The Gift-Wrapped Groom (11 page)

“
Peck
on the cheek? Like chicken?”

Another smile. He liked making her smile even when he could guess at the meaning of her idioms.

“No.
Peck
is just another word for kiss. It would be an appropriate physical endearment when my grandfather is around.”

“And your friends? Like this Lucy Lydon and others in the village?”

“Yes. I suppose we'll need to keep the image up with them, too.”

The door behind Nicholas burst open, followed by the same short, bouncy tune that had played on the two earlier occasions of its use. Nicholas turned around to see two rosy-cheeked youngsters, a boy and a girl, clearly brother and sister from the similarities in their coloring and facial structure. They stomped the snow from the bottom of their boots and snatched the caps off their towheads.

The girl, about eight, had tight hold of her younger brother's hand. She ignored Nicholas as she barreled past him on a direct line for Noel's workbench.

The girl's explanation spewed out in a breathless rush. “The piglets got in through the cat's kitchen screen door and knocked over the Christmas tree and tore up the sittin' room. It's such a mess you never did see. And Mama's got company coming to supper.”

“Clearly an emergency,” Noel said soberly. “How can I help, Kim?”

“Mama sent me and Neil over to pick up a string of those plain white twinkling lights, at least five yards of new gold garland and some of those silver balls you had on sale last week, ‘cept Mama says they have to still be on sale.”

Noel smiled. “They always are after a piglet stampede.”

Kim's rosy cheeks dimpled.

Nicholas recognized Noel's smile was a little different, a little special. It seemed to be the one she saved for children.

He told himself it was because of the presence of the village children, but he knew it was partly because of that smile that he leaned over Noel's workbench and kissed her gently on one soft cheek. Then he quickly leaned away and straightened, finding more growl in his voice than even he thought he had.

“I will expect you at noon.”

The now-familiar tune echoed behind Nicholas as he closed the door and faced the bite of icy air.

Noel's truck was parked in front. Nicholas had tethered Warlock to its back frame. He started toward the horse, letting the animal's eyes watch his approach. He rested his hand against the magnificent quivering neck, pulling a pocket-warmed apple out of his coat, and letting the snorting nostrils blow over it, careful not to leave his hand too long near those sharp, ready teeth.

Warlock took the apple, just as he had finally taken the hand-warmed bit Nicholas had placed into his mouth earlier. But Warlock would never really be a tame horse. Nicholas Baranov did not want a tame horse. He preferred a strong one with a strong heart. That was the only kind of horse a real rider valued beneath him.

Someone watched. Nicholas could feel the eyes.

Slowly, he turned to face the village street. It was a picturesque scene of modest buildings huddled together in the middle of the valley as though for warmth, laden with a light layer of stubborn snow that refused to melt in the pale winter sun. Icicles coned off the eaves of the pitched roofs.

He saw no one.

Noel's Christmas store lay almost exactly in the center of the small village. In the middle of the wide road, the round brick outline of an abandoned well burgeoned out of the white layer of snow. It was there that Warlock had fought the reins.

Nicholas, too, could feel the heat escaping from the boarded well. He knew of such hot geysers in Siberia, the surprising core of boiling heat that sometimes shot up from the frozen ground in great gasping spirals of hot water and steam. Too hot to touch but radiating good heat to stand near. He understood the horse's desire to remain by the well.

Nicholas scanned the street on either side, past the signs for a volunteer fire department, a bank, a veterinary, an elementary school, the small remaining shell of a burned-out bakery, a gas station, a post office, a library. His eyes rested on the sign that had multiple designations, one layered on top of the other: MERCANTILE, General Carpentry, Good Feed and Food for Good Folks and Farm Animals.

The watching eyes did not come from any of these buildings.

Then he saw the new blue pickup and the old black one in front of a freshly painted red barn. The ugly sign above them read, Shot in the Heel. He remembered that name—Kurt Haag's saloon.

Yes. The eyes came from there. He could not see them, but he could feel them. The horse would be the reason for the eyes. The horse and the natural curiosity for the newcomer to the village.

He turned away from the eyes, took hold of the reins, swung into the saddle and urged Warlock forward with a nudge of his knees.

All the way back to her house, he could still see Noel's silver-green eyes blinking in surprise at his kiss. He could still feel the cool softness of her cheek beneath his lips.

* * *

“W
ELL,
now don't that beat all. Did you see who just rode by and on what?”

Kurt Haag glanced out the window, a small frown connecting his bushy eyebrows before he turned back to refill Doc Mallory's cup of coffee.

“Yeah. Pete called over first thing, just bustin' his britches to pass on the news that Warlock finally got old and feeble enough for someone to ride him,” Haag said.

Doc Mallory chuckled as he sipped the brown mud Haag passed off as coffee to his morning customers. “Yeah. Right. Seems to me it was just last spring that ‘old feeble' Warlock bounced you into the dust and onto your saddle sores.”

Haag's eyebrows dived at each other. “You've doctored the four-legged critters around here long enough to know those horse years pass by a heap faster than human ones.”

“Not that fast. Maybe you'd like to try ridin' that old feeble stallion again?”

Doc Mallory grinned. Haag didn't like that grin. He also didn't like the petition that Doc had brought in for him to sign. He was beginning to think he might have to do something about both pretty soon.

“L
ook, Berna, I told you. I don't have time to talk to you now. I'm on my way to get some wood for the winter. And I'm late.”

Noel curled her fleece-lined denim collar around her exposed neck in protection from the cold air. She resented being delayed by Berna almost as much as she resented the woman's flaunting of her full-length fur coat that had cost the lives of so many silver foxes.

Berna deliberately stood where she blocked Noel's path to her Dodge parked in front of her Christmas store. Mistletoe had romped over to the passenger door and waited patiently for Noel to open it. But Berna's lips were set, her hand tightly grasping a scroll, waving it at Noel menacingly.

“Noel Winsome, you're not going anywhere until I get an explanation for this petition you've been circulating.”

Noel decided she had two choices: either sock Berna Vane on her highly powdered jaw and proceed on her way or try to have an intelligent exchange with the woman. The first was tempting, but for the moment she opted for the second.

“What's to explain, Berna? You've obviously read the petition. I should think its message is self-explanatory.”

Berna's light eyes squinted at Noel. “You've got no reason to try to get the merchants and valley people to boycott the bank's participation in the Christmas festival.”

“I think I have every reason. This Christmas festival belongs to the people of Midwater, a celebration of their joy of the season and their joy of being a part of this lovely valley. You have no place in such a celebration. Your company's sole goal is to gobble up all our land and then grind it beneath the steel teeth of your bulldozers until it's nothing but miles of useless dust.”

Berna's voice dripped sarcasm. “
Gold
dust, useless? Appears as though your college education was a complete waste.”

“On the contrary, my formal education away from this valley was exceptionally valuable in helping me to fully appreciate its real treasures.”

“Real treasures? What are you talking about?”

“A kinship with the land, with nature, with the value of hard work, with the family grown closer from pursuing a shared goal and with the youngsters who grow up learning that their efforts are valued, that their contributions are as important as anyone else's—those are the real treasures this valley possesses. Everything else is just fool's gold.”

“Saccharinely picturesque, but entirely off the point, Noel. This valley is dying. Going bankrupt, inch by inch. CMC is the only hope for its residents. We offer money that will help them start over. We're taking nothing we're not paying for—and paying for handsomely, I might add.”

“You say you're taking nothing you're not paying for, but what about the pride of the people? You think that after generations of them breaking their backs to work the land and make it a home, losing it won't make them feel like they're losing a part of themselves?”

“Those bleeding-heart images aren't going to work on me, Noel.”

Noel's eyes flashed. “My mistake. I forget you have to have a heart before it can bleed.”

Berna's cheeks flushed. She took a step toward Noel, her hands balled into fists by her sides, the petition crackling within the pressure of one of those fists.

“You're never going to get a majority to sign this stupid petition. My bank has already bought out half the people of this valley.”

Noel's chin went up. “You've bought their land, maybe, but never the people. They're still here, living in this valley they love. And I'm betting even those who have been forced to sell won't want you to be a part of Midwater's Christmas festival.”

“You fool! We're not charging Midwater a dime for what we're willing to provide to that damn festival!”

“And it's still way too expensive.”

Berna fumed, her cheeks flushing the same purple that colored her eyelids. “Even your grandfather raised no objection to my bank supplying the Christmas festival's sleighs. Ask him.”

“I bet he'd change his mind if I was to tell him what your suggested price was to delay foreclosure on my mortgage last year.”

The dark pupils in Berna's pale eyes enlarged alarmingly. A nervous tongue shot across her lips. “He'd never believe you. He'd just think I was making a joke and you took it too seriously.”

“Don't be so sure, Berna. If I were you, I wouldn't make the mistake of underestimating my grandfather. Or me.”

Berna's lips thinned into an angry sneer before she pivoted on her white, fur-lined boots and twisted sharply around to head for her new white Mercedes sedan parked next to Noel's old Dodge. She yanked open the door, but before getting in, she paused to send a look of fury Noel's way.

Her words crackled, like ice cubes hitting the bottom of an empty glass.

“When the bulldozers come, Noel—and mark my words, they will come—it's going to be my pleasure to stand right here and tell them to flatten your Christmas store first. My very distinct pleasure.”

Berna threw the copy of the petition she'd been holding onto the snow-covered ground, stepped on it with her boot, shoved her fur-clad body into the driver's seat and slammed the door behind her. She backed out, spewing snow out from beneath her tires, gunned the engine and drove off in a white, agitated whirlwind.

* * *

“I
T IS TWENTY MINUTES
beyond the time you were to arrive.”

Noel slipped out of her truck and stomped toward her barn. “Thank you, Dr. Baranov, for pointing out the obvious.”

Nicholas could feel her anger—along with his always unwelcome response to her heightened emotions. Resolutely, he pushed them down, overlaying them with his curiosity as to who besides himself could manage to make her so mad.

“Why are you this twenty minutes late?”

“Look, I'd rather not talk about it. Besides, I don't have time to go into it now. We've got to get going on this wood-collecting project that you insist must take place now.”

“You go the wrong way. The chain saw is not in the barn. It is here, resting in the snow, waiting to be placed in the back of the truck. It has been here for twenty minutes.”

Noel stopped and spun toward Nicholas. Her eyes flew to the chain saw, which he was now lifting and setting into the back of the Dodge. He turned to her calmly.

“So now you have time to tell me why you are late for twenty minutes.”

She took a deep breath and let it out noisily. “The blade on the chain saw needs sharpening.”

“I have already done this. Twenty minutes ago.”

Her hands began to wave in growing irritation. “Well, then, I need to fill the chamber with gasoline. There's a five-gallon container in the—”

“I have already found the container of gasoline in the barn. The oil and rasp are here also. I have already filled the chamber in the chain saw. Twenty minutes ago.”

She stared at him, momentarily at a loss, then turned resolutely toward the house.

“I didn't have time for breakfast this morning. I'll need to go make some sandwiches to take—”

“I have prepared food to take. And coffee now fills the thermos that was beneath the sink. All have been ready for twenty minutes.”

Her hands went to her hips as he placed the box of supplies in the back. Snowflakes melted against the red-gold heat of her hair. Her eyes flashed silver-green fire. She was breathtakingly beautiful and Nicholas's hands began to burn.

“Dr. Nicholas Baranov, if you say twenty minutes one more time, I'll...I'll...”

Nicholas let her sputter, fascinated by the magnificent anger that would not let her words escape. He donned his stoniest look as he checked his wristwatch, unable to keep from lighting the match to her ever-shortening fuse.

“Very well. It is not twenty minutes. It is twenty-one minutes and thirty-one seconds past the time you were to arrive.”

Noel stood stock-still, staring at him for one very full minute, the pressure mounting to astounding proportions. And then suddenly, she exploded into laughter. Great leaps of sound broke forth. She held her sides as though they might split, doubled over as though she might break in two. She stumbled, fell against the back of the truck. And still the full-bodied merriment rang out, singing through the crisp air, filling the spaces between the light snowfall.

Such a laugh she had—a laugh that could wake a grizzly in his hibernation den, a laugh that would have done justice even to a hardy Russian peasant woman. Nicholas was delighted to find such a laugh inside his slim American wife.

He smiled as he felt the joyful sounds simmering inside him. Finally, her laugh subsided, and the only sound left was the gently falling snow collecting all around them.

Nicholas waited until she dug out a tissue from her pocket and wiped her eyes.

“So, you are ready now to tell me who made you mad?”

She shook her head. “No. I'm ready now to go get that wood. When we fail to complete this chore in one afternoon, Dr. Baranov, I don't want to be blamed.”

But she did not say her words with any conviction that she would be blamed. And she did tell him about her verbal confrontation with Berna Vane on the long drive up the snow-cleared logging road to the slash.

The old truck rattled around the twisting mountain road, its wipers beating away the slushy snowflakes. Nicholas's hand absently rested on Mistletoe's back as he listened carefully to the worry beneath her words.

“You speak as though you fear this Berna Vane and her bank may one day take over this valley.”

“A few months ago, I was blissfully unconcerned about Berna and her threats. But that was when only a handful of ranchers had accepted CMC's offer. Now nearly half the families have sold out.”

“Why is it they do this? Because of the ‘bad luck' your grandfather spoke about?”

“Mostly. There's very little margin for error or for bad luck in ranching. The people who choose it as a way of life today do so because they know it instills the kind of values they want to see in their children and puts them next to neighbors they can trust. That means more to most of them than accepting CMC's offer of double what the land is worth for ranching.”

“Your grandfather tells me that CMC must have all the land or their plan to mine the valley will be unprofitable. You choose not to sell yours. Therefore, they cannot have all of it. So why are you worried?”

“Because I can't see a giant like CMC getting as big a foothold in this valley as they have over this past year and then giving up just because I, and maybe a few others, refuse to sell.”

“You think they might use other methods to try to coerce you?”

“Last year, they bought out our local bank and took over my loan on the store and my land and house. When a large Family Tree ornament shipment got lost—one larger than the Crisalli family, that had taken me five months to complete—I found myself in some serious financial difficulties. I failed to make my mortgage payment the next month. The CMC bank dumped an enormous penalty on me, and I was in jeopardy of losing both my home and store to them.”

“But you did not.”

“I managed to get the money. I've made my mortgage payments on time ever since. But I keep feeling that grasping hand of theirs, just waiting for me to find myself in another financial crisis.”

“Is that likely to happen?”

“Shouldn't. I have a reserve now to cover any temporary setback. And I've learned to insure my ornaments when I mail them.”

“The large shipment you lost...was it ever found?”

“When I say lost, what I really mean is that they were destroyed. The local mail truck was making its run over the mountains when one of its tires blew. The spare was missing. The driver had to hitch a ride back into the village to have the tire repaired. By the time he got back out to the truck, wild animals had broken into the back of it and torn open the boxes. My ornaments were some of the things destroyed.”

“What wild animals?”

“Bears looking for food, I suppose. Until the fire devastated their bakery a couple of months ago, Babs and Edward Renner shipped her baked wonders around the country. Every crumb of her cranberry cakes and gingerbread men also disappeared from the back of that mail truck. Which is understandable. They're wonderful, nothing like anything you've ever tasted. They'd tempt anybody and anything.”

“But not your ornaments. They are wood.”

“I was perplexed as to why the boxes had been torn open and the ornaments gnawed on, too, except maybe there is something in the paint or celluloid protection coat that the bears were attracted to.”

A logging truck loomed around the bend just then—huge, foreboding, rattling. It spun squeaking past them like a hearse, corpses of large, freshly cut spruce and lodgepole pine hanging off its flat back.

Mistletoe whimpered and sat on his front paws, reacting to the noise of the thing. Nicholas and Noel grew quiet. Nicholas gazed out the passenger window. He was picturing her beautiful ornaments being scattered in the snow, gnawed on. He knew bears. He could not picture them doing this.

Noel negotiated the next turn. “The slash is just a couple more miles.”

“We will stop now, Noel. There, up ahead. That break in the trees.”

She slowed, but her tone was clearly perplexed. “We're still quite a ways from the slash.”

“We do not need to go to the slash. A larch has fallen. See there, through the trees. Its wood will fill the truck.”

Noel tried to follow his pointing finger, but gave up and pulled off into the next available clearing a few hundred feet ahead.

Unlike the two or three inches on the valley floor, the snow in these mountains was half a foot deep. Mistletoe nearly disappeared in it, but he happily and gamely leapt along beside them. Nicholas led the way to the fallen tree, a giant with a twenty-four-inch diameter, sticking out of the soft white nest of snow. It had survived at least a century, finally lying gently to rest on the forest floor the season before.