Cait London - Gabriel's Gift

“Are you going to eat that?” he asked and when she shook her head Gabriel ate her serving. “I like to eat with someone,” he said quietly. “Do you?”

She shrugged and glanced at Willa, the owner of the café, who was eyeing Luigi of the Pasta Palace down the street. Luigi had once burst into an emotional Italian song that clearly marked his intentions to court Willa, a seasoned widow of many years. Luigi’s huge drooping moustache was twitching as he smiled at Willa, his teeth gleaming whitely.

Following Miranda’s look, Gabriel noted, “He’s got her on the run.”

“That’s what people will say about you and me, Gabriel.” Miranda’s tone was hushed and fierce. She didn’t want his kindness; she wanted to retreat. “This is all a sham. They’ll think you want me. I don’t feel right about this—my mother believed in the traditional courting customs here. I shouldn’t have agreed to the lie about my life. I’ve managed so far without your protection.”

Bitter? Ungrateful? She was all of that and guilty, too. Gabriel didn’t deserve her harsh tirade. “I’m not exactly a likable person now. I’m sorry.”

“Anna understood a great many things when it came to surviving. She’d understand you need to heal. She’d understand that I am made a certain way and that we have reached a compromise…. Want you?” He lifted an eyebrow, his black eyes challenging her. “We’ll know differently, won’t we?”

She looked away out into the bright January sunlight, to Mr. Collier carefully helping his pregnant forty-year-old wife across street. The child was their first and both were glowing.

Gabriel was right; she wasn’t ready to face life just yet, to see Gwyneth’s body rounding with a baby. At times, Miranda’s grief slipped beyond her tethers and revealed more than she wished. Tanner was too careful not to speak of his joy and hurt her. Michael and Kylie were bursting with excitement, quickly shielded when Miranda was near—she expected that they had their own news of a baby and the ache within her grew. She couldn’t bear casting a shadow upon her brother’s and sister’s happiness. She couldn’t bear living in her mother’s empty house.

“Only for a time, Miranda. Until you feel better.”

She rubbed her throbbing headache. Every part of her now wanted to agree to Gabriel’s offer, to take shelter away from everything. “You’re pushing me, and I don’t like it.”

“The offer is mine. The choice is yours.” Gabriel looked away as if they weren’t discussing the deep traditions of Freedom Valley, where a man declared his intentions in front of the Women’s Council.

Miranda traced the rim of her water glass. “I’m in pieces,” she said finally. “Not at all like myself, and you know it.”

He nodded solemnly, those straight black lashes shielding his gaze. The sunlight passing through the window caught the dark tone of his skin, the angle of his high cheekbones. He seemed timeless as the mountains, his aura that of a man who spent his life outdoors amid the pine and clear water. “I think that your heart is wounded and that you are tired. You will be strong again.”

Long moments passed and then Miranda gave way to the need running within her to escape. “Okay,” she whispered bleakly. “I’d like to get away from everything for a while, and if it’s necessary for you to present this deception—a trial marriage—I guess that’s okay.”

The smile lurking around his lips matched the tone of his deep voice. “Ah, the gracious acceptance of the doomed. Do you think you can ride in another week?”

“I don’t feel like—” Then she caught that hard, straight look. The Deerhorns obeyed their own traditions. “You’re coming for me in the old way, aren’t you?”

“Yes. It is important to me. But if you prefer—”

“What am I worth?” she couldn’t help asking, slightly surprised by her own humor.

He shrugged, a gesture that said little and yet everything. That black gaze slid down her gray sweater, woolen slacks and boots. “You’re scrawny. Two horses maybe. Not my best ones.”

She smiled at that. Gabriel used to tease her in the same way. “You’ll get them back. This is only for a time.”

He was trying to help her, but there were concessions to Gabriel’s traditional-based honor. “I’ll manage. Thank you, Gabriel.”

At the cash register, Willa glared at him and stared pointedly at a jar filled with wrapped roses. Gabriel nodded and selected a tiny perfect yellow bloom. While Willa watched approvingly, he tore off the long stem and slid the rose into Miranda’s hair.

His hand rested warm and hard and callused against her cheek. She wondered why his gaze was so soft and seeking on her; she wondered why it called forth a tenderness she hadn’t expected.

She wondered why, at times, he spoke to her in that careful, proper way, his deep voice curling intimately around her.

Later, she would see that Gabriel had not taken the baby blanket, and her senses told her that he was uneasy with returned gifts, especially gifts between women.

In his way, Gabriel was a very traditional man. He was also known to be very private, and Miranda knew it was no light matter for him to open his home to her.

A week later, the blinding morning sun danced across the crust of the snow. Tethered behind him, Gabriel’s six best Appaloosa snorted steam into the frigid air. Three horses were his offering for Miranda; the one with the saddle was for her, one was to act as a pack horse, and another for him to ride on the return journey. He glanced at his four-wheeler, parked and ready for use, but today he was bringing Miranda to his home and nothing but the old-fashioned way would settle his heart. He’d cleared the narrow winding road to his home with the blade attached to his vehicle, because he wanted Miranda’s journey to be safe. “As the crow flies,” his home was not far from Anna’s, yet it was over ten road miles. Intermittent horseback trails, passing through woods that a vehicle could not maneuver, closed the distance to five. Clumps of snow fell from the pines bordering the road to his mountain home, making muffled sounds as it hit. Branches cracked beneath the snow’s weight and Gabriel’s experienced eyes traced the paw prints of a big wolf, running alone and free. The wolves would mate for life and perhaps that was his nature, too, because he’d never wanted another woman. Chiding himself for the traditional ways that had always been within him, springing now to life, Gabriel led his best Appaloosa to Tanner and Gwyneth’s ranch.

Miranda was right—he was pushing her. He was hungry for the sight of her, for the sound of her voice. When the wind stirred her hair, sending the blue-black silk swirling around her too pale face, Gabriel wondered about shaman’s spells, for he was so enchanted. His hand gripped the saddlehorn and he realized that he had never been nervous of a woman before, except teenage Miranda.

Two days ago, Fidelity Moore’s cane had hit the floor at the Women’s Council meeting. Her high-pitched voice had run above the women’s gossiping. “I want to hear what the boy has to say for himself. You’ve come here with Tanner Bennett, Miranda’s brother, at your side. He approves of the situation? That you’ve finally decided to do right by Miranda? Well, speak, Mr. Gabriel Deerhorn. It is no light matter to ask for a bride before this Council. We want assurances that you are a rightful candidate for Miranda’s future husband. Speak.”

In the bright January morning, Gabriel glanced at the cows mulling around the huge round bail of hay in the field. Freedom Valley was warmer than his mountain ranch, and his horses—except for the six with him—were staying at his father’s place.