A Western Christmas Homecoming: Christmas Day Wedding Bells ; Snowbound in Big Springs ; Christmas with the Outlaw

by Lynna Banning

  She focused her gaze on the street below, where two unkempt-looking men lurched down the street after a well-dressed gentleman riding a horse.

  “You know,” she said in a puzzled tone, “since we arrived in this town I have seen only four women, and two of those were hotel maids. I find that very strange.”

  Rand frowned. “Why is that strange?”

  “Well, it does explain why the men at the Golden Nugget are so eager to talk to me. They must be starved for female companionship.”

  Rand suppressed a groan. “The men at the Golden Nugget talk to you because you’re damned good-looking,” he blurted out. “And every single one of them would like to do more than just talk!”

  She turned from the window with an odd expression in her eyes. “Oh, I hardly think—”

  “Alice.”

  “Yes, Rand?”

  “You are a very beautiful woman. And it’s not because of that silky red dress with all the sparkles and that low neckline that shows your—uh...that low neckline. You are probably the most enticing female they’ve ever seen.”

  “Oh, I never thought of that.”

  He rolled his eyes. “How can you be unaware of how attractive you are?”

  She said nothing for so long he wondered if she was insulted by what he’d said.

  “Alice?”

  She turned back to the window. “When Dottie and I were growing up, she was always the pretty one. I was the smart one, more interested in books than dresses or ribbons or how to curl my hair.”

  “What did your mother tell you? Or your father?”

  She bit her lip and studied the carpet. “Mama and Papa were both killed when we were little. Dottie was three, I was seven. Papa’s sister brought us to Smoke River to live, and then she disappeared.”

  “You mean your aunt abandoned you?”

  “Yes, I suppose so. One day she just wasn’t there anymore. Dottie and I used to make up stories about what happened to Aunt Frances, about how she was really a famous opera singer and had to return to Paris for a concert, or that she was really a Russian princess in disguise and had traveled to Smoke River incognito. Dottie believed everything. I didn’t really believe the stories we made up, but I couldn’t stand to hear my sister cry at night, so I went on making them up.”

  Rand coughed to clear his throat. “How did you end up at the boardinghouse with Sarah and Rooney?”

  Alice gave a little half laugh. “Sarah and Rooney found us, really. When I started to go to school, the teacher found out that Dottie and I were living in old Mr. Cooper’s bunkhouse, out on his ranch. Nobody had lived there for years, so after Aunt Frances left we just sort of moved in. When Sarah heard about it she drove out in a wagon and got us and brought us back to Rose Cottage. They adopted us, really. Later, when Dottie grew up and married Jim Coleman, Rooney was best man.”

  Rand made a mental note of that, then asked another question, this time about Dorothy’s husband, Jim Coleman.

  “Dottie was married when she turned sixteen. Jim had an assay business in Idaho, so they moved away to Silver City.”

  “And you stayed in Smoke River with Sarah and Rooney.”

  “Yes. By then, though, I had already been working at the library for a couple of years. When they built the library in town, the man who gave all the money, Mr. Normanson, asked me to choose all the books. And then he hired me to be the librarian. Reading all those wonderful books is probably where I get my taste for wild stories and tall tales.”

  “Like Robin Hood and Little John,” he said quietly.

  She spun away from the window. “Did you like that story, Rand? It’s one of my favorites.”

  He couldn’t stop looking at her. She’d worn her hair down tonight, and suddenly he wanted to gather up a handful of the dark, glossy waves tumbling about her shoulders and bury his nose in it. What Alice had just told him about her childhood and the library didn’t explain half of what this woman was.

  He smoothed one finger across his mustache and tried to think. He couldn’t afford to let himself get distracted in the middle of a murder investigation. He hadn’t been interested in a woman since his Texas Ranger days, and when she’d been killed he’d sworn he’d never allow another female he cared about into his life.

  But it was growing harder and harder to keep his mind off Alice Montgomery. Especially when she was playing Lolly Maguire.

  “Rand? Please say something.”

  “Yeah, I liked your Robin Hood story. You. Everything.”

  She must have heard something in his voice because she walked over and sat down on the bed beside him. Instantly he stood up and moved away. He didn’t trust himself anywhere near her.

  Lordy, he needed a drink!

  Huh! He was no better than weak-willed Sheriff Lipscomb, drinking on duty. God in heaven, it was going to be a long night.

  “Rand, what is the matter? Did I say something wrong?” Her eyes looked hurt and a little frightened.

  He crumbled. “Alice, dammit, I—”

  She rose slowly and moved toward him, her face pale. “What?” she breathed.

  He reached out to touch her shoulder. “Hell and damn, I’m half in love with Lolly Maguire and you’re not even real! I’m trying to investigate this killing, and I don’t need any distraction!”

  To his surprise, she laughed. “Oh, thank goodness. I thought there was something really wrong!”

  “Alice, what in the hell do you think this is?”

  She looked up at him with the most puzzling look he’d ever seen on a woman’s face. “Oh, Rand, it’s very simple, really.”

  “Simple? It doesn’t seem simple to me. Why don’t you explain?”

  “It’s simple because...” She stretched up on tiptoe and brushed her lips against his cheek. “Lolly Maguire is just a pretend person, and you’re just a pretend George Winston Oliver. It’s only these pretend people who are attracted to each other, not you and me.”

  He jerked as if she’d shot him. “What? Are you crazy?”

  She laughed again, more softly. “It’s just Lolly and George,” she repeated.

  “No!” he said brusquely. “Lolly or not, or Alice, or whoever you are, I can’t fall—and you can’t. We have work to do.”

  “Yes, I know,” she said with a little catch in her voice. “We have to find out who murdered my sister.”

  “Yeah. I just wanted to remind you that’s why we’re here.”

  “Together,” she said.

  “In this hotel room.”

  “Together,” she said again.

  “Alice.” He curved his fingers around her shoulders and purposefully set her aside. “If you stay here one more minute, I’m going to kiss you, and I won’t want to stop. Do you understand?”

  “Oh,” she breathed.

  “Alice?”

  “I never, ever thought this would happen to me,” she whispered. “And I...I have a confession to make.”

  His heart dropped into his stomach. “Yeah?”

  “I have never kissed a man. I mean really kissed a man. Not unless you count the boys out behind the barn at dances.”

  Rand couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cheer. Alice was the most unexpected, most surprising, most puzzling, most maddeningly attractive female he’d ever encountered. He prayed he could get through the next few days until he’d solved the murder without compromising her.

  He glanced over her head at the two beds in the room, shoved together to make a wide, almost double sleeping arrangement against one wall. He could separate them, pull them far apart from each other. But he’d been sleeping at just an arm’s length from Alice for the past three nights. Why stop now?

  Because, you idiot, because now you’re falling in love with her and you’re an honorable man. Or you used to be.

  The answer to this dilemma was
simple, he decided. Just stop falling in love with her.

  Her voice startled him. “What will we do tomorrow, Rand?”

  The question jolted him out of his mental rambling. “Tomorrow? Well, we—I will visit your sister’s assay office, talk to the people who work there and look through the business records. Then I’ll look up Dorothy’s attorney, find out whether she had a will.”

  “Oh, good. I was getting a bit bored talking to the miners at the Golden Nugget.”

  “You’re not coming with me.”

  “Oh, but I am, Rand.” She pressed her lips together. “Dottie was my sister, and I am your undercover assistant. You need me.”

  “You’ll have to be Lolly Maguire,” he warned.

  She laughed. “I am growing fond of Lolly Maguire. She’s like my secret self, someone I could never be in real life, just in a pretend world.”

  “It could be dangerous,” he warned. “A killer is a killer. He’ll be ruthless in covering up his crime.”

  “Well, of course, Rand. I knew that all along.”

  He just looked at her. Alice was not just surprising, she was shocking. She was brave. Foolishly brave. And, right in character, her next question surprised him.

  “Do you think the dining room is still open? I find I am most dreadfully hungry.”

  Chapter Ten

  That night Rand couldn’t sleep. Neither could Alice, as far as he could tell. He couldn’t hear her breathing, and he suspected she was lying awake four feet away from him, wondering whether he was asleep. Being in a hotel room with her wasn’t like sleeping rolled up in blankets beside a campfire; this was far more dangerous.

  The problem was he had surreptitiously watched her peel off that red dress and a silky-sounding petticoat, and then he’d kept right on watching right down to her lacy camisole and frilly drawers. By the time she crawled under the blue quilt covering her bed, his groin was swollen and he was plenty hard.

  This is just plain damn crazy.

  Now he lay awake, aching and feeling lonelier than he’d ever been in his life. He realized suddenly that nothing was going to help until two things happened. First, Dorothy’s murderer was caught. And second, he could hold Alice in his arms and kiss her for as long as he wanted.

  But God knew that might never happen. Not the catching the murderer part, but the Alice part. He was sure of his ability to apprehend a killer; he was less sure about Alice. Lolly Maguire might want him to kiss her, but what about Alice Montgomery? What would Alice want?

  He flopped over and closed his eyes again.

  Alice listened to Rand toss and turn for another hour until all at once she couldn’t stand it one more minute. “Rand!”

  He sat straight up in bed. “Yeah? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Everything.”

  “Well, which is it, ‘nothing’ or ‘everything’? Or maybe it’s just ‘something,’ huh?”

  She twisted to face him. “Rand, you are absolutely no help in a crisis.”

  “What crisis? What are you talking about? We’ve barely started to solve your sister’s murder... What crisis are you referring to?”

  “I’m...worried. And I can’t sleep.”

  “Maybe you’re hungry.”

  She had no answer to that. At midnight he had conducted her downstairs to the dining room, where she had devoured fried chicken and mashed potatoes and he had downed a platter of dry scrambled eggs and bacon.

  “Actually,” she said hesitantly, “feeling hungry isn’t the problem.”

  “But?” His voice sounded both sleepy and exasperated.

  She couldn’t answer. She lay still for a long time, wondering what was wrong. She was feeling hungry for something, but it wasn’t food.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong, Rand. Something is nagging at the back of my mind, but I don’t know what it is.”

  “And this is your crisis, is it?” he said in a tired voice. “Something ‘nagging’?”

  “Well, yes. I’m feeling restless and upset and confused, and I’m starting to realize how alone I am now that Dottie is gone. I feel lost, Rand.”

  He groaned, and the next thing he knew she started to cry and he was sitting on the bed beside her. He pulled her upright and held her tight against him.

  “Alice,” he breathed.

  “Don’t talk, Rand. Just hold me and listen. All of a sudden I’m frightened. Not about play-acting as Lolly Maguire, I know I can ferret out information from the miners at the Golden Nugget that you can use to catch Dottie’s murderer. It’s something else, something I’ve never felt before.”

  “Want to try to put it into words?”

  “No. It’s too unsettling.”

  “Try, Alice. You might feel better if you talk about it. Sometimes that cuts things down to size.”

  She hesitated, then drew in an uneven breath. “Dottie’s death has brought my own life into clear focus, made me wonder about things I never thought about before.”

  She stopped and mopped the tears off her cheeks. Rand gave her a little shake. “What things? Seems to me you’ve done a good deal of thinking up until now. What’s puzzling you?”

  “Well... Oh, Rand, it’s hard to admit this but deep down underneath I am frightened, really frightened, for the first time in my life. And I am surprised at how much I enjoy pretending to be Lolly Maguire.”

  “Yeah,” he said drily. “I’m surprised, too.” He could feel her body trembling and it brought out all his protective instincts. “And?” he prompted.

  “And it makes me wonder who I am. I mean who I really am inside. Am I a librarian who is play-acting at being a seductive siren? Or am I a siren play-acting as a librarian?”

  He tried not to laugh at that, but she went on without pausing.

  “And then I start wondering what is my life worth, really? What is worth doing in life?”

  “Alice, I don’t want you to be frightened. And I sure as hell don’t want you to get hurt. Maybe we should give up on this plan?”

  She twisted to face him. “No. I want to find the killer. If he shot Dottie, he could kill someone else.”

  He stared at her for a long moment, then without thinking he bent his head and kissed her. She was warm and tentative and unknowingly inviting, and he was lost the instant his lips touched hers. After a moment he realized her mouth was opening under his, soft and inviting, and...

  He broke away, his breathing ragged. For a long moment she didn’t utter a word, and then she shocked the stuffing out of him.

  “Thank you,” she whispered. “I will never forget that.”

  He blinked. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

  “Yes,” she said, her voice trembling, “maybe you should have.”

  “No. We’ve got a lot of things ahead of us before...” He pressed her head into the curve of his shoulder and whispered against her hair, “Before we can think about other things besides Pinkerton and being a US Marshal.”

  “Rand, I think—”

  He clamped his jaws together. “Don’t think, Alice. Go to sleep.”

  * * *

  In the morning Rand woke before it was fully light and lay staring at the lump under the quilt next to him. His mind felt bruised. What had happened last night to make him crazy enough to kiss her? Guess he’d better knock off the beer at the Golden Nugget!

  Jumping jennies, he wanted to knock off everything, the murder investigation, his undercover plan...

  And Alice. Most of all, Alice.

  But he knew he couldn’t. He was a sworn US Marshal and his duty was clear. The way forward had nothing to do with how scrambled up his insides felt. It had to do with Lolly Maguire and her clever ways of prying information out of half-drunk miners at the Golden Nugget.

  “Alice. Wake up.”

  “I’m awake,” she said, her voice sleepy.
<
br />   “We have work to do.”

  “Yes...work,” she muttered. She rolled over and curled into a ball under the covers.

  “Alice, the sooner we finish what we came to do, the sooner you can get back to Smoke River.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “Alice.”

  She sat up. “Oh, all right,” she said. “I was having the loveliest dream, and you spoiled it.”

  He didn’t want to know about her dream. If it was anything like his dream, she would still have the quilt pulled over her head and wouldn’t speak to him for a week.

  “After breakfast we’re going to visit your sister’s assay office, see what we can uncover.”

  “Who will I be today, Rand? Lolly or Alice?”

  “Lolly.”

  “Well, Lolly is hungry.” She tossed back the quilt and swung her bare legs to the carpeted floor. She’d slept in her drawers and that lace-frosted camisole, and he tried not to look as she padded across to the basin and water pitcher on the bureau to splash water on her face. Then she dug a hairbrush out of her travel bag and began pulling it through her dark hair.

  Rand closed his eyes.

  “I’m going to have flapjacks for breakfast,” she announced. Her voice sounded funny, and he snapped his lids open. Her head was hanging upside down while she brushed away at her hair. He seized the moment and pulled on his jeans and a shirt, buckled the revolver at his hip and buttoned his sheepskin vest across his chest.

  When she finished arranging her hair, she donned her petticoat and the sparkly red dress while he tried to focus on the window overlooking the street.

  “It is amazing to me,” she remarked as they descended the stairs and entered the dining room, “that I could be so hungry after all that late-night food and liquor I drank last night.”

  “What liquor? The drinks those miners are guzzling are full-strength, but the ones they buy for you are pretty well watered down.”