Perhaps It Was His Native American Blood That Told Him To Claim His Woman, To Keep Her Near.

Two mornings ago Gabriel had awakened with Miranda in his arms. Was that a dream, the soft fragrance of her haunting him? In her, he’d seen his eternity and his essence, in that flashing pinpoint before his desire came flooding into her keeping. He’d known that he was meant to hold her, to give her his child, to keep her safe until the winds took away their breath—together. She’d burned a path to his heart, and that soft scar hurt him more deeply than those of the flesh.

Flesh? She was more—a part of him now, inside him, moving in his blood, heating it, the fever for her—Wait! Gabriel hadn’t been aware of the power of a woman’s calling to him. He wasn’t certain about his strength against it now.…

Gabriel’s Gift
Cait London

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CAIT LONDON

lives in the Missouri Ozarks but loves to travel the Northwest’s gold rush/cattle drive trails every summer. She enjoys research trips, meeting people and going to Native American dances. Ms. London is an avid reader who loves to paint, play with computers and grow herbs (particularly scented geraniums right now). She’s a national bestselling and award-winning author, and she has also written historical romances under another pseudonym. Three is her lucky number; she has three daughters, and the events in her life have always been in threes. “I love writing for Silhouette,” Cait says. “One of the best perks about all this hard work is the thrilling reader response and the warm, snug sense that I have given readers an enjoyable, entertaining gift.”

To Stella

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Prologue

From the Journal of Magda Claas, Montana 1881

This beautiful valley, in the land the Indians call “Montana,” and the women who have become my sisters, have given me peace and comfort. In the heat of that hot, dry summer, ten women came together in this beautiful valley with towering mountains on one side, a lake filled with fish, and lush green grass for our stock.

The land is wild and rough with men, who would take us as they would a cow or a horse, caring little for our pride. Who would protect us? we wondered by our campfire and wagons and stock, women without menfolk in a harsh land. We wanted husbands, of course, but we wanted the freedom to choose good men who would treat us well.

Fleur Arnaud, Anastasia Duscha, Beatrice Avril, Jasmine Dupree, China Belle Ruppurt, and Fancy Benjamin had already been treated poorly by their men. They would not settle for less than their rightful due again. Margaret Gertraud, Cynthia Whitehall and myself had not suffered so, but we were determined to keep ourselves free of unjoyful and painful bondage, such as they had suffered. We know little of the woman known as LaRue, except that she is most helpful and inventive. She has loved, she said, and she has lost. Yet her quiet, secret smile tells more.

So it was that women with strong minds decided to become a family, to protect one another, to weigh marriage offers as a father or brother would have done in the Old World, to see that men courted as was proper and that they kept their marriage promises. We decided that our family would protect the brides men would have, inspecting the men’s qualifications as future husbands. At first, we laughed, and then the idea grew into our dream.

Jasmine Dupree had been berry picking when her baby decided to come, and an Indian man, Mr. Deerhorn, came to her rescue. He fashioned a travois, two long poles with a blanket between them, which dragged behind his horse, and brought her back to our camp. He was most shocked when Cynthia Whitehall of Boston society thanked him by kissing his cheek.

I am a midwife, and when Jasmine’s baby came into my hands, we cried. That night, we decided to name our valley Freedom, and our town, too. With the fine big boy nursing at Jasmine’s breast, and joy in our hearts, we sat down to decide the Rules for Bride Courting. By next summer, we will have a town called Freedom.

Mr. Deerhorn came the next morning with a reed basket of herbs from his mother. He explained the uses to us, but his warm gaze followed Cynthia. A bold woman, she has become suddenly quiet.

Magda Claas, Midwife and Healer and

Butter Maker

Freedom Valley, Montana

One

My children are my joy. A widow with three young children, I feared I would fail them. Yet now Tanner, the oldest at twenty, is already off to college and has his heart set on Gwyneth Smith. At sixteen, Kylie is the youngest, and tosses herself into life. She is determined to bring down one Michael Cusack. My oldest daughter, Miranda, is just eighteen and furious with Gabriel Deerhorn. It has been months since he called or came to our house. Always controlled and keeping her secrets, Miranda will say nothing. I think she dreamed of marrying him, and now she is grimly determined to leave Freedom.

—from the journal of Anna Bennett, descendant of Magda Claas

The woman stood in the night, campfire smoke curling around her and Gabriel’s baby nestling in her rounded belly. Filled with promises and love, her hair swept back from her face by the mountain wind, her eyes were warm upon Gabriel. The joy that she gave him swirled through the tops of the pines, settled deeply within him. She had his heart and together they had made a child—

Gabriel awoke suddenly, his heart racing, his mind trying to hold the dream close to him. Yet it swirled off into the mountain’s December snow, torn from him too soon. It was always the same, the woman who came to him in sleep, his child nestled within her. He sat up, his hands shaking as he stirred his campfire into life—not for the warmth, but to do something, anything. Gabriel lifted his face to the slashing mountain snow, then turned to study his evening campfire. The snowflakes blended with the smoke and disappeared, just as the woman always left him. Without her, he carried the cold ache of loneliness.

His people believed in dreams, in the meanings they held. Gabriel breathed deeply, and glanced at his horse in the pine bough shelter. The Appaloosa’s mottled coat blended with the veil of snowflakes as the gelding returned Gabriel’s study. Once the woman had come to Gabriel when he was cold and alone, curling warmly against him, placing his hand on her full breast. Milk for the coming child had dampened his palm and gave him peace; he knew that his blood would live on, his heritage and pride. He had dreamed of her riding in front of him, wrapped snugly in his arms. Turning slightly, she would lean against him, her breath warm upon his throat, their baby pressing against his stomach.

Gabriel shook his head and dusted the snowflakes from his face. Perhaps it was Michael Cusack and Kylie Bennett’s approaching church wedding that had stirred the dreams, like dying embers brought back to life. Perhaps it was Tanner and Gwyneth’s announcement of a coming baby. Gabriel hadn’t thought of his need to have a child for years. At thirty-seven, he had settled into his mountain ranch, tending his horses and cattle and occasionally serving as a guide for tourists.

He shoved a stick into the fire, prodding it, and watched the coals spring into flame. He’d been too lonely at his cabin, and he’d known the woman would come to him where his Native American blood called to him and the dreams came more freely—in the high untamed mountains overlooking Freedom Valley.

He rose and walked to the 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 he seemed so safe, even after all the years between. She couldn’t resist placing her forehead against his shoulder and resting there for just a moment, her hand clenching his large callused one as an anchor. Gabriel tensed, his hand at her back opening, digging in slightly. Was he afraid she’d cry? That a pregnant woman’s moods would embarrass him? Unpredictable emotions seemed to be the effect of her pregnancy, so unlike Miranda’s usual control. She was too vulnerable now because she’d fought reality and lost. The man she’d thought she would marry didn’t want her or their baby.

Only Kylie and Tanner, her brother, knew that she wasn’t married, that her child was unwanted by its father. She’d come to Freedom to protect her baby, to surround it with love and family. She’d stay in her mother’s home, find work and nurture her child. Freedom Valley was where she belonged; somehow she’d find a way to explain the missing husband, and in two months she’d be holding her baby. She’d only been back two days, but amid the hustle of the traditional wedding Michael Cusack wanted for Kylie, Miranda knew she had made the right choice—to come back home. She’d sold everything of her past life, wanting a new one for herself and her baby.

After living together for three years and finally planning a wedding, Scott wasn’t prepared for the changes in her body, her brief morning sickness had repelled him. He’d wanted a family earlier, but then suddenly—with the wedding a month away—he explained how trapped he felt by her and the impending marriage, and the child he didn’t want. He blamed her nesting urges for ruining a “good setup.”

“Do you want to rest?” Gabriel asked softly above her head. That liquid deep voice was the same, calming, gentling…

Unwilling to leave the safety of his shoulder, Miranda shook her head. “I’m sorry. I wish Mom could have been here.”

Her mother’s fatal accident had stirred her need to marry, to have children, to carry on with life. She couldn’t blame Scott. He was clearly surprised by his own fears. They’d had a good relationship, blending their work and lives. It wasn’t a blinding love affair, but she had settled for a workable and pleasant one with Scott. Yet, there it was—a solid lump of the ugly unexpected. Scott did not want to be a father; he couldn’t bear to look at her, or touch her, after the six-weeks’ pregnancy test proved positive. He’d been almost physically ill at the news.

The plain gold band on her finger was a lie, and looking back, so was her life with Scott. She’d desperately needed her mother’s home in which to mend, to be strong for her baby. With Tanner and Kylie living nearby, Miranda’s baby would always have a family and safety.

The music ended and still Gabriel held her, unmoving. She caught the scent of wood smoke and horses and leather and man, all safe and good. Slowly she lifted her head to meet those searching black eyes. “I’m fine,” she managed to say and forced herself to ease away from the first safety she’d felt in months. “Thank you.”

“Sure.” Gabriel stood very still, watching her, and Miranda couldn’t bear to meet his gaze.

Then Sadie McGinnis, a member of the Women’s Council, came to her side. “Your husband couldn’t get away for the wedding, hmm?”

Miranda shook her head no, and hated the lie. “Excuse me. It’s time to catch Kylie’s bouquet.”

“But, honey. That’s for the unmarried girls,” Sadie said firmly.

“Oh, yes. Of course. But I want to see better.” Miranda moved away quickly. Did anyone suspect? Amid the cheers, she glanced at the people she’d known all of her life. She found only joy and warmth in their expressions. Gabriel stood apart, his face unreadable, and she wondered if he knew that she was alone.

Somehow, she’d get through her unsteady emotions, Miranda thought in the silence of her mother’s home. In Seattle, she’d used her analytical mind to dissect statistics, to determine potential markets. A high-paid executive with a magna cum laude degree, she’d plunged through daily routines, gauging her life by clocks and corporate demands. Scott had been a comfortable part of that life, those routines.

Who was she? Where was that cool reasoning power now? she wondered, as she foundered in her emotions. She sat by the opened hope chest she’d filled all those years ago. She’d dreamed of being Gabriel’s wife, of having his children. Hope chests were a requirement of the brides in Freedom Valley, and her mother had helped her fill this one. Miranda smoothed the tiny hand-stitched quilt her mother had made, the note pinned to it. “With love, Grandma.”

Miranda scrubbed the tears from her face, then gave way to crying. “I need you, Mom. Why did that accident have to happen?”

The house she’d grown up in was too quiet, the shadows echoing with Tanner’s outraged shouts as he tore after two younger sisters. Kylie’s giggles curled through the years, and their mother’s soothing voice: “You’ll be fine. Just do what’s right and everything else will follow.”

Miranda smoothed the baby blanket Juanita Deerhorn, Gabriel’s mother, had stitched long ago. When Gabriel and Miranda were teenagers, Juanita simply came to Anna’s house one morning with a wrapped present for Miranda. One of Juanita’s famous saucer-size red roses had been tucked into the ribbon binding the gift. A Southern woman of grace and charm, Juanita’s birth name had been Lillian. But the elder Deerhorns affectionately referred to her in a name more familiar to them—“Juanita.”

Juanita had been unusually serious that morning. “My mother-in-law, Gabriel’s grandmother, White Fawn, told me to make this for you. I always do what she tells me, for she usually has a reason. I hope you like it.”

The baby blanket was for Miranda’s hope chest, dainty hand stitching fashioning a Celtic-looking design of interwoven circles with no beginning and no end. Juanita’s smile had been soft as she traced them. “The batting was from White Fawn’s sheep. She hand-carded it and drew the design for me to use. Don’t make too much of this, honey. White Fawn often tells me these small things to do, and because you are such a lovely girl, and I love your dear mother, this is a gift of the heart, not because I exactly expect you to be toting my grandchild someday.”

The blanket had remained in Miranda’s hope chest, the rose carefully pressed with it…. She pressed her hand against the small kick in her womb. The baby seemed weaker in the past few days, but perhaps that was the stress of leaving her old life. Easing downstairs, Miranda suddenly felt very old and worn, as though she’d crossed centuries, not a hectic month of making arrangements to move to Freedom Valley.

She brewed a cup of tea and settled comfortably under the afghan on her mother’s couch. Her mother was still here, in the scents and herbs, though Gwyneth and Kylie and Tanner had tended and cleaned the house. In the spring, the yellow tulips and irises and lavender beds would sprout, the tender herbs scenting the air.

Tanner and Kylie had each returned to Freedom Valley, and each had lived in Anna’s home. Its warmth circled Miranda now, giving her the shelter she needed. But one day, the contents would have to be separated, each sister and Tanner taking a bit home with them.

“My doctor said the baby is perfectly healthy,” Miranda quietly reassured herself amid the still shadows of the house. “But oh, Mom. I wish you were here.” Miranda decided to rest before checking in with Freedom Valley’s doctor and tried not to cry, a brief release for all the emotions storming her. She was simply too tired to drag herself into the reality of her new life in Freedom Valley just yet.

Tanner and Gwyneth’s baby would arrive after hers, and the cousins would be family. Kylie and Michael wouldn’t wait to start a family, because Kylie never waited, forever leaping into life. Her brother and sister were blissfully happy in their new lives and their mother would have loved keeping her grandchildren.

Her mother’s death had pricked Miranda’s biological need for a child, a new life to replace a dear one that had been cut short. The continuity of Anna’s life was important, and so, safe in the knowledge that Scott would want their child, Miranda had conceived. Looking back, while she was grieving over her mother was not the best time to make a decision to have a baby. Miranda smoothed her belly and knew that she had enough love for two parents.

“Mother? Where are you?” Miranda whispered, and ached when no answer returned from the shadows. She looked outside to the snow slashing across her mother’s front porch. Anna had always fed the birds early in the morning, and filling the many bird feeders would be a start for Miranda’s routine. Day by day, she’d build a life for her child that was safe and good. Just now, she wasn’t ready to expose herself to anyone but Kylie and Tanner. But eventually she would have to deal with gossip. A younger, more vulnerable Miranda had already handled rumors and sympathetic looks by Freedom Valley’s townfolk.

All those years ago, teenage Gabriel had hurt her terribly. “I don’t want you. Don’t even think of marriage between us, or anything else,” he’d said grimly. She’d cried horribly, hiding from her family, trying not to show her pain. He’d torn away her heart and deep inside she’d hated him, vowing never to forgive him.

Years later, another man’s confession had jolted her. She’d been startled by Scott’s reaction and rejection, but not hurt. It was as if her emotions with him hadn’t been deep enough to wound. He’d been truthful, though, and she admired that more than a man who forced himself to submit to a life he didn’t want.

Miranda slid down on the couch, snuggling into the familiar warmth of her homecoming. She closed her eyes and wondered why she could not remember the Nordic texture of Scott’s crisp waving blond hair, and yet the coarse, straight texture of Gabriel’s black shaggy mane seemed so familiar.

Was he happy? Gossip said he hadn’t married, that he kept to himself and his mountains. Miranda frowned and closed her eyes wearily, her hand smoothing the baby nestled within her. Why did he seem so uncomfortable with her? Did those sweet days of their teenage years still curl around him as they did her? Gabriel, you look so hard and lonely. What happened to you? Then, a tiny kick beneath her hand claimed her thoughts of the future.

Two

The most gentle of hearts can be found in unsuspecting places. Women tend to think that only another woman can give comfort, but men—given the chance—can offer kindness to a troubled heart.

Anna Bennett’s Journal

Gabriel followed the snowplow as it passed Anna’s small farm, leaving small mountains of snow on either side of the road. Departing immediately after their wedding for their honeymoon, Kylie and Michael had missed the heavy snow that now bent the trees and blocked some roads and airports. The light lacy snowflakes hit Gabriel’s windshield and the clack-clack of his wipers created the pattern for his thoughts.

After the wedding, he had packed a two-week supply of groceries into his battered Jeep. Then he had settled down with his friends at the Silver Dollar Tavern, the site of the wedding reception. He was more comfortable there, with the loud country music and the smells, than in the church, with a tie tight around his neck. The sounds had vibrated in the tavern’s smoky room, a jarring contrast to his very quiet, solitary log home. Though he visited Tanner and his lifelong friends throughout the year, Gabriel was always glad to get back to his mountains. The Bachelor Club—Koby, Fletcher, Dylan, Brody and the rest of his friends—had toasted their “dying breed.” Because Dakota Jones’s little sister, Karolina, alias “Super Snoop,” had been in a snit, mourning her “old maid” status, the men had taken turns dancing with her. But Gabriel had danced the last dance with Miranda. Another time, when a woman would ask a man for the last dance, it would mean she chose him for her future husband. Gabriel wasn’t likely to follow the local customs—love had passed him by, and he’d settled for peace in the mountains.

Later, only a little of the tension remained from holding Miranda in his arms. He’d stayed the night at Michael’s house, the newlyweds bound for a sunny, tropical honeymoon.

Filled with thoughts of yesterday’s wedding and seeing Miranda again, he kept his four-wheel-drive Jeep a respectable distance behind the snowplow. At six o’clock in the morning, the flashing red light of the snowplow shot off into the darkness. Behind the wheel of the charging beast, Mac Reno would be in an evil mood, pained by a Saturday night hangover. Mac had once gotten in an argument with Willa, the owner of the Wagon Wheel Café and the mayor of Freedom; he’d used the snowplow to bury her car.

After the joy of Kylie and Michael yesterday, and Gwyneth and Tanner’s delight in their coming baby, Gabriel’s solitary life seemed as gray as the morning. The woman in the smoke—her eyes warm upon him, and her body rounded with his child—was only a dream he used to fill the ache inside him, a self-induced medicine to give him momentary peace. He’d made the right decision when they were teenagers—

Gabriel ran his hand over his jaw, the sound of the scrape as raw as his emotions. He didn’t like being unsettled, tossed back into the past when Miranda danced close and sweet against him. She wore another man’s ring, and now she carried his child—Why had that shadow crossed her face when asked about her husband?

Gabriel’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. If she had been mistreated—He pushed away that ugly thought. She looked as if she were blooming, the pregnancy sitting well on her.

But she had leaned against him in the old way, when troubles came too deeply upon her. As a boy, he’d been stunned that she would give so much to him, letting him see her doubts and trusting him with her thoughts. She’d grieved then for her father, Paul, a good man who had died of a terminal disease.

Miranda smelled the same—of sun and wind brushing across the lush sweet-grass meadows. Her eyes were still the shining green of new grass, clear and bright and happy—she’d looked that way when he’d given her that wildflower bouquet all those years ago. Now she was a woman, preparing for her child, and yet she seemed so fragile, light and willowy in his arms. He feared holding her too close, keeping his distance, for just then, he was uncertain of himself.

Gabriel glanced at Anna’s driveway, at the snow the plow had piled high, barring the entrance. Out of habit, he eased the Jeep over the snow and reached to the back to push aside the snowshoes resting over his shovel. Anna had always been good to him, and he was only one of many who would clear her driveway. In no hurry to return to his empty house, Gabriel glanced at Anna’s home and found light streaming from all the windows, creating golden patches into the gray dawn. The house was much like Anna had left it a year ago, though both Tanner and Kylie had taken turns living in it. Tanner had explained that none of Anna’s children could bear separating her things. Filled with warm scents and Anna’s tender presence, the house would be a ghost to Miranda now. She would be doing her prowling, missing her mother, and that wound would be slow to heal. How could her husband not see to her at such a time, not come with her? To know such a woman and not care for her was unthinkable.

But then Miranda was her own woman, very independent, and it wasn’t for Gabriel to mull her life.

When he opened the Jeep’s door, the freezing temperatures hit him. He sucked in the icy air, letting it cleanse him, and then began to shovel the snow. The earth needed snow for nourishment, and to make the grass grow lush and green—Miranda’s eyes were still as green, softer now with her coming baby nestled inside her. The thought jarred him, how easily she stepped into his mind after all those years. Perhaps she had always been there.

The image of her teenage disbelief slashed across him. In curt terms, he’d told her that they weren’t meant for each other and that she should take the scholarship offers coming to her, that she should leave Freedom Valley. He’d told her that their paths were not meant to be one—that his life’s path was not for her—and the shock in those green eyes had shamed him. Her slender body had recoiled as if taking a physical blow. Though his heart had been tearing, he tried not to show his anguish and how much her tears hurt him. The memory added force to his shovel’s blow against a shrub, shaking the branches and dislodging the heavy snow before it could break them. He tempered the other blows, pushing the shattering image into the past for a time.

The birds began to chirp and he smiled briefly. Anna’s feeders were always kept well filled and suet balls hung from the trees. Coming from a close family, Miranda would honor her mother’s desires. When would she leave? Would he see her again?

Gabriel thrust the unseemly thoughts from him. She was another man’s woman, and it was not his way to—In the stillness of morning, a soft moan sounded amid the chirping birds, and there at the base of Anna’s front steps was—

Gabriel ran toward Miranda, curled into a ball. Birdseed was scattered on the snow, and the skid mark on the icy top step told the story. Tearing off his leather gloves, he crouched to her side. He eased away the corner of her shawl and found her face too white, a thin trickle of blood at her forehead.

How long had she lain in the freezing temperatures? Trembling, Gabriel eased his arm beneath her head. “Miranda?”

His heart stopped beating while he waited for her to answer. “Miranda?”

This time she moaned slightly and tensed, as if in pain. When she moved, Gabriel saw the blood soaking the white snow. He eased away her long, heavy coat and grimly acknowledged the likelihood that Miranda had lost her baby. “Shh, Miranda,” he whispered as he began to work quickly.

Through the pain tearing at her body, Miranda looked up at Gabriel’s darkly weathered face. He looked so tired and worried, his black eyes soft and warm upon her. “Miranda?”

Her head throbbed, and the cold cloth on her forehead came away with her blood. She remembered falling, trying to protect her baby and icy terror leaped into her. “My baby?”

“Miranda, you’re in Anna’s house. Upstairs in your bedroom—”

She reached to snag his flannel shirt, to fist it with both hands. “Tell me.”

“Miranda, you have to help me. The roads are closed and the doctor can’t get here soon. You have to tell me what to do. Mother is a midwife, but I can’t reach her. You helped your mother at times like this. You’ve got to think—”

“My baby?” she cried again and knew from the emptiness inside her that the baby had come too soon.

Gabriel took her hands in his and shook his head. “I tried. He was a fine boy.”

Her wail ripped through the still shadows. Or was that the sound of her heart and soul tearing apart? Oh my little love, wait for me…Mommy will take care of you…wait for me…

“Miranda, come back to me,” Gabriel said firmly. “Tell me what to do. The doctor told me some of it, but you know what your mother would have done. Where are Tanner and Gwyneth? They’re not answering their telephone.”

She shook her head, fighting against reality and pain. Tears burned her eyes and she remembered how cold she’d been, how the baby—The fall was her fault. Her baby would have lived except for her need to start a daily routine, to feed the birds. Her voice was rusty, thin and seemed to come from someone else. “They decided to spend the night in a resort hotel.”

It wasn’t true. Her baby was still…The pain slapped at her, no worse than her grief, her heart and body crying for that little, precious life.

“Tell me what to do,” Gabriel repeated softly, firmly. “You need attention.”

Tiredly, without emotion, her voice coming from far away, she instructed Gabriel how to help her. He drew off her soiled clothing, replacing her pajamas with a warm soft flannel shirt and nothing else. In her grief, she felt no shame. Gabriel spoke to her softly, soothingly, his manner impersonal as he changed her toweling and lifted her hips. His callused hand laid on her forehead, anchoring her as she grieved. “I will bring your son to you. Do you want to see him?”

“Yes,” she whispered, the emptiness of her womb aching. She wanted just one moment before the doctor arrived and officially declared the medical reality. How could this tiny, perfect life be torn from her? Oh, my little baby—

Gabriel had cleansed her baby, holding the tiny body close against him. “His father will want to know. Do you want me to call him?”

“No! My baby is mine alone.” She couldn’t bear to share anything of her baby with the man who didn’t want him. She met Gabriel’s frown and the truth tore from her. “I’m not married. Scott couldn’t bear the thought of marriage or children. The changes in my body repulsed him. He tried not to show it, but he couldn’t bear to touch me. I couldn’t bear the thought of a baby raised by a father who resented being trapped. I came home to Freedom Valley to keep my baby safe—”

She tugged the wedding band she’d purchased from her finger, hurling it against the wall. It bounced and fell, rolling across the floor as empty as her life now.

She tensed as Gabriel sat, holding the tiny baby close and safe against him. “He’s a fine son. A man would be honored to know that you carried his child.”

Miranda turned her face away from the tender sight. Gabriel was a man meant to hold and love children; he wouldn’t understand Scott’s fear.

“A fine son…For a man’s blood to continue gives him greatness. To have a woman give him such a child is a treasure most men would honor. I have longed for a son, or a daughter,” he added as a gentle afterthought. “My arms need a child in them. I know this in my heart, but yet I cannot—”

She turned suddenly to him, rage and pain searing her. She didn’t hide her torment from Gabriel, a man she’d known all her life. Tossed by her emotions, she was angry with him, for tearing them apart. Gabriel would have been a perfect father and yet he hadn’t wanted her, either. “Did you hear me? Scott did not want me, or my baby.”

“Who do you grieve for—yourself, or your child?” The quiet, thoughtful challenge took her back and she turned away again. “A woman carrying a child is beautiful. I thought at the wedding how you glowed, how you seemed to have the sunlight inside you.”

Gabriel pushed away the rage within him. How could any man not be at the side of the woman carrying his child? Yet he forced himself to calm, for Miranda was too pale and vulnerable now. Her eyes were shadowed, dark circles beneath them. Her mouth quivered, those beautiful eyes brimming with tears and the pulse in her throat beating heavily with emotion. She held her child for a while, and then he eased it away.

She looked outside at the snowstorm, too silent, her grief etched in her pale features, the tears dripping from her cheeks. “I don’t blame Scott. He was as surprised at his reaction as I was.”

Gabriel damned the weakness of her lover. Holding him blameless, she must still love him. Perhaps she wanted him still, wishing for him to come claim her. Gabriel pushed away that slight, unexpected burn of jealousy; Miranda needed his strength now. “Your mother would want you here, Miranda. Can you feel her?”

“Yes,” she said tiredly. “I can. I hurt, Gabriel. Every part of me and I feel so empty and so cold.”

“You’re badly bruised, Miranda. You must have fallen from the top step, and you were lying in the snow for a time. The cold probably slowed the loss of blood.” Gabriel inhaled sharply. He placed his hand over her forehead, testing its warmth, and then he took her pulse. “I’m going to call the doctor to see what else I can do. Then would you like me to lie with you, to hold you?”

In her pain, she’d lost all sense of modesty and she was feeling too weak, too vulnerable now. Where was the strong controlled woman she’d always been, always—? Now she only felt the need for life. “Just for a little bit. I need to feel—a heartbeat other than mine.”

Miranda gave herself to the warmth of Gabriel’s gentle hands and voice and when he settled beside her, she slid off into a welcoming darkness. Then someone was shaking her lightly, and Gabriel was bending over her, cupping her face with his big, callused hands. His voice was low and urgent. “Miranda, listen to me. The doctor is almost here. Will you trust me? I am only thinking of you now and your baby and of your mother. I want to smooth this road for you.”

She shook her head, unwilling to agree to anything but the truth. Then Gabriel took her hand, wrapping it in his warm, strong one. “It is in my heart to protect you and your baby. Do you trust me?”

His eyes were kind and concerned and she had nowhere else to go, nothing—She gripped his hand, nodded slowly and slid back into sleep.

Gabriel. Through a window in her mother’s house, Miranda watched the birds feed outside, gay in the dazzling midmorning light. Gabriel had been in the ambulance with her, staying in the small room at Freedom’s clinic with her. “She carried my baby,” she’d heard him say. “A fine son…. We had an argument and were working on our problems….”

The elderly nurse, Sarah, had been a friend of Anna’s and hadn’t spared Gabriel in her searing denouncement of “irresponsible males.” He’d nodded solemnly, taking the tongue-lashing without comment. “I see she’s not wearing her ring. She probably only purchased it to prevent gossip about her baby. Women have a sense of honor, even if some men do not,” Sarah had stated pointedly.

Gabriel’s plan was so old-fashioned, Miranda mused, giving his protection to her. Yet just then, she’d needed someone to lean on, the months of struggling with her failure—her misplaced trust in a man frightened so badly by marriage and children—and it was only too easy to let Gabriel handle everything. While the Bennetts were well respected in Freedom, Miranda didn’t feel like explaining her past life, or the reason she was in Freedom now, without a husband. With Gabriel, Tanner and Kylie’s solid fronts, she was well insulated against those who would gossip.

As the birds outside flitted around the feeders, swooping to the snow to pick at the fallen seeds, she pushed away the teardrop on her cheek. She was weak and uncomfortable and grieving and she didn’t like herself now.

How could she have been so wrong about Scott? He’d been the perfect companion, a friend.

Why hadn’t she been more careful that morning?

Miranda traced the window, mid-January’s temperatures icy upon her fingertip. How strange that Tanner and Kylie would agree that Gabriel’s plan was good for her. She shook her head. She was usually so strong and in control and now she seemed without an anchor. Miranda ran her cold fingertip across the tiny fresh scar on her forehead. The doctor’s words of two weeks ago kept running through her mind. “A slight concussion…A premature delivery…”

She scrubbed her hands across her face and knew that she had to do something, anything to reclaim herself. Miranda suddenly closed her eyes. How could she reclaim herself when every time she saw Gwyneth’s softly rounded body, she thought of…?

Her mother’s house seemed so empty now, her crocheting basket just as she left it. A smoothly worn hook was still poised in the loop of white thread and anchored into the large spool. The image seemed symbolic, for Miranda was held in a moment of her life, unable to move on. She placed her hand over the spool of crochet thread, the hook and the half-finished doily. Her hand drifted across her body and she forced it to lift away from the emptiness. She had to go on, to make a life, and stop worrying Tanner and Kylie. Miranda inhaled the scent of her mother’s lemon and beeswax furniture oil, and knew it was time to get to work. Her mother’s pantry was a perfect place to start.

Kylie and Gwyneth could not empty Anna’s canning jars, the green beans lined carefully on the shelf. After the thin years of widowhood and bringing up three children alone, Anna wouldn’t have liked the waste. But she’d kept a tight eye on dated foodstuffs and the labels proved that the filled jars were past due. Tying on Anna’s big work apron over her sweater and jeans, Miranda set out to clean her mother’s pantry.

Tanner and Kylie and she had agreed months after Anna’s accident that they would return to separate her things. Yet everything, except for the absence of Kylie’s hope chest, was the same. Miranda inhaled slowly; the house couldn’t remain as it was forever. Nothing was forever…. Kylie and Tanner were deep in their own lives, in the families that would come. She had to have a purpose—she’d always had goals, living her life by fulfilling them—and now she had nothing but her mother’s pantry.

Gabriel shoveled the new snow in the driveway and then worked his way up Anna’s walkway. He carefully cleaned the front steps and then circled the house, noting the light in the kitchen. After Miranda’s family returned, he had eased away, letting them comfort her. But her eyes filled with pain at the sight of Gwyneth’s rounded belly, and he knew that the healing would be long and painful. From others, he knew that Miranda hadn’t left her mother’s house.

Perhaps she mourned the man who couldn’t bear the shackles of marriage or children. Perhaps she waited for him to come to her. It wasn’t Gabriel’s place to stay with her, but he came down from the mountains every two days, trekking the first bit with his snowshoes to shovel snow and tidy the limbs broken by the snow’s weight. Miranda’s car, a compact hatchback wagon, hadn’t left Anna’s driveway. The only marks were those by the Boat Shop, the building near Anna’s house where Tanner fashioned custom-made wooden boats. Emotionally stripped, Miranda hadn’t changed from the silent shadow of herself, and Gabriel wondered how she would react to his offer.

Was it for her welfare, or his own? Was he being selfish? Wanting to care for her, to be with her a little longer, before she left again?

To be truthful, Gabriel admitted to himself, the offer he would propose to Miranda suited his own needs to be close to her, to cherish her.

She didn’t want to answer the quiet firm knock at the back porch door. One look through the window and she recognized Gabriel’s height and broad shoulders. He’d come to shovel snow before, leaving as silently as he came. Wearily she opened the door to him. He’d seen everything, knew the ugly truth about a man who couldn’t bear to look at her. But courtesy in her mother’s house had always been observed. Those watchful black eyes traced the circles beneath her eyes, her pale coloring, and the large dampened apron. He knew too much for her to deny her mental state; she felt as if he could see into her mind, the storms battering and draining her. “So I’m depressed. It happens. I’ll deal with it. Come in.”

Gabriel stamped the snow from his boots and stepped into the back porch. Careful of Anna’s floors, he sat on an old chair and unlaced his boots, removing them. In the kitchen, he eased off his coat and draped it methodically, thoughtfully, over the back of a chair. He took in the empty jars on the table, the contents dumped into a five-gallon bucket, the jars in the soapy water and ranging across the counters. Without speaking, he lifted the bucket and carried it to the back. He replaced his boots and carried the bucket outside. Miranda returned to washing jars, meticulously scrubbing them, holding them up to the kitchen window and inspecting them. If she could, she’d wash away the past as easily.

Gabriel returned with the empty bucket and stood watching her. Empty, she thought, comparing the bucket to how she felt. She avoided his gaze; he’d already seen too much of her life. Struggling against crying, Miranda turned to him. “It’s an ordinary thing to do, isn’t it? Cleaning jars? I have to do something…Gabriel, there was no need for you to feel you had to protect me.”

She was angry now, with herself, with Scott, with Gabriel, with life. Her emotions swung from grief, to frustration, to self-pity, and back to anger. “I’ve always managed. I want to return something to you. Your mother made it for me years ago.”

Hurrying upstairs, Miranda tore into her old hope chest, retrieving the baby blanket Juanita had made. She returned and handed it to Gabriel. She wanted him and everything about him stripped from her. “You should have this.”

“Is it so hard to give yourself into the care of another?” he asked quietly, smoothing his large, strong fingers across the delicate stitching.

“She isn’t here, Gabriel. My mother was always here, and now she isn’t.” Illogical and grieving and emotional, Miranda served him the truth.

“She has done her work. Let her rest.” Gabriel’s voice was deep and soothing, that slight lilt unique and magical. “Have you eaten?”

“Does it matter?” She was bitter and alone and detested herself now, for lashing out at a man who had helped her.

“Come with me to the café, Miranda. Eat with me. Let people see you are a woman of pride and strength, for Anna.”

“That would only reinforce your lie, that you were the father of my baby, trying to reclaim me.”

“You can tell them it is a lie, if you wish. I wanted to protect you then. I still do.” He smiled softly, his hand smoothing her rumpled hair. She moved away, wary of Gabriel, who overpowered her mother’s sunlit kitchen. “Because if you will allow me, I would like to ask for you at the Women’s Council.”

Miranda closed her eyes, his offer echoing in her head. She gripped the kitchen counter for an anchor. “I didn’t hear that.”

He placed his hand on her head and shook it lightly. The gesture was familiar, one her brother and his friends had used for a younger sister. “Open your eyes, little Miranda. It is a logical plan.”

Little Miranda. He’d called her that so long ago….

She stared up at him, trying to mentally jump from a man who’d run from responsibility to the man wanting it. What did Gabriel stand to gain? Why would he want to protect her so dramatically, creating a lie that damaged his honor in Freedom Valley? “Tanner put you up to this. He was always—”

“He’s worried. You are only human, Miranda, and dealing with too much all at once. You need a place apart from here to heal. I am offering my home. It is quiet and you would have time to adjust.”

Adjust? How? She shook her head. “No.”

His body stiffened. “Because you do not trust me?”

She met his eyes, fierce and black now with pride, the scowl darkening his hard face, the gleaming skin taut across those sharp, high cheekbones. “I have always trusted you, even when you were such a rat and broke up with me. I could visit you, Gabriel. I would like that. But the Women’s Council is for marriage offers and I see no reason to deceive anyone any longer.”

“I do. Let me share your burden. Let me give you shelter in all ways while you heal. For the most part, Freedom Valley has kind hearts, but there are tongues who would slice and hurt. Anna would not like that.”

Miranda’s head began to throb, part of her wanting to leap into Gabriel’s offer to let someone else deal with her own affairs. But reality said that she was a woman who could and should manage her life. “The idea is tempting, but I couldn’t let you offer for marriage. I have to handle this on my own.”

“But my pride will not let me do less. It is only a temporary means to help us both. The custom allows you my protection and my honor would not allow me to do less. I will only live with a woman under the custom of Freedom Valley—the trial marriage gives me a bit of company until spring, and hopefully, you’ll relax and think and heal.”

Gabriel ruffled her hair slightly, his fingers drawing away a strand before leaving her. A smile lurked around his eyes and lips. “With you in my home, my sister Clarissa would stop nagging me to get married. You’d be my protection.”

“You’re offering me a distraction, Gabriel. I’ll have to face life sometime.” Yet his idea warmed her, a temporary reprieve.

“True. While you’re thinking about it, let’s go down to the Wagon Wheel and eat.”

Three

Even the most levelheaded woman will be shaken by a man’s honorable and sweet intentions to claim her. I long for the day my Miranda sees such a man coming for her in the old traditional ways of my mother and her mother before her. She guards her heart well, now that Gabriel is not in her wedding sights. His ancestor would not court Cynthia Whitehall of the Founding Mothers all those years ago. Though they married others, Cynthia was said never to glow again as she had when she looked at Mr. Deerhorn. I want my Miranda to glow and to dream as is any woman’s right. It seems that now she has sealed her heart away. I wonder what can bring her back to life and love.

Anna Bennett’s Journal

“I’d like to handle my own problems,” Miranda whispered fiercely as she sat across from Gabriel at the Wagon Wheel Café. Her edges were showing now to a man who already knew too much about her. The falsely admitted father of her baby, Gabriel had stoically taken an amount of verbal battering from the traditional community. Though he seemed undisturbed, Miranda felt guilty, another emotion she couldn’t afford. She hated her weakness now, feeling as though one more blow would shatter her like glass. “I know I’m not myself now, but I will be. I don’t need your sympathy. You’re asking me to live with you and let everyone think that we’re trying to work out a nonexistent relationship. This is today, Gabriel, not a century and a half ago. Women have children—and lose them, and tend their own lives. I will…I will when I’m good and ready.”

Gabriel nodded and leaned back in the booth, a tall broad-shouldered man, one long leg stretched outside the enclosure. The rich tone of his weathered skin reflected his Native American ancestry. The rough cut of his hair rested on the collar of his dark red sweater, those jarring fierce features locked into an unreadable mask. He’d dressed carefully, his jeans new and pressed into a sharp crease. His big hands framed the café’s coffee cup, making the thick porcelain appear delicate. “I am not offering you a fancy resort in which to rest, Miranda. I built my home with few luxuries. You eat little. You can’t grow strong without good food. You should eat what Gwyneth and Kylie bring you.”

“I’m not hungry.” Her stomach ached now, unused to the warm, nourishing “blue plate special” of roast beef, mashed potatoes and green beans. In front of her, a wedge of Willa’s famed apple pie stood untouched.

“Are you going to eat that?” he asked and when she shook her head Gabriel ate her serving. “I like to eat with someone,” he said quietly. “Do you?”

She shrugged and glanced at Willa, the owner of the café, who was eyeing Luigi of the Pasta Palace down the street. Luigi had once burst into an emotional Italian song that clearly marked his intentions to court Willa, a seasoned widow of many years. Luigi’s huge drooping moustache was twitching as he smiled at Willa, his teeth gleaming whitely.

Following Miranda’s look, Gabriel noted, “He’s got her on the run.”

“That’s what people will say about you and me, Gabriel.” Miranda’s tone was hushed and fierce. She didn’t want his kindness; she wanted to retreat. “This is all a sham. They’ll think you want me. I don’t feel right about this—my mother believed in the traditional courting customs here. I shouldn’t have agreed to the lie about my life. I’ve managed so far without your protection.”

Bitter? Ungrateful? She was all of that and guilty, too. Gabriel didn’t deserve her harsh tirade. “I’m not exactly a likable person now. I’m sorry.”

“Anna understood a great many things when it came to surviving. She’d understand you need to heal. She’d understand that I am made a certain way and that we have reached a compromise…. Want you?” He lifted an eyebrow, his black eyes challenging her. “We’ll know differently, won’t we?”

She looked away out into the bright January sunlight, to Mr. Collier carefully helping his pregnant forty-year-old wife across street. The child was their first and both were glowing.

Gabriel was right; she wasn’t ready to face life just yet, to see Gwyneth’s body rounding with a baby. At times, Miranda’s grief slipped beyond her tethers and revealed more than she wished. Tanner was too careful not to speak of his joy and hurt her. Michael and Kylie were bursting with excitement, quickly shielded when Miranda was near—she expected that they had their own news of a baby and the ache within her grew. She couldn’t bear casting a shadow upon her brother’s and sister’s happiness. She couldn’t bear living in her mother’s empty house.

“Only for a time, Miranda. Until you feel better.”

She rubbed her throbbing headache. Every part of her now wanted to agree to Gabriel’s offer, to take shelter away from everything. “You’re pushing me, and I don’t like it.”

“The offer is mine. The choice is yours.” Gabriel looked away as if they weren’t discussing the deep traditions of Freedom Valley, where a man declared his intentions in front of the Women’s Council.

Miranda traced the rim of her water glass. “I’m in pieces,” she said finally. “Not at all like myself, and you know it.”

He nodded solemnly, those straight black lashes shielding his gaze. The sunlight passing through the window caught the dark tone of his skin, the angle of his high cheekbones. He seemed timeless as the mountains, his aura that of a man who spent his life outdoors amid the pine and clear water. “I think that your heart is wounded and that you are tired. You will be strong again.”

Long moments passed and then Miranda gave way to the need running within her to escape. “Okay,” she whispered bleakly. “I’d like to get away from everything for a while, and if it’s necessary for you to present this deception—a trial marriage—I guess that’s okay.”

The smile lurking around his lips matched the tone of his deep voice. “Ah, the gracious acceptance of the doomed. Do you think you can ride in another week?”

“I don’t feel like—” Then she caught that hard, straight look. The Deerhorns obeyed their own traditions. “You’re coming for me in the old way, aren’t you?”

“Yes. It is important to me. But if you prefer—”

“What am I worth?” she couldn’t help asking, slightly surprised by her own humor.

He shrugged, a gesture that said little and yet everything. That black gaze slid down her gray sweater, woolen slacks and boots. “You’re scrawny. Two horses maybe. Not my best ones.”

She smiled at that. Gabriel used to tease her in the same way. “You’ll get them back. This is only for a time.”

He was trying to help her, but there were concessions to Gabriel’s traditional-based honor. “I’ll manage. Thank you, Gabriel.”

At the cash register, Willa glared at him and stared pointedly at a jar filled with wrapped roses. Gabriel nodded and selected a tiny perfect yellow bloom. While Willa watched approvingly, he tore off the long stem and slid the rose into Miranda’s hair.

His hand rested warm and hard and callused against her cheek. She wondered why his gaze was so soft and seeking on her; she wondered why it called forth a tenderness she hadn’t expected.

She wondered why, at times, he spoke to her in that careful, proper way, his deep voice curling intimately around her.

Later, she would see that Gabriel had not taken the baby blanket, and her senses told her that he was uneasy with returned gifts, especially gifts between women.

In his way, Gabriel was a very traditional man. He was also known to be very private, and Miranda knew it was no light matter for him to open his home to her.

A week later, the blinding morning sun danced across the crust of the snow. Tethered behind him, Gabriel’s six best Appaloosa snorted steam into the frigid air. Three horses were his offering for Miranda; the one with the saddle was for her, one was to act as a pack horse, and another for him to ride on the return journey. He glanced at his four-wheeler, parked and ready for use, but today he was bringing Miranda to his home and nothing but the old-fashioned way would settle his heart. He’d cleared the narrow winding road to his home with the blade attached to his vehicle, because he wanted Miranda’s journey to be safe. “As the crow flies,” his home was not far from Anna’s, yet it was over ten road miles. Intermittent horseback trails, passing through woods that a vehicle could not maneuver, closed the distance to five. Clumps of snow fell from the pines bordering the road to his mountain home, making muffled sounds as it hit. Branches cracked beneath the snow’s weight and Gabriel’s experienced eyes traced the paw prints of a big wolf, running alone and free. The wolves would mate for life and perhaps that was his nature, too, because he’d never wanted another woman. Chiding himself for the traditional ways that had always been within him, springing now to life, Gabriel led his best Appaloosa to Tanner and Gwyneth’s ranch.

Miranda was right—he was pushing her. He was hungry for the sight of her, for the sound of her voice. When the wind stirred her hair, sending the blue-black silk swirling around her too pale face, Gabriel wondered about shaman’s spells, for he was so enchanted. His hand gripped the saddlehorn and he realized that he had never been nervous of a woman before, except teenage Miranda.

Two days ago, Fidelity Moore’s cane had hit the floor at the Women’s Council meeting. Her high-pitched voice had run above the women’s gossiping. “I want to hear what the boy has to say for himself. You’ve come here with Tanner Bennett, Miranda’s brother, at your side. He approves of the situation? That you’ve finally decided to do right by Miranda? Well, speak, Mr. Gabriel Deerhorn. It is no light matter to ask for a bride before this Council. We want assurances that you are a rightful candidate for Miranda’s future husband. Speak.”

In the bright January morning, Gabriel glanced at the cows mulling around the huge round bail of hay in the field. Freedom Valley was warmer than his mountain ranch, and his horses—except for the six with him—were staying at his father’s place.

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