Chapter Seven #2
There was still an element of loneliness in the idea, but Hector would be there, curled up at his feet, loyal dog that he was, and there was some comfort in that.
Half an hour later, they were back home, he and Hector, taking care of the end-of-the-day chores.
Gabe couldn’t stop thinking about Lizbet Fontaine and the children; they were so vulnerable, all three of them.
He wanted to step in, help out somehow, but he had no idea what to do.
He was feeding the horses and old Lucy, the milkless cow, when Hector let out a sharp bark and raced out of the barn.
It took Gabe a moment to register the chortling approach of a motorcar.
Since there was only one of those in or near the town of Silver Hills, he knew the call wasn’t likely to be a friendly one, like Doc Gannon’s visit earlier in the day.
Henry Middlebrook sat behind the wheel of his ModelT, belly bulging at the buttons of his fine waistcoat, dusty goggles lending him the appearance of a strange undersea creature scanning for prey.
Gabe swallowed an unaccountable burst of laughter and approached the vehicle, stood a few feet from Henry’s door, arms folded, and waited.
Huffily, Henry removed the goggles, revealing white circles of clean skin surrounding his eyes, while the rest of his face, whiskers included, was grimy. “You stopped by Ornetta Parkin’s place today,” the old man said, with an accusing note in his voice.
Gabe shrugged slightly. “So I did,” he replied. “Do you have a problem with that, Henry?”
Henry’s chest puffed out, and he looked so much like a blowfish that Gabe almost expected bubbles to pop out of his mouth and float toward the sky.
Again, laughter rose into the back of his throat, but he didn’t let it out.
“You are to stay away from Lizbet Fontaine,” said Henry.
“Why’s that?” Gabe asked lightly. “You giving the orders now, Henry?”
“Because she is mine,” Henry blustered. “I have an arrangement with her stepfather and it will be honored!”
Gabe nearly rolled his eyes. “This is the United States, Henry, not medieval England or ancient Rome. These days, if you want a woman, you have to come to an agreement with her , not her stepfather or anybody else.”
“She doesn’t know what’s good for her!” blustered Henry.
“I can offer her everything —money, a grand home, travel—” Here, he paused, lip curled, pointedly taking in the house, the barn, the other outbuildings.
“Sooner or later, she’ll realize that.” A pause.
“I’m telling you to leave her be or suffer the consequences. ”
Not for the first time, Gabe was glad that the farm wasn’t encumbered by a mortgage, like many of its neighbors. If it had been, this devious old banker might have had something to hold over his head.
He’d seen the old tyrant, when affronted, call in loans out of sheer meanness, closing businesses, putting families off their farms and ranches or out of their modest house in town.
Gabe wondered how the man could sleep at night.
“Send that dog away,” Henry barked, puffing up again, before Gabe could reply to his warning. “If it comes after me, I’ll shoot it.”
“You don’t want to shoot my dog, Henry,” Gabe said, in a tone so reasonable that it probably chapped the old man’s hide. “You really and truly do not want to make that mistake.”
“Are you threatening me, Whitfield?”
“I’m not the one who mentioned shooting the dog,” Gabe replied evenly, calmly.
Hector, the subject of recent conversation, sat at Gabe’s side now, hackles raised, teeth bared. A low, ominous growl rumbled from his throat.
“You’ll stay clear of Lizbet Fontaine?” Henry’s manner was still obstinate, but he’d lost some of his bluster. He reminded Gabe of a hot air balloon with a slow leak.
“Because you ordered me to?” Gabe asked. “Absolutely not.”
Henry inflated again in the space of a moment, turned so red behind his mask of dirt that Gabe almost expected his elegant big-city hat to rise three inches from his skull on a blast of steam, like in the funny papers.
“I’ll say it again,” he managed, when he’d regained a modicum of control.
“I plan to make Miss Fontaine my wife, so stay away from her. There are firm agreements in place. Have I made myself clear?”
“Only too clear,” Gabe replied, feeling his own temper stir at long last. His fists were bunched, and the core of his body was clenched, braced for battle.
“Lizbet doesn’t want to marry you, Henry.
That’s what’s clear, given that, according to Ornetta, she and the children came to the boarding house to get away from you. ”
“She’ll see reason eventually,” Henry said, though not with the same confidence he’d shown before. “It’s only a matter of time.”
“ You are the one who needs to see reason,” Gabe told him quietly.
“You’re old enough to be her grandfather, for one thing, and you’re mean as a snake for another.
Quit while you’re ahead, Henry—stop going after young women and find one your own age.
” A pause. “If you can. I don’t reckon any of them would want you, either. ”
Henry glowered. His goggles had been hanging around his neck; now he tugged them back over his eyes with a furious motion of one hand. Since he hadn’t bothered to wipe them off first, they were still coated with grime. “I warned you,” he said.
The Model T was still running, and that was too bad, because Gabe would have enjoyed watching Henry cranking the contraption in order to start the thing up.
With a grand flourish, Henry made a dramatic three-point turn and drove away.
Gabe, watching him go, let out a long sigh of resignation.
For the first time in more than three years, the woman who filled his thoughts in those moments wasn’t Bonnie.
It was Lizbet.
The old coot’s threats notwithstanding, Gabe wasn’t afraid for himself. As far as he was concerned, the worst thing that could happen to him—the deaths of his wife and daughter—already had.
Lizbet, on the other hand, was in a unique kind of danger.
Henry Middlebrook wasn’t a man who allowed himself to fail—when he did, he denied it—and he was obviously hell-bent on making Lizbet his wife.
God help her.