When one sets out to tame a wild stallion, the most important part is letting it go—it’s only yours if it has a choice.
~A scientist’s observations on love
The horses were quiet the next morning as the moist haze lay over the corral, and a young stable hand was the one to open the doors and release the animals. As I neared, my skirt sweeping up sparkling dew, I held my breath. “Where’s Gabe Gresham this morning, Luke?”
He turned with a cascade of hay falling from his pitchfork. “Mr. Gabe? He’s already gone, I expect. His boat leaves today.”
“Boat?” I nearly choked on the word.
“Mr. Burke is sending him off on some horse chase in Asia. Asked me to look after things while he was gone.”
I clutched a beam. “Luke, how do I get to his cottage?”
“Out along the coastline, over the field, and through the little gate at the end of the path.”
The young groom gave a half smile. “Best take one of the horses, miss. Here, this one’s saddled and—”
“Thank you, Luke.” I leaped astride the creature, bracing myself in sidesaddle position, and shot out of the stables like an arrow. Please don’t be too late. By the time a letter reached him, Father would have me married off and settled in a little cottage in Brighton, forever preventing any hope of a future with the one man I wanted. Wet sea air washed my hot skin, the golden field laid out before me. This place had always felt like home, and perhaps Gabe was the reason—he was the dear, overlooked home for my soul.
I reined in before the frame house on the rise and sprang down while my mount danced in place. I flung myself up onto the porch and knocked. Banged, really, for all the nervous energy I poured into it. My heart thudded in the terrible, wretched silence, and waves crested in a glittering display below. I knocked again and the door squeaked open. In the shadows stood Gabe, tall in his boots and brown serge suit, with suitcases on the floor beside him.
He frowned, looking me up and down. “Willa?”
I gasped for breath. “You were going to leave. Without a goodbye. Without telling me . . . without . . . whatever you wanted to say.”
He shoved his hands into his pockets, scuffing the floor with the heel of his boot. “I’d have left you a note.”
“A note!” But then I remembered the treasured letter. Perhaps that would have made a fitting end to this visit. Yet I cringed at the word end. With a breath, I looked up into his rugged face. “I’m here now, Gabe.”
“I have to leave.”
I grabbed his arm. “Say it. Please. Just tell me what you wanted to say. Aren’t you the one who said the important things should be spoken in person?”
He glanced at my hand resting on his arm, his gaze caressing and tender as always. Then he looked to my face and it gentled even more. I imagined what it would feel like for him to touch me in a few short seconds, how our first kiss would taste.
“I was afraid you’d say no.”
“I won’t.” I swallowed, my throat suddenly tight.
“All right, then.” His gaze burrowed into mine again and I let it. “Willa, I’ve watched you change so much since I first met you.”
“Yes?”
“Even during this trip.”
“Oh?”
His face softened with affection intense enough to carry me away on its crest. “I’m proud of you.”
I closed my eyes. “And?”
“Willa . . . it’s time for you to go.”
My eyes fluttered open. “Go where?”
In answer, he pulled back and disappeared into the dim recesses of his home. He returned with a trifolded letter bearing some embossed seal in the corner and held it out. “To America.”
My eyes flew open then. “What on earth would I do in America?”
Especially if Gabe was sailing to Asia.
“Save all those lives you talk about.” He gave a crooked grin. “There’s a hospital there run by an acquaintance of mine, Dr. Sjöberg, that’s in danger of being shut down. The number of preventable deaths there is staggering, a matter just begging for what you and your father already know. He needs help to make changes or he’ll lose everything. All his life work will melt away, not to mention the countless lives that would be lost. I told him a little about your research, and since your father isn’t fit to make the trip at his age, he wants you, Willa Duvall, to go there and help him modify his Boston hospital. He’s at the end of the line, and willing to do anything you say. He was ecstatic about your ideas—what I told him, anyway.”
I could feel my mouth hanging open like a regular monkey, but I couldn’t seem to get it closed. “Pardon?”
“It’ll take at least a year, and he’d pay for everything. Your passage, living expenses, even a small stipend. If you managed to save the hospital together, it would mean a whole new life for his dreams—and yours, Willa. I could see him paving the way for you to study medicine, and you’d become . . .”
“A doctor.” I could barely breathe out the sacred title. It fit—all of it fit, and I felt it slipping into my heart like a key into a lock. This was what God had in mind all along—I sensed it immediately. “And he isn’t bothered that all this help is coming from a woman?”
He shrugged, an impish grin peeking out. “I may have underemphasized the a in your name.”
“Gabe Gresham!” I smacked his arm.
“He’s desperate, and you’re brilliant. It’ll be fine. You’re not in the habit of letting refusals stand in your way, as I remember.”
I pinched my lips together.
He gripped my shoulders, squeezing with a gentle strength that nearly undid me. “You can do this, Willa. You’re no longer just a voice shooting out opinions, but one that brings beauty and life. Truth.”
Tears pricked my eyes. Both rejected and magnificently accepted in this moment, I hardly knew what to feel or—in this rare instance—what to say. “You’re certain he wants me?”
“After what I said of you, he believes you are his miracle. I told him how brilliant you are, how capable and intelligent, how you had the ability to turn everything around.”
I tipped my head. “You said all that?”
A tender smile spread over his face. “I told you, I always speak up when it counts.”
A lump in my throat threatened to strangle me, bobbing up and down and refusing to go away, but that was all right. Speaking my feelings for him would somehow desecrate this splendid act of love. Instead I leaned near, this great man with a heart the size of a continent, and stood toe to toe with him. Grabbing hold of his lapels, I pulled him down and kissed him with abandon, and I felt the heat of those embers flare into a blaze when he answered back with great fervor and warmth.
I breathed in the fresh scent of his wild nature, that faint aroma of cinnamon, bottling it up to store in my most precious memories. Where words failed, my lips expressed years of gratitude, respect, and deep affection for the man who now folded his arms and his whole heart around me, embracing me as he’d done all these years in so many ways. I tasted the rugged sweetness of him in those lips, the strength and softness combined into one striking man, and I couldn’t get enough.
Finally I pulled back, looking up at him, and found my voice again. “There are horses in America, you know.”
“Not the sort waiting in Asia.”
“Where is it you’re going again?”
“Mongolia.” He drew out the syllables. “Has a nicer ring to it than Ammenemonie.”
I burst out laughing, which was a blessed relief. “Oh, Gabe.” I took his hand, looking down at our hands clutched together. The feelings in my heart billowed with even more intensity and ached for release, but I couldn’t form them into words. They were simply too big, stretched too wide over my life.
He ran his thumb over my knuckles. “Come.” He dropped my hand and strode out the door. When we reached a small lean-to behind his cottage, he threw open the doors, and there, in all her wild glory, was my white horse. She tossed her head when she saw me, pacing.
I ran my hand along her gray snout, laid my face against it. “Hello, old girl.”
“It’s time.” Gabe looked at me, assessing something in my face, and I knew what came next. “I figured it would be the last thing I did before I left.”
“I’m not ready.”
“I know. But that’s what makes it loving.”
With a deep breath, I gave a single nod and stepped back. He opened the gate, one hand on her nose to steady her, and threw it wide. “Go on, git!” She froze, glancing over at me as if also deciding between two things. For a fleeting, heart-pounding moment I wondered if she’d stay. But she danced out, paused to get her bearings, and broke into a sprint toward freedom. I clutched Gabe’s arm as Luna tore across the field, sand flying under her hooves and tale rippling like a flag. How glorious she looked, nose to the wind and muscled legs pounding.
Tears budded and began to leak. “What’s in Mongolia, Gabe?” It was on the tip of my tongue to beg him outright to join me in America. Maybe I could have both love and my career.
He inhaled and released it over top of my head, scattering stray wisps of hair. “You think she’s beautiful, your Luna, but it’s nothing compared to the creatures in Mongolia. Here the so-called wild horses are merely feral creatures, the abandoned descendants of horses in captivity, but in Mongolia they’re truly wild. It would be incredible to be near them, uncover their true magnificence, and see what they’re capable of.”
The brilliant glow of his face touched my heart, warming it to the truth. This was his dream just as medicine was mine, and I needed to release him to this the same way he had for me. The raw love in my heart would let me do no less. I gulped back my pronouncement. How selfish my view of him had been, as if his only role in my life was that of my flagpole. He had color of his own, and now was the time for it to fly.
His voice was low when he spoke again. Solemn and deep. “Burke insisted on this trip, but I find it’s calling to me, Willa.” He rested his hand on my shoulder. “Those horses, all that wild open land . . .”
I stared up at his dear, dear face, memorizing the lines of it, the scar along his jaw, the exact color of his gold-flecked eyes, the jagged indents along his cheeks. “Yes, I understand.” Too well. I reached out and touched his rugged cheek. “Goodbye, Gabe.”
Those indents on his cheeks creased under my fingers as he smiled. “There’s no such thing as goodbye between us.”
I took his hands in mine, cherishing the feel of them. Their strength. “Gabe?”
“Hmm?”
“Will you write?” It was a window cracked open, a door left ajar.
He flung it wide open with a glorious smile. “Count on it, Doc.”