An Outlaw's Christmas Read online

  At worst? Completely ruined.

  The injustice of that was galling to Piper, but nonetheless binding. Lady teachers in particular were scrutinized for the slightest inclination toward wanton behavior, though their male counterparts sometimes courted and then married one of their students, with impunity. A practice Piper considered reprehensible.

  “Certainly,” she said now, well aware that Clay hadn’t been asking her permission but feeling compelled to offer some kind of response.

  She hovered in the doorway of her room—little more than a lean-to, really—with one tiny window, high up, while Clay wrestled Sawyer out of his coat then eased him down carefully onto the bed, pulled off his boots.

  The effort of going even that far must have been too much for Sawyer, strong as he looked, because he shut his eyes again, and didn’t respond when Clay spoke to him.

  “I’ll get the doc,” Clay said to Piper, as she stepped out of the doorway to let him pass. “Do you have any more blankets? It’s important to keep him warm.”

  Piper thought with a heavy heart of the fine, colorful quilts lying neatly folded in her hope chest. She’d always envisioned them gracing the beds of some lovely house, once she was married, like Dara Rose, with a proper home.

  “Yes,” she said bravely, and though she didn’t begrudge Sawyer McKettrick those quilts, she couldn’t help lamenting their fate. She’d worked hard to assemble them from tiny scraps of fabric, carefully saved, and many of the pieces were all she had to remember friends she’d left behind in Maine.

  She swept over to her bulky cedar chest, raised the lid, and rummaged through the treasured contents—doilies and potholders, tablecloths and dish towels and the like—until she’d found what she was looking for.

  As she spread the first of those exquisitely stitched coverlets over Mr. McKettrick, he stirred again, opened his eyes briefly, and smiled. “Thanks, Josie,” he said, and there was a caress in the way he said the name.

  Briskly, because she was a little hurt, though she couldn’t have pinpointed the reason why such an emotion should afflict her, Piper put another quilt on top of her patient, and then another.

  Then, because it was nearly eight o’clock, she went to the other end of the building, where the bell rope dangled, and gave it a tug. Surely none of her pupils would make it to school on such a day, but Piper believed in maintaining routine, especially during trying times. There was something reassuring about it.

  The silvery bell, high overhead in its little belfry, chimed once, twice, three times, summoning students who would not come.

  Piper’s hands, rope-burned from hauling up well water the night before, stung fiercely, and she was almost glad, because the pain gave her something to think about besides the man sprawled on her spinster’s bed, probably bleeding all over her quilts.

  She retrieved a tin of Wildflower Salve from her bureau, careful not to make too much noise and disturb Mr. McKettrick. Carrying the salve back to her schoolroom, she sat down at her desk and smiled a little as she twisted off the pretty little lid to treat her sore palms.

  There was an abundance of the stuff, since Dara Rose, impoverished after the scandalous death of her first husband, upstairs at the Bitter Gulch Saloon, had once planned to sell the product door-to-door in hopes of making enough money to support herself and her two small daughters, Edrina and Harriet. Instead, Dara Rose had fallen in love with Clay McKettrick, married him, and thus retained what amounted to a lifetime supply of medicinal salve, which she generously shared.

  A half hour passed before Clay returned, with Dr. Jim Howard, the local dentist, riding stalwartly along beside him on the mule that usually pulled his buggy.

  Everybody in Blue River liked Dr. Howard, whose young daughter, Madeline, was one of Piper’s best students. At eight, the little girl could read and cipher with the acuity of an adult. Mrs. Howard, however, was not so easy to like as her husband and daughter. Eloise wore nothing but velvet or silk, dismissed the town as a “bump in the road” and told anyone who would listen that she’d “married down.”

  “Miss St. James,” Dr. Howard greeted her, with a friendly smile and a tug at the brim of his Eastern-style hat, as he stomped the snow off his boots on the schoolhouse porch, the way Clay had done a moment before. Doc was a large man, good-natured, older than his wife by some twenty years, and his eyes were a kindly shade of blue. He carried a battered leather bag in one gloved hand.

  Piper barely stopped herself from rushing over and embracing the man, she was so glad to see him. The responsibility of keeping Mr. McKettrick alive had, she realized, weighed more heavily upon her than she’d thought it did.

  She merely nodded in acknowledgment, though, as he closed the door against the cold daylight wind, and she hung back when Clay led the way through the schoolroom and into the chamber behind it.

  Of course she couldn’t help overhearing most of the conversation between Clay and Dr. Howard, given that the whole place was hardly larger than Dara Rose’s chicken coop out on the ranch, classroom, teacher’s quarters and all.

  Clay was asking how bad the injury was, and Dr. Howard replied that it was serious enough, but with luck and a lot of rest, the patient would probably recover.

  Probably recover? Piper thought, sipping from the mug of coffee she’d poured for herself. When Clay and the doctor—more commonly referred to as “Doc”—came out of the back room, she’d offer them some, too. She owned three cups, not including the bone china tea service for six nestled in her hope chest, which would remain precisely where it was, unlike her once pristine quilts.

  “I’d like to take Sawyer out to my place,” she heard Clay say.

  “Better wait a few days,” came Doc’s response. “He’s lost a lot of blood. The bullet went clear through him, though, which saves me having to dig it out, and Miss St. James did a creditable job of binding him up. He’ll have scars, but the wound looks clean, thanks to her.” A pause followed. “There’s a bottle of carbolic acid in my bag there—hand it to me, will you?”

  There was another short silence, during which Clay must have done as Doc asked, soon followed by a hoarse shout of angry protest from the patient. He swore colorfully, and Piper winced. She believed that cursing revealed a poor vocabulary, among other personal shortcomings.

  “Can’t take a chance on infection setting in,” the dentist said peaceably, evidently unruffled by the outburst. “The burning will stop after a while.”

  Sawyer muttered something unintelligible.

  Piper’s hands trembled as she set her coffee mug down on her desk. Doc’s reply to Clay’s statement about taking his cousin out to the ranch echoed in her mind. Better wait a few days.

  All well and good, she thought fretfully, but what was she supposed to do in the meantime? There was only one bed, after all, and she couldn’t sleep in a chair until the man was well enough to be moved, could she?

  Mr. McKettrick was indeed badly injured, but this was a schoolhouse, frequented by children five days a week—children who would go home after dismissal and tell their parents there was a strange man recuperating in Miss St. James’s room. She wouldn’t be able to hide him from them any more than she could hide that enormous gelding of his, quartered in the shed out back. Even unconscious, Sawyer filled the place with his presence, breathed up all the air.

  Clay emerged from her room just then, took a second mug from the shelf near the stove and poured himself some coffee. He was probably cold, Piper realized with some chagrin, having ridden in from the ranch, proceeded to Doc Howard’s, and then made his way back to the schoolhouse again.

  “I guess we’ve got a problem,” he said now. Was there a twinkle in those very blue eyes of his as he studied her expression?

  “Yes,” Piper agreed, somewhat stiffly. Maybe Clay found the situation amusing, but she certainly didn’t.

  Cla
y took another sip, thoughtful and slow, from his mug. He’d shed his long coat soon after he and Doc arrived, and his collarless shirt was open at the throat, showing the ridged fabric of his undergarment. Like Sawyer, he wore a gun belt, but he’d set the pistol aside earlier, an indication of his good manners. “You probably heard what Doc Howard said,” he told her, after a few moments of pensive consideration. “I could stay here with Sawyer and send you on out to the ranch to stay with Dara Rose and the girls, but it’s hard going, with the snow still so deep.”

  Jim Howard came out of Piper’s room, wiping his hands clean on a cloth that smelled of carbolic acid. “I gave him some laudanum,” he told Clay. “He’ll sleep for a while.”

  Piper propped her own hands on her hips. She’d spent a mostly sleepless night hoping and praying that someone would come to help, and she’d gotten her wish, but for all that, the problem was only partially solved.

  Perhaps she should have been more specific, she reflected, rueful.

  “Must I point out to you gentlemen,” she began, with dignity, “that this arrangement is highly improper?”

  Clay’s grin was slight, but it was, nonetheless, a grin, and it infuriated her. She was an unmarried woman, a schoolmarm, and there was a man in her bed, likely to remain there for the foreseeable future. All her dreams for the future—a good husband, a home, and children of her own—could be compromised, and through no fault of her own.

  “I understand your dilemma, Piper,” he said, sounding like an indulgent older brother, “but you heard the doc. Sawyer can’t be moved until that wound of his mends a little.”

  “Surely you could take him as far as the hotel without doing harm,” Piper reasoned, quietly frantic. She kept her hands at her sides, but the urge to wring them was strong.

  Dr. Howard shook his head. Helped himself to the last mug and some coffee. “That could kill him,” he said bluntly, but his expression was sympathetic. “I’m sure Eloise wouldn’t mind coming over and helping with his care, though. She’s had some nursing experience, and it would temper any gossip that might arise.”

  As far as Piper was concerned, being shut up with Eloise Howard for any length of time would be worse than attending to the needs of a helpless stranger by herself. Much worse.

  “I couldn’t ask her to do that,” Piper said quickly. “Mrs. Howard has you and little Madeline to look after.” She turned a mild glare on Clay. “Your cousin needs male assistance,” she added. She’d dragged Sawyer McKettrick in out of the cold, cleaned his wound, even taken care of his horse, but she wasn’t about to help him use the chamber pot, and that was final.

  “I’ll do what I can,” Clay said, “but Dara Rose is due to have our baby any day now. I can’t leave her out there alone, with just the girls and a few ranch hands. Once the weather lets up, though…”

  His words fell away as Piper’s cheeks flared with the heat of frustration. She could demand to be put up in the hotel herself, of course, until Sawyer McKettrick was well enough to leave the schoolhouse, but that would mean he’d be alone here. And he was in serious condition, despite Doc’s cheerful prognosis.

  What if something went wrong?

  Besides, staying in hotels cost money, and even there in the untamed West, many of them had policies against admitting single women—unless, of course, they were ladies of the evening, and thus permitted to slip in through an alley door, under cover of darkness, and climb the back stairs to ply their wretched trade.

  “You do realize,” Piper persisted, “that I have nowhere to sleep?” And no good man will ever marry me because my morals will forever be in question, even though I’ve done nothing wrong.

  Dr. Howard walked over and laid a fatherly hand on her shoulder. “I’ll bring over anything you need,” he assured her. “And stop in as often as I can. I’m sure Clay will do the same.”

  Clay nodded, but he was looking out the window, at the ceaseless snow, and his expression was troubled. “I’ve got to get back to Dara Rose,” he said.

  Piper’s heart went out to him. As untenable as her situation was, Dara Rose needed Clay right now, and so did the children. Edrina and Harriet, though uncommonly precocious, were still quite small, and they couldn’t be expected to know what to do if their mother went into labor.

  “Go home, Clay,” she said gently. “Give Dara Rose my best regards. Edrina and Harriet, too.”

  Clay’s expression was even more serious now, and he looked at her for a long time before giving a reluctant nod and promising, “I’ll come back for Sawyer as soon as Doc decides he can travel. I appreciate this, Piper. I wouldn’t ask it of you, but—”

  “I understand,” she said, when words failed him again. And she did understand. Clay and Sawyer, like Piper and Dara Rose, were first cousins, the next best thing to siblings, and the bond was strong between them.

  The snow came down harder and then harder still, and Doc Howard finished his coffee, collected his bag and took one more look at Sawyer, then headed out, after assuring Piper that he’d return before day’s end and asking what he ought to bring back.

  Blankets, she’d said, flustered, and kerosene, and whatever medicine the patient might need.

  Clay attended to Sawyer’s horse, said goodbye, and left for the ranch.

  Watching him disappear into a spinning vortex of white, Piper felt a lump rise in her throat.

  Once again, she was alone, except for Sawyer McKettrick and he, of course, was a hindrance, not a help.

  True to his word, Doc was back within the hour, despite the increasingly bad weather, bringing a fresh supply of laudanum, a jug of kerosene, more carbolic acid and several warm blankets, wrapped in oilcloth so they’d stay dry.

  He examined Sawyer again—reporting that he was still sleeping but that his heartbeat was stronger than before and he seemed to be breathing more easily—gave Piper a few instructions, and quickly left again, because nightfall would be coming on soon, making the ordinarily short journey home even more difficult than it already was.

  Piper thanked him, asked him to give Eloise and Madeline her best, and watched through the front window until he and his mule were gone from sight.

  Then, feeling more alone than she ever had, she got busy.

  She washed down the already clean blackboard.

  She dusted every surface in the schoolroom and refilled the kerosene lamp.

  She drank more coffee and fed more wood into the stove.

  Before he’d gone, Clay had assured her that Sawyer’s horse would be fine until morning, which meant she could stay inside, where it was comparatively warm, so that was one less worry, anyhow. Gaps between the floorboards let in some of the cold, but that couldn’t be helped. Using the spare blankets Doc had brought, she made a bed on the floor, close to the stove and hoped all the mice were hibernating.

  She lit the kerosene lamp as the room darkened, and tried to cheer herself up by imagining the Christmas tree, still in its pail of water and leaning against the far wall, glowing with bright decorations. She took comfort in its green branches and faintly piney scent and thought, with a smile, of the recitations her students were memorizing for the school program.

  Christmas Eve, just ten days away, fell on a Friday that year, so school would be in session until noon—weather permitting—and the recital would be presented soon after. After the poems and skits, everyone would sing carols. The owner of the mercantile had promised to donate oranges and peppermint sticks for the children, and the parents would bring pies and cookies and cakes.

  This gathering represented all the Christmas some of the children would have, and all thirteen of them were looking forward to the celebration.

  She moved, quiet as a wraith, to the window, and glumness settled over her spirit as she looked out.

  And still the snow fell in abundance, unrelenting.

  * * * br />
  IT WAS THE pain that finally roused him.

  Sawyer came to the surface of consciousness with a fierce jolt, feeling as though he’d been speared through his left shoulder.

  His stomach lurched, and for a moment he was out there on that snowy street again, unable to see his assailant, reaching in vain for his .45.

  He went deliberately still—not only was there no Colt at his hip, but he’d been stripped to his birthday suit—and tried to orient himself to reality.

  The room was dark and a little chilly, and it smelled faintly of some flowery cologne, which probably meant there was a woman around somewhere.

  The thought made him smile, despite the lingering pain, which had transmuted itself from a stabbing sensation to a burning ache in the few minutes since he’d opened his eyes. There weren’t many situations that couldn’t be improved by the presence of a lady.

  He squinted, managed to raise himself a little, with the pillows behind him providing support. Snow-speckled moonlight entered through the one window, set high in the wall, and spilled onto the intricate patterns of the several quilts that covered him to the waist.

  “Hullo?” he called into the darkness.

  She appeared in the doorway then, carrying a flickering kerosene lamp, a small but well-made woman with dark hair and a wary way of carrying herself.

  She looked familiar, but Sawyer couldn’t quite place her.

  “You’re awake, then,” she said rhetorically, staying well away from the bed, as if she thought he might grab hold of her. The impression left him vaguely indignant. “Are you hungry?”

  “No,” he said, because his stomach, though empty, was still reacting to the rush of pain that had awakened him. “How’s my horse?”

  In the light of the lantern, he saw her smile slightly. Decided she was pretty, if a mite on the scrawny side. Her waist looked no bigger around than a fence post, and she wasn’t very tall, either.

  “Your horse is quite comfortable,” she said. “Are you in pain? The doctor left laudanum in case you needed it.”