The Christmas Brides

by Linda Lael Miller

  Wes laughed again. “If you don’t believe me, just ask Kate,” he said lightly.

  Lincoln happened to like Kate, even if she was a “light-skirt,” as his old-fashioned mother put it, but he wasn’t about to put any questions to her, especially when it came to something that personal.

  He was silent until they entered the barn, now nearly dark. Both of them knew every inch of the place, and neither of them hesitated to let their eyes adjust to the lack of light.

  “Thanks,” Lincoln said awkwardly. “For the tree, I mean.”

  Wes found his horse and opened the stall door, began saddling up. “That was for Gracie,” he said. “You want me to stop by Willand’s Mercantile and get some presents for those other kids?”

  The offer touched Lincoln. “No,” he said, his voice sounding gruff. “Ma laid in a good supply of stuff before she left. There’ll be plenty to go around.”

  Wes nodded. “That’s good,” he said.

  “I guess you must have seen Ma recently?” Lincoln ventured. Their mother was a sore spot between them; Lincoln accepted that she was a little on the irritating side, while Wes still seemed to think she ought to change anytime now. “I dropped her off at the depot myself, and there was no sign of you.”

  There was no humor in Wes’s chuckle this time. “She sent Fred Willand’s boy, Charlie, around to the news paper office with a note. ’Course, I’d have lit a cigar with it if it hadn’t been for Gracie.”

  Lincoln frowned. Just as their mother wasn’t fixing to change, Wes wasn’t, either. Both of them were waiting for the other to see the error of their ways and repent like a convert at a tent meeting, and that would happen on the proverbial cold day in hell. “You think it’s wrong, letting Gracie believe in this Saint Nicholas fella?”

  Wes lowered the stirrup, gave the saddle a yank to make sure it was secure, then swung up. “She’s a child,” he said. Lincoln couldn’t make out his features in the shadows. “Children need to believe in things while they can. I’ll leave the mule here for a day or two, if it’s all the same to you.”

  Lincoln nodded, stepped forward, hoping in vain for a better look at his brother’s face, and took hold of the reins to stop Wes from riding out. “Do you believe in anything, Wes?” he asked, struck by how much the answer mattered to him.

  Wes sighed. “I believe in Kate. I believe in five-card stud and whiskey and the sacred qualities of a good cigar. I believe in Gracie and—damn it, I must be sobering up—I believe in your good judgment, little brother. Use it. Don’t let that schoolmarm get away.”

  “I’ve only known her since yesterday,” Lincoln reasoned. He was always the one inclined to reason. Wes just did whatever seemed like a good idea at the time.

  “Maybe that’s long enough,” Wes answered.

  Lincoln let go of the reins.

  Wes executed a jaunty salute, there in the shadows, and rode toward the door of the barn, ducking his head as he passed under it.

  “Rub that horse down when you get back to town,” Lincoln called after his brother. “Don’t just leave him standing at the hitching post in front of the saloon.”

  Wes didn’t answer; maybe he hadn’t heard.

  More likely, he’d heard fine. He just hadn’t felt called upon to bother with a reply.

  THE TURKEY CARCASSES HAD BEEN trussed with twine and tied to a high branch in a tree so they’d stay cold and the wolves and coyotes wouldn’t get them. Looking out the window as she stood at the sink, Juliana watched the pale forms sway in the thickening snow and the purple gathering of twilight.

  She was certain she would never be hungry again.

  Behind her, seated at the table, Tom Dancingstar puffed on a corncob pipe, making the air redolent with cherry-scented tobacco, while Joseph droned laboriously through the assigned three pages of a Charles Dickens novel. The other children had gathered in the front room near the fire place; the last time Juliana had looked in on them, Theresa and Gracie were playing checkers, while Daisy examined one of Gracie’s dolls and Billy-Moses stacked wooden alphabet blocks, knocked them over and stacked them again.

  The afternoon had dragged on, and Juliana wondered when Lincoln would come back into the house, when they’d get a chance to talk alone again, whether or not she ought to attempt to start supper.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t want to cook. She hadn’t been allowed near the kitchen as a young girl—Cook hadn’t wanted a child under foot—and every school she’d taught at until Stillwater Springs had provided meals in a common dining room.

  Now, resurrected by Joseph’s account, the image of last Christmas’s burned turkey rose in her mind. They’d managed to save some of it and eaten around the charred parts. After that, probably tired of oatmeal and boiled beans, the construction of which Juliana had been able to discern by pouring over an old cookery book, Theresa and Mary Rose had taken to preparing most of the meals.

  A snapping sound made Juliana jump, turn quickly.

  Joseph had closed the Dickens novel smartly. “Finished,” he said. “Can— May I go out and help Tom with the chores?”

  Juliana blinked. A fine teacher she was—for all she knew, Joseph might have been reading from the back of a medicine bottle instead of a book. She had no idea whether he’d stumbled over any of the words, or lost track of the flow of the narrative and had to begin again, the way he often did.

  So she bluffed.

  “Tell me what happened in the story,” she said.

  Joseph was ready. “This woman named Nancy got herself beat to death by that Bill Sykes fella.”

  He’d been reading from Oliver Twist, then.

  “He was a bad’un,” Tom remarked seriously. “That Sykes, I mean.”

  “He was indeed,” Juliana agreed. “You may help with the chores, Joseph.”

  Tom sighed, rose to his feet. “You reckon you could start that story over from the first, next time you read?” he asked the boy. “I’d like to know what led up to a poor girl winding up in such a fix.”

  Joseph would have balked at the request had it come from Juliana. Since it came from Tom instead, he beamed and said, “Sure.”

  “When?” Tom asked, starting for the back door, bent on getting the chores done, his pipe caught between his teeth.

  “Maybe after supper,” Joseph answered.

  Supper. Renewed anxiety rushed through Juliana.

  And Tom gave his trade mark chuckle. The man probably couldn’t read, at least not well enough to tackle Dickens, but he soon proved he could read minds.

  “I’ll fry up some eggs when we’re through in the barn,” he told Juliana. “And Mrs. Creed put up some bear-meat pre serves last fall—mighty good, mixed in with fried potatoes.”

  Bear-meat pre serves? That sounded about as appetizing to Juliana as the naked turkeys dangling from the tree branch outside, but she managed not to make a face.

  “You have enough to do,” she said, with a bright confidence she most certainly didn’t feel. “I can fry eggs.”

  “No, you can’t,” Joseph argued benignly. “Remember when…?”

  “Joseph.”

  The boy shrugged both shoulders, and he and Tom let in a rush of cold air opening the door to go out.

  The instant they were gone, Juliana hurried to the front room and beckoned to Theresa with a crooked finger.

  Theresa obediently left her checker game and Gracie to approach.

  “Quick,” Juliana whispered, fraught with a strange urgency. “Come and show me how to fry eggs!”

  WHEN LINCOLN CAME IN WITH an armload of firewood, he found Juliana and Theresa side by side in front of the stove, working away, and the kitchen smelled of savory things—eggs, potatoes frying in onions, some kind of meat. Gracie was busy setting the table.

  His stomach grumbled. The venison stew had worn off a while ago.

  “Where have you been, Papa?” Gracie asked, all but singing the words, and dancing to them, too. “Did you ride all the way to town with Uncle Wes so he wouldn�
�t get lost in the snow?”

  Lincoln smiled and shook his head no. “Wes’s horse knows the way home, even if your uncle doesn’t,” he said. Actually, he’d been in the Gainers’ cabin, admiring the spindly little Christmas tree Ben had put up for his child-heavy wife and drinking weak coffee. And at once avoiding and anticipating his return to the house, to Juliana.

  Gracie nodded sagely. “That’s a good horse,” she said.

  Lincoln proceeded through the kitchen, then the front room, and along the hallway to Juliana’s door. Tonight, he thought, entering with the wood and kindling, he wouldn’t have to lie awake worrying that she and the little boy and girl were cold.

  Oh, he’d probably lie awake, all right, but there would be something else on his mind.

  He’d made a damn fool of himself, with all that talk about governesses and housekeepers and—he gulped at the recollection—taking a wife.

  Unburdening himself of the wood, Lincoln bent to open the stove door. Methodically, he took up the short-handled broom and bucket reserved for the purpose and swept out the ashes. When that was done, he crouched, crumpling news pa per and arranging kindling. In an hour or so, the cold room would be comfort ably warm.

  “Lincoln?”

  Startled, Lincoln turned his head, saw Juliana standing in the doorway, looking like a red headed angel hiding wings under a thread bare dress. His heart shinnied up into the back of his throat and thumped there.

  “Supper’s ready,” she said.

  Another wifely state ment. He liked the sound of it. Smiled as he shut the stove door and rose to his full height to adjust the damper on the metal chimney. “Thanks,” he said.

  She lingered on the thresh old, neither in nor out.

  Lincoln enjoyed thinking how scandalized his mother would have been if she’d known. Strait laced, she’d have had a hissy fit at the idea of the two of them standing within spitting distance of a bed—especially when that bed was her own. “Was there something else?”

  Juliana swallowed, looked away, visibly forced herself to meet his gaze again. “About the presents—the children would under stand. They aren’t used to a fuss being made over Christmas, anyway, and—”

  Lincoln smiled and went to his mother’s massive wardrobe, opened the door. Gestured for Juliana to come to his side.

  Reluctantly, she did so.

  He pointed to the top shelf. Games. Dolls. Books. A set of jacks. A fancy comb-and-brush set. Enough candy to rot the teeth of every child in the state of Montana, twice over.

  Seeing it all, Juliana widened her eyes.

  “There’s plenty,” he said. “My brother Micah lives a long way from here, in Colorado, so Ma never sees his boys. Wes never married, and as far as we know, he’s never fathered a child. That leaves Gracie, and Ma’s been bent on spoiling her from the first.”

  Juliana stepped back, watched as Lincoln closed the wardrobe doors again. “You don’t approve?”

  “Of what?”

  She went pink again. Fetchingly so. “Your mother, buying so many gifts for Gracie.”

  Lincoln considered, shook his head. “No,” he said. “I guess I don’t. But it doesn’t seem to be hurting her any— Gracie, I mean—and anyhow, my mother is a force to be reckoned with. Most of the time, it’s easier to just let her have her way.”

  Juliana moved closer to the stove, though whether the objective was to get warm or put some distance between the two of them, Lincoln didn’t know. What she said next side swiped him.

  “The Bureau of Indian Affairs is probably going to put me in jail.”

  Lincoln’s breath went shallow. “Why?”

  “I was supposed to send these children to Missoula for place ment in another school,” Juliana said. “Joseph and Theresa have a family, a home, people who want them. Daisy and Billy-Moses will either be swept under some rug or placed in an orphanage. I couldn’t bear it.”

  Lincoln went to her then, took a gentle hold on her shoulders. Tried to ignore the physical repercussions of touching her. “I’ll pay the train fare to send Joseph and Theresa home,” he said. “But how do you know the bureau won’t just drag them out again?”

  Gratitude registered in her face, and a degree of relief. “They won’t bother,” she said with sad confidence. “It would take too long and cost too much.”

  “The two little ones—they don’t have anyone?”

  “Just me,” Juliana said. “I shouldn’t have gotten attached to them—I was warned about that when I first started teaching—but I couldn’t help it.”

  A solution occurred to Lincoln—after all, he was a lawyer—but even in the face of Juliana’s despair, talking about it would be premature. His right hand rose of its own accord from her shoulder to her cheek. She did not resist his caress.

  “After Christmas,” he said, very quietly, “we’ll find a way to straighten this out. In the meantime, we’ve got two turkeys, a tree—” he indicated the wardrobe with a motion of his head “—and enough presents to do Saint Nicholas proud. For now, set the rest aside.”

  She gazed up at him. “You are a re mark able man, Lincoln Creed. A re mark able man with a re mark able daughter.”

  Embarrassed pleasure suffused Lincoln. “I think we’d better go and have supper.”

  Juliana smiled. “I think we’d better,” she agreed.

  SUPPER WAS A BOISTEROUS AFFAIR with so many people gathered around the table, their faces bathed in lantern light and shadow. And to Juliana’s surprise— she forced herself to try some, in order to set a good example for the children—the bear meat turned out to be delicious.

  Tom and Joseph did the dishes, while Gracie sat in a rocking chair nearby, feet dangling high above the floor, reading competently from Oliver Twist.

  Juliana, banking the fire in the cook stove for the night, stole a glance at Tom and noted that he was listening with close and solemn interest.

  Gracie finally read herself to sleep—Billy-Moses and Daisy had long since succumbed, and Lincoln had carried them to bed, one in each arm—and Tom seemed so letdown that Joseph took the book gently from the little girl’s hand and picked up where she’d left off.

  Juliana hoisted Gracie out of the chair and felt a warm ache in her heart when the child’s head came to rest on her shoulder.

  She met Lincoln in the corridor leading to the bedrooms. She thought he might take Gracie from her, but he stepped aside instead, his face softening, and watched in silence as she carried his daughter to her bed. A lamp glowed on the night stand, and Theresa, a pillow propped behind her, was reading one of Gracie’s many books.

  Juliana set Gracie on her feet, helped her out of her dress and into her night gown.

  Gracie, half awake and half asleep, murmured something and closed her eyes as Juliana tucked her in, kissed her forehead, and then Theresa’s.

  She took the book from Theresa’s hands with a smile, and extinguished the lamp, aware all the while of Lincoln standing in the doorway, watching.

  He stepped back again, to let her go by, and smiled when she shivered in the draft and hugged herself.

  “I want to show you something,” he said.

  Curious, she allowed him to lead her to the end of the hallway, where he opened a door, stepped inside and lit a lamp, causing soft light to spill out at Juliana’s feet. She hesitated, then followed, and drew in a breath when she saw a porcelain bathtub with a boiler above it, exuding the heat and scent of a wood fire.

  Juliana hadn’t enjoyed such a luxury since she’d left her grandmother’s mansion in Denver. There, she’d taken gas lights and abundant hot water for granted. Since then, she’d survived on sponge baths and the occasional furtive dunk in a washtub.

  “I mean to put in a commode and a sink come spring,” Lincoln said, sounding shy. “They say we’ll have electricity in Stillwater Springs in a few years.”

  Juliana was nearly overcome. She put a hand to her heart and rested one shoulder against the door frame.

  He moved past her, the
ir bodies brushing in the narrow doorway.

  Heat pulsed at Juliana’s core.

  Without another word, Lincoln Creed left her to turn the spigots, find a towel and fetch her night gown and wrapper from the toasty bedroom, where Daisy and Billy-Moses were already deeply asleep.

  The bath was a wonder. A gift. Juliana sank into it, closed her eyes and marveled. When the water finally cooled, she climbed out, dried herself off and donned her night clothes. A bar of light shone under the door to the room she supposed was Lincoln’s, and if it wouldn’t have been so brazen, she would have knocked lightly at that door, opened it far enough to say a quiet “Thank you.”

  Instead, she made her way back to the kitchen, walking softly.

  Joseph was still reading from Oliver Twist, seated at the table now, and Tom was still listening, smoking his pipe and gazing into space as though seeing the story unfold before his eyes.

  Without making a sound, Juliana re treated, smiling to herself.

  That night, she slept soundly.

  THE SNOW HAD STOPPED BY DAWN, but it reached Lincoln’s knees as he made his way toward the barn. Even the draft horses would have a hard time getting through the stuff, but the cattle had to be fed, and that meant hitching up the sled and loading it with hay.

  Lincoln thought of Wes, hoped his brother had made it safely home to the Diamond Buckle Saloon. There would be no finding out for a while, since the roads would be impassable.

  He thought about Juliana, and how pleased she’d been when he’d shown her the bathtub. His mother had insisted on installing the thing, saying she was tired of heating water on the stove and bathing in the kitchen, ever fearful that some man would wander in and catch her in “the al together.”

  At the time, he’d thought it was plain foolish, a waste of good money, but then Beth—destined to die in just a few short months—had pointed out that she’d had a bathtub of her very own back in Boston, and she missed it.

  Lincoln had ridden to town the same day and placed an order at Willand’s Mercantile. Weeks later, when the modern marvel arrived by train, shipped all the way from Denver in a crate big enough to house a grand piano, half the town had come out to the ranch to see it unloaded and set up in the smallest bedroom.