An Outlaw's Christmas by Linda Lael Miller

being the coldest part of the building, and proceeded to prepare breakfast for both of them.
    “There’s a little house for the marshal to live in,” she said busily, after a few stiff minutes had passed. “The town provides it.”
    “I know,” Sawyer said. “I was here in Blue River once before.” Now that he had coffee to drink, his temperament seemed to be improving. A hot meal might render him tolerable. “Dara Rose lived there at the time, with her daughters.”
    “Oh,” Piper said, apropos of nothing, turning slices of salt pork in the skillet, then cracking three eggs into the same pan, causing them to sizzle in the melted lard.
    “These accommodations of yours are pretty rustic,” he said, evidently to make conversation, which Piper could have done without just then. “The bed feels like a rock pile, and there’s no place to take a bath.”
    Piper, who yearned for an indoor bathroom like the one Dara Rose had now, in her lovely new ranch house, and a feather bed, and many other things in the bargain, took umbrage. These accommodations of hers, humble as they were, had very probably saved his life. “I manage just fine,” she said coolly.
    Sawyer sighed wearily. “I didn’t mean it as an insult,” he said.
    Piper plopped the salt pork and two of the eggs onto a tin plate—also provided by the good people of Blue River—and carried it over to him, along with a knife and fork.
    She set the works down with an eloquent clatter and rested her hands on her hips.
    “Would you like more coffee?” she demanded inhospitably.
    He grinned up at her, enjoying her pique. “Yes, ma’am, I would,” he said. “If you please.”
    She stormed back to the stove, took up a pot holder, and brought the coffee to the desk that doubled as a table. There was a heavy clunking sound as the base of it met the splintery oak surface.
    “Thank you,” the new marshal said sweetly.
    “You’re welcome,” she crabbed.
    A knock sounded at the schoolhouse door just then, and hope filled Piper, displacing her irritation and her strangely injured pride. Perhaps Clay had returned, or Doc Howard—
    But when she answered the firm rap, she found Bess Turner standing on the step, looking poised to flee if the need arose. Bess ran the brothel above the Bitter Gulch Saloon, and if she’d ever tried to look respectable, she’d given up on it long ago.
    Her hair was a brassy shade of yellow, her thin cheeks were heavily rouged, and her mouth was hard, not with anger, Piper had often thought, but with the strain of bearing up under one tribulation and sorrow after another.
    “I’m sorry to bother you,” Bess said, almost meekly. She wore a pink satin cloak, completely inadequate for a December day, and her dancing shoes were soaked through.
    “Come in,” Piper said quickly, stepping back. “There’s coffee made—I’ll pour you some.”
    Bess’s tired gaze strayed past Piper, dusted over Sawyer, and came back to Piper again. “Thank you,” she said, very quietly.
    “Stand over here by the stove,” Piper urged, with a shiver, hastening to rinse out a coffee cup. “You must be freezing!”
    Bess sidled close to the fire, and Piper noticed that the woman’s hands were gloveless, and blue with cold. “I can’t stay long,” she said, stealing another glance at Sawyer. Naturally, she’d be curious about his presence, but she wasn’t likely to carry tales, like some of the other townswomen would have done. “My Ginny-Sue is hectoring me something fierce about the Christmas program,” she added fretfully. “She’s learned the whole second chapter of Luke by heart, that being her piece for the recital, and she’s afraid school won’t take up again before then, because of the snow.”
    Piper was touched. Ginny-Sue, a shy ten-year-old, was one of her brightest pupils. Except for Madeline Howard, she was the best-dressed, too, always neatly clad in ready-made dresses, with her face scrubbed and her brown hair plaited.