A Hartmann Ranch Christmas Read online

  “And I’m going to make every delicious confection this kitchen can handle. We won’t just settle for pie and cinnamon rolls. Where’s that French cookbook?” Jessie spun from the sink and headed for the bookshelf with Lena’s eclectic collection of cookbooks. Halfway there, she stopped and lifted her finger, a sure sign she’d been struck by a lightning bolt of an idea. “No, I think we should do it up grand like the English. Let’s try to find some traditional British food.”

  “That’s an interesting idea. I’m not certain I’d be able to name any aside from Wassail. But shouldn’t we make gingerbread for the children? And aside from the menu, we should begin collecting evergreens.”

  “Of course! Wreaths on the doors and over the fireplace.” Jessie’s voice rose higher with each new suggestion, her face growing more childlike with gleeful anticipation.

  “And garlands from the rafters in the dining room,” Lena suggested, feeling her own enthusiasm escalating.

  Jessie giggled, sounding remarkably like Rowena as she pulled a cookbook from the shelf. “And the biggest tree that will fit under that ceiling in the great room,”

  Lena laughed. “I’m not sure we have a wagon big enough.”

  Jessie set her finger on the page of the book. “Well, we may have to drive a team of those drafts and haul one down to the house. There are some big ones east of our valley. Bart and I saw them last summer when we rode up for a picnic. Have you ever heard of Toad-in-the-Hole? Looks simple enough, but there aren’t any illustrations.”

  Lena’s thoughts turned to the guest list as she opened her address book.

  “I suppose you’d just make some biscuits and stick the sausages inside. That doesn’t sound too difficult.”

  Lena looked up. “What?”

  “To make the Toad-in-the-Hole you’d need to stick the sausage in before you baked it.”

  “Isn’t there anything more traditional for Christmas? What about plum pudding? I’m sure I’ve read about that in many British novels.”

  Jessie giggled, looking up with her hand over her mouth. “There’s this one.”

  Lena lay aside her list and walked over to the other side of the table, looking over Jessie’s shoulder. “Currants. . . I see. Well, the custard sauce sounds delectable.” She gasped as she read the name, turning a horrified look to Jessie. “Which cookbook is this?”

  Jessie held her place with a finger and showed her the cover.

  “Hmm. The Modern Housewife or Menagere. I forgot I had this one.” The image of the ranch hands reacting to the name as Jessie placed the dish before them, prompted her next suggestion. “Maybe we could think of a different name for it. The hands will never know what the British call it. Spotted Custard, perhaps?”

  “How about this?” Jessie pointed to the recipe on the next page. “Yorkshire pudding. I like the name, and we certainly have enough beef to go with it.”

  “What are you two up to?” Evan’s deep voice rolled in from the kitchen doorway. “You have your heads together over a cookbook so that must mean December’s food bills will be edging up.”

  Lena flew across the room to embrace him. “We’re going to have the most wonderfully festive Christmas.”

  Evan wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin on her head. “We can’t ever top the first one, can we?” he whispered into her hair.

  Of course, he was right. Even as the winter winds had howled outside the house, battering the door and piling snow in drifts to the eaves, she’d felt safer that winter than at any time in her life. She pressed her cheek to his chest, recalling every smallest detail of that first year.

  Breaking their embrace, he took a step back and retrieved his leather satchel. “I picked up the mail in town. You’ll never guess who wrote us a letter.”

  Lena gave him a playful poke in the arm. “I suppose not, so why don’t you just tell me,”

  “It’s from Naomi.” He rummaged in the bag and pulled out an envelope with an embossed return address. “We haven’t heard from her since David and Maddie’s wedding. Remember?”

  Naomi had been the madam of one of Sawtooth City’s most popular brothels. How could Lena not remember how embarrassed she’d been, caught in her self-righteous attitude? Lena discovered the truth about herself when she’d visited Naomi’s house, offering charity to one of her girls, a young woman with a child she’d wrongly assumed was Evan’s. She felt again that shameful churning in her stomach, recalling how she’d misjudged the man’s character. Later, learning of his brother, she’d come to understand the child’s true circumstances.” Lena looked at the sealed envelope. “You haven’t opened it?”

  “I wanted to read it with you.”

  “Why don’t we take it into the great room and sit before the fire?” Taking his hand, she led him out of the kitchen and into the large room at the front of the house where a crackling fire blazed inside the stone fireplace.

  “Are you burning the cedar?” he asked as he took a seat beside her.

  “Smells good, doesn’t it?”

  He nodded, taking her hand in his. “You ladies planning something special? When I see the two of you pulling out cookbooks, I have to assume something’s coming.”

  Snuggling closer to him, Lena answered, “Just Christmas.”

  “Oh, I should have known. We haven’t had a house full of guests for a month now, and you gals are itching to entertain.” He laughed in a way that never failed to bring a smile to her lips.

  “It’s Christmas, Evan. You know we can’t let the opportunity pass to have our friends celebrate with us. Besides, the twins are old enough now to enjoy it.”

  “That’s true. Bart and Kincaid have been working together on some kind of wagon for Tommy. I’m not sure the boy’s ready for wheels. He’s hard enough to wrangle as he is.” He pulled the envelope from his pocket and tore it open. “Let’s see what’s new with Naomi.”

  Peeking over his arm, Lena recognized the letterhead for Naomi’s millinery shop. Evan’s body stiffened. She glanced into his troubled face. “What is it, Evan?” When he didn’t answer, she read the opening paragraph and gasped. Vicki was dead. “How can this be? She was a young mother.”

  He whispered, “Not yet thirty.”

  She read on where Naomi gave the explanation of Vicki’s illness and her resulting death. Vicki was the woman who’d given birth to Evan’s niece. But the child, Rebecca, what had become of her? Side by side, silently, Lena and Evan finished reading the letter. Resting her head against his shoulder, she murmured, “I’m so sorry.”

  No remaining family. No home. No inheritance. The child was sent to an orphan’s home. Lena knew what orphanages could be like in the crowded cities of the East. This was Evan’s blood kin. She sat up, angry now. “Evan, no! She’s only six.”

  Sagging back against the couch, he ran a hand down the side of his face. “Even Vicki’s parents are gone. That’s why I never heard from them. I’m sure they’d have written.”

  Lena took the page from his hands and scanned it a second time. “Naomi says that they died of influenza.” She dropped her hands to her lap. “It must have been horrible for the child.” Lena turned to him, seeing in his tight expression a glimpse of the agony he must be experiencing.

  He shook his head and balled his hands into fists. “Rebecca is Jimmy’s child. How can I just stand by and let that happen?”

  “You can’t. You couldn’t abandon her then, and you can’t now.”

  “She’s not your child, Lena.” Evan ran his palm across his mouth. “How can I ask that of you?”

  She lay her hand on his. “You don’t have to ask me.”

  Evan wrapped his arm around Lena’s shoulder and pulled her close. “I love you, Alena, more than life.” His voice was husky, and the words came out as though he hadn’t enough air in his lungs to voice them.

  She leaned into him for a long while, remembering Vicki’s sweet face the day she’d brought her child to meet her. If the avalanche hadn’t taken Jimmy’s life,
Vicki would have been her sister-in-law. But he’d died before she’d had a chance to tell him of the child. And Evan had accepted the responsibilities of his reckless brother. There was no question of what must be done.

  She caressed his cheek with her fingertips. “Go tomorrow, Evan. Find Rebecca and bring her home.”

  Chapter Four

  DECEMBER 4, 1891

  Lena didn’t turn from the sight of the receding train, standing motionless on the station platform until only she and a baggage handler remained. After taking in a slow breath, she released it even more slowly. Knowing Evan was gone for an indeterminate time accounted for only a portion of her anxiety. It was also the awareness of this approaching orbital shift in her relationship with her husband. With a child to raise, priorities must inevitably shift. More of her concern involved the question that had kept her awake for most of the night. Was she capable of raising another woman’s child as her own?

  Nodding to the porter and exchanging morning greetings, Lena made her way from the station to where Evan had tied the buckskin and buggy. She ran her hand beneath the pony’s thick mane and drew another sigh. There really wasn’t any reason to hurry back to the ranch. No guests until May. No crisis with the twins. Nothing pressing on her time. In fact, this was the first time in many months she’d taken a trip to town for anything other than ranch business or to attend Sunday church services.

  Lena stepped into Maddie’s bookshop to the happy tinkle of the bell announcing her. “Good morning, Mrs. Reynolds.”

  “Lena, what a wonderful surprise to see you!” Maddie stepped from behind a display table with the label Fables and Fairytales. “What brings you to town?” The younger woman wrapped her arms around Lena with fervent enthusiasm that placed Lena a bit off-balance. “You cannot imagine how many times I’ve wanted to sit with you and have one of our epic conversations concerning the trials and joys of marital life. Mostly the trials, I suppose, make me desirous of a woman to woman tête-à-tête. Come in. Are you able to stay for longer than to say hello?”

  “That is precisely why I stopped in to see you. I was hoping you’d have time for an early lunch with me.”

  Maddie’s eyes sparkled with a glee reminding Lena of Tommy at his most mischievous moments. “I can think of absolutely nothing that could stop me.” She turned for her office. “Just let me pick up my coat.”

  Clara emerged from a back room, looking concerned. “Hello, Mrs. Hartmann. Excuse me, Mrs. Reynolds, before you leave, will you sign the papers I placed on your desk this morning? The shipping orders?”

  With a little moan, Maddie said, “Lena, can you give me a few minutes?”

  “Of course. I didn’t exactly announce my visit, did I?”

  Maddie started for her office again, calling back to her assistant, “Clara, why don’t you show Mrs. Hartmann what we’ve been up to since she was last here?”

  “I’d love to.” Clara turned a radiant smile on Lena and gestured to the front window, where a curtain blocked the view to the street. “Mrs. Reynolds wanted to create a special Christmas display using Mr. Dickens’ Christmas Carol as the theme. We’ll put it all together this afternoon and then lift the curtain tomorrow morning.” She led Lena to the workroom. After unlocking the door, she turned back to Lena with a conspiratorial smile. “You mustn’t tell anyone. We want to surprise our customers.”

  “I love Christmas secrets,” Lena whispered.

  As she viewed the diorama assembled on the table, it was as if she’d become Gulliver, washed up on the shore of Lilliput and seeing their homes with the roofs removed. The scenes for each of Scrooge’s three ghostly visitations were presented with uncanny attention to details. Lena stepped closer to the table and bent to inspect the dollhouse-sized bed with its canopy and warming curtains. Astonished, she glanced up at Clara. “Did you do all this yourself?”

  The young woman’s cheeks flushed, and she shook her head. “No,” she murmured. “Your Mr. Kincaid built most of the furniture. I made some sketches, based on the illustrated copy we have here. He took it from there.”

  “This is amazing! Wonderful!” Lena marveled, she supposed, like Gulliver might have at the diminutive floor coverings, tablecloths and draperies any Victorian housewife would envy. Particularly entrancing was the scene depicting the Christmas dance in Mr. Fezziwig’s shop. “Will you have little people as well? Paper dolls perhaps?” She rather hoped Miss Webster’s answer would be in the negative, because somehow the imagination was better served by the absence of figurines. As she observed the tiny room, festooned with real greenery and scarlet ribbons, her mind supplied the dancers, she and Evan among them.

  “Mrs. Reynolds thought it might be best to leave that to everyone’s imagination.” Miss Webster’s tone held a question, as though she weren’t in full agreement with her employer.

  “I think that’s a brilliant decision.”

  Maddie stepped up behind Clara. “Hasn’t she done a wonderful job?”

  “Yes, and I’m amazed to learn that our shepherd, Mr. Kincaid, is also talented at woodworking,” Lena said. “I wonder if Evan knows this about him.”

  “He came into the bookshop looking for gifts to send back home to his nieces and nephews,” Maddie said, picking up Mr. Fezziwig’s desk. “I can’t even recall how the conversation turned to dollhouses. It might have been as we were looking at some illustrations in one of the children’s books.”

  “It was a book by George MacDonald,” Clara interjected. Even as she said it, she looked somewhat embarrassed by her recollection.

  Maddie nodded. “That’s right. I forgot you were there. Mr. Kincaid made little boxes, rooms as they were. They were for his nieces to play with. He told us how he’d made furniture for them. It was a few days later, when Clara and I were discussing Christmas decorations for the shop, that we came upon illustrated Christmas Carol by Mr. Dickens. And we both thought of the little boxes he’d described to us.”

  “But you were the one that thought of turning the window into a miniature theater set,” Clara said.

  “And you’ve taken my little idea and made it a reality. Writers excel at imagining plots and characters and even settings, but we can’t bring them all to life. I could show you a considerable stack of notes I’ve made of brilliant plots for mysteries, engaging characters and dark, brooding medieval settings. But that is not the same as assembling them into something that the public can appreciate. Your talent for details and organization serve you well, Clara. There’s no need to deny it. False humility is unbecoming.”

  Under the generous praise of her employer, Clara’s cheeks flushed again. “Thank you. But Mr. Kincaid created most of the furniture. I just made the sketches.”

  There was something about the pleased expression on Maddie’s face that made Lena suspect she believed this partnership between Clara and Mr. Kincaid might involve more than a shared enthusiasm for craftsmanship. That was a pleasant thought to entertain, especially in the Christmas season.

  “So, this is all ready to assemble in the window?” Lena asked.

  “All but the mantel for Mr. Scrooge’s bedroom. Mr. Kincaid promised to bring it in today.”

  Lena noted the slight change in Clara’s tone as she added the last, along with a stiffening of her shoulders. She glanced at Maddie for some sign that she was aware of the bristling reaction. But Maddie’s placid smile revealed nothing of her thoughts. Still, Lena sensed that their shepherd might be responsible in some way. Why this young woman appeared to have her ire stirred every time they mentioned his name was a mystery in need of a detective. Knowing her friend’s penchant for writing them, Lena suspected that the author already deduced the answer.

  Chapter Five

  DECEMBER 4, 1891

  Maddie spooned a dollop of jam on a warm scone. “I hope this appeals to my stomach as much as my eye.” She stared at it for a fraction of a moment before taking a bite. Looking over at Lena, she asked, “I can’t remember the last time we sat down together for an unr
ushed cup of tea, let alone an entire luncheon.”

  “That hasn’t lessened?” Lena leaned forward and lowered her voice. “I thought by now, you’d have passed through that stage.”

  Maddie rolled her eyes and used her napkin to dab jam from the corner of her mouth. “It’s improving. And so is my appetite.” She took a generous spoonful of blackberry jam, mounding it on the second half of her scone. “David has warned me not to overindulge.”

  “But you’ve always been so trim, I can’t imagine that you’d need to worry about overeating.”

  “I’m not worried.” Maddie reached for the last scone on the tray between them, then hesitated. “Do you want this last one?”

  Lena kept her amusement to herself by bringing her teacup to her lips, hiding the smile. “Please, help yourself.”

  “So, tell me about Evan’s trip. All you’ve told me is that he’s going East in search of his niece. What’s the rest of the story?” Maddie eyed the small egg salad sandwiches stacked on the glass tray, before selecting one. “I know a little about Evan’s brother, James, but little much more than the sad fact that he died in an avalanche in the Sawtooth Mountains.”

  How did she explain such an indelicate situation as the fathering of an illegitimate child with a prostitute? The story was both tragic and redemptive. And how did she tell it without confessing her own self-righteous attitude toward the child’s mother who’d believed she had no other choice when her husband had died, leaving her penniless. There but for the grace of God . . . What would she have done in the same hopeless situation?

  “Jimmy fathered a child, but died before he married Vicki. Evan’s been trying to help her over the years. You know what a responsible person he is, how compassionate.” Lena stopped as tears squeezed her throat tight.

  “I do. I know how he helped me when I felt so friendless and alone after my father died.” Maddie stretched her hand across the table and lay her fingers on Lena’s. “Something happened to the mother, then? Vicki?”