Gabe
He sat on a rotting stump, half-melted snow soaking into the seat of his pants, and stared down at the object in his hands, feeling powerfully stupid. He hadn't ever felt this stupid before. Ungainly, yes. Clumsy, yes. Rough and gruff, loud and hard, uncreative and unfeeling... all those things, yes. But stupid? No, she hadn't ever made him feel stupid. Katherine's daughter was a charmer, through and through. Next to her, he felt oafish and unnecessary. But she was also utterly kind. Her faith was a balm like nothing he'd ever experienced. She'd never made him feel stupid.
All that was going to change today, he thought, glaring at the brown-paper-wrapped bundle. What did a man give a little girl for her sixth birthday? Certainly there was no way to say everything he needed to say, with just a stupid gift. 'I love your mother. I would cut out my heart to make you my own. I miss you both like hell. Please invite me to every birthday you have from now until the day I die.'
If there was a way to say it all, it certainly wasn't with this-- a stupid book and a cut-glass, plated silver bracelet. A twirl of blue satin ribbon and a scratchy wool knit cap.
Stupid.
He'd picked the objects at random, in a half-blind panic. Buying jewelry was no oddity. He was always picking things up for the girls. The hat and ribbon just as easily could have been for them, and blended well with his other purchases-- lengths of fabric for dresses and ten dollars' worth of costume jewelry. Sapphires and rubies and opals-- as fake as the passion they screamed for the sake of their clients' pride.
The book he could never have explained away. There were no children at Vivian's Saloon and therefore no reason for him to be buying a book for a child. No, the book was a hand-me-down, one of three his mother had read to him when he was a boy. He'd picked this one for the adventure of it, thinking that was something Isobel might enjoy. Just as much, he thought her mother might enjoy reading it to her. He knew the Katherine he'd fallen for was long buried by the hell she had survived, but the adventuresome girl was still inside her somewhere. Perhaps she'd never see the light again, but she was still present enough to enjoy a good story, he was sure.
Even so, it was a stupid gift. Josh and Amelia had plenty of books for them to borrow, and Robinson Crusoe was undoubtedly among them.
Rising with a sigh, he fought the urge to hurl the gift into the woods, leap onto Reaper's back, and flee back the way he'd come. That urge was why he'd stopped in the first place. Why he'd hauled his horse to a standstill and yanked the parcel from the saddlebags and stalked into the woods to sit and do battle with his desire to turn tail and run. He'd never thought he would see them again, after the day he had dropped them off. Months later, he had resigned himself to a life without them. As much as their absence hurt, being invited so casually back into their lives felt somehow worse-- like he'd been galloping full tilt and Reaper had suddenly stopped and now he was flying... flying through the air, just waiting to crash into the unforgiving ground.
He'd bring the gift, say hello, and leave before he could do any harm. He'd stay just long enough to fulfill his word, and then he'd flee. If it was just about Isobel, he would plan to stay longer, but it wasn't. It was Katherine. Katherine, who was healing and finding happiness and didn't need a sour reminder of the evil she'd endured. Katherine, whose fear of him was harder to bear than anything else this life had handed him.
Shoving the gift into the saddle bag, he swung back up onto Reaper's back and nudged the fidgeting horse with his heels. They powered through the thin layer of fresh powder, hooves crunching through the inch of old snow beneath it. Late fall in these parts might as well be winter for the harsh chill in the air and the flurries that muffled the earth in mottled white. Little sprigs of grass and mounds of mud protruded from the unearthly purity of the snow. It would be another month yet before all but the tallest shoots of brush and grass were buried.
Gabe hated the cold. His body had long since adjusted, but he wasn't like the folks who came from the hills. Men like Josh, who raised bare faces to a driving wind and breathed deep like the cold sustained them. Women like Katherine who danced through the snow with rosy cheeks and ice-caked hair, hurling snowballs and building caves out of hard-packed mounds of snowdrift.
Did she still do that?
Likely not.
In any event, Gabe was not like the men and women who called this place home. He was a child of heat and blasting sand. His body grew accustomed to the long, cold darkness of the winter, but his mind never did. He hated the summer, but he ached for it nonetheless. An endless summer. Arid and warm.
None of the ranch hands bothered him when he rode onto the Tuckers' property. He was a common enough sight, worth a pause in work and a friendly wave and little more. Half of them knew him from the saloon, and the other half from the work he did for Josh when he had the time. He wouldn't go so far as to call any of them friends, but Josh trusted them and he trusted Josh. He had no choice but to believe they were good men.
After passing through the front gate-- a new construct of Amelia's design, all curving black wrought-iron with galloping wild horses artfully twisted from the narrow bars across the top-- it was another thirty minutes of hard riding to the secondary homestead. It looked much as it had the last time he'd ridden up, but cast into monochrome like a portrait photograph, the snow and cold having stolen all color from the quiet cabin. The delicate splashes of the flower garden had shriveled to grayish brown, the soft green grass hidden beneath a tattered blanket of white. Even the sky above was wan and grey.
It struck him as unfair that Isobel's birthday should come at such a wretched time of year. She deserved a summer birthday, like Rebecca, so she could swim and run around and pick wildflowers or whatever it was little girls did to celebrate. Or, better yet, a deep-of-winter birthday so she could charge through the snow like her mother and scream down hills on a toboggan. In any event, she deserved something more than this dreadful, greyscale chill.
He rode the rest of the way up the hill, irrationally disgruntled over the divine slight against his... what was she? His friend? Could a grown man be friends with a little girl? Likely not, least of all a man like him. The thought made him even more put out, and he'd worked himself into a deadly sour mood by the time he drew Reaper to a halt at the foot of the porch.
The front door opened the second his feet hit the ground, spilling yellow-orange warmth onto the porch. A happy squeal issued forth from the glowing maw of the doorway, and he looked up at the sound of running footsteps... just in time to see Josh come up behind the charging Isobel and scoop her into his arms. She giggled and squirmed in his grip, and Gabe had a powerful, irrational urge to slug his best friend in the stomach.
"Wait 'till he ties up the horse, Izzy," Josh laughed, setting the girl on her feet. "You don't want to get trampled, do you?"
"Mister Gabe won't let him trample me!" Isobel said with more blind faith than he had ever had cause to encounter. Even so, she stood still at Josh's side while Gabe tied Reaper to the hitch post. He fought not to look at her, because something strange happened inside his chest when he did. Something agonizing. Her satiny black hair was twisted into a neat braid and tied with a pink ribbon to match her spotless pink cotton dress, and why had he bought her a blue ribbon? A blue hat? She clearly preferred pink. What the hell had he been thinking?
"Mister Gabe, hurry," she urged, dancing on her feet as if she had to use the toilet. Stepping around the horse, he moved to the foot of the stairs just in time to catch her as she launched herself from the top step. She hit him square in the chest, and he wrapped his arms around her on instinct, stumbling to regain his footing. Little arms wrapped tight around his neck and squeezed until his vision swam with spots, and he had to fight the urge to squeeze her back. He knew no amount of time or distance would alter the way he felt for Katherine, but he had hoped a break from Isobel would quell this fierce, irrational need to keep her close.
"I missed you!" she exclaimed, pulling back and grinning up at him. She'd lost a tooth sometime in the last three months, and the gap in her grin twisted his own mouth into some unpracticed mockery of a smile.
"I missed you too," he said honestly. Perhaps it was her resemblance to Katherine, but he couldn't help but feel a sense of homecoming when he met her shining gaze.
"Well, you should have come sooner then," she said primly, tipping up her chin. "Ma says you were waiting for us to invite you but I invited you a long time ago, don't you remember?"
"Isobel..." The sigh drew his attention, and it was only then that he realized they had an audience. Shifting his gaze past Isobel, he saw Josh still standing on the porch, arms crossed over his chest and a pleased, smug smile on his face. At his arm was Amelia, wearing a similar amused expression. And on his other side...
All he had ever wanted was to make her smile. So how in the hell had he lost the ability to bring anything but tears to her eyes?
Katherine stood beside Josh, a healthy cushion of air between them. Her face was smooth and void of bruises, her eyes clear, her hair brushed to a glossy shine. She stood straight and strong, or at least he imagined she could stand straight and strong. As it was, her shoulders were slumped beneath some invisible weight, her eyes shining with unshed tears, expression warbling between fear and despair.
All because he was holding her daughter.
That sucking sensation of clumsy stupidity clawed at his insides. Stupid. So, so stupid. How had he believed, for even a second, that she would be ready to see him?
"I got you a present," he said around the aching lump in his throat, and winced at Isobel's squeal of delight. "Calm down," he said gruffly, shifting her onto a hip and turning his back on the porch and her mother's agonized expression. "It's not a very good present, so don't get your hopes up."
"All presents are good presents!" she exclaimed, fidgeting in his grasp. Clumsily, he pulled open the saddle bag with one hand and dug out the brown-wrapped bundle. He should have sprung for something colorful. Pink, maybe, since that was clearly her favorite color. But despite the drab presentation, she gasped as if he'd produced a wriggling puppy and clasped the lumpy package to her chest. "I love it," she breathed.
"You don't even know what's in it," he remarked, carrying her back to the stairs and setting her down on the top step.
"Can I open it now?" she asked, turning her attention up to her mother. Katherine looked no less anguished than she had before he turned away, but she swallowed down her displeasure with a wince and forced a smile for her daughter.
"You can open it later, with all the others. Go on, now, and add it to the pile."
There was a pile of presents? Good ones, no doubt. Josh and Amelia and Katherine all knew what little girls wanted for their birthdays. They'd probably wrapped their gifts in pink, shiny paper, too.
Isobel scampered off into the house, leaving him standing at the foot of the stairs, staring up at the three gatekeepers. Josh and Amelia still looked smug, but Katherine was deteriorating by the second. He could see her ragged grasp begin to slip right before she gasped out a choked, "I'm glad you could come," and fled into the house. His heart lurched and dropped like a cannonball into his stomach, and the Tuckers' faces fell from amusement to weary sadness.
"Reckon that's my cue," he joked, but his voice came out flat. "Don't suppose you could make something up to tell Isobel for me?" he asked Josh. "She'll be pretty ticked I took off so quick."
"Gabe..." Amelia sighed, but he shook his head.
"This was a bad idea," he said flatly. "She's not ready."
"She is ready," Amelia protested, stepping forward. "Give her a chance, Gabe. She's just frightened."
"And I make her more frightened," he bit out, glaring up at the two meddlers on the porch above him. "How in the hell is me being here supposed to help?"
"She needs to get out of her comfort zone. We--"
"I shouldn't be out of her comfort zone," he hissed through gritted teeth, wishing there was a way to make them understand. He had never been anything other than her friend. He had never felt any way about her than foolish, core-deep love. He wasn't an experiment to test her boundaries, dammit, he was the monster who guarded their perimeter. If he had to do that from the far side of her walls, then so be it. "Just make something up to tell Isobel," he repeated. "Please."
He turned and trudged through the snow back to Reaper, gritting his teeth when he heard heavy footsteps on the stairs behind him. A moment later, his friend appeared at his side just as the front door shut behind Amelia with a dull thud.
"At least come to the barn and water that poor horse," Josh said, clapping a hand on his shoulder. "Thaw out for a minute before you head back. I'll bring you some coffee from the house, alright?"
Gabe wanted to sock his friend right in the jaw-- for his sympathetic kindness, and for his pity. For the fact Josh was allowed to make his Isobel giggle and offer his Katherine comfort while Gabe couldn't even look at them without causing pain.
"We're fine," he growled, yanking the knot loose on Reaper's lead and drawing the rope from around the post with a snap. Reaper shifted anxiously, hypersensitive to his poor mood. Josh leveled a steady glare that made Gabe feel like a chastised child.
"You're acting a fool, Gabe. It's your God-given right to make yourself miserable, but I'll be damned if I let you ride off on one of my horses without giving him some water and feed."
Gabe rolled his eyes. "You know as well as I do this horse would rather run than lounge in a barn and eat hay."
Josh grinned and shrugged in defeat. "Just wait and let me bring you some coffee, would you? Amelia will have my hide if I don't act a proper host."
Gabe huffed out a humorless laugh and followed his friend into the warm, stuffy air of the barn. If he hadn't been in such a foul mood, he'd have admitted it felt glorious to be out of the chill. Josh left him after pointing him toward an empty stall with a full trough of water and fresh hay-- likely prepared for Reaper, with a longer stay in mind. Leaving the saddle on, he locked his horse in the stall and sank onto a stool to await Josh's return. He tried to turn his mind off-- to think of anything other than Katherine's fear and Isobel's excitement-- but their faces were all he could see.
When the barn door creaked open, he was already on his feet, dragging poor Reaper out of the stall.
"Thanks for the coffee, but I have to pass," he said without turning around to greet the rush of cold air that accompanied his friend's arrival. "I should get going and--"
"Gabe..."
The voice spun him around like a shove to the back, and he stared at the woman in the doorway. Her sky blue dress ruffled in the wind, her cheeks flushed and her hair tucked beneath a cream-colored knit cap. She shuffled booted feet nervously against the straw-strewn wooden floor, wringing her delicate hands and shifting her gaze from the wall to the floor to the open door behind her... everything but him.
"What are you doing out here?" he asked. "It's cold. You oughta be--"
"You can't leave," she blurted, her eyes darting to his for a fragile second before flitting away once more.
"Katherine," he sighed. "You know as well as I do that I shouldn't be here. It's just upsetting you."
"It's not about me," she snapped, not bothering to argue with the point he truly wished she'd refute. "Isobel misses you something awful. She thinks you don't like her anymore and that's why you haven't visited."
"What?" He stared at her, raw horror like a chill, creeping from his fingertips up into his chest. "That's ridiculous."
"Well, you're the one who told her you'd visit," she challenged, meeting his eye for another blessed second. For that stilted moment, he thought he could see a spark of his Katie in her gaze, but she looked away before he could blink.
"I thought she'd forget."
Katherine snorted, scuffing her toe against the floor and crossing her arms over her chest. "She's not likely to forget you, Gabe," she said, her voice a warbling half-whisper. "Please just come inside."
"I can't, Katie," he breathed, slumping back against the stall door, suddenly exhausted by it all. Of course, what he wanted more than anything was to have them back, but with that option so clearly beyond possibility, all he wanted was to be left the hell alone.
"Why?"
"You know why," he grated out. "I'm not going to sit in there and watch you cringe every time I glance your way."
"Please," she whimpered, shaking her head hard. She looked up and he saw the tears in her eyes, the pinched set of her mouth. "Please, don't. Don't blame me for this, Gabe. Just come inside."
"Blame you?" he breathed, shoving off the stall door. She flinched and stepped back, and he had to fight not to scream. "Sweetheart, you know I don't blame you for a damned thing. I could no more blame you for any of this than I could forgive that rat bastard who did this to you. None of this is your fault."
"You're leaving because of me," she challenged, swiping at her tears as she fought to lift her chin. He could see how badly she wanted to cower, but she did battle with herself, and this ragged approximation of defiance made him want to pick her up and spin her around. Kiss her hard.
"I'm leaving because of me," he corrected gently. He wanted to snap at her. Yell at her. He wanted to fly with her into one of those noisy, laughing fights they used to have when they were young. He wanted to call her a pain in the ass and hear her call him a no good foolish jerk.
"That makes no sense," she sighed.
"Listen, Katie." He sank back onto his stool and leaned against the wall behind him. Maybe if he was sitting she wouldn't feel so threatened. "It's Isobel's birthday. Today should be an easy, happy day for the both of you. All I'll do is make things awkward."
"Isobel wants you here," she said stubbornly.
"Do you?"
Her face flushed, and if he didn't know better he'd say she was getting angry. Good.
"This isn't about me, Gabriel!" she hissed. "It doesn't matter what I want!"
"The hell it doesn't!" He shot off the stool, and she took another step back, swallowing hard, her hands dropping to her sides and clenching into fists. The reaction speared through him like a volley of jagged arrows, but he didn't let it slow him. "That's exactly what I'm talking about, Katherine! How do you expect me to stay around when you can't even look at me without flinching?"
"See!" she exclaimed, regaining her composure and glaring up at him. Her eyes ignited-- a pitiful, weak shower of sparks that died as soon as they flared to life. "It is my fault! Stop lying to me!"
"It is not your fault!"
"It is, and I'm tired of it! I'm tired of feeling guilty! Just come into the house and eat some cake, darn you!"
With Katherine, even a vanilla approximation of cursing was a statement, and her words made him stumble, forgetting his own frustration. Her chest heaved, and he wanted nothing more than to pull her to him and kiss those rose-red lips. Feel the thrum of her heart against his own ribs. He wanted to remember what it felt like to hold her, healthy and whole and full of fire.
He fought back the rush of desire, and it washed out of him like a flood washed through the sandy plains of the desert. It took everything with it, leaving nothing but cracked, barren earth and wasted scraps of something that might once have resembled life.
"What do you want me to do, Katherine?" he asked, pushing slowly to his feet and crossing his arms over his chest.
She stared up at him, and he felt as if he towered over her. Like a grizzly, standing on its hind legs and glowering down at a squirrel.
"I want you to stay," she said, and he knew she was lying, but he was beginning to suspect that accepting the lie would hurt her less than demanding the truth.
He stared at her. She stared at him. A thousand words passed between them, above them-- the silent, screaming glide of a hawk on a whirlwind current.
"I'll stay for an hour," he said, sliding the stall door shut and locking Reaper in with his water and his feed. When he turned around, Katherine's lips drew together in a tight, make-believe smile.
"That will make Isobel very happy," she answered primly, hugging her arms across her chest. The door was still open behind her, and it was beginning to flurry outside. Swirls of light flakes danced in eddies of air, brushing across the floor around their feet. She shivered, the light shawl around her shoulders a pitiful guard against the chill. His fingers twitched at his sides with his longing to go to her. Hold her. Shield her. Carry her away to someplace warm.
He didn't answer her, too busy tamping down the flashfire of errant need. Maybe his mother was right.
"When are you going to let this girl go, Gabriel?"
He was a damned fool for hanging on as long as he had. It was bad for both of them. Not that it was ever a choice. He was hopeless, his hands a rictus, locked around the fragile line between them. He'd die with that line in his grasp, likely with little more than a memory weighing down the other end.
In silence, they walked together across the crunchy, fragile snow of the yard, wind whipping at their clothing and carrying the scent of her across the void. Their footsteps echoed on the worn wooden steps and across the porch-- his slow and heavy, hers light and quick. The door creaked open, laughter and a litany of voices spilling out with the warmth and the yellow glow. So many sounds in the silence.
Isobel tore around the corner just as he was hanging his coat on a peg in the mudroom. She hit him like a bullet, never giving him a choice but to catch her. With Isobel's weight in his arms and her mother's fidgety presence behind him, he followed the sounds of gentle revelry deeper into the house. He passed the sitting room, and the pile of presents beneath a window. Passed the kitchen, overflowing with the scent of sweets, a large cake sitting proudly in the center of the table, decorated in fluffy white buttercream.
They found the party in the dining room-- a recent addition to the ever-growing little homestead. Streamers made of scrap fabric hung from the ceiling, and the adults sat around the table in various states of repose, laughing and sipping on glasses of wine.
"Mister Gabe is here!" Isobel announced proudly, as if she had gone and fetched him herself. "He's here because it's my birthday!" she told Rebecca, who greeted him with a wave and a smile and not much interest. When he sat, Isobel remained in his lap, one small hand locked around his wrist like she knew how desperately he wanted to leave. Knew how badly he wished he could stay.
Through it all, Katherine hovered. Paralyzed and speechless. Eyes darting here and there, breath coming too fast, hands clenched with white knuckles in her lap. The party dragged on. Wax dripped down over the candlesticks in the wrought-iron centerpiece, and the array of snacks dwindled from the copper platters that littered the table. Crackers and cheese, deviled eggs, shelled pecans, round, shiny bread rolls and fresh-churned yellow butter... He couldn't bring himself to touch a morsel. Time lurched and stalled, stumbling into a dead sprint whenever Isobel gestured him close to whisper some secret in his ear. Slamming to a slogging crawl whenever his eyes drifted to her mother and saw the wary discomfort written into the tense lines of her body. He wanted to leave. He wanted to stay. He wanted her tight at his side. He wanted her running free. His stomach roiled-- hunger or nausea? His chest ached-- joy or despair? His head pounded-- love or frustration?
When he was certain his hour was up, his obligation finished, he tried to be subtle as he reached into his pocket. He was already planning his farewell excuses when his fingers closed around the cool, nicked brass of his watch.
"Gotta stop in town on my way back... need to get home before dark... looks like a storm's coming in..."
Isobel was distracted by some story Amelia was telling, but Katherine's eyes followed his hand as he pulled the watch out and flipped it open. Some of the tension left her shoulders, her relief as palpable to him as his own, and his urge to run grew even stronger, louder in his ears. He'd probably already overstayed his hour. It felt like two had passed. An hour and a half at the least. He glanced down at the watch, blinking at the tiny hands when he saw how much time had elapsed...
Seventeen minutes.
He wasn't even halfway there.