Wild West Christmas: A Family for the RancherDance with a CowboyChristmas in Smoke River

by Jenna Kernan

  I was saved when Consuelo entered with a huge platter of fried chicken, and everything got back to normal.

  Except for me. My tongue stayed glued to the roof of my mouth through creamed corn and biscuits and mashed potatoes and gravy while Jase and Skip tried to outdo each other with tales of dangerous cowboy exploits, and Alice and Charlie looked at each other and smiled.

  Jase was seated next to Lilah, and I noticed he kept hitching his chair closer and closer until Consuelo barged in between them with a basket of fresh biscuits and elbowed him away.

  That brought a big har-har from Skip, and even quiet, self-contained Juan forgot his mama’s instructions in table manners and snickered.

  By the time Consuelo’s double-layer chocolate cake was served, I was drawn up tighter than an overpulled cinch. Whenever I got the chance I watched Lilah out of the corner of my eye, and it seemed to me she was aware of my discomfort. She never looked directly at me, but she said little things I knew were meant just for my ears.

  “Today I saw the new seedlings in my garden,” she said at one point. A while later she coughed and said, “I like bright colors, purple and red. And orange.”

  I couldn’t say a damn word. She liked orange? Glory be!

  After dinner we all strayed out to the veranda, where Charlie and Alice sat on the lawn swing holding hands. Juan got out his guitar and sang some songs in Spanish that made my throat tight. Lilah sat in the high-backed wicker rocking chair with Jase and Skip sprawled at her feet.

  I sat on the top porch step with my back to her, working my thumbnail into my palm. Consuelo brought coffee.

  Then Alice blew whatever peace of mind I had managed to work up all to hell. “Miss Cornwell will be spending the night.”

  That did it. I decided not to stay and duke it out verbally with Skip or Jase but to cut and run. Bad enough that Lilah was here for dinner, but it was hard not to think about her sleeping just across the meadow from my cabin.

  I couldn’t take it any longer. I jerked to my feet and stomped off into the dark. Consuelo’s voice followed me. “You want no coffee, Señor Gale?”

  “No, thanks, Consuelo. Gotta get up early tomorrow and break some more horses. Night, Miss Cornwell.”

  “Good night, Gale.”

  What hearing my name on her lips did to my body was downright embarrassing.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Lilah

  The following morning I entered the dining room to find Alice sitting alone at the huge table, a blue ceramic mug of coffee cradled between her hands. I took the chair to her left, relieved that conversing with any of the ranch hands, especially Gale, or Mr. Kingman, would not be necessary.

  But I was shortly to learn something about the life of a cowboy on a ranch like this one. Apparently they got up before dawn and worked at their assigned chores until the sun was a big gold ball in the sky and Consuelo rang the gong announcing breakfast at seven o’clock.

  The men tramped in, their hair slicked down, their Levi’s dusty, followed by Mr. Kingman in a blue work shirt and a worn leather vest. Consuelo brought in platters of fried eggs, pancakes the size of dinner plates, thick slices of bacon, fried potatoes, plus a big ceramic bowl of hot biscuits. She circled the table pouring mugs of coffee and slapping away any fingers that crept to touch her ample posterior as she passed.

  The woman was well past forty but very handsome, with black hair in a single thick braid that hung down her back and sharp brown eyes that missed nothing. She never seemed to hurry, never seemed ruffled by the little flirty gestures and remarks the ranch hands indulged in, and I had to laugh inside. It was Consuelo who ruled this roost, not Charlie Kingman.

  I wondered where Gale was. The men passed the platters of food in silence and fell to cleaning their loaded plates and gulping down Consuelo’s coffee while I picked away at my small pile of fried potatoes and buttered a biscuit. When talk resumed, not one mention was made of Gale.

  “Gotta fix that back pasture fence, Skip,” Mr. Kingman said.

  “Yeah. Find that roll of barbwire yet?”

  “Let’s finish working those horses in the corral first.”

  “Too many to do in one day, boss. Too green yet.”

  I sat quietly sipping my coffee until Mr. Kingman startled me with a question.

  “Do you ride, Miss Cornwell?”

  I gulped. “Why, no, I do not. To be honest, I am afraid of horses.”

  The man’s bushy salt-and-pepper eyebrows shot up. “Afraid of horses? We can fix that, can’t we, boys?”

  The chorus of yesses made me nervous. Then Alice turned to me. “Do you have a split skirt?” she asked.

  “A what?” I had never heard of a split skirt. It sounded most unladylike.

  “Or a pair of britches?” Mr. Kingman added. “I’d bet the mercantile in town would have a pair of boy-size jeans that’d fit you just fine.”

  Jeans! I was horrified at such an outlandish suggestion. Besides, I didn’t want to learn to ride a horse. I wanted to go back to my house in town and watch my seedlings grow.

  Alice caught my eye and smiled. “Maybe next time you visit. In the meantime, ask the dressmaker in town, Verena Forester, about making you a split skirt. Denim should work nicely.”

  Gale still had not shown up, and I began to wonder why. Was he too busy with some task outside to stop for breakfast? Or perhaps he did not wish to see me. Last night he had sat on the porch with his back to me while everyone told stories and joked and laughed, but Gale had spoken scarcely two words to me.

  It was clear he’d been surprised to see me at dinner yesterday, but he’d spared me not one single glance. A dreadful suspicion entered my mind. Had he been disappointed in that kiss? Perhaps I had done it wrong somehow. I could barely swallow at that thought, and I roused myself just in time to catch the tail end of Alice’s comment.

  “...go riding next time.”

  “Y-yes, I will,” I said. I didn’t say another word until breakfast was over.

  “Charlie,” Alice said when Consuelo began to clear the table. “Someone will have to drive Miss Cornwell back to town this morning.”

  All four of the ranch hands suddenly sat up straight and looked at Charlie expectantly.

  “Can’t spare you, Skip. Jase, you and Gale have to work those two stallions we talked about. How about you, Ernesto?”

  “Bueno,” the stocky Mexican said. “I like drive Señorita Cornwell. She no talk much.”

  Everyone laughed, but relief surged through me like a tornado. I have found a friend.

  So later that morning I found myself once more ensconced in the trim little buggy with the kindly man with the understanding eyes and no interest in making conversation.

  Despite Gale’s puzzling absence from the breakfast table, I smiled all the way home.

  * * *

  “Split skirt!” The dressmaker, Verena Forester, rolled her eyes. “What d’you want with a split skirt, I might ask?”

  “For riding,” I replied calmly. As if it is any of your business.

  “Riding? Huh!” Verena’s voice rose in accusation. “You got a horse, have ya?”

  “I will use a horse, yes. How else does one go riding?”

  She huffed and bustled away to her pattern books like a fluffed-up hen. “A skirt like this?” She spread a page out on the counter.

  “Yes.” I jabbed my forefinger on the drawing of a young woman standing splay-legged in an odd-looking garment split up the middle. It looked for all the world like a severed turkey carcass.

  “Yes, just like that,” I said. “What sort of fabric would you recommend?”

  The dressmaker narrowed her eyes. “What I’d recommend, young woman, is to give up the whole idea. It’s indecent.”

  I just shrugged.

 
; “Who’re you going riding with, if I may ask?”

  “Alice Kingman. Do you know her?”

  The transformation in Verena was instantaneous. She leaned forward across the counter and lowered her voice. “You mean Charlie Kingman’s wife?”

  “Why, yes.” I understood immediately that I had touched a nerve of some sort, and with the dressmaker’s next question I knew what it was.

  “You’ve met Charlie, I assume? Did he look...well, happy?”

  Aha! Verena had a tendre for the owner of the Rocking K. Possibly she was carrying a torch for him. I managed to smile. “Mr. and Mrs. Kingman both look extremely happy.”

  “Denim!” she snapped. “That’s what you want for your split skirt. All I have is blue.”

  “Blue will be fine.”

  “Stand over here so I can take your measurements.”

  I stood and turned and lifted my arms on command while Verena circled her tape measure around various parts of my anatomy.

  “Be ready on Friday,” she said at last. “You want to open an account? I figure if you’re friends with Alice Kingman, you’ll be going to plenty of ranch shindigs.”

  At the word shindigs I must have blanched, because Verena sent me a strange look. I certainly did not want to attend any “shindigs” where I would be expected to make polite conversation. They would be just like Mama’s afternoon teas, which I had always loathed.

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to learn to ride a horse, either. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more sure I was this was the last thing I wanted to do. I wanted to write my stories.

  And water my flowers.

  Nevertheless, I opened an account with the dressmaker, and on her advice went across the street to the mercantile where Edith helped me find a pair of calf-high leather boots and what she termed a “cowboy” hat. It was light tan suede with a wide brim, which Edith showed me how to “train up” into a curl.

  My goodness, people out here in the West certainly dressed oddly. With any luck I would never have to wear either the split skirt or the hat or the heavy leather boots; I could just keep making excuses until Alice Kingman gave up.

  I took my package under my arm and left the mercantile with Edith gazing after me with a bemused expression. She was an intelligent young girl; perhaps she had guessed my disinclination to ever wear a cowboy hat or a pair of boots.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Gale

  “Aw, hell, Gale, it’s Saturday night!”

  I turned my back on Jase. “So?”

  “So...” Across the dining table, Skip managed to look exasperated and curious at the same time. “Ya gotta cut loose and have some fun now that we’ve got most of those horses broke. Even the boss says you need lightenin’ up.”

  That made me laugh. Charlie Kingman worked me hard and I’d never once heard him use the phrase lighten up. Alice, maybe, but not Charlie.

  “You’re a lying son of a... All you and Jase want is a poker game. Ask Juan to go into town with you.”

  “Juan plays poker like a fish learnin’ to square dance.”

  “Ask Ernesto, then.”

  “Huh!” Skip worked the crease of his hat between his thumb and forefinger. “Ernesto plays poker as if he invented the game, and I ain’t got that much money. That man always wins. Always.”

  “Gonna be dancin’ at the Golden Partridge,” Jase said, dropping his voice to a wheedle.

  “Sorry, boys. Don’t have time.”

  Skip raised his sandy eyebrows. “Gonna be some of Selma’s girls there, too, if you’ve got the inclination.”

  “Don’t have the inclination.”

  Both men looked at each other, then back at me. “You funnin’, Gale?” Skip said. “’Cause you always had time for—”

  “No, I’m not funnin’. Go on, get out of here before I think up something for you to do.”

  Within two minutes I was left in peace, and Consuelo approached with what I’d asked her for earlier. With a puzzled look in her dark eyes she plopped it into my hand; it was satisfyingly heavy and wrapped in a clean huck towel.

  I trailed Skip and Jase into town, and every mile I wondered what the hell I thought I was doing. But the minute I spied that orange picket fence, I knew exactly what it was.

  A light burned upstairs. She was home. Was she hanging more wallpaper? Painting her dining room? I tied Randy to a maple tree around back and stomped up onto the front porch, purposely making a bunch of noise so she’d know someone was there.

  I knocked. Knocked again. A plaintive little cry came from a wicker basket at my feet, and I scooped up a tiny orange cat and snuggled it against my chest. Right away it started to purr, and at that instant the front door swung open.

  “Oh,” she said. She didn’t look paint speckled, which was a good sign. Her gaze left my face and traveled to the cat at my chest.

  “Whatever are you doing here?”

  “Hello, Miss Cornwell. Lilah.”

  “With my cat,” she added.

  “Well, it mewed, and I—”

  “I see.”

  She didn’t sound mad, so I went on, “Have you had supper yet?”

  She frowned. “No, not yet. I was working and quite forgot about eating supper.”

  “In that case, Miss Cornwell, Lilah, would you consider having supper with me?”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Lilah

  He just stood there waiting, with Mollie cuddled against his crisp blue shirt. “I often eat only cheese and a few crackers for supper,” I said. I reached out to take the cat and he trapped my hand in his.

  “Lilah. I brought supper fixings. I was hoping maybe you would—”

  I cut him off. “I don’t cook.”

  “But I do.” He said it with such assurance I almost laughed. I extricated my hand, and Mollie, from his grasp and stood wondering what I should do about Mr. Gale McBurney standing here on my front porch. He answered the question with his next words.

  “I brought two prime-beef steaks.”

  My mouth watered.

  “And two potatoes.”

  “Potatoes?”

  “For baking. You’ve got an oven, haven’t you?”

  Yes, I had an oven, and an appetite, so I invited him in. Before he stepped through the door I slipped Mollie back into her basket and picked it up by the handle. As I led the way to the kitchen I could still hear her purring.

  Gale set something wrapped up in a towel on my polished wood kitchen counter and folded back the top. A potato rolled out. He caught it in one hand and tipped his head toward my shiny nickel-plated stove.

  “Pretty fancy,” he said. “Got a wood box?”

  I pointed. He opened the firebox, stirred up the coals left from my afternoon tea and chunked in three pieces of wood one of the neighbor boys, Billy Rowell, had split for me.

  “Got a broiler?”

  I must have looked blank because he began checking the contents of the warming oven. “Ah,” he said, extricating a round mesh-looking thing I’d never seen before. “Your broiler.”

  He laid it on the stove, then unloaded the contents of his towel-swathed bundle. Another potato, a small ceramic crock of butter and two of the thickest steaks I had ever seen.

  “Those will never cook through,” I warned.

  “Don’t want ’em to.” He stabbed both potatoes with a fork, popped them into the oven and turned to me. “A steak’s no good if it’s cooked till it’s as tough as leather. My daddy used to say a good steak should be served bleedin’ and bawlin’.”

  “Ugh.” I couldn’t help the shudder that ran through me.

  “My daddy,” he explained, “was from Texas. Now, what’re we gonna do for an hour while those potatoes bake?”

 
Chapter Eighteen

  Gale

  “We could...talk,” Lilah suggested. “In the parlor.”

  “What else?”

  “We could...play chess?”

  “I used to play chess with my dad,” I said. “But that’s so long ago I probably couldn’t give you a good match. What else?”

  She thought for a moment, then hitched herself up onto a tall kitchen stool. Oh, Lord, her feet were bare. And her toes...well, they peeked out from under her petticoat, and it plumb took my mind off the conversation.

  “We could read aloud to each other,” she suggested. “Dickens? Sir Walter Scott?”

  “Got any poetry?”

  I could see that surprised her because her eyebrows went up. “Poetry?” she echoed. She didn’t for one minute believe I liked poetry.

  “Yeah. You know, Tennyson? Byron?”

  She stared at me as if I had green onions growing out of my ears.

  “Or,” she said after a long minute, “we could play, well, poker.” She sounded pretty doubtful, but I kept quiet.

  She bit her lower lip and I had to look away. “That’s what people out here in the West play, isn’t it? I bet I could learn quite rapidly.”

  All kinds of things started going through my mind. Playing for...kisses, maybe?

  “Sure you wouldn’t rather read some poetry?”

  She shook her head. The bun at her neck shook loose, and a couple of long shiny curls slipped free. Goddamn, her hair was beautiful, like polished mahogany. Between her hair and her bare toes, I was having a tough time hiding my arousal.

  “Uh, since I’m cooking supper tonight, would you have an apron I could wear?”

  That made her laugh. It sounded soft and kinda drowsy, and I gritted my teeth against the picture that climbed into my brain. Wish I hadn’t hung my hat on the peg near the door, but I’d better hurry up with the apron.

  Without a word she lifted a ruffly pink gingham apron off a hook and handed it over. She watched me tie it around my waist and I prayed she wouldn’t notice the bulge in the front.