A Texas Christmas (13 page)

Read A Texas Christmas Online

Authors: Jodi Thomas,Linda Broday,Phyliss Miranda

BOOK: A Texas Christmas
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The men who had brought her in seemed congenial enough, not at all guarded in her company. At least none who had returned from the barn had made any undue comments or shown any signs of snubbing her. Still, he decided to reserve his opinion of the men until after he had rejoined the party. Once he saw them interacting with Anna and the women, then he could determine more why she had cautioned him so emphatically about her position in the community.
Someone rapped on the door that separated the study from the other rooms along the second-story landing.
“May we come in? Are you finished dressing?”
Anna
. The sound of her voice gave him a sense of not being such an outsider. He was normally alone and not much in the company of others by choice. He loved people but cared too much whether or not they liked him. So he kept to himself, not wanting to deal with the rejection of someone not wanting his company. But with Anna he thought maybe it would hurt very deeply if she left him on his own to fend among the guests. She suddenly felt like a home he needed to rely on.
James brushed the wrinkles from his fresh white shirt and black trousers. Fortunately, she had wisely chosen to bring the warmer trousers rather than the denim, but the clothing was far less appropriate than what other party guests were wearing. He hoped he looked presentable enough not to embarrass her. “Just finished,” he announced, putting on his spectacles. “You may come in.”
“Don’t you look like something the north wind blew in.” Anna sashayed in with her friends in tow, her eyes twinkling from something she had probably been laughing at moments ago.
“Don’t you look”—James’s heart slowed to a single beat that caught and held as he took in the sight of her dressed in all her feminine regalia—“gorgeous.”
“Breathe, Trey,” Jane instructed from behind Anna. “You’re turning blue.”
“We came in to stitch you,” Marjorie informed him, holding up a bandage and a needle, “which we’ve all decided is my job. Too bad you didn’t come in unconscious or we would all have to arm wrestle to see which of us got to revive you.”
“Marjorie!” Jane blushed.
“Well, we would and you know it.” She laughed.
James exhaled his pent-up breath. “I hope this is suitable for your party, Miss Henton.”
“You look fine, and nobody better tell you differently.” Anna reached for his hand. “Now let me see that cut. See, Marj, I told you he’s got it bleeding again. I should have sent someone in to help him get dressed.”
Bleeding again?
Despite his reluctance to pull his hand from her gentle touch, James let it drop to his side. “There’s no need for all this fuss and bother.”
“I’ll decide that.” Anna motioned for Marjorie to come closer. “I’d say three good stitches will do it, but you see what you think.”
James never had so much attention given to his hands before. All three women stood around him now, his palm resting in Anna’s. He wished he hadn’t spent the past few months digging in the prairie loam. His fingernails looked jagged and his hands scratched and rough from pulling away weeds and clumps of grass. They certainly didn’t resemble a gentleman’s hands. Did Anna think them too rough to the touch?
“We all agree on three.” Marjorie tugged James away from Anna and led him to the desk that stood in front of a huge window along one wall of the study. “Kind of fitting, don’t you think, since you’re the Third. Just prop your hand on the corner here, and this will all be over in no time.”
Pain pierced his palm and he glanced down at the needle Marjorie was using. A regrettable mistake. The needle blurred and all he could see was red, oozing blood. James’s knees suddenly wobbled and he felt like a pine tree ready to topple. “I n-need a chair, please.”
“It won’t take that long,” she insisted. “I’m really fast at this, and I’m just going to let this bleed out a lit—”
“Anna! Now!”
“Grab that chair, Jane, he’s sinking fast,” he heard Anna say from somewhere distantly above him. Suddenly, everything went black.
Seconds, or it could have been minutes, later his eyes opened to see six eyes staring back at him. He started to sit up, but when he did the world whirled around him as if taking a spin around the dance floor. His eyes finally focused on Anna’s. “Did I lose my wits about me again?”
“Again?” Two sets of hazel eyes turned to share a glance with Anna as the nurse and teacher voiced their curiosity.
“He sort of can’t take the sight of blood,” Anna explained. “He’ll be fine in a moment now that we’ve got him stitched up and he can’t see anything.”
So he had been indisposed for several minutes.
Wonderful.
What a man they must think him. James forced himself to sit up in the chair and noticed his hand was well bandaged with no sign for further distress. He willed himself to stand without shaking. “I’m keeping you from your guests, ladies.”
“They
are
probably wondering what’s taking us so long,” Marjorie agreed and packed up the medical supplies.
Anna linked her arm through his. “Let them wait a little longer. You girls go on down. I brought him and he’s my responsibility. I’ll see that he gets downstairs when he’s ready.”
Jane and Marjorie hurried away, leaving James and Anna finally alone again for the first time since their arrival.
“You don’t have to go,” Anna told him.
“And miss all the fun?” he teased, but he hoped Anna realized what he was really saying. He wouldn’t leave her alone to face any guest who didn’t show her proper propriety. “I say it’s time I meet the good folk of Kasota Springs and see who I’ll put on my naughty or nice list.”
Anna laughed. “Better watch out, Third. You’re beginning to sound a lot like someone I might grow fond of.”
As she guided him out of the study and toward the stairwell, James noticed that she had deliberately linked her arm in such a way as to make it look as if she were leaning into him and not the other way around. She wanted him comfortable going down into strange company and didn’t want him to feel as if he appeared weak in any manner. Being linked this way offered better balance if he happened to teeter going downstairs. Her thoughtfulness touched him, as had her remembering to bring his clothes inside. But would the others think her too close for propriety’s sake? He didn’t want to add to her discomfort with them. Yet when he tried to pull away, she wouldn’t let him.
“Thank you, Anna, for the clothes and for not laughing at me just now about the fainting spell,” he finally gave in, sensing she would not let him change positions, “or the earlier one. I’m not quite a Texan yet, I’m afraid, but I sure admire the kind of man who is.”
“My pleasure, Third, and Texas doesn’t make a man. You’re ten gallons full of honor, and that’s enough for any man to be.”
Their eyes met and James felt as if some invisible thread had thrown a loop around his heart and tied the two of them together in some inexplicable way. No one had ever given him such a compliment. “I’m glad we met, Anna.”
“Me too,” she whispered, her smile warming him to the tip of his boots. But just as quickly as it was offered, the smile vanished. The crowd must have noticed their return and were moving forward to meet them at the bottom of the stairs. “But as I told you before, I’m usually not this pleasant. I must have finally gotten some Christmas spirit. Just don’t expect it to last much longer.”
Chapter 5
 
The roar of the fiddler’s bow, the wail of a harmonica, and Izora Beavers’s attempt to sing louder than the instruments made talking nearly impossible. As Anna paraded Trey around the room, everyone seemed intent upon stopping him every few steps and making his acquaintance. Anna could understand why. He had such a pleasant nature about him and handled himself well in conversation, despite how many times someone asked him, “Say, fella, would you say it in Texan?”
Though he never took offense, she sensed that he was trying very hard to fit in and not be so glaring a tenderfoot.
She encouraged him to move on quickly with each introduction, but Trey deliberately waited until the person he was meeting engaged her in the conversation too. The man was simply too polite, but she sort of liked the way he wanted to take care of her in that way. It endeared him to her and she felt herself growing more at ease with each person she talked to. He had a real knack for setting people at ease.
“Tell us more about your work here in the Panhandle,” insisted Newpord Henton as he joined the latest group surrounding Anna and Trey. He offered them both a glass of punch. “What is a banker’s son doing out on the plains digging in the dirt?”
Anna envisioned him behind a teller’s cage dressed in a frock coat and tie. In fact, she could see him as a lot of things except a man who studied flowers for a living. What was he had said he was looking for? Bluebonnets? Hell, if he’d gone south, he would have found all the ’bonnets his eyes could see for miles. But he’d said something about a special one growing up here. One flower was the same as the next to her. And who could make a living off of studying flowers? Hadn’t he said something about prize money from a foundation for research?
She tried to recall exactly what he’d said during their whiskey talk, but it was a haze at the moment. He’d droned on so much in some kind of scientific jargon only a professor could love, and she was no lover of science unless it was the mixing of whiskey. Whiskey gave her financial freedom. That was all the science she needed. So she’d more or less halfway listened to Trey’s reason for being there. It was her great strength as a barkeep and her flaw as well. People shared their secrets with her and she only halfway listened, assuming they only needed an ear and not really an answer.
Now that she knew the Third a little better, she wished she’d paid more attention.
“You say you know my father.” Trey accepted the punch and took a sip. “Ooh, goodness. What’s in this?”
“A little Tennessee tail twister,” Newpord laughed, “or rather some of Miss Ross’s fine whiskey. It’ll grow hair on your chest.”
Anna sipped the punch. Sure enough, someone had seasoned the refreshment with a bottle or two of her liquor. “Well, I don’t know about hair on our chests, but I don’t think any of us will be getting cold any time soon.” Her attention focused on their host. “How do you know his father?”
“I visited him a couple of times in Boston. He was interested in investing in some of the ranches around here, mine being one of them. Fine man, sweet-natured mother, and well-spoken older sister. All incredibly accomplished people in their own right. Wonderful bloodline.”
“Yes, it is,” Trey said and took another sip of punch, deliberately lingering at the rim of the cup.
It wasn’t anything anyone else would have noticed, but when he turned slightly toward Anna as he did whenever he seemed uncomfortable, she knew talking about his family made him uneasy. Why, if they were so wonderful? Anna was a collector of secrets, and she knew when someone was holding one back. She would have to get to the bottom of this. See if she could help Trey find a way to deal with it. Even if all she did was listen when he was ready to talk about whatever he guarded so carefully.
“Come now, Mr. Elliott.” A chubby redheaded woman wobbled up and the crowd immediately parted to give her access. “Do tell. We simply won’t let you keep any secrets from us, will we, everyone? We want to know all about your family. We love to hear about things from”—she purposefully locked gazes with Anna—“back East. The news we get is usually so fretful.”
All of a sudden Jack flew around the corner at a dead run, his teeth bared and his bark a howling yodel. He was like a bull at full charge. “Hold up, Jack.” Anna tried to catch him but the little mutt was intent on reaching Izora’s leg.
Marjorie and Jane moved in closer. Jane managed to grab Jack while Marjorie lifted a saucer and toyed with one of the cookies stacked on it.
“Keep that half-blind mongrel away from me.” Izora glared at Jack as he continued to grumble at her. “He’s already ruined my parasol. I’ll never get the stain out. A party is no place for a dog.”
“Where I go, Jack goes.” Anna dared her to say something else. She was itching for a good coming-to-Jesus talk with Izora, no matter what season this was. Let the woman say anything else bad about her dog.
“You’re the singer.” Trey acknowledged the woman’s unusual raspy, soulful voice.
“Izora Beavers,” the redhead introduced herself, swinging her attention away from a confrontation with Anna. “Mrs. Izora Beavers.”
Anna rolled her eyes before she could think fast enough to hide her disgust. As if Trey would be interested in anyone that wrapped up in her own self-importance. The man might wear spectacles but he had enough eyesight to see a cocklebur in calico if it tumbled right past him.
“You must be exhausted from singing and need to rest your throat.” Trey bowed slightly. “May I get you some punch, Mrs. Beavers?”
Nice way to tell her to shut up
, Anna thought, proud of how easily he had handled the mean-mouthed harridan.
“No, thank you, Mr. Elliott, but that’s very kind of you.” Izora’s double chins lifted as she stared down the length of her slightly pointed nose. “I hear you’re from Boston. I think our Miss Ross and her little dog are originally from there too, aren’t you, Anna?”
Anna glared at her foe. “I don’t recall ever mentioning where we were from, Mrs. Beavers. I didn’t know it was all that much of interest to folks around here since we all sort of made our way out west. Boston, New Orleans, the North Pole, what difference does it make? We’re here now, and that’s what matters.”
“Well, I certainly wasn’t implying anything.” Izora’s hand pressed against her ample bosom as if she were in distress.
“Care for a cookie?” Marjorie rushed one up to Izora’s mouth and insisted that she take a bite. “There you go, Izora. Makes you want to stuff your face all night, doesn’t it?”
Jane elbowed the nurse, jerking her slightly backward. “Marjie, get her some punch to go with that, won’t you, dear.”
“Anna was just saying that it’s great that we all have a wonderful place like this to begin new lives and find whatever it is that will make us happy as people,” Trey tried to ease the singer’s animosity, “providing the storm abates.”
“Is that one of those four-poster Eastern words?” a tall, thin man asked from nearby. “
Abates?
”
“It means providing the storm stops.” Anna offered the explanation. “And I think it’s just starting up, in my opinion.” She shot Izora a warning glare. “Better button up your coats. It’s going to get bitter cold before it ever warms up, you can bet on it. I just hope we all can find some way to keep triggers from being pulled so we don’t have to ruin a good Christmas. Why don’t we all have some of those cookies.”
The music started up again and Trey took Anna’s punch glass from her, asking Newpord if he would mind setting them down for him. “Anna promised me the next dance and I would very much like her to keep the promise.”
He bowed to Anna. “Would you do me the honor?”
She’d made no such promise. Anna leaned in and whispered, “I’m not so good at it.”
Before she could protest, he drew her into his embrace and waltzed her out into the swirling crowd. “It doesn’t matter. Dancing is the one thing I do well.”
They managed to make it several yards across the floor before he halted and asked, “What are you doing?”
“Counting. What does it look like?”
“The waltz is more of a slide this way up, down, then slide that way, up, down. Yes, that’s right. This way, up, down. Now that way, up, down. You’re doing just . . . ouch!”
“Well, Jack got in the way.” Anna noticed her pet dancing at their heels, trying to follow their steps. “He wants to dance with us.”
Trey laughed. “I think he’s got better rhythm than you do, my friend.”
“Wait till he hears mariachi music. The dog can shake his hips better than any of us.”
Anna concentrated on watching Trey’s feet, but she kept getting distracted by the mass of heated faces, clinging arms, and twirling flounces whirling around her in a kaleidoscope of calico, lace, and paisley. Trey was good to his word. He could dance with the best of them, and it showed some interesting prospects about the man that made Anna want to find out for herself how else he moved well.
Be good
, she reminded herself.
You’ll send the man into a tizzy, if you act too bold.
It was just a shame that he was such a gentleman. She could think of a dozen better ways they could get to know each other during this storm than spending it dancing and talking with others.
Shameless, that’s what you are, Anna Jolene Ross
, she silently reprimanded herself.
And you say people talk about you
.
She tried to talk and dance at the same time with Trey, but that didn’t work. Too much sliding up and down while trying not to squish Jack’s little body beneath her feet was becoming too much effort to think of as fun.
“Can we please stop for a minute?” she finally asked. “I’m afraid I’m going to take out his other eye.”
“How did he lose the first one?” Trey escorted her to the edge of the crowd, Jack following closely behind. The dog kept looking one way, then the other, as if searching for Izora.
“By saving my life,” Anna explained, picking up Jack and stroking his shoulders. Jack loved the way she stroked him from head to tail, warming his fur, so Anna made it a point to comfort him until he stopped shivering. “He took on a rattlesnake that almost bit me in the heel. I thought the poor thing was going to die, but after a few days he perked up and lived. Unfortunately, he lost an eye in the battle.” She pressed Jack to her heart. “He may be little but he won’t take guff off anybody.”
“Sounds like his owner,” Trey said softly.
No one had ever called her little. It seemed oddly endearing that Trey thought of her in that way. They were an odd threesome. A spectacled tenderfoot, a one-eyed ball of furry ferocity, and a freckled Viking. What kind of bloodline could that ever make?
A loud roar echoed up from the crowd as the fiddler announced a reel. “Grab your partners,” he yelled and struck his bow to a lively tune.
Several men pulled out bandannas and wrapped them around their right arms.
“What are they doing?” Trey asked as the bandanna men lined up with male partners.
“They drew straws earlier to see who would be heifer and who would be bull. Short straws are heifers, or gals. Bulls, the men, get to lead. It happens at every gathering we have around here. Just not enough women to go around.”
“Salute your partners!” the fiddler commanded.
Trey bowed as the others did, while Anna curtsied with Jack in her hands. She tried to keep up with others, backing away then moving forward only to lock the wrong arm with Trey. He spun her around the correct way, then gently pushed her toward her next partner. She looked back at Trey and realized that all pairs had exchanged partners.
“You haven’t said anything to Izora about my account, have you, Anna?” Enoch Beavers held her at such a distance that they were barely touching. Though his head never turned, his eyes slanted to where Izora was dancing three couples away.
Anna would have put Jack down and let him go pee on Izora, but the woman might try to kick him and call it dancing. “No, Enoch, I haven’t said a word, and I won’t as long as you settle up soon after the new year. I want your children to have a good Christmas. Use your money for that.”
His bulging cheeks blew out a great breath, fluttering his handlebar mustache. “You aren’t at all what they say you are, you know.”
Offering a smile that it took everything within her to give, she sweetly asked, “And who might
they
be?”
The command to change partners took his answer away with him, leaving her in the arms of yet another of the men who had not gone out to help her with the team.
“You’re looking lovely tonight, Anna.” Ward Crawford’s hand settled a little too low on her hip.
The dandy thought himself quite the ladies’ man, but she could barely tolerate serving him drinks at the saloon.
Jack growled.
“Good God, woman, do you have to take that one-eyed piss pot everywhere with you?”
Anna kicked Ward. “Oh, sorry. I’m not much of a dancer.”

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