Wolf Creek Wedding. Penny Richards

      “Let me show you around,” he said, relieved that there were no objections.

      He led the small procession down the hallway. The bedroom was furnished simply with a bed, an oak armoire and a highboy. Abby noted that he had built a small fire to combat the autumn chill, and warmth was already starting to spread throughout the area, which was far larger than any room at her home. As spacious as it was and even though she knew the furnishings were of good quality, the house seemed sterile somehow, as untouched as Caleb Gentry’s heart. Shifting Laura on her hip, she ran her fingertip through the dust that had gathered on top of a chest of drawers. And it could use a thorough cleaning.

      “I guess it needs a good cleaning,” he said, echoing her thoughts.

      The sound of his voice sent Abby’s gaze winging to his, and she saw that the dull red of embarrassment had crept into the harsh sweep of his cheekbones. Too late, she realized what she had done. Oh, dear! Could she and the children do nothing right?

      “Emily didn’t have much energy the past few months, and I—”

      “There’s no need to apologize, Mr. Gentry,” she rushed to assure him. “Any woman who has carried a child to term understands.” She offered him a nonjudgmental smile. “It’s a lovely home and it won’t take much to get things in order.”

      “I suppose not.” Clearly eager to be away from the house and all the turmoil and unhappiness in it, he said, “I need to get one of my hands to go over to your place and see to your animals tonight. We’ll move them tomorrow.”

      “Thank you. I’m sorry to put you to the trouble.”

      “It’s not a problem.” She told him how to find her house and he gave a sharp nod. He looked as tense as she felt. It seemed as if they were both trying to outdo the other in civility.

      She offered him a thin smile. “I’ll just get our things put away and check on Betsy again.”

      “I have to go into town and make arrangements at the, uh—” he cleared his throat “—funeral home, so I can’t stay to see that you get settled in. Feel free to just...look around if you need something. I’ll be back by dusk for supper. Just fix whatever you want.”

      Laura muttered something that sounded remarkably like “supper” and offered Caleb one of her incredible smiles. Just as incredibly, the bleakness in his storm-gray eyes dimmed the tiniest bit. Though it in no way could be called a smile and was so fleeting that Abby was certain it must be a trick of the light, it seemed that just for a second, the unyielding firmness of his mouth softened somewhat.

      She gave her daughter a squeeze. It seemed that at least one of the Carters was not intimidated by the overwhelming presence of the man, and even seemed to be taken with him! Much to her own mortification considering the circumstances, Abby realized that in his own rough, brooding sort of way, Caleb Gentry was an attractive man.

      * * *

      Caleb rode his gelding into town, his body past weariness, sporadic images flitting through his weary mind like flashes of lighting against a sullen sky. Rachel coming from the room where a baby’s crying was the only sound after Emily had gone suddenly quiet. His gaze straying to the bed, where a sheet covered Emily’s face. His heart stumbling in his chest, and the resolute, relentless ticking of the clock, while his exhausted brain struggled to assimilate what his eyes were seeing. Rachel’s voice, filled with weariness and regret. Emily was dead and his baby daughter needed someone to take care of her, to feed her. An overwhelming certainty that there must be something terribly wrong with him for his inability to feel anything over his wife’s death but panic and fear....

      The random images faded, and reason—of sorts—returned along with memories of the past couple of hours. He conceded that he had jumped to conclusions with Mrs. Carter’s boy. It wasn’t his fault his sister had broken the shepherdess, but with Caleb’s own emotions so raw, and his feelings of inadequacy at the surface, he had been eager to place blame. The truth was that his whole world was turned upside down. Nothing would ever be the same, so he might as well get used to the idea of Mrs. Carter and her children being around, at least for the foreseeable future.

      Whether he liked it or not.

      With a grunt of disgust, he guided the horse down Antioch Street, and took a right toward the railroad tracks. The house Rachel Stone shared with her father, which also housed her medical office, sat on a corner beyond the tracks that ran a block down from and parallel to Antioch. The funeral home was situated at the rear of the house, added a few years before, when Rachel’s father, Dr. Edward Stone, had suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed.

      Caleb rode around back, tied his horse to the hitching post and stepped through the doorway of the funeral parlor. Edward, who sat behind a gleaming desk, looked up when he heard the bell on the door ring, a solemn expression on his lined face. He rolled his wheelchair around to greet Caleb with his hand extended.

      “I’m sorry, Caleb.”

      Caleb only nodded.

      “Bart and Mary picked out a casket and brought her a dress. I didn’t think you’d mind.” When Caleb shook his head, the older man said, “She’s ready, if you want to go on in.”

      Caleb nodded, though it was the last thing he wanted to do. He entered the viewing room, where Emily lay dressed in a frilly gown of pale pink, her favorite color. Her dark lashes lay against the delicate paleness of her cheeks. If he didn’t know better, he might think she was sleeping.

      Dry-eyed, he stared down at the woman who had been a part of his life the past six years, waiting for the grief to overtake him and wondering if he should pray. But grief for losing a beloved wife did not come, and he had no idea what he could—or should—say to a God with whom he’d had so few dealings. The only sorrow he could define was sadness that Emily had been taken in her prime and would not be there for Betsy.

      There was guilt aplenty.

      Guilt aggravated by the nagging memory of the jolt that had passed through him when his fingers had touched those of Abby Carter. What kind of man was he to feel anything for any woman so soon after his wife’s death?

      The answer was clear. He was, perhaps, a man who hadn’t tried hard enough to make his marriage a good one. A man who’d let someone else plan his marriage and shape his life...which might explain that unexpected awareness of Mrs. Carter but certainly did not excuse it.

      He and Emily were both twenty-four when they married. Pretty enough, but thought to be a bit uppity, she was considered to be the town spinster. Caleb’s father had instigated the notion of his marrying her. His father stated that since Gabe, whom Lucas Gentry bitterly referred to as the “prodigal,” had shown no signs of abandoning his wayward lifestyle to come home and share the burden of labor, it was past time for his elder son to choose a wife and sire a son to inherit the Gentry fortune.

      Emily’s parents had encouraged her to accept Caleb’s offer—most probably her last. So they married and lived with Lucas in the house he had built for his own wife, Caleb and Gabe’s mother, Libby.

      Unfortunately, Lucas had died of a stroke three years ago, without seeing the birth of his grandchild. More regrettable perhaps was the fact that despite the tales Caleb had heard about love often following marriage, for him and Emily it had not.

      Until now, he had never questioned why. They’d both been content to let the days slip by...sharing a house but not their lives, treating each other with respect but not love, neither of them caring enough to look for a spark of something that might be fanned into the flames of love. In retrospect, he found that troubling, but then, what did he know of love? He and Gabe had lost their mother to another man at a young age, and love was a sentiment foreign to their embittered father.

      Father. He was a father now, and he hoped to be a better one than Lucas Gentry had been. He would be better. He might not know anything about loving his daughter, but he knew how to take care of her. Duty and obligation were things Caleb Gentry understood