Where Grace Abides Read Online Free PDF Page B

stopped where he was, struggling to remember the man’s name. When it finally registered, he raised an arm to hail him.
    â€œ Asa! ”
    The big black dog stood up on the driver’s bench and barked, and the driver shot a puzzled look in Gideon’s direction. Then, as recognition lighted his eyes, he slowed the horse and pulled up to the rail beside the boardwalk, where Gideon met him.
    Asa gave a nod. “Mr. Gideon.”
    â€œYou remember me, then,” Gideon said. “Well, I expect you’re looking for the captain.”
    â€œI am.” The dog barked again, and Asa shushed him. “Miss Rachel—your sister—told me I’d find him at the carpenter’s shop here in town.”
    â€œYou went to Rachel’s first? Oh, that’s right—you wouldn’t have known where to come otherwise.”
    Asa looked past Gideon to the buildings behind him. “The captain—”
    â€œThe shop is just three doors down,” Gideon said, hauling himself up on the side of the wagon. “You can pull around back. Come on, I’ll show you.”
    The dog—“Mac,” as he recalled—looked Gideon over with those eerie eyes that seemed almost human in their piercing intelligence, but he remained quiet.
    Gideon pointed the way up the street to the narrow lane that ran between the shop and Hudson’s dry goods store. “Turn down there. Captain Gant sure will be glad you’re back. He’s been real worried about you.”
    â€œHow is the captain?” Asa’s expression left no doubt as to his concern for his friend. “Is he well?”
    â€œHe’s doing all right. Of course, you know about his leg. I can tell it still bothers him some. But he never mentions it.”
    Asa nodded knowingly, turning off the lane and pulling around to the rear of the buildings.
    â€œHere we are,” Gideon said, gesturing to the back door of the shop. “You can pull your wagon right up there by the storage shed.”
    Gideon smiled to himself as he imagined the captain’s surprise. Gant was a quiet man, never a big talker, but lately he’d been even more reserved than ever. He was an unhappy man these days, there was no missing it, and if Gideon were to guess the reason for his employer’s grim disposition, he was fairly sure it had to do with Rachel.
    In any event, he hoped Asa’s return would cheer the captain up a little.
    It caught him off-guard to realize that he actually cared about his employer’s feelings. When Gant first showed up in Riverhaven, Gideon’s attitude had ranged between curiosity about the mysterious stranger’s past and resentment for the problems he brought upon Gideon’s sister Rachel by turning up wounded on her doorstep.
    After working for him for several months, though, he’d found the former riverboat captain an easy man to respect, even like, albeit notan easy sort to get close to. From the beginning, Gant had treated him like a man, not a boy, complimenting him on his work when warranted and teaching him more than Gideon had ever learned from the former owner of the shop, Karl Webber.
    Gant had magic in his hands when it came to wood, and there seemed no project he wouldn’t tackle, no problem he couldn’t solve. He was also an interesting man. Gideon had no idea whether he had educated himself or gone to some fancy school, but he clearly knew a lot about a lot of other things besides carpentry.
    Gideon liked to get him talking about his life on the river and some of the places he’d been. It seemed that Gant had been in several different states, even way up north. He didn’t seem to mind answering Gideon’s questions. And Gideon never ran out of questions for him to answer.
    He had always wanted to travel and see faraway places. Rachel had once accused him of having a “wanderlust” in him. Was that such a bad thing? He had never been anywhere, after