Longing for a Cowboy Christmas Read online

  But not the same way she wanted him.

  “Well?” Gertie prompted.

  “I don’t know,” Will said, talking more to himself than to Gertie. “I just don’t know.”

  He turned and left the kitchen.

  “He don’t seem to know his own mind,” Jake said.

  “Good,” Gertie said, a slow smile beginning to spread over her lined face. “That’s the best sign I’ve seen so far.”

  * * *

  Will found Nan in the attic surrounded by piles of wrapping paper.

  “What on earth are you doing?”

  “Looking for a Christmas present for Clara. It was foolish of me not to have bought something when I was in town.”

  It was even more foolish of him not to have bought something. True, he hadn’t known a blizzard was going to snow him in, but he did know he was heading toward his in-laws empty-handed. He had been counting on being able to complete his shopping in Lexington.

  Even worse, he should have thought to buy Nan something. He would never be able to repay her for what she had done for him and Clara, but it was important that he try. Now she was worried about giving his daughter a present, with no thought for herself.

  “You don’t have to give her anything. You’ve given both of us far too much already.”

  “None of that will count on Christmas morning. You ought to know that.”

  He should, but he hadn’t. Had he forgotten what it was like to be a child?

  “I’ll give her the dollhouse,” Nan said, half to herself, not listening to him. “That and my princess doll.”

  “But those are your things.”

  “I know,” Nan said, smiling as she turned toward him, “but I don’t play with them anymore.”

  “I know that,” Will said with an answering smile, “but you can’t be giving away parts of your past.”

  “By the time you’ve finished building your business and Clara goes back to live with you, she’ll be too big to want to take any of this with her.” Nan turned back to her trunks. “I know I had more furniture than this.”

  Will took Nan by the arms and pulled her to her feet. “Listen to me. Maybe having Clara stay with you isn’t a good idea after all. Maybe I ought to see if I can hire somebody’s wagon to take us out of the valley.”

  “You couldn’t get anywhere with a wagon. Why would you want to try?”

  “I think you and Clara are becoming too attached to each other. Maybe it’s better if—”

  “Surely you’re not afraid she’ll come to love me more than you? She adores you. Besides, I’d make sure she never forgot you for so much as a minute.”

  Her gaze was open, genuine.

  “I know you would. You’d be wonderful for her, but I’m not sure she’d be so wonderful for you.”

  “Of course she would. I haven’t had so much fun in years. I never thought I’d look into these trunks again, but I’ve been up here for hours. I can hardly wait to go through the rest. I can’t believe I’ve forgotten so much.”

  Nan tried to turn back to her trunks, but Will wouldn’t release her.

  “I can’t let you do this. It’s not right. It’s too much.”

  “But I want to.”

  “You’ve got to stop baking cookies and decorating trees and racking your brain for things to give her.”

  “We couldn’t sit here for days doing nothing.”

  “Don’t you see you’re making it hard for me to take her away?”

  Nan hadn’t realized until now just how much she had come to depend on Clara’s staying with her. The fear of losing Clara was as sharp as physical pain.

  “I don’t want you to go,” she said.

  “I’ve got to. We’ve both got to.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if we stay much longer, we may not want to leave.”

  He knew. Somehow, he knew she loved him. She was glad. She would never have been able to tell him.

  Nan lowered her eyes. “Would that be so terrible?”

  “It would for you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you deserve so many things a man like me can never give you. You deserve a husband who loves your valley as much as you do, who wants a house full of children, who dreams of Christmas by the fireplace with candles in the windows and cookies and hot chocolate.”

  She looked straight at him, her gaze penetrating to his heart.

  “Maybe I could learn to dream of something else.”

  “You would try, but it would take the heart out of you.”

  Her eyes clouded with hurt. “How do you know?”

  “I know.” Will leaned over and kissed her lightly. Then he took her in his arms and kissed her.

  “There’s no mistletoe up here,” Nan said when she managed to catch her breath.

  “I don’t need mistletoe to want to kiss you. I’m terribly thankful for all you’ve done for Clara and me, and for all you want to do.”

  “Is that all?” She was looking at him in that way again.

  “It’s all there can be for us.”

  Nan had known that. She had told herself over and over again, but she had stubbornly continued to hope. Now he had told her, and she still didn’t believe it.

  I suppose you won’t believe it until he walks out the door and takes his daughter with him.

  Maybe not even then. A kind of magic entwined them. Will felt it, too. His kiss told her so. Oh, he didn’t know it, not consciously, but it was stirring deep inside him. Otherwise he wouldn’t be worried about her. He wouldn’t have thought about the kind of husband she deserved. He wouldn’t have thought about her marrying at all.

  “I still think you should leave Clara here,” Nan said. She had herself in hand now, her protective barriers in place once more. “I’ll take her to visit her grandparents. I think she ought to get to know them. You go back to your work. Make all the money you want. When you’re through, I’ll bring Clara to you. I’ll send her with Gertie if you’d rather.”

  “That woman would cut my throat.”

  Nan smiled. “No, she likes you. She didn’t at first, but she does now. She said you’d make some woman a fine husband if you could just stand still long enough.”

  “I thought I’d been doing little else since I got here.”

  “You’ve been restless ever since you found you couldn’t move into the inn. You can’t go anywhere until after the storm is over, so go back downstairs while I finish looking through the rest of these boxes. Christmas Eve will be here before you know it.”

  She needed time to go through the boxes before Clara got up from her nap, but she also needed time to think. She had to decide what she was willing to give up for Will. She wanted to be ready when he asked.

  * * *

  Will stared at the snowy landscape. It represented everything he had worked so hard to avoid, everything he and Louise had fled. Yet now it called to him with an urgency he would not have believed possible as little as two days ago. He knew the strength of the call lay not in the land, the people, or the life. It was Nan. He had known that the moment he kissed her.

  But had he gotten over Louise’s death?

  He turned away from the frosted window and paced the room. He didn’t know. He hadn’t wanted to see other women. He hadn’t even thought of remarrying. Yet the idea planted in his mind by Gertie would not go away. Its hold seemed to grow stronger as the minutes passed, but he couldn’t blame it on Gertie. She might have been the first to put the thought into words, but the fertile ground was of his providing. His attraction to Nan was more than thankfulness for her kindness or simple appreciation of an attractive woman. He was strongly attracted to her as a woman whose company he enjoyed, whom he admired, whose nearness aroused feelings in him that had lain dormant for years.

  He had begun to th
ink of her as a part of his day, as part of the pattern of his existence. It didn’t matter whether he left Clara with Nan or with her grandparents. He couldn’t just go back to Boston and forget Nan.

  Louise is dead. Nan is alive.

  Will stopped and stared out the window again. The scene was more beautiful than a painting. Limbs of spruce, pine, and magnolia trees bent low under the weight of snow piled high on their branches. A white ribbon of snow topped miles of split-rail fences, limbs of oaks, and maples like icing on a cake. It covered the entire earth—the blacks, browns, and greens—with a pristine mantle of white. The scene was softened by the heavy fall of snow as it floated to earth in large, fluffy flakes.

  He wished he could leave now. Every moment spent with Nan in this comfortable house, in this idyllic setting, sapped his strength and reduced his resolution.

  Only clinging to a dead past will make you go back to Boston. Nan loves Clara. Clara loves Nan.

  You love Nan.

  He turned away. Everything about these last few days was so unreal, so dreamlike, it distorted his sense of reality. It made him think that somehow he could find a way to have Nan, this idyllic valley, his business, and his daughter. His mind told him it wasn’t possible. His heart convinced him not to give up hope.

  * * *

  The rest of the day was somewhat awkward. Jake and Gertie didn’t come up to the house for dinner, so the three of them ate in the kitchen.

  “Let’s have snow cream for dessert,” Nan suggested.

  “What’s that?” Clara asked.

  “You live in Boston, and you don’t know what snow cream is?”

  “No.”

  “Shame on you,” Nan said to Will as she folded her napkin and got to her feet. “You get the snow. I’ll prepare the mix.”

  Nan beat two eggs into some heavy cream. Then she added a dash of vanilla flavoring. “Do you like apples?” she asked Clara. The child nodded. “Then we shall have apple ice cream. We’ll add cider. Don’t tell your father, but I’m going to add a good bit of apple brandy to his share.”

  The back door opened. A blast of biting cold air invaded the warm kitchen, followed by Will. Clara burst out laughing.

  “Daddy, you look like a snowman.”

  “A few more minutes out there, and I’d have been an ice man,” Will said, shaking the snow from his clothes.

  “Take him into the gathering room and make sure he gets warm,” Nan said to Clara. “I’ll be in with the ice cream in just a minute.”

  When Nan entered the room, Clara and her father were seated on the rug before the fire. Clara leaned against her father, his arm around her, both of them staring into the flames.

  Nan’s heart filled to overflowing. She almost hated to interrupt them. She wondered how many times they had been able to enjoy such a moment together. If Will could only realize that moments such as this, days such as they had enjoyed, were far more important to Clara than a large inheritance.

  But maybe it was important to Will. Maybe his feeling of self-worth depended on his success.

  She remembered that her father had never been so happy as when he had a good year with the farm or when one of his business ventures turned out particularly well. The same had been true of her mother. She seemed to equate her self-worth with her success with the house or the community.

  They were all guilty of using senseless measures of self-evaluation. Probably the whole world worked that way, but she wasn’t going to do it any longer. Nan was worthy of love because she had so much love to give, and she was going to start acting like it.

  * * *

  “Have you ever considered living somewhere other than this valley?” Will asked.

  Clara had been put to bed, and they were seated in chairs drawn up to the fire. Nan had blown out all the lights except a night lamp on a table across the room. The firelight cast dancing shadows along the walls and caused Will’s expression to change constantly.

  “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  “The question of a particular place never came up.”

  Nan knew what he was asking, but she didn’t know how to answer. She had always wanted to stay in the valley, but she had also assumed she would go with her husband.

  Only now she wasn’t sure she could ever be completely happy away from the people and the places she had grown to love. She knew that no matter where they lived, she couldn’t be happy with Will if he remained so deeply absorbed in his business.

  “Would you still consider it?”

  “I couldn’t say until I was asked.”

  “Well, suppose some man like me wanted you to marry him and move to Boston.”

  She wasn’t going to let him hide behind anonymous pronouns. If he wanted to find out how she felt, he was going to have to ask her point-blank.

  “I’m not likely to meet a man like you in the valley. The farthest anyone here would be likely to move would be Richmond.”

  “Well, suppose someone did.”

  “I can’t answer about ‘someone.’”

  Will stared into the fire. The shadows cast by the firelight danced across his face like so many devils.

  “Suppose I asked you to marry me and move to Boston. Would you consider it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  “What would you decide?”

  “It would depend on whether you loved me.”

  “Of course I would love you.”

  She noticed the tense. She wondered if he had. “You haven’t said it.”

  “I didn’t mean that… I wasn’t talking about… This is insane!” he muttered as he got to his feet. He paced before the fire, his fingers digging in his hair. Suddenly, he turned to face Nan. “I’m not acting like myself. Maybe it’s the snow or the season. Maybe I’m still delirious. Maybe I’ve been seduced by three of the most wonderful days in my life. But I’m in love with you, and I want to marry you.”

  Nan had only received one proposal, and though it had come with conditions, it hadn’t been anything like this. She wasn’t about to marry a man who thought he had to be delirious to love her.

  Nan stood up. “Then I suggest you go to bed. Maybe the fever or delusion will pass.”

  Will virtually jumped in front of her.

  “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just that I don’t know how I could have fallen in love with you so fast. I hardly know you.”

  “Sorry, but I don’t feel like providing you with a character study.”

  “I’m doing this all wrong.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “You’re a lovely, kind, wonderful woman, and I’m making you feel like I don’t like being in love with you.”

  “Do you?”

  “I hardly know. I hadn’t even thought about it until Gertie said I ought—”

  “Gertie! What did she say?”

  He looked like a man who had stepped into a trap and only realized it the split second he put his foot down.

  “She said it was going to be mighty quiet around here after Clara left.”

  Nan knew Gertie hadn’t said any such thing, but there’d be plenty of time later to find out exactly what she had said.

  “That has nothing to do with marrying you.”

  “I wouldn’t leave her here if you didn’t want to marry me. Knowing she would be with you all the time and I couldn’t be would drive me crazy.”

  He seemed to have a particularly strong association between loving her and insanity. Nan decided that didn’t bode well for a stable marriage.

  “If I were to consider marrying you, I’d have to know I was going to be more important than your business. You can’t send me to my grandparents when you don’t have time for me.”

  “That’s a cruel thing to say.”

 
“Sending Clara away is cruel.”

  “I don’t have any choice.”

  “Yes, you do. Sending Clara away is a consequence of other choices.”

  “You wouldn’t marry a man who could do that?”

  “No.”

  “Even if you loved him?”

  “Not even then.”

  “But you do love him, don’t you?”

  “I… Don’t you think…”

  “Answer me. It’s all I have left.”

  Without warning, Will took her in his arms and kissed her passionately. “Tell me, please.”

  “I love you,” Nan whispered. “I think I always will.”

  Six

  Nan slept late the next morning. She was shocked to find when she looked at the clock that it was close to eleven.

  She threw back the bedcovers, and her bare feet hit the ice-cold floor. Stifling a strong desire to climb back into the warmth of her bed, Nan dressed quickly. She didn’t understand how she could have slept so late, not even after lying awake half the night thinking about what Will had said.

  Yes, she loved him, enough to follow him anywhere. She’d probably never love anyone else. But as long as his business or his success—she didn’t know which—was more important than anything else, she couldn’t marry him. She had thought about it until dawn, but the answer always came out the same.

  She wanted a husband and children and a home of her own. She would work with her husband, she would support him in every way she could, but she and their family had to be the most important thing in his life. On that there could be no compromise.

  But reaching that decision made Nan feel even more miserable than before. She looked around. She had spent her girlhood in this room. She had hoped and dreamed and built her castles in the air here. Now it seemed they were all going to fall down in the same place.

  Well, there was no use getting maudlin over it. She’d had two chances. She had chosen not to take either of them. She couldn’t blame anybody but herself. It was foolish to pine over decisions she wouldn’t change if she had the opportunity.

  Harve hadn’t been the right man for her, and she had known that. She wouldn’t have married him even if her mother hadn’t been too sick for her to leave.