Reunited with the Cowboy (17 page)

Why? Though Cade was loath to cause her more stress, he owed it to Max to find out.

It felt good to lift Abby out of the truck and support her over the slippery sidewalk to the front door. As he did, Cade considered and discarded a hundred reasons she might not want him here but found nothing that would explain her oddly unwelcoming manner. He waited as she fished in her pocket for her key, wondering if she'd change her mind about him coming in. But she did not open the door. Instead she turned to face him, blocking the entry.

“Thank you for your help, Cade. I appreciate you remembering Max today. And I really want to thank you for the ride home.” A tiny smile danced across her lips. “I
was
tired.”

Cade didn't move. Abby's eyebrow arched.

“I can't leave until I make sure you get safely inside.” Though she tossed him a frustrated look, Cade didn't budge. “Want me to open the door for you?”

“No, I don't. Thank you.” Her green eyes blazed at him for a few seconds more. Then with a harrumph that expressed everything from exasperation to frustration, Abby stabbed the key into the lock and twisted it. “See? Everything is fine. I'm fine. Thank you.”

Cade had never felt less certain that everything was fine. Maybe it was rude and pushy, but this was necessary. He reached past her and twisted the door handle while he nudged his booted toe against the door. Abby made a squeak of protest and grabbed for the doorknob. But it was too late.

“Abby?” He let his gaze travel twice around the empty interior before returning to her face. “Where's your furniture? Where's...anything?”

“I'm—er—moving,” she stammered. With a sigh she stepped inside and urged him in, too, before shutting out the cold air. “This place is too big for me. I'm moving out today.” Her chin thrust upward. Her voice grew defensive. “I've decided to make some changes.”

“Now?” Cade gaped at her in disbelief. “Three months before your due date?” He shook his head. “I can't believe that. What's really going on, Abby?”

She turned away from him to remove her coat and toss it over a packing box. He wondered why, since the room was quite chilly. Confused and troubled, he waited for her answer, stunned when her narrow shoulders began to tremble. Her muffled sob broke the silence and made him feel like a bully.

“You need to sit down and relax,” he said with concern. But where could she sit? There was no furniture, nothing but a derelict wooden chair that looked as if the slightest whoosh of air would send it toppling over.

“I'm fine,” she whispered. But she wasn't and they both knew it.

With his gut chiding him for not getting here sooner, and at a loss to know what to do now that he was, Cade gently laid his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him.

“I just want to help, Abby. Please, tell me how.” He waited. When she didn't respond he softened his voice. “I couldn't help Max,” he murmured, his breath catching on the name. “I will always regret that. Please let me help you.”

Abby edged away from him, moved behind the kitchen counter and leaned one hip against it. In that moment her mask of control slid away and he saw fear vie with sadness.

“I've lost the house,” she whispered. “Our dear little house, the one Max and I bought together, the one we had such dreams for—I've lost it.”

“Lost it?” Cade frowned. “What happened? Why didn't you come to me?” he demanded, aghast.

Abby's head lifted. She pulled her hair free of the hair band, tossed back the muss of curls that now framed her face and glared at him.

“Come to you?” Her green eyes avoided his. “You dutifully phone me every so often like a good friend of Max's would, and that is wonderful.” Her chin thrust out. “But even if I could have found you, I didn't want to bother you.”

“So you wouldn't have called me no matter what.” He blinked. “Why?”

“Because I'm managing, or at least, I thought I was.” Her chin dropped and so did her voice. “It doesn't matter. Nothing matters now.”

The pathos combined with a lack of expression in her words told Cade he needed to act.

“Do you have any coffee—or tea?” he revised, thinking that in her condition she probably didn't drink coffee. “Or have you packed everything?”

“I used up the last of the groceries. Everything I own is in those two boxes over there.” Abby pointed. “That's what's left of my life.” She looked around. “I sold the rest because I needed the money.”

Cade knew how that felt. He'd come home to find the ranch hugely in debt because of his father's mismanagement. Only recently had he begun to crawl out. But how had Abby gotten in that condition? A second later he decided it didn't matter. The petite woman with the bowed shoulders and exhausted face touched a spot deep inside his heart. There was no way he could leave her to manage on her own.

“Tell me what happened so I can help,” he coaxed softly.

“You can't. The bank has foreclosed on the house. If I'm not gone by six today, they have a sheriff coming who will come forcibly move me out.” Her breath snagged but she regrouped and finished, saying, “I've done everything I can to make things work. But they
don't
work.”

“Abby.” Someone else needed him. He wanted to turn and run away from the responsibility but then he looked at her, and her amazing green eyes clutched onto his heart and refused to let go. How could he leave her alone?

“I'm homeless, Cade.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I don't have a home for Max's babies. I may have to give them up.”

Though a whisper, the words echoed around the empty room. Cade stared at her in disbelief, everything in him protesting.

“You can't,” he finally sputtered.

“I might have no choice.”

Something flickered in the depths of Abby's amazing eyes. Hope? In him? “A friend of mine will let me camp on her couch but she's no better off than me and I can't stay there long. She's moving, too.”

Promise me that you'll be there if ever Abby needs you, Cade.

I promise, Max.

Cade sucked oxygen into his starved lungs, pressed his lips together and muttered, “Okay, buddy.”

“What?” Abby stared at him frowning.

Cade ignored her, walked to the corner, hefted the two boxes into his arms and carried them outside to his truck. When he returned, Abby was still standing where he'd left her, frowning. She watched him, that faint glimmer of hope draining out of her eyes. Her defiance had withered away, leaving her small, huddled and, he sensed, very afraid. No way could he leave her like that.

Cade picked up her coat and gently helped her into it.

“What are you doing, Cade?”

“Say your goodbyes, Abby.” He fastened the top two buttons of her coat before moving his hands to her shoulders and gently squeezing. “We're leaving.”

“To go where?” She eased free of his hands. Her eyes searched his for answers.

“We'll talk about that after lunch. I'll wait for you outside. Don't be long.” Cade pulled the warped front door closed on his way out, guessing it was another of the projects Max had planned for this old house.

As Cade stood on the doorstep waiting for Abby, his mind tied itself in knots. What was he to do with her? He had no money to give her, he knew no one in the city with room to take her, and he was fairly certain she wouldn't stay with a stranger in Buffalo Gap.

He thought about what Abby had said earlier about God having a plan.

“Would You mind clueing me in?” he muttered. “Because I haven't got any idea how to help Max's wife. A little divine intervention sure would come in handy.”

Past prayers hadn't brought many answers for Cade. As he waited for Abby, today didn't seem any different. The only solution he could think of was to take Abby back to the ranch, and Lord knew how that would turn out.

Putting a delicate pregnant widow under the same roof as his bitter, angry father? That was asking for trouble. But what choice did he have?

Cade figured that with Abby at the ranch, he'd be calling on God, a lot.

* * *

From the moment Max had introduced his best friend, Abby had realized that Cade, like Max, was a man who seized control. Today she was going to sit back and let him.

What else could she do?

She'd prayed so hard. She'd trusted and waited and prayed. Now she'd run out of options. Maybe Cade was God's answer to her prayers. If Max's buddy could think of a way to help her out of this mess, she'd grab it with thanks because she'd used up all the options she could think of and she was too tired to do anything more.

Aware of Cade's presence just outside the door, Abby pressed her knuckled fist against her lips to muffle her sob of loss. A memory of Max's booming voice echoed through her mind.

This is our home. You and I together will make it so
.

Only it never had been. From the first day of their impetuous marriage she'd known something was wrong between them. Max had been generous, loving and kind but he'd never really let her get truly close, never let her help when the night terrors woke him or a sound made him startle. Too late, Abby had realized that Max had chosen her because she was safe; he'd called her his refuge. She'd stayed with him because she'd promised to love him forever and Abby, the missionary's daughter, could not break that promise.

Stiffening her shoulders, Abby walked through the rooms as fragments of memories flooded her mind. The windowpanes she'd scrubbed free of paint. The old wooden floors they'd refinished. The mounds of wallpaper they'd raced to remove. But memories were a blessing and a curse, so finally she returned to the front door, shoulders back, exhaling the past. She'd cried enough over her failure to be what Max needed. Whatever solution Cade offered, it had to be better than the misery and fear she'd endured here since Max's death.

“Goodbye, Max,” she whispered, tears rolling down her cheeks. “I'm sorry I failed to love you the way you needed. I know it was my fault. I'm not the kind of woman you should have married. I didn't have enough strength to force you to get the help you should have had. If I had, maybe you would have retired or opted out of Special Forces into some other branch of service instead of going on that mission to Afghanistan. Maybe then you wouldn't have died.”

She gulped, swallowing the last of her regrets because there was nothing she could change now.

“I won't make that mistake again, Max. I'll focus on loving our babies. Maybe then I can make up for failing you.” Then she walked out to meet Cade.

“Ready?” He waited for her nod, his face implacable. “Let's go, then.”

He closed and locked the front door. But this time when he scooped her up and set her inside the truck, Abby was prepared. Even so, her breath caught when his face loomed mere inches from hers and his breath feathered over her cheeks. She told herself her reaction was purely hormonal, that she'd missed that kind of male strength.

Abby composed herself as Cade drove her to a warm, homey restaurant with tantalizing aromas that made her stomach growl. Relieved he'd asked for a table instead of a booth where she wouldn't fit, Abby snuggled a mug of steaming peppermint tea in her palms as they waited for their food order to arrive.

“I know Max didn't have any family left but he never told me much about you, Abby. Do you have family?” Cade asked.

“None that I know of.” She smiled at his questioning look. “I was three when I was adopted. My parents were older, very strict and the most loving people I've ever known. I adored them. To me they're my true parents. I never wanted or needed anyone else. I guess that's why I never felt compelled to discover my birth history.”

“I see.” Cade sipped his coffee thoughtfully. “Your adoptive parents are gone now?” His brows drew together when she nodded. “So there's no one you can contact for help?”

“I'm afraid not.” Warmth rose at the concern Abby saw on his face. How wonderful it felt to have someone worry about her, even for a moment. “I'm not your problem, Cade. I'll figure out something.” As if she hadn't tried. He didn't need to know that, although he'd probably guessed she was out of options.

“Max said you were a social worker.”

“I am.” Abby leaned back, closed her eyes and smiled. “The day I learned in third grade that not every kid had parents like mine was the day I decided I was going to be the one to help kids find the best parents they could. It's a job I love. I'd still be doing it, too, if the government hadn't cut back and laid me off.”

Abby could feel his sympathy, could see it in the softening of his baby-blue eyes. The rancher was big and comfortable and—nice, she decided, choosing the simple word. Cade was genuinely nice.

“I'm sorry,” he murmured.

“I'm sorry, too,” she said, trying to disguise the sourness that sometimes bubbled inside. “There aren't any less children who need help. And there are even fewer workers to handle all the cases. But—” She shrugged. “What can I do? I was out of work and I couldn't find another job, no matter how hard I looked.”

“And then you learned you were pregnant.” Cade looked straight at her. “That must have been a frightening time, to be alone, without a job, knowing you're going to have twins. I wish you'd told me when I called. I would have come to help you, you know.”

“I do know.” Touched, she reached out to brush his hand with her fingers, to comfort him. “But I felt I had to handle things on my own.”

Abby's heart melted as she watched Cade helplessly rake a hand through his very short black hair. His lean, chiseled face had lost some of its harshness, though the lines around his eyes and full lips remained and the cleft in his chin deepened with his frown.