Caleb's Bride

“Stargazer lilies.” Eric nodded. “Check.”

Smiling, Gabby set the relish tray on the coffee table and went to hug Dylan and the lovely woman he’d been dating for almost two years. “The flowers are glorious. And you should marry my brother. However, unlike my opportunistic sister-in-law, I would love you even if you had only yourself to offer,” Gabby said as she took the flowers from her mother.

Behind her, Lesley snorted. “Suck up.”

“Suck up,” Lesley and Eric’s four-year-old daughter, Natalie, sang. “Suck up, Aunt Gabby!”

Eric nodded to his wife. “Nicely done, honey.”

The laughter helped soothe Gabby’s skipping nerves. She’d agreed with Lesley that she should tell her family about her plans at the top of the evening, just dive in, since the Coombses liked to process information for a long time and sometimes quite loudly. Telling them before dinner (the alternative being to mention it as she was backing out of the driveway) would be the mature thing to do.

Dive in.

Undigested olives and the beat of her pounding heart filled her throat. “Uh, excuse me, everyone,” she began. “I have some news, and I think it’s best if I—”

The doorbell rang.

Thank you God, thank you, thank you.

“I’ll get it,” Gabby offered brightly. Pretending not to notice the face Lesley made at her, she raced for the door.

Shifting the flowers to the crook of her left arm, she opened the door with a smile that was perky as heck.

It lasted an entire four seconds.

Staring at the person on her parents’ threshold, she almost dropped the vase she was holding.

Noooo. Seriously, universe?

“Don’t just stand there. Let him in, Gabs.” Ben’s sardonic voice nudged her. And then it clicked.

“You’re Ben’s surprise.”

Caleb, dressed in another crisp suit, this time navy blue, gave her a faintly apologetic smile. “Hello, Gabrielle.”

The deep timbre of his voice sounded disturbingly intimate.

“Who is it?” her mother queried from the other side of the room.

“Ben thought my showing up might be a nice surprise for your parents,” Caleb spoke softly, for Gabby’s ears alone. “If it’s going to ruin your night, though, I can say hello and go. Save visiting for another time.”

“Of course not,” she protested automatically, feeling lower than a snake, because, yes, she would love for him to make her night easier by leaving.

I am a butterfly, not a caterpillar, she reminded herself. I can handle this.

Retrieving her smile, she stepped to the side so Cal could enter, noticing for the first time that he held a bottle of wine. Fancy stuff, not the zipped-into-Sherm’s-Queen-Bee-while-the-motor-was-still-running variety. Tucked beneath his arm was a large box of truffles that probably cost as much as Gabby’s sofa. In the past, Cal had made her mother small gifts—carvings out of wood and music CDs he’d burned off her brother Eric’s system—saving his earned money for essentials. She may have been the same old Gabby, but he was certainly not the same Caleb.

As he entered the living room, the people inside the house fell silent. Except for Ben, who had known Caleb was coming over, and Dylan, who had already spoken to him, Gabby sensed that her family was experiencing the same shock she’d felt.

Stealing a glance at the surprise guest, Gabby saw a muscle twitch beside his left eye. A smile seemed to be fighting against his lips’ desire to remain in a straight line. Cal was nervous about his reception here tonight. He had, after all, disappeared from the lives of the family that had cared for him more than his own.

Seeing him look so vulnerable, Gabby’s heart squeezed uncomfortably.

Before she made a clear decision to act, she plucked the chocolate box from him and—oh, what the hell—looped her arm through his. “Look, everybody,” she said, turning toward the room. “Cal’s home.”

Finally, exclamations—and a gasp from her mother—circled the room. There seemed to be a brief time delay and then Coombses surrounded them. Nancy began to cry, enveloping the boy she had practically raised since puberty in a mother’s always-welcoming arms. Cal said hello to Eric and Lesley and the girls. Lesley made big Did-you-know-he-was-going-to-be-here eyes at Gabby. Dylan waited his turn to have Cal greet Julie.

The prodigal son had come home.

About to escape to the dining room to put the vase in the center of the table, Gabby looked up and caught Cal’s gaze seeking hers above her family’s heads. He didn’t say thank you, but she understood just the same. And then he did the thing that was so rare for the Cal Wells she remembered: He smiled openly. Boyishly. A little awed.

For a moment, she saw him as the young man who’d spent a good part of his early teen years offering to do chores for her mother and defending Gabby from her brothers’ roughhousing. The kid who never took the Coombses’ hospitality for granted.

Surprised by a sudden rush of nostalgia or sentiment or some dang thing, Gabby swallowed against the tears that filled her throat. Never one to cry copiously, she was surprised at the waterworks that turned on with the slightest provocation lately.

When Cal turned his head to respond to something her mother asked, Gabby moved off to set the flowers in the dining room and deposit Cal’s gifts in the kitchen. The problem, she realized, was that she suddenly felt a strong pull to be part of something which she would very soon be leaving behind.

Nancy’s expert nose told her when dinner was ready, and she enlisted her daughter’s help in ushering everyone into the dining room. Seated around a long pine table that was at least half as wide as it was long, the Coombses commenced serving themselves with an orchestral clinking of serving spoons against bowls, and lots of chatter. Gabby had long figured out that her family would make any authority on etiquette shudder, but she loved their casual, rowdy dinners.

Gabby hoped to seat herself next to her sister-in-law, but Lesley’s daughters clamored to sit on either side of her, and Eric sat next to them. Gabby moved toward Ben next, but he wanted to talk to Dylan and slipped into the seat beside him and Julie. Which, of course, left only her and Caleb standing while the others started helping themselves to the home-cooked food.

“A bit like musical chairs, isn’t it?” Cal cocked a brow.

Rats. He’d noticed her avoidance maneuvers. “I’m happy to sit next to you,” she lied, nodding toward the two empty seats at her father’s end of the table.

“You’re not happy about it at all.” He laughed. “But I forgive you.”

Gabby walked to the chair Cal held out. As she sank into it, he murmured, “Our reunion didn’t go too well the other morning. I owe you an apology.”

Surprised, she shrugged. “Forget it.” Forget everything, please. Especially the part about having sex with your favorite family’s desperate daughter.

Gabby plunked into her seat as Cal slid the chair toward the table then took his place next to her. “I’d like a moment alone, to talk,” he said quietly.

Alone? “Tonight?” she squeaked.

Cal shook out his napkin, set it in his lap then turned toward her, eyes glittering with wry amusement. “Tonight would be good, yes.”

Before she could respond, Ben passed her a bowl of rice pilaf, and her father boomed, “So, Caleb, what are you doing for a living?” Frank eyed the navy suit and well-groomed hands of the man who had been his hired hand on numerous occasions. “You don’t look like a farmer.”

Because the comment held more than a whiff of disappointment, Gabby’s brothers snickered. “All right!” approved Dylan, leaning forward to peer at his brothers. “Eric, Ben, we may be off the hook. Dad can hassle Caleb now about his career.”

“I don’t hassle you,” grumbled Frank. “You boys have fine jobs. But this farm is in your family, and someone ought to work it when I’m gone. Too many independent farmers are being run out of business these days.” He did a double take into the bowl Caleb passed him and sniffed. “What is this?”

“Rice,” Gabby offered.

“It’s brown.”

“It’s good for you,” Nancy scolded from the opposite end of the table, her plump arms supporting a platter of steaming corn on the cob. “Eat it.” She confided to Lesley in a loud whisper, “The doctor says he needs more fiber, but he refuses to eat oat bran.”