Longing for a Cowboy Christmas Page 6

  With quick, practiced moves, she rolled the dough to the proper thickness, handed it to Will, and quickly started on another batch. She concentrated fiercely on the dough. She could feel Will looking at her. She didn’t look up.

  Suddenly Nan realized that the smells of baked cookies and vanilla flavoring were filling the kitchen. Smothering an exclamation of disgust, she dropped her rolling pin and grabbed a cloth. A blast of heat hit her in the face when she opened the oven.

  “Watch out, they’re hot!” she warned as she took the first tray of cookies from the oven. They were brown around the edges, but they hadn’t burned. She felt like an idiot.

  “They’re all ruined,” Clara exclaimed when she saw that the tiny pieces of candy she had used for decorations had melted and run together.

  “They taste just as good,” Nan reassured her, relieved to have something to divert attention from her lapse.

  “Can I have one now?”

  “In a minute. They’re still too hot.”

  Clara went back to decorating more cookies, but Nan noticed that the child watched longingly each time she took out a tray. Her father watched with equal intensity.

  “Now can I have one?” Clara asked when she finished her tray of cookies.

  “Why don’t you wait until we finish decorating all of them,” Will said. “Then we can all have some together.”

  Clara looked a little disappointed, but Nan could tell she liked the idea of everyone eating cookies together. Poor child, she probably had to enjoy most of her treats alone. Nan knew from long experience that food tasted better when you had someone to share it with.

  “Okay, these are the last cookies,” Nan said as she closed the oven. Gertie came in the back door just as Nan handed Clara a plate of shortbreads. “Here, take these into the gathering room. Your father can put some more wood on the fire. Gertie will fix our lunch. I’ll bring in the cups and hot chocolate.”

  “We’re going to have hot chocolate?” Clara exclaimed.

  “Yes, and I’m going to put a big piece of marshmallow in each one.”

  Clara slipped off her chair, grabbed the plate of cookies, and hurried to the gathering room.

  “I don’t know how you always manage to think of just the right thing,” Will said.

  “It’s not hard. I just remember what I liked when I was a little girl.”

  “You must have been a very happy child.”

  “I was. You’d better go fix the fire. It’s bound to be down to embers by now.”

  When Nan entered the gathering room, Will met her at the doorway and gave her a kiss.

  “W-what—” Nan stammered, shocked. She could feel the heat rush to her face. All her thoughts from the kitchen came flooding back.

  Clara giggled. “Daddy moved the mistletoe,” she said, pointing to a sprig tacked over the doorway. “He said he could kiss a lady if she stood under the mistletoe.”

  “That’s true,” Nan said, too surprised to move.

  “That was for letting Clara help with the cookies,” Will said.

  Nan hardly knew what demon prompted her to add, “I let you help as well.”

  “So you did.” Will took her by the arms and kissed her again, rather more enthusiastically than before.

  “Daddy’s kissing Nan,” Clara informed Gertie when she walked into the room.

  “So I see,” Gertie said. She eyed the pair critically. Nan had stepped back, confused at being caught. Will looked as though the results were surprising, pleasant but surprising.

  “Does your father kiss a lot of females?”

  “Gertie!” Nan exclaimed, scandalized.

  “Daddy only kisses me,” Clara declared.

  Gertie regarded the pair once more. “Good.” With that she turned and left the room.

  Nan gasped, then stared at Will. Her mind was a blizzard of sensations; her body was too weak to take responsible action. She was petrified that he might take offense at Gertie’s remark, but she thought she saw imps of amusement in his eyes. When his lips curved in a smile, she knew it.

  They burst out laughing simultaneously.

  “I apologize for Gertie. I don’t know what’s gotten into her.”

  “She’s just protecting you. I would, too, if I were in her place.”

  Nan decided she’d better put the cups down before she dropped them. She had spent the better part of the last twenty-four hours convincing herself Will had no serious interest in her. His kisses had shattered that conviction. She had never been kissed like that by any man. More importantly, no kisses had ever had such an earth-shattering effect on her.

  “Let’s eat,” Clara said.

  “I’ll pour the hot chocolate,” Nan said, pulling herself together.

  “I’ll pass the cookies,” Clara said. “Daddy might eat too many.”

  “He does like shortbreads,” Nan said. “Maybe I’d better give you the recipe so you can make them when you go back home.”

  “I don’t want to go back home,” Clara announced. “I want to stay here with you.”

  “You have to go with your father.”

  “I want Daddy to stay, too.”

  “I have to work,” Will said. “I need to make money to buy clothes and food and a house to live in.”

  “Nan has a house and lots of food. I don’t need any more clothes. Let me stay with her. I don’t want to stay with Grandmama and Grandpa.”

  Nan felt sorry for Will. It was difficult enough to have to give up his daughter, even if it wouldn’t be for very long. But it must be even harder when Clara couldn’t understand the reasons why he felt he had no other choice.

  “It’s very sweet of you to want to stay with me,” Nan said, “but I’m sure you’ll love your grandparents.”

  “Maybe they won’t like me. They don’t like Daddy.”

  Clara was threatening to work herself up to a real cry.

  Nan took her in her arms and held her close. “You don’t have to go anywhere right now. If the snow keeps coming down, you’ll be here for days and days. Now why don’t you go see if Gertie has lunch ready. It’ll soon be time for your nap. You’ve had a very busy morning, and I have lots of things planned for later.”

  “Thank you,” Will said to Nan when Clara went into the kitchen. “I don’t know what to do when she gets upset.”

  “She’s just frightened. It’s hard for a child to face something new, especially when she has to face it alone.”

  “I know, but it’s better that she be left with her grandparents than somebody who has no reason to love her.”

  “Are you sure her grandparents will?”

  “Yes. They don’t like me, but they’ll love Clara because she’s Louise’s child.”

  “Why didn’t you give her up when your wife died?”

  “I kept hoping I’d figure out something else, that I wouldn’t have to do it.”

  “Why did you give up?”

  “Mrs. Bartholomew died. She was the second woman to keep Clara. I could see the list getting longer and longer. As Clara gets older, she’s going to need somebody she can count on. If it can’t be me, it ought to be her grandparents.”

  For a moment Nan could see depths of pain she had only suspected. Her heart went out to him.

  “Isn’t there anything else you can do?”

  “Not unless you’re willing to take her. I’ve racked my brain for two years, and there’s no other way.”

  Nan had never considered taking Clara. The idea was unexpected, but she knew right away that was exactly what she wanted to do. “I’ll be happy to take her.”

  Will stared at Nan. “I was just joking. I never meant to—”

  A crash riveted their attention to the doorway. Clara threw herself at her father, a plate of sandwiches broken on the floor.

  “Please, Daddy
, can I stay with Nan? I don’t want to go to Grandmama. I want to stay here. Please, can I?”

  Will looked harassed. Nan knew men never liked to have their plans questioned or overset. “We can’t impose on Nan like that.”

  “But she wants me to stay. I heard her say it.”

  “It’s wonderful you like Nan so much, but your grandparents are expecting you,” Will said. “Now you have to clean up the mess you made and apologize to Nan for throwing away your lunch.”

  “I didn’t mean to,” Clara said, barely managing to keep from bursting into tears.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Nan said. “I’ll clean up while your father takes you up for your nap. If it’s stopped snowing when you get up, we’ll go outside and build a snowman.”

  * * *

  Will didn’t go back downstairs after he put Clara to bed. For a long while he simply sat on the bed watching his daughter sleep. He was struck by her innocence and how much he loved her. He had never been gifted with words, but he had always taken his obligations to her very seriously. He didn’t know how to show it except by working hard to provide for her future. That had been Louise’s dream as well. But now he wasn’t sure it was the best thing for Clara after all.

  Nan had upset all his calculations.

  Maybe Clara wouldn’t care about money as long as she could go to sleep holding his hand every night. Maybe it was more important to her that he be around to sit in front of a fire and eat cookies. He thought of the lonely hotel rooms, the long trips, the weeks he didn’t see her. He wondered if it was worth it. Right now it didn’t feel as if it was. In all the times he had put her to bed, he’d never just sat, holding her hand, thinking back on all the little things they had done together during the day. It wasn’t until he was marooned on a farm in the middle of the Shenandoah Valley that he found out what he was missing.

  And all because of Nan Carson, a woman who represented everything he had walked away from.

  She would be perfect for Clara. They already loved each other as mother and daughter. He doubted Louise’s parents could love her as much. Besides, they were too old to have the care of a five-year-old. They had other grandchildren with prior claims on their affections, and they still cherished a lingering anger against him for taking Louise away.

  If they had only known. Louise had been adamant about leaving the mountains. She had been insistent that they build a business to insulate them against the poverty of her childhood. She had loved her daughter, but she had also resented the time the child took away from her work.

  Nan found a way to include Clara in everything she did. She included both of them. They had gotten a lot done in the last three days. Clara had helped dust and straighten the house. They had helped clean up after meals. He had even filled the wood boxes and helped Jake with the milking. It hadn’t been a chore. It had been something they had done together.

  Will realized that it was something he had done because he wanted to be with Nan, to be a part of whatever she did. He wanted to be a part of it so much, he wouldn’t mind staying here for the rest of his life.

  The thought quite literally caused him to turn stiff with shock. He couldn’t have fallen in love with Nan! Not in just three days!

  No, he was in love with a dream, with this fairy-tale Christmas, with the seductive quality of a woman at once kind and generous, a woman who attracted him both physically and spiritually. The attraction was nearly irresistible—desire deepened by liking and caring—but it wasn’t the kind of feeling to build a marriage on. Nan wasn’t like Louise. She wouldn’t fit into his world.

  What a tangle.

  He got up and walked over to the window. The snow was still coming down so heavily that it was hard to see the road to town. The farm looked beautiful, all white and silent. The house was warm and comforting. His new life in the city was wonderfully exciting, but how could he have failed to see the charm of the life he and Louise had left without a backward glance?

  It had taken Nan to show him he had thrown away something very precious. He valued his new life, but now he knew it had come at a great price.

  * * *

  Nan wasn’t in the gathering room when he came down, but Gertie was. “I want to speak to you a minute,” she said to Will.

  “Do you think you should?” Jake asked.

  Will thought he looked uncomfortable.

  “With her parents dead and her brother more concerned with his own affairs than his sister, somebody’s got to look after Nan.”

  “Is something wrong?” Will asked.

  “That’s what I’m about to ask you,” Gertie countered.

  Will looked blank.

  “Nan just told me you might let Clara stay here.”

  “I mentioned it without thinking.”

  “Well, you’d better think about it right now. Nan has her heart set on keeping that child. Right now she’s upstairs going through the attic looking for something she can give her for Christmas.”

  “We haven’t even talked about it,” Will protested.

  “It’s too late for talking. You take that child away now, and you’ll break her heart.”

  “You’ll break both their hearts,” Jake added.

  “She can’t know what it’s like to have a child around all the time. It’s not the same as for a few days.”

  “I know that, and you know that, but Nan can only see the family she never had. She wouldn’t care if that child were a little demon instead of the little angel she is.” Gertie squared her shoulders and planted her hands on her hips. “Now I’d like to know what you mean to do.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Gertie snorted in contempt. “She’s in love with you, you daft man, and I want to know what you mean to do about it.”

  Five

  Will was speechless, but whether more at Gertie’s news or his reaction, he couldn’t say. He felt as if the pins had been knocked out from under him. He couldn’t believe Nan was in love with him. He hadn’t tried to make her fall in love with him, and he didn’t want the responsibility for her unhappiness when she discovered that he didn’t love her.

  He couldn’t let Clara stay now. It would mean they would have to be in constant communication with each other. He liked Nan far too much to endure that.

  “I don’t mean to do anything about it,” Will answered finally. “I don’t see that I can.”

  “You made her fall in love with you,” Gertie said, incensed. “You can’t have yourself carried in here when you need help and then waltz out again when you don’t.”

  “I had no hand in being brought here. I would have left that first morning if I had even suspected me being here would hurt Miss Carson.”

  “You can stop calling her Miss Carson,” Gertie snapped. “It’s not like you haven’t been calling her Nan for days, coiling yourself around her like some weasel-eyed varmint. And it’s too late to run away. The damage has already been done.”

  “What do you suggest I do?”

  “Marry her.”

  “Marry her!” Will exclaimed. Gertie had to be crazy. Grown men didn’t go around marrying women they’d known less than a week.

  “You don’t have to look like the idea is such a shock.”

  “I haven’t thought of marrying anyone since my wife died.”

  “That was nearly five years ago. It’s about time you thought about giving that precious little girl a mother, and you won’t find a better one than Nan.”

  “Nan won’t thank you for pushing her off on him like this,” Jake said.

  “She won’t know if you don’t tell her,” Gertie shot back. “Besides, if I don’t speak for her, who will? She won’t say anything for herself. After Harve Adams left for Richmond, she gave up thinking any man would want her.”

  “That’s crazy,” Will said. “There ought to be dozens of men lining up to a
sk for her hand.”

  “There would be if she paid heed to every Tom, Dick, or Joe who hankered after her farm. But Nan wants a husband who will love her and give her lots of children. She doesn’t deserve anything less.”

  “I agree with you,” Will said. “But I can’t marry her just because she thinks she’s in love with me.”

  “She doesn’t know it yet,” Gertie stated, “but I do.”

  “It’s impossible. I have to go back to Boston. She would never leave this valley.”

  “She would for the right man.”

  “But the right man wouldn’t take her away from it.”

  “Maybe so.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ve never met a woman I admire more than Nan, but I don’t love her.”

  “She wouldn’t have to know.”

  “She’d know from the beginning. Besides, I like her too much to do that.” Will looked out the window, but nothing had changed. If anything, it was snowing more heavily now than before.

  “I doubt you could get to town in this blizzard,” Jake said.

  “Maybe Mr. Crider will reopen the inn.”

  “If he got caught in that hollow, he won’t be back for a couple of weeks. Maybe more.”

  Will felt concerned. He also felt guilty. The best thing for Nan would be for him to take his daughter and leave immediately. The best thing for Clara would be to let Nan keep Clara.

  And what about himself? What was best for him?

  He didn’t know. As late as yesterday, he would have answered a quick return to Boston. But Nan and the life here in her mountain valley had cast its spell over him. Maybe he had never lost his love for the mountains; maybe he had just needed a chance to do something else for a while, a chance to see what else he could become.

  Now he knew. He had proved himself. He could afford the luxury of asking himself what he really wanted.

  Nan.

  The single word exploded on his mind. Maybe he didn’t fully love her, but he wanted her as much as he had ever wanted any woman.