Gabriel's Lady

Amelia felt the pressure of her headache behind her eyes. She did not want to argue with Parker tonight, but she felt compelled to ask, “So after a few months in the West you now think it’s perfectly all right to drink spirits and consort with loose women?”

Gabe was watching the exchange without amusement. He could see the hurt in Amelia’s eyes. But he could also understand Parker’s chafing under her scrutiny. A young man who had just discovered the wide world did not want to be cross-examined like an errant schoolboy.

“Your sister’s right, Parker. It’s too late for more socializing. I’ve overstayed my welcome. How about if I invite you all to supper tomorrow?” He gave a little bow in Amelia’s direction. “At the Willard Hotel, not the Lucky Horseshoe.”

But Parker’s attention stayed focused on his sister. “If you’ve come out here to light into me like one of Mother’s holier-than-thou reformer friends, you might as well just get right back on the stagecoach east.”

Drums sounded in the back of Amelia’s ears. “Parker Prescott! How can you say such a thing after I’ve come all this way—”

“I didn’t ask you to come—”

“With our father practically at death’s door all for worry over you?”

“Since when has Father worried over me?”

“He worries about both of us. He loves us…”

“Father never worries about anything but his noble causes and his beloved bank!”

“Stop it!” Morgan’s deep voice interrupted. Amelia and Parker stopped talking, but continued to glare at one another.

Morgan walked slowly across the room. As he had done all their lives when he wanted to make a point, he spoke very slowly and his Welsh inflection became more noticeable. “I’m too old to be a referee to fighting children. And these old bones are too weary to stand here and listen to you two caterwauling all night long.”

Parker’s expression remained hard, but Amelia looked contrite. “You probably didn’t get any more sleep than I did last night, Morgan,” she said. “Let’s call it a day and see what kind of sleeping arrangements we can figure out.”

Parker’s lips were set in that way Amelia knew so well. He said stiffly, “You’ll take the bed in here, Amelia. Morgan can sleep out in the lean-to. I’ll join him there when I get back.”

“Back from where?”

“Back from Mattie’s!” he shouted. He turned sharply on his boot heel and stalked out the door, ripping his hat from the peg along the way.

Amelia watched him go in disbelief. She had known that there would be unpleasant moments as she persuaded Parker that he had to return with her to New York, but she hadn’t imagined a raw shouting match their first evening together. Her head throbbed and she felt a little sick to her stomach. She turned her anger on their guest. “I suppose he’s trying to live up to you, Mr. Hatch. All those exploits you make sound so attractive.”

Gabe gave her a sympathetic smile. “How old’s your brother, Miss Prescott?”

Amelia rubbed her sore eyes. “Twenty-two.”

“Well, there you have it. Any lad worth his salt is going to be out trying to get a taste of life at twenty-two.”

Amelia sighed and stretched her neck. Morgan bent over her. “You got one of your headaches, Missy? You need to get to bed.”

Amelia nodded tiredly as Gabe said, “You need fresh air more than you do sleep.”

Amelia looked puzzled. “Believe me,” Gabe continued. “There was a period in my life when I became an expert on headaches—both causin’ them and curin’ them. You need to clear all this smoke out of your head before you settle down to sleep.” He gestured toward the fire, which they’d kept burning all night in deference to the approach of autumn chill.

Gabe reached carefully around Morgan’s big shoulder and took Amelia’s arm. “Come on. Just walk outside a few minutes.”

Too tired to protest, she let him lead her out the door as Morgan watched with a doubtful expression.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were my brother’s partner?” she asked as he slowly led the way down to the log bridge.

“I thought it was Parker’s place to explain the situation to you.”

“Well, it would have been more…gentlemanly to tell me that you knew who I was.”

“Yes, ma’am. It would.”

“So you owe me an apology.”

They reached the bridge. “The problem is that being a gentleman doesn’t happen to be one of my favorite occupations.”

“Favorite occupations such as drinking?”

Gabe leaned his arms on the log railing. “Well, no. You’ve been misled on that account, Miss Prescott. Drinking’s not exactly a favorite, either.”

The cool air, just barely scented with pine, did feel good inside her nostrils. Amelia took a deep breath. Beneath them the rush of water sounded comforting, like an odd lullaby. Gradually other night sounds seeped into her consciousness. The insects that had bothered her so out on the trail were nowhere around, though she heard their rhythmic chirping out in the woods. And from just across the river there was an eerie hooting sound.

“Is that a real owl?” she asked in amazement. Owls had always been something out of a children’s storybook. She’d never seen one or even heard one back in New York.

Gabe laughed. “That’s a real one, all right. A lusty hoot owl, calling out for a mate. Not too much different from your brother.”

They had reached the middle of the bridge, and Amelia looked down at the water. She had the feeling that Gabriel Hatch was flirting with her by making such improper comments, but it was not a kind of flirting with which she was familiar.

“Back home Parker would never have dreamed of going to a place like Mrs. Smith’s.”

“Oh, he dreamed it, all right. All young men do. It just wasn’t the kind of dream you share with your family.”

Amelia shook her head. The water underneath her danced along in a moonlit ballet. “I’m starting to feel that New York is very, very far away,” she said softly.

Gabe fought back an impulse to put an arm around her. In fact, he realized with surprise, he wanted to do more than that. Last night at the campsite he had been ready to dismiss her as a snobbish Eastern prude who was not worth more of his attention. But once he’d left her at the stagecoach this morning, he’d been unable to get her out of his mind. Instead of heading for the game at the Lucky Horseshoe, he’d found himself riding out to Parker’s place. And staying all evening. And now he was standing with her in the cool night air, thinking about young men’s fancies and hoot owls and imagining how it would feel to wrap her up in his arms.

Amelia had been at first anxious, then furious when she awoke the next morning to hear from Morgan that Parker had not returned home. Morgan tried to tell her, as Gabe had the night before, that it was not such a strange thing for a young man to spend the night away from his home. “Like some sort of tomcat, you mean,” Amelia had snapped. And Morgan had looked embarrassed and headed down to the river to fetch water.

Parker had shown up midmorning, whistling and ready to charm his sister into forgetting their quarrel. He apologized profusely for leaving her on her first night and called himself a scalawag and several other creative names that had Amelia laughing in spite of herself.

By lunchtime they were friends again. They sat on the banks of the little Pronghorn River and ate cold boiled potatoes and hard rolls. “I must say I’m not much impressed with the cuisine here in your fabulous West,” Amelia said.

Parker reached for the jug of cider to wash down his dry lunch. “I just haven’t had much time for figuring out things like cooking.”

“You don’t even have a stove.”

“Every ounce of dust I find goes right back into the mine.” He indicated all the mysterious equipment that surrounded them. “I’ve bought all this just from working the river with my own two hands and a washpan. Now with a sluice and a Long Tom and a cradle, pretty soon I’ll be taking out twenty-five dollars a day or more. And if I find a vein in those cliffs over there, why, the sky’s the limit. Twenty-five dollars will be my tip to the shoeshine boys back on Park Avenue.”

A glow came into his eyes when he started to talk about his mine. It made Amelia uncomfortable. It was going to be harder to talk Parker into returning home than she had anticipated.

“Couldn’t you come home for a couple of years, just to help Father get used to the idea that he can’t run everything at the bank anymore? Then you could come back out here.”

Parker looked at her as if she were crazy. “A couple of years? This could be gone by then. Look at California—the richest strike in history, they called it, and now it’s mostly played out. I’m just damn lucky I was able to stake claim to this place. There aren’t too many more prime spots left. Before long they’ll all be taken.”