Carla Kelly (42 page)

“At least I'm not gamey,” she retorted. “The bath awaits you.” She read the invitation, her cheeks rosy and toasty warm. “Good heavens: ‘Post-game entertainment at the House of Mirrors. Bring your own…’ Goodness.” She looked around. “Is that another word for…?” She whispered in his ear.

He nodded. “The boys are scrupulous about not reproducing with ladies of the night.”

She laughed and pointed to the RSVP. “Well, cowboy?”

“I already sent a polite reply, via telegram. Told this year's major domo that I had better things to do.”

“Do you think Mr. Kaiser will go?”

“I asked him when I saw him in church yesterday. He just laughed.”

Julia gasped. “He was in
church
?”

“Yep. He has a better voice than I do. I even think he can read music.” He draped both arms on her shoulders. “I don't know what will happen there, but we must be doing something right.”

Julia grabbed him around the waist and hugged him. “We're doing a lot of things right.”

He held her as close as he could, considering.

She had been dreading a winter like last year's, but snow didn't fall until early December, covering up ranch ugliness. She spent a lot of time in Paul's office, warm and comfortable, rocking and knitting as he worked on ranch books or sometimes just watched her.

“Surely you've memorized my face by now,” she said once, when she caught him at it.

“I know one of your chief delights is watching people eat. Mine happens to be watching you. You're just so pretty.”

Julia gave up arguing with him about that. Obviously when she looked in the mirror and saw herself rounder of cheek now and definitely bigger of belly, he saw something else. She didn't even consider her scars anymore: ancient history. She still felt shy when they went to church and there were all those people, but he reminded her they were living in a modern world now, and anticipating ladies weren't supposed to hide.

“Times are changing everywhere, Julia, not just in ranching.”

They didn't change for some. The worst day that winter came just before Christmas, when Charlie McLemore, more serious than she had ever seen him, spent an hour closeted in Paul's office. She knew Charlie liked Boston cookies, so she made a batch and brought them in when Paul, his face serious too, asked her to join the meeting.

“Julia, Charlie's come to end our agreement early,” he told her.

“Charlie, I'm sorry,” she said sincerely.

He nodded, the pain sharp in his eyes. “I'm in a hole too deep to climb out of.” He took a handful of cookies. “Your husband wants to extend our agreement another year, but he'd be throwing bad money after good.” He sighed. “That's why I've made myself scarce this year. It's embarrassing to face ruin and know everyone knows.”

Poor, poor man
, Julia thought. He and his father had ranched here so long, through seasons so difficult that only the strongest survived. And now it was gone. She glanced at Paul, in his inscrutable mode that didn't fool her for a minute. She knew he was hurting too.

“I'm here to offer my land to you first, if you want it,” Charlie said, the words pulled from his mouth by pincers.

“I don't need it, McLemore, but I know Cuddy is interested. He'll give you a fair deal.”

“He will.” Charlie stood up and held out his hand. “Thanks for being square about this, Mr. Otto.”

They clasped hands across the desk. “McLemore, you're welcome to ride for my brand now. I have room for you here.”

Charlie shook his head. “It'd be too close to home. I think I'll drift a while.” He nodded to Julia. “Ma'am.”

Paul saw him to the front door and then returned to the office, sitting in his chair with a sigh. He held out his arms for her, and she sat awkwardly on his lap.

“I hate that,” he spoke into her hair. “His father kept me alive after Pa died. I wish it could have ended differently, but this is a hard place.”

There wasn't anything more to say.

By everyone's agreement, the Sunday before Christmas was Julia's last venture off the Double Tipi. The road through the pass was clear enough, but she couldn't disguise her discomfort, even in a buckboard with such good springs.

“Dr. McKeel is afraid you'll go into early confinement, if we keep making this ride,” Paul said before the trip. His words were tentative, but he got no argument from her. She knew it was time to stop.

She thought she might dread that last Sunday, probably the last one until spring came. She looked at James, happy and sitting close to Cora Shumway; Emma Gillespie managing her own brood so capably while Heber presided; John Kaiser paying such earnest attention to the Sunday School lesson, the same as Paul did. The last Sunday was sweet instead, as she looked around and saw friends of like mind, gathered in the pungent, cigarsmelling Odd Fellows Hall, worshiping Heavenly Father in Wyoming. Paul had given the Sunday School an early Christmas gift of a painting of Christ, which replaced Custer behind the portable pulpit. She almost, but not quite, missed Custer.

When the meeting ended, no one left. As she watched, amused and then teary-eyed, ladies brought out baby gifts and there was cake.

“Not as good as yours,” Cora apologized, “but no one could figure out how to get you to make a cake for a baby shower without getting suspicious. Julia, we'll be thinking about you and praying for you.”

A week before Christmas, Paul and Matt rode to Gun Barrel for supplies, burdened also with thank-you notes and last-minute invitations to a New Year's party on the Double Tipi. “We have the most room now, and I've discovered I do like a party,” Paul had said in his office, overruling her reluctance to host such a gathering in all her almost-eighth-month glory. “Charlotte can do the heavy work and you can supervise.” He grinned at her. “You're giving me quite a look there, sport. Am I still your best guy? Hey now, don't cry!” He stared at the ceiling. “I wish there was a manual for husbands.”

“There is, cowboy,” she said, not sure if she cried because she was sad, happy, grouchy, or just pregnant. “It's called a marriage license, and you signed it. I just wish we could have gone to Salt Lake, that's all.” She tried not to sound wistful, she really did, but it was hard.

“Next year, darling,” he told her gently. “Next year.”

While Paul and Matt went to Gun Barrel, Doc took Julia walking to find a Christmas tree. In her mind, she was already calling it Exhibit C, picking up where they had left off during her first Christmas on the Double Tipi, where everything went wrong, except James's pleasure in celebrating the holiday a week late.

She mentioned that Christmas to Doc as he held her arm and made sure she was steady on her feet. “I'm not sure I could have managed without your kindness.” She stopped as tears welled in her eyes, thinking of Iris. “Doc, does the pain ever go away entirely, when we lose a loved one?” She put her hand to her mouth, ashamed of her whining as she remembered his loss of an only child. “Doc, I'm an idiot. Forgive me.”

He kissed her forehead. “No, it doesn't ever go away completely. You know that now too. We all belong to a club no one wants to join.”

She let him dry her tears with his handkerchief. “Thank you, Dr. McKeel,” she said. “I just wish my parents weren't alone in Salt Lake right now.” She looked around and pointed. “That tree.”

Doc was doubtful as he circled Exhibit C. “It's a little pathetic from this side.”

“That's the one,” she insisted, tears forgotten. “We work with what we have on the Double Tipi.”

She and Charlotte had been making cookie ornaments since Thanksgiving, keeping them hidden from the hands in that tin marked Lard and left on the side porch to stay cold. “We'll surprise our best guys when they come home,” Julia said, stringing cranberry ropes Mama had sent, while Charlotte hung the ornaments. He had grumbled, but Kringle had made tin ornaments. The crude angels and trees gave her pause, as she thought of the lumps of tin that Paul told her he had found in the ruins of his home last summer, Willy Bill's ornaments.

After a moment to consider the matter, she had Kringle punch a hole in one of the lumps. She put a ribbon through it and hung it, too. “That's all it needed,” she told Charlotte. “Now we'll just cook a little more and see what it was they were hauling that took the wagon instead of the buckboard.”

She should have known, considering that she had married the best man in the world, what he hauled home from the depot. Even after Paul opened the front door, ushered in her parents, and said, “Gotcha, sport,” she still couldn't believe her eyes.

“Mama,” she said finally, her lips trembling. “Mama, I've been wanting you.”

Christmas was peaceful, which made it bliss for Julia, who did nothing more strenuous than put her feet up and let everyone else manage the holiday. The popcorn balls for Santa Claus from her own childhood became an Otto tradition. “I like popcorn balls,” Paul had said, and that was enough for Julia.

“You're going to spoil him,” Mama said, when she and Julia sat in the kitchen, shaping the balls on Christmas Eve.

“He's already spoiled, Mama,” Julia said complacently. “But so am I, so I don't mind.”

The only thing she insisted on doing for the holiday feast was the Bûche de Noël, which turned out so breathtaking that Charlotte burst into tears, throwing her apron over her face and sobbing into Matt's shoulder.

“All right, Charlotte, I know all the signs now,” Julia said. “Paul says I cry at dominos, and you're crying over French pastry. When?”

Charlotte dried her eyes while Matt beamed at her. “July.”

Julia hugged her awkwardly. “Perfect! Mama had her dressmaker put deep hems in my anticipation dresses, so you can wear those when I'm done. We can hand baby clothes back and forth. What's mine is yours.”

Mama was right: Christmas in her own home was better. Leaning against Paul while he read the Christmas story in their own parlor, admiring Exhibit C, suited Julia right down to the ground.

They were still sitting in the parlor at midnight, long after the Malloys had returned to their house, the hands were back in the bunkhouse, and Mama and Papa had cried uncle and retired.

“We could go to bed,” Paul said finally, his hand fluffing her short hair. He made no move to rise.

“I suppose,” Julia agreed, her hand resting on his thigh higher up, now that Mama and Papa were upstairs and sleeping.

They laughed.

“Next year, we'll have toys under the tree and probably diapers drying in the kitchen on a clothesline, which you will string for me,” Julia told her best guy. “We probably won't be getting as much sleep, either.”

“We don't now,” Paul reminded her as he moved her hand a little higher. “And in February, the calves will start coming, and then it's the early work and spring cow gather, and summers riding fence.” He kissed her head. “What would the executive officer say if we bought our own haying machine and baler and took on—steady now—a farmer to show us how to cut and bale our own hay?”

“She would think that was smart. Would our own hay be as nutritious as the hay grown by the Sybille Ditch?”

“She's a shrewd executive officer. No, it wouldn't, but a menu of both kinds of hay would serve our bovine partners pretty well. I'll ask'um.”

“Do that.” Julia struggled into a sitting position, helped by a firm hand at the small of her back. She went to the Christmas tree and rummaged around.

“Can't you wait?” he asked. “You're too old to be rattling your presents.”

“Not mine,” she told him, bending down. “Yours. Open it now, Paul, because it's for you and me.”

He took the flat box she handed him, a question in his eyes. He shook it.

“There's the whole world in there,” she said, sitting down beside him again. “I'm no great shakes at embroidery, but… well, open it.”

He did and pulled out a framed square of cloth. He held it close to the kerosene lamp, reading the words. He made an inarticulate sound, which made her wink back tears.

“It's a sampler. You can decide where to put it.”

“Julia,” he whispered. “My goodness. You have a knack. I think I want it right next to the Salt Lake Temple. That work for you, sport?”

She nodded. He put the sampler in her lap and went into the kitchen, where she heard him opening and closing drawers until he found what he wanted. She smiled to hear him whistling “Redeemer of Israel” low, so he wouldn't bother anyone.

In the parlor, he gave her a hand up. “You hold it while I pound the nail.”

Two taps and the nail was in. He took the sampler from her and hung it on the wall, leveling it to his satisfaction. “Yep, that's it.”

He sat her down on his lap this time. “Holding my whole family,” he said.

They stayed there until the moon rose, admiring the sampler with the embroidered TTP brand, the date March 17, 1911, and the words: “We have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things.”

“Best Christmas ever, sport,” Paul told her finally. “I'm awfully happy not to be a desperate rancher anymore.”

“You never got your mature cook.”

“Yes, I did,” he told her. “I did.”

Oh, me of little faith,” Julia said to her mother in the early afternoon of the New Year's Eve party as they watched a procession of buckboards, wagons, and horses bringing their neighbors from miles around. “I didn't think anyone would come. Mama, I'm so big!”