Carla Kelly (10 page)

“I do. My feet are getting cold, so you'd better hurry up this narrative,” she said, then stifled a shriek when he pulled her slippered feet into his lap.

“Don't holler. I just solved your problem,” he said mildly. “The Shumways want to solve mine. I don't know how many months it took, but Eugene worked up his nerve to ask me after Sunday School just last week if I would ever consider letting James live with them in Cheyenne and go to school.”

“Oh, my.”

“My reaction was a little stronger. I said no right away.” He shook his head. “I guess it's almost a reflex with me, but I'll be… darned if little Shumway didn't back down an inch. Don't know if you're aware of it, but Shumway is Cheyenne's only automobile mechanic. He stood right up to me and said he'd also be honored to teach James everything he knows about fixing autos when he came to live with them in Cheyenne.”

“My goodness.” She smiled in the dark. “James may never be a scholar, but he certainly knows how to build things with the Meccano set you gave him.”

“James can tinker, that's for sure. I had spent the better part of a week praying about a solution, and there it was, standing right in front of me. Tell me something, Darling: do you think Heavenly Father ever gets discouraged when we pray, He gives us an answer, and we ignore it?”

“Oh, maybe now and then! I've ignored my share of answers too. Why does the Lord bother with us?”

“Beats me.” Paul took off her slippers and rubbed her feet. “They're like ice. I suppose you plan to put them on my legs, after March 17.”

“I was counting on it. Paul, do the Shumways have any children?”

“No. They never will.” His sigh was audible and more than a sigh. “Here's my dilemma: you know very well that if James goes to live with them, one thing will lead to another and they'll want to adopt him.”

He couldn't say anything else. Julia leaned forward. “Paul, this
is
hard.”

“I love that boy. We've… we've been through a lot together. You've been through a lot with him too. It's also a divine solution to the problem of McAtee. Keeping James with a family in Cheyenne is a surefire way to keep him safe, but what should I do? What should
we
do?”

They sat a long time in silence, Paul's hands on her feet. When he moved them up to her knees, she laughed softly and lifted her feet out of his lap.

“You're a rascal, and I love you,” she said, putting on her slippers again. “You already know what to do, Paul. It won't be easy, and he'll miss you too, but you know what to do.”

“Yeah, I do. My prayer was answered,” he said after a long time. He rubbed the back of his head. “It's just leaving me feeling a bit bruised.”

“And you're not used to that!”

“Nope.”

“Another sore subject: Julia, James and I have to leave the day after Christmas. Don't you dare cry!”

“I won't,” she said and couldn't help her tears. “Why so soon?”

He handed her his handkerchief, and she blew her nose. “Before we left Cheyenne, word got to me of more cattle that drifted. A rancher named Bell is keeping them for me, up near Laramie Peak, and I told him I would be there by the end of the week. That's about the last of the missing herd, thank God. Darling, I promise we'll have a boring Christmas next year.”

He walked her up the stairs and stopped at the top. “You know what I'm looking the most forward to about March 17?”

“I have some inkling,” she told him, glad she had turned out the upstairs hall light, so he couldn't see her blush.

“That too, but just think of it: I'll be able to say good night to you when you're right
next
to me and maybe sharing the same pillow, and not down the hall off the kitchen, or across the state, and I'm not in some deathtrap of a hotel in Julesburg or Sidney or Ogallala. I'm tired of that!”

She put her fingers to his lips. “Shh! You'll wake my folks, or James, and you know he's already skeptical about Santa Claus.”

“There's some logic to that statement, but it escapes me,” he whispered back. “Good night, Darling.”

She went in her room and closed the door, then just leaned against it, fighting tears of her own at the thought of James in Cheyenne, even though she knew it was for the best. As she stood there, she heard Paul go downstairs again. In a moment he was back upstairs and knocking softly on her door.

“You know I shouldn't let you in,” she whispered.

“I promise to behave myself.” A pause. “If you will.” She opened the door. He stood there holding the Christmas present for her that he had put under the tree earlier.

“Don't cry yet.”

She pulled him in her room, pointing to the chair by the fireplace as she sat on the bed with the present. “I was thinking about James,” she said.

He indicated the package in her lap. “This'll give you something else to think about.”

“It wouldn't wait for morning?” she asked, tugging the impressive-looking gold cord off the package.

“No,” he said. She couldn't see him well in the darkness, but she knew sudden shyness when she heard it. “James might have a whole lot of questions if you open it downstairs.” He chuckled. “And your father will probably toss me out the front door.”

“Good heavens, what have you done?” Julia murmured. “The wrapping paper is gorgeous.” She peered closer at a little gold decal. “Marshall Field's? Isn't that in Chicago?” The ribbon was off, and she carefully removed the paper.

“I was there about this time last year, as you'll recall.”

She remembered all too well, thinking again of the telegram from his former wife's parents that had sent him on the next train to Chicago. She looked at the pasteboard box, elegant even without wrapping paper on it.

She started to lift the lid, then set it down. “Wait a minute. You bought me what looks like a fearsomely expensive present in Chicago
last year
?”

“I did, indeed.” She heard the amusement in his voice. “Open it.”

“In a minute. A year ago, weren't you still wondering if I could breathe and walk at the same time?”

“Open it.” He had rarely sounded more patient.

“Very well.” She lifted the lid and couldn't help the sigh that escaped her. Even in the moonlight, or maybe especially in the moonlight, she could see exquisite lace and silk, just a shade off-white. Scarcely breathing, she lifted out what had to be the most beautiful negligee in the entire history of the universe. Words couldn't do it justice. It felt no more substantial than cobwebs in her hands.

“Good thing I bought it, because a quick look at ZCMI and Auerbach's two months ago didn't turn up anything remotely like that,” he said. “Say something.”

“I can't. I'm struck dumb.” She got off her bed and held up the nightgown to her robe.

“Don't do that,” Paul said quickly. “Just don't.”

She put it back in the box. “You amaze me,” she said when she could speak.

“Good. That should keep you off balance for a few centuries of our eternity,” he told her.

She closed her eyes in utter delight and sat down on her bed again as the realization of the whole thing crashed into her brain, banging cymbals and tooting horns and shouldering all reason aside. “You bought this a year ago.”

“We've already been over that.”

She leaned toward him and rested her elbows on the brass rail at the foot of her bed. “All right, cowboy, just
when
did you fall in love with me? I'm definitely curious now.”

He regarded her in the moonlight. “I knew I was a no-hoping goner when I caught that ridiculous hat of yours on the platform at Gun Barrel.”

Julia sucked in her breath. She tried to be severe. “Mr. Otto,
nobody
falls in love that fast!”

“I did,” he said simply, and he left her room.

Julia decided that James wasn't up at the crack of dawn on Christmas morning because he had no real idea just what largess meant. Her gift to him last year had been just crayons and paper, and she knew Papa and Mama had been whispering together in the kitchen, wrapping presents for him.

“It's nothing too extravagant,” Mama had said last night. Julia wouldn't have cared if Mama had bought out the whole toy section at ZCMI, because James seemed to be bringing out the fun in her mother again.

“Julia, you should have seen him in front of the window at ZCMI,” her mother had said, her eyes lively with the memory.

And you should see your face now
, she had thought. “Tell me about it, Mama,” she said, watching her parents, noting how happy her father looked to be seeing his wife take such an interest in one child.

And here they were, gathering in the parlor, watching James open his presents. Julia glanced at Paul, who was yawning.
I don't think you got any more sleep last night than I did
, she told herself.

James accepted each gift of books and clothes and games with cries of delight, but his gift of a more advanced Meccano set from Paul reduced him to jawdropping silence. He ran his hand reverently over the box lid.

“Open it,” Paul said. “Some of the pieces are pretty detailed, but there are written instructions.”

James did as he suggested. He looked at the pieces stashed in their own cardboard compartments and gave the booklet a single glance. Without a word, he began assembling the pieces.

“Guess you don't need instructions,” Paul said. He looked at Julia and raised his eyebrows. “Could be you're destined to be a mechanic.” His shoulders slumped slightly. He was sitting on the floor, his back to the settee. Julia rested her hand on his shoulder and knew he was thinking of the Shumways. “There are worse things,” he said, more to himself than anyone else.

Julia's gift to her mother was always the same: glycerin and rosewater lotion, the better to combat Salt Lake City's perpetual dryness. She had attached a little gold brooch of seed pearls, which made Mama smile her thanks and pin it immediately to her robe. Papa was suitably impressed with a new fob for his watch.

“This is for you and Paul,” Mama said, sounding almost shy.

She held out the envelope to Paul, who read the contents and smiled, getting up on his knees to kiss her on the cheek. “I'd rather call you Mother than Maude,” he said. “Is that allowed?”

“Please do. That's what Iris's husband did.” Her voice barely faltered.

“Thank you for this,” Paul said. “Darling, we've been given the 1911 model of the Queen Atlantic, which, according to this note, is waiting for us in a warehouse in Cheyenne.”

“Mama, that's so sweet,” Julia said.

Paul gave her mother another kiss. “I was practical too, Mother. Since it might be a little while until we can invite you to the Double Tipi, what with the wind whistling through the frame and the snow piling up, I had a Double Tipi beef dressed out and frozen for you two. It'll arrive any day now in a reefer car from Cheyenne. Maybe I should have asked if you have an ice source at a butcher's for it.”

“We'll find one,” Papa said. “Believe me.”

Julia rested her hand again on Paul's shoulder and leaned closer. “Tell me, is this your beef or McLemore's?”

He tried to look shocked. “Julia, I would never give my future in-laws poached beef! I think it's mine. This is for you, Jed.”

Papa unwrapped the package and pulled out a copy of
The Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt
.

“That's to repay you for your personal copy that you gave me last Christmas,” Paul explained. “Your copy was another casualty of the range fires.”

Jed handed over his present for Paul, who unwrapped it and found an identical copy. “Son, I guess we were thinking along the same lines,” he said.

Julia handed Paul her package. “I have two things, but this is first.”

“Feels like another book,” he said and undid the string. “Little too small for another autobiography.”

“No, it's a biography this time,” she said. “Your mother's.”

He was silent as he unwrapped the slim volume, titled
Mary Anne Hickman's Early Years.
“She never talked about her childhood,” he said as he turned the pages. “I guess it was too painful.” He looked at her. “Thank you, Julia. I don't know what to say.”

“Just say you'll treat me as you would any female member of the House of Hapsburg, and agree to my every whim,” Julia teased.

“Done, madam.” He took the other gift she held out and pulled out the paisley tie.

“It'll look so nice with your new suit,” she told him. “In fact, I think you had better take the suit back with you. You can wear it to the Denver stock show in January and impress your poker-playing cronies.”

The smile left his face, and he grew thoughtful. “Funny you should mention them. I don't think I'm going to Denver this year.”

He had to be joking. Julia laughed. “You told me you haven't missed one in fifteen years! Is the suit too grand for—where was it you told me—the Cattleman's Saloon?”

Paul watched James with the Meccano set, as if to assure himself that he wasn't paying attention to their conversation. She recognized his look of embarrassment. “If you'd rather not say…”

“No, no, I've been wanting to get this off my chest, since I got here.” He looked at her parents. “I don't know what Julia's told you, but every year I spend two weeks in Denver at the stock show, looking over livestock, sometimes entering my own in competition. It's a general good time.”

He must have felt suddenly uncomfortable, because he got off the floor and went to the window, seeing something outside that no one else seemed to see. “There are ten stockmen who get together for what is basically a continuous poker game. We talk, describe our year, and trade information about the range or whatever suits us.” He managed a half smile, again with that faraway look. “I've been told that it's a pretty exclusive group. We're the old-timers.”

Julia patted the settee beside her, and he sat down, putting his arm around her shoulders, then resting his hand in her curls, which still seemed to fascinate him. “I was near Grover on the Colorado plains last month, following up a lead on my strays. Kaiser ranches there, and he had them. He helped me get them to the train station and onto box cars.”

“Kaiser?”

“John and his brothers are big names in land and cattle, there and in Nebraska.” Paul twined his fingers in her curls, and she closed her eyes with the pleasure of it. “It's silly, but every year we elect a major domo to call the shots and decide on the saloon. I was major domo a couple of years ago. We take turns. I knew it was Kaiser's turn, so while we were watching my cattle loaded in the box cars, I mentioned that I hadn't received my annual invitation to the poker game.”