In Your Arms (Montana Romance) (28 page)

She wheeled the horse around and kicked her heels into its
sides. She had been the one to insist the children join in the academic games. She had encouraged them to come to the school in spite of public opinion. If anything had happened to them, it would be her fault.

Christian leaned back in his chair and finished off the last of his bottle of beer. It had felt wrong to order it in the middle of the day, but at the moment everything in his life felt wrong.

“I don’t understand,” he said to Michael, who
ate his beef stew as though he hadn’t a care in the world. “We’ve captured the thieves that have been menacing Cold Springs all winter, I showed Wilkins up in front of his buddy and tweaked Samuel’s nose while I was at it, Lily’s been reunited with her brother and has a family now, something she’s always wanted, and she said yes when I asked her to marry me. So how come I feel about as low as the heel of an old boot?”

“Not the happily ever after you were hoping for?”
Michael raised an eyebrow.

“No.
It feels hollow somehow.” Christian sighed. “I have everything I want and it feels like I lost.”

Michael set his spoon down, spread his hands, and said, “It’s because Lily’s not happy.”

Christian arched an eyebrow at him, tipping his bottle back one more time to see if he could wring some more comfort out of it.

“Trust me, you’re not going to be happy unless Lily is happy for the rest of your life.
If there’s one thing married life has taught me, it’s that everything you do affects far more souls than just yourself. And women are exceptionally sensitive.”

Christian snorted and put his bottle down.
“I would run to the ends of the earth and back to get the town council to vote for her to keep her job.”

“Fortunately, you don’t have to do that.
All you have to do is not put your foot in your mouth tomorrow and marry her as soon as you can.”

“If Samuel so much as looks at her wrong, the first bit of that is going to be easier said than done.”

He envisioned the meeting, saw Samuel attempting to tear Lily down. In his imagination he was free to punch the idiot’s face to a bloody pulp and watch him soil himself in fear. His lips quirked into a vicious smile at the image.

“Do I want to know what that grin is all about?” Michael asked.

“Probably not.”

“
Christian, Mr. West.”

Christian twisted in his chair, smile dropping to a frown, as Thomas
strode back into the room, his coat dusted with snow.

“I thought you were with Lily,” Christian said.

“And I was hoping she was with you.”

Worry sent prickles along Christian’s spine.
“What do you mean?”

“She was talking with her friend, Jessica.
I went up to my room to fetch my coat, but when I got back she was gone.”

Christian stood.
“What do you mean, gone?”

Thomas shrugged.
“She wasn’t there. Neither were her friends. The lobby is crowded, but I think I would have seen them.”

“How could she have just disappeared?”

He marched past Thomas toward the lobby. Michael left the last of his stew and he and Thomas followed.

The lobby was indeed crowded.
A dozen travelers in their winter coats, snow on their hats and shoulders stood waiting in line at the front desk or hovered near the windows, looking out. Lily’s friend Jessica wasn’t among them, but Jimmy and Amos stood by one of the windows with their heads together, discussing something they saw outside.

Christian searched through the crowd in the lobby
, as if Lily might be hiding there.

“What are all these people here for?” he asked.

“Train’s been cancelled,” one of the men waiting answered. “Apparently there’s a blizzard blowing in.”

Christian puffed out a breath.
A blizzard would be a big inconvenience. Then again, it might be just the thing to make everyone in town talk about something besides Lily.

“Maybe she headed back to the store to avoid the crowd?” he said.

Thomas hesitated, then shook his head. “I went there to check. Mrs. West says she hasn’t seen her.”

“Where on earth,” Christian muttered.

“Mr. Avery!”

His thoughts were interrupted as Jimmy and Amos approached them.
They wore worried frowns, and Jimmy glanced back over his shoulder at the window.

“What are you two boys doing at the hotel in the middle of the afternoon instead of at school?” Michael asked them.

“We were just about to go back to school,” Amos said.

“But there’s the horse, see?” Jimmy added.

“I don’t see,” Michael said, crossing his arms.

“Well, I borrowed two of my pa’s horses to ride out to find Red Sun Boy and Martha.
But they weren’t there. The place was deserted.”

Christian’s anxiety curled tighter.
“Deserted?”

“Yeah.”
Jimmy nodded and went on. “So we came into town to tell Miss Singer. Now it’s snowing and we don’t know what to do with the other horse.”

“The horse should be in a stable,” Michael said.

“I thought you said you had two horses?” Thomas asked.

“We did,” Jimmy answered.
“Miss Singer took the other one to go find Red Sun Boy and his family.”

Like steam hitting the boiling point in a kettle, Christian’s anxiety burst into fear.
He rushed to the window, looking out into a scene of winter at its most dangerous. The snow was falling in light sheets, but the sky had a threatening fullness to it.

“That damn fool woman,” he muttered.
He spun back to the boys. “I’ll take your horse,” he said. “I know a storm when I see it. How long ago did Lily leave?”

The boys shrugged.

“It couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes ago,” Thomas answered.

It was easily enough time for him to catch up with her.
He launched into motion.

“If your pa minds me borrowing your horse,” he said to Jimmy as he rushed up to the coat check counter, ignoring even the bellhop to get his coat, “tell him I’ll pay for a new one if anything happens to it.”

“I don’t like the looks of this storm at all.” Michael followed Christian as he crossed the lobby to the door. “Bring her back.”

“I will.”

Christian nodded to Michael and Thomas, then shot outside and down the steps to where one half frozen horse was tied to the hitching post. He untied the reins, ran his hands quickly over the horse’s flanks to make sure it wasn’t too cold to run, and as soon as he was satisfied, mounted and headed off down Main Street.

He couldn’t be sure of exactly which way Lily had gone, but after what the boys had said, there was no doubt in his mind where she was going.
He steered the borrowed horse towards the road leading to Sturdy Oak’s place, frustrated that the animal was moving so slowly. The snow continued to fall, a little harder with each passing minute. He could still see in front of him, but not as far as he wanted to. It wouldn’t be long until he couldn’t see at all.

Just as his hands and feet were beginning to stiffen from the cold, he spotted a dark object on the road
ahead of him. His pulse raced and he kicked the horse to move faster through the snow. Of all the times to get lucky, he thanked the fates for being on his side now.

“Lily!” he called, more than a little angry.

The shape stopped. “Christian?” she called back.

Relief so sharp it left him shaking flooded him.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, woman?” he shouted.

She waited to answer until he was side-by-side with her.

“Don’t try to stop me, Christian.” She launched right into the defensive. “Something has happened to Sturdy Oak’s people, I know it. Jimmy and Amos came to find me at the hotel and said they’d been out here already. The houses have been ransacked and there is no sign of any of them.”

The solid certainty that he would drag Lily back to town by her hair if he had to melted.

“Ransacked?”

“Yes.
There’s no time to lose!”

She kicked her horse to a swift walk.
The snow was falling fast and thick, but he could still make out the road stretching in front of them. He nudged his own horse to follow her.

“Lily, you have to come back.
The weather is getting worse.”

“We must be halfway there or more already,” she countered him.
“I have to see.”

“If this snow picks up just a little bit, we won’t be able to see.
We could go around in circles and freeze to death before the day’s out.”

“We won’t freeze,” she insisted.
“We just have to make it to Sturdy Oak’s place and we’ll have shelter.”

“Even if we make it, we’ll be trapped,” he argued.
“What if there’s no food, no water?”

“What if they need my help?” she shouted.
“I’m not going back.”

A darker thought struck him.
“Lily, if we get stuck out here, it could be days until we get back. The two of us together for days outside of town? If you thought the rumors were bad now….”

She stopped.
He pulled his horse alongside hers. Her eyes were wide and her face pinched in turmoil.

“I can’t,” she wailed.
“I can’t think of myself when Sturdy Oak’s people need me.” She stiffened as she spoke. “I would never be able to live with myself if something happened to them. If there’s any chance, any chance at all that I might be able to help them, then I have to take that chance.”

“Whatever the consequences?”

She hesitated, gripping the reins of her mount with shaking hands, then nodded.

A warm, blossoming pride filled him.
Lily was the most selfless person he’d ever known. He loved her with a passion that filled him with strength and energy from his head to his toes. Even the horse felt it and danced with impatience.

“Come on then,” he said.
“Let’s go find them.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

The split-second of relief that Lily felt at Christian’s acceptance of her mission was quickly dampened by the snow. As soon as they kicked their horses to run as fast as they could through the few inches of accumulation, the wind picked up. The moderate snow flew down in heavier and heavier sheets. Lily was chilled to the bone in no time. She hunkered low over her horse’s back, feeling its uneasiness along with her own.

As they rode on,
the real fear that they would be trapped in the snow and freeze to death gripped her heart. What had started off as an essential mission had spiraled into dangerous futility. If anything happened to Christian, she would never forgive herself. It was her fault he was exposed to the elements.

At last they
rounded the hill before Sturdy Oak’s place and saw the indistinct shapes of houses rising up out of the swirling snow. Lily held her breath as her horse plowed forward through drifts that were calf deep and into a sheltered space between the buildings. When she was convinced they had reached their destination and weren’t going to die alone in the cold, she cried out in wordless relief.

“Over here!” Christian shouted through the whistling wind.

He walked his horse closer to the side of the buildings where snow was not drifting and jumped down. His hat was covered with white and snow stuck to the bristles of his beard. He led his horse up the path between the houses, Lily following, until they reached the main house. As Lily dismounted, he checked the front door.

It
opened without a problem. Lily’s relief was so strong she wanted to weep, but her tears froze to her face before they could be shed. Christian kicked the door all the way open, then led his horse inside. Stunned, Lily only stood gaping for a moment before doing the same.

“They’ll freeze if we keep them outside,” Christian explained once they were all in the house with the door closed.
“And I’m not in the mood to find the stable and put them in there.”

She nodded, shivering uncontrollably with more than just the cold.
Her horse snorted and shook its head as if it agreed with him too.

“We need to build a fire,”
Christian went on, leaving his horse where it was to cross to the room’s large fireplace.

The inside of the house wasn’t frigid, like the outside, but no fire had been lit in the grand fireplace for days.
Lily dropped her horse’s reins and rushed to help Christian in whatever way she could. There was still a huge stack of wood next to the fireplace as well as kindling and matches. It didn’t take long for them to light a fire, but it would need to blaze for a while to warm the entire house.

With the specter of an icy death chased away, Lily’s fear for her friends returned.
Still in her coat, hat, scarf, and mittens, she searched the room.

It was still, untouched, as if her friends truly had vanished.
Amos and Jimmy had led her to believe that she would find chaos and signs of a struggle. Instead the house was in perfect order. The floor was swept clean, the table and counters in the kitchen were spotless, and the dishes were all neatly stacked in the hutch beside the counter. There were even blankets draped neatly over the back of the lone sofa where Sturdy Oak liked to sit. The chest that held boots was open and the boots were missing, but that was as close to ransacked as the house came.

The eerie neatness of
it all sent Lily’s pulse soaring. She walked the room, touching the furniture as she looked for clues as to what had happened. A few things were missing—the woven blanket Martha loved so much, the tapestry that had decorated one wall, Sturdy Oak’s pipe and tobacco bag, all of the books—but so many other things were right where they had been the last time she had seen them. Nothing made sense.

With no more clues waiting in the main room, she
dared to open the door to Sturdy Oak’s bedroom. It was just as orderly, the quilt covering the bed smooth without a wrinkle in it. But when she checked the wardrobe beside the bed she found it empty. The feel of Sturdy Oak’s spirit had left the place.

“Lily!” Christian called from the main room.
“You need to see this!”

Heart racing with the strangeness of it all, Lily rushed back into the main room.

“What?” she asked. “Did you find something?”

He handed her an envelope.
“It was sitting on the mantle over the fireplace.” His face was grim and chapped with cold and his voice was serious.

Lily tore into the envelope, pulling out a single sheet of paper.
“It’s from Snow In Her Hair!” she exclaimed. “
Dear Singing Bird
,” she read. “
If you are reading this, as I know you will be, then you have discovered that we have gone. I cannot thank you enough for all that you have done for our children, for the care you have shown them and the battles you have fought for them. My heart can find no words to thank you for your friendship. It is enough. Sturdy Oak has decided that the danger is too great, that opinions are too firmly set against us, for our family to stay here. We have been happy in Cold Springs, near you, near your Mr. Avery, but the time has come for us to move on. We leave behind these houses so that someone may find them and build the life we were never able to build. Live in peace
.”

Lily choked with tears at the end of the letter.
She couldn’t go on. Christian took the letter from her as she sank into the chair beside the roaring fire, face in her hands.

“It’s signed by Snow
In Her Hair and River Woman, and it looks like some of the children too.” Christian lowered the letter and let out a breath. “Lily, I’m so sorry.”

“They’re gone,” she wept.
“They were my friends and they’re gone. They didn’t even say goodbye.”

He sank to his knees in front of her, dropping the letter and taking her hands.
“Knowing Sturdy Oak, they probably left in too big of a hurry for anyone to say goodbye, in person at least. But Snow In Her Hair knew you would come looking for them. She knew you were a good friend and left you the letter.”

His kind words, the affection he showed as he stroked and warmed her cold fingers with his, only made Lily weep harder.

“What have I done?” she whispered through gulping sobs. “I forced those children to stand up for things that I believed, not them. I used them as warriors in my battle.”

“They shared that battle too,” he assured her, laying his hand on the side of her face.
His palm was warm and rough against the tender skin of her cheek.

She shook her head, brushing him away.
“No, I don’t deserve your kindness, Christian. I put Sturdy Oak’s people, I put children in an untenable position. They were reviled because of me, and they felt they had to leave a home where they were happy because of me!”

“No, sweetheart.”
He shook his head, pulling her forward so that he knelt between her knees and wrapped his arms around her. “You have the biggest, fiercest heart of anyone I’ve ever known. Sturdy Oak’s people stood up for their rights because you inspired them, not because you forced them.”

“But the damage is the same.”
She took in a shuddering breath, leaning against him to keep from falling. “I acted without thinking, considering only what I wanted. Just like I did with the academic games. Like I did with you.” She straightened to meet his eyes.

A wistful smile tickled the corners of Christian’s mouth.
“You weren’t the only one acting without thinking, sweetheart.” He brushed the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs. “But if thinking first would have kept me away from your arms, then I don’t want a single thought in my head for the rest of my life.”

Her heart swelled and twisted in her chest.
“But I’ve been so reckless. I brought you out here in the middle of a blizzard! I’ve put my life and yours in danger for a futile cause!”

“Love is never futile, Singing Bird. You care about people so hard that Mother Nature had to send a blizzard to get in your way.”

She laughed at the image, even though it made no sense,
then leaned into him and hugged him for all she was worth.

“I feel like such a fool,” she moaned, resting her head against his.
“No, I don’t!” She pulled away just as quickly, meeting his eyes with renewed fear. “This is a blizzard, Christian! Where are Snow In Her Hair and River Woman and their people? What if they’re caught out, like we almost were? And my students. Were they all at school when the weather took a turn? Are they all right?”

“Sssh,” he hushed her, coaxing her to lean against him again.
“I’m sure they’re fine. The school is close to town, so if they saw they weather getting bad they would send them home or keep them safe. And Sturdy Oak knows more about Montana and its fickle weather than anyone. They probably knew the storm was coming for days and took shelter somewhere safer than anyone else. No, we’re the only fools who would go charging out in a snowstorm.”

She let out a breath and squeezed her eyes closed.
“I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he whispered.
“You’re fiery and bull-headed and don’t listen to anyone else, and I love you more and more for it every day.”

She burst out with something between a laugh and a sob.
“I was going to say the same thing about you.”

“Then we’re a matched set,” he said, pressing his cheek against the top of her head.
“We deserve each other.”

Lily let out a grim laugh and squeezed her eyes shut.
Christian held her and she held him, for how long she didn’t know. All she wanted was to be with him, to be in his arms. In her whole life, the only place she had ever truly belonged was in his arms. The fire crackled behind them, but it was the warmth of the love she felt radiating from him that warmed her.

“Now come on,” Christian said at length, pushing back from her and brushing away the last of her tears.
“Those horses are starting to look jealous. We should take care of them and find them some water before they kick us out into the blizzard.”

Lily laughed, but the weight of the guilt she still felt hung over her like a blustery snow cloud.
Christian lifted her to her feet, kissed her forehead and then her lips, then turned to see what could be done about the horses.

The storm continued to rage outside as the two of them found old rags to serve as brushes to rub down the horses.
There was nowhere for the animals to stand but in the house’s one main room. They were as tired and anxious as Lily was, but far more patient as they were cared for.

The afternoon ticked by.
The windows were white with snow, revealing nothing of the world outside. Chills of fear slithered down Lily’s spine every time she looked out a window. They had come close, so close, to catastrophe because of her foolishness. By the time the sun began to set and the white of the outside world faded to gray and then black, she had vowed to herself never to do anything impetuous again.

Christian spent most of the afternoon minding the fire and
trying to get the pump in the kitchen to work so that they could have water without the hassle of melting snow. The pump was frozen. How he got it working was a mystery. Once it was working, however, and once the stove had been lit, Lily managed to scrape together a few things that Snow In Her Hair and River Woman had left in the pantry to make a simple stew.

“It’s good,” Christian told her as they sat at the large table, the horses eyeing them from the other end of the room.

“It is not,” Lily sighed. She set her spoon down. “I can’t cook.”

He laughed.
She sat straighter, half in surprise and half in indignation. His eyes danced with mirth as he finished chewing and swallowed.

“Don’t worry,” he said.
“I can cook as good as anyone after years of bachelorhood.”

“Why didn’t you ever marry?” she asked, then bit her lip over the outburst.

His smile grew. “Because every single woman that ever looked my way just grinned and simpered and tried to drown me in sugar sweetness and homemade pies.”

“Oh?”
She arched an eyebrow.

“Yes.
I can’t stand cloying women.” He stood, reaching out a hand to her. She took it and he pulled her to her feet. “But I love a good challenge.”

“You love to argue, you mean.”

Whether it was the food or the warmth that now permeated the room, or simply the mischief in Christian’s eyes, Lily’s worry began to thaw. In the middle of a blizzard, miles from home, she felt safe.

“I do,” he confessed.
He slipped an arm around her waist and yanked her against him. “I love a lot of other things too.”

“Like what?”
Her heart thundered against her ribs.

“Like
a woman who calls me out in public.” He kissed her, nibbling on her bottom lip.

“You provide ample opportunity for that,” she told him when he let her take a breath.

“I like a woman who doesn’t think I’m right all the time,” he went on.