High Mountain Drifter by Jillian Hart

found a match in the base drawer of a small lamp and lit the wick. Heart pounding, she held the envelope up until the handwriting came into focus.
    Her heart stopped beating. It was handwriting she recognized. Gabriel's writing?
    No, it couldn’t be.
Her jaw dropped even as her mind sputtered, not wanting to accept what her own eyes saw. But she couldn’t deny it. It was definitely the bold script she'd once known so well. Shock rolled through her in jarring, violent waves as she stared at an unopened letter from Gabriel, the man she once loved.
    She turned the envelope addressed to her over in her trembling hands. The paper had yellowed with age. Dried rain drops spotted it, as if it had been delivered in inclement weather, but Gabriel's name was scrawled on the back flap. Gabriel Daniels, Gettysburg, PA.
    She frowned. What had he been doing in Pennsylvania? She didn't know, but he'd written. He'd written her. Stunned, her knees gave out and she collapsed on the edge of the bed. Once he'd been her dear, beloved Gabriel. What a sweet thing that had been in her life. She'd loved him with all her heart. Remembering, a tear eked out of the far corner of her eyes, followed by another, slowly trailing down the sides of her face.
    He might have written her, but she'd never received this letter. Why had it been stuffed in a ledger? Well, there was only one reason, wasn't there? Mother had hated Gabriel. Aumaleigh blinked, trying to clear her vision but the room kept blurring. She clenched her teeth, angry, realizing what had happened. Mother had deliberately hidden it. Kept it from her. Anger pounded through her, realizing how truly cold-hearted her mother was. The proof was right here in her hands, in the scratchy texture of the aged parchment, her name written in Gabriel's bold hand across the front.
    Written decades after they had parted ways, never to be reunited again.
    Overwhelmed, she flopped back onto the bed, staring at the ceiling. She pressed the letter against her chest, over her rapidly beating heart. She couldn't believe he'd written to her, that all those years without him, after he'd broken her heart irreparably, he'd still reached out to her.
    And she'd never known it.
    Another tear slid slowly down the side of her cheek. She rubbed it away with the hem of her sleeve.
    "Aumaleigh?" Verbena's cane tapped into the room. "Are you okay?"
    "Fine." She blinked back any other pesky tears that might be thinking about falling. The last thing she wanted was for the girl to worry. Verbena had enough on her shoulders. "Probably just some dust in my eye. What are you doing up here? You didn't come to help, did you?"
    "I couldn't help myself." Verbena's face scrunched up apologetically, just adorable. Those sweet blue eyes cinched up in a plea. "I tried reading, but I can't concentrate enough these days. When I try to sew or knit, my mind wanders and I mess up my stitches. Then I just have to undo it all."
    "You managed yesterday during the get together you girls had," she pointed out, turning the envelope upside down to hide the address and set it on the table beside the lamp.
    "Well, having everyone over helped a lot. There was so much going on, it was almost impossible not to get caught up in it." Verbena wandered over to the open wardrobe. "It would help me to help you."
    "I understand. You want to keep your mind off what happened with Ernest." How could she argue with that? She pushed off the bed, going to her niece's side. The girl had been terrified, taken from her home, tied up in a cabin and nearly raped. Thank heavens the sheriff and his men found her in time. A hot, protective, motherly rage roared through her, and she had to tamp it down. If she got her hands on Ernest, she'd take that selfishness right out of him if she had to use a snake stick to do it.
    "I need to focus on what really matters." Verbena leaned her cane against the wardrobe door and planted her hands on her slim hips, surveying the mass of jumbled