Wild West Christmas: A Family for the Rancher / Dance with a Cowboy / Christmas in Smoke River. Kathryn Albright
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each before him in turn as he walked and trotted with Dasher around the ring. At first they clung to the saddle horn, but soon they were moving with the saddle and holding on with their strong, short legs. He dismounted and set Cody behind Colin, then led Dasher around the circle.
“Did you know that this horse was in the circus?” He didn’t say that he had been, as he wasn’t especially proud of that nine months of his life. The promised fame and fortune had not materialized—or the fortune part had not, but that job had gotten him this position when Harvey had seen what he and Dasher could do.
“Really?” piped Colin. “Does he do tricks? Can he walk on his hind legs?”
“Sure. Want to see?”
Cody looked concerned, and Dillen realized he thought his uncle meant with the two of them mounted up. Cody did not object. But he did wrap his arms about his little brother and grip the saddle horn with both hands.
“Yes!” shouted Colin.
Dasher’s ears twitched and he turned one to listen to the new, tiny riders. Still, his mount was calm and acted the perfect gentleman.
Dillen pulled the boys down and set them on the fence rail. Then he began some of his act. Dasher should have been out of practice, but he picked up the routine in midperformance as if they had never stopped entertaining. Dasher stole Dillen’s hat and tossed it on the ground, stealing it again as Dillen reached to retrieve it. Then he placed it roughly on his master’s head. The boys roared with laughter. His foreman, Bill Roberts, limped over and leaned against the rails, talking to the boys as Dasher trotted away with Dillen seeming to be chasing his errant horse. When the horse made an abrupt rehearsed stop, Dillen ran into Dasher’s hindquarters. Then he put a foot in the stirrup the wrong way and mounted up backward on his horse’s withers just before the saddle. Dillen turned toward the front and Dasher took him around at a trot, then stopped and lowered his head so Dillen slid down his neck to the ground. From there they changed from opponents to a well-oiled machine, with Dasher keeping up a steady trot as Dillen mounted and dismounted using the frozen ground to vault back up from each side of the saddle. The light was fading when he dismounted and had the horse walk a few steps on his hind legs. Finally, he motioned for Dasher to drop down on one foreleg to take a bow. The boys clapped and Roberts whistled.
Cody’s exuberance bubbled over. “I want to be just like you when I grow up, Uncle Dillen!”
“No, you don’t,” he said, a little too gruffly, he realized, judging from his nephew’s quivering chin. “You could do a lot better than me.”
Back in the barn, he let Cody remove Dasher’s bridle and saddle blanket. Roberts smiled at the boys and then at Dillen.
“That was some fine, fancy riding,” said his foreman. Then to the boys he said, “Nice to have you two here. My boys are all raised up and off on their own.”
Dillen hadn’t realized Bill had children.
Both boys brushed as much of the horse as they could reach, and Dasher stood like a benign giant.
“He’s the smartest horse in the world!” said Colin.
“It’s training, isn’t it?” said Cody. “You use hand signals.”
Dillen nodded, pleased at Cody’s observations. “For some of it. Some parts he’s just got memorized. Good horse, Dasher.” Dillen patted his mount’s shoulder. It was full dark when the four of them headed to the house. He thought he heard Colin’s stomach growling.
Dillen hoped that Alice had entertained herself. They didn’t have books or a piano. She was likely bored already. He glanced at the chimney, relieved to see that she’d managed to keep the fire going.
When he opened the door he smelled food and his mouth started to water. His first thought was that she’d hired a cook, but surely he’d have seen the arrival of a wagon.
“Hello, the house,” called Bill. “Something sure smells good.”
Alice appeared from the dining room, her cheeks flushed. She wore a plain sage-green dress with no bustle or doodads. It was simpler even than the black skirts and bodice she wore when accompanying her father on house calls. Everything about her seemed more relaxed. Wisps of fine brown hair had escaped their moorings, cascading down the sides of her face, making her look young and healthy and so tempting. Dillen had to fix his feet to keep from dragging her up against him.
“Wash up, boys,” she said to Colin and Cody. “The sink is in the kitchen.”
“What smells so good?” asked Bill, limping by Alice on his way past the boys.
“Beef in a red wine sauce over egg noodles,” said Alice.
Dillen stared at her in fascination, as if seeing her for the very first time.
“Where’d you get supper?” he asked.
She laughed and stroked his cheek. The sparkle in her green eyes, the curling of her lips and the warmth of her fingers trailing over his cold skin worked like a magnet to metal shavings. He actually bucked forward, drawn in as she spoke.
“I made it, silly.” She turned and headed through the empty dining room toward the kitchen. “You smell like horse, Dillen. Soap is on the sink.”
He trailed after her exactly like Dasher had followed him around the ring, but unlike Dasher, Dillen was interested in much more than a pat on the chest and a bucket of grain. After supervising their washing up, Alice directed them to sit at the large kitchen table and served them the best meal Dillen had ever eaten. That included the one-dollar steak he’d had at that fancy hotel in Dodge City the fall he’d worked a cattle drive.
She’d even managed a bread pudding for dessert that was riddled with streaks of brown sugar and plump raisins.
“That sure was a fine meal, Miss Truett,” said Bill Roberts. “So happy you could come and stay awhile.”
“Thank you, Mr. Roberts. Would you care for more coffee?”
He lifted his cup and she poured. She seemed content and comfortable in this kitchen, thought Dillen, as if she belonged here. It was an adjustment for him, seeing her out of her glittery bangles. She reminded him of the woman he’d first met, the one that was a lie, or was it? She actually seemed more at ease now than in her fancy duds. Maybe the elegant, wealthy woman was the lie.
Ridiculous—wasn’t it? He knew she was kind, educated, refined. He knew from seeing her work as her father’s assistant that she was not squeamish and that they shared a love for animals, riding and music, and that she could sing like an angel. Still, she seemed suddenly a stranger and at the same time more approachable.
“Dillen, are you all right?”
He snapped out of his woolgathering. Alice Truett had a bright future and could likely do far better than his mangy hide. Why hadn’t she?
Stop it, he admonished. She was here to do a friend a favor because she was a fine Christian woman. Not because she wanted him. His mind flicked back to that kiss. Maybe she did want him. But that only showed one tiny blind spot in her good judgment. He’d be a scoundrel to take advantage of her.
“Dillen, is there anything else I can offer you?”
There sure the hell was, but he couldn’t say it out loud.
“Nothing. Thanks,” he managed. “Fine meal, that.”
She beamed. “Thank you.”
Gosh, she was a beauty, especially when she smiled.
Roberts rose. “Let’s go tuck in by that hearth. Dillen, go get your fiddle.”
“Oh, no. Alice doesn’t want to hear my fiddling.”
She pressed her hands together. “Yes, I do. Bring it, please.”
He left her to go get his father’s fiddle, and when he returned, Roberts was smoking by the fire, telling