Mail-Order Christmas Brides Boxed Set (45 page)

The snow kept falling, but he could make out the thin trail of smoke from the cookstove. The curtains were open on the windows, but no lamp or outdoor lantern was lit. He supposed Annabelle and the children had become so intent on their paper ornaments for the tree that they had not noticed how dark it was becoming.

He didn’t need to guide his horse to the lean-to. The mare knew where he was going. She quietly went into the structure and he dismounted, taking her saddle off and giving her a measure of grain before rubbing her dry.

He was at the door to the trading post before he heard the soft sobs.

He thought it was Eliza, upset about being told to go to bed. But, when he pushed the door open, he saw it was Annabelle sitting on the floor with her head down and her shoulders heaving.

“What’s wrong?” he asked as he entered the room and went to her. She had lit the fire he’d laid earlier in the fireplace or he wouldn’t have been able to see. The door was open to the living quarters and there was no light in there so he assumed the children were in bed.

Annabelle struggled to control her sobs and then it was silent.

It wasn’t until then that he saw the Christmas tree lying on the dirt floor near her, the white paper ornaments scattered around it. Shiny bits of gold shone on the dirt, too.

Annabelle looked so defenseless sitting on the floor with her head hanging down that he reached for her as he knelt beside her. He’d intended to put his arm around her, but when his hand touched her shoulder in passing she flinched and gasped.

“You’re hurt?” He didn’t try to touch her again, but sat down beside her instead. “What happened?”

She lifted her tearstained face to him. “I broke the pear ornament. I wanted to move the Christmas tree. Remember how the clerk put the pear in the light so it would shine. I thought I could get the firelight to shine through it if I moved it to the right.”

“But did you fall?” he asked. “I could have moved the tree for you when I got back.”

She just shook her head.

Then she took a ragged breath and looked at him with distress in her eyes. “How am I going to be a good wife to Adam if I can’t do something as simple as move that tree? I thought I could do it. I did not have to bend down and pick it up. I just needed to slide it over a little.”

“You must have slipped. That’s all,” he said as he tried to figure out what had happened. “We put some water in that bucket and maybe some of it spilled.”

She shook her head. “No, it’s me. It’s my injury—from the fire.”

She looked at him fully then, strands of her chestnut hair loosened from the braid going down her back. Her green eyes were dark with misery. In the firelight, her face was pale as a piece of white china his mother had once.

“Start at the beginning and tell me all about it,” he urged her.

And so she did, the words about her father’s store tumbling out of her and then she spoke of the night of the fire.

“I tried to go back in,” she said, her breath catching. “My father was still in there and I needed to find him. But I couldn’t. I’d stayed up late to do the bookkeeping and my father had gone to bed. The fire started on the second floor and it started burning down into the main part of the store. A piece of wood hit me across the shoulders. It was burning. I felt arms grab me from behind and start to pull me out. I didn’t fight them because I thought it was my father, coming in to save me. But it wasn’t him. It was Mr. Norton, our neighbor. His dog had woken him up.”

She was silent for a few minutes after that and he doubted she was even aware that she had taken his hand in a death grip.

“I have scars along my back and shoulders,” she finally continued. “I told Adam about them in that letter he never received. I told all the other men who had written to me, too. The way the burns healed on my arm makes it difficult for me to lift heavy things. I don’t have the strength a normal woman does.”

“But you’re alive,” he whispered. “You could have died.”

“I wished I had,” she said softly. “At first there was so much pain from the burns and I’d let my father die. I heard his voice calling for me and I couldn’t find him. I didn’t think I deserved to live after that.”

Gabe opened his arms and she slid closer to him, carefully resting against his chest.

“You couldn’t have saved him,” he murmured into her hair as he stroked the back of her neck. “He would have understood.”

She gave a bitter chuckle and looked up at him. “You didn’t know my father. He expected me to come all right.”

Gabe had a fair idea of what the man was like. “Well, any reasonable parent would have understood. There are just some things you can’t do.”

They were quiet for a while, just sitting together in the light from the fire.

“Do you think your brother ever understood?” she finally asked. “When you didn’t convince your father to let him stay with you here?”

He owed her the truth after what she’d told him. “I still hear his sobs sometimes in my dreams. I wish I had known what to say to make my father change his mind. No, I’m not sure he ever will forgive me.”

She nodded then, like that was the answer she’d expected.

“Adam might not understand why he didn’t get that letter then, either,” she said calmly. “He might think I didn’t send it. That I am trying to trick him.”

“Trick him?” Gabe reared back in amazement. “Why, Adam is fortunate you agreed to marry him. A few scars don’t have anything to do with that. His problem isn’t with you. It’s all with himself.”

“None of the other men kept writing to me after that letter,” she said.

“Well, they were fools,” Gabe said. “Why, you were very brave for even trying to reach your father. That’s more important than whether or not you can lift something.”

Annabelle looked at him then with hope in her eyes. “Do you really think so?”

“Absolutely.”

He sat there enjoying the expression on her face for a moment and remembered. “Adam will think so, too. You’ll see.”

He wondered if the light in her eyes didn’t dim just a little. Then he heard a slight sound at the doorway to the kitchen and turned to see Daniel standing there in his nightclothes.

“Eliza is scared,” he informed them.

The boy sounded a little worried himself.

“Everything’s fine,” Gabe said as he stood up and held out a hand to assist Annabelle. “We just had a bit of an accident.”

“The tree will be fine,” Annabelle assured him, too.

Gabe smiled. He knew Daniel well enough to know it wasn’t the tree that the boy was fretting over. His eyes hadn’t left Annabelle long enough to even notice anything else.

“I’ll make us all a cup of warm milk,” he said as he gently encircled Annabelle’s waist. He wanted to be sure she didn’t fall again as they walked to the kitchen. “Then maybe we’ll read a bit of the Christmas story.”

Daniel’s eyes lit up at that. “Will we get to the part about the angel? Eliza says she wants to see an angel for Christmas.”

“Does she now?” Gabe said as they walked through the door into the kitchen.

He figured he’d already seen his angel in the faces of his niece and nephew and now there was Annabelle. A man’s heart could only take in so much and his was full, if only for tonight. He hoped his brother came home by Christmas Eve, but for this evening Gabe intended to drink his fill of Christmas warmth. He knew he couldn’t say the words to tell any of them how important they had become to him. But he would work tonight on their gifts, especially Annabelle’s. And then he realized there was something else he could do to boost her spirits. He could use his leather tools to reshape that rose-colored hat she was so fond of.

* * *

Annabelle woke up early the next morning and lay in bed to savor the day. The warm milk had relaxed her and the words of the angel’s visit to the shepherds had comforted her just like they had others like her for generations. She doubted Mary had been prepared for company on Christmas Eve any more than she and Gabe were. And yet all had been well. Of course, she reminded herself, Mrs. Baker hadn’t been one of the shepherds. And, knowing men, none of them had searched out any forgotten dust in the corners of the manger.

Annabelle stared at the muslin ceiling as she thought about what she had to do today. She had cleaned her silk dress as best as she could, but she was saving that for the party tomorrow. Her black mourning dress was already dirty after all of her cleaning yesterday so she’d put it on again when she got out of bed. She’d wear her hair in the braid while she worked, but she had an idea for how to put her hair up with her five pins and she’d try that for the party.

As she sat up, she realized she had thought she’d feel worried after telling Gabe about her injuries, but she hadn’t felt so lighthearted for months. Maybe the men out West weren’t as worried about things like that as she had imagined.

The sun rose enough for light to come into the small window at the front of the living quarters and shine through the curtain that separated the bed area. Annabelle carefully got out of the bed so she wouldn’t disturb Eliza. Both children were still sleeping. She had heard Gabe go in the kitchen a few minutes ago to build a fire in the cookstove, but he had left shortly thereafter and closed the door that led to the main storeroom. Neither one of them had remembered to lock the door after reading the Bible with the children last night.

The chill of the air made Annabelle slip on her dress quickly and search for the heavy socks Gabe had given her that first night. Her fingers were stiff, but she managed to braid her hair with no trouble. She decided to put her shoes on out by the stove so she picked them up and slipped past the curtain.

“Oh.” She stopped where she stood and stared at the table.

She blinked, but the vision of her hat didn’t go away. There it sat, looking as good as the day she’d worn it for her photograph. After the wind and dampness the first night she’d been here, it had taken on the shape of a mushroom. And the rose flower petals had curled up until they looked more like thorns. But someone had pushed the top back into place and made the petals look the way they were meant to be.

She was almost afraid to touch it, so she went over to the door and knocked softly instead.

Gabe opened the door with such a wide grin on his face that she forgot about the hat and just stood there gawking.

“Do you like it?” he asked, bringing her back to the present.

“I don’t know how you did it,” she whispered. “It’s like new.”

He looked pleased. “I can’t wait to see you wear it again.”

She nodded. It wasn’t totally proper to have a hat on one’s head inside a home, but she might make an exception for tomorrow. She could use the confidence that hat gave her for the party tomorrow.

Gabe stepped into the kitchen then and walked over to pick up the bucket. “The fire’s going so we’ll heat up some water. Then I’ll make us some more pancakes. You can sit and rest a bit. We’ll be busy enough later.”

Annabelle decided she would do just that. She wanted to feel the sides of her hat anyway. Gabe must have worked most of the night on her hat. She only hoped he wasn’t disappointed. They both knew that hat had made her look good to his brother.

If Adam did make it back in time for the party, she wanted to be as charming as she could be. The past couple of days she’d felt so comfortable with Gabe and the children that she’d forgotten it was Adam who she needed to win over. He was the one who had offered her a place in his family. And, while he might be having difficulties right now, she could only pray that he would stand by his proposal.

She closed her eyes. It might help, she thought, if she pictured the ranch Adam had written about. She used to sit like this at night in her cousin’s house before she drifted off to sleep. She had a full image of what the place looked like. Of course, the ground would be covered with snow instead of green grass at this time of year, but the wide porch on the house would still be there, along with the rocking chairs he’d mentioned they would sit in to watch the sunset. She wondered suddenly if the children had a swing near the house. If they didn’t, she told herself, she’d see to it that one was built for them. Children needed to play some when the work was done.

“Miss Annabelle.”

She heard the whisper and opened her eyes to see Daniel standing there in his nightclothes.

“Do you feel okay?” he asked, his forehead furrowed with worry.

“I’m just fine,” she told him and opened her arms. He came to her and she hugged him to her. “We’re all going to be fine.”

Then she drew back a little and smoothed down his hair. “And your uncle is going to make pancakes for breakfast so you better run and get dressed for the day.”

She stood up as the boy ran back behind the curtain. She’d start the day by looking into the other part of the trading post and seeing what needed to be done. The door opened soundlessly and she stepped into the dim room. There were only embers in the fireplace, but there was enough light for her to see that the Christmas tree was standing upright again, the white snowflake ornaments hanging from its limbs and the pieces of glass from the broken pear all swept up.

She shook her head, wondering again when Gabe slept.

Just then the door opened in the living quarters and she walked back. She was going to have to find some way to thank him. Words seemed inadequate for all he’d done. She had made a handkerchief for Adam as well as the children, but she hadn’t known Gabe would be with them for Christmas and it was too late to make anything now, especially with all the work they needed to do for the party tomorrow.

If she had a way to go back to the mercantile in Miles City, she would buy him one of those knife sheaths with the design of an eagle on them. Someone had done beautiful work on them and a man would be proud to carry something like that with him whether he stayed down here or went back up into the mountains. Surely she had enough money left to buy one. The thought of doing something nice for him made her feel good.

Chapter Six

G
abe could smell the apple and raisin cake baking from where he stood in the trading post. It was the day of the party, and with the pine branches that Annabelle had placed around, the air smelled better in here than it had in years. He stopped scrubbing the window and leaned against the sod wall for a moment. He doubted anyone would be looking through the windows tonight, but he wanted them clean anyway.