The Prodigal Wife

CHAPTER THREE

HEIRS…

Lainey felt the room tip and she sat back deeper in the chair to steady herself. He meant children. More than one.

One child was beyond comprehension, but more than one was mind-blowing. She’d been staring at Gabe, but she hadn’t really been seeing his stony expression or the no-nonsense glitter in his eyes. She’d been staring at the sudden mental flash of children. Beautiful dark-haired toddlers with dark eyes…more than one toddler, more than two…at intervals of not much more than a year or two apart.

Gabe’s gruff voice made the picture fade.

“If you’d stayed, you could have done your part in Talbot’s comeback. We’d be playin’ with our babies tonight.”

Gabe’s stony expression was tempered by a faint softening in his gaze when he’d said our babies that was gone the second after it showed. She’d almost missed it.

After a lifetime with her mother Lainey recognized emotional manipulation, but this wasn’t precisely that because it was the simple truth. If she’d stayed, she had no doubt things would have worked out somehow.

After all, though her heart had been filled with silly adolescent fantasies about Gabe that no flesh-and-blood man could ever live up to, she’d once thought he was the only man she’d ever love. If she’d not been so shocked by her father’s death and hurt by his will, having Gabriel Patton handed to her so easily would have been the fulfillment of her fondest romantic hope.

So yes, they could have been playing with their children tonight in peace. The question of what happened in July or the state of their marriage would have long since been determined.

Her father would have expected his daughter to pull her own weight in both the saving of Talbot Ranch and her marriage. The fact that he hadn’t spelled it out in the will made Lainey realize her father had taken her respect for his wishes and her integrity so for granted that he’d seen no reason to insult her by putting those specifics in writing.

If it was possible, her regret over it all deepened into a heavier feeling of heartsickness than ever. The brief glimpse of softness in Gabe’s eyes just now when he’d mentioned babies impacted her in a new way then.

Of course Gabe Patton would want a family. He didn’t have any now, and hadn’t since he’d been in his midteens. He’d been nearing his late twenties when he’d married her, so he was at least thirty-two or thirty-three by now. It shamed her to realize she didn’t remember his birth date, but what nicked her heart was the reminder that he’d been waiting a long time to have someone to share his life with.

She’d not only deprived him of that, but his marriage to her had prevented him from finding someone more worthy to marry.

Lainey stared over at him, helpless to look away from this self-sufficient, sometimes arrogant man who was so tough and hard-edged. There was no reason, just by looking at him, to think anything could hurt him or that there was anything soft or vulnerable in him at all. And yet she felt it suddenly, in spite of his harshness.

Her father had respected Gabe and admired what he’d achieved, and Gabe had considered his much older neighbor a trusted friend. Neither man could have seriously figured the will would be needed. John Talbot had simply taken a precaution to safeguard Lainey against her mother’s manipulations until she’d had time to achieve full independence from Sondra’s demands and returned to Talbot Ranch. She was certain now, knowing her father, that he would have dropped the conditions on her inheritance the moment she had.

In the meantime, he must have expected to recover Talbot wealth himself but before he could get very far, his sudden death had saddled Gabe with a commitment to both a rebellious wife and a monumental financial challenge.

And of course, that rebellious wife had stupidly abandoned it all to him.

Somehow Lainey found the courage to ask, “If you knew Talbot was bankrupt before we went through with the ceremony, why didn’t you just refuse to marry me? You could surely tell by then that I didn’t deserve to get anything, much less waste a moment of your time.”

Belatedly she remembered that Gabriel Patton didn’t operate that way. His word was the law he lived by. Whether she’d deserved anything wasn’t the issue. He’d given his word.

She shrank inwardly from the unintentional insult and rushed out with, “I didn’t ask the question to offend you.” The tense silence didn’t last long.

“Your daddy trusted me to look out for you in case he couldn’t,” he said somberly, but she saw no sign that her question had bothered him. “A man works all his life to leave something he’s proud of for his kids and his kids’ kids. John wanted you to keep every acre and dime of Talbot.”

Emotion virtually choked her as she sensed the deeper part of what he’d said. Just as John Talbot had wanted to pass on his life’s work to her, Gabriel Patton would want to pass on what he’d built to his children. The only inheritance he’d gotten had been an old saddle and a box of clothes.

He’d bargained for a wife and children of his own and she’d thwarted that. She’d doomed any chance of happiness they might have had, and it was only fair to not tie up any more of Gabe’s time. There were multitudes of women more worthy of him than she was.

“You’ve seen what I can be like,” she tried again. “I’m sure the last thing that makes sense is for you to have children with a woman who’s behaved as I have.”