“It’s okay,” Avery said, squatting down to gather the girls in her arms.
Gabe looked down and fought the urge to pull all three of them right back into his arms. The massive hole in his chest was permanent as of this moment—they’d taken a piece of him he’d never get back.
Chapter Fifteen
All Saturday morning, Avery and Gabe had maneuvered around each other with a careful distance. No one wanted to admit the lines that had been crossed back there in the dirty cabin. No one wanted to talk about the goodbye that had to happen soon. No one had found Linley. Avery felt as if the whole house crackled with tension on multiple levels.
She fled for a bit to the boys ranch, to drop off the afghan with Marnie and pick up some mason jar lanterns that were being redecorated and repurposed from the ranch’s Thanksgiving banquet. The ranch was buzzing with cautiously optimistic preparations, but somehow she didn’t feel much like joining in, knowing she’d be leaving all this behind in a matter of days.
She’d just pulled the last box from her trunk when she heard it—a loud, hard series of whacks. Bangs so loud it was a wonder the whole house didn’t shake. Jethro had taken the twins “fishing”—which basically meant he took the girls and a basket of cookies out to the tiny creek where no one ever caught any fish, but no one ever seemed to mind—and Marlene was sorting linens.
Whack. Tumble. Whack. Grunt. It was something out by the barn where Gabe was, and it was far from peaceful. It was angry. Fierce. If the tension of the house had a sound, this was it.
That meant it was something she should probably avoid, but when she heard a sharp cry of pain, Avery put down her box and walked cautiously toward the barn.
She found Gabe stalking around a pile of logs, an axe sunk into one large stump. He had his back to her and was grumbling in dark and sour tones. When he turned a bit, Avery noticed he cradled his left hand in a bandana.
“Gabe?”
He looked up at her with a wild storm in his eyes. Why were they always finding each other in the midst of their wit’s end? She and Gabe seemed to collide at the worst possible moments, repeated witnesses to each other’s pain.
“I’m fine,” he barked.
She almost had to laugh at that. “You are not.”
“I just got a sliver, that’s all.”
Gabe Everett was a huge man. No piddly sliver would make him hold his hand like that. Were it not for the lack of blood, she’d assume his axe went through a finger from the way he grimaced.
“Should I call Marlene?”
He glowered at the idea. “Absolutely not.”
She looked around at the huge pile of chopped wood. It was springtime, but he’d chopped enough for two winters. This clearly wasn’t about fuel, so it wasn’t hard to guess what was going on. “Taking out your frustrations on innocent tree parts?”
She’d hoped the small joke would take some of the dark edge off his features, but it didn’t. At least he stopped his furious pacing. “Some.”
Avery ventured a step closer. “Did it work?”
“Does it look like it worked?”
“Not a bit, actually.” The last week had wound Gabe so tight she was surprised he hadn’t done something more drastic than chop wood. The anniversary deadline arrived tomorrow, and watching Gabe Everett stare failure in the face was a gut-wrenching sight. “Look, Gabe, surely you know no one blames you for—”
“Don’t!” he snapped before she could finish the sentence, the word so sharp and loud it made her jump. He’d grown so kind and gentle with her and the girls she’d forgotten just how imposing a man he was.
He saw her jump and cringed, then simply sank down onto a nearby log. “Just don’t, okay?”
What comfort could she hope to offer? Over the last week she’d watched Gabe try every possible source, spend untold sums of money, call in favors and generally do every conceivable thing to find Theodore Linley.
And fail.
The man had virtually vanished off the face of the earth, and all those young boys would pay the price. Unfair didn’t begin to do the situation justice.
She pointed to the hand. “Does it hurt?”
“It’s nothing.”
“Oh, I doubt that.” He was holding it like it would drop off at any second. “You didn’t cut off a finger or anything, did you?”
“I told you, it’s just a sliver.” He’d been pushing everyone away for hours, evidently determined to face this failure alone.
No one should have to do this alone. “Then you won’t mind showing me.”
“As a matter of fact, I would mind.”
“Tough.”
That raised an eyebrow. She’d never challenged him before—she got the impression few people ever did. When he didn’t warn her off, she walked closer, sat down next to him and held out her hand with her best “do what you’re told” mother glare.
Gabe surprised her by complying. She unfolded the bandana to find a startlingly large shard of wood embedded in the base of his thumb.
“If that’s a ‘sliver,’ the girls have gone whaling. Gabe, there’s half a tree in there!”
“I’ve had worse.”
“Well, don’t you think you should get it out?”
“I was about to before I was interrupted. Want to watch? You know, in case I keel over or anything?” It was dark, sour teasing, but at least the near-lethal edge was fading from his eyes.
She cringed. “Not particularly.” This looked like no mere “put a bandage on it and kiss it better” injury. The man looked as if he might need stitches.
“Tough,” he said, throwing her own word back at her with a victorious gleam. Then, without preparation or ceremony, he simply grabbed the chunk of wood with his teeth and yanked it out of his thumb with a blood-chilling hiss. Avery felt her head swim a bit at so brutal a remedy.
It was clear the removal hurt tremendously, but he wasn’t going to show it. His jaw worked and he flexed and shook the wounded hand as he spit the offending wood away with a growl. She’d probably either be crying or have fainted from such a yank, but Gabe just looked steamed. Tense and angry. Even in pain—emotional or physical—the man refused to lower his guard. It must be exhausting to live like that, she thought.
And yet, he’d been so kind to her when her own guard had fallen. It had come crashing down back at the cabin, surely. Gabe had been wonderful in those moments. Strong and protective and loyal—exactly what she needed, what she’d been missing for so long. The memory made heat rise up her spine. He was there for everyone else but let no one be there for him. That was as unfair as all this business with the will.
“Better?” she said softly, nodding her head into his view even as he gripped his now-bleeding thumb with his other hand.
“No,” he growled, turning away from her.
It was the closest thing to an admission of pain she’d ever got from him. It wasn’t better—neither the wound nor the search for Linley. There wasn’t really any better to be had.
Avery knew, just by looking at him, that both would leave a scar.
She picked up the bandana off his knee and reached for his hand. He resisted. She tugged at him anyway, pulling the injured hand toward her lap and wrapping the bandana tight over the wound. “Put pressure on it. And you should go inside and wash that up before it gets infected.”
He didn’t move. Instead, he stayed stock-still and stared at her. Fighting, she could see, to keep the wall up between them while everything else tumbled down around him. Hadn’t she been doing the same thing? She felt her heart scrambling in her chest, desperate to come open, fighting against her determination to keep it locked up tight.
“It hurts,” he admitted, and she knew those two words cost him everything to speak. They were both so achingly weary, wounded in so many ways by
this fiasco Cyrus had launched. It felt like a trap neither of them deserved.
She stared at the wounded thumb, then back up at the storm in his eyes. She did what any mother would do. She brought up Gabe’s hand, cradled it in both of her hands and kissed it. Avery knew exactly what she was doing and why it shouldn’t happen, but there was no stopping it. She wanted, even if only for this moment, to lay the battle down. To make even this tiny part of it better, if only just for now.
It crossed the line they’d carefully drawn between them, and they both knew it. She had opened her heart—partially back at the cabin, but fully at this moment. It made it hard to breathe; both exhilaration and anxiety swirled around her at the same time.
Avery looked up from the wounded hand to stare into Gabe’s eyes. She made herself hold his gaze, to meet him in this moment, no matter how hard her heart pounded. She could see the precise moment his armor fell away, the change so dramatic in his eyes that it was as if they changed color. Storm clouds to blue sky. The man she’d barely glimpsed out by the toolboxes showed up now in full force; an overpowering, stunning transformation that stilled her pulse. A man far more tender than everyone else saw, but somehow far more powerful for that tenderness. A man who loved as fiercely as he fought.
* * *
Gabe felt like he was falling off some high cliff or diving into some fast-running river. Everything he’d tried so hard to keep from happening—the surge in his heart, the nonstop need to know where Avery was and if she was okay, the confounding affection for those little girls—happened anyway. He should stop it, but he couldn’t. Worse yet, right now he didn’t want to. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to let himself really hold her? Kiss her the way he was aching to. Tell her she should never have to be alone again and lie to himself that he could be the man to make that happen.
Gabe was many things, but he never counted being weak among them. The power of his will was his greatest asset. He bent circumstances and people to his need or the greater good all the time. Served his community tirelessly, fought for causes, supervised a large and successful ranch.
And yet he’d never felt as weak, as downright powerless, as he did right now. There simply wasn’t any hope for it. He couldn’t make his mind or even his arms resist despite nearly yelling at himself silently in his head.
Gabe pulled Avery close to him, and when she lifted her sweet face toward his, he kissed her. The absolute delight of it nearly consumed him. After so many days of trying not to wonder how those lips tasted, the glory of tasting her nearly knocked him over. Glory. That was the only word he could think of—when he managed to think at all—for what it felt like.
Avery made a tiny sound and slipped her hands around his neck, and Gabe was lost. He knew it would take a hundred years to gather up the will to stop. The girls or Marlene or anyone could come around the corner of the barn at any second and Gabe couldn’t bring himself to care. It felt as though kissing her was like pure oxygen and he’d spent the last weeks gasping for breath.
She was leaving, and everything around him was about to fail. The rightness of holding her—of the way his heart seemed to reach toward her, of how he felt her beside him even when they were clear across the room—was the only balm to make that pain subside. He desperately needed it, even if only for a few moments. Kissing her, having her look into his eyes the way she just had, made him feel as if he could do anything. He was unstoppable. Victorious despite the defeat that was poised to come down on his head.
He needed her, more than he felt capable of denying himself. Her sweet heart called to him stronger than his own will, and that scared him to death. He ought to push her away, end this exquisite kiss and tell her to go back to her life in Tennessee, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t capable of it. He didn’t even want to be capable of pulling away from her.
She proved him right, pulling away first with a gasping breath he felt through every corner of his chest. “Gabe,” she said, his name more of a breath than a word. Nothing could have undone him more than to hear her say his name that way with that look in her eyes.
I’m not who she needs, he pleaded with his reason. It can’t matter that I need her. It couldn’t matter that he felt like he’d been wandering through his days at everyone else’s service and just now woke up to what he really wanted.
Because what he wanted—more than anything, more than was wise, far more than was good for any of them—was her. In his life, gazing at him like that every day.
He feathered his good hand against the porcelain rose of her cheeks, flushed by the rush of what had just passed between them. Sure, right now it felt as if he’d sooner die than walk away from her, but that was too marvelous to stick. The glowing in his chest couldn’t be trusted, even if it was love. Parenting was hard work even when you were born to it. He’d never had those instincts, never wanted to have them. His quiet and order were how he survived—how would he live with tiny pinkness messing things up year after year? A whole life of solitude couldn’t just transform in the space of a month. Sooner or later he’d have to own up to what he knew to be his true nature.
Tomorrow, he’d pay the piper for every failing.
Tonight, he’d kiss her. Again. And memorize every detail of it to make it last after he sent her away.
He’d fail at that, too. He knew, even as he settled his mouth against her impossibly soft lips, that it’d never be enough. He would wish for more of her every day of his life from here on in.
Chapter Sixteen
The anniversary celebration was by far the oddest affair Avery had ever attended. The whole thing felt like a warped blend of birthday party and funeral luncheon. Everyone wandered around the beautifully decorated barn with an air of tense happiness. There was laughter, groaning-full tables of good food, cheery hellos and handshakes, but it all glossed over the huge disappointment everyone knew was coming.
After that heart-stopping set of kisses yesterday, Gabe had pulled himself away and walked without a word into the house. She’d sat on the log for a few moments, desperately trying to sort out her feelings. Should she leave? Could she even consider staying? What she felt now, strong as it was, didn’t change a single one of the obstacles facing her. It certainly couldn’t be enough to risk the girls’ stability.
But what about their happiness? Hers? She had wandered inside, lost in a haze of emotion and confusion. Gabe’s study door was shut and she couldn’t bring herself to open it. What was there to say or do? He didn’t come out for supper. She could barely keep up the appearance of an appetite herself.
Sunday morning, Gabe left before everyone else rose and stayed away until timing forced his return to dress for the late-afternoon party.
She left him alone. It wasn’t as if she could help what was about to happen. Last night had been a wonderful mistake, but a mistake anyway. She needed to leave. Even if she could somehow stay, if Danny consented to let her move the girls, would she really want to? Build a life as living embodiment of what Cyrus had done to this community? Back in Tennessee, she wouldn’t have to watch them tear that beautiful old estate down to put in a strip mall. Watch them send boys back to places that weren’t as beautiful or special as the Triple C. It hurt to leave, but not as much as standing in this party and pretending to be happy—her heart was breaking on so many levels.
Bea pulled Avery from her thoughts by clanging a spoon against a glass. The woman stood in the center of a little makeshift stage at one end of the barn, framed in dried vine arrangements Avery had helped to make.
“I’m delighted to say that the boys have prepared a little entertainment for y’all this afternoon.”
Dinah tugged on her hand. “Do we get to see a show?”
“I don’t know what we’ll get to see,” Avery replied. “You’ll just have to wait and find out like the rest of us.” She pointed to the stage, where the boys lined up in a bumbling sort of lin
e, each holding a sheet of paper.
The tallest boy—Riley, she remembered from her time painting frames with the boys—stepped to the microphone. “We have a poem for you. Nothing fancy, but y’all might find it interesting. On account of most of you are in it.”
“That can’t be good,” Jethro muttered beside Avery.
“Hush now, they might surprise you,” Marlene chided.
Riley cleared his throat and smoothed his page on the podium, then began.
“Some folks think we’re not much good,
“That ranch boys ain’t got smarts.
“But we see more than you might think
“When it comes to lonely hearts.”
“Well, this just got interesting,” Marlene whispered.
Riley stepped away as Avery recognized Ben moving up to the podium.
“Mr. Tanner may sell seed,
“Or tractors, hay or twine,
“But it took more than books before
“He read between the lines!”
One of the youngest held up one of the painted frames—filled not with a boy’s photograph, but with a red paper heart that read “Tanner + Macy” in big letters. He hung the frame by a colored ribbon to the decorative vines. The room burst into laughter and applause at the poem and the antics it confessed. The boys were the mystery matchmakers, it seemed.
“I suspected it was you,” Macy announced.
“You did not,” Ben countered, smiling all the while.
“I thought my students wrote me not to take up with Tanner!” Macy called as Tanner’s face turned more than a few shades red.
“Well, they did, but they got a little help from us, too. Changed our mind about that, didn’t we?” Ben called back.
“They do say teamwork is the first tool of management,” Harold Haverman called playfully to Tanner. “Gotta respect a young man who changes his thinking and makes use of resources.”
“Not in my Sunday school class I don’t,” Macy called back. “Y’all stop such meddling.”
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