Western Christmas Brides

by Lauri Robinson

  The horse shook his head, snorted. “You’re right, he’d be miserable in their fancy home, just like I was. Let’s pretend you are mine. You are ever so much more impressive than your stall neighbor.”

  In the end, pretending was as useful as a pebble in one’s shoe so Livy crossed the barn to her laundry pots. She dumped lye soap in one, followed by the clothes that Mildred Banks had left beside her back door. She stirred them with a large wooden paddle.

  The task was not as tedious as usual. For once she did not feel like she was going to fall asleep, tumble into the pot and drown, or boil.

  Perhaps because there was a man living in her house. Someone to talk to. Someone to cook for. If something happened—an accident or if Sam fell ill, there was another adult to turn to.

  Somehow she felt—

  “Livy?”

  Not so alone.

  Funny how she hadn’t noticed she’d even felt alone until Kit came—until he’d spoken her name and looked into her eyes.

  “What are you doing out here so late?” she asked.

  “That’s what I was going to ask you.”

  “I wash clothes for the folks in town.” She shrugged. “It’s safer to do it when Sam’s asleep.”

  He took the paddle from her hand then indicated that she should sit on a nearby stool.

  “I didn’t hire you to do laundry, Kit.”

  “Looking around, I wonder what you did hire me for.” He arched his brows—and those eyes... Oh, my. “The only livestock I see are chickens and your horse.”

  “Yes, for what he’s worth.” She snatched the paddle from him and resumed stirring the clothes. “Thank you, Kit, but this is my job. And there is plenty of work for you to do, trust me.”

  “Well, ma’am, I didn’t see any cattle to wrangle on the way in from town.”

  “No, you wouldn’t. This has never been a cattle ranch. My father raised and sold horses, but when he passed I had to let what was left of the stock go.”

  “I reckon you hired me to get the ranch going again.”

  “I’d like to carry on my father’s business someday, but I hired you for a different reason.”

  “Sure do hope I’m qualified to do whatever it is.” His eyelids dipped ever so slightly. The playful expression he had worn coming into the barn dimmed.

  “If anything you are more than qualified.” She lifted a paddle of dripping clothes from the soapy pot and placed them in the rinse pot. “In reading our correspondence, I was impressed with all you are handy at.”

  He stared at the water simmering in the pot, nodding his head without speaking.

  “What I need you for—” Without warning an image of him touching her jaw, lifting her face and lowering his mouth to hers—Well. She shook her head to dispel the vision. “The work required of you will be to fix the place up. I’m sure you’ve noticed how it’s fallen into disrepair.”

  “I noticed a fence in need of mending.” He glanced up, his happy expression restored.

  “There’s that, and painting, lots of painting. What I need is for you to make my humble home look elegant.”

  She added more clothes to the rinse water.

  “And I need it done by the New Year.”

  * * *

  The doggone New Year!

  He’d done a bit of artistic painting. It wasn’t too hard to make a backdrop for a scene seem elegant. But a whole house? By the New Year?

  He sure did hope his instruction book had something to say about that. It wasn’t like he could go to the town library and find one that did. In a place this size, it would take all of an hour before he was found out as a fraud. Sure couldn’t afford for that to happen.

  “I wouldn’t mind having a bit more time than that, Livy.” Two weeks’ time wasn’t nearly enough to make a home for Emmie. “Even if I am good at what I do.”

  Or at least acting like he was good at it. But a whole house? There were broken shutters, the floor was splintered in spots and a stone was missing from the fireplace. All the fences needed work.

  “Two weeks won’t be long enough—and there’s Christmas coming. I need to make it special for Emmie. My niece has never had a gift from Old Saint Nick, if you can believe it.”

  Livy dropped the paddle of clothes she was lifting from the pot back into the rinse water.

  “That’s just not right.” She pressed her hips with curled fists, frowning at the black pot. “Children need Christmas. Well, we all do but—” She huffed out a sigh. “Between us, we’ll make up for what she has lost. It’s a promise from me to you.”

  “I do thank you.” Even with her hands curled up, he could see how chafed they were. It was easy to see why. She was supporting herself and her brother by doing laundry. While other young women would be tucked into bed with sweet dreams of Prince Charming, Livy was scrubbing her youth away.

  It troubled him to think she was going to pay his wages by working into the wee hours of the night.

  Kit whisked the paddle from her hands again.

  “Please, Kit. I can do this. You’ll have enough to do getting this place in order.”

  “You help me with Christmas, I’ll help you with washing.”

  Besides, he knew a bit about getting clothes clean. When the troupe washerwoman was near her time and after she gave birth to her twins, he’d helped with the chores. It was a relief to be able to do something that he didn’t learn about in a book.

  “Sit down while I wring them then hang these out to dry,” he ordered.

  With a nod, she settled onto a bale of hay. From the corner of his eye he saw her arch her back, heard her sigh of relief.

  “I’ll get this place in shape,” he said. “But I’ll need more time.”

  Time to figure out how to paint and such things. At least, those two weeks gave him time to figure out how to rebuild her ranch.

  “Unfortunately, I don’t have more time to give you. But I do aim to help out.”

  Finished with hanging the clothes on the rope that stretched from the north wall then twenty feet to a horse stall, he sat down beside her on the hay bale.

  “I have a confession to make, Kit. I, well—I suppose you thought I hired you to ramrod my ranch. It’s what I led you to believe, and I’m sorry for it. But you seemed to know so much about so many things. I reckon I made your duties seem more adventurous than they are.” She gazed up at him, lamplight casting her face in an angelic glow. Water tapped an erratic rhythm onto the hay under the clothesline. “Please forgive me.”

  He’d like to meet the man who could not forgive a woman of such uncommon loveliness.

  Especially when that man’s deception was a far worse one.

  “I don’t see there’s anything needing forgiveness. I’ll fix up the house, then fix up the ranch.”

  “No, I’m sorry. That’s not exactly what I meant.” She breathed in hard. Let it out in a whoosh. “I can only hire you for the two weeks. I’m sorry I led you to believe otherwise. If you feel the need to decline my offer of employment, I understand.”

  He felt gut-punched, and it was an effort to breathe. He felt like he’d lost track of his lines midscene. If it wasn’t for the fact that he was also deceiving her, he’d be blisteringly angry.

  And even if he wanted to express his frustration, Livy was looking at him with eyes as brown and sweet as any he had ever seen.

  Declining this position was not possible. Livy had been the only one to respond to his advertisement. He had no other place to go.

  “I don’t decline, Livy.” But he would try to find a way to become so valuable to her that she would keep him on. Emmie needed a home and he would do whatever he had to make it happen. If it meant working hours on end for nothing, he would do it. “I accept. But I’ll need more time for all this work.”


  “Like I said, I don’t have more time. But between the two of us I think we can get it done.”

  He must have been frowning because she sighed.

  “My cousin is coming to visit soon and I don’t want her to see the place like it is.”

  “It needs some work, I’ll admit. But your home is warm and welcoming.”

  “You feel welcome here?” For some reason her eyes misted over even though she smiled. “I’m glad. Ma and Pa always made folks feel welcome in our house—there wasn’t a soul down on their luck that they didn’t make welcome. Everyone in town knew they could count on Ma and Pa.”

  Her sweet yet vulnerable expression did something to him. His heart went soft, but down below he went uncomfortably stiff. It was all he could do to not cup that pretty face and kiss her mouth, especially when it trembled ever so slightly at one corner.

  Cody Billings would have stolen a kiss.

  The trouble was, Cody would forget the intimacy by scene four. Kit was sure he never would.

  With some effort, he put Cody Billings back on the script page where he belonged.

  “I’m sure your cousin will be comfortable in your home.” Hell if she needed him here at all, really.

  “Only if you help me.” She reached across the hay bale and squeezed his hand.

  Her small palm was more calloused than his was. This was not acceptable. A woman like her ought to be cherished, protected from tasks that would redden her hands. A man worthy of her would not have smooth skin and manicured fingernails like he had.

  “I won’t have you paying my wages by washing laundry in the middle of the night.”

  “If I don’t pay you, I will pay someone else. I’ve got to have the ranch looking impressive—top hat, for my cousin’s visit.”

  In two damn weeks?

  “Won’t she be satisfied with comfortable?”

  “Not Edwina. She grew up with the very best of everything. Her goal in life is to impress folks. Even a simple country girl doesn’t want to be found lacking.”

  “There’s nothing simple about you, Livy. You’re not lacking, either.”

  “Well...” She took a long slow breath that lifted her chest in an appealing way. She didn’t notice him notice because she had looked away to stare at a blade of hay sticking out of the corner of the bale. She plucked it out and rolled it between her fingers. “But I won’t be who Edwina is expecting. Over the years my mother and I led her to believe that I’m well-to-do in this town—someone of importance and engaged to a wealthy banker’s son. Now Edwina is coming and I’m going to have to play the part.”

  Playing parts was something he knew about, but—“Wouldn’t it be simpler to let her know who you really are? You’ve nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “It’s not that I’m ashamed, Kit. My parents gave me a good life and I wouldn’t trade it for all my cousin’s fine manners and money. It’s Sam I’m worried about. I know Edwina. She’ll want to take him, raise him with her own boy. In her mind, she’ll see it as her duty to give him advantages I cannot.”

  Livy flicked the tattered blade of straw away, covered her face with her hands and shook her head. After a moment she peeped at him between spread fingers.

  “You probably think I’m being selfish to want to keep him with me.”

  “I don’t. Everyone knows that love is the most important thing of all.”

  All of a sudden she dropped her hands away from her face, nodded her head vigorously.

  “That’s what I say!” She clutched his hand again, this time with both of hers. “Exactly what I say! Thank you for staying on, helping me make my cousin believe what I’ve told her. She’ll only be here for a few days.”

  “I’m your hired man, Livy—here for as long as you need me.” Longer if he could find a way to make it happen. Hell—not if, when. She wanted the ranch restored and he wanted a home for his niece. There had to be a way of making that happen. “But I am going to help with the washing. I won’t watch you wear yourself down when I’m here to lend a hand.”

  “I’ve been doing it by myself for a year, but if that’s your condition, I accept, gratefully.”

  They ought to go back to the house. The laundry was drying fine and the children needed checking on. Still, neither of them made a move to get up from the hay bale.

  For the life of him, all he wanted to do was to sit and gaze into her eyes. Even at this time of night, after caring for her young brother all day, after washing clothes into the wee hours of the night, they simmered, as warm and appealing as brown sugar melted in butter.

  Since her hands were still gripping his, expressing what he guessed to be gratitude for him staying on, he lifted them, and kissed each reddened palm.

  Something was definitely going on here—a yearning, a tenderness. Cody Billings never felt his damned heart tumble when he kissed a woman’s hand.

  Chapter Four

  Unless Kit missed his guess, every resident of Sweet Bank was gathered in the bake shop to hear Livy read from St. Nicholas Magazine.

  With so many children, parents and grandparents listening to Mary Dodge’s story promoting country, home and Christmas, he found it necessary to stand outside and listen through the half-open doorway.

  Heat from inside rushed out to warm his face. Too bad the chill of the icy evening made his backside feel frostbit.

  Being able to watch what was going on inside was worth the price, he reckoned. A frozen bum for the pleasure of seeing Emmie sitting shoulder to shoulder with Sam, her eyes bright with the anticipation of Santa’s visit? Yep, he’d pay it ten times over. He swore he felt the spirit of Christmas thrumming through his own veins.

  It didn’t matter that he was a man grown. There was something about picturing Santa placing gifts in stockings, piling them three deep around the tree, that made a fellow believe in magic.

  All of a sudden Livy glanced up from the page she was reading, saw him in the doorway and smiled.

  Now, that was a Christmas gift in itself. Why was it, he had to wonder, that the smile of a woman he had only known for a few days made him sizzle—not only his body, but his heart, too?

  They had a common cause—a goal to protect Sam and keep Livy from being embarrassed in front of her cousin. Not that he thought she had a single thing to be embarrassed about.

  No, there was something else drawing him to her. He felt it every time she gave him the smile she was giving him right now. Blamed if he didn’t hear Christmas music in his mind’s ear.

  Wait—he actually did hear something. It wasn’t music, though. From somewhere behind him, maybe under the boardwalk, he heard whining. It was faint but he swore—

  “Mr. James!”

  Kit turned away from the door to see a figure crossing the street through the darkness. He carried a box under one arm.

  “Evening, Mr. Runne,” he said to the liveryman. “Looks like we’re the only ones not inside listening to the story.”

  “Oh, well, I wouldn’t be. The missus is near her time. Wouldn’t do to be away for long.”

  “Congratulations. Will it be a Christmas child?”

  “We’re hoping so.” Hank Runne’s broad grin was visible even under his bulky mustache. “Say, my wife asked me to give this to Livy. It’s the reason I came out. Can you deliver it to her for me?” Hank shoved the fair-sized box at him. “It’s my Mary’s fanciest gown. She’s loaning it to Livy to wear when her rich cousin gets here. Oh, and under it is a small bit of laundry that needs washing.”

  “That’s kind of her.” The whole town must know about Edwina’s visit.

  “We’re all doing our part to protect Sam. Wouldn’t want to lose him to the lure of the almighty dollar. If Livy had to fight for custody, Edwina’s the one who could afford a fancy lawyer. Can’t have our Livy looking like less than
the prize she is, either.”

  Hank stared at him for a moment. That odd whine came again, seemingly from under the boardwalk directly below his boots.

  “You do consider her a prize?” The liveryman’s brows lowered. His gaze narrowed, searching for the answer on Kit’s startled face. Of course he thought she was a prize! Any man would. “Living out there with her—well, we, and I’m speaking for the town, are expecting you to behave as a gentleman.”

  He was more a gentleman than Cody Billings was. The last thing he intended to do was soil Livy’s good reputation.

  “I admire Miss York greatly, Hank. You can trust her to my care. As for getting her place ready for her cousin’s visit? I’m working night and day, but I’ve only got a week and a half left to get it finished.”

  And, he supposed, to be on his way. The last thing he wanted was for Cousin Edwina to take offence that he was living in the house and not the barn.

  He doubted that Frank and the good folks of Sweet Bank knew about that, either.

  “I’d best get back to the missus. If you get in a bind, let Mildred Banks know, and she’ll rally the troops.”

  With a nod, Hank Runne jogged down the boardwalk then up the road to where his wife, no doubt, awaited his arrival.

  He watched the fellow get swallowed up by darkness, thinking how lucky Hank was. It struck him that having a wife waiting in a cozy home of one’s own was the greatest of blessings.

  He couldn’t remember having a home, other than the orphanage—which didn’t actually count—that stayed in one place. The life of an actor was one of constant change.

  Couldn’t say he missed the traveling one little bit.

  What he did miss was the small window of warmth spilling out of the bakery doorway. He turned back toward the gaiety coming from inside, but once again he heard a pitiful whine whispering up through the slats of the boardwalk.

  With a shiver, he trotted down the steps to investigate.

  * * *

  Riding home from town in the wagon, Livy felt the warm glow of Christmas approaching. Not warmth as in a roaring fire in the hearth, or the heat that radiated from the oven while baking.