Millie Criswell, Mary McBride, Liz Ireland

by A Western Family Christmas Christmas Eve; Season of Bounty; Cowboy Scrooge

  She gasped. “Gabriel, not in front of the baby!”

  Grinning, he reached beneath the tree to extract a small package, placing it in her hands. “This is for you, Eve. Open it now. I can’t wait any longer.”

  With trembling hands, she untied the small package and opened it. Nestled on a bed of blue velvet was a beautiful diamond and ruby ring. She gasped in pure delight. “Oh, Gabe! It’s absolutely breathtaking.”

  He took the ring from her. “This was my grandmother’s wedding ring. I’ve been saving it for someone very special. You’re that someone, Eve. Marry me. I love you and can’t bear the thought of living my life without you.”

  She stared at the ring in disbelief, then up at him. “Are you sure? We haven’t known each other long, and I wouldn’t want you to feel obligated because of what happened between us the other night. I have no regrets.”

  Placing the ring on the finger of her left hand, he clasped her face between his hands. “1 love you, Eve Barlow. And I’m going to marry you, on New Year’s Day, if you’ll have me. Please say you will.”

  She hesitated only a moment, but it seemed like a lifetime to Gabe. “Yes, I’ll marry you. I love you, Gabe. I have for a very long time. I didn’t say anything before, because I didn’t want you to feel trapped by that love.”

  “Oh, sweetie. I’m content here with you and Noelle. I love you both so much. The only thing that would have made this moment even more perfect was if Robby could have been here to share it with us.”

  “We’ll do all we can to find your son, Gabe,” she promised, and squeezed his hand, knowing that was one promise she intended to keep.

  Eve turned to gaze at the infant, who was wide-awake and staring up at the tree, and she smiled. “We can adopt Noelle now, Gabe. We can be a real family.”

  “Yes. And there’ll be no more talking of curses and bad luck, right?”

  “As far as I’m concerned, I’m counting you and Noelle as my own Christmas miracles. They’ll be no more ’bah, humbug’ around here. From this day forward there will only be ‘Joy to the World.’”

  Gabe winked. “That’s my girl. Now, where are those cookies, woman?”

  “Are you positive you’re not just marrying me for my cooking abilities?”

  He thought a moment. “Well, there are a few other things you do pretty well besides cook. But I don’t think we should discuss those in front of Noelle.”

  They kissed and suddenly music filled the air.

  “I hear bells ringing,” Eve said.

  “I knew I was a good kisser, but—”

  She socked his arm and rushed to the window to look out. “It’s the Purdys and the rest of the caroling group. They’ve come to serenade us.”

  Wrapping his arm about her waist, Gabe kissed her cheek. “Happy birthday and Merry Christmas, Eve. You’ve made this the happiest day of my life.”

  She heaved a sigh, feeling happy, contented and very much in love. “It’s mine, too,” Eve whispered, and knew in that moment that she meant it.

  From this day forward, Christmas would always be a gift from God, just as Gabe and Noelle had been.

  It was Christmas Eve, and she was truly blessed.

  Epilogue

  Christmas Eve, One year later.

  Eve could hardly contain her excitement. This was going to be the best Christmas ever, and last year had been pretty fabulous.

  She could hardly wait to see Gabe’s face when she presented him with his present. It had taken a lot of time, money and energy, but she knew it had all been worth it. And in just a short time Gabe would know it, too.

  “What time did you say the Purdys were due to arrive?” he asked, looking up from the newspaper. He had just gotten home from his job at the bank, and they were seated in the parlor in front of the fireplace. The pine logs crackled and hissed, adding a festive note to the day. “It’s four o’clock, and I’m getting hungry.”

  “We’ll wait for our guests,” she said firmly. “They should be here momentarily. Why don’t you go upstairs and see if Noelle has awakened from her nap. The dress she’s supposed to wear is lying on the chair next to the bed.”

  He set the newspaper aside and rose to his feet. “There’s a glow about you today, sweetie. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were really looking forward to Christmas this year. Is there a special reason?”

  She smiled secretively. “I adore Christmas. And you. Now go fetch our child and bring her down here before the Purdys arrive.” They were having their first Christmas party, though unbeknownst to Gabe, the others weren’t due to arrive until seven o’clock. They were expecting another guest first, someone much more special.

  The Pinkerton Agency had wired her two weeks ago to say that Robby Tyler had been located in an orphanage in San Francisco. No one knew the whereabouts of his mother, but most suspected she had run off with some wealthy banker from the area. That seemed to be Marilyn Trusslow Tyler’s style, at any rate.

  The important thing was that, through the Pinkerton Agency, and her unyielding desire to reunite father and son, Eve had found Robby, had arranged for him to be brought to Cedar Springs, and he and his father would be together once more in just a short time.

  Gabe was going to be so happy, Eve knew. He’d waited nine long years for this reunion, and she was anxious to see the expression on his face.

  As if conjured up by her thoughts, her husband appeared just then, holding Noelle by the hand. Their daughter looked adorable in her red velvet dress. Her blond curls bobbed as she toddled forward on stockinged feet.

  “Mama!” Eve’s heart tightened every time she heard her daughter call her that.

  They seated themselves in front of the fireplace once more. She gazed at the lovely fir tree they’d decorated with ornaments and candles, and thought of the one Gabe had surprised her with the year before.

  Everything was ready for Robby Tyler’s arrival.

  Eve began wringing her hands nervously, then glanced at the clock on the mantel: four fifteen. Where was Mr. Randall? The Pinkerton agent should have been here by now.

  At last there was a knock on the door, and Eve’s heart jumped to her throat. “I’ll get it,” she said, launching herself off the chair. Gabe looked at her strangely and shrugged.

  “Fine by me. Noelle and I are going to share a cookie, aren’t we, sweetheart?” He kissed his daughter’s pudgy cheek, and she squealed.

  A few minutes later, Eve stepped back into the parlor, accompanied by a young boy who looked very much like her husband. “Gabe,” she called out, “there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

  As Eve entered the room, Gabe turned, his eyes widened and his mouth dropped open. He stared intently at the boy, then looked at Eve, who was grinning broadly. “Robby Tyler, I’d like you to meet your father.”

  “Robby!” Gabe’s voice was so thick with emotion he could hardly speak. There was a moment of hesitation, then the young boy rushed forward, as if remembering.

  “Daddy?”

  Eve’s eyes filled with tears as she viewed the heart wrenching reunion. Noelle started to cry, and Eve picked her up and clutched the child to her chest.

  She had one more surprise to give her husband, but she wouldn’t do it now. Tonight, when they were in bed and could share a moment of privacy, she would tell him her news. She wasn’t sure if Gabriel Tyler was up to hearing that he was going to be a father again.

  Two surprises in one day was a lot for anyone to take, even someone as strong and caring as her husband.

  “Merry Christmas, Gabe,” she whispered.

  SEASON OF BOUNTY

  Mary McBride

  MARY McBRIDE

  When it comes to writing romance, historical or contemporary, Mary McBride is a natural. What else would anyone expect from someone whose parents met on a blind date on Valentine’s Day, and who met her own husband—whose middle name happens to be Valentine!—on the 14th of February, as well?

  She lives in St. Louis, Missouri, with her
husband and two sons. Mary loves to hear from readers. You can write to her c/o P.O. Box 411202, St. Louis, MO 63141, or contact her online at McBride101@aol.com.

  For my dearest Mamacita, Maria Concepción Myers

  Chapter One

  Kansas, Winter of 1871

  It was the worst damned winter that anybody could recall. Snow fell down from an ironclad sky. It fell sideways with the razor-sharp winds out of the north. Sometimes the confounded stuff seemed to fall up from a ground already heaped with it.

  Horses grew coats as thick as buffalo pelts. Cattle moved in tight clusters, seeking warmth, foraging for anything that dared to raise its head above a drift. Dogs and cats had to be coaxed, or kicked, outside. By mid-November, kids no longer took much interest in their sleds while their parents had a tendency to stay abed long after each day’s bitterly cold sunrise.

  Stagecoaches spent more time in livery stables than on the snow packed roads. Trains ran late—not by hours, but by days. When the Kansas Pacific pulled into Ellsworth on a Thursday afternoon, blowing gray smoke and cinders into a gray sky while snowflakes melted down the hot sides of the big black locomotive, there was nobody hanging around outside the depot when Will Cade got off the train.

  He turned his collar up against the wind while he gave the town a quick once-over, then he headed toward the mercantile.

  Odd for a man down to his last few dollars.

  Not so odd for a fellow with quick hands and a willingness to transgress.

  Inside the store, a small potbellied stove sent out a welcome circle of warmth, unlike the redhead behind the counter who had greeted Will with a chilly “Good afternoon” and stood watching him now with her arms crossed, her eyes narrowed to blue slits and her pretty mouth thinned to a pink, suspicious line.

  The sign above the door had read Ellsworth Mercantile, Charles and Matilda Favor, Proprietors. Lucky Charles, Will thought while his gaze skimmed the merchandise that cluttered shelves and half a dozen tabletops.

  ‘Are you looking for something in particular?” the redhead asked, sounding more like a constable than a shopkeeper.

  “Just looking.”

  What he needed was a fancy gewgaw that he could use to barter his way into one of the local brothels, something he could trade for a night in a nice warm bed and all the pleasures that went with it. Something silk perhaps. A fetching trinket. Some little knickknack in amber or ivory or jade. Some…

  He spied the silver hairbrush on a table not too far away from where he stood. It was perfect, just made for gliding past his palm and sliding up his sleeve.

  “Are you in town on business, mister?”

  Pilfering. Petty theft. A little larceny, lady. He met her quizzical gaze, lost himself for a second in her light blue eyes and suffered a sudden, quite unaccustomed, pang of remorse. “I’m with the railroad,” he said, lying, edging closer to the object of his desire, deciding just how he’d go. about obtaining it.

  He fingered a bolt of calico. “A fine selection,” he murmured, moving the blue fabric, picking up the red, trading red for yellow, then calico for gingham and muslin as he slowly examined and skillfully rearranged the bolts and built a wall in front of the hairbrush to conceal his worst intentions.

  You sly old devil, Will. You should have been an architect or an engineer instead of a physician.

  The thought, unbidden as it was, unsettled him. And the woman only made it worse by asking, “What is it you do?”

  He blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  “For the railroad.” She was leaning both her elbows on the counter, pinning him with her pale blue eyes. “Just what is it you do?”

  Ah. She meant now. In his present life. The one in which he was a gambler and a cheat. Not his former existence, the one in which he did no harm.

  “I’m an inspector,” he said.

  “I see.”

  From her tone, it was clear she didn’t believe him. He should probably hurry the hell up, he told himself. Just steal the damned hairbrush and go. He stacked one more bolt on the concealing wall and slid a hand behind it. The metal handle of the brush was cool, nearly cold, against his fingertips.

  “Hard to inspect anything under all this snow,” she said.

  “That’s true.”

  His educated fingers, accustomed to the marks on cards, could almost read the roses and vines inscribed on the back of the brush. It slid so easily into his palm.

  “Just what is it you inspect?”

  “Well…”

  “Will Cade?” The voice came through the mercantile’ s door along with a blast of icy wind and the familiar, chilling sound of a pistol clearing leather. “Are you Will Cade?”

  Will’s hand, the one behind the calico embankment, held absolutely still. His breath clogged in his throat. He couldn’t speak, either to acknowledge or deny. He felt his past not just catching up with him but about to roll over him like an unstoppable freight train.

  It was the woman behind the counter who replied instead. “Just who do you think you are, mister, coming in my store with a gun in your hand?”

  “I think I’m a bounty hunter, ma’am, that’s who. The name’s Luther Killebrew. And I think this fella here—” he aimed a greasy, bearded smile as well as his long black pistol at Will “—is the no-good, lowdown card shark that some fine folks in Leavenworth are planning a little party for.”

  A necktie party, Will thought, feeling the collar of his coat suddenly chafing his skin. Damned farmers shouldn’t gamble if they couldn’t afford to lose.

  “Do you have a picture of this Will Cade?” the woman asked. There was a note of defiance in her voice as she crossed her arms and stared at the bounty hunter.

  “No, ma’am, I don’t. All I have is a flier that says he’s six feet tall with green eyes and sand colored hair and a crescent scar on the back of his left hand.” He turned to Will. “I was sitting behind you on the train, Cade. I was minding my own business until I spied that scar with my own two eyes, and then I figured I’d make a quick two hundred bucks by bringing you in.

  Damned scar. For a minute Will was back at Chancellorsville. The wounded were screaming. Arms and legs were stacked like cord wood, waist high outside the surgical tent. His scalpel slipped, bit him hard and deep, but he couldn’t quit to stitch it up. Not with a boy’s life in the balance.

  Thankfully he hadn’t cut a tendon, but the scar he carried as a souvenir was distinctive. He might as well have had his name tattooed on the back of his left hand.

  “Well, you’re mistaken,” the woman said suddenly, and with a certain force.

  She came out from behind her counter. Sallied forth, actually, like a battleship about to engage the enemy. A tiny-waisted, slim-hipped, finely fashioned craft. A sloop, Will thought. In Kansas, of all places.

  Luther Killebrew looked her over from stem to stern, then drawled, “Begging your pardon, little lady, but I’m rarely mistaken. Hardly ever. And I know a gambling weasel when I see one. Especially when he’s marked.”

  Will, the weasel under discussion, was already making plans in light of his imminent capture. Killebrew would handcuff him, as likely as not, and then put him on the eastbound train back to Leavenworth. With any luck, the bounty hunter would be fast asleep by the time they pulled into Salina. That’s when Will would pick the lock on the cuffs and slide out of his seat and…

  “Well, you’re mistaken now,” the redhead said, a fury building in her voice and the color rising in her face. “This man is my…my…”

  Don’t stop now, Red. Go on.

  “…my husband’s cousin, come all the way from…from…”

  Ohio.

  “…Saint Louis for a visit. He’s not Will Cade. He’s not the man you’re looking for, mister. And that scar you’re so all fired certain about is…is…”

  A sad memento of the war.

  “…is from a mangy dog named Pollifax who bit my husband, Charlie, too. Only someplace where I’m not at liberty to tell.”

&n
bsp; She was good. She was very, very good Pollifax. That was the perfect touch. The indisputable detail. The nail that sealed the coffin. The key that would set Will Cade free.

  The bounty hunter blinked and rubbed his bearded jaw. “I’m hardly ever wrong.”

  The woman crossed her arms and pointed her chin toward Will. “You’re wrong now. The fine folks of Leavenworth won’t pay you a nickel for him.”

  “It’d cost me twenty dollars just to get him there,” Killebrew grumbled. Worry pinched his brow.

  “And twenty more for train fare back,” she added,

  “once you realize what a dam fool you’ve been. Now leave us be.”

  “Goddamn it.” He shoved his pistol back into its holster and shook his head. “I thank you, ma’am. I most surely do. It wouldn’t do my reputation as a man hunter any good at all to turn up with some dog bit dandy, would it?”

  “Not hardly.” She sniffed.

  “Sorry about that,” he said to Will. “I’m hardly ever wrong.”

  “No problem.” Will’s voice came back at last and his heart resumed a normal rhythm. He even managed what he hoped would pass for an easygoing grin.

  “I’ll just be going now,” the bounty hunter said, turning toward the door.

  “Goodbye,” the redhead snapped.

  Good riddance.

  “Well,” she said once the door had closed on Luther Killebrew.

  “Well.”

  Well, well, well.

  Will let the silver hairbrush slide smoothly down his sleeve and back onto the table.

  A well was a hole in the ground, and Matty figured she’d best find the nearest one and throw herself in it. She’d just done something very rash, probably very foolish, and—worst of all—she hadn’t consulted Charlie before she did it.

  She’d been watching the handsome stranger as he sidled up to the table that held her prized silver dresser set, the one that nobody in town could afford. She’d even been admiring the man for his cunning as he smoothly maneuvered her calico bolts to provide a cover for his heinous act.