Christmas for Ransom (11 page)
Hope helped relax her, and she turned to hold him close against her eager body. “Merry Christmas yourself. And I love you back, Jack Ransom. Forever and ever. Amen.”
Something, or someone stumbled against the battered front stoop, and her heart thudded.
Gun drawn, Ransom opened the door… to a whinny.
“Firewalker!” Eliza shrieked, dashing to throw her arms about the gelding’s neck.
She knew now, for certain, there was nothing else to want.
Epilogue
Christmas Eve, three years later
Ransom shut the barn door with a smile of satisfaction. All recovered hale and healthy, the Stony Brook horses now thrived, and Granny paid him well to tend them. His help getting her Morgans back, as well as other stolen horseflesh, had shaved considerable time off his sentence.
He huddled Eliza against his side to warm her in the snowy afternoon air. Freed last month from Potter County Jail, he hugged his wife tighter as the reality tickled him anew.
“That latest little filly is as pretty as her mama,” he muttered into her ear. “Just like our Stella’s as pretty as you.” His heart melted just saying the name. “Feels so good to hold you both now without those bars between us.”
Eliza squeezed his waist but said, in her schoolteacher voice, “Judge Wetzel wouldn’t have given you any jail time at all if you’d turned in your evil cohorts.”
“He also could’ve hanged me.” A wave of gratitude warmed him in the frigid breeze even as his former brotherhood came to mind, likely planning raids for Christmas Day. Without the sympathetic judge and Granny’s money and support, he’d still be on the run, or worse. “I owe debts I can’t ever repay.”
“You’ve done your time. It’s time to look forward.”
Ransom nodded, stretching his arms wide and free as he and Eliza walked toward the house. “Feels so good to be out in the open.”
She began to laugh.
“What’s funny?” he asked.
“Us getting married with you behind bars, and everybody secretly feeling sad we couldn’t ‘consummate.’ Then, me plump with child outside of a month.”
“Likely you caught some righteous gossip.” He squeezed her hand, recalling well the feelings both of joy and desolation, but Eliza was right. They needed to look ahead.
“When have I ever not caused gossip?” She giggled. “But I have gone respectable these years, Jack. Just like you. We ought to get ready for church.”
“I’d like not to take our baby girl out in this bleak weather. Bet Granny wouldn’t mind nursemaiding her.”
“Nonsense.” Eliza rolled her eyes. “Granny wouldn’t mind one single bit, but don’t you forget. Stella was conceived in a blizzard. Winter’s in her blood.”
“All righty,” Ransom said. All in all, that was fine with him. He liked showing off his womenfolk. All three of them. As they reached the house, he itched with desire just at the recollection of those snowbound days in the burnt-out homestead, Eliza snug in his arms. Soon as the thaw came, he’d turned himself in.
Ransom stopped on the porch. “I liked that burned-up old shack better than any fancy hotel,” he said slowly, for he’d gotten a hold of the property deed. “I’d like to fix it up. You and me go relax there from time to time. Relive old memories.”
“Oh, Jack. I’d love that. I mean it.” Eliza’s eyes shone.
“That’s good. It’s my Christmas present to you.”
She shook her head, the long brown waves tumbling across her dark shawl. “You’re something, Jack Ransom.”
On tiptoe she kissed his cheek, and the heat started at once. But lovemaking would have to wait. They entered the parlor to noise and commotion. With Stella, just past two, in her arms, Granny directed Tubby and Job to set upright the huge ponderosa pine. She’d ordered it sent by rail to Pleasure Ridge, and the ’hands had dragged it home on a buckboard the rest of the way.
Sure beat out a tumbleweed.
“Get it right, boys,” she shouted, “so Jack can put the angel on top.”
“And who would that be, Granny?” Ransom joked. “Stella, Eliza, or you?”
The old lady smiled at him, the distrust and outrage of their first meeting long gone. In her sweet bright eyes and rosy cheeks, he once again saw his own gram-maw. He raised his eyes heavenward, then cast them down as he said a quick, silent prayer. Soon as he earned the regular foreman’s pay from spring round up, he’d get those headstones ordered back in Missouri. Eliza always claimed the Stony Brook now belonged as much to him as to her, but he wanted to be his own man much as he could. And with each wage he earned, he paid Granny back some of what he’d cost her.
“Come on, ya’ll. Let’s string them popcorn chains,” Tubby yelled and then crammed a handful through his bushy moustache and beard.
Suddenly the washtub full of white kernels tipped over, and a jumble of brown fur wiggled from under the tree.
“What the…?” Ransom knelt and Stella howled in glee. “Why, I recall admiring this pup at Frying Pan last week.”
“I remembered.” Eliza patted the dog and then ran her fingers up Ransom’s arm.
“For Stella?” he asked. The wiggly young dog curled happy around his ankles as he stood up.
“No. For you.” She squeezed his fingers. “You mentioned once you never had one as a boy. It’s my Christmas present to you.” Then she glared at Job. “You were supposed to keep him hidden till morning.”
“He wouldn’t stay still in my bunk,” Job offered, face red. “Just a mutt.”
“He’s the grandest dog I ever saw,” Ransom said.
“Didn’t think it mattered much anyway, Miz Eliza,” Job said. “Thought the horse you got stashed over at Frying Pan was his real present anyhow.”
“Job!” At the same time Granny and Eliza shouted out so loud Stella shrieked. Ransom took his daughter in his arms to calm her down.
“That was to be a surprise, too, Job,” Eliza almost wailed, and Job, mortified, stuffed popcorn down his muzzle as if to keep from spouting out more words he shouldn’t.
Ransom busied himself with his baby girl, barely able to breathe. A horse? Gentle-like, Eliza took his hand.
“A sabino, Jack. White belly. Good temperament. Like Nitro. It was meant to be a surprise from Granny.”
Like Nitro? Overwhelmed, Ransom said, “Granny, it’s too much, after everything else.”
“Nonsense, young man,” Granny’s voice came sharp, but he heard the affection around the edges. “A man needs a good horse, and no self-respecting grandson of mine will ride something shoddy.”
Even with Stella in his arms, he grappled the old lady close. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Merry Christmas will do. We’ll all ride out to the Pan after breakfast to fetch him.”
Love and contentment tugged at Ransom’s heart. He looked around the comfortable room, at the females who were now his family, and the ’hands now his friends.
“Then I reckon at this minute there’s nothing left for me to want.”
“Nothing left to want?” Eliza’s shiny eyes questioned. “Not even a brother or sister for Stella? You’re getting one or the other around the Fourth of July.”
Eliza’s whispered words set his toes tingling.
“Oh, God,” Ransom said, impolite, holding his wife close with one arm, his daughter in the other.
“What ya gonna name that mutt, Ransom?” Tubby called out.
Only one possible name came to mind.
“Backbone,” Ransom and Eliza answered together, laughing, at the same moment his fingers tangled in his wife’s sweet-smelling hair.
A word about the author...
A California beach girl, Tanya Hanson loves those cowboys and everything about the Wild West. Cowgirling up with other TWRP authors not long ago at a Texas ranch retreat is one of the highlights of her career.
Happily married to a firefighter, she loves to travel and recently took a wagon train trip around the Tetons. The latest loves of her life are her two little grandsons.
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