Gabe wondered if he was about to make the worst mistake of his life. Well, not the worst, maybe, but close enough to call it a first-ring bull’s-eye. “We’re waiting for you to give me your word.”
“You got it.”
“Say it.”
“You’ve got my word as Christopher Broderick.”
Gabe gave him a long, measuring stare. “Is your word as good as your name, Christopher?”
“I’ll try my best to make it be.”
Gabe figured that was all that could be asked of anyone. He pushed to his feet and dusted off the seat of his jeans. “We’ve got a heap of shopping to do, then. I can’t take you home to my wife without some decent clothing for you to wear. She’ll want you in the bathtub lickety-split, and what you’re wearing will go in the fire. Even standing upwind of you, my nose is twitching.”
“You’d stink, too, if you went as long as I have without a bath. Last rain we had, I wet a piece of sheet in a mud puddle to wash up. People around here get real upset if I borrow from their rain barrels. One man took after me with a shotgun loaded with rock salt. My ass was on fire for days.”
“Ass,” Gabe echoed. “There’s another word I don’t want you saying in front of the ladies.”
“If not ass, what do ladies call it, then?”
Gabe led the way across the street toward the general store. “I don’t rightly know. Now that I come to think about it, my wife pretty much pretends she isn’t in possession of one.”
• • •
Nan had just taken her big green mixing bowl from the cupboard when she heard the sound of boots coming up the stairs. She pasted a bright smile on her face and turned to greet her husband as the door opened, hoping that their disagreement that morning could go unmentioned and be put behind them. Arms laden with string-tied brown paper packages, Gabriel stepped into the room, wiggled his eyebrows at her, and said, “Nan, I brought home a guest.”
Nan smelled the boy before she saw him. The staircase acted as a funnel, bringing the unpleasant bouquet of an unwashed body into the room in a rush. “How lovely! And who might our guest be?”
Still on the stairs two steps below, the boy peeked around Gabriel’s lean hip. In the good light from the kitchen lamps, his shaggy, oily, and knotted hair was a sight to behold. “It’s me, ma’am.”
Nan had wished several times to bring the boy home, but Gabriel had adamantly said no. She tried to hide her surprise at her husband’s sudden change of heart. Apparently, after saving the little girl, he’d decided to rescue the boy as well.
“I’m on a roll,” he offered by way of explanation. Then, arms still filled with bundles, he stepped farther into the room to allow the child entry. “Nan, allow me to introduce you properly to Christopher Broderick. Christopher, this is my wife, Mrs. Valance. If she chooses to allow you the liberty, you may call her Nan.”
“Oh, most certainly! Nan is fine. Please do come in, Christopher. I was about to start making Christmas cookies.” She glanced at the child’s hands, which clasped yet more packages to his thin chest. Not only were his fingers brown with grime, but the undersides of his nails were black. “Perhaps, um, you’d like to . . . help.”
Gabriel saved the day. “He needs a good scrub first. Can you postpone cookie making to put some water on to heat?”
“The reservoir is full, and the water is piping hot. I just built up the fire to get the oven ready for baking.”
Gabriel deposited the packages he carried on the table and motioned for the boy to do the same. “He’s going to need a little extra. One tubful for washing and another for rinsing.”
Nan kept her large pots under the sink. She hurried over to fetch them. The sooner that child got neck-deep in water, the better. As it was, she’d have to dab vanilla all over the house to sweeten the air. Christopher. What a nice, solid name, with a ring to it that was similar to Gabriel. Perhaps, she thought disjointedly, soiled doves chose particularly impressive names for their children to draw attention away from the fact that they were bastards. Dear God. How had that word popped into her brain? Keeping company with Gabriel had tampered with her thinking, and if she wasn’t cautious, she’d soon be talking as he did, without a care in the world for propriety.
• • •
To Gabe, the remainder of the day and that evening ranked as the best he’d ever enjoyed. Well, if he discounted last night with Nan, anyhow. Making love with her had been purely glorious and inexplicably sweet. He’d never in his life wanted a woman so much, and he counted himself truly blessed to have had the experience. If he could figure out how to do so with two kids in the apartment, he meant to feel blessed again before bedtime. Maybe after the children went to sleep, he could spirit Nan downstairs and make love with her in a hidey-hole.
For reasons beyond him, she seemed to be completely over their quarrel that morning. In fact, she appeared to be happy beyond measure, and if she had a care in the world, she didn’t reveal it. Gabe was pleased. He didn’t want the time he had left to be ruined by gloomy thoughts.
After Christopher emerged from the water closet, transformed from a street urchin into a handsome youngster, Nan commandeered everyone to help in the kitchen. Laney, a difficult one to predict at times, surprised Gabe by befriending the boy in a relaxed, offhanded manner, almost as if she sensed that a bunch of ado would make Christopher uncomfortable.
“Here, Christopher,” she said as she handed him a bowl of dough. “You can help me roll and cut. Mama says those who don’t help aren’t allowed to eat.” Laney smiled impishly. “Unless you want me devouring all the cookies, you’d better fold back your shirtsleeves.”
Gabe would have bet a thousand dollars that Christopher had never even seen raw cookie dough, but the kid managed well enough by taking his cues from Laney. Soon he worked with the rolling pin while Laney came in behind him to industriously cut circular shapes with a floured tin can that was just the right size for sugar cookies. Nan got out flat, rectangular baking pans, and before he knew it, the wonderful smells he’d imagined that morning wafted through the kitchen, which was dusted with flour on nearly every surface. Nan, ever tidy, didn’t seem to be bothered by the mess. Instead of wiping counters and fussing, she stood at the stove, stirring a pot of cocoa fudge, a treat Gabe had never tasted. He had a hunch that Christopher hadn’t either.
Gabe went to stand at his wife’s elbow. Leaning in close, he asked, “Have I told you today how beautiful and sweet you are?”
Her cheek dimpled. “No, I don’t believe you have, Mr. Valance.”
Pitching his voice to a husky, suggestive whisper, he murmured, “That’s a mighty proper form of address. I hope it doesn’t mean that you plan to stand on formalities all evening.”
She flashed him a smile. “We’ve big ears about. Do you have a devious plan up your sleeve?”
“Oh, yeah.”
She giggled, and her cheeks turned a pretty pink. “I’m sorry about this morning.”
“No need to be. Your concerns were legitimate.”
She shrugged and deepened her smile. “Yes, but so were yours. I thought about it, and I came to understand how you feel.” She had paused in her stirring. In a hushed voice, she said, “Thank you so much for bringing Christopher here. It’s the decent thing for us to do.”
At that moment, Gabe’s thoughts were far from decent. He couldn’t wait to get her downstairs alone later. “Don’t scorch our fudge,” he warned.
• • •
After a quick supper of meat gravy over mashed potatoes, everyone joined in to help tidy the kitchen. Gabe was pleased by Christopher’s eagerness to lend a hand, even though the kid had no idea what to do. When everything shone per Nan’s rigid standards, Gabe went downstairs to bring up the tree, and then they gathered in the sitting room, where the small tables were now laden with treat-filled plates. They had brown-sugar brittle, squares of cocoa fudg
e, and two kinds of cookies, one a plain sugar cookie, the other containing nuts and brown-sugar crystals.
Lighted lanterns cast a warm golden glow over the room. Gabe stood back to admire the tree, which he’d placed in front of the window that looked over Main. “I think it’s perfect just as it is. Why trim it with anything?”
Laney squeaked in dismay. “Nuh-uh. We have strings of dried berries and little ornaments Mama and I made with things from her shop. Plus we’ve saved candle stubs all year just for this!”
Christopher stared at the pine boughs with a rapt expression on his face. Gabe knew the feeling. It was a very special thing to have a tree inside the house. Even the smell of it was divine.
With Gabe’s and Christopher’s help, Nan brought two boxes of ornaments upstairs, and the tree-trimming party officially began. Laney and Christopher prepared and served mugs of hot milk cocoa, so everyone could sip and nibble as the tree was draped with strings of dried holly berries. The hot chocolate was as good as Gabriel had imagined, and judging from the rapt expression on Christopher’s face when he took a sip, the kid agreed.
“Up a little,” Gabe was instructed as he adorned the higher boughs with garland. Then, “No, that’s not right. Down just a bit.”
Tree trimming, he discovered, was an arduous and exacting task.
“You can’t simply throw things on a tree,” Nan said more than once. And Laney always rejoined with, “Absolutely not!”
Gabe and Christopher shared a couple of long stares, sending silent, purely male sentiments back and forth. Fussy. And, oh, how the ladies did fuss. From the boxes, Nan unearthed frilly little things—ribbons tied into bows, several hand-fashioned Santa Claus and angel figures, and miniature Christmas trees of beaded green felt, all of which were hung from the tree boughs with bent hairpins. Then it came time to position the candle stubs.
“How the hell are we gonna make ’em sit straight?” Christopher asked.
“Language,” Gabe said softly.
Christopher flashed an apologetic look at Nan. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I plumb forgot.”
Nan placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “It may be difficult for you at first, but after a time, avoiding the use of certain words will become habit.” Then, as if the slip had never occurred, Nan added, “And making the candles sit straight is easy. There’s a bit of a trick to it.”
The trick, as it turned out, was to light each stub, then tip the flame to melt wax onto the boughs. The blobs acted like a glue of sorts, affixing the candle to the needles.
When the tree stood finished, Gabe had to admit that all the fussing had been worth the effort. “Oh, that is pretty.”
“Wait until you see it with the candles lighted!” Laney cried.
“First, we need to bring out our socks and put them on the hearth, and then you children can set out the nativity scene on the top shelf of my secretary.”
“All my socks are brand-spankin’-new,” Christopher blurted, his expression filled with dismay. “I’d like to wear ’em all before I use ’em for anything else. What do we need to put socks on the hearth for, anyhow?”
Laney grabbed Christopher’s hand. “Your sock won’t be damaged, so you can wear it all you like later. But we must put one out. Otherwise Santa Claus will have nowhere to leave us small gifts.”
Gabe knew precisely what Christopher was thinking: Santa had never bothered to bring him anything before, so he wasn’t likely to start now. To the boy’s credit, he went with Laney and soon returned with a new sock in his hand. Laney had an older one, which was far too large for either her or Nan.
“I bought a pair of men’s socks at the general store,” Nan explained. “Our stockings weren’t practical.”
Gabe saw her point. It would take a heap of gifts to fill a full-length stocking. Before he knew it, he was rifling through his saddlebags for a sock of his own. Nan had done wash, and much like Christopher, Gabe hated to use a clean sock for such nonsense. But he didn’t think his grabbing a stinky one would go over well with his wife.
“What’ll we put in them?” he asked Nan a few minutes later while the kids were preoccupied with setting out the nativity scene. “I’ve never had a sock filled.”
“Store-bought candies, toiletry items, just silly little things,” she whispered back. Glancing up to catch the bewildered look on Gabe’s face, she smiled and added, “It’s part of the Christmas magic, Gabriel. We can even put funny things in the socks so everyone laughs on Christmas morning.” Her face went suddenly taut, and shadows filled her eyes. Then, forcing her lips back into a curve, she quickly added, “Perhaps Santa will come on Christmas Eve this year.”
Gabe felt as if a fist had connected with his solar plexus. Nan had just remembered that he wouldn’t be around on Christmas morning, and her expression drove it home for him as well. For an instant, he felt weighed down with sadness. But when he looked at the tree, he shoved the gloom from his mind.
Nan finally lit the tree candles. Gabe stood behind her, encircled her waist with his arms, and rested his chin atop her head. “It’s beautiful,” he whispered. “Almost as beautiful as you are.”
She sighed and relaxed her weight against him. “There’s nothing more beautiful than a Christmas tree.”
Gabe could have argued the point.
Laney brought out her violin, and the next half hour was spent singing Christmas carols. Gabe and Christopher didn’t know the words, so they only hummed along as Nan’s and Laney’s sweet voices trilled in the room with, “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” “The First Noel,” “I Saw Three Ships,” and finally “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” After that, Laney played some other tunes, giving Gabe an opportunity to once again waltz with his wife. Looking down at her, the flickering glow of the candlelight playing over her golden hair and lovely face, he decided he hadn’t been far wrong the first time he saw her. She truly was beautiful enough to be an angel.
Until Nan’s upstairs workroom could be transformed into a bedchamber, Christopher had to sleep on the settee. Nan fashioned him a comfortable resting place with sheets, quilts, and a pillow.
After getting both kids tucked away for the night, Gabe sat with his wife at the kitchen table, his ears pricked for a change in Christopher’s breathing to signal that he’d fallen asleep. The instant Gabe heard a snuffle, he spirited his wife downstairs.
Nan giggled in the darkness of the shop. “Gabriel, we can’t engage in the act down here. We’ve no bed.”
Gabe figured he could make love to Nan almost anywhere. But given her fastidious nature, he felt fairly certain she would feel more relaxed inside her work area with at least the curtain pulled for privacy. “We’ll use your project table, ma’am.” He grinned.
“What?” She started to protest but he caught her close, stopping the words with a kiss.
Nan’s project table, once divested of stuff, served Gabriel’s purpose quite well. And, Nan, though nervous about engaging in the act in so inappropriate a place, responded to him with gasping, quivering surrender. When it came Gabe’s turn for release, his pleasure was so intense and physically draining that he wondered how he’d ever carry his limp wife back upstairs.
Chapter Seventeen
Over the next two days, Gabe could have sworn he heard a clock ticking away the minutes inside his head, and he wanted to make every single one last as long as he could. Only, somehow, in all the rush of shopping, baking, and present wrapping, the hours seemed to fly by. He couldn’t recall ever having been quite so busy—or so happy. Preparing for Christmas was more fun than he expected, and he relished learning about Nan’s traditions. They rented a buggy to go find pine boughs so they could make Christmas swags and drape the shop windows with greenery. Bread had to be dried to make stuffing. Surprises were hidden away. Whispers were exchanged. Last-minute dashes to the general store occurred because Nan forgot to get this or that. The entire bui
lding, both upstairs and down, was so redolent with fabulous smells from the oven that Gabe wished he could eat the air.
Gabe made use of every opportunity he got to make love to his wife. Nan, he discovered, tended to shriek when her passions peaked, and shrieking and kids didn’t mix. At night in their bed, Gabe took to muffling her cries with deep kisses while he aroused her with his hands. Whatever works. He had so little time to make memories with her, so little time to show her how much he loved her.
He felt no fear when he considered what would occur just before dawn on Christmas morning. What bothered him was that Nan would grieve for him. If it were left up to him, he never would have caused her one second of heartache. His only consolation was that Nan would eventually get over him and move on. When she did, she would no longer cleave only unto herself. She wouldn’t be afraid to love again, or to marry again. By spending this month with her, he was giving her an opportunity to see what it could be like to live one’s life to its fullest.
Oddly, by giving Nan that insight, Gabe was being repaid a hundredfold, sort of like how Preacher Hayes claimed it went if you tithed generously at church. His time with Nan and the kids gave Gabe a taste of real living. This, he realized, is how it could have been for me if I’d never picked up a gun. I could have met Nan and married her, and we could have had children of our own. Oh, how Gabe wished it had happened that way. He’d never yearned for offspring during his first try at life, but he did now.
Late in the evening on December 23, that yearning grew so sharp within Gabe that he whispered of it to Nan as he drew her into his arms after they climbed into bed. “You know what I wish?”
He felt her smile against his jaw. “Uh-oh, you’re getting the hang of this Christmas stuff. Is it a Santa Claus wish? If so, tomorrow evening when the children write wish notes to him and put them in the fire so the chimney smoke can carry their messages to the North Pole, you’ll have to join in.”