Evangeline’s heart leapt at the sight of him—she always had some sort of visceral reaction on seeing Scully, though most were less noble than the festive excitement she felt then. She had nearly forgotten, what with Abigail’s illness and lengthy recovery, that Christmas was upon them.

She watched through a window as he took both horse and tree into the barn, and pretended to be surprised to see him when, after forty-five minutes or so, he came in, bringing a sizable turkey carcass with him. After setting the cleaned fowl on the small worktable next to the stove, he set about pulling off his gloves and coat, hanging up his hat. He went straight to the hearth then, added wood to the fire, and stood there warming his hands. Abigail was sound asleep on the bed, curled up in a ball reminiscent of Hortense.

Without mentioning the tree, or the turkey, which would make for a very grand holiday meal, Evangeline poured coffee for Scully and filled a plate with the boiled pinto beans and cornbread she’d made to do for both dinner and supper.

Scully washed his hands at the basin on the other side of the room and came to the table. “How’s Abigail?” he asked, casting a sidelong glance toward the child and speaking softly.

“Better,” Evangeline said. She wasn’t being short with him, she simply did not know what to say. They’d settled the matter of their feelings, and now there was nothing to do but get through the rest of the winter, one day, one hour, one minute at a time.

Abigail woke up soon after that and broke the uncomfortable silence. “Tomorrow,” the child announced, with uncanny accuracy, “is Christmas.”

Scully, seated before the fire oiling a mass of leather harnesses, chuckled. “That it is,” he agreed. “Do you reckon St. Nick will find you, way out here?”

Evangeline might have loved Scully Wainwright with the whole of her heart, but she could have killed him just then, for saying what he had. She had nothing but a knitted scarf to give her child, and certainly no small treats or toys to put in her stocking, should Abigail remember to hang it over the hearth that night.

Abigail surprised them both. “There isn’t any St. Nicholas,” she said sadly. “A boy—a big boy—told me so, on the train out of Philadelphia. He said it was just a lot of foolishness, made up so children would behave.”

Scully made a pitying, tsk-tsk sound. “He can’t have encountered the man personally, like I did, if he’d say a thing like that.”

Abigail’s voice was breathless, hushed with wonder. “You’ve seen St. Nicholas?”

“Sure, I have,” Scully replied, without missing a beat, meeting Evangeline’s scalding gaze with a quiet stubbornness that was becoming familiar to her. The man was wasted on ranching; he should have sold snake oil. “You might even say we’re friends, he and I. Ran into him one night when I was riding the range, in fact. He was bundled up in fur and mounted on a horse as white as that snow outside your window. He gave me a pocketknife with an ivory handle and a shiny blade and wished me a happy Christmas.” He dug into his pocket and brought out the aforementioned knife, holding it high for Abigail to see.