Jane Goodger by A Christmas Waltz Page A

about Carson?” she asked, cackling theatrically like an old witch. “Oh, goodness.” She apparently found herself quite amusing. “Boone’s just dependable and Carson, he’s his daddy’s boy through and through.”
    “What was their father like?”
    “He could surely put on the charm, but he was a mean drunk. Meanest I’ve ever seen. Mean to everyone but Carson.”
    “Boone?”
    “Like I said, Boone didn’t live with his father. I don’t know the particulars of it, but there’s surely a reason for that.”
    Amelia bade her good night, and found herself quite alone in the store. It was closing time, so she lowered the shade and locked the door, looking about the store to make certain everything was where it ought to be. Boone was more nervous about leaving the store than leaving any possible patients. In the days she’d been in Small Fork, the only patient he’d had was Julia. It seemed strange that a town without a telegraph office or electricity would have a doctor.
    She went about straightening shelves, as she had noticed that Boone liked things just so. She smiled, remembering him going around the store, moving items a tiny bit so that they were perfectly aligned. When she came to the small vase that Julia had touched, she impulsively picked it up and wrapped it in some cheesecloth. Then she took a bit of ribbon and tied it, creating a pretty little package.
    All women should have pretty things, she decided.
     
    The outside looked like a shack, a squat little building in the middle of a field. It could have been an overlarge animal pen, but it was Julia Benson’s home.
    The twenty-six-year-old woman had not lived there with her husband, the man who’d shot her in the face, then made her try to cook his supper until she collapsed in a bloody heap on the floor. Afterward, he’d gone to the saloon, covered in her blood, startling even the hardened men who sat there night after night drinking their cheap whiskey.
    “Ain’t my blood, you goddamn idiots. It’s Julia’s. She had an accident with my shotgun.” Then he’d laughed. Carson Kitteridge hadn’t been too drunk that night to realize the implications of what he’d said. Julia was hurt, pretty Julia Shaddock, that quiet little thing who used to share her sugar cookies with him when they were both just kids. He hadn’t thought about her in a long while, but he knew who she was married to, and sometimes felt a twinge of sadness that she should be tied to such a terrible man. He wondered how someone so sweet and pretty could have ended up with a man so hard and cruel.
    And so Carson had staggered out of the bar and gotten Boone, the one man he knew who could help Julia and protect her from a man like Sam Benson.
    After Dr. Kitteridge saved her life, she moved in to her little shack and created her own world of magic and beauty. No one bothered her, except the occasional boys who threw rocks at her house. They were too afraid to get close, and so never did any real damage.
    Sometimes she wished Boone Kitteridge hadn’t saved her, hadn’t been able to stop the blood that seeped from her skull, had let her fade away and die. More than sometimes. But he had, and she lived and lived.
    It had been three years since Sam had shot her. She was still married to him, and knew that someday he’d come back and finish her off. She hated him. She’d always hated him. But her daddy had caught him in her bed, even though she hadn’t invited him there, and she had to get married. No one believed her when she’d said Sam had been trying to force himself on her. They believed him. And no one believed she hadn’t deserved what she got. Not even her mama. She hated her, too. She hated everyone except Boone and Carson Kitteridge.
    And that day, she added Lady Amelia to her short list of people she didn’t hate.
     
    Amelia stared at Julia’s home, uncertain whether she should announce her presence before knocking. From what Boone had told her about the woman,