A Victorian Christmas Read Online Free PDF Page A

snow, but I don’t have to know who you are . . . or learn anything about you . . . or care what becomes of you. You’re not my responsibility, you hear?”
    “Thirty-eight plus . . . sixteen . . .”
    Fara sighed. “This is not a schoolroom,” she said, bending over and shaking the stranger’s solid shoulder. “Wake up, sir. Wake up. You’re in Pinos Altos. This is New Mexico.”
    He grimaced in pain and cupped a hand over his wounded arm. Fara fought the sympathy that tugged at her heart. Her papa had taught her a man didn’t often get shot at unless he was up to some shenanigans. This fellow in his fine leather coat and gray wool trousers looked exactly the part of a scalawag—a confidence man, a gambler, a saloon keeper—or worse.
    “I’m going up to get you some blankets,” she said, shaking him again. “Blankets. So you’ll be warmer.”
    He lay unmoving on the floor, so she grabbed the lantern and headed for the ladder to the loft. Many long winter days, the loft had been her childhood hiding place. She had played for hours with her cornhusk dolls. In the late afternoon sunlight, she loved to read her mother’s copy of The Pilgrim’s Progre ss. Over and over, she read favorite passages until she knew many of them by heart. The pilgrim’s stopping places—the Slough of Despond, Doubting Castle, Vanity Fair—were as familiar to her as Pinos Altos and Silver City. When the pilgrim stood at the foot of Christ’s cross and his heavy burden dropped from his shoulders, Fara always wept with joy. Such blessed relief. Such peace.
    In the attic, she lifted the lid of the old storage trunk. Quilts lay stacked to the brim, their bright colors muted in the lamplight. Fara tucked several under her arm. She would drape the blankets over her own frozen pilgrim and leave him to seek his peace. As she stepped onto the top rung, she looked down.
    Blue eyes wide, he was sitting straight up, staring at her. Wounded arm cradled, he breathed hard. “You . . . ,” he said, his voice husky. “You’re . . . Am I . . . am I . . . dead?”
    Fara’s heart softened. “No, sir.”
    “But . . . but . . . you’re an angel. Aren’t you?”

CHAPTER TWO
    “I’m no angel,” the ethereal creature said as she descended from the ceiling in a wash of pale amber light. Hyatt blinked. He could have sworn she had a halo. A gown of pure white drifted to her feet, its hem swaying and fluttering in the warm air. Spun gold hair hung around her shoulders, thick and wavy like a costly cape. He squinted, straining to see if wings grew out of her shoulder blades. Wait a minute, weren’t all the angels in the Bible men? Gabriel . . . Michael . . .
    But this creature! She was so beautiful. Translucent. Celestial. Now she hovered over him, draping him in her warm glow. Her pale hands moved across his icy skin. Long lashes framed her dark eyes. He longed to speak to her. There were so many questions. But his tongue was thick and his brain felt foggy.
    “Angel . . . ,” he managed.
    “I told you—I’m not an angel. Now lie down before you keel over.”
    He frowned as the creature pushed his shoulders onto the soft surface. If not an angel then . . . He glanced up, suddenly alarmed. Satan was known as the father of lies. Deceit was his primary weapon. Maybe this angel of light was really a demon of the darkness! Had Hyatt died and gone to . . . to . . .
    “I believe in Jesus Christ,” he muttered.
    “Sure you do. And you think St. Louis is the capital of Missouri.” The creature smiled—a smile so entrancing, so stunning that Hyatt’s heartbeat sped up, and his skin actually began to thaw. “Comfortable?”
    He tried to nod, but his neck was so stiff it wouldn’t move. “Am I . . . am I dead?”
    “Not yet, fella, but if I hadn’t come along, you’d be wolf meat. What did you do to your arm?”
    “Arm?” Was that the source of the pain that raged like wildfire through him? He tried to look at his arm, but the creature had