Western Kisses – Old West Christmas Romances (Boxed Set) (13 page)

“Famous? I’m famous for biscuits?” Lottie smiled, detaching from her father and retreating to the kitchen to put on a pot to boil.

Will nodded. “Oh yes, didn’t you know? Famous to me and, well, I suppose the neighbors had them a time or two. That counts as fame. Maybe.”

Lottie smiled and let out a deep sigh. “I’m so glad you’ve come back. Rolf started worrying when the snow came and you were still gone. Pacing back and forth as he does.”

With a deep groan, William Wright stretched, and then collapsed into his chair. Just as he did, Rolf came loping up to him and jumped up with his forepaws on his master’s knees. “Did somebody miss me?” A few moments of scratching were just what Rolf needed, and once he was satisfied, he curled up, warming Will’s feet.

“I could’ve done with a furry dog sleeping on my
head
last night. This snow came straight out of nowhere.” He paused as Lottie emerged from the kitchen with a steaming mug. “Oh yes,” William said, wrapping his hands around the hot metal. “Feels good to warm these aching old fingers.”

After watching him sip his drink for a minute, Lottie decided to sit while the biscuits warmed.

“A horrible wind came through here,” she said. “Came through two days ago, just as the Ranger was leaving.”

“Ranger?” William asked, cocking his eyebrow. “Didn’t know there was a station anywhere up here.”

“There isn’t, he came from San Antonio, looking for some criminal – or,” she paused to correct herself, “rather someone accused of a crime that the Ranger himself found unbelievable.”

Will furrowed his brow, obviously trying to figure out what sort of meaning to take from what Lottie told him.

“Sounds as though a great deal happened while I was off shipping grass.” He blew over the surface of his coffee, sending a plume of steam shivering down the side of his cup.

As the biscuits warmed, Lottie related the strange story of the mysterious stranger who stayed the night, showed the most wonderful politeness, and then was gone early the next morning. He sat there, listening intently, never once speaking up or interrupting, even for a joke.

That was very rare for Will.

The only time he made her stop was when he got to guffawing over the tale of his daughter almost shooting the stranger, but losing her grip and having the gun blast through the porch.

“Hold on just a second,” he said, gasping with laughter and wiping at his eyes with his still-icy handkerchief. “Oh, that’s almost as refreshing as this coffee. I haven’t laughed like that for a good long time. I only wish I’d seen it.”

Lottie pursed her lips in feigned irritation, but then joined his laughing. “Luckily the buck all went that way,” she pointed out to the flat land behind the house, “instead of through the roof. That would be most unfortunate with all this snow going about.”

William wiped his eyes again, blew his nose, and settled down for her to continue.

When she got to the part about the Ranger, her father had finished his coffee and went back for more before sitting silently through that bit as well. Finally finished recounting the wild adventure of her last few days, she smelled the biscuits, and went to fetch them from the oven.

Returning with three steaming, buttered biscuits, she almost dropped them when she saw Colton’s letter in her father’s hand.

“You seem to have acquired a smitten suitor,” he said with a grin crawling across his face. “Though it worries me that he’s some sort of gunfighter. Not quite sure I want my daughter pining over a murderer.”

Blushing furiously, Lottie handed over the biscuits then playfully swatted her father’s arm. “It’s nothing of the sort,” she said. “As far as I knew, he was just a traveler who needed a night’s rest and some food. Though he didn’t take any.”

“Except the two eggs—”

“Yes,” Lottie said, smiling, “except the two eggs, and the biscuits. He really was dashing, pa. And very polite. I tried to allow him use of my bed, but he flatly refused.”

“Hum,” Will grunted. “Wouldn’t have been very comfortable. You’ve a small bed, not much room for two people.”

“Father!” she shouted, slapping his arm again and laughing. She almost made him drop the biscuits, which made Rolf stare upwards, longingly. The dog looked so pitiful that Will gave him a bite of one. “How vulgar are you? Very plainly I meant that
I
would not be in it!”

“All right, all right, settle down.”

“I missed you so badly, pa. You’ve no idea.”

“No,” he said. “I do.” Will rose to get more biscuits and kissed Lottie on the forehead on his way to the stove.

Two more biscuits found their way into his mouth before Will returned to the living room and sat down heavily, the chair creaking underneath him as he rocked. “This man can write,” he said. “And he only misspelled a handful of words.”

“He was wonderfully polite, once he got over my almost shooting him.”

Will patted his belly and sighed. “Any rate, we’ve got too much to do to sit around here talking. If winter really is coming this early, we need to make sure our wood’s dry and under the shed. As well, I’d prefer not to live in the same house with chickens, so we should probably get that coop patched up and as windproof as we can. Did you happen to go down the way to any of the other farms?”

Lottie shook her head. “No sir. Once the winds set in, I didn’t want to chance getting caught out in the cold without any way back. But,” she paused, sipping her own coffee, “what do we need at the other farms?”

“We’ve been through a few of them, but not others. If we can find anything they left – blankets, old windows, whatever they left – we can put it to some use. Firewood, too. I hate to do it, but there comes a time when it makes less sense to leave the stuff unused. And, if we’re going to have a guest for Christmas, we need to make sure there’s enough firewood to keep him warm, and for the stove. I’d ask about a big Christmas dinner, but I think that’s probably not likely to happen.”

“Of course, yes, blankets and firewood and... did you say Christmas guest? Christmas dinner? How could we manage that? And why?” Lottie stared at her father, trying to divine his meaning.

“You mustn’t have read your letter very carefully,” Will said with a sly grin. “He said he’s coming back in two months’ time, which will put your friend’s return right at Christmas. We can’t have company over the holiday without a proper meal, can we? Though, like I said, the production of a big meal is less of a concern than firewood and keeping warm.”

Lottie was so flustered that before she could respond, her father was up and out the door. “Come on!” he shouted. “And bring those chickens. I don’t want to put my slippers on and find an egg in one of them.”

Shooing the chickens out ahead of her, Lottie wondered if he meant what he said, or if he was just teasing her about the letter.

Shaking herself back to reality, Lottie wrapped her quilted shawl tight around her face and neck and followed her father out, ready to brave the cold.

~*~

Clearly, the people who abandoned their homes had done so in a fair amount of hurry. The pair managed to gather blankets, sheaves of cotton sheeting, even some spun wool from one homestead. From the other, they managed a pair of windows, and, to their surprise, a number of jarred jellies and canned vegetables and fruits stored in a cellar. All the seals were true, which Will tested by cracking open one can of peaches and drinking the juice.

The trip back to the farmhouse seemed longer, but probably only because Lottie couldn’t push Colton Howe out of her mind. No matter what she did, her thoughts focused on his easy smile, his dimpled chin and his green, smoldering eyes.

Those eyes that held her in place, kept her frozen for what seemed an eternity as he talked to her softly, caressing her being with his voice. Just the memory of his sweetness was enough to get a chill crawling down Lottie’s back, to raise those same feelings she had when she first saw him, but denied herself.

“Something bothering you?” Will asked as he held the door open for his wool-laden daughter to walk through. “Been quiet all day.”

She dropped the load on the floor, pushing it into a slightly neater pile with her toe before taking off her gloves, her scarf, and heading back to the stove to stoke it to life.

“Lottie?” he repeated, chasing her to the back of the house. “What’s wrong?”

“Wrong?” she looked confused, her brow pinched up and wrinkled. “Nothing’s—”

Her voice dropped off as she jabbed the fire. She shrugged.

“You can tell me anything, you know that.” Suddenly, her father realized what he thought he’d done. “I apologize if I made you uncomfortable with my teasing about that Colton Howe. Surely didn’t mean anything by it.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s not that. I’m just thinking. About all kinds of things. Being in those houses reminded me of when people lived here.”

Her head drooped, either out of exhaustion at having carried all those supplies for over a mile, or something else, her father couldn’t tell. She took a deep breath, her shoulders rising all the way to her ears, and then she exhaled in a great gust.

“It’s hard,” he finally said. “But when this war gets over with and everything gets back to normal, they’ll come back. Good land out here, they’re just scared.”

“Will they?” she said in return. “Why? The Jenkins went to Oklahoma, and half the town went to either Oregon or California. Why would they come back here? When we were in those houses, it seemed like a ghost town. Felt like one, I mean.” She paused as a shiver took her and Lottie moved closer to the fire to warm herself.

“I’m sorry,” she said a moment later. “Last year when we did this, I got sentimental. It’s just being in those empty houses... I remember the harvest time dances, and the town Christmases, and I just wish we could go back to that. Or go somewhere that they’d still be happening.”

William’s face grew stern, but the caring never left his eyes. “If you want to leave, we can do it, Lottie.”

“I...” she couldn’t say any more, not without tears, and she wasn’t going to allow that to happen.

Her father crossed the room and took her in his arms. “I know it’s hard for you, with all your friends gone and nothing much good seeming to happen.”

The rhythmic patting of his strong hand against her back, of his cradling her, lulled Lottie out of her assumed strength. First, a single tear fell down her cheek, and rolled to her lips. She sniffed, and Will held her tighter. His pats turned to patient, slow, warm circles that eased her quaking.

“It’s okay,” he said. “Everything is fine, little girl. I’ll do anything that’ll make you feel better. It is terribly unfair of me to keep you here, isolated from the world, just because we own some land. If you want to go—”

She pushed herself off his chest and looked up into his eyes. With red eyes and puffy cheeks, Lottie squeezed her eyelids tight as tears streamed down her cheeks. “I...” she sniffed again, breaking up her words. “I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

“Shhh,” he soothed her, pulling her against his chest and smoothing her hair with his hand. “Just as soon as winter breaks, then, we’ll pack up the little we have, and get gone. If you want, I’m sure we can even hire out a wagon and take all these silly damned chickens with us, too.”

In his arms, Lottie just let go.

Her body shook with sobs, apparently spilling two years of emotion all at once. “I’m so sorry pa,” she said, streaking her father’s coat with tears. “I just can’t keep it in, I tried to be so strong, to keep from doing this, because I know how much it,” she sniffed. “I know how much this farm means to you and everything else, and I just didn’t want to hurt you.”

Again, he patted Lottie softly and stroked her hair, trying to calm her shaking.

“No, no,” he said softly. “No, this doesn’t matter at all to me. Land can be bought again, and houses can be built. They’re just things, little girl. If the Lord wanted us to covet them, mothers would birth houses instead of babies.”

That got her chuckling through the tears. “I’m so sorry,” she repeated. “I want to be strong and help and everything, but it’s just so hard.”

“I know it is,” he said. “And you
are
brave. If I went through the things you have as a child, there’s no chance I would have it through. You’re stronger than I ever was. We can only be brave and stoic for so long before we have to let our emotions out.”

Lottie sniffed again and looked up at her father. “How do we make a Christmas dinner? I don’t have a goose.” And then, almost as an afterthought, she added, “Is mother proud of me?” through the tears.

“Oh yes, baby girl, I know she is. The last thing she told me before,” Will swallowed. “She told me how beautiful she thought you were, and how strong you were even at a year old. I
know
she’s proud of you.”

Nodding, Lottie stared at him with her bloodshot eyes. “What about the dinner?”

Will smiled, and held her close.

“We’ll figure something out,” he said. “We always do.”

October came and went with very little event.

Panhandle weather, normally very unpredictable, had stayed even for most of the month. Snow blew, wind howled, and through it all, Lottie and her father bunkered down as best they could.

As the month grew long in the tooth, the winter deepened. Fluffy drifts piled up on the windward side of their house, and often for several days at a time, the most activity possible was waking up, starting a fire, and hoping the snow melted before cabin fever set in.

Through all of it, Lottie never let that little folded letter out of her sight. Sometimes she carried it in her gown when she worked outside, and she put it alongside her bed every night before she said her prayers and closed her eyes.

She never forgot him – never forgot Colton Howe – when she said those prayers, either. She asked after his safety, and for him to have a quick journey back. And she always asked that his uncle found him, and they came to terms with whatever it was that happened between them.

One morning, when the rooster that her father finally allowed her to bring into the house and out of the horrifying, icy cold, crowed at sunrise, and then went directly back to sleep, Lottie sat up and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes.