SNOW KISSED CHRISTMAS: Sweet Historical Romance Novella--Short Read (5 page)

“Hold on tight.” He’d put her in the saddle, and she grasped at Ajax’s mane, still disoriented and shaky. He kept trying to reassure her with words as he put his foot into the stirrup and swung up behind her.

“Miss Ferguson, I’m Sergeant James Macleod, with the North-West Mounted. Yer horse arrived back at the Ferguson farm without ye. I’m afraid we have to get back there ourselves, and quickly, because the prairie fire is heading this way. Just rest back against me, if ye can.”

He put a supporting arm around her, and she winced and cried out as he touched her injured arm. “Sorry, lass. I’m afraid ye might have broken yer wrist, I’ve tried to stabilize it, but it’s going to hurt on the ride. Can ye tell me if anything else is paining?”

She still didn’t respond, and he secured her as well as he could with her back tight against his chest before he signaled Ajax to move. He hadn’t been this close to a woman in some time, and he was grateful for the barrier their combined trousers provided between their lower bodies. He was healthy, and he hadn’t been near a woman in far too long. Amazing how a man’s cock responded instinctively to a female, even in the midst of an emergency. Perhaps not just any female, but this one was young and slender.

Macleod, get yer evil wee mind to the job at hand, man. Think of the fire out there instead of the one in yer breeches.

The huge horse adjusted easily to their weight, and was soon trotting. As the smoke increased, he broke into a canter. The air was scorching hot, and James coughed and squinted into the distance, trying to gauge the progress of the fire. The wind had shifted slightly, but he couldn’t tell exactly where the flames were headed because of the smoke.

After that first cry of pain, the woman made no sound, and James concentrated on holding her as close to his body as he could so as to minimize the jolting, should she have internal injuries. Beyond that there was little he could do to make the journey easier.

She was obviously used to riding, and he was relieved when she adjusted automatically to the horse’s gait. A thick chunk of her long curly hair blew back into his face, and it smelled like lemons. He brushed it away from his eyes, wishing he could bury his nose in it. Her slender body felt fragile against him, and the absence of the usual whalebone corset made the contact of their bodies that more intimate.

It was ten minutes before the Ferguson farm came into view, and another five before James pulled Ajax to a halt in the yard. Constable Pringle, who’d been dousing gunnysacks with water, came running over, followed closely by Annie Ferguson.

James handed Betsy down to the Constable as gently as he could. “Mind her wrist, I think it might be broken. Better carry her, she’s still pretty dazed, she had a right knock on the head.”

James dismounted and the boy he’d spoken to earlier, Samuel, took the reins of his horse and headed for the barn. “I’ll feed and water him, sir.”

“Good lad,” James called after him.

“Bring her in here.” Annie hurried ahead of the Constable, into the farmhouse. James followed close behind as Annie led the way into a ground-floor bedroom, and Pringle carefully laid Betsy down on the narrow bed.

James turned to Pringle. “Constable, what’s happening with yon firebreak?”

“Baynes got back a few minutes ago, he said the wind shifted, so the Hopkins’ place wasn’t in danger. He and Kormack are plowing the break, but it looks like the buildings here are safe, too. It’s veering to the southwest. If that keeps up, it’ll burn itself out when it reaches the river.”

“Keep up dousin’ the buildings just to be safe, Constable. I’ll be out shortly.”

Pringle hurried away, and James turned again to Mrs. Ferguson, who was tugging off Betsy’s boots.

“She has that nasty gash on her head and her wrist must be hurting her. Could ye ask her please where else she has pain, Mrs. Ferguson? She’s nae spoken to me at all, I think she may have a concussion, or perhaps she’s frightened of me?”

“Call me Annie, please, sir. Betsy’s deaf, she mostly talks on her fingers.” Annie smoothed back the long, tangled auburn tresses with a loving, gentle hand.

James felt surprise and shock, followed immediately by intense interest as Annie made rapid hand signals to her sister.

Betsy made emphatic gestures in response, limited to using only one hand. She also made sounds, but they didn’t approximate speech.

It had been years since James had used sign. He watched closely, picking up several of the words—horse, fell, leg, broken?

Annie smiled and shook her head. “She’s most worried about her horse, sir. I’m telling her Jingles is fine. Betsy thought certain she’d broken her foreleg in a gopher hole.”

James’s fingers felt stiff and clumsy as he did his best to respond. “I’ll have a look at Jingles when I go out,” he slowly signed to Betsy, using a combination of the deaf alphabet he’d learned at university and some of the common signs he remembered for certain words. There were differences in Betsy’s signs, but the finger spelling was the same. “Will ye please allow me to look at your wrist and that bump on your head, miss? Do ye have pain elsewhere?”

Betsy’s shock was evident on her expressive face. Her mouth fell open and her lovely blue eyes widened. Her hand spelled out, “You sign?”

James nodded. “I learned from a professor’s wife at Edinburgh University.” His fingers were co-operating a little better with each attempt. “She was deaf, and she taught me to sign and finger spell”

Annie was as amazed as Betsy. “You use some of the same signs that Betsy’s friend Florence taught her. Before Betsy met Florence, we used our own made up signs, but Florence had gone to a school for the deaf, and she taught Betsy the proper finger spelling and signs.”

“Please, can you tell if wrist is broken? It hurts,” Betsy told him. “Ribs are sore, not broken, I don’t think. One time I fell from hayloft, broke my ribs.” She mimed extreme pain. “This time only sore, not bad pain when I breathe like before,” she spelled.

“No pain in yer back? Do ye have acute pain anywhere else?” James moved closer to the bed, gently untying the sling he’d fashioned. “Miss Ferguson, I’ll try not to hurt ye,” he said and signed.

Betsy shook her head. “Not Ferguson. Name Tompkins. Betsy, please. Nothing else broken for sure. Just sore.”

“Betsy, my name is James,” he said, examining her wrist as gently as he could, allowing Annie to interpret. “James Macleod.”

Betsy’s uninjured fingers flew. “Your name James Mac----?” She wrinkled her freckled nose and shrugged.

“Macleod,” he spelled slowly. “Good old Scots name, same as me father. Grandfather too, come to that.” He probed the bones in her wrist, and when he was done he signed again. “I cannae be absolutely certain, but I don’t think it’s broken. Just badly sprained. Ye’re very lucky, Miss Betsy.” He smiled at her.

She nodded, signing rapidly back to him with her one good hand. “Lucky you found me,” she said. “Thank you.”

“The North-West Mounted take a vow to find all lost lassies,” he teased. “Now, if ye have something I could use for bandaging,” James said to Annie, “I’ll bind this wrist tight so it does’nae hurt as much, and perhaps ye could also bring a basin with soap and water so I can have a look at that gash on her head?”

“I’ll get it.” Annie hurried off.

The moment she was gone, Betsy swung her legs off the bed.

“Need to help with fire,” Betsy insisted when James put a restraining hand on her shoulder. “Annie should not run around.” She made the graphic sign for pregnancy, hands rounding over her abdomen.

“Me men will have it in hand.” James gently pushed her back down on the bed. “Ye need to be still, ye may have a concussion from that blow on the head. The wind shifted, the fire is heading toward the river, where it’ll hopefully burn itself out. we need to wash off that cut on yer forehead so I can see how deep it is.” The signs were coming back to him now. He didn’t have to stop and think before each new word, but he was abominably slow.

Betsy scowled at him, but then she nodded, subsiding reluctantly back on the pillows.

James suspected she probably had a severe headache, and she must also be hurting in various places from the fall from the horse. He smiled down at her. She had the most startling eyes, huge and expressive in her delicate face, emphasized by those long dark lashes. Blood and dirt were streaked across her tanned cheek and down her neck, and there were bits of straw and dead leaves in her thick curling hair.

“Ye have half the prairie in yer hair,” he murmured. He reached out and removed a piece of straw.

Betsy’s blue eyes grew even wider and she flinched and narrowed her eyes at him, giving him a suspicious look just as Annie came bustling back in with a basin, a cloth and a bar of homemade soap.

James regretted his impulse, sorry to have alarmed her, also suddenly realizing how dirty his hands were. “I’ll go wash while ye clean up that cut, Annie,” he said. “I’ll be back directly.”

In the kitchen, he dipped water into the washbasin on the stand in the corner, turning back his shirtsleeves to thoroughly soap and rinse his hands. He rubbed soap and water over his face as well after he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror hanging above the washstand. He’d removed his felt western hat and buckskin jacket, and there was a band of white skin above the tan where the hat brim sat. His face was still streaked with grime, and he scoured it again.

“It’s a wonder ye did’nae frighten her half to death,” he muttered, giving his face yet another sloshing to get rid of the stubborn dirt, and wondering why it mattered so much that Betsy approve of him. “No wonder she’s skittish, ye look like a highway man, Macleod.”

Back in the bedroom, he wrapped the injured wrist and then examined the gash on Betsy’s forehead. Clean now, it was deep and angry looking. Under better circumstances, it should have been stitched closed, but that was out of the question here.

James said, “Do ye have any honey, Annie?”

When Annie brought the pot of honey, James slathered a generous amount in and around the wound and wrapped a narrow length of bandage over it, trying his best to not tangle the cloth too badly in Betsy’s hair. It felt springy and silky to his touch, and again reminded him of how long it had been since he’d touched a woman’s hair.

“Should be healed in a day or so, there may be a scar but not much of a one. A doctor friend of mine taught me the healing benefits of honey,” he assured Annie and Betsy, whose fingers quickly signed, “What you did study at university?”

“Mathematics, the sciences, philosophy,” he replied, immediately uncomfortable. “But it was long ago, and a world away.”

Six years, two months, and twenty-two days, exactly.

Betsy’s fingers flew. “You train as doctor?”

Annie shook her head at her sister and put her finger to her lips. “Sorry, Sergeant, Betsy’s questions aren’t always polite. She’s always been really curious, and questions everything. Without hearing, it’s how she learns.”

“Of course.” James struggled with how to answer without revealing things better kept private. “I craved a bit of adventure, so I signed on with the Mounted,” he finally replied, avoiding the question as best he could. “They were promising able bodied men a life more exciting than university.”

Betsy was paying close attention. “But being doctor is special,” she said. “Why you not want to be doctor? You know how fix my arm, my head.”

The lass was too sharp for her own good—or his. “The Mounted expects its members to know a wee bit about many things,” James prevaricated. “Jack of all trades,” he said.

Betsy started to sign again, but Annie put a hand on her sister’s arm and shook her head. “It’s not polite to pry, Betsy,” she reproved in a soft tone. She didn’t always sign when Betsy was watching her, James noted. So, Betsy was adept at lip reading.

Betsy made an apologetic face and rubbed her fist on her chest in the sign for sorry.

“No need for apologies,” he said, and he could tell Betsy understood.

He turned to Annie. “Would it be possible for me men and me tae stay wi’ you for a day or two? Ye would of course be reimbursed. We’ll need to make certain the fire is indeed out before we head back to Medicine Hat.”

Annie nodded, her pretty face alight with a welcoming smile. “It would be my pleasure, Sergeant, and my husband Noah’s as well. He should be back soon, and he’ll be so grateful to all of you for what you did for us. for finding Betsy.”

“It’s our job. I look forward to meeting yer husband, mistress.”

“There’s the couch in the sitting room, but I’m afraid some of you’ll have to bed down in the barn. There’s no spare bedroom with Betsy visiting. But there’s a finished room out there.”

“The barn will do very well for us, thank ye, ma’am.” James turned so Betsy could see his face. “Ye don’t live here, then?”

She shook her head and signed a response. “Live in Medicine Hat.”

“Betsy and her friend Rose Hopkins board with Rose’s Aunt Harriet,” Annie explained. “Betsy works as a seamstress for Miss Evangaline, but she does photography as well. Rose is employed at Gunderson’s bakery.”

“Yer friend Miss Hopkins is a young woman wi’ bonny fair hair? I know of her, she’s served me, but we haven’t been formally introduced. Their cream scones are a rare treat.”

Betsy had followed the conversation closely, and she rolled her eyes and nodded enthusiastically. Then she winced and touched her head.

Annie laughed. “Everyone loves those cream scones, but Mrs. Gunderson won’t share the receipt. We’re counting on Rose finding out how it’s done sooner rather than later.”

James realized he’d spent longer than he’d planned with the women. “If ye’ll excuse me, I must go and see how me men are faring.”

“Supper will be ready in another hour. Nothing fancy, I’m afraid. That fire got me sidetracked,” Annie said.

“We shall be most grateful for any food at all,” James declared. “Ye must be exhausted, so please, anything at all will do for us.” He gave Betsy a small bow and a wink. “I strongly suggest ye stay in that bed for the rest of the day, lass,” he told her in a stern tone. “Or I’ll need to be havin’ ye appear before the magistrate for disobeying orders.”