Western Christmas Brides

by Lauri Robinson

  “Oh?” Christina’s slice of rhubarb pie sat uneaten before her. “Yes, I thought there must be more. Tell me.”

  His throat closed. “I do not think teaching other women’s children is enough.” He took a deep breath. “Even for you.” He could scarcely get the words out.

  Her eyes widened and she stared at him across the table separating them. “Even for me?” she echoed. “What right have you—”

  “No right,” he said quickly. “I have no right at all.”

  She looked into his eyes. “Other women’s children are enough for me, Ivan. I do not intend to marry.” Then she stared down at her uneaten pie and signaled the waitress. “Could you bring another fork, please?”

  She pushed the extra fork over to Ivan’s side of the table, then pushed the plate into the center. “Please help me eat this. I am not as hungry as I thought.”

  He made short work of half the pie while Christina took only a few dainty bites. While they ate, she found herself telling him about the rivalry between Kurt Jorgensen and Adam Lynford for Annamarie’s attention, and about her smart-as-a-whip student Sammy Greywolf, the boy who withstood constant harassment but never missed a day of school. She confessed the difficulty she had in corralling her students’ interest on rainy days, even her nagging fear that she wasn’t teaching them enough to justify her annual salary of one hundred dollars.

  He listened without speaking, but she could tell by the interested and sympathetic expression in his eyes that he understood every word. Finally she shoved the pie plate closer to him and laid her fork aside.

  “The rest is for you, Ivan,” she said with a smile. “You have earned it by listening to my troubles.”

  “I think is most fine, very brave of you to teach students. I think my Anna wants to be like you, but I also think—”

  “You do not approve. What if an education is what she wants? What if she wants to teach, as I do? What if she chooses not to marry?”

  He gave her a stricken look, his soft green eyes clouded with pain. “I love my Anna. I want her to be happy.”

  * * *

  Christina rolled over on her narrow bed and closed her eyes for the tenth time in the last hour. She could not allow herself to think about Ivan.

  Think about something else. Uncle Charlie’s molasses cookies or the Christmas dolls and toy trains displayed in the mercantile window. Even Teddy MacAllister’s horse.

  But her thoughts kept circling back to Ivan.

  Ivan.

  Why could she not get the man out of her thoughts? It was three o’clock in the morning and she should be planning tomorrow’s arithmetic lesson or making a new list of spelling words for the advanced readers, Sammy Greywolf and Annamarie Panovsky.

  Oh, botheration! Each morning she hurried her steps along the path hoping to catch a glimpse of Ivan Panovsky stacking logs on the woodpile or splitting kindling, his lean, muscular body arched into a clean line over the chopping block, his dark head bent in concentration.

  She liked him. She had never known anyone quite like Ivan. But it went no further than that, really it didn’t. She would not allow him to be...what? Part of her thoughts in the middle of the night?

  And she most definitely would not allow him to be part of her life!

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Oh, Miss Marnell, please say you will come?” Annamarie grasped her hand, the one holding the now squashed molasses cookie Uncle Charlie had slipped her on her way out of the bakery. “Please, please?”

  “Anna—”

  “You don’t know what this means, Miss Marnell. It’s my birthday—my twelfth birthday, just imagine that! And it’s almost Christmas. And...and also Ivan has been promoted to foreman at the sawmill. Just think, he is the foreman! Surely we should celebrate, should we not?”

  The girl clung to her hand as she stepped out the back door of the bakery and started down the street toward the schoolhouse. “Life back in New York, at the orphanage, was so awful and lonely. I dreamed and dreamed of coming to be with Ivan, and he has worked so hard to make it happen... Oh, please come. Please!”

  Christina studied the eager young face before her. It must be wonderful to be so excited about turning twelve. What she remembered about that age was fear. She had dreaded limping into her classes, hearing the snickers and cruel remarks of the other students. No one had befriended her, and at dances she’d sat alone on the sidelines, fighting to hold back tears.

  But it would not be like that for Annamarie, so pretty and so full of life and happiness. And Ivan—how proud he must be! In his quiet, unassuming way he had managed to make a life for Annamarie and himself. She knew that being promoted to foreman at the sawmill would make the townspeople look up to him.

  He deserved it. He also deserved her presence at Annamarie’s birthday celebration supper.

  “Ivan will come for you at five o’clock and walk you over to our house.”

  “Oh, he need not—”

  But the girl was gone, skipping off down the boardwalk and disappearing into Ness’s Mercantile. So, Christina acknowledged, she was to be a guest at supper tonight with Annamarie and Ivan. Under her starched white shirtwaist her heart thumped hard.

  * * *

  Promptly at five o’clock Ivan tapped at her door. As she stepped out, he took her arm and without a word guided her down the stairway and out onto the snow-dusted boardwalk. She tried to draw her arm free, but he tightened his grip. “Is slippery,” he said. “Is starting to snow.”

  He didn’t say another word until they reached the front porch of the house he had built. A huge wreath of pine boughs hung on the front door, decorated with white paper angels and tied with a wide red ribbon. Before he opened the door he stopped and turned her to face him.

  “I thank you for coming, Christina. It means much to Anna.” His green eyes held hers. “And me.”

  Her throat closed and she could only nod. It meant a lot to her, too, but she couldn’t say exactly why. Of course, it was Annamarie’s birthday and she had grown very fond of the girl. But underneath she suspected it was more than that. How much more she didn’t dare think about.

  The house smelled simply wonderful, of pine trees and an enticing, spicy aroma that made her stomach rumble in anticipation. Annamarie threw her arms around her, then took her blue wool shawl and draped it over the back of a chair near the fireplace.

  Ivan hung his sheepskin jacket on a hook in the hallway and disappeared.

  “My goodness, Anna, what smells so good?” Christina asked.

  “Stuffed cabbage. And borscht.”

  “Anna, I didn’t know you could cook!”

  “Oh, I am not cooking. Ivan is making supper.”

  “Ivan!”

  “Of course, Ivan,” a male voice called. He emerged from the kitchen brandishing a wooden spoon in one hand, a shy grin spreading across his face. An oversize, food-splattered white apron hung from his neck.

  Christina gaped at him. “Ivan, you are a man of unsuspected talents!”

  “Is not true,” he answered. “I chop wood. I dance a berezka. I build furniture. That is all.”

  All? Christina’s gaze fell on the overcrowded bookcase next to the fireplace. He read books. Lots of books. She squinted at the titles. Shelley and Keats. Cervantes. Chaucer. Even books about architecture and...raising chickens?

  Annamarie grasped her hand. “Miss Marnell, come and see the beautiful bed Ivan built for me. And my bedroom! Ivan painted it all blue, my favorite color, and I want you to see it!” She tugged on Christina’s hand and drew her up the staircase.

  The room was indeed lovely, the walls a pretty shade of pale blue with ruffled blue curtains on the windows. A handsome four-poster bed stood against one wall, the polished wood beautifully carved.

  “Ivan built this?”
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br />   “Yes. Ivan built all our furniture. That chest of drawers—” she pointed to a many-drawered bureau on the opposite wall “—and my nightstand and the settee in the parlor. Oh, and our dining table. You must see it before I cover it up with the tablecloth.”

  Christina could understand the girl’s enthusiasm for her brother’s handiwork. Every piece of furniture was perfectly proportioned, and the details—the smooth corners, the drawer knobs, even the mirror stand on the bureau—showed great skill.

  “Would you like to see the other bedroom? It’s Ivan’s, just down the hallway, next to mine.”

  Yes, I would. But she couldn’t do that, no matter how great her curiosity. That would be most improper. “No, thank you, Anna. I think not.”

  “Anna?” Ivan called from the bottom of the stairs. “Come and set bowls on the table.”

  “I hope you like borscht,” Annamarie whispered. “Ivan is very proud of his borscht—it’s his grandmother’s recipe.”

  Annamarie paused in spreading out the lacy white tablecloth so Christina could admire the beautiful walnut dining table. Then she helped lay out plates and bowls, and the three of them sat down, Ivan across from Annamarie and Christina. “To be close to the kitchen,” he explained. He ladled a thick soup into each bowl from the big tureen in the center of the table and picked up his spoon. “Supper,” he announced.

  With her first mouthful of the rich beet soup Christina added another skill to Ivan’s growing list of talents. He was a superb cook!

  “You like it?” he asked, his voice hesitant.

  “Yes, it’s delicious. It tastes like...wine.”

  His grin lit up his entire face, and a faint blush stained his cheeks. He smoothed his palms over the apron covering his chest. “Good. I hoped you like. Is Anna’s favorite.”

  “Ivan,” Annamarie said, “tell Miss Marnell how you learned to make borscht.”

  He gave his sister a long look, then turned his gaze on Christina. “She is maybe not interested, I think.”

  “Oh, but I am interested!” Christina blurted out. “Tell me about your grandmother. Did she teach you how to make this?”

  Ivan sent a quick glance to Annamarie. “My mother, Elena Kurasov, was born in Kiev. Her family very poor, only farmers. When she was little girl, tall enough to stand at stove, she learned to cook from her mother. When she marry my father and came to America, she brought all her mother’s recipes with her. And—” again he looked at Annamarie “—when I was very young, not yet going to school, my mama teach me how to cook them. Is simple, really.”

  Christina stared at the man across the table from her. Somehow wearing an apron and cooking their supper did not lessen his appeal as a man. On the contrary, it made Ivan Panovsky the most unusual man she had ever known. She watched him gather up the now empty soup bowls and disappear into the kitchen as Annamarie laid blue-flowered china plates at each place setting, along with small crystal glasses.

  “For wine,” she explained. “Ivan said I could have some on my birthday. I can hardly wait to taste it!”

  “You’re growing up,” Christina said.

  “Ivan says I am growing up fast, and now I should learn to cook and sew and...” Her voice trailed off.

  “And not read books about Robin Hood, is that it?” Christina said quietly.

  Annamarie bent her head to study her wineglass. A familiar ache started at the back of Christina’s neck, and in that instant she knew she was going to fight even harder for Annamarie’s right to go as far as she wanted in school. It would make an enemy of Ivan, whom she genuinely liked, but so be it. Ivan was an interesting and handsome man, but he was wrong, so very wrong, about his sister’s education.

  * * *

  Ivan held his breath and watched Christina taste his stuffed cabbage roll. Her lips closed over the morsel on her fork, her beautiful eyes widened and then she closed them. She hates it. All afternoon he had chopped and seasoned and rolled the spicy meat mixture into the blanched cabbage leaves. It would all be worthwhile if she liked the dish.

  But she didn’t. Well, then, he must learn to cook American. A man liked to please a woman, but when he failed it cut deep.

  Christina swallowed, opened her eyes and sent him a dazzling smile. “What do you call this?”

  “Toltutt kaposzta,” Annamarie blurted out. “K-a-p-o-s-z-t-a.”

  “This is absolutely delicious,” Christina said, loading up her fork with another bite. “It tastes...like something a czar would relish.”

  Ivan bit his tongue. “The czar starved and persecuted my family until finally they escape to America.”

  Christina’s face turned so pink he suddenly wanted to press his lips to her cheek. “Oh, I am so sorry,” she murmured. “I didn’t know.”

  He gripped his fork so hard his knuckles hurt. He wanted to kiss her. That thought was so unnerving his hand began to shake.

  Annamarie laid her hand on his arm. “Ivan, what’s the matter? You’re white as a field of snow.”

  “Nothing, Anna. Nothing is matter. Eat your supper.”

  “But—”

  “Anna.” Instantly his sister grasped everything. It made her smile in that secret way she had, as if she knew...everything. And worse, that she understood.

  “And what is this dish called?” Christina inquired, nibbling a slice of red radish.

  “Rotkvica. Radish salad.”

  “And this?”

  “Blitna!” Annamarie sang with enthusiasm. “It’s my favorite.”

  “Green chard with potatoes,” Ivan explained. “I teach Anna how to make.”

  Christina’s lovely blue eyes rested on his sister for a moment, then rose to meet his. “Why? Why are you teaching her to make these dishes?”

  “Because he wants me to marry a Russian!” Annamarie quipped. “But we are in America now, Ivan. You are the only Russian in town.”

  “I see,” said Christina, her voice quiet.

  Annamarie beamed. “Oh, thank you, Miss Marnell. You do see.”

  Ivan clenched his fist. Annamarie was against him. And now Christina was against him, too. God help him, he and the pretty schoolteacher disagreed on everything.

  He barely tasted the supper he’d cooked, including the bottle of wine he’d brought home from the Golden Partridge. Annamarie wrinkled her nose at first, but after two swallows, she claimed she loved it. Christina proposed a toast to his sister and downed half of her glass; Ivan had three glasses, but it did not help his shaking hands.

  He presented his sister with a lemon cake, topped with twelve tiny red candles. Annamarie made a wish, sucked in a deep breath and blew them all out.

  “Ah, is good luck!” he said.

  She gave him a sly smile. “Don’t you want to know what I wished for?”

  He shook his head and hugged her.

  “It concerns you,” she teased. “And—”

  “Do not say out loud,” he interrupted. “It will not come true.”

  Supper ended with an ecstatic Annamarie throwing her arms around him. “Thank you, Ivan. Thank you! I feel all grown up tonight!”

  He kissed her cheek. “Almost,” he whispered. “Wait a few years.”

  After supper he walked Christina back to her room over the bakery, moving as slowly as he could without making it too obvious. Snowflakes drifted down, frosting the boardwalk and dusting their shoulders. For the first block, they didn’t talk, and then she broke the silence.

  “Anna is a very fortunate girl, Ivan. That was a lovely birthday supper.”

  He did not know what to say. They walked a few steps in silence, and then as they crossed the street he took her hand. For the next five steps he held his breath, wondering what she would do. When she kept walking beside him as usual, her hand in his, he felt as if he could fly.
/>   “What was your life in New York like?” she asked suddenly.

  He hesitated. “New York is big city. We—my father and stepmother and Anna—lived in apartment building. Very small. Very crowded.”

  “Is that why you left to come out West?”

  He hesitated. “Papa and I not agree on many things, so when he died, yes, is why I leave home. It has been hard.”

  “But now it is better?” she asked.

  “Is better to have Anna here, yes. Her mother died and then Anna have to live in...” He swallowed. “Is better for Anna to be here with me.”

  “She is happy, I think,” Christina said. “She is enthusiastic about everything at school.”

  “But not learning to cook,” he said with a laugh.

  Christina said nothing. She scarcely knew what to say to this man who was so quiet most of the time. She didn’t know what to think about this proud Russian man, Ivan Panovsky. But, my goodness, she knew what she felt about him. She liked to be near him, liked the touch of his hand holding hers. It made her feel warm inside. She could not explain why; she just liked him.

  Ivan was a good man. He was a simple man, not educated, as she was, but he was intelligent and knowledgeable in his own way, and he was certainly skilled at woodworking. It was plain that he loved his sister. Annamarie was lucky to have someone who cared for her and could guide her. All Christina had was Aunt Lettie, and Aunt Lettie had disliked her from the day she had been crippled. Having someone care about her, really care about her, would have made her life so much easier to bear.

  “Christina, you are quiet. What are you thinking?”

  “I am thinking about Anna, how fortunate she is to have you for a brother.”

  “You think I am good brother? Even if I want her to learn to cook instead of read books?”

  “I think you are a good man, Ivan. And a good brother. Perhaps in time I can change your mind about Anna and books. She is only twelve years old. She has many years before she needs to decide what to do with her life.”

  “You are right and you are also wrong,” he said. “True, Anna is only twelve. But you cannot change my mind about what is best for her. But...but maybe reading books will be happy for her, too. When she is married.”