by Jillian Hart
“All right. I brought back a pheasant for supper,” he told her. “I’ll dig for more roots.”
“That sounds perfect.”
While Jonah went in search of a tree, Meredith worked out her plan to celebrate the holiday. In her sleeping compartment, she opened the carved wood doors on the armoire and took out a stack of hatboxes, which she opened on the bed. Finding several hats adorned with feathers, she plucked them free and filled one entire hatbox. From other hats she removed wax cherries, paper birds and silk flowers, until a second box was filled.
After tossing the barren hats back into the armoire, she located her emergency sewing kit and threaded needles. Carrying the overflowing boxes out to the main area, she arranged them on the divan. “These will be our tree decorations.”
Jillian and Hayden examined the feathers and assortment of objects with muted reverence. Finally, Jillian turned wide brown eyes on Meredith. “These is the most beautifullest decorations in the whole wide world, Miss Abbott. We will have the bestest tree ever there was.”
Never had Meredith yearned so achingly for the simplest of things, such as a bowl of popping corn or a basket of cranberries. But obviously, these children didn’t recognize the hardship, which was somehow even more sad.
When Jonah returned, they were ready with their makeshift ornaments. He had fashioned a stand from pieces of a crate. They stood the tree atop the low table and added the flourishes with painstaking care. Once again Jonah left and this time returned with pinecones he’d gathered in a piece of burlap.
Jillian squealed as though he’d brought them something valuable, and he was soon involved in an attempt to thread a needle so she could hang the cones.
With a laugh, Meredith took the needle and thread from him and had it ready in seconds. Jillian looked around for the footstool, and Jonah helped her arrange it near the table, then steadied her as she stood upon it and hung her prized ornaments. The pinecones all ended up on the same side of the tree, but neither Jonah or Meredith mentioned it or rearranged them.
Hayden had discovered a method of securing two feathers together and adding another garnish, like a wax cherry or a paper bird, and then hanging the finished piece from a limb.
“You have something there,” Jonah told him. “Those look as good as any store-bought ornaments.”
“I agree,” Meredith concurred. She’d be making a beeline for the milliners when she finally reached Denver, but for now, it didn’t matter a whit. These objects were bringing more pleasure as tree decorations than they ever had as hat adornment.
Once the tree was at last finished, they cleared their mess and stood back to admire their creation.
“It’s the most beautifullest tree in the whole wide world,” Jillian proclaimed, her sweet voice laced with awe.
Meredith met Jonah’s gaze and recognized the emotion he couldn’t completely hide.
If her trip had been uneventful and she had arrived at her destination as planned, Meredith would have been at the governor’s mansion this evening, dressed in her emerald velvet gown and elbow-length white gloves, dancing to an orchestra and making polite conversation with a hundred people she barely knew. Instead, she was stranded somewhere in the foothills, surviving on biscuits and wild game, and caring for a couple of abandoned children…?.
It was the best Christmas Eve she could remember.
Hayden and Jillian embodied precisely what the spirit of Christmas was all about. It wasn’t about lavish parties or expensive gifts. It was about a person sharing what they have with others, even if they possessed no more than a smile… Christmas was about people looking into their hearts and finding love and compassion for others.
“We have pheasant for tonight’s supper,” Jonah told them. “But I’ve been saving something for tomorrow.”
The children were attentive. “What is it?” Hayden asked.
“I’ll be right back.” Jonah grabbed his coat and headed out the door. Several minutes later he returned with something rolled in a piece of canvas. As he unrolled it, the aroma reached Meredith. Her mouth watered.
“Oh, it smells so good,” Jillian declared.
Jonah presented them with a savory-smelling, hickory-smoked ham. He grinned. “Someone had packed this?” Meredith asked, incredulous.
He nodded. “Yup. The entire trunk smelled like a smoke-house. Probably intended as a gift for someone.”
“Too bad for the intended receiver,” Meredith said. “But fortunate for us.” She took the ham from him and headed for the kitchen area. “Maybe I’ll slice just a little to dice into our biscuits this evening. We’re going to owe a whole lot of people for the items we’ve used when we get to Denver.”
“I’ll be more than happy to pay double whatever this ham cost,” he said.
She laughed. “Who’s cooking that pheasant?”
“I’ll get right on it. Come help me, Hayden.”
Roasted pheasant, biscuits and burdock root wasn’t a traditional Christmas Eve supper, but the meal tasted delicious. They enjoyed the bits of ham and cheese Meredith had sprinkled into the biscuit dough.
Jonah broke off another bite. “You might write a cookbook once you’re home,” he told her.
“The instructions for most recipes would be simple,” she agreed. “‘Find yourself a savvy outdoorsman to snare a rabbit and roast it to a savory tenderness.’”
They laughed together.
Jonah couldn’t help but admire the way Meredith jumped right in and accomplished any task she set her mind to. She hadn’t once complained about the conditions or lack of amenities, as most women of her status would have, but instead approached every trial as though she was ready and capable to create a solution. And she had.
She was bossy and quite obviously used to having her own way, but she was also competent and generous. She’d never shown fear, and had made certain the Langley kids were unaware of the imminent danger.
At first glance, she’d appeared a snooty female whose only purpose in life was attending parties and looking good on the arm of a political candidate, but the more he was around her, the more he recognized she was not who she seemed. Meredith was the furthest from shallow that a person could be and trapped by her circumstances. She’d been born into that family and raised to be like them.
The children were picking up plates without being asked.
“Is there anything more you would you like to do?” he asked softly. “Besides marrying well and helping with your husband’s career advances?”
“The cookbook isn’t a bad idea,” she said. “Although I’ve never cooked until you showed me how to make biscuits, so I probably lack credibility.” Her eyes revealed the same humor her words conveyed. “I’ve tried my hand at painting and was a disappointment to my instructor. I’m too impatient to get the colors and shadows right. People’s faces were decidedly frightening, with lopsided mouths and drooping eyes.”
“You sew, apparently.”
“Only very basic and primitive stitches to get me by until I can reach a seamstress.”
“You said you can shoot.”
“Quite well, actually. Short of a Wild West show, there’s not much call for a woman with dead-eye aim, however. My father would frown upon it if I took a job as an executioner or took up big-game hunting.”
Jonah laughed out loud at her comedic sense of self-deprecation. “And how many trophy heads could you even fit on your walls?”
“Not that many.”
Hayden looked at them as though they were crazy, which only had them laughing again.
Her expression sobered. “I want a well-to-do husband and a position on his staff.”
She would do well in a job like that, Jonah figured. He wasn’t any kind of an expert on matters of the heart—or on females for that matter—and practicality would serve a woman well, but didn’t women dream of a grand passion?
“What are you thinking?” she asked, as though guessing he had questions.
“I’m thinking you
’d be good at anything you set your mind to.” She gave him one of those smiles that knocked him off-kilter.
By the time they’d finished their meal and cleaned up, it was dark out. Jonah covered the windows as he always did, and they lit a single lamp.
“I held on to something else I found,” he said.
Hayden and Jillian sat forward on the divan, where they’d perched beside Meredith. “What did you find, Marshal?” Hayden asked.
Jonah pulled a Bible from under his coat near the door. “This.”
“Another book?” Jillian asked. “What does this one be about?”
“About a lot of things,” he answered with a grin. “But for tonight I’m gonna find the part about the first Christmas.”
“The manger story?” Hayden asked.
“That’s the one.” Jonah sat and thumbed through the well-worn pages, and Meredith couldn’t help wondering who the Bible belonged to. Maybe a preacher man traveling aboard the train, from the looks of it.
“Here we go,” Jonah said. He spread the book open and ran his finger down the flimsy page. “‘And it came to pass in those days that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.’”
“What’s a decree?” Hayden asked.
Jonah looked to Meredith.
“It’s a new rule,” she explained.
“Do it hurt to get taxed?” Jillian asked.
“Only hurts your pocketbook.” Jonah took this one. “A tax is something that the people in charge, like kings or rulers, make people pay in order to own land or buy things or just to live in the country. In this case the ruler was Caesar, and he wanted every person counted so he could make them pay him.” He would have liked to tell them about the tea taxation in Boston in more recent history, but for tonight they should probably try to get through this story.
Both children waited for more.
In the end they had so many questions that the story of the baby Jesus’s birth took longer than expected, but that was okay, because they were smart, and they had the evening to pass.
“Is there more about the baby Jesus in that book?” Hayden asked.
“There’s a lot more,” Meredith answered. “But the rest of the story is about him as a grown-up.”
“I wanna hear it,” Jillian said with an eager lift of her brows.
“We can read more another time,” Jonah promised.
“Let’s sing a couple of Christmas songs before you go to bed.” She got up and went to the corner, where a fringed cloth covered what Jonah had assumed was a table or cabinet. Instead, a small pianoforte was revealed.
Jillian clapped her hands and squealed in delight.
Jonah hoped she wasn’t expecting him to know any songs.
After locating a stack of sheets that looked like music, Meredith slid a dainty bench before the instrument and seated herself. Flipping pages, she settled on a piece and placed her fingers on the keys.
Jonah was used to off-key honky-tonk music, so the lilting tones she produced took him by surprise. He’d never heard the song, but he enjoyed it, especially once she accompanied her playing with her surprisingly rich and husky-toned voice. There was nothing sweet or angelic about Meredith’s voice—in fact, it brought to mind sensual images that definitely didn’t coincide with the carol about bells and Yule logs.
“You didn’t know it?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“I probably wouldn’t have if I hadn’t taken eight years of instruction.”
He raised his dark brows. “Eight years?”
“Excessive, I agree. I nagged so persistently to learn to ride and shoot that eventually my mother gave in and let me take lessons as long as I kept up the music class.”
“Can you shoot as well as you play?”
“Better.”
“Play more!” Jillian’s plea turned Meredith back to her sheet music.
The next few hymns were more familiar, and the children sang along with the choruses.
Eventually, Jillian’s eyes were drooping, and Meredith sent her to the necessary, as she called it, and then made her comfortable on the mattress.
She fell asleep snuggled right up against her brother, his hand stroking her hair. Jonah gave Hayden a smile. For now they were safe and warm, and had probably just enjoyed one of the best Christmas Eve’s in their short history.
Jonah couldn’t remember a holiday as good as this once since his childhood. Christmases passed without much fanfare. A good turkey or roast beef dinner at a restaurant was a treat, and if he wasn’t on the trail, a quiet night in a hotel room completed his celebration. He’d eaten dinner with another marshal’s family once, but he’d felt out of place and excused himself early.
Meredith recovered the pianoforte, and Jonah sat admiring the little tree in the dim light from the oil lamp he’d turned low. “We’d better get out those guns from the other room and have them at the ready.”
Now that the storm had let up, their real troubles had begun.
Chapter Six
She gave a single nod. “All right. We’ll be back shortly,” she said to Hayden.
Together they took guns and ammunition from the cabinet Meredith unlocked. Jonah grabbed a Winchester carbine with elaborate gold embellishments. “Your father knows his guns.”
“He’s a collector.”
“The models that came before this weren’t as powerful. The two single actions in the case there are better weapons than those were, but this lever-action beauty…” He ran his fingers over the nickel plating.
“It can be fired several times without reloading,” she supplied.
“Show me you know how to load it.”
She took the rifle from him, selected the correct carton of bullets and, using the gate on the side, loaded the magazine. One by one, she checked the ammunition in each weapon, until he was satisfied she could handle the task.
When Jonah told her they needed to fill the copper tub in the necessary with snow, she cast him a skeptical frown.
“Need to keep water on hand,” he explained.
She saw his logic and helped him haul snow through the car. “Are you convinced the outlaws will attack soon?”
“Snow let up today,” he replied. “All they have to do is follow the rails to reach us.”
She quirked her mouth to the side as she considered. “Maybe we shouldn’t just sit here.”
“I thought it out. We could try to make a run for the nearest town, though I’m not completely certain of its location without doing a little scouting first. The youngins would hold us up, making traveling slow. The chance of getting caught out in the open, in the cold, worries me more than staying put and waiting for help. This car is sound enough for us to hold off an attack. Staying put is our best chance of keeping them safe.”
“All right,” she agreed without hesitation. She was trusting him with their lives. All he could do was hope he’d made the right decision.
“It could get dangerous if they show up,” he warned her. “I want you to focus on covering one side of the car, and I’ll be on the other. Shoot to kill, Meredith.”
Her wide eyes were solemn as she nodded her understanding.
“We have a good chance if we keep our heads level and plan. We’ll push the tallest furniture in front of the windows and lean other things over them. We should teach Hayden how to reload the guns.”
Her expression showed surprise, but resolve quickly replaced it. “He’s a smart boy. He can do it. I’ll go get him.”
For the next half hour Hayden got instruction on how to load the chambers and magazines. Jonah quizzed him on which ammunition filled which gun, and the boy picked it up without error.
Jonah explained to Hayden what was most likely going to happen. It was wiser to inform him and have him participate in their defense than to risk one less set of hands at the critical hour.
“Let’s carry these out and place them under the divan and in the chest,” Meredith suggested. �
�Close at hand, but not so that Jillian will be afraid.”
“You’re going to do just fine, boy,” Jonah said to Hayden. “Before long, we’ll be out of here and on our way to Denver.”
Jillian remained sound asleep, looking as peaceful as Jonah wished he felt. He was accustomed to perilous situations, but normally it was only his neck and a strongbox of gold at risk. The stakes were a lot higher in this predicament.
Once the guns were stowed away, they pushed a cabinet in front of a window and nailed a carpet over another.
“What about the windows in the other places?” Hayden asked with solemn concern etching his brow.
“Real wise of you to think of that,” Jonah replied. “The others are all too small for a person to get through. They could shoot out the glass, but they can’t enter.”
Meredith tucked Hayden into his bedding and exited the room. She returned a while later to hand Jonah a steaming cup. Reaching for it, he recognized the trembling of her fingers on the handle. Taking her wrist and the cup at the same time, he set the cup aside and enveloped her hand with both of his. “You’re scared.”
She glanced over at the now sleeping Hayden. “No,” she disagreed. “I’m not.”
“Everybody gets scared, Meredith. Fear keeps us on our toes.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“Why are your hands shaking?”
“I’m cold.”
He liked that she was proud and didn’t want to show weakness. She survived in a household of men without being one of those simpering females who got her way by feigning tears or throwing tantrums.
“Drink your coffee,” he said.
“It’s tea.”
He led her to the wide divan, where his covers had already been arranged, and guided her to sit, then handed her a cup. “Drink your tea.”
She took it from him and sipped. He got his own cup and sat beside her. The hot sweet liquid was indeed tea, and it tasted good.
“Possible the lawmen will get here first,” he said. “Men could come from town or bring a locomotive from Denver. We’re just getting ready for the worst-case scenario.”