Gabriel's Gift. Cait London

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….”

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