Gabriel's Gift

Tanner and Gwyneth’s baby would arrive after hers, and the cousins would be family. Kylie and Michael wouldn’t wait to start a family, because Kylie never waited, forever leaping into life. Her brother and sister were blissfully happy in their new lives and their mother would have loved keeping her grandchildren.

Her mother’s death had pricked Miranda’s biological need for a child, a new life to replace a dear one that had been cut short. The continuity of Anna’s life was important, and so, safe in the knowledge that Scott would want their child, Miranda had conceived. Looking back, while she was grieving over her mother was not the best time to make a decision to have a baby. Miranda smoothed her belly and knew that she had enough love for two parents.

“Mother? Where are you?” Miranda whispered, and ached when no answer returned from the shadows. She looked outside to the snow slashing across her mother’s front porch. Anna had always fed the birds early in the morning, and filling the many bird feeders would be a start for Miranda’s routine. Day by day, she’d build a life for her child that was safe and good. Just now, she wasn’t ready to expose herself to anyone but Kylie and Tanner. But eventually she would have to deal with gossip. A younger, more vulnerable Miranda had already handled rumors and sympathetic looks by Freedom Valley’s townfolk.

All those years ago, teenage Gabriel had hurt her terribly. “I don’t want you. Don’t even think of marriage between us, or anything else,” he’d said grimly. She’d cried horribly, hiding from her family, trying not to show her pain. He’d torn away her heart and deep inside she’d hated him, vowing never to forgive him.

Years later, another man’s confession had jolted her. She’d been startled by Scott’s reaction and rejection, but not hurt. It was as if her emotions with him hadn’t been deep enough to wound. He’d been truthful, though, and she admired that more than a man who forced himself to submit to a life he didn’t want.

Miranda slid down on the couch, snuggling into the familiar warmth of her homecoming. She closed her eyes and wondered why she could not remember the Nordic texture of Scott’s crisp waving blond hair, and yet the coarse, straight texture of Gabriel’s black shaggy mane seemed so familiar.

Was he happy? Gossip said he hadn’t married, that he kept to himself and his mountains. Miranda frowned and closed her eyes wearily, her hand smoothing the baby nestled within her. Why did he seem so uncomfortable with her? Did those sweet days of their teenage years still curl around him as they did her? Gabriel, you look so hard and lonely. What happened to you? Then, a tiny kick beneath her hand claimed her thoughts of the future.

Two

The most gentle of hearts can be found in unsuspecting places. Women tend to think that only another woman can give comfort, but men—given the chance—can offer kindness to a troubled heart.

Anna Bennett’s Journal

Gabriel followed the snowplow as it passed Anna’s small farm, leaving small mountains of snow on either side of the road. Departing immediately after their wedding for their honeymoon, Kylie and Michael had missed the heavy snow that now bent the trees and blocked some roads and airports. The light lacy snowflakes hit Gabriel’s windshield and the clack-clack of his wipers created the pattern for his thoughts.

After the wedding, he had packed a two-week supply of groceries into his battered Jeep. Then he had settled down with his friends at the Silver Dollar Tavern, the site of the wedding reception. He was more comfortable there, with the loud country music and the smells, than in the church, with a tie tight around his neck. The sounds had vibrated in the tavern’s smoky room, a jarring contrast to his very quiet, solitary log home. Though he visited Tanner and his lifelong friends throughout the year, Gabriel was always glad to get back to his mountains. The Bachelor Club—Koby, Fletcher, Dylan, Brody and the rest of his friends—had toasted their “dying breed.” Because Dakota Jones’s little sister, Karolina, alias “Super Snoop,” had been in a snit, mourning her “old maid” status, the men had taken turns dancing with her. But Gabriel had danced the last dance with Miranda. Another time, when a woman would ask a man for the last dance, it would mean she chose him for her future husband. Gabriel wasn’t likely to follow the local customs—love had passed him by, and he’d settled for peace in the mountains.

Later, only a little of the tension remained from holding Miranda in his arms. He’d stayed the night at Michael’s house, the newlyweds bound for a sunny, tropical honeymoon.

Filled with thoughts of yesterday’s wedding and seeing Miranda again, he kept his four-wheel-drive Jeep a respectable distance behind the snowplow. At six o’clock in the morning, the flashing red light of the snowplow shot off into the darkness. Behind the wheel of the charging beast, Mac Reno would be in an evil mood, pained by a Saturday night hangover. Mac had once gotten in an argument with Willa, the owner of the Wagon Wheel Café and the mayor of Freedom; he’d used the snowplow to bury her car.

After the joy of Kylie and Michael yesterday, and Gwyneth and Tanner’s delight in their coming baby, Gabriel’s solitary life seemed as gray as the morning. The woman in the smoke—her eyes warm upon him, and her body rounded with his child—was only a dream he used to fill the ache inside him, a self-induced medicine to give him momentary peace. He’d made the right decision when they were teenagers—

Gabriel ran his hand over his jaw, the sound of the scrape as raw as his emotions. He didn’t like being unsettled, tossed back into the past when Miranda danced close and sweet against him. She wore another man’s ring, and now she carried his child—Why had that shadow crossed her face when asked about her husband?

Gabriel’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. If she had been mistreated—He pushed away that ugly thought. She looked as if she were blooming, the pregnancy sitting well on her.

But she had leaned against him in the old way, when troubles came too deeply upon her. As a boy, he’d been stunned that she would give so much to him, letting him see her doubts and trusting him with her thoughts. She’d grieved then for her father, Paul, a good man who had died of a terminal disease.

Miranda smelled the same—of sun and wind brushing across the lush sweet-grass meadows. Her eyes were still the shining green of new grass, clear and bright and happy—she’d looked that way when he’d given her that wildflower bouquet all those years ago. Now she was a woman, preparing for her child, and yet she seemed so fragile, light and willowy in his arms. He feared holding her too close, keeping his distance, for just then, he was uncertain of himself.

Gabriel glanced at Anna’s driveway, at the snow the plow had piled high, barring the entrance. Out of habit, he eased the Jeep over the snow and reached to the back to push aside the snowshoes resting over his shovel. Anna had always been good to him, and he was only one of many who would clear her driveway. In no hurry to return to his empty house, Gabriel glanced at Anna’s home and found light streaming from all the windows, creating golden patches into the gray dawn. The house was much like Anna had left it a year ago, though both Tanner and Kylie had taken turns living in it. Tanner had explained that none of Anna’s children could bear separating her things. Filled with warm scents and Anna’s tender presence, the house would be a ghost to Miranda now. She would be doing her prowling, missing her mother, and that wound would be slow to heal. How could her husband not see to her at such a time, not come with her? To know such a woman and not care for her was unthinkable.

But then Miranda was her own woman, very independent, and it wasn’t for Gabriel to mull her life.

When he opened the Jeep’s door, the freezing temperatures hit him. He sucked in the icy air, letting it cleanse him, and then began to shovel the snow. The earth needed snow for nourishment, and to make the grass grow lush and green—Miranda’s eyes were still as green, softer now with her coming baby nestled inside her. The thought jarred him, how easily she stepped into his mind after all those years. Perhaps she had always been there.

The image of her teenage disbelief slashed across him. In curt terms, he’d told her that they weren’t meant for each other and that she should take the scholarship offers coming to her, that she should leave Freedom Valley. He’d told her that their paths were not meant to be one—that his life’s path was not for her—and the shock in those green eyes had shamed him. Her slender body had recoiled as if taking a physical blow. Though his heart had been tearing, he tried not to show his anguish and how much her tears hurt him. The memory added force to his shovel’s blow against a shrub, shaking the branches and dislodging the heavy snow before it could break them. He tempered the other blows, pushing the shattering image into the past for a time.

The birds began to chirp and he smiled briefly. Anna’s feeders were always kept well filled and suet balls hung from the trees. Coming from a close family, Miranda would honor her mother’s desires. When would she leave? Would he see her again?

Gabriel thrust the unseemly thoughts from him. She was another man’s woman, and it was not his way to—In the stillness of morning, a soft moan sounded amid the chirping birds, and there at the base of Anna’s front steps was—

Gabriel ran toward Miranda, curled into a ball. Birdseed was scattered on the snow, and the skid mark on the icy top step told the story. Tearing off his leather gloves, he crouched to her side. He eased away the corner of her shawl and found her face too white, a thin trickle of blood at her forehead.

How long had she lain in the freezing temperatures? Trembling, Gabriel eased his arm beneath her head. “Miranda?”

His heart stopped beating while he waited for her to answer. “Miranda?”

This time she moaned slightly and tensed, as if in pain. When she moved, Gabriel saw the blood soaking the white snow. He eased away her long, heavy coat and grimly acknowledged the likelihood that Miranda had lost her baby. “Shh, Miranda,” he whispered as he began to work quickly.

Through the pain tearing at her body, Miranda looked up at Gabriel’s darkly weathered face. He looked so tired and worried, his black eyes soft and warm upon her. “Miranda?”

Her head throbbed, and the cold cloth on her forehead came away with her blood. She remembered falling, trying to protect her baby and icy terror leaped into her. “My baby?”

“Miranda, you’re in Anna’s house. Upstairs in your bedroom—”

She reached to snag his flannel shirt, to fist it with both hands. “Tell me.”

“Miranda, you have to help me. The roads are closed and the doctor can’t get here soon. You have to tell me what to do. Mother is a midwife, but I can’t reach her. You helped your mother at times like this. You’ve got to think—”

“My baby?” she cried again and knew from the emptiness inside her that the baby had come too soon.

Gabriel took her hands in his and shook his head. “I tried. He was a fine boy.”

Her wail ripped through the still shadows. Or was that the sound of her heart and soul tearing apart? Oh my little love, wait for me…Mommy will take care of you…wait for me…

“Miranda, come back to me,” Gabriel said firmly. “Tell me what to do. The doctor told me some of it, but you know what your mother would have done. Where are Tanner and Gwyneth? They’re not answering their telephone.”

She shook her head, fighting against reality and pain. Tears burned her eyes and she remembered how cold she’d been, how the baby—The fall was her fault. Her baby would have lived except for her need to start a daily routine, to feed the birds. Her voice was rusty, thin and seemed to come from someone else. “They decided to spend the night in a resort hotel.”

It wasn’t true. Her baby was still…The pain slapped at her, no worse than her grief, her heart and body crying for that little, precious life.

“Tell me what to do,” Gabriel repeated softly, firmly. “You need attention.”

Tiredly, without emotion, her voice coming from far away, she instructed Gabriel how to help her. He drew off her soiled clothing, replacing her pajamas with a warm soft flannel shirt and nothing else. In her grief, she felt no shame. Gabriel spoke to her softly, soothingly, his manner impersonal as he changed her toweling and lifted her hips. His callused hand laid on her forehead, anchoring her as she grieved. “I will bring your son to you. Do you want to see him?”

“Yes,” she whispered, the emptiness of her womb aching. She wanted just one moment before the doctor arrived and officially declared the medical reality. How could this tiny, perfect life be torn from her? Oh, my little baby—

Gabriel had cleansed her baby, holding the tiny body close against him. “His father will want to know. Do you want me to call him?”

“No! My baby is mine alone.” She couldn’t bear to share anything of her baby with the man who didn’t want him. She met Gabriel’s frown and the truth tore from her. “I’m not married. Scott couldn’t bear the thought of marriage or children. The changes in my body repulsed him. He tried not to show it, but he couldn’t bear to touch me. I couldn’t bear the thought of a baby raised by a father who resented being trapped. I came home to Freedom Valley to keep my baby safe—”

She tugged the wedding band she’d purchased from her finger, hurling it against the wall. It bounced and fell, rolling across the floor as empty as her life now.

She tensed as Gabriel sat, holding the tiny baby close and safe against him. “He’s a fine son. A man would be honored to know that you carried his child.”

Miranda turned her face away from the tender sight. Gabriel was a man meant to hold and love children; he wouldn’t understand Scott’s fear.

“A fine son…For a man’s blood to continue gives him greatness. To have a woman give him such a child is a treasure most men would honor. I have longed for a son, or a daughter,” he added as a gentle afterthought. “My arms need a child in them. I know this in my heart, but yet I cannot—”

She turned suddenly to him, rage and pain searing her. She didn’t hide her torment from Gabriel, a man she’d known all her life. Tossed by her emotions, she was angry with him, for tearing them apart. Gabriel would have been a perfect father and yet he hadn’t wanted her, either. “Did you hear me? Scott did not want me, or my baby.”

“Who do you grieve for—yourself, or your child?” The quiet, thoughtful challenge took her back and she turned away again. “A woman carrying a child is beautiful. I thought at the wedding how you glowed, how you seemed to have the sunlight inside you.”

Gabriel pushed away the rage within him. How could any man not be at the side of the woman carrying his child? Yet he forced himself to calm, for Miranda was too pale and vulnerable now. Her eyes were shadowed, dark circles beneath them. Her mouth quivered, those beautiful eyes brimming with tears and the pulse in her throat beating heavily with emotion. She held her child for a while, and then he eased it away.

She looked outside at the snowstorm, too silent, her grief etched in her pale features, the tears dripping from her cheeks. “I don’t blame Scott. He was as surprised at his reaction as I was.”

Gabriel damned the weakness of her lover. Holding him blameless, she must still love him. Perhaps she wanted him still, wishing for him to come claim her. Gabriel pushed away that slight, unexpected burn of jealousy; Miranda needed his strength now. “Your mother would want you here, Miranda. Can you feel her?”

“Yes,” she said tiredly. “I can. I hurt, Gabriel. Every part of me and I feel so empty and so cold.”

“You’re badly bruised, Miranda. You must have fallen from the top step, and you were lying in the snow for a time. The cold probably slowed the loss of blood.” Gabriel inhaled sharply. He placed his hand over her forehead, testing its warmth, and then he took her pulse. “I’m going to call the doctor to see what else I can do. Then would you like me to lie with you, to hold you?”

In her pain, she’d lost all sense of modesty and she was feeling too weak, too vulnerable now. Where was the strong controlled woman she’d always been, always—? Now she only felt the need for life. “Just for a little bit. I need to feel—a heartbeat other than mine.”

Miranda gave herself to the warmth of Gabriel’s gentle hands and voice and when he settled beside her, she slid off into a welcoming darkness. Then someone was shaking her lightly, and Gabriel was bending over her, cupping her face with his big, callused hands. His voice was low and urgent. “Miranda, listen to me. The doctor is almost here. Will you trust me? I am only thinking of you now and your baby and of your mother. I want to smooth this road for you.”

She shook her head, unwilling to agree to anything but the truth. Then Gabriel took her hand, wrapping it in his warm, strong one. “It is in my heart to protect you and your baby. Do you trust me?”

His eyes were kind and concerned and she had nowhere else to go, nothing—She gripped his hand, nodded slowly and slid back into sleep.

Gabriel. Through a window in her mother’s house, Miranda watched the birds feed outside, gay in the dazzling midmorning light. Gabriel had been in the ambulance with her, staying in the small room at Freedom’s clinic with her. “She carried my baby,” she’d heard him say. “A fine son…. We had an argument and were working on our problems….”

The elderly nurse, Sarah, had been a friend of Anna’s and hadn’t spared Gabriel in her searing denouncement of “irresponsible males.” He’d nodded solemnly, taking the tongue-lashing without comment. “I see she’s not wearing her ring. She probably only purchased it to prevent gossip about her baby. Women have a sense of honor, even if some men do not,” Sarah had stated pointedly.

Gabriel’s plan was so old-fashioned, Miranda mused, giving his protection to her. Yet just then, she’d needed someone to lean on, the months of struggling with her failure—her misplaced trust in a man frightened so badly by marriage and children—and it was only too easy to let Gabriel handle everything. While the Bennetts were well respected in Freedom, Miranda didn’t feel like explaining her past life, or the reason she was in Freedom now, without a husband. With Gabriel, Tanner and Kylie’s solid fronts, she was well insulated against those who would gossip.

As the birds outside flitted around the feeders, swooping to the snow to pick at the fallen seeds, she pushed away the teardrop on her cheek. She was weak and uncomfortable and grieving and she didn’t like herself now.

How could she have been so wrong about Scott? He’d been the perfect companion, a friend.

Why hadn’t she been more careful that morning?

Miranda traced the window, mid-January’s temperatures icy upon her fingertip. How strange that Tanner and Kylie would agree that Gabriel’s plan was good for her. She shook her head. She was usually so strong and in control and now she seemed without an anchor. Miranda ran her cold fingertip across the tiny fresh scar on her forehead. The doctor’s words of two weeks ago kept running through her mind. “A slight concussion…A premature delivery…”

She scrubbed her hands across her face and knew that she had to do something, anything to reclaim herself. Miranda suddenly closed her eyes. How could she reclaim herself when every time she saw Gwyneth’s softly rounded body, she thought of…?

Her mother’s house seemed so empty now, her crocheting basket just as she left it. A smoothly worn hook was still poised in the loop of white thread and anchored into the large spool. The image seemed symbolic, for Miranda was held in a moment of her life, unable to move on. She placed her hand over the spool of crochet thread, the hook and the half-finished doily. Her hand drifted across her body and she forced it to lift away from the emptiness. She had to go on, to make a life, and stop worrying Tanner and Kylie. Miranda inhaled the scent of her mother’s lemon and beeswax furniture oil, and knew it was time to get to work. Her mother’s pantry was a perfect place to start.

Kylie and Gwyneth could not empty Anna’s canning jars, the green beans lined carefully on the shelf. After the thin years of widowhood and bringing up three children alone, Anna wouldn’t have liked the waste. But she’d kept a tight eye on dated foodstuffs and the labels proved that the filled jars were past due. Tying on Anna’s big work apron over her sweater and jeans, Miranda set out to clean her mother’s pantry.

Tanner and Kylie and she had agreed months after Anna’s accident that they would return to separate her things. Yet everything, except for the absence of Kylie’s hope chest, was the same. Miranda inhaled slowly; the house couldn’t remain as it was forever. Nothing was forever…. Kylie and Tanner were deep in their own lives, in the families that would come. She had to have a purpose—she’d always had goals, living her life by fulfilling them—and now she had nothing but her mother’s pantry.

Gabriel shoveled the new snow in the driveway and then worked his way up Anna’s walkway. He carefully cleaned the front steps and then circled the house, noting the light in the kitchen. After Miranda’s family returned, he had eased away, letting them comfort her. But her eyes filled with pain at the sight of Gwyneth’s rounded belly, and he knew that the healing would be long and painful. From others, he knew that Miranda hadn’t left her mother’s house.

Perhaps she mourned the man who couldn’t bear the shackles of marriage or children. Perhaps she waited for him to come to her. It wasn’t Gabriel’s place to stay with her, but he came down from the mountains every two days, trekking the first bit with his snowshoes to shovel snow and tidy the limbs broken by the snow’s weight. Miranda’s car, a compact hatchback wagon, hadn’t left Anna’s driveway. The only marks were those by the Boat Shop, the building near Anna’s house where Tanner fashioned custom-made wooden boats. Emotionally stripped, Miranda hadn’t changed from the silent shadow of herself, and Gabriel wondered how she would react to his offer.

Was it for her welfare, or his own? Was he being selfish? Wanting to care for her, to be with her a little longer, before she left again?

To be truthful, Gabriel admitted to himself, the offer he would propose to Miranda suited his own needs to be close to her, to cherish her.

She didn’t want to answer the quiet firm knock at the back porch door. One look through the window and she recognized Gabriel’s height and broad shoulders. He’d come to shovel snow before, leaving as silently as he came. Wearily she opened the door to him. He’d seen everything, knew the ugly truth about a man who couldn’t bear to look at her. But courtesy in her mother’s house had always been observed. Those watchful black eyes traced the circles beneath her eyes, her pale coloring, and the large dampened apron. He knew too much for her to deny her mental state; she felt as if he could see into her mind, the storms battering and draining her. “So I’m depressed. It happens. I’ll deal with it. Come in.”

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.”