“Is it bad that I’m not sad about Grandpa?” Sam asked, her eyes wide and unblinking. “I don’t remember ever meeting him.”
“No,” Lily said. “I’d feel the same as you. It’s rather difficult to be sad about someone you’ve never met, isn’t it? Even if they’re family. There’s nothing bad about that.”
“Yeah.” Sam’s expression seemed to lighten. “You’re right. It’s like reading about someone in the newspaper.”
Lily glanced at Jake, and he gave a nod of encouragement.
“And we don’t have to live with that pale guy?” Peter asked.
“Absolutely not.”
“Good. I didn’t like him.”
“I’ll tell you this much,” Lily continued. “I’m not giving up yet. This is merely a setback. People rarely disappear. Your grandfather must have left behind a clue. We’ll talk with the judge—we’ll hire a Pinkerton detective if we have to. Once we’re back in St. Joseph, there’ll be no more running and hiding from men like Vic Skaar.”
“That was fun!” Peter declared. “Better than any book I ever read.”
“And also dangerous. I should not have put you in danger.”
“I don’t think that was your fault, Miss Lily,” Peter said matter-of-factly. “I think that was Emil’s fault for not being where he was supposed to be.”
Her throat tightened. How typical of children to reduce the complex into a few simple words. “That’s very kind of you to say.”
“What happens now?”
“Mr. Jake is going to escort us back to St. Joseph. He’s going to make certain the two of you are safe.”
She wasn’t giving up on him yet. He’d fight her because he thought his presence was a detriment. She’d find a way to convince him otherwise.
“And you,” Sam said. “Jake will make sure you’re safe, too.”
Her heart beat in sudden, painful jerks. “Yes, and me.”
No one had looked out for her in a very long time. Not since her mother had died. Her father’s grief had been all-consuming. She didn’t blame him; everyone grieved differently. Yet she relished the sense of teamwork the four of them shared. She enjoyed feeling as though she was a part of something.
She was no longer a burden. She wasn’t the one left behind. She was truly a part of the circle.
“Is the money why Vic wanted to be our guardian?” Peter asked. “Are we in danger, as well?”
“I don’t think anyone wants to harm you.” She paused. They were children, but they also deserved the truth. “Because of the newspaper article, people will know about your wealth. They’ll know you’re vulnerable.” Vic’s words rang in her ears: Folks around these parts will slit your throat for an acre of land. Lily shivered. “I simply think it’s best if we take precautions. I’d rather not involve the local sheriff. Not until we can sort out what happened at the jailhouse. That means we’ll have to travel incognito.”
“You mean in disguise?”
“Yes, something like that. The sheriff from Frozen Oaks is looking for a scruffy-looking gentleman who may or may not be traveling with a woman and two boys. That’s why, for the next leg of our trip, we’ll be traveling as a family. A mother, father, son and daughter.”
Sam clapped her hands. “I don’t mind traveling as a girl because I’ll be in disguise.”
“That means we’re all going to alter our appearances just a touch. Sam and I picked out everything we need.”
“Then Mr. Jake is coming with us? He’s not going north like he said before?”
Lily held her breath.
“Yes,” Jake said. “I’m coming with you. We’re better off staying together.”
He hadn’t contradicted her before, but she hadn’t been certain of his cooperation until he said the words. Thus far, he’d kept all his promises. He wouldn’t lie to the children.
Sam looked between the two. “What happens when we return to St. Joseph? If we can’t find Grandpa?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we reach it.”
Lily expelled the breath she’d been holding. They’d all be together until St. Joseph—after that everything changed. When they returned, Sam and Peter would be in the care of the judge once more. They’d be wards of the state while Emil was missing.
They’d be orphans.
She clenched her hands together. She’d petition the judge for guardianship. At this point, she knew the children better than anyone else. She was growing to love them. Certainly the judge would see the benefits of letting them remain together? Even Mrs. Hollingsworth wasn’t cold enough to object.
Mostly, they needed to find Emil. Until they found the children’s grandfather, their fate was unresolved.
Holding out her arms, she took Sam’s and Peter’s hand in turn. “We have each other. We’ll do the best from there.”
“You won’t leave us, will you?” Peter appealed. “You’ll stay with us until we find Grandpa Emil?”
“Yes,” Lily said. “I promise.”
She’d find a way to keep that promise, no matter what happened.
She’d be alone again after that, but she was accustomed to being alone.
* * *
A soft knock sounded on the door. Jake swung it open and paused. There was something different about Lily’s expression. A hint of sadness he hadn’t noticed before.
“Is everything all right?”
“Yes,” she said, brushing past him. “But we don’t have much time to put everything in order.”
While Sam and Peter perched on two chairs, Jake leaned forward and trimmed his beard in the mirror. Clipping off his whiskers felt as though he was coming out of hiding. He’d grown accustomed to the shelter of the beard. Sure, when he’d first met Lily he’d pined for the days when ladies didn’t cross the boardwalk when he approached, but he’d forgotten what he looked like. He’d forgotten who he was on the inside and the outside.
She’d seen right through him. One day he’d tell her the truth. Would she trust him then? Would she trust him after she discovered he’d been lying to her?
Lily planted her hands on her hips and glanced at them. “What have the three of you been doing for the past twenty minutes?” She waved toward a clock on the mantel. “The train is late, not indefinitely delayed.”
“You’re fretting.” Jake grinned in spite of himself. “We’re definitely behaving as though we’re a family. You’ve already started nagging me.”
“I never!”
“I’m teasing you, Lily. Relax.” He checked his neatly trimmed beard. “Do you think this enough of a change?”
“No. Not even close. Why are you so attached to looking like a fur trapper?”
“You keep saying that. Don’t I look like a dangerous gunfighter?”
“You’re quite frightening.” She rolled her eyes. “Either way, the beard has to go.”
The banter reminded him of his own parents. The memories of happier times had dimmed, yet Lily had flooded the past with light. His parents had married young. His mother had barely turned sixteen and his father was seventeen. Neither family had been particularly pleased with the pairing, but young love had prevailed, and he’d been born the following year.
Despite all the grim predictions about his parents’ future, they’d survived and thrived. They’d argued, too; their love had been fiery. But he didn’t recall them staying angry for long.
Those same protective feelings welled up inside him. He remembered his own father, and felt as though a window had opened inside his soul. After his mother’s death, his father had changed. A child at the time, Jake hadn’t understood those changes. They’d all lost someone. There were times when he felt as though his father had forgotten that. There were moments when he’d wanted to shout his own loss. For the first time in his life, he loo
ked at his mother’s death from his father’s point of view.
At last he understood. His father had been fighting his grief and his guilt. He’d been fighting against what he saw as a failure. He’d failed to protect his family.
Jake and his father had drifted apart, as though his mother had been the magnet holding them together. She would have been devastated had she known her death had caused such a rift. They’d each grieved in their own way, and neither had understood the other. Lily wasn’t his wife, and Sam and Peter were not his children. They’d known each other only a few days. He’d be shattered if something were to happen to one of them.
That’s what had happened to his father. He’d been shattered.
Jake stared in the mirror and made a vow to return home in the next year. He’d see if there was anything left of their relationship on which he could build.
Running a hand down his beard, he stared into the mirror. “I do look like a fur trapper.”
“I can cut your hair for you.” Lily spoke softly. “If you’d like.”
He’d grown his hair long for the notoriety. He’d gone into Frozen Oaks wanting to be noticed. He needed to catch Vic’s attention. It seemed fitting that he was cutting his hair for the opposite reason. The time had come to peel back the layers. He didn’t know what he’d find beneath them, but he was done hiding.
“Yes,” he said. “You can cut my hair.”
She didn’t appear triumphant, only relieved.
She sat him on the chair and grasped a stool he hadn’t noticed from the corner. After rummaging through the stacks of packages she’d bought from the mercantile, she emerged with a drape and whisked the material over his upper body. He slouched in the chair and she stood on the stool, rising on her tiptoes to reach the top of his head.
Sam’s face screwed up. “Have you ever cut anyone’s hair before, Miss Lily?”
“Yes,” she said, her brow knitted in concentration. “I cut my father’s hair.”
“Do you still cut his hair?”
“Not anymore.” The scissors remained suspended in the air near Jake’s ear. “He died.”
“What happened?” Sam asked.
“Sam,” Jake spoke. “That’s not a polite question.”
“I don’t mind talking about him.” Lily rested her hand on his shoulder. “When I was fifteen, my mother and older brother contracted rheumatic fever. I did, as well. They, uh, they didn’t survive. I did. After that, my father took a job with the railroad munitions crew. There was an accident at the jobsite, and he was killed.”
“When was that?”
“Five years ago, give or take. He never quite recovered from losing his wife and son. They isolated everyone who was sick during the outbreak. The illness had spread rapidly, and people were dying. Everyone was scared. I think he was always sad that he never got to say goodbye to them.”
“Then you lost everyone,” Peter said. “Just like us.”
“You have each other, remember.”
“And you have us,” Sam said.
She pressed her bent knuckle against her eye, holding back a tear. “Yes. I have you.”
Jake reached across his chest and caught her hand, pressing her fingers against his shoulder. He’d sensed a sorrow in her, but he hadn’t realized how deep it ran.
“I’m sorry, Lily,” he said. “That must have been very difficult.”
Peter lay on his stomach on the bed, his chin cupped in his hands. “Do you miss them still? I wonder sometimes. I wonder when I’ll stop missing my parents.”
Lily’s throat worked and she squeezed his hand.
“You never stop missing them,” Jake said. “But missing them gets easier over time.”
“You’re right.” Lily cleared her throat. “I never thought about grief that way. The burden of missing them never grows lighter, but your strength grows stronger over the years. The sorrow is always there, but the grief is more bearable.”
“Good,” Sam said. “Because I don’t want to feel like this forever.”
“You can be sad as long as you need.” Lily straightened. “Everyone grieves differently. There’s no right or wrong way to miss someone.”
“I never thought about it that way either.” Peter rolled onto his back and folded his hands on his stomach. “The woman at the children’s home in St. Joseph said that we should be happy they were in a better place.”
“You want them to be with you. There’s nothing wrong with that.” Lily ran her fingers through Jake’s hair. A shiver of awareness rippled down his spine. “We’d best get on with this haircut.”
Before he could change his mind, she was snipping away. She’d pulled the rug aside and shorn hair fluttered onto the wood floor. Lily heated a pot of water near the fire and immersed a towel. With her thumb and forefinger, she gingerly retrieved the towel and let the excess water drip into the pot.
The towel steamed. She pinched opposite side and flapped the edges.
“Tip back your head,” she ordered.
“Why?” He squinted one eye. “What are you doing?”
“Softening your whiskers.”
“You’re not shaving my beard. Cutting my hair will be enough.”
He hadn’t seen his face in ages, and he was worried about her reaction. He’d never given his looks much thought before. He was sure thinking about them now.
“Your beard will grow back in a week,” she said. “Don’t be childish.”
“All right, but I can shave my own face.”
“I don’t trust you.” The steamy warmth of the towel billowed toward the ceiling. “I saw how well you trimmed your beard. You barely clipped the edges.”
Her eyes were soft and appealing.
“All right,” he said. “But at the first drop of blood, I’ll take over the duty.”
“Deal.”
They’d kept the curtains closed over the windows and Sam had lit two of the kerosene lamps.
Since there was no way to tip back his head comfortably, she knelt before him and brushed the hair from his forehead. Her touch was gentle, featherlight, and his heartbeat quickened. He was vitally aware of her, the gentle puff of her breath, the soft pulse in the hollow of her throat.
Her eyes were only inches from his, her pupils large, the wintry-blue color barely visible beyond the edge. Even before he’d become a US marshal, he’d rarely paid for a shave. The extravagance seemed unnecessary since he was perfectly capable of wielding the blade over his own skin.
She foamed the lather and spread a layer over his face.
Arching his neck, he was vulnerable against her touch. She tucked two fingers beneath his chin and turned his head to the side. With deft strokes she shaved the right side of his neck, the soft scrape of the blade the only sound in the room. A lock of hair drifted over her cheek. Her brows knitted together in concentration; she tugged her lower lip between her teeth. Turning his head the opposite direction, she rested her left hand on his shoulder for balance.
There was an intimacy to the act. Once again he was back in Texas. There were clothes flapping in the breeze. His mother and father were sitting on the porch with their heads bent together, laughing over some joke only the two of them shared. He’d forgotten their casual tenderness. His mother had been the only one who brought out the warmth in his father. Without her, he’d become a closed man. Aloof. Not unkind, but something had gone missing from him after his wife’s death.
Lily stuck out her lower lip and blew a breath, stirring the hair off her forehead. Instead of his mother and father, he and Lily sat on the porch. Not the porch of his home in Texas—somewhere different, with hills rolling in the background. He pictured the rolling hills of his uncle’s horse farm.
Lily wore a yellow gingham summer dress and her skirts tangled around her ankles in the br
eeze. The picture was so true, so vivid, he sucked in a breath.
“Stay still.” Lily drew back. “You nearly lost an ear.”
The walls closed in around him and he was trapped once more. He snatched the wrist holding the blade and held the instrument away from his face.
Her eyes widened and the pulse beneath his fingers beat rapidly.
“I’ll finish,” he said.
“I was only joking about losing an ear.” She smiled. “I’m almost done.”
He dropped her hand as though it was a flaming-hot poker, then yanked the drape she’d placed over his shirt. The material felt as though it was choking him. “I can take over from here. Take Sam and Peter to the other room. Get them ready.”
“Your suit is here. I had to guess on the size. I bought a small sewing kit—I can make a few adjustments. Nothing elaborate.”
“Good. Whatever. Go to the other room. Take Sam and Peter. I’ll be right out.”
“Did I do something?” She cupped his chin, turning his face this way and that. “I didn’t cut you, did I?”
Once more he took her delicate wrist, forcing her touch away. “I’m fine. Go.”
“I’ve annoyed you.”
All at once he felt like a bully. A schoolyard bully picking on someone weaker than himself to prove that he was tough. “Don’t apologize, Lily. You’ve done nothing wrong. If we’re going to make that train, we’d best hurry up.”
“All right.” With a last look over her shoulder, she ushered the children into the other room. “Knock when you’re ready.”
Jake swiped the foam from his face and searched for the few whiskers she’d missed. Without wetting the blade, he scraped against the grain and flinched. A drop of blood appeared on his cheek.
So much for shaving himself.
Every time he looked at Lily, he sensed that same familiar, lonely feeling in her. A part of him felt responsible for that look. He couldn’t protect her heart, only her safety. She’d feel better once she was home, surrounded by her friends.
A Family for the Holidays Page 12