by Jillian Hart
James spoke behind her. “Not everyone is good at holidays.”
Maggie turned slowly toward him. He took a long look at the sleeping baby nestled in her arms.
After eight straight hours of sleep and something in his stomach, he looked stable on his feet. The crisis of the baby’s arrival had passed, which left Maggie with time to let his presence sink in. It was physically impossible, even in the darkness, to tear her gaze away from his wide-shouldered stance and the riveting curiosity in his eyes. Passing time had etched lines into his face and had thickened the bristles of his shaven jaw. She’d always been attracted to older men like James who was a good ten years older than she, in his late thirties; he had experience and wisdom on his side.
Despite her guarded reservation toward him, memories washed through her, of a time when the most pliable part of her had been exposed to James. It had been just one brief afternoon of tobogganing and caroling with friends, but that kiss had been enough to send her mind reeling in pleasant daydreams for months afterward.
She gazed at him and felt a tug of unwanted affection. He still felt like a stranger, though.
Snoring loudly from the other room, Mr. Billings had been kind enough to bring a spare toothbrush, comb and razor blade. He’d left it in the spring room, with the water pump and basin for James when he awakened. Now, freshly shaven with his long dark hair combed back to brush against his denim collar, James made an unforgettable figure in the firelight.
“I should—I should light a lantern,” she offered. “It’s dark in here. I can barely see.”
His hand came out to stop her. It was firm on her upper arm and left a trace of heat beneath her red flannel robe. “Leave it,” he whispered. “I like it like this.”
His voice was deep and sullen and caused gooseflesh to rise at the back of her neck.
His figure looked rough beneath his white shirt and denim pants. He’d changed into fresh clothes from his pack, and dry cowboy boots. Earlier, the men in the store had tended to his dogs. Mr. Billings had penned the team across the street inside his small barn for the night.
Searching for a safe place to look, she gazed down at the sweetly pressed lips of the sleeping child. As she did, Maggie’s hair, a mess of uncombed curls, fell over her shoulder and made her wish she’d taken the time to tie it with a ribbon. And good heavens, her robe was five years old and tattered from wear.
She should have stayed in her bedroom with the baby and not worried about James downstairs, about whether he was hungry or if any part of him had suffered frostbite.
What made her most nervous, being alone with him, was that their conversations had always gone straight to the point. His honesty was something that both captivated and scared her.
Even in a crowd, even with Sheldon standing near, she and James had always talked about important matters that concerned them, nothing light that others shared. He’d ask about her plans for the future and if she ever thought of traveling the world. What did she think of the current government and the situation with the Indians. Or what they could do, as a community, to raise money for a proper school.
Here, standing with James at two o’clock in the morning trapped between the moonlight and firelight, Maggie trembled. What might he say this time, that might turn her stomach inside out?
She brushed past him. The baby cooed in her arms.
“Where are you going?” James asked.
“I thought I’d go back to bed.”
“Why did you come down?”
“The baby woke up. She was hungry and I—I wanted to fix her a bottle.”
“When you finished that, you could have returned to bed then.”
The mention of the word bed from his lips made her cheeks heat. “I wanted to fix you a sandwich. I thought you’d be hungry.”
“Somehow I knew I could count on you. Thank you for looking after me and the kid.”
She stood rooted, trying to harden her heart against him, to wipe out the attraction she used to have toward James. Women weren’t supposed to chase men.
His lips tugged upward, ever so lightly so that if she didn’t know him, she’d barely suspect he was smiling. “I haven’t dismissed you yet.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, returning the humor.
The awkward air between them shifted slightly, onto another footing. A friendlier one.
“Thank you for letting us stay tonight. I’ll be out before you open your store in the morning.”
“There’s no rush for you to leave.”
He sucked in his breath.
She groaned softly. Did she sound desperate for his company?
“Thanks, but I need to contact a few people about the kid.”
“Of course.”
“I know you’re busy with your store, so I’ll take the baby with me back to the fort—”
“No, please, I’d like to help. There’s no one at the fort but a bunch of men and I’m sure they’d prefer the baby stay here. I can manage the store and the baby. I’ve got family and neighbors to help. And customers will certainly love to see this pretty little face behind the counter.”
She rocked the baby, but when she looked up again at James, he was staring at her. “It is a pretty face.”
Self-conscious of his stare, Maggie listened to the fire crackling. “Where do you think her parents are and what are we going to do with her?”
Maggie moved toward the commercial part of the room, to the racks of Christmas items on display. She felt the weight of her curly hair shift along her robe.
James followed her to the shelves. “I don’t know. I’m going to ask around in the morning and see if anyone’s heard.”
What came easily to him came with so much difficulty to her. This baby had lost her home and her family, and Maggie could barely think about it without crying. James was a policeman who saw the worst crimes, the worst accidents and the worst in people. He was a walking contradiction, so controlled on the outside, yet he plowed forward and simply did what needed to be done in the most emotional of circumstances. He gave of himself and tried to restore things to their normal balance.
Maggie always sought the light and hated looking at that part of humanity. The part that hurt innocents. This little child had been left behind. Maggie prayed her parents hadn’t died in the fire, that they were safe somewhere with a logical explanation, but terror rippled to the surface.
James picked up a white candle that had been dipped with grains of glass, so it twinkled like a magical ball in the firelight. “You’ve done well for yourself, Maggie.”
“I like what I’m doing.” She adjusted the baby to her shoulder, not quite ready to bring her back upstairs to the makeshift cradle she’d fashioned out of an empty drawer and a soft blanket. The baby felt too precious in her arms, and needed love and attention after all she’d been through.
James watched the candle glimmer. “I’m glad that Sheldon…had a chance to see your store open before he passed on. He worked hard to make your dream happen.”
She murmured softly in agreement.
“Do you ever see his folks?”
“They’ve been overseas for years. But we write to each other.”
“What about?”
She gave him a startled look.
Setting down the candle, he picked up a Christmas stocking Maggie was in the middle of cross-stitching. “Sorry, it’s none of my business.”
“No, I just…no one ever asks me that. Maybe they assume they know what we write about. They assume we write continuously of Sheldon. But we don’t. Not anymore.” She smiled, curiously free to speak about her late husband, realizing that her grief for Sheldon had finally been replaced by a lasting memory of his kindness. “We talk about their missionary work. Where they’ve been in Asia. We talk about the people in Britain—the contacts they’ve given me—who help me import spices from the Orient.”
James fingered the evergreen bows on the kissing ball. The intimacy of the gesture made Maggie swallow. “It’s b
een a long time, hasn’t it, since we’ve been alone to talk? Anything on your mind?”
He was joking with her again, but honesty seeped into his every word.
Yes, there was something on her mind. Like why had he kissed her five years ago and had then pretended nothing had happened? Since James had kissed her and she had been engaged, why hadn’t he pushed the point further?
She would have stayed with Sheldon, her soon-to-be-husband, anyway, because she’d loved him, but why on earth stir things up only to walk away?
Maybe the kiss had caught James by surprise, too.
She repeated to herself as she watched him move between the racks—she would have stayed with Sheldon. She would have.
Shaking her head softly, she realized she couldn’t ask why he’d kissed her. The man was no longer interested in her. If he had been interested, if anything had changed in his opinion, he would have approached her soon after her proper mourning period had ended. And that was aeons ago.
He looped his long fingers through the red satin ribbon on the till. “You always pull me in a thousand different directions.”
He’d said that five years ago on the hill, and it hadn’t sat any easier with her then than now. But it was too intimate of a statement to pursue.
“Why don’t you enjoy the holidays, James? Don’t you ever get the Christmas spirit?”
Pausing, he inspected the satin bow. “Maybe I prefer to celebrate the goodness of mankind throughout the year.” His voice was gruff. “Maybe I don’t need one specific day or week to tell me that’s necessary.”
She set the sleeping baby, wrapped in blankets, on the warm pine countertop.
James walked around the counter to her side. “In my estimation, folks use Christmas as an excuse to overeat and drink.”
His comment made her angry. “That sounds like something Scrooge would say in a book my sisters read the children yesterday.”
“I don’t know it.”
“Charles Dickens. A Christmas Carol. And if you really believe that folks use Christmas as an excuse to overindulge, then you’re insulting me and this store, and the very place that took you in and fed you.”
“That’s not what this store’s about, Maggie. That’s not what I’m implying. I just don’t understand it, that’s all. What all the fuss is about.”
Adjusting the baby’s cloth diaper, Maggie tried to soften her voice. “It’s the neighborly aspect. Spreading good cheer and celebrating the birth of baby Jesus.”
“You can celebrate those things, and should in my opinion, on the other days of the year, too.”
Now he was mixing her up. She wondered if his line of work, in seeing the negativity that man and fate produced, made him turn away from the beauty. “And do you?” Maggie knew she was getting dangerously close to a personal conversation that perhaps she should withdraw from, but she wanted to know more about James. “Do you ever celebrate the goodness of mankind?”
“Sometimes.” He heaved in a breath. “Sometimes when I’m alone behind my dogsled and the huskies are barking at a deer they spotted in the woods, and I look back on the town and see smoke billowing from tiny chimneys and children hollering on their skates, sometimes I celebrate.”
“That’s a beautiful image.”
Taking a moment to picture James like that, Maggie ran a hand along her robe. She twisted the lapel, tucking it over her chest. His eyes followed her movements.
He crossed his arms and leaned back. “How about you, Maggie? When do you celebrate?”
“On evenings like this.” The baby spurted softly, so Maggie lifted her again and clarified her thoughts. “On evenings like this when I’ve got a small baby in my arms and she’s well fed and safe, I celebrate.”
James’s intensity still had the ability to nearly knock her off her feet. She felt the satiny smoothness of her gown pressing against her bare breasts. The night was doing strange things to her. It enveloped her in a hazy feeling of safety, as if she could ask him anything and he’d tell her. She probed further. “And so when do you lose heart?”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re all human. When do you feel…the opposite of celebrating? When do you feel saddest in spirit?”
He shrugged, but his lips were trembling. The rich outline of his muscles tensed beneath his shirt. “At that same moment, Maggie. When I’m looking back at the deer and the town and the children skating, sometimes I’m hit with a long hollow ping of loneliness. Like there’s no one on the planet but me.”
She wavered on her feet. He’d drawn such a vivid picture.
“What about you?” he asked. “I know you went through a difficult time when Sheldon passed. Does a woman like you, who’s got the world at her fingertips, surrounded by a hundred clamoring beaus and dozens of family members, ever get lonely?”
Right now, as I feel the weight of the baby in my arms and realize I might never have one of my own, and then when I look up to your eyes and wonder what might have been.
“Sometimes.” She slipped away to shield her pain, to shield her response. He’d described his feelings with such depth that he’d unmasked her own depth of isolation, despite the crowds around her. “But I try not to dwell on the sadness.”
Chapter Four
The gentle fall of ice pellets on the windowpanes interrupted their conversation. James listened to the soft pinging, even as he stood distracted by the beauty beside him, disheveled in her night robe and rumpled from sleep but making him imagine what Maggie looked like in bed. He stepped up beside her and the baby, then looked out over the drifts. The full moon had disappeared behind the clouds again, but light, from candles scattered in neighbors’ windows, reflected off the sheets of white snow and thus illuminated the landscape.
“It’s an ice storm,” he said. “Everything will be covered in the morning.”
“I hope it doesn’t stop the plows, otherwise no one will be able to move.”
“That’s why you need to invest in a pair of snowshoes.”
James turned, his long arm and sleeve brushing the neck of Maggie’s robe. It connected them in an inappropriate way, and he felt suddenly awkward being alone with her. Even the steady drone of Mr. Billings snoring in the next room unsettled James, making him feel guilty that the old man might awaken and find the two “adolescents” alone behind the grown-up’s back.
“Snowshoes?” She stepped away from James just as awkwardly. Her movements loosened the opening of her robe and he caught a glimpse of long, straight legs silhouetted beneath a white cotton gown. The bows hanging off the curtains hit her head. She ducked, twirled and shooed them away as if they were troublesome moths. “For a grown woman?”
“Why not? If I recall, you used to love outdoor sports.”
“Well, there’s no need. I can get around fine with my boots and my horse.”
She didn’t appear to know it, but one of the bows remained stuck to the top of her pretty head. Her curly hair trailed like ivy down her shoulders and tangled everything in its path. It tumbled over the outline of her supple breasts.
Oh, to be covered by a field of ivy.
He cleared his throat. “Not in the morning, you can’t. And what’s wrong with a grown woman enjoying herself in the snow?”
“Well,” she said as he watched the play of lights at the hollow of her throat, “I’m not going to traipse around in snowshoes with no place to go. At least when you wear them, you’ve got a purpose. Wearing them just for fun, well, that’s what children do. And now I really am going to bed.”
She ducked past him but before she could escape, the ribbon tightened and pulled her back by the hair. “Ow,” she said with a flustered laugh, unaware of the seductive nature of her angled hips.
His hands shot out to steady her. “Here, let me get that. Your ivy—” James cleared his throat again “—your hair’s caught.”
She gripped the sleeping baby, then stood as still as a quiet lake while he raised his arms to untangle the bow. With their hu
ge contrast in body size, he became aware of his coarse masculinity to her elegance.
“Are you catching a cold?” she asked. “Your throat seems to be bothering you.”
He made the mistake of looking down into her face. Inches away from her mouth, he pressed his closed and tried not to breathe in the fresh scent of her hair.
“No cold here.” But at her proximity, he felt a slow burn crawl up his body.
She parted her lips. “That’s good.”
“The ribbon seems to be…oh, there we go.” The bow released. Strands of her hair flew up out of place, so he patted them down. Her hair was remarkably soft for being such a flop of curls. Snake that he was, he let his hands drift down her hair along her shoulders for seconds longer than necessary before tucking them securely into his pockets and stepping away.
“My lady,” he said, sweeping the air toward the staircase. “Your chamber awaits.”
He heard her giggling as she passed.
He watched her walk up the stairs, the entire fifteen steps, her hips swaying beneath her cinched robe, her golden tresses trailing down her arms in mass confusion. When she got to the top of the landing, she timidly looked back as if aware he might be watching her, but he spun on his boots to tend to the fire. He was unsure why, but didn’t want her knowing she had his full attention.
“I’ll bet ya a peppermint stick he’s up in ten minutes.”
“Nah, I think he’s really tired after yesterday. I’ll bet ya two toffees he’s gonna sleep for another hour.”
“Children, children, come here and let the poor man rest.” A woman clapped in the distance.
The clapping jarred James awake. My God, he thought, rolling stiffly on the sofa, he was in a nightmare. Had to be. The sun was streaming in through Maggie’s windows, the stove spitting heat beside his head, Maggie’s family was working the till, and five children were standing here gawking at him.
“Hi, mister.”