Wild West Christmas. Lynna Banning
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Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Epilogue
Jenna Kernan
This Christmas, I’m pleased to introduce you to an odd couple. Alice Truett is an entitled young miss, determined to prove her metal by bringing the orphaned nephews of her best friend to their uncle, the only man she’s ever loved. She thinks he left her because she failed to tell him that she was a wealthy heiress, but the truth is very different.
Dillen Roach once had prospects, but that was before his father abandoned him, leaving Dillen to support his sister and mother. Dillen once held hope that he could make his fortune and return for Alice. But he failed, and now, instead of returning for her, she’s returned for him with two little boys in tow. He thinks she’s come out of Christian goodness, and she plans to be home for the holidays.
I’ll promise that Alice will be with her family for Christmas, but it won’t be the family she expected.
Come along as Dillen and Alice heal old wounds and give two boys a Christmas to remember.
If you enjoy my story, please let me know on Goodreads or Amazon. You can write to me at www.jennakernan.com. And for the very latest news, follow me on Twitter, @jennakernan, or find me on Facebook.
Merry Christmas!
Jenna Kernan
For Jim, always
Blue River Junction, Colorado, 1880
Dillen Roach held a letter from Alice Truett in one hand and a half-empty bottle of whiskey in the other. The woman had a gift. Every time he had contact with her, she threw his world off-kilter. This time her correspondence marked a death. The whiskey buoyed him as the grief pressed down hard on his shoulders, chest and heart. According to Alice, his little sister, Sylvia, was gone. Dead and buried shortly after her husband, Ben Asher, who had come down with spinal fever. Sylvia had tried to nurse him and had caught the same damned thing. His end had been quick and Sylvia’s had been slow or “exceedingly difficult,” to use Alice’s exact words.
But she’d had time to make out a will and leave her boys to him. Sylvia’s brain fever was the only explanation for such a bad choice. But perhaps she had made it because he was her only choice. Dillen barely managed to keep himself alive and was in no position to take on two youngsters.
The December wind whipped down the street, threatening to tear his battered tan Stetson from his head. Dillen pressed down on the crown, keeping hold of his hat but releasing the front of his unfastened sheepskin coat. The wind sent the sides flapping like the wings of an agitated rooster. The bite of icy cold sobered him enough so that he thought he might reach his destination without falling again, but then he missed the first step to the telegraph office and folded over the sturdy banister. A gentleman, with a trim white beard and a charcoal-gray overcoat that was distinctly devoid of grime or snow, gave Dillen a wide berth and a sour look as he trotted down the stairs as agile as a mink. Dillen leaned against the wall before the door to catch his breath. He had business to attend. Then he could finish the bottle. He was a big man, but the liquor was strong and his endurance for such indulgences was limited.
Dillen pressed the bottle under one armpit, clamping down tight to keep from losing the contents as he opened the door and staggered into the telegraph office. Good thing he had written out his responses before he’d hit that bottle, because he could no longer see straight.
The clerk spun around when Dillen got tangled up in the chair beside the writing desk provided for customers. He ended up kicking the chair harder than he’d intended, sending it sliding on its casters like a block of fresh-cut ice on a frozen lake.
“Now, see here,” said the clerk, lifting the latched portion of the counter to step from the safety of his recessed sanctuary. Then, taking a good look at Dillen, he dropped the section back in place. Dillen had that effect on folks even when he wasn’t drinking. His size accounted for some of it, he supposed, his pistol for the rest. Though he wasn’t an outlaw or a lawman. Just a cowboy turned showman, trick rider and marksman. That and three years of his life had gotten him absolutely nowhere. In fact, he was further behind now than when he started. Glaring at the clerk, Dillen patted down his various pockets in search of the scraps of brown paper he’d salvaged from a package from the dry-goods store.
“I gotta send two telegrams,” said Dillen, rocking forward against the counter and nearly sprawling across the polished walnut surface.
The clerk looked so young he barely had whiskers. But his blue eyes were clear and his movements steady as he pointed to the desk, now lacking a chair. “Just copy them down on the form you see there.”
Dillen glanced over his shoulder at the twin desks, one now floating slightly higher and to the left of the first. He returned his gaze to the clerk. “How’s about you copy them into your little form? Just take them down as I wrote them.”
“That is very irregular,” said the representative of the United Telegraph office.
Dillen slapped a silver dollar on the counter. “Make it worth your while.”