Christmas Eve, 1902
This would be the first Christmas Catherine could remember without Pop.
The grief of his passing earlier in the fall still caught her unaware at times. After battling the demons of his mind and his heart, he’d slipped away quietly in his sleep. Just never woken up.
The grief had finally lessened somewhat, knowing that he was in a place where his mind and heart had been healed completely.
And the love of her husband and the boisterous family that had folded her into its bosom had gone a long way toward healing her heart.
Yesterday morning, before dawn, she’d gone out and visited the still-raised plot of land where they’d buried him, near his favorite fishing spot. The days of tears were gone but that didn’t mean that she didn’t miss him and she’d stood there praying and missing him for a long time. Long enough for Matty to come looking for her.
Later, they’d bundled close together beneath a swath of blankets in the sleigh and Matty had made Catherine laugh with his stories of Christmases past as they’d traveled to Jonas and Penny’s home. Harold Elliott had agreed to send a hand to see to the animals for a couple of days.
She’d never expected to have a big family like this, though she’d longed for a father almost all of her childhood. Jonas’s and Penny’s abiding love went a long way toward filling those empty places in her heart.
She and Matty had stayed overnight, tucked into the back bedroom. It had been different, noisier somehow, sleeping in a house that wasn’t the soddy. But she supposed it was something she could get used to. Especially if the gift she planned to give Matty for Christmas panned out.
“Good morning.”
She startled from her thoughts at the whispered greeting.
When she’d woken early and with no chores to do, she’d settled in one corner of the big parlor sofa, not wanting to wake anyone else. Today and tomorrow would be busy with making meals and celebrating and children running amok and no doubt everyone needed their rest.
Now Ricky and his wife, Daisy—whom she’d met for the first time last night—emerged from the hall. Matty was on their heels, running a hand through his rumpled hair.
He leaned over the back of the sofa and bussed her cheek with a kiss, and then the two brothers moved into the kitchen, jostling each other along the way. She heard a pot banging and knew they were probably making coffee. They spoke in low voices.
She found herself smiling absently after them, thankful for this time Matty would spend with his family. Because of the distance, Ricky and Daisy rarely made it home.
“I’m sorry if Katie-bug’s crying kept you up last night,” Daisy said. “She wasn’t used to the unfamiliar crib. Or her daddy snoring in the same room.” Their baby was right at a year and had spent last night crawling around the house, examining everyone’s boots.
Catherine shrugged. “It wasn’t so bad. Is she still sleeping?”
“Yes, the little ornery thing.”
Catherine had liked the other woman on sight, even if she had been shocked to discover that Daisy had been in an accident that had required her right arm be amputated close to the shoulder. Maybe it was because they’d both come late to the family, or because they were both slightly different.
At her insistence and with Matty’s support, she’d told the family about her parentage. And been happily shocked when it hadn’t mattered one whit to them.
It had taken time for the townspeople to come to accept her in Bear Creek. Though Luella and her friends made a noticeable effort to be amicable with Catherine, sometimes she still walked past the post office or passed someone in church and would swear she heard a whisper. And it still made her uncomfortable.
But she’d learned that it didn’t hurt so much anymore because she had the support of her husband and his wonderful family.
“Is it Christmas yet?” Noah, Oscar and Sarah’s young son, bounded into the room. Someone shushed him from the direction he’d appeared.
A cool draft and stamping feet from the kitchen must mean that Oscar’s brood had arrived, though it was early yet.
“Auntie Cathy, is it Christmas yet?” The tyke made a beeline toward Catherine and settled his elbows on her knees, looking up at her adoringly.
From the day of their small church wedding in late summer, she’d been given a new nickname, one that erased all those old memories and hurts from the past. Auntie Cathy.
“Not until tomorrow,” Matty said, ruffling the boy’s hair as he settled next to his wife on the sofa. He curled an arm around her shoulders and she couldn’t help pressing in against the warmth of his side.
He handed her a steaming mug of coffee, which she accepted with both hands. “Thank you.”
With the hand that wasn’t wrapped around her shoulder, Matty traced the curve of her cheek with his forefinger. “You all right? You got up awful early.”
She blew on the steaming beverage. “I’m fine. Just...reminiscing.”
“Rem-in-what-ing?” Noah’s nose wrinkled as he botched the word.
“It means remembering,” she said gently.
“’S good to remember,” he said, his expression serious as if he imparted all his four-year-old wisdom to them. “I gots to remember to be good today or Santy won’t bring me nuthin’ in my sock.”
Catherine hid her smile by sipping her coffee.
“I’m afraid your uncle Ricky will be getting coal in his sock,” Daisy said gravely from the opposite sofa, and Noah turned his attention to her.
“Has Uncle Ricky been naughty this year?”
“He always is,” Seb chimed from the doorway. Behind him, Breanna tumbled in the door, shaking snow from her hat and coat. She hadn’t cut her hair, but threatened to shear it off like Catherine’s, though for now it rested in a long braid down her back.
“If you need to take a break from all the noise later, you just give me the signal,” Matty whispered.
She sipped her coffee again, contentment seeping through her. “What’s the signal?”
“A wink will do.”
* * *
Matty had received his wink after the noon meal and whisked Catherine out for a horseback ride. The air was brisk, but the wind had died down overnight and they wouldn’t be out long.
She was a fast learner and improving her riding skills rapidly, but had elected to ride double with him today. He didn’t mind. It was warmer.
Her hands clutched his sides, but then she pointed to a copse across the meadow, sounding entranced by the play of snow on the pines.
“Can we walk for a bit?” she asked before they’d made it across the meadow.
“Whatever you like, sweetheart.” He took her gloved hand in his and led the horse. They trudged through the snow, sometimes laughing when their boots found an unexpected hole.
“Have you thought about returning to the sheriff’s office?” she asked.
He shrugged. He’d asked for time away from being a deputy when she’d accepted his proposal earlier in the summer. She and Pop were more important to him than the job, but there were days he missed it.
“I’m enjoying getting to spend quality time with my wife,” he said with a waggle of his eyebrows that never failed to make her laugh.
She elbowed him in the side where their hands were connected. “Maybe I’d like a little less quality time with my ornery husband.”
He tilted his head to one side as if contemplating her words, then shook his head, keeping his expression very serious. “Nah. That can’t be it.”
She laughed, as he’d meant her to, and an easy smile spread across his lips.
He wasn’t in a rush to go back to the job. Sometimes Catherine’s melancholy worried him, but it seemed it was just her way of dealing with her grief. And he liked spending his days with her, working the land.
He’d been careful not to push her to make plans for their future. She’d faced a lot of changes this year. They weren’t in any rush to make more.
She tugged his elbow and he followed her willingly, bemused when she did it again moments later, and then again, leading them in a circle. Or, when he looked back at the pattern their footprints had made in the snow, a rectangle.
With the copse behind her and the sky as blue as her eyes... “You are a picture,” he told her. He leaned in for a kiss and she obliged him, her arms coming easily around his neck, his settling about her waist.
But she broke away too soon, a mischievous smile playing about her lips. “I didn’t bring you out here only to steal kisses,” she said.
“No?” He grinned lazily.
“And I didn’t need to escape your family that desperately.”
He quirked an eyebrow at her.
“I suppose they’ve grown on me. Especially the children.”
He’d noticed how the little ones seemed to gravitate toward her.
Catherine gestured to the path they’d broken in the pristine snow. “I also brought you out here to see this.”
She seemed almost as excited as his young nieces and nephews would be tomorrow morning, bouncing on her toes.
Of course he would humor her. “And what am I seeing?”
“Well, if you picture a front door here, a kitchen here, bedroom...” She paced and pointed across the rectangle she’d made and his chest got tight all of a sudden.
“It’s a house?” he asked, voice gone hoarse.
She looked up at him almost shyly. “It could be. You said your brothers would help us build...”
“I thought you’d want to build on the homestead.”
He let the horse’s reins go. The animal was placid and not real interested in going anywhere at the moment and he needed both hands to catch Catherine’s waist.
She looked up at him, her eyes clear. “I think I’d like to be closer to...our family.”
It warmed him from the inside out that she’d begun to think of his family as her own.
“And Daniel promised to teach me to read if we lived closer.”
He buried his nose in the crown of her head. “Oh, he did, did he?”
She nodded, the movement brushing his chin against her hair.
“And...”
Now she trailed off. He felt a tremor in her hands as they rested on his shoulders. She pushed slightly back and he watched her face, concerned.
“And...I don’t know much about babies. So it might be nice to be close to Penny. And Sarah. And...and Rose.”
“Babies?”
He knew he must appear stunned. He felt stunned, his hands frozen spanning her waist.
Something in her eyes shifted, a shadow, and he didn’t want her to think for one second that he wasn’t happy.
He whooped, the sound echoing off the layers of snow. The horse neighed his displeasure with the unexpected noise, but Matty had already swooped Catherine into his arm and twirled her.
They kicked up snow as his fervor slowed and he set her feet back on the ground.
“So you’re...happy?” she asked tentatively.
“Incredibly so.” He took her lips again in a brief expression of joy, then hugged her to him as they looked out over the snowy landscape.
Who could’ve guessed that God would use a storm and an injury to open his eyes to Catherine’s need? And her love.
He’d been searching for contentment with his job, thinking he’d never find it isolated on a small homestead, but he couldn’t be any happier than he was now.
God had blessed him immeasurably. A hundredfold, until his cup spilled over.
“Merry Christmas,” she whispered, her words warm against the skin of his cheek that had grown cool in the elements.
“Merry Christmas,” he returned. “Our first one together, and you couldn’t have given me a more precious present.”
“Hmm.” She looked up at him coyly. “Then I suppose you don’t want the gift I snuck into the sleigh for you while you weren’t looking...”
His eyebrows rose of their own accord. “Are you kidding? Let’s get back to Ma and Pa’s place right now. We’ve got celebrating to do.”
She laughed as he hoisted her onto the horse behind him, the sound pure joy.
God had definitely sent a rainbow after the storm.
* * * * *