A Texas Christmas

by Thomas, Jodi Jodi Thomas

  “A lot of good they’re doing you right now. We can barely see a few feet in front of us.” She sighed. “I wish the wind would let up a little so we could see farther. You might as well take them off if they keep glazing over like that. You said you see better up close without them, right?”

  He faced her and nodded. “Yes. Like just now I realize you have freckles on your nose and your eyes are sparkling blue.”

  “They always sparkle if I drink whiskey. Dead giveaway that I’m intoxicated.” She batted her eyes playfully, deepening the twinkle in their depths. “Not that I drink all that often.”

  A muffled bark under the lap blanket made James laugh. “I think Jack just disputed your claim.”

  A tiny nose popped out from the cover, then the tiny brown body stretched itself awake. He hopped into Anna’s lap and curled there, shivering.

  “Can’t keep a secret around Jack, can I, boy?” Anna nodded toward their laps. “Pull the blanket over him, will you? He thinks he’s got to attach himself to me if he hasn’t touched me in a few hours. I noticed he was snuggled up next to you for a while. You must be warm-natured.”

  “I usually don’t sleep with any . . .” James pulled the blanket up to cover Jack. “I mean, I don’t require as much clothing as most people. Well, I guess you would say I’m rather hot-blooded most of the time.” James put back on his glasses and glanced away, finding no way to salvage his bad choice of words. “I don’t think any of that came out as I had intended.”

  Anna laughed. “Maybe not, but it answered me rather well,” she teased, trying to sound as formal as he meant to be. “You’ve got to get over that bashfulness around here, Third, or you’ll become everyone’s favorite stick to whittle.”

  It was then that he noticed it—her accent. Something not quite as Texan as before. “Anna, are you from back East originally?”

  Her spine straightened slightly. She shifted on the driver’s seat and stared at the path ahead. “Isn’t everybody?” she evaded.

  “I hear New England in your voice sometimes. Muted by years in the South, but I’d bet you originally came from somewhere up north.”

  “If we’re lucky enough to reach any place where there are people, Trey, you’ll need to know something more about me.”

  She sounded hesitant, unlike the Anna Ross he had come to know in the past few hours. “I’m no one’s judge. There’s nothing about you that I find remotely problematic.”

  Despite her discomfort, she smiled. “Remind us to work on your speech in the next few miles. That kind of talk will get you plenty of fights in Texas.” Then in a more serious tone, she added, “I was from back East once. Now I’m not. Some folks around here have forgotten that it’s our days spent together here is all that matters. We can’t change our pasts. It burns a few folks’ tempers that I don’t give a donkey’s stubborn butt what they think of me one way or the other. But you may have to choose which side of the fence you want to stand on about me.”

  Anna stared at the road ahead. “I don’t know you well enough yet to care which way you do, Third, but I thought I should be friend enough to tell you what you might be stepping into when you roll in on my wagon.”

  He didn’t know whether to be upset that she didn’t care about him yet or pleased that she cared enough to tell him the truth. She was honest to the bone, and he liked that best about her. Maybe she needed more time to get to know him. Maybe some of her might rub off on him. Maybe this delay in finding the rosettes could work to his benefit.

  He was a man who made up his mind quickly because he knew by experience how fleeting happiness could be. Nothing ever lasted. Everything inside him said that Anna was meant to be part of his life. Whether as good friend or something more, he had no clue.

  James stared at the snow coming down in all its wintry fury and decided he could either let it defeat him or use it to his advantage. This was Christmastime, and he believed in the magic of the season. As a boy he had weathered a worse storm than being out in a blizzard. He’d been alone, without anyone, and didn’t know the first thing about changing himself to become more. Well, he’d wished for a family once and got one. He had soaked up every experience to make him a better son.

  James now knew that there was something more he wanted as a man. He wanted to be with Anna this Christmas and any other that she cared to spend with him hereafter. Not just because she’d rescued him, but because he wanted to know who he could become with her. They just needed to find shelter.

  Before he could tell her that it didn’t matter what anyone else had to say about her, James saw something in the distance. Or at least he thought he saw something. Maybe it was just a product of the Christmas wish he’d just made. Santa, were you listening? “Anna, look to your left. About ten o’clock. Those bluish gray outlines. Are those buildings? That big one in the middle, apart from the others, looks like a house with lit windows. Candles, perhaps?”

  Her head swung around to see where he pointed. She instantly reined the team to the left, exhaling a deep pent-up breath. “That could be the Henton place. It’s got to be less than a mile, Trey. Think we can make it? Can’t tell how far it is with the snow blowing so hard.”

  He leaned over and did something he would never have done, not having known her less than a day. But he had offered up his wish to Santa. Now he had to help the magic take hold. He kissed her on the cheek. “A kiss for luck, Anna. I have complete faith you can do anything you set your mind to.”

  She did the last thing he expected her to. She let go of one of the reins, grabbed him around one shoulder, and kissed him right back.

  Chapter 3

  Anna deepened the kiss and all kinds of warmth blazed through her. Jack barked and tried to wiggle out from between where her and Trey’s bodies nearly touched. Down, boy, she thought, but it was Trey who moved away.

  “I didn’t mean you.” She tried to make light of his withdrawal, instantly cooled from the heat of his lips upon hers. “You didn’t like the kiss?”

  “I liked it too much, Anna,” he admitted, taking the dog into his hands. “But we can’t take our time with such things right now and, as I told you before, I prefer a little slower.”

  “A good boy, that’s what you are, Third. And I, on the other hand, am not a woman to waste time.”

  “I think I should put away the whiskey bottle for a while, don’t you?” He avoided her honesty and handed her back the reins. “Should I take the reins for a while?”

  I wish you would, she thought, disappointed at his sound reasoning. To see how well you handle things. The man was certainly right about one thing. The whiskey was definitely talking. She hadn’t felt this attracted to someone since . . . well . . . since never. What was it about this bespectacled, logical-minded, too-polite-for-his-own-good greenhorn that she found so darned appealing?

  “Rest your hand.” She continued to command the team. “I just want you to remember that I warned you, once we get to the Hentons’ there will be plenty of people there to confirm it’s not just the whiskey talking.”

  “How so?”

  “Because it’s Wednesday, isn’t it?”

  “I’d have to think about it with a clearer head. What does Wednesday have to do with anything?”

  “It’s the day of the Henton Christmas party. If their company couldn’t get back to town before the storm set in and are stuck there, you’ll be meeting a lot of people who might not be so eager to lend me shelter.”

  Trey’s eyes examined her closely. “I haven’t found you to be very troublesome.”

  “Well, that’s worth something.” She shrugged. “But I don’t know all your deep secrets yet.”

  He studied her a moment as if trying to make sense of her words. “I suppose as a barkeeper people would naturally confide in you while they drink.”

  “Sometimes,” she admitted, “but they won’t be happy to take me in because I know their secrets.” She flicked the reins to spur the oxen on. “It will be because they think they kno
w mine.”

  Jack had the decency not to ask her what secret that might be. Instead, the man patted Jack and said, “Some secrets are what you do. Some you keep because you have no choice. And then there is the kind that needs to find the light of day so the darkness can finally go away.”

  Which was his? Anna wondered, surprised at the depth of yearning she could hear in his tone. He seemed such a simple man, but the more time they spent together, the more she realized she needed to take a closer look at him. Find out who he really was.

  With each plod of the team’s hooves through the snow, a sense of dread gripped Anna in its icy clutches. The closer she got to the buildings, the more certain she was that they were heading into more trouble than the storm.

  Jane Henton and her father would welcome her, no doubt. She and the schoolteacher at the orphanage were friends. But if others were still there from the party, she didn’t know how her presence would be accepted in their midst. Everyone knew she had taken the wagon to Mobeetie so she would have an actual excuse not to attend the festivities. The invitation had been extended to everyone in town but a few. She hadn’t cared that some of the men who had imbibed all month at her establishment thought she was one of the uninvited. They’d treaded carefully about discussing the party in front of her until she finally had enough of their whispering and flat-out told them she wouldn’t be in town for it.

  It was nobody’s business that she had declined Jane’s invitation.

  She just didn’t want the tension of her relationship with some of the townsfolk to taint Trey’s welcome when they showed up. He didn’t deserve that. It was bad enough that the fact he was a tenderfoot would reveal itself quickly. He didn’t need to be a tenderfoot and in the company of a so-called soiled woman.

  But she’d tried her best to warn him.

  Maybe, just maybe, everyone had made it back to their own homes.

  The team’s lumbering gait took on more speed. “I think they’ve finally found a road again,” Trey announced.

  “They smell hay.” Anna felt the animals’ immense shoulders bending to their task, their hooves digging in deeper to hurry their gait. “I smell something wonderful cooking myself.”

  Smoke from the ranch house’s high chimney drifted on the wind, revealing a glorious smell of chili spice and beef. Jack sat up, his nose tilted to the wind as he sniffed. His little tummy grumbled loudly.

  Trey patted him. “I agree wholeheartedly, boy. I could eat a cow, hooves and all, right now.” As the team headed for the closest of the two buildings, he pointed to several carriages near the huge barn. “The animals that must have drawn the conveyances must be tucked away inside somewhere.”

  “Mr. Henton and some of his ranch hands would have made sure they were safe. He probably didn’t have enough room to get all the buggies inside the barn, though. It looks like quite a few stayed.”

  The strands of a feisty foot-stomping song caught her attention, making Anna’s jaw set. The party guests were obviously making the best of their circumstances and continuing on with their celebrations. The fiddle and banjo players weren’t high on her list of admirers. And if that was who she thought was singing the tune, Anna knew this was going to be one miserably long visit.

  “At least there should be enough people to help us get the oxen and your horse corralled,” she told Trey, trying to find some benefit to such a crowd. “Think if I can get this to slow up just a little that you can hop down and ask some of the men for some help? I’m not sure the oxen will actually stop till they reach the corral.”

  Trey eyed the distance from the outbuildings to the house and the depth of snow that separated them. “It should be no problem. If I stumble, the snow will catch me.”

  He hadn’t proven himself adept at much yet, but she had to trust that he could manage the task. “Take Jack with you. That way, they’ll believe you’re with me. Oh, and tie off a rope from the house to the barn if they’ve got one.” She tried not to sound worried so he wouldn’t be concerned about leaving her. “Just in case we can’t see our way back to the house.”

  The party was full blown—merry, lively, and well attended. As James and Jack were invited in by a bigshouldered, gray-haired man standing at the door, a dozen people swirled around the dance floor that had been made from a rearranged great room. Cowhide furniture that could comfort large men had been moved to the far edges of the wall, some resting against the landing that formed the upper portion of the two-story house. Twin sweeping staircases allowed access to the landing, where several other people stopped their conversations and moved forward to look down at the visitor whose presence allowed in a rush of cold air.

  “Welcome, stranger.” The gray-haired man started to shake James’s hand, then realized it was full of dog. “The name’s Newpord Henton. It must be colder than Pike’s Peak out there.”

  “It is indeed, sir.” James smiled, trying to hide the chattering of his teeth.

  As the door shut behind him, he noticed hat racks on one side of the parlor held every size bonnet and Boss of the Plains James had ever seen in one place. Stetsons, they called the wide-brimmed hats back East. Hats that instantly said a man hailed from the Lone Star State. Dressed in their prairie finest, the women looked like calico and paisley nymphs dancing in the arms of their beaus, all graceful and glowing from the abundance of male attention.

  A long mahogany sideboy ran a good portion of the wall a few feet from the left stairway, filled with a punch bowl and glasses. On the opposing wall, a makeshift stage of sorts had been set up, allowing a reed-thin male fiddle player and plump female banjo picker to challenge each other with their instruments. Their feet were tapping as rapidly as their fingers moved. A woman who looked as if she were no more than four feet tall and had a mop of red curls that dangled every way but the right way on her head sang with such a booming voice, James thought it could have been a man’s. Though she would never grace the cover of Harper’s Bazaar, her voice could rival any of those he’d ever heard in New Orleans—raspy, full of sass and soul.

  Jack didn’t appreciate the sound as much as James did and commenced to howling a disapproving lament.

  “I’d know that howl anywhere. I didn’t see that one-eye till just now.” Newpord Henton patted Jack’s head and looked past James. “Is Miss Ross with you?”

  James quickly explained the circumstances. A few of the women took steps backward or lifted their punch cups to their lips to hide their shared whispers.

  His explanation was barely out of his mouth when their host called several names and men stopped what they were doing to follow his instructions. “Grab that length of rope from the mudroom, Luke, and anything else you find out there that looks long enough to tie us a guideline from here to the barn. Bo, tell Jane I need a heavy blanket. I’ll bet Anna’s freezing cold out there.”

  He started passing out hats. “A couple of you boys grab your coats and follow me. We’ve got a team to unhitch and we need to do it quick. I want us all to stay together and get back inside before anyone’s lost out there. We all know what happened to the Murrays last winter.”

  The sudden quiet in the room spoke more clearly of whatever tragedy had befallen the Murrays than if someone had spoken it aloud. James would not have Anna experience anything remotely similar.

  He held Jack out to one of the ladies standing nearby. “I’ll go with them. Would you mind seeing that my little friend gets something to eat? He’s really cold and hungry.”

  “You’re hurt.” The lady noticed James’s hand as she took the dog.

  “Get them both something to eat, Bess,” Henton instructed, putting on his Stetson and coat.

  James stepped closer to the door. “I’ll help. Anna’s—”

  “You’re my guest,” their host countered, “and I insist. Ladies, make him feel at home. We’ll be right back.”

  A beautiful blonde in a dress the color of mint moved through the crowd, holding a large blanket. “Here, Father. Do be careful.”


  “I will, darling. Now make Mr.—?”

  “Elliott. James Elliott the Third.” James half bowed and introduced himself.

  His host stopped and stared at James, puzzlement creasing his brow. “From Boston?”

  James nodded. “The accent is quite noticeable, I’m afraid.”

  “You don’t look a bit like your father.” Newpord moved past James, signaling the men forward who had gone to get the supplies. “But we can save that conversation until we have Miss Ross in out of the cold. Welcome to our home, Mr. Elliott.”

  The door flung open, the wind nearly snatching it from Newpord’s hands as the men exited into the storm.

  A hush fell over the remaining partygoers, a curiosity running the course of the room. James could feel it in each searching gaze, and he could sense that he was being measured in some way.

  The blond, hazel-eyed beauty who had called their host Father linked one arm with James’s elbow. “Don’t mind us, Mr. Elliott. A stranger in these parts is always new fuel for conversation, and I’m sure some of us are wondering how you and Anna came to be traveling together. Did you meet in Mobeetie and hitch a ride? By the way, I’m Jane, one of her friends.”

  She made a great effort to stress the last word. James tried to remember everything Anna had told him earlier about the woman, but he was dreadfully tired, hungry, more than a little cold, and not at all up for any kind of interrogation no matter how innocent it might appear. Besides, he needed to determine how well Mr. Henton knew his father. That put a whole new manner in which he must conduct himself among the people of Kasota. He wouldn’t want to embarrass the Second in any way.

  And he didn’t want anyone making Anna feel uneasy when she returned. It would be unkind and undeserving. She’d had a long afternoon and no telling how much longer trying to get the team to safety.

  James wanted to set the record straight. In his book, Anna had been nothing but a heroine to him all day. If not for her, he and his horse would have probably met the fate he suspected of the poor Murray family. He quickly told the crowd how Anna had saved him.