Her parents, to his consternation, had decided not to come to Mexico. After talking with the doctor and determining that Abby was in no immediate danger, that her vital signs were steady and strong, they had told Riley they had every confidence that he would pull her through. They were content with his twice-daily reports, as vague and unsatisfying as they were.
“How can you say that?” he had protested to Mrs. Dennison. “It’s because of me that she’s here in the first place. She needs people she can count on. She needs her family.”
“She has someone she can count on. And she has her family,” Mrs. Dennison had said emphatically, leaving Riley to decipher her meaning.
Still thinking about that, he picked up Abby’s hand and brushed a kiss across her knuckles. What if her mother was wrong? What if the voice Abby longed to hear was Martin’s or her mother’s or one of her sister’s? What if she needed to be badgered by her brothers or coaxed back by her father? What if she was somewhere very far away and only memories of home could draw her back? Riley wasn’t the one to provide those. His own memories of home weren’t all that pleasant.
Except when he thought of the Dennison house, he reminded himself. There, thanks in large measure to Abby’s determined efforts to include her best friend in everything from rare family outings to holidays, he had learned about love and laughter and generosity of spirit. An only child living with an elderly aunt, he had treated all of Abby’s younger siblings as his own, behaving as the wiser, more heroic big brother he had always longed to be. Perhaps those were the memories he should be sharing, letting them warm her now as the events themselves had once warmed him. He sorted through the best of them and found there were many more than he’d imagined.
He chose one, a smile forming at the memory. “Abby, do you recall the time you insisted on going fishing with your brother and me?” he asked quietly. “I think it was soon after I caught you when you fell from that tree, so you must have been about ten, which would have made me fourteen. Luke was barely seven. You were so sure that if boys liked to do it, then fishing must be a grand and glorious adventure. You refused to be shut out of it.”
He laughed out loud as he recalled that hot, spring afternoon. He and Luke, laden down with fishing poles and bait, had trudged off to a stream three miles from the Dennison house, Luke struggling to keep up with Riley’s long strides. The walk had been hot and dusty and miserable. Abby had borne that much in stoic silence, thrilled in fact that Riley hadn’t forced her to remain behind. Her eyes had lit up with excitement when they reached the banks of the meandering stream.
Silently Riley had handed her a pole and the box of bait. She wrinkled her nose, but bravely plucked a worm from the box and jammed the hook through it.
“What do we do now?” she had asked.
“Drop it in the water and wait for a fish to bite.”
“Okay.” She had regarded him imperiously. “I don’t know why you made such a fuss about my coming. There’s nothing to this.”
Grinning down at her now, he linked his fingers through hers. “I was so afraid you’d try to talk the fish to death. You did tend to chatter, Abby. As it turned out, though, the fish weren’t biting. You were bored within the first fifteen minutes, but you were too stubborn to admit it. An hour later you were sound asleep. You didn’t catch one single fish the entire afternoon. Luke and I caught such tiny ones we threw them all back.”
He shook his head. “The most amazing part, though, was that when we got home you declared that it had been the most exciting adventure you had ever had. I never understood why you sounded as if you really meant it.”
He studied her thoughtfully. “I wonder, though, was it because it was something we did together, Abby? Was that what made that afternoon so exciting for you? Could it be that that’s why I’ve remembered it all these years, because it was the first adventure we ever shared?”
He fell silent then and considered whether that might explain why so little in all the years since had been nearly as satisfying as that one sweetly innocent afternoon. For all of the far more daring adventures he’d had, for all of the wild risks he’d taken, for all of the dangers he’d faced in places whose names he could barely pronounce, he couldn’t recall one single moment so indelibly printed on his mind as that afternoon by a rain-swollen desert stream, a fishing pole in his hand, and Abby by his side.
* * *
Abby jammed a needle into her finger for perhaps the hundredth time. She would be very much surprised if she had a single drop of blood left by the wedding, if her mama insisted on making her embroider her own linens for the bridal bed. She looked at the little speck of blood on the fine white cloth and grimaced. This was the very reason why she had wanted to avoid a traditional marriage. She would never live up to expectations when it came to sewing or playing the piano and such. Her fingers simply were not nimble enough.
She glanced over at Lizzy, who was thoroughly engrossed in her own stitchery, her expression as contented as could be. Lizzy, even at eighteen, would make a far more adept and dutiful wife.
“Lizzy, do you truly
