Tracie Peterson, Tracey V. Bateman, Pamela Griffin, JoAnn A. Grote

by Prairie Christmas Collection

  Ivy’s hand froze at the top corner of the next page before she could turn it. Heat flamed her cheeks, and she snapped her gaze from the illustrations of velvet and ribbons and bustles to Craig’s laughing eyes.

  “Oh, my” was all she could think to say. She wasn’t sure which embarrassed her more—his highly personal and improper remark or the fact that in her great excitement to find a link with civilization, she had acted like a hoyden and pushed him aside to snatch the magazine away. Miss Lucy Hadmire of the elite ladies’ academy Ivy once attended would be shocked to have witnessed her prize pupil’s performance.

  “I do apologize,” she murmured, snatching her hand from the magazine. “I didn’t mean to be rude.”

  His thick, neat brows lifted in wry amusement, as if reminding her of the irony of that statement, and another wave of embarrassment swept over her. Ever since she’d stepped off the wagon that first day in Leaning Tree, she’d been nothing but rude to this man. Yet such rudeness developed from the dread that he might one day become interested in her, as his looks toward her implied. She could never stoop so low as to marry a farmer, much less a blacksmith! Her husband would be an educated man of considerable means, as her doctor-father had been.

  “Well, now, Boston, ladies’ magazines aren’t exactly of interest to me,” he said with another of his irritating grins. “So look as much as you’d like.”

  That name again. Insufferable man.

  She turned on her heel. “I’ll come back another time.” Before he could let loose with another teasing remark, she flounced out of the store.

  Chapter 2

  Two days after his encounter with Ivy, Craig brushed at the sweat dripping from his brow with the back of one forearm, then set the glowing yellow iron over the horn of the anvil and resumed pounding it into a horseshoe shape. Regardless of the fact that the huge doors of the smithy were rolled open as far as they would go, it was still muggy and unseasonably warm.

  He whistled a tune, though the jarring strikes of the hammer ringing off metal blocked most of it. Whistling helped him relax, and he did it for that reason alone. As he worked and the sparks flew, he thought about Ivy. His mind jumped back to the first day he’d met her.

  Plump and pretty, she had just stepped off a dusty wagon that rolled to a stop not far from where Craig worked. A thinner woman stepped to the parched ground behind her. She had the same blue eyes and was older by about twenty years. Then Gavin Morgan stretched his short, compact build from the wagon and helped a petite elderly woman to alight. Ivy had stood eyeing her surroundings with a mixture of frank despair and cold disdain. As Craig approached, he could almost feel the thick frost coating her, though the day was about as hot as bacon fat sizzling on a griddle.

  “Afternoon, ladies.” Craig tipped his hat to the women, then shook his friend’s hand. “Gavin, good to have you back.” His gaze again settled on Ivy. “Welcome to Leaning Tree.”

  The younger woman gave what Craig thought might be considered a nod. It was so slight, he wasn’t sure.

  Gavin presented his new wife, Eloise, and his mother, also referring to Ivy as “Eloise’s daughter,” then he walked into the general store with the two older women following. Before Ivy could join them, Craig thought up something to say. “So, where are you from?”

  She looked down her nose at him. “It really isn’t proper for us to converse without first being formally introduced. But to answer your question, I’m from Boston. That’s in Massachusetts, incidentally.”

  “Really. You don’t say.” He felt a grin curl up his mouth at her high-handed approach toward what she considered his ignorance, and he pushed back his hat from his forehead, deciding to play along.

  “Well, now, ma’am, ‘round these here parts, the most formal interductions sound something like, ‘Here, soooo-eeeeee!’” He let the words loose in a squeal similar to the one he’d heard Mrs. Llewynn use when calling her hogs to their meal.

  Ivy’s blueberry eyes widened in surprise, and she took a quick step back, almost tripping over the warped boardwalk. She put her gloved hand to the nearby hitching post to steady herself.

  “‘Course, that approach only works when you’re socializin’ with the hogs,” Craig continued matter-of-factly. “When you wanna talk to the chickens, you should say, ‘Here, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick!’ “He let the phrase jump from his mouth in a rapid stream of bulletlike words, then feigned a look of innocent realization. “But I reckon what you actually was meanin’ was a formal interduction with the people ‘round these here parts.”

  “Of course I meant the people,” she snapped. “Why should I wish to socialize with the pigs?”

  “Hogs, ma’am. They’s different than pigs, but prob’ly a whole lot more sociable than mosta the folks here in Leaning Tree.” He leaned in close as though about to reveal a secret. “Smarter, too,” he confided in a low voice. “Why, ole Stony Jack’s hog can count to ten while most people ‘round here cain’t even read nor write.”

  She crossed her arms over her frilly, lace-covered blouse, her reticule dangling from one wrist. “Oh, really! Surely you don’t expect me to believe such nonsense?”

  He crossed a hand over his heart. “Sure as I’m standin’ here and the day is warm. Where’d you say you was from again?”

  “Boston.” She frowned. “Must I write the name on my forehead for you to remember it?”

  Craig held back a chuckle. “Oh no, ma’am. I think I can remember it next time around.”

  And he had—calling her “Boston” from that day on. It fit her, from the top of her sassy, feathered hat to the leather soles of her fancy kid boots and all points between. Still, there was something about Ivy Leander that aroused more than his curiosity. She intrigued him; he’d never met a woman like her. All spit and fire but with a noticeable softness touching her expression when she didn’t know she was being watched. And Craig had done his share of watching these past months.

  At the harvest dance, he’d even asked her to take a spin with him around the huge wooden platform built just for the occasion. She had snubbed his invitation with a brisk “No, thank you,” looking away as if he were no more than a pesky horsefly buzzing about. Yet Craig had made up his mind that he wouldn’t let that deter him from his plan to court her. He’d caught Ivy doing her share of watching him when she didn’t think he was looking. She didn’t fool him one bit; Ivy appeared as interested in Craig as he was in her. Underneath all that lacy froth and those fancy ribbons, he imagined he’d find a woman with a tender heart. At least he hoped so. Everyone from Mr. Meyers to the old doc thought him foolish in his persistence to try to win her affections. Maybe he was, at that.

  Seeing that the metal had lost most of its color, Craig stopped his pounding and whistling and twisted around in a half-circle, intending to poke the iron back into the fire blazing yellow in the forge, to get it to the right temperature again. To his surprise, he heard the next notes of his tune faintly whistled behind him before cutting off abruptly.

  He spun around in the direction from which he thought the notes were coming in the dim light of his three-walled shop. No one stood there. One hand still wrapped around the handle of his hammer, the other around the tongs, he made a slow circle of the room. In a dark corner, he noticed one of his work aprons crumpled on the floor—then saw it move. Craig thought about the recent theft of one of Gladys Llewynn’s chickens.

  “You come on out from there,” he said, tightening his grip on the hammer. “I don’t want any trouble.” He took a step closer. “Come on out, I said.”

  A stiff rustle of cloth was followed by the sight of a small girl popping her head up, her eyes wide with uncertainty. Beads of sweat trickled down her temples, and wisps of damp hair stuck to her skin. As stifling hot as it was in the smithy, that was no surprise.

  Craig relaxed. “Amy Bradford, what are you doing hiding in that corner? You come on out from there. Do your parents know you’re here?”

  Amy hurried to st
and and shook her head, her two corn silk–colored braids swishing against her brown calico dress. “Miss Johnson let us out early today. I’m hidin’ from Wesley.”

  Once classes were dismissed, the brother and sister often played such games on the rare occasions they did attend school. Yet Craig wasn’t sure he approved of them playing in his workplace. Before he could answer, a young boy’s voice called from outside.

  “Amy Lamey, I know you’re in there!”

  The girl’s mouth compressed at the nickname her brother used. “Don’t tell him where I am,” she whispered, putting a finger to her lips before diving back under the apron and curling into a ball.

  Craig blew out a lengthy breath and shook his head. He couldn’t find it in his heart to begrudge the two a little fun. Coming from a family of fourteen kids, Amy and Wesley were the middle children, responsible for a good portion of the chores. They barely found time to play. Of course, that was the lot of most prairie children.

  “I heard you talkin’, so’s I know yo a’re in here.” Nine-year-old Wesley, with his carrot top of curly hair, moved into the smithy as if he owned the place. “Howdy, Mr. Watson.”

  Craig nodded in greeting. Accustomed to customers milling about the place while they waited on orders to be filled, he heated the horseshoe again, forged a turned-up clip at the front to protect the horse’s hoof, then bored eight holes into it with his pritchel tool to hold the nails. After rounding the ends, he doused it in Mrs. Llewynn’s nearby washtub filled almost to the brim with cool water. A loud hisssss escaped, and steam sprayed his face. With the iron now cooled so that he could handle it without burning himself, he hung it over the anvil’s horn to join the other three horseshoes there.

  “Guess who I saw mailin’ a letter today?” the boy asked, reminding Craig of his presence.

  “You still here?”

  “Aw, come on, Mr. Watson. Guess.”

  “I wouldn’t have the vaguest idea.” Craig wiped the sweat and grime from his hands down the front of his leather apron. At present, the schoolhouse shared its space with the postal office—Mr. Owen taking over one corner of the building to conduct his business there.

  “Miss Uppity from Boston,” the boy announced.

  Craig bit back the grin that wanted to jump to his mouth at the boy’s nickname for Ivy. He hung his tools on their spot near the bellows. “You shouldn’t call her that, Wesley. It’s not nice to call people names.”

  “That’s what Ma calls her when she’s talking about her to Pa.” The boy headed to a hitching post several feet away, where a skittish horse waited to be shod, and hoisted himself up to sit on the wood. The bay whinnied a greeting, and Wesley looped a chubby arm around its neck in a brief hug. “‘Sides, she is uppity. She comes to town ‘most every week to look through those fancy ladies’ magazines of Mrs. Llewynn’s, but she doesn’t talk to hardly no one.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t know what to say. You ever talk to her?”

  Wesley scrunched up his mouth in a guilty expression. “Naw, but Amy tried today durin’ lunch. Miss Ivy got all funny lookin’, like she didn’t want nobody knowin’ her business. She was mailin’ a letter but kept lookin’ behind her, like she was afraid someone would see. Amy walked up to her and asked her who the letter was for, but she didn’t pay Amy no mind.”

  Craig tucked the words away to ponder later. He donned his hat, picked up his toolbox, and walked out in the sunshine toward the boy. “There’s no law that says she has to tell two bean sprouts her business.”

  Wesley chuckled and began swinging his short legs, as if daring gravity to keep him upright. Craig wondered how come the boy didn’t fall, balanced as he was on such a narrow beam.

  “Is it true what Mr. Meyers said?” the boy asked. “That you told him you’re gonna marry up with Miss Ivy someday?”

  Surprised, Craig set his tools down with a bang. “Where’d you hear that?”

  “Just around.”

  Craig grimaced. He never should have told Mr. Meyers his plans. The last thing he needed was for Ivy to hear such news through the town’s busybodies. “Know why God gave you two ears and one mouth?”

  Wesley shook his head.

  “So you’d spend more time listening to the teachings of your elders and less time talking about matters that aren’t any of your business.” Craig released a long breath. “As long as you’re here, put yourself to use. That horse seems to like you, but I’ve been having trouble with it all morning. When I took the old shoes off, she almost bit me. I need you to hold the halter and talk nice and easy to her while I shoe her.”

  Wesley’s face brightened as he slid off the hitching post. “Does this mean I can be your apprentice?”

  Craig’s eyebrows lifted. “Where’d you learn such a big word?”

  “At school. We was studyin’ on colonial times when they had them apprentices. Some of us even had to learn us a poem about a village blacksmith. I’d like to be a blacksmith someday. I learn real fast. So can I be your apprentice?” he asked again.

  “Don’t know about that. You’re a mite small yet.” At the boy’s downcast eyes, Craig relented. “Give yourself a few more years to fill out, and I’ll consider it. That is, if your ma and pa agree. Now hold the horse steady. While I’m pounding these nails in, I don’t want her suddenly getting skittish so that I end up missing the horseshoe and hitting my leg instead.”

  The boy was as good as his word and held the horse while Craig drove the short nails into the holes of the shoes, fastening them to the horse’s hooves. The studs on the bottom would give the horse traction over icy roads once the snows hit. Craig had already fitted his own horse with similar shoes and was surprised the town hadn’t received any freezing weather yet.

  “All done.” He removed the hind hoof of the horse from his lap, straightened from his bent position, and turned to face the bay and the boy who held her. “You get on home now, Wesley. Your ma will be worried.”

  Wesley scratched the back of his curly head. “She does worry an awful lot, don’t she? Pa says she’s fractious ‘cuzza the twins. Bye, Mr. Watson.”

  Before the boy walked more than five steps, Craig called out. “Wait! Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  Wesley turned and lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “Uh, don’t think so.”

  Craig raised his eyebrows. “Your little sister?”

  “Oh, Amy,” he said as if just remembering her name. “I forgot about her.”

  “That’s what I figured,” Craig muttered, heading into the smithy. He wondered why Amy hadn’t made her presence known before this. Wesley had been at the smithy for the better part of an hour. When he hunkered down in the corner where he’d found her, Craig had his answer. The girl lay fast asleep under the leather apron.

  For a moment, he studied her rosy cheeks and the tendrils of light-colored hair sticking to her face. Her expression was peaceful, like an angel’s. He hoped to have a little girl like Amy someday—several of them. And a passel of boys, too. He wondered if Ivy liked kids.

  Craig put his hand to the girl’s bony shoulder and gently shook it. “Amy? It’s time to wake up and go home now. The smithy’s no place for little sprouts like you.”

  She blinked her eyes open, then sat up and rubbed them. “Oh, hi, Mr. Watson,” she said sleepily. “Is it mornin’?”

  “I hope not. Actually, you’ve been here for almost an hour, since the schoolmarm dismissed you from school anyway.”

  “Oh!” The girl threw off the apron and scrambled to a stand. “I have to get home and help Ma with the ironin’ and cookin’. Bye, Mr. Watson!” She raced out of the smithy, soon catching up with her brother, who was waiting for her on the road. Ivy came into view, walking in their direction. She looked at the children, then darted a glance toward the smithy.

  Craig smiled and tipped his hat her way.

  Hurriedly she refocused on the road. Skirts a-swaying, she increased her pace and hotfooted it in the direction of her stepfather’s soddy. Bottlin
g his irritation at the latest snub, Craig watched her awhile longer, shook his head, then turned back to finish his long list of tools needing forged or mended.

  Morning sunshine appeared to illuminate the white-painted, timbered house at the far end of town. Ivy turned wistful eyes upon the two-story structure as she walked past. Modest in size, it was still a lot nicer than any of the other six buildings that made up Leaning Tree. And certainly a great deal more refined than the house of sod belonging to her mother’s new husband. Still, it was nowhere near comparable to her grandmother’s stately home in Boston, looming at the end of a tree-lined street.

  Ivy halted her steps and further studied the building before her. Lace curtains at the windows. A stone chimney at the side. At least the white timbered house belonging to the Pettigrasses was respectable. People were meant to live in sturdy buildings with wooden floors and pretty rugs. Not underneath earth and grass like bugs and animals.

  A petite, brown-haired woman stepped onto the porch and began to shake out a blanket in the direction the wind was blowing. Catching sight of Ivy, she smiled.

  “Hulloa, Ivy! You come to town often, indeed,” Winifred Pettigrass called in the lilting Welsh accent that all the Morgans and a few other families in town shared.

  “Yes,” Ivy called back. With nothing better to do after the morning chores her mother assigned her, she often preferred to spend time thumbing through the pages of the ladies’ magazines and perusing the items at the general store, though she still hadn’t found anything appropriate to buy. Since her stepfather’s homestead was close to town, the walk was short, less than two miles.

  “Can you come inside and sit with us for tea?” Winifred called out.

  Ivy would like nothing better than to sit in a real chair and drink from a fine china cup, but she shook her head. “I can’t. I promised Mother I’d be home to help her with the noon meal.”

  “Another time, then, while the weather is nice. Go you and tell that dada of yours he must come, too. Never will I understand that man and how his mind thinks.”