Chapter Twenty-Two
Twenty-Two
Do you think Mr. Whitfield would ever want a little boy?
Jubal’s question stopped Gabe on the threshold, causing Finn to plow into him from behind, and the emotions that struck him like a runaway train were too complicated to sort out, beyond the strange mingling of hope and—what? Sorrow? Regret?
Lizbet was standing across the room, and when their gazes met, Gabe saw sympathy in her eyes, and what might have been a silent apology.
“Supper’s ready,” she said aloud. “Come in, both of you, and get warm.”
Come in—get warm...
There was something singularly comforting about those words, probably because he hadn’t heard them in so long, not in his own house, anyhow. Ornetta had often greeted him that way when he had cause to stop by her place, but that was different.
This greeting felt, well—intimate—though Lizbet probably hadn’t intended that.
Gabe stepped aside so Finn could enter, fumbled with the buttons on his heavy work coat, then remembered to take his gloves off. But he didn’t speak.
He was too busy taking in the steamy, welcoming atmosphere of the kitchen, the aroma of venison stew and biscuits just about ready to come out of the oven, the scent of hot coffee, freshly brewed.
It was all such a change from the way he’d been living before, alone, except for Hector, that for a moment or so, he was almost overpowered by the change.
Here, in the kitchen of a house that had been so cold and so hollow for so long, were two hopeful children, faces flushed with anticipation. They’d been there since yesterday, of course, but seeing them now, watching him with wide, eager eyes, seemed new somehow, and definitely profound.
Finn broke the loaded silence with a light elbow jab to Gabe’s rib cage. “Come to your senses,” the younger man chided. “And get out of my way. If you don’t want to eat the delicious meal this lady has so kindly prepared, I do .” He gave Lizbet a mischievous wink.
Gabe resented that wink, and he knew why, though he wouldn’t have admitted as much to anyone.
It was hard enough to admit to himself , but he felt strangely territorial where Lizbet was concerned, which was crazy, because whatever the gossips were saying, he had no claim on her, be it sinful or pure as morning dew.
“There’s warm water to wash up in,” Lizbet spouted, and then looked mildly embarrassed, as though she’d said something ridiculous instead of perfectly practical.
Gabe was still silent as he hung up his coat and hat and moved toward the sink, where the promised warm water awaited, along with towels and a bar of the strong soap required to get a farmer’s hands clean after a day of work.
He was still a little off-balance as the boy’s words echoed not only in his head, but in his heart.
Did he want a son? Another daughter?
Yes, he did, and no, he didn’t, God help him.
Frankie and Jubal were precious children, bright and precocious and unique, each in their own right.
Any man would be proud to claim them—any man, that is, besides William Keller, their actual father—and Gabe included himself in that number, even though it landed what felt like the kick of a mule to his midsection.
And that kick was guilt, he knew that.
Guilt because he wanted more children, all of a sudden, not just Frankie and Jubal, but others as well. And that felt like a betrayal of his sweet little Abigail—and of her mother, too.
He and Bonnie had planned on a large family.
So Gabe bumbled and fumbled his way through the rest of the evening, consuming several helpings of stew and half a dozen hot, buttered biscuits, saying little.
Finn, as was his way, took up the slack.
He was full of questions for the children—What did they think St. Nicholas would bring them when he made his rounds on Christmas Eve?
Were they planning to hang up their stockings, the way he and Gabe used to do, when they were small?
Would they help him bring the baubles and ornaments down from the attic and decorate that very fine tree?
Gabe listened and felt his heart opening more and more, as he was finally able to hope Finn would stay this time. Find himself a wife, build himself a house, a project he, Gabe, would gladly help with.
He thought of the dollhouse for Frankie, hidden in his room, along with the sturdy sled he and John had made for Jubal, Gabe fashioning the base from richly scented pine, John shaping the sleek iron runners that would make the toy fly down hills.
He thought, too, of the delicate jewelry box he had been putting together as a gift for Lizbet, and wondered if he should give it to her after all. He was proud of it, and he’d crafted it carefully, but suppose she construed it as a romantic gesture of some sort?
Maybe it would be best to leave the jewelry box where it was, not quite finished, out in the barn, needing only hinges and a catch. He’d already varnished it to a high shine.
Gabe wasn’t ready to make any kind of statement, as fond of Lizbet as he was—and, yes, as attracted to her as he was—and with good reason. He knew Lizbet felt something for him, and he didn’t want to raise false hopes.
That would be both dishonest and cruel.
And so, when the meal had ended and Lizbet had insisted on clearing away the after-supper mess and then herded two protesting little ones upstairs to read them a chapter of Tom Sawyer before bed, Gabe lingered at the kitchen table with Finn, who was watching him with a kind of amused curiosity—and mild accusation.
“What’s the matter with you, Gabe?” he asked forthrightly. “That woman must have spent hours spit-shining the place and making the best supper I’ve had in years, and you hardly said a word to her.”
“I’m tired, that’s all,” Gabe said. It was the truth, but it wasn’t the whole truth, and Finn clearly knew that.
Finn. There was another puzzle. For a while, he’d seemed to be a rascal and a waster, born to wander, but it seemed he’d changed. Or maybe he’d simply grown up.
In any case, he was good to the children, good to Lizbet. What had happened since the last time Gabe had seen him, almost five years before, that had turned him around?
Had he really given up the mining idea? Or was he simply biding his time?
“You’re wondering what I’m up to,” Finn said, briefly narrowing his eyes.
They hadn’t talked about their argument, that first night.
“You’ve had dealings with Henry Middlebrook—you even stayed at least one night in his house. And you must have wanted to sell him the right to strip these hills and fields and pastures bare, looking for silver at one point. How do I know you’ve really changed your mind?”
Finn sighed, spread his hands. “I guess it looks pretty bad,” he admitted. “But the fact is, I’m not so different from you as you think I am. I’d like to find a woman like Lizbet, for one thing, and marry her while the marrying was good.”
Knowing he shouldn’t, Gabe got up from his chair without answering, went to the stove and refilled his coffee mug. At this rate, he wouldn’t close his eyes before the sun came up, let alone get the good night’s sleep he sorely needed.
Digging up that tree had been a two-man job, and Gabe had sweated through his woolen shirt, even though the weather had been frigid.
His entire body throbbed with an ache he knew only a scalding hot bath would ease, and how was he going to manage that, with two children and a respectable woman in the house?
Tomorrow, he reflected, would be just as difficult.
They’d have to cut a barrel in half to hold the tree and fill it with enough dirt to keep it upright, and they would have to dig down to that dirt through the snow, then hack at the ground with picks until they had enough soil to fill the improvised pot.
Once they’d trimmed the roots of the tree, being breath-holdingly careful not to cut away too much, they’d have to hoist the spruce into the half barrel and pack cold dirt in around it, enough to make it keep the thing alive and steady.
And that was the easy part of the job.
Lugging the whole works through the house and then on into the parlor was a job for a mule team, not a pair of ordinary men.
“Were you listening to what I just said?” Finn finally demanded, as Gabe returned to the table with his coffee and his heavy thoughts.
“Yeah,” Gabe answered rather brusquely. “You said your association with Middlebrook must look pretty bad. That’s an understatement, brother.”
“I just wanted to get a rise out of you, and I did,” Finn said, and there was a note of chagrin in his voice. “You’re my brother, Gabe, the only kin I’ve got left, and I want things to be the way they were before.”
“What way was that?” Gabe asked, sounding less interested in the reply than he really was. Pain in the hind end that Finn had been at times, Gabe had missed him.
Missed laughing with him, talking with him. Missed the impromptu horse races over country roads, even the hard work of maintaining a farm, easier because it was shared.
So, it would seem, he, Gabe, already knew the answer to his own question.
“For all that people look up to you for your strength and your kind ways, Gabe, you can be one hard-assed son of a gun. You make up your mind about somebody or something and there’s no changing it.”
Gabe look a measured sip of his coffee, mostly to stall. Behind his facade, he was enjoying the exchange.
In fact, he welcomed it.
Welcomed Finn.
Besides, Finn was at least partly right about him. He had a will of iron, and when he made a decision, it was hard to undo, even though it had been his own.
Even Bonnie, who had loved him with her entire being, had sometimes found him hard to understand—or to reason with.
He wasn’t especially proud of the quality, but it had served him well in many ways, and he was fairly certain he wouldn’t have lived through losing Bonnie and Abigail without it.
No, he had never considered taking his own life, but only because he knew he couldn’t do such a thing to the people who cared about him, like John Avery and Ornetta.
Hell, he couldn’t have done that to Hector.
So his own strength had held him upright through the hardest part of his life so far. Without it, he might simply crumble and stop living, die of weariness and sorrow, all without putting a gun to his head or looping a noose around his neck.
“Sometimes,” Finn ventured mildly, and it was almost as if he could read Gabe’s mind as his words unfolded, one into the next, “a man just needs to let himself fall apart. Yell and weep and shake his fist at the sky. Tell God just exactly what he thinks of Him.”
Something inside Gabe yearned to do all that, and more, but there it was, in the way—his own need to steel himself, to maintain control.
He was afraid, he realized— afraid— scared to love again, scared to trust the fates, scared to risk more pain, no matter how great the reward in question.
And that, of course, was nothing but plain old cowardice.
Shamed by this realization, Gabe took refuge in skepticism. “You sound as though you speak from experience,” he allowed, though his delivery was almost mocking.
“Maybe I do,” Finn said, very quietly.
That statement came out of left field, and it undermined Gabe’s certainty of his own convictions about who and what his brother was.
The feeling was not a good one.
“How so?” he asked, with an easiness he didn’t feel.
Finn sighed, linked his fingers together, bent his head for what appeared to be a long period of reflection. When he looked up, the usual mischievous glint in his eyes had turned to sadness.
“You know why I didn’t come home when Bonnie and Abigail died?” he asked, and there were tears gleaming in his eyes. “Because I took sick, Gabe. Came down with tuberculosis and spent better than two years of my life in a sanatorium, waiting for my lungs to heal.”
Gabe leaned back in his chair, as though he’d been slapped, hard. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Finn answered without hesitation, and grimly. “You were already furious with me for not sticking around to help out. And not so long after that, you were so torn up about what happened to Bonnie and Abigail, you didn’t need another load to carry.”
Gabe felt his temper rise a little. “Damn it, Finn, I’m your brother. I would have come and fetched you, so you could recover at home.”
Finn shrugged his shoulders, a weary gesture.
Like Gabe, he was physically exhausted, and almost spent in other ways, too.
“That’s exactly what I wanted to avoid,” he said.
“Anyway, all that’s behind us now,” he replied.
“But I will say this, Big Brother—you’re a damn fool if you don’t open your eyes to what’s right in front of you—a woman who loves you and two children who need a father. ”
Alas, another man might have been drawn toward the promise of a new life, a fresh start.
The fear was upon him in a moment, crushing him beneath its darkness and its weight.
Instead of stepping into the light, as he knew he should, Gabe Whitfield withdrew into the deepest part of himself, and slowly, methodically began rebuilding the defenses Finn had so nearly breached.