Enchanted Christmas

by Craig, Emma

  Maddie skipped outside with her mother, her piquant countenance a sunny counterpoint to Grace’s stormy expression.

  “I wish I could go with you, Mr. Noah,” Maddie said wistfully. “But Mac says I gotta stay here and help him mind the mercantile.”

  “That’s an important job, Miss Maddie.”

  Grace sniffed. Noah peered at her and then back at Maddie, and he sighed.

  “I reckon. That’s what Mac says, too.” Maddie didn’t sound altogether convinced, but she was too well-behaved to object to the decisions the adults in her life made for her. Noah wondered how long that would last. He wondered if Maddie would grow into adolescence resenting this lonely life. It would break his heart if he ever heard of her running away to some big city like some kids did, in order to get away from these lonely, isolated plains.

  Shit, he was being crazy again. He told himself to stop thinking crazy thoughts. As if he could.

  Mac came out to bid them adieu, as friendly and jovial as ever. He held Maddie by the hand when Noah and Grace set out, and they both waved after the two of them. Noah wondered if it was the crisp winter air that made sparkles seem to fly from the old man’s fingertips. Nah. He was just nuts, was all it was.

  Grace remained stiff as a board through the first leg of their journey. It didn’t look to him as if she aimed to thaw out a bit during this little expedition, as if showing him a modicum of friendship might weaken her position and send her straight to perdition and Noah into possession of her property. He guessed she aimed to show him by her frigidity of posture and attitude exactly how useless this trip was.

  Well, maybe she was right. And maybe she wasn’t. All Noah knew was that as soon as Mac had proposed it, this jaunt had sounded right to him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Much to Grace’s surprise, they didn’t freeze to death on their ride out to the Pecos River. She’d thought Mac was out of his mind when he suggested this trip, but now—and in spite of the company she was in—she discovered she was enjoying herself. There was something very pleasant about getting away from her responsibilities for a little while and knowing they’d be taken care of in her absence. With Mac minding Maddie, Grace knew she didn’t have to worry about her daughter.

  The landscape in these parts never varied. The flat, rolling plains went on forever. Dry grasses, flattened by icy wind, rippled like fields of stringy gold. The caprock, as level as a pancake, stretched on for miles to the northwest, and it was still early enough in the season for flocks of geese and cranes to pass above them. Grace loved those graceful, elegant birds.

  She almost even managed to forget that Noah Partridge, her bitterest enemy, rode beside her. He was such a silent man, even when he was at his most chatty, that she didn’t feel obliged to initiate a conversation or pretend friendship. In truth, she feared him more than she’d ever feared anyone.

  She didn’t think he could get Frank’s land away from her, but he did dreadful things to her peace of mind. She couldn’t stop thinking about him, even when he wasn’t around. As much as she told herself she hated him, still more did she have to fight the strange attraction he held for her. She felt like a traitor.

  He was nothing like Frank. He was nothing like sweet Gus Spalding who, Grace knew, had a crush on her. Noah was dangerous. Not that Grace feared that he’d hurt her physically. He didn’t seem violent in the least. But he cut up her peace. Destroyed the calm placidity she’d made of her life. Disrupted her thoughts—even her dreams. He annoyed her. And he wouldn’t give up. She considered his stubbornness particularly trying, especially since she wasn’t confident she could hold onto that land even without Noah looming over her like a buzzard, ready to snatch it up if she lost her hold on it.

  Blast that mortgage!

  But Noah Partridge didn’t know about the mortgage. How could he? She’d sure never tell him. And she was catching up. Every penny she made went to cover the back payments. She even denied her daughter toys and new shoes to pay for that land.

  Guilt pricked at her, and she consigned it to the prison to which it belonged. The land was more important to Maddie than toys and new shoes, even if Maddie couldn’t know it. Even if Grace’s own mother thought Grace was a bull-headed dolt. She chuffed out an irritated breath.

  “You all right, Mrs. Richardson?”

  Grace jerked her head and saw Noah watching her, his eyes hooded, his granite-like countenance impassive. She snapped, “I’m fine, thank you.”

  She heard his heavy sigh, and it irked her. What reason did he have to feel exasperated. All he had to do was turn his head, and he’d see acres—miles—of land. He could have just about any of it he wanted. The only piece of land he couldn’t have was the few acres Frank had bought for his family. For her. She didn’t think she was being unreasonable at all.

  “I’m hoping we can have a nice day, Mrs. Richardson. It would be easier if you didn’t demonstrate how much you hate me with every breath you take.”

  She was surprised that he could sound so sarcastic. She’d begun to think he didn’t care enough about anything to have emotions. Except when he thought about the war, of course. Or her land.

  “I don’t hate you.” Her voice was tight and hard. She wouldn’t have believed if she’d been him, even though it was the truth.

  “I’m glad,” he said, surprising her again.

  She expected him to say more, but he didn’t. After a minute, she glanced at him. His expression looked kind of sad, unless she was reading things into it that weren’t there. She probably was. He was a cold, detached man, and she’d better remember it or she’d be inclined to start caring about him. Any woman who began to care about a man like that was no better than she ought to be.

  Men like Noah Partridge were the kind who ruined innocent girls; Grace had seen such things happen. She remembered pretty little Lanita Gracechurch, who’d been seduced and abandoned by a gambling man, a man as cold and hard as Noah Partridge ever could be. Poor Lanita’s mother had tried to say the baby was her sister’s, but everyone had known better. Lanita still couldn’t hold her head up; Grace knew it, because her mother took pains to write about Lanita in her letters from home. Grace suspected her mother’s reports were meant to serve as a warning to her. As if she needed one!

  Then too, again back in Chicago, Grace’s best friend had married John Grant, a man whom she knew to be irresponsible, thinking he’d change after they were married. He hadn’t, and now poor Meribel was suffering for it. Grace got the occasional letter from Meribel, and Grace wrote to her on a regular basis, but their lives had diverged so much since their marriages that they might have been speaking to each other in tongues. Poor Meribel. In spite of the hardships Grace faced every day, she considered herself luckier than either Lanita or Meribel.

  If there were any justice in the world, God would have taken John Grant or that wretched gambling man and spared Frank Richardson. Justice, Grace thought with contempt. There was no such thing as justice anywhere, for anyone. If one needed proof, one needed look no farther than Frank Richardson. Or Noah Partridge.

  Andersonville. Grace shook her head and wished she didn’t feel such intense sympathy for this frozen man who wanted her land.

  Of course, he wasn’t so very cold. Not any longer, he wasn’t. It had taken him a while to thaw out, but he seemed much less alienated from the rest of the human race than he’d been when he’d first arrived in Mac’s wagon yard. Grace remembered when she’d seen him for the first time; she’d worried that he was a criminal because he looked so hard. She hadn’t realized then that his hardness wasn’t that of a vicious man, but a wounded one. Like a wild animal that had been caught in a trap or something.

  He seemed almost friendly around Maddie these days. Grace smiled. Who wouldn’t be friendly with Maddie? She was such a sunny, happy child. She was like her father in that regard. Grace occasionally brooded. Maddie took after her daddy; she didn’t have a broody bone in her body.

  “To tell you the truth, Mrs. Richa
rdson, I thought that seeing that piece of property again might make me not want it so much. Maybe hearing your plans for it will make more sense to me than my own.”

  She shot him a sharp look. “It doesn’t matter one way or the other, Mr. Partridge. I’m not selling it.”

  He sighed heavily. Again, Grace resented it.

  “Listen,” he said. “I’m sorry I brought it up. Let’s not talk about the land, all right? I’m interested in how folks live out here, though. It’s a rough place.”

  She hesitated, pondering his comment, wondering if he planned to use any response on her part against her. She didn’t see how he could, but she wasn’t a subtle thinker. The ways in which people undermined each other always caught her off guard.

  Frank used to honor her integrity and openness; he told her more than once that she’d have been lost from word one if she’d gone head to head with that sneaky Italian fellow. What was his name? Machiavelli; yes, that was it. Now he was a real sneak. Not Grace. Grace was as open as the day was long; she couldn’t have perpetrated a subterfuge if her life depended on it. Now she wished she weren’t so blasted open.

  Yet she didn’t see much point in disagreeing. Anyone could tell by looking that the land out here wasn’t hospitable. Feeling like she was being forced to walk on eggshells with excruciating care and resenting it, she murmured, “Yes. It is.”

  “Is it easy to grow a garden out here? A kitchen garden, I mean. You know, vegetables?”

  She uttered a short laugh. “No. It isn’t easy to grow anything out here but greasewood and cactus.”

  “You seem to have a pretty fair garden at the wagon yard, though.”

  “Yes. Mac started it before Maddie and I moved there. Before Frank died.”

  “Yeah.”

  She wished she hadn’t mentioned Frank aloud. Every time she did, Noah Partridge seemed to shrink into himself. Not that he was ever very forthcoming. But he seemed to be making an effort to be expansive today, and she was sorry to have nipped his effort in the bud.

  On the other hand—as she kept reminding herself—she was what she was. And Grace Richardson was a good-hearted, unsubtle woman with a keen interest in her fellow man. Propping herself up with that thought, she decided to be bold.

  “Were you ever married, Mr. Partridge?”

  He was so startled by her question that he jerked in his saddle and had to calm his horse down. Grace hadn’t expected such a strong reaction to her innocent question, and wondered if she should have kept silent.

  He answered her, though. Perhaps he didn’t consider her merely nosy. “No. I was engaged once.”

  She gazed at him for a moment, but he didn’t seem inclined to expand on his comment. Since she didn’t know the circumstances, she wasn’t sure what to say now. She opted for a brief, “Oh.”

  He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. She tried to look sympathetic and not merely inquisitive. She was inquisitive. Intensely.

  After a moment, he chuffed out a breath. “She married somebody else when I was gone off to war. Reckon she didn’t want to wait, and she was probably right. I wasn’t exactly prime husband material when I got out of Andersonville.”

  “You mean she didn’t wait for you even though she’d agreed to marry you? Were you formally engaged?”

  “You mean, had I given her a ring? Yeah.”

  Grace’s indignation was profound. She didn’t hold with two-timing people, male or female. And a promise was a promise. Especially such an important promise as an engagement. She muttered, “Well, I never,” under her breath.

  Noah’s laugh offended her. “It’s not funny, Mr. Partridge! I think that’s a terrible thing to do to someone. She might have been able to help you through a terrible time in your life. That’s what commitment means, after all. It’s not merely savoring the good times, but helping each other through the hard ones. A woman who won’t wait for her man isn’t worth your time.”

  Oh, good grief. Grace and her big mouth. She really wished she hadn’t said that, especially when Noah seemed to stare daggers at her. But she’d meant it. She lifted her chin very much the way Maddie lifted hers when she was feeling defiant. “Well, it’s the truth. I certainly wouldn’t want any man who wasn’t willing to wait until I’d fulfilled my commitment to my country, or one who wasn’t willing to help me if I’d been injured.” She added, “If women did things like that, of course.”

  “You didn’t know Julia.” His voice was hard, and the words sounded like an accusation.

  She gave a soft huff but recognized the justice of his observation. Inclining her head in a gesture meant to be apologetic—and although the words nearly choked her—she said, “You’re right. I beg your pardon, Mr. Partridge. Perhaps there was a good reason for her to have broken her promise to you.” Grace couldn’t think of one. She did, however, know herself to be color-blind when it came to shades of gray. Black-and-white Grace, Frank used to call her.

  “Anyway, she didn’t approve of my joining the Union Army. I reckon she had her reasons.”

  “She had strong political views, did she?” Grace’s skepticism sang out loud and clear in her question.

  Noah shrugged. “I reckon. I don’t know.”

  Humph. I’ll just bet she did, Grace thought indignantly. “Didn’t she write and tell you her reasons for breaking her promise to you?”

  “No.”

  No elaboration there. Grace thought she knew why. Prissy Miss Julia had probably been embarrassed by Noah’s conscientious choice and was too weak-willed to tell him so openly. She might even have been wishing he’d die and spare her ever having to face him. As for Grace, even if she hadn’t been firmly on the side of the Union during that horrible conflict, she didn’t think she’d have broken an engagement to a man just because his conscience had led him in another direction.

  In fact, she couldn’t think of very many reasons good enough for a female to break her promise to a man. Perhaps if Noah had been a drunkard or a criminal, she could understand. Or if Julia had been a politician’s daughter and she feared for her father’s career. Still and all, if a woman truly loved a man enough to allow him to father her children; to give him the keeping of her life . . .

  “Did she come from a political family, Mr. Partridge?” She tried to sound polite.

  “No. None of her kin cared beans about politics, although her older brother fought for the Confederacy.”

  That’s what Grace had figured. In other words, Julia Whoever-She-Was had no good excuse not to have waited for the man who’d loved her and given her his ring. Grace’s heart began to hurt for Noah. Actions like those of his precious Julia gave the whole female sex a bad name. She’d probably been a delicate southern belle who’d thought she was too good to wait for a man who’d followed his conscience.

  Noah’s chuckle surprised her. “You’re right, though. I reckon she wasn’t worth it. She was a spoiled child when I left Virginia.” His smile lasted only a moment. “She died not long after I came back.”

  “Oh! I’m so sorry.” Now Grace felt guilty for having thought such evil things about her.

  “Yeah. She died in child bed.”

  “My goodness. How tragic.”

  “Her husband thought so.”

  Grace got the feeling Noah Partridge had thought so too. “I was very fortunate, I guess. I had no trouble with Maddie.” Suddenly she wondered if Noah wished he could trade her for his lost Julia, as she wished she could trade him for Frank. No; that was a wicked thing to think. She really didn’t mean it.

  She expected the conversation to end on that gloomy note since she didn’t feel up to keeping it going, but Noah surprised her yet again.

  “She died on Christmas Eve, the night my granddaddy’s business went up in flames.”

  “Mercy sakes. What an awful combination of tragedies for you, especially after what you’d endured during the war.”

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  “You guess?” Grace had been so angry with Noah hersel
f lately, that her anger now, on his behalf, surprised her. “I should say you should guess! First the woman you loved died, and then those wretched people burned your business.”

  “Yeah, well, there’s not much of that sort of thing going on these days anymore, so I guess I shouldn’t dwell on it.”

  She didn’t understand at first. When his meaning hit her, it made her sad. “Oh. I suppose not. I suppose today people are too busy trying to rebuild and heal the wounds to tear things down.”

  “I reckon.”

  Their horses clopped on for a few minutes while their riders pondered the mysteries of life.

  “You know,” Grace said after a moment or two, “losing Frank hurt me more than I have words for, but I’ll never be sorry I loved him.” She glanced sideways at Noah, hoping he felt the same way about Julia.

  After another short pause, Noah said, “Lucky for you.”

  She got the feeling he didn’t share her sentiments. If Julia was as cold-hearted and self-centered as Grace figured she was, she didn’t blame him.

  Good grief, what was the matter with her? She didn’t even know Mr. Partridge’s precious Julia. For all Grace knew, Julia had been a treasure. Maybe he’d been as cold and aloof then as he was now. After darting him another glance, she didn’t believe it.

  # # #

  Noah felt a bitter sense of defeat when they rode up to the boundaries of Grace Richardson’s property along the Pecos River. The land her estimable Frank had bought extended for acres on each side of the river. There’d never be any question about water rights here, unless someone tried to dam the river upstream. Since the land in this176 176é area was perilously dry, that was an important consideration.

  They dismounted. Noah unsaddled the horses and let them drink deeply of the mineral-rich water of the Pecos. It was a good thing these two horses weren’t anything fancy. Some of the thoroughbreds the plantation owners back in Virginia used to breed would have keeled over in a colic if their delicate constitutions had been fed this water. It was hard as iron. As hard as Noah Partridge.