A High-Country Christmas, page 3
Seth dropped his armload of wood at the end of the hearth and built up the fire. She tracked him to the door, where he hung his slicker on a hook. To the stove, where he poured coffee in a cup, and finally to a spot in front of her, where he dropped to the floor.
The man-smell of him, Pop’s pipe smoke in the shirt he wore, his cold breath mixed with coffee—it all made her lonely and she wasn’t even alone. She opened her eyes to find him sitting there cross-legged with his hat-flat hair, watching her as if she were a hen’s egg about to hatch.
She pushed up on her elbows. “Can you cook?”
“Better than you.” He didn’t miss a beat or even pretend to.
“I can see you’re still as cocky as ever. And speaking of such, the chickens are all gone.”
He gave her a wry smirk. “Coyotes, I expect.”
“Or weasels.”
“Maybe the two-legged variety.”
“If someone took the chickens, why wouldn’t they take Ernestine?”
“She’s more work than chickens. Plus she’s a little long in the tooth.”
Abigale lay back and closed her eyes, the conversation tiring after such a long and brutal day. “Yes, she’s old.”
“You want some coffee?”
His voice came gentle again, caring. Quite unlike the Seth who always thought he had a better idea.
Slowly shaking her head, she kept her eyes closed for fear she’d see more than she wanted to in his expression. He sat too close. Not that she didn’t trust him. She didn’t trust her own emotions now that she was alone in the world for the second time.
Danger lay in that line of thinking. She hadn’t had a good cry since the funeral, and she didn’t want to start now. “Tomorrow I’ll ride in and pick up supplies. I have a little money and I know where Pop kept his stash.”
Silence answered.
She peeked.
Seth’s arms propped on his knees, his eyes closed, the coffee cup dangling from one hand and about to fall.
She took hold of the cup and eased it from his fingers. If she were twelve, she’d push him over.
But she wasn’t twelve, and he’d given her nothing but hard work, loyalty, and kindness.
She set the cup on the floor and brushed his arm with her fingertips. “Seth.”
He jerked awake and blinked at her, as if trying to get his bearings. “I always wondered what it’d be like waking up next to you.”
His face flushed red again and he pushed from the floor with a grumble. “Never mind that. I’m just tired.” Rubbing the back of his neck, he looked around. For what, she didn’t know. “I’m, uh, I’m gonna sleep by the fire if that’s all right with you. Snow’s piling up and you’ll need more wood soon.”
He offered his hand. “I can help you upstairs.”
Her hackles rose at his assumption that she needed help, but she was too weary to argue. Besides, he shouldn’t be pushing Coop through several miles of drifts in the middle of the night.
She tugged the quilt under her chin and slid further into the cushions. “That’s fine with me. Sleep where you will, but I’m staying right here. And you’d better not snore.”
~
Drip-drip-drip staccatoed into Abigale’s dreams like her piano teacher’s insistence that she practice-practice-practice. Waking, she turned her head toward the window, where blue sky and sunshine accompanied the musical melting of snow.
She pushed upright and questioned her memory. Had she only fallen off her crude ladder or been run over by stampeding cattle as well?
Wincing with the effort, she swung her feet to the floor, comforted once more by the thick wool socks that covered them.
And where was Seth? The last she’d seen him, he was stretched out on Mams’s braided rug in front of the hearth. Snoring.
Coffee’s tempting aroma lured her to the stove, where she found a not-so-tempting can of beans and a towel-covered pan of—flatbread? She shoved aside her irritation and bit into a palm-sized round.
Not a bad effort for having no milk or baking powder.
So he could cook. She could rope, ride, and shoot. Not that those skills had earned her any points at Wolfe Hall.
After a second round and a cup of strong coffee, she managed to make it upstairs to her room, where she met a horrible sight in her dressing-table mirror.
“Pop would say I look like I’d been rode hard and put up wet.” She sat on the small bench and unbraided her hair. “He’d be half right. Fallen hard and carried in wet.”
Carefully she combed out the tangles, wincing at a knot on the back of her head and a little dried blood. Seth had tended to more than her feet, and her insides warmed at the thought.
She fetched a pitcher of water from downstairs for her basin and washed her face and hands. Movement outside her bedroom window caught her eye, and she paused to watch Seth scale the side of the barn, finishing the ladder she’d started, but using what looked like bigger pieces of wood. Pride in her idea warred with gratitude that he’d taken on the task himself.
Making herself more presentable—though not on Seth’s account—she tied her hair back with a ribbon and went outside feeling a little better.
The snow was nearly gone from level ground, other than drifts that hugged the buildings, but not from the white-mantled summit rising east of the ranch like a watchful giant. Winter was settling in. She hugged her waist and hunched her shoulders. It’d be a lonely Christmas this year without Pop. Godey’s magazine mentioned nothing about celebrating by oneself.
She’d planned to come home for the holidays, so she was only a couple of weeks early. A couple of weeks and a bundle of heartache. If she’d known how ill he was, she would have gladly left her classes behind.
“Good morning.”
At the greeting from atop the barn, she looked up to see a scruffy face grinning down. “Or should I say good afternoon?”
She grabbed a handful of drifted snow, quickly formed a ball, and lobbed it.
CHAPTER 4
Seth ducked and laughed. “You couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn.”
Another snowball cut closer.
“Or the roof either.”
“You’re taking a mighty big risk, Seth Holt, giving me lip from up there. I can knock these slats out as easily as you nailed them in.”
He wouldn’t put it past her. She always had gotten her back up when he teased her.
He pulled his neckerchief off and waved it in the air.
She hit it with a snowball.
“Hey, that was a flag of truce.”
“No, it wasn’t. It was your old, grimy neckerchief you got for Christmas one year.”
She was right, and he was somehow pleased that she remembered the details.
He peeked over the edge. She was standing with her hands on her hips looking just about as pretty as he’d ever seen her. Shoot.
“I’m coming down, and if you take any potshots, I’ll rub your face in the snow.”
She laughed.
Maybe if he threatened to kiss her, that would hold her at bay.
Whoa, cowboy.
He shoved the hammer in his belt and started his descent on slats deliberately set to accommodate his stride and not Abigale’s. The thought of her climbing up the side of the barn when he wasn’t here turned his stomach.
At the last slat, several feet off the ground, he jumped.
“You spaced them too far apart.” A scowl bunched her pretty brows, and she nailed him with a squinty-eyed stare. “You did that on purpose.”
Nearly impossible not to laugh at her, he answered with a frown of his own. “So what if I did? You don’t need to be shimmying up the side of the barn and fall off again.”
She stepped in closer and tipped her head back, glaring up at him. “And you don’t need to be telling me what I can and cannot do on my own place.”
He smelled coffee on her breath. She’d never looked more kissable. And he’d never been so distracted by such a singular impossibility.
He picked up the leftover slats and took them to Pop’s workroom before she got it in her head to start nailing them in between those he’d set.
She dogged him into the barn like Chester, and since she wouldn’t accept his peace offering, he threw her a bone instead. “If you can rig something so I can haul up this pile of shingles, I’ll start on the roof.”
That set her mind to working. He could almost hear the gears grinding as she spun around and stalked out of the barn.
Ernestine watched him and offered her opinion over the stall gate as she chewed her cud. Thankfully he didn’t have to milk her, but that wasn’t necessarily good news. A dry cow meant no milk, cream, or butter. His folks always had extra, and they’d share. Or he could bring over one of their cows until Ernestine was bred come spring.
Chester watched him too, and Seth was surprised the dog hadn’t followed Abigale inside.
“I need to tell my folks where I am.”
The dog whined.
“You’re right. I can’t leave before the roof is finished or she’ll be up there doin’ it herself. And if she freezes up like she did on the waterfall, she won’t be able to climb down.”
The dog shook its head as if remembering that incident so long ago.
Seth did, and it was as clear in his mind as if it were yesterday. “I’m not doing that again.”
While he waited for Abigale, Seth let the horses and cow out, and they hoofed it to the south pasture. What snow hadn’t blown away was fast melting into the arms of a sunny day. A streak of sunshine would give him time to check on Blackwell’s timber pilfering, get Abigale settled in, and build up her woodpile.
It’d sure be a lot easier if she’d go home with him. His ma and pa would welcome her. So would his little sister, Emmy. In fact, she’d be tickled.
And he had more hope of gettin’ milk out of Chester than convincing Abigale to come to the Lazy H for the winter.
His stomach rumbled, and he thought of the flat bread and beans he’d fixed that morning. He needed something more substantial than coffee if he was gonna get anything done, so he set out for the house and a second breakfast.
At the porch he stomped off his boots, then entered to the hum of a treadle sewing machine.
“Take your boots off,” Abigale ordered without looking up.
“You think I don’t know that?” Wedging a boot heel in the beetle-like jaws of a jack under the coat rack, he yanked one off, then the other, and dropped his hat on a hook.
He’d rather say other things to her, but she was making it hard not to squabble, which meant she still saw him as a schoolboy. Which irritated him all the more, confounded woman.
“You leave me anything to eat?”
She cut him a sideways look. “Where’d you learn to make flat bread? It wasn’t half bad.”
“That’s a back-handed complement if I ever heard one.”
“I imagine you don’t hear enough to know the difference, do you?”
At that she giggled. Real pleased with herself, she was.
More than half a pan remained, and he took most of it and reached for his boots.
“Wait.” She approached with a quilted sack in her hands. “Please.” Her expression softened. “I want to show you this, and if you’ll wait, I’ll get some preserves for that bread.” Pulling out a table chair, she laid the sack in front of it. Then she took two plates from a cupboard, added a couple of knives and spoons from a drawer, and refilled last night’s mugs with hot coffee.
In a different cupboard she found a tarnished sugar bowl and a dish of red preserves.
Strawberry, he hoped.
She took the other chair. “You didn’t look very far if you searched the cupboards.”
A smile softened what sounded like criticism, so he chose it over her words. “I found what I needed.”
She sugared her coffee and pushed the preserves toward him. “How empty was the flour bin?”
“Pretty near. Same with the lard. Plenty of salt, sugar, and coffee, though.”
“That sounds about right. I think Pop could live on coffee alone.” She stirred hers but didn’t offer him the sugar bowl. “If I recall, you drink yours strong and black.”
That made two things about him she remembered. “Yes, ma’am.” He lifted the cup to his lips and winked at her. An old habit.
She flustered a little and glanced down at her plate. Spittin’ nails at him one minute and blushing the next. As changeable as the summit in spring.
He picked up the sack she’d made from an old quilt and checked the strength of the stitches where a long strap attached. Looping it over his head and one shoulder, he tugged hard, then laid it back on the table. “This’ll work just fine. Thank you.”
“If you run a rope through your belt and over the edge of the barn, you can send the sack down empty, I’ll fill it with shingles for you, then you can pull it back up to the roof.”
“You won’t try yankin’ me off the barn?”
She spread a spoonful of preserves on a piece of bread and bit into it with a saucy look his way.
He’d give his saddle to know what she was really thinking rather than whatever was going to pop out of her mouth after she swallowed. Those eyes turned him inside out.
Wiping the corners of her mouth with her thumb and finger didn’t help either. “That depends.”
Leaving her alone wasn’t going to be easy, but Pop and Mams weren’t around. He’d best finish up with the roof and woodpile as soon as possible and beat a trail back to his folks’ place.
~
Just when Abigale thought things were more grownup between them, Seth had to go and make some harebrained remark that made her feel like she was ten. Well, if that was what he wanted, she’d give it to him. But it wasn’t what she wanted anymore. Theirs was a tricky relationship. Safe when they were kids—in spite of his teasing—and shaky now that it was only the two of them, with him a full-grown man trying to do for her. And looking better than anything she’d seen wearing trousers in Denver.
He’d cuffed his sleeves back, and his bare forearms rested on the table. Not exactly the best of manners, but the show of such harnessed strength made her feel safe, somehow. Protected.
Two days’ growth on his jawline accentuated his mossy-green eyes that drew her in like their secret swimming hole used to. But she couldn’t allow loneliness and memories to influence her actions or cloud her thinking. She had to let Seth Holt know she could stand on her own two legs.
Even if her world had turned upside down.
“Depends on what?”
His words cut through her wool-gathering.
She ignored his full-mouth speech for the moment. “On whether you need me to show you how to lay shingles.”
He nearly choked.
She shoved the jar across the table. “Here. It won’t be so dry with these strawberry preserves.”
He was getting harder to read. What looked like the old teasing Seth could flash in a heartbeat to something she didn’t recognize. Something in that full-grown man that reminded her she wasn’t ten. Something she wanted to keep here with her.
He’d better go as soon as possible.
“If we haul up several loads of shingles, I can ride into Divide for supplies while you’re nailing them down. But first I’m going to check the root cellar. Pop was good about laying things by.”
“I’m going with you.”
She stared at him, her breath cutting sharp against her ribs. “To the root cellar?”
“To town.”
He was impossible.
She let out a tight breath and took her plate to the sink. “That’ll cost you another day here. I can go to town by myself. I’m a grown wo—”
“Yes, ma’am, you are. That’s why I’m going with you.”
He put his plate in the sink on top of hers, downed his coffee, and set the preserves next to the sugar bowl, centered on the table like two peas in a pod. “I’ll take a load of shingles up while you’re checking the cellar.”
With that, he pulled his boots on, grabbed his hat, and left.
She stood in the kitchen debating whether she should yell out the door at him or stomp her foot. Instead she picked up a basket and headed to the cellar.
If viewed from across the pasture, the small grassy mound didn’t draw the eye but blended with the natural rise and fall in the land that bunched up at the base of the mountain. But the path from the house that wound past the necessary and into an aspen grove led to the stone-faced side of the mound and the wooden door of Pop and Mams’s root cellar.
Abigale stopped in front of the trees, the ache of missing her adoptive grandparents nearly bending her in half. They had truly rescued her, saved her from an orphanage or worse when they’d brought her to their ranch. Dim memories of her parents hung like a thin curtain at the back of her mind, but she’d long ago lost their faces. All that remained was a vague sense of safety that had been suddenly and swiftly torn away.
Pop and Mams had filled her life since, and if she was certain of anything, it was their love for her.
That was why she’d agreed to go to Wolfe Hall. They’d been so proud to send her and had gladly set aside money that could have been used elsewhere. But Abigale began to lose heart when Mams died the first year, and with Pop’s passing …
Well, it was too much. She belonged here, on the land they loved. The land she loved.
Instinctively her head turned toward the aspens, their bare white limbs a skeletal contrast to the dark fir and pine. The forest stood in sentinel posture hedging the house and barn, perfuming the air with its woodsy scent.
Ahead, the root cellar waited as she remembered it—a frighteningly dark place in her childhood that, over the years, became a treasured repository of root vegetables, salted meat, even rounds and squares of butter. She’d not thought to bring the lantern, so she propped the door open with a large rock set aside for that purpose.
As expected, the cellar’s treasures had been plundered in the two years since Mams’s passing. But Pop had laid in potatoes, carrots, squash, and salt pork, though no butter or fresh preserves. A few jars of peaches remained.
She filled her basket, shut the door securely, and headed down the path toward the house. A rhythmic tap-tap-pause, tap-tap-pause sounded through the clear air, and from her slightly higher position she saw Seth on the barn roof, kneeling on one knee, her quilt-bag slung around him.
