A Creed Country Christmas Read online

  Lincoln sighed inwardly. Until she could find them a home. As if those near-babies were stray puppies or kittens.

  With another nod, this one sorrowful, he turned away.

  It was time to turn in; morning would come early.

  But damned if he’d sleep a wink between the plight of four innocent children and the knowledge that Juliana Mitchell was lying on the other side of the wall.

  Chapter Two

  The mattress felt like a cloud, tufted and stuffed with feathers from angels’ wings, beneath Juliana’s weary frame, but sleep eluded her. Daisy slumbered innocently at her right side, sucking one tiny thumb, while Billy-Moses snuggled close on the left, clinging to her flannel nightgown—the cloth was still chilled from being rolled up in her satchel, out in the weather most of the day.

  Juliana listened as the sturdy house settled around her, her body still stiff with tension, that being its long-established habit, heard a plank creaking here, a roof timber there. She caught the sound of a door opening and closing just down the corridor, pictured Lincoln Creed passing into his room, or bending over little Gracie’s bed to tuck her in and bid her good-night. Would he spare a kind word for Theresa, who was sharing Gracie’s room, and so hungry for affection, or reserve all his attention for his little daughter?

  Gracie was a charming child, as lovely as a doll come to life, with those thickly lashed eyes, golden ringlets brushing her shoulders and the pink-tinged porcelain perfection of her skin. Privileged by comparison to most children, not to mention the four in Juliana’s own charge, Gracie was precocious, but if she was spoiled, there had been no sign of it yet. She’d greeted the new arrivals at Stillwater Springs Ranch with frank curiosity, yes, but then she’d ladled milk into mugs for them, even served it at the table.

  Juliana’s heart pinched. Gracie had a strong, loving father, a home, robust good health. But behind those more obvious blessings lurked a certain lonely resignation uncommon in one so young. Gracie had lost her mother at a very early age, and no one understood the sorrows of that more than Juliana herself—she’d been six years old when her own had succumbed to consumption. Juliana’s father, outraged by grief, torn asunder by it, had dumped both his offspring on their maternal grandmother’s doorstep barely two weeks after his wife’s funeral and, over the next few years, delivered himself up to dissolution and debauchery.

  Clay, nine at the time of their mother’s passing, had changed from a lighthearted, mischievous boy to a solemn-faced man, seemingly overnight. In a very real way, Juliana had lost him, in addition to both her parents.

  Victoria Marston, their grandmother, already a widow when her only daughter had died, dressed in mourning until her own death a decade later, but she had loved Juliana and Clay tirelessly nonetheless. Grandmama had given them every advantage—tutors, music lessons, finishing school for Juliana, who had immediately changed the course of her study to train as a schoolteacher upon the discovery that “finishing” involved learning to make small talk with men, the proper way to pour tea and a lot of walking about with a book balanced on top of her head. There had been college in San Francisco for Clay, even a Grand Tour.

  Juliana had stayed behind in Denver, living at home with Grandmama, attending classes every day and letting her doting grandmother believe she was being thoroughly “finished,” impatiently waiting for her life to begin.

  For all the things she would have changed, she appreciated her blessings, too; she’d been well-cared-for, beautifully clothed and educated beyond the level most young women attained. Yet, there was still a childlike yearning inside Juliana, a longing for her beautiful, laughing mama. The singular and often poignant ache was mostly manageable—except when she was discouraged, and that had been often, of late.

  After graduating from Normal School—her grandmother had died of a heart condition only weeks before Juliana accepted her certificate—she’d begun her career with high hopes, pushed up her sleeves and flung herself into the fray, undaunted at first by her brother’s cold disapproval. He’d wanted her to marry his business partner, John Holden, and because he controlled their grandmother’s large estate, Clay had had the power to disinherit her. On the day she’d given back John’s engagement ring and accepted her first teaching assignment at a school for Indian boys in a small Colorado town a day’s train ride from Denver, he’d done that, for all practical intents and purposes.

  Juliana had been left with nothing but the few modest clothes and personal belongings she’d packed for the journey. Clay had gone so far as to ban her from the family home, saying she could return when she “came to her senses.”

  To Clay, “coming to her senses” meant consigning herself to a loveless marriage to a widower more than twenty years her senior, a man with two daughters close to Juliana’s own age.

  Mean daughters, who went out of their way to be snide, and saw their future stepmother as an interloper bent on claiming their late mother’s jewelry, as well as her home and husband.

  Remembering, Juliana bit down on her lower lip, and her eyes smarted a little. She might have been content with John, if not happy, had it not been for Eleanor and Eugenie. He was gentle, well-read, and she’d felt safe with him.

  In a flash of insight and dismay, Juliana had realized she was looking for a father, not a husband. She’d explained to John, and though he’d been disappointed, he’d understood. He’d even been gracious enough to wish her well.

  Clay, by contrast, had been furious; his otherwise handsome features had turned to stone the day she’d told him about the broken engagement.

  In the six years since, he’d softened a little—probably because his wife, Nora, had lobbied steadily on Juliana’s behalf—writing regularly, even inviting Juliana home for visits and offering to ship the clothing and books she’d left behind, but when it came to her inheritance, he’d never relented.

  Even when John Holden had died suddenly, a year before, permanently disqualifying himself as a possible husband for the sister Clay had once adored and protected, teased and laughed with, he had not given ground. After months of working up her courage, she’d written to ask for a modest bank draft, since her salary was small, less than the allowance her grandmother had given her as a girl, and Clay had responded with words that still blistered Juliana’s pride, even now. “I won’t see you squandering good money,” he’d written, “on shoes and schoolbooks for a pack of red-skinned orphans and strays.”

  A burning ache rose in Juliana’s throat at the memory.

  Clay would cease punishing her when she stopped teaching and married a man who met with his lofty approval, then and only then, and that was the unfortunate reality.

  She’d been a fool to write to him that last time, all but begging for the funds she’d needed to get Joseph and Theresa safely home to North Dakota and look after the two little ones until proper homes could be found for them.

  The situation was further complicated by the fact that Mr. Philbert, an agent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and therefore Juliana’s supervisor, believed the four pupils still in her charge had been sent back to their original school in Missoula, along with the older students. Sooner or later, making his rounds or by correspondence, Philbert, a diligent sort with no softness in him that Juliana could discern, would realize she’d not only disobeyed his orders, but lied to him, at least in part.

  As an official representative of the United States government, the man could have her arrested and prosecuted for kidnapping, and consign Daisy and Billy-Moses to some new institution, far out of her reach, where they would probably be neglected, at best. Juliana knew, after working in a series of such places, all but bloodying her very soul in the effort to change things, that only the most dedicated reformers would bother to look beyond the color of their skin. And there were precious few of those.

  To keep from thinking about Mr. Philbert and his inevitable wrath, Juliana turned her mind to the students she’d had to bid farewell to—Mary Rose, seventeen and soon to be entering No
rmal School herself; Ezekiel, sixteen, who wanted to finish his education and return to his tribe. Finally, there was Angelique, seventeen, like her cousin Mary Rose, sweet and unassuming and smitten with a boy she’d met while running an errand in Stillwater Springs one spring day.

  Part Blackfoot and part white, Blue Johnston had visited several times, a handsome, engaging young man with a flashing white smile and the promise of a job herding cattle on a ranch outside of Missoula. Although Juliana had kept close watch on the couple and warned Angelique repeatedly about the perils of impulse, she’d had the other children to attend to, and the pair had strayed out of her sight more than a few times.

  Privately, Juliana feared that Angelique and her beau would run away and get married as soon as they got the chance—and that chance had come a week before, when Angelique and the others had boarded the train to return to Missoula. Should that happen—perhaps it already had—Mr. Philbert would bluster and threaten dire consequences when he learned of it, all the while figuratively dusting his hands together, secretly relieved to have one less obligation.

  Footsteps passed along the hallway, past her door, bringing Juliana out of her rueful reflections. Another door opened and then closed again, nearer, and then all was silent.

  The house rested, and so, evidently, did Lincoln Creed.

  Juliana could not.

  Easing herself from between the sleeping children, after gently freeing the fabric of her nightgown from Billy-Moses’s grasp, Juliana crawled out of bed.

  The cold slammed against her body like the shock following an explosion; there was a small stove in the room, but it had not been lit.

  Shivering, Juliana crossed to it, all but hopping, found matches and newspaper and kindling and larger chunks of pitchy wood resting tidily in a nearby basket. With numb fingers, she opened the stove door and laid a fire, set the newspaper and kindling ablaze, adjusted the damper.

  The floor stung the soles of her bare feet, and the single window, though large, was opaque with curlicues and crystals of ice. A silvery glow indicated that the moon had come out from behind the snow-burdened clouds—perhaps the storm had stopped.

  Juliana paced, making no sound, until the room began to warm up, and then fumbled in the pocket of her cloak for Clay’s crumpled letter. Back at the mercantile, she’d been too overwrought to finish the missive. Now, wakeful in the house of a charitable stranger—but a stranger nevertheless—she smoothed the page with the flat of one hand, hungry for a word of kind affection.

  Not wanting to light a lamp, lest she awaken the children resting so soundly in the feather bed, Juliana knelt near the fire, opened the stove door again and read by the flickering flames inside, welcoming the warmth.

  Her gaze skimmed over the first few lines—she could have recited those from memory—and took in the rest.

  You will be twenty-six years old on your next birthday, Juliana, and you are still unmarried. Nora and I are, of course, greatly concerned for your welfare, not to mention your reputation….

  Juliana had to stop herself by the summoning of inner forces from wadding the letter up again, casting it straight into the fire.

  Clay had accepted the fact, he continued, in his usual brisk fashion, that his sister had consigned herself to a life of lonely and wasteful spinsterhood. She was creating a scandal, he maintained, by living away from home and family. What kind of example, he wondered, was she setting for Clara, her little niece?

  He closed with what amounted to a command that she return to Denver and “live with modesty and circumspection” in her brother’s home, where she belonged.

  But there was no expression of fondness.

  The letter was signed Regards, C. Mitchell.

  “‘C. Mitchell,’” Juliana whispered on a shaky breath. “Not ‘Clay.’ Not ‘Your brother.’ ‘C. Mitchell.’”

  With that, she folded the single page carefully, held it for a moment, and then tossed it into the stove. Watched, the heat drying her eyeballs until they burned, as orange flames curled the vellum, nibbled darkly at the edges and corners, and then consumed the last forlorn tatters of Juliana’s hopes. There would be no reconciliation between her and Clay, no restoration of their old childhood camaraderie.

  As much as she had loved the brother she remembered from long ago, as much as she loved him still, for surely he was still in there somewhere behind that rigid facade, she could not go home. Oh, she would have enjoyed getting to know little Clara and her brother, Simon. She had always been fond of Nora, a good-hearted if flighty woman who accepted her husband’s absolute authority without apparent qualms. But Clay would treat her, Juliana, like a poor relation, doling out pennies for a packet of pins, lecturing and dictating her every move, staring her down if she dared to venture an opinion at the supper table.

  No. She definitely could not go home, not under such circumstances. It would be the ultimate—and final—defeat, and the slow death of her spirit.

  “Missy?” The lisp was Daisy’s; the child could not say Juliana’s whole name, and always addressed her thus. “Missy, are you there?”

  “I’m here, sweetheart,” Juliana confirmed quietly, closing the stove door and getting back to her feet. “I’m here.”

  The assurance was enough for Daisy; she turned onto her side, settled in with a tiny murmur of relief and sank into sleep again.

  Even with the fire going, the room was still cold enough to numb Juliana’s bones.

  Having no other choice, she climbed back into bed and pulled the top sheet and faded quilts up to her chin, giving a little shiver.

  Billy-Moses stirred beside her, took a new hold on her nightgown.

  Daisy snuggled close, too.

  Juliana stared up at the ceiling, watching the shadows dance, her heart and mind crowded with children again. At some point, she could send Joseph and Theresa home by train to their family in North Dakota.

  But what of Daisy and Billy-Moses? They had nowhere to go, besides an orphanage or some other “school.”

  In her more optimistic moments, Juliana could convince herself that some kindly couple would be delighted to adopt these bright, beautiful children, would cherish and nurture them.

  This was not an optimistic moment.

  Poverty was rampant among Indians; many could not feed their own children, let alone take in the lost lambs, the “strays,” as Clay and others like him referred to them.

  A lone tear slipped down Juliana’s right cheek, tickled its way over her temple and into her hair. She closed her eyes and waited, trying not to consider the future, and finally, fitfully, she slept.

  THE COLD WAS BRITTLE; it had substance and heft.

  Lincoln had carried in an armload of wood and laid kindling on the hearth of the big stone fireplace directly across from his too-big, too-empty four-poster bed that morning before dawn, the way he always did after the weather turned in the fall. He’d gotten a good blaze crackling in the little stove in Gracie’s room, so she and Theresa would be snug—he’d seen children sicken and die after taking a chill—but that night he didn’t bother to get his own fire going.

  He stripped off his clothes and the long winter underwear beneath them, and plunged into bed naked, cursing under his breath at the smooth, icy bite of the linen sheets. It was at night that he generally missed Beth most, recalling her whispery laughter and the warmth of her curled against him, the sweet, eager solace of their lovemaking.

  Tonight, it was different.

  He couldn’t stop thinking about Juliana: her new-penny hair; her eyes, blue as wet ink pooling on the whitest paper; the way she’d rested against his side, under his coat, soft with the innocent abandon of sleep, on the wagon ride home from town.

  He reckoned that was why he wouldn’t light a fire. He was punishing himself for betraying Beth’s memory in a way that cut far deeper than relieving his body with dance-hall girls in other towns. God Almighty, he’d had to study the little gilt-framed picture of his late wife on Gracie’s night table earli
er just to reassemble her features in his mind. They’d scattered like dry leaves in a high wind, the memory of Beth’s eyes and nose and the shape of her mouth, with his first look at Juliana that afternoon, in the mercantile.

  Beth would have understood about the loose women.

  Even a mail-order bride.

  But he’d vowed, sitting beside this very bed, holding Beth’s hand in both his own, to love her, and no one else, until they laid him out in the cemetery alongside her.

  Lincoln’s eyes stung as he remembered how brave she’d been. How she’d smiled at his earnest promise, sick as she was, and told him not to close his heart, for Gracie’s sake and his own.

  She hadn’t meant it, of course. She’d read a lot of novels about love and chivalry and noble sacrifice, that was all. A woman of comparatively few flaws, at least as far as he was concerned, Beth had nonetheless been possessive at times, her jealousy flaring when he tipped his hat to any female under the age of sixty, or returned a smile.

  He’d been faithful, besotted as he was, but Beth’s wealthy father had kept a mistress while she was growing up, and her mother had withdrawn into bitter silence in protest, becoming an invalid by choice. Though the instances were rare, Beth had fretted and shed tears a time or two, certain that it was only a matter of time before Lincoln tired of her and wanted some conjugal variety.

  He’d reassured her, of course, kissed away her tears, made love to her, sent away to cities like New York and San Francisco and Boston for small but expensive presents he hadn’t been able to afford, what with beef prices bottoming out and his mother spending money as if she still had a rich husband, and his brother Wes running the ranch into near bankruptcy while he, Lincoln, was away at college.

  No, he thought, with a shake of his head and a grim set to his mouth, his hands cupped behind his head as he lay still as fallen timber, waiting for the sheets to warm up. Beth hadn’t meant what she’d said that day, only hours before she’d closed her eyes for the last time; she’d merely been playing out a scene from one of those stories that made her sniffle until her face got puffy and her nose turned red. She’d believed, being so very young, that that was how a lady was supposed to die.