by Gray Gardner
Eve’s New Year
12 Naughty Days of Christmas 2020 - Book 12
Gray Gardner
Published by Blushing Books
An Imprint of
ABCD Graphics and Design, Inc.
A Virginia Corporation
977 Seminole Trail #233
Charlottesville, VA 22901
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©2020
All rights reserved.
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No part of the book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The trademark Blushing Books is pending in the US Patent and Trademark Office.
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Gray Gardner
Eve’s New Year
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eBook ISBN: 978-1-64563-852-0
v1
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Cover Art by ABCD Graphics & Design
This book contains fantasy themes appropriate for mature readers only. Nothing in this book should be interpreted as Blushing Books' or the author's advocating any non-consensual sexual activity.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Gray Gardner
Blushing Books
Blushing Books Newsletter
Chapter 1
Silver Creek Ranch Lodge, The Day After Christmas
“Jesus!”
Eve Childress jerked backward and nearly lost her footing on the old, musty smelling hardwood floors. Not because of the magnificent mountain view out of the twelve foot round top windows. Not because she’d just been told by the nice attorney standing next to her that in the following five days she could appraise every item in the large ranch house and claim what she wanted.
No, she leapt out of her skin because of the tall, shadowy figure with a matching pair of dark eyes staring back at her in the doorway of the long, wainscoted hallway.
“Yes,” sighed the attorney, typing into her phone and giving Eve a tight smile. “He has that effect on most people. Mr. Friendly.”
“Another relative coming to strip this place down to the studs,” he growled, a smile on his lips, but his voice emoting an altogether opposite feeling. “Congratulations on being named in the will. You are one among twenty of the vultures come to pick at the corpse of the Silver Creek Ranch.”
Eve pushed her black glasses back up her nose and frowned. “I’m only interested in preserving the historical integrity of this place. It should be on the national historic registry. For starters.”
Mr. Friendly quirked an eyebrow and placed his hands on his trim, jean-clad hips. “You’re in a historical society?”
“Society?” she mocked, her head pulling back. “I’m employed by the National Historical Commission. My one and only job is and has been to restore and preserve our nation’s history. What’s your job?”
“Uh,” the attorney said in a shaky voice, eyes volleying back and forth between the pair. “He’s the, uh, foreman.”
The foreman, Mr. Friendly, remained silent but Eve had plenty to say in the silence that ensued.
“Well, you’ve done an adequate job of maintaining the residence. I can’t speak for the rest of the property since I haven’t seen-”
“You’ll stay in the house,” he interrupted, taking a step forward and pushing both Eve and the lawyer back into an antique console table, its contents shaking as they hit it. “We have wild animals and an unstable, hazardous mine on the property. For starters.”
Eve glared at his mocking tone but cleared her throat and straightened her shoulders. In her line of work she’d dealt with much nastier and much more sophisticated filth than this, er, unfortunately handsome, angry man.
“Thanks for the caveat, foreman. I’ll be sure to stick to the house.” She took a step forward and placed her hands on her hips, mocking him.
His dark eyes raked over her before his lip pulled in a tiny, almost inconspicuous upward movement. Almost like a real smile.
“See that you do, Ms. Childress. You won’t like what happens if you disobey me.”
He turned to leave but paused as she called after him, “Oh, you’d be surprised how often I hear that.”
He shook his head and grinned for real before exiting the house.
“Holy shit, no one’s ever stood up to Bradley Daniels.” The attorney’s voice was a little shaky.
So that was Foreman Friendly’s name, huh? Eve exhaled and turned to the terrified attorney. “What was your name again?”
“Mellie Simson. Go on and do your thing. I won’t bother you, and neither will he. This is a 6,000-acre ranch. He’s too busy to get all up in your business. See you in five days.”
Eve nodded and stood in the old, lonely eight-bedroom house. Her cousin, William Childress, like a cousin by really long distance, had never had any children. She still called him Uncle Bill, though. Her other cousins, Nelson and Boone, had inherited the other two ranches left in the very long, very complicated will. Since she wasn’t directly related, she guessed she’d been lucky to get the opportunity to appraise the hundred and fifty year old property.
Her dad’s dad had been the brother to William Childress’s dad. Maybe. She wasn’t completely sure of the generations. She’d only seen the place every three or four years during Christmas, and remembered playing with all of the cousins, but that was it. She had to alternate holidays between relatives and step-relatives and only really got to see Bill Childress’ ranch a handful of times. But every visit had been magical. Snow, decorations, family, and, oh yeah, presents for all the cousins, little and big.
Why had he selected her to pick and choose through the things in his will? How had he known she worked for the historical commission? They hadn’t kept in touch. Like, at all.
She dug in during the next day, using her colored dot sticker system, cataloguing photos on her I-Pad and writing entries into her little pink book she kept. The Wi-Fi was spotty, so she had to coordinate each numbered photo with each hand-written entry. Nothing she hadn’t dealt with before.
Everything was fascinating to her. The hand-carved chairs, the oil paintings, the Native American woven table runners, the worn quilts; to her, everything was invaluable, but she knew everything did indeed have a price. There were so many memories that had at one time meant so much to people, or maybe even just one person, but she still had to assess what it would cost in the present, authenticated or not.
“Have you even eaten today?”
Eve dropped the magnifying glass she’d been staring through for the last however many hours, as she scrutinized the stitching and thread of the tassels on an area rug, and squealed as she brought her hand to her chest. Christ, he could sneak up unannounced, couldn’t he? She frowned down at the dirty boot standing on the yellowed white tassel she’d just been looking at and wrinkled her nose at the smell before jumping up and growling at him.
“Get off, foreman! Do you realize how valuable this is?” When he didn’t move, she pushed her hands into his chest. When that only solicited a small grin from him, she raised her hands in surrender and tried reason. “This is an authentic Persian rug. From Persia, an old referenced area in modern day southern Iran. As in, it doesn’t exist anymore. As in, whoever bought this had to have either been really friendly with a traveler from the Mid
dle East or traveled there themselves. Either way, the stitching and thread provide a story remarkable enough to get everyone back at work excited. And I’ve just scratched the surface in here…”
“Yeah, but have you eaten?” His figure still darkly loomed over her in the large, cold, dimly lit living room.
“Yes, Mom, I ate a pack of peanut butter crackers for lunch.” She rolled her eyes and opened her pink notebook to catalogue the Persian rug find.
The friendly foreman slowly but forcefully pulled it out of her hands and tucked it under his arm.
“What the hell!”
“It’s midnight.” He raised a brow as if to dare her to question something as certain as the time.
She sputtered out in disbelief, but turned her head over to the tall grandfather clock in the corner of the room. Then she looked down at her watch and pushed her glasses back up her nose. Oh. It was midnight. She pressed her lips together and looked back down at the rug.
“Hmph.” He relaxed his stance as he exhaled and placed his hands on his hips. “You’re lucky you’re so cute, historian.”
She was about to try and challenge everything he’d just said when he reached out, took her hand and pulled her behind him. She walked along, staring at his huge hand, rough and strong, enveloping hers, slender and soft. What was happening?
“I just got back from my rounds in the south pasture. Bill always kept vegetable soup in the freezer for us to heat up and defrost our insides. Would you like some?”
He turned when they reached the big, white kitchen and gently pushed her into a chair at a long, dark stained wooden table. She nodded slowly as he worked quickly, heating up the soup on the stove and warming some garlic bread in the oven. He knew everything about the house, the property, the contents of the freezer.
“You loved him.”
She watched his back hunch as he stirred the soup, then saw him will his muscles to relax as he turned and gave her a tight smile.
“We loved each other, but not in the way that you’re thinking.”
She frowned. She hadn’t been thinking anything, really.
“We loved each other like a father and son do.” He brought over two steaming bowls and a board with sliced garlic bread. Sitting down, he cocked his head as he looked at her. “What?”
“Nothing,” she quickly answered, inhaling the fragrant soup with a grin. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to judge you.”
“I know.” He picked his spoon up and let it hover over his soup as his face strained in thought. “It’s hard for me, seeing people who barely knew him come through and try and claim that he would have wanted them to have this and he knew that they loved that… I’m sorry. Now I’m judging you.”
“Bradley.” She waited for his dark eyes to turn up to hers. “I don’t want anything but to place this residence and its extensive contents on a federal government registry. There’s more history lying on the floor of this place than in ten city blocks where I live. I want to preserve everything here. I want to restore about half of the things I’ve seen, but that’s for later. I hope you know, I’m not looking at this ranch with a salivating hundred-dollar bill for a tongue like those dumb cartoons. And I’m sorry if my distant relatives have acted so regrettably. Truly.”
He gave her a long, appreciative stare before turning down to his soup. She quickly did the same, loving the warm feeling swirling in her abdomen. It was the delicious, hot soup, for sure.
“So,” she said in an exhale, clearing her throat and trying to find her damned normal voice. “There’s a, uh, mine on the property?”
He paused mid-bite, his spoon hovering before setting it down. “I can’t tell if you’re serious or if you’re mocking me.”
A little taken aback by that abrupt response, she wondered why it hurt so much. Swallowing, she stood and grabbed her bowl. “Don’t worry, I don’t mind cleaning up.”
“Eve.”
She could tell he was directly behind her as she rinsed off dishes in the sink. She only turned to face him when his large had wrapped around her shoulder and pulled her around to face him. She looked up and found his dark eyes looking like they were hurting.
“He wasn’t even here. When he died. He was finishing a deal in Texas and had a heart attack. And his body hadn’t even been returned. It wasn’t even cold when Childress relatives started popping out of the woodwork staking their claim. Especially on the mine.”
Eve nodded and gave him a small grin. “I understand.”
He glared down at her. “Don’t you even want to know what kind of mine?”
“Is this the portion of the evening where I speculate and you laugh at me?”
He knit his brow at her response and ran his hand through his brown hair as he stared down at her. “You are so peculiar.”
She flipped her blonde ponytail and walked past him. “Thanks for the derivative assessment. You’re now officially and disappointingly like every man I’ve ever met.”
He grabbed her arm and stopped her so abruptly that her glasses almost flew off her nose. “Wait. Please.”
“Let go.”
“I’m not like very man you’ve ever met, Eve.” He sighed heavily and pulled her behind him, even as she dug her heels in.
“Let go, foreman!”
“I just want to show you something.”
She was about to really start resisting when he pulled her outside to a paved patio, with room for a large fire in a rock firepit, and pointed out over the white fields of snow to a moon so full she had to gasp.
“Oh my God. It’s so big.”
She heard him clear his throat and she rolled her eyes with an exhale.
“It’s worth seeing if you’re out here. It’s like this every Christmas. I didn’t want you to miss out all buried in your book and magnifying glass. There’s so much more to this place than, well, stuff.”
“My mission in life is to prove that.”
She felt his hand run up her arm, over her shoulder, and cup the side of her face. Cautiously she looked up at him.
“I can see how steely blue your eyes are in this moonlight. Just like Bill’s. He could make a man cower with just one glance of those eyes.”
“Well, I can make a man run away as fast as he can with mine, so I guess we both have our superpowers.”
He let his hand run back down to her shoulder as he stared intently at her. “Can I make a suggestion?”
“You haven’t been inhibited thus far.”
He laughed softly and looked back at the large house. “Start up in the attic tomorrow. Bill’s mother, Carrie, kept detailed accounts of all the stories her grandmother told her. She also got accounts from her grandfather, and a few others, I think. Always talked about it. Bill always said he meant to digitize them, but I don’t think he ever got around to even reading them. Journals, diaries, sketches, it’s all up there. I’ve seen them. I hid them, actually.”
“Why?”
He grinned and glanced back at the late December moon. “Just waiting for someone who cared enough to appreciate them.”
Chapter 2
The Western Express, 1870
Compiled from the Journals of Pryce and Holly Browning, and recounted by Holly Browning to her granddaughter, Carrie Childress, who lovingly typed the accounts and bound them in this book in 1950 for the purpose of posterity.
The train carriage jolted upwards again, a disruptive break from the steady sideways rocking of the last two hours. The cool, fresh air from the opened sash windows had also changed, a dry and dusty quality replacing the damp humidity.
Holly breathed deeply and grinned as her eyes closed against the bright sunlight. A wisp of blonde hair tickled her nose as she quickly tucked it back under her lavender bonnet. She glanced around the shiny walnut finish of the passenger car at all the other swaying lavender bonnets.
Reveal nothing.
Mrs. Zachary had seemed strict at first. Rules. All those rules. Back straight. Cover your head. Cover your hands. Co
ver your ankles. Don’t smile with your teeth. Look down. Look in the eye when they speak. Don’t speak. Speak back in a short, friendly reply. Eat what you’re served. Don’t eat too much. Steer the conversation away from your previous life.
And remember: reveal nothing.
Zachary’s Companions of the West had a reputation for matching lonely homesteaders with women from the east coast. In the post war era, it was the most trusted name in mail order brides. Zeke and Sarah Zachary had taken a risk by taking in widows of the war, but in the end the gamble had paid off because the women were already perfect marriage material.
They weren’t afraid of men. They knew how to keep a house, how to cook, all with confidence. And with a little training from Mrs. Zachary, they knew how to present themselves to their promised companion.
Holly had to admit she’d needed quite a bit more instruction, but the end result had earned her a spot on what the young women affectionately called the Bridal Express. Now she was on a train, heading west, making stops along the way as the women in lavender dresses, gray capelets, and lavender bonnets deboarded and met their husbands to be. They were quickly married right there on the depot platform by Zeke Zachary himself. There had already been two weddings, sixteen more to go until they reached San Francisco.
“They’ll be happy.”
Rose had nodded at the couple at the last depot in Dodge City. “See how his hand is gently on her back, leading her but not pushing? That body language is unmistakable. He’ll care for her.”
Holly nodded and found herself sighing in relief as her redheaded seatmate looked out of the window with her. At the first stop in St. Louis, all of the women in the carriage had witnessed the first wedding ending in a man in a three piece suit pecking his Zachary Companion on the cheek and instructing his servants to take her and her luggage to a separate horse-drawn carriage from his own. He’d give her a good life. She’d give him children. But everyone could see there wouldn’t be any love.