Sleigh Bells & Mistletoe: A Short Story (The Brides Series 1.5)

by Lena Goldfinch

  “And the bed?”

  “Yep.” Isaac guided her to the center of the carpet, his hand cupped under her elbow.

  She could only look around, stunned. This was the big project he’d been working on? How had he managed to do it without giving the secret away? It must have taken him weeks, likely working in the back of the barn. In the cold. In between his work and all his chores.

  “You like it?” he prodded.

  “Like it?” She shook her head in disbelief.

  “So, you don’t like it?”

  “I love it.”

  He grinned, smug male pride practically oozing from his pores. Adorably.

  She looked down at the cushiony soft braided rug under her feet.

  “Pink?” she asked, giving her husband an inquiring look.

  “Could be a girl.” He shrugged.

  “And if it’s not?” she teased.

  “Then you decide what to do with it. Keep it—give it away. Whatever you like.”

  He’d ordered this rug special—she could tell that just looking at it. It was beautiful, with a nice sense of depth, woven from what looked to be the finest wool. Probably something he’d had shipped from back East. And here he was acting like it didn’t matter what she did with it.

  “It’s perfect.” Her lips brushed his stubble-roughened jaw, which was all she could reach since he didn’t bend down fast enough.

  “Not entirely...” he said, as if distracted. He glanced behind him.

  “What now?” she asked, laughing as the boys squeezed by her wide skirts and climbed onto the little bed, dragging a stuffed rag doll with them. And the sleigh bells. Loudly.

  “What’s this?” she asked, going to them and cradling the doll to her chest, as if it were a real baby. She had long red braids on either side of her round face, her blue eyes and pursed red lips stitched from embroidery thread. Her dress was made of red and gold calico. And there was a certain charming crookedness about the whole construction of the doll that told her it wasn’t a store-bought toy, but hand-stitched, probably with the help of little fingers. “Did you make this?” she asked wonderingly, lifting her admiring gaze to them.

  “Auntie Catherine helped,” Jake said, beaming.

  “I picked out the cloth!” Levi said.

  “It’s perfect.” Becky pressed her cheek against the doll’s soft cloth face, and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, determined not to cry. Again. When she looked up again, her vision a bit blurred with unshed tears, the boys were staring at her, looking pleased with themselves. Not unlike their father.

  “It’s for the new baby, Momma.”

  “What if it’s a boy?” she asked.

  They stared back at her, evidently stumped.

  “Well, I guess it will have to be mine then,” she said in her most practical tone, snuggling the doll close again.

  Jake smiled sleepily and plopped sideways on the mattress. He immediately stuck his thumb in his mouth. His eyelids drooped. Levi fell beside him—dragging the sleigh bells along with him like a noisy blanket—and propped himself against his brother’s shoulder. It was a little too early for sleep, Becky knew, and the smallest thing could set them off running any second, but they looked so at home there. So peaceful. And, at least for this one blissful moment, quiet.

  “Momma?” Jake plucked his thumb out of his mouth halfway, so he could speak. His eyes were trained on the ceiling above her head. “What’s that?”

  “Mistletoe!” Levi cried, pushing off his brother and leaping to his feet. He jumped up and down on the mattress, the sleigh bells jangling madly in his hands. His brother immediately scrambled up and started jumping up and down too. Thankfully, there was no lovingly stitched quilt on the bed, as yet, to get ruined, Becky thought with an amused smile.

  She looked up and saw what looked to be a cluster of holly above her head. “Mistletoe? What do you know about mistletoe?”

  “Kiss her, Daddy! Kiss her!” the boys cried, punctuating each word with a jump.

  “I think that’s holly,” she protested teasingly. Isaac had so obviously nailed the greenery to the ceiling and directed her to this very spot. Also, very obviously, the boys knew all about it. He’d trusted them with a secret, and they’d kept it, amazingly. Her little boys, growing up so much.

  “That is not holly,” Isaac said, looking up and considering his handiwork with satisfaction. “That is mistletoe. I know my foliage, woman,” he added with mock affront.

  “I’m sure you do.” She laughed again, looking up into the face of her favorite logger. Isaac knew every tree, leaf, and branch on this stretch of mountain they called home.

  “Mistletoe!” a cry came up from one of the boys—she wasn’t sure which, since they were still jumping and trading places often. “Kiss her! Kiss Momma!”

  “As good an excuse as any…” Isaac said cheerfully and kissed her softly on the lips.

  She smiled and began to pull away, ready to thank him and the boys for their thoughtful gifts and to tell them how pleased and overwhelmed she was. Then she ceased to think altogether, because Isaac tugged her close and was kissing her again—quite thoroughly considering the boys were such a short distance away. He kissed her so thoroughly she had to gasp for breath once he pulled away.

  “Oh my,” she breathed, her voice barely audible.

  “Now that’s what a man wants to hear after he kisses his wife,” Isaac whispered in her ear, nuzzling her again and making her squeal with laughter until her sides ached. She pressed a hand to her ribs.

  “Isaac.”

  “Do it again, Daddy!” Levi and Jakob cried in unison. They nudged each other, laughing helplessly until they fell off the bed and collapsed in a heap on the floor. The fall didn’t seem to bother them in the least. “Do it again!” they yelled again, giggling.

  “Oh, I plan to,” Isaac said, giving Becky a look of promise that made her go quite weak in the knees.

  A high-pitched yip sounded behind them.

  “What…?” Becky turned and saw Jem standing in the doorway with Pop. And a puppy. A little white pup with two cinnamon colored patches—one on its forehead, right between its adorable floppy ears, and one on its back. She pulled from Isaac’s embrace. “What’s this?”

  “A puppy!” the boys cried. In the space of a heartbeat they dashed across the room and started stroking the puppy’s fur. The pup immediately collapsed and rolled onto its back, offering up its stomach to be scratched. The boys giggled.

  “Isaac...? Jem...?” Becky looked from one to the other, biting her lip. “What’s this?”

  “A puppy?” Isaac repeated with a questioning lift, as if this was obvious and, of course, it was, but...

  “I know it’s a puppy,” she said in a hushed voice, keeping one eye on the boys. “But now? I thought, well, we’d planned to—you know...” She widened her eyes meaningfully. “Tomorrow. In the morning. On Christmas...”

  He shrugged. “Ask Jem.”

  “All right, Jem?” She folded her arms across her chest.

  Jem rubbed the back of his neck. He looked over his shoulder at Pop as if for help, then to Isaac, and finally down at the boys rolling gleefully on the floor with the dog…anywhere but at her.

  “Jem?” she repeated, enjoying teasing him a bit, feeling much like an older sister with a younger brother. He deserved a little tormenting. From the look of things, the puppy had been smuggled in earlier today. Neither he nor Pop had a single speck of snow on them. There was no trail of damp paw prints on the floor. So the puppy hadn’t been out in the barn keeping the horses company all this time.

  “He didn’t like the barn,” Jem said earnestly. “Every time I went to check on him, I caught him whining. So we brought him in.” Becky noticed that Jem said we not I. She also noticed the guilty look on Isaac’s face. “It broke my heart,” Jem continued. “He’s gotten used to being inside.”

  Jem had told them the pup had been found in town, a stray. One of Doc’s clients had found him and brough
t him in. Jem knew the boys wanted a dog, and it wasn’t long before the boys’ request for a dog and Jem’s desire to find it a home became a plan for Christmas. It hadn’t been a difficult decision. Everyone deserved a home, to be loved and cared for, and most especially at Christmas.

  Becky could easily imagine the little puppy whining piteously in the barn, likely distressing the horses as much as he was distressed himself. He wanted to be inside with the people.

  “You poor thing,” she said.

  The puppy furiously wagged his tail, on its belly now. He laid his head on his paws and looked up at her, wiggling his way into her heart by being so very adorable.

  Such a good boy.

  “You did say he was housebroken, right?” Becky looked at Jem.

  “Mostly.”

  “Mostly?”

  “I’m a deep sleeper,” he said, spreading his hands in what seemed to her a defensive gesture. She kept her arms folded over her chest, waiting for him to continue. “And Pop snores.”

  “So?”

  “So I haven’t always heard when he needed to go out. And Pop hasn’t either. That’s all.” Jem shrugged.

  “I’ll take him out,” Isaac promised.

  With that, Becky relented, only partly serious in her questions and concerns. The truth was she’d always wanted a dog, ever since she was a little girl, but her parents had said the grocers was no place for a dog. Looking at the puppy now, lolling on his side on the floor, so trusting, so supremely happy in the pleasure of their company, she melted inside. It already seemed like it was part of the family. She sighed, her heart taken in by the sight of that sweet face. It had only met them and had already given its affection over. Just like that.

  She felt much the same way.

  “He’s ours?” Jake asked, stretching out alongside the puppy. He pressed his cheek into its fluffy fur.

  “Of course he’s ours,” Becky said, then paused, thinking quickly. “Santa Claus must have come to our house a little early this year.”

  “Santa Claus left him?” Levi asked.

  “For us?”

  Her lips twitched. “I expect so. How else would he have gotten here?”

  She half expected the boys to whoop and holler and start tearing around the room at top speed, but they simply snuggled closer to their new friend and smiled at each other.

  Isaac slipped an arm around her shoulders. “You don’t really mind, do you?”

  “No.” Becky leaned her head against his chest. “But whatever happened to Christmas morning? It’s only Christmas Eve.”

  He lifted one shoulder and gave her a lopsided smile. “Close enough.”

  Close enough.

  Good enough.

  She’d planned everything to be so perfect...and it was, in its own way, she supposed.

  Seeing Pop, Jem, Levi and Jakob, and Isaac all gathered together in the baby’s room—all gathered together—made her suddenly aware that she wasn’t the only one who’d made plans for today. Isaac had planned the room as a surprise for her. They’d all planned the puppy as a surprise for the boys.

  In fact, everyone had been involved in today’s festivities.

  Isaac had stuffed the turkey with apples and onions. He’d smoked it in an apple-wood fire. He’d even made the gravy, which he did every year. He’d hung the boughs of fir over the door and all the windows. He’d made toys for the boys that they wouldn’t get until the morning. He’d held her chair, kissed her knuckles, and said grace before dinner.

  Jem had dug a path through the new snow, mopped up his messes—mostly—washed dishes, taken care of the moody mare (and the whining puppy), dumped potato peelings in the compost, and more.

  Pop had taken her hunting, helped her truss the turkey, played his wonderful music, and entertained the boys.

  Why, even the boys had helped by stringing popcorn on thread for the Christmas tree. They’d made her a precious rag doll.

  She’d never been alone in planning any of this day, had she?

  The little one inside her fluttered, and Becky was overcome with emotion.

  She’d never been alone in any of it, not even for one teeny tiny second.

  She was surrounded by warmth and love.

  They were a family and, as Isaac had said earlier, that was “good enough.”

  And, she thought with a contented smile, “good enough” was perfect.

  Rachel Elizabeth Jessup

  born April 1, 1871

  THE END

  Continue reading for a sneak peek at

  THE BARTERED BRIDE

  BOOK 2 IN THE BRIDES SERIES...

  Excerpt from

  THE BARTERED BRIDE

  Lena Goldfinch

  Note: The following excerpt is from a work-in-progress. The content is unedited and subject to change upon completion and editorial review.

  ONE

  The Middle of Nowhere, August 1876

  Jem Wheeler was pretty sure they were in Colorado.

  He’d fallen asleep on the train with little Mae laid out beside him on the seat, her head drooping sideways against his thigh, her thumb stuck squarely in her mouth. One chubby stockinged foot dangled off the edge of the seat, twitching to the beat of whatever tune she had playing in her head. She’d kicked off her shoes again, which didn’t surprise him. Like every other two-year-old he’d ever known, she’d go around barefooted all the time if she had the choice. He bent to pick up her shoes, glad the train had stopped. He’d been sitting too long.

  He took another quick look out the window at the town, if you could call it that. It was more like a stop-on-the-way kind of place, with no more than a handful of plain one-story buildings, white paint, pitched roofs, and a single dirt road going off into the distance. At least they had a road. Didn’t look like they had a hotel, but maybe they’d have a restaurant or canteen where he could buy some lunch. Otherwise, it was just dirt, grass, a spattering of white-barked aspens, and the Rockies way off in the distance, not even enough to call a view. What a sad place.

  Who on earth would want to live here? he wondered.

  Although, it was probably quiet. And quiet sort of suited him lately.

  Still, not his destination. They had bigger things awaiting them. A new life.

  He struggled to feel enthusiastic. All that seemed to drive him right now was a single purpose: get back to Colorado. Settle in at the ranch. Make something of it, make a life. It would have been different if Lorelei were still with them. But she wasn’t. There was no way to get used to something like that.

  Jem hefted Mae up in his arms, clasping her shoes behind her back.

  “Hungry, Daddy?” she mumbled, still half-asleep, he guessed.

  “I suppose,” he answered, as he filed out after a few other passengers in their car. Not many of the passengers on board—if any—would be staying in this little nowhere town. He suspected everyone just wanted to stretch a bit like he did before the next leg of the trip.

  “I’m hungry,” Mae said, lifting her head off his shoulder and looking around, her eyes brightening as the last of sleep fell away from her.

  “I’ve got to check on the horses, then we’ll get food.” He stepped off the train and looked around again. They’d stopped at a depot, no more than a long white shack of a building with a boardwalk-style porch and a few benches outside, but it was something at least. Shade against the sun. A decent enough place for a person to sit and wait for the train. The only thing he smelled though was dust kicked up from the dirt road and some sort of pollen on the air that made his nose tingle. No enticing aroma of grilled meat or baking bread, which wasn’t very encouraging. “If they have any,” he added.

  “I’m hungry,” she insisted, jutting out her bottom lip, the same look she always gave him when she was fixing to cry.

  “I said I’d look.”

  She squinched up her face real tight.

  “Don’t you dare cry,” he warned her.

  She pouted and crossed her arms over her chest. Sh
e gave him quite a glare, but he guessed he should be glad she wasn’t bawling. As soon as he turned toward the livery car, she was squirming to be put down.

  “Hold up,” he said. “Got to get your shoes on first.”

  “Daddeeee,” she protested, making herself as lifeless as a rag doll, the better to slip out of his grasp and down his side.

  “Oh, no you don’t.” He held tight, plopped her down firmly on one of the wood-slat benches, and stuffed her feet into her shoes without untying them. If he took the time to untie and tie them again, she’d start crying for sure, and he didn’t have the energy for that.

  No sooner had he slipped the shoes over her heels than she scrambled down and hopped off the porch. In seconds she was kicking at the dirt, no doubt wishing she was barefooted. Before she decided to run off, he bent to take her hand securely in his—not for the first time marveling at how small her hand was in his much larger one—and tugged her along after him. She was so little, so much shorter than him. It didn’t seem right that a man like him should be taking care of such a delicate little thing on his own, but there it was.

  “First, the horses,” he said. She fell like a rag doll again, dangling from his hand. “Oh, no you don’t. You want lunch?” He felt her go completely still in his grasp, listening. “Well, then show me you want lunch.”

  She immediately straightened.

  He marched her over to where they were watering the horses.

  “Puppy! Daddy!” Mae tugged against his hold.

  “Hold up, Mae. It will just take a moment.”

  “Puppy.”

  He looked over and saw a cluster of men and one woman standing in front of what looked to be a church tent across from the depot, a ways back from the road. There was a spattering of grass there and a single aspen with white bark and yellow-green leaves. Not much of a place. Which made it all the more curious as to why there were people gathered there. It wasn’t a Sunday, so it couldn’t have been a church meeting. He shrugged. Not his business.

  Although he did notice there was indeed a puppy there, a little black roly-poly pup, lolling around on the ground at the young woman’s feet. She wasn’t much to look at—the woman, that is—a petite thing in a dingy brown dress, with a loose brown braid pulled forward over one shoulder. She was pretty much dingy-colored everywhere, as if she hadn’t had access to a bath in a while. But she had a quietness about her that didn’t instill any real concerns. In truth, he didn’t spare her much more than a glance. He needed to get to the horses. Perhaps Mae would be safe to play for a bit in front of a church...