Wild West Christmas

by Jenna Kernan

  She read the first few lines. It was about Josh—his life as a boy growing up on the ranch—his favorite pastimes, colors, horses, pets. She flipped through a few pages. There Garrett had written about a Fourth of July parade that Josh had been in when he was twelve. She remembered that parade! A coyote had spooked the horses and they’d run every which way that year, causing pandemonium. The entire book was a story for Lily about her father that she could treasure the rest of her life. Kathleen’s throat thickened with emotion.

  But how did Garrett end it?

  She turned to the back.

  Josh Sheridan was one of the friendliest, fun kids in school, and that never changed as he got older. Your ma was the prettiest gal in Clear Springs. When your Ma caught Josh’s eye and he caught hers, they fell hard and fast into love. When he found out a baby was coming—you!—he was the happiest man on this mountain and couldn’t wait to see you.

  But accidents happen. And it did to Josh. We all miss him. But I know he’s watching from heaven and so proud of his little girl. And real happy that she’s moved back to the mountain he loved so much and called home.

  She closed the book—and realized her face was wet with tears. A gulpy sob escaped. This gift was so precious. Not just to Lily, but to her, as well. There were parts of Josh’s life she’d never known. And the ending, well…it was true. Josh had been happy about Lily. He’d been ecstatic. It was only later when the doubts had crept in about supporting a family that the tension started.

  How had things reached this…this mess? Josh hadn’t been perfect. Far from it, apparently, with Lucy’s recent revelation about Sadie. But didn’t she have to stay true to Josh and his memory? For Lily?

  What about what she wanted?

  She began to rewrap the book, but paused once more to look at the writing. It looked so familiar. Where had she seen it before?

  An eerie feeling washed through her. Slowly, she rose and walked back to the room she shared with Lily. She opened the trunk and searched through the layers of garments until her fingers touched the leather book of sonnets. Unable to discern its color or shape in the dark, she was yet vividly aware of them anyway.

  Back in the parlor, she took a deep breath. At least she was smarter now…wiser. She flipped through the pages to the beginning.

  For Kathleen McCrory

  With affection

  JGS

  She stared at the writing as if she’d never seen it before. Trouble was…she had. She closed her eyes, unwilling to give room to the suspicion that tried to crowd her thoughts. It was just a coincidence. They were brothers. Of course their handwriting would be similar. It happened like that in families, didn’t it? Josh Grover Sheridan. Or could it be Garrett Joseph Sheridan? The J and G were hopelessly intertwined. She blinked and a tear dropped onto the page, smudging the indigo ink.

  What had happened that night? She closed her eyes, trying to see it all again in her memory. Josh shouting at her, then leaving in a fit of anger. Garrett racing into the room to check that she was all right and then following Josh. What had Josh said? What piece of the puzzle was missing?

  She’d known Josh was restless. Something had been bothering him for a while, but he’d not confided in her. Ever since the wedding he’d grown more distant. More unhappy. It had scared her. With Lily growing inside her, she had become bigger and more awkward. She’d needed his reassurance that everything was all right, because it didn’t feel all right to her. She’d thought he married her out of love, but toward the end she’d felt like a burden.

  That night she hadn’t wanted to be alone—not in his parents’ house. He’d left her alone so much. Maybe he would stay if she could get him talking. That was when she’d asked him to read to her. The book of sonnets was beside her and so she’d suggested it. And then everything got worse.

  She forced herself to remember, aching inside again just as she had that night. Josh had mumbled about being the wrong one. It had been in such a low voice that she’d asked him to repeat it. He’d looked directly at her, and the stark frustration in his eyes had taken her aback. His jaw had tensed and finally he had said, “I can’t do this.” Then he’d stormed out.

  And she’d thought it was her fault. That she couldn’t hold on to him. He was slipping away. She was too young, too inexperienced, to hold on to her man. The shame had overwhelmed her.

  Until now.

  She stared at the writing…Garrett’s words. Garrett had given her the book and Josh had taken the credit. And she’d believed him. After all, Josh was closer to her age. He had flattered her with his sudden, all-consuming interest and swept her off her feet.

  Like a challenge—a competition.

  Why had Josh done it? What kind of man would do that to his own brother? And why hadn’t Garrett spoken up? Her entire marriage had been based on a lie! Could it be true, then, what Garrett had said? He really had loved her all this time?

  Her hands shook as she turned the book over in them, smoothing her palm over the page. Calming a bit, Lucy’s words came back to her. He’s loved you since forever.

  Well, she saw it now. He loved her. And he’d risked that love not once but twice. First, by stepping back when she’d fallen for his brother and again when he’d been honest with her and revealed the truth about the last night of Josh’s life.

  She closed her eyes and leaned back against the chair, her heart, her very soul aching as she realized the truth. Garrett had been more interested in Josh’s happiness, and in her happiness, than his own. A selfless love. Just like the sonnets proclaimed.

  And she’d thrown it away….

  Chapter Twelve

  “Everything is ready,” Ma called out from the kitchen window.

  Garrett held up his hand to acknowledge her. He’d returned late yesterday from his trip, so this year Pa had been the one to shoot a pheasant for the table. His stomach rumbled just thinking of the special Christmas dressing and gravy. He’d caught a whiff of it earlier. He pounded his ax through the thin layer of ice on the water in the horse trough and immediately Blue pushed up to his side to drink. Garrett slipped from the corral and latched the gate.

  The whinny of a horse pulled his attention to the lane. A buggy approached—one from the livery. Molly held the reins, with Kathleen and Lily sitting on the front seat beside her.

  He stopped in his tracks. She was the last person he had expected to see. Four days away had done nothing to ease the ache inside, and he’d finally admitted to himself that it never would go completely away. He’d have to live with it. He took a steadying breath.

  Pa stepped out onto the porch, followed by Ma. They each exchanged glances, then looked at him as if he knew what was happening. He walked over to join them.

  Molly pulled the rig up before the house and tied off the reins to the brake. “Well, don’t just stand there. Help a body down,” she said good-naturedly. “I got fixin’s in the back to haul in.”

  He helped her down and then he turned back to Lily. “Miss Lily. Welcome and happy Christmas.” He grabbed her under the arms and swung her in a wide arc to the ground, enjoying the sound of her giggles.

  She crooked her finger at him. “Can I see Dixie?”

  “The colt? Sure. After dinner I’ll take you to the stable.”

  He turned back to Kathleen and his throat constricted. She looked more beautiful than ever in her dark blue cloak and what looked to be a new, cream-colored scarf. Strands of her blond hair had escaped from her bun and her cheeks were pink from the brisk winter air. He helped her down from the high step, wanting more than anything to keep hold of her.

  “Thank you, Garrett.” There was a new shyness to her voice as she avoided his gaze and smoothed her cloak.

  Something was different. Something he couldn’t quite place. He braced himself. Having her here today would be difficult after all that had gone on between them, yet he wouldn’t want her anywhere else.

  Ma wiped her hands on her apron. “I’m so glad you had a change of heart.
Come right in. Brent? Help with those things in the buggy.”

  Kathleen wasn’t paying attention. She was looking directly at him. “Your mother invited us at the church service last night.”

  He’d heard. “You declined.”

  “I thought…I wanted…” She clenched her hands, took a step toward him.

  Ma and Molly turned briefly on the porch and then moved inside with Lily.

  Kathleen watched them go and then drew in her breath. “I changed my mind, Garrett.”

  “I can see that.” He shrugged as if it was nothing to him one way or the other.

  “I…changed my mind about a lot of things.”

  He let out a slow breath. A lot of things?

  “That book Josh gave me? There’s this poem in it…about gold. It says there’s the kind that glitters in the river—sitting right there just waiting to be picked up.”

  He rubbed his neck. “You’re talking in riddles, Kathleen. What are you getting at?”

  She swallowed. “Josh was that kind of gold. On the surface, easy to see, fun, exciting. I’ll always love him for giving me Lily.”

  So that was it. She still loved Josh. He didn’t figure into her life—other than as an uncle to Lily. “All right. I understand.”

  “The other gold,” she continued, “is more difficult because it is hidden deep in the earth. But it’s pure and even more of a treasure for all the work it takes to find. A person has to chip away at the surrounding rock to get to it.”

  He stopped. Turned. Was she still talking about gold?

  “Josh didn’t give me that book. You did.”

  His heart thudded in his chest. “Finally figured that out.”

  “Garrett, I couldn’t recognize your love. It was buried deep. Hidden.”

  “You sure about it now?”

  She nodded. “When I look back, you’ve always been there watching out for me, strong…protective…caring—ever since that day when you helped me from the creek. I don’t want you to stop.”

  “Couldn’t stop if I wanted to,” he admitted.

  “Good.” Tears pooled in her blue eyes.

  Did this mean…? After all this time he was afraid to hope.

  “Because I love you, Mr. Sheridan.”

  He drank in the sound of her words, committing the moment to memory. Somewhere along the way, she’d forgiven him! The huge weight he’d carried ever since Josh died dropped from him. It was a miracle, pure and simple. A Christmas miracle. He swallowed. “Then you’ll stay awhile—after dinner?”

  “Yes.”

  He had to know. Had to be sure. “Longer?”

  “If you’ll have me.” She looked back at the ranch house. “And Lily.”

  He could almost see his future stretching out ahead of him, and Kathleen was part of it. He took a deep breath. “Forever?”

  “I like the sound of that.” Her eyes shone with happiness and love. “Forever.”

  “Nothin’ short of that will do.” He pulled her into his arms and kissed her soundly on the lips, sealing their future together.

  * * * * *

  CHRISTMAS

  IN SMOKE RIVER

  LYNNA BANNING

  Dear Reader,

  Christmas in the Old West was like all of life in the Old West, especially on ranches and farms and in small towns—“homegrown.” Nobody had much money, so Christmas was a time when mothers and daughters baked cookies, fathers and grandfathers built doll cradles and hobby horses, and grandmothers knit sweaters and scarves for gifts.

  A tree would be dragged in from the woods and decorated with paper chains and popcorn balls and strings of cranberries. People gathered to sing songs and play games, to eat and laugh together. Schoolchildren in town went caroling up and down the streets and pored over store window displays of dolls and toy trains; in the country, older kids went on sleigh rides and collected in kitchens to make divinity and fudge.

  My grandfather was raised on a ranch in Oregon. He told me that one Christmas when he was a boy, he felt truly blessed when he received a single fragrant ripe orange in his Christmas stocking.

  I wish all of you the rich blessings of the holiday season that people enjoyed in the Old West.

  Lynna Banning

  In memory of my grandfather, Claude Earl Banning, and with grateful thanks to Suzanne Barrett and Ignacio Avalos.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  Lilah

  The house came as a shock. It was much larger than I had expected, much too big for just myself and Miss Mollie, the kitten I had brought with me on the train from Philadelphia. And no garden! Instead there was an expanse of dry, dusty ground punctuated with a single overgrown maple tree in the far corner and surrounded by a scruffy picket fence that in some earlier life must have been white but now looked mottled and in some places was peeling down to the bare wood.

  Aunt Carrie, you lied. Well, of course she had. That had been my aunt’s forte, had it not? Which was why it was I, and not she, who was now taking possession of this big old rundown place in this little scrap of a town three thousand miles from Philadelphia and civilization.

  Oh, mercy, this is what I wanted?

  I unlocked the front door and inspected the interior, upstairs and down. Horrors! It looked as if no one had set foot in the place for at least twenty years. Cobwebs drooped from the ceiling beams, dust balls six inches in diameter lolled in the corners. The wallpaper was peeling and the dingy paint was cracked. My heart curled up under my starched white shirtwaist and quivered in despair.

  Thoroughly discouraged, I settled Mollie in her basket, walked into town and engaged a room at the Smoke River Hotel. As soon as I registered, I stepped next door to the restaurant and ordered a large, comforting pot of tea. At least I had a house to live in, and a quiet place to pursue my calling, far from Mama and her disapproving sniffs. Lilah, you simply must learn to fit into society.

  I gazed wistfully out the front window of the restaurant. I was now way out West in Oregon, far from anything civilized. Across the street were a barbershop, a mercantile, a dressmaker and a bakery. And that was it, except for the sheriff’s office.

  I scratched behind Mollie’s ear and slipped a morsel of my buttered toast into the basket at my feet, then wished I hadn’t. The waitress might hear the kitten’s purring.

  The house—my house—needed everything: a thorough cleaning top to bottom, fresh paint and new wallpaper in the three upstairs bedrooms, one of which I would use as my office when my typewriter and desk and filing cabinet arrived from home. The room was light and airy, with large many-paned windows and a high ceiling.

  I sipped my tea and quivered at the prospect before me. Except
for a huge nickel-trimmed stove in the kitchen and my two travel trunks, there was not a scrap of furniture in the entire house. No bed, no bookcases, no china cabinet, no…anything.

  On the way back to my room at the hotel I stopped in at the mercantile. Aunt Carrie had left me pots of money in her will, so cost was no deterrent. As soon as I found a Montgomery Ward catalog, I would simply order what I needed.

  At Ness’s mercantile, the proprietor—surely not the owner, as she could not be more than fourteen years old—located a catalog and, with a stealthy glance at the curtain behind her, the girl let me take the catalog up to my hotel room. That evening I mulled for hours over beds and end tables and settees, and the next morning when I presented my filled-out order form, the girl’s brown eyes popped.

  “Ma’am, you sure you want me to order all this?” she gasped.

  “I am. And have you any flower seeds? What once might have been a garden at my new home is now bare dirt.”

  She nodded so enthusiastically her braids bounced. “Oh, I love gardens! And you’ll need a shovel, and a hoe, and…”

  I must have groaned, because she, her name is Edith Ness, laughed and asked me where I came from. When I told her, her eyes rounded. “You must have had servants,” she said in a hushed tone. “And a gardener.”

  Servants, yes. But a gardener? It was Mama who had mulched and planted and pruned in our large expanse of land by the river, and there were always scads of blooms and bouquets in every room.

  I told Edith that I planned to be my own gardener and that I wanted flowers, and lots of them, in the worst way. As soon as possible.

  My furniture would be shipped by rail from Omaha within three weeks. While I waited, I worked on the house, scrubbing floors until my knees ached, combing spiders’ webs off the walls, pulling the garish, faded wallpaper down and burning every last scrap in the stove.