Gabriel's Gift. Cait London

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.