The Christmas Brides (25 page)

He brought lard and a big skillet from the pantry, set the pan to warming on the stove, then rolled the chicken parts in a bowl of flour. They worked in companionable silence, Juliana finishing up the potatoes and putting them on to boil.

The savory sizzle of frying chicken soon brought the children in from the front room, where they'd been admiring the Christmas tree.

“We'll need an extra place set at the table,” Tom commented mildly, after Theresa had counted out plates and silverware for everyone. His dark eyes twinkled as Juliana turned to him. “For the circuit preacher. He's out in the barn with Lincoln.”

Juliana nearly gasped aloud, and before she could think of a response, the back door opened and Lincoln came in, closely followed by a very large white-haired man in austere black clothes and a clerical collar.

The circuit preacher's eyes were a pale, merry blue, in startling contrast to his sober garments, and before Lincoln could make an introduction, he lumbered over to Juliana like a great, good-natured bear, one hand stuck out in greeting.

“This must be the bride!” he boomed.

Juliana's face flamed. She fidgeted, unable to meet Lincoln's gaze, and shook the reverend's hand.

Gracie piped up. “This morning when I went into Papa's room—”

Theresa put one palm over the child's mouth just in time.

The reverend turned to look at Tom, drawing in an appreciative breath. “Is that fried chicken I smell?”

Tom laughed, nodded.

“And me just in time for supper!” the reverend roared.

Just then, Daisy crept up beside the big man and tugged at the sleeve of his coat. “Are you Saint Nicholas?” she asked, almost breath less with her own daring.

The reverend bellowed out a great guffaw at that. Daisy started, but didn't retreat.

“Why, bless your heart, child,” the preacher thundered, “nobody's ever mistaken this ole Bible-pounder for a saint!”

“That's Reverend Dettly, silly goose,” Gracie informed Daisy solicitously. “Saint Nicholas always wears red.”

“You'll spend the night, won't you, Reverend?” Lincoln asked, taking the preacher's coat. “It's dark out there, and mighty cold, even with the thaw.”

“I reckon I'll burrow into a hay pile out in your barn, all right,” Reverend Dettly said. “A belly full of ole Tom's chicken ought to keep me plenty warm.”

“Surely we can offer you a bed,” Juliana said shyly.

Reverend Dettly smiled down at her. “I won't be putting anybody out of their beds,” he said. “If a stable was good enough for our Lord, it's sure as all get-out good enough for me.”

T
OM TOOK PLATES OUT TO THE CABIN
for Ben and Rose-of-Sharon as soon as supper was ready. When he returned, everyone was already seated around the table, Reverend Dettly waiting patiently to offer up the blessing.

Juliana sat at Lincoln's right side, stomach jittering with fearful anticipation and hunger. Soon, she would be his
wife.
Mrs. Lincoln Creed. Would he expect her to share his bed that night, or would he give her time to get used to being married?

Did she
want
time to get used to it?

The reverend cleared his throat once Tom had joined them, held out his great pawlike hands and closed his eyes to deliver the longest and most exuberant blessing Juliana had ever heard. Behind closed eyelids, her head dutifully bowed, she imagined the gravy congealing, the mountainous piles of fried chicken going cold, and still the preacher went on, thanking God for everything he could think of, from seeds germinating in the earth under their blanket of snow, to the cattle on a thousand hills. When someone's stomach rumbled loudly and at length, Dettly laughed and shouted a joyful “Amen!”

“Thank God,” Lincoln agreed.

Juliana elbowed him.

During that meal, it seemed there were two
Julianas—one seated next to Lincoln at the table, laughing and talking and enjoying the savory food, and one standing back a ways at the edge of the lantern light, wringing her hands and fretting.

“So,” the reverend said, turning to Juliana when he'd eaten his third and apparently final helping of everything, “I'm told there's to be a wedding. I've known Lincoln here since he couldn't see over the top of a water trough, but I don't believe I've ever made the bride's acquaintance.”

Juliana felt her cheeks warm, and it took some doing to meet that direct blue gaze, kindly but penetrating, too, head-on. She told him her name, though Tom had probably done that long since, and that she'd been the teacher at the Indian School until it closed down.

“You look good and sturdy,” the preacher observed, as though she were a calf he might buy at a stock sale.

Juliana wasn't offended, but she
was
amused. “I have good teeth, too,” she said with a twinkle.

Reverend Dettly laughed, but his eyes took on an expression of solemnity as he continued to regard her. “You're amenable to this, Miss Mitchell? Getting married is a serious thing, with eternal consequences. Mustn't be too hasty about it.”

Was having no other viable choice the same as being amenable? Juliana didn't know. Her heart seemed to be getting bigger and bigger, sure to burst at any time, and it all but cut off the breath she needed to answer.

“I'm willing to marry Mr. Creed,” she said. Even if she didn't get arrested, Mr. Philbert would probably see that she never taught in any school again. If she went home to Denver, it would be on Clay's terms, and she
would essentially be a prisoner. She imagined herself growing more and more eccentric as the years passed, until she finally ended up wild-eyed and confined to the attic.

The thought made her shudder.

The children were unusually quiet. Juliana couldn't hear the big wall clock ticking, though she knew it was because she'd climbed up onto a stool and wound it herself earlier with a brass key.

“Very well,” the reverend said, evidently satisfied, “let's get on with it, then.” In remote areas like Stillwater Springs, Montana, where loneliness and hard work were the order of the day, he probably per formed the marriage ceremony for all sorts of unromantic reasons.

Juliana cast a look up and down the table. “As soon as we've washed the dishes—”

“Hang the dishes,” Lincoln said, taking her by the hand and pulling her to her feet. “Let's get this thing
done.
” With that, he all but dragged her into the front room, the children and Tom following single file like goslings, Reverend Dettly bringing up the rear.

Lincoln stood with his back to the Christmas tree, Juliana at his side. Suddenly, it seemed to her that the whole scene was taking place under water, or inside one of those pretty crystal globes that produced snow flurries when they were shaken. Dettly pulled a small, oft-used prayer book from the pocket of his suit coat, cleared his throat ponderously.

Tom and Joseph were appointed as wit nesses; Gracie insisted on being one, too.

The ceremony was amazingly brief; Juliana heard it all through a dull pounding in her ears, responded
whenever Lincoln squeezed her hand. The reverend had to repeat himself a lot.

There were no rings and no flowers.

The dress Juliana wore belonged to someone else, and was too tight in the bodice.

For all that, she felt cautiously hopeful, if dazed, and perhaps even happy.

Reverend Dettly pronounced them man and wife, and that, Juliana thought, was that. Until Lincoln turned her to face him, cupped his hands on either side of her face and kissed her so soundly that she had to grasp at his shirt to keep herself from floating away.

When that kiss was over, Juliana stared up into her husband's face, con founded by all he'd made her feel. Fiery sparks leaped within her, and there was this odd sense of
expansion,
embarrassingly physical but going well beyond that into realms of mind and spirit she had never previously comprehended, let alone explored.

The earth shifted beneath her feet, heaven trembled above her.

She was different.

Everything
was different.

Lincoln frowned slightly, looking puzzled and a little concerned. “Are you all right?” he asked.

She nodded. Shook her head. Sagged a little, as though she might swoon—she who had
never
swooned until last night, after helping with a difficult birth— causing Lincoln to slip an arm around her.

“Juliana?”

“I'm—we're—married,” she said stupidly.

Lincoln's concern softened into a smile. “Yes,” he said.

Gracie tugged at the skirt of Juliana's dress. “May I call you Mama now, please?” she asked.

Juliana's heart turned over; she glanced at Lincoln, but saw no urging, one way or the other, in his face. They were strangers to each other, she and Lincoln, and the decision to marry had been made out of expediency on Lincoln's part and desperation on her own. Suppose, in a month or a year, they found they could not tolerate each other? Gracie, thinking of Juliana as a mother, would be crushed.

Looking down into those hopeful eyes, though, Juliana knew she couldn't refuse. “Yes, darling,” she said softly. “If you want to call me Mama, you may. But you had another mother—wasn't she ‘Mama'?”

“Does a person only get one mama?” Gracie asked, looking worried.

Juliana was at a complete loss. She and Gracie both turned to Lincoln for an answer. He looked flummoxed.

Gracie took charge. “My first mama died,” she said. “I loved her—she was pretty and she smelled nice—but she's gone. I won't see her again until I get to heaven, and that might be a long, long time from now. So I need another mama to get me through till then.”

Juliana's eyes stung, but she smiled. She couldn't help it; Gracie had her thoroughly bewitched. “All right, then,” she said, praying she would never have to let this trusting child down. “It's a bargain. I'll be the best mama I can.”

Gracie wasn't finished. Placing her hands on her hips, she said, “Theresa told me that she and Joseph are going home to North Dakota as soon as they can raise the train
fare. Couldn't Billy-Moses and Daisy stay here with us and be Creeds, too?”

Juliana closed her eyes.

“Go and help with the washing up,” Lincoln told his daughter mildly.

“But you didn't
answer
me, Papa.”

“Go.”

She left, the reverend in tow, and Juliana and Lincoln were alone, as a married couple, for the first time. The tree sparkled behind Lincoln; a strand of tinsel caught in his hair. Without thinking, Juliana reached up to remove that thin silvery strip, draped it on the closest branch. Her touch was tender.

She'd done a fairly good job of setting aside her fears for the youngest of her charges, but now Gracie's question echoed in her heart like the peal of distant church bells.
Couldn't Billy-Moses and Daisy stay here with us and be Creeds, too?

“What happens now?” she asked, unable to hold the words back any longer.

Lincoln put his arms around her waist loosely and drew her closer. Ducked his head to kiss the tip of her nose. “Now,” he said throatily, “we take things slowly. I want you in my bed, Juliana Creed, I won't deny it. But I won't ask you for anything you're not ready to give—you have my word on that.”

Juliana Creed.
That was who she was now. It seemed re mark able, as though she'd lived all her life as one person and then suddenly turned into another. As she looked up at Lincoln, she wondered if what she felt—the crazy tangle of longing and sweet sorrow and myriad other things too new to be named—might be love.

Surely that was impossible. She had only known Lincoln for a few days—how could she have learned to love him in such a short period of time?

“I'm—I'm not sure when I'll be ready, Lincoln,” she confessed. “I've never— I mean, John and I didn't— wouldn't have—”

He ran a hand lightly down the length of her braid, gave it a gentle tug. “We'll take our time, Juliana,” he reiterated. A sparkle lit his brown eyes. “Not too
much
time, mind you.”

A lovely shiver went through her, but then she remembered tales she'd heard other women relate, concerning intimate things that happened between a man and a woman, and frowned.

“What?” Lincoln asked. How he favored that one-word question. He was not one for long speeches, that was for sure.

Juliana flushed with tender misery. “Will it hurt?”

Gently, he ran the backs of his fingers along her cheek. “Maybe a little, the first time or two. But I'll be careful, Juliana. That's a promise.”

She believed him. She might not know Lincoln Creed very well, but there
were
things she was sure of where he was concerned. Many men would have packed Gracie off to live with relatives after her mother died—Juliana's own father, for instance—or shipped her away to some distant boarding school, but he'd kept her at home. He clearly loved his daughter, but she wasn't spoiled. He'd brought a strange woman and four Indian children into his home, just because they'd needed some place to go. He'd stood by, ready to do whatever he could to help, while a young wife gave birth to her first child amid
screams and blood, and every morning, without fail, no matter how bitterly cold the weather, he rose before dawn and made sure the range cattle didn't go hungry.

Rising on tiptoe, she kissed his cheek, felt the stubble of a beard against her lips. “I'd better put Daisy and Billy-Moses to bed,” she said. “Would you mind if I gave them a bath first?”

Lincoln smiled, touched her lower lip with the tip of one finger. “This is your house, too, Mrs. Creed. You don't have to ask permission to use the bathtub or anything else I own.”

A niggle of worry snaked along the bottom of Juliana's stomach. “Speaking of Mrs. Creed,” she said, after working up her courage, “what will your mother say when she finds out you've taken a wife?”

“I don't really care,” Lincoln replied easily. “My guess is she'll be a little testy for a while, thinking I ought to have consulted her first, and then she'll get to know you better and come to like you. Anyhow, she won't be back from Phoenix for months—she hates the cold weather, and every year she threatens to stay there for good, since there's no ‘culture' in Stillwater Springs, and she dreads being stuck out here on the ranch for weeks at a time. I think the only reason she comes back at all is because she's afraid Gracie will grow up to cuss, chew tobacco and wear pants if she's left with Tom and me for too long at a stretch.”

Juliana smiled at the image of Gracie acting like a man. One thing was for certain; Gracie Creed would never be ordinary. “
I
think you and Tom have done a fine job making a home for that little girl.”

He grinned, gave her braid one more tug. “I'll go
light a fire in the boiler and make sure there's water for a bath,” he said. With that, he turned and walked away.

Juliana watched him until he'd vanished into the corridor on the other side of the front room, then took herself to the kitchen.

Tom and the reverend were doing up the dishes while Joseph read aloud from
Oliver Twist.
Theresa was wiping the table with a damp cloth while Gracie sat on the floor near the stove, entertaining Daisy and Billy-Moses with the alphabet blocks.

“That's your name,” she said, lining up the blocks to spell
Daisy.

Daisy stared at the letters in uncomprehending wonder. She was only three, after all. Gracie, with her bright hair and agile mind, must have seemed like a living oracle to her.

“Make
Bill,
” Billy-Moses urged.

“It's time for your bath,” Juliana inter ceded.

Daisy, who loved baths, was on her feet in a moment. Billy-Moses's small face took on an obstinate expression. “I don't
want
a bath,” he said, folding his arms.

Reverend Dettly turned from the sink, his big hands dripping with suds, smiling. It struck Juliana that his life was probably a very solitary one when he wasn't preaching, but traveling from place to place and sleeping in people's barns. No doubt he enjoyed evenings like this one, being around children and eating a home-cooked meal.

“This is not a question of what you want, Billy-Moses,” Juliana said firmly. “You
are
going to have a bath, and then you are going to bed. Period.”