The Cowboy from Christmas Past

by The Cowboy from Christmas Past (lit)

  "No."

  "Was it an accident?"

  "Don't think so."

  She swallowed. "That doesn't make me feel better."

  He turned to face her. "I'm sorry."

  "Why would someone shoot at you?" Of course she knew the answer: he was a man who hunted people down and killed them. Eventually someone would want revenge.

  He came over to her, taking a strand of her hair in one hand and smoothing it through his fingers. He touched her face gently. "I liked kissing you," he said, "and I have to say I'm glad you're still here with me."

  Auburn felt herself begin to shake despite the warmth of his hands. "Why would someone shoot at you?" she asked again. "Do you know who it was?"

  "I think I do," Dillinger said, "and I don't think they were shooting at me. I think they were shooting at you."

  She felt space and time float around her, wondered if she was finally going to levitate. "I'm going to faint," she said, and the last thought she had was how glad she was that Dillinger was there to catch her.

  * * *

  WHEN AUBURN AWAKENED, she wasn't in her own bed. She knew instantly that she was in Dillinger's. How long she'd slept she wasn't certain, but not long enough to forget what had happened.

  Dillinger must be wrong. No one wanted to shoot her; no one here knew her. "Dillinger," she whispered, feeling the other side of the bed for him.

  Her hand connected with a solid, well-muscled back. "Huh?" he grunted.

  "Are you awake?"

  "I am now." He rolled over to face her. "Go back to sleep. I think you had too much blackberry wine."

  "I think I didn't have enough. My plans are to have some for breakfast."

  He grunted again, reached out a strong arm to pull her toward him and nestle her against him. "You talk too much and I have to get up at four to milk the cows. Go back to sleep."

  She couldn't sleep! "Dillinger, no one here knows me. No one would want to kill me."

  He rested his jaw on top of her head. "I'm going to put weight on your skull like this so your mouth will shut."

  She wriggled from underneath his jaw. "You're just trying to scare me so I'll sleep with you."

  "Never needed an excuse for a woman to sleep with me," Dillinger said with a head-splitting yawn. "Go to sleep, little one."

  "Don't talk to me like a child!"

  "You're acting like one."

  She turned over to put herself nose-to-nose with her opinionated bedmate. "You accuse me of acting like a child when you won't even acknowledge that your career has come back to bite you in the butt."

  "It was Polly's brother," he said.

  She blinked, taking that in. "How do you know?"

  "I found his tracks in the snow, know his shoe size and brand. Know the type of tobacco he smokes and could smell it in the air." His hands flexed at her waist, rolling her back over again, repositioning her the way he wanted her.

  "So go to his house and ask him what the heck he wants," Auburn said, "because it's not me."

  "I don't want him to know that I know," Dillinger said. "It's likely he would consider it his duty to kill any woman who tried to replace his sister."

  Auburn sat up, punched a finger against a remarkably firm chest. "And you were going to tell me this when?"

  "Never. I thought Pierre was in Alaska. Didn't cross my mind that a year trapping hadn't worn away his anger at me for letting his sister die."

  "Letting her die? You didn't want Polly to die."

  "I know. But he thinks I didn't do enough to help her. Actually, he thinks she got pneumonia because she was trying to run away from me, and as you may have noted, it's quite a distance in the snow from here just to the forest, much less to town."

  "She was far too independent for that," Auburn said. "Even I know she would have just hitched up your buggy or your sleigh and hotfooted it out of here if she'd wanted to badly enough."

  "Buggies won't move in this snow."

  "So you're saying she tried to walk? She was too intelligent for that." Auburn had spent a lot of time going through Polly's belongings. The woman had been a lot of things, but dumb as a rock was not one of them. She'd been a talented seamstress; her cupboards were neat, and the few drawings and paintings sprinkled throughout the house were well done. Polly had been a woman able to make creative use of her time on a ranch so remote that most people would go crazy from the lack of human companionship.

  "She hitched the sleigh. It didn't make it. She was caught between here and town. She was in the snow for a very long time before I found her by following the sleigh tracks. She wasn't an experienced driver."

  Auburn heard the quiet edge in his voice. "So she was going to town."

  "Yes, but…she was going to see about a baby who'd just been born and was very ill. Polly loved children, desperately wanted a baby of our own. She knew the mother needed help, and went to see if she could bring the baby here while the woman recovered from her birthing fever."

  Auburn turned toward Dillinger. "I'm so sorry," she said softly against his cheek, and this time when he took her in his arms, she hoped he planned on doing more than kissing her. She needed to feel his heartbeat against hers, wanted to give him the comfort he so much needed.

  But he pulled back from her. "This is a bad idea," he whispered, though he placed a gentle kiss against her lips. "I knew sleeping in the same bed with you would lead to temptations no mortal man could resist. I'm no prince, you know."

  "Dillinger, come to me," she whispered.

  "I have no way of keeping you from conceiving a child. And what if you are sent back to your own place and time? If you were pregnant with my baby, it would be very difficult for you. I couldn't stand wondering whether I had a child in the future that couldn't name me as his father."

  "Oh," Auburn said, glad that was all that was bothering him, "I won't become pregnant." She kissed the tip of his nose, trying to tempt him to her. But he was so stubborn, she realized. More stubborn than she was.

  "How do you know?" he demanded.

  "One of the many wonders of my century is a small device a woman wears all the time that keeps her from getting pregnant."

  His hands roamed under her bottom, bunching her dress up. "How?"

  "By blocking things." She cleared her throat. "That's all the explanation you need of women and the sexual revolution."

  "Between that and the plastic diaper, I'm beginning to think I should have stayed in your time with you." Dillinger reached around to begin unbuttoning the back of her dress. "And this works every time?"

  He sounded as if he thought she was telling a fairy tale he greatly wanted to believe, and yet was afraid the book would be ripped away from him before the happy ending. She put her hand over him, finding exactly what she wanted. "Yes," she said, and then whispered against his lips, "Dillinger, show me the stars."

  He hesitated for just an instant, grappling with a hundred questions and a thousand demons, but Auburn was too sweet, too soft and much too willing for him to resist. He allowed himself to melt into her, and again wondered if this woman had been brought through space and time to be with him.

  He so badly wanted to believe.

  Chapter Twelve

  Auburn awakened to an empty bed, though she wasn't surprised, since the cows came first. "Darn Bessie anyway," she said, sitting up. "Although she does make a good breakfast for you every morning…" She peeked over the side of the bed to find Rose.

  The baby wasn't in her cradle. Auburn jumped out of bed and into the green dress, hurrying to go help Dillinger. She found him in the kitchen, holding the child and making pancakes.

  "What are you doing?" Auburn demanded, feeling self-conscious, since she hadn't brushed her hair in her haste to take over baby care. Wasn't that her job? Caring for the baby and sometimes cooking when she could get the food preparation figured out? She reached to take Rose from him.

  "Making flapjacks," Dillinger said, not looking at her. "Little Miss Sunshine wanted out of her cradle at
the break of dawn."

  "Why didn't you wake me?" Auburn asked. "I could have gotten up to help."

  "You were snoring," he said. "I thought you were probably tired."

  Dillinger had kept her up for many delightful hours, certainly, and yes, she'd appreciated the recuperative sleep, but did she sense a slight reserve on his part?

  "Hey," she said, moving next to him, where he couldn't avoid eye contact, "I don't mind doing my job."

  "I can take care of a baby through some winter months," Dillinger replied, managing to avoid looking at her as he slid some pancakes onto a plate. "You don't have to stay because of us."

  The obvious answer was I'd go if I knew how, but Auburn decided maybe this cowboy, like many other men, did his best communicating after his stomach was full. So she let his remark pass, and laid the plates on the table. "This smells heavenly."

  He sat down and began to eat. It was unlike him not to be chivalrous and wait on her, but maybe he was a cranky guy on occasion. Auburn set the baby in her lap and started on her own pancakes.

  After a moment, she realized he was staring at her. "What?" she asked. "Is something wrong?"

  He looked at her for a long time. Prickles ran over her skin as he studied her. "Dillinger?"

  "Eat," he said at last, and resumed demolishing his food.

  Something was wrong. He definitely had a bug up his hiney about something, but Auburn couldn't mind-read, so she shrugged and decided to let him work his kinks out on his own.

  * * *

  FOR LUNCH, AUBURN decided to make turkey soup. They had plenty of the huge bird left, and surely she couldn't mess up a basic broth and veggies. She lugged a cast-iron pot to the stove during Rose's naptime, then carted some water from the well to start her stock. A few moments were wasted as she considered what to substitute for bullion or boxed broth, then she tossed some butter and a chopped onion into a skillet and sautéed that with some of the blackberry wine she snitched from Dillinger's hiding place. He probably wouldn't appreciate thinking she was "tippling" at eleven in the morning, so she was careful and quick about her pilfering. Carrots, potatoes, some cabbage and even a few dried mushrooms followed the turkey into the pot. Salt and pepper finished off her recipe and she set it to simmer.

  She dusted every inch of the house, trying to keep herself occupied. Sweeping the floors didn't take long, and after an hour of Dillinger's absence, she finally heard the sound of stamping boots on the porch. At last he was back! "I hope you're over your silent treatment," she called out, flinging open the door.

  The man on the porch was definitely not Dillinger, and he didn't look all that friendly, either. A slow smile came over his lips under a handlebar mustache, but it wasn't a nice smile. He looked more as if he was baring his teeth, especially as he took in her green dress, and Auburn wished she had her frying pan so she could give him a good roundhouse smack. "Yes?" she asked, her tone cool as the outdoors.

  "Are you the lady of the house?" he asked.

  She stiffened. "Absolutely not."

  That seemed to take him aback. "You're not?"

  "No. If you want to speak to the owner, he should be back anytime." Auburn tried to close the door, but he held it open with a boot.

  "Tell Dillinger that Pierre called on him," he said. "And a word of warning—he'll try to kill you, just like he killed my sister. A man who kills easily can't change."

  "If Dillinger killed your sister, why isn't he in jail?" Auburn demanded.

  "They're afraid. The sheriff's a dolt. No one wants to mess with a man with a reputation for cold-blooded murder. But I am not afraid of him. You should be."

  Auburn slammed the door, quickly locking it. She rubbed her arms to stave off the chills running over her. "Eww," she said, "Dillinger is not going to be happy."

  He came in the back door a half hour later, a load of firewood in his arms. By then Auburn had her hair brushed and put in a ponytail, and had fortified herself with the thought that her soup was coming along nicely.

  "Pierre came by to see you," she said airily, and Dillinger dropped the logs next to the fireplace with a thud.

  "Pierre?" His eyes narrowed.

  "That's what he said." She nodded. "As in South Dakota."

  "Did you open the door?"

  "Yes, I did."

  "Don't ever do that again."

  "Well, excuse me, but you never said I shouldn't before. And anyway, I thought it was you coming home."

  He sniffed the air. "What's that smell?"

  "Soup."

  "Soup?" He seemed stunned.

  "As in turkey, broth and veggies? Maybe some rice or barley if you've got it on hand? A side of bread, if you're lucky? That kind of soup."

  He studied her, his gaze going from her head to her feet, where the Uggs poked out beneath her hem. "Auburn, about last night…"

  "Oh, now you want to talk!" she exclaimed. He couldn't call all the shots on moods. "Listen, cowboy, first you need to clarify the rules with me. I didn't know anything about not opening doors, and your pronouncement seems kind of bossy to me, especially because it's pretty lonely out here. I might even get really joyful about having a Fuller Brush salesperson drop by."

  "When someone shoots at you from the forest, you can probably assume you don't want to go outside or make yourself a target. I shouldn't have to tell you that."

  She blinked. "Dillinger, I'm from New York City. We go out. That's what we do. There are thousands of people walking around all the time, the lights are always on, it never feels unsafe. It would never have occurred to me to confine myself to the house, when there are chores needing to be done, like emptying the infernal chamber pot and getting water from the well. Besides," she said, highly annoyed, "I really think he was aiming at you. If Pierre was the shooter, he had plenty of time to do me in today, since you were off hiding your emotions somewhere."

  He grimaced. "I was not hiding my emotions."

  "What else would you call it?" She put her hands on her hips in the starchiest manner she could muster. "We spend a wonderful night together, and in the morning, you don't even bother to say, 'So I hope you saw those stars you were all hot to see.'" She had seen stars, lots of them, and she'd been dying to tell him how wonderful it had been in his big, strong arms.

  The sinfully sexy lout.

  "I thought you'd be gone," he said. "I was hoping you would be."

  She stared at him. "As in taking a long walk?"

  "As in back to your century."

  She was just a little hurt. "Oh, I get it. When the kiss didn't send me magically out of your life, you gave yourself permission to go for the extra push, a little boost to the recipe. If a kiss wasn't the talisman, then making love had to kick-start the spell. And surely you couldn't feel unfaithful to Polly's memory if you were just helping a poor lost woman get home."

  Auburn could tell he was not happy with her right now.

  "Well, maybe we need a second try," she said brightly. "The second time's probably the charm."

  He didn't think that was funny. If anything, his eyes grew darker. "I'm sorry it didn't work out the way you wanted it to."

  He turned back to stoke the fire. Auburn ignored a bit of heartbreak in her soul, and went to stir the soup after she checked on Rose, who was just beginning to wake up, probably in response to their unhappy tones. Great. This is sort of like being single in the twenty-first century, with the whole Men Are From Mars thing.

  And on top of that, she had Polly's brother running around with his issues.

  Blast.

  This was not the recuperative drive-across-America-and-experience-the-rest-of-the-continent jaunt she'd had in mind when she'd hit the road to clear her head after ditching her fiancé.

  On the other hand, it wasn't as bad as being married to Bradley would have been. Auburn sneaked a look at Dillinger, who was staring out the window, searching the landscape, probably hunting for his boob of a brother-in-law.

  Okay, Polly, girlfriend, she thought, if you bro
ught me here to make a family with these two, if this is your idea of a heavenly rescue, Mr. Stubborn's probably going to require a bit of a kick in the pants.

  And feel free to make it just a slightly harder kick than necessary, if you want.

  * * *

  MAYBE HE WAS GOING snow mad. Winter crazy. Becoming light-deprived. The woman and her tales were beginning to alter him. Or he was changing when he really didn't think he should. He hadn't expected such fullness of spirit when he'd held her in his arms last night. Auburn had surprised him. She was welcoming and responsive, doing the duty a wife normally did, and seemed to very much enjoy sharing pleasure with him.