Cowboy Lawman's Christmas Reunion

by Louise M. Gouge

  * * *

  By the second week of November, Evangeline had completed the organization of the library, which meant the Thanksgiving week opening was right on schedule. She’d also painted the figures Justice had carved so far. The village was coming together beautifully, and she was thrilled to be part of its creation. Gerard hadn’t caused any more trouble at school, probably because she continued her biweekly surprise trips to his class. Life seemed to be settling into a pleasant, if lonely, pattern.

  While gossip didn’t seem to be a problem in Esperanza, general news did spread quickly, helped by the charming little newspaper, the Esperanza Journal. Knowing how the townspeople worried about the mercantile shooting, the owner and editor, Fred Brody, wrote a fine article about Justice’s evenhanded way of dealing with the guilty young men. Fred quoted Mrs. Winsted, who expressed her appreciation for the extra workers. On Sunday morning, Reverend Thomas commended the sheriff’s decision from the pulpit.

  This was the person Evangeline remembered from her childhood. Kind, thoughtful, prudent. If she sensed he would treat her as well as those cowboys, she might consider telling him everything about her painful marriage and the debts she’d left behind. But from the way he reacted to Gerard’s boyish mischief, she feared he would lock her up and send word to her creditors. One moment, fear kept her silent. The next, she ached to rekindle their long ago friendship.

  The yearning wore on her, and, finally, after weeks of essentially ignoring him when he came to the library, she relented and spared him a friendly smile.

  “Good afternoon, Justice.” She spoke before he could.

  He blinked, and his jaw slackened. Vulnerability crossed his face. He paused at her desk and she felt a little ping near her heart.

  Oh, no. Such feelings wouldn’t do.

  “Good afternoon, Evangeline.” He cleared his throat. “How are you today?”

  She set down her pen and folded her hands on the desk. “Well, thank you. And you?”

  “Fine. Fine.” He didn’t move on. “Your painting is bringing our little village to life. I couldn’t have done half so well as you.”

  “Thank you. I never cease to be amazed at your carving skill.”

  He grinned, then chuckled. “I’d say we work well together.”

  “Yes. We do.” She couldn’t take her gaze from those piercing gray eyes. Nor did he seem eager to break this moment of truce.

  “Well, I’d better get busy. That is, if you don’t need anything.”

  She scrambled mentally to think of something, anything to hold on to their connection. Nothing came to mind. “No, not right now. I’ll let you know if I think of something.”

  “You do that.” He nodded. “Well, I’d better get busy.” He didn’t seem to realize he’d repeated himself.

  “Me, too.” With desperate determination, she forced her eyes to the list of tasks on her desk, a list she knew by heart and didn’t need to review.

  As his footsteps moved away from her desk, she looked up. What a fine figure of a man he was. Tall, broad-shouldered, strong. Then he turned back and caught her watching. And grinned.

  “You think of something I can do for you?”

  Heat rushed to her cheeks. “No. Thank you.” Again she forced her eyes to the desk.

  This really must stop. But then, she’d never been able to subdue her reactions to him.

  * * *

  “Mama, how did you know where all the books should go?” Isabelle gazed around the library with the wonder of an eager student.

  Evangeline stood beside her daughter and brushed a hand down her silky golden curls. “I put similar books together so people could easily find what they were interested in.” She picked up a volume from her desk. “This book describes a Mr. Melvil Dewey’s system of library organization, which I plan to study. Perhaps I can rearrange the books by his system.” She surveyed her shelves, satisfied with what she’d done. “For now, though, I wanted to open the library this Friday after Thanksgiving Day, so I just used my best instincts.”

  Isabelle blinked her blue eyes and gazed up at her. “What are instincts?”

  Evangeline’s heart welled up with love for her bright, sweet child. How she did love to learn new things. “It’s a way of thinking or feeling about something that you know without learning it.”

  Her daughter blinked again. “Like Gerard feels mad all the time?”

  Evangeline turned away to hide her sudden tears. “Oh, I don’t think he’s angry all the time, my darling. He’s happy when he’s playing with you and your cousins at Susanna’s house.” She set down Dewey Decimal Classification and Relative Index and gathered the stack of reference cards Marybeth had completed. “Now, I want you to sit at my desk and arrange these in alphabetical order by the authors’ last names. See them at the top of each card? Do you think you can do that?”

  Isabelle beamed. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “When you finish these—”

  The door opened with a whoosh, and Justice ushered in Gerard, one hand gripping the back of her son’s plaid coat collar.

  “Mrs. Benoit, we have a problem.” He wore his severest “sheriff face.”

  Gerard’s defiant look and blazing eyes proclaimed his usual response to Justice.

  Evangeline’s heart jumped to her throat, and her knees threatened to buckle. “Wh-what...” She choked on her words.

  “Tell your mother what you’ve been up to.” Justice released the boy’s collar but kept a hand on his shoulder.

  As much as she longed to reach out for her son, she forced her hands to remain at her side. Behind her she heard Isabelle sniffling. Her sensitive, loving daughter doted on her big brother and suffered terribly when he got into trouble. “What do you have to say for yourself, Gerard?”

  “It wasn’t my fault.” His expression quickly went soft, innocent, appealing.

  Evangeline looked at Justice, who crossed his arms over his chest. “Perhaps you’d better tell me what happened.”

  He snorted in disgust. “Gerard and his friends let the chickens out of Laurie Northam’s coop and killed some of them with their slingshots.”

  Evangeline gasped. “Gerard?” She took his face in her hands so he couldn’t avoid her stare. This time she wouldn’t let him sway her. “Why would you do such a thing?”

  He broke away, stared at his feet and shrugged.

  “And who are these supposed friends who led you into this mischief?” Even as she spoke, Evangeline knew she’d said the wrong thing, and not only because of Justice’s growl.

  “Deely and Cart claimed it was Gerard’s idea.”

  Gerard’s eyes blazed again, but he said nothing.

  “I made them clean up the mess, but they’re going to have to repay Laurie for the dead chickens.”

  Evangeline gulped down a protest. After all, this was the sort of punishment he’d doled out to the cowboys who’d shot out Mrs. Winsted’s window, and everyone agreed it was more than fair. But those young men earned a salary. Gerard had no way of making money.

  “Do you have anything in mind?” She could pay Laurie out of her salary, but perhaps it would be better for Gerard to pay for his mistake.

  “They can clean the streets from now until Christmas. Storekeepers have been responsible for the areas in front of their stores, but after those cowboys were assigned the task, the town council decided to make it a paying job. The boys can do it until they earn enough money to pay Laurie for her losses.”

  Evangeline studied Gerard, whose glare copied Lucius’s worst scowl. Anger flooded her mind and heart. Not directed at her son. Nor at Justice. At Lucius. The man who’d never had time to be a father because of his wastrel habits. With all the self-control she could muster, she gripped Gerard’s shoulders and forced him to look at Justice.

  “Very wel
l, Sheriff. Do you want him to begin now?”

  Justice’s expression lightened with surprise, and his posture relaxed at least a little. “No time like the present.”

  Gerard bristled. “I want my slingshot back.” He pointed to the three Y-shaped toys sticking out from the pocket of Justice’s leather jacket.

  Justice shook his head. “Nope. I’m going to burn these...and any you might make in the future.”

  “Oh, Sheriff.” Evangeline couldn’t bear to see her son lose his favorite toy. “Couldn’t I keep it until his punishment is over?”

  Justice’s face closed again. “No, ma’am. He can’t be trusted with a weapon like this. Come with me, boy.” He reached out for Gerard, but her son broke away and flung himself into Evangeline’s arms.

  “Mother, don’t let him take me.”

  Pity for him sent another shard of ire through her. As before, she wondered whether Justice was being harder on Gerard because he was Lucius’s son. That simply wasn’t fair. “Where are the other boys? What are they doing? Are they going to be working, too?”

  Justice narrowed his eyes. “The other boys are none of your business.”

  Evangeline held Gerard securely. “Until I know they’re being punished every bit as much as my son, I will not permit you to force him to bear the punishment alone.”

  “Fine. I’ll arrest him and put him jail.” Again he reached for Gerard. This time he grabbed his shoulder and removed him from her embrace. “What will it be, son? Jail or cleaning the streets?”

  After an almost interminable pause, Gerard swiped his nose across his coat sleeve. “The streets.”

  As he and Justice exited the library, Evangeline slumped against her desk. Coming to Esperanza had been a terrible mistake. Now she was trapped with no way of escape, no way to protect her children.

  She walked to the window and saw Justice directing not one but three boys in how to use shovels to clean the street and dump the horse leavings into a wheelbarrow. So he hadn’t singled her son out. She shouldn’t have misjudged him. She should have realized he’d require the other two to work alongside Gerard. Maybe she and her children were in the right place after all.

  Glancing beyond the little work crew, she saw a familiar form walking along Main Street, a carpetbag in hand.

  Hugo Giles. Her husband’s cousin had found her.

  Chapter Seven

  Against his better judgment, Justice accepted the Northams’ invitation to spend Thanksgiving Day at Four Stones Ranch. Since Monday’s incident with the boys, Evangeline had been unusually skittish when he’d come to the library to work on the Christmas village, so she might not be happy to see him. Further, throughout the first three days of street sweeping, Gerard remained hostile, which should have put an end to Justice’s annoying but persistent imaginings of seeing Evangeline in his future. Being in her company for an entire day couldn’t produce anything good. The last thing a lawman needed was to be involved with a woman whose son took after his father and seemed bent on lawlessness.

  Which didn’t mean he wouldn’t keep trying to straighten the boy out, along with the other two boys. At least Deely and Cart each had what some might call excuses for their waywardness. Deely’s father was hanged for stealing horses, and Cart’s widowed father abandoned him to the care of an aunt who was less than kind. Nate and Rand did their best to get the boys to their Sunday school classes, but neither would attend. While Evangeline coddled and defended her son, at least she brought her children to church.

  Nate and Rand had returned from Denver, so Justice could offer no credible reason to decline their Thanksgiving invitation. He left his deputy in charge of the town and fetched his horse from the livery stable. Adam Starling had already saddled the gelding for him. Adam tried to refuse the offered tip, but Justice reminded him Christmas was coming, and children needed to receive something special. After his father’s death the previous spring, Adam had become the man of the family, helping his mother rear his younger brother and two sisters. Too bad Gerard, Deely and Cart didn’t follow Adam’s example of honesty and hard work.

  A light snow lay sprinkled over the landscape as Justice rode south toward Four Stones. He passed the Eberly ranch on the west side of the road just as George and Mabel Eberly, along with their youngest daughter, Georgia, came driving up the lane toward the highway on their way to the Northam celebration. Justice reined his horse to a stop and waited for them.

  “Howdy, Sheriff.” George Eberly waved a gloved hand.

  “Morning, George, Mabel, Georgia.”

  The ladies chorused their greetings in their usual friendly fashion as he nudged his mount into a walk beside their buggy.

  “We got sweet potato pie, Sheriff.” Mabel hooked a thumb over her shoulder to indicate the box of food in the back of the buggy.

  “And pecan pie,” Georgia added. “I made it myself.”

  “That a fact?” Justice clicked his tongue in appreciation. “Haven’t eaten pecan pie since I left New Orleans. You be sure I get a slice.” He could tease the eighteen-year-old because she took it with a grain of salt, unlike some of the more flirtatious girls in town.

  They continued to chat about the anticipated feast, with Justice growing hungrier by the minute. Mabel was a fine cook, and she’d passed her skills on to her five daughters. He always enjoyed his meals at their house.

  Along with the Northams, the Eberlys and a few other families founded Esperanza, and most still lived in the surrounding community. The four older girls were married, Maisie to Doc Henshaw, Beryl to an Englishman with whom she now resided in England, Grace to Reverend Thomas and Laurie to Tolley Northam. With the older generation of their families getting on in years and the younger generation producing numerous offspring, they frequently held large gatherings at Four Stones Ranch because the house was big as a mansion. Until Evangeline came to town and disrupted his well-ordered world, Justice felt honored to be included in the Northam-Eberly celebrations, even though the happily married couples often made him long to have a family of his own.

  There he went again, thinking of Evangeline and family in the same sentence, a useless idea if ever he had one. Unless... Perhaps in the informal setting of the ranch, he could try again to befriend Gerard. He knew the boy liked dogs and horses. What else did he like? He lifted a silent prayer for a breakthrough, some way to reach his heart, turn his thinking.

  In his own life, Justice had quickly tired of his rebellious ways, no doubt because his father lived an exemplary life and he didn’t want to besmirch his memory. Then Jubal Tucker had come along and become a second father to Justice. Gerard didn’t have those same advantages. Lucius had been a scoundrel, plain and simple. And the boy was following in his footsteps. Justice needed to figure out how to gain the boy’s esteem, how to become his friend, how to be an example of what a man should be.

  As they turned down Four Stones Lane and approached the house, Justice found himself in a state of nervous anticipation. Was it because of the challenge Gerard presented? Or because, against all reason, he couldn’t wait to see Evangeline again?

  * * *

  Riding in the wagon with the five children and Susanna and Nate to their Thanksgiving feast, Evangeline couldn’t seem to settle her nerves. Nor could she stop her eyes from scanning the areas they passed, ever on the lookout for Hugo Giles. Although she’d been certain that was he she’d seen on Monday, perhaps she’d been mistaken. Over the last few days, he hadn’t come to the library for her, and when she’d visited the mercantile and the bank, no one had made mention of a stranger looking for her. Still, she must be on alert. While she didn’t have the resources to flee Esperanza, she might be able to hide behind the reputation of Nate’s family. No, such a ploy wasn’t right or fair. They had no part in her debts, and she wouldn’t expect them to rescue her no matter how successful their cattle sales were.


  They drove into the barnyard behind the big house, aptly named, she thought, even though the main Northam residence was only about three quarters the size of her home in New Orleans. She was greeted by the aromas of roast beef, baked ham and apple pie wafting from the house. Evangeline still wasn’t used to the custom of guests entering the house through the back door, although she’d begun to see how useful it was when one brought hot food to add to the feast. She helped carry in the turkeys that Nate had shot and Susanna had roasted to perfection.

  With so many women bustling about the kitchen, all knowing exactly what to do, Evangeline offered her only skill: organizing the buffet. The food would be served from the mahogany sideboard and two side tables. The desserts already covered one table, and a variety of breads and condiments another.

  She was searching inside the buffet’s side doors for trivets when Justice swung open the kitchen door and entered the dining room. Evangeline gasped when she saw the determined look on his face, and her heart sank. Had he come to arrest her? Was Hugo right behind him? Her hands shook, and she dropped a cast-iron trivet on the floor.

  “Good morning, Evangeline.” His face creased in a smile of surprise. “My, that’s a lot of desserts. I’d better keep moving, or I’ll start eating them before the main course.” He picked up the trivet and handed it to her. “Do you know if the Colonel is in the front parlor?”

  “Y-yes.” Her knees threatened to buckle with relief, but she managed a shaky smile and a wave in that direction.

  Before she could think of something else to say, Nate barged through the kitchen door. “Say, Justice, Tolley’s gathering the youngsters for a game of baseball. You want to play?”