WESTERN CHRISTMAS PROPOSALS Page 10

  What his uncle had failed to mention in his letter, however, was that the woman Morgan had loved and lost would be here waiting for him when he arrived.

  Well, perhaps waiting was the wrong word. After all, she’d stopped waiting, then up and married another man. The pain of losing her had filled him with such hurt and anger, he’d turned his back on lawyering. There hadn’t seemed to be much point. It was because of her he had been determined to set down roots, make himself a success. He would have been perfectly happy to have left Mississippi to head West and set up a small practice like his uncle, but one did not marry the daughter of the great Lyle Stanford and expect her to live an ordinary life in an ordinary town with ordinary things. That much was made clear the moment he expressed an interest in courting the timber baron’s daughter.

  So what the blue blazes was she doing here—in Salvation Falls of all places—sweeping the porch of a boardinghouse that bore her name?

  A sane man would turn tail and ride right back out of town on the road he came in on. But night fast approached, bringing with it a bitter wind and impending storm. He could feel it on his skin. Taste it on his tongue. He’d spent enough time on the trail to judge the change in weather.

  Besides, he’d come here for a reason. The life of a drifter had grown old quickly. Uncle Bertram’s offer allowed him a chance to start over and he’d be an idiot not to take it. Leaving wasn’t in his plans. But upon arriving, he’d found his uncle’s office and living quarters charred by fire. The idea he’d come all this way only to find a grave had twisted his stomach into knots. Thankfully, the proprietor of the Klein Hotel had assured him Bertram was alive and well and currently living in a room above the jail. Morgan had gone there next, but the room had been empty with no sign of his uncle. With night and the storm fast approaching, he’d set his mind to finding shelter, but both hotels and boardinghouses had been full with ranch hands and other drifters like him hunkering down to wait out the weather. Maybe partake in some Christmas cheer. He planned on doing the first. As for Christmas, he’d stopped celebrating that holiday a long time ago.

  The remaining boardinghouse at the end of Main Street was his last hope. He stared at the sign, painted white with bright red letters. It swung in the breeze, mocking him.

  Red’s Boarding House.

  He pulled Buckeye up short, earning an irritated snort from his horse.

  Red. He’d been the only one to call her that. Hope of receiving a warm welcome surged inside of him, unwanted and uncalled for. He tamped it down. No point going there. Too much had happened to be thinking that way. Besides, fate had a way of treating Morgan with contempt when it came to the woman standing on the porch.

  Regardless, Red at least owed him a room at the inn after breaking his heart by marrying Clancy Barstow when she’d promised to wait for him.

  Granted, maybe leaving town three days before their wedding hadn’t been the best timing on his part, but he’d needed to get out from under her father’s thumb. Lyle ruled with an iron fist and didn’t always walk on the right side of the law while doing so. The part of Morgan that believed in truth and justice couldn’t keep working with a man who showed such disrespect for the law.

  Red had claimed to understand when he’d climbed through her bedroom window to give her the news. Cocky and self-assured, he’d told her it would take him six months to build his practice and make his fortune. Ah, the ego of youth. He’d thought success would simply fall into his lap because he wished it so.

  Six months had turned into eight and then twelve. The pressure to attain the kind of success needed to give Willa Stanford the life she was accustomed to mounted and instead of answering her regular letters, he’d avoided them. A cowardly move, he admitted. Truth was, he hadn’t wanted to admit his failure. Couldn’t stand the idea of looking into the eyes of the woman he loved to find disappointment staring back at him.

  Besides, what were a few more months? She’d promised to wait. They’d sealed it with a kiss beneath the mistletoe she’d hung in her bedroom. Morgan breathed out. He could still recall the taste of her on his tongue.

  But the kiss had meant nothing. Nor had her promise to wait. A fact clearly highlighted when a year later she’d sent him a letter informing him she was marrying her father’s second in command—Clancy Barstow.

  He’d received that particular letter on Christmas Eve, six years ago.

  A burst of wind sliced through his sheepskin jacket. Buckeye snorted once again, shuffling his feet to announce his annoyance at the delay.

  “Fine,” Morgan muttered. He nudged the horse forward. What other choice did he have? Red was his last hope of finding lodging and he was just brazen enough to demand she make room for him. The well-bred Willa Stanford he remembered would be too polite to turn someone in need away.

  As he drew closer, it struck him how quickly he’d recognized her, even from a distance. Would she recognize him as easily? Likely not. The clean-cut lawyer she’d known was long gone, shucked off and left in pieces on the trails he’d traveled, as far north as Montana Territory and as far west as Nevada. But he wasn’t a young buck any longer. Pushing thirty, he was saddle-weary, having spent the years exhausting himself body and mind with physical labor, the kind that kept him busy enough so that he didn’t think about the life he’d dreamed of. The life that had been within his grasp before it had all come crashing down.

  Morgan watched Willa as he approached. She’d turned her back to him as she swept the dusting of snow off the front porch of the boardinghouse. Her wild mahogany hair was hard to miss, the deep red standing out like a beacon. Or a warning.

  He kept riding toward it either way.

  His brain churned, trying to determine what convergence of events had brought her here. She’d known about Uncle Bertram. Morgan had shared his uncle’s regular letters with her. Morgan’s parents had died when he was fifteen and an elderly cousin had taken him in, but it was Bertram who’d sent money to ensure he had proper schooling and his uncle’s love of the law had inspired Morgan to follow in his footsteps.

  When Lyle Stanford had offered him a job, he thought he was well on his way. He’d work hard, make a name for himself, save up some money—then he’d head West and join his uncle in Salvation Falls. He’d find a good woman, settle down and have a family. Live a good life, a simple life, filled with the kind of love and laughter he’d known until scarlet fever had swept through his home and robbed him of his parents.

  But plans of a simple life were put on hold the moment he’d laid eyes on Willa Stanford. He’d known that if he wanted to marry her he would need to prove he could provide her with a life of comfort and plenty. Willa hadn’t been the type of young lady you packed up and dragged out West.

  And yet...here she was.

  It made no sense. Had she come here hoping to find him? Unlikely. She was married to Barstow now. He gritted his teeth at the thought of seeing that rogue again. They’d been rivals at Stanford Timber, each vying for the boss’s praise, the next promotion, Lyle’s daughters’ attentions... The eldest daughter, Lettie, was considered the jewel of the family—blonde and delicate with a vivacious nature that commanded everyone’s attention. Willa on the other hand was quiet and sensible with a tender heart Morgan had been determined to keep and protect.

  Even if it meant working for a man as crooked as Lyle Stanford. But swallowing his conscience proved a harder task than Morgan had imagined. As their courtship continued one thing became clear—if he married Willa now, Lyle would own him for good. There’d be no breaking free.

  With each passing day the fear of such a fate had gripped him harder until he feared it would strangle him. He had to leave, to make his own way, or he’d never be able to sleep at night. Willa had held no delusions when it came to her father. He ruled his daughters much as he did his business. She’d given Morgan her blessing, more or less. Maybe less once she’d
learned it meant him leaving town. But regardless, she had promised to wait for him.

  Yet, instead, she’d broken her promise and married Barstow. Morgan spent the next six years drifting from town to town, picking up work where he found it and never staying anywhere long. The only company he kept was a posse of regrets that traveled with him wherever he went.

  The tired clomp of his horse’s hooves on the frozen dirt road was a reminder of how far they’d come. Cold wind whistled through the alley between the boardinghouse and the post office next door, cutting through his coat like it was nothing. All he wanted was a hot meal and a stiff drink—maybe two—a warm stable for Buckeye and the oblivion of sleep.

  But he had to get through Red first.

  He dismounted and hitched Buckeye to the post near the bottom of the steps leading up to the porch. He took off his hat and rested a booted foot on the first step. His muscles protested even that small movement and exhaustion threatened to drop him where he stood. Lucifer, but he was tired.

  “Hey, Red.”

  Her shoulders stiffened and she froze midsweep, the broom hovering a few inches off the porch. When she turned to face him, any hope he’d had that he’d find her in a generous mood blew past him on a bitter breeze.

  Words jammed in his throat. Sweet mother of mercy. When he’d left her, she’d been a wispy thing with pale skin, freckles and a mass of mahogany hair he longed to sink his hands into, but the vision before him now—well that was something else. Her hair hadn’t changed, but the rest—well, it left him thinking about things he had no business thinking about.

  Morgan took a fortifying breath. “Hi, Red.”

  The use of her nickname caused a fire to kick up in her hazel eyes. Not a happy to see you fire either. More like an I’ll skewer you with the pointy end of my broom kind. He cleared his throat and took another step. The fire blazed brighter and by the third step, self-preservation kicked in and Morgan stopped.

  He’d given her that nickname. She’d come into her father’s office one day, a quiet young girl of sixteen and gifted him with the sweetest smile he’d ever seen. He’d never stood a chance. The nickname wasn’t all that original, he admitted, but it seemed a far sight better than calling her Freckles or String Bean, and it had been bestowed with affection in the way only a nineteen-year-old boy with limited experience could manage. The other men had teased him, but he hadn’t cared. He’d liked her. Then he’d loved her.

  And then he’d left her.

  He pushed the memory and the shadow of guilt that came with it away. In the grand scheme of things, his sins were nowhere near as egregious as hers.

  One dark eyebrow lifted. “I’m afraid you have me mistaken for someone else. My name is Mrs. Barstow.”

  His mouth tightened. As if he could have forgotten. As if the pain of her marrying another man had dimmed over the years. Morgan advanced another step and Willa gripped the broom in front of her with both hands. If he made it to the top of the stairs without getting bayoneted with the broom handle, he’d consider himself lucky.

  It was his turn to glare. “We really gonna pretend like we don’t know each other, Red?”

  “We don’t know each other,” she said, standing above him on the porch with strands of her wild hair blowing in the hostile breeze. “The man I knew could be counted on to keep his promises. Are you that man?”

  “I remember you promising to wait for me,” he shot back, then turned his gaze toward the door of the boardinghouse. “Where is your dearly beloved, by the way? Perhaps I should pass along my belated felicitations on your nuptials.”

  “He’s buried six feet under.” The words came out clipped and cold and something passed through Morgan that he hadn’t been prepared for. Shock? Hope?

  “I’m sorry, Red.” The words rang hollow and she didn’t acknowledge them. Instead they stood staring at one another, a field of all the things left unsaid lying fallow between them.

  This was not going well at all.

  Morgan pulled off a leather glove and rubbed at his eyes. They burned from the cold and grit of a long day’s ride. He didn’t have the stamina to go a few rounds with her, to try and convince her he was the injured party here. What did it matter anyway? It was a lifetime ago and they had both moved on. Or, at least, she had. He’d mostly just moved around.

  He let out a long breath, white puffs of air clouding the space around him. He was minutes away from collapsing where he stood and like it or not, he needed a hot meal and warm bed more than he needed to persuade her she’d been in the wrong, not him.

  “You got a room or not, Red?”

  “Not.” The one word summed up her feelings toward him. “You best try somewhere else.”

  “The other boardinghouses and hotels are full up. You’re my last chance.”

  She let out a harsh laugh, a sound he’d never heard from her before. “That doesn’t bode well for you, now does it?”

  The wind buffeted him and Willa’s skirts pressed against the new curves that were proving to be a distinct distraction. He looked away. He needed to focus. To reason with her. Convince her to let him stay before his legs buckled from sheer exhaustion right here on her step. He changed tactics, focusing on the present and not the past. He motioned toward the boardinghouse. “You and Clancy seem to have done all right for yourselves before he passed on.”

  “Clancy had nothing to do with this.” The bitterness in her voice caught him off guard and her eyes flashed, enhancing the sharp angles of her face. “He got himself killed in the Black Hills. This place is my doing. No one else’s.”

  Morgan struggled to imagine how the pampered daughter of a timber baron had managed to go from widowed in the Black Hills of South Dakota to owning a boardinghouse in Salvation Falls, all of her own accord. He came up blank. The young woman he’d known had had everything done for her. It was one of the reasons he’d been determined to earn his fortune, to keep her in the only lifestyle she’d ever known. The fact that she hadn’t needed that was a punch to the gut.

  He left the subject of Clancy alone. It was a sore spot for both of them by the looks of it. “Look, Red, I’ve got nowhere else to go and the storm’s comin’ in fast.” He nodded toward the distance where dark clouds tumbled over the tips of the mountains heading straight toward them like a dark omen. “If I ride out and get caught in it, that’ll be that. Looks like my life is in your hands.”

  The tension in Willa’s shoulders gave way a little and relief swept through him. She wouldn’t send him out to meet his death. At least not this night.

  “There’s a room on the top floor. You can stay until the storm passes. Then I want you gone. Huck will check you in.” She nodded toward the door then turned her back on him as she continued sweeping, moving to the far corner as if to put as much distance as possible between them.

  Chapter Two

  Willa stared out of her bedroom window at the whiteness swirling about, making it impossible to see the mercantile on the opposite side of the street from her boardinghouse.

  Fate mocked her.

  The storm Morgan had claimed was coming had arrived hard and fast through the night. Not that him being right offered any solace. The weather rendered her housebound while Mother Nature unleashed her fury, hurling it down upon Salvation Falls from the tip of the mountains to where the town nestled in the valley below.

  She closed her eyes, but the sudden darkness offered no relief, only memories.

  Once I get my feet under me, I’ll come back for you, Red. I’ll come back and I’ll kiss you right here underneath this mistletoe and make you my wife, just like we planned. But I can’t do it now. I can’t live a life ruled by your father.

  At first, his words had broken her heart. They were supposed to be married in three days. But then he’d kissed her. The touch of his lips seared into every part of her. His m
outh had been soft and gentle at first, then hungry and desperate. He’d never kissed her like that before and something inside of her had awakened—something she hadn’t even known was asleep. When he’d pulled away, she’d known he felt the same. Shock had brightened his blue eyes and he’d stood motionless, staring at her as if seeing her for the first time.

  In that moment, she’d known for certain, he wouldn’t leave her. Not now. Not ever. Not after a kiss like that.

  She’d been wrong.

  A soft knock on her door pulled her away from the mess swirling outside the room and inside her heart. Likely Huck had come to fetch her. With most of her boarders stuck inside for the day, they would need all hands on deck to keep things running smoothly.

  “Coming,” she called out, as she passed through her bedroom into the sitting area beyond. Huck was a sweet boy. She’d taken him in after his pa had died, but at fourteen years of age, he weighed no more than a hundred pounds soaking wet. He’d be no match for the rowdy cowpokes if they got out of control. During the storm they’d had last February, some of the men had kicked up a ruckus that had left her with broken dishes, a cracked window and two bloodied cowpokes. She did not need that kind of headache again.

  She pulled open the door and came face-to-face with a broad chest dressed in faded flannel, blocking her view of the narrow hallway.

  Definitely not Huck.

  She glanced up and her heart gave a swift jolt when she fixed on a pair of eyes the shade of a summer sky, making her forget all about the storm raging just beyond the walls of the boardinghouse.

  By ginger, it wasn’t fair how handsome he’d become!

  She gripped the door handle but stopped short of slamming it in Morgan’s face. She would not give him the satisfaction of knowing his presence here rattled her as much as it did. Not that he would care. Likely he hadn’t given her a moment’s consideration since he’d jumped out of her window six years ago, stomping all over her tender heart as soon as his feet had hit the ground below.