A Creed Country Christmas by Linda Lael Miller Read Free Book Online Page A

much better.”
    “I’m doing fine. And there are worse things than being lonesome.”
    “Are there? You going to tell me you don’t lie in there in that bed at night and wish there was a woman beside you?”
    Again, Lincoln couldn’t answer.
    Mercifully, the talk-fest seemed to be over. Tom went back to work, another load of hay arrived, Joseph and young Gainer threw it to the cattle and went back for more.
    Toward noon, satisfied that the stock would neither starve nor perish of thirst, Lincoln sent the whole crew back to have their midday meal in the bunkhouse kitchen and then tend to other chores around the place, like splitting firewood and mending harnesses and mucking out stalls in the barn. Winter work could be miserably hard, but the season had its favorable side. There was a lot of time for catching up on lost sleep and sitting around a potbellied stove, swapping yarns.
    Gainer, Lincoln knew, was always anxious about hiswife, fearing she’d run into some kind of baby trouble, alone in the tiny cabin they shared, and he wouldn’t be there to help.
    God knew, the possibility was real enough. Beth might have bled to death with the first miscarriage if Cora hadn’t been around. She’d gone out onto the back porch, Lincoln’s mother had, and clanged at the iron triangle with vigor until they’d heard the signal, out on the range, and ridden for home.
    What if Beth had been alone with Gracie, who was only two at the time?
    Lincoln stuck a foot into the stirrup and swung up onto his horse’s back. No sense in agonizing over something that was over and done with. He’d raced to town for the doctor, but it had been Tom Dancingstar who’d stopped Beth’s bleeding. By the time Lincoln returned with help, Cora had bathed and bundled the lifeless baby, a boy.
    Lincoln had sat in the rocking chair in the kitchen, holding his son, and wept without shame until sunset when he’d carried him out to the graveyard beyond the orchard, dug a tiny grave and laid the child to rest. Eighteen months later, Beth had given birth to a second daughter, stillborn.
    He’d wept then, too, though not in front of his distraught wife. That time, Tom and Wes had done the burying, and more than a month had gone by before the circuit preacher stopped by to say prayers over the grave.
    Turning his horse homeward, Lincoln set the memories aside, but they seemed to trail along in his wake like ghosts. Clouds gathered, black-gray in the eastern sky, bulging with snow.
    Feeding the cattle would be harder tomorrow, cold work that would sting his hands, even inside heavy leather gloves, but mostly likely the creek wouldn’t freeze again.
    His heart seemed to travel on ahead of him, drawn to the light and warmth of the house. Drawn to Juliana.
    Reaching the barn, he unsaddled his horse, rubbed the animal down with a wad of burlap and gave him a scoop of grain in the bottom of a wooden bucket. He was putting off going into the house, not because he didn’t want to, though. No, he was savoring the prospect.
    The first snowflakes began to fall, slow and fat, as he left the barn, and the sun was veiled, bringing on a premature twilight.
    Lanterns shone in the kitchen windows, and Lincolnraised the collar of his coat, ducked his head against the wind and quickened his stride.
    Gracie met him at the back door, her face as bright as any lantern, her eyes huge. “I’m learning the multiplication tables!” she fairly shouted. “And I gave a recitation about Saint Nicholas, too!”
    Lincoln smiled, bent to kiss the top of Gracie’s head, then eased her backward into the kitchen, out of the cold. The table was clear of the slates and books that had come out of Juliana’s satchel that morning after breakfast was over, and she was at the stove, stirring last night’s venison stew.
    She turned her head, favored him with a shy smile, and it struck him that she was not just womanly, but beautiful. She made that faded calico dress of hers look like the