LITMIR.BIZ

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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

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