innocence.
“Well, you... I mean that... I didn’t mean that you...”
“Yes?” she asked with another lift of her fair eyebrows, her eyes alight with suppressed laughter.
“You’re—you’re teasing me!” He leaped to his feet, his tone disbelieving, shocked, even.
“I am,” she admitted, straight-faced.
Caleb didn’t recall anyone teasing him since he was a youngster and the brunt of jokes about his height. “I’ve not been teased as an adult,” he told her.
“You and Emily didn’t joke with each other?”
“No.”
Abby stared at him for a moment, trying to digest what he’d said and put it into perspective with what she knew about his past. Her heart broke a tiny bit.
“Well, that’s just...sad.”
She saw him stiffen, recognized the familiar chill in his eyes. “I don’t need or want your pity,” he snapped.
“And you don’t have it!” she shot back, frustrated with his unyielding attitude. “What you have is genuine sorrow that you’ve been deprived of so much joy in your life.”
“Which equates to pity,” he retorted. “I won’t have it, Abby. Especially not from you.”
Annoyance and futility washed over her. Was there no reaching the man? “If you don’t want my empathy, what do you want from me, Caleb? What will you have?” she cried, tilting her head back to look up at him.
They stood there staring at each other, both breathing heavily, both angry, both hurt and wondering how such an innocent conversation could have turned into something so painful.
Everything. I want everything from you that you have to give.
The realization slammed into him with the force of a kicking mule, robbing him of speech. What were these unsettling emotions he felt for her? He had no yardstick with which to measure these new feelings. He only knew he had never experienced anything like it before, nor had he expected to. What he did know was that he didn’t like feeling vulnerable and not in control, and he liked less the fact that he didn’t know what to do about it.
Close on the heels of admitting that he was feeling things for her—things he had no right to feel with Emily hardly cold in her grave—came a rush of that ever-present guilt. Never mind that Abby was legally his wife. He turned away and headed for the door, needing to put some space between him and this woman, this stranger who had come into his life and taken over his home. The woman who threatened to take over his heart.
His hand was on the doorknob when her voice stopped him. He didn’t turn, but stood stiff and unyielding. He heard her footfalls on the floor and felt her hand on his back, warm through the fabric of his shirt.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice an anguished murmur.
He imagined he felt her forehead lean against his back, a whisper-soft touch that spoke of regret and thickened his throat with tears.
“I never meant to hurt you, and you’re very wrong if you think what I feel for you is pity.”
He wanted to ask her what she did feel for him, but was too afraid of her answer, just as he was too terrified to speak of how he felt and what he wanted from her.
Abby was a warm and caring woman who knew how to laugh, how to make a house into a home. A woman who knew how to make a man feel wanted and welcome when he stepped through the door at the end of the day. She was accustomed to a man loving her and being unafraid to show that love. A man who knew how and when to tease her.
She certainly wasn’t used to someone who had no knowledge of how to care for another person, and even less idea how to show that caring. He told himself it wasn’t fair to saddle her with his shortcomings, that it was best if he kept things on an impersonal level as he’d planned to from the first, yet for a brief, heart-stopping instant he toyed with the urge to beg her to help bring him out of the shadows of mere existence and into a world of life and love.
Common sense stopped him. She still loved her William, and Caleb was not handsome, not funny and he didn’t know how to tease. He was a man who knew only duty and the weight of responsibility. He might be considered the best catch of the county, but he was not the sort of man a woman like Abby could ever love. Accepting their impasse, Caleb felt his anger melt away to be replaced with an aching, unfamiliar remorse.
Steeling himself against the gentleness he knew he would see in her eyes, he turned to face her. Her hand dropped away. The loss of her touch left him feeling empty and alone. He stared down at her, fighting the urge to pull her into his arms and try to absorb her sweetness into his very soul, but he knew it was crucial that whatever it was he was feeling be nipped in the bud before it had a chance to grow into something he instinctively knew held the potential to hurt him far worse than his mother’s leaving or Emily’s death.
He took an involuntary step backward, needing to put some space between them before he lost his head and his control. Then, deliberately, like a scalpel-wielding surgeon excising something harmful, he clenched his jaw and closed his heart to the tender feelings threatening to overwhelm him.
“What I want is for you to take care of my house and my daughter.”
He imagined he saw the sheen of tears in her eyes before she lowered her gaze and gave a single nod. Her voice was a mere thread of sound as she said simply, “I see.”
Then without another word he turned, wrenched open the door and stalked onto the porch. The cold darkness enveloped him. He was at the bottom of the steps when he heard the door click quietly shut. He walked away, his masculine pride intact and an empty void where his heart had been.
* * *
Her mother was right, Abby thought as she set the table for the evening meal. Life did go on, even when your pride had been trampled in the dust, your heart had been torn to shreds and your only defense was to fortify that bruised heart with an all-consuming anger. She blinked back the hot sting of tears that had been her constant companion ever since her altercation with Caleb.
How had it come to this? Was it possible that she had fallen in love with her new husband in such a short span of time? Guilt surged through her. How could she betray everything she had felt for William—a man of goodness and kindness—by falling for a man whose heart was as hard as the rocks that were so prevalent throughout the pastureland at her old home? A man who hadn’t the slightest notion how to love.
Ever since their argument three days ago, they had both maintained a polite stoicism that bordered on the ridiculous. There were times she would have laughed had she not been afraid her laughter would turn to tears. If possible, Caleb had grown more silent, more unapproachable, working from sunup until sundown, pushing Frank and Leo past any reasonable limits, and piling chores on Ben that she deemed far too heavy for a child his age.
Beyond starting all-out war, her only recourse was to do her housework and take care of Betsy with the same attention as before. She slammed down an ironstone plate and slapped down a handful of silverware next to it. It was not the innocent baby’s fault her father was a stubborn, pigheaded, mulish...idiot!
* * *
Like Abby, Caleb not only embraced his anger, he looked for ways to fuel it. Determined to live up to his reputation, he doubled down on the outside work, which brought about a lot of muttering an
d cussing from Frank and Leo. When they finished with one chore, he found something else to keep them all busy. Anything to keep from going into the house until darkness and his growling stomach forced him inside. Anything to keep him away from a woman whose only transgression was kindness and two little girls who were working their way into his heart.
The morning following his altercation with Abby, Ben had cornered him in the barn, his fists clenched at his sides, his freckled face wearing a pugnacious expression that said without words that he wished he were ten years older and a hundred pounds heavier.
“You leave my mother alone,” he ground out from between clenched teeth.
Caleb’s first reaction was to give the boy a piece of his mind. He couldn’t believe Ben had the audacity to talk to him like that—or any adult for that matter. Then he remembered wishing he had the guts to confront his own father when Lucas had jumped on Libby about something. He also realized he was dealing with Abby’s son. Evidently she had passed down the impertinence gene to her son.
“Whatever is between me and your mother is our business, not yours.”
“She’s my mother!” Ben shouted.
“And she’s my wife,” Caleb said, struggling to maintain his authority without becoming argumentative. “Don’t you remember how we talked about how it was going to take time for us to all learn to get along and how we would have times when things didn’t go exactly right?”
Some of the anger left Ben’s face at the reminder.
“This was one of those times. Now I want you to go milk Nana, and then I’ll show you how to milk Shaggy Bear.”
“It’s cold.”
At the plaintive note in the boy’s voice Caleb surrendered his anger. “I know that, but you know they have to be milked twice a day, cold or not. Owning livestock means they have to be taken care of no matter what.”
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