An Outlaw's Christmas by Linda Lael Miller Read Free Book Online Page B

was bristly with beard stubble, and he narrowed his blue-green eyes practically to slits. “When will that be?” he growled. “My trunk is over at the train depot. Plenty of clothes in there.”
    Piper didn’t reply right away, since she didn’t know precisely when Clay would return, and fetching Sawyer’s baggage from the depot was not presently an option. Instead, she put some coffee beans into the grinder and turned the handle, enjoying the rich scent as it rose to entice her. Coffee was normally a treat for Piper, though she’d been drinking more of it lately, being snowed in and everything. Since the stuff wasn’t considered a staple, like canned goods and meat, potatoes and butter, the town didn’t provide it as a part of her wages. Since she saved practically every penny toward a train ticket home to Maine, Dara Rose bought it for her, along with writing paper, postage stamps and bathing soap.
    God bless Dara Rose’s generous soul.
    Sawyer cleared his throat, a reminder, apparently, that she’d neglected to answer his cranky question. “Clay will be coming back—when?”
    “I don’t know,” Piper said honestly. “Soon, I hope.”
    His frown deepened as he looked around again. “Where did you sleep last night?”
    She measured coffee into the pot and set it on the stove to boil. “You needn’t concern yourself with that,” she said sunnily.
    He gave a gruff chortle at her response, completely void of amusement. Then he pushed back the chair and stood, with an effort he clearly wanted very much to hide. “I suppose the privy is out back?” he asked.
    Piper kept her face averted, so he wouldn’t see her blush. “Yes,” she said. “But the snow is deep and the path hasn’t been cleared yet.” She paused, mortified. “There’s a chamber pot under the bed.”
    “I’m not using a chamber pot,” he informed her, each word separated from the next by a tick of the Regulator clock. Slowly, he crossed the room, snatched up the same blanket she’d used earlier, in lieu of a coat, wrapped it around his mostly naked upper body like an enormous shawl, and left the schoolhouse.
    The door slammed behind him.
    Piper hoped he wouldn’t collapse in the snow again, because she wasn’t sure she’d be able to get him back inside the schoolhouse if that happened. She waited tensely, added water to the coffeepot when it bubbled, and resisted the urge to stand at the window and watch for his return.
    He did reappear, after a few minutes, and he kept the blanket around him as he made his way back to the desk chair and sat down.
    Piper poured coffee for him—the grounds hadn’t settled completely, but that couldn’t be helped—and set the mug on the surface of the desk.
    “Breakfast?” she asked.
    He finally smiled, though grudgingly. “More beans?” he countered.
    “I have some salt pork and a few eggs,” Piper responded. “Would that do, or should I risk life and limb to fetch something more to your liking from the hotel dining room? I could just hitch up the dogsled and be off.”
    He laughed, and it seemed that his color was a little better, though that could probably be ascribed to the cold weather outside. “You don’t lack for sass, do you?” he said.
    “And you don’t lack for rudeness,” Piper retorted, but, like before, she was softening toward him a little. There was something about that smile, those intelligent, blue-green eyes, that supple mouth…
    Whoa, ordered a voice in her mind, bringing her up short. Forget his smile, and his mouth, too. Silently, Piper reminded herself that, to her knowledge, Sawyer McKettrick had just one thing to recommend him—that he was Clay’s cousin—which most definitely did not mean he was the same kind of man. Families, even ones as illustrious as Clay’s, did have black sheep.
    “Sorry,” he said wearily, with no hint of actual remorse.
    She fetched the salt pork and the eggs, which were kept in a metal storage box in the cloakroom, that