you say it’s time I found a good woman and settled down?”
“What will you do? How will you live with no money?” Caleb asked, unable to hide his shock.
“You’re the one who said I was down-and-out, not me. I have a bit stuck by. As for what I’ll do, I have no idea.” He managed a wry smile. “It’ll be a while before I’m able to do much of anything, but when the time is right, something will come along.”
Another silence ensued. Finally, Gabe gave a heavy sigh, grimaced in pain and curved his arm around his battered ribs as if to protect them.
“Look, Caleb. I’m truly sorry for the way I acted when we were kids. I think I was trying to get Lucas to notice me, to acknowledge I was alive. If it took acting up to do it, so be it. I’m sorry my behavior left most of the work and responsibility on you. In a strange sort of way, though, I think you actually benefited.”
“How do you figure that?” Caleb snapped. “I was the slave who worked and you were the spoiled brat who got by with everything and did next to nothing.” His lips tightened with the stubbornness he was known for. “I’ve hated you for that.”
“I can’t say that I blame you,” Gabe said. He understood Caleb’s feelings, but just as Rachel’s disgust had been hard to swallow, Caleb’s words hurt, far more than Gabe had expected.
“Just think about it a minute. You were the one learning how to work, how to become a productive citizen, while I learned nothing except how to goof off and finagle others into doing my chores. I thought it was funny then, but not now. I cheated myself out of a lot of lessons.”
Caleb stared at Gabe as if he’d never seen him before.
“I know it’s a lot to ask, and I’ll understand if you say no, but I’d like to ask your forgiveness. I’d like the opportunity to get to know you and your family. Believe it or not, I want to be an uncle, and I’d really like it if you and I could find some common ground to build a relationship on.”
* * *
Rachel returned from a visit with one of her patients just before noon. She found her father sitting at the kitchen table in his wheelchair, slicing a skillet of corn bread into wedges.
“Hey, Pops!” she said, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. “How is everything?”
“Just dandy. How is little Jimmy doing?”
“As well as can be expected.”
“Good. Food’s ready,” he said, indicating a pot of pinto beans and salt pork Rachel had set on the back of the woodstove before she left earlier in that morning. “Will you get Danny and Gabe while I finish up here?”
“Of course.”
“Rachel,” he said, his voice stopping her.
“Yes?” she said, turning.
“Caleb came to see Gabe this morning. I have no idea what they talked about, but I thought you’d like to know.”
“Yes,” she said, nodding. “Thank you.”
Thoughts of what might have transpired between the brothers filled her mind as she went to fetch Danny. She found him reading one of the books he’d received for Christmas and more than ready to eat, since there were cookies to be had afterward.
Rachel went to Gabe’s room, knocked on the door and opened it at his summons.
“Pops has dinner ready,” she said, noticing that he was dressed in the extra clothes she’d found in his carpetbag instead of Edward’s castoffs. She couldn’t help noticing how well they fit his lean, broad-shouldered body. No doubt they’d been tailor-made for him.
“Thank you,” he said. “I’ve been waiting to talk to you.”
“Oh?”
He nodded. “I wanted to tell you that I’ll be leaving after we eat.”
“Leaving?” she echoed, disbelief in her voice. “You’re in no condition to be on a horse.”
“I don’t plan to be. I’m not leaving town, just checking into the boardinghouse. I think I’m well enough to take care of myself if I don’t do anything stupid.”
Though she’d wished him gone a hundred times, now that he planned to go she was filled with something that felt far too much like disappointment for her peace of mind.
“And how do you propose to pay for it?” she said, her voice sharper than she’d intended as the nebulous distress vanished in the face of her irritation.
“I had some money stuck in my boot the thieves didn’t find,” he explained. “It will see me through for a while. Besides, I think you’d agree that I’ve disrupted your life enough.”
Indeed he had, she thought, though she would never admit it. “You have not disrupted my life.”
His smile mocked. “Could’ve fooled me.”
Embarrassment flushed her cheeks. “Caring for people is what I do.”
“And I’ll be the first one to attest to the fact that you’re a fine doctor,” he said in a gentle voice. “But let’s be honest here.”
“By all means. If that’s possible,” she said, unable to mask the sarcasm in her voice.
“Touché.” Meeting her irate gaze was one of the hardest things he’d ever done. “Again, I know I treated you badly in St. Louis, and I should have said goodbye in person instead of leaving you that note.”
Rachel began to laugh, a terrible parody of the sound. “You think I’m angry at you because you left me a note?” she cried.
“Weren’t you?”
“Angry?” She shook her head. “No. Try furious. Or hurt. Or better yet, devastated.” She took a deep breath, and feelings and words that had festered far too long erupted from her lips.
“Silly, naive me! I was bound to fall for your smooth-talking ways. I believed everything you told me, and it was all lies. Every single word of it! So tell me, Gabe, where was your honesty back then?”
The vitriol in her voice caused all the color to drain from his face. “I have no excuse, except...”
She made a slashing movement through the air to silence him. “You’re right. You have no excuse. Lucky, lucky me! Handsome, worldly Gabe Gentry, the boy every girl in Wolf Creek longed to snare, looked me up.”
She gave a bitter laugh. “I can’t believe I was so gullible. I actually scoffed at the tales I’d heard about you, because you seemed so kind, and my memories of you were good. So I listened to your lies and fell for your pretty words. I gave you everything I had, Gabe. Everything. My love, my—” her voice faltered “—my entire being. You played me for a fool, and when you got what you wanted, you left without a backward glance, off to the next place of interest, the next easy mark.”
“I never thought you were an easy—” He tried to interrupt, but again she held up her palm for silence and drew in several deep, steadying breaths. As quickly as it had come, her anger disappeared. He almost wished it hadn’t. The anguish in her eyes was almost his undoing.
“Do you have any idea what you did to me?” she said, her voice breaking. “Do you have any idea how ugly and discarded and used I felt?”
Truthfully, he’d never considered that. For the first time he realized how badly his casual treatment had wounded her. There had been other girls, other times, and never once had he considered how his cavalier dismissal might have made them feel. He’d always assumed that they expected no more or less than he was willing to offer. He’d used his God-given looks and charm with utter disregard for anyone’s feelings but his own. All his life it had been about him. About what he felt, what he wanted.
The knowledge shamed