The Gift-Wrapped Groom

by M. J. Rodgers

  Nicholas reached down and picked up the hefty Haag, slung him over his shoulder and carried him out of the community center. He dumped the man’s body onto the cold ground just as he might a sackful of garbage. Nicholas stared at the silent heap, his hands clenched at his sides, almost wishing that Haag would come to so he could hit him again. It was a moment or two before he heard the scuffling coming from behind him.

  He whirled to see that at least half the community center’s occupants had followed him out and were now standing and watching him, looking anything but displeased.

  And in their center, wearing a lovely look of wonder, was Noel.

  * * *

  “OOOOH! This tastes potent. And hot as it goes down.”

  Nicholas smiled at her pinched-up pink nose over the glass. “That is the pepper, Noel. Vodka does not have a taste. The pepper gives it a warmth to savor.”

  She sat Indian-style before him on top of the rug in front of the brightly burning fireplace and tried another sip. “Hmm. Yes. Hot right down to my toes.”

  He leaned over the small table he had prepared with vodka and black caviar in front of the fire and kissed the end of that scrunched-up nose. The electricity was working fine, and there had really been no need to light a fire tonight, but Nicholas had made one, anyway.

  He wanted to make this night special for her, especially after the CMC announcement and the subsequently short Christmas committee meeting. Berna Vane had signed up two more ranching families, and the Duncans had taken home a contract to think over.

  Nicholas had seen the sadness in Noel’s face. He wanted to take that sadness away. He wanted to recapture the magic they had shared less than twenty-four hours ago, when they had first made love in front of this fireplace.

  The dancing Christmas tree lights lit her lovely hair from behind as the flames from the fire played across her face. On the radio, a soothing voice sang about chestnuts roasting on an open fire. She put down her glass of vodka, dipped a cracker into the caviar and took a tentative bite. He watched as a surprised look of pleasure crossed her face.

  “This is good! Particularly right after the vodka.”

  He hid the pleasure he received by her admission with a growl. “You think millions of Russians could be wrong?”

  She laughed, that tinkling laugh like the colliding of ice crystals in the frosty air, light and magical.

  Mistletoe romped over to them, tiring of his chase game with the train that circled the Christmas tree. His little black nose sniffed at the caviar sitting on the small table between them, his tail wagging hopefully.

  Noel speared a small amount onto a napkin and set it in front of her pet. Mistletoe took a sniff at close range, sent out a tentative tongue and quickly backed off from the rest, clearly disappointed.

  Noel smiled and gave his head a pat. “Mighty Dog looking better, hey, cutie?”

  Nicholas nodded approvingly. “Good. It would be easier to teach him to swim beneath the ice than to keep him in caviar.”

  Noel took another sip of her drink, watching Nicholas over her glass. “How can you run naked in snow and swim beneath ice?”

  “It is as I once explained about the tickling. It begins in the mind. Many times I have needed to wash where there was no hot water. Or stay warm when there was no fire. These times I have pictured my blood moving faster through my veins and arteries, generating the needed warmth. I could teach this to you also.”

  She smiled. “You already have my blood heating my body far too efficiently.”

  She blushed slightly and looked around the room before her eyes returned to his. “This is very nice. The fire. The vodka. The caviar. It reminds me of when my dad would drag my mom away from her Christmas cooking and insist they sit in front of the fireplace, watching the Christmas tree lights, drinking homemade cider and feasting on strawberries dipped in chocolate.”

  “Much love fills your voice when you speak of your parents, Noel. And something very special when you speak of your father.”

  She sighed and leaned back on her elbows. “My mother was sweet, strong, practical, sensible. My father, well, my father was the dreamer. He dabbled at a lot of things in his life. Music. Dancing. Poetry. He loved to read good books. Absolutely thrived on having wonderful, interesting conversations about the philosophy of life and love.”

  She paused, looking at the black pepper in the bottom of her glass of vodka. Nicholas sensed these memories were bittersweet. She leaned forward again, her shoulders straightening as she raised her eyes to his.

  “Nicholas, the truth is, he made a lot of mistakes. Never really learned the knack of doing anything particularly well. Except living. He had a knack for knowing how to live like no one I’ve ever known. I don’t know how to explain it or even if that makes any sense to you.”

  Nicholas nodded. “It does. This I see in his home. In you.”

  She smiled and her shoulders relaxed as though a small weight had been lifted from them. Then a mischievous gleam entered her bright green eyes. “But not in his store.”

  Nicholas felt a lick of surprise. “His store? The Christmas store you now own? It was his?”

  “I wanted to keep it alive after his death in the way one tries to keep a lovely memory alive. I missed him so much. It wasn’t until after I began making the Family-Tree Christmas ornaments several years back that I got excited about making a go of it for more than a memory, for myself. Now it’s as much a part of me as it was of him.”

  Suddenly, the lovely light began to dim in her eyes.

  “He loved the Christmas festival so. He was the one who started it so many years ago. He used to say that as long as Midwater kept the Christmas festival going, Christmas would continue to bring its miracles to our valley.”

  She sighed and a little shudder ran through her shoulders.

  “Noel? What is wrong?”

  “I know now this will be Midwater’s last Christmas festival. Until tonight, until I heard CMC’s latest offer, I thought the valley could hang on. But what with cows losing their calves at all the ranches now, the hardships are just growing too fast. There are so few families able to hold out. Once the ranchers go, there’ll be no need for the merchants in the village.”

  “But you said it has to be unanimous. If you refuse to sell—”

  “How can I refuse to sell? How can I continue to be the only holdout, the only one preventing them from receiving the full amount of their money, keeping them from starting fresh elsewhere? What kind of a neighbor would I be to do that to them?”

  The tears swam in her eyes. She held them there, but he knew it was only by a fierce determination of will. “I...I will have to sell, Nicholas. My land, my home, my Christmas store. I...know that now.”

  He could not stand to see this unhappiness in her. He moved to her side, kissed the swimming tears in her eyes, the curve of her forehead, the sweet hollow beneath her cheeks, the softness of her lips. She trembled beneath him.

  Her passion always succeeded in arousing his. Now he was finding that the tenderness of her spirit was drawing out an ocean of tenderness swimming silently and deeply within him, an ocean he could drown in for her.

  He wanted to tell her of this growing ocean of love that kept finding new tributaries within him. He wanted to tell her that no matter what it took, he would save her house, her land, her silly Christmas store for her. But he could give her no empty promises.

  All he could give her were his lips, his breath, his touch, his Russian words of love.

  His hands found the buttons on her blouse. Slowly, patiently, he undid them, caressing the skin beneath, kissing every inch, telling her in his beloved native language how soft and succulent she tasted, how the perfume of her skin was the reason he now drew breath.

  He had undressed her before with the haste of passion, with hot raw words, stripped bare with need. But now his hands and words slowly removed her clothes, gradually exposing her breasts and hips and legs, his warm breath gently sliding over her nipples
, her stomach, down to the golden-red triangular glow between her thighs.

  The tenderness ached through his touch, through his words, through the gentleness of his breath. She sighed beneath it all, relaxing with his every sound, every touch. He spun out his soul in his words as his mouth dipped across her throat, her cheeks, her lips.

  As he shed his clothes, he told her of this life that now flowed through his blood because of her, of this force that pushed and ached within him, a force that compelled him to bury himself deeply inside her.

  She moaned and sighed beneath his growly Russian words, beneath the touch of his hands and his lips and his tongue—understanding nothing, understanding all.

  He slipped into her with a need deeper and sweeter than anything he had ever known, a part of the tenderness she had unleashed in him tonight. That yearning melted through his sounds, his body, with every slow thrust into her moist soft heat.

  He watched her face as he told her of these things, as she opened her center to him. Her skin was flushed, her lips smiling. Her eyes—glowing from the furnace of the internal fires he set within them—were the deep green of the winter forests. Her hands clutched his arms, pulled him closer, until he laid his full weight gently on top of her.

  He was lost in her softness, in the sensations searing through him. He described them to her through gasps of failing breath. She moaned and writhed beneath his touch, beneath his words, hungry, ever hungry, for more.

  Her cries broke beside his ear with all the breathless wonder of her soul as she accepted the fire from his core, contracting around him, absorbing his essence into all her sweetness. He wrapped himself tightly around her, holding her to him, shaking and sweating, humbled and exalted in a way that he had never been before.

  And Noel wept to be wrapped in such tenderness, to feel the soft kisses that gathered each salty tear from her cheeks, to feel his steel arms that held her with just so much incredible gentleness that they threatened to break her heart.

  * * *

  “TWO DAYS UNTIL the festival and that damn snowstorm is almost upon us,” Jean said as she came stamping into the small one-room schoolhouse, quickly closing the door behind her to keep out the snowy wind.

  “Noel, it’s already coming down pretty hard outside. Most everyone is starting to close up for the day and get home while the getting is still good. I think you should be doing the same.”

  “Just a few more presents to pack and I’ll be ready.”

  Jean circled the beautifully decorated red and golden sleigh that now sat center stage in the one-room schoolhouse. The whole room had been transformed beneath Noel’s hands into a holiday scene, with realistic life-size reindeer pulling the sleigh, gigantic fantasy snowflakes hanging from the ceiling, a winter wonderland mural painted across the walls and every inch alive with the sparkle of tiny, twinkling Christmas lights, moving magically through it all.

  “This is lovely. Really lovely. I hardly recognize it. Midwater’s kids are going to see it and never want you to take the decorations down.”

  Noel smiled at the sincerity in Jean’s tone. “As a kid, I always thought it a shame Christmas came only once a year.”

  “When it came at all. I don’t like to ask the obvious, but have you thought about what’s going to happen to this festival of ours if this snowstorm closes the passes over the mountains and the folks from the surrounding valleys can’t get here?”

  Noel’s head came up at Jean’s question. A small frown knitted her forehead. Then she resumed her placement of the carefully wrapped Christmas packages into the large red Santa sack that sat on the front seat of the sleigh.

  “What will happen is that you and I and the rest of the folks in Midwater are going to be drinking a lot of cider and eating a lot of homemade pies and cranberry cake.”

  Jean didn’t sound fooled by the forced nonchalance of Noel’s tone. “And all these presents you’ve wrapped for our Santa to hand out to the little kids?”

  Noel squeezed the pig-shaped toy in her hand. Its voice box erupted into a happy squeal, and Mistletoe’s little black nose sniffed at it with interest. Noel sighed as she placed it into the sack.

  “All I know is that we have to keep hoping for the best and keep going on. And speaking of hope, has Doc heard anything more yet?”

  “No. But that might be because the telephones went out this morning. Probably will remain out until this storm blows over. We’re lucky we’ve still got electricity. Although, there’s no doubt in my mind that won’t be for long. Your grandfather has given the orders to ready the generators.”

  “Where is grandfather? I haven’t seen him all day.”

  “He was here early this morning talking to Nicholas. I finally convinced him to go home. That gouty toe of his is causing him some pain, and I told him he better give it a rest if he expected me to let him star in this year’s production, providing there still is a Christmas Eve production.”

  Noel deliberately didn’t respond to the implication. “Didn’t you drive him home, Jean?”

  “No, Nicholas offered to. He brought the car back a couple of hours ago. Took a box of something out of the trunk. I think your grandfather had some things at home he wanted Nicholas to bring in.”

  “Nicholas has been very good about helping out.”

  “And very good at putting color in your cheeks, Noel. From everything I hear about your Nicholas, he’s living up to your grandfather’s dossier, and then some. Somehow, I don’t think you’re going to be returning this mail-order bridegroom for a refund.”

  Noel caught the small smile on Jean’s face and returned one of her own.

  Jean laughed. “No, I didn’t think so. You look like you have it bad. I’m happy for you, Noel. Very happy.”

  The smile faded from Noel’s lips. “I wish...I wish it were just that easy.”

  “It’s not? Where’s the complication?”

  Noel battled with the conflicting desires of keeping her private life private and satisfying a curiosity that would not rest. It was a tough decision, but finally, her curiosity won out. She put down the package in her hand and turned to face Jean.

  “You said you saw Nicholas’s file. Do you remember anything in it about...Dotnara?”

  “You mean the gal he was engaged to who died?”

  Noel swallowed, hoping she was doing the right thing, that she was ready for the answer to this question. “Yes.”

  “You’ve nothing to worry about there, Noel. He was very good to her. They couldn’t get him to leave her hospital room. He slept on the floor right next to her bed. Stayed with her right through to the end. That’s one of the things that impressed your grandfather so much—his care for and loyalty to her.”

  Noel sighed deeply, her heart swelling painfully in her chest. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

  “Afraid of? Oh, I see. Noel, that was four years ago. You can’t still think he’s carrying the torch for...” Jean’s voice drifted off as she watched the look on Noel’s face. “But you do, don’t you?”

  Noel sighed. “He and I...we...oh, Jean, he says nothing. I mean he says everything so wonderfully in Russian. And then... absolutely nothing in English.”

  Jean came over to her and put a strong arm around her shoulders. “Look, I see the way Nicholas looks at you. The way he rejected Berna. The whole village saw the way he handled Haag when Haag dared to put his hands on you. I think the guy is maybe telling you in ways you’re not listening to. These big silent types are that way sometimes.”

  “But that’s just it. He’s not a big silent type. I mean, not without a reason, he isn’t.”

  “You’re losing me here, Noel.”

  “He’s a man who speaks his mind. He would not exchange the traditional marriage vows. He was willing to go back to Russia rather than give me empty pledges. If he really felt...really cared now...he would say something. He says nothing.”

  “Maybe he just needs more time. Or maybe he’s just waiting to hear you say something first.”<
br />
  Noel shook her head sharply. “I did that once before, remember? Laid my heart out and got it stomped on. No, Jean. I’m not making that mistake ever again.”

  Jean gave Noel’s shoulders a hard hug before releasing her. “He’s yours at least until he becomes an American citizen. If you can’t get him branded by then, you’re no Montana woman.”

  Noel gave her friend a small smile.

  Jean patted Mistletoe’s head. “Look, I’m getting out of here and going home while the roads are still passable. I think you should go find that husband of yours and do the same.”

  Noel nodded and waved goodbye to Jean. The old schoolhouse was quiet again with just her and Mistletoe there. Noel tucked the last of the wrapped presents into the Santa sack and slipped off the seat of the sleigh.

  She looked approvingly at the lights and bright decorations hanging on the walls. She inspected the sleigh. With Doc in a Santa Claus suit, it should be complete. But something seemed to be missing. What was it?

  Of course, it was the quiet. The room needed the sounds of Christmas. Seth Carson was supposed to hook up all the lines to the Missoula radio station, which would be broadcasting live from the community center on Christmas Eve. She’d need to remind Seth that the schoolhouse hadn’t been hooked up yet.

  No telling how long the phone lines would be down. She grabbed her coat and gloves and headed for the door. She’d stop over at the Mercantile and let Seth know about the schoolhouse needing music before she went by the community center to let Nicholas know she was ready to go home.

  Noel was hit in the face with the rapidly falling snow. Jean was right. The earth was already covered with a knobby white quilt. She trudged over to the Mercantile with Mistletoe at her heels, steadfastly refusing to entertain the possibility of mountain passes closing. They needed this festival. More so than any other year. They had to have it.

  She climbed the creaky stairs, opened the door and stepped inside. It was dark. Neither Seth nor Ginny were anywhere in sight. She was just turning to go when she heard voices coming from the open storeroom at the back. Noel made for it.