A High-Country Christmas, page 5
Though she had admitted that she trusted him. That was something.
“Hoot Spicer gave me an earful.”
She waited four hoofbeats before leaning over and looking straight at him like she used to when he ignored her. “Well?”
Dadgum it, she’d make him loco yet.
“He didn’t come right out and say Blackwell, but he came so close, I could hear him thinkin’ it. I was hoping Briggs had mentioned the name, so we’d have something solid to go on.”
Tess clomped on for another half-mile, and Abigale sat uncharacteristically silent.
“What are you thinking?”
She cut him a silent glance that could stampede an entire herd.
“Whatever it is, it sounds like a bad idea.”
She unpinned her hat and took it off, heedless of the sun that made her yellow hair nearly white. “How can you say that? You haven’t heard it yet.”
“No, but I see it on your face, and it looks like trouble. You need to let me handle this, man to man.”
She slapped his shoulder with her hat.
He nearly laughed but—thank the Lord—he didn’t. He wasn’t a complete idiot. “What was that for?”
“What makes you think I can’t handle things? Just because I’m a woman, you act like I can’t think or do anything for myself.”
“I do not.” But he was thinking it. Thinking how she’d get herself in a jackpot. Abigale Millerton was smart and capable enough to do whatever she set her mind to, and that was what scared him. Blackwell was no one to mess with, and every man in the county knew it.
“Tell me, then.” A sudden image of his ma pushed the next word through his lips. “Please.”
“Promise you won’t try to stop me?”
“No.”
She folded her arms with a hard humph. “Then I’ll just keep it to myself.”
“And I’ll hide your saddles and tack, and camp out in your barn until the snow’s so deep you can’t get anywhere on foot.”
A warning shot fired from her eyes. “You wouldn’t.”
“Try me.”
Another mile, and the Millerton barn came into view. He ought to cut across country to his folks’ place, let them know what was going on, and get his ma and sister to work on Abigale until she agreed to stay there. Then he could deal with Blackwell himself.
Best plan he’d heard all day.
He turned Tess off the trail and out over the grassy park that stretched uncluttered until it reached the buildings of the Lazy H, mere specs in the distance.
The wagon bucked over rough ground, and Abigale held to the edge of the bench seat with both hands. “Seth Holt, what are you doing?”
“I’m taking you home.”
“You’ll do no such thing. Turn around right this minute. I paid for a wagon load of stores that I intend to make last me through the winter. And this is my wagon and mare for as long as I need them.”
His ploy was successful. Worry curled the edge of her voice.
“I’ll turn around when you tell me what you’ve got cooking in that pretty little head of yours.”
That last part was probably a mistake. She’d consider it condescending and might stab him with that vicious-looking hat pin. But what was he supposed to do with a headstrong gal liable to get herself in a fix worse than the one he’d already pulled her out of?
She crossed her arms again but fell against him when they rolled over a badger hole. Quick as a whip, he looped an arm around her and held her close.
“Let me go.” She pushed against his ribs.
“Not until you tell me what you’re planning. Besides, if you bounce out, I’ll have to stop and fetch you, and we might not make the ranch before the storm hits.”
She looked over her shoulder toward the mountain, her face so close that all he had to do was turn his head and kiss her. The temptation was almost more than he could handle. She smelled even better close up, and he knew right then and there his bachelor days were running out on him. He had to marry Abigale Millerton.
But first he had to win her over.
She went soft against him. “All right.”
“All right what?”
“All right, I’ll tell you.”
Reluctantly, he let her go, and she sat up straighter. She didn’t have room to scoot away, but at least she hadn’t tried. A good sign.
“I’m going to hide out in the woods where Blackwell—or whomever—has been cutting and wait for him to show up with his crew.”
A bad sign.
A very bad sign.
But he needed to hear her whole plan, and if he jumped in the middle of it too early, she’d sull up and not tell him. “Go on.”
She raised her hope-filled face toward him. “You think it will work?”
“Is there more to it?”
“Well,”—she pushed at the knot of hair that was bouncing loose—“I’ve always been a good shot.”
CHAPTER 7
Seth hauled back on the reins so hard, Abigale lurched forward but caught herself on the buckboard before she tumbled onto Tess.
The look on his face made her want to jump down and walk home. It wasn’t all that far, though the trek would ruin her shoes. But she needed the supplies in the wagon, and didn’t put it past him to drive off with them.
Gathering the last vestiges of her pride, she adjusted her seating and tugged on her suit jacket. “I wouldn’t kill him, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Seth took his hat off with a groan and rubbed his forehead before slapping the hat back on. She’d never seen him quite so pale, and it made his stubbly beard even darker. The man was entirely too handsome for her own good. Heavens, if the girls at Wolfe Hall saw him now, they’d be setting their caps and flirting up a storm.
The revelation did not settle well. He was her Seth. Her friend. She glanced at the mountain again, amazed once more at how fast a squall could gather in this high country.
The memory of their fireside evening came flooding back. The comfort of his presence. The camaraderie they’d shared, so like their days growing up together. Of course they’d squabbled as children too, but it seemed more intense now. Why was he so set against her establishing herself as a viable landowner in this valley? Why couldn’t he support her rather than oppose her every move?
She resigned herself to a tirade. The sooner he blew off steam, the sooner they could get home and unload the supplies.
“Go ahead, get it over with. Tell me all the reasons you think my idea is foolish and why you have a better one, and then turn around so we can make it to the ranch before the storm hits.”
A sudden gust whipped past them, snagging the remains of her updo and lashing it across her face. She gathered her hair in one hand and twisted it over her shoulder.
Seth clucked Tess back around the way they had come, and by the time they made the trail, the sun was buried in a growing cloud bank. Abigale shivered.
With one arm, he drew her close against him, quickening the mare’s pace with his other hand. Still, he hadn’t said a word.
All Abigale could read from his stoic profile was determination to reach shelter. But the strength of his arm around her and the warmth of his body added a dimension she’d not appreciated earlier. Never, in fact. She’d not been aware of him carrying her inside the house, and as a young girl, she’d always taken for granted—and resented—the fact that he was physically stronger.
But now, in a race against nature, she was grateful for their differences. And grateful he was with her.
The sky dropped, belching snow in fits and spurts. Seth reined up in front of the house and climbed over the back of the seat to the wagon bed.
Abigale hurried to the porch where she propped the front door open in spite of the rising wind. He brought the flour in first, setting both sacks against the kitchen wall, and returned moments later with the crate. She cleared the table of cloth, sugar bowl, and preserves in time for him to set the crate there. Then he was out the door, closing it hard behind him.
Through the window she watched him pull his hat down and drive the wagon inside the barn. He did it all without being asked, as if it were his place to do so, unprotected though he was without his slicker or canvas coat.
Why such sacrifice on his part? Did he consider it his Christian duty, or was this his version of support?
He certainly wasn’t opposing her now.
She hung her jacket over a chair back and unpacked the crate, stacking canned goods in the cupboards, setting the lard and butter in covered crockery, Arbuckles’ near the grinder. After stoking the cookstove, she put on a pot of coffee, then went to the fireplace, where she poked around in the ashes for signs of life.
One coal winked up at her hungrily, and she fed it broken bits of kindling, adding larger pieces until a small but steady flame maintained itself between the andirons. Finally, she added several split logs—thanks to Seth’s efforts with the axe, though she could have done the same. She’d split firewood countless times and expected to do so indefinitely. After all, she would be living alone.
Sobered by the reality of her predicament, she glanced at Pop’s shotgun and Henry rifle above the mantel. Her idea of taking potshots at the timber thieves didn’t seem quite so clever now with snow swirling around the house. What had she been thinking?
A log caught flame and snapped into her musing. Seth would be hungry and so was she. A canned-peach pie seemed a good match for coffee. And with the side pork and potatoes she’d brought in from the cellar, she’d have a solid meal cooking in no time.
She’d not prepared supper in ages, not since she’d been home last summer, helping Pop with the haying. Since she couldn’t heft a fifty-pound bag of flour into the storage bin by herself, she scooped out what she’d need for two pies, cut lard into the bowl, and added salt and water. In no time, rolled-out dough draped two pie plates with strips left over for the top. She poured in two tins of peaches, topped them with a mix of sugar, cinnamon, and a little flour, and crossed strips across each pie like lattice work. After trimming and crimping off the edges, both pans went in the oven.
With a heady sense of accomplishment, she caught her reflection in the darkened window—untidy, windblown, and flour-dusted.
Boots stomped on the porch, and she fled up the stairs. She couldn’t let Seth see her looking so—so wild!
~
Coffee and cinnamon hit Seth in the face as soon as he opened the door. He hadn’t eaten much in town with Hoot Spicer, and it merely primed the pump. He pulled his boots off and pegged his hat, then socked over to the stove and lifted the lid on a large skillet. Potatoes, side pork, onions.
He’d died and gone to heaven after all.
Another scent tickled his innards, and he peeked inside the oven. Peach pie. Lord, have mercy.
He poured himself a cup of coffee and looked around for Abigale, but she must have gone upstairs. A log shifted in the fireplace, sending sparks up the chimney, and the big chair invited him to rest a while. He eased into it and stretched his feet out on the hearth stones.
If this was what it felt like to have a home and a wife of his own, then sign him up. ’Cept Pop Millerton’s place wasn’t his and neither was Pop’s stubborn, independent-minded granddaughter.
Why couldn’t Abigale be one of those easygoing, domesticated gals who only cooked up meals, not wild-hare schemes for lying wait on snakes who had no qualms about stealing from a woman?
Whoever the varmint was, he’d picked the wrong woman. And if Abigale Millerton was some namby-pamby gal, Seth wouldn’t be sitting in her house itching to follow-through with her harebrained plan and wishing she were his wife.
“Comfortable?”
He jerked his feet back and spilled hot coffee on his leg.
She came around the end of the sofa, where she settled and tucked her feet under a simpler dress than what she’d worn to town. Her braid hung over her shoulder. Prettier than a picture, she was. He rubbed a hand along his whiskered jaw and clamped his elbows close to his sides in case he was getting ripe.
What he wouldn’t give for a shave and a bath.
“You haven’t told me what you thought of my plan.”
The sofa was still facing the hearth, but he angled his chair back some so he could see her without being so obvious about it.
She picked up the pillow he’d propped her head on last night and traced the fancy needlework.
He had a hard time picturing her sitting still long enough to make something like that. “How’s your head?”
She slid him a look. “I asked first.”
There was no sneaking up on Abigale Millerton, a fact for sure. Technically, she hadn’t asked him a question, but he let it slide. “I’ve given it some thought.”
Hopefulness showed up again. “Really?”
“Tell me more about it. Other than how you don’t intend to shoot Blackwell—or whoever—out of his saddle.”
She tucked her chin back with a sassy smile, still tracing the stitches on the pillow. “Well, I’d like to rope and hog-tie him, haul him home to his wife like a side of beef, and tell him the next time I found him cutting timber on my land, I was gonna tie him to a tree and leave him for the cougars.”
Seth whistled through his teeth. “I hope I never get on your bad side. They teach you things like that at your fancy girls’ school in Denver?”
She laughed. The trickling-creek laugh. “You know very well they did not. And you also know I’ve been roping since I was ten.”
That he did.
All of a sudden, she jerked her head around, then jumped off the sofa and hurried to the stove. He hadn’t noticed, but now he caught the aroma of fresh-baked peach pie. Good thing she’d made two, because he planned to eat one all by himself.
“Wash up.” She looked over her shoulder with a smile. “Time to eat.”
No, it wasn’t. It was time to take a good hard look at his life and figure out how to get Abigale Millerton to share it with him.
~
Seth had been hungrier than he thought. After half a pie and two helpings of fried potatoes and pork that Abigale called Pop’s hash, he leaned back from the table mostly a satisfied man. “That beat my cooking six ways from Sunday.”
“That’s tomorrow, you know.”
“What is?”
“Sunday.”
Shoot. His folks were probably wondering where he was. He’d ridden in to mail a couple of letters for his ma, then followed his gut to Millertons’. Hopefully she knew he was all right. She always claimed the Lord told her which way the wind was blowing.
Abigale set their plates in the sink and refilled his coffee.
He took his cup to the window at the front of the house, where he saw absolutely nothing except himself in the glass. The night was dark as the inside of one of Abigale’s peach tins with the lid still on, but an inch of snow edged the windowsill and pane moldings.
He set his coffee on the hearth, tugged on his slicker, and grabbed the lantern. “I’m going for more wood.”
Pop Millerton had built a stout home, for Seth hadn’t felt the steady gusts that were drifting the snow onto what had drifted the night before and sweeping the ground bare. He and Coop could make it home if they skirted the drifts, but it’d be a long, hard haul. And he didn’t want to leave Abigale alone.
He made two trips, bringing in all the split wood and some smaller logs, then split a few from a bigger pile out behind the house. He’d tackle more tomorrow and stack it under the eaves. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t stay forever, but another night would ease his worry for her some.
Another night on the floor in front of the fire, dreaming about how to win her heart. Right now he figured it had a whole lot to do with helping her win what she wanted, which was freedom from poachers, if you could call ’em that. How did you prove someone’s stealing your trees when the whole country grew the same kind?
’Cept those lodgepoles. They grew thick and stout on Millerton land, not in spindly doghair patches. Blackwell had a few acres that skirted around to the west, but not near the timber Abigale did.
Seth had cut his share of trees with his pa. Hard work it was, felling them, limbing them where they lay, then dragging them out on horseback with heavy chains, one at a time. If Blackwell was cutting timber, there’d be signs.
With winter rolling in, most of the mills had slowed to a stop, according to Hoot. But his Windsor was still running lodgepoles, he’d said.
Greed could twist a man into a fool, and there was a chance that a few clear days in a row might draw out Abigale’s timber thief for one final run.
An itch started in the back of Seth’s mind and settled into a warm spot right next to Abigale’s scheme.
CHAPTER 8
Abigale finished washing the supper dishes and put them away. Breakfast would be more of the same since she had no eggs, so she was pleased that Seth had eaten heartily. She covered the remains of one pie with a napkin and set it on the table with the sugar and preserves, then put the other pie in the safe. Not that it would actually be safe if someone decided he was hungry in the middle of the night. Seth not only filled out Pop’s clothing, he filled out Pop’s capacity for food as well. Which was why she left a decoy on the table.
She settled onto the sofa, feet up, and tucked her skirt around them. The fire threw dancing shadows across the floor and onto Pop’s chair where Seth stretched his legs to the hearth.
What if he hadn’t shown up when he did? Would she even be alive?
Mams would have said the storm brought him here when Abigale needed him most and didn’t know it. She’d say it was God’s way to use a storm like that. The way He’d used Abigale’s very first storm of losing her parents to bring her to the Millertons, who had no children of their own.
She picked up the cross-stitched pillow, heavy with memories. A small brown stain marred one corner, no doubt blood from where she’d hit her head. Tears stung the backs of her eyes, making it hard to read the words. She knew them by heart, but reading them and fingering the tiny stitches reminded her that Mams’s faith had grown over time, just like the painstaking handiwork.
