Cait London - Gabriel's Gift

Gabriel stamped the snow from his boots and stepped into the back porch. Careful of Anna’s floors, he sat on an old chair and unlaced his boots, removing them. In the kitchen, he eased off his coat and draped it methodically, thoughtfully, over the back of a chair. He took in the empty jars on the table, the contents dumped into a five-gallon bucket, the jars in the soapy water and ranging across the counters. Without speaking, he lifted the bucket and carried it to the back. He replaced his boots and carried the bucket outside. Miranda returned to washing jars, meticulously scrubbing them, holding them up to the kitchen window and inspecting them. If she could, she’d wash away the past as easily.

Gabriel returned with the empty bucket and stood watching her. Empty, she thought, comparing the bucket to how she felt. She avoided his gaze; he’d already seen too much of her life. Struggling against crying, Miranda turned to him. “It’s an ordinary thing to do, isn’t it? Cleaning jars? I have to do something…Gabriel, there was no need for you to feel you had to protect me.”

She was angry now, with herself, with Scott, with Gabriel, with life. Her emotions swung from grief, to frustration, to self-pity, and back to anger. “I’ve always managed. I want to return something to you. Your mother made it for me years ago.”

Hurrying upstairs, Miranda tore into her old hope chest, retrieving the baby blanket Juanita had made. She returned and handed it to Gabriel. She wanted him and everything about him stripped from her. “You should have this.”

“Is it so hard to give yourself into the care of another?” he asked quietly, smoothing his large, strong fingers across the delicate stitching.

“She isn’t here, Gabriel. My mother was always here, and now she isn’t.” Illogical and grieving and emotional, Miranda served him the truth.

“She has done her work. Let her rest.” Gabriel’s voice was deep and soothing, that slight lilt unique and magical. “Have you eaten?”

“Does it matter?” She was bitter and alone and detested herself now, for lashing out at a man who had helped her.

“Come with me to the café, Miranda. Eat with me. Let people see you are a woman of pride and strength, for Anna.”

“That would only reinforce your lie, that you were the father of my baby, trying to reclaim me.”

“You can tell them it is a lie, if you wish. I wanted to protect you then. I still do.” He smiled softly, his hand smoothing her rumpled hair. She moved away, wary of Gabriel, who overpowered her mother’s sunlit kitchen. “Because if you will allow me, I would like to ask for you at the Women’s Council.”

Miranda closed her eyes, his offer echoing in her head. She gripped the kitchen counter for an anchor. “I didn’t hear that.”

He placed his hand on her head and shook it lightly. The gesture was familiar, one her brother and his friends had used for a younger sister. “Open your eyes, little Miranda. It is a logical plan.”

Little Miranda. He’d called her that so long ago….

She stared up at him, trying to mentally jump from a man who’d run from responsibility to the man wanting it. What did Gabriel stand to gain? Why would he want to protect her so dramatically, creating a lie that damaged his honor in Freedom Valley? “Tanner put you up to this. He was always—”

“He’s worried. You are only human, Miranda, and dealing with too much all at once. You need a place apart from here to heal. I am offering my home. It is quiet and you would have time to adjust.”

Adjust? How? She shook her head. “No.”

His body stiffened. “Because you do not trust me?”

She met his eyes, fierce and black now with pride, the scowl darkening his hard face, the gleaming skin taut across those sharp, high cheekbones. “I have always trusted you, even when you were such a rat and broke up with me. I could visit you, Gabriel. I would like that. But the Women’s Council is for marriage offers and I see no reason to deceive anyone any longer.”

“I do. Let me share your burden. Let me give you shelter in all ways while you heal. For the most part, Freedom Valley has kind hearts, but there are tongues who would slice and hurt. Anna would not like that.”

Miranda’s head began to throb, part of her wanting to leap into Gabriel’s offer to let someone else deal with her own affairs. But reality said that she was a woman who could and should manage her life. “The idea is tempting, but I couldn’t let you offer for marriage. I have to handle this on my own.”

“But my pride will not let me do less. It is only a temporary means to help us both. The custom allows you my protection and my honor would not allow me to do less. I will only live with a woman under the custom of Freedom Valley—the trial marriage gives me a bit of company until spring, and hopefully, you’ll relax and think and heal.”

Gabriel ruffled her hair slightly, his fingers drawing away a strand before leaving her. A smile lurked around his eyes and lips. “With you in my home, my sister Clarissa would stop nagging me to get married. You’d be my protection.”

“You’re offering me a distraction, Gabriel. I’ll have to face life sometime.” Yet his idea warmed her, a temporary reprieve.

“True. While you’re thinking about it, let’s go down to the Wagon Wheel and eat.”

Even the most levelheaded woman will be shaken by a man’s honorable and sweet intentions to claim her. I long for the day my Miranda sees such a man coming for her in the old traditional ways of my mother and her mother before her. She guards her heart well, now that Gabriel is not in her wedding sights. His ancestor would not court Cynthia Whitehall of the Founding Mothers all those years ago. Though they married others, Cynthia was said never to glow again as she had when she looked at Mr. Deerhorn. I want my Miranda to glow and to dream as is any woman’s right. It seems that now she has sealed her heart away. I wonder what can bring her back to life and love.

Anna Bennett’s Journal

“I’d like to handle my own problems,” Miranda whispered fiercely as she sat across from Gabriel at the Wagon Wheel Café. Her edges were showing now to a man who already knew too much about her. The falsely admitted father of her baby, Gabriel had stoically taken an amount of verbal battering from the traditional community. Though he seemed undisturbed, Miranda felt guilty, another emotion she couldn’t afford. She hated her weakness now, feeling as though one more blow would shatter her like glass. “I know I’m not myself now, but I will be. I don’t need your sympathy. You’re asking me to live with you and let everyone think that we’re trying to work out a nonexistent relationship. This is today, Gabriel, not a century and a half ago. Women have children—and lose them, and tend their own lives. I will…I will when I’m good and ready.”

Gabriel nodded and leaned back in the booth, a tall broad-shouldered man, one long leg stretched outside the enclosure. The rich tone of his weathered skin reflected his Native American ancestry. The rough cut of his hair rested on the collar of his dark red sweater, those jarring fierce features locked into an unreadable mask. He’d dressed carefully, his jeans new and pressed into a sharp crease. His big hands framed the café’s coffee cup, making the thick porcelain appear delicate. “I am not offering you a fancy resort in which to rest, Miranda. I built my home with few luxuries. You eat little. You can’t grow strong without good food. You should eat what Gwyneth and Kylie bring you.”

“I’m not hungry.” Her stomach ached now, unused to the warm, nourishing “blue plate special” of roast beef, mashed potatoes and green beans. In front of her, a wedge of Willa’s famed apple pie stood untouched.