Here she sat, hale and hearty, which was more than could be said of many folks. Moreover, she enjoyed her job as a nanny. As a substitute mother, she was able to pour her love into many children instead of just her own two or six.
Partings were hard, though. But usually after a good cry, she would be off to nurture another friendless child with her heart nearly intact.
Most of her assignments involved caring for the little ones who needed love the most. And truth be told, she needed to give them love as much as they needed to receive it.
At this very moment, though, it was time to put her secret longing for a baby aside and study the problem at hand. That being, how was she to play Santa when it was impossible?
Naturally, no solution presented itself.
Better if she relaxed in her chair, sipped her tea and listened to the sweet song of the blowing wind.
If she didn’t, the thought that she avoided like one would avoid a hot wax burn would creep into her mind.
In addition to never being a mother, she would never be a wife.
Men wanted offspring. Her father had tried to prepare her for that fact, but still, it broke her heart when the few suitors she’d had sought other brides as soon as they discovered her dysfunction.
She would never have a child...she would never have a husband. Life was what it was—she had come to terms with that. Most of the time, at least.
In all, she was blessed. She’d been given a sound, healthy body and a heart that cared for others.
This was enough for her. Sharing herself with children who didn’t have a parent made her feel aglow inside.
Feeling the love they gave back made her feel like a mother...just of a different sort.
* * *
Something bounded toward him in the snow. Joe Landon stood tall in the saddle, squinting his eyes and trying to make out what it might be. Flakes, tossed about on an erratic wind, blurred the image, but he could make out that it was coming and coming fast.
Whatever the brown critter was, it wasn’t alarming his horse.
From a hundred feet away, he heard it yip. A dog was all it was. From fifty feet away Joe could tell that the animal was distressed. Scared of being caught alone in the storm was his guess.
“Best we see to it, Charlie,” he said to the horse, then urged him forward with a click of his tongue.
Having gotten Joe’s attention, the dog spun about and ran back the way it had come.
“What do you reckon it’s doing?” Joe said. “Where’d it even come from?”
The dog spun back about to bark at him. Apparently he wasn’t approaching the dog as fast as it wanted him to. It dashed back, ran two circles about Charlie, then bounded away.
The temperature was falling and falling hard. He needed to get to Willow Bank, not play games with a dog.
But a sense of something being wrong told him that this was no game. In spite of the blizzard sweeping in, he couldn’t just leave the confounded pup to freeze.
Besides, dogs didn’t usually act this way without there being trouble.
Even Charlie must feel the wrongness in the air, because he quickened his gait.
Two animals having a sense of wrongness made him feel ill at ease. He leaned forward in the saddle to scan the horizon. The land didn’t reveal a thing, being increasingly smothered with snow.
He followed the dog for a quarter of a mile before he spotted a wagon wheel, wrong end up, half-buried in white.
Leaping from Charlie’s back, he struggled through shin-deep snow, his heart thudding against his ribs.
It was too quiet...unnaturally still. Even the dog had quit barking.
He walked the perimeter of the wagon and spotted the body of a man. He knelt beside him. That’s when he noticed the woman. It appeared that they had both been killed when the wagon flipped. From the way things looked, he didn’t believe they had suffered.
With the snow falling thicker and faster, there was no time to attend to the bodies. There was nothing to be done now but to take the dog, continue on his way to Willow Bank and report the tragedy to the marshal.
He whistled to the dog, but it had curled up in the snow, lying there as though it didn’t want to leave its folks.
“Come on, fella.” He didn’t know if it was a male—the dog was too shaggy to tell. “I’ve got a big old ranch for you to run on...if you stay here you’ll freeze.”
The dog whined.
“You’ll like the place. You can chase cows all day long.”
The dog seemed unimpressed, but at this point it didn’t matter what the critter wanted. Joe wouldn’t have its death on his conscience. Walking a short distance from the wagon, he knelt and scooped the hairy beast up.
From a divot in the snow a pair of blue eyes blinked at him. A tiny fist, curled up tight, waved about.
Stunned, he set the dog aside and lifted the baby.
Her cheeks were as pink as the bow tied in her hair. She didn’t feel overly cold...thank the good Lord. The dog must have been keeping her warm.
The baby wrapped her fingers about his thumb and smiled. He guessed that she must be only a few months old.
“Don’t worry about a thing, little lady. I’ve got you.”
He tucked her inside his buffalo hide coat, then mounted Charlie. The dog trotted alongside, glancing up every now and again.
Reaching inside his coat pocket, he withdrew his harmonica and pressed it to his mouth.
He played “O Holy Night.” The music drifting serenely among the snowflakes sounded like a prayer.
That was what he intended. A prayer of safekeeping for the souls who had gone home today, but also a prayer of thanks for the life that had been spared.
Emotion constricted his throat, but looking down, he saw the dog’s tail wagging.
Chapter Two
In her dream, someone was pounding on a drum.
Pounding, pounding, pounding, with no sense of rhythm.
She sat up suddenly in the chair. Not a drum or a dream—someone was hammering on the door with a great deal of urgency.
It had to be midnight or later; the logs in the fire had burned to embers.
A gust of wind whirled under the eaves with a moan.
She scrambled out of the chair and hurried for the door, her heart thundering from being awakened so suddenly.
What on earth could have brought someone out in what had clearly become the blizzard that the old folks had predicted?
She opened the door to see a man standing on the porch. Truly, he looked more like a snowman, with the brim of his Stetson filled with snow, his coat embedded with it and his boots caked in ice.
A dog rushed inside, shaking itself and flinging snow far and wide.
The shaggy animal could get the whole room damp and she’d still want to fall on her knees and welcome it with a grateful hug.
Would the man part with it for five dollars? That would be half of all she had, but for Brody’s sake, it would be well worth the price.
“Please,” she said, tugging on the man’s coat sleeve because he seemed to be frozen to the porch, “come inside.”
“I’m obliged, ma’am.” Frost dusted his lashes. That had to be what made his eyes look so incredibly blue. “Is this the parsonage? Couldn’t tell for sure with snow hiding the landmarks.”
“Yes, and welcome.”
In spite of the fact that she was indicating he should come in out of the cold, he stayed put on the porch.
“Have you got room in the stable for my horse?”
He had a dog...and a horse?
Next she would find out he was here to adopt twin boys.
For all she knew, beneath all the snow he really was Santa Claus.
“There’s room and plenty of feed, if the horse doesn’t mind rooming with a cow.”
“Wouldn’t feel at home without one.” He smiled, his teeth straight and white.
If she wasn’t mistaken, his eyes flashed briefly in playfulness in spite of the fact
that, at this late hour, he had been traveling in a blizzard.
She suspected that beneath the hat, coat, scarf and layer of snow, he was a sight more handsome than Santa.
“Room for you, as well...here in the house, of course.”
“Greatly obliged.”
“I’ll fix you something warm to drink while you tend to your horse. Later, you can tell me what brings you out in the middle of the night, and in this weather, no less.”
Please, dear Lord, let him be looking for orphans.
“It’s...well, something I found.”
He opened his coat and handed her an infant.
The world tilted. Her mind whirled, then went white.
The next thing she was aware of was warmth on her face. A velvety-smooth tongue licked her from chin to temple. The dog!
The stranger’s very solid and muscular thigh shifted behind her back as he knelt on the floor, supporting her.
Cracking open her eyes, she watched him shove the dog back. He gazed down at her. A lock of black hair curled across his forehead. His brows slanted down, showing concern.
In one arm, he cradled the baby.
She’d never fainted in her life and could not be sure that she had done it now, but in her defense, it was not every day that Santa came knocking at the door.
* * *
Joe pressed his hand on the woman’s shoulder when she tried to stand up.
“Whoa there, ma’am. Best take a minute until your balance is steady.”
“It is,” she sputtered. “I can’t imagine what happened. Honestly, I’ve never fainted before.”
When it seemed that she was going to get up in spite of his good-sense advice, he slipped his arm about her back and eased her up.
Blushing, she glanced at him, held his gaze. He wondered if she was embarrassed about the faint, or because he, a stranger, had his fingers curled about her ribs.
Whatever the case, he’d been raised better than to let a woman lie on the floor unaided.
Add to that, she had looked like an angel in that Christmas-red robe, her blond hair loose and fanned about her on the rug.
A man would have a heart as black as the ace of spades not to offer assistance.
“I reckon you were asleep when I knocked on your door,” he said. She shifted her gaze from him to the baby. “I can only imagine we were a shock.”
“More than you know.” She stepped beyond his reach, but he closed the gap in case she went down again. He couldn’t be sure what was wrong with her.
“You found her, you said?”
He nodded, didn’t want to have to tell the story of how, but this was the orphanage and the baby a recent orphan.
“Soon as I get the animals settled, I’ll make a pot of tea and tell you what I know.”
“I’ll make the tea.”
He thought she might be up to it, but might not.
“I know how. Pretty darn good at it, in fact,” he assured her while touching her elbow to lead her to the chair beside the fire. “I make it for my ma before bed every night. Besides, the baby needs warming. We’ve been riding for hours, and it’s cold as a glacier out there.”
He set the child in her arms and was relieved to see that she went into the parlor and sat without protest. He hadn’t made it up about the baby being cold. For a time the little one had been as cozy as a moth in a cocoon beneath his coat. But a blizzard was a damn cold thing, and a deep chill had begun to set in.
The weather had especially taken a toll on the animals, being exposed to the elements as they had.
“I won’t be long.”
He added a log to the embers in the hearth, then gave them a stir before he walked toward the door. He motioned for the dog to follow. It must’ve been well trained, because it trotted after him, wagging its fuzzy tail.
“Your dog is welcome to stay in the house.”
When he turned to smile his thanks, she was gazing at the baby, a look of utter longing on her face.
He had a story to tell, but he wondered what hers was.
* * *
The baby girl snuggling in her arms was not hers, she knew that...in her mind she was well aware of it.
She touched the pink ribbon tied in the mass of dark hair, let her fingers slide through loops so soft she barely felt them under her fingertips.
“What happened to you, sweetheart?”
Clearly, the child had been well cared for. She was plump in all the right places and wearing a pretty gown that appeared to have been stitched by loving hands.
That was what Mary would do if she were blessed with a baby like this. Make her the finest wardrobe that caring fingers could sew.
She stroked one pink cheek and the baby turned her mouth toward her finger. The man who brought her had said that they had been riding for hours. No doubt she was getting hungry.
Footsteps pounded on the porch. Having returned from the stable, her guest must be stomping the ice from his boots. When he opened the door, a blast of frigid wind fought him for control.
She’d give him credit for shoving the door closed without spilling a drop from the pail full of milk that he carried.
“The poor little mite will be getting hungry,” he said, then turned toward the kitchen.
She ought to get up and help, but it had been an age since an infant slept in her arms. Moreover, he had said that he could make tea. It only followed that he could warm milk.
What he would not know was where the reverend kept baby bottles. The parsonage, having served as the orphanage for some years, was well stocked.
She sat for a moment more, then kissed the baby’s cheek. She laid her on the couch, where the warmth of the fire would easily reach. Padding across the room, the dog sniffed the child, then followed his tail in a circle and settled on the floor below her.
Coming into the kitchen, she found a pair of mugs on the kitchen table. Fragrant steam from the tea curled into the air.
Her visitor stood with his back toward her, stirring the milk in a pot. It was a little surprising to see a man so comfortable in the kitchen.
He turned, flashed her a grin. There was something about the crinkle at the corners of his eyes and the lift of his lips that made her feel an affinity to him.
How odd. She was certain that they had never met.
She would not forget a man as appealing as he was. Chances were this sensation of connectedness was simply due to the common goal of caring for the child.
Clearly, it could have nothing to do with him alone, since she had barely spoken more than a few sentences to him.
“Will she be safe in there, alone with your dog?” It seemed so but one could not be too careful.
“He isn’t mine, but I’ve reason to believe that he would give his life for her.”
That was a relief...and the dog did not belong to him? Perhaps she could acquire a Christmas gift for Brody and keep her money at the same time.
“I’m Mary,” she said. “Mary Blair.”
“Joe Landon.” He nodded his head. “Many thanks for letting us in. Where’s the reverend, by the way?”
“In Chicago, on his honeymoon.”
Joe Landon’s brows arched. “Now, that’s a surprise. I figured him to be a lifelong bachelor.”
“Well, one never knows. So you and the reverend are friends?”
“Acquainted, more like it. I try and catch his sermons when I’m in town.” He removed the pan with the milk from the stove and set it on the side table she used for food preparation.
Mary went into the pantry, stood on a stool and reached for the basket on the top shelf where the reverend kept items for infant care. It was just beyond her reach, but if she went up on her toes...
“Careful.” Suddenly Joe Landon was standing beside her, his hands poised as if ready to catch her.
“I’m steadier than I look.” She could not help but be embarrassed that he thought otherwise.
“Here, let me help you down.”
He took her ha
nd and didn’t let go until both her feet were firmly on the floor.
That odd feeling of connection hit her again. She’d be a fool to deny that she liked the sensation, and she had never considered herself a fool.
“I’ll get it.” He didn’t need the stool to reach the basket.
He’d taken off his outer coat when he came inside. The one he kept on was of well-worn leather having a greenish hue.
Standing close to him because of the tight space in the pantry, she caught the scent of cowhide...also a whiff of fresh straw that clung to him from having been in the stable.
He smelled quite manly. She started to sigh, then caught herself. Sometimes, though, it was hard not to wonder what it would be like to have a man of her own...a man like this one.
From what she had seen of him so far, he was both kind and handsome...heroic as well, she figured. Chances were he had taken some risk riding through the storm to get to the parsonage.
He handed her the box.
Since it would be inappropriate to remain in the close confines of the pantry when the task of retrieving the infant items was finished, she hurried out and set the box on the table.
Opening it, she found a pretty porcelain bottle painted with red flowers.
“It looks like Christmas.” She took it out, then washed it with soap and water.
“Give her something cheerful to look at while she’s feeding,” Joe said, then plucked the bottle from her hand and dried it with a dishrag.
“I’ve yet to hear her story, but I imagine her mother would want her to have pretty things,” she said, surprised at the little giddy-up that her heart took when his fingers had brushed hers in taking the bottle.
“What do you say we sit in here to talk so as not to wake her? I’ll tell you what happened...or as near as I can figure what did.”
Since the view into the parlor was wide-open, Mary sat on the long wood bench at the table. Joe sat opposite her.
It went through her mind that she ought to run upstairs and change out of her nightclothes. But it seemed a silly thing to do in the middle of the night, and moreover, it was shallow when the story he had to tell would no doubt be life shattering to the baby.
Folks didn’t ordinarily bring children who had parents to the parsonage...especially at this hour and in a blizzard.
Dreaming of a Western Christmas: His Christmas BelleThe Cowboy of Christmas PastSnowbound with the Cowboy Page 20