Coming Home for Christmas

by Carla Kelly

  “Different? Tell me how some time, but not now, Will. I need you.”

  “Ditto here.” He pulled the blanket over them without another word.

  Chapter Eight

  Will had occasionally fantasized about making love on a train. There was something pleasantly stimulating about the rhythmic clatter of the wheels that had appealed to the sybarite in his nature.

  As he began to explore Francie’s abundant curves, he tried to tell whatever part of his brain might still be rational that this was a supremely bad idea. This embarrassment of riches was his hospital steward’s daughter, for goodness’ sake. He explored Francie’s breasts with his hand and then his lips, as he reminded himself that it was getting light; that the conductor knew where his berth was and could fling open the curtains with another medical emergency; that he was about one week away from marrying a beautiful lady who loved him.

  None of his puny admonitions had the smallest effect on his body. If Francie had any similar objections, they weren’t registering with her, either, from the eager way she touched him and kissed him more thoroughly than he had ever been kissed in his life. He knew he should have been gentlemanly enough to assure her that he would be gentle—on the chance—and what did he know?—that she was a virgin—but he didn’t. Just as well, because he wasn’t gentle.

  With a sigh, Francie happily accommodated his rather assertive entrance into her body—good grief, where were his manners? She pressed against his back with her hands and heels as they both discovered that train rhythm was amazingly erotic: a satisfactory conclusion to his scientific experiment. He gathered her close, relishing every thrust and parry and holding himself off until she climaxed once and then again only delirious seconds later. She pressed her lips against his neck to keep herself from letting the entire train car hear her approval of what the two of them had just so energetically wrought, courtesy of biology and the Union Pacific Railroad.

  If she could be so restrained, so could he. Will groaned into her ear when his own turn came, which only made Francie tighten her grip on him and unleash herself again. Man of science that he was, Captain Will Wharton, post surgeon, had no inkling that the average woman in 1877 was so talented.

  But enough was surely enough, especially when the porter came through the car, sounding his summons to breakfast and announcing an arrival in Omaha in one hour. He knew he should be a kind fellow and unlimber himself from Francie’s charms, but for the life of him, he had no urge to find the exit. Besides, she was still twining her legs around his—who knew that a gentle hand running up and down his back would be so soothing? Every single care he had boarded the train with in Cheyenne had flown away; he was jelly.

  Francie shifted first, so he reluctantly did the polite thing and moved. She was all business for a moment, finding a cloth for him and her, probably the handful of napkins that he knew he would never, ever return to the dining car. And then she curled close to him, so they lay together as one. It was his turn to sigh and pull her closer, as she flung one leg over his loins as though she owned him. Maybe she did. He rested his hand on her head, massaging her scalp.

  Someone had to say something, and again Francie was way ahead. “I’m not a virgin,” she whispered. “It’s been a while, though.”

  He had no trouble saying the right thing. “I’m not, either,” he whispered back, “and ditto on the chronology.”

  She kissed his chest. “At the end of the war, I became engaged to Jemmy Doyle, sergeant in the Irish Brigade. Everyone knew the war was over. It was only a matter of time, and then we’d be married, so why wait?”

  Francie was silent then, and he gently pulled her even closer. “It happens, Francie.”

  “I know.” He sensed her great sorrow, mellow now, but evident. “Jemmy died at the battle of Sayler’s Creek, right before Appomattox. That was twelve years ago.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said and kissed her forehead.

  “So was I.” Another sigh. “Will you think me strange if I was sorry there was no child? I loved Jemmy Doyle.”

  And I love you now, he thought, beguiled with the knowledge that skidded to a halt across the stage of his mushy brain. I wonder how long I have loved this woman?

  “I’m sorry, too, Francie,” he told her. “You’d have made a fine sergeant’s wife. Damn war, anyway.” He kissed her again, then ran his finger gently along her jawline. “A moment of plain speaking here, Francie: I confess to having wanted to do this practically since the first time you set foot in the hospital to read to my miscreants.”

  “You’re not serious,” she said and it sounded like a statement of fact.

  “I am, actually.” He took a deep breath. “I’m not sure when it happened last night, but I’m being honest for the first time in a year of observing you. What are we going to do?”

  Francie pushed herself on one elbow, the better to see into his eyes, now that their curtained berth was light. She opened her mouth to speak, when someone coughed politely outside the curtain.

  “Yes?” Will asked. Better he should speak, since this was his berth.

  He wasn’t sure what Francie was going to say, but when she kissed his fingers, then made herself small under the covers, he suddenly prayed there wouldn’t be any Philadelphia wedding. When Francie was safely behind him, Will opened the curtain a crack. “Yes?”

  It was the conductor, with just the faintest whiff of scotch on his breath. Someone had to finish the bottle, Will thought, amused.

  “Captain, you need to fill out the death certificate. We’ll be in Omaha in forty-five minutes.”

  Will closed the curtain and hurried into his wrinkled uniform, helped along by Francie. He had to stop every few minutes to kiss her, and nearly called a halt to the whole proceedings when she made it her business to button up his trousers in such a lingering fashion. What a talented female. Barefoot, he padded down the aisle to the washroom and dragged a razor across his face in some approximation of military spit and polish. He took a moment to appraise himself in the mirror: brown eyes still as earnest, hair just as red, moustache still giving his somewhat baby face enough gravitas to suggest he could perform surgery on grown-ups, lips a bit bruised from hard usage by Mary Frances Coughlin.

  Maddy will never know, he thought for one traitorous moment, and then he knew he could never marry her now, no matter how scandalous his ordinary life was quickly going to become. Good Heavens, the wedding of the season was going to turn into the debacle of the decade. Whartons and Radnors would rise up and smite him, and rip his club memberships to shreds. He’d be a lucky cur if Maddy didn’t sue him for breach of promise.

  “So be it,” he told the man in the mirror, who managed to look both satisfied to the hilt and green about the gills at the same time. “If you’re going to be a cad, might as well do a good job of it.”

  He put on his shoes in the corridor, narrowly avoiding stumbling into a full-breasted matron heading to the women’s washroom and looking like one of Wagner’s Valkyries. He parted the curtains to his berth to see Francie struggling into her shirtwaist. He obliged her by buttoning her up the back, seasoning the act with a kiss or two. The valise was lying open on their berth now, but it was empty.

  “I woke up Nora at about the same time Olympia started making little noises,” Francie whispered. She kissed his ear. “Hopefully, we were quieter.”

  He blushed and nodded. “I am never going to ask,” he whispered back and Francie smiled.

  “You and Nora take Olympia to the dining car.” He handed her a greenback. “I recommend the French toast.” Heavens, what a prosaic sentence. It nearly made him wince, considering that he wanted to crawl back into his berth for Round Two.

  He cleared his throat, conductor-fashion, and parted the curtains on the upper berth to see Nora holding Olympia now. “Good morning, Nora,” he said, hoping she had slept through all the early-morning activity in the berth below. Since she looked far more rested than he did, he thought that was the case.

 
“Good morning, Captain,” she replied.

  Maybe it was a trick of the light, but he could have sworn Nora gave him a slow wink. He closed the curtains, sweating in the cold air. He smiled at nothing and no one, until he thought of Maddy. I am the world’s biggest fool, he told himself. I can treat the common cold, but not the common cad.

  Chapter Nine

  Will filled out the unknown mother’s death certificate, attached it to the blanket shroud in the baggage car and arrived in the dining car in time to eat French toast doused with maple syrup. He felt almost too shy to look at either woman, then reminded himself not to be a fool in the presence of two capable ladies. They passed Olympia back and forth between them as they ate.

  No one made better French toast than the Overland Limited. Or maybe he was famished from all that lovemaking. He decided, for once in his life, not to overthink the matter and just enjoy the pleasure of good food and whatever stimulus had come his way before breakfast.

  Still, he worried. Will put down his fork. “Ladies, are we all agreed that Olympia is not going to any orphanage in Omaha?”

  They nodded; even Olympia looked interested. Safe in Francie’s generous grasp, she regarded him solemnly across the condiment bottles and then burped.

  “Really, Olympia,” he commented. “How will we pull this off?”

  As it turned out, the conductor made it easy. Clipboard at the ready, he met them in the passenger car, once breakfast was over and the upper and lower berths had become seats again. Francie held Olympia close, crooning to her. It touched Will to observe that Francie and the infant both had the same long eyelashes. Given time, no one would know they weren’t mother and daughter.

  “Your wife has taken quite a fancy to the baby,” the conductor commented, as Will signed one more paper.

  My wife. “Yes, she has,” he said without hesitation. “Mrs Wharton loves children.”

  “Captain, may I depend on you and Mrs Wharton to see that the child gets to the proper official, once we detrain? I have to catch the next train heading west, and must leave it to you, if you’re willing, to find an orphanage.”

  “No fears,” Will replied. He wondered—as he had not wondered since his youth in Dumfries—if the Christmas Star was also a lucky star. After all, it had brought his mother a new husband, and him a father, so many years ago. He smiled to himself, also thinking of his grandparents and their amazing courtship in California. “We’ll do what’s right.” We will, indeed, he thought, his heart full, as he looked into Francie Coughlin’s eyes and saw answers to all his questions about life and love and more practical things. Funny that it had taken him a year to realize he was in love.

  It was a simple matter to watch as a security man accepted the shrouded body. Will initialed another document, then they walked away from the unknown woman, the baby safe in Francie’s arms. Francie had lingered a moment beside the shrouded body on its stretcher. She touched her fingers to Olympia’s lips and then to the blanket shrouding the baby’s mother. He swallowed and turned away.

  He turned away in time to see Nora Powell hesitating on the platform, her eyes on the westbound train that the conductor was boarding. Will took her arm, relieved that she did not shake him off and run. His arm went around her then as she turned her face into his military greatcoat and sobbed.

  “Nora, just let us take you to Utley,” he said, holding her close, not so much from fear that she would bolt, but that she needed something solid, which he knew he was now. “We’re so close to Iowa.”

  “Suppose there is no one from my family to meet me?” she asked, after he wiped her eyes with his handkerchief.

  A day ago, he wouldn’t have had an answer for her, but that was a day ago. “Then you’ll come with us to Philadelphia,” he told her, without any hesitation. “You’ll help my mother in her work with immigrants and I’ll guarantee you one or two Whartons who are also attorneys.” Provided anyone is still speaking to me, after I jilt Madeline Radnor, he thought. “There are ways to get your children back.”

  None of them seemed to take a breath as they saw their luggage transferred to an Iowa short line and then took their seats for the trip to Utley. Not until the train was under way did they all take a deep breath, then look at each other and laugh, conspirators in baby snatching.

  That seemed to be the last smile Nora possessed. As the day wore on, she withdrew into herself, staring out of the window, probably seeing nothing of the landscape and everything of the children she had left behind. Only Francie’s hand in his kept Will’s own doubts at bay. When she transferred her hand to his thigh—so proprietary—he felt only bliss, followed by an urge to find another lower berth, or, failing that, an accommodating linen closet; he was agile.

  “Do you think someone will meet her?” Francie whispered.

  He didn’t know what to say. Nora had no place in either world; she wasn’t quite Indian and she wasn’t quite white now, either.

  “Hard to say. There’s such a stigma against white women returning from Indian camps.” He tightened his grip on Francie in sudden, irrational fear at the idea of Francie in such a situation. What would a woman do? He knew that some officers’ wives had been told by their husbands to save a final bullet for themselves, if they were ever caught between garrisons by a war party. He glanced at beautiful Francie, trying to see the matter through a woman’s eyes, even though he knew he could not.

  “In the same situation, what would you do?” he asked.

  Francie knew immediately what he meant. “What Nora did,” she said finally. “I want to live.” She squeezed his hand. “Would…would you want me back?”

  His eyes filled with tears. “Do you even have to ask?” The smile she gave him said the world.

  It seemed a strange time to propose, but he did, and found himself with two fiancées, one he was supposed to marry in a week, and the other one holding a baby that everyone on the train assumed belonged to them. How on earth did this happen to someone as prosaic as I am? he asked himself. He had never given his mother or stepfather a lick of trouble; now he was about to become Maddy Radnor’s worst nightmare and an embarrassment to his relatives, possibly as Nora Powell was surely an embarrassment to hers.

  What did bother him was the deepening frown between Nora’s brows and the way she kept twisting her hands until her knuckles were white. He accepted the sleeping Olympia when Francie moved across the space between the row and sat beside Nora. In another moment she cradled Nora in her arms, much as she had protected Olympia. Bless your heart, he thought.

  Shadows lengthened across the land as the train rumbled on the Iowa short line. Snow fell in fits and starts, and he worried. He began to dread the moment when the conductor would call “Utley,” and everything would come down to the kindness or cruelty of Nora Powell’s relatives, the ones who had stayed behind when she, her parents and brothers had decided to cross a continent and seek a better life.

  They were reluctant to move when the train stopped. Nora had no luggage beyond a bedroll, but Will had asked the baggage handler to remove his and Francie’s, too. If they had to stay a few days in Utley to see the outcome, he wanted to have his razor with him.

  The other travelers were greeted by loved ones and led away. By some instinct, he and Francie knew to stand on either side of Nora. Maybe they wanted to shield her from the reality that no one wanted her. Maybe they wanted to make sure she did not bolt from the platform, going where, he had no idea, because she had nowhere to run.

  Soon it was just the three of them, plus Olympia, on the platform. The wind had picked up and was swirling snow around. Everyone had hurried away, eager to get indoors and out of the deepening cold. “Well, never mind,” Will said at last, touching Nora’s elbow. “We’ll find a hotel and keep going in the morning. There’s a place for you, Nora. Please believe me.”

  “I do,” she said finally, her voice faint. “It’s hard, though.”

  “I imagine it is,” Will replied, putting his arm around her. “Please
…”

  “Unhand my niece, young man!”

  Startled, Will turned around to see a tall, angular woman bearing down on him, shaking an umbrella. He held his hands up. “Ma’am, are you…?. are you…?”

  “Cat got your tongue?” she snapped, wielding the umbrella like a sword until he stepped back. She turned to Nora and her glare softened into something remarkably like love, as far as Will could tell.

  “Nora Powell, you dear one,” she said softly. “I’m your Aunt Nellie Follensbee. I didn’t mean to be late, but your uncle and his nitwit wife tried to argue me out of coming to get you. Passel of fools.” She gently tucked her arm through Nora’s, shouldering Will aside. “Let’s go home.”

  Chapter Ten

  Nellie Follensbee took them all home, cooing over Olympia, who slept in Francie’s arms, then leading them to a waiting conveyance, where a big man in a snow-covered overcoat sat in the box and shivered.

  Nora introduced them to her aunt as Captain and Mrs Wharton, and Will couldn’t think of a reason to contradict her. Maybe he was too tired to launch into a lengthy explanation that he didn’t care to make anyway. Francie did nothing, either, beyond giving him a sideways glance that spoke volumes.

  It wouldn’t have mattered if Nora had introduced them as Attila and Mrs Hun; Nellie only had eyes for her niece. “You’re named after me, you know,” she told Nora as they sat close together in the hack. “We’re both Elinores.”

  “I barely remember you,” Nora confessed, as the hack came to a stop in front of a modest house with a wide porch on the edge of town.

  “Doesn’t matter. I remember you,” was Nellie’s comment as she helped her niece from the conveyance. “Your mother was my little sister.” She dabbed at her eyes. “I have worried about you for thirteen years, and now you’re home.”

  The words were so honest and so kind that Will felt tears in his own eyes. It’s not that simple, he thought, as he willingly let himself be dragged into the orbit of Nellie Follensbee’s generous hospitality.