Authors: Jodi Thomas,Linda Broday,Phyliss Miranda
A Texas Christmas (6 page)
Maybe the Thompsons hadn’t run the bears off; maybe they’d married them all into the family. That would explain his hairy chest and his lack of manners.
He covered her hands with one of his. “I don’t know how to do this. I never remember playing at anything as a child and I’ve never even thought about courting a woman. All I know is I want you near.”
She looked up. “This near?”
He smiled. “This near is a start.”
“All right, I’ll stay this near while we talk.”
He nodded, thinking he’d pretty much agree to anything if she’d stay right where she was.
She took a deep breath and started, “Tell me about your wife. Do you miss her dearly? Did you remove everything about her from the house to help with the pain of her loss? Did you love her deeply?”
Sam wished he could have made up something about a great love affair, but he’d lived an honest life and couldn’t lie now. Even though he thought he might lose Maggie, he told her the truth. The whole truth about what Danni looked like when she arrived all bloody and broken. About how she never wanted him near even though with time he didn’t think she was afraid of him. He told Maggie why he married her and how she never ate a meal with him or spoke to him unless he asked her a direct question. Sam even told her of Danni coming to his bed and how he understood she didn’t want to be touched any more than necessary to breed.
“I’m not sure why, but she wanted a child and so did I. The mating never took more than a few minutes, and she was gone as soon as it was over. Maybe she wanted a child who’d love her.”
“Did you love her?” Maggie rested her hand on his shoulder.
“No,” he admitted. “I cared for her. I tried to be thoughtful and kind, but I never loved her. She was like a shadow moving in the house. She was broken inside and I didn’t know how to help her. I don’t think if we’d lived together a lifetime she’d ever have wanted me around. Not once did I touch her except to mate.”
He sat in the kitchen a long time holding Maggie and remembering his wife for the first time in a long while. She’d come to him with nothing. He’d bought her a few dresses, but she only wore them when others wore out. He remembered coming back to the house after he’d dropped Web off at Nina’s cabin. The midwife was loading up her things when he rode up. She told him his wife’s family had come and taken the body and they’d sworn to kill him if he tried to follow.
Sam remembered walking back in the house thinking it didn’t matter where she was now, no one could hurt her anymore. The bloody sheets were still on the bed, but nothing remained of her. It was almost as if they’d taken not only her few clothes, but also the footprints where she’d walked. It was as if she’d never been there.
He held Maggie a little tighter in his arms. He didn’t want that happening when she left. He wanted to know she’d been there with him, if only for a few days. He wanted his house, his world, changed. Even if all he’d have left in a week were memories of Maggie, he wanted them.
“Maggie,” he whispered as he brushed a strand of her hair away.
“Yes,” she answered as if she too had been deep in thought.
“I don’t want to startle you, but if you’ve no objection I thought I might try kissing you again.” He didn’t wait for her answer. Her slightly parted lips were all the invitation he needed.
He pressed his mouth over hers and felt her make a little sound against his lips. Moving his hand up her throat, he turned her head to just the right angle and tasted her lips. He felt her shudder like a frightened bird, but she didn’t turn away from his kiss. When he heard her make a sound again, he slid his tongue between her open lips and tasted her.
Surprise rocked her body, but he held her to him and continued the kiss. Slowly, an inch at a time, she began to melt in his arms and the kiss turned to magic. He was learning. When he tried something new, a moment later she tried it also. He cradled her against him, hungry for more. She was hesitant, sometimes shy, but she didn’t move away. She remained in his arms, letting him kiss her completely.
When he finally lifted his head and looked down at her, her cheeks were warmed with inner fire and her eyes sparkled like stars. He didn’t try to stop her as she stood and turned away from him.
She walked to the window and stood, her hand spread flat against the cold glass.
He decided maybe she needed some time. “I have to go check the barn. I’ll be back before Web wakes up.”
Her nod was so slight he wasn’t sure she’d heard him.
He grabbed his coat and walked out still pulling it on. In an hour he’d be back apologizing or kissing her again, but right now if he didn’t put some distance between them, he’d be kissing her again.
Chapter 9
Maggie stood in the kitchen for a long while after Sam left. When she’d thought of playing like they were married she’d guessed there would be long talks over dinner and maybe enduring embraces good night. She’d never dreamed there would be kisses. Not just kisses, but one long kiss that shattered all she knew of kissing. One kiss that curled her toes and made her body feel like it was on fire.
Touching her lips, she could almost feel the way his mouth had covered hers. He’d held her close while she was falling as if to say he was there for her. This was nothing like what she thought the game would be between them . . . this was more. She’d wanted a tiny twinkling star moment to remember, and he’d offered her the universe.
The only remaining question seemed to be if she would be brave enough to accept his offer, and Maggie knew deep down in her soul that she’d never been brave.
Web was awake when Sam returned. He carried in wood and stoked the fire while she held the boy, then Sam sat him beneath his workbench as he started work. “I want to catch the last few hours of light,” he said without looking at her.
Maggie felt in the way, so she went to the kitchen and decided to make bread. She had to do something besides stand around all day dreaming of one kiss. Sam would think she had only air for brains.
An hour later when she had the bread baking, she stood in the doorway and watched father and son. Both looked like they were doing the same thing, playing with leather straps, only Web’s were just scraps and Sam’s were blending into a harness.
She’d bought enough harnesses to know fine work. “Do you sell these?”
“A few, now and then. I take the train into Fort Worth every spring to sell horses. I’ve got a man near the livery who buys all these I have time to make.”
“You wouldn’t have to go all the way to Fort Worth. You could sell them in town.” She bit her lip to keep from adding
in my store
. If he sold them to her, it would mean they would be talking on a regular basis even after this crisis was over. She could even imagine him coming in late with orders and her offering him supper before he had to head home.
in my store
. If he sold them to her, it would mean they would be talking on a regular basis even after this crisis was over. She could even imagine him coming in late with orders and her offering him supper before he had to head home.
He shattered her daydream by saying, “Don’t want to sell them around here. I prefer to take them to people who don’t know me.”
She moved closer. “Afraid they might come looking for you when one of them breaks?”
“No. Afraid they might come looking for me to buy another one. I’d just as soon not have the grassland worn to my door.”
“I understand. It’s fine work, Sam.”
“Not much else to do on a day like this. Snow’s up to my knees. It’ll be three feet deep by morning. Looks like we’re going to have a white Christmas for sure.”
Web caught her skirt and tugged as if wanting her to join him in his cage. Maggie laughed and held out her hands. “Come here, boy, and I’ll let you taste the first slice of bread that’s cooling.” She glanced up at Sam, remembering the game they were playing, and added, “Come to your mama.”
Webster came right to her and she laughed, thinking how good it felt to hold a child. A hundred times over this past year, she’d seen babies in the store and wanted to lift them up into her arms, but the few times she had she’d seen that sad look in the parent’s eyes and known they were feeling sorry for her. To them she was always a woman without children, without a husband, without family.
Now, for a few days, she could hold Webster as if he were hers and no one would look at her with pity. Kissing his cheek, she took him into the kitchen and sat him at the table out of the reach of the warm bread and butter. He played with a spoon as she began slicing the bread.
Thirty minutes later Web was laughing as she tried to get butter out of his hair. She looked up and saw Sam in the doorway watching. “I had to come see what all the racket was about,” he said.
“We’re having a bread-and-butter tea.” She giggled. “Without the tea.”
Sam smiled at his son as he fought to keep Maggie from getting him clean.
“It’s hopeless,” she announced and brushed his hair in place before setting him down among his blocks. “He keeps using his two front teeth to scrape the butter off my bread.”
Sam came near and knelt beside his son, handing him blocks one by one. His voice came easy to the boy, but when he looked up at her, the smile faded. “I saw tracks near my fence line this morning.”
“Maybe someone is just passing,” she said, trying to stay calm. Nothing had happened all day and she was starting to believe she was safe. The nightmare at her store seemed far removed from her.
He shook his head. “They headed out into nowhere. I’ve never seen a rider travel that direction. Whoever it was had to be riding the fence hoping to spot my place.”
She cut slice after slice of bread as if needing to keep her hands busy. “Who do you think it is?”
Sam shrugged. “Might be Boss Adler, but I doubt it. He doesn’t know where you went, and even if he recognized me, he’d only know I lived in the canyon. I doubt any of my kin would tell him which place is mine even if he got close enough to their farms to ask.”
“Or it might be Danni’s father, Dolton.” Maggie tried to think. “You said he hated you and blamed you for his daughter’s death. Maybe he or one of his two sons decided to even the score.”
“No. If he got drunk enough to do something about it, he’d just cut the fence and come after me. He knows where I am.” Sam moved closer to her and helped himself to a slice of warm bread. “I heard his older boy, a horse of a man, got cut up pretty bad in a knife fight a few months back, and the younger one couldn’t be more than sixteen.” Sam thought, then added, “I doubt he’s grown to his full meanness yet. One of my cousins told me the oldest boy is always getting in trouble for beating up the whores.”
“Are you serious? If a man did that, wouldn’t the law arrest him?”
Sam shrugged. “Probably not. I don’t think Sheriff Raines worries about those kind of crimes.”
“You are serious.”
When he didn’t deny it she wished she hadn’t asked.
“Who else might be looking for you?” She didn’t like the idea that there was a list of people coming carrying trouble with them. The man she was staying with didn’t seem to have anyone except her on his friends list.
“The sheriff might be looking for us. He seemed awfully interested in knowing where I lived. He asked me twice the other night.”
Maggie shook her head. “Sheriff Raines is far more interested in retiring than anything else. Unless, of course, you committed a crime? He might hope to catch one more criminal before he hangs up his guns.”
He raised one eyebrow. “I stole a kiss not too long ago. Does that count?”
Maggie fought down a giggle. She hadn’t decided what to do about the last kiss, and the fire was back in his eyes. “It counts.”
He smiled and leaned down beside Web as if letting her off the hook. “Your mama makes good bread, doesn’t she?”
Web reached for his father’s bread with sticky fingers and Sam laughed. “He’s rarely had real bread. Corn bread now and then and sourdough biscuits sometimes, but never this. This,” he lifted the piece he’d managed to hang on to, “is heaven and far beyond my skill.”
“Didn’t Danni make you bread?” Maggie wished she hadn’t asked the minute the words were out of her mouth. She’d already asked enough questions about a woman two years dead.
“No,” he said simply. “Her mother died when she was six. Her knowledge was limited in both cooking and sewing.” As if he felt like he had to pay his wife a compliment, he added, “She could clean, though. For the time she lived here the place was always spotless.”
“Maybe she was proud to be here,” Maggie said.
“I never thought of it like that, but maybe.”
As the light faded outside, Sam carefully drew the shutters before he lit the lamps. They ate an early supper talking of their lives, then played with Web on the blanket near the fire for a while before Sam reached for a book. “I usually read to Web before bedtime. I know he’s too young to understand, but I’m hoping he hears the rhythm of the words. As soon as he’s ready I’ll teach him to read.”
Maggie stretched her hand out. “I’ll read tonight if you like.”
Sam lifted Webster in his lap and began to rock as Maggie read. An hour later she looked up and found them both asleep. Smiling, she touched Sam’s shoulder, loving that she felt so comfortable around him to do so.
He opened his eyes and looked at her as if he was trying to decide if she were real or only part of his dream.
“We should put him to bed,” she whispered.
Sam lifted the boy to his shoulder and stood. Without a word, he carried his son to bed.
Maggie followed and watched for a moment in the doorway of the small second room before turning and moving down the hallway to what was now her room.
The moon was up and snow had stopped falling. The view from her window had changed completely since dawn. Yet another masterpiece spread out before her like a grand painting that covered the entire wall of a museum. This morning had been all fire and color. Tonight’s world lay silent in blues and grays.
“I never light a lamp or candle in here. It would only take away from the beauty outside.”
She smiled without turning around. She’d known he’d find her to say good night. What had started between them wasn’t over, could never be over with one kiss.
But he didn’t reach to touch her. He only walked past her to the window. She knew the memory of his tall dark outline against the moon’s glow would hold to the corners of her mind until her last breath. He was a good man, she thought, more strong in mind and body than handsome. No matter how he dressed, no one would ever mistake him for a gentleman from the city, though, in his way, his ranch was very much a business and to her he seemed a very gentle man.
She liked the way he moved, always with purpose, never wasted energy, but best of all, she liked the way he was still, as if the world could circle around him.
Finally, he turned. “I need to tell you something, Maggie, I’ve never told anyone.”
“All right.” She hoped it wasn’t some deep dark thing he’d done in the past that would stop her from liking him.
“There’s a passage in the back of Webster’s room behind one of the bookcases.”
She breathed. Not much of a secret. She probably would have noticed it if she’d looked harder that morning when she’d walked through the baby’s room.
“One of the reasons I built this house in this exact location was because there is a small entrance to a cave there. My grandfather hated two-story houses because he feared he’d be trapped by fire on the second floor. Like Nina, he lived through a terrible fire the year I was living in Fort Worth. That was one of the reasons it took him so long to come after me. He barely had enough supplies left to eat, much less feed me.”
She smiled. “You found the way Old Nina saved her sheep and her life.”
“I did, the summer I came back from working in Fort Worth. It became my quest for months.”
She could almost see him as a boy climbing the cliffs and trails until he figured out the mystery, and then he hadn’t told anyone, but used it to his advantage.
“I just wanted you to know about the passage, though it’s probably filled with spiderwebs. If something happens and you’re trapped upstairs, grab Web and go into the cave. Just feel your way along the narrow passage. You’ll come out within sight of the old woman’s house.”
“I’m sure we won’t have a fire the few days I’m here.” Maggie understood why so many people feared fire. Even her parents checked and double-checked that all the lamps in the store were out before they climbed the stairs at night.
He grinned. “I don’t know. I get warm just thinking about you.”
She looked away, embarrassed by his directness and loving it at the same time. There was no need for them to follow proper rules. They were friends. They could be honest with one another, and she loved it.
“I don’t want to startle you again, but I would like to say good night with a kiss. How about you come to me, Maggie?”
She took one step.
“Closer,” he whispered.
She took one more step, feeling her own heart pound.
“Closer,” he said again and raised his hand to take hers.
One step and she was so close she could feel the warmth of him.
Without holding anything but her hand, he leaned down and kissed her. A gentle kiss of promise. “Closer,” he whispered against her ear as he tugged gently on her hand.
She leaned until her body touched his and she heard a low sigh of satisfaction against her ear.
“That’s just about right.” He moved his chin against her hair and lifted her hand to his shoulder. His fingers drifted along her arm and down the side of her body.
“I . . . I . . .” She tried to think of something to say.
“Don’t talk. I just want to feel you near so I’ll always remember what it was like.” His hand moved to the small of her back and he tugged her until her body molded against his. “Relax. All I’m going to do is hold you for a while.”
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