Enchanted Christmas

by Craig, Emma

  But it was true. Not only had she never heard n piano, but she’d never been to Sunday school, she’d never met a grandparent, she’d never eaten ice cream, and she’d never had a friend her own age. Oh, Grace let her play with the children of settlers who stopped in the wagon yard on their way through Rio Hondo to points west, but Maddie hadn’t had a single friend that lasted more than a week or two.

  Not for the first time Grace wondered if she should give up Frank’s dream and move back to Chicago. Her parents would be thrilled if she did. Maybe she was only being selfish, keeping Maddie here. Maybe she was foolish to want to build something for the two of them on the land she and Frank had loved. She sighed, and then told herself to snap out of it.

  If Maddie’s life did have to be different from other little children’s, the least Grace could do for her was give her a happy mother. “Well, you’ll get to hear one today. Gus said that Mr. Partridge fixed it up perfectly, and it sounds like a choir singing.”

  “What’s a choir, Mommy?”

  A momentary feeling of despair rendered Grace speechless. She shook off the mood, and said calmly, “A choir is a group of people who sing holy songs in church on Sundays, Maddie.”

  “Oh.”

  Grace and Mac exchanged a look over the little girl’s head.

  “We don’t got us a church, do we, Mommy?”

  “No, sweetheart.” Grace hugged her. “But we will one of these days, I expect. When Rio Hondo attracts more people. More families.”

  “It don’t take long for civilization to spread once it gets a toehold, Maddie-lass. You’ll see. Pretty soon ye’ll be longin’ for the good old days.” He chuckled and clicked to the mules.

  Smiling, Grace said, “Well, maybe. I think I’ll be just as happy as Maddie when a few more people decide to settle out here and raise families. It’s—” She sucked in a breath, a stabbing pain having robbed her of words. “It’s difficult, feeling so alone. I didn’t mind so much when Frank was alive.” She looked away from her companions quickly, so they wouldn’t see the easy tears that had sprung to her eyes.

  Grace often wished she was tougher. Like Susan Blackworth, who reminded Grace of a badger. Nothing soft and sentimental about her. Susan Blackworth didn’t allow problems to sneak up on her; she attacked them head-on. But Grace had never learned to build defenses against the cruelties life flung at her—or to anticipate them. They invariably took her by surprise, and they always hurt.

  “Ah, lass, life will get easier out here one of these days. And more folks will settle. And little Maddie will have friends her own age to play with.” Mac gave Maddie a wink.

  “I’d like a friend.” Maddie sounded wistful.

  Feeling guiltier by the second, Grace said, “Well, you’ll get to see Gus again today. Maybe he’ll let you ride on his pony.”

  “And Mr. Noah,” Maddie said thoughtfully.

  “Yes,” said her mother. “And Mr. Noah Partridge.”

  Mac didn’t speak again, but Grace took note of his rather sly smile.

  # # #

  They heard the music before they went inside. Grace’s heart, which had been feeling lumpy and low with guilt and loss, lifted like a bird on the wing.

  “Oh,” she breathed. “Listen to that.”

  Maddie’s eyes opened wide, and she looked up into the sky as if she expected to see a host of angels singing. “It’s music!”

  Mac chuckled. “It’s music, all right, Maddie-lass. Pretty music.”

  It was lovely music. It wasn’t a simple popular tune, either. Grace had to listen hard for a moment before she could place it. Then she recognized the tune as a lilting passage from Beethoven’s sixth symphony. My goodness. She wondered who was playing the instrument. The “Pastorale” seemed too gentle, somehow, to have been selected by Susan Blackworth. Her conclusion made her smile. As little as she could imagine Susan Blackworth playing such a gorgeous piece of music, still less could she imagine the hard, cold, withdrawn Mr. Noah Partridge playing it. But it had to be he.

  “Sounds like he got the thing to tuned up pretty well,” Mac observed.

  “Indeed, it does.”

  “I can’t wait to see it!” Maddie had taken to jumping up and down on the wagon seat again. Laughing, Grace restrained her gently.

  The front door opened, and the music swelled in the air around them. Grace looked over to see Susan Blackworth standing there. She could hardly believe it when a smile creased those weathered cheeks, which she’d more often seen bent into a frown.

  So it was Noah Partridge playing the beautiful music, as Grace had suspected. How perfectly astonishing. She called out a bright greeting. “Good morning, Susan! Cold today, isn’t it?”

  “Freezing,” the older woman acknowledged in her rusty voice.

  “Is that our Noah playin’ so fair in there?” Mac climbed down from the wagon and stretched his old bones out before he walked to the other side to help Grace and Maddie.

  “It is,” said Susan, moving forward to greet them. She walked stiffly, as if every step pained her.

  Grace’s easy sympathy stirred. It must be hard for Susan, living out here. Grace understood she’d come from a wealthy and privileged family back east. In the territory, wealth could provide a certain small measure of comfort, but no luxuries; certainly nothing akin to what she must have been accustomed to. With an internal giggle, Grace guessed she was fortunate to have come from a plain, middle-class family with no pretensions to riches. She hadn’t had so far to fall.

  “I haven’t heard any Beethoven pieces for years,” she said, smiling.

  “Don’t expect you have,” Susan acknowledged, her voice as tart as a crabapple. Of course, Susan Blackworth’s voice was always tart.

  “So our lad did a good job tunin’ the old piano, did he?”

  “I suppose he did.”

  Susan held out her arms, and Maddie went up and hugged her. It was a duty hug. Maddie was afraid of the wrinkled old woman who always dressed in black, smelled of the camphor she used to repel moths, and whose tongue could flay the hide from the toughest of cowboys. Grace was proud of her daughter.

  She and Mac wrestled the crate full of pies to the back of the wagon. Over her shoulder, Grace asked, “Have you played it since he fixed it, Susan?”

  The old woman opened and closed her hands a couple of times. “I tried.” Her words were clipped.

  Again, Grace’s tender feelings stirred. “Rheumatism?” she asked sympathetically.

  The older women held up her hands. The knuckles were swollen, and her fingers gnarled. “It’s hell getting old, Grace, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

  Grace shook her head. “I’m sorry.” She hoped Susan’s arthritic fate didn’t await her. She flexed her fingers experimentally. It would be difficult enough rearing her daughter and performing the tasks of a mother and father even if her health remained perfect. What would become of them both if nature played her a bad turn, as it had Susan Blackworth?

  Well, she couldn’t worry about that now. She could only do her best to fulfill Frank’s dream. If she failed, she failed. The mere thought of failure made her heart ache. She feared the reality of such a prospect might kill her.

  Grace, Mac, and Maddie, who clung like a vine to her mother’s hand and dragged her feet a little, followed Susan Blackworth into the house. She led them past the tiled entryway and into the parlor, where they all stopped to watch and listen. The music flowed around them, filling the atmosphere with sound and beauty. Grace heard Maddie gasp and smiled down at her.

  Her eyes as big and round as pie plates, Maddie whispered, “It’s so loud.”

  Grace laughed. “Yes, sweetie, it is loud. It’s pretty, though, isn’t it?”

  Maddie nodded solemnly. “It’s beautiful.”

  “Do you like it?”

  “Yes.” Maddie gazed up at her mother. “Is this how Sunday school sounds?”

  Grace knelt beside her daughter so she wouldn’t have to shout. “Usually peo
ple play pianos or organs during church services, dear. Sunday school is when little boys and girls learn lessons from the Bible.”

  “I want a church,” Maddie announced, and nodded decisively. “With a piano.”

  “That would be nice,” Grace concurred, and sighed. When would the rough-and-tumble community of Rio Hondo ever have itself a church? Not until there were a lot more women out here. Right now, the tough men who struggled to gain a foothold in this inhospitable land cared about almost anything more than they did churches or pianos and organs.

  When she glanced up, she saw Noah Partridge’s back, slightly bent as he concentrated on his fingering. She’d never in a million years have guessed that such a difficult, troubled man could have such magic in his fingers as he was creating now, on Susan Blackworth’s piano. She shook her head, wondering if the war had changed him from a man with music in his soul into the cold, emotionally crippled being he was today. How sad. How stupid of men to think they could solve their problems by fighting over them.

  “He’s got a gift.”

  Grace looked up to see Susan Blackworth staring at Noah’s back too. A tear dripped down her cheek, and she wiped it away impatiently. Grace wasn’t sure if Susan’s tear astonished her more than Noah’s playing or the other way around. Either way, this was a day full of surprises.

  “Yes, he certainly seems to have a gift, all right.” She rose and wondered what to do now.

  Mac took the problem out of her hands. “What d’ye want me to do with these pies of Grace’s, Susan?”

  It seemed to Grace as if Susan gave herself a little shake. “Set ‘em in the kitchen, Mac. Thanks, Grace. I don’t make pies any longer. Juanita Valdez has been cooking for the lot of us for a couple of years, but she couldn’t make a decent crust if her life depended on it.” Again, she bent and straightened her crooked fingers as if trying to will them back into piano-playing shape.

  Mac turned with the carton in his hands and headed out of the parlor.

  “I hope you enjoy them.”

  “I’m sure we will. The boys like anything sweet.”

  Grace wondered if that was supposed to be a compliment, and then decided it didn’t matter. She smiled at Mac when he returned, sans carton of pies, to the parlor.

  All at once the music stopped. The silence sounded like thunder in the house for several seconds. Noah Partridge stared down at his hands, as if amazed that they still worked, and then glanced over his shoulder. When he saw her standing there, he turned abruptly back to the piano. Grace saw him open and close his fingers as Susan Blackworth had just done. It looked to her as if he were testing them, as if they weren’t used to the exercise they’d just been called upon to do. He didn’t speak.

  It was Maddie who broke the spell that seemed to have woven itself around Noah and his observers. She pulled her hand away from her mother’s and ran up to the piano bench.

  She stopped short of hugging Noah, although Grace noticed that he appeared to brace himself for an attack. Instead Maddie clasped her hands in front of her, and said, “Mr. Noah, that was the prettiest music in the whole world. It was the prettiest music I ever heard. Ever.” She gazed at him in awe, as though she considered him some sort of magician.

  Grace saw him swallow. “Thank you, Miss Maddie.” His voice sounded funny, as if he had to force it past an ache in his throat.

  Suddenly Maddie turned toward her mother. “Can you play the piano as good as Mr. Noah, Mommy?”

  “Can I play as well as Mr. Noah Partridge?” Grace said, automatically correcting her daughter’s grammar. She shook her head and smiled. “I’m afraid not, dear. Mr. Partridge is—he’s a real musician. A gifted musician. I’m not nearly as good as he is.”

  Noah turned back to the piano and seemed to be studying its keys. Grace saw his hands—hard hands, callused, tanned—skim over them, almost caressing them. “I used to be.” His voice still sounded funny.

  “I’d say you still are, young man.” Susan Blackworth’s voice was as harsh and imperious as ever. “And that instrument sounds as good as it ever did.”

  Grace heard Noah clear his throat. “It’s a fine instrument, Mrs. Blackworth. It just needed a little care and a few felts is all.”

  “My father bought me that piano from Partridge’s in ‘twenty-seven. I’ve had it ever since. Used to play it too. As well as Mr. Partridge there.”

  She sounded bitter. Grace wasn’t surprised about that, although the information she imparted surprised her. “My goodness.”

  Noah stood abruptly, making Maddie jump. He glanced down at her. “Sorry, Miss Maddie.”

  She gave him one of her sunniest smiles, and he averted his face.

  “Come here, Maddie,” Grace said softly. She wasn’t sure what was going on inside Noah Partridge, but she sensed it was powerful, and it was disturbing, and she didn’t want her daughter anywhere near it.

  Because she wanted to purge the odd atmosphere, she said brightly, “It sounds as if your grandfather’s skill has been passed down to you, Mr. Partridge. That piece was beautiful.”

  She saw his back rise and fall as if he were taking and releasing a huge breath. When he turned to face her, his eyes looked as bleak as the weather. “Thanks,” he said, and Grace felt like crying.

  They took dinner with Susan Blackworth. Neither Susan’s husband nor any of her sons were there to dine with them. Grace wasn’t sorry. They were a hard lot, the Blackworth men. She doubted if any one of them had a musical gift.

  She wasn’t sorry, either, when Noah elected not to ride in the wagon with them. He rode Fargo alongside the wagon when Mac drove it back to Rio Hondo. He didn’t speak a word the whole way, and Grace got the feeling he wasn’t really there except in the flesh. His spirit seemed to be visiting elsewhere, and his expression was as far away as summer.

  Chapter Eight

  He hadn’t died. Noah awoke the next morning in his stall in McMurdo’s Wagon Yard and felt almost proud of himself.

  He’d tuned, oiled, and repaired Susan Blackworth’s piano, and even inspected her neglected reed organ, and he still lived. He’d tested the organ’s stops and reeds and suggested what she needed to order from Estey’s Organ Works in Brattleboro, Vermont, and had managed to remain there the whole time. He hadn’t blown up, broken down, screamed, cried, or run away. Not once.

  Not that there hadn’t been plenty of shaky moments, but he’d endured them. He’d even managed to hide the trembling of his hands from the sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued Mrs. Blackworth. At least, he thought he had.

  Was that a step in the right direction? Noah wasn’t sure. It would help if he knew what the right direction was.

  With a heavy sigh, he thrust his bedroll aside and was immediately enveloped in a blanket of icy cold. Damn, he might have to start wearing both parts of his long johns to bed. Ever since the war, he’d worn as little as possible at night because the terrors got him when he felt confined, especially when his intellect was dulled with sleep. But Lordy, when it got this cold, he supposed even his demons could use a little warmth. He looked into the sky and saw that it was a bright, brittle blue, with clouds like snowdrifts piled up at its edges. He breathed the frigid air and felt satisfied. How odd.

  “I hope you’ll join us for breakfast, Mr. Partridge.”

  Shit. Noah jerked his head around, embarrassed that he’d been caught staring into the sky. There she was: Grace Richardson, looking like a winter angel, with her muffler wrapped around her neck, buttoned into her long gray coat, and holding a bucket. She gave him a smile as warm as the day was cold, and his sex stirred to life. Glory, this had to stop.

  “I’ve been milking Betsy,” she said with a laugh. “I’m surprised I didn’t get ice-cream out of her this morning.”

  He had to force himself to do it, but he smiled back. Recalling his near-naked state, he yanked a blanket over his chest. Damn, he wished he’d stop having these inconvenient physical reactions to Grace Richardson. He was hard as a rock. He didn’t need to be remi
nded that he used to be a man. Life was difficult enough without knowing he was unfit ever to bed a woman again.

  “Thanks,” he said, surprising himself. “That’d be nice.”

  She took a few steps closer to him, holding the bucket in both hands. He saw that she wore those same woolen mittens she’d had on when they made the snowman, and that they’d been darned a lot. “I really wish you’d sleep inside, Mr. Partridge. We all worry about you sleeping out here in the freezing cold.”

  “I like the cold, ma’am.” It was the truth, but he was shocked to hear himself say it out loud. Telling the truth often provoked questions from others that he didn’t care to answer.

  “Really?” She tilted her head to one side, as if she were trying to understand. “Why is that, do you suppose?”

  He knew why it was. Mac’s suggestion that he tell Grace the truth filtered into his head, but he thrust it away again. He couldn’t do that. Not yet, anyway. “Um, I reckon I had some bad experiences in the hot weather, ma’am.”

  Her head tilted the other way. She reminded Noah of a pretty, decorative bird. Except Grace Richardson was more than merely decorative.

  “I’m from Chicago myself,” she said. “We had some hard winters, and some awfully hot and humid summers back there. I’m not sure which I like better. I like them both, I guess, although I think I like fall the best, when the leaves begin to turn. Not that we have any trees to turn colors out here” She laughed softly. Noah thought he detected a measure of regret in her voice.

  “No, ma’am.” Her gentle laugh cut through him like a knife. He had a quick, impossible urge to rush off and find her a maple tree or something. He really was crazy.

  She gave him another smile and turned to walk back to the house. “I fixed some buckwheat cakes for breakfast, Mr. Partridge. I don’t know how he managed it, but Mac found some real maple syrup for the hotcakes. Better come in before we gobble them all down.”

  With a friendly wave, she was off. Noah watched until she’d entered the house before he shoved the covers down, dressed before he could freeze solid, took care of Fargo, and went to take breakfast with Grace Richardson. And Mac. And Maddie.