Dreaming of a Western Christmas: His Christmas BelleThe Cowboy of Christmas PastSnowbound with the Cowboy

by Lynna Banning

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “Sorry for what?”

  Chapter Three

  Ada’s hands flew away from his face and Levi silently cursed himself for not holding his tongue. He’d been awake since she’d shooed the boy out of the house. How could he not be after the way they’d dragged him across the floor like a carcass? He’d tried to rouse himself as she cut away his clothing and pulled the cloth down his bare skin, but his body refused to cooperate.

  Well, most of it had refused. Some parts, however, had responded quite readily to her touch. To the unexpected apology whispered across his skin.

  “You’re awake?” That wasn’t happiness he heard in her voice.

  Levi opened his eyes. Lord, but she was a beautiful sight. No matter that she was a mess, the knot of hair at the base of her neck having mostly given way to the weight of the golden waves that now dangled over her shoulders and curled around her breasts. He swallowed. Bad idea looking there. He shifted his focus back to her face. To those pale green eyes that he’d lost himself in. Found himself in. Eyes that had allowed him to envision a future men like him didn’t often get.

  Turned out he was right on that account. But for a little while, it had been nice to believe otherwise.

  “What are you doing here?” She held his gaze for a fleeting moment, anger burning in those beautiful eyes that had once promised him the world before tearing it away.

  “I could ask you the same question,” he said.

  She looked away and the damp cloth stroked across his chest in smooth, even strokes, carefully avoiding the cuts left behind by the bear. He marveled at how something that hurt so much could feel so good.

  “I live here.”

  “Figured that. I’m asking why you aren’t living in town. Your husband had a big house on the hill, if I recall.” He couldn’t help the anger that curled against the title that should have been his. He tried to lift himself up on his elbows to get a better look at her, but his head spun and she placed a warm hand on his shoulder and pushed him back down.

  “Stay put. Harlan died two years ago—his heart gave out.”

  Levi hadn’t been aware the man had had a heart, but he kept that observation to himself. Likely he was biased against the man Ada had abandoned him for. “Guess I’m sorry for your loss.”

  She gave him a look he couldn’t decipher. “I doubt that.”

  He didn’t try to refute it. Deceit had never been his strong suit. Truth of it was, Harlan hadn’t deserved her. Then again, neither had he. “That doesn’t explain why you aren’t in town.”

  Her lips pursed and she bent closer to inspect his wounds. “Harlan left everything to his mother. She allows us to stay here.”

  Us. He’d heard another voice. A younger one. The one she’d sent to the barn with his horse. He didn’t have time to ruminate on it as her fingers pressed against the edges of the middle gash, causing his body to buck.

  “I’ll need to stich these up.”

  Fantastic. He eyed the whiskey bottle she’d set near his head. Half-full. He tried to distract himself. “Why did Harlan leave everything to his mother and not you?” It seemed a strange twist of irony that she left him for a richer man and got nothing in the end.

  She turned to the basin and dropped the cloth into it. The water turned a pinkish red. She wiped her hands on her apron. “We had a bit of a falling-out.”

  “Over what?”

  Firelight caressed her skin, illuminating her profile. The years had been kind to her, turning her from a pretty young girl into an even more beautiful woman, but the life that had once shone brightly in her eyes had dimmed.

  “That’s none of your concern.”

  He didn’t press her. “The boy’s your son?”

  She hesitated before nodding. “Micah. He took your horse down to the barn. The dog followed him. You mind telling me what you’re doing here?”

  “I was heading to Salvation Falls.” Not entirely a lie, just not entirely the truth.

  He glanced around. The cabin consisted of two rooms. The one they were in served as the living space, kitchen and bedroom, if the bed behind her was any indication.

  “You want to tell me why you’re anywhere other than prison?”

  He glared at her, old anger burning through his veins. He had sworn to her he was innocent, but it hadn’t mattered. She’d up and married Harlan anyway. Left him to rot. “My sentence was commuted due to lack of evidence and new testimony.”

  His pa’s cousin, Lucky Stoker, had ridden with them for as long as he could remember. A hard-nosed criminal, he’d possessed a strange sense of justice. But it had taken him a good eight years to find religion and then his way to the courthouse in Laramie, where he’d given long overdue testimony that Levi hadn’t been involved in the robbery of Granger Bank.

  “And so you came back to Glennis Creek?” If the news of his commuted sentence surprised or disappointed her, he couldn’t tell.

  He paused, not wanting to admit he’d come to see her. To give his eyes one last chance to rest upon her before leaving for good. “I’m on my way to Salvation Falls, just west of here. Met a man in prison by the name of Abbott Connolly. He told me about it and it sounded like a nice place to settle down and start over.”

  Was that disappointment written into her features?

  “If you were headed to Salvation Falls, you’re a bit off track.”

  “I met a rather large bear who thought he’d put a crimp in my plans.”

  “Where is the bear now?”

  “Run off. The dog followed me from town. A stray, I guess. Either way, he proved too much of an irritant to allow the bear to enjoy his meal, so he lumbered off.”

  “You’re lucky. Can you make it to the bed?”

  Her lack of response to his near-death experience grated. He raised an eyebrow and smirked. “That’s rather forward of you, Miss Dunlop.” He couldn’t resist using her maiden name, the one she’d had back when he used to believe in hope.

  She glared at him but held her tongue, her lips twisting to one side. If he didn’t know better, he’d almost guess she held back a smile. But he did know better. Ada hadn’t kept any smiles for him.

  She knelt next to him and put her shoulder under his arm. He winced as he staggered to his feet, leaning heavily on her as they made unsteady progress across the room to the bed. Despite her small stature, she held steady, demonstrating an underlying strength that hadn’t been there before.

  She put his shirt beneath him as he lay down and, with her assistance, pulled his feet up onto the bed. With efficient movements, she removed his boots, then came back to stand at his side. “I’ll need to stitch the wounds before I bandage them again.”

  “You plan on lettin’ me have some of that whiskey before you get started?”

  “A little. I’ll need to pour some into the gashes. It helps fight the inflammation.”

  She poured him a glass and slipped a hand beneath his head to lift him up far enough so that he could drink. He gulped the amber liquid like a greedy man dying of thirst, trying to blot out the pain. To erase the feel of her fingers threaded into his hair. The absence created when she let his head ease back onto the pillow.

  Ada prepared the needle, then gently probed the area around the wound. He gritted his teeth and fisted his hand into the quilt beneath him. It hurt like the devil, then hurt even worse when she slid the needle through his flesh and pulled the thread taut.

  He grunted and his head went fuzzy. She hesitated for a heartbeat.

  “Keep going,” he said. It had to be done.

  The fuzziness in his head grew and the room dipped and swayed. He closed his eyes. He was safe now. He could let go.

  * * *

  Ada could not move about the main room of the cabin without meeting reminders of Levi at every turn. He lay on the bed—her bed. His saddlebags rested near the door, his jacket hung off the back of a kitchen chair and the kit with bandages and herbs sat on the counter close
at hand. Even his dog had curled up on the sofa next to Micah while he read a book she’d given him for Christmas the year before. She’d purchased another one for this Christmas, but it had been all she could afford. Their coffers had shrunk considerably over the past two years, and pride and guilt refused to allow her to go groveling to Harlan’s mother, Marilla, begging for more.

  The Widow Baxter had taken her in when she was fourteen years old. Had she not, Ada knew the fate that awaited a young girl, alone and unprotected. Had Marilla not saved her, she likely would not be here now. Marrying the woman’s only son once she was grown had seemed a small price to pay. That she didn’t love Harlan the way a woman should love the man she married didn’t seem to matter. At least not until she had met Levi.

  Then it mattered more than her next breath.

  “Ma, is he ever gonna wake up?”

  She stopped kneading the bread and glanced over her shoulder at Levi, who continued to sleep quietly and deeply. “Soon, Micah. Sleep helps a body heal.”

  Levi had barely moved since he’d passed out while she stitched him up last evening. A full twenty-four hours had come and gone. The storm the dark skies had promised hadn’t materialized, petering out through the night. A fact that left Ada thankful. She needed to make a trip into town before Christmas Day to pick up Micah’s gift at the mercantile and give him a chance to see his grandmother.

  The wind had kicked up some drifts, blocking the pathways to the barn and chicken coop. She would need to shovel them clear after she fetched Micah breakfast and checked once again on her patient’s wounds. She relished neither chore, but for entirely different reasons.

  She walked to the window and looked outside. The bright morning sunshine glinted off the pristine snow and created a landscape pretty enough to make one weep with joy. But it wasn’t joy Ada experienced that morning. Trepidation smothered her spirits and fear tightened around her heart like a hangman’s noose.

  Levi would not be going anywhere anytime soon.

  The idea coiled around her and stoked emotions she preferred to keep buried. The feel of his skin beneath her hands had haunted her throughout the night, bringing forth memories of when she had touched him before, under far different circumstances. Memories that now lay shattered on the ground around her, broken into shards at her feet.

  “You think the dog has a name?”

  “He didn’t say.” What he had said, however, echoed in her mind. The judge had commuted his sentence. He was a free man. An innocent man. Not that she had ever doubted it. Despite his upbringing in his father’s world, she’d seen the goodness in him, believed in it. Believed in him.

  She’d been the only one.

  After the robbery, the town had been set on their course and would not be moved from it. In the end, he’d been found guilty and, she was ashamed to say, when his conviction came down, hers wavered. Had she been wrong? Theirs had been a whirlwind romance. She’d known him only a few months, but she’d thrown herself into their affair with all her heart. Their relationship had burned hot and fast until giving in to their passion had seemed the most natural thing in the world.

  She’d loved him completely and he’d claimed to feel the same. They had made promises, dreamed of their future together far away from Glennis Creek. She’d believed in him with all her heart.

  But had that same heart blinded her to a truth she did not want to see?

  She hadn’t wanted to believe it. A man’s goodness didn’t come from his upbringing. Harlan was proof of that. An outlaw might have raised Levi and he might have done things he wasn’t proud of, but he’d wanted to change. He’d wanted a new life.

  Hadn’t he?

  She never had the chance to find out the truth. Levi had gone to jail, leaving her alone to fend for herself. Only by then the stakes were much higher than they had been when she was orphaned at fourteen. Then, she’d had the sympathy of the town, people who had cared. But she’d burned those bridges when she’d turned her back on the town’s favored son. She was alone. Completely and utterly alone. If she wanted to survive, she’d had to let Levi go and rebuild the bridges she’d burned.

  What other choice had she had? And so she’d let Levi go. Relegated him to a memory. One best left untouched, lost to the vagaries of time.

  Something easier said than done with the same memory now taking up residence in her present and space in her bed, resurrecting all her old fears and doubts, putting in jeopardy the life she’d cobbled together in his absence.

  “I haven’t given the dog a name yet.”

  Levi’s voice filled the silence, thick and tired. Ada’s hand slipped off the dough she’d returned to and hit the wooden surface with a thud that reverberated up her arm. Her back stiffened and she locked her knees. She would not turn around. She wouldn’t.

  Behind her, the dog’s feet hit the floor and its nails skittered across the wooden floor to the bed, Micah’s softer footsteps not far behind.

  “How come?”

  “Guess I didn’t have the time. He followed me from town and when the bear came upon us, he chased him off before he could make me his supper. Figure that means he deserves a proper name, don’t you?”

  The lure of his voice proved more than her body could withstand. Ada turned around and leaned her back against the work surface, twisting her hands in her apron. Levi looked a little worse for wear, but even from across the room she could see his color had improved and the easy smile she remembered far too well spread across his handsome face.

  “Think you got the right of it,” Micah said, lifting the small dog up onto the bed. It settled next to Levi’s leg, staying near Micah, who scratched at the pup’s ears.

  “I’m not too good at naming things, I’m afraid. Never had a dog before. Maybe you could pick out a name for him?”

  Ada stepped forward. “I don’t think—” The words died in her throat as her gaze landed upon Micah, his expression lit up like a star-filled Colorado sky. She hadn’t seen him this happy for longer than she cared to remember. For two years they’d existed, doing the best they could, but there had been more struggle than joy in their lives, stuck up here in this remote area with nothing but each other for company.

  “How about Bruce?” Micah pulled himself up onto the side of the bed next to Levi and cupped the dog’s face as it crawled into his lap.

  Levi smiled. “Bruce?”

  Micah shrugged and smiled back and the expression kicked Ada in the gut until she couldn’t breathe.

  “Bruce the Bear Chaser,” Micah added.

  Levi nodded gravely. “Bruce it is, then.”

  Micah’s grin erupted across his face and Ada experienced an uncomfortable moment of envy that Levi had managed to do in one minute what she had failed at over the past two years. Yet, as much as she wanted to hate him for it, a part of her knew a sense of gratefulness. And understanding.

  But the other part filled with fear. Levi would leave. He’d heal up and he’d head to Salvation Falls just as he’d planned before that bear had tried to make a meal out of him. He’d leave and take the dog and Micah’s joy with him, and just like before, she’d be stuck dealing with the hurt and pain left in his wake.

  Chapter Four

  Levi watched the young boy play tug-of-war with Bruce, the two taking turns pulling each other with the braided rag rope he’d fashioned out of the clean parts of his shirt. The bloodied remains Ada had disposed of, and she’d brought him one of Harlan’s to wear in its place. The soft flannel hung from his frame. Prison and nature had given him a leaner frame than Harlan, but while the man’s shirt did not fit, his life suited Levi just fine.

  For the past two days while his wound healed and his strength slowly returned, he’d soaked up the sense of home rife in the small cabin. Ada and Micah didn’t have much, but they had what counted most. He could feel it. It bloomed in the small touches and soft looks Ada gave her son, and presented itself in the way Micah rolled his eyes with a devilish smirk at her commands or when she affec
tionately ruffled his hair. Numerous times Levi witnessed Micah stand next to her while Ada prepared their evening meal and simply lean against her arm, as if the boy understood they were in this together, that he appreciated everything she did even if he didn’t have the words to say so.

  It was the kind of thing Levi had spent his whole life wishing for, that sense of closeness and family. He’d never shared that with his father. The closest he’d come to it was when he had found Ada. His gaze drifted to her now, unable to resist the lure of her. She stood staring out the window as if waiting for something to arrive. Or wishing something that had arrived would leave.

  Except that he didn’t want to leave. Not this bed, or this house. Not her life. Proof his brain remained addled. He never should have come here. He should have known one look would never have been enough. But his wanting didn’t change any of that.

  Ada had made her choice.

  And it had not been him.

  But like a fool, he wanted her. This. A little home filled with discreet touches like the scent of fir boughs hanging near the fireplace with sprigs of red berries poking out of it, reminding him Christmas fast approached. The worn quilt draped over the arm of the small sofa by the window. A small pile of dime novels stacked on a shelf next to a set of wooden blocks with the initials A and M carved into them.

  Everywhere he looked, little hints of their life filled the cabin with love and laughter, making it a home. A place to belong.

  It made his plans for starting over in Salvation Falls look downright pitiful. And lonely. And it made him wonder.

  Could they have a second chance? Was such a thing possible? He was a free man now, and she was widowed. Did people like them get a chance to try again?

  He shook his head. Likely not.

  “You gettin’ up soon?” Micah came over to the side of the bed with Bruce. The dog’s back legs dragged across the floor as he growled and shook his head, his jaws gripped tight onto the knotted rope in the boy’s hand.

  “Think so.” He wasn’t sure if he had the strength, but truth of the matter was, the way his thoughts were running, he’d be better off getting up and getting out as soon as possible, because each passing minute made it easier to linger, to convince himself that they stood a chance. A crazy notion best left alone.