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
