Chapter Fourteen
Fourteen
Beau woke up to the shimmery light and muffled quiet that could only mean snow.
Sure enough, Bitterroot had a light icing-sugar dusting.
Not the deep drifts of winter, but a sprinkling of cold-to-come.
He heard barking and looked outside to see Junebug’s dog Beast bouncing around in it, sending up sprays of powder.
Junebug herself was standing in the yard of the hotel, sucking on a wickedly long icicle and looking self-satisfied.
She was wearing her overalls and one of Morgan’s thick flannel shirts.
“Now it’s Christmassy,” she called to him when he emerged from Mrs. Champion’s. “It ain’t Christmas-like without snow.”
“It ain’t Christmas-like until it’s Christmas,” he said.
“November’s too early for all this palaver.
” He crossed the little picket fence between the yards, holding a tin mug of coffee for each of them.
She beamed at him as she took the coffee, her cheeks rosy and her eyes bright. It was nice to see her happy.
“You should be wearing a hat, Bug. You’ll freeze.” One handed, he pulled his own woolen hat off, trying not to spill his coffee, and yanked it down over her ears.
“I forgot to pick my pumpkins up at Buck’s Creek,” she confessed to him, as she sipped her coffee. “And now they’ll be covered in snow. If it’s a dusting down here, it’ll be a proper blanket up there.”
Beau rolled his eyes. “Maddy and Kit did it for you. Last time I was up there your vegetable patch was bedded down for winter. And what they managed to save of your rotten pumpkins are safely down in the root cellar.”
She went queerly quiet at that. A light sprinkle of snow began to swirl around them; Beau held out a hand to catch some of the tiny evanescent flakes.
“This will be the first Christmas I won’t be at Buck’s Creek,” she said in an odd voice. “Or with Kit, Morgan and Jonah.”
“It ain’t actually Christmas, Bug. I’m sure you’ll be back by December,” he said dryly.
In her usual overalls, instead of her pretty blue dress, she looked like a little kid again.
Beau remembered the pinch-faced skinny girl who’d been half dead of fever when Morgan had returned that winter.
That had been an awful season of death, when they’d lost Ma.
He remembered Morgan trying his darndest to make Christmas nice, that year and all the years after Pa and Charlie had disappeared.
Nice didn’t come easy to Morgan, and he’d been gruff and grumpy that awfully sad Christmas, swearing when the tree he’d cut had been too big for the cabin, losing his temper at the chicken he’d tried to cook when it came out crispy and black.
But Beau remembered Junebug beaming, sitting at their rickety little table, surrounded by the four of them, Morgan, Kit, Beau and Jonah, enchanted by their too-big tree and their incinerated chicken.
He remembered Kit reading them A Christmas Carol by the stove after dinner, Junebug forcing him to repeat the bit about Marley and the chains, over and over again.
He remembered her asking for a new fishing rod the year Beau had accidentally broken hers, and moaning every year after that no fishing rod was ever as good as the one he’d broken, even though Beau must have made her a hundred rods since.
“I never thought Morgan would leave me all alone for Christmas,” Junebug said glumly.
Suddenly Beau felt keenly homesick for his brothers, and for their cabin and the snow-dusted landscapes of Buck’s Creek.
He wanted to look out his window and see the mountains and the frozen creek, to hear the echoing clang of Kit’s forge, to see the smoke curling from the trading post chimney and the big house.
Christmas just didn’t seem like Christmas anywhere else.
Even though it wasn’t actually Christmas yet, damn it.
He shook off the maudlin mood he’d caught from Junebug. “Ah, you ain’t alone, Bug. I’m here, and Jonah’s playing the fiddle for you tonight. Kit’s liable to haul Maddy down that mountain for your Christmas dance too, even if it’s blizzarding, just to see you.”
“Us,” she corrected. “To see us.”
Us. It was a good, solid word. It made him feel firm on his feet.
“But even if Kit comes, there’s still no Morgan,” she fretted. “I thought he’d be back by now.” She glanced over at the hotel. “When I imagined my party, he was always here too. I thought he’d dance with me.”
Beau knew Morgan was Junebug’s parent in every way that mattered.
The two of them were so similar that they shot sparks every time they struck up against each other, but they loved each other fiercely.
Morgan had been responsible for bringing Junebug up, as best he could.
Junebug and Kit and Beau and Jonah. He’d been surrogate ma and pa to all of them.
“You want Morgan to pitch up now, and see all those women you ordered up?” Beau teased her. “Are you kidding? He’d go around ripping down all that mistletoe, yelling up a storm.”
“What mistletoe?” Junebug asked innocently.
“Ha.” He squeezed her. “And don’t worry. I’ll dance with you tonight. And I’ll be at Christmas.”
“I guess that’s where it’s nice having an excess of brothers,” she sighed, leaning into him. “You’ve got backups in case of emergency.”
“I ain’t no back up, Bug. I’m the main attraction.”
“You are today,” she giggled.
“How much mistletoe have you strung up?”
“Enough to make life interesting.” She pulled away and waved her icicle like a wand. “If you’re lucky you might kiss someone and turn yourself into a frog.”
“Frogs turn into princes, not the other way round.” He followed her across the yard as she gamboled towards the hotel.
“They have to turn into frogs in the first place, don’t they? Which means it’s a two-way process.”
“Fair point.”
“Maybe some kisses turn you into a frog and some turn you into a prince.”
“I’m already a prince,” he was saying as he opened the back door of the hotel for her. He was met by a wave of women. A flurry of femininity poured out, the girls all rugged up and squealing at the sight of snow. He stepped back so he wouldn’t get bowled over.
“Good morning,” he greeted them, nodding at each one in turn as they came tripping out to see the snow, their coats buttoned up and their hats pulled firmly down.
It was a delight to see such a passel of happy faces on a halcyon November morning.
The clouds were being blown to shreds and a pretty eggshell blue sky was showing through.
“Oh look,” Junebug said casually, “mistletoe.”
Beau looked up. He heard Junebug laugh and the girls giggle.
And then he saw who was under it.
“Ellie, looks like you’re the one stuck under the mistletoe this time,” Junebug crowed.
Ellie seemed appalled. She was the last one out the door and was frozen on the threshold, her gaze fixed upwards on the scrappy little bunch of mistletoe. Junebug had sure mangled it as she hooked it up there; the berries were all squished.
Ellie met Beau’s gaze, looking vaguely panicked. “I’m not part of this anymore,” she reminded everyone in a high voice. “I’m not one of Junebug’s brides.”
“That ain’t how mistletoe works,” Junebug told her. “It’s only got one rule—you get caught under it, you get kissed.”
Beau’s heart did a slow tumble. “So,” he drawled, aware of everyone’s eyes on them. “If she’s caught, does she kiss me, or do I kiss her?”
If looks could kill, Ellie’s would have knocked him dead on the spot.
“Good question,” Junebug mused. She was holding her icicle like a mace now. “Ladies, what do you think? We should sort this now, as we’ve got a long day ahead of us. We need one rule for everyone, to make the kissing equitable.”
Beau heard Ellie make a soft hissing sound between her teeth.
Beau grinned. The woman really hated the idea of him kissing other people. Fair enough. He’d want to deck any man who thought about kissing her.
“I think Beau should do the kissing,” Diana suggested.
Beau followed Ellie’s gaze as it flicked to her friend. Diana didn’t seem overly upset by the situation, but he knew Ellie agonized over her feelings.
“I’m not part of this!” Ellie insisted. “I’m not kissing anyone.”
“Come on, El, it’s just a bit of fun,” Diana scolded her. “It’s Christmas!”
“No, it’s not! It’s November!”
“Today is Christmas,” Junebug told her firmly. “It’s Christmas-dance Christmas, which is even better than the real one, which always involves me doing a lot of cooking and then washing a lot of pots.”
“We never had mistletoe at Fall River,” Ellie said stubbornly.
Diana laughed at that. She was as shiny as sun striking ice crystals this morning; she had a glitter to her. “We never had anything at Fall River!”
“We had each other,” Ellie muttered under her breath.
Beau’s heart squeezed for her. He remembered the stories of childhood she’d told him that night they were holed up at Abner’s. The cheerless tenement building and worn-out mother. The drunken stepfather. The succor of the boardinghouse and Diana.
Diana meant everything to Ellie, the same way Morgan meant everything to Junebug. They were an Us.
“Beau should definitely do the kissing,” Frances agreed with Diana.
“He can show us how it’s done,” Nancy giggled.
“Hands up who thinks Beau should take the lead on the kissing?” Junebug called out.
Every hand except Ellie’s went up, even Beau’s. He was up for some fun, but he wanted some control over events. If he had to kiss people, he was going to make sure the kissing stayed polite. His gaze drifted to Ellie’s lips.
“Hear that, Beau? Whenever there’s mistletoe, you’re to do the kissing.” Junebug waved her icicle.
Beau tossed Junebug his empty tin mug and rolled up his sleeves as the girls laughed and hooted. Ellie had turned red as tomato ketchup, her gaze still fixed on Diana. Diana was clapping and laughing with everyone else. “Come on, El!” she called. “It’s Christmas!”
“Keep it polite,” Ellie hissed at him, so no one else could hear.
He grinned at her. The poor girl was so tense she was like an overstrung fiddle. “This is supposed to be fun,” he reminded her softly.
“Well, it’s not.”
“I’ll make it quick and painless.”
She clamped her lips together and stood rigid as a pole, her fists clenched, as he leaned in. He resisted the urge to laugh as she tried to radiate her lack of enjoyment to Diana.
“On the lips!” Junebug yelled when he made for Ellie’s cheek.
“On the lips or it doesn’t count!” the others squealed.
“You heard them,” he told Ellie. “It’s out of my hands.”
Her face was frozen into a mask of dread. He could only imagine the melodrama playing out in that head of hers. Sweetly, he dropped the faintest of kisses on her expressive lips and a collective swooning sigh rose from their audience.
“You looked like you were kissing a toad,” he heard Diana scold Ellie when it was over and they plunged off into the snow to build a snowman. “You could at least pretend to enjoy it.”
Beau laughed. Enjoying it wasn’t Ellie’s problem. Enjoying it too much , on the other hand, most definitely was.
By the time the hotel was decorated and ready for the party, Beau had sweetly pecked every single woman in the place, including Mrs. Champion and Ellen, the hotel’s maid.
Spirits were high and there was cheering and applause and laughter every time someone was caught under the mistletoe.
It was all in silly fun. Beau delighted in Junebug’s glee every time.
She honked like a goose as she laughed, and her infectious joy filled the whole hotel.
The only person who wasn’t infected was Ellie, who’d grown increasingly quiet and withdrawn.
She’d made sure not to be trapped under anymore mistletoe.
Which was a crying shame, as Beau was itching to kiss her again. Properly this time.
“Ain’t it an enchantment?” Junebug sighed, once the decorations were complete and everyone had dashed away to make themselves pretty for the evening.
Beau laughed as he watched his little sister twirl in the center of the parlor, her arms outstretched.
It most certainly was an enchantment. The paper snowflakes spun above her, and the room was perfumed with fir and pine, sugar and spice. “This is our first dance, Beau!”
“But not our last,” he promised, offering her a courteous bow and holding out his hand to invite her to dance. “You were right about needing fun.”
“I’m always right,” she said smugly, taking his hand. She honked as he swept her off her feet and skipped her around the room, exactly the way Morgan did when they danced in the meadow in summer. Beau found himself wishing Morgan could be here too. And Kit. It really wasn’t right without them.
“We should hold the next one in Buck’s Creek,” she suggested, throwing her head back as he twirled her. “Maybe we should have a real Christmas dance—in December.”
“Or a spring dance, after the thaw, out in the meadow,” he countered, remembering Ellie’s wedding imaginings.
In spring the buttercups and yellow bells would be flowering, and the air would be perfumed with the spicy sweet smell of phlox.
The tender sky would spread like a cathedral dome over their high mountain meadow and the chokecherries would be in frothy bloom. “Spring’s a good time for a wedding.”
“Wedding!” Junebug’s head snapped up. “Not just a dance?”
She looked like a groundhog popping up from its hole. Beau laughed. “Well, that’s what we’re here for, ain’t it? Getting me hitched?”
“Oh!” The exclamation from the hall stopped Beau mid-twirl.
They turned, Junebug still dangling in Beau’s arms, to find Ellie and Diana standing in the doorway. Both had towels wrapped around their heads.
“What’s this about getting hitched?” Diana asked. “Don’t tell me you’ve made a decision now that you’ve kissed every blessed woman in the house.” She was more relaxed than Beau had ever seen her. The opposite to her friend.
Beau lowered Junebug. Ellie was staring at him like she’d seen a ghost.
“He’s talking a springtime wedding,” Junebug announced. “And another dance! Everyone’s invited.”
“Not everyone will want to come,” Diana reminded Junebug. She still seemed sanguine. “I don’t think the other girls will want to watch him say I do to someone else.”
Ellie was very pale, her huge eyes reflecting a swirl of imaginings that Beau felt sure were nothing short of catastrophic.
Distantly they heard the muffled chiming of the train station clock. Junebug swore. “You’ve got to go get ready,” she ordered Beau, giving him a shove. “And so do I!” She pushed him towards the door. “Go on, git.”
As Beau passed Ellie, he brushed her hand with his. He felt her jump and smiled. Let her try and ignore him tonight.