July 1915
Abigail spent the next week comforting Elizabeth leading up to Jack's funeral and once his widow left for Hamilton to stay with her parents for awhile, Abigail did everything she could to ignore telegrams from Mountie headquarters about assigning a new one to Hope Valley. She knew that Elizabeth wasn't ready for a new one to replace Jack yet and frankly, Abigail wasn't ready either. She told herself that she wouldn't approve of any other Mountie that wasn't him. It wouldn't be the same. No one could do the job better than Jack and she didn't want to have to prepare herself for that disappointment just yet.
When it came to Henry, she tried to keep herself busy though every time they saw each other, she couldn't help but gaze at him and daydream. It would take all her strength not to approach him in the streets or go to the saloon late at night to see him. She wanted to. But she kept herself away from him, her confusion only growing more and more as the days went by.
It wasn't long before Elizabeth returned home from Hamilton and Abigail's focus was once again on her best friend. She tried her best to help her through her pain, but almost nothing worked. Soon, Elizabeth told her that she was going to move away because everything in Hope Valley reminded her of Jack. That was when Abigail remembered what Henry had told her. Gathering the other widows as a support group for Elizabeth might be a way to comfort the school teacher.
And it did. And soon…they discovered that Elizabeth was expecting a baby. Not only was Abigail focusing on her work as the mayor and at the cafe, but as a mother, a friend, and now a friend to an expectant mother too. She was, once again, too busy to spend any time with Henry or figure out what it was about him that confused her so much.
December 1915
Months passed and they were approaching yet another Christmas. Abigail began to wonder how time was moving so fast.
"Abigail?" Rosemary's voice echoed in Abigail's head as she rolled the dough in the cafe one winter morning.
"Hm?" The mayor looked up at her friend.
"You just added salt to that dough." Rosemary informed her.
"I did?" Abigail looked down at the bag of flour sitting beside the bag of salt and she blushed slightly. "Oh, dear."
"Did you even hear a word I said?" Rosemary asked her kindly. "You seem otherwise distracted."
"I am sorry. What were you saying?" The cook asked while she threw the compromised dough into the trash and she began to make more.
"We need to begin preparing for Christmas." The actress told her. "I can take charge again, of course. But we will need to decide on all of the Christmas dishes and desserts. And, oh! I thought that perhaps this year, we can have someone from each family in town bring a dish, that way the pressure is not all on you this year." Mrs. Coulter smiled. "What do you think? You could bring the main course and then everyone else can bring the sides and desserts and we can have a large feast in the saloon. Oh, it'd be lovely!"
"That's wonderful, dear." Abigail agreed. "I would really appreciate that. Especially after all that's happened."
"Are you alright?" Rosemary asked her with a look of concern.
"I just have a lot on my mind." The mayor told her as she began to knead more dough.
"Such as?" Her friend waited for an answer and when she didn't get one right away, she spoke again. "You can tell me anything. You should know that by now."
"Oh, it's just…the loss of Jack and poor Elizabeth."
Rosemary's expression changed from a look of concern to a look of disbelief. "Really? Abigail, you can't fool me. If that was what was truly on your mind, you would have just told me….Does this have anything to do with Henry Gowen?"
"Henry Gowen?" Abigail almost sounded appalled as she asked that, though she knew her fake tone was a bit too much.
Rosemary raised an eyebrow at her and tilted her head slightly to the side. "Abigail."
"Am I that obvious?" Abigail gritted her teeth together with embarrassment.
"I saw you two the other day at the mercantile. Making eyes at each other."
"We weren't making eyes at each other."
"Oh, please. You weren't looking at each other like friends do." Rosemary corrected her.
"Friends? Who said Henry Gowen and I are friends?" Abigail wondered.
"The whole town knows it. There's no use in hiding it anymore." The younger blonde made her way over to the kitchen table and she took a seat at it. "Although, if you asked me…I would say that you are more than friends."
"More than friends? Rosemary, that is ridiculous."
"Is it? You two have spent…..TIME….together." She said, referencing their time in the bedroom. "Wouldn't you say that is more than friends?"
"Henry and I have not spent that kind of time together in a long time." Abigail half-lied to the other woman.
"Since when?"
"Since none of your business." Abigail said as kindly as possible.
"Hm…" Rosemary began to think of something.
"What hm?"
"Oh, nothing." Mrs. Coulter stood from the chair at the table. "I will return later this afternoon with a list of dishes people around town will bring to the Christmas feast. You just think of what main dish you want to make." She put her coat on and headed for the door. "Good day, Abigail."
Before the mayor could say anything else, the actress was gone. She shook her head and continued to knead the dough while trying to get Henry off of her mind and failing, once again.
It wasn't long before Christmas Eve had arrived and Abigail was busy with town business and the Christmas Eve feast. She was helping the very pregnant Elizabeth prepare for the baby and dealing with the orphanage of kids that had arrived after their wagon had broken down. Not only was she helping them but then had to deal with Bill bringing it up to her that one of the children in the orphanage had possibly been stolen. She wondered when she would ever get a break or time to herself. The answer to that was…probably never.
Things only got more stressful when she burned the Christmas roast and found out that Ned had no more left in the mercantile to sell. He wired a Butcher outside of town who agreed to hold one for her and asked Rosemary to drive her there while she brought Elizabeth to Benson Hills for a new baby stroller. They wouldn't all fit in Lee's car unfortunately, so Rosemary convinced Abigail to ask Henry to borrow his, since he was the only one in town to have a car big enough for four people.
They hadn't anticipated the awful weather that hit them on the way home nor Elizabeth going into labor on the road during the storm. Henry had insisted on going with Bill, Lee, and Carson to find them when the ladies never returned on time for the Christmas Eve feast, but they only had three horses that could travel in that kind of weather so Henry soon gave in and stayed in Hope Valley.
He waited in the saloon at one of the long tables they had for the feast, his mind only thinking of Abigail and how she must be feeling out there all alone in the cold. Well, he knew she wasn't alone….but who was going to protect her? Certainly not Elizabeth, so big that she could hardly stand with that baby in her stomach, and he could NOT picture Rosemary, the ditsy actress who never had to do hard labor in her life, being able to protect Abigail. He wanted to leave on foot to go and find them, but knew that was irrational. If only he had gone instead of Lee. It was HIS car that the women took after all. Though….it WAS Lee's wife who was missing as well. Carson, the doctor, and Bill, the sheriff, going made sense. But Henry sighed, wishing they had another horse to spare.
Soon, everyone in the saloon began to pack up the food, deciding that a Christmas Eve feast without Abigail, Rosemary, and Elizabeth wouldn't feel right so they saved everything for another time and people began to head home for the night. Henry, soon realizing he was the only one at a table still, stood up and went to his room upstairs. He spent most of the night standing by the door to his balcony, waiting to see any sign of his car or the men with the horses. They never came.
The next morning, he went downstairs to get a cup of coffee with a yawn as a commotion began to stir outside. He followed Clara and Jesse out the front door of the saloon to see that his car was back with every person accounted for…..Plus one. The baby. He saw the smile on Abigail's face as she helped Elizabeth exit the car with her newborn son.
"Thank you for lending us your car, Henry." Abigail said to him as he approached them.
"Don't worry. There was no crash. We just had to stop when Elizabeth went into labor." Rosemary informed him.
"I am just glad everyone made it home okay." Henry said, much to everyone's surprise around him who had expected him to be upset.
Everyone noticed Abigail smile at Henry when he said that but soon forgot about it as they all surrounded Elizabeth to look at the baby.
Abigail took this moment to speak with Henry off to the side. "Is everything okay?" She asked him.
"I was worried about you." He admitted quietly. "I felt so helpless being stuck here."
"How did the Christmas Eve feast go?" She wondered.
He opened his mouth to reply to her but was interrupted when Florence and Molly called her over to speak with her about something. Henry sent her a weak smile before turning to head back into the saloon so as not to be in everyone's way. Abigail wanted to call out to him, but was pulled away before she could.
Florence and Molly explained to her that they felt wrong having the feast without her and the other two ladies so Abigail declared that tonight they would have a Christmas feast instead and the orphans were all invited.
At the feast, Abigail was surprised to see that the young orphan girl who wouldn't speak, Millie, had taken to Henry and asked him to read a Christmas story to her. He had even coaxed the girl to read aloud as well, thus being the first time even most of the other orphans had ever heard her voice.
"Isn't that lovely?" Molly said, standing beside Abigail as they all watched with joy.
"He's been reading that book to her every day since the orphans arrived." Michael Hickam said, taking a sip of his eggnog.
"He has?" Abigail looked at Michael beside her.
"Yes. She followed him all the way through town to Lee's office days ago. He read to her in there and then every time she saw him after that, she would hand him that book and he'd read again."
"I never thought Mr. Gowen would be good with children." Molly admitted.
"Neither did I." Florence said, hooking her elbow with the redhead.
Abigail smiled as she watched Henry with Millie, her heart fluttering as she herself, never thought that he would be good with children either. But seeing the opposite with her own eyes and hearing about how he had been spending time with Millie all week made her feel as much joy as she had the first time she saw Noah with Peter.
"This dinner was delicious." Henry said to Abigail as he approached the bar to get himself some more eggnog. Abigail had been standing there to help some of the children get hot chocolate.
"Yes, it was. Wasn't it? Everyone in town did a lovely job cooking their dishes." Abigail agreed.
"Yes, they did." He nodded and took a sip of his eggnog.
"It's-It's nice to hear Millie's voice finally." Abigail said, trying to bring up the subject.
Henry nodded again. "She's a good kid."
"She is. I hadn't realized you were good with children." She told him truthfully.
"Oh, I'm-...I'm not. It's another reason my ex wife left me. She said I was lousy with our son."
Abigail abruptly turned to face him more. "Your son?"
"Christopher." He told her. "He was three when they left…I don't blame her. I DID do a lousy job with him."
"Henry, I-" Abigail began to speak but was suddenly interrupted when Rosemary approached them.
"Oh! Would you look at that?" The actress smiled at them.
"Look at what?" Henry asked, sipping his eggnog again.
Rosemary's smile grew even more and she looked up at the horizontal beam above Henry and Abigail. "Mistletoe." She told them.
Both Henry and Abigail looked up at the Christmas plant that hung over them. The mayor looked back down at Rosemary with a raised eyebrow as if to assume the actress had planned this.
"Well, go on….It's tradition. You two must kiss if you are standing beneath it." The blonde said happily, ignoring the looks she was most certainly getting from her husband across the room.
"That's alright. I'd best be going now." Henry said, finishing his eggnog before setting the empty glass down on the bar and he went upstairs to his room.
Rosemary frowned when he was gone. "Why did he leave?"
"Probably because so many people are staring, Rosemary." Abigail told her.
"So?"
"Rosemary, I love you. You are a good friend. But sometimes, you just need to butt out." Abigail said before walking passed the actress to go and find Elizabeth and Baby Jack.
"What did I say?" Rosemary asked herself once she was standing there alone.
"I don't think it's what you said, but what you did." Lee told her, coming up from behind his wife with his hands in his pants pockets. "I told you it wouldn't work."
"But Lee…" Rosemary turned to face him. "Those two are-"
"Grown adults who can figure things out for themselves." He interrupted her.
She sighed. "I don't think it's that simple with them. They have such a complicated history and unless someone pushes them in the right direction, they are going to both be miserable forever."
"Miserable? I wouldn't call Abigail miserable." Lee pointed out.
"Oh, trust me. She is. She is just very good at hiding it. Henry shows it, Abigail hides it. The both of them are the perfect example of opposites attract. They are like two poles of a magnet and it is someone's job to push those two poles together. MY job." She informed her husband.
"Oh, it's YOUR job?" Lee said, with an amused tone.
"Yes. MY job." She repeated. "Nobody else in town is going to do it."
"Why don't you just let it be, Rosie?"
"Because it is physically impossible for me to hold it back anymore. That man is completely smitten with our mayor and our mayor cannot stop thinking about him. It is obvious to me how they feel."
"Yes, obvious to YOU. If you ask anyone else in town, they will say the complete opposite." Lee said.
"That is because no one else has been paying close enough attention." Rosie argued.
"What about Elizabeth?" Her husband asked.
"Elizabeth has been too busy mourning Jack and dealing with the pregnancy. Now she has Baby Jack, she is not going to notice what is happening in anyone else's life for a long time." She gasped. "Oh! And she made Abigail promise."
"Promise what?" Lee wondered.
"Not to fall in love with Henry, silly." She rubbed Lee's cheek as if he was supposed to know that.
"Why would she make Abigail promise that?" Lee asked, utterly confused now.
"Hm….No reason." Rosemary said, remembering that Abigail and Henry's bedroom affairs were a secret for only her and Elizabeth to know. "But it is a promise that Abigail should not have to keep, because I am right."
"You are?...About what exactly?" Lee wondered.
"About her and Henry being the perfect match. I just need to think of a way to make them realize it themselves…..And you are going to help me."
"I am?"
"Yes, silly. You are." Rosemary took her husband's chin in her hand and kissed him before happily going over to play some music on the saloon's piano.
A/N: I know I did a pretty big time jump in the beginning of this chapter, but I needed to get to Christmas because Henry and Abigail didn't have many interactions before then and I really wanted to do this mistletoe concept quickly cuz I was getting impatient and loved the idea of Rosemary trying her matchmaking yet again. Haha Write some reviews/comments please and let me know what you think so far :)