A Log Cabin Christmas (17 page)

T
he very ground heaved and rocked, shaking so violently Mina fell flat. The noise and motion carried on, emptying her stomach and filling her heart with dread. She might have stayed clutching the ground were it not for one driving thought.

Belinda’s in the loft. Oh Lord. The mountain will surely rend in two, collapsing around us, and Belinda is trapped in the least-protected place of all. Please, please, please … Her desperate prayer devolved to the one word as she struggled to her feet, only to be pitched forward again
.

Mina crawled, hampered by her nurse’s large skirts, until able to stand and stagger forward. She finally made it to the doorway of the cabin. Still unbarred, the door flapped open and shut with great fury, snapping at her hands each time she grabbed for the handle. Finally, she caught it, shoved against the wood.

Powered by the groundswells, the door shoved back with far more force, knocking her to her knees then dragging her forward by dint of her determined clutch to the handle. Once within, Mina let it go, only to have the thing batter her side until strong arms closed around her and jerked her out of the way.

She spied the fallen ladder and reached for it, snagged by her guardian’s arms still held fast about her waist. “Let go!”

“Wait, Mina!” Sam tried to argue with her, but she was beyond reason. “There’s nothing you can do now.”

Mina strained for the ladder as luggage slid around the cabin to block her path and stub her fingers. At the last, the largest trunk came crashing from above mere inches from her outstretched hand. Had Mr. Carver not given her midriff a particularly hard yank, she would have been struck by it.

Winded, she faltered. When her breath came without gasping, Mina realized the severe quaking had lessened to occasional tremors. Up she sprang, snatching the ladder from Sam’s hands.

“Belinda!” she shrieked. “Are you all right?” She would have begun up the steps had he not intervened—and Belinda’s reddened face popped over the side.

“Don’t you go up,” Carver ordered. “Mrs. Banks, best you come down at once.” He nudged Mina aside, kindly keeping his eyes shut and holding the ladder steady as Belinda climbed down.

Mina enveloped her nurse in her cloak and a tight hug the instant after she touched ground. She found no words to express her worry, her relief, or even her gratitude to Mr. Carver. So after a long moment, she blindly reached out, found his arm, and tugged him close to say, “Thank God. I’m so glad you’re all right.”

Anyone could see how swiftly the quake laid bare any hidden flaws. Sam surveyed the chaos of his cabin, gaze drawn to Mina as she tended Mrs. Banks.
And exposed secret strength
.

But now wasn’t the time to think about that. With the shaking stopped, Sam needed to assess the situation and start making decisions. Middle of the night or not, none of them would manage to sleep again. Too much excitement lingered; too many questions cluttered their thoughts for any hope of rest.

Was it over? What would they find when they left the relative safety of the cabin come morning?
Sam’s gaze snagged on the loft. Now the riot of doubts and questions swirled more slowly, stabbed into the background by sharp fragments of memory.

The icy whisper a nighttime draft … but the vein of chill air, muffled by the plush furs piled atop his pallet, didn’t prod him fully awake. The cozy cocoon fashioned by his ward slowed Sam’s senses as he blearily sought the source of his discomfort. His makeshift window coverings—not curtains; Sam Carver didn’t rig up anything half so fancy as curtains—lay still, no sign of an errant breeze disturbing a loosened corner
.

A whitish glow seeping around the edges of the window … strangely bright and curiously contrasting against the golden hues thrown by the fire. By the time Sam wrestled his drowsy thoughts and pinned down the source of his unease, that tonight’s new moon shed no light at all, it was too late
.

The warning roared through his nerves with the first rumbling
.

Throwing off the blankets, leaping out of bed, muscles tensed against an invisible threat
.

Then, the pandemonium had thwarted Sam’s attempt to decipher the danger. Now, those jumbled impressions mocked him as he pieced events together.

The deafening sound rushed toward him as though from all sides, a mass of groaning sod, scraping rocks, and the rumble of rending earth. But the whole thing had rippled from the east, else Sam knew they would have heard the familiar sounds of avalanches from the mountains before the quaking had begun
.

A gasping cry from above … the women in the loft!

Now, looking back, toward where his ward tucked a shawl around her nurse’s shoulders, Sam scarcely believed it had taken that long to remember the women in the loft. Even if it had been a matter of seconds since the sound had started, a larger principle was at stake.

Weren’t the women always a man’s first thought when danger struck? No matter how sudden their arrival, no matter that the man just woke from a sound sleep, and no matter how used that man might have become to fending for himself? Sam lowered himself onto a nearby trunk and rubbed the back of his neck.

A sudden shriek sent him shooting to his feet, hand on his gun. Mrs. Banks abandoned decorum and her earlier complaints of advanced age to scramble atop the bench. But no one knocked at the door. Nothing large remained in the loft to tumble down. No errant sparks shot from the fireplace to light the ladies’ gowns. Mrs. Banks, standing upon the bench—with its new raccoon-tail skirt swaying from her efforts—looked desperately out of place.

“She saw a mouse.” Mina pointed toward a new chink beside the fireplace where the creature must have disappeared.

Or have I got it wrong?
Sam shook his head and hunkered back down. It could be that his abandonment of polite society and years spent isolated in the wild left him at a disadvantage here.
Maybe polite men think of the women first because usually their caterwauling raises the first alarm?
After all, how often was the trouble itself louder than the upset lady? The vindicating answer came winging back immediately—not often.

“‘Twas a rat.” Mrs. Banks spanned her hands ten inches wide before clambering down. “And make no mistake. The thing gave me a start, though normally I’m not given to missish fits.”

“As well I know,” Mina soothed. “We don’t fault your unsettled nerves tonight, and I can only envy your keen eyes.”

“Indeed. When I woke to that apocalyptic clamor then realized you were missing, Mina … I feared …” Miss Banks trailed off as though unable to find words to describe her horror.

They all fell into silence. The idea that the women were reliving the same moments playing in his head, each from a different view, flitted through Sam’s mind before the memories submersed him.

“Mina!” The older woman’s unearthly shriek blotted out the cacophony, the single word a freezing terror and a call to action. Sam sprung toward the loft ladder, only to be thrown to the floor as the ground buckled beneath him and then heaved upward
.

He had to get them to safety…. Sam swallowed his fear, his pride, and focused. The ladder lay on the ground, coated in dust and continuously pelted with detritus from above. They’d never make it down the ladder, even if he could get it up…
.

He couldn’t distinguish whether the furious beating of his blood roared in his ears or if the incredible rumble all around continued as Sam fought his way to his feet onlyto be pitched against the wall. The older woman continued screaming for his ward. Mina …

“Is she hurt?” He bellowed back to her screeching, no longer standing but crawling toward the ladder. At least he knew his ward didn’t lay crumpled on the ground, flung from the loft
.

Not yet
.

Sickening images of the luggage he’d hefted and shoved in every nook and cranny of those eaves that very afternoon struck him with a fury of guilt and dread. Those trunks, empty of anything to hold them in place, now flew about the cabin, tumbling from above to strike the walls and crash against the floor. Had one—or more—of those pieces of his pride crushed Mina?

Bile surged into his throat at the thought, choking him
.

“I don’t know!” Mrs. Banks’ scream tore through him. “She’s not here! Where is she? Mina!” The sound of scrabbling accompanied her calls, and Sam suddenly knew the old woman was trying to reach the edge of the loft. If she made it there, he knew she’d be thrown down in an instant
.

“She hasn’t fallen!” He yelled, suddenly frantic to know where his ward was. “Stay where you are!” Only then did he notice the front door wildly flapping open and shut, impossible had it been barred
.

He headed toward it, dodging winged books from above and smoldering logs from the fireplace. Dust and the rolling put them out before the things set the cabin ablaze, but the smoking missiles held a burning heat, making them even more dangerous should someone step on one
.

A muffled shriek of frustration and pain caught his attention as he made out Mina, clinging to the door handle as it dragged her back and forth. She let go, dropping to her hands and knees as the door continued to batter her. Sam pounced forward, grabbing the woman and jerking her out of the door’s swing. The warmth of her, alive and muttering breathlessly, gave him the first dose of relief since he’d heard Mrs. Banks’s cries
.

Until the daft woman started struggling, reaching for the fallen ladder and ordering him to let her go. Obviously, she’d lost any pretense of good sense in her desperation to reach her nurse. Sam’s orders that she wait fell on deaf ears. His arguments that she could do nothing were to no avail
.

Until he spotted the massive trunk as it came crashing down, intent on Mina’s outstretched fingers. Sam wasted no more time on arguments. He simply tightened his grip around her and yanked her back. Blessedly, her fingers remained intact. Even better, she sat, winded, as the groundswells lessened…
.

His ward might be a strange creature who packed up and traveled across a continent without male supervision, thwarted scheming relatives, and set him onhis ear by arriving without warning. She might be uppity with terrible taste in wall hangings and no appreciation for how to treat fine furs.

But Mina surprised him with her courage, her loyalty, and her perseverance. More than anything, she’d reached out and grabbed ahold of a part of him that he’d thought long dead when she included him in her exhausted embrace with her beloved nurse. Her words of gratitude were the most simple, heartfelt prayer Sam had ever heard. “I’m so glad you’re all right….”

There’d been no warning before the earth lumbered up and began to heave, trying to buck free of the heavy load of humanity.
But the real surprise
, Sam decided as Mina began bustling about their home,
was how shaking up a man’s thoughts left room to appreciate what he might have taken for granted
.

E
verything was out of place. Every blessed item she and Belinda had so carefully unpacked earlier that day—or had it been yesterday?—had chosen a new home to settle into. Without her permission.

Mina gradually took in the extent of the damage as she hunted down her books. Rescuing each of her darlings gave her a purpose. Smoothing bent pages, wiping dust from leather covers, closing broken spines allowed her to restore some sense of order and account for the smallest, and most precious, contingent of her belongings. By the time she’d set them in neat piles atop the table, Mina had allowed herself to look wider and see more.

Jars of preserves crouched beneath the table, huddled in gooey broken heaps alongside misplaced fire logs, which sank into the protection of calico sacks of flour lining the far wall. The still-sewn sacks, at least. Those bags of flour, cornmeal, coffee, and sugar already in use had burst open in the frenzy of movement, strewing their precious contents across the far reaches of the cabin. Tumbling trunks had ground loose coffee beans into the hard-packed dirt floor, where their flavor could do no good.

Cloaks, no longer hung on pegs, blanketed unknown odds and ends. The table lamp lay smashed on the floor. Gridirons clattered atop one another as though exhausted from battle. The door hung drunkenly from battered hinges, lopsided even while closed and bolted within its frame. Nothing remained as it had been.

Except the furs she’d hung. Those, oddly enough, clung to the walls as though afraid to climb down or so proud at having weathered the storm they’d never abandon their posts. Mina’s peculiar spurt of pride spluttered out as Sam started stacking trunks and crates in corners. She rather thought he appreciated the tenacity with which the embellishments held to the cabin walls about as much as he’d welcomed Belinda’s frenzied reaction to the mouse. Namely, not much.

He’d looked so thunderstruck by the older woman’s revulsion, Mina wondered whether he’d noticed its cause. Not the mouse itself, but that the chimney had shifted enough to allow the creature inside.
Should I mention it? Will he take it as an insult to his construction of the cabin he built?

A slight snurgle interrupted her thoughts. Mina cast a glance toward the raccoon-skirted bench, where Belinda’s chin met her chest in fitful slumber. Her head tilted slightly to the left, leaving her mouth askew to emit the undignified noise.

“Let’s put her to bed.” Sam’s solid warmth reached her side at the same time as his voice. An unfamiliar smile softened his jaw as he looked at her nurse and then gestured to his own pallet. “No one goes into the loft until I’m certain it’s safe.”

“She’d be mortified by the idea of sleeping in a man’s bed, but I doubt she’ll notice.” Mina grinned her agreement.

A soft shake to her shoulder brought the older woman around enough to loop her arm around Mina’s neck and shuffle the few steps to the bed. A satisfied sigh dissolved into the deeper sounds of sleep as Belinda burrowed into the soft furs.

“Does she always make that sound when she sleeps?” Sam’s whisper made Mina clap both hands over her mouth to stifle whoops of laughter. His shoulders shook with his own mirth.

“Oh,” she hissed once she got her breath back, “as though you’ve not heard her sleeping before. For shame, Mr. Carver!”

“I never did,” he swore. “Sleep finds me the moment my head hits the pillow, Miss Montrose, and it takes more than that to awaken me. Though the quake counts as a first.” They both sobered at the reminder of what had awakened him that night.

“A first for all of us then.” With no immediate danger, Belinda not needing reassurance, and the distraction of Sam’s laughter now gone, exhaustion swathed Mina like a too-large cloak.

“Why don’t you tuck in for a little while?” He nodded toward Belinda. “Sunrise is a couple hours off. No sense in the two of us knocking into each other in this mess until then.”

Oddly enough, the idea of bumbling around the cabin with him, putting things to rights and working together, held a certain appeal. Her guardian, Mina couldn’t help but notice, now that things were winding down, cut a fine figure in boots, breeches, and his shirtsleeves. Those strong arms had pulled her out of the doorway and drawn her away from danger several times that night. When he wasn’t growling at her about furs, Sam Carver’s fiercely protective streak made her feel … safe. Cared for.

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly sleep now, not when—”
we’re getting along so well!
A sudden yawn overtook her protest and had him steering her toward the corner, where the warm mound of furs concealed her nurse. From the sound of it, thepallet made for cozy sleeping arrangements. And she was dreadfully tired.

With Sam watching over them, Mina could actually rest for the first time since her papa had passed on. She drifted toward the bed without further argument, lest her own yawns make a liar of her.

Sam no longer knew what to make of the seemingly serene woman sleeping in his bed. The snoring lady alongside her, he understood perfectly, but Mina Montrose posed more of a mystery than the day she first appeared. When she’d arrived, admittedly before he’d even spoken to her, he’d pegged her for an imposter. Then she’d started talking, and his perception deteriorated further until he accepted Miss Montrose as his—one could only pray temporary—ward. One with grand plans. And the luggage to match.

Baggage
. Sam snorted at the sheer volume of paraphernalia Mina lugged along—and the trouble it caused.
Come to think of it, didn’t Grandmother used to call impertinent women
baggage?

A smile broke out at the memory. She did, and she would say it of Mina. Any woman bold enough to con a solicitor out of some of her inheritance certainly qualifies as impertinent. His smile faded. And desperate
.

But most of all, brave. Brave enough to refuse her cousin’s insistence that she marry him. Brave enough to escape his clutches and seek her own way before it was too late. And brave enough to make a home in the wilderness with a stranger turned guardian.
Perhaps desperation gave her that bravery
.

But it didn’t give her the courage to make it through tonight, or the endurance to keep a smile on her face until her nurse slept soundly. Loyalty and love give her strength
.

Tying off the final fire iron, Sam looked at his makeshift grate with grudging approval. Planting fire irons into the dirt floor like metal flowers and then binding them tight to the pot pegs above the mantel didn’t make for a pretty sight, but that wasn’t the point. They just needed to keep long, flaming logs from flying about the cabin during future quakes, until either they could be certain there’d be no more groundswells or Sam found a more permanent solution. He hoped for the former.

Sam looked around at the cabin, strewn with luggage, sacks, jars, pots and pans, dishes … more than the place should hold. And it made him wonder all over again.
For a woman so determined to escape England, why did she bring all of her past with her?

The contradiction of it was enough to make his head throb and his eyes ache. Mere days before, everything on this mountainside marched in order. Now, with every corner thrown into chaos, precious little made sense, and the cause couldn’t even be pinpointed when so much had shifted. Between the women’s intrusion into his life and the quake, Sam didn’t know which disturbed him more.

The thin streams of daylight sliding around his crooked window coverings offered little illumination on the subject but proclaimed they’d made it through the night without any other major upsets. Sam stretched, rolling the kinks from his neck as he walked to the window and lifted a corner of the cover.

A glance outside confirmed what his ears already told him. No squirrels rushed about; no birds flew overhead. Even the wind itself seemed to have deserted the mountainside, leaving only the sun’s rays brave enough to venture toward the cabin’s perch.

Every sound in nature shared a wealth of meaning behind its music, and the silence outside screamed a warning.

It’s not over
. The conviction hit Sam like a punch to the gut. Stricken, he looked at the sleeping women and considered his options.
If the next quake is stronger, it might bring the cabin down
. But outdoors presented still more peril with the trees and rocks from the mountainside that could come plummeting down.

Even if Sam would consider leaving the women to check the paths, tall trees toppled more easily than squared, notched cabins. Precious few clearings dotted the mountains bristling with forests of oak, chestnut, cedar, and white pine. No. He couldn’t risk leading the women through a maze of branches and rocks.

Decision made, Sam sprang into action. First, he pulled down the loft ladder and laid it flat on the ground, where it couldn’t fall and strike the women. With the fireplace already secured and the loft emptied from the first upheaval that left the smaller items littering the cabin. Basically, everything.

The plan formed as Sam started working. The trunks and crates needed to be weighed down; the smaller items easily broken or thrown about needed to be contained.
Easy enough
.

Into one satchel he tucked the few remaining unbroken jars of preserves. He figured he could be forgiven for saving his favorite food first. Dry goods prone to burst seams or spilling became prime targets for plunking into crates. Besides, staples like flour, cornmeal, sugar, and—most important—coffee held value and filled immediate needs. Like his stomach, which grumbled that he’d been awake far too long with no breakfast.

There’s far more than I laid up for winter. Guess some of that luggage held foodstuffs. At least I won’t be needing to go down to the mercantile. He hefted the pots, a cast-iron skillet, newly dented biscuit tins, and a Dutch oven into a trunk
.

Wonder what shape the mercantile’s in
.

He’d have to find out later. While he worked, Sam came across an assortment of things the women must have brought. Crocks of butter, vinegar, baking powder, honey, and even a bottle of white wine with a note tied onto it:
That you may toast your success when you arrive in the Americas. Do write and tell me how you get on. Your co-conspirator, Lady Reed
. A crate full of straw and oiled eggs held broken, oozing casualties. Sam closed the lid.

He carried that one outside, before anything could seep through and begin to rot. A series of soft thuds greeted his return before Sam’s eyes adjusted to the dimmer interior of the cabin. Mina stood at the table, packing her books into a large chest she’d obviously dragged away from the wall.

“Belinda’s still sleeping,” she whispered when he drew near. “I heard you moving about, and I see what you’re doing. It’s a waste of my breath to argue against superstition, because the sailors blamed everything on having women on board, too. But I’d never imagined an educated man would think like that—it wasn’t my fault. Sending me away won’t stop the quakes.”

“Sending you …” Understanding robbed him of words. Sam shook his head, and then he realized she couldn’t see him shaking his head. He clamped his hands on his ward’s shoulders and turned her to face him, fully prepared to blister her ears over her foolish, insulting assumptions. Tears pooled in her eyes before following shimmering paths down her cheeks.
She’s crying. Mina didn’t even let her tears fall when she read the letter from her father. But now she’s crying
. Sam’s anger fled, only to return a hundredfold with no target but himself for being such a … bufflehead.

“No one’s blaming you.” His hands shifted from her shoulders to her arms, rubbing warmth into them. “I’m not sending you away. I don’t want you to go.”
Not anymore
. A sudden thought halted him. Sam peered at her. “Unless you want to?”

“No.” The sniffled syllable sounded sweet to him. Until her brows drew together and she scowled up at him. “I’ve been trying to make a home here.
You’re
the one determined to undo it!”