Usually Alice loved Christmastime. School was out for the holidays and youngsters of all ages flocked to her library, from little Manette Nicolet, who devoured every book she could find about insects, to oh-so-grown-up Adam Lynford, who had just discovered the laws of physics. Annamarie Panovsky asked for works by Dickens and Shakespeare, while Molly Bruhn, whose mother had just purchased a new Windsor piano, read about the great composers, Beethoven and Schubert and Brahms.
As Christmas drew closer, bands of carolers roamed the town singing “O Come All Ye Faithful” and “Joy to the World” for rewards of gingerbread and hot spiced cider. The annual tree-decorating competition, sponsored by Poletti’s Barbershop, got under way, and children all over town made paper chains and popped corn to string on the tree branches. Peter and Roberta Jensen hosted a big winter barn dance where box lunches were auctioned off to raise money to buy new music for the community choir.
Alice was invited to all the holiday events. Even though she didn’t feel the least bit like celebrating this year, she put in an appearance at most of them. There were whist parties and taffy pulls and Christmas sing-alongs and quilting bees, and she made endless batches of divinity and fudge for Sarah’s afternoon teas.
But mostly she tended to her library, ordering the new books she could now afford with money from the sale of Coleman’s Assay Company in Silver City.
She heaved a sigh. Activities in Smoke River during Christmas could be exhausting. In the evenings she knit socks with Sarah on the front porch of Rose Cottage and tutored Mark in mathematics. And late one night she sat bundled up and rocking in the swing next to Rooney and confessed how empty it all felt.
“Honey-girl, lemme tell you somethin’ I learned from an old vaquero way back when I was scoutin’ for Colonel Wash Halliday. Goes like this. ‘Don’t promise anythin’ when yer happy. Don’t reply to anythin’ when yer angry. And don’t decide nuthin’ when yer sad.’”
“Oh, Rooney, the last time I was happy was the night Rand was here eating Sarah’s apricot pie and ice cream.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I know. Takes time to get over it when yer heart’s broke.”
“I’ve never felt quite this empty and unhappy, not even when Dottie died.”
“Then, like the vaquero says, don’t decide nuthin’. Jes’ pull up yer socks and go on as best you can.”
And so she went on. Christmas drew closer. Frost tipped the branches of the Douglas fir trees, and schoolchildren did extra chores for their parents and tried to be extra-good.
With each day that passed the library grew quieter and quieter, and Alice grew more and more despondent.
And then one afternoon, just when she thought she had pulled her socks up about as far as they could go, she sat alone in her empty library, her head down, reading a thick volume of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, when a patron stopped by her desk and presented a book to be checked out.
She was so absorbed in The Wife of Bath’s Tale she didn’t even look up. “Do you want to take the book home?” she asked.
There was a pause, and then a familiar voice said, “No. I want to take the librarian home.”
She looked up, and Chaucer and the vase of red poinsettias on her desk went flying. “Rand!”
“Miss Alice.”
He stepped over the scattered blooms and the volume on the floor, caught her in his arms and swung her around and around.
“Rand,” she said breathlessly, “where did you come from?”
“Colorado,” he said simply. “From the Pinkerton Agency.”
“Oh!” He was covered with a light dusting of snow, obviously weary, his cheeks bristly and his gray-green eyes questioning.
He kissed her forehead and both cheeks before he finally found her mouth. Then he did it in reverse.
“I’m not going back,” he said when he finally lifted his head. “Pinkerton agreed that I can work from Oregon as well as Colorado. From Smoke River, in fact.”
He kissed her again, and this time it lasted so long she thought she might faint. When he released her she stood staring at him while outside somewhere a winter sparrow started to trill.
“Miss Alice,” he said at last. “I have come to invite you to a wedding.”
She gaped at him. “A w-wedding?”
Now he was smiling at her. “That’s what I said, Alice. A wedding.” His smile worked itself into a grin. “In Broken Toe, Idaho.”
Passersby that afternoon looked at each other in wonderment. From the library, where Miss Alice Montgomery had always, always insisted on absolute quiet, floated the sound of laughter. A man’s and a woman’s prolonged, unrestrained, joyous laughter.
The wedding was held on Christmas day in the parlor at Rose Cottage. In the middle of all the cake and champagne and congratulatory wishes the couple slipped off to the livery stable, climbed on their horses and rode out of town.
Heading for Broken Toe, Idaho, of course.
If you enjoyed this story you won’t want to miss these great full-length reads by Lynna Banning:
Baby on the Oregon Trail
The Hired Man
Miss Murray on the Cattle Trail
Miss Marianne’s Marriage of Convenience