WESTERN CHRISTMAS PROPOSALS

by Various

  * * *

  Hell’s damn business! Would Beulah Banks even refuse Santa Claus?

  Yes, it was becoming evident that she would. No matter what he said, how much he offered, she was refusing him.

  Out of the corner of his eye he watched Belle from across the room.

  Unhappiness drew her mouth tight, and it seemed to make her shoulders hunch inward.

  Even though Beulah was speaking, when Belle took Grannie’s arm and led her toward the door, she lost his attention. While he watched, the two women he loved walked out of the room.

  Time was running out. He doubled his efforts to convince Beulah that giving him the ring was the right thing to do.

  He brought her punch, he talked about his children, about how they had lost their mother—and about how much Grannie meant to them. He told her about the criminal stepson. About how he had sold the ring without knowing.

  Suddenly, the train’s whistle wailed through the walls, announcing its departure.

  “Beulah,” he murmured in desperation. He had hoped to spare her feelings on this, but now—he couldn’t. “I know you had hopes for us and I’m sorry. You are a fine woman. Any man would be lucky to call you his own, but I love Belle.”

  * * *

  “How are you feeling, Grannie?”

  Sitting stiff as a dried board, Belle watched steam roll past the train’s window, felt the rumble of the great engine as it idled.

  There were no passengers on the station platform waiting to board, although there were a few sitting behind her from a previous stop.

  The whistle blew. Belle’s stomach heaved.

  In the distance she spotted the church steeple. Try as she might, she could not help but imagine the scene inside. By now everyone would be congratulating Roy and his new lady.

  She wished them well. At least the woman she wanted to be wished them well.

  “No fever, Grannie Em?” She touched her grandmother’s forehead. “I don’t feel one.”

  The whistle blew again, longer this time. Didn’t it sound like a cry of deep despair?

  “If it happens, I’ll just fall asleep. Don’t you fret about it. You did what you could. I’m only sorry about what it cost you. I don’t suppose what’s left of this old life was worth you losing your long happy future.”

  “That’s not true! You are everything to me. Do you feel faint? Weak?”

  “Not a bit.” Grannie smiled with her usual poise. “It’s been a good life. For however long I have left, I will not waste it worrying.”

  “I don’t believe you’ll die.” Belle put her arm about Grannie’s shoulders. Leaned her head against her soft white hair. The next town on the line was bigger than Pinoakmont. There was bound to be a physician. “We still have a long time together.”

  “No matter if I have an hour or a year, I’ll always be with you. Love cannot be separated.”

  Outside the window snowflakes began to fall, coming down as gently as sifted flour.

  “What in tarnation is going on out there? We should be moving by now” came a man’s voice from a few rows behind. “Must be a cow on the track.”

  The wood frame of the window groaned when he slid it open. Icy air rushed inside. She tugged Grannie’s coat tighter about her, adjusted the blanket about her legs.

  “I’ll be blamed! That ain’t no cow—it’s Santa Claus!”

  Belle leapt to her feet, turned and dashed three rows back. Shoving the man aside, she stuck her head out the window.

  My word! It was Santa!

  He stood on the tracks, his long legs spread and one arm raised in the air. He appeared to be pinching something in his fingers.

  “Belle Annie Key!” he shouted over the thrum of the engine. “I’m not stepping off the track until you agree to marry me!”

  He hoisted his other arm in the air. He held something in that one, too.

  Drawing her head back inside, she stared at Grannie.

  “Santa wants to marry me!”

  “Do it, baby.” Grannie’s grin crinkled her cheeks. “Go get your man. I promise not to go anywhere while you’re gone.”

  “I think—I can’t be sure—but I think he’s holding rings. Two of them!”

  Dear Lord, please let him be holding rings. She kissed Grannie’s cheek in passing, then dashed for the door. Luckily a grinning porter was standing beside it so she didn’t have to break a leg leaping for the ground.

  “Best of luck to you, ma’am,” he said, helping her down.

  It wasn’t luck she needed so much as a Christmas miracle.

  Lifting her skirts, she ran beside the track toward Santa.

  He opened his arms, rushed forward to meet her. Wrapping her in a hug, he lifted her off her feet.

  “Marry me, Belle Annie.” His breathless whisper grazed her temple. “I love you so damn much.”

  “I love you so damn much, too.” She drew back, seeing the truth in his eyes. Snow dusted his dark lashes and collected on his brows and fake beard. “But what about Beulah?”

  “She resisted selling the ring back to me at first, but after what seemed like hours of pleading, and after offering her what felt like half my wages for the year, she gave it up.”

  “That’s what— You sold the ring to Beulah?”

  “No, I sold it to the general store. Ben sold it to her.”

  “But you have the ring now?” Her throat tightened; tears welled in her eyes. She could not hold them back any more than she could her sobs of relief.

  Grannie did not have to fear dying tonight.

  “I’m sorry, love.” His arms banded tighter about her. “If I’d known, I would never have sold it. I should have tried harder to find you.”

  “You aren’t to blame. When it happened, you were dealing with the unimaginable.” She buried her face in his neck, unable to stop the tears.

  “Say you’ll marry me.” His voice rushing past her ear made her weep harder. “I need to hear the words.”

  “How can I say them? You’ll never be able to forget what I did—what I meant to do?”

  “Forget? Belle, honey, we don’t forget. We forgive. That’s so much deeper, more powerful, than forgetting.”

  “But how can you—”

  “Because I’ve needed forgiveness. I wasn’t there when Colette died—I wasn’t there when she was alive either. I reckon that took a lot of forgiving on her part, but I feel that she’s done it.”

  He kissed the trail of tears on her face, then set her on the ground. Curious-looking faces peeked out of train windows.

  “What I did to her was worse than what you did to me. You only acted out of love. You put your grandmother first, no matter the cost.”

  “So did you. You had to make a living.”

  “I didn’t have to do it that way. Look, Belle—you need to forgive yourself. It’s a hell of a lot harder to do than to forgive someone else.”

  He was right, of course. Still, how was she to know that deep inside he wouldn’t always...?

  Gazing intently at her he opened both of his hands. Grannie’s ring was in one white, Claus-like glove. In the other was the wedding ring he was offering her.

  But in his eyes, she saw what he really offered. Love—everlasting, unconditional love.

  She understood now. Love forgave, it did not hold grudges. It did not turn its back in affront.

  This was what the folks in the church were celebrating. The Christmas miracle—love freely given to all—given to her.

  “Belle Annie?”

  “Yes! Yes, I will marry you.”

  * * *

  He’d been touched by a miracle—call it the spirit of Christmas or the spirit of love, it didn’t matter. To his mind they were one and the same.

  Walk
ing back to the church with Belle on one arm and Grannie Em on the other, watching snowflakes flutter down from the sky, his heart was full, beyond blessed.

  Life was perfect. Euphoria rose in his chest, made him want to—

  “So how much did you have to pay to get my ring back?” Grannie grinned up at him.

  “I’d have given any amount of money for you, Grannie.”

  “You’re a good boy. You probably paid more than my husband did.”

  “Miss Banks did put some store by that ring. She had this notion that it would bring her true love.”

  “She did? My word!”

  “I had the devil of a time convincing her to sell it back to me.”

  “It’s no wonder you did. The ring’s magic must have been giving her a terrible itch.” Grannie looked at her finger, at the long-lost treasure circling it. “It did me. I got no relief until I let Granddaddy scratch it.”

  “I don’t doubt Beulah wanted you to do the scratching,” Belle muttered, squeezing his arm.

  “In the end, she understood that I loved you.” He leaned sideways and kissed his bride-to-be.

  “Poor woman.” Grannie sighed, shook her head. “Everyone deserves to be loved. Especially today.”

  Before going inside the church, Roy shed the Santa suit and stuffed it into a box beside the door. It wouldn’t do for the children to see the jolly old man kissing Miss Key, and he didn’t think he could go the rest of the evening without doing it.

  A buzz of happy activity greeted them when they entered. People sang and laughed.

  Roy watched his intended remove her coat, then her gloves. He wished he could remove her red dress. He might not be wearing an “enchanted ring” but he sure did have an itch.

  For all his joy, the sight of Beulah standing in a dim corner with a decided lack of Christmas cheer nipped at his conscience.

  There wasn’t anything he could have done differently, but it troubled him to be the cause of her misery.

  Roy glanced about the room at all the joyful folks knowing that he was the happiest of them all.

  Not only did his future promise a lifetime of love, but his first assignment as sheriff was going smoothly.

  “I think we’ve pulled this off.”

  The ladies were gathered about the Christmas tree, their conversation high-pitched and lighthearted. The men circled the punch bowl, their guffaws deeper but just as amicable.

  All of a sudden Jim turned from the fellow he was speaking with, as though someone had tapped him on the shoulder. He shrugged, then went back to his conversation.

  The only one left out was the one standing in shadow, wringing her hands.

  “She wants to be loved so badly,” Grannie murmured. “The poor dear. I believe my husband and the gypsy want me to do the right thing.”

  “What gypsy?” Roy glanced about, concerned about an uninvited guest.

  “The one who sold the ring to Belle’s grandfather, of course. Explain it all to him, won’t you, Belle Annie?”

  While the image of a gypsy selling a ring to a besotted young man formed in his mind, Grannie turned and made her way toward Beulah in her isolated corner.

  “Who’s the gypsy?”

  “According to Grannie, the gypsy woman sold the ring to Granddaddy, along with assurance of finding true love on Christmas Day. I never did believe it, of course. It was always just a lovely story. But for a sensible woman, Grannie has put some store in it over the years.”

  From across the room, they watched Grannie speaking to a downcast Beulah.

  She patted the spinster’s hand. She listened while the dejected one spoke.

  In the end, Grannie Em gave her a hug, removed the ring from her finger and slipped it on Beulah’s.

  Belle sucked in a sharp breath, then hurried to the big window at the far end of the room where her grandmother had gone to stand—and grin.

  After all that had gone into regaining her ring, given the value she put on it—her life, even—Grannie had just given it away.

  Roy could not have been more stunned if the real Santa suddenly came down the chimney singing “Jingle Bells.”

  He stood behind his bride-to-be with one hand at her waist and one on her shoulder because the color had drained from her face.

  “Grannie!” Belle grabbed her grandmother by her hands. “What have you done?”

  “Why, I’ve given my ring to Miss Beulah.”

  “But what about you dying?”

  “I’m fit as a queen, thank you very much.”

  “You aren’t going to die?”

  “Things have changed.” Grannie laughed and seemed to look inside herself. At happy memories of a Christmas long past, unless he missed his guess. “Been fulfilled.”

  “I think you ought to sit down. You aren’t making sense.” Belle tried to drag her grandmother to a chair.

  “Oh, it’s clear enough if you look with your heart, Belle Annie. I’ve been blessed by the ring and now I’ve passed the magic on to poor Beulah. She won’t be a spinster much longer.”

  “How do you know you won’t die and Beulah won’t remain a spinster?”

  “Because your grandfather told me so.”

  “When?” Roy asked.

  “As soon as you handed me the ring and I put it back on my finger.”

  “Are you sure you aren’t imagining Granddaddy speaking with you? He’s never spoken to me,” Belle pointed out.

  “Watch and see.” Grannie Em nodded toward Beulah, who was now smiling at the ring.

  And why wouldn’t she be smiling? She now had the ring and a goodly-sized portion of his money.

  But in exchange, the tinkling melody of Grannie’s laugh filled his heart. He was coming to love this woman deeply.

  “Oh, in all the excitement I nearly forgot. Next Christmas the two of you will be crooning over your three-month-old twins, a girl and a boy. That’s what your grandfather says, anyway.”

  “I’m not sure I believe that he can just decree things and they happen—or don’t happen.” Belle Annie arched her brows. “Or in a gypsy with a magic ring.”

  But Beulah’s smile was beaming. He noticed Jim staring at her.

  Roy was beginning to think that, just maybe, he ought to get some sleep before the twins came.

  “Not decrees, exactly. But given where he’s at, he knows things.” Grannie cradled Belle’s cheeks in her wrinkled hands. “I won’t die today, and not simply because I got a ring back. In the process of getting the ring I found new love, which is the greatest reason for living.”

  She nodded her head at Robbie, Jack, Lorraine and Delanie, who were arguing in a corner. Intuition, and a pile of crumbs, told him the dispute was over who could eat the most cookies without getting caught.

  “You could not be more right, Grannie. Loving Belle Annie has brought me new life.”

  “As it will to Miss Beulah. The ring only leads the way. Just watch and see.”

  It was going to take some doing for Miss Beulah to find—

  Or maybe not.

  Jim was crossing the room now, smiling broadly at Beulah and carrying two glasses of spiked punch.

  Hell’s business...it was hard to say whose expression held more wonder, Jim’s or Beulah’s.

  Something magical was going on here.

  Until this moment, he hadn’t noticed the mistletoe hanging on the rafter over Beulah’s head. It sure hadn’t been there when she’d handed over the ring.

  Jim and Beulah clinked the rims of their cups, smiling at each other. Then, as if bound in a spell, Jim bent his head, kissed her.

  Belle gripped his hand. Her squeeze helped his insides quit spinning, but only a bit.

  If the ring could unite lovers, what was to say Grannie’s dead husband
could not predict things?

  With the twins three months old next Christmas, then that would mean...

  “Belle, honey, we better meet with the preacher.” He glanced about and spotted him in front of the Christmas tree, passing out peppermint sticks and wishing everyone a merry Christmas. The snow swirling past the window beyond seemed a pretty picture for reciting marriage vows. “Tonight.”

  “That might be wise.” Belle couldn’t seem to take her gaze off Beulah and Jim, off new love blooming over spiked punch and under mistletoe.

  Roy squeezed Belle Annie’s fingers, then hurried her toward the preacher and a future guaranteed to be blessed by Christmas magic.

  * * * * *

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