Christmas for Ransom Read Online Free PDF Page B

Montgomery Ward and Company catalog. Find you something nice.” The clean scent of him treated her nose for a moment and lingered on the air afterward. Oh, that he might sometime have the chance to find something nice just for her. She held back a sigh, praying for a few minutes more alone with him before her pupils arrived to help.
    “Hey, Miz Eliza!”
    A childish voice chirped behind her and her heart thumped in disappointment. Little Nicky Connor burst through the door, his toddling sister Tessie in tow.
    “I’m here to help. Who’s that?” He pointed to Ransom.
    “That’s Mr. Ransom…” she started, then realized she didn’t know his full name. Alarm rustled before she forced it to quiet down. Most honorable men she knew hadn’t minded sharing their monikers. What if he was a gun for hire? A bounty hunter. An outlaw? Nerves skittered, but she put them right to rest. No man with such confident shoulders who held his head high and looked you straight in the eye was a troublemaker. She had good instincts about things like that. Ransom was simply a private man. None of her nevermind what he called himself, was it?
    “Ransom’ll do,” Ransom said same time as little Tessie bounced fast away from the stove, howling like mad. His knees hit the floor, and he gathered the tiny girl close, then examined her reddening finger. “You’ll be fine, darlin.’ Get some cold water, young man,” he said to Nick as he looked up at Eliza.
    “Butter,” she insisted and answered his unspoken question. “I got up before dawn to light the stove and get it warm in here. It’s how I start my day. Every day. Even Sunday. They hold church in here.”
    He shook his head, and the sight of his hair dashing about those shoulders had her heart pittering.
    “Not butter,” he said. “Grease holds the heat in. Water’ll heal her up just fine. Burn isn’t serious at all.”
    He continued to hold Tessie close as her weeping settled down, and for some reason, Eliza’s belly clamped with an undiscovered longing for a child of her own. For a man.
    A man like Ransom. She tried to shove the thoughts away, but after all, he was a suitable mate for her. A real man of the West. Something she’d never found back east.
    She’d never understood why she’d been led to Pleasure Stakes. Maybe Ransom was the reason all along.
    ****
    At the Fallen Angel Saloon shortly after high noon, Ransom grumbled into his whiskey glass. All the while the sly cat-eyes of Miz Marvel watched him without blinking.
    “You look mighty lonely, newcomer,” the madam said with a wink. Also blinking in a pretty way was the young whore who dangled on Miz Marvel’s arm. “Miz Belinda here is good company.”
    Ransom rolled his eyes, not caring if they saw. “I reckon she might be. For some other man.”
    Hell. Heck. If he couldn’t be with Eliza, Ransom wanted nothing more than to get left alone, but he knew damn well the two women at the table sensed rightly he had money and manly needs. Truth to say, just this time yesterday he would have been mighty interested in Miz Belinda. The whore had eyes like a fawn’s and white breasts reaching straight out for a man’s hands from her low-cut red gown.
    But that all was before Eliza.
    Women. He grumbled, stood up, chugged his glass to the dregs, and slammed it on the table. Miss Marvel flinched and Belinda pouted. He tipped his hat politely when all he wanted to leave behind was an unholy gesture.
    Still aglow with Eliza’s praise these hours later, he’d decorated the schoolhouse up to the rafters. But afterward, she’d sat herself down with the kids, six all told, to make Christmas trees from goose feathers. His big clumsy hands weren’t up to the task. He hadn’t been needed anymore and had nothing else to do but drown his sorrows.
    And his terrors. After tangling with that pretty little tyke, he’d had thoughts burst in his head that he’d always damned before. A kid of his own. A wife in his bed.
    Nothing