Christmas Cowboy Kisses Read online

  Joseph leaned from his father’s arms to hug Joy’s neck. “I’m so glad we’re here with you and Grandpa,” he sang out.

  “Well, I’m glad you’re here, too,” Joy told him, returning his hug and then turning to the sofa to sit beside her grandfather. “Come sit on my lap, Joseph,” she invited, and the boy lost no time in accepting her summons. Joy leaned back a bit and Joseph cuddled close as they both turned their attention to the tree, glowing brightly as the candles flickered and flamed.

  “Time for you to show us how talented you are,” Gideon said, approaching Joy a bit later. He reached for his son and then helped Joy up from her seat with his other hand. She went to the organ and lifted the cover from the keyboard, settling herself on the bench and pumping the pedals for a moment.

  “Now watch, Joseph,” his father said. “Watch how Joy pumps the pedals that feed air to the organ and make it sound out the notes she presses with her fingers. I think we’re in for a treat.”

  “I hope so,” Joy said with a laugh. “I haven’t played for a while, but some things you never forget.” She stood quickly and pulled the proper songbook from the bench beneath her, opening it and placing it on the music rack. Within moments the sound of “Silent Night” filled the room as Joy played with more proficiency than Gideon had expected.

  “All right, you lead off, Gideon, and we’ll all join in,” she said, completing the short introduction.

  Without hesitation Gideon’s baritone voice rose in the opening words, and Grandpa rose from the sofa to join them around the organ. Joy sang a low alto part, harmonizing as her mother had taught her, and even Joseph was caught up in the words, singing along as best he could.

  “I remember that song,” the boy said after they’d sung the first verse. “We sang it at Aunt Rosie’s house back home.”

  “So we did, son,” Gideon replied. “I wasn’t sure you’d remember the words, but you did really well.”

  “How about ‘Joy to the World’ now,” Joy asked, turning the pages to find the carol she’d mentioned.

  “I know that one a little bit, too,” Joseph said with glee. Following his father’s lead, he sang out, not always getting the words correct but following as best he could. Grandpa cut in with his rusty bass and their harmony rose in the small parlor as they sang. The words were a paean of joy and Gideon found himself focusing on the woman who sat before him, her music rising in accompaniment as they sang. She was flushed and excited, her voice melodic and sounding much to him as the angels must have on that first Christmas Eve.

  They sang on, turning pages in the songbook, until finally Joseph’s head began to loll against Gideon’s shoulder. “I think this boy needs to be in bed,” he said quietly as Joy finished the last song.

  “He’ll have a big day tomorrow and he’s about tuckered out right now,” Joy said agreeably. “We’ll be up early. I’ll hold breakfast until the chores are done, Gideon.”

  He nodded and offered her a smile that carried a wealth of feeling. “I’ll sort out some apples in the cellar after I do the chores. Joseph and I will do our apple squeezing in the kitchen, I suspect. It’s too cold for him in the cellar.”

  “We’ll have lots of space. The kitchen is the largest room in the house. We spend most of our time there,” Joy answered.

  Grandpa yawned widely and grinned. “I’m on my way up to bed right now,” he said. “This old body needs a lot of sleep these days.”

  “I’ll come back down and bank the fire as soon as I put this boy of mine into bed,” Gideon offered.

  He left the parlor on Grandpa’s heels and they climbed the stairs to the loft. Joy snuffed the candles on the tree, then went to the kitchen and checked in the pantry to be sure she had enough of everything she needed for the cookie baking. It was there that Gideon found her just a few minutes later. She turned and almost walked into him, stepping back as he took her hands in his.

  “What are you working at now?” he asked, grinning as he saw the look on her face, one of surprise and pleasure, if his guess was right.

  “Just making sure I have everything we need for the big day tomorrow. I’ll mix the cookies in my bread-dough pan. It’ll hold enough to make ten or twelve dozen.”

  Gideon drew her closer, his hands tightening on hers in a firm grip. She stood before him looking like the angel on the Christmas tree, he decided, lifting a hand to brush a lock of hair from her cheek. “Joy, would you think poorly of me if I stole a kiss from you? I wouldn’t do anything to cause you distress, but since the first brush of my lips against your smooth skin, I’ve yearned for another chance to touch you. Perhaps a kiss more suited to a man who has come to care for a woman more quickly than he’d planned.”

  “And what is the difference between the two?” she asked, her eyes sparkling in the dim light within the pantry.

  “I believe I’ll just show you,” Gideon said quietly. He bent a bit, his mouth touching hers gently. And then with a murmur in his throat, he released her lips and scooped her closer to him, his arms wrapping her in a firm embrace. His mouth sought hers once more and this time he began a foray of kisses across her cheeks and forehead, ending up once more at her lips. His tongue touched her upper lip in a caress she had apparently never felt before, for she moved back quickly and opened her eyes to meet his.

  “I haven’t had a lot of experience at kissing, as you’ve probably guessed,” she said quietly, “for aside from a few hasty kisses on my cheek, I’ve never allowed a man to come any closer to me, Gideon. I fear my experience is far overshadowed by yours.”

  He smiled down at her, holding her closely against his big body. She was small and delicate, and though gently rounded, she was all woman and filled his arms. “You’re a woman to be cherished, Joy. I hope you know that I mean only what is right and honest between us. I feel deeply for you, but perhaps that sounds foolish after such a short time.”

  She blushed and touched her forehead against his shirt, there where his heart beat, a bit rapidly, she thought. “I don’t know what to say to you, Gideon. I’ve been sheltered here with Grandpa, and men are beyond my experience for the most part. But I have to admit that I feel something...” She looked up at him. “I don’t even know what I feel, to be honest with you. I just know I’m glad you and your son came to us. I feel like you were put here for a reason, and if that’s nothing more than to be a help to us through this storm, so be it. I’m just happy to tend to Joseph and keep him safe and warm and well fed. And the same goes for you. If you’ll lend a hand with the work here, like you already have, then I’ll be thankful for it.”

  “I’m here for you, Joy. For as long as you need me I’ll be here. You may be right. Perhaps I was sent here for a reason, whether for Joseph’s well-being or my own. I’m happy here with you and your grandfather, and Joseph is tickled pink by everything that’s happened since our arrival.”

  “Well, I think we both need to turn in,” Joy said firmly. “Tomorrow will be a big day for everyone, and I plan on getting up early. And I still have some knitting to do tonight. I’ll sit up in bed and finish Joseph’s cap. Shouldn’t take more than a half hour or so, and I want to begin his scarf early on tomorrow, after the cookie baking is finished.”

  Gideon stepped back from the pantry, then made haste to bank the cookstove after ushering her into the kitchen. She watched him finish his task, then walked into the hallway and toward her bedroom. Gideon made his way to the stairs. “Good night, Joy,” he sang out cheerfully, for he felt he had much to be pleased with, given the events in the pantry and Joy’s response to him.

  “Good night,” she called back, bending to light a lamp on the hallway table to carry with her into her bedroom. She disappeared from his view and he quickly went up the stairs to the loft, where Joseph slept soundly. He undressed, slid beneath the sheet and quilts next to his son and curled his arm around the boy, the better to keep him war
m throughout the night. The heat from the stove in the kitchen made its way upstairs and he found himself ready to sleep, even as visions of the woman downstairs drifted through his head. His lips curved in a tender smile as he closed his eyes.

  Chapter Five

  The scent of apples filled the kitchen as Gideon used Joy’s grinder to fill a large pan with juice and pulp from the fruit he’d gathered from the cellar. He’d washed the apples, sorting through them and discarding the ones with bad spots. Although this was a new endeavor for him, he felt confident he would be able to make a decent batch of cider in his own makeshift way.

  The grinder worked well for the job, and he set about straining the apples into another container with Joy’s large strainer. By the time he was finished, he had over a gallon of the fragrant juice, along with a goodly amount of pulp, and had set aside the rest of the pulp and skins for the pigs who lived in a pen with a sheltered lean-to attached to the barn. There were three pigs, all of them ready for butchering, a job Gideon meant to inquire about in town or perhaps with the nearby neighbor once the snow cleared up. Surely there would be someone in the area who specialized in such things.

  Joy worked at the table, mixing the dough for the cookies, finally dumping a part of the dough onto the flour-covered table. She patted it into a circle, then used her rolling pin to flatten it and ready it for Joseph’s task of cutting out cookies. He knelt on a chair, one of her aprons tied around him to protect his clothing from all the flour that would be flying about as he worked.

  He cut out first one star, then another, until he had almost two dozen, not all of them perfect, but all of them suitable for the cookie sheets Joy had readied. Using her spatula, she transferred one after another of the stars until she had filled the sheet.

  “This one goes into the oven, Joseph. We’ll give them ten minutes and then check them out. They should be pretty near baked by then.” After sliding the pan into the hot oven, Joy brought her other cookie sheet to the table. “Now let’s fill this one,” she said with a smile for the eager boy who watched her.

  In no time, she found room for the rest of his stars on the cookie sheet and placed it on the warming shelf to await its turn in the oven below. She piled up the remnants of the dough and added more from her bread pan, then went through the same process as she had the first time. This time, Joseph was given a cookie cutter that resembled an angel. His tongue was caught in one corner of his mouth as he worked, and Joy and Gideon exchanged smiles as they watched him, Joy lending a hand when needed, for Joseph wasn’t yet adept at fitting the angels closely together on the cookie sheet.

  The morning passed quickly as one pan then another left the oven. The cookies were just a touch brown, marking their readiness for the next step. After the table was piled high across one end with ten dozen cookies, according to Joy’s count, they got ready to frost them. Joy filled a bowl with white icing and found some small bottles of colored sugar in the pantry, which she transferred to empty salt and pepper shakers. “I never did this before,” Joseph announced as Joy began frosting the cookies.

  “Well, it’ll take you and your father both to keep up with me, I fear,” Joy said with a laugh as she moved her frosted cookies closer to the boy. Gideon joined him, and they all sprinkled the colored sugar on the stars and angels before them, Joseph more than generous with his shakers, colored sugar flying about with gusto. Gideon announced that one of them was damaged by too many sugar crystals and must be eaten immediately, calling forth laughter from Joy and his son.

  He made a big production out of eating the angel he’d considered to be damaged, sharing it with Joseph bite for bite. “That’s the best cookie I ever ate, ma’am,” the boy declared fervently. “It surely was good. I’ll bet I could eat another one, if you wouldn’t mind.”

  “I’d be happy to get you a glass of milk to go with it, if you’d like, Joseph. And perhaps even one for your father,” Joy said happily. She hadn’t had this much fun in a month of Sundays, she decided, watching the wide grin spread across the boy’s face.

  “Would you, ma’am? I’d sure like that and I know my daddy would, too,” Joseph said, smiling through the icing that adorned his lips and cheeks.

  Within a few minutes, Grandpa had joined them, and all four sat at the table, drinking milk and sampling the cookies before them. Joy moved as many cookies to the cooled cookie sheets as she could and then found two more in the cupboard to hold the excess. The kitchen dresser held all four sheets and still the table was almost half full.

  “We’ll have enough cookies to last us for a month,” Joy said happily. “We’ll hang some on the tree later on, when the icing is completely dry. Probably by tonight. And in the meantime, I have some other tasks to finish up before the day is over. If you’ll all excuse me, I’m going to sit on the rocker in the corner and get out my knitting.”

  “Can I go in the parlor and look at the Christmas tree?” Joseph asked. “I just want to sit on the sofa and enjoy it.”

  “You sure can, son,” Gideon said, ushering the boy away from the knitting scene lest he figure out that the work keeping Joy so busy was intended for him. She’d finished the hat last night and had begun working on the scarf before her eyes closed midway through a row, almost causing a calamity when the stitches came close to sliding from her needles. Now she knit the final ball of yarn into the length she’d determined would fit around the boy’s neck and crisscross on his chest to keep him warm beneath his coat. The mittens would have to wait till after Christmas, for she had another task she wanted to complete before dark.

  She’d found a large ball of brown yarn in her basket of supplies and determined to do a scarf for Gideon, even if it took all evening. She was quick at the task, for she’d been knitting since she was but a youngster. She’d made Grandpa a new hat and scarf over the past weeks, working at it in her bedroom to keep it a secret from him, and had fashioned a vest for him out of the deerhide she’d cleaned and stretched. Now if Gideon’s scarf was ready in time, she’d wrap them in the tissue she’d bought in town a while ago. It was red and would look festive under the tree come morning. She needed only to make out small name tags for the packages and then scoot into the parlor after everyone else was in bed to put them beneath the tree.

  * * *

  Christmas morning began before the sun came up. Joy was busily making cinnamon rolls, having put them to rise atop the warming oven the night before. She fried up a panful of bacon and a dozen eggs, sliding them onto her big platter to sit in the center of the table when everyone had assembled for breakfast. She toasted six slices of bread in the oven, then buttered them and presented them on another small plate.

  “This is a feast fit for a king,” Gideon pronounced. His cheeks were ruddy from the cold and he sat closest to the stove to soak up the warmth. The chores were done, he’d said as he came in the backdoor, and after he’d washed up at the sink, he helped Joseph wash, then sat him on a store catalog atop his chair. Grandpa came in, a smug look on his face as he joined the group around the table.

  They held hands while Gideon said a blessing over their food, and then they all tucked in with a will, the bacon and eggs disappearing quickly. The cinnamon rolls were hot from the oven and Joy cut them up in big squares and passed the butter. They drank coffee and ate the rolls almost in silence, so tasty were the sweet offerings. Joseph drank two glasses of milk, declaring the rolls to be the best thing he’d eaten in forever, causing his father and Joy to laugh heartily.

  They lit the candles on the tree, and then all sat down on the sofa but for Gideon, who announced he would distribute the gifts. Joseph was delighted with the hat and scarf Joy had made and thanked her profusely. Grandpa was surprised at his own knitted gift and muttered his thanks with a low growl. His misty eyes needed wiping with his big kerchief as he unwrapped the vest Joy had stitched so carefully from the deerhide.

  “I sure didn’t e
xpect such a wonderful surprise, girl,” he said in a gruff tone, his smile belying the sound. With Gideon’s help, he donned his gift and beamed as he smoothed his hands over the front, examining the buttonholes Joy had worked into the suede fabric. Gideon was more than happy with the scarf he received, declaring it a lifesaver, for he needed something to keep his ears warm.

  Grandpa pointed at a brown-wrapped package and Gideon lifted it from beneath the tree and cast a questioning look at him. “Give it to Joy,” he said, and Gideon did so with a flourish. Joy took it on her lap with a cry of glee.

  “How did you...? What did you...?” she asked, her cheeks pink with confusion and pleasure as her fingers untied the string that encircled the package. She folded back the paper, and within the wrapping lay a navy blue cloak, three frog fastenings at its throat. Joy stood up and held it before her, admiring the red binding that accented it, encircling the neck and then running down the front of each lapel and down to the hem.

  “Oh, my! Oh, my!” she crooned, unfastening the loops and swirling the cloak about her, holding it closely against her throat and turning in a slow circle before her audience. Grandpa smiled, Joseph clapped his hands with glee and Gideon could only watch in admiration as the woman before him cast warm glances at all the males in her family.

  “You surely do look like a Christmas angel, Joy,” Grandpa said with a hint of tears in his voice. “I knew you’d look beautiful in that thing. Had it ordered from the catalog for you and picked it up a while ago when we went to town.”

  “I didn’t know,” Joy said. “You sure are good at keeping a secret, Grandpa. And I thank you so much. It’s just beautiful and will keep me warm. I’ll even put it over my quilt on the bed when I go to sleep.” She bent over her grandfather and kissed him across his forehead and down one cheek, murmuring soft words of love to him as she did so.