“That sounds like just what we need.”
Then she remembered the crate Mary had sent. “I don’t know if you’ll feel comfortable with it, but Mary sent some things that belonged to Emily. A nativity set and some ornaments, I think.”
“I don’t mind using them. What about you? This is your house to decorate as you will, Abby.”
“Thank you, but if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to use them. Emily will always be a part of Betsy, and I think we should do everything we can to give her a sense of who her mother was, don’t you?”
Caleb looked a bit taken aback by her unselfish attitude. “Of course. You’re right.”
When everything was hung on the tree, they all stood back and surveyed their handiwork. “It’s beautiful,” Abby said.
“The best ever,” Ben said, nodding.
“I agree, Ben,” Caleb added, a look of almost childlike wonder on his face. It might have been a trick of the light, but Abby thought she saw a suspicious sparkle in his eyes. Once again, her heart ached for the little boy who’d never had a chance to be. She vowed that if he would let her she would try to make up for all the experiences he’d been denied by his mother’s leaving and his father’s heavy hand.
* * *
By Christmas Eve, Caleb felt like a child living in some faraway, make-believe land. The house was redolent with the scents and sounds of the season: pine and cedar, cinnamon and cloves, roasting chestnuts. Abby seemed determined to make this the best Christmas he’d ever experienced, which wouldn’t have taken nearly as much work as she insisted on doing. She’d baked all sorts of goodies and placed boughs and berries in every nook and cranny, insisting that they sing carols and other Christmas songs as they worked, including her favorite, “Jolly Old St. Nicholas.”
Caleb somewhat recalled the song and joined in with his pleasing baritone when the words came to mind.
Since he’d never had gingerbread men that he could recall, Abby baked some and gave them raisin eyes. The crispy gents rested on a platter next to crunchy crystal-dusted sugar cookies, waiting to become a bedtime snack along with a cup of hot chocolate.
Before she would let them indulge in the sweet treats, Abby took her Bible, settled Laura in her lap and began to read the story of Jesus’s birth. Caleb had given up retiring to his office weeks ago, and as he did every night, he listened as she answered Ben’s questions with enviable patience. When the child’s curiosity was satisfied, they bowed their heads and Abby began to pray.
“Father in Heaven, we come to You with grateful hearts. We are so blessed, not only this holiday season but every day. We’re thankful for the beautiful world You made and for creating us with all of our senses so that we can enjoy its riches. We ask for Your continued blessings as we end one year and move into another. May the coming days and weeks be happy and peaceful. I’m particularly thankful, Father, for all You have given me. A wonderful home, three precious children to love and a husband who has been a blessing in so many ways...”
For a second, Caleb could have sworn that his heart stopped. He never heard her end the prayer, but when she looked up at him, the warmth of her smile felt like a benediction. Without waiting for him to respond, she got to her feet and held Laura out for him to take while she went to get the pot of chocolate that had been warming on the back of the stove.
When the cookies had been passed out and their hands were wrapped around steaming mugs of cocoa, they sang Christmas carols until their voices grew hoarse. Then, just before sending Ben off to bed, she read A Visit From St. Nicholas. By that time, Ben’s eyes were growing heavy and he was ready to go to bed and sleep so Santa could come.
Caleb followed Abby into Ben’s room to tuck him in, something he’d started doing a few days before. Ben seemed to like it, and it was an easy enough thing to do. Caleb stood watching Abby brush a tender kiss to her son’s forehead. He was torn between an almost overwhelming feeling of humbleness that she was actually thankful for him and wishing he could share in the love and closeness she felt for her family. What would it be like to have that every day for the rest of his life?
Wonderful.
It would be the most perfect life he could imagine, one he did not dare to hope was within his grasp. How could he ever fit into Abby’s perfect world where people worked together and sang while they worked...where they made things and did things for one another just because they got joy from doing so?
Though the night was as close to perfect as Caleb ever hoped to experience, he went to bed certain he had never felt more alone in his life.
Chapter Eleven
Christmas morning dawned cold and windy. With a sigh, Caleb padded out of his room in sock feet, lit the lamp and began to stoke the fire, something he did throughout the night so the house would be warm when Abby and the children got up. Going to the kitchen, he did the same, and then filled the coffeepot, set it back on the stove and returned to the parlor and lit another lamp.
A quick glance at the mantel clock told him it was more than an hour until dawn. Since he didn’t recall having a traditional Christmas, he was uncertain whether or not he should wake everyone or wait for them to get up on their own. He admitted to feeling eager—and anxious—to see how his gifts were received.
Before he could make a decision, he heard Ben’s bedroom door open and saw a tousled blond head poke out. “Is it time?” he asked, his sleep-roughened voice holding suppressed excitement.
Caleb shrugged. “I don’t know. Shouldn’t your mother be up first?”
“She’s up,” Abby said, stepping into the room and covering a wide yawn. Closing the bedroom door behind her so they wouldn’t wake the babies, she crossed over to warm her hands at the fireplace. A plaid robe of red wool covered her long flannel gown and was belted around her slim waist. A long blond braid hung over her shoulder. Thick wool socks covered her feet.
She cast Caleb a hopeful look. “I don’t suppose the coffee is ready yet.” It was more statement than question.
“I don’t think so, but I did start it.”
Her eyes closed in appreciation and a soft smile curved her lips. “You’re a good man, Caleb Gentry.”
The heartfelt compliment filled him with inexplicable pleasure.
“Can we open our gifts now, Mama?”
Abby gave in with a sigh. “I suppose so, but we’ll take turns just as we always have.” She looked at Caleb and explained. “We’ll each open one gift in turn. That way we can not only enjoy our gifts but take pleasure in watching everyone else.” She cast Caleb a wry look. “Otherwise, Christmas would be over in about two minutes.” Turning her attention to Ben, she reminded, “Stockings first.”
Brought up as he had been, Caleb knew nothing about building anticipation.
Ben passed out the stockings. When he handed Caleb one of his wool socks, he shot Abby a surprised look. Her answer was a gentle smile. Caleb dumped the stocking’s contents, wondering what unexpected delights it might hold. He vaguely remembered having a stocking when he was very small, no doubt before his mother left. This year, Santa had filled his sock with an orange, an apple, a tangerine, a handful of exotic-looking nuts, licorice, a new shaving brush, a box of .22 bullets, a stick of taffy and the biggest peppermint stick he’d ever seen.
He looked up to thank Abby and caught the excitement on Ben’s face when he shoved his arm into his sock up to the elbow and pulled a yo-yo. Once Ben had looked over those goodies, Abby let him choose another gift to unwrap. Ben chose a small leather bag.
“Marbles!” he cried. “Wow!”
“Those are from Caleb,” Abby told him. “Just be careful that you don’t leave any lying around for the little ones to put in their mouths,” Abby cautioned. “They might choke.”
“I won’t,” Ben promised.
“Abby, you go next,” Caleb said. “You’ll hav
e to go into the kitchen to see one of your presents.”
Her blue eyes narrowed in mock consternation, but Caleb didn’t miss the curiosity in their depths. “What have you done, Caleb Gentry?”
“Go look in the kitchen. Take the lamp.”
Rising, Abby grabbed the lamp and gave him a sidelong look in passing. Ben, wearing a conspiratorial smile since he was in on the whole thing, was close on her heels.
Her squeal of pleasure just seconds after she entered the kitchen said without words that she was thrilled with her new slipper tub and a smile of satisfaction curved Caleb’s mouth. Abby came back to the parlor, almost in a run, pleasure shining in her eyes. “I love it! I can stretch out, but oh, Caleb you shouldn’t have.”
“Why not?”
“It’s too much.”
“Not if you let us all use it.”
“Oh. I see,” she told him with a knowing nod. “It’s my gift, but I have to share.”
“Something like that. You don’t have to share the French gardenia bath salts and hand cream I left in the bottom, though.” He winked at Ben. “I don’t think Ben and I would smell too manly if we used that.”
“Deal,” Abby said. “Thank you very much. I’m sure that I—we—will enjoy it very much. Now you open one.”
The request took Caleb aback. The truth was that he didn’t recall ever receiving a present from anyone before. He felt his throat tighten, and a strange ache squeezed his heart. He heard the quaver in his voice when he said, “You weren’t supposed to get me anything.”
“Why? You bought all of us gifts, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but—”
“No buts,” she said holding up a silencing finger.
Admittedly curious as to what the package might hold, he pushed the tissue paper aside to reveal Allan Pinkerton’s latest publication. “Dime novels! Three of them.”
“I thought books were a pretty safe bet, and since I haven’t read any of them, I thought they’d be perfect.”
“Oh,” he said, taking care to keep his expression neutral. “I see how this works. You give me the present,” he parodied, “but I have to share.”
Abby looked shocked for an instant, and then broke into a giggle. “Touché. I do hope you’ll enjoy them.”
“I know I—we—will,” he deadpanned.
The next half hour was one of the most enjoyable times Caleb ever recalled. He loved seeing the happiness on Ben’s and Abby’s faces as they opened the gifts he’d selected in such high hopes of pleasing them. Ben was thrilled with his boots, book and checkers game Abby bought him, but when he opened the larger package from Caleb, he gasped in amazement. Exquisitely detailed tin soldiers of the North and the South, including Grant and Lee astride their horses. He lifted a glowing gaze to Caleb, speechless for once.
“You can haul them in your train,” he said, “since you’re now using the chessmen for their intended purpose.”
“They’re really, really nice, Caleb. Thank you.”
Caleb was as humbled by Ben’s gratitude as he was the thought that had gone into the gifts his new family had chosen for him, especially since they were his first.
Besides her tub, Abby unwrapped a new Sunday dress of sky-blue trimmed with a white collar and cuffs that Caleb knew would be a perfect match for her eyes, and an ivory-handled mirror, comb and brush set. There was an everyday skirt and blouse from “Ben, Laura and Betsy.” Caleb had let Ben look over everything he’d bought and pick which outfit he wanted to give his mother from him and his sisters.
When he opened the shirt given to him by “the children,” Abby smiled. “It seemed a fair trade since I ripped up one of yours to use for bows.”
“I like it a lot, Ben. It looks very warm. Thank you.”
When he opened the knife and saw the intricate scrimshaw working on the handle, he said, “You’ve done too much.”
“No,” she told him, her blue eyes dark with sincerity. “It really isn’t enough considering all you’ve done for me, and besides, I could only do it because of your generosity.”
Caleb cleared his throat, and uneasy with the unexpected praise, asked Ben if he was ready for breakfast yet.
* * *
Later, wearing her new dress with her mother’s brooch pinned at her throat, Abby played hostess for the first time as Mrs. Caleb Gentry. Since Caleb’s shirt was too short in the sleeves, he said he’d send it back with Mary and Bart and pick up another the next time he went to Wolf Creek.
Frank had accepted an invitation to eat with a family in town, and Leo was having Christmas dinner with the Widow Lambert. Caught up in her own feelings for Caleb, Abby wondered if there might be a romance brewing between the middle-aged couple.
The Emersons and Stones arrived in plenty of time for Rachel to help with the meal, while Mary kept the girls entertained. The boys played with their new toys, and Edward and Caleb discussed the almanac’s predictions for the winter and whether or not the summer would be as mild as the previous one.
The Christmas meal was filled with laughter and stories of past Christmases, though Abby noticed that Caleb was more of an observer than a participant in that particular venture. A couple of times she’d caught an expression that could only be described as bewilderment in his eyes. The afternoon was spent playing chess and checkers, and once the babies were put down for afternoon naps, the three women sat at the kitchen table and had a “hen party.”
Finally, in midafternoon, Edward declared he was ready for a nap, and the gathering broke up. As Abby straightened the kitchen and put the worn-out children down for naps, Caleb and Ben changed out of their holiday clothes and went to set the traps Caleb had found.
Propped against the corner of the sofa with one of Caleb’s new books, and covered with an afghan, Abby let her mind drift back to past holidays with William. She thought of them lovingly, a bit longingly and with more than a hint of sorrow. Then she tucked the bittersweet memories away until the next year. Those days were gone. She had a new husband now, a new family, and so far, though they had miles to go, things were better than she had dared to hope.
* * *
To Abby, the week following Christmas was always a bit of a letdown after the building anticipation that accompanied the holiday. Nevertheless, the day after Christmas they got back to their routine. She tried to get Ben involved with learning the state capitals, but her son, in a dejected mood of his own, was being uncooperative and whiny about the slightest thing. Though he was still enthralled by his gifts, he was tired of being inside. Mostly he wanted Caleb to take him to check the traps they’d set after their company left the day before.
Abby felt in limbo herself, as if the old year was gasping out its last dying breath, and hope, in the guise of a new year, was not yet born. She felt unsettled and just a bit depressed for no reason she could put her finger on. The knock at the door promised respite from her feelings, as it must have Ben, who jumped up from his chair and raced to the window.
“It’s Mrs. VanSickle, Mama,” he said, wrinkling his nose in disgust. Though Abby was always careful not to talk about people in front of him, he was a smart child who had an uncanny ability to pick up on nuances of people’s character.
Abby felt her heart sink and her stomach tightened with anxiety. Why on earth had Sarah VanSickle come to call? What new gossip could she possibly have that she felt might interest Abby? For a heartbeat, she considered not answering the summons, but knowing Sarah, she would start yelling for entrance next.
With dread in her heart and a false smile of welcome on her lips, Abby opened the door to the woman whose personal goal seemed to be causing misery for others.
The fiftysomething woman was dressed in an eggplant-hued morning gown trimmed with black velvet. A bulky overcoat and the stylish shelf bustle of her dress did nothing for her portly figure. Jet earr
ings dangled at her ears, and a jaunty hat of black velvet with two pheasant feathers and a veil sat atop a jumble of sausage-like curls, a style that would have been far more appropriate for a younger woman.
Her eyes, so dark they looked as black as the dress’s trim, snapped with some sort of energy that seemed to radiate from her in waves. Struck by the notion that nothing good could possibly come from this visit, Abby tried to brace herself for whatever was to transpire.
“Aren’t you going to ask me in?” Sarah said, her voice as crisp as the winter air.
“Certainly,” Abby said, her manners returning along with a semblance of composure. “Please, come in.”
Huffing out her displeasure, Sarah stepped inside and began to shrug out of her coat, while Abby instructed Ben to get his own jacket and go outside to help Caleb with whatever he was doing.
After glancing around the room with an air of disdain, Sarah hung her coat on the oak and brass hall tree next to the door and began pulling off her soft kid gloves, which she tucked into the reticule hanging from her wrist.
“Please sit down,” Abby said, gesturing toward the sofa.
Sarah sat, smoothed her dress over her knees and stared at Abby, who perched on the edge of a wingback chair, facing her unwanted guest.
“I must say, you’re very looking well. Marriage seems to agree with you.”
Abby ignored the implications of her statement and offered a halfhearted smile. “Yes, well, it has been something of an adjustment for us all, but we’re doing well.” Not for all the tea in China would Abby let the detestable woman know that her forced marriage was anything other than perfect.
“What do you think William would say to your being widowed less than a year before taking a new husband?” Sarah asked with a scornful lift of her dark eyebrows.
Lacing her fingers together in her lap, Abby struggled to rein in her temper and choose her words with care. “I think he would understand that sometimes we are required to do things we would rather not, for the sake of the better good.”
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