A Texas Kind of Christmas

by Jodi Thomas

  Nate acted like he was hurt, which usually satisfied Cash. The marshal had no way of knowing that a few blows were nothing compared to the treatment of orphans running the streets of New York.

  That’s where Nate had learned to pretend. Immigrants from all over were crammed into the slums and Nate had learned to shift his body, change the way he talked, even cuss in the language of each street. Someone told him a nun had dropped him off at the orphanage and said his name was Nathaniel. When Nate ran away at seven, he’d picked the name over the door where he’d slept. Ward.

  Calaber pulled out a bottle and took a long draw, something else he never did in front of people. “By midnight I’ll bed that princess.” He tossed his wide-brimmed hat across to the empty seat, rolled his leather jacket up as a pillow, and stretched his legs atop his valise. “You’ll be in jail and I’ll be sleeping at the St. Nicholas. I already got my room booked and a maid name of Katie waiting for me to chase her around the hallways.” He laughed. “She’s a wild one. She’ll fight and fight, but in the end I’ll win, and she’ll never say a word about what I’ll do to her.”

  Nate had worked at a hotel as a kid. He knew the maids never told no matter what the hotel guests did for fear of getting fired. Their job was all that stood between them and starvation.

  While the marshal slept and the miles flew by, Nate thought of how he could get out of this mess. Cash had already told him that his trial wouldn’t take more than an hour. The clerk who’d seen him rob the bank remembered a dark-haired man in a bowler hat. He’d described half the men east of the Mississippi, including Cash, but that didn’t seem to matter to the marshal.

  “You fit the bill, Ward. You’ll be swinging from a rope in the midnight breeze.” The lawman had said it so many times it was starting to echo.

  All Nate needed was one break. A blink when Calaber forgot to watch him, a minute to run. He’d vanish so fast the marshal would never find him.

  Rain tapped on the coach and Nate could hear the driver cussing to the man riding shotgun.

  Pulling his hat off with his unshackled hand, Nate thought about tossing it out the window. All he needed was a pinch of luck. One moment to run, then he’d lay low. Grow his hair long like the Texans did. Stay in the sun until his skin tanned. He’d find work somewhere and remain silent until he picked up an accent that was so far south everyone would think he was born and raised on the Rio Grande.

  Give him a month, maybe two, and the marshal wouldn’t know Nate if they bumped into each other on the street.

  Lightning flashed and thunder shook the earth. The stagecoach rocked Nate out of his planning as the horses screamed. He pulled the flap on the window open but couldn’t see through the downpour. If he hadn’t been chained, he’d kick the door open and roll out into the mud. No one could see more than a few feet.

  If he wasn’t shackled to the near-drunk sheriff, he’d vanish.

  “Damn driver better slow down. He’ll roll the coach if he hits a hole.” Cash stuck his arm out of the window as if the driver might see it. “Slow down, you idiot.”

  As if his words took action the right front wheel slammed into something and the stage shifted. Nate heard the crack of wood, screams of the horses and driver. A moment later the hooves thundered away, no longer tethered to the coach as it rocked once before slamming on its side.

  Cash’s body smashed against the window, his free hand caught outside the window beneath the stage.

  Nate plummeted into the lawman, his elbow falling against his jawline like a hammer. Cash’s body seemed to melt into a pile of rags.

  Slowly, Nate’s head stopped spinning and he shifted off Calaber, dragging the marshal’s arm along as far as his could. The chain held, but the body didn’t move.

  All was dark as tiny waterfalls dripped through the cracks and windows. Nate had no idea if the marshal was dead, or just out cold. He tried to pull the lawman up, but his arm was wedged beneath the overturned coach.

  Nate weighed the facts. The marshal was silent, whether unconscious or dead. And this was Nate’s chance to escape.

  In total blackness, he patted the lawman’s chest until he felt the shackles’ key in his vest pocket. In seconds, he unlocked the chains and opened the coach door that now faced skyward.

  Waterlogged light blinked into the coach. The drunken marshal looked like a man sleeping it off with scattered clothes and whiskey and weapons around him.

  Just before he jumped out, Nate snatched the valise and crammed as many items as he could find into it. A Colt. The marshal’s badge. A shaving kit. Any clothes he could reach.

  He left the chains, the lock, and the whiskey. On impulse, he crammed the bowler hat on Calaber’s head and traded for the sheriff’s wide-brimmed hat and leather coat.

  As he climbed out the stagecoach, Nate spotted the driver and guard. They were headed down the road the coach had just traveled with no sign of the horses. The axle that had once been tied to the horses lay in pieces in the mud and lightning still blinked against the southern sky.

  Time for Nate to vanish.

  He followed the trail from a distance so no one traveling the road would see him. He guessed Dallas couldn’t be much farther. It would be dark soon.

  The rain eased and he began to run. It would take the driver an hour or more to catch the horses, if he caught them, then he’d need time to right the coach. If the wheel was broken, that meant more work, more time. He might just decide to spend the night and leave the repairs until dawn.

  If Cash were dead, there would be no hurry to ride in and report an accident. If the marshal were still alive, he’d probably be yelling for them to hurry. Since Nate hadn’t felt any blood, he guessed Calaber was alive.

  Either way Nate figured he had several hours’ head start.

  A half hour later he was too tired to run and began to recalculate.

  He couldn’t turn off the road into the wild. Survival had always been in towns and cities. Never in the country. He had no choice but to stay on the road.

  Nate had slowed to a walk and was half asleep when he almost bumped into a cart stuck in mud halfway off the road. The horse had wandered far enough to graze, and the driver had fallen backward into the wagon bed. From the smell of it, Nate guessed he was dead drunk.

  “Don’t worry, partner,” Nate said softly in his best Texas slang. “I’ll help you get home.”

  Within minutes he had the horse trotting at a pace that rocked the drunk back to sleep, and with the dying sun’s light he made out the outline of a settlement. Dallas.

  By twilight they’d reached town. The sound of carolers singing Christmas songs seemed out of place in the cold, dusty town.

  He asked a kid selling papers where the St. Nicholas Hotel was and within minutes Nate climbed out of the wagon with the sheriff’s valise in one hand and his wide-brimmed hat in the other.

  Without bothering to tie the reins, he let the horse continue on, obviously heading for his barn. The drunk would simply wake up in the morning thinking that his horse had found his own way home.

  The clerk looked overwhelmed with duties when Nate walked up to register. He wore the marshal’s hat low and set the monogrammed luggage on the counter.

  The entire lobby and every parlor were open and looked like Christmas had exploded inside. Since Nate had never celebrated Christmas, he turned away, concentrating on signing the logbook.

  “We received the telegram you’d be in tonight, Marshal,” the clerk said with his back to Nate as he fetched a key. “We have your room ready. Your dress clothes for the ball have been pressed and put in your room.”

  Nate nodded once and took the key. “Thanks. Is it too late to get a meal delivered?”

  The clerk’s voice sounded harsh when he said, “No. I’ll see Katie brings it up.”

  Nate remembered how Cash bragged about teasing the girl and he suddenly felt sick at his stomach for pretending to be such a man. Without another word, Nate rushed upstairs.

  Ten mi
nutes later, when a petite maid brought in a tray, Nate stood in the shadows by the window so she couldn’t see his face. “Just leave it on the table, Katie.”

  As she backed away, he added, “There’s two bits on the dresser. Take it for your trouble.” He would have liked to leave her more but didn’t want to draw attention.

  She backed all the way to the door with the money in her fist, then ran.

  Nate ate his first real meal in days as he tried to make his tired mind think. If there was a big ball at the fancy hotel tonight, that meant there was probably going to be a high-stakes poker game in one of the rooms. The cash in the pocket of the marshal’s bag gave him plenty of pocket money. Nate would be gambling with time if he showed up at the ball, but if Cash was hurt, or delayed long enough, Nate might just win enough to travel back to Chicago in style. At the very least he’d fill up on whatever kind of food they have at balls.

  He reached in the valise and pulled out a roll of bills. If he lost, no problem. He was playing with the marshal’s money. They could only hang him once.

  Chapter 3

  Jacqueline Hartman stood before a long mirror in her suite on the top floor of the St. Nicholas. All she saw were her flaws. Plain brown hair that refused to hold a curl no matter how hot the iron, skin too tanned to be fashionable. Too tall. Too ordinary.

  Her father’s new wife had spent years reminding Jacqueline of all her shortcomings. The second Mrs. Hartman, Jacqueline’s stepmother, was beautiful even into her forties with golden hair and a peach complexion that made her seem twenty years younger. She made it plain to all the staff that she was the reigning queen of the Double H Ranch and Jacqueline was never to receive any special treatment for being Harry’s daughter.

  Margaret Hartman even joked, when Jacqueline’s father wasn’t around, that it was lucky Harry was rich because she’d never find a beau otherwise. Men might outnumber women three to one in Texas, but that wasn’t enough odds to help Harry’s poor pitiful daughter.

  Jacqueline grinned as she set aside the frilly pink gown with ribbons flowing down the length of the skirt. She’d been told to wear the pink, but she picked up a simple midnight blue dress. Her mother’s dress had been packed away in the attic, as if waiting for Jacqueline to find it. It was cut low, showing off her shoulders and the top of her well-rounded breasts. Her father wouldn’t approve if he even remembered the dress. Her stepmother would be shocked. But if Jacqueline was forced into going fishing, she might as well dress the bait.

  She’d show them that she was not a child to be paraded out. She was a woman who had the sense to pick her own mate or better yet, pick no mate at all. This might be her one chance to break free before she disappeared completely.

  “If this doesn’t work,” she said, winking at her reflection, “I’ll become an outlaw, or a pirate.” All the time she’d been hiding away from people, she’d been reading books filled with adventures. In every story there was always a call to action, a quest. Maybe tonight she’d be strong enough to accept the challenge. She’d step out of her shell and start charting her own destiny.

  Deep in her heart she knew she’d never be truly brave, but if wishing it so could work, she might be brave enough to run away tonight. She’d kept in touch with her first teacher, a widow who moved to Austin. Mrs. Eden would welcome her in. Plus, Jacqueline had saved enough money to live until she found employment.

  With each cut her stepmother made, each joke, each reminder of what she’d never be, Jacqueline withered until she became exactly what her stepmother wanted, little more than a shadow who haunted the attic rooms of Hartman Headquarters. But, inside, she’d planned for someday and that someday was about to come.

  When her father threw one of his big parties on the ranch, his daughter was rarely seen. If she did step from the background, Margaret was always there hinting at what a fool she was to even try. “You’ve got all you want in your room, Jacqueline. Your books, your drawings. Don’t try to be something you’re not.”

  Only last month Jacqueline turned twenty-one, and being invisible was no longer an option. Harry began teaching his daughter to run the ranch and suddenly Margaret wanted her gone. Two women in the house was one too many. Jacqueline’s father was growing old and more manageable for his younger wife. A grown daughter might prove bothersome if not a full-out threat should Harry die, so Margaret whined and begged and bullied until she got her way.

  When the St. Nicholas Hotel began to plan for a Christmas ball, Margaret went to work. Her project suddenly had a deadline. Harry’s child would be married and gone by the New Year.

  Jacqueline watched her stepmother’s plan form before her eyes without being able to stop it. They’d all go to a fancy ball in Dallas. Margaret insisted her stepdaughter would find happiness. It was Harry’s duty to help the poor child, and half the wealthy men in Texas would be in one place.

  Whispers circled faster than invitations. Harry Hartman’s only daughter was looking for a husband. The lucky man to win her hand would also get a fourth of one of the biggest land grant ranches in Texas as a wedding present along with a starter herd of two hundred head of cattle.

  Jacqueline grinned at her reflection. Margaret hadn’t liked the idea of a dowry, but she accepted what Harry allotted his only child. After all, Harry was mellowing as he aged and she’d soon have control over more money than she’d ever be able to spend.

  Maybe her stepmother figured three-fourths of the ranch would be enough to handle as a widow.

  Though Jacqueline resented the whole auction that was about to take place tonight, she had one ace in the hole her stepmother didn’t know about. Her father had agreed to let her decide if more than one man offered for her hand, and he swore he’d give her any fourth of his ranch she wanted.

  “You pick what you want, darlin’,” Harry said. “I know there’s no man good enough, but if you like one fellow, that’s your choice. If he don’t act right once you’re married, I’ll come over and horsewhip him into shape every Wednesday.”

  Jacqueline smiled. Her daddy might ignore her most of the time, but he held to his word and not even Margaret’s whining could bend his promise.

  As Jacqueline stepped into her blue velvet gown she felt, for the first time, beautiful. She hadn’t let the maid try to curl her hair tonight. She wore it straight, like a waterfall down her back.

  One of the hotel maids, a woman named Katie, stepped in to lace the dress. “You look different tonight, Miss Jacqueline. You excited to go find you a man?”

  “No,” Jacqueline answered honestly. “I’m excited to start an adventure.” At dawn tomorrow she’d be on a stage to Austin even if some man did propose.

  The maid laughed. “Good for you. Picking a husband is like playing poker blind. There ain’t no telling what you have when the dealing’s done.”

  Jacqueline turned to Katie. “You want to marry someday?”

  “I would, Miss, but no man offers marriage to a maid almost in her thirties, and I want no part of a man who offers anything else.”

  Jacqueline took one more look in the mirror, and fear made her whole body shake. She wasn’t sure she could do this. Walk around for all to stare at. They’d feel sorry for her. She wasn’t like her stepmother. Attention terrified her. “I . . .”

  Katie seemed to understand. She stood just behind her. “Go down now, Miss. Hardly anyone is here yet. Get yourself a glass of wine and figure out where the hidden corners are in every room. Then if you panic, just melt into a corner. There’s places in this hotel that no one will look if you need to vanish. I’ll tell you where they are while I brush your hair.”

  “Sounds like a great plan.” Maybe she could watch the men. Pick one she liked. A nice man. Maybe introduce him to her father. Margaret would think her plan to get rid of Jacqueline was working.

  Then, at dawn Christmas Day, while everyone slept, she’d make her escape. She’d be in Austin before anyone knew she was gone.

  She feared this might be just a wild dream, l
ike so many others, but this one fantasy had kept her going while her stepmother calculated ways to get her out of the house forever.

  Someday, she’d be brave enough to stand up to her stepmother’s scheming and her father’s indifference, and tonight Jacqueline had to take the first step.

  As she reached for the doorknob, the maid asked, “What should I do with this dress, Miss? It’s so lovely.”

  “I don’t care. It’s yours if you like. I’ll never wear it.” Jacqueline didn’t look back as she stepped out of the room with her plan in mind. Walk around. Have a glass of wine. Talk to a few people. Find the hiding places.

  And, most important of all, find a man to introduce to her father before the ball was over. Let them believe she was playing along.

  Chapter 4

  Cody thought finding the shy neighbor’s daughter would be easy, but now, staring at the outside of the hotel decorated up like a Christmas cake, he wasn’t so sure. If she had any other offer, he’d be coming in second. Men dressed in fine suits walked the newly graveled sidewalk, and soldiers polished and ten years younger than him stood smoking cigars before they stepped inside for the evening.

  He hadn’t even bothered to shave. Hell. She’d think him more bear than man.

  He pulled off his duster, not caring if he got wet as he walked up the steps. His black suit, even wet, was presentable. His best clothes were funeral worn, but they’d have to do. If Miss Jacqueline said yes, he’d let her know he was grateful, he swore. After all, he’d cared about her since she was a kid even if he’d never talked to her.

  In his mind, he was already glimpsing the future. Meals when he got home every night. Having her on his arm when he had to go to socials. Talking to her on Sunday afternoons.

  In truth, he’d rarely talked to women. A few saloon girls, who did most of the talking, and a few cowhands’ wives. Cody tried to be polite to both. In truth, he figured he frightened most women. He was bigger than most and a hard man who didn’t know how to court. By fourteen he’d grown to six feet and was earning a man’s wages. By nineteen he had his own ranch but times were hard and he was needed to fight in a war. By the time he made it back to his land he had enough money saved to make a strong start on building his ranch.