So where did that leave her?
Whether or not she wanted it to be, it seemed she was in love with her husband. Though she felt a twinge of guilt for betraying what she and William had shared, she knew he would want her and the children to be happy and taken care of. God wanted that, too, and He had brought her to this place. So the question remained, did she really want things to change between her and Caleb? If so, what could she do to change them?
“When you don’t know where to go or what to do, go to God.” The words her mother had often spoken drifted through Abby’s troubled mind, stilling the turbulence and settling like a balm on her heavy heart.
Realizing how wrong she had been to try to “do it herself” and knowing she did want theirs to be a real marriage, Abby prayed with a heart of thankfulness instead of one of bitterness and rebellion. She thanked God for bringing Caleb into her life and providing for her and her children. She prayed that somehow, someway, some little everyday thing would touch his heart and help him to see just how much he needed God in his life. And she prayed that one day theirs would be a marriage where love, not necessity, bound them.
By the time she whispered “amen,” Abby knew without a doubt that what she’d told Ben was true. Nothing that had happened to her or Caleb was by chance. They were exactly where they were supposed to be, exactly where God wanted them. It was up to her to teach him about love—all kinds of love. It was up to her to guide him to the place God wanted him to be.
To be the man God wanted him to be.
* * *
Caleb stared at the mirror that reflected back bloodshot eyes and scraped off twenty-four hours’ worth of whiskers. He’d tossed and turned much of the night, torn among a dozen uncertainties, and recriminations for giving in to impulse and kissing Abby. He had betrayed not only Emily’s memory but his own planned course of action. After giving careful consideration to the dozens of reasons a deeper relationship between him and Abby wouldn’t work, he had let the memory of her tear-drenched eyes and the heart-wrenching quaver in her voice penetrate the wall he’d erected around his heart after his mother left. Sad eyes and a soft smile and a single kiss.
The memory caused his razor to slip. He jerked at the sudden sting, and stared at the thin trail of blood trickling down his chin. Dabbing at the cut with the corner of a towel, he acknowledged that he was in big trouble and had no idea what to do about it.
His approach to dealing with her and her children was not working at all. Polite civility didn’t stand a chance against Abby’s inherent goodness or the dozens of ways she was insinuating herself and her traditions into his life. Overt acts and an attempt to penetrate Ben’s antagonism had not brought him and the boy any closer. Cool neutrality certainly hadn’t put off Laura, who simply ran roughshod over his intentions to remain detached by simply granting him one of her radiant smiles. The child would be a heartbreaker in a few years, he thought, and felt a rush of panic when he realized that he would be the one responsible for keeping all prospective beaux at bay.
Muttering under his breath, he squeezed the excess hot water from a towel and pressed it to his face, knowing he had just about used up his excuses not to go in to breakfast.
He put off hurrying to the kitchen because it was what he wanted to do so badly.
Definitely in trouble.
He shuffled down the hallway in his stocking feet, both dreading and anticipating what the day might bring. Having no idea what to expect from one day to the next was itself something to look forward to.
He heard Betsy crying in the kitchen and figured right away that his morning was not off to the start he’d imagined. He pushed through the swinging door and surveyed Abby’s usually peaceful domain. The unmistakable smell of bacon burning assailed his nostrils. Not only was Betsy crying, but Ben, who was usually waiting for his arrival, was nowhere to be seen. Abby, whose hair was twisted into a haphazard knot atop her head, put the baby down, then rushed from the cradle near the fireplace to the stove, grabbing up a meat fork and scooping the charred meat from the smoking grease.
The only semblance of normality was Laura. As usual, she greeted him with a wide grin and an unintelligible but heartfelt greeting. The sight of her smile lifted his heart. She did like him! The pleasing notion settled over his heart like a benediction.
Without thinking of his actions, he crossed the room, bent down and pressed a kiss to her blond curls. She reciprocated by reaching up and patting his cheeks with oatmeal-coated hands, while bombarding him with more baby gibberish, some of which sounded very much like “Dada.”
Caleb was in the process of wiping the mess from his face when he heard Abby give a cry of pain. He whirled toward the stove and saw her pressing her palm to her mouth. He also saw the dark circles beneath her eyes.
“What happened?” he asked over the sound of Betsy’s continued wailing.
“I was trying to move the skillet to a cooler part of the stove and picked up the handle with a damp towel.”
Caleb moved closer, grasped her hand and turned it palm-up. An angry red weal streaked her hand. “I’ll go out to the barn and get the bag balm.”
“It’ll be fine,” Abby assured him. “It’s a long way from my heart.”
One corner of his mouth hiked upward in a half smile. The statement was one his father had always quoted to him and Gabe when they got hurt as boys—Lucas Gentry’s way of telling his sons to take it like a man. Coming from someone as decidedly feminine as Abby, the saying seemed out of place.
“But you can help.”
He regarded her with lifted eyebrows.
“You can either fry your own eggs, or you can try to calm Betsy down, which is usually Ben’s job.”
“I always break the yolks,” he said, going to the cradle and picking up his baby girl. He nestled her against his shoulder, splaying one big hand on her back and cupping the other beneath her bottom. He began to bounce and pat. “Where’s Ben?”
“In the barn, and thank you. Choice number two. You can either have no bacon or burned bacon.” Without giving him time to answer, she said, “He decided to take advantage of the break in the rain and get the milking over with before it started up again.”
Caleb was impressed with the child’s forethought. “No bacon. What’s wrong with Betsy?” She was usually a contented baby.
Abby shot him a look he couldn’t quite decipher and reached for a couple of large brown eggs. “I overslept, and got behind with breakfast. I imagine she’s starving.”
All his plans to stay emotionally detached faded as Caleb wondered if the memory of their kiss had kept her awake and led to her oversleeping, as it had him.
A particularly ear-splitting scream from Betsy brought him back to earth in a hurry. Bouncing and patting wasn’t working. Betsy was hungry, and he had no idea what to do. “Hold up on the eggs,” he said, as Abby was about to crack the first one into the skillet.
She looked up at him, frowning.
“It’s a miserable day. There’s nothing I can do outside right now, so there’s no hurry for breakfast. I’ll go out and help Ben with his chores while you feed Betsy. We can start over on breakfast later.”
Usually unflappable, Abby looked as if she were about to burst into grateful tears. “That would be a tremendous help. Thank you.”
She placed the eggs back into the crockery bowl and reached for the baby, cradling her in one arm. Without thinking, she reached out her free hand and pushed an unruly lock of damp hair off Caleb’s forehead. Then, as if she realized what she was doing, she jerked away. “I really appreciate this, and I know Ben will.”
Wearing a frown of his own, Caleb said, “Between us, we’ll make short work of things.”
He grabbed his coat from the hook just inside the kitchen door and stepped out onto the porch, wondering what had just transpired in his kitchen. Burned meat.
Burned hand. Crying baby. Happy baby. Two parallel conversations going on at once and he had somehow, miraculously, managed to follow both. A far cry from breakfast when he was married to Emily and had done most of the cooking himself. An even further cry from life as he’d known it in the past.
For the first time in his life, he was beginning to understand that marriage was a partnership, and how that partnership worked. It was two people with vastly disparate jobs working together and helping each other as needed. It was sharing not only happiness but problems, large and small.
He slipped his arms into his coat and snatched up the milk bucket. It was an interesting concept, one that held infinite possibilities.
Caleb found Ben in the barn, milking Nana, who was happily munching on some hay. He was as surprised to see Caleb as Caleb had been to know that Ben had taken it on himself to start his chores before breakfast.
“How are you doing?”
“Fine.” The milk hit the bucket with a hiss.
“Have you milked Shaggy Bear yet?”
“No, sir.”
“I’ll do it, and we can get back inside where it’s warm faster,” Caleb offered.
Ben cast him a questioning, sideways look.
Caleb cleared his throat. “I appreciate you getting started with this. It was a smart decision.”
Ben frowned. “I don’t know how smart it was, but I couldn’t take any more of Betsy’s crying. It gets pretty bad between her and Laura some days.”
Ah, Caleb thought, smothering a grin behind a sudden bout of coughing. A man after his own heart.
“Why do you think I told your mom I’d come and help you?” he said, settling on the three-legged milking stool. “It was a madhouse in there. Abby burned the bacon, and her hand, and—”
“Is she okay?” Ben interrupted.
Ben’s obvious concern for his mother’s welfare was touching. He’d always heard boys had a special relationship with their mothers, but he and Gabe had been deprived of that. Suddenly Caleb wondered if he would have had a good relationship with his mother if she’d stayed, and he wondered if her leaving had somehow been at the root of all Gabe’s problems.
“It’ll be fine,” he told Ben. “I’ll take the bag balm in when we go back inside.”
“I hate when she burns the bacon,” Ben said on a sigh.
“Me, too.” Caleb relaxed into the rhythm of milking. “I told her I’d come help you while she took care of the babies and then we’d start breakfast from scratch. Once we get the animals fed, there isn’t much we can do, so it looks as if we’ll be spending another day inside.”
Ben heaved another sigh. “I’m tired of being inside.”
“I know.” As they milked, the barn was filled with the first companionable silence they’d shared. Civility hadn’t worked; maybe companionship would ease the tensions between him and Ben. Caleb struggled to find another topic of conversation that might prolong the tentative peace.
Holidays! he thought at last. Kids loved holidays.
“Thanksgiving is coming up next week. Does your family do anything special?”
“We usually go to Doc Stone’s and spend the day, so Mom and Doctor Rachel can drink coffee and have a hen party after we eat.” He shot Caleb a quick, conspiratorial grin at mention of the hen party, obviously remembering their earlier conversation on the subject. “On Christmas, they come to our house. My dad and Doc Edward used to play pinochle and dominoes, and Danny and I play something outdoors if the weather is okay.”
“Sounds like fun.” Fun. As he’d told Abby, he had no idea what comprised fun, although Ben’s description did sound like a pleasant way to spend the day. As he’d grown up, one day was pretty much like the other, holiday or not. He wondered if Abby would want to keep up with the tradition, and wondered what his reaction would be if she asked him about going. Whatever happened, Caleb knew Abby’s family would celebrate all the good things of life in one way or the other.
“I thought I’d go turkey hunting when it gets closer to time and see if I can get one. Would you like to go?”
Ben looked at him, his eyes filled with cautious eagerness. “I’d like to, since I’ve never been hunting before, but I don’t have a gun. My dad didn’t hunt,” he added as an afterthought.
Caleb, who’d grown up with a rifle and shotgun in his hands, couldn’t hide his genuine shock. If William Carter had bought every bite of meat his family put in their mouths, no wonder he had financial woes.
“High time you went, then. I have a shotgun you can use.” Caleb found the idea of passing down his first gun to his new stepson a pleasing one.
“I doubt Mom will let me. She says I’m too young.”
Caleb offered what he hoped was a conspiratorial look. “Moms are too protective sometimes,” he lamented with a shake of his head. “Most women are. I got my first shotgun when I was about your age. In fact, it’s the one I’ll let you borrow. I think she’ll change her mind if she knows I’ll teach you how to be really safe with it.”
“You’d let me use your shotgun?”
“Sure. Why not?”
Ben turned back to his milking, but not before Caleb saw the wide smile that spread across his face.
* * *
“Absolutely not!” Abby raged when Caleb broached the subject over breakfast some thirty minutes later. “He’s too young for that sort of responsibility! Firearms are dangerous.”
Ben looked from his mother to Caleb, his head swiveling from one adult to the other as he monitored the heated conversation.
“I disagree,” Caleb said in a calm, rational tone. “Firearms aren’t dangerous if you’re taught to use them correctly and respect what they’re capable of doing. Ben needs to learn to use a weapon, both for food and for protection. There are still a lot of nasty critters out there, both four-and two-legged. Shooting is an important skill for a man.”
“Exactly. A man. Ben is six years old.”
Abby, whose hair had come loose even more, paced the room in long, angry strides, waving her arms in agitation and pointing her finger at Caleb when she wanted to make a point.
Caleb set his napkin aside and leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. He knew in the end he would win the battle, but for the moment, he was relishing the vision of his wife in the glory of her motherly protectiveness. Pretty enough, but in no way beautiful, Abby was magnificent when she was angry. Her creamy cheeks were flushed with the heat of battle; she tipped back her head and looked down her straight little nose at him as if she were a queen and he nothing but a lowly subject. Disapproval turned her blue gaze to ice, and her eyes glittered like sunshine splintering off the frozen surface of the pond in winter.
He could not recall a single argument between himself and Emily. They had been too disengaged to trouble themselves with forcing an opposing opinion on the other.
“Abby.”
She stopped stalking around the room, put her fists on her hips and glared at him. “Yes?” she replied in an imperious tone.
“I’ve listened to your opinions and your arguments, since you’ve made it clear that you’ve been accustomed to expressing yourself in the past.” His voice was calm, his demeanor unthreatening.
Wariness crept into her eyes.
“Now, as I also understand is customary, I, as your husband, will make the final decision.”
Her mouth dropped open in surprise, then snapped shut when she had no ready comeback. Her eyes flashed, and polite civility aside, Caleb realized that he wanted very much to kiss her again.
“Ben will be going hunting with me. He will be carrying a gun. A shotgun, to be exact. He will be taught to use it responsibly and safely.” He turned to Ben. “If you’ve finished your breakfast, come with me. We can have our first lesson right now.”
Eagerness in eve
ry line of his body, Ben jumped up from the table—without pausing to ask permission—and followed Caleb to the kitchen door. An enraged breath hissed from Abby’s lips, but she did not say another word.
He turned in the aperture. “By the way, I’ll be teaching our girls how to shoot as soon as they’re old enough.”
He could have sworn he heard an actual growl of anger.
He offered her a benign smile that failed to reach his eyes. “As a matter of fact, wife, come spring, I’ll be teaching you, as well.”
He turned and left the room, but not before he saw her slam the dishrag she was using into the pan of hot soapy water, or before he saw that water splash up into her startled face. He didn’t laugh, but the pleased smile on his face was every bit as broad as Ben’s.
Halfway down the hall, he stopped in his tracks. In his own way, he’d been teasing Abby, knowing that she had talked herself into a corner—so to speak—by telling him that so long as she got to voice her opinion, William had made the final decision.
When she’d first gotten so riled about the hunting trip, Caleb had quickly seen the advantage of letting her use her own position on the husband-wife relationship to his advantage and had turned the tables on her to get the result he wanted. He did chuckle then, but not so loud that she’d hear him. He doubted she would see the humor in the situation.
* * *
Hoisted by her own petard!
Recalling how easily he had turned her sanctimonious speech about William listening to her views right back on her, Abby’s face flushed with sudden heat. Caleb had entered the discussion knowing full well how she felt and with full intention of using her own position against her. If his smug attitude was anything to go by, he had enjoyed every minute of it!
Still seething, she set the clean cast-iron skillet on the stove with a satisfying clang, and then shot a look toward the playpen where Laura grasped the edge of the railing and stared at her with a serious expression on her usually smiling face.
Wolf Creek Wedding Page 13
