A High-Country Christmas, page 2
Still was, it looked like, for a fancy traveling suit lay over the back of a chair. High top button up shoes sat next to it, and a little hat and some other strange contraption perched on the seat. Leaving such puzzling under-riggings alone, he dug through a chest of drawers, hunting dry clothes. He hit the jackpot with trousers she used to ride in, a shirt, and more socks.
Socks he could handle. The thought of anything else tied his insides in knots.
He tromped down the stairs, making as much of a racket as possible in hopes it’d wake Abigale. But she just lay there. The fire had already warmed the room considerably, and he draped the clothes and quilts over a big stuffed chair, then added more wood to the blaze.
Chester sighed with contentment.
Seth started with Abigale’s feet, pulling off familiar brown riding boots. They were soaked through, so he set them on the hearth and went to work on her stockings. Hose, he thought they were called. Dark, thin things that clung to her like a second skin. Thinking about her skin made his skin twitch, and as fast as he could, he pushed up the wet trouser legs and pulled off the clingy things. Then he tugged the wool socks onto her pale feet and wondered if all the blood in her body had gone to her kidneys. She was as fair and white as aspen bark.
Coffee. He needed coffee. Maybe the smell would wake her up.
But the heavy wet pants worried him more than propriety. He reached for the wide belt at her waist and unfastened the buckle, watching her face all the while for any sign that she was coming around. Even the pieces of wood that fell from the belt were soaked, and they went on the hearth with her stockings.
He covered her with the heaviest quilt and pushed the edges under her shoulders to hold it in place for what he was about to do. Then with a prayer that she wouldn’t wake up in the middle of his next move, he reached under the quilt, grabbed the bottom of the trousers—one leg in each hand—and pulled.
It was easier than he’d hoped.
After laying the pants out on the hearth, he added more wood, fired up the cook stove for coffee, and stood at the hearth holding the other quilt wide like wings. When the backing heated up enough that he could smell it, he draped it over the first quilt, then tucked it in around her feet and legs.
That was as far as he’d go, but at least he’d gotten that far. It’d be up to the good Lord to keep her wet shirt from chilling her lungs.
He brought a pan of cold water and a rag to the hearth, where he knelt beside her. Carefully he lifted her shoulders, holding her against his chest with one arm as he pressed the wet rag against the back of her head. She’d grown a goose egg for sure, but blood wasn’t running. Just a scrape, it seemed. But she’d hit hard, and it frightened him more than anything had in a long while.
He’d always worried where Abigale Millerton was concerned, the way she’d get an idea in her head and take off. This time she was wearing that idea, and a good-sized lump it was. He eased her back down.
Darkness wrapped around the house and the wind tied it down. He grabbed a lantern from a peg by the door, shrugged into his slicker and hat, and headed out. The animals needed to be in the barn with the doors shuttered.
Already snow drifted against the buildings and bowed the trees. Lantern light threw a yellow arc ahead as he trudged through the swirling white.
Three horses and a cow stood at the corral gate, backs to the wind.
Seth eased between the poles, crossed the corral, and slid the gate bar. All four snow-crusted critters trotted through and into the barn. After securing the gate, he tossed hay into stalls, made sure all the barn shutters were closed, and slid the long bar across the big double doors.
At the house, he walked around back to the chopping block, where he found an axe sunk in it. An old schoolbook had mentioned firewood warming a man twice, and he knew it to be true. Stacked wood hunkered dry beneath the eaves, and he set about unsticking the axe and splitting an armload.
As soon as he stepped inside the house, the aroma of fresh coffee set his stomach to rumbling for supper. He hung the lantern and stomped snow off his boots, hoping the noise would wake Abigale, but she didn’t shoot up off the sofa screaming. Just as well.
Still holding the wood, he managed to wedge his boots off in a jack at the entry, then piled his load on the hearth stones. He hung his slicker on a peg by the door and pulled the big chair up close to the hearth where he fell into it. Abigale lay like the dead beside him. He sure hoped she wasn’t.
Every muscle in his body threatened mutiny. He needed to get his wet clothes off too, but he propped his feet on the hearth and wiggled his toes. For just a second, he’d lay his head back and rest. A minute or two. Then he’d change and pour coffee, and maybe Abigale would wake up.
~
Abigale savored the smell of coffee almost more than the taste of it. She snuggled into her bed—or tried to, but it wasn’t the same. Rather damp, the pillow hard. And her head hurt.
The snap of a burning log shot her eyes open, and it took her a moment to recognize the ceiling of her grandparents’ home. Her home for most of her life. Of course. She’d come home. Left school early and … Another log broke, sparking her memory. She sat up and her head pounded like a smithy’s hammer on an anvil. What was she doing in the great room?
Slowly she turned to the left toward the fire’s warmth. She didn’t remember building a fire. Rubbing her forehead, she connected with wet hair, then realized her shirt was wet. Her pulse kicked up and questions marched through her muddled thoughts.
Two quilts from her grandparents’ bed covered her. She looked again toward the fire and this time saw two stockinged feet propped on the hearth, attached to long legs that led to Pop’s wing-backed armchair.
Her attention fired back to the hearth and her grandfather’s clothing spread out next to her stockings.
Her stockings!
Quickly she felt for her clothes and squelched a scream at finding only her wet shirt and unmentionables. The hammering in her temples intensified, and she pulled the quilts tighter around her.
Whose feet were stretched out there so close by? And why were her clothes on the hearth and not on her? And how’d they get there?
She couldn’t contain her cry, and the long legs in Pop’s chair shot someone straight up off the seat.
Seth Holt. Looking as startled as she felt.
Pressing into the sofa, she drew her legs up. What was he doing here and … No. No. She’d not even think such a thought. Seth was a gentleman.
Eyes dark, hair plastered to his head, he knelt beside her, relief and fear rushing across his features.
“Abi—gale.” Stumbling over her name, he tried again. “Abigale. What are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here?
“I came to check for stragglers. Drive them home so they didn’t starve.”
“They won’t starve. The loft is full of hay.”
“You didn’t answer my question.” A deep line cut between his drawn brows, as if he’d warned her not to do something, then rescued her from it. The idea chafed her. She didn’t need rescuing. She was perfectly capable of most things.
Shifting her knees to the side, she sat up straighter. “What happened?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.” The line on his forehead smoothed. His shoulders eased, and that old light danced across his face like it did when they were children in a verbal tug o’ war.
He rolled back on his heels and dropped to the floor with his legs crossed—one smooth movement he’d said he learned around chuck fires. Envious, she’d practiced the move in the privacy of her room but could never quite manage it. She’d also begrudged his freedom to ride out to the cow camps during branding. Pop and Mams said it was no place for a lady and wouldn’t let her go.
“Abigale.”
His voice had gentled, and it drew her back to the present, her gaze to the hearth.
“How’d Pop’s britches get over there?”
Seth flushed red as an autumn apple and stood. “I couldn’t very well let you catch your death. You were soaked clear through.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You didn’t answer my question.”
The flush deepened to his personal color of mad she knew so well. “I didn’t see anything ’cept your feet and legs. I mean limbs.”
He crushed an oath under his breath as he reached back for Pop’s trousers and tossed them at her.
“I pulled these off underneath that first quilt you’re wearin’.”
Abigale had spent more than a decade growing up with Seth Holt—swimming in the same holes, exploring the same waterfall, riding bareback across the open parks. She believed him. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He relocated to the end of the sofa, more of a man than the over-grown boy she’d left behind two years ago. She hadn’t seen much of him during her brief visits, not even at the funeral, but studying his profile now revealed that he’d traded his boyish face for a leaner, stronger jawline. His shoulders were broader, his hands sun-browned and capable. She shifted uncomfortably at the thought of him carrying her inside and … helping her.
He picked up one of the slats laid out on the hearth. “You had these tucked into Pop’s belt. What were you doing out by the barn?”
Memory flooded back, and with it, pride at progress toward her goal. Her success at not looking down.
“I was making a ladder, nailing slats to the barn and climbing as I went so I could patch the roof. The loft is full of hay and the roof is full of holes.”
He looked at her then, his features settled, calmer. “But you’re afraid of heights, Aspen-gal.”
The endearment pinched her already bruised heart, and she studied the quilt’s log-cabin pattern. The quilt from upstairs. Typical of his thoughtfulness. He’d never teased her about her embarrassing secret, and he wasn’t teasing her now.
“That’s not why I fell. The lightning—it was so close and the crash so loud, it surprised me. I lost my balance, that’s all.”
He made that huffing noise she’d known so well but had forgotten about. “I wasn’t far off when it hit. Coop nearly tossed me, but we made it to your barn.”
“And you found me on the ground?”
“I wouldn’t have found you at all if not for Chester here.” He toed the old dog in the ribs, but it didn’t rouse from its fireside nap. “No tellin’ how long you would have laid out there, bein’ on the offside and all.”
She shuddered, the image as cold as she must have been, had she been aware. “I’m grateful, Seth. Truly.”
He held her gaze an extra moment before he rose and went to the window. Leaning close, he cupped his hand against the pane. “Foot-high drifts. Sure to grow by morning if it keeps snowing.”
She wrapped the quilt around her while his back was turned, then joined him. “I thought we had a least another week. I can’t lose all that hay. It’s feed for the horses and Ernest—oh!”
She clapped a hand over her mouth.
“Don’t worry. They’re inside the barn with Coop, bedded down with some of that hay you’re so worried about.”
His smile warmed her down to her sock-covered toes, and she felt conspicuously ill-dressed.
He must have sensed her discomfort, for he grabbed what looked like one of Pop’s shirts from the big chair. “We’re both wet as weasels, but there’s dry clothes here for you. I’ll change upstairs. That’ll give you time to, to …” He waved his hand toward her as if he were tossing a ball.
“Pour coffee?”
“Yeah. That.”
Darting off like a startled rabbit, he took the stairs two at a time.
CHAPTER 3
Pop Millerton’s clothes weren’t as big as Seth thought they’d be. In fact, they fit about right. Wet shirt and trousers in hand, he waited at the bedroom doorway until he heard kitchen sounds. Then he eased down the stairs and stepped squarely on a squeaky riser. Dadgum it. His memory wasn’t as good as he thought.
“The coast is clear.” Abigale trickled her clear-creek laugh he’d always found so remarkable. As if she mimicked the streams that drained off the mountains and into the parks and meadows.
After spreading his clothes out next to Chester and adding more wood to the fire, he took a seat at the kitchen table. “Didn’t there used to be more chairs?”
She cut him a sidelong look that said “don’t ask,” but he already had.
“Well? You chop ’em up for kindling?”
“Funny.” She set a mug on the table and filled it with stout coffee. It’d been cooking all this time and could probably float a wagon wheel.
She poured a cup for herself and brought a tin of D.F. Stauffer’s crackers to the table. “This will have to do. I haven’t baked anything since I arrived.”
“When did you get here?”
“Three days ago.” She sat in the other chair across the table, took a handful of crackers, and shoved the tin toward him. She never was big on formalities, but he figured that girls’ school might have rubbed off some of her charm.
It hadn’t.
He chuckled.
“What?”
He fingered through the tin for a lion-shaped cracker and dunked it in his coffee. “I thought you might have changed some after going to that Wolfe Hall up in Denver.”
She popped a cracker in her mouth.
“I’m glad to see you haven’t.”
She wrinkled her nose at him like old times. Good times. The tension between them was nearly gone. If only the snow would melt as quickly.
“How long you plan on staying?” He pulled a frown, masking unrealistic hope that she’d never leave.
“Undetermined.” Another cookie, followed by a swig of coffee. “Maybe forever.”
He coughed and clamped his mouth tight. Had she learned to read minds?
“Does that come as a surprise?”
Coffee flushed the catch in his throat, and he set the cup down gently. “It might to some folks around here.”
She stopped with the crackers and gave him her best glare. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Someone’s been cuttin’ timber on your land. Since before Pop passed on. I expect he knew.” Better she found out from him than someone else, someplace else. “I’ve heard rumors it’s your neighbor to the south.”
“Blackwell.” Her face went cold, colorless, and her free hand balled into a fist.
He reached over and covered it with his. Icy. Was she gettin’ sick from being wet for so long?
She tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let go. “Abigale.”
She looked into her coffee cup.
He squeezed her balled-up hand. “Look at me.”
Without raising her head, she glanced up under her brows. Her hair had dried some, and stray curls broke away from her braid and danced around her face, softening her scowl. He wanted to smooth that hair back, but he didn’t know exactly what she thought of him. If he was still just a neighboring rancher’s gangly son, or if she’d grown feelings like he had for her, missing her something fierce the last two years. Even more so since the funeral.
“Don’t go huntin’ trouble, Abigale. Let’s take care of the barn first, then I’ll check at the mills, see where Blackwell’s taking the timber. If he’s selling it, then we’ll get the law involved.”
“We?” No invitation in the word. More like a challenge.
Maybe he’d overstepped his bounds. She was seventeen, after all. But she was like family and she was alone. He’d not let her go through all this by herself, even if he had to tie her to that chair.
He squeezed her hand again. “We.”
Her fingers relaxed. And her shoulders slumped. Her head dropped lower, and a wet spot hit the table next to her cup.
“If I hadn’t left, he might still be alive.” Her voice had run back to the little girl who used to pester him.
His chest tightened. “That’s not so, and you know it. Pop’s time came around, and it would have whether you were here or not. And there’s something else you ought to know.”
She looked up quick, her brown eyes almost black, shiny with tears.
“You were the best thing that ever happened to him and Mams.”
And to me.
~
Seth flexed his I’m-older-than-you-muscle—which Abigale highly resented—and made her lie down while he brought in more wood. She’d helped him set the sofa back from the hearth some and covered the worn leather with the log-cabin quilt. He’d spread the other one on the hearth, which was beginning to look like a counter at the dry goods store.
She would have argued more, but her head hurt. Her shoulders and neck hurt. All of her hurt, really. Miraculous that she hadn’t broken something when she fell.
And miraculous that Seth Holt just happened to be in the area when that crack of lightning hit.
She closed her eyes and her thoughts drifted to Wolfe Hall and back again. She’d not return. Not now. All the main ranch stock had been sold off, but the land was here. The land that Pop and Mams had loved. Her home. She’d not let that Blackwell buzzard get his greedy hands on it by sending one of his hired help to squat on a corner. He’d always had an eye for Pop’s timber. Now, with silver mines sprouting and talk of the railroad heading this way, the cry for lumber was even louder. It could be a cash crop for her, along with the hay.
And she’d buy a few head from Seth’s family. Start small but start over. Selling out was no longer an option.
The weight of responsibility squeezed a sigh from her chest. How had Pop done it all with only part-time help?
How would she with none?
The door opened and Seth stomped in. Chester’s nails clicked across the plank floor as he dashed for his spot by the hearth and shook himself, no doubt scattering snow all over everything drying there.
Abigale was too tired to scold him. Maybe that fall had taken more out of her than she thought. Or maybe she needed real food.
