29. Gabriel #2
“She stood her ground anyway.” He looks toward the house, where Evie’s laughter carries faintly through the open windows. “Your mom would have liked the way Evie looks at you.” My throat tightens.
“How’s that?”
“Like you’re the stars in her sky.”
The words hit me right in the sternum.
“Christ, Dad. You been reading those daily affirmation cards again?” I say, trying to lighten the mood.
His mouth twitches. “Your mother used to say it.”
That wipes the smile off my face.
I set my coffee down. “You staying for lunch?”
His surprise is small but unmistakable. “If I’m invited.”
“You’ve been here since six.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
I understand then—he is asking, not assuming or taking the invitation for granted.
He’s… learning how to be my father. And I’m learning how to be his son.
“You’re invited,” I say.
His shoulders loosen. “Then yes.”
We both fall quiet. Outside, a hammer strikes somewhere near the house, followed by Kitty’s voice telling Tom that crooked is not a design choice. Wedding preparations. Three days away.
Evie has spent the last week insisting she doesn’t need a fuss while Delaney produces lists, Shay bakes enough food for a military deployment, and Maggie orders everybody around with the calm authority of a field marshal.
Three days until Evie becomes my wife. The thought still catches inside me, but not with fear. With wonder.
I hear an engine, followed by gravel popping beneath tires, before a truck pulls into view. Caleb’s truck comes around the side of the house and pulls up near the stacked lumber. He climbs out, favoring his right leg for the first few steps before his stride evens out.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“Heard you had work.”
Dad looks toward the lumber. “You any good with stall partitions?”
“I raised three younger siblings. I’m good with anything that can kick, bite, or ignore simple instructions.”
“Then you’re overqualified,” Dad says.
Caleb reaches for the board I was holding earlier.
I glance at his knee. “You supposed to be lifting that?”
His eyes narrow. “You really want to start comparing medical restrictions?”
I chuckle. “No.”
“Smart.”
He shoulders the board and carries it toward the new stall with only the slightest hitch in his step.
“And you’re staying for lunch.”
He looks toward the house again. “Maggie know?”
“Maggie knows everything, Caleb. You should know that by now.”
As if summoned by the sound of her name, Maggie appears in the barn doorway with her hands on her hips and her apron dusted with flour. “Gabriel Sutton, why are you standing around drinking coffee when there are tables to be moved?”
“I told him not to lift anything,” Dad says.
Maggie’s eyes narrow. “And did he listen?”
“No.”
“Then stop wasting breath and take the other end.”
Dad sets down his coffee. “Yes, ma’am.”
Caleb coughs into his fist.
I look at him. “You laughing?”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Maggie points toward the house. “Lunch in ten minutes. And if any of you track mud onto my clean floor, you’ll eat outside.”
She turns and disappears.
Dad picks up the board I set down earlier, and Caleb reaches for the other end.
I move to help, and both men look at me.
“No,” they say together.
I stare at them. “I hate both of you.”
“Good,” Dad says. “Means you’re feeling better.”
They carry the board toward the far stall while I follow with my coffee and what remains of my dignity.
Chance watches us pass. Evie’s shelves line the wall beyond her. The rehab space is almost finished. In a few weeks, the first frightened horse will arrive, and Evie will stand in this barn with our daughter beneath her heart, offering patience to something that’s forgotten how to trust.
Three days from now, she’ll become my wife. For once, the future does not look like something waiting to be taken from me. It looks like a house full of people, a barn being rebuilt, a father who stayed, and a friend who came because he knew he did not have to stand alone.
And Evie.
Always Evie.
I set down my coffee. “Where are those tables?”
Dad glances back. “You carrying one?”
“No.”
“Then I’ll show you.”
By the time I reach the house, lunch has become something closer to a siege.
Every surface in the kitchen is covered.
Trays of rolls, bowls of fruit, flowers in buckets, folded linens stacked on one chair because Delaney has apparently decided chairs are no longer for sitting.
Kitty is hunched over a tray of moss, tiny potted plants, and lengths of copper wire, constructing something she claims is a living centerpiece but currently looks like a forest floor being held hostage.
Shay stands at the counter, piping something onto a cake while Kitty holds a ruler against the side of it.
“That tier is leaning,” Delaney says.
“It is not leaning.”
“It is three degrees off vertical.”
Shay studies the cake for a moment before saying, “It gives it rustic charm.”
Tom carries a box through the doorway with Max perched on one hip and a length of ribbon trailing from his pocket.
Maggie points at him without looking up from the dough beneath her hands. “Not in here.”
“I haven’t done anything.”
“You brought the goat ribbon inside.”
“It's a decorative ribbon.”
“It has goat slobber on it.”
Tom catches Max’s hand at the last second as he reaches for the bowl of flour. “See? Perfectly under control.”
Max sneezes into his shoulder, and a cloud of white rises between them.
Maggie closes her eyes.
I step back toward the door a second too late.
Evie spots me.
She’s sitting at the table with one hand braced beneath her stomach and a pencil tucked into her hair. Seven months pregnant, barefoot, and somehow presiding over the chaos without lifting anything heavier than a list.
Her eyes narrow. “You look tired.”
“I’ve been inside for three seconds.”
“And you look tired.”
“I’m recovering.”
“That’s not the same as resting.”
Dad comes in behind me, carrying the board with Caleb.
Evie’s eyes move between them and me. “What did you try to lift?”
“Nothing.”
“Gabriel.”
“A board.”
She arches an eyebrow. “How heavy?”
“Not relevant.”
“Fifteen pounds,” Dad says.
I glare at him as he walks past me.
Caleb has the decency to study the ceiling.
Evie pats the chair beside her. “Sit.”
“I’m fine.”
She keeps her hand on the chair.
I look at Maggie, who continues to knead dough like it’s an Olympic sport.
“I’m staying out of it,” she says.