Read Where the Heart Leads for Free Online

“It’s bad luck.”
    “Not for us, it isn’t.” He pulled something out of his coat pocket. The gold chain caught the morning’s light, glinting like a promise of their happiness to come. “You need something new according to my ma.”
    “Yes, always listen to your mother, especially when it concerns presents for me.” Rose took the chain. When their fingers met, it was as if their souls touched, leaving no doubt. This was true love.

    Ashes banked? Yes.
Aumaleigh poked her head into her new kitchen, surveying the half-unpacked room.
Lamps out? Yes. Back door locked? Yes.
    Satisfied, she grabbed her reticule, glanced in the newly hung oval mirror and frowned at her reflection. Gabriel was going to see her today, and she didn’t feel ready for it. There just wasn’t any way to stop it.
    Oh, the girls might try, but she wasn’t going to fool herself. Avoiding Gabriel was a waste of energy. Instead she was going to fortify herself, so that he would never guess how deeply he unsettled her.
    Determined, she opened the door. A man was tethering her mare to the rail. She skidded to a stop.
    “G-Gabriel?” His name seemed to stick in her throat.
    “Sorry, I didn’t mean for you to catch me here. I get the feeling you’d be fine with not seeing me again.” His smoky baritone rumbled over her, friendly with a hint of something deeper, something she couldn’t put her finger on.
    Was it apologetic, perhaps? Well, he should be.
    “I promised Seth that I would look after you this morning, get your mare hitched up since you had so much to do helping the girls.” Gabriel’s maturity only made him all the more attractive. “I had planned to be gone before you came out of your house, but your horse had her own ideas.”
    “Yes, Buttons has always been a good judge of character. Doesn’t she like you?”
    “Apparently not.” The docile old mare pulled back her lips, displaying her large and menacing horsy teeth.
    “Good, Buttons.” Aumaleigh swept down the stairs to praise her dear mare. “Well, your obligations as the groom’s best man are done. It’s been nice seeing you, Gabriel, but I’m in a hurry.”
    “Of course.” He tipped his black Stetson in a gentlemanly fashion. The familiar movement stirred up a memory.
    Seeing him in the moment, standing there in the morning sunshine and seeing him also in the past at the same time. The girl she’d once been, remembered.
    But the woman she was now—the one who’d had her heart broken by him—wanted to give him a big push. Maybe he would fall backwards in the mud, new suit and all. Then she would drive off as if he’d never mattered to her one bit.
    Okay, perhaps she had more built up animosity than she’d realized.
    “I’ll let you be on your way.” He went to his black gelding standing patiently in the yard. “Isn’t it funny? Who would have thought that after all these years we’d be neighbors?”
    She blinked. Neighbors? What did that mean?
    “You know the ranch next door?” Gabriel mounted up, a natural in the saddle. Back straight, wide shoulders squared, at ease as he gestured across the field to where the peak of a weathered red barn could be seen above the trees. “I bought it.”
    “Wh-what?” She crinkled up her forehead in thought, trying to marshal all her cognitive abilities, but her brain refused to function. “No, that’s not right—I mean, Tyler would have told me. You’re only visiting—”
    “No, afraid not. I’m here to stay.” Gabriel wheeled his horse down the driveway, riding into the east, into the sun, leaving her staring after him like a fool.
    He was her neighbor? He was going to live in the same town? She would have to pass him on the road, see him in town, maybe shopping at the mercantile.
    No, I can’t do it. I just can’t.
Panic wrapped around her, making her stomach ache. She blinked into the sun, looking after him but he was gone, lost in the bright golden rays. She wanted to reach out, drag him back and