Free Outlaw for Christmas (9781101573020) by Lori Austin

frowning at the chessboard, glanced up. “The invitations are out. We’ll have near fifty guests. The same music as last year, since you enjoyed it so much.”
    Robert nodded, expecting nothing less. When his wife died, he’d turned the running of the household over to Ruth. She’d done a decent job, so he’d left the house in her care for the past eight years as he spent more and more time at work.
    He wanted to leave a legacy, and since he had no son to carry on his name, the town would have to do. So he spent his days at the bank, but what he did was strengthen Kelly Creek.
    Ferret out the weak links, foreclose on the losers, buy out any troublemakers, loan to as many solid, upstanding citizens as he could manage so that they owed him their allegiance. His legacy would be the best little town in Kansas.
    What he relished these days was money, power, social position—three things he’d never had as a child. He’d come to see how important they were. Kelly Creek was his town, and no one in it ever dared to call him an ignorant Irish immigrant or a worthless, drunken Paddy. He’d gone from being no one in a large town to being someone in a small town, which was just how he liked it.
    One of the traditions he’d begun was the New Year’s Ball, where the society he cultivated gathered at his home and rang in each year. He invited the cream of Kansas City society as well and let them stay at his house and the old farmhouse across the creek. Which reminded him . . .
    â€œI’d best send Tim over to clean the farmhouse for the out-of-town guests,” he said.
    â€œNo!” Ruth stood, knocking the table with her knee. The chess pieces fell, willy-nilly.
    Robert frowned. Ruth might be clumsy, but she was never rude.
    â€œI-I’ve already taken care of it. I had some extra time yesterday.”
    â€œYesterday?”
    How odd. Usually on Christmas Eve day she moped about until she made her annual trip to the train station. Robert should have forbidden it long ago. Whenever Ruth returned, she was sad and quiet for days. But since her sadness and silence coincided with Christmas and his own bout of melancholy, he’d let the matter go.
    He would continue to do so. Robert didn’t want to know why she went as long as she came back. He might not be able to love her, but he did need her. Without Ruth, his empire would be left to no one. She might not be a true Kelly, but she was the only Kelly he had.
    â€œI’d like to hire an extra man to help with the horses and wagons,” he murmured. “Tim muddled through last year, but it was difficult for him.”
    Tim, their groom, was Tildy’s husband, though from the way they snarled and picked at each other you’d think they were siblings instead. They even slept apart, Tim in the tack room and Tildy in the house—an odd sort of marriage, but it worked for them.
    â€œHe won’t like it.”
    â€œI know. But he won’t say so. He hasn’t the courage of Tildy.”
    Tildy would tell Robert where to take his extra help and give him explicit directions on how to get there. Her domain was the kitchen, and a more exclusive domain did not exist. There Tildy ruled.
    â€œCourage?” Ruth’s lips twitched. “Is that what you call it?”
    â€œIt’s what she calls it. And I don’t have the heart to correct her.”
    â€œHeart?” Ruth was smiling now. “Is that what you call it?”
    Robert surprised himself by laughing. He was even more surprised to find that laughing felt good. In fact, for a tiny moment it almost seemed like Christmas again.
    Until he gazed up at the picture of Susan, then glanced around the room, decorated with all of Cora’s lovely Christmas things, and remembered. How could he laugh when they would never laugh again?
    Robert got up and went to the sideboard. He poured himself a liberal brandy, then toasted the Christmas