An Outlaw's Christmas Page 16

  Piper had been delighted by the image and kissed Ginny-Sue on top of the head, telling her, “You’ll have a happy Christmas for sure.”

  And Ginny-Sue had nodded vigorously, eyes shining with joy.

  Now, with the oranges and peppermint sticks dispersed, the adults chatted and indulged in pie and cake and all manner of country delicacies, each family, even the poorest ones, having contributed something.

  Bess made her way to Piper’s side and tugged at the sleeve of her new blue dress, a ready-made from the mercantile. She’d splurged on it, now that she wasn’t saving her money to go back to Maine, along with small gifts for Sawyer, Dara Rose and Clay, and, of course, the children.

  “We’ll be going now,” Bess said quietly. “I just wanted to say thank you for everything you did, you and your man, and to wish you a happy Christmas.”

  Piper’s eyes burned, and she smiled, her response delayed by a few moments because she was suddenly choked up. “You’re welcome,” she said, at last. “And a happy Christmas to you, as well.”

  “It’s the best one ever,” Bess confirmed, with a fond glance at her daughter.

  And then she and her bevy of twittering birds left the schoolhouse, surrounding little Ginny-Sue, in her warm coat, hat, boots and mittens, like a royal guard escorting a princess home to the palace.

  Piper watched them go from the front window, knowing she would treasure the recollection forever after, while the party went on behind her. They were a family, those fancy women and that sweet child and blustery Cleopatra, as loving and tightly knit as any other. They’d come to the schoolhouse, knowing there would be some who looked askance, resolved to watch Ginny-Sue make her recitation and celebrate with her classmates, and they’d even put up a Christmas tree, festooning the branches with what they had, rather than tinsel and colored glass.

  If that wasn’t love, what was?

  Sawyer stepped up beside her. “What are you thinking right now, Mrs. McKettrick?” he asked quietly.

  She loved it when he called her that. “That Christmas comes in many forms,” she replied, leaning against him a little, and delighting in the strength of his arm as it encircled her waist. Then she turned her head, looked up into his handsome face. “Do you miss your family? Because it’s Christmas, I mean?”

  “You’re my family,” he said, smiling into her eyes.

  She let her head rest against his shoulder for a long moment. “I love you,” she said.

  “And I love you,” he replied throatily, holding her a little tighter. Then, in a mischievous whisper, he added, “Let’s hurry this party along a little. The sooner it’s over, the sooner we’ll be alone.”

  Piper smiled. “We’re going to the ranch with Dara Rose and Clay and the children, remember? We won’t really be alone until after Christmas, when we move into the marshal’s house.”

  Sawyer grinned and gave her a surreptitious pinch on a part of her anatomy he particularly favored. “Clay and Dara Rose have a big house,” he reminded her, “and I made sure we got a room well away from everybody else’s.”

  She flushed. “You’re a scoundrel,” she accused, though she was pleased at the prospect.

  “And you wouldn’t have me any other way,” he answered.

  She laughed in agreement.

  With that, they rejoined the festivities.

  * * *

  THE RIDE TO the ranch in Clay’s largest hay-wagon was long and cold, and Piper, bundled up in quilts and blankets in back, with Dara Rose holding the well-wrapped baby, Edrina and Harriet all sitting with her in a bed of fragrant straw, wouldn’t have changed a thing about the experience.

  It was already perfect, just as it was.

  Clay and Sawyer sat up front, Clay at the reins of a four-horse team, and as they traveled, the stars started popping out in the blue-black sky, to the delighted fascination of the two little girls. Edrina and Harriet’s cheeks glowed, and their eyes danced with happiness and anticipation.

  The trail was rough and rutted, the wagon jostled along, and Piper was lulled into a brief revelry by the steady clomp-clomp-clomp of the horses’ hooves.

  Conversation, it seemed, would be too much effort, at least for the women—the men were discussing something, up there in the wagon-box, and Edrina and Harriet chattered like eager little swallows in springtime—but Piper, for her part, was content just to be with them all.

  It was later in the evening, long after they’d arrived at the ranch house, to which Dara Rose and Clay were already adding rooms, when the women finally got a chance to talk. They’d had a big supper, a boisterous affair replete with all sorts of food, and Edrina and Harriet had hung their stockings on the living room mantel and gone to bed with no fuss or delay. Dara Rose had retreated to nurse the baby and tuck him into his cradle near the kitchen table, where they sat, now that she’d returned. Clay liked to build things, when he had the time, and baby Jeb had several cradles, in various parts of the house.

  The men had gone to the barn right after supper, and they weren’t back yet.

  “You seem happy, Piper,” Dara Rose ventured gently. She was a pretty woman, with blond hair, like her daughters’, and lively eyes, full of joyful intelligence. “Are you? Truly, I mean?”

  Piper blushed slightly, and then nodded. “Yes,” she said. “I’m very happy. I’ll miss you, though. When Sawyer and I move to Arizona, I mean.”

  “We’ll write often,” Dara Rose promised, reaching out to pat Piper’s hand. “And when the baby is older, we’ll come for a long visit.” The house was warm, being well-insulated, unlike the schoolhouse, with a wood-burning furnace and intermittent electrical services. There were several fireplaces, and the kitchen stove was a magnificent thing, with a hot-water reservoir that could be accessed by a spigot.

  “Sawyer says Arizona is a fine place,” Piper remarked. It had been a while since she’d seen Dara Rose, due to distance and pregnancy, and there was so much to say that it was hard to choose a place to start.

  Dara Rose nodded. “Finally,” she confirmed, smiling. “Clay says his granddad thinks it would have been better if Arizona remained a territory, says there’d be less interference from the federal government that way.”

  Piper had heard stories about Angus McKettrick, the head of the family, who had originally hailed from Texas. Sawyer clearly idolized the man, though he’d come right out and said his grandfather was three years older than dirt and deaf as a fencepost, so she shouldn’t be alarmed if he shouted at her to “Speak up so I can hear you, little gal!”

  “I think I’m a bit intimidated,” she confessed. “By the family, I mean. There are so many of them, and they’re all strong-minded and utterly fearless, from what Sawyer’s told me. Why, his own mother used to be a sharpshooter, traveling with a Wild West show.”

  Dara Rose laughed. “And Miss Mandy,” she said, “is one of the tamer ones.”

  “Good heavens,” Piper fretted. She had Annie Oakley for a mother-in-law.

  “Don’t worry,” Dara Rose counseled. “I was only teasing. I’ve met Clay’s folks—they came to visit not too long after we got married, traveled all that way by train—and I was real nervous before then. I took a powerful liking to them both right away, and so did the girls.” She paused. “Here’s the thing about the McKettricks, Piper. Once you marry into the family, you’re one of them, for life. Jeb and Chloe—Clay’s mother and father—they don’t seem to see Edrina and Harriet as their son’s stepchildren, any more than he does.
To them, the girls are as much a part of the clan as anybody born with the name. They’re extraordinary people, really.”

  Growing up, Piper reflected, she and Dara Rose had depended mostly on each other, when it came to family. It would be lovely to be part of a large group of kinfolks.

  “I just hope they like me,” Piper said.

  “Believe me,” Dara Rose insisted, just as the men came in from outside, accompanied by Clay’s dog, “they will.”

  “Are the girls asleep?” Clay asked, bending to kiss Dara Rose’s cheek after hanging up his hat and coat and kicking off his boots to walk about in his stocking feet.

  “They’re probably pretending they are,” Dara Rose said in reply, and all the love she felt for Clay McKettrick showed in her eyes as she watched him lean over the cradle to make sure the baby was warm enough.

  Sawyer, dispensing with his own coat and hat—he’d put his sling back on for the ride out from town—crossed to Piper and kissed her ear, sending a fiery shiver through her.

  The four of them sat around the table for a while after that, talking quietly while the fire burned low in the furnace downstairs, along with the one in the cookstove. The single bulb illuminating the kitchen blinked on and off periodically, and they used a kerosene lantern in between.

  Eventually, Clay went down to the cellar to stoke up the furnace, and Dara Rose lifted their sleeping baby from his cradle, holding him tenderly, his face in the curve of her neck.

  “I’ll say good-night,” Dara Rose told Piper and Sawyer, Sawyer having risen from his chair and drawn back Piper’s so she could stand, “and a happy Christmas to both of you.”

  Piper stepped forward, kissed her cousin’s cheek. “Sleep well,” she told Dara Rose.

  The spare room—Piper had stayed in it before, of course—was on the far side of the house, spacious and comfortably, if simply, furnished. It had its own wood-burning stove, which already crackled with a welcoming fire, but her favorite part of it was the bathroom. Like the one near Clay and Dara Rose’s room, which they shared with the girls, this one was well appointed with a pedestal sink, a toilet, and a long, narrow tub made of gleaming porcelain.

  Water flowed from a copper tank set into the wall, heated by the small boiler beneath.

  Someone, probably Clay, had made sure the boiler was operating properly, and when Piper put the plug in place and turned the spigots, gloriously hot water soon spilled and splashed into the tub.

  By the light of the lantern she and Sawyer had brought from the kitchen—there were no electric bulbs in this part of the house—Piper shed her clothes as quickly as she could and climbed in while the water was still running.

  She sighed and closed her eyes. “Bliss,” she said.

  A chuckle from the doorway made her open her eyes again and turn to see Sawyer standing there, watching her. “I’d have to agree,” he said huskily.

  She didn’t think he was referring to the bath, and his words made her blush slightly.

  “Join me?” Piper asked. She’d taken regular baths at the schoolhouse, of course, but that had been an awkward proposition to say the least. This was a real bath, with plenty of hot water and scented salts in the bargain.

  Sawyer remained where he was, giving his head a slight shake. His gaze caressed her as intimately as a touch of his hand. “I’ll take a bath later,” he replied. “Right now, I’m content to watch you.”

  She sighed again, a crooning sound of purest contentment, not just with the bath but with the whole of her life, and leaned against the back of the tub, even though the porcelain was chilly where it touched her bare skin, and allowed herself to sink deeper into the rising water. “Nothing,” she said, “could be better than this.”

  Sawyer stepped into the room then, set the lantern on a shelf, and knelt beside the bathtub. “Is that a fact?” he asked, holding out his right arm to her, as he was in the habit of doing when they undressed, and, without replying to his question, she unfastened his cuff link and rolled his sleeve up past his elbow.

  He swirled the water around her lightly, splashed some on her belly and her breasts. She quivered as his fingertips brushed those same places, and others, too.

  “One thing might be better than a bath,” Piper admitted, feeling saucy.

  Sawyer traced the circumference of her right nipple, again, with a fingertip.

  A tremor went through her, with a promise of sweet tumult to follow. She groaned, already surrendering to his caresses, even as the water rose and rose, so warm and soothing. The very marrow of her bones seemed to melt.

  Sawyer chuckled at her response; he loved the sounds Piper made when he pleasured her, and he was very good at that.

  The tub was full, and he turned off the spigots, reached for a bar of soap.

  And he began to lather Piper, gently but thoroughly, washing every part of her, and she gave herself up to the sultry, luxurious sensations of his touch, and of the things he said to her, quiet and strictly their own, almost a private language.

  Presently, he leaned over and caught her mouth with his, kissed her deeply, all the while stroking the place between her legs, which had opened for him readily, like always.

  His lovemaking always seemed new, and exquisitely daring. He’d taken her standing up in the schoolhouse one moonless night, and even now the memory aroused her almost as much as what he was doing now. She’d taken him into her greedily, crying out in welcome as he took her.

  “There’s more,” he always said to her, after each ecstatic surprise.

  “There’s more,” he said now, getting to his feet and reaching for one of the towels Dara Rose had so thoughtfully provided, along with the fancy soap and the ample supply of hot water.

  Wobbly-kneed, Piper stood, let him wrap her in the towel. Stepped over the side of the tub and onto the rug to stand very close to him.

  He led her into the warm bedroom, lit only by the light escaping from the edges of the door in the little stove, dried her off, and settled her sideways on the mattress. Easing her onto her back, he kissed her and caressed her for a long time.

  She waited, dazed with comfort and anticipation, because when Sawyer said there was more, there always was.

  Always.

  When he slipped away from her, she tried to pull him back, already wanting him on top of her, inside her, but he eluded her grasp.

  And then he knelt again, and parted her knees.

  When he took her into his mouth, the most sensitive, intimate part of her, she had to stifle a ragged shout of delight. It was scandalous—it was—

  “Sawyer,” she whimpered, tangling her fingers into his hair, holding him close to her, pressed hard against her.

  His mouth. Dear heaven, his mouth. What magic was this? What wild, sweet magic was he working on her?

  Without withdrawing from her, he eased both her legs up, setting her heels against the mattress. Her bent knees widened and still he feasted on her, nibbling and tasting, teasing her with just the tip of his tongue until she begged for completion.

  One of his hands found her mouth and covered it gently, and that was a good thing, because when satisfaction finally, finally overtook her, she was making a primitive sound, part sob and part growl, that would have carried clear to town, never mind to the rest of the house.

  Before rising from his knees, Sawyer kissed the insides of Piper’s still trembling thighs. Several small, sharp after-releases followed, each one causing her to moan
softly and arch her back, as though to find his mouth again.

  He arranged her properly in the bed and covered her up. “If Clay hears you yelling like that,” he joked quietly, “he’ll think I’m killing you and storm the room with a shotgun.”

  Piper couldn’t speak. She was still trying to find her way back to herself, still lost on the outskirts of heaven.

  She slept a sweetly shallow sleep, rising to the surface now and then, like some exotic fish. She heard Sawyer running a bath in the next room and, later, felt his weight on the mattress when he climbed into bed beside her. She stirred as, unbelievably, desire reawakened within her, blossoming like some soft-petaled flower.

  “Sawyer,” she whispered, reaching for him.

  He moved on top of her, and she widened her legs for him.

  He took her slowly, so slowly, and so deeply that her body instantly responded, even though she was still half-asleep. She began to buckle beneath him, as the first climax seized her, followed by another and then another. They were soft, these releases, and she soared with them as surely as if she’d had wings.

  Finally, Sawyer too reached the pinnacle, and gave himself up to her with a long, low groan that seemed to rise from the depths of his soul.

  * * *

  “GET UP!” a little voice crowed. “Get up, get up, get up!”

  Sawyer opened one eye, spotted Harriet standing beside the bed, holding up a stocking—one of Clay’s, probably—bulging with loot.

  “It’s Christmas!” Edrina piped up, from the other side of the bed.

  Piper, buried deep under the covers, murmured something.

  “And St. Nicholas was here!” Harriet cried, waving the stocking. “Get up!”

  Sawyer laughed. “I thought you didn’t believe in St. Nicholas,” he said, stalling for time. He wasn’t wearing a stitch, and neither was Piper, which meant, of course, that the getting-up part would have to wait until the girls were out of the room.