His Frontier Christmas Family Read online

  “I’m sorry,” Levi said. “He was too young to die.”

  “So was Anna,” she murmured, rubbing at her arm. “That’s Mica’s mother. Our ma and pa died too young, for that matter. Pa stayed in the stream so long he contracted pneumonia. I wouldn’t be surprised if Adam went the same way.”

  She and her little brothers had seen too much death. She was younger than his sister Beth. She ought to be giggling over fashion plates, planning for a bright future. What sort of future had her father and brother bequeathed her? She was all the family the boys and the baby had left. The need to help her was so strong that he wondered she couldn’t see it hanging between them.

  “A man I knew at Vital Creek was fond of saying that life is for the living,” he murmured. “What do you want to do with your life, Miss Murphy?”

  She made a face. “Not so much a matter of wanting as what must be done. Frisco and Sutter need to go to school, learn a trade. I won’t have them dying with a pan in their hands, too. And someone has to raise Mica.”

  Levi closed the distance between them, put both hands on her shoulders. Though they seemed far too narrow, there was a strength in them. “What about Callie? Do you want nothing for yourself?”

  Her gaze brushed his, and for a moment he thought she’d confess some dream of her own. Then she shrugged as if dismissing it. “You do right by my kin, preacher, and I’ll be satisfied. I can always find my own way later.”

  So brave. He might have given another woman a brotherly hug to encourage her, but something told him Callie wouldn’t take kindly to the gesture. She was all prickles and thorns, a hedge thrown up in defense of the heart within, he suspected. He wasn’t sure how to convince her he only meant the best for all of them.

  Lord, I thought You sent me here. I thought You were offering me a chance to be the man You want me to be. Give me the words. Help me win her over, for her sake and mine.

  “You don’t believe I’ll take care of you all,” he said aloud.

  She shrugged as if she didn’t believe much of anything.

  He released her shoulders. “I want to help you, Miss Murphy. Adam supported me when no one else would. I want to honor his wishes.”

  She scrubbed at her cheek, but not before he saw the tears that had dampened them. “Adam’s gone. Besides, it wasn’t as if you two were partners.”

  Partners. The most sacred of ideals where she came from. And that gave him an inkling of how to proceed.

  “We weren’t partners,” he acknowledged. “But you and I might be.”

  She turned her gaze his way again. “How do you figure?”

  “We both want the best for your brothers and little Mica. We should work together.”

  She cocked her head. “I’m listening.”

  “You, your brothers and Mica can come to live at Wallin Landing as my wards. I’ll see your brothers and Mica clothed, fed, housed and educated. I’ll help you find a future for yourself.”

  Still she regarded him. “How do I know I can trust you?”

  “When two people decide to partner on a mining claim, how do they know they can trust each other?”

  “They give their word and shake hands,” she allowed.

  “I give you my word that you and your family will be safe at Wallin Landing.” He stuck out his hand.

  She eyed his hand, and for a moment he thought she’d refuse. Then she slipped her fingers into his, sending a tingle up his arm. “And I give you my word to help you raise Frisco, Sutter and Mica,” she said.

  He shook her hand. “Partners?”

  “Partners for now,” she agreed. “But don’t expect anything more.”

  Releasing her, Levi frowned. “What more would I want?”

  She shook her head. “Sometimes you ask the silliest questions for a man who claims to have been on the gold fields. You just hold up your end of the bargain, preacher, or this will be the shortest partnership you ever heard of. Wallin Landing may be north of Seattle, but I can still walk away.”

  Chapter Three

  Levi Wallin came back the next day with a wagon. By that time, Callie had talked herself into going with him.

  She had a number of concerns. For one thing, she still wasn’t sure she’d made the right decision by agreeing to partner him. It was fine and good to say he wanted to help, but once he was back at his church, everything neat and tidy and clean, surely he’d start to regret his promise to her. What sort of fellow willingly took on four more mouths to feed, the raising of two boys and a baby? She’d accepted that responsibility out of love; she was kin, after all. What was Levi Wallin’s reason?

  He said he had been Adam’s friend, and it seemed he owed Adam a favor for helping him. This was a mighty big favor. The preacher might recall some of the same events she did at Vital Creek, but she didn’t remember meeting him there, couldn’t see his face along the crowded stream of her memories. Charity only went so far, and this partnership was a fair piece further. She simply couldn’t figure him out.

  And their visitors didn’t make matters easier.

  Carrying Mica in her arms, she’d walked the mile to the Kingerly claim to confirm the elderly farmer had indeed given her brothers the pumpkin and turnips they’d dragged home. She’d returned to find two men with her brothers at the back of the cabin. Their rough, heavy clothing and the pans affixed to their horses’ trap told her what they were before they introduced themselves. Zachariah Turnpeth and Willard Young claimed to be prospectors heading home for the winter. They begged a room for the night. It was one of the unwritten rules of the gold fields. You shared bedding, food, drink, clothing, equipment. About the only thing you didn’t share was your claim. Only the worst of the worst came between a man and his claim.

  But she wasn’t about to let strangers stay in the cabin.

  “You can pitch your tent out back,” Callie told the older men. “We’ve no grain for the horses, but you’re welcome to share our dinner.”

  Her brothers scowled at her as if they thought she should be more generous. As little food was left, she knew she was being generous indeed.

  The twins were quick to quiz the prospectors on where they’d panned, what they’d done as she’d fed them all roast pumpkin and turnips.

  “Alike as two peas in a pod,” Zachariah said with a smile to Callie.

  “Puts me in mind of Fred Murphy’s young’uns at Vital Creek,” Willard agreed. “They’d be around seven now.”

  Callie looked at them askance, but Frisco puffed out his chest. “Eight,” he declared.

  “You knew Pa?” Sutter asked.

  Callie waited to hear their answer.

  “If your pa was Fred Murphy, we did,” Zachariah admitted.

  “And that means your brother was Adam Murphy,” Willard said. “We was real sorry to hear about his passing.” He scratched gray hair well receded from his narrow face and glanced around. “A shame he couldn’t make it back before Christmas.”

  “Yes, it is,” Callie murmured, eyes feeling hot.

  Zachariah reached out a hand and ruffled Frisco’s hair, earning him no better than a frown. “I don’t suppose he sent anything home for his brothers.”

  “Not a thing,” Sutter said with a sigh. “And now we have to leave.”

  “Leave?” Zachariah turned to Callie. Both of the miners watched her as if she was about to confess she’d been voted president. “Where are you going? North to pan?”

  In winter? Oh, but they had the fever bad. “No. We’re going to live with a friend at Wallin Landing. It will be better than this.”

  Sutter smashed the pumpkin on his tin plate with a wooden spoon. “Most anything would be better than this.”

  Callie couldn’t argue. Adam had been a terrible homesteader. He’d bought them a goat for milk, but the ornery thing had run
off weeks ago. Foxes had carried off the chickens. He’d never managed enough money for a horse and plow, so the most they’d been able to grow came from Anna’s vegetable patch behind the house. Callie was just thankful the woods teemed with game and wild fruits and vegetables. But even that bounty was growing scarce as winter approached.

  Frisco scooted closer to the table, glanced between the two men. “Sutter and me could come north with you, when you head back.”

  Sutter nodded. “We got pans.”

  Heat rushed up her. Callie slammed her hands down on the table. “No! No panning, no sluicing. Finish up and head for bed. We have a long way to go in the morning.”

  The prospectors had shoveled in the food as if they suspected she was going to snatch it away, then slipped out the back door. And Callie had spent the next hour or so packing up her family’s things, such as they were.

  She’d hardly slept that night, but more to make sure her brothers didn’t run off with Zachariah and Willard than with concern over the change she was making. She was glad to see the men gone in the morning, the only sign the holes in the ground where they’d driven their tent pegs. Wearing her brother’s old flannel shirt and trousers, belted around her waist to keep them close, suspenders over her shoulder to keep them up, she’d barely finished feeding Mica mashed pumpkin when Sutter dashed in the door.

  “He’s coming!”

  Callie’s stomach dipped and rose back up again. So much for not being nervous. Gathering Mica close as she shoved her father’s hat on top of her hair, she followed her brother out onto the slab of rock that served as a front step.

  Though he was still dressed in those rough clothes she found hard to credit to a preacher, Levi Wallin had brought two horses with him this time. They were both big and strong, coats a shiny black in the pale sunlight. They were hitched to a long farm wagon with an open bed, the kind Adam had always wanted to buy. Frisco was trotting alongside as if to guide them.

  It only took two trips to load their things. Adam had left with his pack, most of the panning supplies and some of the dishes, but she still had her father’s pack and the one Ma had used plus Mica’s wagon. Their belongings fit inside Levi’s wagon with room to spare. She had Sutter bring the quilts their mother had sewn and pile them in a corner of the wagon next to the bench. Pulling on her coat, she glanced around one more time.

  This was supposed to be home. Maybe one day she could come back. Maybe no one would want a claim so far out. Maybe she could file for it herself in six months.

  Maybe she better leave before tears fell.

  Her brothers were already snuggled in the quilts when she came out with Mica in one arm and her rifle in the other. The preacher approached her, and she offered him the baby so she could climb up.

  He hesitated, then took the little girl from Callie’s grip. He held her out, feet dangling, as if concerned she might spit on his clothes. Mica bubbled a giggle and wiggled happily.

  Callie sighed. “Here, like this.” She lay the rifle on the bench, then repositioned Levi’s arms to better support the baby. Some muscles there—hard and firm. Touching them made her fingers warm. She took a step away from him.

  As Mica gazed up at him, the preacher reared back his head, neck stretching, as if distancing himself from the smiling baby in his arms.

  “She won’t bite,” Callie told him.

  “Yet,” Frisco predicted.

  The preacher’s usually charming smile was strained. “It’s been a long time since I held a baby. I was the youngest in my family, and I moved away when my brothers’ oldest children were about this age.”

  So that was the problem. Callie patted his arm and offered him a smile. “You’ll do fine. Just hang on to her until I climb up and stow the rifle, then hand her to me.”

  That went smoothly enough, until Levi climbed up onto the bench, reins in one fist. His trousers brushed hers as he settled on the narrow seat, and his sleeve rubbed along her arm as he shook the reins and called to the horses. The wagon turned with the team, bringing her and Levi shoulder to shoulder. Each touch sent a tremor through her.

  No, no, no. She’d spent the last five years avoiding such contact with men. She’d all but decided she would never marry. She certainly didn’t want to get all fluttery over a minister of all people, someone who would only judge her and find her wanting. And how did she know he wouldn’t go tearing off to the gold fields one day like every other man she’d ever known? She’d had quite enough of that for one lifetime.

  Not even Levi Wallin’s charming smile could convince her otherwise.

  * * *

  What was wrong with him? Every flick of the reins, every bump of the wagon made him more aware of Callie Murphy sitting beside him. He’d thought his change of heart and his religious studies had helped him become a new man. But had he just traded gold fever for petticoat fever?

  He remembered what it had been like when Asa Mercer had brought women from the East Coast to the lonely bachelors in Seattle. His brothers Drew, Simon and James owed their wives to Mercer’s efforts. Even now, seven years later, men still far outnumbered the women in Seattle. That was one of the reasons his sister Beth had written for a mail-order bride for their brother John.

  But Levi had no intention of taking a bride. Not for a long while, if ever. His time on the gold fields had shown him the kind of man he was deep down. No wife deserved a husband like that. He had started to rebuild his life, but he had a long way to go.

  His brothers didn’t understand. They had all been so pleased, and not a little surprised, to find that their little brother had become a minister. They remembered the scrapes he’d gotten into as a youth—stealing Ma’s blackberry pie off the window ledge where it had been set to cool and claiming a bear had lumbered by. Trying to show his oldest brother Drew he was strong enough to master an ax and bringing down a tree so close to the house it shaved off a corner of the back porch. Attempting to prove himself a man by gambling himself into a debt so deep his entire family had had to chip in to raise him out of it.

  The last thoughtless act still made him shudder. He’d worked on Drew’s logging crew for months to pay everyone back. And then he and Scout had heard about the gold strike in the British Territories and run off to make their fortunes.

  “You’ll see,” Levi had promised his friend. “We’ll come home rich. They’ll have to respect us.”

  Respect had seemed all important then. He was the youngest of his family, Scout the only son of a father who couldn’t have cared less. They had wanted something to call their own, a way to make people look at them with pride. Filling their pockets with gold had sounded easy.

  Their adventures had not only failed to find them gold but lost Levi his respect for himself. And no one except Scout, Thaddeus and God knew how far Levi had fallen. It would be a long time before he felt himself worthy of respect again.

  The best he could do now was help the Murphy family. He glanced at Callie sitting beside him. She wore a slouch hat that hid her hair and shadowed her face as she gazed down at the baby in her arms. The movement of the wagon must have lulled little Mica to sleep, for thick black lashes swept across her pearly cheeks.

  He couldn’t forget the feel of the child in his arms—so tiny, so fragile. Her big blue eyes had gazed at him so trustingly. She was too young to know the things he’d seen, the things he’d done.

  Thank You, Lord, for this opportunity to make amends and help a friend.

  Peace brushed him like the wings of a dove, reminding him of why he had started down this path. God had never abandoned him, no matter how far Levi had run. He’d been waiting with open arms for Levi to come home. It was a blessing to return the favor with the Murphys.

  “How far do we got to go?” one of her brothers asked behind him. The belligerent tone likely belonged to Frisco.

  “Will it take much
longer?” Sutter whined.

  Levi smiled. He’d been the same way once, eager for things to start now. “Have you ridden to Seattle before?”

  “’Course we have,” Frisco said, tone now aggrieved.

  “Well, it’s that much again to Wallin Landing,” Levi told him.

  He glanced back in time to see Frisco slide deeper into the pile of quilts. “That could be hours.”

  “Days,” Sutter moaned.

  “Maybe we could stop in Seattle,” Callie suggested. “Stretch our legs.”

  “Get a sarsaparilla,” Levi offered.

  Sutter perked up. Frisco pushed himself closer to the bench. “You got money, preacher?”

  Callie scowled at her brother. “I got money, the last of what Adam sent us a few months ago. There’s no call to bother the preacher.”

  “It’s no problem,” Levi assured her. “I said I’d provide for you all.”

  Frisco leaned up between them, arms braced on the back of the bench. “That’s real nice of you, preacher. And maybe we could get something to eat at one of them fancy hotels.”

  “San Francisco Murphy,” Callie said, her voice a low rumble, like a thunderstorm heading their way.

  Her brother’s eyes widened, and he ducked back into the wagon bed. “It was just an idea. A fellow can’t live on pumpkin and pinecones.”

  “I never fed you pinecones,” Callie complained. “But maybe I should.” She shot Levi a glance. Behind that stern look, he thought he saw a twinkle in her blue-gray eyes. “You got pinecones up your way, preacher?”

  “Plenty of them,” Levi assured her. “My brother chops down a lot of trees. I’m sure he could find a few cones, maybe some sawdust.”

  “There you go,” Callie said, facing front. “Everything a growing boy needs.”

  “You’re no fun,” Frisco grumbled.

  “I’d eat pinecones,” Sutter told him. “If I had to.”

  “Would not!”