Free A Victorian Christmas by Catherine Palmer

stove. One day at chess with Filly had been as much fun as he’d had in years. As he pushed split wood into the firebox, he thought again about his bleak prospects. A trip to Silver City to meet a pompous heiress. A long journey back to California to resume his duties. He had friends, gold, and all the entertainment money could buy—and he’d much rather play chess in a run-down cabin with a poor prospector’s daughter.
    Was he ungrateful? God had blessed him so richly. He had been given more than any man could ask for. Why did the old Apache’s words now ring so true? Empty. Your heart is empty.
    “Checkmate,” Filly announced in triumph.
    Hyatt swung around. “What? How can that be?” He studied the chessboard. Sure enough, she had him cornered. But wait . . . “Where’s my bishop? Hey, what did you do with my—”
    He looked up to find Filly smiling innocently at him, a hint of powdered sugar dusting her upper lip. “Your what?” she asked.
    “You ate my bishop!” he shouted.
    She began to giggle. “I was hungry. You said yourself they were delicious biscochitos .”
    “That was my bishop!” He started toward her, and she leapt from the table. “You can’t eat the chessmen. That’s not in the rules.”
    “Rules, rules!” she said, dancing out of his reach. “Who said we had to play by the rules?”
    “I always play by the rules.” He lunged for her long blonde braid.
    “Boring, bor—! Oh!” Captured, she whirled toward him and stopped, her face less than a breath from his.
    Hyatt swallowed. The fragrance of pine and cinnamon drifted over him, and he realized it came from the woman’s skin. Her braid hung like a silk rope in his hand. Her eyes shone brighter than any two stars, and his voice caught in his throat. He lifted his injured arm and brushed the sugar from her lip with a fingertip.
    “Checkmate,” he said.

    “A person should always play by the rules,” Fara told Old Longbones as they walked toward the barn to check on the horses the following morning. “It’s foolhardy to buck against the order our society has put on things. Take that desperado, for example. The Bible tells us to love our enemies. To be hospitable to strangers. To minister to the sick and the imprisoned. But it’s just not wise to become too friendly with the likes of such people.”
    “Why is that, Filly?” The Indian lifted the bolt that barred the barn door. “Are you afraid you might start to see the desperado as a human being? You might start to care about him? Once you know him, you might begin to truly love him?”
    Fara stopped just inside the barn door and crossed her arms. On any other day, she would have enjoyed this moment. The banter with Old Longbones. The rich scent of hay, oats, and leather in the barn. The soft nickering of the horses. But ever since Hyatt had come into her life, she had felt off-kilter and confused. Once, her world had been so well ordered. She had known the rules— and followed them. Now her heart was in chaos.
    “Jacob Canaday was a breaker of rules,” Old Longbones said as he began filling a bucket with oats. “Did he not take me into his home?”
    “But you’re different, Longbones. You’ve always been loyal to us. You’re our friend. We can trust you.”
    “Only because your papa’s love changed me. I came to Pinos Altos to raid, to steal, to burn—even to kill the White Eyes. But I stayed because I had found a man who cared about me. His acceptance opened my heart. I gave my life to the Son of his God, and I became a new man.”
    “Because Papa took the risk of caring for you.”
    “Of knowing me.” The Apache beckoned to her. “I think it may be better to care deeply for one gunslinger, Filly, than it is to make a Christmas tea for the children of two hundred miners whose names you will never know.”
    Stung, Fara leaned over a stall door and ran her fingers through the coarse red-brown mane of her favorite mare. Old Longbones didn’t understand the