Mail-Order Christmas Baby

by Sherri Shackelford

  She shook off the past and studied her new surroundings. The Blackwell family home was legendary around Valentine. Though not overly large by gold rush standards, the house featured every expensive plumbing detail available. According to town lore, Mr. Blackwell’s wife had come from wealth. Her family fortune had been amassed through plumbing fixtures, and she’d insisted on an indoor bathtub, running water and eventually a water closet. Folks were still suspicious of a backhouse in the bathroom, and near as Heather could tell, the Blackwells owned the only water closet in Montana.

  One of her school lessons featured the mechanics of indoor plumbing. The lessons were especially fascinating for the farm children who mostly made do with water pumps powered by windmills. She’d taught from books without the benefit of a working example, so the water closet drew her attention. Since Sterling was gone, she pulled the chain. There was a clanging sound and water rushed down the brass pipe from the water tank into the porcelain bowl, filling it up, and then suddenly the water in the bowl disappeared. Enthralled, she pulled the chain again.

  There was a sink with a spigot and an enormous bathtub with claw feet. The only concession to frontier life was the potbellied stove in the corner for heating. Intrigued by the luxury, she started the coal and set a pail beneath the spigot. A short time later she had the bath prepared, and Gracie was splashing in the shallow, warm water.

  By the time they descended the kitchen stairs, they were both as clean and shiny as new pennies. To her delight, the kitchen was extravagantly appointed with wall lamps, a kitchen range, a wall-mounted coffee mill, a box churn with a crank and cast aluminum pots and pans. There were other gadgets whose purposes were a mystery.

  Her aunt and uncle had never splurged on anything deemed unnecessary, and their kitchen had been stocked with only the bare minimum. Heather stifled a giggle. Her aunt would be appalled by the apparatus upstairs. A water closet was most definitely a luxury.

  The only thing lacking was a full pantry. The shelves were bare save for a bag of coffee beans and a few assorted cans. Sterling obviously didn’t eat in the house.

  As though drawn by her thoughts, his shadow appeared before the window set in the back door. He knocked and she pulled on the handle. He held a pail of milk in each hand, which he set inside the door.

  “You’ll want to cover those with a damp cloth.” He crossed the kitchen toward the sink. “I’ll fetch some ice for the icebox this afternoon.”

  Heather hadn’t even noticed the sturdy piece of furniture. It was an oak cabinet icebox with fancy brass hardware and latches. Sterling opened the door, revealing the zinc lined interior.

  He pointed. “The ice block goes there. We cut blocks from the pond in the winter, and keep it stored in hay in a cutout on the side of the hill. I haven’t kept anything in the icebox since I’ve been back. Now that you’re here, I’ll make certain you have a fresh block whenever you need one.”

  “Thank you.”

  “If I’m not here, fetch one of the boys to help. Don’t try to carry them alone,” he admonished. “They’re too heavy.”

  She figured she was plenty strong enough to carry a block of ice, but she dutifully replied, “I won’t.”

  “If you give me a list, I’ll fetch what you need from the bunkhouse. That’s where we keep most of the stores these days. The rest can be purchased from town.”

  Her stomach rumbled. “All right.”

  Gracie tugged on Sterling’s pant leg. “Up. Up.”

  He scooped her into his arms and she squealed in delight. “How is she doing this morning?”

  “Settling in nicely,” Heather said proudly. “She slept well and had a bath. I was searching for some breakfast when you arrived.”

  “I’ll have Woodley send up fixings with the supplies.” He set Gracie on her feet once more. “Is there anything else you need?”

  She tapped her chin with one finger and considered their circumstances. “Not right now.”

  This was far better than trying to maneuver around in her tiny room attached to the schoolhouse. She’d had to cook dinner on the potbellied stove while nudging Gracie away from the heat with her foot. The Blackwell house was a wonder.

  A memory from her childhood home flashed like a picture in her brain: an oriental rug with red and navy knotting. The rest of her memories were from Pittsburgh. That home had been three stories high and narrow. Having an icebox and a stove with more than two burners was a luxury beyond her wildest imaginings.

  Sterling snapped his fingers. “The crib. Let me check the hayloft in the barn. That’s where most of the old furniture winds up.”

  His tantalizing masculine scent teased her senses. A shock of awareness coursed through her. She recognized the store-bought soap she’d used this morning, but there was something else, as well. There was hay and barn and a decidedly male musk.

  She backed toward the stove. “Does Woodley do the cooking?”

  “Yes. Such as it is.”

  He winked, and a shiver went down her spine. He left her feeling reckless and out of breath. Steeling her wayward emotions, she glanced away. He flashed that same impish wink when he asked for extra potatoes at the café. Whenever she felt herself weaken at his flirtatious behavior, she’d remember that she was getting the same treatment he gave the waitress when he wanted a second helping of a side dish.

  This wasn’t exactly a promising beginning to her vow of indifference. She had to work harder at keeping a separation between them, at being cordial—but distant.

  “I could take over the job of cooking,” she said. “If you want.”

  “That’s Woodley’s job.” Sterling’s mouth quirked up at the corner in a half smile. “He’s been hired to do the cooking. Though I don’t suppose the boys would be opposed to a pie or a loaf of bread now and again to break up the monotony.”

  “Then that’s what I’ll do.”

  Standing this close to him, she felt something akin to fear. Years ago she’d climbed a tree and slipped from one of the taller limbs. She recalled the feeling of falling, of being out of control and crashing to the ground. The air had whooshed from her lungs as she lay there stunned. She loathed that feeling—the feeling of tumbling out of control. When she gazed at Sterling, she felt as though she was climbing that tree again, inching across a branch that was bound to break at any moment.

  Her decision had seemed so simple when she was sitting alone in the schoolhouse. Everything had been neat and orderly in her mind. Logical. And then when he was near, all thoughts of logic and order fled. She didn’t appreciate the confusing jumble of thoughts and feelings, because she hadn’t planned for them.

  “Is something wrong?” he asked.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “You looked worried.”

  He was gazing at her with an intensity that left her knees shaky. She must remember that he was only asking those things to be polite. Like complimenting her on her bonnet or lacing his fingers around hers for a step when she took a seat in the wagon. Those were polite, impersonal gestures, meant only for show. He treated the waitress at the café the same as he treated the mayor’s wife. She wasn’t special.

  Heather forced a smile. “I was thinking about what a beautiful house you have.”

  “My ma designed the house,” he said, his voice quiet. “And my pa supervised the construction. I can’t take any credit.”

  He wasn’t gazing at her with those mischievous, blue eyes anymore. They were back on neutral ground. She was learning to read him already.

  “Why did you agree?” she blurted suddenly.

  “What?”

  “Why did you agree to the marriage?” She gathered her courage. If she knew the answer, she’d know how to proceed. “You didn’t have to. With your family’s name and reputation, you could have walked away, but you didn’t.”

&nbs
p; “We’re friends, right?”

  “I guess.” Her hip bumped the stove. “I’ve never thought about us that way.”

  “I don’t know why we were thrown together. We may never know. I suspect my name was chosen because of my family’s wealth. If someone is going to abandon a child, why not choose a rich family? If I’m right, then this was a chance for a Blackwell to do right by you, for once. I saw how much you cared for Gracie. I had a chance to help, and I took that chance. My family has treated you poorly over the years, and I figured we owe you, one way or another.”

  His words rang true, and she breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”

  He felt sorry for her. The realization was lowering, though not entirely unexpected.

  “You don’t have to thank me. I knew what I was doing, Heather.” He tipped his hat. “I’d best get back to work. I’ll have supper with the boys.”

  There was a hesitation in his voice, as though he considered the whole arrangement temporary. As though someone might come for Gracie at any moment. But he was wrong. Folks didn’t come back for girls. He’d discover the truth soon enough.

  “Thank you,” she said. “For the milk.”

  “If there’s anything else you need, let me know.”

  He left, and the light in the room seemed to dim. He looked so tall, so strongly built, with a brilliant force of leashed energy running powerfully through him. When he left, he took that compelling energy with him.

  Gracie reached above her head for a glass set near the edge of the table, and Heather rushed to her side, averting the disaster. “No. No.”

  The child flopped onto her bottom, her lower lip thrust out in a pout. “Gra!”

  “You’re not doing a very good job of convincing your new pa he made the right choice.”

  “Gra!”

  Yet she knew she’d made the right decision. Now all she had to do was convince Sterling he’d done the same. Duty was a poor substitution for affection, but at least that was a place to start.

  * * *

  The first thing Sterling noticed were the blue chintz curtains on the parlor windows. The second was that he’d rapidly become a stranger in his own home.

  The blanket assessment wasn’t entirely fair, he amended. He’d become a stranger in exactly half of his home. The floor plan was comfortable without being ostentatious, and lent itself well to the separation. His ma had favored quality over quantity, and his father had provided her with a home that reflected her tastes. The front entry included an ornate carved banister and checkerboard tiled floor. The parlor sported wainscoting three-quarters of the way up the walls, topped by a picture ledge and peacock-strewn silk wallpaper.

  Following his mother’s death, his father had ceased entertaining, and the dining room had been transformed into a study with books and ledgers piled on the center table, and a sitting area with overstuffed leather chairs arranged before the fireplace.

  Near as Sterling could tell, Heather had not ventured up the main staircase since the brief tour he’d provided the day after their hasty marriage. Instead, she gained access to the second floor exclusively by the kitchen stairs.

  The two crossover points were the kitchen and the second-story washroom. They were forced to share the spaces, which meant awkward encounters that he suspected neither of them relished. No matter how he tried, they never seemed to get past the superficial. Their conversations were polite, generic and brief—a fact he found oddly frustrating.

  She’d vowed not to disrupt his life, and she was doing her best to honor that. If he found her solution vaguely annoying, he had no one to blame but himself for not encouraging her to be more a part of things.

  He splashed water on his face, then stilled and listened for the sounds of Heather and Gracie in the kitchen. Pots and pans clattered, noises he hadn’t heard from that area in years. With only men on the ranch since his ma’s passing, they ate in the bunkhouse.

  A band of emotion squeezed around his heart. Even a decade after her death, he was acutely aware of the loss of his ma.

  His parents had met and married because the social structures had shifted following the war. His pa had married above his station, and his ma’s money had funded the fledging ranch. They were cordial to each other but never affectionate. Not that he’d paid much attention to that sort of thing as a child.

  All in all he had no complaints about his upbringing. They’d had the nicest house in the territory, the largest barn and the best piece of land in Montana. His father had been a hard and unyielding man, but as the second son, Sterling had escaped the worst of his temper. Dillon, on the other hand, was being groomed for his place at the helm of the Blackwell family legacy, and there was no time for cosseting.

  The scent of brewing coffee wafted from the kitchen, and Sterling wiped the last flecks of shaving lotion from his face.

  Gracie perched on two Montgomery Ward catalogs with a towel secured around her middle and tied to the rungs of the chair. Her concentration intense, she pinched an edge of toast and aimed for her mouth. After a few misses, she managed to devour the bite.

  The child was miniature perfection with tiny hands, long-lashed eyes and a perfect little button of a nose. Because of the separate spaces in the house, their interactions had been limited, but the child struck him as smart and amiable.

  Heather turned from the stove and his heart did an odd little flip. Tendrils of damp hair clung to her forehead, and her cheeks were flushed from the heat. She wore a gingham dress in blue with a floral embroidered apron wrapped around her waist.

  She’d made it clear the marriage arrangement was strictly for the child, and he’d accepted the terms. A part of him held back too, sensing their union was temporary. The circumstances surrounding Grace’s arrival haunted him. Last evening he’d stared at the Return of Birth, examining the handwriting for any clues to the origins.

  The practical side of him wanted to solve the mystery and learn the truth. But another part of him feared that if he discovered the truth, he’d wind up hurting Heather. She’d convinced him the child was better off not knowing who had abandoned her, and he agreed. Mostly. There was an underlying tension in the house they both felt. He kept waiting for a change in the wind, a darkening of the clouds that portended another tornado.

  “You look lovely this morning,” he said, hiding his discomfort behind a layer of amiable pleasantries.

  “Would you like flapjacks?”

  With an offhand smile in his direction, she wrapped a scorched flour sack around the handle of a pan on the stove, then lifted the skillet.

  She hadn’t even acknowledged the compliment. Perhaps it was too early in the morning for charm.

  “Please,” he said.

  He took a seat across from Gracie. With brisk efficiency, Heather served him a plate of flapjacks and a side of bacon. Next she poured coffee, taking care to place the cup well out of Gracie’s reach. As a finishing touch, she added syrup and a jar of applesauce to the table.

  He might as well have been a stranger dining in a café. He braced his wrists on the edge of the table. If they were going to spend the rest of their lives together, or even just the rest of the month, he wanted to at least feel like a member of the family and not a boarder in his own home. They might have been rushed into the situation, but there was no reason to act like strangers.

  She cocked her head toward the door. “Someone sounds angry.”

  Sterling tuned into the sound of a dog barking. “That’s Rocky, the new sheepdog.”

  He left the details vague, inviting her to make a comment about the dog. Instead she took the seat beside Gracie and held out a spoonful of applesauce toward the child. Gracie gummed the offering, revealing her two lower teeth.

  Sterling gestured with his fork. “When does she start feeding herself?”

  “I don’t
know.” Heather’s shoulders stiffened. “I suppose when she can hold a spoon.”

  “I didn’t mean anything by the question,” he said, sensing her uptight manner. If he spoke out against the child at this stage, he feared he’d start an argument. “Just asking.”

  Heather was fiercely protective of the child. Even considering the little contact between the three of them, he’d discerned that much. If he didn’t know better, he’d question her attachment. But he did know better. While in Butte, he’d visited the family she’d stayed with during her time in town. They’d been adamant that Heather wasn’t pregnant during her visit. Their shock at the mere idea had bordered on comical. Living in close quarters with Heather and Gracie this past week had reinforced his conclusion.

  He couldn’t put his finger on the source of his convictions, but he trusted his instincts. The child didn’t belong to either of them.

  Her gaze flicked toward him and back to Gracie once more. “Can I go into town?”

  “You don’t have to ask. Go into town anytime you like.”

  “I’ll need the wagon.”

  “Otto will hitch the team.”

  Her spoon paused midair. “I can’t drive a team.”

  “I can take you.”

  “Rocky needs your attention. Otto can take me.”

  Disappointment settled in his chest. Once again she had neatly sidestepped the opportunity to spend time with him. “I’ll ask him.”

  At this rate, he might as well build another kitchen and draw a chalk line down the center of the house. She’d felt something for Dillon, something she didn’t want to feel again. Her words had revealed a broken heart that had never quite mended. He feared she and Dillon were flint stones, bound to spark if brought together again, and the idea gnawed at him. She’d chosen Sterling because she didn’t want to love him. Or had she chosen him because she couldn’t love him? The difference shouldn’t matter, but somehow it did.

  She’d called him handsome, and she’d called him a flirt in the same breath. He’d never considered himself either. His demeanor was more of a habit than anything else. The compliments were part of a playful game he’d started with his mother. She’d never been particularly happy living in Montana, and his outrageous flattery was one of the few things that made her laugh.