Cait avoided Gabe the first few days after his kisses, for she was embarrassed and a little ashamed. What must he think of her, kissing him on the very day she saw Henry off? She had revealed so much…well, passion was the only word for it. And when she saw him, would he guess that she desperately wanted him to kiss her again?
After three days of going off for long rides and keeping busy with her household chores, she told herself she was being foolish. After all, she had been watching him train Sky for weeks now. Surely she was making the kisses seem more important than they were if she avoided him completely? She wouldn’t want him to think he had offended her. So that afternoon, she walked down to the corral and sat on her usual perch on the fence.
Gabe was just finishing his work and Cait could see that Sky was even further along, for Gabe was actually able to place his arms on Sky’s back and rest some of his weight while the horse stood quietly.
“He looks almost ready to ride, Mr. Hart,” she called out.
“I think it won’t be long before I can give it a try, Miss Cait,” Gabe acknowledged. “Would you take him into the barn for me?”
Cait slipped down and after giving Sky his treat, she led him into the barn, and after cross-tying him, began to brush him down. The rhythm of the familiar activity calmed her, and when Gabe came in carrying a saddle blanket, she had lost some of her self-consciousness.
“Why, that’s one of the blankets Serena wove.”
“Yes, your ma brought it out last week. She told me she thought Sky should have something special for all he’s been through. So I’ve been rubbing him down with it and letting him get used to it.”
Cait watched as Gabe slid the red-and-black blanket down Sky’s back and legs. “You are so patient with him, Mr. Hart. It almost seems like you know what he’s feeling and thinking. I thought my Da was the best man with horses I know, but now I’m not so sure.”
Gabe blushed and dropping the saddle blanket over a stall door, leaned back against it. “I wouldn’t say that, Miss Cait. Your Da and Finn, why they have something between them that few men achieve with a horse.”
“I’d say it is the same with you and Sky, though I hate to admit it, because it still makes me a little bit jealous,” she said with an embarrassed smile.
“Wal, I don’t know about that,” drawled Gabe, “but I’ve always had a way with horses…. Uh, I was glad to see you at the corral again, Miss Cait,” Gabe continued, his face getting red under his tan. “I was afraid…well, I should never have kissed you the other day. I hope we can both pretend that it never happened?”
So that’s what he wanted, Cait realized. Those kisses, which had meant so much to her—never mind that they shouldn’t have, they did—of course meant nothing to him. He’s probably kissed lots of women behind barns!
“There is no need to worry, Mr. Hart,” she told him calmly. “It was a momentary foolishness on both our parts.” She was amazed she was able to sound so cool. If he wanted to pretend it never happened, then he would hardly want it to happen again, would he?
“I’m glad to hear that, Miss Cait.”
He sounded so relieved, Cait thought, as she walked back up to the house. As I should be. But I am only terribly disappointed.
* * * *
It had worried Gabe when Caitlin seemed to be avoiding him. He’d been foolish to lose control like that and he’d been hoping for an opportunity to apologize. He should be happy, now that it seemed they could go back to being friends. They were both in agreement that those few moments were an isolated incident and that should have set him at ease.
Instead, he kept thinking of the promise of passion in her kisses. But what had he expected? That she’d say, “Oh, Mr. Hart, please kiss me again.” Or even more fantastical, “Mr. Hart, I think I am falling in love with you.”
Miss Burke, a refined and educated young lady, fall in love with him? Now that was some ridiculous fancy. But those kisses had set something off in him, and by the end of the week, he realized that what he wanted her to say to him was exactly what he wanted to say to her: “Miss Cait, I think I am falling in love with you.” Which made him a damn fool.
He hadn’t loved a woman since Caroline. She’d hurt him terribly by not even trying to understand him and his actions. Since then, he’d not been any one place long enough to meet any respectable women. He visited whores occasionally. But usually he just stayed away, for some of them reminded him too much of his stepmother, trying to get something for themselves and not caring about him. Most of them, he just felt sorry for, because he was using them, too. And feeling sorry for the woman lying under you was a sure way to interfere with your enjoyment of them.
He’d stolen some kisses from Caroline. But he had felt like a thief, for she was a doctor’s daughter and been sheltered from men. When his kisses got too hot, she would pull away and remind him that they weren’t even officially engaged. And whores didn’t kiss, not that he’d been wanting much to kiss them either.
But with Caitlin Burke…well, something had come together for him in those kisses. From the first, he’d found her attractive, but he’d also gradually come to like and respect her. When their lips joined, all the feelings in him seemed to join too.
He was very self-conscious that next week when she came to sit and watch him with the horses, though he tried not to show it. It was hard to be across the table from her at meals and he found himself making excuses and leaving early to get back to work. He was hoping that no one had noticed, but Sadie knew him too well, and one night after supper, followed him out to the barn.
“You are as jumpy as grease on a hot griddle, Gabe,” she said as she watched him soaping the reins of one of the bridles. “Is it Mackie that’s making you nervous?”
“Mackie doesn’t make me nervous, Sadie. Whichever way this goes, a good man is dead and no way to convict him for it, so he just makes me angry.”
“Then if it isn’t Mackie…?”
“I suppose you won’t let me alone till I tell you,” said Gabe, looking over at her with a resigned smile.
“We know each other too well, Gabe, even though we’ve been separated all this time. I can tell when something is bothering you. Is it Caitlin Burke?” she asked shrewdly.
“I have come to love her,” Gabe said ruefully.
“You do seem to like schoolteachers, Gabe,” Sadie teased.
“She’s real different from you, Sadie.”
“Well, I would hope so, Gabe! A man doesn’t want to be marrying his sister! I would guess she’s different from Caroline too, Gabe,” she added softly.
“I don’t know, Sadie, she’s had a very sheltered life. And she knows very little about me.”
“I think you are underestimating her, Gabe.”
Gabe’s eyes opened wide with surprise.
“Miss Burke has made a very clear choice, hasn’t she? She may have gone to school back east, but her heart is clearly in New Mexico, Gabe. She could have just delayed her wedding, but instead she broke off the engagement. She let Mr. Beecham go. I didn’t get to see too much of him, but from what I did see, I’d say she was smart to give him up.”
“Smart to give up a rich, handsome lawyer?”
“He’s too civilized for her, Gabe, and good for her that she knows it. She belongs here. And maybe you two belong together,” she added lightly.
“I don’t think so, Sadie. She’s already told me it didn’t mean anything,” Gabe said without thinking.
“What didn’t mean anything?”
Gabe’s face grew red. “Wal, she burned her wrist and was hurting in other ways and there were a few kisses, that’s all. They meant nothing to her.”
“And what about you?”
“They meant a lot to me, Sadie, but what could I do but apologize?”
“Oh, Gabe!” exclaimed Sadie in mock despair. “If you apologized for them, then she thinks you didn’t mean anything by them, so of course she’d have to say that.”
“You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”
“Maybe so, Gabe. But I’m also a woman and I know how women think. Were the kisses…um…friendly kisses? Or hot kisses?” she asked with a twinkle in her eyes.
“Sarah Ellen Hart, what do you know about hot kisses?” teased Gabe.
“Too little for my liking,” Sadie admitted, “though there was one cowboy at a dance back in Texas who stole a few I was very happy to give away.”
Gabe was quiet for a minute and then said in a barely audible voice: “I guess those kisses burned my lips enough to leave a scar.”
“Then you can’t give up,” Sadie declared.
“I don’t know, Sadie, I promised her it wouldn’t happen again.”
“And I’m sure you can find a way to convince her to let you out of that promise, Gabe.”
“I guess I could try, Sadie.”
“Do try, Gabe. You deserve to be happy.”