A High-Country Christmas, page 17
She took the towel from him and draped it over his shoulders. Then lifting the fringes of his hair, she tucked the towel inside the nightshirt, all the way around his neck.
Her warm hands grazed his skin in the process, and for all he was worth, he couldn’t recall a barber ever increasing his blood pressure like she did. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.
But when she came around in front of him and pushed her fingers through his hair, her skirt brushed his knees and the smell of her brushed his good sense, and he prayed his manners would survive the coming ordeal.
~
Smoothing the towel in place, Lena ran her right hand over Wil’s shoulder, exactly like she did Tay. But Wil Bergman tensed up, rigid as a barn door. Did he find her repulsive? Did he doubt she could do the job, given her condition?
Never mind it. Tucking her chin, she pulled in a deep breath, drew a comb and scissors from her apron pocket, and circled behind him. She’d not be put off by his doubts when she knew she was perfectly capable of the chore, despite how many fingers she did or did not have.
Guiding the comb through his long hair, from his forehead straight back, she repeated the move, careful not to gouge the bullet trail above his ear. As she combed in easy, repetitive movements, his shoulders relaxed. Tension lifted like steam off fresh bread from the oven.
He sighed and sank against the chair.
When she stepped to her right, she could see his eyes were closed.
A bit disconcerting. Tay had never reacted this way when she cut his hair. Theirs was usually a lively, teasing banter, with her threatening to nick his ears.
But Tay was her brother. And he didn’t have a mass of hair that flowed through her fingers like dark silk. Nor were his shoulders so broad and straight. Wil Bergman filled the chair, the entire room, for that matter, and his scent swept around her. Clean. Strong. Masculine.
She’d best keep her mind on the task, or she’d be sighing as well.
Switching the comb to her left hand, she held it between thumb and forefinger, lifting sections of hair and cutting along the comb’s edge. Then she worked around in front of him, combing his hair back again, distracted momentarily by movement beneath his eyelids. What was he thinking? What was he feeling? What would it be like to—
Snip.
Oh dear. She combed up the same section, evening out what she had done, praying he didn’t notice when he viewed the results of her barbering skills.
Clippings fell from her scissors to the towel and the floor. She trimmed her way around him, stepping over his extended leg, and shortening his hair to just above his collar. After finishing, she studied the overall affect.
The line of his jaw was clearly visible since he’d shaved, his mouth firm yet kind. His brows still cut a sharp contrast to his pale forehead, but he looked nothing like the wild-eyed man who’d held her in a death grip that first night in the surgery.
Then he opened his eyes.
Dark and deep, they locked onto her, holding her as firmly as he had before. Something in his gaze drew her, begged her, matched a longing in her heart note for note, and she could not move or look away.
A gusty blow slammed the kitchen door opened, and Tay tromped in with an armload of wood for the cook stove.
Lena filled her lungs with cold air—the first breath in how many moments?
Wil Bergman’s mouth tipped on one side. No mockery. No sneer. More like something akin to pleasure. Something she’d never seen on a man’s face.
“Well?” he said.
She blinked. Watched his mouth widen in a full smile.
“How do I look?”
“Oh. You look fine.” More than fine. She dropped the comb and scissors into her apron pocket and folded her arms, reaching desperately for detached composure.
“Almost civilized,” Tay blurted as he shut the door. “There’s a mirror at the other end of the hall.”
Wil grabbed a crutch.
“Wait.” She combed through his hair for stray clippings, then removed the towel and folded it into a bundle for shaking outside. She’d wash it tonight with his mud-spattered clothes—a concession she’d not make for herself or Tay.
After Wil left, she laid the bundle on the table and fetched the broom and dustpan from the pantry, counting off the reasons why she shouldn’t beat Tay with it and sweep him outdoors for getting her into this fix.
She came up with only one.
Two, when she found him leaning against the counter eating pie with his fingers, beaming mischievously as if he were twelve.
“I knew you could do it.”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full.”
He snorted, then choked on the last bite. Served him right.
She swept the floor clean and gathered the bundle.
“No harm done, Lee.”
Maybe not to you. “You had no right.”
Tay came close and laid a hand on her arm. “He’s a good man, Lee. I feel it in my bones. You get to know a person living with them day in and day out. I think you know it too. You’re different with him here. You’ve laughed more in the last few weeks than in the last year.”
She pulled back, kept her jaw clenched. If she opened her mouth, all her hopes and dreams might come spilling out. And for what purpose? To what end?
The last question broke her resolve.
“No man wants deformity, Tay. Hasn’t that been clear enough over the years? Besides, the only thing we really know about him is he’s a Bergman. He’s probably just like his uncle, but we haven’t seen it yet.”
Tears marshalled at the accusation she knew was unfair and unproven. “Bring the kettle out to me when it boils.”
Tay started to speak, but she opened the door to a brutal wind. It whipped around the house and across the porch, stinging her eyes.
She made it to the wash room before the tears fell.
CHAPTER 8
Morning poked its head through the window, a sleepy one-eyed approach. Daylight came so late these days, it felt like near noon before it got around to showing up.
Wil scrubbed his hands over the top of his head and stared at the white-washed ceiling. He’d almost forgotten how it felt to be shorn and sheared. It’d taken a while to get used to the new look, and he checked the hall mirror every time he hobbled by, makin’ sure he was still the same person.
He checked his saddlebags too. Not that Doc Carver and his sister would steal his stash, but seeing the lumpy sock had a way of easing his worry where Lena was concerned.
She’d done more than help set his leg, feed him back to health, and cut his hair—something he’d never forget.
She’d burrowed under his saddle blanket.
Likely, she didn’t know it.
He needed to tell her. But not until he had a new suit of clothes, two boots, and some idea of what he was going to give her for Christmas.
He threw off the quilt and sat up, confident of what he’d give Doc. He was going to pay his bill in real cash money. But he didn’t have a clue what to give Lena.
Other than his ma, he’d never given a woman anything but a hard time. After pulling on his clothes, he reached for a crutch. One suited him now.
Talk at the supper table lately had been about gettin’ ready for Christmas Eve at the church and the big feed here the next day. He was halfway to his eight-week mark and itching to get shuck of his cast in more ways than one. He’d gone to running a thin branch down inside the plaster to scratch what itched.
Trouble was, that twig didn’t do him a lick of good when it came to Lena Carver. She was an itch he couldn’t reach. Four weeks and he’d be bunking at the livery, missing her quick wit and smile. Her good cooking. The music of her laughter.
It was harder and harder to be around her and not spill his oats right there in front of her, Doc, and the good Lord all at the same time.
As he neared the kitchen, the smell of gingerbread drew him back to childhood and the warmth of his ma’s quick hug after she gave him a couple of ginger cookies. One for each hand, she always said.
He stopped outside the doorway to the kitchen, listening to Lena busy at the stove. Walking back and forth to the table, pausing at the sink, checking the oven, stirring gravy. The smells swirled together, tugging at his stomach as well as his memory.
Was he crazy to think she might consider being a rancher’s wife? After he bought a spread and a small herd, would she up and leave town and her brother’s practice for life with a cowboy, bawling cattle, and fluctuating beef prices?
What if he couldn’t build her a house this nice, with a parlor, an upstairs, and an entire room devoted to washing bodies and clothes?
His prospects were looking bleaker by the minute.
“Are you coming in here, or are you going to stand in the hallway all morning?”
Shock gave way to concern when a crash sent him loping into the kitchen. Lena stood over a tray of ginger cookies scattered on the floor in front of the stove.
One long swing landed him next to her, holding the crutch for balance and bending in half to grab the pan. “You all right?”
“Here.” She shoved a towel at him. “That pan is hot as the dickens.”
Feelin’ handy as a hog at a picnic, he managed to set the pan and towel on the stovetop. “Why, Miss Carver. Such language.”
With his left leg out straight, he stooped to grab a half dozen cookies off the floor, then returned them to the pan.
She snatched the towel and flicked it at him. “Don’t you Miss Carver me.”
He caught the towel and pulled her closer. “Which hand did you burn?”
Her cheeks pinked like a summer rose.
Leaning on his crutch, he took hold of her wrists. She pulled back, but he held on, gentle-like, until she looked him in the eye.
“Did you forget to use a hot pad?”
She made that little huffing sound of hers and glanced away, but he tugged again. He wanted to see inside her, read what she was thinking.
Finally she gave in and her arms relaxed. Her head tipped to the side like she was humoring him.
“You heard my ol’ peg leg in the hall, didn’t you?”
“Yes. It is rather hard to miss, you know.”
“And you got distracted when I didn’t show up.”
Her cheeks flamed darker.
“Am I right?”
He was pushing his luck and he knew it, but four weeks was four weeks, and he didn’t get opportunities like this every day.
She’d fisted both hands and held them down so he couldn’t see her fingers.
He turned them over. The left one was redder than the right.
He was close enough to the sink to pump cold water onto a clean rag from the counter, and he did so without letting go of her arm. Then he squeezed it out and pressed it against her palm. After closing her finger and thumb over it, he turned her hand over and raised it slowly to his lips.
Her breath caught, but she didn’t pull away.
Hunched on his crutch like he was, he had a clear view straight into her meadow-green gaze.
Her eyes fluttered shut and her lips trembled. He wanted to kiss them too, but if she shoved him, he’d end up on his southern side, and that wasn’t the impression he wanted to make.
He held her hand until her eyes opened, shining like a spring puddle after rain. Words deserted him. Giving a quick squeeze, he let go and stepped back.
She didn’t speak, but she didn’t shy away either. Just stood looking down at the apron she’d bunched.
Hope lurched.
The dog scratched at the door, shattering the moment. Fool animal had pitiful timing.
Lena snickered and gave him two broken cookies off the tray.
He smiled. “One for each hand?”
“No. One for the dog.”
At least she hadn’t chewed him out for taking liberties. But he’d meant no disrespect. Just the opposite.
He followed the dog out, missing Lena something fierce, and he wasn’t even gone yet. Pulling in a cold draught, he took in the sky, clear as glass. The sun bright, sparkling on the fresh white blanket that lay smooth across the fields.
Perfect for making snow figures.
Fool notion for a man his age, but for some reason he couldn’t shake it.
~
Lena had never been so eager for Tay to leave as she was today, for he took Wil with him, not on rounds, but to town for clothes.
After this morning’s unsettling affair with the ruined batch of gingerbread men, she could hardly think straight.
Wil Bergman had done quite more than recover the dropped cookie sheet and kiss her scarred hand.
He’d completely disarmed her.
She hadn’t picked up her coffee cup once during breakfast for fear that she’d tremble the contents all over her plate and the tablecloth, not to mention her lap.
After they left, she tried desperately to fit Wil’s actions into a logical explanation. But his tender strength and the gentleness of his lips on her hand left her light-headed and yearning again for things set aside long ago.
Ever since he’d come back from his uncle’s with those saddlebags, he’d been livelier. He carried a sense of purpose, as if hope had lit a hidden wick inside him.
He’d talked about his reason for coming to Piney Hill. His resurrected plans to buy a “spread,” as he called it, and populate it with cattle. As happy as she was for him, she was not happy for herself because he’d soon be leaving them and moving into the livery with his uncle.
Another loss at Christmas.
She pushed that thought away. Her selfishness shamed her.
Again, she took refuge in the mundane. Sweeping, dusting, tidying. Keeping the fires going in the dining room and kitchen and her thoughts on doing rather than feeling. She set beans to simmer and baked another test batch of cookies, though she could mix them up and lay them out in her sleep, she’d done it so often.
With everything finished that she could think of, she ran upstairs for her knitting.
The old bitter-sweet tug of the season leveraged against her like a see-saw, pulling her up and then dropping her low.
But the lows had been fewer with Wil Bergman around.
Reaching beneath her bed, she pulled her knitting basket from its hiding place. Not that Tay would come looking, but trying to keep his gift a surprise was nearly impossible. Hopefully she’d have an hour or so to work on his wool cap and scarf while he and Wil were gone.
Downstairs, she drew her rocker close to the hearth and inventoried her yarn, pleased to find enough brown to make a scarf for Wil. The lovely warm color matched his dark hair.
Perhaps he would think of her on cold blustery days at his ranch.
Shaking off her melancholy once more, she took up Tay’s sage green cap, a fitting complement for his eyes.
Giving was her antidote against the crushing sense of loss that attended each Christmas. Giving and deliberate gratitude. It kept her mind from despair when she counted off her blessings—a kind and competent brother, a warm home, and food enough. A few friends at the small church, and children there to make up for those she would never have.
So each year, she threw herself into the festivities, as simple as they were. And the meal she and Tay shared with all who would come on Christmas Day. Each contributed something—a pie, preserves, sweet potatoes, starched linens, cider. She invited everyone she knew and a few she did not. Former patients, neighbors. The smithy.
Her neck and shoulders tightened. Such an invitation had begun the rift between them somehow. She still did not understand his harsh reaction, as if he hated Christmas and everything it stood for.
But in spite of Otto Bergman and his cold shoulder, life was not so bad. She could have lost the whole of it those twenty years ago rather than a few fingers.
Comfort slid around her like loving arms—providential provision, she knew. When I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me. Hadn’t Pastor Thornton mentioned that verse just last Sunday?
As her needles softly clicked, creating one stitch and then another, she thanked the Lord again for her odd approach to what other women took for granted. They might scoff at her unorthodox method, holding the left needle with thumb and forefinger and propping it against her stomach, working the yarn with her right hand. But she had produced many a cap over the years. Mittens, shawls, and socks too.
It warmed her to think that her labor would in turn keep warm the men for whom she cared the most.
~
Already the road to town was melting into muck, and Piney Hill’s Main Street looked like someone had poured a river of hot cocoa between the buildings.
But Wil had a new idea. Two, in fact, and both required a stop at the livery.
Doc stayed in the buggy again.
“Hallo, Wilhelm.” Otto met him halfway up the alleyway between stalls, gripping his hand like the smithy he was. “You are still in the cast.”
“And will be until after Christmas. But I need a couple of favors.”
“Ja?”
“First, a stump out by your hitch rail so I can climb up to the buggy seat when we leave. I’m not ridin’ on the back again in this soup.”
Otto peered out the door. “I can do this.”
“Next, I need to use your nippers. And a large empty tin, if you have one.”
Otto raised his chin and peered down his nose at Wil as if he’d lost his bearings.
“I’m making something for Miss Lena.”
At that, the big man whuffled like an old horse, but he went to his office and came back with a peach tin still sticky with juice.
“Danke,” Wil said, the old word spilling out without any forethought. “I’ll be back shortly to work on this.”
If Otto had hard feelings against the Carvers, particularly Lena, things might get ugly. Pa had always said blood was thicker than water, but as far as Wil could figure, Lena had cleaned up more of his blood than his uncle ever had.
He still owed the man, and he’d be sure to show respect. But he might have to find work elsewhere.
Wil trudged through the melting snow between the livery and the hitch rail and stopped next to Doc. “I’ll be gettin’ some clothes and meet you here in an hour.”
