Free A Creed Country Christmas by Linda Lael Miller

smartly. “Finished,” he said. “Can— May I go out and help Tom with the chores?”
    Juliana blinked. A fine teacher she was—for all she knew, Joseph might have been reading from the back of a medicine bottle instead of a book. She had no idea whether he’d stumbled over any of the words, or lost track of the flow of the narrative and had to begin again, the way he often did.
    So she bluffed.
    “Tell me what happened in the story,” she said.
    Joseph was ready. “This woman named Nancy got herself beat to death by that Bill Sykes fella.”
    He’d been reading from Oliver Twist , then.
    “He was a bad’un,” Tom remarked seriously. “That Sykes, I mean.”
    “He was indeed,” Juliana agreed. “You may help with the chores, Joseph.”
    Tom sighed, rose to his feet. “You reckon you could start that story over from the first, next time you read?” he asked the boy. “I’d like to know what led up to a poor girl winding up in such a fix.”
    Joseph would have balked at the request had it come from Juliana. Since it came from Tom instead, he beamed and said, “Sure.”
    “When?” Tom asked, starting for the back door, bent on getting the chores done, his pipe caught between his teeth.
    “Maybe after supper,” Joseph answered.
    Supper. Renewed anxiety rushed through Juliana.
    And Tom gave his trademark chuckle. The man probably couldn’t read, at least not well enough to tackle Dickens, but he soon proved he could read minds.
    “I’ll fry up some eggs when we’re through in the barn,” he told Juliana. “And Mrs. Creed put up some bear-meat preserves last fall—mighty good, mixed in with fried potatoes.”
    Bear-meat preserves? That sounded about as appetizing to Juliana as the naked turkeys dangling from the tree branch outside, but she managed not to make a face.
    “You have enough to do,” she said, with a bright confidence she most certainly didn’t feel. “I can fry eggs.”
    “No, you can’t,” Joseph argued benignly. “Remember when…?”
    “Joseph.”
    The boy shrugged both shoulders, and he and Tom let in a rush of cold air opening the door to go out.
    The instant they were gone, Juliana hurried to the front room and beckoned to Theresa with a crooked finger.
    Theresa obediently left her checker game and Gracie to approach.
    “Quick,” Juliana whispered, fraught with a strange urgency. “Come and show me how to fry eggs!”
     
    W HEN L INCOLN CAME IN WITH an armload of firewood, he found Juliana and Theresa side by side in front of the stove, working away, and the kitchen smelled of savory things—eggs, potatoes frying in onions, some kind of meat. Gracie was busy setting the table.
    His stomach grumbled. The venison stew had worn off a while ago.
    “Where have you been, Papa?” Gracie asked, all but singing the words, and dancing to them, too. “Did youride all the way to town with Uncle Wes so he wouldn’t get lost in the snow?”
    Lincoln smiled and shook his head no. “Wes’s horse knows the way home, even if your uncle doesn’t,” he said. Actually, he’d been in the Gainers’ cabin, admiring the spindly little Christmas tree Ben had put up for his child-heavy wife and drinking weak coffee. And at once avoiding and anticipating his return to the house, to Juliana.
    Gracie nodded sagely. “That’s a good horse,” she said.
    Lincoln proceeded through the kitchen, then the front room, and along the hallway to Juliana’s door. Tonight, he thought, entering with the wood and kindling, he wouldn’t have to lie awake worrying that she and the little boy and girl were cold.
    Oh, he’d probably lie awake, all right, but there would be something else on his mind.
    He’d made a damn fool of himself, with all that talk about governesses and housekeepers and—he gulped at the recollection—taking a wife.
    Unburdening himself of the wood, Lincoln bent to open the stove door. Methodically, he took up the short-handled broom and bucket reserved for the purpose and