Western Christmas Brides

by Lauri Robinson

  Christina closed her lips. She did not want to argue with him, especially after such a lovely evening. As Annamarie grew up over the coming years, many things could change. Perhaps Ivan would change his mind. She would count on his sense of fairness and bide her time.

  The bakery was dark except for the shaft of moonlight that fell across the back door. She dropped Ivan’s warm, strong hand so she could open the door. “There is a candle here someplace, and some matches,” she murmured. She felt around on the small table just inside the door, found the candle and struck a match. In the glow of light she could see his pensive face, his gray-green eyes looking troubled. She wondered what he was thinking.

  He lifted the candle out of her hand. “Come. I take you up the stairs.”

  “So I won’t stumble, is that it?” she said with a soft laugh.

  “No,” he said, his voice quiet. “So I can say good-night at your door as proper man should.” Holding the candle high enough to illuminate her path, he started up the steps, and she followed, touched at his gallant gesture. At the top step he reached down to again take her hand in his and pinched off the flame.

  For a long minute they stood together in the dark, saying nothing. She could hear his breathing, feel the swirl of his breath against her temple. Her heart kicked against her rib cage. She did not want to move, did not want to break the spell that settled over them. In truth, she did not want the evening to be over.

  Then he moved a step closer, and a funny floaty feeling started somewhere deep inside her. “Ivan...”

  “Christina,” he said in a low voice. “Do not talk.”

  In the next moment she felt his lips brush her cheek, and then—oh, God—his mouth found hers.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Ivan’s senses filled and overflowed, and a kernel of happiness swelled up and burst inside him. He was tasting heaven, silky and sweet as honey. After a long dizzying moment he lifted his lips from hers. “I should ask permission, but was afraid you would say no.”

  She gave a gentle laugh. “I might have. But now...” She reached up and laid a finger against his mouth. “Now I think I would say yes.”

  He kissed her again, longer this time, and then deeper. He never wanted to stop. He wanted to hold her, keep her. She moved in his arms and he broke the kiss, but he was afraid to let her go. She touched his cheek briefly and after a moment he released her.

  She disappeared into her apartment and he stood there for some minutes, then somehow made his way down the staircase and out the back door of the bakery. Instead of going back to his house on Maple Street, he began to walk. The air was bitter cold and smelled of snow. But inside, a warm glow spread over his entire body.

  Tonight maybe it would snow again, and he had to smile. For days Annamarie had pleaded with him to take her sledding. His sister was still a little girl in some ways, wanting to play and laugh and enjoy being alive. He had fashioned a sled out of lumber scraps from the mill and waxed the underside until it was slick enough to slide over a farmer’s field. Tomorrow was Sunday. He should take Annamarie to church, but... He quickened his pace. If it snowed, he would take her sledding.

  * * *

  The next morning Christina was so restless she decided to go for a walk. It had snowed during the night, leaving the town covered in sparkling white lace and the tree branches drooping with silvery icicles. Just as she turned onto the path to the schoolhouse a peal of girlish laughter broke the quiet, and in the next minute a sled whooshed down the gentle hill behind the schoolhouse and dumped two people into the snowbank. A tall man in a tan sheepskin jacket and a red knit cap floundered out of the powdery snow, followed by a boy—no, it was a girl!—dressed in jeans and a heavy red sweater.

  “Miss Marnell! Miss Marnell!” The slim, red-sweatered figure ran toward her, and now she recognized Annamarie Panovsky. Ivan appeared behind his sister.

  Christina found she was unable to stop smiling at him. A man who wanted to take his sister sledding... It made her heart sing. He smiled shyly, and his green eyes said something she just now realized. There was a bond between them. The feeling between them was there, and today it was even stronger than it was last night.

  Chapter Seventeen

  On Monday Christina finally ran out of things to engage her wriggly, snowbound students, so she turned to her new list of words from the dictionary and announced a new competition called Definitions. Two teams were formed.

  “Team one, use serendipity in a sentence,” she directed.

  Kurt Jorgensen scrambled to his feet. “Serendipity is goin’ swimming without any clothes on.”

  Christina suppressed a smile. Sally Lynford fared no better with trespasses. Sally rose and twitched her dress importantly. “Everybody knows that. It’s part of the Lord’s prayer. ‘Forgive us our trash baskets as we forgive those who put trash in our baskets.’”

  “Hey, Sally,” Kurt yelled. “You don’t go to church much, do ya?”

  “Neither do you, smarty-pants!” Sally snapped.

  Consternation proved to be the downfall of Teddy MacAllister, and his definition almost brought the competition to an end with guffaws from the students. “When you’re, uh, in the outhouse but you can’t go, that’s consternation.”

  “No it’s not!” Roxanna Jensen challenged when the laughter died down. “A consternation is what you see when you look up at the sky at night and see a bunch of stars.”

  Noralee Ness then stated that miscellaneous meant an unmarried girl called Miss Cellaneous instead of a married woman called Missus Cellaneous.

  At that point Christina gave up and proposed an idea that had popped into her head in the middle of the night. “Now we are going to write a Christmas play, about Robin Hood.”

  “I want to play Maid Marian!” Sally Lynford announced.

  “Very well, Sally. But you must earn your role by correctly answering a geography question. If you cannot give the correct answer, someone else can answer the question, and that person will play Maid Marian.”

  “What if it’s a boy who gets the right answer?” Adam shot out.

  “Well, what if it is a boy?” Christina answered. “Did you know that back in Shakespeare’s time, boys played all the parts in the plays? Not just Romeo, but Juliet, too?”

  Adam’s face expressed disbelief. “Wow, honest?”

  “Yes, honest,” she replied. After that, a clamor rose to choose the next part, and by the time school was over for the day, all the parts were assigned. And, Christina thought with pride, a good deal of geography had been learned along the way. It had even been fun! More than ever she was convinced that teaching was her life’s calling.

  Tired but exhilarated by her success, she reached the bakery and ducked inside out of the wind. Iris Ming greeted her from behind the glass counter with a wave and a wide smile. “You are late today, Christina.”

  “I stayed after school to plan tomorrow’s lessons.”

  “Ah. You like your students, is that right?”

  “Mostly. But the unkindness and cruelty I see in some of the older girls makes me cringe.”

  “Teaching school must be very difficult,” the Chinese woman said. “I could not do it. But you like it?”

  “Nothing gives me greater satisfaction,” Christina admitted.

  Iris offered her a crinkle-topped chocolate cookie. “What about Ivan Panovsky?” she asked with a sly look.

  “Ivan? What about him?”

  “He likes you, Christina. It is plain to everyone.”

  Christina bit into her cookie. “I didn’t know the whole town was watching,” she said tightly.

  Iris laughed. “Pretty girl, handsome man. Of course they watch!”

  “I wish the townspeople would find something else to do.” Absently she took another bite of the cookie.

&
nbsp; “There is not much else to do in a small town like Smoke River.” Iris watched her for a moment, then handed her another cookie. “Christina, I am your friend, so I will say something maybe you will not like.”

  “Oh? What is it?”

  “It is just this. For an intelligent woman, sometimes you do not act very smart.”

  Christina stared at her. Quickly she decided to change the subject. “Iris, how is your garden coming along?” she said.

  “What?”

  “I asked about your garden. What are you planting now?”

  “Do not distract me with questions, Christina.” She wrapped up three more chocolate cookies and pushed them across the glass countertop. When she reached for them, Iris caught her hand. “Do you not want someone to love? To make a home with? Children?”

  “Iris.” Christina’s voice hardened. “Stop.”

  The two women looked at each other for a long minute, then burst into laughter. “I am sorry,” Iris said.

  “No, you’re not,” Christina replied. “But we are still friends.”

  “Oh, good. Because I have many more questions...and much more advice.”

  Christina grinned at her, took her cookies and climbed the stairs up to her apartment. Once inside, she walked past the chest of drawers in her bedroom and caught sight of her reflection in the mirror. Her lips were smiling, but her eyes had an uncertain look.

  She did want to teach school. More than anything. But Iris’s questions popped back into her mind. Don’t you also want someone to love?

  No, she decided quickly. She did not. She wanted to teach her students to read and write and know about other countries in the world. When she was in the classroom she knew who she was and what she was meant to do in life. She was valued for her knowledge and her skill. She felt worthwhile.

  And it made her happy. She could never give that up. Never.

  * * *

  The tree fell exactly where Ivan planned, and he lifted his ax to start lopping off the limbs. It was early, the school yard empty and quiet except for the sharp thwack of his blows. He worked steadily, and the pile of branches grew.

  Christina’s face floated at the back of his mind, her eyes shining in the glow of Annamarie’s birthday candles, her eyelashes dusted with snow. He let the ax head slide onto the ground and leaned his weight against it. It was hard to keep his thoughts focused on cutting firewood when all he wanted to think about was Christina.

  He had held her hand. Danced with her. He had even kissed her, and she had liked it. At least he thought she had. But he did not know how she really felt about him.

  He picked up the ax and worked for another hour, splitting wood and thinking, until he was out of breath and out of ideas. How do you know if a woman loves you?

  With a woman like Christina, maybe you never knew. Maybe she liked kissing you, but she also liked coming to the schoolhouse every morning and teaching arithmetic and reading to a room full of children. Maybe she liked that even more than kissing you.

  He groaned aloud. Is that all she wants from life? It was not all he wanted from life, working at the sawmill and making a home for Annamarie. He knew what he wanted. He had known it ever since the moment he’d laid eyes on Christina, watching her limp with determination down the street in the pretty blue bonnet that matched her eyes.

  What does she think of me? Does she feel anything special for me? The next time he had a chance to be alone with her, he would ask.

  * * *

  “Ivan, we’re writing a play at school,” Annamarie announced at breakfast the next morning. “About Robin Hood and Maid Marian. Miss Marnell says...”

  Ivan spilled his coffee at the mention of Christina’s name. “Yes? Miss Marnell says what?” He mopped at the puddle on the dining table with his napkin.

  “She says I get to be Maid Marian!” She dipped her spoon into the pot of strawberry jam that sat between them. “I won the part by answering a geography question about Egypt when Sally Lynford couldn’t. Now Sally is mad at me.”

  “And who will be Robin Hood?”

  “That’s the funny part. Remember Sammy Greywolf, that smart Indian boy I told you about? He answered more geography questions than any of the other boys, so he gets to play Robin Hood. Adam is going to play Little John.”

  “Adam?”

  “Adam Lynford. Sally’s brother.

  Ivan remembered. “Ah, yes. The boy who can waltz.”

  “And who likes books as much as I do,” Annamarie added slowly. She crunched into her jam-slathered piece of toast. “And Miss Marnell says...well, she says it doesn’t matter that Sammy Greywolf is lots shorter than I am. She says that how tall someone is or how they look is not important.”

  Ivan carefully swallowed a mouthful of coffee. “What does Chris—Miss Marnell say is important?”

  “She doesn’t say.” Annamarie buttered another slice of toast. “You like Miss Marnell, don’t you, Ivan?”

  He swallowed again. “Yes, I like her.” And more, though he would not tell that to Annamarie.

  “And she likes you, doesn’t she?”

  “I do not know. But I pray hard every night that it is so.”

  “I know it is so,” Annamarie said dreamily.

  Ivan’s hand stilled on the butter dish. “What? How do you know?”

  “I just do. There are all kinds of little signs.”

  “Signs? What signs?”

  “Oh...the way she looks when she sees you, all soft and smiley. Are you going to marry her?”

  He choked on his coffee. “I would if...if I knew how.”

  “Oh, that’s easy,” Annamarie said airily. “You just ask her.”

  He stared at his sister. “Just ask her? Don’t you think I should first ask if she...if she cares about me?”

  “You mean whether she loves you? First I think you should tell her how you feel.”

  “I—I cannot do that. She says she wants to be teacher, not wife.”

  His sister studied his face. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I am sure. She has said so.” He clenched his jaw. He was sure of something else, too. He would go to his grave loving Christina Marnell and wanting her to be his wife.

  * * *

  Christina hurried along the path to the schoolhouse, noticing how deep the snow was this morning. She had come to school early, hoping to catch a glimpse of Ivan cutting wood in the school yard. She wanted to talk to him about Annamarie.

  Oh, no, that is a lie. You just want to talk to him. About anything at all.

  She liked Ivan. She felt oddly happy when she was with him. She loved seeing his smile and watching his eyes glow with laughter. His voice always grew quiet when they spoke. He didn’t say much, but what he said was always thoughtful and honest. She liked talking to him. She liked being with him.

  Maybe she more than liked him.

  She gave her wandering thoughts a good shake. So what if she did like being with him? She knew what she wanted in life. She wanted to get up every single morning for the rest of her life and walk to her schoolroom.

  She wanted to teach school.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Miss Marnell!” a voice screamed. “Miss Marnell, come quick!”

  Teddy MacAllister raced toward her over the expanse of frosty school yard where Ivan was splitting wood. “Roxanna fell off her horse and she’s not moving!”

  Ivan dropped his ax and caught the boy by the shoulder. “Where is she?” Teddy pointed back the way he had come, and Ivan began to run.

  The schoolhouse door banged open and Teddy barreled into Christina. “It’s Roxanna! She’s hurt!”

  “Run and get Doc Dougherty at the hospital,” she ordered. “Hurry!”

  Out of breath, Christina reached the rider
less horse standing beside the path and saw the still form on the ground. Roxanna’s face was white as paper and her eyes were closed. Ivan knelt over her.

  “Get blanket, shawl, anything,” he shouted, draping his sheepskin jacket over the still form.

  Her stomach lurched. Christina stripped off her wool shawl and handed it to him.

  She could see the girl wasn’t breathing. She crouched beside the girl and picked up her small limp hand.

  “Rub,” Ivan ordered. “Rub hard.”

  Suddenly he tossed away her shawl and the jacket covering the motionless girl, bent over her and began pushing down on her chest.

  “What are you doing?” Christina shouted.

  He didn’t look up. “I must try something.”

  Terrified, she watched his hands move rhythmically up and down on Roxanna’s thin chest. A minute passed. Then another. It seemed like hours.

  All at once the girl gasped and her body twitched. Ivan reared back in surprise, and then Roxanna opened her eyes. Quickly he piled his heavy jacket back on top of her and laid his hand on her forehead.

  “I fell off Jane-girl,” Roxanna murmured.

  Ivan frowned up at Christina. “What is Jane-girl?”

  “Jane-girl is her horse.”

  At that moment Doc Dougherty arrived on the run, a tearful Teddy a few paces behind. “I see that she’s breathing,” the physician panted. “Teddy said she was dead.” He gripped the girl’s wrist, then moved his forefinger back and forth in front of her eyes. “How many fingers?”

  “Just one,” Roxanna said, her voice faint. The doctor felt along her arms and legs, then lifted away Ivan’s jacket and laid his ear against the girl’s chest.

  Ivan rose to his feet and stood watching. “Doctor, I tried pushing on her chest. You think I hurt ribs?”

  Dr. Dougherty looked up. “You probably saved her life, Panovsky. Ribs are not important. Still...” He tentatively pressed his hand on Roxanna’s breastbone. “Does that hurt?”