The Parson's Christmas Gift (2 page)

Tomorrow? She’d be long gone by then. She didn’t need any pastor to make her see her guilt. She knew it well enough already.

“Journey? Is everything all right?”

She nodded, swallowing hard. Everything would be perfect—just as soon as Walten and all of its fine and overly welcoming citizens were miles of trail dust behind her.

E
verything moved so fast—too fast. Abby’s chattering wearied her. She couldn’t keep up. Journey rubbed her aching temples.

The wagon rolled to a stop beside the porch. “Hello, the house!” Abby called, climbing down over the wheel. Journey did the same and stood close to it.

“Thought I heard a wagon,” a deep baritone answered. Reverend Thompson.

She watched Abby dig a sandwich out of the picnic basket and hand it to him as he stepped down the ladder and drank a dipper full of water. “We’ve come to share a lunch with Miss Rose.”

“And this is?”

Journey felt his gaze as he unwrapped his sandwich. With a deep breath to steady her shaking, she tilted her head up to introduce herself. “Journey. Journey Smith.”

“Now there’s an unusual name. Pleased to meet you, ma’am. I imagine Abby’s introduced me already.” She stared at the hand he held out for a moment before shaking it. He smiled, crinkling his eyes at the corners and revealing a wide row of straight teeth and a cleft in his cheek. A shock of dark brown hair ruffled off his forehead, and a small thatch tufted at the back, making him look more like an unruly schoolboy than a minister. His square jaw proved more convincing, though his lips curved into a smile that seemed etched onto his face and had a depth she doubted lessened in many circumstances. “I’m Reverend Thompson to most folks, plain Zane to Abby. What brings you all this way?”

“Journey’s new to the area, looking to settle in for a while. I thought maybe we could work something out with Miss Rose. She’s been talking about hiring some help around here.”

“That so?” Zane bit into the sandwich and nodded once slowly as he chewed, as if considering the idea. He swallowed. “Could work fine for you both. Miss Rose is inside. I’m sure she’ll be glad to talk with you.”

He gazed directly at her, his gray eyes alight in the sun. “So how’d you come by a name like that?”

Breath caught in her throat, choking her. One of the few questions Abby hadn’t thought to ask.

“It’s a family name.”

His eyebrow tilted in a question, one she couldn’t read. “Well, that’s nice,” he said. “I—We’ll look forward to having you in our town.”

Had they all assumed she’d decided? She wasn’t staying here. She couldn’t. She scanned the landscape again. Could she?

The young pastor continued. Before she could force a sound from her dry throat, his attention spread to both of them. “I expect we’ll see you tomorrow at church. Hope everything works out for you, Miss Smith.”

“Reverend Thompson.”

“Please, feel free to call me Zane,” he said, seeming not to notice her wavering voice. He grinned, glancing up to the roof. Sunshine burnished the planes of his face a deep bronze. “If you’ll excuse me, ladies, I have a few more boards to replace. I’ll leave you to your visit. Thanks, Abby,” he added, waving the sandwich. He snatched another bite as he headed up the ladder.

Journey watched him climb to the roof before following Abby.

An elderly woman with white-gray hair opened the door before they could knock. Her round blue eyes lit with a warm smile for Abby, and with a question for Journey.

“Who do we have here? Come on in, and bring your friend. My, but I haven’t seen you in a spell,” she said. “What’s brought you ladies out today? Come in, come in.”

Warm sunlight streamed in two wide windows on either side of the far wall, making the room bright and airy with a view of the distant mountains. A few delicate vases sat on shelves below them. Two daguerreotypes stood on a high shelf, shrouded with a layer of fine dust. Otherwise the room held little adornment beyond the ornate couch and a simple wooden rocker.

The fireplace in the middle of the house glowed with faint embers. On either side, a doorway opened. One led to the kitchen and Journey guessed the other led to Miss Rose’s bedroom. Simple in design and decoration, it was so unlike the garish and cluttered rooms she’d lived in up until now. She liked it, quiet and unobtrusive.

They followed the tiny figure into the kitchen. Freshly baked bread steamed through cloths on the sideboard. The scent filled the room to the farthest corners.

“I was about to slice some bread for lunch,” the woman said. Journey noted her slow, sure step and the steady voice.

Abby rested the basket she carried on the table. “Then we’re just in time, Miss Rose. I’ve brought some chicken sandwiches for all of us. Zane already took one, and there’s plenty more.”

Miss Rose sat, then slid out a chair and nodded Journey into it. “I’m assuming your friend has a name you just haven’t got around to sharing.”

Abby’s light laugh held none of the nervousness Journey felt. “This is Miss Smith. She wandered into town this morning, looking for work and a warm roof to sleep under. Journey, this is Mrs. Rose Bishop.”

Journey forced her hand forward in greeting. Something about the woman reminded her of the ladies who would pass by the saloon on Sundays, all fine and proper. Except that this woman seemed to possess a kindness, a fairness—confidence born of something more than money and position. She tried to hold her fingers and voice steady. “Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Bishop. Please, call me Journey.”

“Only if you’ll call me Miss Rose,” she said, getting up to set a kettle to heat. “Everybody does. Make yourselves at home, and I’ll get the settings.”

It seemed Mrs. Bishop—Miss Rose—could well handle the affairs of her own home. It didn’t appear as if much needed to be done on the grounds that Miss Rose couldn’t find a nearby rancher to lend a hand. She moved slowly but with a fairly steady step. While the house wasn’t spotless, it wasn’t unlivable, either. What would she want with hired help?

But Journey needed to find a more stationary hideout, and after months on the trail, eyeing every shadow, she was tired. The warmth and comfortable feeling this house offered could seep right in. She’d be inclined to let it.

She couldn’t afford to let it.

Abby sat down across from her and placed sandwiches on the three plates Miss Rose brought out. Journey clasped her hands together, squeezing one thumb. Her knee bobbed as her mind raced to come up with a way to bring this meeting to a close before she agreed to something. She wanted to stay. She wanted to think she could belong in such a home. But where had her instincts taken her in the past? She was no longer fit for these fine people.

Miss Rose smiled, skin pulled paper-thin over her round cheeks. She seemed about to say something when Zane’s hammer interrupted. Journey caught her motion to take a plate and pass a cloth-wrapped sandwich her way. Then the ladies bowed their heads without a word while she twitched in her seat.

“So you’d be willing to help out an old lady like me?” Miss Rose said when the pounding stopped. “You might find I’m too ornery for your liking.”

“I’m not the easiest person to live with, either, ma’am.” Hank had shown her that often enough. “I wouldn’t want to obligate you.”

“Nonsense. I’ve been looking for someone to move out here and help me some. My old bones can’t go like they used to. I’ve been praying the Lord would send just the right person. To be honest, I’m looking for the company as much as the help.”

Journey nodded and drew her eyebrows together. “You really think I could do that?”

From the corner of her eye, she saw Abby’s own furrowed brow.

“Now that’s hard to tell from this side of it,” Miss Rose said. “Can you clean? Wipe windows?”

“Yes.”

“Muck out a few stalls?”

“Sure.”

“And you’re in need of a place to stay?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, then it seems like we’re in a position to help each other. I can’t believe it’s a coincidence that you’d wander into town, into Abby and Sam’s store, when here I am looking for someone like you.”

“Like me, ma’am?”

Miss Rose looked her over, and Journey sensed the woman knew there was something more than met the eye. “Yes,” she said. “Someone just like you.”

“What about the preacher? He seems handy enough.” Why argue the matter? She couldn’t stay. She couldn’t.

“Pastor Zane’s been helpful to a lot of folks around here. He considers it part of his ministry. But he has plenty ministry beyond playing ranch hand. I found myself expecting it of him, and that’s wrong. So I told God He’d have to send someone else along, so I could let Zane focus on more important things.”

“You don’t even know me.” The steadiness of her voice surprised her. “I could only be looking for a handout from you.”

A dignified sniff from the woman punctuated the air. “You might find you’ve gotten the harder end of the bargain. I’m set in my ways and terrible stubborn about some things. My Lord’s had many a year to help me improve, and I still struggle with it—” she interrupted with a grin “—so that tells you what I was like at your age. I’ll be after you to do some things both here in the house and around the property, but something tells me you’re heartier than you look. Pay’s not much—maybe a dollar a month, plus room and board, and of course, Sundays off. I’m figuring we could both win on this gamble, if you’re willing.”

Journey nodded. There was no way this could work. Who was she to involve this woman—this community—in her mess? The pounding on the roof matched the pounding in her head.

“So what do you say?” Abby’s voice rose over the din.

Journey’s muscles grew stiff. She needed to think. What would it matter if she darted for the door and never looked back? She waited for the hammering to stop.

“I appreciate your kind offer, Miss Rose, but I can’t—”

The ring of the hammer interrupted again. It stopped, breaking the rhythm they’d grown accustomed to with a rough scrape. A heavy thud punctuated the instant of silence. For a moment, all three of them sat stock-still. Journey’s heart leaped and she grasped the edge of the table, ready to push herself up and away.

“Zane…” Abby voiced Journey’s own thought. They jumped from their seats as one.

“Go!” Miss Rose said, her voice calm and firm. “Make sure he’s not hurt.”

Journey thought that her very tone insisted that he was fine. Somehow that tone was comforting in itself. But that thought didn’t keep her from flying out of the house, close at Abby’s heels, wondering why it should matter to her.

J
ourney turned the far corner of the house to see Zane struggle to his elbows. His gray eyes searched the skies above, unfocused. She watched as Abby knelt at his side, and followed her glance to the old woman. Miss Rose stood with a white-knuckled grip on the corner porch post, peering over the edge.

“Zane? Zane, are you all right?” Abby grasped his shoulders in both hands, holding him steady.

“What happened?” Journey asked. Zane’s head jerked back, focusing his gaze on her. She fumbled for a handkerchief from her pocket and tapped it against Abby’s shoulder but couldn’t draw her gaze away from his. The woman took it to dab at the wide scrape on his right cheek with the limp cloth.

He blinked several times in his daze, thick lashes fluttering, but a small grin appeared. “Wasn’t being careful enough, I suppose. I must have stood too heavy on a loose shingle board.”

“If the pupils of his eyes aren’t even, he could have hit his head,” Journey said. Someone had told her about that once, after a rough bout with Hank.

She looked across the landscape. Even in the months and miles since his death, she couldn’t shake the sense that he waited out there. She shivered in the cool mountain air.

A soft groan drew her attention back to the man on the ground as he tucked his feet and stood, taking the handkerchief from Abby. A wince crossed his face when his full weight rested on his ankle. He wobbled a little, but laughed. “Shows how great the wisdom of the Lord is, calling me to preach instead of to become a carpenter.”

“Take it easy, there, Zane. Are you sure nothing’s broken?” Abby inspected his elbow.

Journey wondered what the congregation might think of their pastor showing up with a nice shiner for Sunday service. He’d no doubt have one.

He pulled the thin cloth from his eye and examined it. “I’m fine, ladies. Really, I rolled right off, nice and gentle-like onto my hammer. Won’t look too pretty for a while, but then, I don’t reckon any of my parishioners come to see a pretty face.”

Journey imagined his handsome face and strong build drew more than his share of coy glances. How could he not know it?

A rattled wheeze sounded behind her. Miss Rose had been forgotten in the excitement. “Well, he’s standing and his tongue’s working along with his brain same as usual. My goodness, Zane, you might have considered the rest of us. I declare, you took a good six months off my life. Now come inside a bit and rest yourself.”

“I’m fine,” he insisted, waving the offending hammer toward the roof. “There’s only a little more to do before I’m finished. This time I’ll pound an extra nail or two in this one.” He tapped the fallen shingle with his boot and moved back to the ladder.

“Be careful this time!” Abby smiled at his retreating back.

Journey studied his broad form until he turned, catching her off guard. He shook out the mangled handkerchief to find a clean spot before touching it again to the cut.

“I’ll wash this up and return it to you Sunday, ma’am.”

“You needn’t go to any bother, really.”

“I appreciate it all the same, Miss Smith.”

She thought to remind him to call her Journey, but then she realized it didn’t matter. It would be just as well if he forgot her name altogether. He wouldn’t be preaching to her on Sunday. She turned to follow Abby.

“Pardon me, ma’am. You prefer
Journey,
right? A name that pretty, I don’t blame you. I’ll keep that in mind.”

He made her name sound like a complete sentence. But he seemed to look past her, over her. The wind blew his dark hair from his forehead, exposing the length of the hammer’s cut.

The faint rustle across the porch drew her attention, reminding her that the others had already returned to the house. She nodded her leave. He smiled again and began pounding.

A job, a place to stay, and nothing more. Lie low for the winter, and be gone with spring thaw. What could be wrong with that? Right now, Walten, Montana, felt a world away from Georgia. Maybe it was.

“I declare,” Miss Rose said, her voice puffing as they stepped into the warmth of the house, “sometimes I think that boy won’t be happy till he’s knocked his fool head off.”

Journey couldn’t help but smile at her exasperated tone.

“Anyway, where were we?”

“Maybe Journey would like to see the rest of your place?” Abby suggested.

She flinched, startled at the tug on her sleeve. Before she could protest, Abby drew her across the sitting room to the stairway directly opposite the door. Her brow curled, but thankfully, the woman didn’t voice any question. Journey flushed with embarrassment as she followed her up the narrow stairs.

“Well, what do you think?”

Journey peered around. “It’s…light,” she said. “I’ve never seen an upstairs so bright.”

Instead of being divided into tiny, airless closets, two smaller rooms beckoned with open doors on either side of the hall. Light wooden boards made the rooms appear large and inviting. She walked toward the far end of the hallway, and the space broadened to the width of the house, windows bright with reflected sunlight. The cobwebby corners and dusty floors didn’t dim the cheeriness of the room. How could four walls feel so unconfining?

“I haven’t been up there in some time.” Miss Rose’s voice strained to reach them from the bottom step. “You’d be welcome to use the space. We cleared a lot out after my husband passed on.”

She felt Abby’s hopeful smile on her. “So? What do you say?”

“I think…]Well, I just arrived in town, and here I am with a job offer and a roof over my head. It—it’s all happened so fast.” She glanced around the room and back over her shoulder. “I think I should catch my breath and consider it before I agree to anything. It’s all so much kindness.”

“It’s you who’d be doing the kindness. It’s a worry to me, knowing she’s alone out here. I know she’s lonesome, too. But what with the store and all…]Oh, listen to me. You have to do what you feel is best, Journey.”

She sounded sincere. Maybe she did want to help them both—Miss Rose and her. But that’s not how people worked. A few folks might look out for a dear friend, most would take up a cause for family but no one cared for a stranger. So what did Abby really want? What did any of them want?

“I’ll have to take your offer into consideration.” She hoped she gave the impression there were other options.

“We’ve been praying for the right person to come along to help Miss Rose. Then you come along, looking for work.” Abby sighed, her hands fluttering. “It’s so exciting. Maybe I’ll be proven wrong, but the Lord has blessed me with a pretty accurate sense of character. I’d be willing to take the chance. You seem like someone who needs a chance used on you.”

Journey stared back, unsure of a response. She forced out a tense breath. “I am obliged for the offer, either way. You’ve been most kind.”

“Will you at least go down and talk with Miss Rose awhile? It can’t hurt, right?”

“I suppose not.” She hoped not.

Abby stretched her arm toward the stairway. “Let’s go, then.”

Miss Rose waited in her rocker. Journey noticed she patted her hand over her heart until she saw them.

“Have a seat,” she said. “I imagine you have some questions of your own to help you decide whether this would work for you.”

Journey sat in the ladder-back chair near the door and tried to keep her breathing even. How could this woman treat her so well? She didn’t even know her and yet had offered her so much. What would Miss Rose think if she knew what brought her here?

“It seems you keep the place well enough on your own.” She didn’t accuse, but she couldn’t understand, either.

“I’m not completely feeble yet, but I can’t get after this place like I used to. Still, I can’t bear to part with what few animals I have left, either.”

“You could hire someone from town to clean a few times a week and hire a ranch hand for the animals. Then you wouldn’t be bothered with a boarder in your house,” Journey said.

Miss Rose’s laugh caught her by surprise. “I reckon you’re right. It shows you have common sense. But the truth is, I need someone around more than that. It gets too quiet for my liking anymore. But town is too big and busy. I wouldn’t be able to hear myself think.”

Journey considered that. “I’m not one to chatter much.”

Again the laugh. What a shame Mama never laughed like that. “So I’ve noticed.”

Journey found the corners of her mouth curling up in spite of herself. “Please understand, I can’t decide a thing like this before I think it through.”

“Take all the time you need, darlin’. It’s not like there’s a flock of people knocking down my door for the job, Lord knows.” Journey felt cool, wrinkled skin pat her hand.

“So when will your nephew be able to visit?” Abby asked. Journey figured the topic must be settled until she decided on her next move.

“Not soon enough for me, but I received a letter from him last week. He’s going to try to make it for Thanksgiving, Lord willing.”

Journey tightened her grip on the chair. A dollar a month plus board would help her save a little. If she held her purse strings very tightly, she’d be ready to move on by spring with money to get her to Oregon. Or even California. She scanned the warm wooden walls, the solid mantel above the all-but-dead fire. A certainty filled her. Yes. A good, safe home to rest in and regroup. Surely no one would look for her through a Montana winter. She’d be gone with spring thaw. Or, if things worked out well enough, maybe she’d stay on in the spring. Who could find her in a town as small as Walten?

“…some of the cases he works on, I declare. I wish he’d find a safer way to make a living.” Miss Rose waved her hand before smacking it down on her knee.

Cases? Her nephew was a lawyer?

“Does he live far from here?” she asked. Her heart skipped a beat.

“Over in Virginia City,” Miss Rose said, turning to face her with a smile. “He’s a lawman there.”