The Christmas Brides

by Linda Lael Miller

  When she opened her eyes the next time, all weariness gone, she found herself looking straight into Lincoln’s face. By the thinning darkness, she knew dawn would be breaking soon.

  “Since we just spent the night in the same bed,” Lincoln said reasonably, as though they’d been discussing the subject for hours and now he was putting his foot down, “I think we’d better get married.”

  Juliana stared at him, her eyes widening until they hurt. “Married?”

  He merely smiled.

  She swallowed. “But—surely—”

  The door creaked open. “Papa?” Gracie’s voice chimed. “Theresa can’t find Miss Mitchell and—”

  Juliana wanted to pull the covers up over her head, hide, but it was too late. Gracie, fleet as a fairy, was beside the bed now.

  “Oh,” she said, in a tone of merry innocence, “there you are!”

  “Gracie—” Lincoln began.

  But she cut him off by shouting, “Theresa! I found Miss Mitchell! She’s right here in Papa’s bed!” Juliana groaned.

  Lincoln laughed. “Miss Mitchell has something to tell you, Gracie,” he said.

  “What?” Gracie asked curiously.

  Juliana drew a very deep breath, let it out slowly. “Your father and I are getting married,” she said.

  “I’m going to have a mama?” Gracie enthused. “That’s even better than a dictionary!”

  “You go on back to bed now,” Lincoln told his daughter.

  She obeyed with surprising alacrity, fairly dancing through the shadows toward the door.

  “That,” Juliana told Lincoln, in a righteous whisper, “was a very under handed thing to do.”

  He sat up, clothes rumpled, swung his legs over the side of the bed, then leaned to pull his boots back on. He was humming under his breath, a sound like muted laughter, or creek water burbling along under a spring sky.

  “Soon as the snow melts off a little,” he said, as though she hadn’t spoken at all, “I’ll send for somebody to marry us. Probably be the justice of the peace, since the circuit preacher only comes through when the spirit moves him.”

  She could have pro tested, but for some reason, she didn’t.

  Lincoln added wood to the hearth fire and got it crack ling again. “You might as well go back to sleep,” he said. “Rest up a little.”

  Juliana lay there, the covers pulled up to her chin, and reviewed what had just happened. She’d accepted a proposal of marriage—of sorts. It was as unlike what she’d imagined, both as a girl and as a grown woman, as it could possibly have been.

  It was all wrong.

  It was wildly unromantic.

  Why, then, did she feel this peculiar, taut-string excite ment, this desire to sing?

  Sleeping proved impossible. The children were up; she could hear their voices and foot steps. Besides, she was rested.

  She must get dressed, do something with her hair, put on her cloak and go out to the cabin to look in on Rose-of-Sharon and the baby. Suppose the fire had gone out and they took a chill?

  Rising, she realized that yesterday’s calico, no doubt beyond salvaging anyhow, had disappeared. A pretty blue woolen frock with black piping lay across the foot of the bed—Lincoln’s doing, she reflected with a blush. A garment his wife must have owned, since it did not look matronly enough to belong to his mother, as the oversize night gown probably did.

  For a moment, she considered her remaining dresses, both frayed at the seams and oft-mended, both worn thread bare. Both inadequate for winter weather.

  She put on the lovely blue woolen, buttoned it up the front. Except at the bosom, where it was a little too tight, it fit remarkably well.

  The children, she soon discovered, had assembled in the kitchen. Seated around the table, they all stared at her as though she’d grown horns during the night. Lincoln was making breakfast—eggs and hotcakes—and Tom was just stepping through the back door, stomping snow off his boots.

  Juliana forgot her embarrassment. “Rose-of-Sharon?” she asked, her breath catching. “How is she? How is the baby?”

  Tom’s smile flashed, bright as sunshine on snow. “She’s just fine, and so is the little man,” he said. “I don’t reckon she’d mind some female company, though.”

  Juliana nodded, looking back at the children. “No lessons today,” she said. With the exception of Gracie, they looked de lighted. “And I expect you all to behave your selves.”

  They all nodded solemnly, from Joseph right on down to Billy-Moses and Daisy. Their eyes were huge, though whether that was due to the blue dress or the fact that she’d spent the night in Lincoln Creed’s bedroom and everyone in the house hold seemed to know it, she could not begin to say.

  She looked about for her cloak, realized that it had probably been hopelessly stained, like her dress.

  “Take my coat,” Lincoln said.

  Juliana hesitated, then lifted the long and surprisingly heavy black coat from its peg and put it on, nearly enveloped by it. With one hand, she held up the hem, so she wouldn’t trip or drag the cloth on the ground.

  She stepped outside into the first timorous light of day, and immediately noticed that the eaves were dripping. The snow was slushy beneath her feet.

  Would Lincoln ride to town and fetch back the justice of the peace, now that the weather was changing? A quivery, delicious dread overtook her as she hurried toward the Gainers’ cabin. Light glowed in the single window, and smoke curled from the stove pipe chimney.

  She could refuse to marry Lincoln, of course—even though she’d slept in his room, in his bed, nothing untoward had taken place. Why, he hadn’t even kissed her.

  She blushed furiously and walked faster, remembering the bath, trying to out distance the recollection. He’d un dressed her, seen her naked flesh, washed her. At the time, she had been too dazed by exhaustion and the delivery of Rose-of-Sharon’s baby to protest. The experience hadn’t seemed—well—real.

  Now, however, she felt the slick ness of the soap, the heat of the water, the tender touch of Lincoln’s hand, just as if it were all happening right then. She quickened her steps again, but the sensations kept up with her.

  It was a relief when Ben Gainer opened the cabin door to greet her, smiling from ear to ear.

  “Rose-of-Sharon’s been asking for you,” he said.

  Juliana hurried inside so the door could be closed against the soggy chill of the morning. A fire crackled in the stove, and the cabin was cozy, scented with fresh coffee and just-baked biscuits. Even the pitiful little Christmas tree had taken on a certain scruffy splendor. Rose-of-Sharon sat up in bed, pillows plumped behind her back, nursing her baby behind a draped blanket.

  The girl’s face shone with a light all her own, and Juliana felt a swift pang of pure envy.

  Ben took Lincoln’s coat from Juliana’s shoulders and told her to help herself to coffee and biscuits, explaining that Tom had done the baking.

  “I’ll be back as soon as we’ve fed those cattle,” he added, putting on his own coat and hat and leaving the cabin.

  Ravenous, Juliana poured coffee into a mug, took a steaming biscuit from the covered pan on top of the stove. She sat beside the bed, in last night’s chair, while she ate.

  When she’d finished nursing the baby, Rose-of-Sharon righted her night gown and lowered the quilt to show Juliana her son. He was wrapped in a pretty crocheted blanket.

  He seemed impossibly small, frighteningly delicate. His skin was very nearly translucent.

  “Do you want to hold him?” Rose-of-Sharon asked when Juliana had finished the biscuit and brushed fallen crumbs from the skirt of the blue dress.

  The only thing greater than Juliana’s trepidation was her desire to take that baby into her arms. Care fully, she did so, her heart beating a little faster.

  “My mama sent that blanket,” Rose-of-Sharon said. “All the way from Cheyenne. Ben says he’ll take me and the baby home to Wyoming for a visit come spring so we can show him off to the family.” />
  The baby gave an infinitesimal hiccup. He weighed no more than a feather. “Have you given him a name?”

  Rose-of-Sharon smiled. “I wanted to call him Benjamin, for his daddy, but Ben’ll have none of it. Never liked the name much. So we picked one out of the Good Book—Joshua.”

  “Joshua,” Juliana repeated softly. She pictured the walls of Jericho tumbling down. “That’s a fine, strong name.”

  “Joshua Thomas Gainer,” Rose-of-Sharon said.

  Juliana looked up.

  “Yes,” Rose-of-Sharon told her. “For Tom Dancingstar. Did Ben tell you I didn’t want him looking after me, because it ain’t proper for an Indian to tend a white woman?”

  Juliana didn’t speak. She did shake her head, though. Ben hadn’t told her, and she was glad.

  “If Joshua had been a girl,” Rose-of-Sharon went on, more softly now, holding out her arms for the baby again, “I’d have chosen your name.” She wrinkled her brow curiously, and Juliana, surrendering Joshua with some reluctance, thought of Angelique, wondered if she and Blue Johnston had gotten married. “What is your name, anyhow?”

  She laughed. “Juliana.”

  “That’s right pretty.”

  “Thank you. So is Rose-of-Sharon.”

  Rose-of-Sharon blushed a little. “I’m obliged to you,” she said. “The hardest thing about having a baby was being so far from Mama—or at least that’s what I thought until it started hurting.”

  Juliana smiled, tucked the blankets in more snugly around both Rose-of-Sharon and the baby. “You’ll forget the pain with time,” she said.

  “I ain’t yet,” Rose-of-Sharon said devoutly, and with a little shudder for emphasis. She yawned, and her eye lids drooped a little. “I’m plum worn down to a nubbin,” she added.

  “Get some rest,” Juliana urged gently.

  “What if I roll over on Joshua while I’m sleeping?” Rose-of-Sharon fretted. “He’s such a little thing.”

  “I’ll make sure you don’t,” Juliana promised. There was no cradle, but she spotted a small chest of drawers in a corner of the cabin. Removing one drawer, she lined it with a folded quilt, set it next to the bed where Rose-of-Sharon could see and reach, and care fully placed the baby inside.

  With no more quilts or blankets on hand, Juliana used several of Ben’s heavy flannel shirts to cover little Joshua.

  Satisfied that her baby was safe, Rose-of-Sharon slept.

  Juliana sat quietly through the morning, her mood introspective.

  At half past one that afternoon, the men returned, chilled and red-faced from the brisk wind, and Ben took over the care of his wife and son.

  Juliana wore Lincoln’s coat, and as they stood in front of the cabin door, he care fully did up the buttons, his gloved hands, smelling of hay, lingering on the collar, close against her face.

  “Tom will ride to town and ask after the justice of the peace,” he said, “if you’re agreeable to that.”

  Juliana gazed up at him. She had not had time to fall in love with this man—he certainly hadn’t swept her off her feet, not in the romantic sense, anyway—but she respected him. She liked him.

  Was that enough?

  It seemed that someone else spoke up in her place. “I’m agreeable,” she said.

  His smile was so sudden, so dazzling, that it nearly knocked her back on her heels. “Good,” he said huskily. “That’s good.”

  A cloud crossed an inner sun. “This—this dress—”

  “Beth’s mother sent crates full of them, every so often,” he told her, his eyes gentle, perceptive. “She never got around to wearing it.”

  Juliana absorbed that, nodded.

  Lincoln took her hand. “Let’s get that Christmas tree set up,” he said with a laugh, “before Gracie pesters me into an early grave.”

  Minutes later, while Juliana and the children took boxes of delicate ornaments from the shelves of a small storage room off the parlor, Lincoln went to the woodshed to get the tree, Joseph right on his heels.

  It was so big that it took both of them to wrestle it through the front door, its branches exuding the piney scent Juliana had always associated with Christmas.

  Billy-Moses and Daisy stared at the tree in wonder, huddled so close together that their shoulders touched, and holding hands. Juliana remembered Mr. Philbert, and knew in a flash of certainty that he would come for them one day soon.

  Tears filled her eyes.

  She would be Mrs. Lincoln Creed by then, most likely, and with a husband to take her part, it wasn’t likely she’d be arrested. Still, when Mr. Philbert took Daisy and Billy-Moses away, it would be as if he’d torn out her heart and dragged it, bruised and bouncing, down the road behind his departing buggy.

  “Juliana?”

  She looked up, surprised to see Lincoln standing directly in front of her.

  He cupped her elbows in the palms of his hands, kissed her forehead. “Let them have Christmas,” he said.

  Either he was extremely perceptive, or he’d seen the worry in her face.

  She nodded. Dashed at her eyes with the back of one hand.

  It took all afternoon to festoon that Christmas tree, and what a magnificent sight it was, bedecked in ribbon garlands, delicate blown-glass ornaments of all shapes and colors, draped with shimmering strands of tinsel. Even Juliana, who had grown up in a Denver mansion with an even grander tree erected in her grandmother’s library every December, was awestruck.

  Tom appeared at dusk, while Lincoln was doing the chores in the barn. He carried a large white package under one arm.

  Juliana, peeling potatoes and trying to think what else to prepare for supper, couldn’t help looking past him to see if he’d brought the justice of the peace along.

  She was both relieved and disappointed to see that he was alone.

  He smiled, as though he’d read her thoughts again, and set the parcel on the counter. “Chickens,” he said. “All cut up and ready to fry.”

  Mildly embarrassed, Juliana reported that she’d looked in on Rose-of-Sharon and little Joshua earlier, and they were doing well.

  Moving to the sink to wash his hands, Tom nodded. Although, since his back was turned to her, and Juliana couldn’t be sure, she thought he was smiling to him self.

  He brought lard and a big skillet from the pantry, set the pan to warming on the stove, then rolled the chicken parts in a bowl of flour. They worked in companionable silence, Juliana finishing up the potatoes and putting them on to boil.

  The savory sizzle of frying chicken soon brought the children in from the front room, where they’d been admiring the Christmas tree.

  “We’ll need an extra place set at the table,” Tom commented mildly, after Theresa had counted out plates and silverware for everyone. His dark eyes twinkled as Juliana turned to him. “For the circuit preacher. He’s out in the barn with Lincoln.”

  Juliana nearly gasped aloud, and before she could think of a response, the back door opened and Lincoln came in, closely followed by a very large white-haired man in austere black clothes and a clerical collar.

  The circuit preacher’s eyes were a pale, merry blue, in startling contrast to his sober garments, and before Lincoln could make an introduction, he lumbered over to Juliana like a great, good-natured bear, one hand stuck out in greeting.

  “This must be the bride!” he boomed.

  Juliana’s face flamed. She fidgeted, unable to meet Lincoln’s gaze, and shook the reverend’s hand.

  Gracie piped up. “This morning when I went into Papa’s room—”

  Theresa put one palm over the child’s mouth just in time.

  The reverend turned to look at Tom, drawing in an appreciative breath. “Is that fried chicken I smell?”

  Tom laughed, nodded.

  “And me just in time for supper!” the reverend roared.

  Just then, Daisy crept up beside the big man and tugged at the sleeve of his coat. “Are you Saint Nicholas?” she asked, almost breath less with her own dari
ng.

  The reverend bellowed out a great guffaw at that. Daisy started, but didn’t retreat.

  “Why, bless your heart, child,” the preacher thundered, “nobody’s ever mistaken this ole Bible-pounder for a saint!”

  “That’s Reverend Dettly, silly goose,” Gracie informed Daisy solicitously. “Saint Nicholas always wears red.”

  “You’ll spend the night, won’t you, Reverend?” Lincoln asked, taking the preacher’s coat. “It’s dark out there, and mighty cold, even with the thaw.”

  “I reckon I’ll burrow into a hay pile out in your barn, all right,” Reverend Dettly said. “A belly full of ole Tom’s chicken ought to keep me plenty warm.”

  “Surely we can offer you a bed,” Juliana said shyly.

  Reverend Dettly smiled down at her. “I won’t be putting anybody out of their beds,” he said. “If a stable was good enough for our Lord, it’s sure as all get-out good enough for me.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  TOM TOOK PLATES OUT TO THE CABIN for Ben and Rose-of-Sharon as soon as supper was ready. When he returned, everyone was already seated around the table, Reverend Dettly waiting patiently to offer up the blessing.

  Juliana sat at Lincoln’s right side, stomach jittering with fearful anticipation and hunger. Soon, she would be his wife. Mrs. Lincoln Creed. Would he expect her to share his bed that night, or would he give her time to get used to being married?

  Did she want time to get used to it?

  The reverend cleared his throat once Tom had joined them, held out his great pawlike hands and closed his eyes to deliver the longest and most exuberant blessing Juliana had ever heard. Behind closed eyelids, her head dutifully bowed, she imagined the gravy congealing, the mountainous piles of fried chicken going cold, and still the preacher went on, thanking God for everything he could think of, from seeds germinating in the earth under their blanket of snow, to the cattle on a thousand hills. When someone’s stomach rumbled loudly and at length, Dettly laughed and shouted a joyful “Amen!”

  “Thank God,” Lincoln agreed.

  Juliana elbowed him.

  During that meal, it seemed there were two Julianas—one seated next to Lincoln at the table, laughing and talking and enjoying the savory food, and one standing back a ways at the edge of the lantern light, wringing her hands and fretting.