Read Online A Victorian Christmas by Catherine Palmer - Free Book Online Page A

thing I’m good with a razor.”
    “I trust you. You’re my angel.”
    At that, Fara’s heart sped up so fast she wondered if he could hear it. Telling herself not to be silly, not to give his words a second thought, and certainly not to tremble, she began to draw the razor’s straightedge down the side of his face.
    As the rough stubble came away, she saw that his skin was smooth and taut. Though the Western sun had bronzed him, Hyatt bore none of the craggy lines and leathery wrinkles of the miners and cowboys she so often passed on the streets of Silver City. The more bristle she shaved away, the less he looked like a desperado and the more he transformed into a square-jawed, clean-cut, elegant gentleman.
    “Gracious,” she said as she dipped the towel in the warm water and rinsed off the last of the lather. “Mr. Hyatt, you look absolutely . . . positively . . . decent.”
    He laughed, and for the first time she realized what straight white teeth he had, and how fine his lips were, and how very brightly his blue eyes sparkled. When he slipped a comb from his pocket and ran it through his hair, she stared transfixed. Could gunslingers be so handsome? so mannerly? Again she thought back to the article in the newspaper. Six feet three inches tall. Two hundred pounds. Blue eyes. Brown hair. Shot through the left arm.
    “May I ask how much you weigh, Mr. Hyatt?” she asked.
    A flicker of curiosity crossed his brow. “Two hundred pounds before I went on my starvation ride into New Mexico.”
    “And your arm,” she whispered. “Where did you say you were when you were shot?”
    “Phoenix. A hotel.” His eyes grew distant, as though he was seeing through her to that other place and time. “I was walking through the lobby of the Saguaro Hotel. A boy said something to me. ‘Someone’s waiting for you.’ Who? Who was it?”
    Copperton, Fara wanted to say. You know who it was. You’d been tracking him for years.
    “I started up the steps,” Hyatt continued. “I turned on the landing. There he was . . . with a six-shooter . . . shouting, waving the gun . . .”
    “So you shot him,” Fara said.
    The blue eyes snapped back into focus. “No! He shot first.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “Positive.”
    “And you don’t remember his name?”
    He shook his head. “I’d never heard it before in my life.”
    You, Mr. Hyatt, are a handsome, intelligent, mannerly gentleman, Fara thought. You are also a low-down, conniving snake. And the biggest liar in New Mexico Territory.

CHAPTER FOUR
    Fara made up her mind to let Old Longbones tend the desperado. The Apache knew more about healing than she did, she reasoned. Besides, she wasn’t comfortable with the way she felt in Hyatt’s presence. He was too slick. He spoke with such an honest light in his eyes and such frank words on his tongue that she slipped easily into trusting him.
    Worst of all, she actually liked the low-down gunslinger. Hyatt laughed easily. He knew about horses and good books. And he enjoyed her baking.
    So Fara stayed up at the big ranch house and sent Old Longbones down to the cabin to change the nopal dressing and check on the wounded man. She spent most of the following day riding her horse through the forest and visiting her father’s grave. The dogs played in the deep snow while Fara sat on a fallen log and stared at the headstone.
    Jacob Canaday. How could a man once so alive be dead? The cold granite belied the warmth of the man whose name was carved on its surface. Fara wept. Then she cut branches of pine and juniper and laid them around the stone. Then she cried some more.
    The sun was setting as she climbed the porch and entered the big house. Old Longbones looked up from the rocker beside the fire. He had been dozing in the warmth.
    “How’s our desperado today?” Fara asked.
    “Better.” The Apache scratched his chin and gave a yawn. “You know, Filly, that dangerous gunslinger of yours . . . he doesn’t have a gun.”
    Fara