An Outlaw's Christmas Read online

  Moisture dripped steadily from the roof overhead, and the road was taking shape again, a slight but visible dip in the deep, blindingly white field of snow that seemed to stretch on and on.

  The voice, coming from behind her, wry and somewhat testy, nearly caused Piper to jump out of her skin. For a few moments, glorying in the change in the weather, she’d forgotten all about her uninvited guest, her night on the floor, and most of her other concerns, as well.

  “Is there any coffee in this place, or would that be sinful, like keeping a stock of whiskey?” Sawyer McKettrick asked grumpily.

  Piper whirled, saw him standing—standing, under his own power—in the doorway to her private quarters. He was still bare-chested, his bandages bulky and his bad arm in the sling Doc had improvised for him the day before, but, thankfully, he’d somehow managed to get into his trousers and even put on his boots.

  He looked pale, gaunt, but ready for whatever challenges the day—or the next few minutes—might bring.

  She smiled, relieved. If Sawyer was up and around, he’d be leaving soon. Maybe very soon. “I’ll make some coffee,” she said. “Sit down.”

  He was leaning against the framework of the doorway now, probably conserving his strength, and he looked around, taking in the small desks, the benches. “Where?” he asked, practically snarling the word.

  Piper was determined to be pleasant, no matter how rude Mr. McKettrick chose to be. “There’s a chair behind my desk,” she pointed out. “Take that.”

  He groped his way along the wall, proof that he wasn’t as recovered as she’d first thought, pulled back the wooden chair and sank into it. “Where’s my shirt?” he asked. “And my .45?”

  Piper ladled water into the small enamel coffeepot that, like the three drinking mugs, her narrow bed and the rocking chair, came with the schoolhouse. “I burned your shirt,” she said cheerfully. “It was quite ruined, between the bullet hole and all the blood. And I put away the pistol, since you won’t have use for it here.”

  Sawyer thrust his free hand through his hair in exasperation. Clearly, the laudanum had worn off, and he hadn’t rested well. “I need that shirt,” he said. “And the .45.”

  “I’m sorry,” Piper answered. “Perhaps Clay will bring you fresh clothes, when he comes to take you out to the ranch.” She refused to discuss the gun any further.

  Sawyer frowned. His chin was bristly with beard stubble, and he narrowed his blue-green eyes practically to slits. “When will that be?” he growled. “My trunk is over at the train depot. Plenty of clothes in there.”

  Piper didn’t reply right away, since she didn’t know precisely when Clay would return, and fetching Sawyer’s baggage from the depot was not presently an option. Instead, she put some coffee beans into the grinder and turned the handle, enjoying the rich scent as it rose to entice her. Coffee was normally a treat for Piper, though she’d been drinking more of it lately, being snowed in and everything. Since the stuff wasn’t considered a staple, like canned goods and meat, potatoes and butter, the town didn’t provide it as a part of her wages. Since she saved practically every penny toward a train ticket home to Maine, Dara Rose bought it for her, along with writing paper, postage stamps and bathing soap.

  God bless Dara Rose’s generous soul.

  Sawyer cleared his throat, a reminder, apparently, that she’d neglected to answer his cranky question. “Clay will be coming back—when?”

  “I don’t know,” Piper said honestly. “Soon, I hope.”

  His frown deepened as he looked around again. “Where did you sleep last night?”

  She measured coffee into the pot and set it on the stove to boil. “You needn’t concern yourself with that,” she said sunnily.

  He gave a gruff chortle at her response, completely void of amusement. Then he pushed back the chair and stood, with an effort he clearly wanted very much to hide. “I suppose the privy is out back?” he asked.

  Piper kept her face averted, so he wouldn’t see her blush. “Yes,” she said. “But the snow is deep and the path hasn’t been cleared yet.” She paused, mortified. “There’s a chamber pot under the bed.”

  “I’m not using a chamber pot,” he informed her, each word separated from the next by a tick of the Regulator clock. Slowly, he crossed the room, snatched up the same blanket she’d used earlier, in lieu of a coat, wrapped it around his mostly naked upper body like an enormous shawl, and left the schoolhouse.

  The door slammed behind him.

  Piper hoped he wouldn’t collapse in the snow again, because she wasn’t sure she’d be able to get him back inside the schoolhouse if that happened. She waited tensely, added water to the coffeepot when it bubbled, and resisted the urge to stand at the window and watch for his return.

  He did reappear, after a few minutes, and he kept the blanket around him as he made his way back to the desk chair and sat down.

  Piper poured coffee for him—the grounds hadn’t settled completely, but that couldn’t be helped—and set the mug on the surface of the desk.

  “Breakfast?” she asked.

  He finally smiled, though grudgingly. “More beans?” he countered.

  “I have some salt pork and a few eggs,” Piper responded. “Would that do, or should I risk life and limb to fetch something more to your liking from the hotel dining room? I could just hitch up the dogsled and be off.”

  He laughed, and it seemed that his color was a little better, though that could probably be ascribed to the cold weather outside. “You don’t lack for sass, do you?” he said.

  “And you don’t lack for rudeness,” Piper retorted, but, like before, she was softening toward him a little. There was something about that smile, those intelligent, blue-green eyes, that supple mouth…

  Whoa, ordered a voice in her mind, bringing her up short. Forget his smile, and his mouth, too. Silently, Piper reminded herself that, to her knowledge, Sawyer McKettrick had just one thing to recommend him—that he was Clay’s cousin—which most definitely did not mean he was the same kind of man. Families, even ones as illustrious as Clay’s, did have black sheep.

  “Sorry,” he said wearily, with no hint of actual remorse.

  She fetched the salt pork and the eggs, which were kept in a metal storage box in the cloakroom, that being the coldest part of the building, and proceeded to prepare breakfast for both of them.

  “There’s a little house for the marshal to live in,” she said busily, after a few stiff minutes had passed. “The town provides it.”

  “I know,” Sawyer said. “I was here in Blue River once before.” Now that he had coffee to drink, his temperament seemed to be improving. A hot meal might render him tolerable. “Dara Rose lived there at the time, with her daughters.”

  “Oh,” Piper said, apropos of nothing, turning slices of salt pork in the skillet, then cracking three eggs into the same pan, causing them to sizzle in the melted lard.

  “These accommodations of yours are pretty rustic,” he said, evidently to make conversation, which Piper could have done without just then. “The bed feels like a rock pile, and there’s no place to take a bath.”

  Piper, who yearned for an indoor bathroom like the one Dara Rose had now, in her lovely new ranch house, and a feather bed, and many other things in the bargain, took umbrage. These accommodations of hers, humble as they were, had very probably saved his life. “I manage just fine,” she said coolly.

  Sawyer sighed wearily. “I didn’t mean it as an insult,” he said.

  Piper plopped the salt pork and two of the eggs onto a tin plate—also provided by the good people of Blue River—and carried it over to him, along with a knife and fork.

  She set the works down with an eloquent clatter and rested her hands on her hips.

  “Would you like more coffee?” she demanded inhospitably.

  He
grinned up at her, enjoying her pique. “Yes, ma’am, I would,” he said. “If you please.”

  She stormed back to the stove, took up a pot holder, and brought the coffee to the desk that doubled as a table. There was a heavy clunking sound as the base of it met the splintery oak surface.

  “Thank you,” the new marshal said sweetly.

  “You’re welcome,” she crabbed.

  A knock sounded at the schoolhouse door just then, and hope filled Piper, displacing her irritation and her strangely injured pride. Perhaps Clay had returned, or Doc Howard—

  But when she answered the firm rap, she found Bess Turner standing on the step, looking poised to flee if the need arose. Bess ran the brothel above the Bitter Gulch Saloon, and if she’d ever tried to look respectable, she’d given up on it long ago.

  Her hair was a brassy shade of yellow, her thin cheeks were heavily rouged, and her mouth was hard, not with anger, Piper had often thought, but with the strain of bearing up under one tribulation and sorrow after another.

  “I’m sorry to bother you,” Bess said, almost meekly. She wore a pink satin cloak, completely inadequate for a December day, and her dancing shoes were soaked through.

  “Come in,” Piper said quickly, stepping back. “There’s coffee made—I’ll pour you some.”

  Bess’s tired gaze strayed past Piper, dusted over Sawyer, and came back to Piper again. “Thank you,” she said, very quietly.

  “Stand over here by the stove,” Piper urged, with a shiver, hastening to rinse out a coffee cup. “You must be freezing!”

  Bess sidled close to the fire, and Piper noticed that the woman’s hands were gloveless, and blue with cold. “I can’t stay long,” she said, stealing another glance at Sawyer. Naturally, she’d be curious about his presence, but she wasn’t likely to carry tales, like some of the other townswomen would have done. “My Ginny-Sue is hectoring me something fierce about the Christmas program,” she added fretfully. “She’s learned the whole second chapter of Luke by heart, that being her piece for the recital, and she’s afraid school won’t take up again before then, because of the snow.”

  Piper was touched. Ginny-Sue, a shy ten-year-old, was one of her brightest pupils. Except for Madeline Howard, she was the best-dressed, too, always neatly clad in ready-made dresses, with her face scrubbed and her brown hair plaited. Her shoes were the envy of the other girls, sturdy, but with buttons instead of laces, and always polished to a high shine.

  “Christmas is still more than a week away,” Piper said gently, handing Bess the coffee. “I’m sure we won’t have to cancel the program.”

  Bess nodded, looking straight at Sawyer now and making no effort to hide her curiosity. “Now, who would you be?” she asked him, straight out.

  He’d risen to his feet, abandoning his breakfast for the moment. “Name’s Sawyer McKettrick,” he answered cordially. “I’m the new town marshal.”

  “He’s Clay’s cousin,” Piper added hastily, as though that explained what he was doing in the schoolhouse at this hour of the morning, wearing nothing but boots, trousers and a blanket.

  “Howdy,” said the local madam. “I’m Bess Turner. Miss St. James here teaches my girl, Ginny-Sue.”

  Sawyer dropped back into his chair. “Good to meet you,” he said, and resumed eating, though he continued to take an undisguised interest in the visitor.

  “He was shot,” Piper went on anxiously. “Clay and Dr. Howard said he couldn’t be moved, so he spent the night here—”

  Bess smiled, and a twinkle appeared in her faded eyes, just for the briefest moment. “Shot, was he?” she replied, looking Sawyer over again, this time more thoroughly. “You’d never guess it.”

  Piper thought of Dara Rose’s late husband, who had died in Bess’s establishment, and wondered if the two of them had been together at the time of his scandalous demise. Not that she’d ever be so forward as to ask, of course. There were some things a body had to be content to wonder about in perpetuity.

  Piper looked back at Sawyer, who moved the blanket aside just enough to show the bandage and part of his sling. He’d guessed that she was embarrassed, evidently, and the fact seemed to amuse him.

  “Did you see who shot you?” Bess asked. It was a question Piper hadn’t thought to ask, and neither, as far as she knew, had Clay or Doc Howard.

  “The snow was too thick,” Sawyer answered, with a shake of his head.

  “Well, I’ll be,” marveled Bess, finishing her coffee. “Blue River’s always been a peaceful town, for the most part. I hope we’re not drawing in all sorts of riffraff, like some other places I could name.”

  The corner of Sawyer’s well-made mouth quirked up in a semblance of a grin, probably at the term “riffraff,” coming from someone like Bess, but he didn’t say anything.

  Bess handed over the empty mug and smiled at Piper. “So I can tell my Ginny-Sue there’ll still be a Christmas?” she asked.

  “I’m sure of it,” Piper said, though that was mostly bravado. Inwardly, she wasn’t so sure that the warmer weather would hold—but she hoped it would, and fiercely.

  Bess nodded a farewell to Sawyer and walked purposely toward the door, Piper following.

  On the threshold, Bess paused, lowered her voice and said, “If you need any help, Teacher, just send word over to the Bitter Gulch. My girls and me, we’ll do whatever we can to lend a hand.”

  Piper’s throat tightened, and the backs of her eyes burned a little. She wondered how many of the other women of Blue River, besides Dara Rose, of course, would have made such an offer. “Thank you, Mrs. Turner,” she said warmly.

  “Bess,” the other woman corrected, patting Piper’s hand before taking her leave. “I never was nobody’s missus, and I won’t pretend I was.”

  With that, she started down the slippery steps of the schoolhouse porch, drawing her tawdry cloak more closely around her. The sun glinted in her dandelion-colored hair, and she looked back at Piper, smiled once more, and waved.

  Piper waved back, and closed the door slowly.

  When she turned around, she saw that Sawyer had finished his breakfast. Still seated at her desk, he watched her over the rim of his coffee mug.

  “Christmas,” he said, in a musing tone, his gaze skimming over the undecorated tree leaning forlornly against the far wall, slowly but surely dropping its needles. Piper had sent the bigger boys out to find it the previous week, thinking they’d all be able to enjoy it longer that way, though now she wished she’d waited. “I forgot all about it.”

  “You’ll be at Clay and Dara Rose’s place by then,” Piper said, holding on to blind faith that it would be so, “probably much mended.”

  “I’ll need to round up some presents for those little girls,” Sawyer mused.

  “I wouldn’t worry,” Piper counseled, liking him again. Sort of. “They’re well provided for, Edrina and Harriet.”

  He smiled. “Yes,” he said. “They would be, with Clay for a father.”

  The remark stung Piper a little, on Dara Rose’s behalf, dampening her kindly inclination toward Mr. McKettrick, even though she sensed no rancor in the remark. Her cousin had had a difficult life, almost from the first, but Dara Rose was and always had been a devoted mother. “If Clay were here,” she said moderately, “he’d tell you that he’s the fortunate one.”

  Sawyer sighed. He looked paler than before, though breakfast and the coffee must have braced him up. “I’ve managed to get on the wrong side of you again,” he said. “I know Clay loves his wife, and he considers those girls his own, as much as he does the baby he and Dara Rose are expecting.”

  Piper bit her lower lip for a moment. “I apologize,” she said. “I didn’t sleep very well last night, and I confess that I’m worried that I might have spoken out of turn to Bess Turner—” She paused, swallowed. “If there’s anothe
r storm, Christmas will have to be canceled and the children will be so disappointed.”

  His grin flashed again, brief but bright as the sunlight on the snow outside. “Christmas happens in the heart,” he said. “Especially the heart of a child.”

  She regarded him for a long moment. “That’s a lovely sentiment,” she said, taken by surprise, “and I’m sure it’s true, for fortunate children like Edrina and Harriet, and Doc Howard’s little girl, Madeline, but there are others, like Ginny-Sue Turner, who need more.” She inclined her head toward the forlorn little tree, leaning against the schoolhouse wall. “They need the sparkle and the carols, the excitement and, yes, the oranges and the peppermint sticks, because the other three-hundred-sixty-four days of the year can be bleak for them.”

  Sawyer, clearly tiring, leaned against the framework of the bedroom doorway again, and smiled sadly. “You really care about these kids,” he said.

  “Of course I do,” Piper replied.

  “What do you want for Christmas, Miss St. James?” he asked quietly.

  She hadn’t thought of her own secret wishes for a long time, and the question unsettled her. “You need to rest,” she hedged. “Go in and lie down.”

  “Not until I get an answer,” he replied, folding his good arm across the sling that held his injured one in place.

  Piper blushed. “Very well, then,” she said, throwing out the first thing that came to mind so he would drop the subject and leave her in peace. “I’d like a new cloak, since you bled all over mine and I had to burn all but a few scraps of it.”

  Sawyer McKettrick smiled again. “Done,” he said. And then he turned around and went back to bed.

  CHAPTER 4

  Clay returned shortly after noon, at the reins of a sledge improvised from lengths of lumber, probably left over from the building of his house and barn, with two enormous plow horses hitched to the front. He grinned and waved when Piper stepped out onto the schoolhouse porch, shielding her eyes from the bright sun with one hand.