Exultant Montana Christmas: Bear Grass Springs, Book Nine

by Ramona Flightner

  Exultant Montana Christmas

  Bear Grass Springs, Book Nine

  Ramona Flightner

  Grizzly Damsel Publishing

  Copyright © 2019 by Ramona Flightner

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems – except in the case of brief quotations in articles or reviews – without permission in writing from its publisher, Ramona Flightner and Grizzly Damsel Publishing. Copyright protection extends to all excerpts and previews by this author included in this book.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. The author or publisher is not associated with any product or vendor in this book.

  * * *

  Cover design by Jennifer Quinlan.

  For my Family

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  A Little Bit More About Exultant

  Never Miss A Ramona Flightner Update!

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Ramona Flightner

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Bear Grass Springs, Montana Territory, Late November 1888

  A harsh wind rattled the door, and the candle on the table flickered from a drafty kitchen window. Ewan MacKinnon glowered at the candle and then the window, before rising to stoke the fire in the potbellied stove in his cozy living room area. He glanced at the door, hoping to see his wife, Jessamine, walk through the door, but it remained stubbornly closed. After tugging a rocking chair closer to the stove, he sat with a thud.

  Although he was renowned in the town of Bear Grass Springs for constructing fine homes, cold air leaked in around the windows and under the front door of his own house. No window had been created yet that didn’t allow a slight draft during the harsh Montana winter months, and the curtains covering the windows billowed with each gust of wind.

  Ewan reached for the stove, warming his hands as he glanced around the small living room that opened into the dining area and kitchen. A hallway led to two bedrooms, with a small room off the living area used as a home office for his wife. He loved this house he had built for Jessamine.

  “Jessie,” he murmured as he thought about her. Her fiery red hair, inquisitive eyes, and the determined tilt to her head as she investigated a story. Lately she had seemed more intrigued by the stories she printed than by her relationship with him. He fought fears that, after three years of marriage, she was tired of small-town life surrounded by her husband’s family. He prayed she had not wearied of him.

  As the front door eased open, his gaze filled with joy as he beamed and turned. However, his elder brother, Alistair, entered instead, and Ewan sat back with a groan. “What brings ye by, Alistair?”

  His brother shivered at the warmth in the room after the frigid temperatures outside and strode to the potbellied stove to warm his hands. His brown hair on the verge of black now had a touch of silver at the temples, and the wool scarf the color of a Scottish loch enhanced the brown of his eyes.

  He shuddered once more before dragging over a chair to join his brother by the stove and sat with an appreciative sigh. “I dinna ken I needed a reason to visit my brother. Now that the livery expansion is completed, an’ ye are busy workin’ on the other side of town, I dinna see ye as much as before.”

  Ewan rolled his eyes. “I see ye at least twice a week at family gatherin’s.” He smiled at his brother. “Ye ken ye are ridiculous.”

  “An’ ye ken Cail an’ I worry about ye. If Sorcha were in town, rather than out on the ranch with her husband and her bairns, she’d be fussin’ over ye, an’ ye’d have no peace. Be thankful all she can do is pepper her letters to Leticia and Annabelle and Fidelia with questions about ye. She has no’ heard much from ye in a few months, an’ ye ken that is no’ normal.”

  Ewan grunted and closed his eyes. “Sorcha is worse than a mother hen now that she has her own family.” He smiled as he thought about their youngest sibling, happily married and living on the Mountain Bluebird Ranch not far from town. “Ye ken she writes what she does to drive us all daft.”

  Alistair shook his head. “No need to be uncharitable, Ewan.” He smirked as Ewan flushed with embarrassment. “Besides, we all ken ye’re Sorcha’s favorite brother.”

  “Now ye’re daft.” Ewan rolled his eyes. “I miss her. I ken she needs to live her life with Frederick. I just wish they lived in town. They dinna make it here as often as I hoped they would, and I dinna travel there much. I want to see how the bairns grow. They’ll be one right after the New Year rings in, and I fear we willna make it to the ranch with the winter weather.”

  Alistair grunted his agreement. “Aye, but then we’re always good at havin’ any kind of celebration. A belated birthday party for the twins in the spring will be a joyous event. An’ it could be a new tradition for us, a way to celebrate spring an’ their bairns.”

  He sat forward, opening the front of the stove to stuff in a small log and to play with the fire within a moment. “I know ye believe ye’re sly, but I ken ye better than almost anyone, an’ I ken ye wanted to change the topic.” He smiled with satisfaction as Ewan squirmed in his seat. “Ye have to know someone will write Sorcha about the pastor’s recent sermons. He’s never forgiven us for forcin’ him to marry Ben and Jane in his church.”

  Ewan huffed in disgust. “‘Ruinin’ the sanctity of his ministry with God,’ I believe he blathered last month when he saw Jane an’ Ben happy together. The hypocrite canna stand seein’ anyone content.”

  “Nae, an’ he feeds on discord an’ disharmony. He’s only become more bitter these past few years. Which is why yer problems with Jessamine are like a feast for a dyin’ man.” Alistair looked at his younger brother. “I thought Cailean would leap up to attack the preacher when he started brayin’ on an’ on about wives who are given too much freedom an’ then betray those they are to honor.”

  Ewan sighed. “Although I would have loved to see Cailean silence the mean-spirited ol’ codger, I fear the townsfolk would rally around the pastor upon receivin’ his comeuppance in his own church as he’s preachin’.”

  “More’s the pity,” Alistair muttered. After a long pause he murmured, “Leticia saw the light on in Jessamine’s office tonight. I did no’ ken she planned on printing more than two papers a week.”

  Ewan scrubbed a hand through his blond hair, his mouth turned down in an uncustomary grimace, and he shook his head. “She doesna. At least I dinna believe she does.” He shared a long look with his brother. “She is no’ speakin’ much with me these past few weeks.”

  Sighing, Alistair stretched out his legs as though to warm his feet by the fire. He crossed his hands over his belly and stared at the stove for a long moment. “Do ye ken what I saw?” Alistair looked at his youngest brother, his brown eyes filled with concern to behold Ewan casting furtive glances at the door. “Jessamine seemed to change after Fidelia had her bairn.”

  Ewan let out a groan and pulled at his hair.

  Alistair muttered, “Ye’ll turn yerself bald, ye wee galoot.”r />
  Ewan grunted and glared at his brother. Although they had been in the United States for years, he and Alistair had yet to lose their Scottish accent, having been raised on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. Their eldest brother, Cailean, had worked hard to tame his accent, and it only reappeared with strong emotion or too much drink.

  “Galoot?” Ewan murmured as he sat with stooped shoulders. “I havena heard that particular insult in quite some time.” He half smiled. “Perhaps I am bein’ an idiot.”

  Alistair breathed deeply, as though attempting to find long-lost patience, and closed his eyes in a contemplative, peaceful pose. “I’d have thought ye’d have visited yer Jessie afore now. Not spend yer evenin’s alone, pinin’ over her, wishin’ for her to come home.”

  Ewan rose, pulling out the metal poker to stir the fire before adding another log the fire didn’t need. “I did, ye ken? I visited her. Numerous times. But she doesna want visitors. Claims she is too busy to see me. Doesna want me to walk her home. Says she is independent and doesna need my help. Says I’m smotherin’ her an’ must give her space.” He closed his eyes and slumped in his chair again. “An’ I find I dinna care to see the lie in her beautiful eyes.”

  Grunting his displeasure deep in his throat, Alistair kicked at his brother’s booted foot. “Ye ken she’s upset about somethin’. Yer job as her husband is to discover what it is an’ make her see she has no reason to be upset.”

  “Do ye ken what it does to a man to know he canna give his wife the one thing she wants?” he rasped as tears glistened in his eyes. “She desires a bairn, above anything else in this world, an’ I fear that desire will eat her up inside—that it will tear apart our marriage if we never have one.”

  Alistair studied him for a long moment. “Do ye think ye could love a child who was no’ yers?”

  “Adopt, ye mean?” Ewan asked. “Aye, I ken I could.” He half smiled. “I see my Jessie, running a hand over a child’s head, kissing it, as she tucks him into bed. Singin’ songs to soothe another, as she wakes from a nightmare. Cuddlin’ with my Jessie in bed as we plan ways to keep our children safe.”

  The delight in his gaze faded as he focused on Alistair. “But Jessie refuses to discuss that option with me. Declares I would come to resent her because she was no’ able to give me what I truly wanted.” He rested his head against the back of his chair, his gaze tormented. When he spoke, his voice was soft, as though a prayer made out loud. “She doesna understand all I want is her, my Jessie, happy with the life we have.”

  Alistair frowned and shook his head. “The lass is daft an’ heartsore. She’s no’ makin’ any sense, Ewan. Can ye no’ speak with her and ease her torment?”

  Ewan met his brother’s worried gaze, his brown eyes filled with trepidation before he whispered his greatest fear. “I dinna ken if I can do that, Alistair. For I fear she doesna love me anymore an’ has found another.”

  Jessamine MacKinnon canted the lamp toward her on her desk in her print shop, placing it so the light better illuminated her clutter. She pulled a finely knitted shawl around her shoulders and wrapped her fingers in the wool for a few moments to warm them up before continuing to write the draft of another article. The stove in the center of the room ineffectually pumped out heat, and she fought the urge to tug her desk beside the stove. However, she’d always had her desk in this place in her print shop, and she refused to start rearranging furniture late at night.

  Her philosophy in life had always been that she thrived in chaos. However, as she paused in her hasty scribbling, even she acknowledged that the clutter on her desk and in her print shop had reached monumental proportions. Stacks of papers and notes lined the edges of her desk, giving her a miniscule area to write in. Reams of paper to be printed were piled haphazardly around the room, while copies of printed papers that hadn’t sold out were nearer the stove to be burned. The aisle she walked down from the door to her desk to the printing dais was increasingly narrow.

  Ignoring the clutter surrounding her, she stared at the words she had written and shook her head in frustration. “I can’t publish this,” she muttered to herself. Although she was in a horrible mood and angry with the world, she knew it would be irresponsible to print an article exposing long-held secrets she had vowed to keep. “I am not Tobias. I will not make myself feel better by hurting others.”

  Even that statement—about the formerly miserly, bitter Merc owner—did little to lift her mood. The previous summer Tobias Sutton had discovered he had a daughter, Jane Keith, now Jane Metcalf, and had transformed into a kinder, more considerate man. His customary cantankerous nature had eased, although he still had glimmers of his former self. However, Jessamine knew she could not betray his trust from the previous spring by printing his most deeply held secret due to her own dissatisfaction with her life. She reminded herself of his recent kindness to her, bringing her a tin of sardines, and his agreement to keep her secret. She refused to meet such kindness with treachery.

  She rose, ripping the sheet of paper from her notebook and strode to her stove. She thrust it inside, watching as the flames devoured the new source of fuel for a few seconds. After a moment she sat in the rocking chair beside the stove, her gaze distant. She envisioned her husband, Ewan, at home sitting by the fire. He would sing a song or tell a story to himself, always cheerful. Always delighted with life.

  Her eyes filled with tears as she battled a deep, abiding sadness that enveloped her. Although she yearned for the easier days of their marriage, she feared his reaction should she reveal her secrets. She pushed away worrisome emotions and thought of her husband again. Was he waiting for her? Did he miss her? She fought a gnawing guilt and anguish as she remained seated in her print shop with no story idea and no explicable reason to remain away from home.

  She glanced to the clock and saw it read 8:30 p.m. Only a few more minutes until he arrived. Then she would have a few precious hours with someone she feared she should never have come to love.

  Jessamine started her journey home well after midnight. Thankfully a bright moon lit the way, as the winds had continued to stir up snow. Although she wore two pairs of socks, a sturdy pair of boots, and a wool jacket, she felt frozen through by the time she made the short trip home. She could hear a few men calling to each other, either from the Stumble-Out Saloon across the street from her print shop or at Betty’s Boudoir a few doors down on the opposite side of the bank from her shop. The wind played with their voices, and she couldn’t make out where they originated.

  Upon entering the home she shared with Ewan, Jessamine looked at the two chairs set in front of the potbellied stove in the living room and fought a stab of jealousy that Ewan had spent the evening with someone other than her. However, she silently reprimanded herself as she had never returned home after leaving early this morning. She shucked her heavy jacket, scarf and hat, and then sat in one of the chairs in front of the stove to unlace her boots. When her feet were free of the confining shoes, she gave a small groan of relief.

  Bone weary, she fought the temptation to drift to sleep in front of the fire. Instead she banked it and then moved to the bedroom she shared with Ewan at the back of the house. Although she tiptoed, the door creaked as she opened it. The room was as dark as a tomb with the heavy curtains pulled over the windows.

  “Ow,” she muttered as she stubbed her toe on something hard on the floor. “Dammit, Ewan,” she swore in a soft voice as she kicked aside one of his boots. She sat on the edge of the bed, massaging her sore toe and then stripped off her dress and corset and pulled on her nightgown. She shivered as the cold material touched her skin and hurriedly crawled under the blankets.

  Ewan laid on his side, away from her, and he had not touched her side of the bed for a long time, if at all, that evening. She shuddered as the sheets felt colder than the air in the room. Tugging the blankets around her, she rested on her side, staring at her husband’s back.

  “Stop stealin’ all the covers,” he murmured, yanking them back in
his direction.

  “Ewan,” she complained, as he had pulled so hard that she was left with nothing but her nightgown to cover her. “Please. I need a blanket.” Her teeth rattled together as she attempted to haul the blankets over her again.

  However, her husband maintained a firm hold on them and would not let them go.

  “Please,” she whispered again as tears leaked out.

  “Now ye ken how I feel,” he said, rolling over to face her, his face barely discernible in the room’s darkness.

  “I don’t understand,” she protested as he settled the blankets over her and allowed her to scoot closer to him for warmth. “I never steal your blankets.”

  “It’s no’ about the damn covers, wife,” he snapped. He exhaled with such force, his breath moved over her cheek like a breeze. “I feel frozen inside.”

  “Ewan?” she whispered as her hands reached out, tracing up his chest until she cupped his face. “I … I know we’ve had a few problems the past months …” Her voice broke off as her throat swelled, and she couldn’t speak.

  “Problems?” he asked. He rolled away from her, ignoring her moan of protest. The sound of a matchstick striking echoed through the room. Soon he had lit a lamp, and a soft light illuminated their bedroom from his side of the bed. He turned to face her, his hair standing on end, his nightshirt rumpled and his eyes heartsore. “Problems?” he repeated again. “I would have thought a writer with yer talents would have more eloquence.”

  “Ewan,” she whispered as a tear tracked down her cheek. “What are you saying?”