Gabe's Pledge (Grooms With Honor Book 3) Read online

  “Who is he?” Angus leaned forward to whisper across the table to Cullen.

  “Can’t say.” Cullen said before shoving a fork full of eggs in his mouth.

  “Iva Mae wrote to a matrimonial agency and she’s gotten a reply,” Gabe relied what he knew about the situation.

  “More than one.” Cullen said between bites.

  “More than one what?” Gabe shot back.

  “Reply.”

  “Is she serious about marrying one of these men and moving to who knows where?” Mack asked the question to the group.

  “Of course she is.” Linnea sat the steaming hot plate of food in front of Gabe. “Otherwise there wouldn’t be a hurry to get her quilts ready to pack.”

  “Why is she hurrying?”

  “So she’s ready for the wedding after she picks which man she wants to marry.” Linnea rolled her eyes as she left the table of men.

  “Are you really going to let Iva Mae leave town without speaking up?”

  Pastor’s question floored Gabe. If there was a man he should listen to in town, it was the pastor.

  “You’ve heard me say the wedding vows dozens of times. I’ve been waiting for you and Iva Mae to repeat them in front of me. Do you not love her?”

  Gabe was positive he could hear a pin drop on the café floor because everyone was holding their breath for his answer.

  Gabe leaned across the table to answer Pastor and everyone in the room leaned toward him.

  “Yes, but I worry about providing for her and her family forever.”

  “Oh Deuteronomy, you can do it, Gabriel. Through thick and thin, richer or poorer.” Pastor waved his hand in the air as if he was upset with him.

  Gabe took a deep breath. “I still live with Pa and Darcie, and I don’t want to ask them to make room for another person.”

  “You could live in the hotel,” Fergus pointed out.

  “Which is one of the main reasons Iva Mae wants to get married. She wants her own home since she’s never lived in anything other than a hotel.”

  “I’m about to repair the old Johnston house. The bank now owns it and plans to sell it,” Mack interjected.

  “I’d be interested in it,” Gabe made the snap decision. “When could it be ready to live in?”

  “We’ll go over after breakfast and have a look, but the bank may already have a buyer lined up for all I know.”

  A half hour later, they all stood in the front room of the Johnston home, and Gabe couldn’t believe all the work that needed to be done on the interior, let alone the exterior.

  “It’s not that bad,” Mack tried to reassure Gabe. The house is only about twenty years old, but it sat empty for the past eight months. So no one had been in the house to see the roof had leaked over several summer and fall storms, causing the ceiling and floorboards to buckle and rot in the living room.

  “Whoa!” Cullen backed out of the kitchen. “There’s a mean-looking raccoon mamma sitting on the cook stove, ready to throw a hunk of wood at me.”

  Gabe walked around Cullen and pushed the door open enough to look around the kitchen. Besides the adult raccoon there were four half-grown kits staring back at him. Beyond them, Gabe could see the back door pushed open enough to let the animals come and go as they pleased. Better check for rats, skunks and bats too.

  “What’s your professional opinion, Mack?”

  “The bank will have to okay the cost of the repairs, but the roof leak needs to be fixed and shingled. The ceiling and floor has to be cut out and replaced where they rotted.

  “The whole house, inside and out could use a coat of paint. It would be best if you could paint the interior before moving in. Wait until spring to paint the outside though. That’s what Elof and Linnea did with the house they bought.”

  The sunny yellow house of the Lundahls was only two houses away from this house. And the old Johnston house was only a block from the Shepard’s shop. What a perfect location in town.

  “Back door needs to be repaired after evicting the current residents. They’ll probably try their darndest to get back in too.”

  They walked through the rest of the house. Parlor, front room, dining room and kitchen downstairs. Three bedrooms upstairs. One room featured the same ceiling and floor damage matching the room below it.

  “What do you think the bank will ask for the house?” Gabe asked as he walked around, dreaming of Iva Mae and him living here together.

  “I won’t even guess. I’ll figure the cost of the repairs and tell the bank, and then they’ll decide.”

  “Think you could talk to Iva Mae and some of her sisters and friends about helping you pick out paint colors, curtains, that sort of things?” Gabe pleaded with Mack.

  “Why don’t you ask Iva Mae to marry you and make your selections together?” Mack fired back.

  “There’s a chance I may not get the house from the bank. Then where would we live?”

  “Cullen could move into my apartment with me and you can have the apartment above the café.” Mack slyly suggested.

  “Nope. Not happening,” Cullen curtly cut off Mack’s suggestion. “I won’t live with another person again. I need my space after living with five brothers.”

  And after living in a brothel where his mother worked. The Reagans adopted Cullen after his mother died. Gabe remembered how hard it was for Cullen to feel worthy and accepted by the townspeople.

  “Okay, I’ll talk to the bank,” Gabe said as the group walked out to the porch. “Maybe they’re already renting to the raccoon family.”

  Would this be his and Iva Mae’s new home? The idea of courting Iva Mae caused Gabe’s heart to pound double time. Maybe he was ready to settle down and have a family after all.

  ***

  “Hello, Linnea,” Holly Clancy greeted their friend as the woman slid into a chair around the quilting stand set up in the event room of the Paulson Hotel, next to the south windows. The women had pinned a log cabin quilt top, batting, and backing together and stretched the materials between the quilting frame. Besides herself, Holly, Mary, Fergus’ new wife, Iris, Amelia, Daisy, Maridell, and Avalee sat around the frame, stitching around the blocks in front of them.

  Another quilt stand was set up nearby with a compass quilt top in it. Darcie and Kaitlyn were stitching on it besides Iva Mae’s mother and her sisters, Luella, Nadine, and Daphne. Iva Mae’s youngest sisters, seven-year-old Cecilia and five-year-old Phoebe were standing on either side of their mother, watching her work the needle and thread through the fabrics.

  “How was the breakfast crowd this morning?” Holly didn’t work all the time now that she was in the family way.

  “Oh, the usual Saturday groups, although Gabe Shepard joined the Reagan’s table.” Linnea answered as she reached for the spool of white thread so she could thread her own needle.

  The women around the stand looked at Linnea, then Iva Mae.

  “And what was the gossip around the men’s table this morning?”

  “Mack is going to repair the Johnston house so the bank can sell it.”

  “That’s a nice house, although it could use a coat of paint outside, and probably inside,” Kaitlyn interjected. “I spent many hours visiting the couple over the years.”

  “Did Mack say who’s going to live there?” Holly asked. Right now, she and Nolan lived with Nolan’s grandparents.

  “He didn’t say if the bank had a potential buyer yet.” Linnea replied as she reached underneath the quilt and poked the needle and thread through the layers to start stitching around a block.

  “Are you interested in moving, Holly? Wasn’t the addition on the back of the Clancy’s house enough room for everyone?”

  “Oh, it’s perfect for us and Nolan’s grandparents. I was just wondering if maybe Gabe would consider it.”

  “He’s old enough he should be moving out of our home, but Reuben refuses to hint about it.” Darcie muttered. “He doesn’t want his son to feel rejected, like his mother did to him and Mary.”<
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  “You and Reuben did a wonderful job raising us, Darcie. I agree with you that Gabe needs to be out on his own,” Mary quickly assured her adopted mother.

  Iva Mae listened to her family and friends talk around the stands, their fingers nimbly working the thread and needles through the layers, watching what they were doing, but talking at the same time.

  “Momma, am I doing the right thing by writing to a stranger?” Suddenly, the idea of leaving her loved ones caused Iva Mae to panic.

  “If it works out, it will be. You know there are no guarantees in love and marriage.” Her mother had plenty of experience with that.

  Iva Mae’s father, Ivan Rolander, was killed in the Civil War instead of coming home to Helen, his young bride. Maridell’s father, Marvin Montgomery, was a merchant who took advantage of their mother, but never married her. Avalee’s father, Arvid Lindmier, was a sweet old man who doted on them. Her mother worked in his hotel and they lived there, until the elderly man died and his son evicted them from the property.

  Then her mother married a train conductor and gave birth to Luella. But because of her sister’s clubfoot, Lawrence Higby divorced her and kicked them out of his house.

  “But if you hadn’t answered the mail-order bride ad, you wouldn’t have landed in Clear Creek.”

  “True.” Her mother laughed. “My intended groom thought he was going to swindle me out of money, and didn’t know I was looking for a home for my four girls. We both kept secrets from each other so that didn’t work out.”

  “But Ethan Paulson fell in love with you and the girls...” Kaitlyn spoke up.

  “And the way I could manage his hotel and his fickle mother.” Iva Mae’s mother nearly snorted and she and Kaitlyn started giggling like girls, apparently remembering things that Iva Mae and her sisters were too young to remember at the time.

  “And remember I was a mail-order bride too. Coming all the way from Ireland to meet and marry the man who wrote looking for a wife and mother for Angus and Seth.” Kaitlyn raised her thimbled finger to make a point.

  “And I surprised Patrick by arriving with little Fergus and Mack in tow.” Kaitlyn singsonged with mischief.

  “And neither of them are little anymore,” Iris shyly remarked, probably thinking of the amount of food her husband and brother-in-law could eat during a meal at their home.

  That remark brought a round of laughter to the room, thinking of the Reagan brothers.

  “Iva Mae, you could try to force Gabe to marry you, but it wouldn’t be a happy marriage if both the bride and groom aren’t fully invested in it,” her mother suggested.

  “‘For better or worse’ in the vows only works if both of you are willing to bring love and devotion into the marriage,” Kaitlyn added.

  “But the trouble is, I think Gabe loves you, Iva Mae. He’s just afraid to take the first step...out of his father’s house and into his own, so to speak,” Mary insisted.

  Darcie stopped stitching and leaned back in her chair. “Mary, do you think Gabe’s worried he’ll repeat his parent’s mistakes?”

  “Maybe, but Iva Mae is not a self-centered woman like my mother is.”

  “So, should the Clear Creek Woman’s Society do something about this situation?” Kaitlyn challenged Darcie with a look. The two older women smirked at each other before their grins widened.

  “Oh, oh.” Daisy’s eyes widened with her explanation. “Are you thinking something along the line of ‘Operation Wasp’, which you did when Darcie’s ex-husband came after Millie and Tate?” Daisy was the only younger woman in the room that would have been in Clear Creek when it happened, but Iva Mae had heard about it.

  The women armed their reticules with peashooters and were ready to attack the bad man when the word “wasp” was shouted. It worked too when Curtis Robbins came into the church and toddler Tate saw his father. The women got up out of their pews, surrounded the man until Marshal Wilerson could haul him to the jail and Tate whisked away to safety.

  “But Gabe isn’t a ‘bad’ man I need protection from. I want him to get down on one knee voluntarily and ask for my hand in marriage.”

  “Well, we have thirteen quilt tops to quilt while we think up a plan. In the meantime, keep writing to your mystery groom. You might decide he’s still the best choice for your future husband and father to your children anyway,” her mother recommended to Iva Mae.

  Chapter 4

  “Iva Mae received another letter today,” Cullen announced as he came into the Johnston home after work. Mack and Jasper Kerns had been working on the interior all day and Gabe stopped to see if they needed any help this evening.

  “Same writer as the first or a different one?” Mack asked as he fitted another board on the ceiling repair.

  “Different one.”

  “Who? And where was he from?” Gabe spun around to ask.

  “You know I don’t gossip about the mail, Gabe. It’s private.”

  Nonetheless, Gabe stared at Cullen and asked. “Did she open the letter while you were there by chance?”

  “Yep.”

  “And... did she say what was written in it?” Gabe rolled his hand trying to get Cullen to spit out more words.

  “She read most of it to herself, and then she ran out of the post office so fast I thought she’d catch her cloak when the door slammed shut.”

  “When will the house be done?” Gabe asked Mack.

  “Have you talked to the bank yet to see if it’s even available?” Mack shot back.

  No. He’d been putting it off, just as he’d been putting off courting Iva Mae.

  “I take that as a ‘no’ since you’re not answering?” Mack shook his head and went back to work.

  “Love’s gonna strike between Iva Mae and one of these men and you’re not going to have kindling ready, let alone a match to light the fire, Gabe.” Leave it to Mack to sum up Gabe’s courting.

  “You’re right. What am I going to do?” Gabe needed ideas, but it wouldn’t come from these two men. Cullen hardly talked to anyone, let alone a woman, and Mack flirted with anybody in a skirt.

  “Don’t ask confirmed bachelors,” Cullen shook his head as he measured another board.

  “Talk to our Pa. As your pastor, he’ll give you advice, plus he’ll keep your talk from spreading around town like a prairie fire,” Mack advised.

  “Mack, you mind if I walk over to talk to your father for a few minutes? I promise I’ll come back over and help afterwards,” Gabe asked, although he was putting on his coat to leave as he questioned Mack.

  “Yeah. You won’t be good help if your mind isn’t on the task anyway,” Mack waved as Gabe hustled out the front door.

  The cold wind hit Gabe in the face; very similar to the smack his heart felt when Cullen said Iva Mae received another letter. Why couldn’t he figure out what to do about Iva Mae, and his life for that matter? What was holding him back?

  Gabe was over to the parsonage and knocking on the front door before he realized what he was doing.

  He still hadn’t decided what he was going to ask Pastor when the man opened the door and ushered him inside.

  “Good evening, Gabe. The family all right?” Pastor asked while motioning him to take off his coat and hang it on the coat stand by the door.

  “Fine. I, uh, I was wondering if I could talk to you about something?” Gabe noticed Kaitlyn was sitting by the fireplace knitting, rather than getting up to intrude on their conversation.

  “Help yourself to coffee and the tin of cookies in the kitchen. Shut the swinging door if you want privacy,” she called out as pastor walked through the dining room and into the kitchen.

  “Sit down at the table and open the cookie tin while I pour us some coffee. Your timing is perfect since I wanted to sneak in here for a couple of cookies anyway.”

  Pastor placed two steaming cups of coffee on the table then sat down opposite Gabe. When he didn’t say anything he realized Pastor was waiting for him to talk.

  Gabe grabbed a
cookie, dunked it in the cup, and stuffed it in his mouth instead of speaking—, which was a dumb idea since the coffee was scalding hot.

  What’s on your mind, Gabe?”

  “Iva Mae,” Gabe mumbled after swallowing the hot contents in his mouth.

  “And what about her?”

  “She signed up to be a mail-order bride, but I don’t want her to leave town.” There. That summed up his fears.

  “Why do you care if she leaves or not?”

  “Because...I do.”

  “Why?”

  This was harder than Gabe thought it would be to talk to Pastor.

  “Think of me as your guiding pastor, Gabe. Whatever you want to talk about will stay in the house.”

  “Okay. I really care about Iva Mae and I’m not sure how to act on it. She seems like one of my sisters, but...yet she’s not.”

  “I’m sure you love Mary and Amelia and occasionally kiss them on the cheek.”

  “Sure,” Gabe answered and shrugged his shoulders to agree.

  “Now think of kissing Iva Mae.”

  Oh gosh. His face was probably turning red because now that he thought about the difference, he wanted to embrace Iva Mae in a bear hug and kiss her on her lips ‘til they were a pretty ruby red.

  Pastor chuckled and Gabe could feel the flush crawl up his neck.

  “Hey, don’t feel embarrassed. I was young once, and married twice. I know what you’re thinking and feeling.”

  “So what should I do about Iva Mae?”

  “Court her. You’re up against other men’s letters and their words, but they are not here to court her in person. It shouldn’t be too hard to get the upper hand on looking like a better candidate for Iva Mae’s hand in marriage.”

  That was Pastor’s advice? What about housing, finances, future children and how to support them?

  “You still look a little green around the gills, Gabe.” Pastor studied him a moment before reaching across to lay his hand on Gabe’s forearm.

  “Remember the wedding vows, Son. For better, for worse. For richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health...To love and to cherish.

  “If you can honestly say you can do these vows with Iva Mae—for the rest of your life—then ask Iva Mae to be your wife. But if you have any doubts, figure them out now, or let her make a life with another. Iva Mae deserves the best mate for life, and so do you.”