Christmas With A Stranger. Catherine Spencer

“Jessica Simms, meet Clancy Roper, my hired hand. He looks after the horses when I’m not here, and keeps a general eye on the place. The dog in the chair is Shadow, the other’s Ben. Clancy, this is the person I told you about whose car is being repaired.”

      “I didn’t figure on her bein’ the tooth fairy,” Clancy returned. “How long you plannin’ to keep her around, nosin’ through the house and ferretin’ out things that ain’t any o’ her concern?”

      “Not a moment longer than necessary,” Jessica informed him shortly, then pointedly addressed her next remark to Morgan. “In addition to taking the unpardonable liberty of laying the table, I found a loaf of bread and put it to warm in the oven. I hope that doesn’t also violate some unwritten rule of the house?”

      “No,” he said, a hint of apology merging with the amusement dancing in his eyes. “And the table looks very nice.”

      “In that case, if you’re ready to eat I’ll be happy to dish up the food.”

      “I’m starving, and so must you be.” He held out a chair for her with a flourish that drew forth another irate snort from the hired hand. “Have a seat and I’ll take over. We’re used to doing for ourselves here, though not quite as elegantly as this any more. Clancy, quit sulking and sit down.”

      “The dogs needs feedin’, or don’t that matter now that you got a woman trippin’ you up every time you turn round?”

      “The dogs won’t mind waiting.” Unperturbed by the irascible old man, Morgan set about serving the chili and slicing the loaf of bread. “You want coffee with your meal, Jessica, or would you prefer to have it afterward?”

      “Whatever you’re used to is fine with me.”

      “We usually have it with, especially during the winter when the days are so short. We start bringing in the horses around four in the afternoon, which doesn’t allow much time for a leisurely lunch.”

      “Ain’t waitin’ that long today,” Clancy muttered, practically swiping his flannel-shirted arm across the end of Jessica’s nose as he reached over to help himself to bread. “Not only ain’t the company the sort that makes a man want to hang around, the sky’s cloudin’ up from the north-east pretty damn fast. Reckon we’ll be seein’ snow again before the day’s out.”

      Morgan aimed a glance Jessica’s way. “Just as well you’re not planning to drive all the way to Whistling Valley today, after all, or you might be spending another night on the road and leaving yourself at the mercy of the next person who happens to come along.”

      “I’m really rather tired of your harping on about last night,” she said, the note of reprimand in his remark really grating on her nerves. “I’ve already told you why I wasn’t as well prepared for the weather as I would have been had circumstances been different, and I don’t feel I owe you any further explanation or apology.”

      “Right grateful little vixen, ain’t she, Morgan?” Clancy Roper said gleefully. “Reckon that’ll teach you not to go pickin’ up strange women off the side of the highway.”

      “Doesn’t it occur to you that you were lucky I was the one you found yourself trapped with?” Morgan lectured her, ignoring Clancy. “Or that you have a responsibility to yourself and society at large not to take that sort of risk with your safety?”

      “I don’t make a habit of expecting the worst,” Jessica retorted. “Most people behave decently, I find, given the chance.”

      He spread long, lean fingers over the table top and shook his head. “Then you’re kidding yourself. Good Samaritans are pretty thin on the ground these days, and just because it’s Christmas doesn’t mean you can afford to indulge in the wholesale belief that all men are full of goodwill.”

      “Reckon we just might find that out the hard way,” Clancy put in with a scowl, “if Gabriel—”

      But before he could elaborate further Morgan cut him off with a meaningful glare and a brusque, “Shut up, Clancy. Let’s not get into that again.”

      They ate the rest of the meal in strained silence. Once they were done, Morgan nodded to Clancy. “Feed the dogs while I bring in another load of wood,” he said, heading for the back porch, “then we’ll get back to the stables.”

      Feeling thoroughly superfluous, Jessica said, “Is there anything I can do to help?”

      “Not unless you’re used to working horses.”

      “Just got to look at her to see she wouldn’t know the hind end of one if it was starin’ her in the face,” Clancy said, shoveling dog food into two bowls.

      “You’re right,” Jessica informed him. “But I’m perfectly able to wash dishes and from the way you’ve managed to splatter chili all over yours it’s just as well. I’m also capable of producing an acceptable evening meal.”

      “Lordy, Lordy,” the old curmudgeon sneered back. “Ain’t never before heard a woman spit out such a mouthful of hoity-toity words in one breath.”

      “Considering we’re both lousy cooks,” Morgan told him, “I think you’d be smart to button your lip. Jessica, feel free to take over the kitchen. There’s a freezer full of stuff in the mud room, and sacks of potatoes and other vegetables. Oh, and help yourself to the phone in the office if you want to call the hospital again.”

      

      She did, and afterward almost wished she hadn’t bothered. Selena, it turned out, had received a relatively minor injury to her spine-mostly bruising which, though painful, was not expected to create any lasting complications.

      Jessica would have thought that was cause enough for any reasonable person to celebrate, but Selena was not famous for being reasonable. Thoroughly put out by the number of Christmas parties she was missing and the fact that the hospital restricted the number of visitors she was allowed, she devoted most of the conversation to a litany of complaint.

      Patience stretched to the limit, Jessica finally cut short the call with the suggestion that since there was little Selena could do to change things she might as well make the most of them.

      Such excellent advice, Jessica decided, hanging up the phone, also applied to her. She found an apple pie and a package of some kind of stewing meat that looked like beef in the freezer, and potatoes, carrots and onions in the vegetable bins. The refrigerator yielded up butter, cheese, eggs, and a slab of back bacon. Jars of dried herbs and such filled the shelves of a wooden spice rack.

      By the time the snow that Clancy had predicted began to fall, shortly after four, the kitchen was filled with the rich aroma of meat and vegetables simmering in the oven, the lunch dishes had been washed and returned to their hallowed place in the glass-fronted cabinet, and Jessica was left with nothing more pleasant to do than await the return of her unwilling host and his uncivil hired hand.

      “Hardly the ideal dining companions,” she commented to Shadow, who lifted her head sympathetically from her spot in the rocker, then tucked her nose more snugly under her tail.

      The men came back about half an hour later. Their footsteps clumped onto the back porch, followed shortly thereafter by the door to the mud room being flung open and the sound of something being dragged across the floor.

      “It’ll dry out a bit overnight, and we’ll put it up tomorrow,” she heard Morgan Kincaid say. “Hang up your jacket, and let’s get inside where it’s warm.”

      “Where the woman is, you mean,” came the disagreeable reply.

      “Well, Clancy,” his employer drawled, in that husky, come-hither sort of voice of his, “I’m willing to put up with her company for another night if it means our coming in to find a good hot meal waiting on the table, and after the sort of afternoon we’ve both put in I’d think you would be too.”

      “Speak for yourself,” Clancy snapped, clearly put out by any such suggestion.