A Western Christmas Homecoming: Christmas Day Wedding Bells ; Snowbound in Big Springs ; Christmas with the Outlaw

by Lynna Banning

  A good splattering of anger hit Welles. At both Sophie’s misfortunes and the sorry state of his boots. They were soaked clear through. He sat down in the rocking chair to pull them on anyway. “Wasn’t anyone willing to help her make the payments?”

  “No use,” Gramps said from the dining room. “There wasn’t anything she could have done with the building.”

  Welles was growing more frustrated by the minute. From several things. The way the town had treated Sophie, the way his boots appeared to have shrunk and thinking about Sophie trudging through the blizzard. “There had to have been something.”

  Gramps walked into the parlor. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  The boot finally slipped on. Cold and wet, it made his foot hurt worse. Still, he grabbed the other one. He didn’t have a choice. “It’s bad out there. I should never have let Sophie go alone.”

  “She’s made of tough stuff,” Gramps said. “Has had to be. You can’t go back out there. Less than ten minutes ago you were froze stiff.”

  “Sophie will be, too, if I don’t get out there.” Welles cursed as the other boot finally slipped on. He’d never known feet could hurt so bad. Glancing at the quilt that was leaving a puddle on the floor, he asked, “Do you have a coat I can borrow?”

  Gramps mumbled something about bullheaded people before saying, “Yes. I have boots, too. Take those good-for-nothing ones off. I got some dry socks, too.” Never one to mince words, Gramps added, “Come into the bedroom. Can’t have you stripping naked in the parlor.”

  Welles still had some common sense and quickly pulled the boots off, as well as the wet socks. Dry clothes would take him a lot farther in the storm than wet ones. Leaving his things by the woodstove, he quickly crossed the parlor to the bedroom Gramps had entered. The floor was cold, but he reminded himself to be thankful that Gramps still used the downstairs room. While he’d lived here, he’d had the entire upstairs to himself. Three bedrooms. Not that he’d used the other two overly much. Mainly only when it had been too long between washing the sheets on his bed. He’d soon discovered the downside to that. He’d ended up washing three sets of sheets instead of one.

  Gramps was tossing clothes onto the bed, including a set of long johns that were sure to be too short, but warm nonetheless.

  Welles started taking off his once new suit while his grandfather continued pulling things out of his dresser drawers. He held the shivers at bay while draping his wet things over the chair and then putting on the ones on the bed. They were too short, but dry, which instantly made him warmer.

  His mind was still on Sophie. “Why’d she move in with you?”

  “Seemed the logical choice,” Gramps answered. “She was already working at the livery.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I needed the help.”

  Having sat down to put on the socks, Welles glanced up. He couldn’t say there was anger in his grandfather’s eyes, but there was disappointment. A splattering of sadness washed over Welles. “Gramps, I—”

  “Said it all in your letters.” His grandfather walked out of the room.

  Welles tugged on the other sock and grabbed both boots off the floor while following his grandfather back into the parlor. His letters hadn’t said anything. They’d held money and short notes stating he hoped all was going well. Which, evidently, they hadn’t been. “What happened to your leg?” He’d noticed the limp Gramps walked with and the use of the cane, but had held back asking.

  “Fell out of the loft. Old bones don’t heal as well as young ones.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Didn’t know where you were.” Gramps shrugged. “Nothing you could have done anyway.”

  Welles was about to say he could have come home, would have, when a knock sounded and the front door opened at the same time.

  A man, tall and snow-covered, walked in and shut the door with a heavy thud.

  Instantly concerned, Welles asked, “Where’s Sophie?”

  “You must be Welles,” the man said, turning back around. “I’ve heard about you. I’m Wade Kaplan, but most folks just call me Sheriff. Sophie’s hitching up a team to the sleigh. Tell me where the train is.”

  * * *

  “Welles hadn’t even let Chester know he was coming home?” Jud Paxton asked while helping her put the harnesses on the team of big buckskin horses.

  “No.” Sophie’s nerves were still strung too tight for conversation, and even if they weren’t, she didn’t have any answers. Not as to why Welles decided to show up in the middle of a blizzard. That was what Jud wanted to know. He and Welles had been friends. Welles had been friends with everyone, nice to everyone. Which is exactly why she shouldn’t hold much credence in the fact he’d been nice to her when she used to sneak out of the saloon and spend her afternoons with the horses at the livery. She’d been just a kid looking for a place to belong, and he’d taken pity on her.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  Jud nodded. “I’ll get the door so you can lead them out.”

  Hoping Sawyer Williams and J. T. Jones had been able to find the sleigh and dig it out, Sophie hunched her chin into her scarf as she led the horses into the blustery wind.

  She wasn’t sure what she recognized first, Chester’s coat, or the fact that Chester wasn’t wearing it. “You can’t go back out in this.”

  “I have to,” Welles shouted over the whistling wind while grabbing the reins in her hand. “There are people who are counting on me coming back.”

  “The sheriff has volunteers to help him,” she said, not releasing the reins.

  “And I appreciate each one of them,” Welles said. “You get inside. You have to be frozen by now.”

  “Not as frozen as you,” she retorted.

  “We’re all going to be frozen by the time you two stop arguing,” Jud said, tugging the reins hard. “Good seeing you, Welles.”

  “Jud? Is that you?” Welles asked.

  “Yup, under all these clothes is the one and only Jud Paxton.”

  They were yelling to be heard, but she could still hear the smiles in their voices, the happiness at seeing each other. Not paying close enough attention, Sophie had to jump back as the two started leading the horses forward. Glad she’d kept her footing, she started following alongside the team.

  “Get in the house, Sophie,” Welles shouted.

  “I’ll make sure the team is hitched,” she replied.

  “I know how to hitch horses to a sleigh,” Welles said. “And so does Jud. Go on! Get in the house!”

  There was nothing for her to dispute. The sleigh had been dug out, he and Jud were already hitching the horses to it and J.T. had already shut the livery stable door. For some reason she felt as if she needed to have the last word. “Don’t work those horses too hard in this cold!”

  “We won’t!” Welles shouted above the wind that seemed as if it was blowing even harder now than before. “Get inside!”

  “I’m going,” she muttered. There was nothing for her to do out here. With Welles here, there wouldn’t be anything for her to do at the livery, period. Fighting the still-accumulating snow with every step as much as she was fighting to keep her mind from going on its own journey, she made it to the house, and was on the porch when the jingle of harnesses filtered through the wind. Her first instinct was to turn around, to watch the sleigh full of men leave, but she wouldn’t be able to see anything, so she stomped as much snow off her boots as possible and then reached for the doorknob.

  “Get in here, girl,” Chester said, pulling the door open as she turned the knob. “You have to be as frozen as Welles was.”

  She gave her boots one last stomp and then stepped inside the house. “I wasn’t outside that long.”

  “It doesn’t take long,” Chester insisted. “I shouldn’t have let you go out there.”

  Removi
ng her scarf, she tossed it over the back of a nearby chair. “You should have told Welles that. He’s the one who shouldn’t be out there again.” Her mittens landed on the chair next. She didn’t want to be this worried about Welles, but couldn’t help it, either. “There’s no way he could have warmed up that quickly. He’ll get cold twice as fast this time.”

  “I told him that, but he insisted there are people waiting on him,” Chester said.

  “Jud, J.T. and Sawyer volunteered to go with Sheriff Kaplan. They didn’t need Welles.” She draped her coat over the back of the chair and then pushed aside her mittens to sit down and take off her boots. “All they have to do is follow the train tracks.”

  “Welles told Kaplan there are half a dozen people on the train,” Chester said. “Not counting the train workers.”

  “That’s what Frank guessed.”

  “You went to the depot?”

  She stood to gather up her wet clothes. “No, Frank was at the saloon.”

  “The saloon?”

  Carrying everything into the kitchen, she said, “Yes. It was closer than the sheriff’s office. Several men had gathered there to wait out the storm. Even Jud.”

  “Jud?” Chester, close on her heels, sounded stunned.

  “Yes, Jud. No one was looking to get a gun repaired today.”

  “Does Suzanne know?”

  To the surprise of many, Jud and Suzanne had been married three years ago, and she’d turned Jud, who many thought was on his way to becoming a gunslinger, if he hadn’t already been one, into a respectable citizen. “Frank said he’d stop by and tell her.” Telling Chester everything would slow down his questions, so she continued, “Frank had arrived at the saloon right before I did, looking for the sheriff. He’d tried to send a wire to Kansas, to find out if the train had left on time or was held up by a storm there.” Frank Green had been the depot agent since the first train had rolled into the Big Springs depot over a dozen years before. “The lines must have blown down because he couldn’t get through, and when the train was well over two hours late, he figured something had happened.”

  “Welles said a tree fell over the tracks, and even if they could have gotten it moved, the train wouldn’t have been able to take off again because they were down in the gulley, had just crossed the Snake River Bridge.”

  Sophie nodded, even though she didn’t know the gulley or the bridge. She’d never been that far west of town. “Frank said he’d let Wes Merlin know to expect guests at the hotel, too.” With her wet garments hanging to dry, Sophie went to the stove to add a log to the fire. “And that he’d get word to Doc Russell in case anyone needs him.”

  “That woman and baby might. Especially the baby,” Chester said.

  Something flickered inside Sophie. Ignoring it, she crossed the room to clear the lunch dishes off the table. “What woman and baby?”

  “The one Welles was mumbling about when he first got here.” Chester frowned. “I sure hope he didn’t go and have a baby with that woman he ran off with. I was hoping he was done with her.”

  The dishes rattled in Sophie’s hands. She set them down and balled her hands into fists to stop the trembling. Although Chester spoke of Welles often, that was the first time he’d mentioned Colleen. Mentioned knowing that Welles had indeed run off with her rather than going to buy horses. Unable to think of a reply, unable to think about the possibility of Welles still being with Colleen, Sophie spun around and headed for the stairs leading to the second floor.

  “Where you going?”

  Swallowing against the burning in her throat, she said, “To change.”

  There was no reason for her to care if Welles had married Colleen or not. The fact he was back was enough to change her life. Make her an orphan again. It wasn’t as if Chester had adopted her, but after living with him for over four years, she’d come to look at him as family. The one thing she’d always wanted. Now she’d lose the only one she had all over again.

  In her room she closed the door and leaned back against it. After several deep breaths, she admitted there was more to it than that.

  The hope of someday marrying Welles, of having a family with him, had been her dream as a little girl. One she’d never been able to let go of completely. The first time she’d seen him working with one of the horses in the livery corral, she’d fallen in love. With him and horses.

  She’d told herself that had changed when she’d heard about him running off with Colleen and stealing all of Chester’s money. Now she had to prove it. And make sure it didn’t happen again. The stealing and loving.

  Chapter Three

  This trip to and from the train went a lot faster than his first one. The hay on the sleigh made it more comfortable and warmer, too. He and Jud used some of the time traveling to the train to brush the snow off the hay and stir the dry stalks to the top. They’d also spent time catching up. Jud was married. Welles couldn’t completely wrap his thoughts around that, partially because his mind was on Sophie, as it had been since he’d discovered her in the house. He couldn’t help but wonder why she wasn’t married. She was so pretty with those unique light blue eyes. He’d never seen another pair like them, and admitted they were even more striking than he remembered. She’d grown up, too.

  He couldn’t get his mind around the fact she lived with Gramps, either. Or that the town had forsaken Sophie the way they had. If not for Lola, and her generous donations, the school building, which also doubled as the church, would never have been built. Had everyone forgotten that? Other questions filled his mind all the way to the train and again on the way back.

  The passengers and train workers had been glad to see them, and he was glad they were all still fine, and now bundled beneath the blankets he’d taken from his grandfather’s house. The blizzard hadn’t let up, and Welles was concerned about the horses. They were working up a sweat pulling the heavy load through the snow that was up to their knees. The pair of buckskins were a good-looking team of workhorses, not saddle ones, and he wondered where his grandfather had acquired them. Another question.

  “Not much farther now!” the sheriff shouted.

  “Go straight to the hotel,” Welles shouted in return. “Get these folks inside.” The mother had her baby tucked beneath the covers with her, but he was still worried about the little guy. Before the storm had hit, the baby had been giggling and cooing at anyone who’d looked his way. They, that mother and baby, were the reason he’d walked through the blizzard to get help. The other four passengers were men, and could have survived being out in the cold. For a time. The way this storm was still raging, they’d all be lucky to make it back to town.

  Any amount of sun that had been filtering through the clouds and snow faded fast, and by the time they rolled into town, the darkness made seeing even more difficult. As the horses drew up next to the hotel, Welles jumped over the side of the wagon and reached up to take the swaddled baby while Jud helped the woman down.

  “Thank you,” she said breathlessly. “Thank you for coming back for us.”

  Welles handed her the baby. “Get inside the hotel. The doc should be there. Have him check you for frostbite.”

  “I will. Thank you again,” she said, already hurrying toward the door being held open.

  “I’ll help you get the horses to the stable,” Jud said.

  The wind still had them all shouting at each other. “No. You get home to your wife. I’ll see you when this storm blows over!” Welles climbed into the driver’s seat and released the brake, giving the horses the freedom to move forward on their own. They’d find the stables by intuition faster than he would in this darkness.

  His intuition was good, too, and about the same moment he had the urge to pull back on the reins, a door opened and the inside of the livery appeared. So did Sophie.

  “Pull all the way in,” she shouted. “There’s room for the sleigh.”

&n
bsp; There was room; the barn was big, and neat and clean. That wasn’t what he was concerned about. “What are you doing out here?” His shout echoed off the walls and high ceiling because he let it out about the same time she shut the door. Setting the brake, he jumped down. “And what are you wearing?”

  “Your old clothes,” she said while looking into the sleigh bed.

  They were his clothes, and he was jealous of them. With her cheeks all rosy red, her long hair sticking out from beneath the brim of the hat, and those britches hugging her hips and legs, she was more becoming than any woman he’d ever seen.

  “Where are the passengers?”

  Stepping over to unhitch the harness yoke, he answered, “At the hotel.”

  A frown formed and made tiny wrinkles between her dark brows. “All of them? Eve—even the woman and baby?”

  “Yes, the doctor is there to check everyone for frostbite.”

  “Oh.”

  She set into unharnessing the team, and his intuition kicked in again, sensing something he could only describe as sadness or disappointment coming from her. Assuming it could only be because of the passengers, he said, “There wasn’t room for all of them at the house. They’ll be more comfortable at the hotel.”

  Her gaze met his briefly as she lugged the heavy collar off one horse. He couldn’t decipher if there was doubt in her eyes or confusion. She’d turned away too fast. He couldn’t figure why she’d want a house full of strangers, either. That wasn’t the Sophie he knew. She hadn’t liked strangers. Leastwise not all of the ones that kept the bat doors of the saloon swinging while she’d lived there.

  That had been five years ago, and people change. He had during that time.

  He pulled the collar off the other horse, recalling how vigilant Lola George had been about those strangers getting anywhere near her daughter. Sophie’s bedroom had been on the far side of the room behind the bar, and both doors had been guarded. The one leading into the back room always had someone stationed near it, and the one leading into Sophie’s room had an iron door with a lock that rivaled the ones at the jail.