have to give Peter credit for letting a ten-year-old hang around him so much.”
Mariah’s heart ached at Gabe’s words. Two years ago Mariah had facilitated the placement of five Society orphans in Pearlman. Peter and Luke had been the last chosen and had apparently formed a deep bond from that day forward. Normally that would be good, but it would also make any separation that much harder. She sucked in a shuddering breath.
Gabe’s brow creased. “You still haven’t told me why you’re here. Mom is coming in two weeks. You could have joined her if you wanted to be here when the baby’s born.” He drew a sharp breath. “It’s business, isn’t it? I didn’t think the Society sent agents on follow-up anymore, especially when the reports are all good.”
She swallowed hard. “It is Society business, in a way.” But she couldn’t say more because one Pearlman matron after another stopped to greet her. This was not the place to tell him the bad news. When she had a moment’s break from the greetings, she asked if they might talk in private.
He nodded. “Let’s go to the church. Florabelle will be gone by now.”
Mariah was relieved to hear that. The church secretary was notorious for her gossiping, and this was the sort of news that Florabelle would love to spread.
Gabe extended an arm, always the gentleman, but she preferred to walk on her own. He set an easy pace. They were of a similar middling height, their strides equal. It wasn’t like walking with Hendrick. He’d always had to slow down to match her shorter stride.
After a dozen more greetings, they were alone again on the sidewalk. Gabe buried his hands in his pockets, brow furrowed, looking very much like a little boy. She wished she could reassure him, but her news would only bring more worry.
“Lovely day,” she said to break the tension.
He mumbled a reply but didn’t look up until they reached the church, its solid oaken door darkened from all the hands that had touched it through the years. She reached for the handle, but Gabe stopped her hand.
“Is this about Luke?” he whispered.
She couldn’t answer. Not yet. “Let’s go inside.”
He nodded and pulled open the door. “Whatever it is, God will see us through.”
She wished she had that much confidence. Until now, she thought she’d placed total reliance on the Lord, but this news had shaken her. It would devastate Gabe.
Once they’d settled into their respective chairs, Gabe behind his desk and Mariah taking the seat opposite him, he waited expectantly, hands clenched, as if clinging to his new family.
Mariah blinked back tears and tried to dislodge the lump in her throat. The last thing she ever wanted to do was hurt her beloved little brother. She’d always looked after him, mothered him. Then two years ago, he came to Pearlman for his first pastoral appointment and fell in love with Felicity. Their romance had been rocky, for she barely gave him the time of day at first, but Felicity had a tender soul, and Gabe was one of the few people who saw it.
Shortly after, Mariah arrived to arrange the placement of five orphans into foster homes. All had been snapped up except Luke, whose darker coloring challenged deeply rooted prejudice. Gabe took in the traumatized little boy, and Mariah raised him for three months until Gabe and Felicity married. In that time she lost her heart to the little boy, and that’s what made this news so difficult to bear.
She squeezed her hands together to stop the shaking and took a deep breath. “There’s a little problem concerning Luke.”
Gabe frowned. “We haven’t gotten far in the adoption process. I thought that was due to the paperwork and investigations. Have you heard something else?” He leaned forward. “I’ll do anything to make Luke my legal son.”
“It’s not about the adoption.”
“Then what is it?”
She fought the bile rising in her throat. How she wished she didn’t have to tell him this, but there was no way around it. “Luke’s father has returned.” The words fell between them like stones. “He wants Luke back.”
All the life went out of Gabe. “His father?”
She tried to temper the pain. “Perhaps I should say that a man who claims to be Luke’s father wants him back.”
“Claims?” Gabe pressed his hands against the top of the desk. “Is he Luke’s father or not?”
“That’s what I intend to find out, and that’s why I have to go to Montana.”
“Montana? What on earth does Montana have to do with this?”
“The man who says he’s Luke’s father lives in Montana.”
Gabe paused, processing what she was trying to tell him. “Why do you think he isn’t who he says he is?”
She traced the wood grain of the chair’s arm with her fingernail. “His name doesn’t quite match the records. The old Detroit office listed the father as Francesco Guillardo. The man says he’s Frank Gillard. He claims he anglicized his name.”
He sat back heavily. “People do change their names to avoid prejudice. Remember how Luke was received when people heard his full name was Luciano?”
She nodded. How could she forget the gasps of shock, the slurs against the boy’s dark skin?
Gabe’s long sigh weighed heavily on the hot summer air. “Where in Montana?”
“The western part. A town called Brunley.”
He stared off into space. “So far.”
Mariah ached for him, for Felicity and even for herself. During those three months she’d stayed with Luke, she’d spent every moment of the day with him, had heard his first words, had wiped his tears after the nightmares. Luke was the closest she would ever get to having a son. “I won’t let Frank Gillard take him.”
“Mariah! That’s kidnapping.”
“Is that any worse than abandoning a child?” She stood, too agitated to sit. “That’s what Luke’s father did two-and-a-half years ago. And whatever happened before they got to the asylum made Luke so afraid of his father that he stopped talking. I’m not about to let that man touch him.”
Gabe frowned. “You’re making a lot of assumptions.”
“Don’t tell me you haven’t come to the same conclusion.”
“That he was abandoned, yes. That’s on the record, but you don’t know what made Luke stop talking.”
She held his gaze. “Did Luke ever tell you anything about that time?”
Gabe shook his head. “He got so upset any time I tried to talk about his parents that I stopped trying. I figured he’d be ours soon, and it wouldn’t matter.”
“Do we dare ask him again?”
He shook his head. “He can’t know
