Wild West Christmas: A Family for the RancherDance with a CowboyChristmas in Smoke River

by Jenna Kernan

  As if she could ever forget. It was the first time he’d ever held her in his arms. There had been many a night when she’d thought of that dance and the start of their relationship when the world was nothing but possibilities. Her mother had married a professional man, so Alice saw no obstacles between Dillen and her. After all, Dillen was the son of a banker with an acceptance to attend a university. She smiled at the memory. “You looked very dashing.”

  “And Alice was as pretty as a rose,” he said to the boys. “Later, when you were born, Cody, Alice held you at the baptism. She and I are your godparents.”

  “What about me?” asked Colin.

  “Well, that was two years later.”

  Two years, and everything had changed for Dillen and Sylvie. Their father had abandoned them under the cloud of scandal.

  Dillen went on. “But yes, we stood up in that church for you, too.”

  “And promised,” said Alice, “to see you both raised properly.”

  Dillen gave her a long look and then nodded. “Yep. We sure did.”

  “And that is what we shall do,” she whispered, stroking a hand over Colin’s feathery hair. His eyelids drooped now, but Cody struggled against sleep.

  Dillen looked troubled again. Was he wondering where he and the boys would live? She wondered, too. She could offer help, but knew from her last attempts that Dillen was too proud to take her money. Would he take it for the boys’ sakes?

  “Are we going to live here now?” he asked.

  “For a while.”

  “I like it here,” said Cody.

  “Why’s that?” asked his uncle.

  “’Cause it’s got chimneys. Lots of them.”

  Dillen’s brow wrinkled and he cocked his head at the odd answer.

  “Uncle Dillen, if we don’t have any chimneys, how will Santa find us?”

  Dillen’s mouth went grim at this question.

  Cody didn’t notice past the yawn. They had been through a full day, riding out here, spending much of the afternoon outside in the barn and then enjoying their musical evening. She looked to Colin, who was already puffing out steady breaths, his thick eyelashes brushing his cheeks. Alice felt the tightness in her chest every time she saw them sleeping. Was it longing or love? She didn’t know.

  Alice just tucked Cody in tight and kissed his forehead. “He’ll find you here, lambkin.”

  Cody sighed and closed his eyes.

  Dillen stood, hands in the back pockets of his dungarees. Alice turned down the wick on the lantern but left the lamp on the table beside the bed.

  Dillen followed her out into the hallway.

  “Why did you tell them that?” he asked, his voice strained but still a whisper.

  “What?”

  “That Santa would come here. Alice, I don’t have money to buy them toys.”

  “Then make them some.”

  He thought about that for a moment. “I’ve never made a toy before.”

  “But I know you can work wood. I saw the cradle you made for Cody. It was beautiful.”

  Dillen rubbed his neck.

  “Well, don’t fret. I bought them a few little toys and candies for their stockings. We’ll manage.”

  His expression turned sad again. “Alice, you can’t keep buying them things. When you’re gone, it will be even harder on them.”

  He said it as a fait accompli. She was going. But if he would only ask her, she’d stay forever.

  “They are just a few little items.” She dropped her chin and stared at her hands, realizing they were scratched and nicked from all her work in the house.

  “And new black suits and shoes and hats and coats. I know Sylvie and Ben never bought those things,” said Dillen.

  “I just...” She lifted her chin. “Who else am I going to spend it on?”

  That took him back. He cocked his head. “I don’t know.”

  “You won’t let me help you. You made that very clear when I tried. But at least let me help the boys.”

  “You are helping. You cleaned this house up and saw us all fed. Best meal I ever had. I’m just saying there’s other ways to help.” He rested a hand on her shoulder, his fingers caressing her neck.

  It was so hard not to draw her in and kiss her. She’d let him. He saw it in her eyes.

  “I know that. I just... I’m trying not to make mistakes. To do my best for them, and I don’t really know what I’m doing half the time.” She felt defeated and let her shoulders sag, a momentary lapse in her generally perfect posture.

  His hand left her, and she almost whimpered at her grief at the loss of his touch. But then he used his knuckles to lift her chin, bringing her gaze up to meet his.

  “You’ll never convince me of that.” He grinned. “You look like you know exactly.”

  “I don’t,” she admitted, feeling the sudden need to get this off her chest. She motioned him down the hall, farther from the open door of the boys’ room, and lifted a finger to halt him before retreating a few steps into her own room. She returned with Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management, offering it in two hands. “I’ve been using this.”

  He accepted the well-worn volume and thumbed through the dog-eared pages.

  “Didn’t figure you’d know your way around a kitchen. You learned all you been doing from this?” He held up the heavy book.

  “Some. But not the food preparation or mothering. I’ve been cooking for years, and mothering is akin to nursing, I think.”

  He extended the book and she returned the volume to the table just inside her room.

  “Your mom wasn’t much of a—what’d that book call it—a household manager?”

  “No. As you correctly surmised, she directs, plans menus and goes over the accounts with the housekeeper.”

  “What about mothering? She do any of that?”

  She couldn’t hold his searching gaze and for a moment considered changing the topic or outright lying. But she knew what her lie of omission had cost her before. So she buckled down and prepared to answer him. She hoped he wouldn’t show her any pity. It was too ridiculous. She’d had every advantage that money could buy and yet, she felt so uncertain.

  “I had a nurse and a nanny and a governess. Later, I had teachers and tutors. Some days I did not see my mother. On occasion she would come into the nursery dressed in her finery before she and father went out for dinner or to some function. She had her charities and social responsibilities and...” Her words fell off.

  He blinked at her as if she’d just grown a second nose.

  She turned away. “Oh, I shouldn’t have told you. Those boys just lost their mother, and I’m complaining about the stupidest things.”

  He grasped her by both shoulders and pulled her back against his body. The contact was solid and reassuring, but it made her heart rate soar and her stomach flutter.

  “They did lose a mother, a damned fine one. But at least they had a mother.”

  “So did I. She loves me. I know she does. But she is a very exacting sort of person and she does not like loud noises and messes.”

  Children, he thought. She’s saying she didn’t like children or, specifically, her own daughter. Alice continued on, sounding apologetic.

  “I know she only wants what is best for me.” Alice leaned on Dillen as if drawing strength from his touch. At last, she turned in his arms and gazed up at those big dark eyes.

  “She also tended to use bribery and threats. So your comment about buying things strikes deep. Please believe me, Dillen, I have done my best to avoid such tactics with the boys.”

  “Better than using a belt, I reckon.”

  Alice’s eyes went wide at this admission, and he immediately regretted mentioning it.

  “Your mother used a belt on y
ou?”

  “My father. When he was around, which wasn’t often.”

  “You and I never spoke about what happened, but I know there was talk.”

  Dillen gave a mirthless laugh. “I’d expect so. Man embezzles that kind of money and runs off.”

  “Sylvia also told me that he abandoned you.”

  He drew back. Had Sylvie told her all of it? That the bastard had found another woman, a mistress, stolen thousands of dollars from the bank he’d managed and run. According to the detectives who had come round investigating the crime, his father not only had a mistress but had fathered three children by her. Then he had cut and run. Left them and taken his new family West. Dillen had been midway through his first year at the university. He’d dropped out and gone to work. What else could he do? His mother and sister had needed him.

  “She told me that once she was married, she offered to take your mother in so you could go back to school.”

  But Sylvie was a newlywed then and his mother had been so frail, the scandal killing her as surely as a cancer. In the end it was her heart, according to Alice’s father. His mother had not lived through the year.

  “Did she also tell you those were lean years for her? Ben could barely support them. He was starting a business.” Then his mother was gone and Sylvie was expecting and there was no money for the university.

  “It was very noble,” said Alice.

  It had nearly killed him. He’d given up his career and somehow he’d known that he would lose Alice, too, and that was before he’d known who she really was. They had courted before he’d gone to the university. Back when he’d been a man with a future with a past unsullied by his father’s shame. Dillen found it hard, but he met her eyes. “Sylvie went to work, too. You helped her get a job nursing at the hospital.”

  “Yes.” Alice lowered her gaze. Did she know how much that money had meant to a young mother whose husband’s business had yet to succeed?

  “You never told her who you really were.”

  “But we were friends. I would do anything for her. Sylvia knew me better than my own family, I believe. We both liked the hospital and helping people. My mother didn’t approve of my choice to work with my father and tried to get me to quit. Later she resorted to bribery. But threats and bribery will only carry one so far. My mother learned that again quite recently.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She forbade me from bringing the boys to you. She said that it was improper for me to travel unescorted and that caring for two boys was unseemly for an unmarried woman.” Boarding that train had been an act of outright defiance and it had made her feel grown up and terrified all at once. Alice had half expected her grandfather to turn the train around. “It wasn’t the first time she’s tried to keep me from acting against her wishes.”

  “No?” His eyes glittered dangerously in the darkened hallway.

  “When she discovered who you were, she forbade me to see you. I would have defied her then, too, but...”

  The sentence trailed off. Did he know what she had left unsaid? She would have defied her then, too, but he’d left her before she had the chance.

  “You never told me that.”

  “No. I didn’t. I only wanted to help you succeed. To help you return to the university and earn that veterinary license you so wanted. I never meant to deceive you by allowing you to continue believing I was only in my father’s employ.”

  Her smile faltered.

  “You were Sylvia’s friend for more than four years, but she never knew who you really were. When we were courting, you never told me, either. Why? Why’d you make me think I could have you and then snatch it all back?”

  Alice stiffened. “That was never my intention. Before I met you, I had been conversing with my father about, well, a disappointment, and my father said that I...” She twisted her index finger as if she meant to unscrew it. “That if I was bored with rich, useless men, I should look beyond Mama’s social set, which I did. He’s the one who encouraged me to work with him at the hospital. And I liked it. No, I loved it, because for the first time in my life I had something meaningful to occupy me and I was just like anyone else.”

  “So...what? This was all some kind of game, seeing how the other half lived?”

  “No. It wasn’t.”

  “Charity work, then? A great lady washing wounds and tending the sick. Just the acts of a good Christian? Must have been some laugh, when you invited me to meet your folks. That place was so big. I thought maybe it was some kind of hospital. Imagine my surprise when I see that it is your home.” He scrubbed his broad hand over his mouth.

  “My grandfather’s. We always had Christmas Eve dinner there.”

  “You and a hundred of his closest friends?” He had tried for humor but the bite of betrayal colored his words.

  Alice lowered her chin, looking small and contrite. “They weren’t my friends.”

  He’d always thought she had played some cruel joke on him, but now he wondered.

  “I had to attend, and I’d been trying to find a time when you could meet both my parents. You see, they have had some difficulties and seldom appear together any longer.”

  He did not know that. Had they separated? Dillen looked at Alice with new eyes, seeing the hot pink shame splashed across her cheeks.

  “You asked to meet them and you seemed to think I was putting you off, but truly, it was a challenging request.”

  Dillen cast his mind back to that night. Her mother’s cold expression. Her father’s warm one. Then he thought of Alice.

  He lightly grasped her elbows. She lifted her chin and met his gaze.

  “I remember what you were wearing. White lace, miles of it. You were all tied up and buttoned up. Fussy and fancy with a bustle out to there. You looked so fine that I didn’t recognize you at first. You remember? Looked right past you and asked the butler for you, thinking all the while I had the wrong place, and then he motioned to you and I about fell on the floor ’cause you looked so different. Like a stranger.” He gave a laugh that sounded raw and painful.

  “Dillen, I never meant to play you for a fool.”

  His brows lowered and he tucked his chin as if preparing to take a punch in the jaw. “You should have warned me, Alice.”

  “I was afraid you wouldn’t come. You said you wanted to speak to my father. I so wanted you to.”

  “I had no right to speak to him. Not after I realized... Why, Alice?”

  “I was afraid of losing you. If you knew I was his daughter or who my grandfather was... In the end my lie did make me lose you anyway.” She rested her hands on his chest. “I’ve regretted that lie every day since you left. I’ve lain awake wondering if you would ever forgive me.”

  “You think I left because of that?”

  She heard the incredulity in his voice, for she shifted from side to side. “Well, I did. But now I’m not sure what to think.” She searched his face for answers and found only a grim poker face.

  “You told me you had feelings for me, Dillen. That you wanted to ask for my hand. Then you broke all ties. You never wrote. What was I to think?”

  “I didn’t leave because of the lie.”

  “Then why?”

  “I left because, well, hell, it doesn’t matter now.”

  Her fingers curled around the flannel of his shirt, and she tugged as if trying to bring him closer. He didn’t move but she did, lifting onto her toes.

  “What do you mean? Of course it matters! Dillen, you tell me this instant why you left. Was there another woman?”

  His snort was not a laugh, exactly. In fact, his expression held no mirth whatsoever. She thought she saw only pain now reflected in his eyes.

  “Tell me, please!” she begged.

  He looked away, and for a moment she did not
think he would answer. When he spoke, he still averted his eyes as if looking at her was too difficult.

  “I left so I could make my fortune. My sister was doing better financially. She took in my mother. I planned to earn a boat full of money and then ask for your hand. I was going to prove to your grandfather and your mother that I was the best choice, better than all those rich men swarming you like honeybees. Didn’t quite work out like I figured, though.”

  “You what?”

  He glanced back. His expression reminded her of the night he’d said goodbye. “Stupid, right? I thought if I just had enough money your parents might welcome me into your family. That money was the ticket into your world. I’ve learned two things since. Money isn’t that easy to come by, and a sow’s ear is a sow’s ear no matter how much silk you sew over it.”

  “You are not a sow’s ear!” She said that too loudly and clamped a hand over her mouth, glancing back toward the boys’ bedroom. They listened a moment and heard no stirring. But they moved to the top of the stairs to put more distance between the sleeping boys and their conversation.

  “You,” Alice said, “are a wonder with horses and will make a fine veterinarian someday.”

  He gave a joyless laugh. “That’s just a pipe dream.”

  “But it’s not.”

  He held up a hand to stop her.

  “You are helping with the boys, Alice. Don’t think I’m not appreciative. But in less than a month, you’ll be in Omaha and I’ll be here.” With that, he turned and descended the stairs.

  Chapter Nine

  Alice hurried downstairs after Dillen.

  Mr. Roberts was already at the door, shrugging on his heavy coat. “See you tomorrow, Miss Alice. Thanks again for the fine meal.”

  Dillen didn’t even bother to put his coat on, just squeezed it between his two big, capable hands. He half turned but did not really look at her. “Good night, Alice.”

  The door opened and a blast of cold air reached all the way to her heart. Alice watched them retreat toward the bunkhouse, driven back inside by the cold. She pressed her hands to the door and wondered at what Dillen had said. It hadn’t been her dishonesty. It hadn’t been the lie.