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

“Yes,” she said quietly. “I wondered that every single day for four years.”

He sent her an intent look, his speared rabbit piece halfway to his mouth. Unguarded, his eyes changed from hard gray steel to something softer, dry moss, perhaps. She wondered suddenly what he saw in her face.

“You miss your life in the South?”

“Yes, I do. I guess you might say I am...a little homesick.”

“You ever wonder why you’re chasin’ all over hell and gone after a Northerner?”

She could not answer that, at least not truthfully. If John had agreed to move to South Carolina, she would not be here.

He poured two mugs of coffee and set one beside her. “Don’t answer that. Whatever the reason, you’re here now, and I’m stuck with you.”

“And I,” she said sharply, “am stuck with you. I do not like you very much, Mr. Wyler. And I am quite sure you do not like me.”

They finished their meal in silence so heavy it felt as if the air weighed more than a loaded wagon. After supper she rolled herself up in the wool blanket, rested her head on her saddle, and closed her eyes to shut out the sight of Brand Wyler.

The wind sighed through the trees. She listened for a coyote’s call so it wouldn’t startle her as it had that first night, but all she heard was the fire popping out an occasional spark. How many days must she endure this man’s company? Four hundred miles, the colonel had said. At forty miles per day, that meant ten days on the trail with Mister Gruff and Bossy.

Goodness, it had been two. In eight more days she would be completely undone.

* * *

In the morning Brand had to shake her awake. When she poked her head out of the blanket she’d burrowed in he noticed her braid had come undone; her hair curled around her face and straggled down to her shoulders. It was the color of gold and looked as soft as dandelion fluff. Made his hands itch to lace his fingers through it.

She opened her eyes, found him staring at her and popped up like a jack-in-the-box. He jerked his gaze back to the coffeepot. Her voice stopped him cold.

“We will travel another forty miles today, I assume.”

“Forty miles? You think we can ride forty miles every day?”

She blinked those unsettling green eyes. “Yes, of course. Why ever not?” She crawled out of her bedroll and stood up. “I calculated it all out last night. Four hundred miles divided by forty is ten. It will take ten days to get to Fort Klamath.”

“Like hell it will.”

Undaunted, she poured herself some coffee and stood blowing on it. A good ten minutes dragged by while he considered how to tell her the facts of life on an iffy trail through the mountains. The more he thought about it, the madder he got. This pampered greenhorn thought they could just sashay over to Fort Klamath as though it was an afternoon buggy ride? She sure as hell had a bunch of learning to do.

“Well?” she said. “You have not answered my question, Mr. Wyler. Why can’t we reach the fort in ten days?”

“You don’t have any idea what you’re up against, do you? Hell’s bells, lady, you don’t have the sense God gave a goose. You have—”

Without thinking, Suzannah dashed her coffee into his face. “A quick temper,” she said with satisfaction. The coffee dripped off his chin and soaked his shirt.

Without blinking he began to undo the buttons, then shrugged it off over his head, wadded it up and tossed it at her. “Wash it out,” he ordered. He tipped his head toward the creek.

She stared at his bare chest. He was as lean and brown as a hazelnut, with rippling muscles and not an ounce of fat anywhere.

His eyes bored into hers and her anger bubbled up anew.

“I would press it as well,” she said in a voice laden with poison, “but I did not pack a sadiron.”

“Stop talking and start washing,” he ordered. “Go on.” He gestured at the creek. “Get to it.”

Twenty minutes later she smacked the sodden bundle against his chest and propped her hands at her waist. Without even blinking he unfolded the laundered shirt, shook it out and pulled it on sopping wet.

“It’ll dry,” he remarked, anticipating her comment. “Might wash your own shirt out as well,” he said. “Must be...uh...dirty.”

“It is no such thing! How dare you insinuate—”

“I’m not insinuating, I’m smelling.”

“Oh.”

She could hear him chuckle. How she detested that sound!

“Take it off,” he said. “I’ll turn my back.”

She would not undress in front of this man. But he stood in front of her, waiting, and she knew he wasn’t going to move until she did what he said. She reached one hand to her top shirt button and hesitated. The look in his eyes grew unsettlingly warm.

“Go on,” he said softly. “I know you’re wearing underclothes, and I’ve seen women’s duds before.”

“Turn around,” she said sharply.

He pivoted on one boot heel and propped his hands on his lean hips.

“You are no gentleman, Mr. Wyler,” she said to his broad back.

“I don’t have to be.”

“If you want my cooperation, it would help if you were at least polite.”

“Just for the record, Miss Cumberland, out here on the trail all I have to be is prepared for anything, and—” he started a gusty whistle between his teeth “—patient as a damn saint.”

She made quick work of rinsing out her shirt and had it buttoned back on before he finished the second verse. “That’s a song sung by some of the workers on the plantation,” she said uncomfortably.

“So?” One eyebrow quirked. “You never sang ‘Oh, Susanna’ in school?”

“Certainly not. I had tutors. Besides, I was not allowed to sing except in church.”

“Bet you didn’t have much fun growing up, didja?”

She opened her mouth, then shut it so fast her teeth clicked. No, she had not had fun. She had played with the young children on the plantation until one day Mama put a stop to it, and from then on she spent all her free time on lessons in deportment and learning how to give a proper tea party.

Until the war. After the war there was no reason for tea parties.

Brand tried not to look too hard at the outline of her breasts where the wet shirt was plastered to her skin. She wasn’t much fun, but she sure was pretty.

“Mount up,” he barked. “Got a long ride ahead.”

When she saluted smartly he laughed out loud. Maybe he was wrong about the fun part.

Chapter Six

By midafternoon they still had not stopped to eat or rest the horses, or do any of the things he had done the previous day. Suzannah was too tired to ask why, and anyway, she thought she knew. Mr. Wyler was trying his darnedest to get her to turn back.

Well, she would not. She would pull up her socks and grit her teeth and keep going just to spite him. And, of course, to reach Fort Klamath and her beloved John. Her arrival would be such a surprise for him, a real Christmas present.

Her fiancé would never, ever treat her in such an inhumane manner. John was a thousand times more gentlemanly than Major Brandon Wyler. Her fiancé might be a Northerner and only a lieutenant in the army, but he was a far, far better man. And not only that—

Suddenly Mr. Wyler halted his horse and raised his hand. Her stomach rumbled in anticipation of a meal at last.

“I hope we are stopping for lunch,” she ventured.

He did not answer, just dismounted and walked back past her a good thirty paces, studying the ground. Then he straightened and stood looking off toward the hills, his eyes narrowed. With a shake of his head he strode back to his horse and slipped the rifle out of the leather case.

Oh, she did hope it was another rabbit! She was so hungry she would eat it half-cooked. Or even not cooked.

But he did not raise the gun or aim it at anything. He just stood without moving, looking back the way they had come.

Suzannah shifted in her saddle. “What is wrong?” she called.

“Shut up!” he hissed. Still he did not move, and then he slowly raised the rifle, pointed it at something off to their right and sighted down the barrel. The back of her neck began to prickle.

Minutes passed and nothing happened except for the raucous cry of a crow somewhere over her head. She squinted her eyes and peered in the direction the gun barrel was pointed, but she could see nothing but scrubby brush and sparse clumps of trees.

And then she noticed a faint puff of gray dust far off in the distance. It seemed to be moving, and abruptly Mr. Wyler lifted his rifle and walked back to the horses.

“We’re being followed.”

Her body went cold. “What? Are you sure?”

He pinned her with a look that straightened her spine. “Lady, if I say someone’s following us, you can bet your diamond earrings there’s a rider on our trail.”

“But who is it?”

“Don’t know.” He swung into the saddle and positioned his horse nose to tail with hers. “Do you know who shot your driver, Mr. Monroe?”

“N-no.”

“Hate to ask this, Suzannah, but what did the wound look like?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Was there more than one shot? Where did the bullet enter? Was the flesh clean or ragged around the—”

The color left her face and Brand broke off.

“He was sitting on the driver’s bench,” she said unsteadily, “driving the oxen, and I heard a crack and he tipped over to one side and fell off onto the ground. I climbed down and...and there was a lot of blood. I dragged him to the wagon and I...I don’t know how I got him inside, but I did.”

“You see anybody?”

“No. I was inside the wagon when it happened.”

“Did you hear more than one gunshot?”

“Y-yes. Three, perhaps. Why are you asking all these questions?”

“Trying to figure out who killed Monroe. And why. Who knew that you were carrying a large amount of money?”

“Mr. Monroe did. I paid him in cash, in advance.”

“In private? Did anyone see the transaction?”

“I don’t think so. It took place at the bank in Independence.”

Brand nodded. “Pretty public place, the bank in Independence.”

“Could it have been Indians?”

“Indians would have whooped and hollered and probably taken the man’s scalp. And you.”

“Me!”

He leveled a scathing look at her. “Well, hell, lady, think about it! A pretty woman way out on the plain. Shouldn’t have to paint you a picture.”

“Oh. Well.” She was quiet for a long moment. “Then who do you think it was?”

“Had to be some lowlife out to steal some money. Probably followed your wagon train all the way from Missouri, hanging back until Monroe got separated from the others.”

Brand wondered why whoever it was hadn’t closed in on her and just taken what they wanted. Something must have scared them off—Indians, maybe. Now he figured whoever was following them would still be hanging back, trying to catch them unawares. Up ahead was scrubland, then the trail started climbing over rocky ground into the mountains. They didn’t have much time.

“Suzannah, think you could get that horse of yours to go a little faster?”

“I suppose so. How much faster?”

“We’re going to try to outrun whoever’s behind us.”

“But—”

“No time for buts. Come on.” He wheeled his mount and kicked it into a trot, then looked behind him to watch her. When he saw her gig the mare into a canter, he touched the black with his heel and broke into a gallop. He could tell she didn’t know how to run a horse full-out, because the mare’s hoofbeats flagged, then sped up, then flagged again. By some miracle she managed to keep up.

He prayed she wouldn’t lose her nerve. The trail started climbing, then veered into a section of large flat rocks. Her horse’s hooves clattered right behind him and he had to smile. She was probably terrified, but the girl was no coward. A kernel of admiration lodged in his brain.

They climbed up a mountainside so steep the horses began to slow and stumble. He shot a glance at Suzannah behind him and smiled again. Her face was white and set, but she wasn’t falling behind.

More rocks, and more struggle for the horses, and then the trail suddenly leveled out at the entrance to a cave. Bear den, probably. Or an Indian hideout. Didn’t matter. He pulled his gelding to a halt, dropped out of the saddle and waited for Suzannah. When she trotted up, he grabbed for the mare’s bridle.

“Whoa, girl. Easy, now.”

Suzannah’s breathing was coming in hoarse gasps. He waited until she could talk, then signaled her to dismount.

“We’ll hole up here,” he said.

“What? Where?” She leaned over the saddle horn, panting hard.

“In that cave. Horses, too. Hurry up.”

She slid from the saddle like a sack of wheat. He grabbed the reins out of her hand and led both horses to the mouth of the cave.

“Inside,” he ordered. “Quick.” He laid his free arm across her shoulders to hurry her up. She was shaking so hard she could scarcely make her legs work, but she managed to stumble to the cave entrance.

“It’s dark in there!”

“Yeah. Move it!”

She shrank back. “Are...are there wild animals in there?”

He gave her a little shove forward. “Only in the winter.”

She took two steps past the opening and froze, her eyes huge with fear. “But it is winter.”

“Keep moving,” he ordered. He maneuvered the two horses under an overhanging rock near the cave.

“Mr. Wyler, I do not think—”

“Right. Don’t think. Just do what I say, and do it quick. Get the saddlebags and the bedrolls and stash them inside.” He lifted off both saddles and set them just inside the entrance, then grabbed his rifle and a length of rope. Quickly he hobbled the horses, caught his saddlebag as Suzannah lifted it off and dug in the depths for two handfuls of oats.

The cave smelled musty, but it was clean except for wisps of dried grass here and there. Dark as Hades, but safe. When his breathing returned to normal he assessed their refuge.

He assessed Suzannah, too. She’d moved only a few steps past the entrance, and he could see that her body was still shaking. Her breathing was so jerky he thought she might be crying, but a glance at her face told him she wasn’t. At least not yet.

He moved forward and laid one hand on her shoulder. “We’ll be safe here. Not comfortable, maybe, but alive come morning.”

She just stared at him. “And what do we do in the morning?”

He thought her lips were trembling, but in the dimness he couldn’t be sure. “In the morning we’ll find out who’s following us.”

“And tonight?” she said in a small voice.

He hesitated. She was plenty scared, but she wasn’t crumpling up into a pile of jitters. “Tonight we count our blessings and give thanks to the god of caves. Then we eat supper and get some sleep.”

“Can you build a fire? It is extremely dark in here.”

“No fire. Can’t risk someone seeing the smoke.”

“H-how will we keep warm?”

An inappropriate thought popped into his mind. He squashed it flat before it made a permanent home there and swallowed over the sudden thickness in his throat.

“We’ll manage.”

For their supper he handed out cold biscuits and slices of jerky, which he pared off with his jackknife.

After her first bite, she wrinkled her nose. “I don’t guess I care for jerky.”

“Learn to like it.” He handed her his canteen. “Let it soften up in your mouth before you try to chew it.”

Suzannah knew she should be grateful she was alive and sheltered, at least for the time being, and that her stomach was reasonably full. It was strange how having very little in the way of comforts made her value all the more what she had taken for granted in Charleston. She supposed there was a lesson in that, but she was too exhausted to think what it was.

Brand dropped her saddle at her feet. “Where do you want your bedroll spread out?”

“Oh. I—” Despite the impropriety, she wanted it as close to his as possible.

Oh, my. In the past few days she had done things she had never before dreamed possible. At first she had been frightened at being alone on horseback with a strange man. She was also angry, but she guessed that was based on fear. Now she had the oddest sensation, as if her skin was stretching and stretching into some new and different creature.

He rolled his blanket out on the hard floor of the cave, looked at it for a long moment, then without a word stalked outside and returned with an armload of pine boughs. He spread them out, laid his blanket on top, and arranged her bed in the same way. Right next to his.

She should be outraged at his presumption. But she wasn’t. She should be self-conscious about sleeping next to a man to whom she was not married. But she wasn’t.

Something was most assuredly happening to her! She thought about it for the next hour as the cave gradually grew dim and then pitch-black and cold. This was like a dream, but rather than being a terrible nightmare, it was almost an exciting adventure.

She smiled up into the dark. “I miss your coffee.”

“Yeah.” After a long silence he rose and positioned both horses to block the cave entrance, then shoved his saddle to the head of his bed.

“Mr. Wyler? Do you think anyone could find us here?”

“Nope.”

Brand drew in a long, slow breath and stretched out on his blanket. God help him, he didn’t want to think about what was outside this cave, just what was inside. Suzannah and himself.

One of the horses nickered softly. He could still taste the spicy tang of jerky on his tongue, feel the rustle and crunch of the pine boughs under his body. He propped his head on his folded arms.

He could smell Suzannah’s hair, kind of sweet, like violets. He liked the way she smelled, even when her skin was sweaty.

“I miss seeing the stars,” she said abruptly.

Brand did not answer.

Sure was quiet up here. He listened hard to the sighing of the wind in the pines. Sometimes the sound made him feel lonely, and sometimes, like now, it made his throat feel so tight it was hard to swallow.

Except for his baby sister, Marcy, he’d never really understood women. He could never grasp how they could be so blind, how they could marry someone because of some kind of romantic dream, giving their life over to someone else just to satisfy an itch.

Maybe that was why he’d never been tempted to get too close to a woman. At least not a respectable woman.

Marcy had only been four years old when he’d lit out. When she turned twelve, he went back for her, to get her away from Pa. She boarded with their aunt Sally in Klamath Falls until she got engaged, and then...

He closed his eyes.

His horse moved restlessly at the mouth of the cave and Suzannah stirred in her sleep. He rolled sideways to look at her, but she was facing away from him, hunched up like a kid. Watching her, something flickered in his chest, something warm and insistent, like the feeling he got when he was hungry or craving a shot of red eye after a long ride.

He guessed he’d been without a woman for too long, otherwise he wouldn’t be watching this one so closely. But he was watching her. In fact, he’d been acutely aware of her ever since they’d ridden away from Fort Hall.

A small animal of some kind made a skittery noise outside the cave and Suzannah murmured something in her sleep.

“It’s okay,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Maybe a squirrel.” Very carefully he curled his frame around hers, and when she muttered uneasily in her sleep he laid his arm across her waist and pulled her backward, tucking her hip into his groin.

Big mistake. Her warm body made his breath catch and damned if he didn’t start to get hard. Then she made things worse by wriggling her curvy little butt tighter against him.

He clenched his jaw. Don’t think about it. He shut his eyes and concentrated on taking in air as slowly as possible. And for God’s sake, don’t move.

Never should have listened to the wind. All at once he felt more alone than ever before in his life. Somewhere deep inside he understood something he’d never confronted before—being connected to someone, someone he cared about, was damn dangerous. His sister had given her heart to someone she loved and died because of it.

Not for him. He would never hand his heart over to another human being. Never. He might feel lonely at times, but that was a damn sight better than the agony of losing someone.

But God, Suzannah felt good pressed up against him.

He needed to think about something else, anything else.

Who was trailing them? And what would he do when he figured out who it was?

Chapter Seven

Suzannah dragged her tired body into the saddle and gripped the reins in her floppy-fingered leather gloves. Breakfast had been half a dry biscuit and more cold, tough slices of jerky, but no coffee. She realized with a jolt that she had started every morning since she was thirteen years old with at least one cup of coffee, and sometimes two. The absence of the brew this morning had left her headachy and short-tempered.

She wondered if Brand felt the deprivation as keenly as she did. Probably not. Nothing seemed to bother the man riding ahead of her, his wide-brimmed sand-colored hat tipped at a jaunty angle over his dark head, his broad shoulders relaxed. At least he wasn’t humming “Oh, Susanna.”

But he was setting a bone-jarring pace on the narrow path down the mountain. Only once in the past hour had he glanced back to check on her; she could tumble off the edge of the cliff and he would never know.

“Lean back in the saddle when you’re goin’ downhill,” he called. “Helps the horse keep its balance.”

She nodded, but he had already refocused his gaze on the trail ahead. She pressed her lips together and swallowed back the angry words that threatened to tumble out of her mouth.

When the trail leveled out near the bottom, Brand drew rein and waited for her to catch up. “Whoever is following us is ahead of us now,” he said. “I’ve got a plan.”

Suzannah blinked. This was the first time he had shared any information about anything with her. Why now? All at once a terrible suspicion crept into her mind.

“We are in danger, aren’t we?”

He wouldn’t look at her, and that told her more than any words he might come up with.

“Well, are we?” she persisted.

“Yeah, maybe.” His lips were unsmiling, his eyes were troubled and he had a strange, set look on his tanned face.

“What is it?” she said. “What is wrong?”

“Need to find out who’s following us. That means—” He broke off and spit to one side. “Oh, hell, Suzannah, that might mean putting you in danger.”

“How? I mean, what would doing whatever it is you propose require?”

He rolled his lower lip inward over his teeth and heaved out a sigh. “Some hard riding, and then some long waiting. We need to get around in front of them and—”

“I see.” She cut him off with a decisive nod.

But she didn’t see. For one thing, he hadn’t paid the slightest attention to her while she had struggled with long hours in the saddle, thirst, even hunger. Forcing her horse up this mountain as fast as she could ride had not caused him to slow down or even look back at her.

She studied his impassive expression. Unless she was very much mistaken, he was hiding something. Well, she was hiding something, too. Major Brand Wyler was short-spoken to the point of rudeness. He had rough manners—no, he had bad manners. But in spite of everything she was beginning to like him.

She liked the way his lips quirked when he was trying not to laugh at her. She liked the calm, steady way he went about things, making coffee in the morning or saddling the horses or even plopping her in the cold creek as he had that first night.

And she trusted him.

“What do you propose?” she repeated. “Tell me.”

He looked off across the sunbaked valley stretching before them, his gray eyes narrowed. “I propose we make a wide detour—” he tipped his head to the right “—then cut back to the trail ahead of them and lie in wait.”