A Creed Country Christmas

A Creed Country Christmas by Linda Lael Miller Page A

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Authors: Linda Lael Miller
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been a girl,” Rose-of-Sharon went on, more softly now, holding out her arms for the baby again, “I’d have chosen your name.” She wrinkled her brow curiously, and Juliana, surrendering Joshua with some reluctance, thought of Angelique, wondered if sheand Blue Johnston had gotten married. “What is your name, anyhow?”
    She laughed. “Juliana.”
    “That’s right pretty.”
    “Thank you. So is Rose-of-Sharon.”
    Rose-of-Sharon blushed a little. “I’m obliged to you,” she said. “The hardest thing about having a baby was being so far from Mama—or at least that’s what I thought until it started hurting.”
    Juliana smiled, tucked the blankets in more snugly around both Rose-of-Sharon and the baby. “You’ll forget the pain with time,” she said.
    “I ain’t yet,” Rose-of-Sharon said devoutly, and with a little shudder for emphasis. She yawned, and her eyelids drooped a little. “I’m plum worn down to a nubbin,” she added.
    “Get some rest,” Juliana urged gently.
    “What if I roll over on Joshua while I’m sleeping?” Rose-of-Sharon fretted. “He’s such a little thing.”
    “I’ll make sure you don’t,” Juliana promised. There was no cradle, but she spotted a small chest of drawers in a corner of the cabin. Removing one drawer, she lined it with a folded quilt, set it next to the bed where Rose-of-Sharon could see and reach, and carefully placed the baby inside.
    With no more quilts or blankets on hand, Juliana used several of Ben’s heavy flannel shirts to cover little Joshua.
    Satisfied that her baby was safe, Rose-of-Sharon slept.
    Juliana sat quietly through the morning, her mood introspective.
    At half past one that afternoon, the men returned, chilled and red-faced from the brisk wind, and Ben took over the care of his wife and son.
    Juliana wore Lincoln’s coat, and as they stood in front of the cabin door, he carefully did up the buttons, his gloved hands, smelling of hay, lingering on the collar, close against her face.
    “Tom will ride to town and ask after the justice of the peace,” he said, “if you’re agreeable to that.”
    Juliana gazed up at him. She had not had time to fall in love with this man—he certainly hadn’t swept her off her feet, not in the romantic sense, anyway—but she respected him. She liked him.
    Was that enough?
    It seemed that someone else spoke up in her place. “I’m agreeable,” she said.
    His smile was so sudden, so dazzling, that it nearly knocked her back on her heels. “Good,” he said huskily. “That’s good.”
    A cloud crossed an inner sun. “This—this dress—”
    “Beth’s mother sent crates full of them, every so often,” he told her, his eyes gentle, perceptive. “She never got around to wearing it.”
    Juliana absorbed that, nodded.
    Lincoln took her hand. “Let’s get that Christmas tree set up,” he said with a laugh, “before Gracie pesters me into an early grave.”
    Minutes later, while Juliana and the children took boxes of delicate ornaments from the shelves of a small storage room off the parlor, Lincoln went to the woodshed to get the tree, Joseph right on his heels.
    It was so big that it took both of them to wrestle it through the front door, its branches exuding the piney scent Juliana had always associated with Christmas.
    Billy-Moses and Daisy stared at the tree in wonder, huddled so close together that their shoulders touched, and holding hands. Juliana remembered Mr. Philbert, and knew in a flash of certainty that he would come for them one day soon.
    Tears filled her eyes.
    She would be Mrs. Lincoln Creed by then, most likely, and with a husband to take her part, it wasn’t likely she’d be arrested. Still, when Mr. Philbert took Daisy and Billy-Moses away, it would be as if he’d torn out her heart and dragged it, bruised and bouncing, down the road behind his departing buggy.
    “Juliana?”
    She looked up, surprised to see Lincoln standing directly in front of her.
    He cupped her

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