Or the other.
Hang fire. If touring the dining room winded him, he’d be a sorry sight if he chose the wrong end of town and had to hobble to the other.
Angry nursemaid it was.
~
The next morning, Lena pressed her mother’s fluted biscuit cutter into soft dough and laid a dozen rounds in a baking pan. The day had just begun and already she was behind.
Honestly. Sometimes Tay was short-sighted as a blind turtle. Wasn’t it bad enough that he’d pointed out her spinsterhood to a perfect stranger? Now she had to attend that stranger while he stumbled around on crutches that were too short. And with all she had to do.
Men!
With her wrist, she pushed hair out of her eyes, then topped the biscuits with a dash of cinnamon. Tay was, by nature, generous and caring, but not toward the blacksmith since the man had been so rude to her. It must be the Christmas spirit that prompted Tay’s trip to the stables.
That same spirit was also prompting her. Six weeks was hardly time enough to keep up with all her regular chores, polish and clean the house for the big Christmas dinner, and finish the required baking.
Sliding the biscuit pan into the oven, she chided herself for using that costly cinnamon on breakfast rather than saving it for Christmas cookies.
Saving butter wasn’t any easier, and they were down to their last mold. Davy Perkins had brought over fresh milk yesterday, which meant another chore today—churning. To go with baking and cleaning, and now touring the yard with Mr. Bergman.
Her thoughts stuttered at the name, considering the differences between uncle and nephew. Otto Bergman was the most unfriendly man she had ever met. He wanted nothing to do with neighborly charity or Christmas generosity, and warned her last year to stay away from his livery unless she had livestock-related business there.
Distance had been an easy thing to keep, a practice she’d also maintained with the nephew since she’d gotten too close on his first night in the surgery. Between his glass-eyed dog and his own lightning reflexes, she’d watched her step. But it was irritating, to say the least. This was her home. She shouldn’t have to walk on eggshells.
All the more reason why his apology caught her off guard.
When she’d nodded her acceptance, the planes of his face softened in the fire’s light, further surprising her. His expression appeared almost kind, in spite of his beard and family connections.
He’d nearly apologized again for staring at her hand, but Tay’s arrival had prevented the pity she so despised. She saw it enough on everyone else’s face. For some unprecedented reason, she did not want to see it on Wil Bergman’s.
Never mind it. He’d soon be gone. Conversation would be more subdued at the kitchen table, and their daily routine would return to normal.
An unexpected note of sadness vibrated through her heart, like a single string plucked, its voice left to quiver and fade.
A telltale clomp-thud began at the other end of the house in muted accompaniment.
Wil’s frustrated efforts at moving his angular frame on those short crutches last evening had been almost humorous. But he’d persevered, and for that he’d earned Tay’s respect as well as hers.
She wiped her hands on her apron, then smoothed it over her skirt and tucked stray hairs into the knot at her neck.
And why shouldn’t she respect him? She respected other men. Her father and brother. The pastor. Yes, Pastor Thornton. She respected him too. An honorable man who shared his faith in a clear manner without unnecessary adornment.
Respect for Wil Bergman was completely understandable. With perhaps a dash of pity for his predicament. But that was as far as it went. Absolutely no reason in the world to dread the day of his departure.
None at all.
She took a deep breath and smoothed her apron once more.
A final thump sounded directly behind her, snagging her breath.
“Mornin’.” The smile in his voice lit her heart the same way the lamp brightened the pre-dawn kitchen.
“And good morning to you.” She looked halfway over her shoulder. “Coffee’s hot and breakfast won’t be long.”
Grateful for her busyness, she laid salt pork strips in a cold cast-iron skillet, then set it over the hottest part of the stove.
“How can I help?”
She glanced back. “Help?”
“Don’t sound so surprised. I still have two good ha—”
Silence slid between them.
Her face tightened, her jaw clenched, and she whirled.
“Don’t you dare. I am as I am—I have never known anything else. Figures of speech are a way of life, and I am comfortable with being different, so stop apologizing for something you have nothing to do with.”
A burning began in her chest, worked up her neck, and into her face. She hadn’t meant to lash out or be hurtful.
Hunching over on the crutches, he was nearly eye to eye with her. Dark, warm eyes that drew her, and she mustn’t let them. She may enjoy his company—more than she cared to admit—but she didn’t know this man. Didn’t know where he’d come from, where he was going, or what he stood for.
But as he said, he did have two hands.
“Sit.”
He frowned.
His dog obeyed, taking its place by the back door.
She pointed to the nearest chair at the kitchen table. “Right there. Sit down and I’ll put you to work.”
The butter churn invited her to scoot it from its corner with her foot while holding the dasher with one hand. Then she fetched the large jars of milk she’d left on the porch overnight to separate.
He looked like a child sent to cut a switch, and she couldn’t contain her laughter. “Have you never churned butter, Mr. Bergman?”
His features hardened.
“Well, you offered, so this is your chore. Remove the churn’s lid and pay attention.”
“On one condition.”
“I beg your pardon?” He had conditions? Of all the nerve. Perhaps her respect was misplaced after all.
He crossed his arms and set his shoulders. Even under the loose-fitting nightshirt, they presented a formidable defense.
She followed suit, and they held each other’s gaze as if in a school-yard stare down.
His mouth hitched—what little she could see of it behind his untrimmed whiskers.
Breakfast would burn if she played this game any longer. “And what is your condition?”
“That you call me Wil.”
His request dislodged her stoicism and she lowered her eyes, fearing that a blush would spread across her face.
He didn’t play fair.
“Very well.”
“Very well, what?”
The dreaded blush inched upward. A moment longer, and she’d be flashing hotter than the frying pork.
“Very well, Wil.”
He smiled.
It was nearly her undoing.
She pulled a wooden ladle from her crock of cooking utensils and demonstrated how to carefully skim the cream into a bowl.
“From the bowl, pour the cream into the churn, return the lid, and start plunging.”
He gave her a rather confidant look for a man who had never set his hand to such woman’s work. But she had much to do and was fresh out of time for curiosity or sympathy.
Taking the crutches, she pulled out another chair and insisted he lift his leg to it. “You’re all set.”
Tay came downstairs and stopped at the kitchen door, clearly battling which role he should play—attending physician or teasing brother.
She poured coffee and set three cups on the table. Tay took his customary seat and gave her a mock scowl over the lip of his cup. “You’ll have him so worn out, he won’t be able to ride to town this afternoon.”
The dasher hit hard against the bottom of the churn. “I’ll be fine as flint and ready for it.”
CHAPTER 5
Lena Carver, matched head to head with any trail-wise Cookie,
and Wil’d put his money on her. If he had any.
As spirited a filly as he’d ever seen, she’d set him in his place twice that morning. And now she had him wearing a groove in fresh snow, riding herd around an old cabin not far from the house.
Four times he’d hobbled past a weathered marker that read Sir Humphrey.
This time, he jerked his chin at the gray board and fading letters. “Who’s Sir Humphrey?”
She looked to the marker, her meadow eyes soft, cheeks pink with the cold. “Our dog. When Tay and I were growing up, Sir Humphrey was our playmate and guardian all rolled into one big hairy ball.”
Her regard shifted back to the worn porch, straight peeled posts, and silvered logs of the cabin. Affection rested in her gaze.
“We lived in this cabin until I was about ten. Papa farmed. When the town grew out this way, he sold off some of the land. That money built the house and sent Tay to medical school.”
The dog had trotted behind on Wil’s first two circles. Now it sat on the narrow porch, watching as Wil stumped by. Blasted thing was laughing at him. He could see it in the glassy eye.
“Why didn’t you get another dog?”
“Why don’t you start a new path?” She shooed him away with her gloved hands. “You’re down to mud and making a mess of things.”
“This wasn’t my idea, you know.”
Exasperation puffed a white cloud from her rosy lips, and he worked himself over for thinking of Lena Carver in such colorful terms.
“Oh, all right,” she conceded. “You can work on climbing the front steps.”
He swung up onto the old porch next to his gray guardian. “How’s that, General Carver?”
Hands at her hips, she shook her head, discounting his levity. “I think not, Mr. Bergman.”
“We had a deal.”
“What deal?”
“Lengthy labor for my given name.”
Ignoring him, she headed for the house and slapped her skirt. “Come on. We’ll show Wil how it’s done.”
Confounded dog up and followed her.
Leaving him behind, they marched along the path he’d flattened, then cut through a swath of unmarred snow, Lena’s skirt lifted above her black boot tops.
He stopped halfway across. “You ever make angel pictures in the snow?”
She jarred to a standstill but didn’t turn around.
“I can show you how.”
The snow sparkled in the morning light, begging for someone to sweep three or four figures in the smooth, dry powder.
Lena hiked her skirt farther and ran around the front of the house, the dog close behind.
What had he said?
By the time he trudged to the porch, she was standing at the railing underneath a yellow-and-green sign hanging from two small chains: Dr. Taylor Carver, M.D. & Surgeon. Her arms were crossed high, both hands tucked under in opposition to the wide-open abandon required for flailing in the snow. Her face was just that white. Tight, and filled with pain.
“You all right?”
She nodded, but her lips rolled in and she wouldn’t look at him.
He knew enough about womenfolk to know he didn’t know enough. Nor did he have the right to pry into something she was hiding. Though he had to admit, he wanted to.
Three steps faced him, wide enough for two people to walk up side by side. He straightened, lifted the short crutches level with the bottom step, and followed with his right foot. The second step—thud-clomp—and the third, until he stood proudly on the porch. “Pretty good, don’t you think?”
Another nod but not a word. She stared out across the snowy field at something only she could see.
After circling the cabin for an hour and then swinging himself across the field and up the front steps, he wouldn’t have been able to fight his way out of a wet feed sack. But neither could he take her silence.
The sound of her voice had become what he wanted most to hear each morning. Sometimes he wondered how he’d lived nearly three decades without it.
Aching all the way from ankle to hip, he hopped to a rocker under the window, sank to it, and set his leg up on the porch swing.
If she got mad and gave him the boot, so be it. His question was worth a shot if it got her talking.
“I’m curious.” No apologizing—she’d made that clear as white vinegar. “Since you grew up here, seems natural that you and your brother would have played in the snow.” He would have if he’d not lived in more southern parts.
She didn’t make a sound, just kept staring across the field in front of the cabin.
He leaned forward to pet the dog when a breathy answer floated to his ear.
“We did.”
He’d nearly missed it.
“For a while, anyway. Until the Christmas I was four.” Her whisper faded against the squawking of a jay off in the pines.
He strained to hear more.
“That’s when I lost my fingers.”
Something hard and heavy landed in his stomach. More than likely, his brain. He should have kept his fool mouth shut.
More questions crowded up against his teeth like cattle bunching for a storm, but he refused to let ’em run.
She dropped her hands and her shoulders slumped, and he had the crazy urge to get up and wrap his arms around her. Shield her from the memories and the struggle. Her defeated posture pained him since he’d been the cause.
Desperate to cheer her, he changed his tact. “Where’d you come up with a name like Sir Humphrey?”
With a deep sigh, like she was letting go of a weighty load, she rested her gloved hands on the rail. “Sounds rather regal, doesn’t it?” She looked toward the cabin, giving him her profile. More regal than anything he’d seen between the Pecos and Wyoming.
“When he was a puppy, he’d curl up on the hearth with a humph. Sometimes he’d snort in his sleep. Papa thought it was a fitting name, considering the sounds he made.”
She turned then, her expressive eyes latching onto his leg. “You must be hurting after all that traipsing around.”
Her gaze met his briefly, then darted back to his cast. “I’ll get you some tea.”
As gently as he knew how, he reached for her right hand as she passed, expecting her to recoil from his touch.
She didn’t.
“No laudanum.”
She gave his hand a light squeeze before withdrawing her fingers. “No whiskey either.”
In the short while she was gone, he tried to come up with all the ways he could have met Lena Carver other than the way he did. Every one of them involved blood or broken bones. Unless she went to church socials and such, which he hadn’t had occasion to attend in some time.
Looked like pain was the only way he’d have found her.
A new habit of fingering the crease above his ear found his hair longer and in need of a trim. Further investigation along his jaw line confirmed that he was hairing up for a hard winter.
He hadn’t let Cookie barber him like some of the boys did, so he was shaggy enough before he’d been ambushed. Being laid up here merely added to the problem. All the trouble with his leg had left him forgetful of how the rest of him appeared.
It was a wonder Lena Carver talked to him at all.
~
Lena stared into her cup, watching the level rise as she poured black tea, grateful she’d pulled herself out of shock over Wil’s unexpected question about playing in the snow. The man was certainly full of surprises.
His simple query had stopped not only her feet, but her heart and her brain as well. She hadn’t been able to think. Hadn’t been able to catch her breath. It was a child’s game he spoke of. Not one for a grown, mature woman.
Adults did not lie in the snow waving their arms and legs, but clearly, Wil Bergman did not know that.
She hadn’t done it in twenty years.
Rousing her wits from such woolgathering, she returned to the porch with a tray and tea service and set it on a small table by the rocker. A tea
pot, two cups and saucers, sugar and cream, spoons, and a soup bone cluttered the surface.
Afraid to find his dark eyes bearing into her, she tossed the bone to his dog, who caught it in midair. No surprise there, for the dog watched her every move.
“Here you are.” After offering Wil the empty cup and saucer, she poured in yellow tea. “Chamomile with a bit of willow bark. You should feel better soon.”
He leaned forward, peering into her cup. “What are you drinking?”
“It’s not Kessler’s best, I can tell you that.”
He snorted. “I’d have smelled it if it was.” He cocked his head toward the dog. “Same way he smelled that soup bone.”
The big dog propped the bone between both front paws as it gnawed, all the while watching Lena take a careful seat on the swing.
Wil lowered his foot to the porch, and she grabbed his trouser leg. “You’ll do no such thing. We won’t be here long, it’ll get too cold. But if you want to wait out here for Tay, you’ll be halfway to the livery when he gets back.”
Puzzlement knit his brows until he followed her line of sight to the barn roof rising above a row of trees not a half mile from the house. Bold white letters painted across the dark wood were easily distinguishable: Bergman’s Livery.
Clearly not amused, he scowled more deeply over his pale brew. “I thought your brother said it was a ways off.”
“He said it was farther than you thought.”
Sipping her tea, she studied him. “You seem the type to take off on your own if given half the chance.”
If she wasn’t on her toes, he’d hoodwink her again, like he had over the butter churn. He’d been anything but a novice and had probably helped his mother when he was a boy.
At the thought of toes, she considered his left foot, pointing skyward and propped beside her on the swing. She had worried that three wool socks were not enough to keep his foot from freezing. But he hadn’t uttered a complaint. Getting out of the house was more than likely enough for someone like him. Someone who’d clearly spent most of his time outdoors, from the way he looked—and in a saddle, from the way he talked.
Snow Angel: a romantic Christmas novella Page 4
