Though he was heartbroken over her actions, Edward Stone was as stubborn as his daughter. From the moment the baby was born, he began to campaign for her to keep him.
After two days of reasoning that sometimes bordered on outright coercion, she’d agreed. She and the son she named Daniel had stayed in St. Louis until she received her medical degree, something made possible when Edward upped his monthly stipend and arranged for Mrs. Abernathy to keep Danny while Rachel was in class. Only then was she forced to summon the courage to go back home and face the music.
Since Sarah had blabbed the news all over town, there was no way Rachel could pretend she’d married while she was away, and even if that had been an option, she wouldn’t have added lying to her sins. Instead, with her well-respected father at her side, she’d brazened out the whispers and cold shoulders with the same determination and dedication that had seen her through her schooling.
A week after arriving home, her mother died, and Rachel always felt at fault. A short time later, she’d found the courage to go back to church and seek God’s forgiveness.
Since then, she had worked alongside her father trying to earn back the respect and goodwill of the townsfolk. When Edward suffered a stroke two years ago, she’d taken on the bulk of his practice. Though there were a few who still regarded her as a fallen woman, for the most part she’d been restored into the town’s good graces.
To this day no one—not even her father—knew the identity of Danny’s father.
Now that man lay in her downstairs bedroom and there was nowhere to run from her past. She’d always believed God had a plan, that things happened for a reason and that He was in control. When Gabe had walked out on her after taking her innocence, she’d wondered what the Lord could possibly have been thinking by bringing them together. Now she wondered what on earth He could possibly have in mind by doing it again.
* * *
That afternoon, still weary and upset, Rachel decided that since sickness and accidents seemed to be taking a holiday, she would take her mind off of what she’d begun to think of as the situation and bake oatmeal cookies with Danny.
She knew she should drive out and tell Caleb his brother was back and seriously injured, but she didn’t want to talk about Gabe Gentry, didn’t want to waste one single moment even thinking about him. Therein lay the problem. All she’d done since she’d recognized him on the gurney was think about him.
She was reaching for a tea towel to take a batch of cookies from the oven when Danny asked, “Do you know that man, Mama?”
Rachel paused, halfway to the stove. Take a deep breath and answer him. After all, he was only exhibiting the natural curiosity of an eight-year-old.
“I knew him a long time ago,” she said, choosing her words with care. “But not very well, it seems.” It was the truth, after all.
“Pops said he’s Mr. Gentry’s younger brother.”
“That’s right.” One by one she lifted the hot cookies onto a stoneware platter with the egg turner. Mercifully, before Danny could ask another question, she heard someone knocking. Her father was dozing in his favorite chair, so there was no need to stop. He’d answer the door.
She heard the rumble of masculine voices, and in a matter of minutes Caleb entered the kitchen. “Caleb!” she said, surprised to see him.
“Edward told me it’s true,” he said, twisting his hat in his big work-roughened hands. His unusual silvery eyes were a dark, stormy gray.
“Yes.” Rachel gestured toward a chair at the table. “Have a seat. I’m sorry I didn’t come out and tell you, but it was a long morning, and I took a little rest.”
“No need,” Caleb said, stepping farther into the room but refusing to sit down. “Between Simon and Roland, the Wolf Creek grapevine is in prime working order. Sarah drove out about noon on the pretext of wanting to be the first to see Eli. Of course, she couldn’t wait to tell me the news.”
“After the way she slandered you and Abby, I can’t believe that woman would have the gall to even look you in the eye,” Rachel said with a bitter twist of her lips.
Caleb’s smile mimicked hers. “I warned her last year not to ever step foot on the place again, but I guess she decided facing my anger was a fair trade for the pleasure of being the first to tell me about Gabe. How bad is he?”
“Bad enough.” Rachel listed his injuries and Caleb winced.
“Can I see him?”
“Of course. I should check on him anyway. I’ve given him some laudanum, so he’s unconscious. It’s best if I keep him that way for a day or two, until he’s past the worst of the pain,” she said, preceding Caleb into the bedroom.
As he approached the bed, Rachel heard him draw in a sharp breath. He swallowed hard and looked up at her with an expression of horror. “His face...”
She nodded. “Whoever did this to him intended for him to remember it.”
Never one to show emotion, Caleb’s response was to turn and walk out of the room. In the hall, he hesitated, almost as if he wanted to say something and didn’t know how...or what.
“Would you like a cup of coffee and some cookies?” Rachel asked in a gentle voice. “They’re straight from the oven.”
“That would be nice,” he said. He followed her into the kitchen, where Edward was plopping out spoons full of dough, and pulled out a chair.
Rachel sent her father a silent message and Edward said, “Come on, Danny. It’s warmed up some, so let’s go outside awhile. I’ll sit on the porch while you make a snowman.”
Since he’d been begging to go out all day, Danny gave a shout of joy and bounded from the room.
“Bundle up!” Edward shouted to his retreating back, turning his chair and following.
When they were gone, Caleb said simply, “Thank you.”
Rachel sat down across from him. “You wanted to tell me something?”
He took a swallow of coffee. “I don’t know what I want. When I first heard Gabe was back, I intended to come here and give him a piece of my mind for walking out all those years ago and never once contacting us. That was before I saw how bad he is.”
He swallowed hard. A smart, self-educated man known for his toughness and an unyielding attitude, Caleb had softened a lot since marrying Abby Carter.
“Now I don’t know how I feel or what to say to him,” he confessed, rubbing a hand down his cheek. “Seeing him like that caught me off guard.” He gave another halfhearted smile. “It’s hard to summon up a lot of anger when someone is lying there battered and bleeding and can’t defend himself.”
She gave a half shrug. “True, I suppose, but there’s absolutely no excuse for him to not contact you all these years,” Rachel said before she could temper her tongue.
Caleb frowned at her animosity.
Realizing she’d let too much of her antagonism show, she took a calming breath. “You never really got along, did you?”
“No.” He ran his hand through his shaggy hair. “Well, that’s not exactly true. Actually, we never had much to do with each other. He was four years younger than me, and I was always expected to toe the line, get the work done. Lucas mostly let Gabe go his own way, so he never did much of anything that resembled work. When he asked for his inheritance, Lucas just up and gave it to him, and I was left to deal with everything here.”
“It must have seemed very unfair.”
Caleb’s short bark of laughter lacked true mirth. “In more ways than you can imagine. I guess it’s pretty obvious that Gabe was always the handsome one, the charming one, the one who