A Texas Kind of Christmas Read online

  BOOKS BY JODI THOMAS

  Recent Anthologies

  ASK ME WHY

  WINTER’S CAMP

  A CHRISTMAS AFFAIR

  Historical

  BENEATH THE TEXAS

  SKY

  NORTHERN STAR

  THE TENDER TEXAN

  PRAIRIE SONG

  CHERISH THE DREAM

  THE TEXAN AND THE

  LADY

  TO TAME A TEXAN’S

  HEART

  FOREVER IN TEXAS

  TEXAS LOVE SONG

  TWO TEXAS HEARTS

  Contemporary Fiction

  THE WIDOWS OF

  WICHITA COUNTY

  FINDING MARY BLAINE

  THE SECRETS OF ROSA

  LEE

  TWISTED CREEK

  REWRITING MONDAY

  MORNINGS ON MAIN

  The Wife Lottery

  THE TEXAN’S WAGER

  WHEN A TEXAN

  GAMBLES

  A TEXAN’S LUCK

  THE TEXAN’S REWARD

  Harmony

  WELCOME TO

  HARMONY

  SOMEWHERE ALONG

  THE WAY

  THE COMFORTS OF

  HOME

  JUST DOWN THE ROAD

  CHANCE OF A LIFETIME

  CAN’T STOP BELIEVING

  BETTING THE

  RAINBOW

  A PLACE CALLED

  HARMONY

  ONE TRUE HEART

  The McClain Series

  THE TEXAN’S TOUCH

  TO KISS A TEXAN

  TO WED IN TEXAS

  TWILIGHT IN TEXAS

  THE TEXAN’S DREAM

  Ransom Canyon

  RANSOM CANYON

  RUSTLER’S MOON

  LONE HEART PASS

  SUNRISE CROSSING

  WILD HORSE SPRINGS

  INDIGO LAKE

  MISTLETOE MIRACLES

  Whispering Mountain

  TEXAS RAIN

  TEXAS PRINCESS

  TALL, DARK, AND

  EXAN

  THE LONE TEXAN

  TEXAS BLUE

  WILD TEXAS ROSE

  PROMISE ME TEXAS

  BOOKS BY CELIA BONADUCE

  Tiny House Novels

  TINY HOUSE ON THE

  HILL

  TINY HOUSE ON THE

  ROAD

  TINY HOUSE IN THE

  TREES

  Fat Chance, Texas Series

  WELCOME TO FAT

  CHANCE, TEXAS

  SLIM PICKINS’ IN FAT

  CHANCE, TEXAS

  LIVIN’ LARGE IN FAT

  CHANCE, TEXAS

  Venice Beach Romances

  THE MERCHANT OF

  VENICE BEACH

  A COMEDY OF ERINN

  MUCH ADO ABOUT

  MOTHER

  BOOKS BY RACHAEL MILES

  Muses’ Salon

  RECKLESS IN RED

  ENCHANTING

  OPHELIA

  CHARMING OPHELIA

  TEMPTING THE EARL

  CHASING THE HEIRESS

  JILTING THE DUKE

  A Texas Kind of Christmas

  JODI THOMAS

  CELIA BONADUCE

  RACHAEL MILES

  KENSINGTON BOOKS

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Compilation copyright © 2020 by Kensington Publishing Corp.

  “One Night at the St. Nicholas” © 2019 by Jodi Thomas

  “Birdie’s Flight” © 2019 by Celia Bonaduce LLC

  “Spirit of Texas” © 2019 by Rachael Miles

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  ISBN: 978-1-4967-2130-3

  Kensington Electronic Edition: November 2019

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4967-2130-3

  ISBN-10: 1-4967-2130-6

  Table of Contents

  Also by

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  One Night at the St. Nicholas

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Epilogue

  Birdie’s Flight

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

  Spirit of Texas

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  THE VALENTINE’S CURSE

  ONE TEXAS NIGHT

  BENEATH THE TEXAS SKY

  One Night at the St. Nicholas

  JODI THOMAS

  Thank you, Celia, for calling me New Year’s Eve to ask me to join you and Rachael on this fun adventure.

  Chapter 1

  Texas, 1859

  Christmas Eve

  Rain hung in the air so thick Cody Lamar couldn’t see the sunset as he rode into Dallas. He swore into the wind. This was the dumbest idea he’d ever had in his life.

  He was thirty-four, old enough to know better, but here he was going courting at some fancy party, looking for a girl he hadn’t seen in years.

  Probably half the single men in the state would be at the St. Nicholas Hotel tonight, lined up to propose if they’d heard the same rumors he had. A Texas princess, who came with a dowry of cattle and land, was looking for a husband. Shy, rarely seen, Miss Jacqueline Hartman, daughter of one of the richest ranchers in Texas, would be married by the new year or rumor was her father planned to disown her.

  Cody had been twenty when he met his neighbor Harry Hartman, and his daughter Jacqueline had been about seven. The day hadn’t been much better than today; funeral weather, he’d thought then.

  He couldn’t remember what the little girl had looked like that morning they all huddled around her mother’s grave. Harry had stood like stone in the rainstorm, but his daughter looked like she might blow away. She’d clenched her hands behind her back as the preacher shouted above the thunder. Cody wondered if she was stubbornly refusing to touch her father, or simply frozen in place.

  Little Jacqueline Hartman wore a coat a few sizes too big with a hood covering her face. Cody remembered brown hair or maybe it had been wet blond. She was skinny, though. He noticed that. Bony as a fence post with that big coat flapping around her like a black flag.

  She’d spent most of the funeral standing behind her daddy, who ign
ored her. When one of the cowhands tossed the first shovel of dirt on her mother’s casket, the girl started crying.

  No one moved to comfort her. No one said a word. Harry finally noticed her. He swore so loud it raveled the storm. He picked her up and loaded her in the back of the buckboard as if she was simply a newfound burden.

  All the other families stood in the rain watching as he climbed on the seat and grabbed the reins.

  When the wagon finally disappeared in the dreary fog, Cody could still hear her sobs carried on the icy wind.

  He had felt sorry for her that day, but he hadn’t known what to say. Afterwards, he’d watched for the kid at barn raisings and when he went to town. A sad little girl with a bull of a father raising her. Once he thought he saw her in the schoolyard sitting all alone. He’d noticed her asleep in the wagon while her father went about his business in town, and again a few years later when she rode wild across open pasture.

  Cody had left his land for a while, raising money by serving in the war with Mexico. By the time he’d gotten back, folks said they never saw her in town at all. She’d grown up so shy she never left her father’s spread.

  He remembered being happy for her when Harry married again. Folks bragged that Margaret Hartman was the most beautiful bride they’d ever seen. The new Mrs. Hartman was one of those rare women who takes up all the air in a room. She acted as if all others were simply around to entertain her. Harry paraded her about like she was a prize heifer and she talked baby talk to him as if she was too dumb to sneeze without directions.

  Cody didn’t really care. The war had hardened him and all he wanted to do was live in peace on his land. On the rare occasions he saw Mr. and Mrs. Hartman, Harry’s daughter was never with them.

  Now, over a dozen years since the day he’d seen Jacqueline cry, she was the belle of the ball. She was long into marrying age at twenty-one and her father and stepmother seemed set on the idea that she find a husband tonight.

  Cody pushed memories aside as he slowed his mount into the heavy traffic of a dozen wagons. Dallas wasn’t much of a town, but bigger than most this far north of the Rio.

  He stabled his horse across the street from the St. Nicholas and stomped through the mud suddenly in a hurry to get his chore finished. He planned to propose to Miss Hartman whether she was pretty or homely. Something he never figured he’d do. If she needed a husband he could handle that job.

  He was about to walk into some elegant ball wearing worn clothes and ask a girl he’d never spoken to if she’d be interested in marrying him. He didn’t want a wife, but he’d treat her right. Talk to her now and then. Finish building the house he’d started years ago. Take her to town once a month whether they needed supplies or not.

  With the land she’d be getting when she married Cody, he’d be able to grow his herd. Otherwise, he’d have to pack up and move farther north to expand.

  Marriage seemed less trouble than moving beyond the fort line into Indian Territory.

  But, he’d never tell her he loved her. He’d given up being that kind of fool years ago. She’d have to agree to that term. Cody had a feeling she was used to no one caring about her.

  Chapter 2

  Nathaniel Ward lowered his bowler and tried to ignore the three mismatched passengers across from him on the stage heading toward a settlement known as Dallas.

  First was a plump little woman who never stopped talking to her barrel-chested husband, a farmer, who didn’t bother listening to his wife. He was trying to sleep while their son, about six, refused to settle in one spot.

  On every stop of the dusty two-day journey people had gotten on or off, but they all had the same look of disgust when they glanced at Nate.

  Maybe it was the hat, Nathaniel decided. Most of these Texans wore wide-brimmed, high-crowned hats or wide sombreros with a Mexican flare. No one but an Easterner would wear a bowler in this wild windy country.

  Of course, their frowns might be because Nathaniel hadn’t had a bath in a week. Or maybe it was the bloodstains on his coat. He thought of telling them that it wasn’t his blood, but somehow he doubted that would offer much comfort.

  And then, there was the fact that he was handcuffed to the rawhide, mean lawman.

  Marshal Cash Calaber might think of himself as Texas’s best, seeing he was a lawyer, a marshal, and mentioned to every passing voter that he’d be running for governor the next election. But all Nate saw was six feet of nasty wrapped in self-righteous lectures and seasoned with bullshit.

  Nate had been watching him for days. Studying him carefully. He had expensive boots with his initials sewn into the leather and a valise branded in the same style.

  Cash was about Nate’s build, but the blowhard carried himself full-sized. Reminding Nate of a toad puffed up to fight.

  If no one in the coach acted like they were listening to him, the man would talk louder as if giving a speech to a whole hall of people. He had enough stories to have lived a dozen lifetimes. A few, he claimed were personal experiences, but Nate had read them in dime novels. To stay awake, the marshal sometimes ran down all the rules of law. He’d say, “I know enough law to pass the bar in every state, but I don’t want to dumb myself down to a solicitor’s level. I’ll run this state in five years.”

  If no other passenger commented, Cash talked about his parents’ ranch down near Austin or about the rich girl he was going to meet in Dallas as soon as he turned over this outlaw. “I’ve never met her, but she’s a true Texas princess. Her folks were part of the Old Three Hundred, the first settlers Stephen F. Austin brought out in 1825. All I got to do before I claim her is see this bad guy hang first. Duty before pleasure, I always say.”

  He’d elbow Nate every time he repeated his goals and Nate would play his part by growling.

  “Captured him all by myself even though my duties are usually called for at the capital. But, it was my obligation to keep the great state of Texas safe from outlaws and killers.”

  Nate thought of adding that the capture wasn’t very hard. He’d been sitting on the steps of his burned theater trying to drink himself to death when Cash marched up, pulled his gun, and arrested him.

  Nate noticed Cash wasn’t the brightest of men. For one, he never allowed anyone else to talk and two, he hadn’t figured out that Nate wasn’t the outlaw he’d been looking for.

  Not that Nate was a saint, but he’d never robbed the banks the marshal claimed he had. He didn’t even own a gun.

  Calaber might think Nathaniel Ward was a criminal, but in truth, Nate was simply an actor on hard times. He’d spent his last dollar to buy a theater in Austin, only to find the place had burned down six months ago. He’d thought Texas might be his chance, but things weren’t going so well. Chained to a marshal trying to make a name for himself and headed toward his own hanging didn’t sound like much of a career choice.

  “Hey, Mister? You kill somebody?” the squirmy kid asked.

  Both of the parents frowned and glared at Nathaniel.

  An out-of-work actor is still an actor. Nate twisted a smile on one side of his mouth like he’d seen the marshal do. “Yep. Killed a snot-nosed kid who bothered me with questions back at the last watering hole.”

  The boy paled and Marshal Cash laughed. “Hell, Ward, you sound just like me. What happened to that Yankee accent of yours?”

  Grinning, Nathaniel added, still in the marshal’s accent, “Southern with a hint of Irish, you are, partner. I’ve been cooped up with you for almost three days. It was bound to rub off.”

  Calaber turned back to the boy. “He ain’t no killer, kid. He’s a thief, a pretender. Almost had me convinced he was an actor and not a bank robber but I caught him just around the corner from the bank. You ask me, acting isn’t no kind of job. Ain’t much different than a robber. Breath will go out of either one when the rope tightens.”

  Now the chubby little woman in a hat bigger than her head gasped. “An actor. I’ve heard of them but haven’t ever seen one.”

&nb
sp; The marshal grinned. “Most of the time he just acts like he’s an actor. I don’t think he’s any good. I’ve never heard of him and I’ve been around.”

  Nathaniel pushed his hat back down, deciding Calaber just liked to needle him. The man had probably never seen a play. Despite all his talk, Nate could honestly say that the marshal had the manners of a prairie dog, but he’d be insulting the pup.

  Cash had bragged that tonight he’d be at some big ball and he planned to court a rich rancher’s only daughter. He claimed she’d look good in the governor’s mansion.

  The stage stopped at a crossroads and the driver yelled, “This is y’all’s last stop if you’re not heading toward Dallas.”

  As the family bumped their way out, the man looked back at Marshal Calaber. “Take care. The last leg north runs right through outlaw country. Keep your gun fully loaded and at the ready. Next forty miles is dangerous.”

  “Thanks for the warning,” Nathaniel said in the marshal’s voice. “But I’ve got a schedule to keep and a pretty princess to charm.”

  Calaber slugged Nate in the chest with his free fist as the farmer closed the stage door. “That will be enough out of you, parrot. We’re making Dallas before dark and it won’t be soon enough to get rid of you.”

  When they were around people, Calaber was civil, but the minute they were alone, the lawman was downright bothersome, Nate decided. Men like that were pretenders. In public, all smiles and righteous, but behind doors they were twisted.