When Abby found out Caleb had turned over both the morning and evening milking to Ben, she cast her husband a look that would have made a lesser man quake in his boots. He heard her muttering under her breath about it being too hard.
When he had Ben stack the firewood as it was split and added keeping the fireplace boxes filled with wood and kindling to his list of chores, she adopted an overly polite demeanor that warned Caleb a storm was brewing. He bit back a grim smile. It was only a matter of time before her temper got the best of her, and with his own bad humor festering like a sore tooth, he relished the notion of their clashing of wills. Anything was preferable to their cold truce.
* * *
“It’s too much,” Abby said later that evening as she indicated for Caleb to take the chair that sat in the middle of the parlor. Furious with him or not, he was weeks past needing a haircut. He’d passed the attractive shaggy stage soon after the wedding and had now reached the point of embarrassment. She couldn’t have him going to town looking like a hobo off a train. When she’d told him as much after putting the children to bed, he’d snapped, “Fine. Get the scissors.”
So here he sat with a sheet draped around his shoulders while Abby combed and snipped and heaved deep sighs of annoyance. Caleb turned with a frown, almost causing her to cut out a chunk of hair over his ear.
“Spit it out,” he said with his customary brusqueness.
“Hold still.” She took hands full of his hair and jerked his head back where she wanted it.
A muscle in his jaw tightened.
“It’s too much.”
“What’s too much?” he asked, noting the closeness of the scissors to his face from the corner of his eye.
“All the work you’ve given to Ben. He was already milking the goat and feeding the chickens and dogs, and now you’ve added milking the cow and carrying in big chunks of firewood.”
“I don’t hear Ben complaining.”
“He’s afraid to complain. You frighten him.”
That bit of information set Caleb back on his heels. He didn’t reply for a long time, and finally said, “I’m going to tell you what I told Ben when he jumped me about yelling at you.”
Abby moved around to stand next to his jean-clad thighs. Her eyes held disbelief as she stared into his. “He heard us arguing?”
Caleb held her gaze. “Evidently. I told him that what happened between you and me was none of his business. Now I’m telling you that what happens between me and Ben is none of your business. I’ve given you free rein with Betsy. You’re the only mother she’ll ever know. For all intents and purposes, I’m now Ben’s father, and I deserve to bring him up as I see fit.”
“I don’t yell at Betsy,” Abby said, sifting the front of his tobacco-brown hair through her fingers, looking for stray long strands. His hair was soft and thick and clean, and as he did, smelled like something woodsy and masculine.
A biting smile lifted one corner of Caleb’s mouth. “Give it time. She’s not grown yet.”
Abby stared at him, her hands stilling in his hair.
“What?” he asked, seeing the look of wonder in her eyes.
“I...I think you were... Were you just teasing me?”
Caleb thought about it a moment but had no answer. Had he been teasing her? Was it really such a simple thing?
Abby felt some of her anger dissolve and heaved another sigh. Could he disarm her so easily? “I don’t want Ben to grow up with nothing but rules and work and demands.”
Caleb thought about his own raising and how his father’s never ending orders had chafed. He would never be that unreasonable with Ben. There had to be a compromise. “He needs to learn a good work ethic and how to be responsible.”
“He’s just six years old,” she reminded.
“Old enough to start learning. What he’s doing won’t hurt him.”
She breathed another grudging sigh. “Probably not.”
Reluctantly, she conceded that part of her anger was based on the knowledge that by Caleb taking more of a role in Ben’s life, she was losing some of her own influence. She felt the sting of tears in her eyes. “I want him to know he’s loved.”
“He knows you love him.”
“Yes, but fathers are to love their children, too, Caleb, and as you pointed out, you’re the one who has taken over William’s place. Being a father is more than laying down the law and doling out chores. The Bible says that fathers shouldn’t provoke their children to wrath.”
“And what does that mean, exactly?”
“I’ve always thought it meant to be consistent and fair in your treatment of all your children. To not be overly harsh with one or the other, and not to show favoritism. Like you do with the girls. You show them much more positive attention than you do Ben.”
His lips tightened. “At everyone’s insistence, I’m trying to get to know my daughter, and as for Laura...” He paused, then continued. “Much like her mother, she refuses to take no for an answer when I try to discourage her.” Though heaven only knew why, the way he tried to keep her at arm’s length.
“She likes you,” Abby told him, combing his forelock back to blend into the rest of his newly cut hair. “She gets so excited when she hears your voice and your boots stomping on the back porch at night.”
Abby did not notice the strange longing in her voice, and Caleb had no comeback.
“So you think I need to show Ben more positive attention.”
“Yes. Balance work with fun things.”
“Fun?” He said the word as if it were foreign to him.
“Yes, fun. What did you like to do for fun when you were a boy?”
“I didn’t do anything for fun,” he told her in all seriousness.
She stared down at him, wide-eyed. “Nothing? Surely you went fishing or hunting.”
He shook his head. “Gabe was the one who had fun. I worked. If I hunted or fished it was to bring food home for the table.”
“And laughter?”
He gave a snort of something that might have passed for a scornful laugh. “Not after my mother left. If we laughed about anything, we took a tongue-lashing for slacking off.”
Abby tried to grasp what he was saying and failed. How could any child grow up without laughter? How could any child grow up the way Caleb had?
“Would William have listened to you if you two were having this conversation?” he asked, the change in conversation catching her off guard. “Would he have backed off on Ben if you begged him with tears in your eyes?”
She summoned a wobbly smile. “William would not have known how to instill a good work ethic—not that he was afraid of work,” she hastened to clarify. “But he was too much inclined to let himself be sidetracked by other things that interested him more than daily chores. He was not as...disciplined as you are.”
“And by so doing, put you in the bad financial position you found yourself in.”
“Yes. God forgive me, but I pray Ben did not inherit an overabundance of that particular trait from his father.”
“So it’s possible that maybe I’m saving some other young woman that fate, if Ben listens and learns from me.”
“Maybe,” she admitted. “I’ve thought many times since coming here how wonderful it would be if Ben had a father with your work ethic and William’s ability to find the fun in life.”
“Finding the fun?”
“Oh, yes! Fun doesn’t always just rush out and meet you. Sometimes you find it in something as simple as skipping rocks on the creek, or playing a game of patty-cake or peekaboo. But it’s there.”
Another silenced stretched between them as they both mulled over their conversation. Abby realized with something of a start that somehow, when she’d finished cutting Caleb’s hair, she had placed her hands on his shoulders.
Embarrassment swept through her, and she began to brush at the hair lying there.
Filling her voice with lightness she did not feel, she took a step back. “All done. And mighty handsome you look, too, if I may say so.”
He gave a derisive grunt of laughter.
Abby fought against tears and the rush of the empathy he wanted no part of. She ached to take away his pain, to see the harsh slash of his mouth curved in laughter, his eyes filled with contentment.... Silently, she vowed to never let her temper get the best of her again. She would not be the one to deal him any more grief. Heaven knew he’d suffered enough of that in his lifetime. But even as she made the promise to herself, she knew that somewhere, someday, probably sooner than later, she would fail to keep it.
She snuffled and brushed at his shoulders with more vigor. “You are a very attractive man,” she told him. “I can’t imagine why you think otherwise.”
“Maybe because I look at my face in the mirror every morning when I shave,” he suggested with a touch of that unexpected, infrequent irony.
“While no one would say you are a conventionally handsome man, I think almost every woman in Wolf Creek would admit that your face is very intriguing. Women are easy targets for a man with a dangerous look about him.”
“Dangerous?” he mocked.
“Mmm,” she said, nodding. “Especially with that end-of-day beard. I imagine it’s safe to say I’m the most envied woman in Wolf Creek for landing you.”
Reaching up, he manacled her wrists with his callused fingers. Though purely innocent, she was suddenly aware of leaning against his thigh. His gaze meshed with hers.
“And what about you, Abby? Are you a sucker for a dangerous-looking man?”
“I don’t know.” She looked and sounded thoughtful. “It depends, I suppose.”
“On?”
“On the man, and whatever other qualities he might have.”
Caleb exerted the slightest pressure on her wrists, forcing her to lean over until her face was mere inches from his. Drawing a decent breath became very, very tricky. Finally, she had to shut her eyes; the intensity in his was too much to understand...or to bear.
At that precise moment his lips touched hers. All sorts of alarms rang in her head, and a scorching heat swept through her while a tiny voice whispered that she must be out of her mind to let him....
He’s your husband. He has every right.
Long before she was ready, he ended the kiss. Trembling the slightest bit, Abby straightened. Pulling her hands from his grasp, she pressed her fingertips to her throbbing lips. His eyes revealed a compelling thoughtfulness that set her heart to racing. In that moment, she knew she had done a very foolish thing. For better or worse, she had fallen in love with Caleb Gentry.
“Oh. My.”
The two words were the height of inadequacy and in no way expressed the host of feelings coursing through her. Astonishment. Dismay. Guilt. Hopelessness. She wanted to cry. To hide somewhere and examine the amazing feelings bubbling up inside her. Wished she could tell someone about that kiss. Wondered how she could hide this tender, burgeoning feeling from a man who, so bereft of sentiment himself, seldom missed any nuance of emotional change in others.
“Careful there. You’ll turn my head.” The words were spoken in a low, husky voice.
Despite the emotional turbulence tumbling through her, she grasped his meaning. “You’re getting pretty good at that.”
“What?”
“Teasing.”
One corner of his mouth hiked in a sardonic smile. “I thought I was being sarcastic. Ironic.”
She sighed. “With you, it seems to be the same thing, which makes you even more dangerous.”
“The only thing dangerous in this room is you wielding those scissors. I’m surprised you haven’t used them on me.”
“Why would I do that?” she asked.
“For taking advantage.”
“But you didn’t. You have every right.”
For long moments the words and all their implications hung suspended in the quiet of the room. When he made no move to answer, she pulled free the sheet she’d draped over him and shook the hair onto the floor to be swept up. Hoping to ease the tension, she said briskly, “At any rate, you’re all respectable-looking again.”
He stood and turned to face her. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
“Mine, too.”
Without another word, he turned and left her standing in the middle of the room, wondering what—if anything—she was to make of that comment.
Chapter Eight
I love him.
Lying in bed, the back of her wrist resting against her forehead, Abby stared into the room’s darkness and pondered the disturbing revelation. Surely this couldn’t have happened! How had it happened?
For weeks now she’d experienced a feeling of pleasure when he came through the door and a sense of satisfaction when she saw him growing closer to the children. She’d liked knowing he was there and that she could count on him. She had admitted long ago that he was an attractive man, if you liked the rugged, rough-hewn type...which she obviously did, but one did not fall in love with a person for that reason...especially when said person resembled a prickly cactus in most other respects!
Neither did one fall in love with someone because the mere touch of his lips on yours sent your senses head over heels! That feeling was a vital part of love—indeed was often mistaken for love—but alone it was a mere shadow of that precious emotion. No, what she felt for Caleb was much more complicated than what she felt when he kissed her.
Abby made a mental list of all the reasons this new state of affairs was impossible. First, he was very intelligent, but he had no idea what spontaneity was and she doubted he had ever done anything on the spur of the moment. He was impatient, stubborn and even ruthless in many ways. He was unyielding and measured in his approach to everything he did, and even in the short time she’d lived beneath his roof, she’d realized that once he set his mind on a course, he was not apt to deviate from it.
She liked impromptu events, whether it was carrying supper out onto the lawn in the spring or taking that extra loaf of bread to some housebound friend. Caleb’s notion of impulsiveness was to decide there was still enough daylight to fell another tree or plow another field.
Second, she definitely had a mind of her own, as well as her own views on how things should—or could—be done. She was accustomed to voicing those opinions. From the expression on his face the few times she had spoken her mind, her new husband found the notion of women being outspoken outrageous at the very least. She doubted he could learn to tolerate that trait in a wife.
Third, she loved children and had chosen teaching because of that love. At best Caleb tolerated them. No, that wasn’t exactly correct. It was not fair for her to fault him for not understanding how to deal with children when he had been shown so little love himself. In truth, he was beginning to be much more at ease both with Betsy and Laura, thanks in part to Laura’s unflagging determination that Caleb pay attention to her whether he wanted to or not. Abby had even heard him laugh when Laura grabbed his ears and planted a sloppy kiss on his nose, and there had been many times in the past few weeks she had seen his eyes light up when Betsy gave him a sleepy smile.
He can learn to love, a small voice whispered. He is learning to love.
Even though she had been unable to attend church services since coming to live in Caleb’s house, her relationship with her Lord was a vital part of her life. Caleb barely acknowledged His existence. Her and William’s mutual love of God had been the cement that kept their love alive and gave her the strength to stand by him when he made bad decisions, lost both his smile and his self-worth, and sank deeper and deeper into debt and depression. Those were the times she clung to God�
��s promise that they would not be brought to any ordeal that they could not overcome with His help.
Caleb knew little of the strength that came from God, and even less about the comfort to be found as a child of His. He was the sort of man more accustomed to relying on his own strengths than trusting in anything or anyone he could not see and did not understand.
She gave a deep sigh and felt tears trickle from the corners of her eyes. Time to face the truth, Abby. The truth was that even though Caleb might be drawn to her in some physical way—after all, he had kissed her—and since they had little in common except hot tempers and a love of reading, there was scant chance of a marriage between them surviving.
Marriages between vastly different people survive all the time. True enough. Without love, they might not thrive and grow, but they could and did survive. The problem was that she wanted more. Even though her marriage to William had been less than perfect at the end, they had gone into it with a genuine love for each other, and though that love might have changed somewhat with their problems, it had never died.
What next?
She knew she had to change her attitude. It was not all about her, after all. Instead of taking refuge in anger and dwelling on their differences, she should consider all the good things that had come into her life because of her unexpected and inconvenient husband.
First and foremost, her future and the future of her children were secure. No one knew better than she that possessions were not the important things of life, yet she slept better knowing that Ben and Laura did not have to worry about a roof over their heads or food to eat through the coming winter. Because of Caleb, all her old debt was wiped clean.
Then there was Betsy, the reason for everything that had transpired the past few weeks. Abby was now mother to a precious baby girl who had already carved out a special place in Abby’s heart.
She lived in a beautiful house that she would gradually make her own. She was married to a man any woman in the county would be proud to call husband. Even though he had a reputation as a hard, unyielding man, Abby knew better. He was a man who, despite having a hard-as-nails father and a mother who had left him as a child, had somehow grown into a decent person. He was fair, worked hard and gave impeccable attention to anything left in his care, whether it was a field, a child or a wife.
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