Outlaw for Christmas (9781101573020) (2 page)

With a single pat on his cheek and one mysterious glance, Ruth had made him feel whole in a place that had always gaped empty and sore.

She had given Noah more than a rope; Ruth had given him her trust. Something no one else ever had. Something he didn't deserve and would no doubt break.

***

A horrified gasp awoke Ruth. Miss Burton stood in the aisle, staring at her as if she had done something exceptionally awful. Since she'd been sleeping more peacefully and deeply than she'd slept in years, it was hard to wake up, to remember where she was and why.

Then her pillow moved, and everything rushed back, even before Mr. Drake appeared, looking as if he'd swallowed a rotten egg.

“Just what in blazes is going on here, Walker?” he demanded.

Noah sat up and tried to push Ruth away, but she clung. After a halfhearted attempt to retrieve his arm, he let her stay.

“She was scared of the dark,” he said in his flippant
I dare you
voice.

Mr. Drake's small black eyes narrowed to slits. “Why on earth would she come to
you
if she was scared?”

Noah tensed. Ruth squeezed his arm and hugged him tighter. It would do neither of them any good for Noah to react to the insult. She
had
come to him. They knew why. That was all that mattered.

Miss Burton's cry of distress made everyone look her way. “What happened to your chin, Ruth?”

Ruth put her fingers to her face and encountered a scab as big as a ten-dollar gold piece.

“And your hands?” Miss Burton exclaimed.

Ruth glanced at them. More scabs. Silence descended on the rail car.

“We're waiting, young lady.”

“I-I—” Ruth glanced at the horrible boy. His scowl was a threat with no need of words. Ruth had been the victim of bullies often enough to know that even though they picked on you, you did not pick back.

She returned her attention to Mr. Drake, who was staring at Noah with suspicion. But Miss Burton watched Ruth, and she poked Mr. Drake, then nodded at the horrible boy.

“I tripped!” Ruth blurted. There were certain rules of being the weakest, and one of them was that if you snitched, you were in for a whole lot worse than what you'd snitched about.

The adults' gaze swung back to Ruth. “When?” Mr. Drake demanded.

“Yesterday when you were getting our bread.”

“Hmm.” He looked up the aisle again, then back at Ruth. “Maybe you should go back to your seat, Ruth.”

Ruth's lip trembled. She didn't want to be anywhere but with Noah. If she had to go back to her seat, that horrible boy would find some way to hurt her again just because he could. She glanced at Noah and his mouth tightened.

“She stays with me,” he said, though he didn't sound happy about it.

“What was that?” Mr. Drake murmured.

Noah met his eyes. “If she sits in that seat, she'll end up tripping a lot. If she stays with me, I'll make sure there's no tripping going on.”

Mr. Drake lifted the rope that was no longer tied to the wall or to Noah. He raised his eyebrows. “No tripping or any other kind of accidental movements for either of you, am I right, Mr. Walker?”

Noah dipped his head, managing to appear in charge even when he wasn't. Or maybe he was; Mr. Drake just didn't know it yet.

After another long moment, Mr. Drake pulled the rope from their seat and looped it over his arm. Without another word, he and Miss Burton went to get more bread for breakfast.

Ruth smiled at Noah, but he didn't smile back. She didn't mind. As long as she could be near him, she was happy.

She spent the rest of the trip with Noah. She learned he'd been alone all of his life, just like her. He'd never known his parents just like her. He'd even been in an orphanage until he'd bravely walked away at the age of ten. He had no idea where he'd been born, where his grandparents had come from, or why no one loved him enough to keep him close.

By the time they neared the border between Missouri and Kansas, Ruth loved Noah enough to stay with him forever.

His surly silences didn't bother her. His fearsome glowers made her smile. His size protected her. His warmth enveloped her. There was nothing about Noah that Ruth did not adore. Though he'd never admit it, he needed her, and she planned to be there for him always, as he'd been there for her when she hadn't even asked.

She tried not to think about what would occur when they reached Kansas and went to separate and equally uncertain futures.

But not thinking about it didn't keep the inevitable from happening.

The train pulled into Kelly Creek, west of Kansas City, as snow began to fall on Christmas Eve.

“Look, children,” Miss Burton called, her voice full of false cheer. “We've a Christmas snow to welcome you.”

The snowflakes patted the windows, a gentle
scritch-scratch.
Ruth couldn't take her eyes from them. “They're so big,” she murmured. “So perfectly white.”

In New York there'd been snow, but by the time the tiny pinpricks of ice reached the ground, they'd gone gray. Once they'd been on the ground more than a minute, the snowflakes turned to black icy slush. Not very welcoming and certainly not Christmasy at all.

“Big flakes make big snowstorms, I hear. You can die in them, Ruth. So have a care.”

She tore her gaze from the lacy flakes of snow and fastened it on Noah. In his voice she heard good-bye, and she was not ready.

“Come along, children,” Mr. Drake announced. “Everyone meets their new family here, then you'll travel on together. Bring your things.”

As the others hurried outside, Ruth hung back. Once she stepped foot in Kansas, her time with Noah was done.

Noah picked up her small bag. He had none of his own. When he moved into the aisle and bumped into Ruth hovering there, his gaze went from his feet to her face.

His eyes softened. “Scared?”

She nodded. Scared wasn't the word. More like terrified. She wanted to stay with him. With Noah she would always be safe.

Awkwardly, he placed his hand on her shoulder. In only a few days she'd figured out that Noah had touched as rarely as he'd been touched, just like her. And just like her he needed to be touched; he needed to be loved. He needed someone, and so did she.

His hand was so big, and his fingers trailed halfway down her back, so heavy that she nearly staggered beneath the weight. But the warmth of him seeped through her thin coat and gave her strength. That they were alone in the rail car, with no one paying them any mind, gave Ruth an idea.

She put her tiny hand on top of Noah's. “Let's run,” she whispered.

Confusion flickered in his blue eyes. “Run?”

“Away. You and me. We don't need anyone else. You can take care of me, and I'll take care of you.”

“You're only ten. You don't know what you're talking about.”

“I know that I love you.”

He blinked. Obviously, no one had ever said those words to him before. Just as no one had ever said them to her.

“I can't take care of you. I can't even take care of me. Maybe if we were in New York, maybe. But out here . . .” He shook his head and stared out the window at the snow, which had begun to stick to the gray-brown grassy ground. “I don't know what's out there, but I do know I'm not ready to risk you in it.”

“I don't care.”

“I do.” He turned his back on her and headed for the door.

Ruth's eyes burned, but she wasn't going to give up. Noah was her hero, and she refused to believe that this was the last time she'd ever see him.

“Every year on the night before Christmas I'll be right here. On this platform, in this town. Meet me, Noah.”

He stopped, turned, and stared at her as if she were mad. “You have no idea where you'll be next year, Ruth, and neither do I.”

“That's why it has to be
here
, don't you see?”

“You two come on out now.” Mr. Drake's voice made them both start, and Noah turned away again.

Ruth hurried after, grabbing his elbow before he disappeared outside. “Promise me!” she insisted.

This time he didn't even look at her, just tugged his arm free and stepped out the door. Ruth had no choice but to follow.

Her first impression of Kansas was of a land so flat, so cold, and so gray, it could not be real. Frosty air touched her cheeks as the pretty snowflakes scraped her nose. The only warmth in her world was being led away by Mr. Drake.

She willed Noah to look at her one more time. Instead, the crowd swallowed him, and try as she might, she couldn't catch sight of Noah again. The wind blew in Ruth's eyes so hard, icy tears ran down her cheeks.

“There you are!” Miss Burton tugged her from the steps and in the opposite direction from Noah, depositing her in front of an older couple. The man was distinguished and gray, with sharp black eyes and a worried mouth. The woman was frail, pale, and gray as well. Ruth was beginning to think Kansas was just gray all around.

“These are your new parents, Ruth. Mr. and Mrs. Robert Kelly.”

“K-Kelly. Like Kelly Creek?”

“That's right.” Miss Burton beamed as if she'd said the cleverest thing. “Isn't she smart? Mr. Kelly founded this town, and he owns the bank, among other things. You're very lucky, Ruth. Good-bye.” And with that Miss Burton left to attend to her other charges.

Silence stretched between Ruth and the Kellys. Ruth glanced around some more for Noah. She wanted
him
, not them.

“Ahem, well.” Ruth returned her attention to the Kellys. Mr. Kelly looked Ruth over from the tip of her bright red hair to the toes of her patched shoes. It didn't take long. “We'd better get in the wagon before your mother catches another cold.”

Ruth glanced at her “mother.” The woman's lips appeared blue in her pale gray face. She was so thin, she swayed in the icy wind. The ghost of a smile she turned on Ruth appeared to exhaust her, and she slumped, allowing her husband to lead her to the waiting wagon.

Ruth had wondered why the Kellys had taken an almost grown girl and not a baby. One sight of her new mother and Ruth understood. Many of the girls placed out in truth became servants. Mrs. Kelly needed a nurse, not a daughter. Ruth should have known that no one would truly want
her.
Not even in Kansas.

She followed the Kellys, then stood on the top step of the wagon, casting one final, desperate look about for Noah. If she saw him, she would swallow her pride and run to him. She would ignore her fear and follow him.

His size should have made him easy to spot. Though she saw every other orphan, she found not a trace of Noah. It was as if he'd disappeared—from Kelly Creek, from Kansas, from the earth itself.

Where had he gone? Who had taken him home? Would they love him as much as she did? As much as he needed to be loved?

The wind howled out of the west. Snow iced Ruth's hair. She shivered and climbed inside the wagon.

For a few days she'd known warmth and safety; then suddenly it was gone. Maybe she'd find it again with her new parents. But she'd never find what she'd had with him.

Noah hadn't promised to come back, but he hadn't said he wouldn't, either. Someday she'd be a woman; even sooner Noah would be a man. They would no longer be at the mercy of adults. They could live their own lives, choose their own course.

As the wagon lurched away from Kelly Creek, Ruth made a promise to herself. Next Christmas Eve, she'd be waiting right here. She'd sit on that bench against the train-station wall. Every year she'd be taller, older, prettier. One day Noah would look at her and love her, too.

Ruth settled into her new life, doing everything she could to make her new parents love her. But the Kellys had adopted Ruth to replace the ten-year-old daughter they'd lost to cholera before the war. And nothing, no one, could replace a person loved that deeply. Something Ruth learned the hard way.

She spent Christmas Eve of 1868 in another snowstorm at the Kelly Creek station.

Christmas Eve, 1869, brought no snow and no Noah.

In 1870 it rained.

In 1871 the grass was still green.

But in 1872 the drifts were so high, Ruth barely made it to town. Barely.

Every year she came. Every year she went home alone. But never once did Ruth give up hope.

Because on Christmas Eve hope was forever reborn.

Chapter One

“Why do you sit here every Christmas Eve?” Sheriff Leon Harker paced in front of Ruth, who sat on her bench against the outside wall of Kelly Creek station. “You know your father doesn't like it. I don't like it. It's a damned odd thing for a woman of your position to do.”

Calmly, Ruth folded her hands in her lap. She'd forgotten her gloves again. How unladylike. But her dress was the latest style, annoying bustle and all, as was her camel's-hair coat trimmed with blue fox fur.

Her hair was perfectly coiffed, but she'd left the silly feathered hat that matched her coat at home. The thing would have been halfway to Chicago by now on a winter wind.

Even though her hair was curled into appropriate ringlets and pinned up and away from her face, it was still an outrageous red, or so her father said. But there was little to be done about the color of her hair. Or her frame, still tiny and frail, though she was stronger than she looked. As her insistence on keeping a promise to come here every year—despite her father's increasingly vocal objections—showed.

Ruth did not make trouble. She had done her best to fit in with her new life, new family, and new town. But when it came to Christmas Eve, she was at the station come snow, rain, or wind.

She'd never told anyone why she came. That was between her and Noah. But after ten years, she was beginning to fear that Noah was dead. Nevertheless, she doubted she'd ever be able to stop waiting.

Leon paused in front of her. Silvery light bounced off his shiny tin star. No snow tonight, not even a cloud to hide the moon. He should be able to find his bad men with little trouble at all.

“Who are you off to catch this time?” Ruth asked.

Leon's sigh was long-suffering. She hadn't answered his question. But then she didn't plan to.

“A bank near Kansas City was robbed yesterday. In a little town called Danville. The sheriff asked all the neighboring towns to combine forces and search for the thieves. He said it was the Kansas Gang.”

“What's that?”

“Outlaws. Led by a man named Billy Jo Kansas. They've been robbing banks, trains, and stages, mostly in Missouri. But they must have robbed all those bushwhackers dry because they've started to hit on this side of the border. One thing about Kansas, though, he knows his job. Very few casualties.”

“He doesn't shoot people?”

“I didn't say that. From what I hear, he's big, intimidating, and he knows his business. When Kansas robs someone, folks hand over the money plain and simple. And he's cautious. No one's seen his face—or the faces of his men—and lived to tell about it, anyway.”

“How do they manage that?”

“Bandanna.” Leon covered the lower half of his face with his hand to illustrate. “Smart. He could walk into any town and even folks who've been robbed by him might think he looked familiar, but they wouldn't know why.”

Ruth tilted her head, hearing something in Leon's voice that interested her. “Sounds to me like you admire him.”

“Not admire.” He paused, thinking. “No. But I've seen enough bloodbaths to appreciate the opposite. You weren't around during the war, but it wasn't pretty here, Ruth. Quantrill did whatever he wanted to. When he sacked Lawrence, the place burned for days. Even when he was dead and the war was done, those damned James boys and the Youngers tore up everything they touched.”

Ruth nodded. She'd heard enough tales of “bleeding” Kansas to be grateful she'd spent the war years in New York, however hard those years had been.

“I guess I'll find out what Kansas looks like when we catch up to them,” Leon said.

“I guess you will,” Ruth murmured, not really listening but thinking of other days, other nights.

“Is this a pilgrimage?” Leon suddenly demanded.

Ruth peered all the way up his tall, lean body and frowned into his handsome face. With his light brown hair streaked blond from the sun and the skin about his brown eyes lined from the wind and the cold, Leon was a child of Kansas.

Born and raised near the border, he'd thrived beneath the brutal summer sun and the harsh winter winds. When he and his family had been burned out during the border skirmishes that continued for over a decade after the war ended, the Harkers had moved to Kelly Creek.

Perhaps because he'd spent so many days in his youth not certain whether he'd have a home the following morning, Leon loved the town of Kelly Creek more than anything else. He was devoted to the place and its people.

Ruth had been adopted both as a Kelly and a Kansan, and while she didn't fit in here as well as Leon did—Ruth was not sure if she truly belonged anywhere—she had to admit that despite the droughts and the floods, the blizzards, the twisters, and the grasshoppers, Kansas had its appeal.

She glanced out over the prairie, where the wind kicked up old snow and swirled the powder around and around like a winter tornado. Kansas was wild, free, and spacious. It reminded her of Noah.

“Ruth?”

She turned her attention from the treeless landscape back to Leon, who stared at her with determination in his eyes. When Leon got determined, Ruth got tired.

“Pilgrimage?” she repeated, stalling.

Leon's posse awaited him at the sheriff's office. She wished he'd get a move on so she could be alone with her memories.

“Do you come here to give thanks for your good fortune? To remember how you came to be the daughter of the most influential man in town and the most sought after hostess in Kelly Creek?”

Ruth smiled. How could she forget her origins? In Kelly Creek she was an icon to charity—the girl who arrived with the first group of orphans to be placed out in Kelly Creek and made good. Even if Ruth had been able to forget, the yearly visit from the Aid Society agent would have reminded her.

The society didn't abandon their orphans and never look back. They made certain their children were safe and well cared for. Admirable, to be sure, but it also reminded everyone in town that the orphans did not belong.

For several years, Miss Burton had come. Each time Ruth asked about Noah, Miss Burton would stare at her blankly and say, “Who?”

When Miss Burton married and moved farther west, others from the Aid Society had arrived. None of them had ever known Noah, so Ruth had stopped asking, but she'd never stopped hoping.

She'd been accepted in Kelly Creek because of her new name and her father's money, though no one ever forgot that Ruth wasn't really a Kelly, including the Kellys.

“Ruth?”

Her mind had wandered again. She was not being fair to Leon.

“Certainly,” she agreed. “I give thanks for my good fortune every day.”

Which was true. She
was
blessed to be here.

Not that the years had been easy. She had nursed her new mother through a final bout with the lung fever that had plagued her on and off since she'd come to Kansas. In the two years before Cora Kelly passed on, she had more often than not called Ruth by her dead daughter's name. But she had meant no harm. Still, it had been a relief when Cora went to be with the daughter she missed so much.

Upon her mother's death, Ruth had taken over the hostess duties for the rapidly expanding Kelly empire. As each year passed, Robert Kelly loaned money to new and old settlers alike, and when disaster descended, he inherited their land, and they went elsewhere. As a result, Kelly Creek was aptly named.

Ruth spent her days plotting parties, planning dinners, and running the household beneath the benevolent gaze of the long-dead Kelly daughter, whose painting hung over the mantel in the parlor.

She spent her nights attending those parties, eating those dinners, and wondering if Susan Kelly watched her from above and did not approve. Such thoughts only made Ruth try all the harder to be the perfect daughter Robert Kelly desired. But no matter how hard Ruth tried, she never seemed to succeed.

It had been difficult for a shy girl like Ruth to assume the role expected of her, but she'd done it for her father. Eventually, she'd become on the surface what everyone believed her to be through and through—the mistress of the only society Kelly Creek had, the belle of every ball, a woman who belonged there, even though in her heart the only place she'd ever belonged was with Noah.

“Ruth, we've known each other a long time.” Leon sat next to her on the bench and took her hand.

“Ever since I arrived you were kind to me.”

Leon was kind to everyone. Leon enjoyed helping the whole wide world.

“You're easy to be kind to, and I want to take care of you.”

Ruth knew what would come next. Leon and her father had decided some time ago that it would be best for Kelly Creek if Ruth, the reigning belle, and Leon, the town's most eligible bachelor, married.

Leon had asked her to marry him at least five times already. He said all the right words. She had no doubt he loved her, or at least believed that he did. But each time he asked, Ruth said no. Both Leon and her father were getting impatient. Still, she couldn't bring herself to say yes.

Ruth extricated her hand from his and looked west, then north, then south. Nothing and no one. She sighed. Perhaps she should reconsider Leon's offer.

While Leon was a good man, a strong man, and she liked him, Ruth didn't feel any passion for him, no consuming and abiding emotion. To spend her life with a man, it would seem she should feel something stronger for him than friendship.

Perhaps her hesitancy had something to do with the fact that Leon was devoted to Kelly Creek and its people. That devotion was what made Leon, Leon. But his love would always be split between her and everyone else. Was she so selfish that she needed to be the most important thing in someone's life? She wasn't sure, since she never had been. What she really needed was time to think about all of this.

Ruth glanced down the street. “Don't you have to go?”

“In a moment.” Leon went down on one knee and took her hand back. “Won't you please marry me, Ruth? Your father approves. We'll suit. You know we will. Let me take care of you.”

“Oh, Leon.” She sighed, and her gaze drifted back to the flat, empty landscape.

“I love you, Ruth.”

All of her life she'd longed for love. Her parents had taken her in, given her shelter, clothes, food, and a name, but neither of them had loved her. Her mother had been too ill, too lost in the past, to worry about Ruth. And her father . . .

The light had gone out of him when his wife died. Ruth wasn't sure if he was capable of loving anyone anymore, no matter how much Ruth might need the love.

She'd always imagined that when someone at last said they loved her, the entire world would become wonderful. But the words only complicated things.

Ruth had begun to wonder if she were capable of deep emotion. Every boy she'd ever known, every single young man, had left her cold and unmoved—except for one, and that had been so long ago. She'd been a little girl. She'd known nothing of love. But the memory of what she'd felt then was like nothing she'd ever felt since.

Only Leon was tolerable. Perhaps that was all she could hope for. Ruth touched his cheek.

He must have seen something new in her face, because he caught his breath and his eyes lit with hope. “You'll marry me?”

“I'll think on it.” She was surprised at her own words. But now that they were said, she realized she
would
think about marrying Leon this time. Her father approved, and Robert Kelly approved of precious little. How many years would she wait at the train station for someone who was never going to come?

Leon frowned, then opened his mouth as if he meant to say more, but a “Ho!” from down the street brought him to his feet, his gaze already on the distance and not on her. “I have to go. Should I see you to the wagon?”

“No. I'll think awhile right here. It's a lovely night.”

His concerned brown eyes turned back to her. “I don't like leaving you alone.”

“I sit here alone every Christmas Eve.” A fact that made her heart heavier with each new year. “I won't stay long.”

Leon hesitated, obviously torn. “Well, all right. But
don't
stay too long. I'll call on you when I get back. I may be gone a week or more.”

“I'm sure your parents will miss you at Christmas dinner, and I'll miss you at the New Year's Ball.”

“I'll do my best to be back by then.”

He leaned down and brushed his lips over her cheek. His mouth, warm against the winter chill of her skin, was pleasant enough. Yet she felt . . . nothing.

No spark, no inner heat, no desire to pull him closer and allow him to kiss her for the first time as a man should kiss a woman. All Ruth felt was the wind in her hair and that same old ache in her heart.

“Perhaps we can announce our engagement that night.”

Ruth looked out over the dark, flat empty landscape. “Perhaps,” she allowed. “Godspeed.”

He hesitated another instant, then, with a sigh that revealed an impatience he rarely allowed to escape into his manner, he left.

Leon was a good man. Why couldn't she give him what he wanted? Why couldn't she be what he needed?

Because she wanted someone else. Someone who obviously didn't want or need her.

Why
did
she come here every year? This was the tenth Christmas Eve Ruth had sat on this bench. Well, not
this
bench. This bench was new. Even the original bench had not outlived her silly vow.

She could do worse than marry Leon Harker. Still, she had never felt the complete and utter safety in his presence that she'd felt in the presence of . . .

“Stop it!” She stood and began to pace the platform. “If he hasn't shown up by now, he won't be showing up anytime soon.”

As if to prove that point, the winter wind howled out of the west like a ravenous coyote, shooting straight up Ruth's skirt one second, then down the collar of her coat the next. She shivered.