by Anna Schmidt
But at the moment when it seemed they might explode in unison, Nick rolled her to her back and pulled away.
“No!”
“Shhh,” he whispered as he gathered her close. “I want it too,” he said, “but the last thing either of us needs right now is a baby. We’ve been lucky so far, Grace, but I don’t believe in tempting fate.”
She knew he was right. They held each other for a long moment. He stroked her hair. She ran her fingers over his chest.
“But someday?” she whispered.
He chuckled. “Yeah, someday…and then someday after that and someday after that and—”
She rose onto her elbow and stared at him. “How many children do you want?”
He seemed to consider this, the light from the fire playing across his features. “Lots,” he said finally. “Half dozen?”
She thought of her family—her five brothers and sisters and how together, the six of them had enjoyed so many good times together. “Sounds about right,” she said and snuggled in next to him again.
“Could be,” he mused as he wrapped a tendril of her hair around his finger, “this time next year, we might already have a start. I mean, you finish your contract in February.” He counted the months on his fingers. “Yeah, next Christmas, we might have a little guy of our own.”
“Or girl,” she corrected.
“Sure—as long as she’s as pretty and smart as her mother.”
“And if she’s plain and dumb as a rock?”
He shrugged. “I’ll love her more, ’cause she’ll need it.”
“You’re going to be a fine father, Nick Hopkins.”
They dozed a little, waking when the fire burned low and they felt the chill of the night. Nick stoked the fire with the small supply of kindling left, and they finished their supper, warming their cider by setting the tin cups close to the flames. They dressed slowly, pausing between layers to kiss and caress. As Grace twisted her hair up and anchored it with the combs, they heard the church bells calling people back for midnight services.
Miss Kaufmann had given the girls an extended curfew for the evening, as long as they attended services and came straight back to the hotel after. As Nick and Grace crossed the plaza on their way to the church, they became part of a line of people all moving in the same direction. Grace imagined them following this tradition for years to come—herself, Nick, and their children.
And then she saw Jasper Perkins walking to the church with his wife. Dolly Perkins waved to her.
Nick spotted the banker at the same moment. When it appeared the two couples were bound to meet as they entered the large double doors, Nick pulled Grace around to a side entrance. They were already seated when Perkins led his wife down the aisle to a seat near the front—in a pew reserved for the dignitaries of the town.
* * *
Nick fought to contain his fury at the very sight of Perkins parading down the aisle, greeting people as if he were running for office. On the other hand, he was determined not to permit the banker to spoil the perfect evening he and Grace were sharing. This was their first Christmas together, and he was not about to allow anything to tarnish that in any way. He’d felt Grace tense when she noticed Perkins, and now she sat next to him, her hands clenched in her lap. He reached over and pried one hand loose from the other, then covered her hand with his and moved closer so that she could feel the press of his shoulder against her.
It worked. She tightened her fingers around his and smiled. Just then, Lily and Emma came hurrying down the aisle to sit with them, followed by Jake and, surprisingly, Aidan Campbell.
“Merry Christmas, Nick,” Lily mouthed.
Nick grinned. Grace was lucky to have friends like Lily and Emma. They would make sure nothing happened to her when he wasn’t able to be there. Now that Perkins had punished him by foreclosing on the loan, maybe the older man would back off. Grace hadn’t said anything about him continuing to stalk her. He relaxed and turned his attention to the front of the church.
The midnight service was one of soft music and the occasional solo by a member of the choir. There was no sermon, no nativity pageant. Just before midnight, the ushers came down the aisles and handed each person a small candle. Then as the organist played “Silent Night,” young boys from the congregation dressed in white robes with red bows went from row to row lighting the candle held by the person on the aisle. That person lit the candle of his or her neighbor and so on until the entire church was aglow and the bells chimed midnight. As the music shifted into “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear,” the ushers stood sentry row by row to allow each pew to empty as people left the church, still holding their candles.
Outside, there were calls of “Merry Christmas” as the congregants scattered and walked or rode back to their homes. It was Christmas morning, and above them, a black sky dotted with thousands of stars lit their way as one by one, the candles were extinguished.
At the hotel, the six friends exchanged holiday wishes and chaste kisses on the cheek.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” Grace whispered as she stood on tiptoe to kiss Nick’s cheek.
“At the cabin,” he replied.
“Yes, and don’t eat anything. I’m bringing breakfast.”
“And my gift?” He gave her a teasing smile.
“Only if you’re good,” she replied.
“Grace?” Miss Kaufmann stood in the doorway checking the girls in for the night.
Grace kissed him again and then ran to the door. “Merry Christmas, Miss K,” she said as she followed the other girls inside and up the back stairs.
Nick stood watching until Miss Kaufmann closed the door. He barely felt the cold as he returned to the cabin where he bedded down for the night and smiled in the darkness as he imagined all the Christmases to come once he and Grace were truly together. He folded his arms behind his head and said to himself, “Hopkins, you are one lucky cowboy.”
On Christmas morning, Nick was awakened by kisses fluttering lightly over his face. He opened his eyes and rubbed the sleep from them as Grace laid out a breakfast for them of cinnamon rolls, apples and oranges, and a large thermos of coffee.
“You’ll need to cut the fruit,” she said. “I brought some apples and dried apricots. We’ll mix everything into the oatmeal.” She nodded her head toward a pot warming by the fire, the combs he’d given her gleaming in her hair.
Nick dug in his pocket for his knife and came up empty. “I had it,” he muttered.
“Try this.” She handed him a package he recognized as coming from Tucker’s store.
He grinned as he tore off the wrapping and opened the box. “Oh, Grace, it’s a beauty,” he said softly as he examined every blade and accessory.
He set to cutting the fruit, handing her the pieces to add to the hot cereal while he munched on a cinnamon roll.
“What shall we do today?” she asked, then laughed when he raised an eyebrow and grinned. “I mean besides that. What if we spend time with Emma, Jake, and Lily? They don’t have any family around.”
“Is it your plan to care for the entire world?” he asked.
“Just the corner of the world that holds my family and friends—and my husband.”
As Grace had suggested, they spent the day with others from the hotel, and that evening, Aidan hosted a lavish Christmas dinner. Afterward, everyone seemed to find his or her corner for quiet conversation or to simply relax. Grace and Nick slipped away, back to their hideaway where they made love and talked about what joys the new year might bring for them.
It was the perfect Christmas, Nick thought as he rode back to the ranch after Grace had returned to the hotel. He recalled how surprised and delighted she’d been with the set of combs, and certainly the pocketknife was finer than any he’d ever owned. But the best gift of all was the life he could see them sharing—the years stretching out before th
em with many such happy times to come.
Chapter 12
The holidays disappeared into the unusually cold and bitter winds of January, and the cabin was no longer a viable meeting place. Even with a fire and extra blankets, the winds whipped through cracks in the walls, and the ill-fitting single window and door made it impossible to do more than cuddle together. On top of that, the rustlers that had struck before Christmas returned. Since the ranch was operating with as few hands as possible, Nick took double shifts watching over the herd. If he got to town twice a week, he considered that a blessing.
Grace was still working double shifts. “Every penny counts,” she argued when Nick protested that between her schedule and his, they would have even less time to spend together. As the days dragged on, assuming work and impassable roads didn’t prevent Nick from making it to town at all, they had to make do with stolen moments when she was on break. They were both exhausted and frustrated and short-tempered. The only thing that gave Nick hope they would survive this rough patch was that her contract would end in just a few weeks. Then they could tell the world about their marriage and move into the foreman’s quarters at the ranch. Without the need to save money for loan payments, he would have enough so that if Grace hadn’t quite managed to send her family the full fifty dollars, he could make up the difference.
Between shifts at the ranch, Nick contemplated the possibility that he might just need to confide in the Lombards that he no longer had the land and that he and Grace had married. If the Lombards agreed—and he had every reason to believe they would—at least he could pass the long stretches between visits to town getting the foreman’s quarters cleaned up, painted, and ready for Grace.
“Nick, boss man wants to see you up at the main house,” Slim said as he led his horse into the barn where Nick was cleaning stalls.
Nick leaned the shovel and broom against the wall and turned up the collar to his sheepskin-lined coat. “Did he say anything more?”
“Nope. Just told me to have you stop by as soon as you were available.”
At the house, Nick stamped the dirt and slush from his shoes and knocked on the door.
Rita Lombard opened it and smiled. “Ah, Nick. Come in. John is waiting for you in the library.” She took his coat and hat and hung them on the hall tree that featured antlers as hooks. Nick had always liked that touch.
While Rita returned to the kitchen, Nick smoothed back his hair and entered the library. Odd that his boss was there instead of his office where the two men normally discussed business.
“Nick, come in.” John Lombard greeted him by standing and indicating a chair near the fire. “Can’t recall a winter this raw in some time.”
“No sir.” Something was off here. He was being treated more like one of the Lombards’ guests than their foreman. He stood next to the chair.
“Sit,” John instructed. Two leather winged-back chairs with thick wooden legs and arms faced the fire. Nick sat in one, and John took the other. “How are things going with you and that pretty waitress in town?”
“Okay.”
John frowned. “Just okay? That’s not going to please Rita. She’s convinced the two of you are a match made in heaven. I should probably apologize for all the extra work you’ve had to take on. Rita says it stands in the way of true love and…”
“…and that simply will not do,” Rita announced as she entered the room carrying a tray loaded with a pot of coffee, cups, saucers, and a plate stacked with pastries. Her husband was on his feet immediately to relieve her of the tray, which he sat on the raised hearth before pulling a straight-back chair into the circle for her.
She talked as she prepared coffee for Nick and her husband. “The thing is, Nick, as I am sure you know, John and I are quite fond of you. Not being blessed with children of our own, we’ve come to think of you as something of a son we never had.”
Nick felt heat that had little to do with the fire rise to his cheeks. His hand shook a little as he accepted the coffee. “Thank you,” he murmured, hoping to cover both the offer of coffee and the compliment.
“What Rita is trying to say, Nick, is—”
Rita interrupted. “Nick, if you have an inclination to ask Grace to marry you, you’ll need a place to live, at least until you can build a cabin on that land of yours. The bunkhouse will simply not do, but as you know, there are quarters for you just off the kitchen.” She sipped her coffee and pinned him with a direct gaze. “Gossip has it that Grace’s contract with the Harvey outfit will end in just a few weeks. I would suggest that you propose before that happens, or else she’s likely to sign up for another six months or longer, and then where will the two of you be?”
“I…” Nick swallowed and set down his cup. “The thing is, I no longer hold title to the land. The bank foreclosed the loan, so at the moment—”
“Perkins called in the loan?” John Lombard was not a man who shouted or ranted, but there was never a doubt when he heard news he did not like.
“Jasper?” Rita asked as if perhaps she had misunderstood.
Nick nodded. “Yes, ma’am. He said—”
“I don’t give a hoot what he said.” Rita Lombard had no problem letting the full extent of her feelings be known either. “John cosigned that loan. I’m going to contact my sister and tell her she needs to set her husband straight on a few things.”
“Rita, calm yourself. Let’s hear Nick out. Is there something more, Nick?”
One of the traits Nick had long admired about his boss was the man’s ability to read people. He decided to confide in them. “Grace and I are already married,” he said softly.
Rita gasped and then smiled and then frowned. “But she cannot—”
“No one knows. We thought we’d make it till her contract runs out, and in the meantime, I would get something built on the land so we could live there once she was done with Harvey.” He lifted his shoulders and let them drop in a gesture of defeat. “Guess maybe we should have—”
“Well, this will not do,” Rita muttered. “Not one bit.”
John picked up a pastry and bit off half of it. He chewed slowly as he stared at the fire. “It must be providence, son,” he said when he’d finally swallowed and licked powdered sugar from his fingers. “The thing is, Rita and I have been thinking quite a bit about the future, Nick—ours and yours. We aren’t getting any younger. But we’ve built a good business here, and with no one to leave this place to… Well, we were hoping maybe you might reconsider building a place of your own. What if, instead, you stayed on here? You’d take on more responsibility, with a higher wage of course, and then one day…”
Rita reached over and covered Nick’s hand with hers. “You’re too old for us to adopt, Nick, but you’ve been like a son to us since your father came to work here when you were just a child. You’ve practically grown up here, and once you took on your father’s job—you were still so very young.” Tears welled in her eyes.
“Seventeen,” Nick said softly, recalling those early years, remembering how John Lombard had taken him under his wing after Nick’s father was killed during a stampede. He shook off the memories. This was now. “I couldn’t possibly—”
“Just say you’ll give it some thought,” John urged. “After all, given your circumstances, you need to make some plans, son.”
Son.
Nick understood it was a generational term, and yet the way it so easily rolled off John’s tongue, it felt like more.
“I’ll think on it, sir,” he agreed.
“And don’t you worry about the secret you and Grace hold. We won’t reveal it,” Rita assured him as her husband stood, indicating the meeting was over.
Nick stood as well. “Could I ask one more favor, ma’am?”
“Of course.”
“Please don’t raise the issue of your brother-in-law calling in the loan with your sister. Just let it a
lone.”
She started to reply, bit her lower lip as she squinted up at him, and then touched his cheek. “Jasper Perkins is a horrible little man,” she said. “I told Dolly that when she married him, but she went ahead anyway. It is high time someone brought him down off that high horse.”
“Please?”
She huffed a sigh of resignation. “Very well. Dolly has no power when it comes to her husband anyway, so what good would it do to upset her?”
The older couple walked Nick to the door and waited while he put on his coat and hat. He shook hands with John, and then for reasons he didn’t fully understand, he gave Rita a hug. “Thank you both,” he said.
Outside, he did not feel the bitterness of the wind but rather felt as if his lungs had been filled with fresh, clean air. Everything was going to be all right. He could hardly wait to tell Grace about the generous offer. That would have to wait, of course. He was on night duty now that Smokey was down with the grippe. But he would go to town at his first opportunity. Who needed sleep when your life was finally falling into place?
* * *
Grace could not remember a time when she had been so exhausted. Even the long hours she’d worked back on the farm with her siblings and father to sow or bring in the crops had never felt quite so draining. There were days when she did not recall making her way up the three flights of stairs and collapsing onto her bed.
Both Lily and Emma had been sick with colds that had them sneezing and coughing through the night. And since Miss Kaufmann worked hard to schedule the girls who were sick with duties behind the scenes rather than upset the customers, they were short-handed in the dining room. Grace had twice her usual number of customers to serve—with a smile.
Of course, the worst of it was that since Christmas, she had hardly had more than a few minutes alone with Nick, to the point that she had recently suggested it was foolish for him to ride all the way to town and back for such a short visit. He’d taken it the wrong way.