Dreaming Of A Western Christmas: His Christmas Belle / The Cowboy of Christmas Past / Snowbound with the Cowboy

She perched on her haunches with her bare bottom exposed and watched to be sure he didn’t peek. While she did her business, he brought their horses to the stream and bent to fill his canteen. He did keep his back to her, for which she thanked the Lord who created men and women.

His voice startled her. “You finished?”

“Y-yes.”

“Come on over here, then. Fill up your canteen.”

She tried to stand, but her legs shook so they wouldn’t support her weight. She kept squatting near the ground and wondered how she could pull up her drawers and jeans without standing up. She hadn’t been this embarrassed since she fell in the mud hole under the cypress tree back home when she was nine.

Think! She needed some way to pull herself upright, but... A low-hanging branch would do, but the tree’s foliage started several feet over her head. The tree trunk, that was it. She reached for it with both hands and managed to scrabble her fingers against the bark.

“Miss Cumberland?”

“Oh, leave me alone!” she cried. Inch by inch her fingers clawed their way up the trunk until she was halfway vertical. When her belt was once again cinched in the waist of her jeans she wanted to weep with relief.

“Ma’am? You all right?”

“I am perfectly all right, thank you.”

“Kinda stiff, I’d guess.”

She opened her mouth to lambaste him, but then heard the unmistakable sound of a stream of urine hitting the ground. Why, he wouldn’t dare!

But he did. He stood in plain sight with his back to her. She turned away with a huff and after a minute he called that it was time to mount up.

“I am coming, Mr. Wyler.” She took two steps toward the horses and realized she could scarcely move, much less mount her horse.

He met her halfway, took one look at her crabbed walk and snorted. “You sure as hell are no horsewoman.”

“And you sure as hell are no gentleman!” she blurted out. Oh, my! Mama would wash my mouth out with soap for that.

“You got that right.” Then he chuckled and gave her a thorough once-over. “You look half-dead.”

She did not deign to answer such an uncouth remark. Instead she lifted her chin and tried to edge past him.

“Guess I should have stopped sooner,” he said.

“You were paying no attention whatever to me, Mr. Wyler.”

“Not true,” he replied. “Maybe not the fancy kind of attention you’re used to, but attention nevertheless.”

Before she could draw breath, he scooped her up into his arms and plopped her into the saddle.

“Ow!” It slipped out before she could catch herself.

“Sore, huh?”

She didn’t trust her voice, so she sat up as straight as she possibly could and nodded in what she hoped was a regal gesture.

“Well, damn,” he said under his breath. “I plumb forgot how green you are.”

He slung both canteens behind his cantle and swung up into the saddle. “Five more miles,” he said. “Think you can make it?”

She nodded again, but he wasn’t looking. He walked his mount close to hers, caught up her reins and laid them in her lap. “Try to keep up.”

She ached to slap him. She wanted to ask how long it would take to travel five more miles, but he spoke before she could form the question.

“About another hour and a half.”

She stifled a moan. In addition to being the most insufferable male she had ever encountered, he could read her mind, too.

Chapter Three

Brand surreptitiously glanced back at her whenever the trail had a twist in it. She was working hard to stay upright in the saddle, but he could see she wouldn’t last much longer. Good. Maybe she’d think better of her crazy plan and turn tail back to Fort Hall.

But he had to admit that even though she drooped lower and lower over the saddle horn, he didn’t hear a whimper out of her. She might be hurting, but she sure had sand. He’d known women who’d be bawlin’ and beggin’ by this time.

An hour passed, and still the woman on the mare behind him made no sound. Aw, hell. She’d been through a lot, and he knew she was hurting; maybe he should cut her some slack.

Up ahead he spotted a copse of cottonwoods and a clear, rushing stream. End of the trail for today. He dismounted, looped the reins over a willow branch and walked back to the mare and its rider.

Her eyes were closed, her face sweaty and dust-streaked under the brim of her hat. She’d need help standing up.

He moved the toe of her boot out of the stirrup, reached up and settled his hands at her waist. With one smooth motion he lifted her down and moved toward the creek.

“Miss Cumberland, I’m gonna set you down in the cold water. Be good for your sore muscles.”

“Mmm...” she groaned.

He went down on one knee to lower her body into a wide part of the creek. The water was ice-cold and she jerked when it soaked up her jeans.

“This will help,” he muttered. “Just sit quiet. I’ll come get you out in a while.”

She nodded without opening her eyes. He left her lolling in the deep pool and went to tend the horses and roll out the bedrolls. Supper would be canned beans and coffee, and if she didn’t like it, that was tough. There weren’t any silver spoons on the trail.

He built a fire, boiled up some coffee and pried open the tin of beans. Then he tramped back to the creek and lifted a dripping Suzannah Cumberland into his arms. Even wet and shivering, she felt damn womanly. He settled her beside the fire and folded her hands around a tin mug of coffee. “Hope you don’t take milk or sugar.”

She made no answer. Brand lifted the beans off the warming rock and jammed in the spoon. “Guess we’ll have to share. Only packed one spoon.”

He sneaked a look at her face and bit his tongue. Her eyes were closed. She was beyond caring about spoons or beans or anything else. As he watched, moisture seeped out from under her eyelids and smudged her dirty cheeks.

He dug the spoon into their supper and lifted it to her lips. “Open your mouth.”

Obediently she parted her lips and he shoveled in a spoonful, devoured a bit himself, then fed her another. Alternating between her and himself, he soon scraped the bottom of the can. He held the mug of coffee to her mouth, but she shook her head.

When her body began to tilt to one side, he knew she was finished. Quickly he grabbed a blanket, wrapped it around her and tipped her backward until she lay next to the fire. Her clothes were almost dry.

He cleaned up the camp, fed the horses and dropped another thick branch onto the fire, then stretched out on his bedroll. He laid his rifle next to him and stuffed his Colt under the saddle he used as a pillow. For a long time he lay unmoving, listening to her breathing even out.

What the hell had he gotten himself into? Nursemaiding a spoiled Southern belle across a rugged, dry land so she could meet up with her intended. Poor bastard.

An owl tu-whooed in the pine tree and Suzannah stirred uneasily. It flapped two branches closer and called again.

“Whazzat?” she muttered sleepily.

Before he could answer, she had dropped off again. Then a coyote barked, quite close to their camp, and she jolted to a half-sitting position. “What was that?”

“Coyote,” he said. Carefully he pressed her shoulder and after a moment she lay back down.

“Do they bite?”

“Bite?”

“You know, do they attack people?”

“Only if they’re...” He was going to say rabid, but thought better of it. “Cornered,” he substituted.

“Why on earth would anyone want to corner a coyote?”

He chose not to answer, and in a few minutes he knew she’d fallen asleep again. She sure was an odd woman. It was obvious she was more at home in a fancy front parlor than the harsh, wind-scoured land of eastern Idaho. Sure was crazy what some women would do for love.

He sucked in a breath as pain slammed into his heart. His sister was dead because she had loved someone, or thought she did. Her last letter burned in his shirt pocket. He no longer wants me, Brand. I can’t live without him.

Jack Walters was his name. He’d seduced her, then abandoned her at the altar. If he ever laid eyes on the man, he’d kill him.

Chapter Four

Suzannah had scarcely opened her eyes, and maybe would not have had she not smelled coffee and frying bacon.

“I take it you’re from the South?” Mr. Wyler’s voice intruded into her before-breakfast thoughts. That was an impertinent way to start a conversation, especially so early in the morning with the sunlight just peeking through the tree branches.

“I was born in South Carolina,” she said, her voice drowsy with sleep. “My family had a plantation before the war. Afterward...” Well, she would not go into afterward, with Yankees overrunning the place. They had left the house untouched, but the fields were burned and the trees cut down for firewood. She struggled up on one elbow.

“That how you met this man at Fort Klamath you’re travelin’ to meet up with?”

“That,” she said in her best lofty voice, “is none of your business.”

He merely shrugged and forked over a slice of bacon. “Suit yourself.”

“Well, it isn’t,” she pursued. Then she found herself explaining about John. “I actually met him at a ball my father gave for some Yankee officers who had been kind to us after the war. He proposed, and shortly afterward he had to report back to duty.”

She pawed away the wool blanket she was wrapped up in and tried to sit upright. Lord in heaven, every muscle in her aching body screamed in protest. At the groan she tried to suppress he sent her a sharp look.

“Hurt some?”

“It hurts a great deal,” she corrected. “I feel as if I have picked cotton for a week.”

“Bet you never picked cotton or anything else for an hour in your whole life. Here.” He handed her a mug of coffee. “Don’t make it with chicory, like you rebs do. Don’t grow chicory much out here in the West.”

She took a tentative sip and wrinkled her nose. A vile brew, worse than Hattie’s on one of her uncooperative days.

“That bad, huh?”

“Oh, no, it’s just that...” Oh, why should she prevaricate with this man? “It is a little strong, yes.”

“Good. It’ll keep you awake for the next ten hours.”

She gasped. Ten hours? On horseback? She couldn’t. She simply couldn’t.

He handed her a tin plate with crisp bacon slices and two misshapen biscuits. She looked around for a fork and met his amused gray eyes.

“Fingers,” he said in a dry voice. “Or, if you want to feel cultured, you can crook your pinkie.” He said nothing more, just gulped down three audible swallows of coffee and reached for a biscuit. The underside was scorched, she noted, but she did wonder how he had managed to make biscuits in the first place.

“Baked on a hot rock,” he said as if she had spoken the question aloud. “Indians do it.”

“Indians make biscuits?”

“Nope. They make bread out of acorn meal. Same thing.”

Oh, no, it wasn’t. No Indian culinary creation would ever cross her lips. He munched up seven slices of the crisp bacon and scooped another biscuit off the flat rock near the fire.

“Mr. Wyler, where is your home?”

“Don’t have one. I was born in Pennsylvania, but...”

“You moved out west,” she supplied.

“Not exactly. I ran away from home when I was about nine because my pa was drunk most of the time and my momma died. Got to Missouri and holed up till I was old enough to join the army. I was fifteen.”

“I am surprised they accepted a boy that young.”

“Lied about my age.” He tossed the dregs of his coffee on the fire. “You finished?”

“Am I finished what?” she shot. “Questioning? Or eating?”

He laughed at that. She noticed his teeth, white and straight against his tanned skin. Also he had a dimple, of all things. So he wasn’t always so grim—he must smile occasionally if he had worked up a dimple.

She gobbled the last of her bacon and one biscuit and managed another swallow of his awful coffee. Then she tried to stand up. A thousand swords poked at her defenseless muscles, and she almost—almost—let herself scream.

He stood and reached out his hand, but she waved it away. “I am not helpless.”

“Like hell.” He stepped in, caught the leather belt around her waist and hauled her to her feet. “Want me to walk you over behind a bush?”

“Certainly not.” She took a step and her knees buckled.

Brand didn’t say a word, just marched her over to a huckleberry bush. He thought about unbuttoning her jeans for her, but gave up the idea when she glared at him and shooed him away.

While she was occupied he packed up the camp, saddled the horses and stowed her bedroll and saddlebag. “Ready to ride?” he asked when she reappeared.

“Of course not. I have not yet washed my face.”

He gestured toward the rippling creek. “There’s the stream.”

She stood for a long moment eyeing the water, and he could hear the wheels turning in her head. Finally she lifted her slim shoulders in a shrug and shook her head. She’d braided her hair while she’d been behind the bush. Good move. He handed over her wide-brimmed hat.

“Which way are we goin’? West? Or back to Fort Hall?”

“West,” she said through her teeth. “I am not a quitter.”

“Never said you were. Just givin’ you a choice.”

“I choose to go on.”

Brand nodded, manhandled her over to the horse, grabbed her around the waist and lifted her into the saddle. Sure didn’t weigh much.

With a sharp intake of breath, she clutched the saddle horn and leaned over it. Guess it hurt her to straighten up all the way. He kinda felt sorry for her since he didn’t plan to slow the pace today. Or any other day. Served her right, getting herself involved with a man she hardly knew.

* * *

Today, Suzannah decided, was even worse than yesterday. After ten minutes on horseback, her body rebelled; after six hours in the saddle she suspected she would not survive this journey. Why, why had John not accepted her father’s offer? Surely being part owner of a plantation was an honorable calling? Had he done so, she would now be safe and comfortable at home and John would be joining her in South Carolina for Christmas, not the other way around.

She forced herself to forget her fiancé for the moment and concentrate on riding the huge animal beneath her. Despite its size, she rather liked her horse. It didn’t talk back. Did not bark out orders. And it certainly did not disapprove of the fact that she was from the South. She detected disapproval in every comment Mr. Wyler made, when he deigned to make any at all. Which was annoyingly rare.

She wasn’t used to being ignored. She was used to being catered to, taken care of by faithful servants who had loved her from the moment of her birth. Hattie would commiserate with her over this disastrous turn of events. Imagine, her hired driver being murdered and then finding herself thrust upon this uncivilized ruffian of a Yankee army officer. A major, Colonel Clarke had said.

Only the Union Army would promote such a man. Her father’s regiment would not have stood for it. Of course Papa’s regiment had been shelled into oblivion, but even so there must be honorable men in the Union Army—just look at her John!

Before the sun had climbed halfway to noon, her shirt was sticky with perspiration and droplets of moisture rolled off her neck and dribbled down between her breasts. Even her head felt hot. She snaked off her hat and used it to fan her damp face until Major Wyler shouted at her.

“Put that damn hat back on! You want to die of sunstroke?”

“At the moment, Major, that does not seem like such a bad idea. Besides, it’s December. The sun doesn’t burn in winter.”

“It does at this altitude. Put your hat on.”

All morning he just kept clopping along ahead of her. She began to watch the way he rode. He had a loose-jointed, relaxed way of sitting on his shiny black mount, and he moved with the animal as if he was part of it.

She was making a supreme effort to keep her spine straight, as Mama had taught her, but it was an effort. Being so proper was earning her a stiff back and a sore derriere.

She was beginning to realize how different things were out here in this godforsaken country. Burning sun. Few trees. Scrawny bushes. And some kind of screechy birds that seemed to be following them.

And only the occasional creek. Already her canteen was practically empty, and surely the horses must be thirsty? She studied the baked earth as she passed over it. All at once Mr. Wyler was there beside her.

“Another hour and we’ll stop to water the horses.”

He was still worried about the horses, not the people? All she could manage was a nod. Her throat felt so dry and dust-clogged she doubted she could utter a word.

“Here.” He shoved a red bandanna into her hand. “Dust’s getting bad. Tie this over your nose and mouth.”

She did as he directed, but still he did not ride on ahead.

“Better yet, stay beside me.”

Again she nodded, and he fell in next to her. But he did not talk. Men out here were definitely not good conversationalists.

The wind picked up. Her eyes teared as flecks of dirt scratched under her lids. She dribbled the last of the water from her canteen into her cupped palm and tried to splash it into her eye sockets. He watched her for a few minutes, then ostentatiously wet his own bandanna, a blue one, with his canteen and wiped his eyes with it.

Oh.

“Don’t use too much water,” he ordered. “The stream up ahead might be dried up.”

Her spirits plummeted. “What will we do then?”

“Rest the horses and ride on.”

“When do we stop for lunch?”

He shot her a hard look. “When I say so.”

Goodness, he was gruff! She would bet the contents of her piggy bank he had never been...

“Are you married, Mr. Wyler?”

“Nope.”

“Were you ever married?”

“Nope.”

Why was she not surprised? He was the most unsociable male she had ever had the bad luck to encounter.

“The next question most folks ask is why not?”

She felt his gaze on her and she stiffened. “I see.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Very well, I will ask. Why are you not married?” And if you say it is none of my business I will scream good and loud.

“Never met a woman I couldn’t live without.”

She stifled a laugh. She would wager there had been legions of them. “Possibly the candidates felt the same,” she retorted.

His laugh startled a chattering squirrel on a pine branch.

“Possibly,” he allowed.

Suddenly he drew up and pulled a long shiny rifle from the leather scabbard at his side. “Rein in,” he murmured. “And don’t move.”

Her heart kicked hard against her rib cage. “What is it?”

“Hush up!”

Well!

He aimed the rifle at something off to the left and waited so long she thought he was just pretending. Then he squeezed the trigger, and a deafening crack sounded next to her ear. Her horse jerked and sidestepped. His did not move a single muscle.

“Supper,” he intoned. “Stay here.” He slid the gun back into the case and stepped his horse forward.

She pressed her lips together. Stay here. Go there. Do this. Do that. The man was impossible. No wonder he wasn’t married.

She watched him dismount and bend to pick up something off the ground. When he returned, a limp furry creature hung from one hand. A spot of crimson spread across its neck, and blood dripped from the wound onto the ground.

He shot her a glance and saw her shock, but he only shrugged. “Let’s move out.”

Chapter Five

Watching Suzannah out of the corner of his eye, Brand knew she was so exhausted she could barely stay in the saddle. The stream should be just over the next hill, but he wondered if she could hold on that long.

“You all right?” he ventured.

Her chin came up. “I am quite all right, thank you.”

But she was having trouble keeping her eyes open. Maybe the glare. Or maybe she was holding on with the last of her strength.

He didn’t like her much, but he had to admire her guts. Except she wouldn’t say “guts.” She’d have some fancy-ass term like courage. Or maybe perseverance. Yeah, she’d like that one. More syllables.

By the time they made camp and he’d fed the horses and wiped them down, she had settled herself beside the stream with her bare feet in the water. Her head drooped onto her bent knees. One thing he’d say about the lady from the Southern plantation, she didn’t complain. In fact, she’d hardly said a word since he shot the rabbit.

He dressed it quickly, skewered the cut-up parts on green willow sticks and propped them over the fire. Then he set the coffeepot on a flat rock close to the flames and unrolled their bedrolls.

He eyed the rippling stream. After forty miles of chaparral and up-and-down trails, he was so hot and sweaty it didn’t take but two seconds to decide on a bath.

“Gonna walk downstream a ways,” he said as he passed behind her hunched-over frame. She didn’t move, but a muffled sound came from between her knees.

“Coffee’ll be ready pretty quick. Supper, too. You hungry?”

Another sound, maybe a ladylike groan. He took it for a yes.

An hour later she was still sitting with her feet in the creek, but she’d straightened up some. He stopped beside her.

“Blisters?”

“I didn’t look. All I know is my feet feel as if I have been dancing a reel on hot coals.”

“Dry ’em off. I’ll take a look.”

“Oh, no, I—”

“Don’t argue.” He squatted beside her. “Give me your foot.”

Suzannah lifted one foot out of the water and instantly he took possession of it, running his warm hands over her instep, her toes. He bent his head and rubbed his thumb along her raw heel.

“Yep, got a blister. Big as a four-bit piece. I’ll get some liniment.” He picked up her other foot and studied that, as well. “Mighty delicate feet. I’d wager you haven’t done much walking. Got two messed-up heels.”

He rummaged in his saddlebag and returned with a bottle of brown liquid. The label said Horse Liniment. He crouched next to her, but she shrank away.

“I do not think horse liniment is a proper medicine for a human foot, Mr. Wyler.”

“Maybe not, but it’s what I’ve got. And it’s needed.” He shook the bottle and grasped her foot. “By the way, my name’s Brand. Might as well use it since we’re, uh, traveling together.” He uncorked the liniment and smoothed some over one raw heel, then the other.

“Leave your boots off for a few hours.”

A soothing warmth settled over her abraded skin, and she sighed with pleasure.

“Better?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

He rose abruptly and tramped over to the fire pit. “Come and get it.”

She hobbled the few yards to the fire, smelled the coffee and roasting meat, and tensed her stomach muscles to stop the rumbling. She’d had two desiccated biscuits at noon; now she was so hungry she could eat anything, even a... She swallowed hard. A dead rabbit. She sat near the fire and he handed her an unidentifiable hunk of roasted meat on a stick.

“Careful, it’s hot.”

“Oh, I do hope so. I do not think I could face a raw piece of rabbit.”

“You could if you were hungry enough.”

“All my life I have had plenty to eat—until the war, that is. Then we had to scrounge and improvise.”

“Yeah? What did you improvise?”

She looked off toward the pinkish-orange sky where the sun was sinking behind a mountaintop. “Coffee. We made coffee from roasted acorns. We ate all the chickens, even the rooster, and when there were no more eggs, Sam, our overseer, found birds nests with eggs in them. Quail, I think they were. After that, we ate the quail, too.”

“You ever wonder whether fighting the war made sense?”