A Mail-Order Christmas Bride

by Livia J. Washburn

  He’d not go back on a promise. Even if he never claimed the woman he’d married, he’d keep his word.

  She fixed him with a nondescript gaze. “I won’t disturb you again.”

  Not until the door closed behind her enticing hips did he dare release his breath. Best get into those waterlogged duds.

  He was only halfway to his feet when the panel opened again. He plunged back into chilled copper.

  A stranglehold waylaid the Mick temper, but his teeth refused to unclench. “What now?”

  “Your clothes will be a while drying. I brought hot water.”

  Even shivering in a cold bath, heat climbed all over him. A bedsheet would be inadequate. “I’m plenty warm.” She could rest assured that was no falsehood. “I thought you said you wouldn’t be back.”

  “I lied.”

  “You what?”

  “I…took liberties with the truth.”

  Words raced from his mouth. “I forgive you. Leave the bucket and go.”

  “I’ll need it to bring more water.” She continued to the side of the tub.

  He snatched the vessel’s bale. She held tight.

  He gave the damn thing a yank. She yanked in return…

  …and every last drop of water in the pail splashed onto her skirt.

  Pushing a heavy breath through pursed lips, he lifted a careful gaze to her face. Was that a smirk? “Best go get out of those wet clothes.” Right now.

  Flicking the soaked hem of her dress, she strolled to the fireplace. As she performed a slow pivot, she canted her head.

  Yep. A smirk.

  She stabbed an index finger at the floor. “I’ll disrobe right here.”

  The dress fell around her ankles, leaving a chemise and petticoat in place.

  A wicked gleam lit her eyes as she sashayed nearer. Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph, and all the saints in heaven. A woman’s unmentionables didn’t need mentioning when a man could see right through them.

  There had to be air in this room. Somewhere.

  He forced his head back; peered into her face.

  She locked his stare.

  His voice must’ve followed his blood to his crotch. “Don’t tease me, lass.”

  “That would be cruel.” Lower lip caught between her teeth, she glanced at the scrap of flour sack. “You shouldn’t have spilled the water.”

  A coy bat of her lashes shot blood through his veins. A grin plucked at his lips. “So ye’ll be playin’ games, will ye?”

  “If you like.”

  Like? Wrong word. He caught her wrist and tugged.

  She tumbled into the tub with a squeal. What remained of the bathwater boiled away.

  A shameless vixen dragged her breasts up his chest, flooding his senses with roses. Strawberry curls. Dark-honey eyes. Cupid’s-bow lips…

  Hypnotized by her blatant desire, he cradled the base of her skull. She inched upward until she straddled a hunger he’d waited ten years to sate. A growl squeezed past his heart’s out-of-control pounding. “If ye were aulder, little girl…”

  Her breath on his lips stoked his passion. The challenge in her stare fanned the flames.

  With a whisper, she lit an all-consuming blaze. “I’m not a little girl anymore.”

  Chapter Ten

  The logs in the fireplace had burned to ashes some time ago, leaving a chill in the air. Beneath a pile of blankets in the enormous front room, Elizabeth snuggled closer to the warmth of peppermint.

  After all these years, her heart still lived in a Black Irish rogue from the backstreets. Nowhere else had she felt so secure, cherished, and very well loved.

  An Irishman’s never at peace, except when he’s fightin’. Head pillowed on a ruffian’s shoulder, she ran fingertips down his ribs. She supposed lovemaking shared some similarities with fighting. If that’s where he found peace, who was she to deny him a lifetime of battle?

  She tilted her head and passed a visual caress over a strong jaw and a crooked nose. Her palm savored every inch of a slow glide to his belly.

  A groaning sigh slipped through the smile that slid onto his face. He raised her knuckles to his lips. “Marnin’, missus.”

  The back-alley brogue always would thrill. “I think I need another lesson in how to do more than kiss.”

  He rolled onto his side and propped his head on a palm. Under the covers, his other hand cupped her breast. “It’s cold. I should lay another fire.”

  Her hand wandered lower. “Yes, you should.”

  The devil in his eyes, his lips were halfway to hers when he froze. “Listen.” On the far side of the room, a cricket called its mate. “’Tis a good omen when crickets sing on Christmas Day.”

  “Is it, now?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Ye mock me, woman.”

  “Maybe a wee bit.”

  Too much tenderness leaked through his scowl for her to take the expression seriously.

  She urged him atop her, captured by a gaze filled with promises. As she draped an ankle across his legs and her arms wound around his neck, she couldn’t resist a small tease. “I’d planned to marry a wealthy rancher.”

  “Did ye, now? Disappointed?”

  She whispered against his lips. “Not in the least.”

  “One of these days, Bets, I’ll be the man you deserve.”

  He already was, and more. She’d come a long way from St. Louis to fall in love with the son of an Irish drunkard all over again.

  About the Author—Kathleen Rice Adams

  A Texan to the bone, Kathleen Rice Adams spends her days chasing news stories and her nights and weekends shooting it out with Wild West desperados. Leave the upstanding, law-abiding heroes to other folks. In Kathleen’s stories, even the good guys wear black hats.

  Her short story “The Second-Best Ranger in Texas” won Western Fictioneers’ Peacemaker Award for Best Western Short Fiction of 2014; her debut novel, Prodigal Gun, is the only novel-length western historical romance ever to be nominated for a Peacemaker.

  Visit her hideout on the web at KathleenRiceAdams.com.

  Store-Bought Ornaments

  Patti Sherry-Crews

  When doing the wrong thing is the right thing to do.

  Sparkle, sparkle, sparkle.

  Winking flames in brass candelabras, reflecting mirror images on a polished table. Points of light on the Christmas tree flashing like diamonds. The eyes of his love, glistening.

  Caleb couldn’t take his eyes off of her. She illuminated everything within her orbit.

  It must have taken a good long hour of polishing to make the old table shine like this. The smell of the heavy wax she used competed with aroma of the feast she’d prepared. The tree in the parlor was sparkling in a way he’d never seen it do before. How did she get all this work done by herself?

  And there she sat, looking as fresh as the day she stepped off the train that spring day two years ago. A day seared into his memory. The course of events was altered the same as if the stars themselves realigned in the night sky, forming new constellations to chart a course by—when he first laid eyes on that girl.

  Ella stood on the platform, a look of uncertainty on her face like a sheep separated and lost from the fold. She had on her best dress, bought especially for this trip to meet the man who would be her husband. Thinking about it, Caleb realized he’d not seen that dress since. It was the color of violets with black trim at the lapels of the jacket. Ruffles of white from her blouse rode up to her chin, and the skirt fell away from the waist in soft folds in front and gathered behind, revealing her fine figure. Her head turned one way and then the other, traveling up and down the length of the platform.

  Time stopped. Breathing stopped. He’d stood in stunned silence watching her for a minute, unable to move his feet. Her little gloved hand fluttered over her chest, moved upward to adjust her hat, then pulled at a ringlet of golden hair. When it looked like she was going to burst into tears, he stirred himself into action, moving purposefully toward her. Their eyes locked
, and relief flooded her face. Her smile was so unguarded, he felt his own lips raise in response, when he’d intended to be cool.

  “You’re better-looking than your picture,” she’d said, voice as smooth and sweet as molasses.

  Now, she sat across from him, her eyes, the color of forget-me-nots, alternately held his gaze, then dipped to the plate in front of her. She had picked at the meat on her plate. Pushed around potatoes. The slice of spiced apple was the first item of food to make it from her plate to her lips. She looked up at him, the glistening morsel poised before her lips a fraction of a minute before she popped it in her mouth. Mirroring her, Caleb speared a chunk of apple and slid it between his lips. The sugar and cinnamon combined with the sharpness of the fruit made his mouth water. To be tasting what she was tasting at the same time was an act of intimacy.

  He could see her chest rising and falling with rapid, shallow breaths, and her cheeks were flushed a deep rose. Briefly, he let his hand rest over his heart. She looked up at him from lowered lashes, a small smile on her lips. The gesture hit him like a bolt of lightning. He wanted to jump across the table and kiss her—in front of everyone.

  She looked so beautiful in the red and green plaid silk dress. The blood-red cluster of garnets pinned to the white lace at her throat winked in the candlelight, quaked with the concealed emotion pulsing through her body under a cool exterior.

  “Cal, when you gonna find yourself a woman and settle down?” asked Wesley, from the head of the table.

  Ella’s smile faded. The words coming out of his brother’s mouth were spoken in the slow, deliberate manner of a man who’d had too much to drink and was trying to hide the fact. A fall from a horse had twisted Wes’s leg years ago, making him move with a slow, lopsided gait. The pain in his leg was why he drank so much.

  Conversation at the table had been strained as it often was with his family. Except for Wesley, who was running his mouth as usual, not needing partners in discourse as he spouted pronouncement upon pronouncement. Caleb tensed, knowing this was the portion of the evening where his brother was going to turn his focus on him. Run him down.

  “The circumstances haven’t exactly been opportune,” he said, looking Ella full in the face.

  He knew his brother was too far gone on drink by now to notice him making eyes at his wife.

  “You got to make your own opportunity out here. Not enough women! Do you think you’re going to come across one on a cattle drive? Least not one you want to bring home permanent-like. I keep telling you, there are still plenty of women out east looking for a husband. Finding a wife is as easy as picking out a new shovel. Aren’t I right, darlin’?” he said, jabbing a fork in Ella’s general direction.

  A portion of onion swimming in butter flew off the tines and landed on the carefully polished table, leaving a trail of grease. Ella stared at it, her face becoming as lifeless and blank as a china doll.

  “I’m more of a romantic, I suppose.”

  “Does that keep you warm on a long winter night?”

  There was a rustle of taffeta and the sharp scrape of wood on wood. Ella pushed back her chair and stood up.

  “If y’all will excuse me, I have to see to the dessert,” she said in her soft Virginia accent.

  The youngest Taylor brother, Virgil, began bobbing his head up and down like he did before he got his thoughts together enough to speak. “W-w-what you g-g-got?”

  Ella’s face softened and she spoke in a gentle voice normally reserved for children. “Fruitcake with brandy sauce.”

  “Y-y-you been w-w-working on it for m-m-m…” Virgil gave up in frustration and waved at the air.

  “That’s right. It’s my mama’s recipe. You have to give it a drink of alcohol every fortnight for months. It will be worth the wait.”

  “I surely hope so. I had to send away for that dried fruit. This is one expensive cake,” said Wesley.

  She picked up a platter from the table and threw a look at Caleb he knew meant he was supposed to find an excuse to follow her out. He looked around the table, calculating his chances of escape.

  His father was asleep in his chair at the other end of the table, no more than a hint of a man since his last stroke. Caleb knew his father’s health was declining, but it was a shock to see him. The once-robust man had been reduced to looking like a suit wearing a man rather than the other way around. Only his thick, wavy hair was the same, but it looked odd now, sitting on top of the wizened face. The last stroke had robbed him of his speech, left one hand useless, and the other shaky. It was a relief when his head dropped in slumber, because watching his palsied hand skittering the fork across the plate in an attempt to feed himself was as painful to watch as it was to listen to.

  Next to him was Virgil. He had been left a near-simpleton since he was kicked in the head by a mule when he was a boy. His face was drawn into the rictus of the disabled. He was knitting and unknitting his fingers in anticipation of dessert—not paying attention to anything else.

  Wesley’s head rested on his chest, his eyes taking on an unfocused quality. Asleep with his eyes open.

  Caleb stood up and grabbed another serving dish off the table. Wesley’s head instantly shot up.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to help clear the table.”

  His older brother jabbed a finger aggressively at him. “Ella can take care of that herself.”

  He started to protest—but the tone in his brother’s voice still managed to unman him after all this time. Caleb sat back down, pressing the misshapen knuckle on his left hand into his temple.

  Bone snapping. Was it a sound, or a feeling? His gorge rose with the pain.

  Wesley sat up, more alert now. “Old man Johnson passed last month. I’m going to see about buying up some of his land.”

  “Is that right?”

  Whatever else he had to say about his brother, he did have a knack for business. He’d turned the waning ranch around once he’d taken control.

  “How did he die?”

  “Crushed between a bull and a barn. Being a rancher is a bone-breaking profession.”

  “That it is.”

  “Why, I wonder, are you lending yourself out as a hired hand, breaking your back for other men when you got a ranch here? I replaced you easily enough. Easy to find a ranch hand—harder to find a ranch. How are you living? Sleeping in a bunkhouse? I don’t understand you, boy.”

  “I’m thinking of giving it up entirely,” he said. Then, trying to change the subject, “I’ll go by the widow Johnson’s on my way back and pay my respects.”

  “You always gotta do the right thing, don’t you Cal? That’s one thing I can count on. Cal’s going to do the right thing.”

  “I suppose there’s worse things to aim for.”

  “Problem is, the right thing and the profitable thing ain’t always the same thing. You have to be prepared to make hard choices to get what you want.”

  Cal wondered what life was like for Ella out here in the middle of nowhere—seemingly endless stretches of land, with no company except a few broken men.

  Correspondence between himself and his family was almost nonexistent. If it weren’t for his sister, Flora, he doubted he’d hear from anyone until his presence was required at a funeral. Flora didn’t take to life on the ranch, and had gotten herself a teaching post in Billings. But she was a dutiful daughter and sister and kept them all well-informed. It was from her Caleb had learned Ella had been losing babies. He wondered if one of those babies had been his. That was one thing he was going to ask her if he had a moment alone with her. Was one of those babies his? The thought tormented him.

  She came back in the room then. The look she gave him was full of disappointment, but resigned, too, as if she were expecting nothing more from him. They watched her in silence as she cleared the table. His brother seemed to get satisfaction out of watching his wife toil away.

  “Ella wants for nothing. She’s a good wife. She tries hard. I don’t
mind indulging her. As long as she keeps trying, I’ll keep buying,” Wesley said, picking at his teeth.

  It was the lack of options that made Ella Chesterfield reply to an advertisement for a man seeking a wife. Even two decades after the war, the south she inhabited was shy of men. There didn’t seem to be any good options for her there. Her family was never rich, scraping out a living on a small farm, but the war left them impoverished.

  Ella was the eldest in a large family, and taking care of the young ones fell to her. She slaved away from the minute she rose to the minute she went to bed, working alongside her father in the fields, helping her mother with the chores, and tending children in between. When she saw her life being eaten away, she decided she must leave if she were going to have any future of her own.

  Against her parents’ wishes, she corresponded with the lonely rancher, and when Wesley sent her a grainy picture, she thought he had a pleasant enough face. Of course she mistook Caleb for his brother when he met her at the station that day. She was expecting her prospective groom, and the two brothers looked enough alike. They had similar features, with straw-colored hair, full lips, and hazel eyes. But whereas Caleb’s fell together in a handsome face, Wesley’s fell just short, with his eyes being too close together and his jaw too heavy. Funny, how a few fractions of an inch could make all the difference.

  Caleb had been sent to fetch his brother’s mail-order bride when Wesley made himself sick with drink, celebrating his upcoming nuptials, and couldn’t get out of bed.

  At the end of the table, Wes lifted up on one buttock cheek and let out a gas build-up. “Rich food.”

  “That will do it to you. I’ve got to excuse myself,” Caleb said, patting his stomach.

  But just as he was about to leave the table to find Ella, she was back, bearing a tray laden with a cake and a pitcher of rum sauce.

  Caleb sat back down in his chair.

  “I thought you was going to answer a call of nature,” Wes said.