A Historical Christmas Present

by Lisa Kleypas

  “She’ll do that a few more times before she figures out you mean business. Cows are stubborn, but they’re not dumb. Has she got a name?”

  The kid shook her head.

  “She’s got to have a name. How will she know when you’re talking to her?” Joe thought a moment. “How about Queen Charlotte? She acts like a queen, and she’s just as ugly as the real one.”

  Sarah nodded her agreement.

  “Good. Now it’s your turn.”

  Sarah looked reluctant.

  “You can’t let her know you’re afraid, kid, or she’ll keep on kicking until you give up. Come on, sit down.”

  Sarah sat. She reached out a tentative hand.

  “Don’t be timid. You’re the boss.”

  Sarah squeezed the teat three times before the cow kicked the bucket over.

  Joe smacked Queen Charlotte on the hip and moved her back into milking position. “Now try again.” Seconds later the cow kicked again. Sarah stood up.

  “Here, let me show you,” Joe said, taking his place on the stool. “I haven’t done this in nearly fifteen years, but it’s something you don’t forget. Move over, Queen Charlotte,” he said to the cow. “You’re about to get the milking of your life. You kick this bucket one more time, and I’ll feed you to Samson piece by piece.”

  Sarah giggled.

  Through the window, Mary watched, bemused, as Joe milked the cow, talking to Sarah and the cow equally. When Samson wandered up, Joe included him in his conversation, introducing him to Sarah just as if he was an equal.

  The man fascinated Mary. The more she saw of him, the more she wanted to know about him. She was drawn to him in a way that defied her notions about the feelings that could exist between a man and a woman. He touched a part of her that had lain silent all these years, the loving and longing part that Pete had nearly killed. She wanted to reach out and touch him, as though physical contact would recapture the youthful dreams she’d nearly forgotten.

  She found herself looking at his body, admiring the shape of his thighs, the curve of his backside, the power of his shoulders. She had never felt this way about Pete. She had never looked forward to their nights in bed, nor did she miss them after he had gone. But Joe touched something deeper in her, far beyond anything Pete had touched. She found herself blushing, wondering what it would be like to sleep with Joe.

  Samson tried to lick Sarah’s face. The child was still frightened of the huge dog, but Joe made her hold out her hand for Samson to smell. Then she had to pat him on the head. Sarah was still wary, but Joe had broken the back of her fear.

  Joe laughed, and the sound sent a frisson of plea sure racing through Mary. It was a deep, rolling sound, a sound that promised something very special to the person who could find the source and tap into it.

  She picked up her pad and began to draw. In a few moments, she had preserved forever some of the magic of this morning.

  Joe looked over Mary’s shoulder as she drew a picture of Queen Charlotte and General Burnside staked out in the meadow beyond the barn, mountains in the distance.

  “It’s incredible,” Joe marveled. “I don’t see how you do it. You put a few squiggly lines here, a few more there, and you have a picture. All I’d have would be a bunch of squiggly lines.”

  Mary laughed, pleased with the compliment. Pete had never liked her drawings. He had considered them a waste of time. “It’s not very hard. You just have to practice.”

  “Hell, I could—Sorry, I can’t seem to control my tongue. It doesn’t hardly know how to talk without cussing.”

  “That will come with practice, too.”

  “Maybe. What do you do with all those pictures?”

  “What should I do with them?”

  Joe looked at the drawing again. “Sell them. I know hundreds of miners who’d pay plenty to have something like that to brighten up their walls. You could make more money than you can running cows on this place.”

  “I’m perfectly content to stay here running cows. Besides, I like to do drawings for people I know. I ought to be doing some for Sarah. She wants to decorate the house for Christmas.” “If that pathetic tree is any example,” he said, indicating Sarah’s bundle of thorns, “she ought to give up the idea.”

  “If you understood about her mother, you’d understand why it’s so important to her.”

  “Then tell me. I won’t figure it out otherwise.”

  “Sarah’s mother died when Sarah was four. I don’t know why Pete married her. He seems to have hated everything about her. He got rid of everything that belonged to her or reminded him of her. According to Sarah, her mother loved Christmas and would spend weeks getting ready for it. She used to spend hours singing to Sarah, telling her stories about Père Noel. Last Christmas was Sarah’s first since her mother’s death. Pete wouldn’t let her decorate, have a tree, or do anything for Christmas. To Sarah, that was like taking away the last link with her mother. She likes me, but she adored her mother. Christmas is all she has left of her. It’s terribly important to her.”

  “Pete was a real bastard,” Joe said. “Why in hell did you marry him?”

  Mary ignored the curses. “Pete’s stepfather was my uncle. He thought Pete would make a good husband for me. My father was anxious to get me out of the house. One less mouth to feed; one less female to contend with. I guess I was tired of waiting for a man who didn’t exist.”

  Joe gave her the strangest look. Mary badly wanted to know what he was thinking. She wondered if he’d ever been in love, if he’d found his perfect woman. He seemed light-hearted, but beneath that she detected a cynical streak. He didn’t believe in goodness. That was odd, considering he had so much of it in him.

  “If she’s hoping that ratty old tree will attract her Père Noel, she’s looking down an empty chute.”

  “Please don’t tell her that.” Mary looked to where Sarah sat churning cream for butter. “She thinks if she believes hard enough, Père Noel will find her.”

  Joe shrugged and headed toward the door. “I don’t know anything about Père Noel, but I do know about horses and cows. I’d better do some work on that corral.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “If I don’t, you won’t have any milk after I leave. It’ll never hold Queen Charlotte the way it is now.”

  Still amused by his habit of bestowing fanciful names on his animals, Mary asked, “When are you leaving?” She was stunned to realize that she had known this man less than twenty-four hours, but she no longer thought in terms of his leaving.

  The baby kicked, and her hand went to her swollen stomach.

  She liked him. He might be a criminal, but she liked him.

  No. He was an escaped convict, but she couldn’t believe he was a criminal. He’d fixed three meals for them, perfect strangers he owed nothing, especially if Pete had set him up. He had spent hours helping Sarah, even though the child wouldn’t speak to him. He had even praised Mary’s drawings.

  He was rugged, curt, and given to cursing, but underneath all that roughness he had a generous nature. He showed a wonderful understanding of her and Sarah. On top of that, he took better care of her than any man she’d ever known, including her father. Why shouldn’t she fall in love with him? He was exactly the kind of man she’d always hoped to find.

  No, she had to be mistaken.

  She couldn’t love him. She was letting his kindness go to her head. Maybe it was being pregnant. Her mother had warned her that pregnancy could do strange things to a woman.

  Mary redirected her attention to her drawing pad. She needed more Christmas pictures for Sarah. Drawing would give her something to do and keep her mind off Joe and the foolish notion that she might be falling in love with him.

  That evening after dinner, Mary tacked up the drawings she had done during the day. She wondered if they would mean anything to Sarah. The child had never known anything but the desert. To Mary, nothing about the desert spoke of Christmas. She had done a few drawings of the
surrounding hills and mountains, but she had been in Arizona only eleven months. Christmas to her was the snow-covered pines and oaks of her native Virginia, magnolia, and bright holly berries.

  It sounded strange to hear rain on the roof—it had been raining since late afternoon. Even more strange to Mary, everything would look the same tomorrow. In this land, rain didn’t bring the green she longed for.

  “It’s a shame you don’t have any paints,” Joe said, inspecting a drawing before he handed it to her to put on the wall. “It just doesn’t look like Christmas without color.”

  “Pete would never buy me any. No paper either. This is my last pad.”

  Pete used to get angry when she drew. But when she was drawing, she could pretend he didn’t exist. Joe was a part of her drawings. He was already in several.

  He liked to watch her. He said it pleased him to see the lines come to life, capturing a living scene. Her plea sure increased because of his. He would laugh and point to a cactus or a ridge that had just come into being. For a few minutes, it would seem he almost forgot the gold and the sentence hanging over his head.

  At times like that, it was terribly hard to remember he’d soon be gone.

  “Would you mind heating some water so Sarah can have a bath?” she asked.

  Joe gave Sarah an appraising glance. “The kid is rather dirty.”

  Taking a bath was not a simple operation. A fire had to be lighted in the stove and water brought in from outside and heated in every available pot and pail. The tub had to be cleaned out and brought in from the shed. Last of all, the water had to be poured into the tub. Mary hadn’t been able to do this for months. Cloth baths just weren’t the same as soaking in a tub of hot water.

  “What about you?” Joe asked.

  “I’ll take cloth baths until after the baby comes,” Mary said. “I hate to ask you, but you’ll have to go outside until Sarah is finished.”

  “I do all the work, then I’m the one who gets to sit shivering on the front porch?”

  “I’m sorry, but it wouldn’t seem right to—”

  “Never mind. I need to dig a few more holes anyway.”

  The door opened with a protesting squeak. Joe reminded himself to put some bacon grease on it in the morning.

  “You can take the bathtub out now,” Mary said.

  She was framed in the doorway, golden light behind her. Joe thought he’d never seen anyone so beautiful. Her thick, dark hair—very sensibly done up at the back of her head with a few curls loose to soften the look—seemed jet black in the dark, her skin nearly white by comparison. Her eyes glistened luminous and wide in a face that seemed too delicate for a land known to be hard on women.

  Joe got up off the porch steps. His joints felt stiff. It had stopped raining, and the stars had come out, but the night was too cold for sitting on stone steps. He was surprised to see the kid still in pants. “Why isn’t she wearing a dress? Girls ought to be clean and sweet smelling, all curls and ruffles and bows. She still looks like a boy.”

  “She doesn’t have any dresses,” Mary said.

  “Why not?” Joe asked. He’d never heard of a girl having no dresses. It didn’t seem right.

  “Pete wouldn’t buy her any. He said she’d only tear them up and have to wear pants anyway.”

  “I wish I’d known. I’d have beaten the hell out of Pete when I had the chance.” He caught Mary’s stern look. “I’m sorry, but it’s enough to make a man cuss to see a little girl as pretty as the kid have to look like a boy because her bobcat-mean pa wouldn’t buy her a dress.”

  Mary brushed Sarah’s long auburn hair to help it dry faster. “I mean to do something about it as soon as I’m able.”

  Joe decided they ought to do something about it now. “You got some ribbon?”

  “Yes.”

  “How about some good-smelling powder?”

  Mary smiled. “Yes. What do you want it for?”

  “I want you to put the powder on the kid, the ribbon in her hair.”

  “Open the trunk and hand me the round box on the top. And a piece of red ribbon if I have any.”

  Joe found the box easily. The ribbon was another matter. He found a tangle of red, but it was too narrow for Sarah’s hair. He chose a yellow ribbon instead. “You can use the red to make bows for the tree,” he said. His grandmother used to do that when he was a little boy. He handed the yellow ribbon to Mary, then turned to the tree. It was a pathetic mess. He couldn’t put bows on that. His grandmother would rise out of the grave and come after him.

  “We’ve got to have a better tree than that,” he said aloud. “That’s a disgrace. Are there any pines or junipers nearby?” he asked Mary.

  “There’re some up in the hills.”

  “After breakfast tomorrow I’ll see what I can find.” He turned to see Sarah, staring at him, eyes wide. The yellow ribbon was just the right shade to set off her hair. “See, I knew you were a pretty little thing. Pretty enough to have little boys giving each other black eyes over you.” He squatted in front of her. “Would you like a real tree?”

  Sarah nodded her head vigorously.

  Mary had dusted Sarah’s shoulders with white powder. Joe bent over and took a sniff.

  “Pretty as a picture, and you smell good, too. I know your mama would be proud as a peacock to see you. Now all you need is—”

  Sarah threw her arms around Joe and hugged him until he thought she was going to cut off his air. Slowly he let his arms slide around her. Her body seemed much too slight for such intense feeling. He didn’t know how to react. In his whole life, he’d never had a child hug him.

  For a while he thought she wasn’t ever going to let go. Then, quite as suddenly, she unclasped him and hid herself behind Mary.

  “I was going to say all you need is a dress,” he said, “but you’re pretty enough without it.” He stood up. His muscles felt as strange as his voice. “I guess it’s time I get myself over to the shed. Samson doesn’t like to go hunting unless he knows I’m tucked up tight.”

  Joe needed some time alone. He was feeling at sixes and sevens. He was strongly attracted to Mary. That he understood, that he knew how to combat. But this business with the kid hugging him until she nearly choked him had caught him off guard. Mary had weakened him, and the kid had closed in for the kill.

  Not kill exactly, but he was down and sinking fast.

  He no longer thought Mary had anything to do with Pete’s thievery. If she found the gold, he was certain she would hand it over to him. She hadn’t even been interested enough to ask how much of it was hers.

  Despite the way he’d forced himself into her life, she had been gracious. She hadn’t been pleased when she found him going through her things, but she seemed to understand why he’d had to do it. That was a hell of a lot more than he’d expected. Flora would have screamed like a wildcat. His mother would have hit him up beside the head. Mary had accepted his explanation and put her gun away.

  No woman had ever taken his word for anything. Except his grandmother.

  Mary had every reason to throw him out, but she greeted him with a smile sweeter than a spring sunrise. She talked to him about little things, things you talked about with people you felt comfortable around.

  But now the kid had hugged him and his comfort had fled. There was something about a kid hugging you that was unlike anything else in the world. There must be a special soft spot in every man reserved for little girls. He had seen men who wouldn’t hesitate to commit almost any evil reduced to tears by the plight of a child, but he’d never suspected that he was similarly susceptible. But he was, and the kid had scored a bull’s eye on her first throw. He wanted to march right back in there, give her a hug, and promise her that Christmas was going to be just as wonderful as she hoped.

  But he couldn’t. He had to find the gold and be gone before then. The longer he stayed, the greater the danger that the law would find him. He was foolishly letting Mary and the kid distract him from his goal. He’d spe
nt no more than an hour looking for the gold today.

  He dropped to his bed in the straw and pulled his bedroll around him. He’d start checking beneath all the stones in the yard tomorrow. After he and the kid found a decent Christmas tree. He couldn’t stand the thought of her pinning all her hopes on that bundle of twigs.

  And Mary and her baby?

  That was a tough one.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The kid was helping Joe fix the chimney when he heard Mary mutter something under her breath. He looked around the corner of the cabin to where she sat on the porch.

  “The preacher and his sister are coming,” she said, “Brother Samuel and Sister Rachel Hawkins.”

  Joe hadn’t intended to fix the chimney this morning, or any other morning. He had been inspecting the cabin to see if any stones showed signs of having been removed recently. A few stones in the chimney were loose.

  Once he realized that there was nothing behind them but more stones, his excitement had died down, to be replaced by a dull fear that he would never find the gold. Then he decided to reset the stones properly rather than just shove them back into place.

  He had almost finished the job when Brother Samuel and Sister Rachel drove into the yard. Joe could tell at a glance that he wasn’t going to like them.

  From the look of things, they weren’t going to like him any better. Brother Samuel frowned as though he’d just come upon a condemned sinner and didn’t like the smell. Sister Rachel looked as if she’d never had any fun in her life and was determined that nobody else would have any either. They were both dressed in black.

  Joe didn’t like black. It depressed him. Seemed it had depressed Brother and Sister Hawkins, too.

  Samson had been lying next to Mary’s chair. When the Hawkinses got down from their buggy, he rose to his feet, a growl deep in his throat.

  “Good morning,” Mary said, greeting the pair without getting up. She patted Samson until the growls stopped. “It’s awfully kind of you to drive so far to see me.”