twenty-five

Studies have tried to prove there’s nothing special about fresh spring water, and thirsty people seem eager to settle for the public variety—unless they’ve tasted the alternative. It is the same in love.

~A scientist’s observations on love

Another convulsion of chills, then I felt myself swept up in strong arms, my body lolling against a chest that was stone-wall thick as he climbed back up the cliff face on a narrow rock path. “Gabe.” Of course it was Gabe. Who else would come out here after a mere nurse? To him, I’d never be “merely” anything.

“You’re all right, I’ll help you.”

I blinked against the rain to look up at him to argue, but my cloudy mind had no words. I’d cracked my head and all the words had fallen out. I couldn’t speak. So for once, I didn’t. I simply stared up into that fathomless face with eyes so rich in kindness, a gaze that wrapped itself so thoroughly around me that my shivering relaxed. His steady eyes looked into mine, drenching me in reassurance.

I’d been mad at him. My stomach soured over the memory. My brain wouldn’t let me recall the details.

Oh, how I adored this man. Gabe—dear, wonderful Gabe—whose heart was so big that, like any good home, everyone had a place there. Even a friend who’d scorned him.

I studied every inch of his familiar face, noticing a long scar on his temple, a slightly crooked bend to his nose, a cleft in his masculine chin. I looked him over with the eyes of my heart that had been softening in every direction, seeing things and people with new clarity.

That small warmth of familiarity and friendship I always felt around him glowed again in my chest as I watched him. Yet the longer I looked up at him, wrapped in that gaze, with no words to interrupt what existed between us, that feeling of warm ash in the hearth slowly swelled as if someone had blown gently on the embers. They glowed with pleasant intensity through my whole body, pulsing through every inch in powerful waves that left me tingling with an inescapable, heady delight. I had no power to stop it, but neither did I want to. I shivered at its immensity.

What was this?

Warmth poured through my veins and magnificently eclipsed the tingles of romance I’d been waiting for, plunging far deeper into my soul. My tired brain struggled to understand it. He’d always been like a brother to me, hadn’t he? A brother. Yet as I looked into his precious face, I couldn’t remember why. I tried to piece together a single reason I should feel that way about him when he was so wretchedly handsome, so rugged and magnificent, both inside and out.

I felt dizzy. There was a reason I never thought of Gabe this way—I knew there was. I simply couldn’t think straight. Why was reason escaping me? Questions stalled out. Thoughts fizzled. I blinked, staring up at him, and sank into the relaxed posture of trust.

“Stay awake, Willa.”

I groaned. Contrary man, never letting me do what I wished. I desired nothing more than sleep this minute.

He never took his eyes off me, sloshing through mud and rain. Why hadn’t he taken me through the tunnel? It was shorter. Drier. Perhaps because he hadn’t thought to bring a light. Or it was too wet for one. You couldn’t go through a dark place without light.

Yet darkness edged my vision, framing the world in a soft haze. How desperately I wanted to sleep, and Gabe’s chest was so comfortable, so strong. The smell of him, the feel of his movements against me as if we rode his horse together. All so wonderful and inviting. So very safe. Warm.

Fuzzy light seeped into my vision as I stirred. My eyes were closed.

“Willa?” It was a familiar voice, calling to me through the thickness. A man.

Everything was still. Heavy. I ached.

As I surfaced from the murky darkness of a headache-induced slumber, my mind slogged along, slowly righting itself with each fragmented memory. Dr. Tillman had prodded me with questions at some point, giving me something to drink. The servants had looked on. Further back—there had been a letter from the university, a muddy climb to the ruins . . . and Gabe.

Gabe.

The memory of his gentle smile pulsed through my hazy thoughts. The stronger my mind became, the larger Gabe loomed in it, eclipsing everything else and filling my head with an abundance of colorful memories, heady words, and powerful sentiments. Where was he? I parted my dry lips to ask, but nothing came out.

“There she is. Keen to sleep the rest of your life now, are you, girl?” Father’s voice was gruff yet gentle as he put a hand to my forehead, then my wrist. I turned my head and he hoisted me from behind my shoulder blades, folding me into a warm embrace. “There we are.”

“Mrs. Gresham.” I croaked the words out.

He leaned back with a sigh, resting me on the headboard and propping my pillows behind me. “She’s doing well. Tillman has been seeing to her.”

“Gabe?”

“I assume he’s about.”

He handed me a glass of liquid, which I downed with haste and cleared my cottony throat. “He came for me—out in the rain.”

He grew solemn. “I know.”

I looked down, fingering the edge of my sheet, an ocean of feelings surfacing within. “Papa, there’s something I need to tell you about Gabe . . .”

“Don’t.”

I blinked, wondering at the tightness in his face, and a memory flashed. Then another. Father frowning at the sight of me standing with Gabe Gresham, pulling me away, Father laughing off my suggestion that Gabe and I write to each other, Father knocking Gabe’s flowers out of my girlish hand. “He’s like a brother to you, Willa. A brother.” The tone of that single word, the look of aversion on his face, had pivoted my thoughts for years to come, settling firmly in my head the utter inappropriateness of anything blossoming between Gabe and me. Father had almost been angry when he’d said, “He’ll have the wrong idea about you. You mustn’t let him think of you as a match.”

I looked up into his worried face now, years later, as he held the same firm opinion. “Why not, Father?”

“Because you deserve more. You always have.” He sat on the edge of my bed with a sigh. “Do you remember how it was between your beloved mother and me? How intense the air felt, how dark and teasing her eyes were, the deep, deep adoration that went on forever . . . I cannot have that anymore, lass.” He lifted a strand of my unruly hair with one finger. “But my precious daughter can take it as her legacy, and find for herself the very same happiness.”

“Gabe is—”

“A kind person, but not the one for you. I’ve always thought there was something amiss with him, quiet as he is. It isn’t natural.”

“I thought you were so eager for me to marry—anyone.”

“Heavens, girl. Not anyone. Not a single man came to our home with a bid for your affection that I did not first allow in. I approved each one, knowing the chemical makeup of my daughter and what compound might bring about the most fantastic reaction.”

Ah yes, Father the medical professional, who had a scientific equation for all things—and a deep distrust of anything that didn’t neatly fit into his calculations.

“And you chose Dr. Tillman?”

“He’s your equal, Willa. Intelligent, accomplished, innovative. Now think of Gabe—what future would you have with a recluse?”

I bowed my head, hands wilted in my lap.

“You’d putter away in some lonely cottage still tied and indebted to his parents, tinkering with your microscope while he chased his horses about. He’s not a match for you, Willa. He’s merely a man you’ve known your whole life who makes you feel at ease. But is that all you want? Is that what my girl’s worth?”

My mind spun. “I felt something, Father. Something deep.”

“Many a man in search of gold has been fooled into thinking he’s found the real thing, only because he wants to have found it. Learn to sift through the rocks and cast aside the shiny fool’s gold, or you’ll miss out on the real thing. So will he.”

I’d never thought of that. Gabe’s “gold,” it would seem, was the horse trainer’s daughter—Caroline Tremaine. What a life they’d have together, and his dreams would multiply as far as he could see. I couldn’t give him that, nor could he give me my dreams. “Perhaps you’re right.”

“Don’t feel bad, daughter. You often lead with your heart, that headstrong heart that sees value in everyone, and your misguided feminine instincts. Neither are to be trusted, though.”

I nodded.

But when he left to have food sent up, closing the door behind him, something in me rose up and rebelled. With my eyes closed against earthly sights, I felt traces of God’s presence that had remained from my time with him at the ruins. I sank back onto the pillow and let the past unfold from first meeting to hilltop rescue like the pages of an illustrated book, savoring each image as truth swelled from somewhere inside me.

I finally pushed the truth to the surface—Father is wrong. It was a thought I’d never dared entertain before, but there was no escaping it—Gabe was something precious and beautiful buried in rock that no one had bothered to chip away.

Reaching for a wrap, I struggled from the bed and looked at the little secretary against the wall. I blinked a few times to make the world stop tilting. It was nearly dusk. My head ached, so I sipped from the cup on the bedside table, which cooled the pain and let me think.

Sometimes it helps to put it on paper, you know, Aunt Maisie had said once. Taking the time to put it in black and white solidifies your thoughts and pulls out the truth of the matter.

Truth was exactly what I needed. With my head pounding, emotions swirling, and Father’s truths threatening to crowd out God’s, I had to carve reality out of the thing Father’s words had made of this situation.

Massaging my temples, I fetched Aunt Maisie’s giant book of words and leafed through to the blank pages at the end, running my hand along the empty paper. I thought again of the honest, heartfelt letter that had brought me here, of the visceral feelings loosed, and the release Golda must have felt in writing it—even though Grayson Aberdeen would not read it in his lifetime. Yet perhaps this one would be sent.

I dipped the pen and summoned courage. A drop of ink fell, marring the perfect page, but then I wrote. Swift and certain my pen moved across the page, leaving behind traces of my raw heart like a trail of flower petals to the truth.

Dearest Father,

With the greatest respect a young woman can feel for her father, I wish to now write out the truth concerning the matter we discussed.

Since childhood, you’ve sent me on a search for a love equal to yours, but that simply doesn’t exist. Every love, you see, is quite unique. Gabe is a different sort than you imagined for me, and different from myself, but perhaps that’s an unexpected blessing. In the words of a great poet, “Every flag needs a flagpole if it will be truly free to fly,” and Gabe is the flagpole to my flag. He not only anchors me to solid ground, he anchors me to God, ever driving me toward him. No firmer foundation exists, and there is no stronger, steadier flagpole for this flag. I clung to him in childhood, and my life was never restricted for it—only richer, freer, and with a far better view, for his strength is greater than mine, his wisdom beyond the scope of my understanding.

For so long I allowed the labels you gave him to shape my view of things, but I fear you did not know truth well enough to give it to me. Gabe is not “quiet” except for his voice. His thoughts and his heart are vibrant as my own, maybe more. Neither is he chasing about his horses, as you said. He is skillfully training wild stallions that no other human being has been able to approach, drawing them to himself with a rare charm rather than forcing submission, as most resort to doing.

Lastly, Gabe is not “tied to home” because he’s dependent on his parents and sucking from them resources he hasn’t the innovation to find himself, but rather he chooses to stay out of deep loyalty to his ailing mother, propping up his broken family in a way no other man would care to do. Take heed of this last one, for a wise man once told me, as a man treats his mother, so will he treat his wife.

Yes, his wife. That is what I envision myself becoming, if I am asked. It’s bold of me to write this to you when he hasn’t made any claim on my affections, but I see no other man for me on this earth, and I believe he feels the same. Our story may be different than yours with Mother, but it’s no less sacred in my heart, no less real.

He waits only because he believes I wish it so, and up to now, I admit that I did. I thought perhaps my feelings for him would change in some drastic way if we were meant to wed, and that hasn’t happened. I realize now that it’s because I’ve always loved Gabe Gresham—there was no beginning to it, and I foresee no end. I only had to pause in my day long enough to let it be fully felt, and to hear God’s voice above the human ones, gently explaining what love truly is.

On and on they poured, those words that came from the unchecked recesses of myself, and they brought tears of understanding to my eyes, realization to my heart. For better or worse, nothing was more real than the deep, permanent, genuine love I felt for Gabe Gresham. It was not the pleasant little spark on my skin I’d expected, but it was a far deeper, more consuming fire that had always burned, gaining strength over the years even when it wasn’t tended, powerfully warming my soul from the inside out.

I dropped my pen and sat back when I’d filled the page, imagining this paper being sealed, lost, then found again in the cracks of this desk forty years later when I was married to Dr. Tillman. I fingered the letter, knowing I’d never have the courage to hand it to Father—at least, not yet. When it came down to it, I was as fearful as that original letter writer. For all my unfiltered speech and bold words, I hardly knew how to speak the secret things of my heart that mattered most.

I laid down the pen, closed Maisie’s book, and climbed back into bed as another headache eclipsed wakefulness.