Gabriel's Gift. Cait London
rock bluff overlooking the valley with its twinkling lights. His ancestor had helped the women who founded their dream, a land and a town where they could choose their lives.
Just there was the Bennett farm, a tiny complete twenty acres. Mother of three children and a widow, Anna Bennett had lost her life almost a year ago, when her car collided with a semitruck. A midwife and healer, she was loved in Freedom Valley, respected by Gabriel’s mother, also a midwife and healer. First Tanner Bennett had come home to claim his ex-wife, and then Kylie to clash with Michael Cusack. Miranda would be coming soon, Kylie’s matron of honor.
Miranda. Gabriel breathed unsteadily, hunching down into his shearling coat, as her name curled in the wind. He was only nineteen to her seventeen when they started dating. In another year, Miranda had finished high school and colleges were courting her. Gabriel saw then that their lives were not meant to be entwined. For he was a part of this life, these high mountains, the livestock, the land and his blood.
For Miranda’s good, he had torn her from him, never to hold that sweet scent of her close, those soft innocent lips against his.
He’d told her he didn’t want her. The lie had hurt, because back then, he had wanted to go before the Women’s Council and speak for her. He’d wanted to court her in the traditional way of his ancestors, to offer horses as a bridal price. But Miranda was meant for a different life, one apart from his. Intelligent, creative, and at the top of her class, Miranda would have resented him eventually.
When she’d visited Anna, Gabriel had seen her and the ache returned. She’d said she was happy, and that a few years ago she began living with a man she intended to marry. Gabriel lifted his face to the icy mountain wind. At thirty-five, Miranda was now probably married and a mother. He frowned slightly. Anna had been so proud of her children, and yet she had said nothing of Miranda’s wedding or of grandchildren. A sensitive woman, perhaps Anna had known that information would trouble him.
He wasn’t looking forward to seeing Miranda and her husband at Kylie’s wedding. Gabriel stood suddenly and tore off his coat and the layers of clothing beneath it, giving himself to the freezing, cleansing winds. The wind tore at his hair, swirling it around his face in a storm of snowflakes, and he thought he heard the song of her low, soft voice.
He pushed her from his heart and still she clung to him—soft, warm, beckoning.
The first week of January, Miranda came down the wedding aisle before Kylie, the bride. Standing with the other men beside the groom—Michael Cusack—Gabriel held his breath. With a coronet of daisies in her sleek black hair, bound into a fashionable knot, Miranda caught his heart—just that easily, after all those years.
Taller than Kylie, Miranda moved with the same lithe grace, her flowing feminine gown of mauve emphasizing the blush on her cheeks. Those green eyes were just as startling, highlighted by the magic of makeup. Framed by those long sweeping lashes, her eyes still reminded him of the summer meadows in the mountains. Her brows, finely arched, were like that of the wings of the raven. The new softness in her face, much like Anna’s, said she had found peace.
But her mouth—Gabriel tensed, pushing away the soft, haunting memory of it against his, the sweet hunger of seventeen-year-old Miranda.
Then she turned, taking the traditional matron-of-honor’s place beside Kylie, and Gabriel’s gaze locked on Miranda’s gown, clinging to the slight mound of her belly.
There was no time like the present, Miranda thought, as she moved through the dancers, making her way to Gabriel. If she were going to make a home in Freedom Valley for her and her baby, she had to grapple with her “ghosts” first. Gabriel was definitely a man no woman could forget.
As a teenager, she’d had a crush on most of her brother’s friends—some of them had married, but those who remained were called “the Bachelor Club” by the matrons of Freedom Valley. Those men who did not conform to the time-honored customs of the Founding Mothers of Freedom Valley were condemned as “Culls.”
Gabriel was definitely not a “Cull.” He was quiet, thoughtful and lived peacefully on his mountain ranch. He had never married and had been her first real love. At times, the sweetness of those memories caught her, wrapped carefully before she stored them again in the past. Standing with the other men at the altar, Gabriel had been just as tall and fierce and lean as she remembered. His dark suit emphasized that hawkish look, his hair in a rough, long cut and just touching his shoulders. His face was harder, more weathered and angular, tension humming from him. He wouldn’t be comfortable in a suit, of course, but he had made the sacrifice for his friends.
She’d felt the burn of those black hunter’s eyes, the narrowing of them on her rounded belly. Had his hard mouth tightened then, or had she just imagined that reaction? Gabriel always held his emotions tightly, even at nineteen, when his body ran warm and taut with the need to take more….
Miranda fought the tremble moving through her, and stopped her hand from nervously fidgeting with her hair. She wouldn’t be nervous of Gabriel Deerhorn, no matter how fiercely he’d scowled at her. Again—had she just imagined his reaction? Or was it a reflection of her own shaken emotions?
Standing in front of him now, Miranda looked up. His black eyes were flat, shielded now, deep set beneath those fierce brows. The lights gleamed on his high cheekbones, the planes and shadows of his face cruising along an unrelenting jaw and a chin with a magical little dimple. For just a heartbeat, the memory of his unsteady breath sweeping across her cheek, the open hot furnace of that mouth, startled her.
There had been no softness in that long, well-shaped mouth the day he told her that he didn’t want her.
Miranda pushed away that slicing memory and decided to keep their meeting light. “I’ve danced with all the other men in the Bachelor Club. You’re next and it’s the last dance.”
Gabriel looked over her head, ignoring her. Then those black eyes pounced upon her, tearing at her, though his deep voice still held that magical lilt. She didn’t understand that slashing glance, battering her, and it was quickly shielded into a bland expression. “Sure.”
He took her stiffly in his arms, in the traditional way she remembered, and eased her into the waltz. She’d forgotten that he was so tall—six foot three—and with the added height of his polished Western boots, she barely reached his shoulder. He had that ramrod-straight look of a lean working man, and for just a moment, she imagined him on horseback, his body flowing easily with the animal’s.
As a teenager, he’d been so careful of her sensibilities. The first time she saw him playing field football without his shirt, she’d been entranced by the beauty of his smooth, dark skin rippling over the muscles and cords.
Now his hand was rough against hers, his shoulders even wider, and she felt feminine and delicate within his very proper embrace. She wondered what had happened to that sense of being a woman—had it been stripped away by her career, in the push-push to succeed? She dressed and acted like a woman, but inside she felt so empty—except for the wonder of her coming baby. Miranda glanced up at Gabriel, dancing as if forced to do his duty. He’d given her the only wildflower bouquet she’d ever had, but now those high, sharp cheekbones and that jaw looked as if none of the boy’s softness remained. She wondered what bitterness had happened to him, to make those lines upon his brow, the brackets beside his lips. Strength ran through his body, though he held her lightly. She could sense the vibrations of emotions circling him, that taut hoarding of his thoughts, the control she always associated with him. “Michael and Kylie are so perfect for each other, don’t you think?” she asked, just to hear him speak.
“Sure.” A man obligated to dance with his friend’s sister, Gabriel looked over her head, studying the other dancers.
Gabriel was simply doing his duty, dancing with her, and Miranda gave in to the impish need to prick that cool shield. “I hear you have a ranch now, and that you guide like your father did.”
“Sure. He’s retired now.” He looked down at her, and his hard face softened momentarily. “I’m sorry about your mother. I liked Anna.”
Suddenly