Page 40 of An Alaskan Twin Surprise (Home to Owl Creek 2)

She nodded. “I’m ashamed to say I did. And I’m more regretful than I can ever put into words. What I did was wrong...and cruel. And you have no idea how many times I wished that I could take it back.”

Gabriel scoffed. “But you can’t. Life doesn’t work that way, does it?” How many times had he hoped and prayed Rachel would return? And all this time his mother had hidden the truth from him in the nastiest of ways.

His mother stayed silent save for a few sniffles. She wouldn’t even look him in the eye.

In this moment he desperately needed God’s guidance. The anger he felt was explosive. He closed his eyes and prayed. He had suffered so much pain and heartbreak over the past three years. He’d felt betrayed and utterly lost. His mother had been one of his closest allies. Yet she’d hurt him even more than Rachel had. Her actions had been deliberate while Rachel’s had been born out of fear and anxiety. He placed his hands in prayerlike fashion in front of his face.

Dear Lord, please help me make sense of all this. Give me the strength to find some light in the darkness.

Suddenly, amidst all the thoughts racing around in his head came an uplifting realization.

Rachel had tried to make things right between them after she’d left town. She’d come back to him. It must have taken a tremendous amount of courage, he realized, to show up in Owl Creek to face him. She must have been crushed when she’d been sent away. And it meant the world to him. It made him dare to dream that things between them weren’t impossible. Hope flared inside him like a beacon.

Beareth all things. Believeth all things. Hopeth all things. Endureth all things. The passage from Corinthians washed over him with the force of a strong breeze.

When he opened his eyes a feeling of calm had taken hold of him. Things had been so cloudy before, but now all he saw was a shimmering light. He wasn’t giving up on Rachel and all the dreams he’d held in his heart for them because he knew now she hadn’t forsaken him. She’d tried to make things right and it meant the world to him.

“I love you, Mama. And in time I will forgive you, but for now I need to find Rachel. She’s my priority. If you can’t accept that, I’m not sure how we’re going to move forward.” He stood up from the table and glared at her. “But make no mistake about it. I’m going to do whatever it takes to ensure that Rachel and I never spend another day apart as long as we live.”

Chapter Thirteen

Rachel took a long sip of her coffee and gazed out the living room window. Her heart was a little banged up at the moment. All the hope she’d held in her heart for herself and Gabriel had been snuffed out. It hu

rt so much to lose him twice in one lifetime. Not that she’d really ever had him this second time around. Things had ended before they’d even begun. She felt a small sense of gratitude that she hadn’t told Gabriel she’d fallen in love with him all over again. What good would it have done to say those words and still know you couldn’t make things work? It would have been even more heart-wrenching.

You’re better off, she told herself. Gabriel traveling all over Alaska and risking his life wouldn’t gel with the world she was trying to create for her girls. She wanted safety and security for her two little cherubs. Getting back together with him would only have led to heartache a second time around. Hadn’t she had enough to last her a lifetime? She had tried her best to be optimistic, but, in the end, their lifestyles just weren’t compatible.

Even though she was trying to convince herself she’d done the right thing, a niggling voice in the back of her head disputed it. Gabriel was one in a million. Once again she had allowed fear to dictate her future. Hadn’t she learned anything from the past?

She felt her mother’s eyes on her like laser beams. Rachel swung her gaze toward her and furrowed her brows. “What? Do I have something on my face?” She began wiping at her nose and mouth with her hand.

Helene placed her novel down. “I’m waiting for you to tell me what’s wrong.” She tapped at her watch. “I don’t have all day. I’m not getting any younger.”

Rachel let out a sigh and told her mother everything. There was really no point in hiding it. She’d learned the hard way that harboring secrets always came back to bite a person.

“Go to him. Tell him you messed up,” Helene told her. “He’s a very forgiving man.”

Rachel let out a groan. All she felt was regret. “You didn’t see the look on his face when I told him that I couldn’t deal with the risks of his job. He looked as if I’d slapped him. I can’t face him, not after everything I said. It was cowardly.” Tears misted in her eyes. It hurt so much to know she’d squandered her second chance with Gabriel.

Helene leaned across the table, her expression intense. “After everything you’ve been through, are you really going to let pride stand in your way? What do you have to lose, Rachel? Doing nothing will cost you everything.”

“It already has. I’ve allowed fear to rob me of so much,” she said in a quiet voice. The last three years had been agonizing. She’d had to rebuild her life without Gabriel at its center. Now she’d foolishly thrown away the new life they could have created together. She’d grown as a person over the course of those years, but she was still making mistakes. She was still flawed. But her faith taught her that grace was given by God to all who needed it. Wasn’t she worthy of it as well? Shouldn’t she give herself a little bit of forgiveness for falling short?

Helene let out a frustrated sound. “Well, what are you going to do about it? Spend another three years full of regrets and recriminations? Gnash your teeth when he falls for someone else? Or gets married?”

Ouch! Mama wasn’t pulling any punches. The very thought of him ending up with someone other than herself twisted her stomach into knots.

Mama was right. Gabriel was a forgiving person. He’d shown her grace time after time.

It was a part of who he was and one of the many reasons she loved him. Perhaps he could find a way to forgive her this one last time. Maybe things weren’t as bleak as she imagined.

“You’re right, Mama. I can’t let it happen again. Even if he tells me to get lost, I’ll know I tried, right? And it’s important for me to step out on a limb of faith and believe. If I’d trusted in the strength of our love the first time around, we would never have been apart.”

“Right!” Helene said in a raised voice. “You deserve to be happy. Go get him.”

“I am. I will.” Rachel said, standing up and moving toward the hall closet. She pulled on her coat, jammed her knit hat onto her head and wrapped her thick scarf around her neck. “I have no idea where he is though. For all I know he could be in Love or Fairbanks right now.”

She bit her lip. The girls were happily playing in their playpen. “Do you think you could watch the girls for a little bit? Sydney will be here in five minutes. She was going to watch the girls this afternoon so I could pick up a few things in town.”

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