Reason To Believe (39 page)

"Mine would be forgotten immediately," she suspected, although her name probably would not. "I'm afraid yours would be remembered, and not for bringing the stuff back, but for taking it in the first place. But it's up to you. Since you've made the decision to return what you took, we'll do it your way."

"You wouldn't be embarrassed?"

Clara smiled in the dark. "I probably would, but I'd get over it. My admiration for you would get me over it quickly, I think."

"Maybe we should ask Mrs. Turnbull about the plan, huh? Give her one of those I've-got-this-friend scenarios. I'm not too anxious to go to the hangin' tree." Anna chuckled as she turned over. "You ever try shoplifting, Billie?"

"You kidding? My mom would kill me."

"Mine tried to lecture me to death. Right, Mom? Then the court sends us both to this probation lady, and then my dad gets his two cents in. It's not worth it, hey. Except I did get to come on the ride, and I did get this nice set of silk long johns."

"It wasn't
because
you got in trouble but
in spite of
the fact that—"

The snowfall had dwindled to a flurry of dancing flakes. With each footfall Clara's boots crunched grass and snow as she headed for the dark tipi silhouetted against the light gray night. The sky was overcast, but the snow whitened the night, and the brightness seemed comforting. She clutched the package to her breast. The closer she got to the tipi, the sillier she felt. She'd intended the gift to be practical, not funny. But Ben was bound to think she was trying to be funny and missing the mark. She should have given it to him casually. She should have done it earlier. Or she could do it tomorrow.

"Ben? Ben, are you awake?" What a dumb question, of course he wasn't awake. Somebody was snoring. Somebody else groaned. "Ben, may I talk to you for..."

A movement across the camp caught her eye. Someone else was stirring. Tanya Beale, if Clara wasn't mis- taken. She stepped away from the tipi and watched the woman unzip a tent flap, then remove her jacket and her boots, presumably to avoid disturbing Sheila Bird, who had generously offered the Oklahoma pilgrim a place to sleep.

"What's up?"

Ben's whisper spun Clara around like a top. He was standing behind her, near the tipi door. She glanced back at Sheila's tent just as Tanya's derriere disappeared behind the flap. Besieged by unexpected suspicion, she turned back to Ben. "Where did you come from?"

He jerked his chin toward the tipi door. "My—" And then read her mind. "Not her, if that's what you're thinkin'."

"Well, no, I wasn't exactly thinking..."

"I heard you call my name," he told her softly, almost reverently, as though it had to be a miracle. "Thought I was dreamin' at first."

"No, I..."

"Then you asked if I was awake. You asked if we could talk," he recounted, seeking to assure her. "I haven't been tipi-creepin'. There's three other guys in there, Clara. I don't know what that lady's got goin', but she wasn't with me."

"She probably just had to go..."

He smiled. "You woke me up to be your lookout?"

"Oh, no, I just wanted to give you this." Suddenly angry with herself, she shoved the floppy paper package into his hands. "It's kind of mashed, but it's nothing breakable."

He spoke as though his hands were filled with wonder. "You got me a Christmas present?"

"Well, you gave me a wonderful... my Misty Too. She's such a good horse, thanks to your expert hand."

"Let's move away from—" He surveyed the sleeping camp. "Maybe we can find an empty pickup, huh?"

"I just wanted to give you that. It's from Anna, too."

She shoved her hands into her jacket pockets and stepped back.

"And I just wanna open it." He slipped his arm around her shoulders, coaxing her to walk with him. "And thank you properly."

"Well, wait 'til you see it before you start thanking me. You'll probably laugh."

"When have I ever laughed at any of your gifts?"

"There was that shirt with the colorful rooster and cactus motif," she recalled coyly. Something inside her wanted to believe, and that something was relieved and unexpectedly feeling a little playful.

"That was because the pink cactus looked just like—"

"I know." She laughed softly as they approached the motley collection of vehicles parked near a stand of skeletal cottonwoods. "I think we ended up calling it 'the sticker-with-cock shirt.' "

"You shortened it to that." He laughed, too. "And I wore it, didn't I?"

"To the teachers' Christmas party, as I recall. And told everybody—"

"Here." He tried a door after rejecting two vehicles with sleeping occupants. "Marvin's pickup is empty." She slid across the driver's seat, and he climbed in after her, quietly shutting the door. "Auntie Mary left the keys in it. She probably never takes them out. You want some heat?"

Clara shook her head. "I don't want to wake anyone up. Besides, I don't want to get spoiled with fancy gas heat."

He chuckled.

She stared pointedly at the package on his lap.

"Should I open it?" She nodded, and he tore into the paper, muttering anxiously, "Will it bite me, or will it shock me? Comin' from Clara-bow, I just never know."

"A bit of poetry," she said, smiling. He seemed so childlike in his excitement that she wished the package contained something really special.

He held up the lustrous pearl blue turtleneck shirt. The fabric glistened in the snow-bright night. "Jeez, it feels like silk."

"It is."

"Real silk?" He plucked the second item from its paper nest. "Pants, too?" He flashed her a grin. "You tellin' me I need to change my underwear?"

"They're very warm and lightweight. Skiers wear them all the time.
Male
skiers." She shrugged and quipped breezily, "But I can always send them back."

"No way. This coat isn't as warm as the down jacket I was wearin'. I'll wear anything warm. Even silk." Still grinning, he held the shirt up to his chest. "I ain't proud."

"Ben Pipestone,
proud?"
She laughed merrily.

"Kinda personal, isn't it? You givin' me underwear?"

"It's a practical gift. You know me." She tucked the turtleneck collar under his chin, admiring the soft blue sheen next to his dark skin. "Something to keep you warm."

"You could do that. Keep me warm." Regarding her uncertain expression, he laid his arm along the top of the backrest and put his hand around her shoulder, gently drawing her closer. "Come here. Let's keep each other warm." As her resistance melted, he jerked on his sash belt. "No, here," he said as he quickly unfastened three buttons. "You come inside the pipe carrier's coat." He opened it and enfolded her within the thick wool wrap.

She slipped her arms around his waist and snuggled against his shoulder, inhaling the woodsmoke and cold winter night scent of him. "It is warm in here."

"I didn't know if we'd ever spend another Christmas together, Clara." His embrace tightened. "Does it feel like Christmas to you?"

"Yes." She hugged him close, her gloved fingertips touching behind his back. "Very much so. I feel as though we've cleared away some of the trappings and discovered the basics of Christmas. The timeless journey. Following the hoop, sort of like a star. Finding shelter. Looking out for each other, praying for a better world." She tipped her chin up. "And Mary and Joseph had to flee with their child, much the way Big Foot's people did."

"Soldiers chasin' after them. God, that must be hell, gettin' chased by soldiers when you've got women and children, and you know it's not just the men they're after. Jesus, even babies."

"Yes, even Jesus. Even as a baby."

"Killing kids," Ben mused. "It's hard to figure, huh? How a guy could do something so awful and just walk away. Go home to his family, sit down to supper like nothin' happened." He tipped his head back and rested it against the cold window. "It eats at him, though. Like any sin, big or small, it has to eat at him until he either stops doin' it, or he stops caring. Or he stops living."

"What am I supposed to do?" Clara asked. "I know what you're talking about. I just don't know what I'm supposed to do." She closed her eyes and sighed. His heart beat close to her ear, and God help her, she cherished the sound. "I mean, you stopped drinking and whatever else, and presumably you feel better now. The only bad habit I had to give up was you, but having done that, I really don't feel any better. I can't stop caring, and I'm not about to stop living. So what am I supposed to—"

"Whoa, back up." He managed to shrink back enough to look down at her. "You can't stop caring about what?"

"About you." In close quarters and dim light her eyes unerringly met his. "I mean, I can't seem to stop caring about you
completely,
as much as I wanted to at first. But I can't love you anymore, Ben, because I can't trust you. I can't believe you. I don't know if I really believe that you weren't with that woman tonight."

"What woman?"

"Tanya Beale. I saw her going into the tent, and all of a sudden there you were."

"I told you—"

"I know. But instead of taking what you said at face value, I started thinking, okay, so I heard the snoring; I know there were other men in there, and I don't
think
you'd have a woman in there under those circumstances, and you
did
hear what I said. But maybe you weren't in the tipi. Maybe you were just close by. I didn't even hear you come up behind me."

"You never do."

"I didn't see you with her, but how do I know for sure? How will I ever know for sure?"

"How did you know for sure when you married me?"

"I knew you loved me." A wistful smile tugged at her lips. "I
knew
I loved you. I
believed
that you loved me."

"I did, but that didn't keep me from screwin' up, did it?" He slipped his glove off and touched her cheek with a warm thumb. "I still love you, Clara-bow. And I wanna
make
love to you in the worst way. No, in the best way, the most loving way I know how, but that still won't prove anything, will it?"

"No, it won't."

"And if you'd let me do that, what would that prove to me?" He threaded his fingers into her hair. "Hmm? What would it prove?"

"That I have no self-respect." She sighed, and their frosty breaths mingled. "That you can just walk all over me, and I'll still..."

"You'll still what?"

"I can't love you anymore, Ben." She closed her eyes, and her voice dropped to a sketchy whisper. "It hurts too much."

"Can you let me kiss you?" His lips grazed her cheek, his warm breath taunting her. "Just once," he whispered.

"A Christmas kiss. That can't hurt." He stroked her lips with the last words, then covered them with an openmouthed kiss. He stroked more, this time with his tongue, and when he finally dragged his mouth away, he had to take a deep breath before he could wonder hopefully, "How was that? All full of jingle bells?"

"Yes," she whispered on a sigh.

"How 'bout one for me? You can give me a 'Frosty the Snowman' one, huh?"

She sat up to kiss him, lightly at first, but he tipped his head to one side and recaptured the spirit of the last kiss, his lips coaxing a response from hers. And when she gave it, tongue tip to tongue tip, she took his breath away.

"Mmm, that wasn't frosty at all," he said on a puff of winter breath. "Kinda sets the ol' Yule log on fire."

"You're flirting with me again."

His lips skimmed her forehead. "Sparkin' you, as my dad would say." And he trailed kisses from her eyebrow to her eyelid to her nose, then seized her mouth again.

At the next opening she whispered against his lips, "That was a 'Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer' kiss,
I
believe."

He touched his tongue to the tip of her nose and smiled. "No red nose on this cowboy, honey. I took the cure."

"Yes, so I've heard." She tucked her face beneath his chin and hugged him close. "I should have gone back for that family week of yours and really let you have it."

"You should have," he agreed, returning the hug and marveling at how good it felt just to hold her. How right. How comforting. To be able to hold her and talk. "I almost dropped out of the program after I—" he swallowed hard and held on tight "—told you what I'd done. Almost got myself kicked out, actually."

"How?"

"I walked out. Went to a bar, got so drunk I couldn't see, so sick I wanted to die." Eyes closed, he buried his nose in her soft hair and whispered, "But I decided not to."

"Not to die?"

"That's right." He leaned back and looked at her. There was so much he wanted to tell her, had long needed to tell her beyond his apology, which she'd never accepted. Making amends was a tall order, one he might never be able to adequately fill, but finding her willing to listen was the first step.