A Creed Country Christmas. Linda Miller Lael

all the things she would have changed, she appreciated her blessings, too; she’d been well-cared-for, beautifully clothed and educated beyond the level most young women attained. Yet, there was still a childlike yearning inside Juliana, a longing for her beautiful, laughing mama. The singular and often poignant ache was mostly manageable—except when she was discouraged, and that had been often, of late.

      After graduating from Normal School—her grandmother had died of a heart condition only weeks before Juliana accepted her certificate—she’d begun her career with high hopes, pushed up her sleeves and flung herself into the fray, undaunted at first by her brother’s cold disapproval. He’d wanted her to marry his business partner, John Holden, and because he controlled their grandmother’s large estate, Clay had had the power to disinherit her. On the day she’d given back John’s engagement ring and accepted her first teaching assignment at a school for Indian boys in a small Colorado town a day’s train ride from Denver, he’d done that, for all practical intents and purposes.

      Juliana had been left with nothing but the few modest clothes and personal belongings she’d packed for the journey. Clay had gone so far as to ban her from the family home, saying she could return when she “came to her senses.”

      To Clay, “coming to her senses” meant consigning herself to a loveless marriage to a widower more than twenty years her senior, a man with two daughters close to Juliana’s own age.

      Mean daughters, who went out of their way to be snide, and saw their future stepmother as an interloper bent on claiming their late mother’s jewelry, as well as her home and husband.

      Remembering, Juliana bit down on her lower lip, and her eyes smarted a little. She might have been content with John, if not happy, had it not been for Eleanor and Eugenie. He was gentle, well-read, and she’d felt safe with him.

      In a flash of insight and dismay, Juliana had realized she was looking for a father, not a husband. She’d explained to John, and though he’d been disappointed, he’d understood. He’d even been gracious enough to wish her well.

      Clay, by contrast, had been furious; his otherwise handsome features had turned to stone the day she’d told him about the broken engagement.

      In the six years since, he’d softened a little—probably because his wife, Nora, had lobbied steadily on Juliana’s behalf—writing regularly, even inviting Juliana home for visits and offering to ship the clothing and books she’d left behind, but when it came to her inheritance, he’d never relented.

      Even when John Holden had died suddenly, a year before, permanently disqualifying himself as a possible husband for the sister Clay had once adored and protected, teased and laughed with, he had not given ground. After months of working up her courage, she’d written to ask for a modest bank draft, since her salary was small, less than the allowance her grandmother had given her as a girl, and Clay had responded with words that still blistered Juliana’s pride, even now. “I won’t see you squandering good money,” he’d written, “on shoes and schoolbooks for a pack of red-skinned orphans and strays.”

      A burning ache rose in Juliana’s throat at the memory.

      Clay would cease punishing her when she stopped teaching and married a man who met with his lofty approval, then and only then, and that was the unfortunate reality.

      She’d been a fool to write to him that last time, all but begging for the funds she’d needed to get Joseph and Theresa safely home to North Dakota and look after the two little ones until proper homes could be found for them.

      The situation was further complicated by the fact that Mr. Philbert, an agent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and therefore Juliana’s supervisor, believed the four pupils still in her charge had been sent back to their original school in Missoula, along with the older students. Sooner or later, making his rounds or by correspondence, Philbert, a diligent sort with no softness in him that Juliana could discern, would realize she’d not only disobeyed his orders, but lied to him, at least in part.

      As an official representative of the United States government, the man could have her arrested and prosecuted for kidnapping, and consign Daisy and Billy-Moses to some new institution, far out of her reach, where they would probably be neglected, at best. Juliana knew, after working in a series of such places, all but bloodying her very soul in the effort to change things, that only the most dedicated reformers would bother to look beyond the color of their skin. And there were precious few of those.

      To keep from thinking about Mr. Philbert and his inevitable wrath, Juliana turned her mind to the students she’d had to bid farewell to—Mary Rose, seventeen and soon to be entering Normal School herself; Ezekiel, sixteen, who wanted to finish his education and return to his tribe. Finally, there was Angelique, seventeen, like her cousin Mary Rose, sweet and unassuming and smitten with a boy she’d met while running an errand in Stillwater Springs one spring day.

      Part Blackfoot and part white, Blue Johnston had visited several times, a handsome, engaging young man with a flashing white smile and the promise of a job herding cattle on a ranch outside of Missoula. Although Juliana had kept close watch on the couple and warned Angelique repeatedly about the perils of impulse, she’d had the other children to attend to, and the pair had strayed out of her sight more than a few times.

      Privately, Juliana feared that Angelique and her beau would run away and get married as soon as they got the chance—and that chance had come a week before, when Angelique and the others had boarded the train to return to Missoula. Should that happen—perhaps it already had—Mr. Philbert would bluster and threaten dire consequences when he learned of it, all the while figuratively dusting his hands together, secretly relieved to have one less obligation.

      Footsteps passed along the hallway, past her door, bringing Juliana out of her rueful reflections. Another door opened and then closed again, nearer, and then all was silent.

      The house rested, and so, evidently, did Lincoln Creed.

      Juliana could not.

      Easing herself from between the sleeping children, after gently freeing the fabric of her nightgown from Billy-Moses’s grasp, Juliana crawled out of bed.

      The cold slammed against her body like the shock following an explosion; there was a small stove in the room, but it had not been lit.

      Shivering, Juliana crossed to it, all but hopping, found matches and newspaper and kindling and larger chunks of pitchy wood resting tidily in a nearby basket. With numb fingers, she opened the stove door and laid a fire, set the newspaper and kindling ablaze, adjusted the damper.

      The floor stung the soles of her bare feet, and the single window, though large, was opaque with curlicues and crystals of ice. A silvery glow indicated that the moon had come out from behind the snow-burdened clouds—perhaps the storm had stopped.

      Juliana paced, making no sound, until the room began to warm up, and then fumbled in the pocket of her cloak for Clay’s crumpled letter. Back at the mercantile, she’d been too overwrought to finish the missive. Now, wakeful in the house of a charitable stranger—but a stranger nevertheless—she smoothed the page with the flat of one hand, hungry for a word of kind affection.

      Not wanting to light a lamp, lest she awaken the children resting so soundly in the feather bed, Juliana knelt near the fire, opened the stove door again and read by the flickering flames inside, welcoming the warmth.

      Her gaze skimmed over the first few lines—she could have recited those from memory—and took in the rest.

      You will be twenty-six years old on your next birthday, Juliana, and you are still unmarried. Nora and I are, of course, greatly concerned for your welfare, not to mention your reputation….

      Juliana had to stop herself by the summoning of inner forces from wadding the letter up again, casting it straight into the fire.

      Clay had accepted the fact, he continued, in his usual brisk fashion, that his sister had consigned herself to a life of lonely and wasteful spinsterhood. She was creating a scandal, he maintained, by living away from home and family. What kind of example,